The Unseen Realities of Navigating Social Life with Celiac, MCAS, and Environmental Reactivity

Over the summer months, Evernorth has been building a network, fundraising, and shaping a tangible movement for an underserved community. While on the surface, we have been quiet, the work has been relentless.

The passion we hold for this cause is consuming.

It comes from watching our children navigate an unsafe world. Standing by while the modern world poisons the population.

With so much to say, I'll begin with a recent family experience at the Renaissance Faire that lays bare the reality we live.

Engaging with the outside world for us and many others who walk a similar path is never simple.

What should be a day of joy demands layers of strategy. We pack sandwiches to eat in the car. Even something as simple as handwashing requires planning to eat meals safely on the go. We pack our own soap and water bottles to wash and rinse our hands in the parking lot. We are vigilant, aware, constantly sanitizing, and keeping our distance.

For events like the faire, getting there can be complicated. The risk of potential contaminants is not worth exposing our car to. Instead, we rode with a friend who lives a similar lifestyle.

Once home, the decontamination process begins.

1. Strip down in the laundry room. Clothes go in a special, enclosed, sealable bin for me to deal with the next day.

2. Everyone showers, one at a time.

3. An allergy spray is used throughout the house.

The next day, I sift through everything. I sort. I wash. I disinfect. And still, despite every measure, reactions manifest. My son suffers. Because vigilance cannot erase the reality of an unsafe world.

Every outing raises the same question: is it worth it? Is a few hours of fun worth days or weeks of suffering?

No. It is not. And yet sometimes, for the sake of our children, we try.

But joy is never simple. My son cannot just run free. He avoids dogs at every corner, skips games, sidesteps shops. His eyes swell, his throat tightens, his body reminds us how fragile the balance is. When others brush past with food in their hands or reach for a handshake, he pulls back. Every step becomes a watch, a pivot, a calculation. And still, the chance of experiencing a reaction is ever-present and ever a risk.

This is what the smiling photos never show. Behind the costumes and laughter live exhaustion, fear, and the bitterness of a world caged by modern convenience.

No one deserves to live this way. This is one of the many reasons Evernorth must exist. Everyone deserves safety. Everyone deserves the chance to experience life without fear of air, food, or surface. To stand against convenience, to stand against toxins, to stand against the way the modern world shrugs at what it destroys.

Eli is our energy that drives this vision. His resilience, his awareness, his refusal to be caged again by the toxicity of the modern world. His very being is our call to action.

We are building sanctuaries for the rare. We are creating places where vigilance can finally rest, where joy is not shadowed by cost, where life can align with purity and truth.

We are Evernorth. We are speaking out. We are building what must exist.

Radically Natural,

-Victoria