A group of doctors came quickly. The senior one examined her wound and handed me a marker.
“Dad,” the doctor said. “Take this marker and circle the red area. We’re starting her on morphine and antibiotics. As long as the infection stays within that circle it means the infection is not spreading.”
Pappy Rob and I were relieved to finally be in the hands of the people we trusted and grateful that Emily had stopped screaming. About twenty minutes later I checked her leg and saw the area had grown far outside the circle I had drawn, and the color had changed from red to purple.
I motioned the doctor over and he immediately ordered an MRI. I called Kari and told her she needed to get here right away.
“I’m on my way,” Kari said.
They wheeled Emily into the MRI room and said they would sedate her because she might panic in the tube. This did not set well with Emily, who seemed to be on the edge of panic already.
“You’re not leaving me, Daddy,” she said.
“I’ll stay here,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”
They gave her the anesthetic and, as she was slipping into unconsciousness, the last thing she said was “You still can’t leave. Even when I’m asleep.”
“Okay,” I said. I was sitting there cradling her hand in mine and watching that her chest was still moving up and down. I was so scared that she was going to stop breathing again. At one point my Saint Christopher’s necklace floated up from my chest toward the MRI magnet. I had to take it off and put it in my pocket.
When we came out of the MRI, Kari was there with Pappy Rob. We passed the surgical team assembled at the nurses’ desk studying Emily’s MRI. They talked in low voices, bumping each other out of the way as they debated what they saw there. Nurse Karli arrived for her shift. I told Nurse Karli I was worried that Emily’s infection was something they’d never seen before and they might not know how to handle it. We needed the best surgeon they had, I insisted, not just whatever surgeon was on call. She pointed to the doctor who was trying to settle the discussion in front of the MRI.
“Tom, that’s the chief of surgery, Dr. Dillon,” Nurse Karli said. “He doesn’t usually come here this late on a Friday.” We knew it must be serious if the chief of surgery came in on a Friday night.
We went back to Emily’s room, where Pappy Rob was sitting with our sleepy girl, who was still knocked out from the MRI. We’d been there only a few minutes when a nurse told us that Dr. Dillon wanted to see us in a consultation room. When we stepped into the hallway, Kari started sobbing.
“They’re going to take her legs,” she said. “They’re going to take us into that room to tell us that they have to amputate her legs.”
“I don’t think that’s what they are going to tell us. Let’s try to stay positive,” I said.
We sat down at a table facing Dr. Dillon.
“Cancer is not your biggest problem tonight,” he said. “You need to save your daughter’s life. From the MRI, it looks like the infection in her left leg is completely through her muscle and into the bone. If it’s in the bone, I will have to amputate her left leg at the hip.”
Kari gasped.
“We also see the infection starting in her right calf. If it’s in the bone there, I’m going to amputate her right leg at the knee. Her immune system isn’t strong enough to fight this, so if it’s in the bone, this is the only solution we have.”
I grabbed Kari’s hand under the table. She was not sobbing at that moment. She was stricken.
“I’m sorry I have to tell you this,” the doctor said. “You have to sign the consent for the amputations now. I won’t have time to come to talk to you if we find infection in the bone.”
I signed the consent forms with such a heavy heart. If they had to amputate, would Emily hate me for the rest of her life for signing her legs away?
Emily had woken up while we were consulting with the doctors. She was giddy from the medicines they administered to help keep her calm. It wasn’t long before we were walking alongside her bed as they pushed her down the hallway to the operating room. She was laughing and pointing to the ceiling, catching her reflection in the big spherical camera lenses positioned along the hallway.
“Look, Daddy!” She giggled. “I can see myself! Hello, Emily! Emily’s riding down the hallway in her bed!”
“Yes!” I said, taking her hand. “There’s our Emily on every camera!”
This was life in the hospital. We could go from the heaviest sense of dread and worry straight to this kind of silly.
The door to the operating room swung open and Kari and I kept holding Emily’s hands until the nurse told us this was as far as we could go.
The doors closed and we could see the doctors and nurses moving around on the other side of the frosted glass. Watching these dark figures moving beyond what we could understand was not helping us be strong for Emily. We walked back to Emily’s room to wait for an update from the surgical team.
“You have to ask people to pray for Emily,” I said to Kari. “You need to post on the blog right away. We need everyone praying for Emily.”
I know that many people don’t believe in the power of prayer, but good thoughts and good wishes are just as powerful when all of them come together. That was how Kari wrote it in the blog:
Please, please, please pray for Emily. She has a life-threatening infection in her leg. In surgery now. Have to take out all affected muscle in at least one of her legs. It may have spread to the other leg. She will be
