Wishing Tori all the best

I'm not sure I'm blogging or whatever correctly...however...

There was an article about Tori in the Ventura (CA) County Star Newspaper this morning, and I clipped it to place with all the others that have caught my eye in the last four years. I visited the Pray4Tori site--what a beautiful young lady she is! My thoughts and prayers are with you for a successful journey.

My daughter was in an automobile crash June 24, 2002, at the age of 16. She was an exceptional athlete (soccer, high jump) attracting college attention. There are many similarities between her and Tori. A car accident the summer after her junior year changed her (and our) dreams in a heartbeat. As she entered an intersection, a truck broadsided her, resulting in a three month coma, one year in hospitals, traumatic brain injury, and left hemiparesis. Our lives have been changed forever.

She was not expected to live, much less to prosper. But we did NOT pull any plugs, and Jenna defied the predictions of never leaving a facility or breathing and eating on her own. She is in wheelchair most of the time, but is taking junior college courses, and is breathing and, definitely, eating on her own. There is plenty of short term memory loss, and, of course, she is not playing soccer or high jumping. But her attitude is positive, and her sense of humor is intact. (When she was first told that a wheelchair would be a part of her life, I cried. She wrote [she wasn't yet talking at that point],"Mom--we'll be able to get the good parking spaces at the mall!")

I will be following this site diligently and praying that the stem cell surgery will benefit Tori. God bless you all.

Linda Prewitt,
Jenna's Mom