Praying for Emily

that Emily was in there fighting as hard as any human could fight to stay alive. I figured a little six-year-old girl needed reinforcements to keep going when her body was making it so tough. I wanted to bring the energy of the world into that room to support her, the energy not just from me and Kari, but from all the members of our family who loved her so much and had been there with us during these years of struggle. They all needed to bring that to her, along with the avalanche of positive feelings I knew were coming from the thousands of people all over the country and all over the world who were keeping Emily in their thoughts and prayers. Right then I couldn’t spend time on the blog reading those prayers, but I knew that they were there. And when I’d sit with Emily and touch the part of her hand or her arm that was not covered with wires and tubes, I’d shut my eyes and imagine all those fingers on keyboards and cell phones sending their wishes for healing and for life through my hand to my struggling little girl. I wanted all of that love to come into the room to speak to her.

Emily was going to pull through this. It was only a matter of time, and we had to hold that hope for her, and reinforce that energy so that she felt it, too. I knew she could hear us even though she was in a coma. The feeling of that love and the sound of those words, I believed, would give her a reason to fight to stay in our world. I believed she would hear these voices and hold on.

My mom had gone in to pray over Emily while I was out in the hallway calling people. She was carrying a message from Lucy, too. Big Jim was in too much back pain to travel, so he stayed home with Lucy. When my mom called him to tell him that Emily’s odds were now at 1-in-1,000, he said he knew something was up because Lucy told him. Just at the moment when we were getting that bad news, it seemed, Lucy’s left ear folded down like it had collapsed, and it had stayed that way. Lucy was so connected to Emily that she sensed this crisis even though she was 250 miles away. That ear was still folded down, and knowing what it meant caused Big Jim to dissolve into tears.

“You tell Emily about Lucy,” he told my mom. “You tell her that Lucy is pulling for her. Lucy wants her here.”

When my brothers met up with the THON students at a parking lot in State College, Ariana told me how focused my brothers were on getting all of them to CHOP as fast as humanly possible because they were so afraid that Emily would die before they could say goodbye. Jim was also worried about me.

He knows me best of all, as we’re only sixteen months apart in age, and he knew that I would stick to my hope for Emily even when the facts were telling any sane person that there was nothing left. He wanted to be at my side for this difficult moment, and he wanted to get there right away. He called our friend Gary, who is a state trooper, to ask him a favor. Please, he asked Gary, tell the troopers stationed on the highway that they were coming through fast on a family medical emergency. He asked that they please not stop them for speeding. Gary said he would take care of it but told them to drive safely to avoid getting into an accident once they hit the interstate.

Becky had never driven this fast before. She later said to me that it was all she could do to keep her eyes on the road at that speed, while Ariana, Kaylee, and Krista were already doing what they could to support Emily. A few weeks earlier, when Emily had been transferred to the PICU, they had started a hashtag on Twitter called #PrayingForEm, and used their connections to THON to encourage people to send Emily love and hope.

The hashtag caught on quickly and was already trending by the time they started on this wild ride to Philadelphia. As Becky was gripping the wheel, Ariana and Kaylee were posting videos describing what was going on with Emily and how they were on their way to represent all the love and good wishes Emily needed to get through this. While they were speeding toward Philadelphia, the numbers of the people following the hashtag started to grow exponentially. By the time they reached CHOP, in a record three and a half hours for a drive that normally takes four, they had thousands more people praying for our little girl.

My mom came out of Emily’s room after delivering that message from Lucy. She said she felt filled with love, filled with the grace of the Lord, who she was sure would not turn his gaze away from Emily. She joined me in talking to Dr. Berg.

“You’ve called your family in, Tom?” Dr. Berg asked me.

“Yes, I have,” I said. “Many of them are on their way right now. Emily needs to feel their love so she can pull through this thing.”

I could see Dr. Berg struggling to tell me what he truly thought. He is a kind soul, but he didn’t want to mislead me or to say anything to encourage my hope in what he saw as a hopeless situation.

“We’re the biggest PICU in the country,” Dr. Berg began, “and almost every child we put on a ventilator gets off successfully. Unfortunately, I don’t believe your daughter will be one of them. Children this sick usually don’t get better.”

“Please keep trying to help Emily,” I said. “I know she is going to get through this.”

“You see this line,” Dr. Berg said, using his foot