Emily Edwards was a vibrant, healthy 67 year old mother, nana, sister, aunt and wife who enjoyed life. Everyone who met her not only loved her, they enjoyed her too. Her smile lit up any room. She loved to travel with friends, bowl in her weekly league and visit with her coffee club. She was funny, kind, caring and thoughtful. Her favorite thing in life was being a Nana to her four beautiful grandchildren and a mother to her three daughters.

On April 28th she was admitted to the local hospital due to stomach pain with vomiting. After five days of doctors not knowing what was wrong, they scheduled surgery for further evaluation. She would never be the same. She began having complications and was sent to ICU. We were told she had some type of infection and as her family we had to brace for the worst case. She died from severe septic shock two days later, two days before Mother’s Day. We are sharing Emily’s story to raise awareness about this preventable, treatable disease, if caught in time. We are also starting a 5K road race on May 8th in honor of Emily to raise money for the Rory Staunton Foundation. Our hope is that hospitals will be mandated to perform sepsis screenings in the future, so that no family has to go through the pain of unnecessarily losing someone they love, as we did.

By Emily’s Family