The Ten-Hour Watch: Faith, Fear, and the Fearless Heart of Jazzy
There are mornings that begin with the sun, and then there are mornings that begin with a breath held so tight it feels like your ribs might snap. Today is the latter. As I write this, Jazzy is being wheeled into an operating room for a surgery that is expected to last over ten hours. Ten hours. Six hundred minutes. Thirty-six thousand seconds where our daughter’s life—and our entire world—rests in the steady hands of surgeons and the grace of the Almighty.
They are going in to remove three large tumors and parts of her skull. It is a sentence that is as heavy as lead, a medical reality that feels too massive for a child to carry. And yet, here we are.
The Anatomy of Terror
As parents, we are often told to be “strong” for our children. We are told to be the anchor in the storm. But today, if I am being honest, we are a nervous wreck. We are absolutely terrified. There is no manual for this level of anxiety. It is a physical weight, a coldness in the pit of the stomach, a mind that wants to sprint toward every “what if” while your body is forced to sit still in a sterile waiting room.
We feel like a complete wreck right now because the stakes are our everything. When the doors of the surgical wing closed behind her, a piece of our souls went with her. The silence that follows a child being wheeled into surgery is the loudest sound in the universe. It is the sound of total surrender.
A Courage Beyond Years
And yet, amidst our terror, there is Jazzy.
She continues to amaze us every single day. If you saw her yesterday—if you saw the light in her eyes and the way she carries herself—you would never know the mountain she was preparing to climb today. She fights with a courage that most adults couldn’t even imagine. While we are trembling, she is standing tall. While we are questioning, she is simply being.
There is a specific kind of bravery that belongs to children like Jazzy. It isn’t the absence of fear; it’s the quiet, persistent decision to keep moving forward despite it. She doesn’t ask “why me?” She simply asks, “what’s next?” She is a warrior in the truest sense of the word, and today, she is going into her greatest battle yet.
The Waiting Room: A Sacred Space
Ten hours is a lifetime when your child is under the knife. The waiting room becomes a strange kind of sanctuary—a place where time loses its meaning and strangers become family through shared glances of understanding.
We are holding onto faith with everything we have. We are anchoring ourselves in the belief that the same strength Jazzy shows us every day is being infused into the hands of her surgical team. We are praying for:
- The Surgeons: That their hands remain steady, their minds remain sharp, and their wisdom exceeds even their years of training.
- The Environment: That the operating room is filled with a peace that surpasses all understanding.
- The Outcome: That every cell of those three tumors is removed, that her skull is reconstructed with precision, and that she wakes up with that same beautiful spirit we love so much.
Reclaiming the Future
This surgery is more than just a medical necessity; it is a reclamation. These tumors have tried to take up space where they don’t belong. They have tried to dim a light that was meant to shine. Today, we are taking that space back. We are removing the obstacles to Jazzy’s future.
Even as they remove parts of her skull, we know that what makes Jazzy Jazzy cannot be touched by a scalpel. Her resilience is bone-deep. Her joy is unshakable. We are believing, with every fiber of our being, that she will come through this okay. We are picturing her recovery, her first smile post-op, and the many years of life that lay beyond this ten-hour window.
A Call to the Collective
To our community, our friends, and the strangers who have become our prayer warriors: we need you today. We need you to lift her up. We need you to flood the heavens with her name.
When you go about your day today—when you eat your lunch, when you drive to work, when you hug your own children—please, take a second to think of Jazzy. Imagine her surrounded by light. Imagine her waking up. Your love is the wind beneath our wings right now. It is the only thing keeping us from falling apart as the clock ticks toward the ten-hour mark.
Strength for the Family
While the focus is rightly on Jazzy, I also ask for prayers for our family. For her siblings, who are watching their sister fight a giant. For us as parents, that we can find a peace that allows us to breathe. The “waiting” is its own kind of trauma, and we are leaning on each other and on our faith to survive it.
We are not ready to let go of the hope we have for her life. We are not ready to stop fighting. We are here, we are waiting, and we are believing in the miracle that Jazzy already is.
The Updates to Come
I will update everyone as the day goes on. Every time a nurse comes out with a report, every time the monitor changes, we will be holding our breath. We will share the news as we get it, but for now, we remain in this quiet, prayerful vigil.
Thank you for loving her. Thank you for lifting her up when we are too weak to do it ourselves. Jazzy is a miracle in progress, and today is just one more chapter in her incredible story of survival.
She is brave. She is strong. She is ours. And she is coming back to us.
