HOBART | When she woke with leg pains last fall, Hobart Middle School eighth-grader Christine Smith blamed it on a rigorous cheerleading practice, her mother said.

Later, when Christine collapsed at school, Mary Smith knew that her always on-the-go daughter had something that was more serious.

"She had no movement from the waist down," Smith said.

Christine was taken to Comer's Children's Hospital in Chicago, where she was diagnosed with acute transverse myelitis, a virus that attacks the lining around the spinal cord and disrupts the messages to the nerves that allow movement.

To help the family with medical expenses, the family's church, Trinity Lutheran Church, and Thrivent Financial are sponsoring an Italian dinner and auction from noon to 7 p.m. Sunday at Trinity Lutheran, 900 Luther Drive.

Since the diagnosis in November, Christine continues to make progress, thanks to therapy she undergoes five days a week in Munster, Smith said.

"She has all her movement back. We now have to wait for her nerves to heal and for her to get strength in her legs," she said.

Christine continues to attend school one-half day then goes to therapy the other half, she said.

She also is being home schooled in some of her classes, she said.

Smith said it has been a difficult adjustment for her daughter, the youngest of three, who always has been active and outgoing.

"When it happened she was in the midst of a National Pop Warner Cheerleading competition," she said.

Christine, who was using a wheelchair to get around, just recently was able to walk with the help of a walker.

"We're praying for a complete recovery and the doctors think so as well," she said.

Although the experience has been a bad one for her daughter and family, there also has been some good.

She likens the experience to the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," in which the friends and family of George Bailey rally around him after bad times.

"The way our church and the community has come together to help her and us is unbelievable. ... I feel like I'm in a dream. The money is wonderful because there's medical bills but the prayers are the most important to us," she said.