Chapter 31
Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.
—Philippians 2:16
Jessica called Gabrielle. She could barely contain herself. “They found a donor!”
“They did! Thank You, Jesus!” Gabrielle yelled back into the phone. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to holler like that.”
“Oh, it’s okay. When I got the call, I had to leave out of the hospital and go to the parking area because I was afraid I’d start screaming for joy and they would have to put me out for disturbing the patients.” Jessica laughed.
“Wow. Wow,” Gabrielle said, her hand loosely covering her mouth. “They found a donor. They actually found a match. God is so good! He answered our prayer.”
“Yes. And it appears that everything is a go now.”
“Are you sure?” Gabrielle asked. “I mean are they sure?”
“I just got off the phone with the people handling this. They told me they had a match, they had called to let that person know, and everything was a go now, ” Jessica said. “They found a match! I can’t believe it, but they finally found a match!”
“Did they happen to tell you who the match was?” Gabrielle asked.
“No. And honestly, I don’t care who it is as long as whoever it is has agreed to go through with the procedure needed to get my child what she has to have. We know they allow anonymous donors. So it’s very possible this person might not ever want their identity revealed,” Jessica said. “But I thank God for them, whoever it is.”
Gabrielle smiled. She rarely heard Jessica say much about God, not since they’d connected. Maybe Gabrielle’s being there, sharing the love of God with Jessica through all of this, was having an effect. “Well, you know I’m thanking and praising God with you. Now Jasmine can get the transplant she needs, and she’ll be on her way to a full recovery soon, in Jesus’s name. In fact, she’ll be even better than before.”
“Amen,” Jessica said. “I agree with you on that prayer. Gabrielle, I also want to thank you for all that you’ve done these past months. You have run this race with me, especially on this last leg when I was feeling tired and defeated and, truthfully, I was almost ready to give up. But you’ve been there with me. You’ve labored to do all you can to get folks to step up and be tested. You were able to first get your pastor, and then Representative Simmons and his office. Oh, my goodness! It certainly looks like your labor has not been in vain.”
Gabrielle didn’t care about being thanked for what she’d done. She did what she needed to do . . . what she was supposed to do. “Have they given you a date when they’re planning on doing the transplant?”
“They’re going to get back with me on all of that. They have to get the person ready to extract the marrow, which will take a few days with them using the less invasive procedure they say they’ll most likely use. The doctor told me that instead of putting the donor under general anesthesia and extracting the cells from the hip bone, they’re going to give the donor injections of medication for a few days. That will cause the stem cells to move out of the bone into the bloodstream where blood will be taken from the donor’s vein, filtered by a machine that will collect the stem cells, and the blood will immediately be returned back to the donor. Jasmine’s part will be more complicated though. In order to kill Jasmine’s remaining bad stem cells, she’ll receive high doses of chemo, possibly radiation, to make room for the incoming new good stem cells. They’ll give her the new stem cells intravenously, just like a blood transfusion.”
“I thought those cells needed to be in the bone—you know, bone marrow.”
“They do. And when they do this procedure, the stem cells will make their way to her bone and begin to grow and create more cells. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? To ensure that her body will receive the transplanted cells and not reject them, they will also be giving Jasmine other medications. So I’d say it will be another few days at least, possibly a week, for everything needed to take place.”
“Will you let me know when they do it? That way I can be praying on that day along with you?” Gabrielle didn’t want to impose during that time by asking if she could be there, even though she wanted nothing more than to be there.
“You’re welcome to come and be here with us, that’s if you can, and if you’d like to. You don’t have to feel obligated or anything.”
Gabrielle felt the tears as they began to well up. “I would really like that. I would. That’s if you don’t feel I’d be imposing.”
“Gabrielle, you and I are in this together now. I’m not going to cut you loose, not at this point. Not when we’re nearing the finish line. For now, we’ll just take things one day at a time. You’re like a friend now, both you and Dr. Morgan. You two are a part of Jasmine’s life. I told you sometime back: She needs all the love she can get. We can sort things out later as to how we’ll proceed. But for now, she and I both need you here with us.”
The tears streamed down Gabrielle’s face. “Thank you, Jessica. Thank you. Oh, and, Jessica?”
“Yes?”
“Merry Christmas! Jesus is worthy to be praised!”
“Yes, He is. And this is going to be a merry Christmas indeed.”
Jessica got off the phone. And Gabrielle began to dance around the room and, before she knew anything, she had knelt down on the floor and was crying and thanking God with all that was within her.