Local media helps spotlight John Michael Night's story

It was a Monday morning, the last full day of school at Trinity Prep before final exams and Christmas break. That's when the pain started. John Michael Night didn't want to interrupt the teacher, so he sent a text to his mom.

"HELP," he typed. "I don't know what's going on."

Two weeks earlier, the popular star of Trinity's lacrosse team had been awarded an athletic and academic scholarship to Georgia's Mercer University, one of the South's top colleges. But in class that morning, the 17-year-old senior felt like it was all he could do to sit up. His head screamed. His vision blurred. Sound grew distorted.

He thought he might pass out.

In the epicenter of his brain, John Michael Night was having a stroke

Within 24 hours, he would be unable to move anything but his eyes, though he would be fully alert and able to feel every sensation. It's called "locked-in syndrome."

It's like being buried alive.

"At first, it was devastating to see him like that," says Jake Moll, a classmate who made daily visits to John Michael in the ICU. "We all wake up every day and can't believe it's not a nightmare. But then you realize he's still John Michael, so we just started messing with him like we always do, joking about his hair."

"The flow," they call it — hair with a perfect wave and thickness.

"Dude, you're going to need to get that hair cut," his friends taunted.

It was a moment of normalcy in a world turned suddenly, bizarrely, tragically upside-down. And though in the month since the stroke there have been signs of recovery, no one can say yet if or when that world will ever right itself.

A brainstem stroke is a rare thing, says Dr. James Baumgartner, a pediatric neurosurgeon for Florida Hospital, where John Michael was diagnosed on his third day in the intensive care unit. It is particularly rare in a young adult.

"And he's a phenomenally healthy young adult," Baumgartner adds. "All we know is that there was some kind of injury" — maybe a wayward lacrosse stick, maybe something else entirely.

After John Michael's frantic text to his mom on Dec. 14, his parents rushed to pick him up from school and took him immediately to the emergency room. At first, doctors assumed it was a bad case of vertigo and were prepared to discharge him.

But a nurse wasn't so sure.

"John Michael, can I just get you to sign your name?" she asked. He couldn't. As his body continued to shut down, he was losing coordination.

His parents were terrified.

"You can't even think straight," says his dad, Mick Night, a Winter Park real-estate broker. "You hear things from the doctors and you say to yourself: 'Did I hear right?' So many different parts of your mind are spinning."

A family friend and neighbor, whose son has grown up with John Michael since the boys were 4, stayed by their side to help them fathom the unimaginable.

"We're talking about a kid who is personable, good-looking, tons of friends, funny, competitive, athletic," says the friend, Scott Levitt of Winter Park, a former competitive cyclist. "As an athlete, what I've always admired about him is his work ethic. It's not that everything came easy to him, but he worked so hard to earn it. He would train and train and train."

For 22 days, through Christmas and then New Year's, John Michael did not leave the ICU. His parents took only short breaks from their vigil. Either Levitt or his wife stayed, too. John Michael's older sister, 21-year-old Ryan, a senior atFlorida State University, and his younger brother, 10-year-old Ben, a fifth-grader at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School, stayed until classes resumed — and then left under protest.

They were part of the parade of visitors.

"The lady at the front desk was like, 'This kid must be something special. There are 20 people trying to get in to see him,'" says Moll, the classmate at Trinity Prep.

The private Christian school, with its enrollment of 860 students, is more like an extended family than an institution. Incoming sixth-graders are paired with "big brothers" and "big sisters" from the upper grades. Classmates followed daily updates.

Levitt realized early on that John Michael needed a way to express whether he was cold, hot, hungry, in pain or wanting to watch TV, listen to music or be left alone. He found rudimentary charts of letters, words and phrases on the Internet and printed them out on thin sheets of paper. Then he held them in front of John Michael as he watched from the opposite side to see where the teen's eyes landed. He blinks for confirmation. At first, John Michael spelled out words, then he used the word sheets to put together sentences. It is glacially slow.

"Am I going to die?" John Michael asked.

"Yes," Levitt answered, "and so am I and so are your parents and so is everyone else. But I don't think you're going to die of this."

The doctor was equally forthright.

"When his parents asked about his prognosis, I told them, 'I have no idea,'" Baumgartner says. "He could stay exactly as he is, or he could make a complete — or near complete — recovery. Everything's on the table."

Mick Night and his wife, Vickie, say the family's faith is the only hope they hold onto.

"God has a path for him," Mick says. "I couldn't get by, day to day, if I didn't believe that."

On Jan. 5, doctors transferred the one-time varsity MVP to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which provides intensive rehabilitation for patients with spinal-cord injuries, brain trauma and neuromuscular disorders. Doctors don't know how long he'll be there, but it is likely to be at least several months.

Meanwhile, in Winter Park and beyond, a mushrooming support network has begun to emerge, thanks to social media and an online Caring Bridge blog by Levitt, who is trying to raise money for catastrophic medical bills. Though Mick and Vickie Night have a decent income and health insurance, out-of-pocket expenses will almost certainly run into the millions, Levitt says.

His own son, Zakry Levitt, 18, is selling wrist bands and T-shirts through a Facebook page, JM Strong, one of several devoted to John Michael. So far he has raised over $10,000.

"He's one of my best friends," Zakry says. "I just want to tell him everything will be OK."

At Trinity Prep, classmates held prayer vigils and shot a video, posting it online so John Michael could watch. Friends, neighbors and school officials have tied purple ribbons — signs of hope — around trees. The Mercer men's lacrosse team visited the Shepherd Center and will pitch in for an upcoming benefit.

So far, donors have raised about $300,000. Quite possibly, it will be a fraction of what's needed.

"You wouldn't wish this on anybody, but especially not him," says Rita Kienle, who teaches and coaches girls' lacrosse at Trinity. "He is a kind, smart, academically talented, hard-working kid with a passion for the game. He's such a beautiful player to watch."

Moll and two friends have a 6 a.m. flight Sunday to see John Michael in Atlanta. His mother has not left his side. His father returned to Orlando only to work for a few days before flying back to Atlanta. It will be his new normal.

"I know I'm biased about my son, but when he was at Florida Hospital in the days before we left for Shepherd Center, the pastor from Trinity Prep came in and asked him, 'John Michael, is there anything in particular you want me to pray for?'" Mick Night says. "And John Michael spelled out 'patience.' I mean, what kind of kid says that as he lies there unable to do anything but blink?"

Since the stroke, John Michael has regained the ability to make sound — a sort of guttural laugh when he's amused or excited — and just this week, he moved one hand.

As tiny as those steps are, they are also huge. Some people never recover from a brainstem stroke. Some die from complications. Others regain only partial function. A few make it all the way back.

"I know this is going to be another one of John Michael's miracles," his father says. "I see him willing himself to communicate. He's willing his mouth to move. He's willing his hand to move. He's a long way from being able to walk and talk, but we can see he is making progress."