Amanda released from hospital
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Two-year old Amanda Runyon is looking forward to getting the cast off her right leg and playing. After what she's been through, that's truly remarkable.
After being hospitalized for 17 days, Amanda Runyon went home Friday afternoon. She was released from Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis after she went two days without needing pain medication and three days after eating solid food and keeping it down.
The little girl was beaten by her mother's boyfriend, Kraig Monroe, 24, at a trailer he occupied without a permit near Belleville. Today, he sits in the St. Clair County Jail, charged with aggravated battery to a child.
The mother, Dawn Obptande, 25, was not charged, but a protection order has been issued preventing her from coming in contact with Amanda.
The Department of Children and Family Services had been warned about Amanda's dangerous predicament twice since 2008 and failed to take proper precautions to protect her.
Amanda had to have a foot and a half of her intestines, damaged by the beating, removed. Doctors had originally feared she'd need a feeding tube for the rest of her life, but the surgeon who operated on her, Dr. Tarun Kumar, said he didn't think there'd be any long-term damage.
The child is also mending from a broken right leg, which had been left untreated until reported to authorities by a daycare center worker, approximately one week before the beating.
She had been on a breathing machine for six days after undergoing surgery and she was listed in critical condition for almost two weeks.
Amanda's father, Eddie Runyon, 23, a Coulterville native, who now lives and works as a coal miner in Kentucky, has stayed with Amanda through her long hospital stay. He said she's doing fine physically, but she's not her lively self yet. She's somewhat fearful of strangers, but she smiles more each day.
He said he is seeking custody of his daughter. If it's awarded, he will take the girl to live with him in his home in Kentucky. His mother Linda Ford of New Athens said she may move there with them.