FRANKLIN TWP. -- A California girl being cared for in New Jersey after being declared brain dead more than two years ago is "as healthy and beautiful as ever, proving the naysayers wrong," her family said last week in a Facebook post. 
 
 The post, which included a picture of 15-year-old Jahi McMath and her mother, Nailah Winkfield, was published on March 15 on the "Keep Jahi McMath on life support" Facebook page. 
 
 "Jahi as healthy and beautiful as ever, proving the naysayers wrong," the post reads. "A fighter, A warrior, A blessed child, Gods got your back little girl, keep fighting. Your testimony will be a great one. 
 
 "Prayers going up from many, all the prayers, good wishes combined with your mothers love for you which is pure and soothing will definitely keep you going. Stay blessed everyone and thank you for your prayers and love." 
 
 After entering UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital in Oakland in December 2013 for a routine tonsillectomy to correct her sleep apnea, McMath went into cardiac arrest and sustained massive, irreversible brain injuries. 
 
 Doctors later declared her brain dead and sought to turn off her life-support, but McMath's family ultimately obtained a restraining order preventing the hospital from terminating her life support. 
 
 Her family transported McMath in 2014 to New Jersey, because the state has a religious exemption for those who object to terminating medical support based on a brain death diagnosis. The family has been living in Franklin Township, Somerset County. 
 
 McMath's family is suing the hospital over the allegedly botched surgery and accusing officials of pressuring them to donate Jahi's organs. Winkfield, her mother, also has filed a federal lawsuit to get her daughter's death certificate declared void. 
 
 Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. ||||| OAKLAND, CA (FOX NEWS) - In her first public update in over three months, Jahi’s mother, Nailah Winkfield, released a photo on Facebook informing her followers of Jahi’s status, stating that she sees changes in her daughter that “Jahi as healthy and beautiful as ever, proving the naysayers wrong. A fighter, A warrior, A blessed child, Gods got your back little girl, keep fighting.” 
 
 In the letter, Winkfield also thanked everyone who had supported her as she fought to move her daughter to another medical facility. 
 
 “Your testimony will be a great one. Prayers going up from many, all the prayers, good wishes combined with your mothers love for you which is pure and soothing will definitely keep you going. Stay blessed everyone and thank you for your prayers and love.” 
 
 In January 2014, Jahi was at the center of an intense legal battle between her family and Children’s Hospital Oakland in California. Although experts at the hospital had declared Jahi brain dead, her family refused to have her removed from life support and fought to have her transferred to another hospital. After raising nearly $50,000 in private donations, the family eventually had Jahi moved to an unidentified long-term care facility. 
 
 Winkfield said that the intense media response surrounding her family’s legal struggle ultimately helped to raise awareness of Jahi’s condition. 
 
 “I also want to thank those who felt the need to go public with their opinions about me and my daughter, positive and even negative,” Winkfield wrote in previous Facebook update. “It is because of you that my daughter's experience is so relevant and that people all over the world know who Jahi Mcmath is. What you may not know is that her name, Jahi, means one who is known by many. Hopefully my daughter can change some of the ways brain death is viewed in today's society. Honestly, I think she already has.” 
 
 
 
 Many medical experts have argued that being brain dead essentially means being dead, and it may be just a matter of time before Jahi’s body functions shut down completely. 
 
 According to Dr. Paul Vespa, director of neurocritical care at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has no role in Jahi's care, brain-dead people may look like they're sleeping, but it's "an illusion based on advanced medical techniques." 
 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| In an exclusive interview, Jahi McMath's mother, Nailah Winkfield, talks about her daughter, who she says is "still asleep" and not brain dead. Here are some excerpts from that interview. (Published Thursday, March 27, 2014) 
 
 A little more than three months after doctors and the state of California declared a 13-year-old girl brain dead, the mother of Jahi McMath says her daughter's movements in bed are fueling her faith that she will one day recover. 
 
 In her first interview since Jahi McMath was transferred out of Children's Hospital Oakland to an unknown care facility, her mother said Jahi moves in her bed, bends at the waist, moves her head from side to side, gets her nails painted every Friday and has an "energy level that is way up." 
 
 "She's still asleep," Jahi's mother Nailah Winkfield of Oakland said in a satellite camera interview. "I don't use the word 'brain dead' for my daughter. I'm just waiting and faithful that she will have a recovery. She is blossoming into a teenager before my eyes." 
 
 Winkfield spoke exclusively to NBC Bay Area and NBC's affiliate in Philadelphia, where she was being honored Thursday night by the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network at the group's 2nd Annual Award Gala. The award is for a relative who protects "a loved one against overwhelming odds." Jahi's heart has continued to beat, and Winkfield appeared more upbeat and rested than she has in months. 
 
 Jahi McMath Declared Brain Dead After Tonsil Surgery 
 
 Winkfield first took her story public in December after Jahi was declared brain dead following tonsil, uvula and adenoid surgeries that went awry. But Winkfield and her family have shunned the cameras ever since they won a court order in January to have Jahi transferred from the hospital during a heated and publicized battle over patients' rights what constitutes the "end of life." 
 
