She wanted so desperately for her reasoning to be enough to change what the doctor was saying, but she knew it wasn’t. Her hands shook and tingled and she fell to her knees, gasping for air between sobs. For David, a solid hit to the chest with a baseball bat might have felt better than the pain he experienced when he heard the doctor’s words. He knelt beside his wife and hugged her tightly with both arms. The brief silence gave Sherry’s mind a quick chance to clear, and she managed to ask, “What do we do next? How do we save her?”
Dr. Patel had perfected the necessary calm in a voice that still had hard news to deliver.
“We’ve done all that we can do,” he said softly. “We’re sending her to Children’s Medical Center.”
The critical nature of the moment, the shock, the reality, deepened—Children’s Medical Center of Dallas was a place for very sick, and often dying, children.
“What can they do for her there that you can’t do here?” Sherry asked. She felt as though Dr. Patel was telling them that they had given up. That there was nothing left for them to do.
“They have techniques to try that we don’t have here,” Dr. Patel explained.
The heaviness in David’s chest sunk slowly toward his heart. How could this be happening to their little girl?
The transport team placed Tatum into the ambulance, and Sherry looked at her husband as he wrapped his arms around her and whispered, “Everything’s going to be just fine.” Tucking a blond curl behind Sherry’s ear, he pulled away, touched her cheek, and smiled down at her. She let out a long breath, stared into the eyes that made her strong, and nodded.
David drove their car, and Sherry climbed into the front seat of the ambulance. When they arrived at Children’s, the driver threw the ambulance into park, the back doors were ripped open, and by the time Sherry stepped out, she was surrounded by people in white. Doctors and nurses, she guessed, but her mind was spinning. Her heart pounded violently in her chest, and one of the EMTs said, “You sign her in, we’ll take her.”
Take her? Take her where? Where do I go?
She needed David. She frantically looked around, and there, in the blur, stood Dan and Kelli. The three of them followed a nurse to the ICU waiting area, where family and friends had already started to gather.
Sherry took a moment to step away from the crowd and look out the window, where she saw that the longest day of her and David’s life was slowly coming to an end. The sky was turning charcoal, and stars were beginning to poke through. The three hours of sleep they had gotten the night before on their drive home from San Antonio was somehow enough, and she knew she wouldn’t get much more until they knew whether or not their baby girl was going to live. That was something they still didn’t know, and as her thoughts started to make her feel sick, she joined the crowd. By then, David had found his way to the room.
“Hopefully someone will come in soon and tell us what’s going on,” Sherry said, and no sooner, a doctor dressed in white with small glasses, black hair, and a contagious smile walked into the waiting room.
5
“Hi, I’m Paul Shore,” the doctor said to David, giving him a firm handshake and a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder with his other hand. David noticed right away that Paul Shore left the “doctor” out of his introduction.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” David said, hoping he would turn out to be the man who finally had some answers. He didn’t yet, but he came back later with results of tests they had been running on Tatum.
“Her liver is failing,” he said gently.
Devastated by the news but relieved that doctors had identified which organ was failing, Sherry and David listened. Dr. Shore explained that toxins were taking over Tatum’s body and her brain was beginning to swell. He performed a successful procedure to keep the swelling down and started Tatum on dialysis.
Testing and the distribution of medications continued into the late hours of the night and left David and Sherry pacing the waiting room and the hallways. They wanted nothing more than to see their little girl, but that was not an option. She needed them to remain patient and strong.
The friends and family who had come to join David and Sherry surrounded them and filled them with encouragement. After four hours of dialysis, Dr. Shore told them that the level of ammonia was decreasing in Tatum’s body, but the levels of other toxins, equally as dangerous, remained.
“Dialysis isn’t enough,” he said, letting out a long breath. “She needs a liver transplant.”
“Let’s do it. Where do we get a liver?” David asked immediately and hopefully, thinking there had to be some sort of organ bank with an abundance of livers for situations just like theirs. He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted impatiently, ready to follow the doctor into the room with the livers.
“It doesn’t really work that way, unfortunately,” Dr. Shore said.
