John Michael is a senior at Trinity Prep School, an Under Armour South team selection and a D-1 Commit to Mercer.  He suffered a brain stem stroke, changing life for he and his family, friends, and teammates.  You can find previous coverage of John Michael here, here, and here. Five weeks ago today we arrived at the Shepherd Center.  Where did the time go?  The crazy thing is, I feel like so much of our day is waiting – waiting for the nurse, waiting for the therapist, waiting for a visitor, waiting for meds, waiting, waiting and more waiting.  Yet the days fly by!  Not sure how that happens.  In our waiting we are learning so much.  Patience hasn’t been our only lesson.  We are learning to let go of our desire to control so much of our lives.  We learning to trust – trust in the system here at Shepherd even when it doesn’t always make sense, trust in strangers bringing us meals and giving rides to and from the airport and most importantly trust God and His perfect timing.

We miss our life.  We miss our friends.  But life for us is forever changed.  You can not go through something like this and remain the same.  There are times when I am out and I listen to people and their conversations and I think, “Seriously, that’s your biggest problem of the day!”.  Now don’t get me wrong, I used to have those same “problems”, but if this has taught me anything, it’s to embrace those problems – thank God for them.  Even in JM’s situation, there is always someone who has it worse – hard to believe, but we see it everyday here.

As always JM’s spirit and attitude keep me going.  He has had his moments of sadness – the realization that he isn’t going to play his senior year.  But he turns that sadness into determination and works harder the next day.  He communicated through his letter board “Remember these words – I will walk at Graduation!”  Please continue to pray – it means everything to us! Prayer Request Continued strengthening of muscles in the esophagus  to aid in swallowing food Complete head control – he is so close The tremors – or clonus as it is called – that they would stop.  They want to give him medicine through the spine and we just are not comfortable with this Speech – that it would start to return.  He has said mom :) Dr., nurses and therapist – patience for them with us.  Think they might sometimes get annoyed at our persistence I thank God every day for all of you and everything that has been done and said on our behalf. Love to all! Vickie Night