Eye On Health

Surgeons successfully removed half of 6-year-old Jessie Hall's brain on Wednesday in Baltimore and she rested in a drug-induced coma overnight. This morning, her parents said she blinked her eyes a bit today and squeezed her mother's hand.

This movement was unexpected as medical personnel told the Hall Family the Aledo girl might have temporary paralysis after the surgery.

"We are still seeing a bit of movement in her left hand which is totally unexpected! Not much movement in her leg, yet," her dad, Cris, wrote on their blog Thursday morning.

"She needs lots more rest. Her head is still constrained so that the surgery side is up. This allows the cavity to fill with cerebral spinal fluid which serves as a brain cushion."

Her parents traveled to at Johns Hopkins Hospital  to for the surgery in an effort to save her from a rare neurological disease called Rasmussen's encephalitis.

Last night, the Hall family wrote: "We cried, prayed and celebrated with ALL of you right beside us. We read all of your comments throughout the day and felt truly blessed by God through your support."

Dr. Ben Carson, a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, performed the surgery that removed the diseased right side of the 6-year-old's brain.

Before the 8-hour procedure, Jessie hugged her grandparents who also had traveled from Texas and smiled with doctors and nurses as they walked with her down the hall to the operating room.

Doctors removed the temporal lobe and sent it to testing to make sure the diagnosis of Rasmussen's encephalitis was correct. Jessie's parents gave permission to use that portion of her brain for testing.