“How does it work?” Sherry asked.
“We put her on a donor list and wait.”
“How long will that take?” David asked.
“You never know. It took one little boy two weeks before a match came in,” Dr. Shore said, trying to expose the reality of the situation without scaring them.
“But we don’t have two weeks,” Sherry said, her voice pushing past a lump forming in her throat.
“You’re right, we don’t,” he said, “which is why we need to get her on the list and start testing everybody in the family to see who is a potential donor.”
Sherry would have died to give Tatum her liver, but she had one concern. “I have scar tissue on my liver,” she told Dr. Shore, then shared the story of how a painful childhood bicycling accident that sent a blow to her abdomen had lacerated her liver. “Will that be a problem?” Sherry asked.
“It shouldn’t be,” Dr. Shore said. “We’ll test you to see if you’re even a match. In the meantime, let’s keep our fingers crossed that we get a liver.” The doubt in their faces triggered the doctor to add, “Sometimes miracles happen.”
6
When Sherry and David received news the next day that they found a liver matching Tatum’s blood type and that it was in transport to Children’s Hospital, they knew it was true—miracles did happen.
The morning the new liver arrived, seventy-five of David and Sherry’s family, friends, and church family were at the hospital to show their love and support. They were piled into the waiting room and wandering the halls, available for needed hugs and words of encouragement. The news of Tatum’s illness had spread like wildfire to people they didn’t even know throughout the United States and into other countries.
Dan had given Sherry a “prayer pager”—a beeper for people to send the number 143 (common code for “I love you,” as the amount of letters in the phrase is one, four, and three, Dan explained)—to receive reminders of the love and support from family and friends. Emails requesting prayer and “143” to be paged to David and Sherry were sent to Sherry’s missionary friends in Sweden and Africa, and those emails reached across the globe, through other countries, and into Mexico. The prayer pager buzzed in Sherry’s pocket every minute or so with “143”—reminders of how much Tatum was loved.
Sherry was encouraged that people everywhere were praying for her little girl. She felt as if she could see those prayers floating to Heaven, and after news of the liver, she was sure they had landed right in God’s lap and brought about a miracle.
As David and Sherry broke away from the group to meet with Dr. Shore and Dr. Goran Klintmaulm, a world-renowned transplant surgeon from Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas who would perform the transplant surgery, David felt hesitant excitement rush through him. Tatum was going to live.
It was a bittersweet feeling since he knew that a liver for his daughter meant someone had just died to give it.
“The liver is sixty years old,” Dr. Klintmaulm explained, and panic that had momentarily subsided within Sherry resurfaced.
Is the only option to save our daughter a liver that is si
xty years old? she thought.
David vocalized her concern. “Is that okay?” he asked without hesitation. “How long do livers last?”
“There is nothing to indicate that this liver won’t last a hundred years,” Dr. Shore said, slowly easing their minds.
But he was wrong.
Thirty minutes later, he and Dr. Klintmaulm walked side by side toward David and Sherry, their faces announcing bad news before their words could.
“I found a tumor on the liver,” Dr. Klintmaulm said in a kind but matter-of-fact tone. “We can’t use it.”
He paused momentarily, and then continued, explaining that it would be best to take her liver out before it poisoned her.
“You’re going to take it out and not put anything back in?” David asked, feelings of desperation bubbling in his gut. “How long can a person live without a liver?”
“Thirty-six hours,” Dr. Klintmaulm said. “We need another option.”
David and Sherry knew what that option was. Among the family members tested earlier that day, Sherry’s brother-in-law Jim had proved to be a perfect match. “Take mine,” he ordered.
Sherry, who, along with her sister, Gay, was also a perfect match but could not donate because she was too thin, looked at her brother-in-law of nearly ten years.
“You don’t have to do this, Jim,” she said sadly, knowing the risk he’d be taking to give a portion of his liver to Tatum. It would be a major surgery, and though the portion remaining inside of him would rejuvenate itself within weeks and the healthy, left lobe portion he would give to his niece would also rejuvenate and save her life, Sherry wanted him to know he had a choice. “You can change your mind.”
