Halfway to forever by Karen Kingsbury

own...
Tanner forced himself to concentrate and follow the doctor's orders. Her heart was still beating, but it
was weak and irregular. He lowered his face to hers. "Come on, jade; fight, baby Don't leave me." His
eyes fell on her upper chest. She was breathing, but only the faintest bit of air passed over her lips. Tanner
gripped her shoulders and clung to her. "Stay with me, jade. Don't leave..."
The seconds slowed to a crawl, and Tanner begged God to
help them. His eyes remained locked on jade, looking for the moment when he might need to start CPR.
"Keep breathing, Jade... please keep breathing."
Tanner wasn't sure how much time passed, but he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the
paramedics. He scrambled out of the way, his body weak from terror. What if it was too late? What if they
couldn't help her? Why was any of it happening to them?
As usual, there were no answers.
The paramedics moved fast and spoke quietly. Before Tanner could glean anything from their
conversation, they whisked jade into an ambulance and off to the hospital.
Again Tanner followed behind, his mind numbed by the nightmare unfolding before them. What's
happening, God? Why this? Why her?
135 A Scripture from a sermon they'd heard the week before flashed in Tanner's mind. "In this world you
will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Tanner steadied his hands and kept his attention on the
ambulance in front of him. Is this the trouble you have for us, Lord?
That Jade suffer like this?
It was more than Tanner could bear. He forced himself to
believe it was all a mistake, that the seizure was merely an adverse
reaction to Jade's medication or maybe somehow related to her
pregnancy and not the cancer at all. He was at her side the
moment he saw her inside the emergency room. Though she was
conscious, she was too exhausted to speak.
"Hang in there, honey. I'm here."
Dr. Layton met them at the hospital and pumped a megadose
of anti-seizure medication into Jade's veins. More tests were performed,
and Tanner could do nothing but stay by her side, hold
her hand, and pray it was all a had dream. That somehow they'd
wake up and jade would be the same cheerful person she had
been that morning. Back when brain cancer seemed little more
than a diversion in what was otherwise a perfectly normal pregnancy.
Two hours later, the prognosis was painfully clear. The tumor
had grown, and Dr. Layton ordered an immediate increase in
Jade's anti-seizure medication.
"At this point, jade's in a race against her biological clock."
The doctor stood close to Tanner, his hand resting on jade's bed.
"And there's something else. The tumor isn't growing neatly like
we'd hoped. It's starting to grow tentacles. The more that happens,
the less likely we'll be able to operate when the baby's born. I
thought you should know"
The information settled like a dense cloud of poisonous
smoke over Tanner's consciousness as he struggled to make sense
134