Jayci Yaeger no longer can speak, but tears roll down her face when she hears her father’s voice on the telephone.

Back when the 10-year-old was well enough, she expressed one dying wish: To be with her dad.

The Lincoln girl’s seven-year  struggle with cancer appears to be drawing to a close.

But her father, Jason Yaeger, can’t be at her side because he’s incarcerated on a methamphetamine conviction at a federal prison camp in Yankton, S.D., three hours away.

“I believe she’s just hanging on for her daddy,” her uncle, Ed Yaeger, said late Friday afternoon.

Twice, doctors have told the family to pay their last respects.

“Yesterday and last evening, she gave us quite a scare,”  said Ed Yaeger, Jason Yaeger’s brother.

Jayci is in hospice care in Lincoln. She last saw her father three weeks ago during a two-hour visit supervised by a prison guard.

Her father has repeatedly appealed to the Bureau of Prisons for a furlough, or escorted release, which federal prisons can allow in cases with “extraordinary justification.”

“But they say this is not extraordinary,” said Jayci’s aunt, Heidi Genthe of Pleasant Dale.

No timetable was requested for the furlough, Ed Yaeger said.

“He’s left the time open so he can be here when she passes and for the funeral.”

Jason Yaeger has visited his daughter three times since her condition was declared terminal last fall, once in October and twice in the past month. Each visit cost the family $200 to $300 for the guard and expenses.

He has nearly a year left on a  5½-year sentence and is set for an August release to a Council Bluffs, Iowa, halfway house, where he would be allowed to  visit Jayci in Lincoln.

Now he fears he will not see his daughter alive again.

“It’s eating him up,” his brother said. “Every second counts.”

The story, first reported on local television stations, has drawn outrage at home and nationwide from those who say a child is being punished for her father’s crime.

Jayci’s mother, Vonda Yaeger, was on the “CBS Early Show” Thursday. Ed Yaeger spoke to CNN live on Friday. Jason Yaeger was interviewed by ABC.

Phone calls and letters poured into the offices of South Dakota and Nebraska politicians.

Ed Yaeger hopes the national attention will force the Bureau of Prisons to overturn its decision,

“Anything anyone can do to put pressure on them will help us,” he said.

Gov. Dave Heineman has expressed his empathy to the Yaeger family, said spokeswoman Jen Rae Hein, but the matter is federal. Nebraska’s congressional delegation also received many calls.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry’s office requested a clarification of the term “extraordinary” from the Bureau of Prisons, said Fortenberry spokesman Josh Moenning.

The matter rests in the hands of the federal agency, Moenning said.

In a response to Fortenberry’s request for clarification, sent in reference to Yaeger’s plea for early release to the halfway house in Council Bluffs, Michael K. Nalley, the regional director for the bureau, wrote: “While there are no set determining factors, ‘extraordinary circumstances’ are determined on an individual, case-by-case basis. … His case is not unlike that of many other offenders, whose incarceration takes them away from loved ones who must endure both financial and health-related hardships.”

Ed Yaeger said all decisions appear to be left to federal prison officials, who upheld the Yankton warden’s recommendation.

“It appears the Bureau of Prisons does not answer to anyone but the president,” Ed Yaeger said.

“I think the thing to stress is that Jason is in a minimum-security prison. There are no bars, no walls. He has to cross a busy public street to get between the buildings.”

When he transferred from a prison to the Yankton site, Jason Yaeger was given a furlough and “put on a Greyhound bus.”

In a statement to the press, the Yankton prison said: “Bureau of Prisons officials have reviewed inmate Yaeger’s request for a compassionate release and have determined his situation does not meet the criteria.”

A spokesperson for the prison indicated no more information would be publicly released until next week.

Jayci’s parents were living near Princeton when she was diagnosed with brain tumors at age 3. They have since divorced.

The south Lancaster County area has been very supportive of the girl, even naming a Princeton street “Jayci Lane.”

Shelby Yaeger, Jayci’s younger sister, is not taking the illness well, their uncle said. The girls live with their mother in Lincoln’s Air Park.

 “Jason has just about paid his debt to society,” Ed Yaeger said. “It’s not really about Jason, it’s about a little girl who just wants to see her dad.”

Reach Kendra Waltke at 473-7303 or kwaltke@journalstar.com.