Faith Hoenstine with her sister Julie. (Family photo) | ZOOM |

        A gravely ill teen-ager who didn't die is being plagued by a misleading Internet message that won't die. In short, Faith Hoenstine is becoming an urban legend.

        The 15-year-old Imler, Pa., girl received skin grafts last year at Cincinnati's Shriners Burns Hospital after a bacterial infection forced surgeons in Pittsburgh to amputate both legs above the knees, her left arm above the elbow, and the fingers and most of the thumb on her right hand.

        Someone — possibly a well-wisher from her western Pennsylvania hometown — initiated an Internet campaign to get her enough cards last Christmas to make the Guinness Book of Records.

        Faith and her parents didn't ask for them and don't want them, but — like brooms in Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice — cards keep coming, down from a mid-2001 weekly peak of 50,000 to 10,000.

        “We'd like this to stop,” said her father, Donald.

ON THE WEB

www.snopes.com, the urban legends Web site, has a report on Faith and other gravely ill children who are subjects of misleading Internet messages.

        In a recent telephone interview, Faith said, “It's nice that they do this, but I'd sooner have them spend that money that they spend on stamps and cards on a worthwhile charity.”

        “A 9-year-old girl who lives in Cincinnati is suffering from cancer. They had to amputate her arms and legs because of bone cancer. Prognosis is not good. She heard of a boy who made the Guinness Book of Records for having received thousands of cards. She would like to beat the record. If you feel in your heart to participate, please mail a Christmas card to her.”

        Then it gave Faith's name and the Shriners address in Clifton.

        Faith's father had not seen that version but it was familiar: Faith's name, four amputations, the hospital. It also contained the most common mistake: She did not have cancer.

        Faith began getting 15 to 20 cards a day when she was recovering from surgery in May 2000 at Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital.

        When she was transferred a few weeks later to Shriners in Clifton, cards began arriving “by the bucket load,” hospital Administrator Ron Hitzler said.

FAITH'S DISEASE

Faith's troubles began in May 2000, with fever and cramps.   When dark spots appeared on her skin, the Imler, Pa., girl's parents took her to Nason Hospital emergency room in nearby Roaring Springs, Pa.   The physician suspected Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but called Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh and set off alarms. There, physicians suspected deadly meningococcemia and purpura fulminans, told their rural colleague what antibiotics to give, and fetched Faith by helicopter.   “She was the sickest that ever survived that disease that they had seen,” said her father, Donald Hoenstine.   The 15-year-old's surgeons contacted Cincinnati's Shriners Burns Hospital because of its expertise in skin grafts.

        It didn't end when her father, a disabled railroad worker, and mother, Sandra, an elementary school teacher, took Faith home in November 2000.

        The Hoenstines usually walk the quarter-mile to pick up their mail at home, but the local postmaster told them he'd deliver it.

        “Up backs this big truck,” Mr. Hoenstine recalled, and cards filled much of the garage. “It took us several months to go through it.”

        Before long, the Postal Service began forwarding cards directly to Faith, much to the hospital staff's relief.

        “We've never had anything like this,” Cincinnati postal spokeswoman Kim Kane said. “Somebody tried to do a good thing and it got out of hand.”

        The current e-mail recalls the 1989 appeal on behalf of Craig Shergold, a 9-year-old Briton who did want cards and did want to get into the Guinness Book of Records before he died.

        Craig received 16 million cards by 1990 and his wish came true, according to www.snopes.com. However, Mr. Shergold survived brain tumor surgery in March 1991, and is now in his 20s.

        Still, as with any good urban legend, several versions of the Craig Shergold appeal still circulate, and almost every one of them now asks for business cards, not greeting cards.

        Today, Faith receives about 10,000 pieces of mail per week. Someone in the extended family opens and reads every card and letter, Mr. Hoenstine said, and they try to answer those that ask for updates.

        Among the millions of well-wishers were former Presidents Clinton and Carter.

        A few cards contain money, as much as $20. Mr. Hoenstine said a trust has been created for Faith, possibly enough for a year in college. Meanwhile, she has returned in an electric wheelchair to Chestnut Ridge High School in nearby Fishertown, Pa., as a sophomore.

        Faith is being fitted with prostheses at a hospital in Erie, Pa.

        “I'm really cheerful,” she said. “I have nothing to feel bad about. There are people in worse situations. I try not to feel bad about myself.”

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