Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

medical directive

Eventually I pull myself up from the floor and splash some water on my face. Nothing is getting better by sitting here sobbing alone, I need to get a plan in place, and I need to take care of my children. When you have three kids that depend on you, you can't fall apart. If I fall apart they will fall apart too and then there will be no one there to hold them together. It's my job as their mom to help them. 

So carefully I make my way downstairs and leave Ellie asleep on my bed. She fell asleep crying and snuggling into my side. I think it was in a combination of pain and being terrified of what happened and being scared for her dad. 

Aurora and kenzie are in the playroom watching tv so I go to join my parents and joe's mom. It's so nice of her to fly in so we have another set of hands here. Ever since I met her she has taken me into her family like I was her own daugther, and our bond has grown stronger over the years. I know I can come to her with anything, even if I have an issue with joe, and she will listen to me and offer advice if I ask for them. 

"Taylor what do you need from us? we are all here to support you and I'm staying for as long as you need my support" Liz says as I join them in the living room after taking some pain medication. 

"Thank you for flying all this way. I don't really know what I need. I... it hasn't really sunk in yet. I do need help with the girls and trade sitting by joes' side" I tell them and then I look behind us to make sure there aren't any kids around and speak really quietly "and the police just called. The driver was a frequent visitor of Adam. So this is most likely not an accident" I tell them and take a deep breath, so I don't break down in tears again. 

"That man need to let go off you" Liz says and rub my back "yeah, now I just wait for my lawyer to contact us after they have done more investigations. They want to interview both Ellie and I but wait a bit, so we are feeling better. We aren't supposed to stress, do physical or mental exercise" 

"Well, I'm staying in the guest room, so I got the girls, and your parents are helping too. You need to focus on healing so you can be there for joe and the girls. You need to take care of yourself first so you can take care of them. If you get burned out or hurt, you can't help any of them. We are here so lean on us honey" she says, and I lean my head on her shoulder. 

"are we taking the girls to the hospital?" my mom asks, and I sit up again and nod "yeah, the girls wanted to see him. I don't think they should be coming there all the time as it's not good for kids to be around all that, seeing him like that almost has me in a breakdown so I can't imagine what it's like for them. Plus, they want to keep the volume down there so he can relax. I got to talk to him for a bit but quietly. And there are a lot of other really sick patients that I walked by. There was even one that was actively dying, and I don't want the kids to see that stuff. It's not that we shield them from the fact that people die, but this is hard enough" not to mention that we haven't told the kids how bad off joe really is. We have told them that it's a brain bleed and that he has bleeding in his abdomen, but not that the odds of survival of patients with acute subdural hematoma is bad. It's not that he can't get better, there is around a 20-30% chance but it's a 50-90% chance of mortality and that's not something I want the girls to worry about. I don't want the get the girls hopes up too much or lie to them, but I don't want to worry them too much when it's still so early and we don't have much to go on yet. We know that his brain needs time to heal and that they are watching the abdominal bleeding, that we know. But we don't know if the brains pressure will increase and that will cause damage or if the bleeding in the abdomen will grow and he will need surgery for that too. 

"They are your kids so that's up to you. We are just following your lead Taylor" Liz says and I'm thankful for that. I need to make the decisions that I think is right for them. It's not that I won't take suggestions from them, I will for sure. But I know the girls in a way they don't, and I know joe in a way they don't. I know that joe wouldn't want them there all day every day. I know that joe would want them to have consistency back as soon as possible and go back to their daily routine. They will of course get to see him and get age-appropriate information about what's going on, but I know that joe wouldn't want them to have too much of a burden on them or feel like they should be there all the time.