Adopted

Chapter 97

The weeks leading up to Christmas gave us a sense of our life before Jessica started getting sicker. She was going to school two or three days a week, and while the infusions were still making her sick, and she had chills during them, she seemed to be tolerating them well otherwise. Doc said her numbers were improving just a little.

Her energy was up, but her stomach issues still hadn't resolved. She was still reliant on the overnight tube feeding. But she was taking that in stride.

My parents came out for Christmas as well, because traveling with Jessica's medical equipment was just too much. And with everything so uncertain, we wanted to be close to her doctors.

We did wind up going over to Darren's family's home for lunch on Christmas Day. They invited my parents to join as well. Darren gave Jess a small gift, a drawing he'd made of a large boy, protecting a small girl. It was really good. He was a very talented artist. He'd gotten it framed and when we got home, we immediately hung it over Jess's bed.

Jess was even feeling well enough to do a quick Twitch stream with me on Christmas, and the vros were so happy to see her, and their messages were so positive and uplifting.

Jess was feeling well enough to go back to school again in January, and the talk was starting to turn to the Junior Prom in May. Joshua asked Jess if she'd like to go with him, and she accepted. They promised each other that no matter what, they would go to Prom together.

Everything came crashing down in the middle of February.

Jess went to the Valentine's Day dance with Joshua and Paige and Adam, a boy Paige had started dating. Jess hadn't been feeling great all week and had only made it to school twice. On the second day that week, she had had to call us to come to get her early. But she'd rested up and napped in hopes of making it to the dance with Joshua. She was so excited to go.

We got a phone call at 10 PM from Joshua. Jess had collapsed at the dance and an ambulance had been called. We rushed to the hospital, where we were greeted by Joshua, Astrid, Kevin, Paige, and Adam. All of them looked completely worried.

"What happened?" I asked, as Sarah and I ran to the group of teenagers in the waiting area.

"I didn't do anything to her!" Joshua said. "I swear. I even made sure no one was spiking the punch. She was only drinking water, anyway,"

"It's okay, Joshua," I said. "Just tell us what happened."

"We were dancing, and then Jess and I took a break to sit down and rest and she had some water from a water bottle. We got up and danced some more, and then she just stopped, looked at me, as if she didn't recognize me, and collapsed."

"I was keeping an eye on her, too," Paige said. "She never had anything other than water."

"Okay, okay," I said. "We'll see if we can't find something out from the doctors. You're all fine. We know you'd have taken care of her."

Sarah and I left the group of kids, and went to ask about Jess at the nurse's desk. The nurse told us she would find a nurse or doctor to come out and speak to us in a moment. Sarah looked at me with fear in her eyes. To her, not being allowed back with Jess meant things were bad. She hadn't been allowed back with Jess when the boys had beaten her up in seventh grade, and she equated this to that.

We joined the group of Jess's friends in the waiting area, and sat with them. They told us about the night, and how much fun they'd all been having. How Jess was being really careful about preserving her energy, but was having so much fun with her friends and classmates and that no one had any idea what had happened.

The kids had all called their parents to let them know what had happened, and where they were, and their parents started coming to pick them up. Astrid and Kevin left together and then Adam's parents came to get him. Sandra came to get Paige, but stayed with us for a little while.

Around midnight, the doctor finally came out to find us.

"Jessica is doing alright. She's resting, and we're going to admit her," he said. "We did a CT Scan of her brain, and I have her booked for an MRI tomorrow morning," he said. "I'll be transferring her care to the PICU and Dr. Roberts will take over from here."

"But what happened?" I asked.

"The MRI will hopefully give us some clearer answers, but for now, what I have been able to see is it looks like her heart gave out while she was at the dance. She was resuscitated en route in the ambulance. When she got here, she was unconscious and still hasn't regained consciousness. The CT scan was inconclusive, but it looks like she may have some infiltration in her brain."

"What does that mean?" Sarah asked.

"If it is what it looks like, it means her disease has spread to her brain. There seem to be areas of atrophy. We'll know more once we have the MRI done tomorrow. For now, we're just waiting on a bed in the PICU. Once they tell us they're ready, we'll send her up, and you can go see her."

"Thank you," I said.

I looked at Sarah, whose eyes were brimming with tears.

"What does it mean if it's in her brain?" Paige asked, quietly, holding on to her mom.

"I don't know exactly," I said. "But I think it means we're looking at the beginning of the end."

The four of us hugged and cried together for a while.

When the doctor came out to tell us Jess was being transferred upstairs, Paige and her mom left, and we headed up to the PICU to be with our girl. I texted Pete, Patrick, Josh, Zack, Dallon and Dan. They'd spread the word from there. I figured I would call my parents in the morning and let them know what had happened. Tonight, we'd sit with our girl, and find out what was what in the morning.

We went up to Jess's room, and saw our girl, settled in her bed, her eyes closed, a ventilator tube coming out of her mouth, and wires and tubes from everywhere else.

"Her cardiac arrest and resuscitation are why she's on the ventilator," the nurse said, explaining more than the ER doctor had. "She needs the rest, and will probably be able to come off the vent in a few days."

She gave us some more information, checked a few things on Jessica's monitors, and left us with our girl.

"Jess, honey, it's Mom and Dad. We're here with you, sweetheart," Sarah said, taking Jessica's limp hand. "You gotta wake up and tell us all about the dance, sweetie."