Conquering Allergies
Who We Are
My name is Jocelyn, and I’m a young artist who grew up with food allergies. I’ve had multiple food allergies since I was a baby. At the age of 11, I started participating in a food allergy study which helped me towards “conquering my allergies!” The study took a year to complete, and now I can proudly say I am eating two peanuts, two cashews, and two walnut halves every day. I still carry Zyrtec/Benadryl and an epipen at all times, in case of accidental exposure.
In addition to this website, which my older brother, Ethan, created for me, I wrote, illustrated, and published a book titled “Conquering Allergies.” The book details my journey through the COMBINE study at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University. In the book, I describe and illustrate the different visits that I went through in the study. There are also guest appearances from all the clinicians and coordinators who helped me during the study. I am hoping that both this website and my book will serve as a useful resource for others to learn about what they can do for their food allergies.
My name is Ethan, and l am a compassionate student interested in many things including economics, healthcare, food, computer science, video editing, website programming, and public speaking. I’m passionate on how I can utilize my skills to help educate and spread awareness on different health and econ-related topics.
Because my sister had food allergies growing up, I was always aware of our family’s responsibility to minimize exposure. As a family, we had to adapt and change our lifestyle including being careful at social gatherings, eating out, and while traveling. It was challenging for our family but helped me to understand food allergies better. I put together this website not only to showcase Jocelyn’s illustrated book, but to bring together all the useful information I learned about food allergies over the years so that it may be a resource to others. Though, I don’t have food allergies myself, I do suffer from severe seasonal allergies, and added some useful tips on how to conquer pollen allergies on this site. Please see my page under Ethan’s tips.