How to Choose Joy When Coping with Severe Allergies and Environmental Illness

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Danika Deva didn’t see it coming: the end of life as she knew it…

In 2016, Danika took a job at a home for boys and girls from hard places. She started getting migraines, fluid in her ears, intense back pain, and other symptoms.

By 2017 Danika’s body, as she puts it, had “gone haywire,” becoming allergic to people, places, and things—everything from mold to the sun to foods that she used to be able to eat.

“My reaction to these ‘triggers’ differed. Some would create immense body pain in muscles and joints, others would create a ‘mast cell coma’ where I would sleep endlessly.

I would vomit, have blood pressure swings—high and low, wide and narrow—and start to pass out, go into anaphylaxis, swell profusely in many systems of the body, grow lumps under my skin, have visual issues, and have cognitive impairment. I knew there was something “really wrong” when I got lost going home from work and had to use a GPS to find my home!”

Seeking answers from doctor after doctor, test after test, Danika discovered that she has mast cell issues. Suffering from severe environmental illness, she lost what felt like everything that mattered to her.

“I lost my life as I knew it. People couldn’t visit me. I was in chronic pain, and severe cognitive dysfunction made it impossible to work and do what I loved. I was desperate, isolated and lonely, hopeless, hurting, and begging God for healing. In July of 2018, I had to leave my church because I was allergic to it.”

In the depths of her suffering, Danika leaned into the Lord.

She found a newly built church—less likely than older buildings to harbor mold—and began attending, wearing a respirator, and enduring short-windedness and discomfort.

During one church service as Danika experienced dramatic healing.

“The pastor came and prayed over me, and I felt a zinging all the way to the center of my body. I asked the Lord if I was healed. As I took off my mask at the altar, I asked Him to show me if I was healed when I went into the bathroom after church. I asked that my usual lobster-red face would be its natural color. Sure enough, my face was not red like usual.

I then knew I was healed, but I didn’t know the extent of it. On the way home, I called my kids and adopted dad to share and jokingly ask if I should toss my antihistamines, masks and EpiPens out the car window to celebrate. (I didn’t!)”

Living into her new lease on life, Danika began to eat a more normal diet, danced in the sun, and even went to teach at school without a mask, all while doing her best to avoid mold.

But her respite didn’t last.

After eight months of relative health, Danika’s home molded. She had to leave her home and most of her possessions behind.

Not long after losing her home, Danika went into full anaphylaxis over two bites of cheesecake. Her body went into an avalanche of reactions.

“My body started shutting down severely in October 2020, and I started losing my hair. I decided to move out and live in a campground to heal. With the help of my dad, I got a camper and moved 40 minutes away.

I was sick, really sick. I was desperate, really desperate. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t think. All I could do was pray and sleep. Walk outside a little each day and sleep some more.”

Where in the midst of your “hard knocks” do you see God working?

Amid the hardest of the “hard knocks” she’s had to endure, Danika recalls experiencing God’s closeness.

“In that camper in the middle of nowhere, I found God in a deeper way. I found healing for my heart and my body. I found freedom, and because of that, have started a ministry helping others find freedom.”

What are you anxious about? Can you entrust it to God right now?

Danika reflects that while Jesus tells us not to be anxious for anything, we can often get stuck in our uncertainty, and bogged down in our pain. She says, “We are told not be anxious for anything, but we don’t have a process, so we get stuck. But I found a biblically-based way to release and root up issues before God and gratefully remember all God has done when he gave us freedom at the cross.”

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 4:6-7

“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”

Matthew 6:26

What can you thank God for today?

With God’s help, Danika has gone from hopeless to using her “hope list” that helps her give thanks for what she has and let go of what she doesn’t.

Now years into living with the ups and downs of environmental illness and severe allergies, Danika still lives what she calls “a bubble life,” to manage life-threatening allergic reactions to an ever-shifting range of environmental and dietary triggers.

“I live next to my twin in his basement and mold-free rental and feel better than ever. People can visit, but they must take precautions, or it will start a reaction. I meet people in the park, on the deck, or on Zoom. Just going in moldy buildings or walking over a moldy bridge can set me back for days.”

Danika will tell you, “It’s hard to live like this.” But amid her suffering, she has found hope and closeness to God. She chooses joy, and encourages others to do the same, with intentionality.

What opportunity do you have to choose joy?

Danika likes to call herself a “hope dealer,” ministering to others every day out of her pain, hope, and freedom.

“As you can see, my bubble life still exists, but now I see God in the reflection of the bubble. I feel his presence inside of it with me. My home (named HOPE Cottage) is a mold-free place of peace for me, and the many precious people God brings my way as I point them to Jesus, the God of hope!”

If you ask Danika about her credentials, she’ll tell you about her God-given Ph.D. in “Hard Knocks” and “God Rocks.” Trained and equipped by the Lord through her hardship, Danika inspires others to choose joy and hope in hardship so they can not only heal, but flourish.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11