Beautiful things - jaylor story (peace book 4)

surgery

It takes about thirty minutes but then kenzie starts to stir so we call on the nurse and she comes to check on her. "Hello there miss Mackenzie. Ure out of surgery and in the pediatric intensive care unit now. Your mommy and daddy are here too" the nurse says and do some basic tests on her as she is opening her eyes.

"Mommy. Daddy. I'm alive" she says with a raspy hoarse voice from the intubation. "you're alive baby girl. And they took out the entire tumor and the rest of your liver looks good. You did so good" I tell her and take her hand in mine.

"How is your pain?" the nurse asks her, and she says she is in a bit of pain, so the nurse administer some more pain meds for her. Before she leaves to go back to her desk, she makes sure kenzie can move her arms and legs and check that her pumps are working properly.

"How long did it take?" she asks and cough a bit "about 6 hours so it took a while. But they needed to make sure that they went slow enough to get it right. And they were successful" I tell her and kiss her forhead.

She is exhausted and drowsy from the medication, but at least she is awake and seems to be doing okay. My biggest worry with the surgery was that there would be more damage to her liver or that she would have excessive bleeding, but none of that happened. She got a few units of blood during surgery, but no major bleeding happened.

"This means no more surgery, right?" she asks, and I nod "no more surgery. They will eventually need to take out your port-a-Cath, but that's not really a surgery. So unless something else happens no more surgery and no more hospital stays. At least that's planned. Now it's a few days in the hospital and then you can come home"

She has been talking about how bored she is of hospitals, and I understand that after all the time she has had to spend her. I can't even count at the top of my head how many days she has been here in total and how many things they have had to do to her. It's been a long road but we are looking forward and hoping that the immunotherapy is going to be the last step to get her body cancer free.

** tuesday **

It's after school and joe, aurora and Ellie walk into Kenzie's hospital room down on the medical ward. She was moved this morning because she is doing so well and doesn't need to be in the ICU anymore.

"Yay visitors" kenzie says and get me to sit her bed up more. "You look good" Ellie says and give her sister a hug before aurora does too. Ellie pulls out her phone and show her pictures of karma which kenzie requested.

"They say that if I keep doing good, I can come home on monday. But that means I don't get to be home for your birthday tomorrow" kenzie says and that's been something that annoys her. She tried to get us to change her surgery day because it was more important to her to be home on Ellies birthday, but we obviously didn't do that.

"We are coming here after I take my driver's test after school. Then we are coming here with cake, and we can celebrate together" Ellie says and that makes kenzie feel a bit better at least. Ellie doesn't want to do something huge for her birthday this year, so that works out perfectly. She is coming here tomorrow and then on Saturday she is having her friends over to the house while aurora is at gymnastics so they can have a mini party there.

"What type of cake?" kenzie asks and furrow her eyebrows "red velvet with crème cheese frosting. My favorite" Ellie says.

She is really excited to take her driver's test tomorrow but I'm nervous. If she passes that's yet another step towards adulthood and she can now drive around on her own. Joe and I decided years ago that on their 16th birthday all three girls will get whatever car they wanted, and Ellie wanted a black range rover that's electrical. It's a good choice for a car so we ordered that months ago and they will pick it up after her test regardless of if she passes or not. If she passes the test, she will get to drive it on her own, but if not, it will stay at home until she can.