Woman is deathly allergic to most everything - including her

Woman is deathly allergic to most everything - including her husband

Johanna Watkins had hoped to be raising a family by now. Instead, the 29-year-old is battling a life-threatening disorder that's forced her into isolation.

Johanna hasn't seen her parents, Gail and Jon Fuenning, in more than a year. Her husband's mere presence in the same room has caused anaphylaxis — an acute allergic reaction that can be fatal — since April.

Tears flow freely and words often fail when her husband, a one-time colleague at Hope Academy in Minneapolis, contemplates the heart-breaking separation caused by Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, a rare disorder named less than a decade ago.

"There have been so many times in the last eight months where we have reflected on all that we have lost," said Scott Watkins, who married Johanna in 2013. "If we lived in that, it'd be constantly discouraging and there'd be no hope. We chose to live day-to-day. I may not be able to see Johanna for a month or another year, but, for now, I just can't see her today."

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