In Memoriam
Amy Elifritz
10/16/1989 - 6/13/2010
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For all those who have mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and friends that they love....The following story is heartbreaking but contains a VERY important message to men and women alike. Please take 2 minutes to read this and pass the information along to your loved ones.
The devistation of losing a child in unimaginable for those of us that have not lived it. This is a Tony Stewart fan, Lisa, that Kenny met at the Charlotte Race in May and the story of her daughter Amy.
My little girl Amy who was a graphic arts major in college came down with what we thought was the flu on a June 9th this summer. A day and a half later she woke up really sore all over and weak so I took her into the ER thinking she had dehydration and needed some fluids. Come to find out her kidneys were shutting down and she was admitted. Within one day her lungs started failing and she became progressively worse. By Sunday morning, the 13th she started having heart attacks, the third one was fatal. Amy was diagnosed with tampon related Toxic Shock Syndrome. How on earth could a healthy 20 year old girl die in a few short days because of a tampon??? I began to research day and night and to my discovery found that TSS isn’t as rare as the industry would like us to think. It’s happening to young women all over because they don’t have the antibodies to fight the s. Aureus bacteria that causes TSS until they are well into their 20’s. I immediately began posting information for young women everywhere on facebook about the symptoms of TSS and how to prevent it only to receive a letter 3 weeks later from a mother who thanked me for saving her daughter’s life. She said this young woman had read my warnings and recognized her symptoms. She had her mother take her to the ER. It was Toxic Shock syndrome and because of her early treatment she lived.
I’ve now decided to go as quickly as I can to schools everywhere to personally tell young women how to recognize these symptoms so that no family has to go through the heart ache that my family has.
This Saturday will be our celebration of Amys 21st birthday and we have made it a fundraiser so that I will have the monies to purchase educational supplies that are needed to create this awareness and be taken seriously. I’ve figured out that it will cost approximately $2 per child not including traveling to the schools, to speak to these girls. We are going to need all the funding possible teach these girls how to be safe. For our silent auction we have some great donations so far. 2009 Miss America, Katie Stam is sending items, Anne-Marie Rhodes has created a painting in Amy’s name, Tony Stewart has donated some items, and Kenny has sent a wonderful life size Tony Stewart! Tony is local to me, he lives only 8 miles away.
