Undaunted
EASTON — Bella Alampi has known nothing else.
It has permeated every facet of her life for 21 years. It's always there, lurking in the back of her mind.
The Adams Township native and senior on the Lafayette College women's lacrosse team has to plan around it every single day.
One slip up — just one innocent mistake — can kill her.
Alampi was born with rare and severe allergies. Some of them went away with time, but two major ones have remained.
Dairy and nuts.
“Even the smallest amount,” Alampi said, “can cause a reaction.”
Her allergies are so severe that if she eats food that has even a hin of dairy or nuts, she can quickly go into anaphylactic shock.
“Dairy is the worst of my worse allergies,” Alampi said. “When they tested it, it was off the charts. They don't even have a way to measure how severe it is.”
That has made playing a sport as demanding as lacrosse at such a high level all the more challenging — and impressive.
Alampi scored 97 goals during the one season she spent at Mars and 221 in her career between the Planets and Oakland Catholic.
At Lafayette College, she's scored 35 goals and added four assists in her last 35 games, which has included a switch from attack to midfield.
It hasn't been easy.
There are games when she plays on an empty stomach — especially on the road when she can't eat because of the risk of dairy or nut contamination.
Her parents, Joe and Maria, bring her food on road trips, but she has to find time and a place to heat it up.
She can't drink from the water her teammates share — she has to drink from her own water sources.
Still, Alampi soldiers on, unflappable and determined to not let her allergies dictate her life.
“Bella's personality is nothing's going to stop her, that there's nothing she can't do,” Maria Alampi said. “She's focused and stubborn and she doesn't dwell on it. She tells me all the time, 'Mom, it could be so much worse.' She has such a good attitude. I'm so proud of her.”
Bella Alampi had tough choices to make when she was being recruited by a slew of schools because of her lacrosse skills.
She always had to ask difficult questions during her visits about food and how the school's prepared it in the dining halls.
Questions that some colleges were unprepared to answer.
“It was such a big question for me in recruiting,” Bella said. “There wasn't a whole lot of guidance and there weren't a whole lot of people who have gone through this.”
She said she's hoping to educate and inspire others who may be struggling with their own allergies that it doesn't have to hold them back.“As a mother, I wanted her to stay close to home, but (the University of Pittsburgh) didn't have a women's lacrosse team at the time and there was no stopping her,” Maria said.Bella's freshman year at Lafayette was particularly trying, mainly because she hadn't yet adjusted to college life with her allergies.Since then, Bella has settled into a routine, but the time crunch still remains an issue.As a pre-med major with a focus on neuroscience and an athlete to boot, time was already an issue.But Bella has the added time-consuming task of buying and preparing her own food.“It's something that people don't realize, but it's time that's the most challenging,” she said. “It takes time to go to the grocery store to buy my own food. It takes time to make it. I have to plan every meal.”And she's had her brushes with serious complications — and even death.During her senior year at Oakland Catholic, she and a teammate mixed up mouth guards.Not long after she realized the mistake and switched it out for her own, she had a reaction in the middle of the lacrosse field.On New Year's Day this year, she had her most severe reaction at a restaurant in Florida that had been aware of her allergies since she was 3.She hadn't had an issue there until that day.It took two shots of epinephrine and three shots of steroids to open her airway.“They told me in the hospital that I was lucky to be alive,” she said.Bella said it often takes more than one epinephrine shot to counter her reaction, so she often carries two with her everywhere.She made sure her teammates and coaches knew how to use them.Bella had another reaction in May, which has left her shaken.Still, Bella lives her life and plays her sport without reservation, she said.She has no other choice, she said.Lafayette and her teammates have also been more than accommodating.Her teammates can't have protein shakes or energy bars in the locker room because of the cross contamination risk.And all her life she's had to be vocal about her allergies.“It's funny, but I remember the first day going to school,” Bella said. “I'd walk up to the other kids and say, 'Hello. I'm Bella Alampi and I'm allergic to dairy and nuts.'”Maria said there are aspects of her life that have benefitted from her allergies.“She's always had to be social,” Maria said. “She has to tell people about her allergies so it has made her more outgoing.”Bella said, ultimately, there is nothing she can do about her allergies but accept them and live with them the best way she knows how.She said she feels like she has proven that on a daily basis by performing at a high level in a demanding sport and major.“There are people who have so many worse things to deal with than I do,” she said. “It's really part of my routine now. I've had to deal with it all my life.”
