Once Upon a Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

sense, but they had learned already what numbers to look for on what machines—how to tell if her intracranial pressures (ICPs) were increasing—and what numbers indicated a steady heartbeat and a healthy blood pressure. The green line revealed Tatum’s ability to breathe on her own and the yellow line showed breaths the ventilator took for her. Their eyes darted between machines as Sherry felt the urge to scream,
What the hell happened? She was fine a few minutes ago! How does this keep happening, where’s she’s fine one minute and dying the next?
    David’s internal voice seemed to be the one Tatum heard.
    Fight, Tatum, fight!
he shouted in his mind.
    Her fight was the reason those nurses got her stabilized once again, and Tatum was calm. When the fire died and the room was quiet, Sherry and David sat across from Tatum on the small hospital couch, letting their hearts find a normal beat while their eyes remained intently on the machines working to keep her alive. By now, they could have interpreted those beeps with their eyes closed. Ears perked and eyes dancing, Sherry let them stop for a moment on a picture of Tatum that nurse Erin had asked them to bring and hang in her room.
    Just three months earlier, Sherry had taken the girls to get a portrait taken as a Christmas gift for David. Captured in black and white, Tatum and Hannah flashed their radiant smiles from the steps of a beautiful staircase, and it was this image that let Sherry fall asleep for just a little while with a smile on her face.
    She awoke to news that they had received the liver of a three-year-old child who had just passed away. With deep, familiar, and agonizing pains of sympathy for the family that had just lost their child, Sherry and David also knew that this was their chance to save Tatum.
    As doctors explained, cadaveric donors are always preferredover living donors due to higher success rates and only one person having to undergo surgery. After news of receiving a liver for Tatum, doctors told Jim, who was still at Baylor getting tested for possible surgery, that he was no longer needed to give half of his liver to Tatum. A great sense of relief washed over him and the rest of their family.
    David and Sherry spent the afternoon by Tatum’s side, watching the silent rise and fall of her chest, praying for a successful transplant the next day. As reds and oranges from the sun’s setting colors streamed and glowed into Tatum’s room, David’s mother, Betty, called to tell him that she and David’s dad, Gary, had arrived. They had been on a road trip from Texas to Arkansas when they received the phone call about Tatum, and they had finally made the long drive back.
    David took Betty to visit Tatum, and twenty minutes later, she and David appeared in the waiting room to join the rest of the group. As Sherry went to greet them, the door burst open and a young, male nurse they had seen only in passing shouted, “Sherry, we need you and David immediately!”
    The panic in his voice sent them running toward the door, and they followed him quickly out into the waiting room with the stained glass. He didn’t waste any time.
    “They’re performing CPR on Tatum right now,” he said.
    “What?!” Sherry nearly screamed.
No, no, no, no, no, no,
she thought to herself. She was certain that screaming it enough times in her head would make God finally listen and jump-start Tatum’s heart.
    David sprang from his seat and ran from the room. He went to get the one person he knew could help.
    “Oh, God, noooooooooo,” Sherry sobbed as the door swung closed behind David. She dropped her head into her sister’s lap. “This can’t be happening! Not now!”
    “They’ll get her back on track,” Gay promised, over and over, as she cried with her sister.
    “Is God not hearing all our prayers?” Sherry asked angrily. “Where is He?”
    “Excuse me, Sherry?” said an elderly man who introduced himself as the hospital’s chaplain. “Is there