Shortly after Scott and Johanna Watkins met and started dating, Johanna began to experience a host of weird symptoms.
She often felt dizzy and sometimes fainted. She had migraines and body pain. Sometimes she had trouble breathing. Scott and Johanna got married and regularly saw doctors.
The assumption was that it was an allergy, so they tried modifying her diet. At the suggestion of doctors, Scott checked their home for potential allergens.
Despite these changes, it wasn’t getting better. Finally, Johanna received a devastating diagnosis. After being misdiagnosed by more than 30 doctors, Johanna was finally diagnosed by Dr. Lawrence Afrin at the University of Minnesota with mast cell activation syndrome, a rare condition that causes her body to treat everything as an attack.
Ultimately, she does have an allergy…to almost everything, including her husband. Among the hundreds of allergens that trigger her symptoms are the natural chemicals that humans release. Johanna has tried medications and even chemotherapy, but nothing helps. In fact, her symptoms have only gotten worse.
She has been living in isolation, away from her husband.
Despite the distance, their love has only deepened. Scott has worked tirelessly to transform their home to make it reasonably safe for Johanna, with carefully chosen paints and furniture and a high-powered air-filtration system.
Unfortunately, after moving Johanna back into the transformed space, she fainted right away.
Scott is continuing to make modifications in hopes they can live under the same roof again, even if not on the same floor.