His unfaltering stance gave Sherry combined hope and fear. Doctors sent Jim to Baylor University Medical Center-Roberts Hospital for further testing to make sure his body was indeed ready for such a major surgery.
“We’d like to do an exploratory procedure in the meantime to see if there’s any chance of Tatum’s liver revitalizing itself,” Dr. Klintmaulm said. “As the body’s most resilient organ, rejuvenation is not at all impossible. It’s a low-risk surgery that should just take a couple of hours, and that will tell us, for sure, whether or not Tatum needs a transplant.”
Sherry and David gave consent for the exploratory surgery and then joined their family and friends in the waiting room. Nerves crawled through Sherry’s body and grabbed at her stomach with each passing second as she and David made their way into the hallway that led to the operating room before the doctors wheeled Tatum by. Though low-risk, they knew that with any surgery, there was never a 100 percent guarantee of her coming out alive. Holding on to each other for support, they watched as Tatum neared, the clinking sound of metal from her hospital bed echoing between quiet walls. Sherry pursed her lips together and swallowed the burning in her throat as the bed came to a halt at their feet. Tatum remained in the coma that had started on their trip back from San Antonio. Sherry and David stared down at their beautiful daughter, whose skin had yellowed and sunk around her closed eyes. They bent over the rails of the bed, kissing her cheeks and whispering quick messages into Tatum’s ear.
“Keep living,” Sherry managed, her voice shaking. “We love you so much, baby.”
“Stay strong, Tate,” David said softly into her ear. “You’re going to be just fine. Just stay strong.”
With that, Tatum was wheeled through the double doors, into the unknown.
As the doors swung closed, David and Sherry slumped to the floor, shaking with the agonizing reality that they may have just told their daughter good-bye.
After minutes that felt like hours, they finally stood, hugged, and walked back into the waiting room, hand in hand. They mingled nervously for the next few hours, praying with friends and family, finding strength in their presence. With no food or sleep in two days, they needed it.
The hands of the clock on the wall ticked nonchalantly past midnight before they heard the distinct sound of an opening door. David and Sherry shot their heads toward the entrance of the room, where gastroenterologist Dr. Naveen Mittal and transplant surgeon Dr. Henry Randall stood in their scrubs and booties. Dr. Randall used a large, wooden desk at the front of the waiting room as a podium, and everyone stood and rushed to surround him, David and Sherry at the front of the group.
A pin drop would have sounded like a shattering vase.
“There is more healthy liver than not,” Dr. Randall began. “We can’t tell yet if Tatum’s liver will be able to heal itself, but there is enough healthy liver to leave it in for the night.”
With that, the room erupted. Hugs and cheers were tossed around the room, but David and Sherry stood in that moment simply looking at each other, the celebration surrounding them a blur. They didn’t cheer or clap or shout. There was a shared and silent understanding between them that, while it was great news, this didn’t mean Tatum was going to live. Though both natural optimists, wanting to rejoice, they pushed that urge aside. They were learning that a moment of good news meant only that—a moment. Nothing more. And moments like these could pass as quickly as it takes for good news to spread.
7
When the excitement died down and the hour hand on the clock passed one, Sherry and David walked groups of dedicated visitors to their cars in the parking lot and made their way back into the hospital and up to Tatum’s room in the ICU. As they pushed open the door, familiar, panicked shouts of doctors’ orders escaped the room and four nurses surrounded Tatum’s small body. Beeps of every machine collided, mockingly, as alarms sounded and blended to chaos. David and Sherry backed to the far wall of the room, eyes wide, mouths covered, petrified. They watched as they were hit with pieces of words thrown from the nurses who were trying to fill them in on her condition.
Her heart rate is dropping. Blood pressure, increasing.
None of it made 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 preferred over 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 Tat
um’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 anything I can do to help you? Would you like to pray?”
She looked up at him through stained, swollen eyes and went against her sweet, patient nature.
“I don’t know you,” she said. “I really don’t want you in here.”
Once Upon a Wish Page 3