 Winkfield told NBC Bay Area she decided to speak publicly on Thursday because she was thankful to be awarded for her struggles by a like-minded organization. Terri Schiavo's brother, Bobby Schindler, runs a nonprofit in memory of his late sister who was in a vegetative state for 15 years. His family waged a similar war against Schiavo's husband, who argued his wife had wanted to be taken off life support. Schiavo died in 2005. 
 
 "I feel really honored that I'm getting this award for saving my daughter's life," Winkfield said. "So I figured today would be a good day, because I'm in a better mood, I'm in better spirits today." 
 
 Winkfield is in better spirits because she said she witnesses her daughter moving about in her bed, describing the teen as "very responsive." Jahi is now moving her head side to side, something she hadn't done before, her mother said. 
 
 Jahi undergoes physical therapy three or four times a week, her mother said, and can bend at the waist, even if she can't sit up. Plus, her mom said that Jahi turns over in bed. 
 
 "No matter how many times you position her to the right or in the middle, she always ends up on the left side," Winfield said. "She will reposition herself over and over if she is uncomfortable." 
 
 Still, Winkfield said Jahi is unable to speak or squeeze her hand. Jahi is on a ventilator and is nourished through a feeding tube. Her mother gives her vitamins and fish oil herself "to feel useful." 
 
 Children’s Hospital doctors declined to comment on Winkfield’s interview and analyze what Jahi's movements might indicate. In court papers, Children’s Hospital Dr. Heidi Flori testified that Jahi’s brain stem, which controls all critical bodily functions, can not regulate “life sustaining functions over time” and that “aggressive medical intervention will not stop but only serve to slow post-mortem deterioration.” 
 
 In a phone interview on Thursday from the University of Washington where he is head of pediatric neurology, Dr. Sidney Gospe said he couldn't put a "whole lot of weight" into what Jahi's mother had to say about her movements without a neurological examination. "Someone with expertise would have to characterize those movements as either reflexes or something initiated by her cerebral cortex," he said. Gospe added that a ventillator has the ability to help maintain a patient's vital signs. Dr. Chris Feudtner at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia cited a study where 13 percent of the brain dead patients he studied spontaneously moved because of spinal cord neurons, including toe jerks, extensions at arms and shoulders and flexing of the arms and feet. These movements, the researchers wrote, "may certainly delay decision making...because of difficulties in convincing the family." 
 
 Winkfield, who left her job of 12 years at Home Depot to sit by Jahi's bedside, would not disclose where she and Jahi are staying, or who is paying for Jahi's care, because she wants things to remain "peaceful." 
 
 Jahi's mother said her daughter gets her nails painted every Friday. 
 
 "I don't want to discuss that," she said. 
 
 Winkfield said she has a place to stay outside of the care facility, but that she is mostly at the center, where she called the staff "angels." She acknowledged it's been very challenging to leave her other three children -- two daughters, ages 19 and 5, and an 11-year-old son -- at home without her. 
 
 "I definitely miss my other children," she said. "But my family is super supportive, so even though I'm gone, my children definitely understand why I'm gone, and they're definitely in agreement with me staying here to take care of their sister." 
 
 There are many who have criticized the family for keeping a brain-dead daughter on machines. 
 
 Winkfield, however, is paying those critics no mind. 
 
 She's too focused on spending her days caring for Jahi, giving her a manicure and pedicure every Friday, like she did at home. On St. Patrick's Day, she painted her daughter's toes and nails green with black and silver tips. 
 
 Winkfield also pores over case studies on people who have come out of deep comas, and she spends long hours reading the pages of the Bible, looking for hope and wisdom. 
 
 "Literally," Winfield said. "That's the only book I read." ||||| OAKLAND -- More than six weeks after her brain-dead daughter was moved from Children's Hospital Oakland to an undisclosed location, the mother of Jahi McMath broke her silence in a letter released Wednesday on Twitter. 
 
 The 13-year-old Oakland girl was declared brain-dead Dec. 12 after when she developed complications following a Dec. 9 tonsil, nose and throat surgery for sleep apnea and went into cardiac arrest. The case drew international attention as the family battled with hospital officials for weeks and then went to court, seeking to keep the girl on a ventilator and to have breathing and feeding tubes surgically inserted. 
 
 Nailah Winkfield reacts during a press conference organized by local clergy regarding her daughter, 13-year-old patient Jahi McMath, outside Children's Hospital Oakland on Sunday, Dec. 22, 2013, in Oakland, Calif. McMath, who doctors declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy, is being kept on life support until a court-appointed doctor can examine her. (D. Ross Cameron/Bay Area News Group) ( D. ROSS CAMERON ) 
 
 Weeks of negotiations and courtroom battles between the family's attorney and hospital officials finally yielded a deal to move the girl from the hospital. On Jan. 5, she was taken to an undisclosed out-of-state facility, where her family said she had remained on a ventilator. 
 
 Once Jahi was moved on Jan. 5, her family went silent. The letter, released by Jahi's uncle, Omari Sealey, through his Twitter account, thanks those who supported the family through donations and prayer during their ordeal. 
 
