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Show Sunday, December A SPANAWAY, Wash. (AP) couple with three children stricken by a disease that causes blindness and early death have won a court battle to withhold ment, she could die any day. "I'm certain Barbara would not want to keep on living this way. We've all known this was coming for years," her mother said. Two sons, Edward, 24. and Jeffrey, 19, are blind and seriously disabled by the disease. Only one child, Joy, 16, is healthy. "People ask why we didn't quit having children when it became apparent they might have the disease," the mother says. "The trouble is, we didn't know. No diagnosis was made until after Joy was systems from their Volunteers guide a beached pilot whale into a small salt pond. v MOSS LANDING. Calif. (AP) An unusual, months-lon- g blue whale invasion of Monterey Bay has given researchers a rare look tures. at Earth's largest close-u- p crea- As many as three dozen blue whales frolicked in the bay, an appearance traced by California State University's Moss Landing Marine Laboratory to unusual behavior by krill, tiny shrimp-lik-e crustaceans which are the favored food of the blue whale. But how the whales located the thick shoals of krill and why the krill swarmed near the bay's surface the past few months remain mysteries. "Nothing really has been done in at Monterey the field like this where somebody's quantified the prey and related the whales to it," said graduate student Jill Schoonherr. "We decided, hey, this is a really unique opportunity. We can go out and see these blue whales and we can get some quantitative data on them, which is real unusual." There are only about 11.000 blue whales left in the world, 9,000 of them native to the Southern Hemisphere and the rest to the Northern. Whales from the two hemispheres can't interbreed because their breeding cycles don't match. Blue whales normally travel so far offshore that they're difficult to study. And their annual migration - Page 23 Family wins fight fo turn life support ff J1 Blue whales stay - THE HERALD, Provo. Utah, 7. 1986 patterns carry them away from the Monterey area by the first of November. This year, the pattern of migration from Mexico and Alaska was altered. The whales stayed in the area from early September and a few through remained into December. daughter. Her two brothers, already blind, say they agree with the slate Supreme Court decision, although it brings home dramatically the limited time they have left. "I felt a sense of relief when the court made its ruling," said Judith Grant, whose daughter, Barbara, and two sons suffer from Batten's disease, a rare ailment caused by faulty metabolism of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The disease begins with blindness at about age 6. As it progresses, children become bedridden and demented, and it is always fatal, said Linda Cook, spokeswoman for the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke in Bethesda. Md. She said Batten's disease strikes two or three people in every 100,000 worldwide, but only when both parents carry the gene. Barbara. 22, lies and stares at the ceiling in her room at Rainier School, a state institution for the developmentally disabled. Doctors say without the equip born. "When they were toddlers, the children were all normal. They were always tearing around, getting into things. It was fun to watch them grow, to hear them learn to talk." But the eldest children began bumping into things long before school age. Doctors rt The marine lab students prowled the bay in a boat nearly every day, using depth sounders and nets to study the krill swarms. Schoonherr compared the locations of the krill to the areas where the whales were concentrated and found the whales somehow were homing in on whatever depth the krill inhabited. initially thought they might have retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive form of blindness. "When the proper diagnosis finally was made in each of the children, they all took it as hard as we did," Mrs. Grant said. "There was anger. They asked, "Why me?' "We decided to treat them as normal kids. We got some Bible tapes. The kids played them over and over, and they said. 'Maybe dying won't be so bad.' "Now even Jeffrey, the youngest (of those stricken), will sit at the dinner table and talk about death. He'll say, 'I'll go to heaven one of these days and get a new body.' But first he'd like girlfriends. And we don't tell him that he never will." When Barbara had a severe seizure last year, she was given car- diopulmonary resuscitation at Rainier School and then sent to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and put on a system. She was not lifeless she could still swallow liquid food, but Barbara had taken a massive step backward, Mrs. Grant said. Judith Grant and her husband, Gary, then asked a Catholic priest at Rainier School if it would be Christian to consider withholding life support and tube feeding if Barbara had another seizure. The priest said he would support their decision. The Grants then went to Pierce County Superior Court, where a judge denied their request. They life-suppo- rt appealed to the state Supreme Court, which on Nov. 21 reversed the lower court's decision, allowing Barbara to be taken off life sup- j port: ot Albettsons IS 2 Liter Pepsi Regular, Diet, Slice & Diet Slice inh 2 liter LIMIT FREE Wedding Ring FREE GOLD CHAINS I TOl ffifo PLEASE lozed Doouvs i - Get the wedding ring when you pur? chase an engage 2 Reg. 2.29 Dozen - ' ' ta k , r L71 St. (o ment ring. each LIMIT 2 DOZEN PLEASE rapes Red Emperors U.S. No. I 1 If Fresh CrecHitf AS HASY AS 1, Never Had Credit? 2, 3 me,.. We'll 3 I I lb. r Kraft Get You Started! AMERICAN; , m I r C v)(o)l Singles Reg. 2.98 SjCHtESEFOOD WE WELCOME STUDENT 16oz. ACCOUNTS Limit Coupon Effective Come in and see how to get 2,000 instant Credit. Dec. 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