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Woman who is 'allergic to everything' can only eat these 2 things

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Woman who is 'allergic to everything' can only eat these 2 things

A Massachusetts woman says she is “allergic to everything” and lives on a diet of oatmeal and hypoallergenic infant formula but is still able to make the best of it and have a happy holiday season. 

Caroline Cray, 24, first had an allergic reaction to ice cream in Sept. 2017, going into anaphylactic shock, she told the news agency SWNS. 

Soon after, she had similar reactions to bread and pizza, then had a serious reaction after eating rice and beans and spent 12 days in an intensive care unit. 

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Initially, doctors were hopeful it would go away. 

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“In the fall [of 2017], when I was having the repeated shocks, my allergist and ER doctors were under the assumption that my reactions would only last a few months,” she told SWNS. 

Caroline Cray of Massachusetts spent 12 days in intensive care after an intense allergic reaction to eating beans and rice. (SWNS)

The doctors put her on antihistamine drugs and referred her to a specialist, she said. 

The reactions did not go away, something she said was “really discouraging.” 

“Every day I was wondering if I was going to end up in the hospital. I had a really tight throat and I was itchy and wheezing,” she said. 

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“This is a chronic illness, and we need to treat it as one.”

After nearly a year of tests, Cray was diagnosed with mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), a rare chronic illness, in May 2018. MCAS causes repeated severe allergic reaction symptoms, she told SWNS. 

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Getting a diagnosis was emotional, she said, but also “validating.” 

“I am a very cut-and-dry person, but me and my mom, Julie, 59, were both crying,” she said.

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“It was validating that someone was finally like, ‘This is a chronic illness, and we need to treat it as one.’”

Cray has a rare condition and can only safely eat two different foods. (SWNS)

She felt a mixture of relief that her condition had a name, while grappling with the thought of, “Oh God, I will live with this the rest of my life.”

Six years after her diagnosis, she still can only eat two things: oatmeal and specialized infant formula.

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“I am at the point where my diet is only EleCare and oatmeal,” she said, referring to a specific brand of hypoallergenic infant formula. 

“I will have that for three meals a day, and I only eat three times a day as I have to self-medicate beforehand,” she said. It is “really tough.” 

It took doctors 10 months to diagnose Cray with MCAS, a condition that gives her severe allergic reactions to foods.  (iStock)

Additionally, Cray takes a host of medications, including some taken daily, weekly and semi-monthly. 

Despite her food limitations and limited diet, Cray tries to act as normally as possible, and that includes the holidays, she said. 

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“I don’t rule myself out of things, though,” she told SWNS. She said she joins her family for dinner at night. 

“I will go out for meals, but I bring my own food. And I will go for nights out and take a water bottle,” she said.

She is “always the designated driver,” she said, and is able to “fill people in on what has happened the night before. I have turned that into one of my favorite things,” Cray added to SWNS. “I tell my friends I get secondhand drunk from them.”

“I will go out for meals, but I bring my own food. And I will go for nights out and take a water bottle.”

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To better accommodate her condition, Cray hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas at her own home. 

“In the first couple of years of my diagnosis, I didn’t want to eat in front of anyone else,” she said.

“It is certainly hard because food is central to the holiday season, but there are a lot of factors that make me feel included in the ritual of Christmas.”

Cray, second from left, with her siblings. She told news agency SWNS she feels more included at Christmas because it’s less about food than Thanksgiving.  (SWNS)

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Now, Cray is hopeful she will be able to expand her diet beyond oatmeal and infant formula. 

“This is my fifth year of being on the oatmeal diet, and it is hard,” she told SWNS. “I would be lying if I said I don’t struggle because I do.”

She added, “I am currently meeting with my MCAS therapist to try (trying) different foods.”

But, so far, nothing has worked, noting she has attempted to eat chicken, lamb, sweet potato and broccoli.

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“I will try single foods one by one so if I have a reaction we know exactly what it is to,” she said. 

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Northeast

Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

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Blue state governor demands private airlines stop providing ICE flights after deadly Minneapolis shooting

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Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday demanded that two private airline companies stop providing flights for ICE to quickly remove illegal immigrants who have been detained, citing the recent ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis.

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In a letter to top executives of GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express, Healey criticized the companies for “sever[ing illegal immigrants] from their family, friends, community, and legal counsel without due process of law.”

“They are hard-working, productive, and beloved members of our community who have been indiscriminately targeted for deportation proceedings,” Healey wrote. “Some have been United States citizens. Some have been children. And as we have seen in our communities and, most recently, in Minnesota, ICE’s tactics are increasingly chaotic, brutal, and even deadly. This doesn’t make our communities safer — it, in fact, makes us all less safe.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey is urging private airlines to cut ties with ICE. (Adam Glanzman/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Twin Cities resident Renee Nicole Good, 37, was shot and killed Wednesday by an ICE agent after she allegedly accelerated her car toward him during an immigration operation.

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Healey also alleged the Trump administration’s use of private jets for ICE activity is costing taxpayers, while private airlines profit.

“On behalf of American taxpayers, I also find it incomprehensible that the Trump administration is choosing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private jets to obstruct people’s due process at a time when they are denying hunger benefits, cutting health care access, and raising costs on everyone through costly tariffs,” she wrote. 

“This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. I hope your company agrees.”

