Funeral for Taylor

This year, my youngest sister Taylor, at only 22 years old,  fought hard against being septic with a lung and heart desease that spread infection throughout her system. She went into the hospital in April and had to have heart surgery that went in through the side of her rib cage to remove and replace an infected valve. When they finally got a surgery date scheduled it ended up getting pushed back 3 days in a row, not being told until late in the day each time, meaning our poor girl pretty much didn’t get to eat or drink for those 3 days and had to suffer through that as well as being so sick from infection. Thanks to the surgery the infection was removed from inside her heart, and the valve was saved and did not have to be removed after all. She ended up remaining in the hospital after the surgery intabated for 5 and a half weeks. She had only a small percent chance of making it through it all and that strong willed girl did just that. Finally after 8 and a half weeks passed she was able to leave the hospital. 

Now at the beginning of October Taylor caught a cold which settled in her lungs, and made her septic once again with the infection making its way back into her heart, however this time around the damage was much more severe. She once again had to have heart surgery but this time they had to crack her chest open. She stayed strong through it all, and the surgery on October 24th ended up with the surgeon successfully removing the infected mass and taking out the infected valve. Taylor survived her second ordeal, but we were told that she was much sicker than they first thought, the infection had been pumped throughout from the heart and caused clots and damage through the entirety of her body, causing her organs and joints to fail, yet thankfully not reaching her brain and causing any damage. The following day she was going to be woken up from her sedation but it didn’t go as planned, so she remained medically put under.

Around 4 the following morning our family received a call informing us that her body was failing and a piece of infection finally made its way to her brain, it caused swelling and irreversible damage to not just her brain but her brain stem, rendering her brain dead. Today, Saturday October 26th at 11:14 AM Taylor was pronounced brain dead, and 1:04 PM she passed peacefully with her family surrounding her.

She struggled for a long time before this ever happened, and tried time and time again to better herself. Taylor by far was one of the strongest willed people I have ever known, and despite everything brought light into the lives of myself, our sister Ashley, our Mom Beth, and many others who were lucky enough to meet her. We are sad we can no longer see her physically, but she will forever be in our hearts and we know she is keeping an eye on us from above.

Now our family is facing the next step of loss and trying to figure out being able bury our loved one, which is, as anyone who has had to do so knows, by no means cheap and adds a lot of stress on our shoulders. We want to be able to bury her with our grandparents where she wished to be and are determined to make it happen, but fearful that we won’t be able to, and trying to do whatever we can to do it. To anyone who is willing to offer financial help we cannot express our gratitude enough. We are all truly thankful for it.