Darian Campfield

The morning of December 23rd, I had texted my sister to ask about Christmas plans. She never responded. She was always busy with her music, or work, so I didn’t think much about it. I was excited to be off from work for a week and to spend Christmas with my family. That night, I called my mom who told me she had spoken with Darian the night before and she wasn’t feeling well. She was vomiting and had, what she thought, bad heartburn. She sounded scared when she talked to my mom because she was in pain but she blamed it on a prescription she had just started taking, a steroid.

Darian had been rear-ended in her car three weeks earlier and had been sore and weak since. We all thought it was caused by the accident and the doctor thought the steroid would help. When Darian became sick, she immediately stopped taking the pills.

I was worried about my sister because my mom had tried calling her again, with no answer. At that point we assumed she was at work and busy. After I got off the phone with my mom, I tried calling her again and got her voice mail. This time I had my two-year-old daughter leave a message for her aunt. I thought for sure she would call her back. The message said, “Hi Aunt Darian, call me. I love you.” I will never forget it.

Thirty minutes later my phone rang. I assumed she was returning the call. Instead it was my father. He told to go somewhere away from my daughter so we could talk. I knew right away why my sister hadn’t answered the phone. My heart dropped. I ran upstairs and he confirmed my fears. Darian’s roommate had returned from work that day and found Darian in her bed dead. She never woke up that next morning. Our worlds were changed forever.

My sister was my best friend. And somehow I had to explain to my daughter why she would never see her beloved Aunt Darian again. They did an autopsy and all they could tell us was “her heart didn’t look good.” That was all the information we had for months. We assumed she had a heart problem and she had had a heart attack. When we got the autopsy report we were shocked. Sepsis? No warning. No clue as to what caused it. She just never woke up.

I will never understand why this had to happen to her. She was a talented musician and an accomplished therapist. She had earned her Master’s degree in order to spend her life helping others. I want to make people aware of this silent killer. It can happen to anyone and my sister is proof of that. I don’t know how but I will spread the word about Sepsis because Darian would have wanted her story to continue helping others because she can’t be here to do it herself.

Source: by Alison Hammond (Darian's sister)