Soccer
Favorite athlete: Alex Morgan
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: Scoring my first varsity goal in our home opener this season.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: When I first started playing soccer, I scored in the wrong net and was so excited until I realized the other team was cheering for me.
Music on iPod: Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake
Future plans: To become a perfusionist
Words to live by: “The backbone of success is…hard work, determination, good planning, and perseverance.”
One goal before turning 30: Go on a mission’s trip to a Third World country.
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m terrified of spiders.
By Mary Jane Souder
Talk to Taylor Nearon, and there’s nothing to suggest she has a care in the world. The Upper Merion senior is upbeat and enthusiastic, especially when she talks about soccer.
But that’s hardly a surprise.
The Upper Merion senior has had a love affair with the sport since she began playing as a youngster. These days, soccer is not just her passion, it’s her outlet, her release for pent up aggression. It’s a chance for normalcy that she does not take for granted.
Three years ago, out of the blue, Nearon began having allergic reactions to certain foods.
“All of a sudden, I would eat peanut butter, and my tongue would get tingly, and I would get hives,” she said. “It all just kind of popped up.”
Nearon was diagnosed with FPIES (Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome), a severe response to food protein that typically occurs in infants.
“I’m the oldest patient down at the Children’s Hospital with the disease,” she said. “Infants outgrow it by the time they’re six.”
Nearon’s diet is limited to 17 foods. It’s a list that includes grass-fed turkey, grass-fed lamb, grass-fed pork, blueberries, bananas, grapes and applesauce (but no apples). In other words, it’s hardly your typical teenager’s diet.
In order to ensure she gets her daily nutrients, Nearon starts her day with an amino acid formula, which she describes as similar to a protein shake. Eating at restaurants is not really an option.
“The only restaurant I can go to is Chick-Fil-A, and the only thing I can eat there is their French fries,” she said. “I’m allergic to chicken.”
So life altering was the experience that Nearon started taking classes via cyber school in November of her junior year.
“It’s helped a lot because it’s less stress,” she said. “I can bring my laptop to the hospital when I’m there for periods of time.
“I can still stay on top of all my schoolwork, and I can move at my own pace.”
An excellent student, Nearon attended school for an AP English class last year since AP courses are not available through cyber school.
“When I started cyber school in November, I was missing a lot of school, and I was getting really stressed out,” Nearon said. “I didn’t want to fall behind and get bad grades.
“Cyber school has really helped – I’m pretty much getting all A’s.”
Just when it seemed as though the FPIES was under control, Nearon had another setback.
“The past few months I’ve been randomly going into anaphylactic shock, so I have to be very careful,” she said. “I’ve had multiple 911 calls because I’ll go into really bad anaphylactic shock.”
Nearon was diagnosed with a mast cell disease. The Upper Merion senior estimates she has made 10 ER visits since the start of the school year, but remarkably, she has not missed one soccer game.
“She still makes soccer a priority, even though she has all this going on,” coach Laura Himler said. “She’s a real team player.
“Wednesday she had an allergic reaction when she was at home. She went to the hospital and then came to the end of practice to tell me she was in the hospital, but the doctor said she shouldn’t practice.
“On Thursday, she couldn’t practice, but she was there collecting balls, helping with drills, talking to the players. When she can play, she works her butt off. She’s really aggressive, and she puts her heart into every single time.”
Somehow Nearon has managed to keep a positive attitude.
“I have the support of friends and everyone who understands what’s going on and what I’m going through,” she said. “I go through days when it’s really hard, so having friends and my mom – they’re the ones who help me get through it.
“Being able to play soccer and being able to get out aggression on the soccer field also helps.”
Nearon has been chosen to be an educational ambassador for the International FPIES Organization.
“I’ll travel to different conferences to talk to different families,” she said. “Since I was diagnosed so late, they have me share my experience to give them peace that they’re going to be okay and they can still live life.
“I tell them I do sports, I’m going to college to show them that even though it might be hard, you can get through it. You can still have a semi-normal life. You just have to learn to live with food allergies. You can bring your food along and still go to restaurants with friends. It doesn’t mean you have to stay home and not go out.”
Nearon is not allowing her food allergies to prevent her from living a full life.
She also has competed in track since seventh grade, although she admits it is mainly to stay in shape for soccer, which is her year-round sport.
After playing with community travel teams in both King of Prussia and Methacton, she is now a member of a premiere team, FC Providence.
“It started out as a hobby, but as I got older, I started loving the sport,” Nearon said. “I wanted to get better at skills. I used to go to a training academy in New Jersey (and worked) with Heather Mitts and Carly Lloyd. I was doing all kinds of training to get better.”
Nearon is looking into colleges in Pennsylvania where she plans to major in biology and pursue her career goal of becoming a profusionist. A profusionist operates the heart-lung machine during cardiac surgery.
“I started out wanting to be a pediatric trauma surgeon, but with the mast cell disease, if you’re a surgeon and something happens in the ER, that’s really risky,” Nearon said. “Two of our friends are actually profusionists, and they’ve talked to me about it.
“In a few weeks, I’m going to see open heart surgery with one of them. I love all the medical stuff.”
For now, Nearon is busy spreading the word that, despite limitations, life can still be good.
“When I go to the conferences, they want to know how am I living my life with having limitations on food,” she said. “I pretty much say – all my friends know my allergies. If I go to a restaurant, we’ll call ahead to see if there’s anything I can eat. If there’s not, I bring food everywhere I go, and all my friends know that.
“I pretty much tell the families that are at these conferences that it’s okay that their child has food allergies. They can’t let their food allergies make them. They have to make themselves. They can be a straight A student, they can be an athlete, they can still live their life.”
Nearon is living proof, practicing what she preaches and serving as an inspiration to others.
“If you saw her on the soccer field, you would never think anything’s wrong with her,” Himler said. “She’s just a normal kid.
“She’s a starter, and she’s played in every game. She plays striker for me. She’s very aggressive, and when she raises the bar, it helps other people raise the bar and their aggression level.
“She’s a smart kid, and she’s on track to graduate balancing all of that being in and out of the hospital. Taylor gets along with everybody. She’s a really neat kid.”
