About Veronica |
|
 |  | | Veronica Castellana | Ryan Sanchez | This web site was created by Ryan Sanchez for Veronica Castellana. Veronica is a Registered Nurse and suffers from a severe Latex hypersensitivity. She suffers from all the possible symptoms one can get from a Latex allergy. She gets severe reactions from inhaled or ingested Latex particles. Her allergy has built up over several years and has gotten to the point where she is severely affected by it on a daily basis. The effects she feels are not only physical but they are mental as well. Most of the mental anguish she suffers is due to abuse by other people in society who are negligent to the effects of the allergy. |
| |
| When she first started getting severe reactions from Latex, she was working as an Emergency Room Nurse. Once she got the reaction, she was sent to doctors who told her that there is no such thing as latex allergy. She initially found doctors who diagnosed her with the allergy, then "mysteriously" changed their diagnosis when she tried to file for workers comp. |
| |
| On a daily basis, she gets people looking at her funny and being rude about accommodating her allergy. Most negative comments and attitudes occur in the food service industry. Most restaurants around the country use latex to prep their food. This causes severe reactions for people with allergies like Veronica's. If you were to walk in a restaurant and say you were allergic to peanuts, they won't use peanuts in the food. However, if you said that you were allergic to Latex, they can't and usually won't do anything about it because they are uneducated about how to actually prep the food without Latex gloves. Click Here to see a list of Latex-free restaurants that we know are safe. |
| |
| If Veronica was ever in need of emergency medical care, she would not be able to go to any hospital or doctor's office either. Even if a hospital does not use Latex gloves, there are thousands of other products used in hospitals that contain Latex. Therefore, she would probably die from that rather than whatever she went there for. |
| |
| Veronica is not the only person suffering form this type of reaction to Latex. There are thousands of people throughout the country suffering from the same allergy. When there is a virus or salmonella threat that kills a couple of people, the FDA gets involved and the media makes a big deal about it. Why isn't the same thing happening with Latex. Latex is still a contamination that can make people sick if it gets in the food. Visit the Latex Allergy Info page for more information about the allergy, tips on preventing reactions and some proof that the FDA knows about the problem but hasn't done anything about it. |
| |
MY LAST DYING WISH IS FOR SOMEONE TO LISTEN |
By Veronica Castellana |
|
| I am going to die soon. I need to tell my story and I hope that America listens and reacts to my story to save other people’s lives. My mother always told me that I can save the world, that one voice matters, that every vote counts, that I could be whatever I want if I just put my mind to it. My mother is no longer here to tell me those things. |
| |
| I call what I have a disease. I have a disease that I have to face alone. No one understands it. No one can save me. Not doctors, not nurses, not paramedics, and not the emergency room or even a hospital. Most people who have my disease do not even know that they have it. Most people who have my disease will die from it and it will never be known what the cause of death was for those people. The statistics are lost on these people and not registered. In order for my disease to become known and for other people to be saved, reports need to be made to the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health, and Departments of Health. There are people dying from my disease on a daily basis and the numbers that are lost will increase everyday. Thousands of people across America have died from this but not enough people have been reported with this disease for there to be a difference. |
| |
| If a reporter is taken in Iraq in a war and held hostage, America listens. America feels sorry for this reporter and we report what is happening and we do everything in our power to negotiate and get that reporter back. If a dog is missing, signs are posted and a search and rescue by the neighborhood is done and we get that dog back. If Paris Hilton drinks a Margarita at a charity event, we plaster her face on every news channel and every paper in America. She is newsworthy. I am not news. My disease is not news and the thousands of Americans who have died from my disease are not yet worth saving. |
| |
| My worst fear is the torture of a severe reaction. I have problems breathing initially. The airways in my lungs become constricted within seconds. My voice will become raspy; my throat tight. If someone were watching as this happened, they would say that I was having an asthma attack. This isn’t just asthma. The oxygen in my system rapidly depletes since I can not take in a breath. I begin to collapse and loose coherency like someone who is passing out. I am dying and there is nothing that can be done for me. If anyone calls for paramedics, they will not make it in time. By the time the paramedics make it there to treat me, it is too late. Some paramedics even make the issue worse. Most have not dealt with an illness like mine before. They may be there to help me but they can speed up my death without even knowing. In less than a few minutes I am incoherent due to lack of oxygen. If I do not get help soon, I will be dead. Anybody who watches my death would not have a clue as to what happened. When the cause of my death is determined, it would most likely be blamed on something else. I am not ready to die. My life has a purpose. The world still has a lot to learn from me and this may be what is keeping me alive. |
| |
| After my first attack, I knew I had to be smart if I wanted to survive. Being smart includes being prepared. In my purse is an arsenal of medications to help keep me alive. I have inhalers to loosen up my lungs, several types of antihistamines sold by prescription and over the counter, and an epipen which is adrenaline used for emergencies. I go to bed at night wondering if I will get through the night. I can not breathe on a nightly basis. I have to take antihistamines everyday of my life or I will stop breathing. I can not walk into a doctor’s office, a hospital, or an emergency room for help even though that is where I saved many lives. No one can save mine. There is nothing that can be done to help me. |
| |
| Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet are American. I am American but I can not go to a baseball game and enjoy a hot dog, I can not eat most apple pies and I can not sit in a new Chevrolet. |
| |
| The Web sites on the Internet and material that is out there on my disease is outdated. I know more about my disease than the FDA, CDC, Departments of Health and the National Institutes of Health. What they all have on the subject of my disease is outdated by many years. Why do I know more about my disease than they do? I wrote about what happened to me in several of the books that I have published and people across America have contacted me who have my disease. They have my exact symptoms not the symptoms that you find online or in publications. Those are old. When someone writes a story about my disease, they will extract every study ever done that they can find and then they will write an article on it. It will list references to studies that were done years and years ago but the article will not be current. The material they are using is not current but they are writing a current article? The facts on my disease have not been able to be reported. |
| |
| Can one person really make a difference? Well, let’s put that theory to the test. I am not a reporter in Iraq, I am not a lost puppy, and I am not Paris Hilton. Who am I? I represent every person who has ever worked in a hospital, every firefighter, every police officer, every restaurant worker, every crop picker, every child on the playground and every person that eats in a restaurant. My life has changed other people’s lives, I am important enough to save and I should be newsworthy. What I have to say needs to be told. I promise you that I can save almost everyone who has my disease if the people who make decisions will want to listen to me. There is a simple cure but the FDA, CDC, Departments of Health, and the National Institutes of Health want more people to die and more statistics reported before they will listen even though they know that this disease does exist and that they have the power to save it. |
