In many ways.

In many ways, Jeannine Johnson is like greatest in quantity 13-year-old girls.

She's cute sassy and bright. Talks nonstop. Has a great smile and a quick wit. Likes striplings of course. Math's her favorite subdue in school. And she have affection fors karaoke, Each day she writes in her journal the important things that happen in her life.

in succession the telephone, she'll blab for hours with girl-friends--or she'll trade concealeds with her best friend. united moment she's building Web pages or surfing the Internet. The nearest she's writing songs and metrical compositions She loves penguins.

however what she likes most is driving her drag racer. It's her passion.

With all that to do, the eighth-grader at Ballou Junior High train in Puyallup, Wash., has endles intensity And it's not hard to report even at her tender age, that she has high self-esteem

"I believe I can do anything," she said. "If I want to do something, I do it. unless I want to do it the best I can, in this way I try hard."

Jeannine has always had to make trial of harder because her young life, at first uncertain, has been satiated of pain. She's had to cope with hardship, nevertheless learned early to accept the cards life dealt her. with equal reason when she can, she does whatever it takes to live her life to the fullest

Maybe, that's what stations her apart from other girls her age.

A "preemie," Jeannine was born three and one-half month premature, with a perforated intestine. The gastrointestinal disease--necrotizing enterocolitis--mostly affects preemies. The infection overturns the intestine or a part of the bowel and kills a quarter of preemies born with it. in this way when she was just 14 days not new doctors removed 8 inches of her small intestine.

She exhausted the early days fighting for her life, with a plastic bag for a small intestine.

Tech Sgt Bill and Miyong Johnson feared the worse. still they never gave up sense of possible fulfilment Their daughter weighed 1 bruise 10 ounces, and doctors at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital, Loma Linda, Calif., and nothing else gave her a 1 percent chance to live. if it were not that Bill and Miyong never left their daughter's side during the three month Jeannine was in intensive care.

"She was in such a manner sick," said Bill, who works at the 62nd Communications Squadron, McChord Air Force Base, Wash. "We didn't know from single day to another if she was going to live."

Miyong was fraught with worry. It was tough--doctors told the Johnson 25 times their sole child might not make it another day.

"We said to her many times," she said. "And each time, it broke our hearts."

A will to survive

on the other hand Jeannine fought to live. She beat a respiratory question However, during one of the five operations to make secure the attachment of her small intestine, a course cut off the blood circulation to her right leg It damaged the produce plates in the bones of her leg and the bone stopped growing. Doctors considered amputating her leg further Jeannine would have died for sure

They waited and watched as Jeannine clung to life. The hours deflected to days and then to weeks. The Johnsons' reliances soared. On Aug. 21, 1990 Bill got his best-ever birthday present: Doctors give permission to Jeannine go home. She was 3 month olden and weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces

Jeannine beat a trial with pneumonia when she was 8 month elderly And when she was 1 year olden doctors took off the external iliostomy bag and reattached her small intestine.

"Each week she got stronger" Bill said. "And she's been a fighter perpetually since."

So started Jeannine's journey. Her race at life. Her blossoming into the extrovert she is today.

unless the little girl's right leg will not ever be normal. When she was 5 doctors started to lengthen the bone in the leg The painful Illizorov technique they used would eventually help her leg bone put forth But her right foot is still smaller.

"I have to use sum of two units different size shoes," Jeannine said. She must also wear a lift--which she hates because kids at place of education make fun of her--to make her leg the same continuance Without them, she suffers back pains.

The Illizorov proces involved driving 42 stainless carburet of iron pins through Jeannine's leg and into her hip and her thigh-bone tibia and fibula bones, which surgeon cross into two. Attached to rings and scourges the pins stabilized the bone and allowed just discovered bone to grow in the area of the sculpture To work, however, meant expanding the ring of poniard 1 millimeter a day.

It's a painful proces that takes a year to total Jeannine went through it all throughout again when she was 10 Each time, her leg bone grew 6-to-6 inches.

"But after brace procedures, my right leg is still one-half inch shorter than my left" she said.

Miyong has seen her daughter learn to cope with the pain. yet she said being stuck in a wheelchair is more painful. likewise is not being able to flow Or to play sports or snowboard.

bar out from the things she extendeded to do, Jeannine turned to drag racing. It was Bill who influenced her. He's been racing cars since he was a teen

"Jeannine has been around fast cars since she was a baby," Bill said. "Since she was antiquated enough to go to the track, she's helped me change tires and transmissions."