[00:04.65]Eleven-year-old Angela was stricken with a debilitating disease involving her nervous system.
[00:10.54]She was unable to walk and her movement was restricted in other ways as well.
[00:15.98]The doctors did not hold out much hope of her ever recovering from this illness.
[00:21.21]They predicted she’d spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
[00:25.57]They said that few, if any, were able to come back to normal after contracting this disease.
[00:31.88]The little girl was undaunted.
[00:34.28]There, lying in her hospital bed, she would vow to anyone who’d listen that she was definitely going to be walking again someday.
[00:43.20]She was transferred to a specialized rehabilitation hospital in the San Francisco Bay area.
[00:50.72]Whatever therapies could be applied to her case were used.
[00:54.42]The therapists were charmed by her undefeatable spirit.
[00:58.02]They taught her about imaging — about seeing herself walking.
[01:02.92]If it would do nothing else, it would at least give her hope and something positive to do in the long waking hours in bed.
[01:11.73]Angela would work as hard as possible in physical therapy, in whirlpools and in exercise sessions.
[01:18.92]But she worked just as hard lying there faithfully doing her imaging, visualizing herself moving, moving, moving!
[01:28.18]One day, as she was using all her might to imagine her legs moving again, it seemed as though one miracle had happened:
[01:35.69]The bed moved! She screamed out, “Look what I’m doing! Look! Look! I can do it! I moved, I moved!”
[01:43.53]Of course, at this very moment everyone else in the hospital was screaming, too, and running for cover.
[01:50.82]People were screaming, equipment was falling and glass was breaking.
[01:54.66]You see, it was the recent San Francisco earthquake.
[01:59.03]But don’t tell that to Angela.
[02:01.44]She’s convinced that she did it.
[02:04.28]And now only a few years later, she’s back in school.
[02:08.22]You see, anyone who can shake the earth between San Francisco and Oakland can conquer a piddling little disease, can’t they?