ICE is conducting flights to remove illegal immigrants from the U.S. and back to their home countries. (ICE Seattle)

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The letter comes after Healey demanded that ICE halt ICE flights out of Hanscom Field airport, which is located roughly 20 miles outside Boston in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Avelo Airlines, a company that was previously chartering flights for ICE in Massachusetts, recently announced it had cut ties with the administration.

Migrants released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center wear ankle monitors while waiting to board flights in Shreveport, La. (Wayan Barre/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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“One of your peer companies recently cut ties with ICE. It’s time for you to do the same,” Healey wrote in the letter.

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Healey’s office, GlobalX Airlines and Eastern Air Express did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

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Boston, MA

When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe

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When will the big nor’easters return? Boston in midst of second-longest streak without hefty snowfalls. – The Boston Globe


Have you noticed a lack of major snowstorms over the past several winters here in New England? Perhaps you’re wondering if this is a new permanent pattern. Snowfall across New England is highly variable, particularly here in the Boston area and the rest of Southern New England, where we lie on the southern edge of consistent snowfall.

First, let’s look at how radically different winter snowfall can be. On Feb. 25, 2022, Boston received 8½ inches of snow. That was the last time the city saw a 6-inch snowfall, which is meteorologically considered a “major snowfall” in New England (accumulation of at least 6 inches of snow). Roughly 1,414 days later and counting, we are now in the midst of our second-longest streak devoid of 6-inch snowfalls, since data was first recorded in 1872. You have to go back to 1988-92 to find a similar “major snow” drought. That streak lasted 1,772 days.

As a side note, the Boston area would have to make it through this entire winter without a major snowstorm to move into the No. 1 spot. Will we do it?

These gaps in significant snowstorms might be considered mini snow droughts, but when they end, the winter weather pattern tends to shift in the other direction. For example, when that streak ended in 1992, it ushered in three of four blockbuster winters, including one that dumped over 107 inches of snow in the winter of 1995-96.

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This very snowy mid-’90s was followed by highly variable snowfall seasons with as little as 15 inches of snow in 2001-02 and as much as nearly 87 inches of snow several years later during the 2004-05 winter season.

Snowiest decade on record (2008-18) vs. least snowfall (2015-present)

Then, starting in 2008 and lasting until 2018, we experienced the snowiest decade on record in Greater Boston with a total of 543 inches of snowfall.

If you move the starting point to winter 2015-16 and conclude through 2025, we received only 333 inches of snow, marking the lowest 10-year period of snowfall on record. This is where we currently sit, and it makes sense with the lack of major nor’easters nearing New England over the past several winters.

Even winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service have fallen. Check out the chart below, and you’ll notice that the past several years have seen fewer than six winter storm warnings issued.

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The number of winter storm warnings each year, from 2005-2025.Iowa Environmental Mesonet (IEM)

All of this should not lull you into a false sense that we are in some new paradigm without major coastal storms or that it’s not going to be snowy again. On the contrary, nor’easters are actually getting stronger and are generating more precipitation than they used to. According to research published last summer on the intensification of the strongest nor’easters, noted climate scientist Michael Mann and five of his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania looked at how our famous coastal storms have changed over the past several decades.

“Our analysis of nor’easter characteristics reveals that the strongest nor’easters are becoming stronger, with both the maximum wind speeds of the most intense nor’easters and hourly precipitation rates increasing since 1940,” the researchers said.

This NOAA GOES-16 satellite image captures a powerful nor’easter off the East Coast on Jan. 4, 2018.NOAA

The reason why I’m mentioning this while also talking about the lack of snow in our region is that both can be true. As we have seen, snowfall itself is very cyclical. That cycle is occurring amid a backdrop of a warming climate. With more and more anthropogenic CO2 — carbon dioxide emissions resulting from human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels — average temperatures have increased, and that rise has led to an availability of more energy for coastal storms.

‘Climate change has made crippling snow and flooding rain more likely despite the recent dearth of these types of storms locally. ’

As the oceans warm, they provide more latent heat or fuel for these nor’easters. Additionally, with warmer temperatures and still an availability of cold air to the north, there’s an increase in temperature contrast, or what meteorologists call “baroclinicity.” This is a critical feature and aids in the rapid intensification or bombogenesis of low-pressure areas east of the Atlantic Seaboard.

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The Perfect Storm back in 1991, the Storm of the Century in 1993, the so-named Snowmageddons in February 2010 and winter 2015, and the January 2018 blizzard are all examples of unusually strong nor’easters.

Map of four notable nor’easters. Dots along the tracks indicate storm intensity at each 6-hour time interval, color-coded by the maximum 10-m wind speed.Michael Mann, et al/UPenn

The trend in maximum wind speed in nor’easters has increased since the middle of the last century. You can see from the Mann paper some of the actual data used to reach this conclusion.

In addition, hourly precipitation has also increased in these coastal storms. This means that crippling snow and flooding rain are becoming more likely in spite of the recent dearth of these types of storms locally.

In the same way that we haven’t had a hurricane reach the shores of New England since 1991, so too are we overdue for a major nor’easter. Both are in our future. It’s just a matter of when.

Sign up here for our daily Globe Weather Forecast that will arrive straight into your inbox bright and early each weekday morning.





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Pittsburg, PA

Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’

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Curtain Calls: Pittsburg Community Theatre unites behind powerful musical ‘The Color Purple’


A celebration of hope, love and the healing power of community starts off Pittsburg Community Theatre’s new year with the powerful musical “The Color Purple.”



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