FILE - 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. Copeland is refusing to take pain... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - 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. Copeland is refusing to take pain... (Associated Press) 
 
 A Georgia woman fighting a flesh-eating disease is refusing to take pain medications during some procedures, partly because of her personal convictions, her father said. 
 
 Aimee Copeland despises the use of morphine in her treatment, despite its effectiveness at blocking her pain, her father said in a Friday online update on his daughter's condition. Her graduate-school study of holistic pain management techniques leads her to feel she's a "traitor to her convictions" when she uses drugs to manage her pain, Andy Copeland said. 
 
 He also said the morphine has been making his daughter groggy, confused and has given her unpleasant hallucinatory episodes. 
 
 Aimee Copeland, 24, developed necrotizing fasciitis after cutting her leg in a fall May 1 from a homemade zip line over a west Georgia river. Her left leg, other foot and both hands have been amputated. 
 
 On Tuesday, Copeland's condition was upgraded from critical to serious, "a major victory that cannot and should not be diminished," Andy Copeland wrote Friday on his blog, where he has been providing regular updates on her progress. The development came shortly after Aimee Copeland had her first successful skin graft. 
 
 "The area of her wound, which I saw for the first time on Sunday during a dressing change, is massive," her father wrote in Friday's update. 
 
 "The nurse who completed Aimee's dressing change was astonished at Aimee's insistence to avoid morphine during the procedure, as was her mother and I," he wrote. "I know the pain was significant, but Aimee's courage is greater." 
 
 The bacteria that attacked Aimee Copeland's wound releases a toxin that destroys skin, muscle and a layer of tissue below the skin known as fascia, her father says. 
 
 Despite the painful skin grafts, Aimee Copeland has crossed several milestones in recent weeks. She can breathe on her own, she no longer needs dialysis and she's now able to eat on her own, her father wrote. Although her major organs are all functioning well, Aimee Copeland still needs supplemental nutrition through a stomach tube. 
 
 This weekend, thousands of people are expected at a long-planned fund-raising event outside Atlanta to help the family with medical expenses. The two-day benefit concert in Aimee Copeland's hometown of Snellville begins at 5 p.m. Friday and continues through Saturday night. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Online: 
 
 http://aimeecopeland.com/ ||||| Sunday, May 27, 2012 
 
 AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Aimee Copeland has spoken her first words since being admitted to the hospital at the beginning of May. 
 
 Her father, Andy Copeland, wrote this on Aimee's blog: 
 
 "Today…May 27……is AIMEE DAY!!! 
 
 Sunday, Aimee has finally spoken her first words. I will follow with details tonight." 
 
 Aimee, a 24-year-old graduate student, acquired necrotizing faciitis after falling from a zipline and cutting her leg on May 1. 
 
 The family had been looking forward to "Aime Day," a nickname for the day when she'd be able to breathe on her own. 
 
 Her family is really trying to keep the positive energy up and says Aimee is still not aware of the national attention she is getting. 
 
 She is aware of the blood drives, her father's big push since the beginning of this whole ordeal. They said Aimee was amazed by the amount of blood donations they have already received. 
 
 To keep up with Aimee's progress, you can follow her blog here. ||||| (CNN) -- A South Carolina woman undergoing treatment for infection with a rare case of "flesh-eating" bacteria was in critical but stable condition Thursday at Greenville Memorial Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. 
 
 Lana Kuykendall, 36, "underwent her fifth debridement surgery to remove necrotic, or dead, tissue from her lower leg," said Sandy Dees, senior media relations coordinator for Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center, in a news release. 
 
 Kuykendall was admitted and diagnosed last Friday with necrotizing fasciitis, the release said. 
 
 A team of surgeons, critical-care physicians and infection disease specialists was monitoring her condition, which is typically managed by surgery, antibiotics and aggressive supportive care, it said. 
 
 "She remains very ill but stable," Dr. Bill Kelly, the hospital epidemiologist, said in the release. 
 
 Kuykendall was healthy when she gave birth to twins on May 7 in Atlanta but went to the hospital near her home in South Carolina a few days later after noticing a rapidly expanding bruise on her leg, her husband, Darren, told CNN on Wednesday. Doctors there removed dead skin and tissue from her legs and she was put on a ventilator, he said. 
 
 Kuykendall is a nurse and paramedic; her husband is a firefighter. The twins are healthy, he said. 
 
 A two-hour drive south of Greenville, in Augusta, Georgia, 24-year-old Aimee Copeland was battling similarly aggressive bacteria on Thursday. Doctors have amputated one of her legs and surgically removed part of her abdomen. Her father, Andy Copeland, told CNN on Wednesday that her fingers, too, will have to be amputated. 
 
 Still, "Aimee continues to be in good spirits," said a blog posted on the website of the Psychology Department at the University of West Georgia, where Aimee Copeland is a graduate student. 
 
 "Two major medical developments today for Aimee," it said. "Those will be announced later today once Andy has the opportunity to type them out. Stay tuned." 
 
 Copeland contracted the flesh-devouring bacteria Aeromonas hydrophila when she fell May 1 from a homemade zip line that broke and cut her leg. The gash required 22 staples. Days later, still in pain, she went to the Augusta hospital, where doctors diagnosed her with necrotizing fasciitis. 
 
 The psychology student is on a ventilator and has undergone a tracheotomy. 
 
 Flesh-eating bacteria explained 
 
 A number of bacteria can cause the condition, which attacks and destroys healthy tissue and is fatal about 20% of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 
 
 The bacteria are common in the environment but rarely cause an infection; when they do, the body's immune system is almost always able to fight them off, according to experts. 
 
 Occasionally, however, the bacteria find their way into the bloodstream -- either through a cut or an abrasion. 
 
 In such cases, doctors move aggressively, excising even healthy tissue near the infection site to ensure none of the dangerous bacteria remain. 
 
 Necrotizing fasciitis is rare. Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, estimated in a telephone interview on Wednesday that fewer than 250 cases occur each year in the United States, though such estimates are imprecise since doctors do not have to report the cases to health authorities. 
 
 CNN's Melissa Gray contributed to this report
– For the first time in nearly a month, flesh-eating bacteria sufferer Aimee Copeland has graduated from mouthing words to actually speaking, reports WRDW. "Today…May 27……is AIMEE DAY!!!" her father blogged yesterday; her family has been using the phrase to refer to the day she would be capable of breathing independently, which happened last week. "Our baby can talk," writes Andy Copeland, who adds that Aimee still doesn't know her case is garnering national press.