–Dad, you don’t have to wait until I’m asleep. –I’m fine. If it’s just the same to you, I’ll wait here. –Ok. But you don’t need to hold my hand. The nurse pushed a few ccs of Propofol and Jordan started to slur her words. –You can just give me a kiss– And she was asleep. She will be in the tube for the next two hours. She’s the only one in radiology wearing “monkey pajamas.

We are at CHLA for MRI today. Jordan is upbeat. She realizes we might not get great news, but she’s smiling and joking around. We’ll keep posting throughout the day.

She was on her way out, marching purposefully down the hall. She’d been poked and prodded and she was ready to go home–so ready that she walked well ahead of her mother who was still gathering belongings in the clinic. By the time Jeanette caught up with Jordan, she found her carrying on with a tall, Hollywood-looking man. – What kind of music do you like, he asked. – Ella Fitzgerald.

Though I posted this morning, I wanted to share events that occurred about an hour after my update. The thud reverberated across the ceiling above me. I didn’t need to think about what it was. I knew. I knocked the side table over jumping to my feet, scaling two steps at a time on the stairs. – Jordan! Jordan! Are you alright? There was no answer. Only the faint hum of the ceiling fan in the upstairs bathroom getting louder as I rushed upstairs.

She stopped me as I reached for the door with my travel bag over my shoulder. –Dad! Don’t leave without giving your daughter a hug. She headed towards me, legs strutting, arms out-stretched. I set the bag down just in time for her to wrap her arms around me and press her head against my chest. Her hugs are gifted from the heart. I had half a mind to call off my business trip, stay with her and spend the rest of the day watching the Disney Channel; just the two of us resting in our pajamas, watching capers by beautiful teenagers who never worry about life with cancer.