Jeannine's journey: gutsy 13-year-old puts pedal to the metal to overcome hardships

Airman, Oct, 2003 by Louis Arana-Barradas

In many ways, Jeannine Johnson is like most 13-year-old girls.

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

On the telephone, she'll blab for hours with girl-friends--or she'll trade secrets with her best friend. One moment she's building Web pages or surfing the Internet. The next, she's writing songs and poems. She loves penguins.

But 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 School in Puyallup, Wash., has endless energy. And it's not hard to tell, 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. But I want to do it the best I can, so I try hard."

Jeannine has always had to try harder because her young life, at first uncertain, has been full of pain. She's had to cope with hardship, but learned early to accept the cards life dealt her. So when she can, she does whatever it takes to live her life to the fullest.

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

A "preemie," Jeannine was born three and one-half months premature, with a perforated intestine. The gastrointestinal disease--necrotizing enterocolitis--mostly affects preemies. The infection destroys the intestine or a part of the bowel and kills a quarter of preemies born with it. So when she was just 14 days old, doctors removed 8 inches of her small intestine.

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

Tech. Sgt. Bill and Miyong Johnson feared the worse. But they never gave up hope. Their daughter weighed 1 pound, 10 ounces, and doctors at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital, Loma Linda, Calif., only gave her a 1 percent chance to live. But Bill and Miyong never left their daughter's side during the three months Jeannine was in intensive care.

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

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

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

A will to survive

But Jeannine fought to live. She beat a respiratory problem. However, during one of the five operations to ensure the attachment of her small intestine, a procedure cut off the blood circulation to her right leg. It damaged the growth plates in the bones of her leg, and the bones stopped growing. Doctors considered amputating her leg. But Jeannine would have died for sure.

They waited and watched as Jeannine clung to life. The hours turned to days and then to weeks. The Johnsons' hopes soared. On Aug. 21, 1990, Bill got his best-ever birthday present: Doctors let Jeannine go home. She was 3 months old and weighed 4 pounds, 12 ounces.

Jeannine beat a bout with pneumonia when she was 8 months old. And when she was 1 year old, 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 ever since."

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

But the little girl's right leg will never be normal. When she was 5, doctors started to lengthen the bones in the leg. The painful Illizorov technique they used would eventually help her leg bones grow. But her right foot is still smaller.

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

The Illizorov process involved driving 42 stainless steel pins through Jeannine's leg and into her hip and her femur, tibia and fibula bones, which surgeons cut into two. Attached to rings and rods, the pins stabilized the bones and allowed new bone to grow in the area of the cut. To work, however, meant expanding the ring of steel 1 millimeter a day.

It's a painful process that takes a year to complete. Jeannine went through it all over again when she was 10. Each time, her leg bones grew 6-to-6 inches.

"But after two 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. But she said being stuck in a wheelchair is more painful. So is not being able to run. Or to play sports or snowboard.

Shut out from the things she longed 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 old enough to go to the track, she's helped me change tires and transmissions."

Love struck

When Jeannine was 3, Bill and Miyong took her to a race where Bill was driving his Camaro. Jeannine saw a junior dragster. It was love at first sight.