Father: Ga. woman with flesh-eating bug wants book

This undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting to survive a flesh-eating bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate most of her left leg. They warned she would likely lose her other foot and both hands. (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

This undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting to survive a flesh-eating bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate most of her left leg. They warned she would likely lose her other foot and both hands. (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

This undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland. the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student is fighting to survive a flesh-eating bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate most of her left leg. They warned she would likely lose her other foot and both hands. (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

This image provided by UTMB-Galveston shows a scanning electron microscopic image of WT (wild type) Aeromonas hydrophila strain SSU, the bacteria responsible for the flesh-eating disease that is usually caused by a strep germ. Georgia grad student Aimee Copeland is fighting a life-threatening flesh-eating disease, and doctors are calling her case very rare. The infection occurred after she gashed her leg in a Georgia river May 1, 2012, after a zip line accident. (AP Photo/UTMB-Galveston, Ashok K. Chopra, Ph.D., and Dr. Leon Bromberg)

An undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland, the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student fighting to survive a flesh-eating bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate most of her left leg. They warned she would likely lose her other foot and both hands. (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

This undated photo provided by the family shows Aimee Copeland. the 24-year-old Georgia graduate student is fighting to survive a flesh-eating bacterial infection that forced doctors to amputate most of her left leg. They warned she would likely lose her other foot and both hands. (AP Photo/Copeland Family)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) ? A Georgia woman fighting a rare flesh-eating disease is alert and bored enough to ask her family for a book.

Aimee Copeland's request comes just a week after doctors gave her little chance of survival.

Her father said Tuesday his daughter is still breathing on a respirator but is improving more rapidly than expected. He says the 24-year-old graduate student faces months of recovery at an Augusta hospital. She was taken there after she got an infection in a cut she suffered when a zip line snapped over a river.

Andy Copeland tells The Associated Press doctors still believe they will have to amputate his daughter's fingers, though they think they can save her palms and her right foot. She has already lost most of her left leg.

Associated Press

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