July 19th, 2009 there will be a get together/fundraising event in memory of Carolyn.  July 21st would have been her 60th birthday and we want to celebrate her life by coming together, having fun, and helping others. Contact Joanna regarding details.  Thank you!

Thank you for visiting this fundraising page. Donating through this site is simple, fast and secure.  Your donation will go to The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.  The money you give goes to research and raising awareness of this condition.  Visit www.foodallergy.com for more information on The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network.  Many thanks for your support!

It's remarkable how fast life comes and goes; how our whole existance and our understanding of it can change in an instant.  I know we all inevitably die, but I never fully grasped that fact until I lost my mother.  It was sudden.  It was unexpected.  It changed my world. 

No one told us how dangerous my mother's hives were.  We knew they were a constant nuisance and discomfort to her, but never imagined them life-threatening.  Mom started having hives about 15 years ago, when she was in her early forties. They affected various parts of her body, such as her hands, feet, mouth, and occasionally her throat.   We never knew what caused her hives, even after a visit to an allergist in 1994. On Friday, October 4th,  2008 at approximately 5:30am my mother's airway was completely constricted and she could not breath.  She lost consciousness, and dispite CPR efforts from my father and an officer who responded to the call before EMT's, she never again woke.  It took approximately 26 minutes from time of call to #911 until arrival of an ambulance.  My mother went into cardiac arrest but at the hospital they regained a pulse.  The small amount of oxygen she got during CPR was inadequate to feed her brain, and so we were informed of her brain death at around 11am on October 4th.  She was on a ventilator for almost two days before leaving us.  In hindsight there are so many things we wish we would have done: forced her to see another specialist (which frequently gets you no new answers as to what causes these attacks),  made her go to the hospital when the hives started, or at least done more research ourselves. 

She was always such a giving person, and so we decided as a family to donate any tissues or organs of use after her death.  She gave in death as she had given all her life. 

Many emotions have arisen from her death.  Intense anger for what I percieved to have been avoidable IF "we'd only known this could happen" or iF the ambulance had only arrived 10 minutes earlier (as it took 10 minutes to organize a crew of 2 people and then an additional 10 minutes to get to the scene) maybe they could have incubated her earlier or done a trach.  I was also angry with my mother for a while.  How dare she suffer this condition without making more of it.  IF she'd only gotten someone to help her sooner.   Another emotion has been sadness.  A deep heartbroken hollowness you only can relate to after losing someone you would have risked your own life for.  I believe each person probably has about 5 people like that-give or take.  I have felt nothing-numbness.  But now I mostly feel desire.  I feel a need to do something.  To help in some way.  I feel that if even one daughter, son, husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister or loved one can be spared an avoidable loss then we have made a difference. 

You can also visit www.Carolyn.Baldwin.muchloved.com to learn more about the selfless and amazing woman my mother was.