Tanya Edsall

Tanya was born on October 7, 1983.  She was beautiful, full of joy and life. She loved the outdoors with a special affection and interest in animals.  Tanya also loved her family.  When her sisters were born, Tanya became a little mother full of love and protectiveness.  In school Tanya was very bright and always brought home good grades in her advance placement programs.  She took great pride in writing and was very creative.  Tanya was nominated to be a Student Ambassador for the state of both Oregon and California.   Tanya came home from her part time job at the Folsom Outlet Mall one night and was very distressed about “why people had to have wars and kill each other”.  She had discussed this in school that day.  Tanya loved people and was always willing to help anyone in need.

She stayed up that night discussing this with her Dad appearing to be feeling just fine.  She finally got tired and went to bed around midnight.  She woke up around 3:00 a.m. with flu-like symptoms: vomiting, headache, nausea. The doctor’s office  could not get her in until 4:30 that afternoon.

By 10:30a.m.she was feeling a better and I sat on her bed and we had some tea and toast.  This was such a nice visit.  We talked and even laughed.  By 4:30p.m. when we were to go to the doctor, she was getting bad again and couldn’t stand up without vomiting.  She said she was sure it was just the flu and didn’t feel like going to the doctor.  I told her if she got worse we would go to the emergency room.  At 5:00, she called me into the bathroom and showed me that she was covered with the reddish spots.  I knew at that point that she had Meningitis and rushed her immediately to the emergency room.  I told the front desk she had Meningitis and they took us right in.

A spinal tap quickly showed us the worst, it was in her blood.  She deteriorated quickly as her internal organs began shutting down.   By 6:00 a.m. my beautiful first born daughter was gone.  Just 27 hours from the beginning symptoms.