 "So many people have asked how we are doing and if Jahi is alive," wrote Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield. "This has and continues to be an unbelievably difficult time for me as a mother and for us as a family. 
 
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 "However, I have not been alone. I have been surrounded by the love, support and prayers of so many kind people. Despite what people say about my daughter being dead and how I must be ignorant not to get that, I can tell you that she is much better physically since she has left Children's Hospital and I see changes that give me hope." 
 
 Sealey declined to give specifics on Jahi's condition, or say where she is. 
 
 "(Jahi's mother) wanted me to get the letter out because there's been a lot of speculation," Sealey said. "There's been a lot of people, supporters, wanting to know what's going on. We want people to know (Jahi is) OK." 
 
 Multiple medical experts have repeatedly said no medical tools or procedures can bring Jahi back from brain death, and that organ failure is likely to occur at some point, even with Jahi on a ventilator and a feeding tube. 
 
 In the letter, Winkfield said it was because of supporters' "unselfish generosity" that she was able to move Jahi from Children's Hospital Oakland before doctors there removed her from her ventilator. Thousands of dollars in donations offset the cost of medical transportation to Jahi's new home. 
 
 "If I had it my way, I would say thank you to each and every person in their native language so they could understand how much I appreciate them for all their support and, most importantly, prayers," Winkfield wrote. 
 
 Contact Kristin J. Bender at kbender@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow her at Twitter.com/kjbender. ||||| The family of a California teen who was pronounced dead after a surgical complication two years ago has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking to have her death certificate revoked, CBS San Francisco reports. 
 
 Attorney Christopher Dolan said Wednesday that he and the family of Jahi McMath have spent much of the past year asking state and county officials to revoke the death certificate and declare her legally alive, with no success. The lawsuit names the state and various county officials as defendants and alleges that they are violating McMath's rights by refusing to consider evidence that she is alive, if severely brain injured. 
 
 The family says it has evidence that McMath does not meet the criteria for brain death, including the fact that she sometimes moves on command and that her body remains in good condition and has even entered puberty. They argue this evidence shows she should be declared alive. 
 
 "Nobody is saying Jahi is going to get up tomorrow and walk, but we're saying she deserves the same care as anyone else in California with a brain injury," Dolan said. "We want all of her rights restored to her so that she can come back to California." The girl is currently being cared for at a facility in New Jersey. 
 
 The lawsuit argues that the laws regarding brain death are unconstitutional because they do not provide any means for a finding of death to be challenged or reversed, according to Dolan. 
 
 McMath was declared brain dead on Dec. 12, 2013 at the age of 13 after developing complications from surgery for sleep apnea at UCSF Benioff Oakland Children's Hospital. 
 
 Her family rejected the decision and fought to keep her on life support. After a legal battle, they won permission to move her out of the hospital for continued care. Before they could move her, however, hospital officials required the family to get a death certificate from the Alameda County coroner. 
 
 McMath's mother, Nialah Winkfield, said she hopes the lawsuit will allow her to bring her daughter back home to California and obtain health insurance for her there. She moved Jahi to New Jersey because state law there recognizes a religious exemption to brain death findings and continues to recognize McMath as a living person for the purposes of obtaining health insurance. 
 
 "I want her to have the same rights as any other disabled person," Winkfield said, speaking by Skype to reporters in California. 
 
 Winkfield said it has been hard to be so far away from family and friends. She has been forced to give up her job, sell her house and tap her mother's resources to keep going. She no longer lives with her other two children, she said. 
 
 "I'm ready to come home," Winkfield said. 
 
 Dolan said he is providing his legal services to the family for free. 
 
 In March, the family also filed a medical malpractice suit against the hospital in Alameda County Superior Court. That case has a case management conference scheduled for Jan. 8. 
 
 Attempts to reach hospital officials for comment were unsuccessful.
– More than two years after she was declared brain dead, Jahi McMath is as "healthy and beautiful as ever" and is "proving naysayers wrong," according to family members. In a March 15 Facebook post on the "Keep Jahi McMath on life support" page, family members shared a recent photo of the girl, who is now 15, NJ.com reports. The post continued, per NJ.com, "A fighter, A warrior, A blessed child, Gods got your back little girl, keep fighting. Your testimony will be a great one." The post is no longer publicly accessible (the Facebook link returns the line: "The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you're not in"), and a fresh post to the page made late Sunday night asks anyone "here to spew your negative thoughts" to "remove yourself." The former Oakland, Calif., resident, who went into cardiac arrest after routine tonsil surgery in late 2013, has been on life support at a facility in New Jersey since early 2014. McMath's family—who moved to New Jersey because the state accommodates people who object to brain death declarations on religious grounds—has been seeking to have her death certificate revoked. Declaring her alive would allow them to move back to California, where she is considered legally dead, and would require insurance companies to cover the cost of her care. Fox 29 reports that in an earlier Facebook update, Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, thanked those who shared their opinions about the case, even negative ones. "Hopefully my daughter can change some of the ways brain death is viewed in today's society," she wrote. "Honestly, I think she already has."