A remarkable recovery from brain injury

"Woo-hoo!"

The beaming woman in the wheelchair lets go of the computer mouse and punches the air with her fist.

Michelle Martone revels in besting her mother and her therapist in a game designed to measure cognitive skills.

"She just beat two PhDs," Marilyn Martone, 66, says with a smile.

They all know it's much more than a game. It's another step toward a normal life for someone who had so much to give - and who came so close to losing it all.

Thirteen years ago, Michelle was a 21-year-old honor student at the University of Chicago with plans to become a psychologist. She was waiting at a bus stop outside her dormitory on Feb. 22, 1998, when her life changed in an instant.

A car driven by a 78-year-old woman jumped the curb and slammed into Michelle and several other students. She got the worst of it. Pinned under one of the car's wheels, she was dragged about 40 feet.

Michelle suffered extensive brain injuries and was unconscious when she made it to the emergency room. She was put on a ventilator and a feeding tube. The prognosis was grim.

After getting the call at her Sea Cliff home, Marilyn Martone rushed to the airport in a panic. During the flight to Chicago, she found herself strangely numb, mentally planning her daughter's funeral.

When she got to the hospital, nobody tried to convince her otherwise. During Michelle's eight months in a coma - her mother and other family members holding vigil - it was hard to be upbeat.

Every day, Martone remembers, the same thought entered her head: Today is the day she might die.

Five months after the accident, she said, doctors urged the family to consider taking Michelle off life support. Martone refused to give up hope.

Recovery begins

A few months later, Michelle defied the odds for the first time. She opened her eyes. She squeezed the hands of the visitors in her room.

But she was still in a sedated, vegetative state. The advice this time, Martone said, was to put her in a nursing home. Again, she refused.

"I knew I couldn't put a 21-year-old into a nursing home," she said. "And I'm convinced that if I did, she would have died."

Martone looks back at her daughter's recovery from her perspective as a health care ethics professor at St. John's University. She chronicled Michelle's care - and the complex emotions swirling around it - in a self-published book titled "Over the Waterfall." The book came out in January.

A brain-injured patient's most significant progress happens in the first six months, according to medical experts. The conventional wisdom is that patients who don't show that kind of improvement by then are unlikely to ever do so.

Dr. Elzbieta Wirkowski remembers her first appointment with Michelle eight years ago. The patient was in her wheelchair - unresponsive and unable to hold up her head. The vast majority of people in that condition, the doctor knew, would end up in an assisted-living facility.

Surprising strides

But a few months ago, the Long Island neurologist watched in amazement as Michelle, aided by her mother, rose from her chair and took a few steps.

"It was hard not to get emotional because I never would've thought she'd be able to to that," said Wirkowski, who has been practicing for 20 years. "I've never seen a recovery over such a span of time, from such a low baseline to a high function like this, in my entire career."

Martone stressed that every brain injury is different and she remains cautiously optimistic about her daughter's future.

"I want to give hope, but I don't want to give false hope," she said. "I don't want people to think that because she lived through this that everyone will . . . There are so many uncertainties."

Embracing life

Michelle, wearing a pale pink sweater, fidgets in her wheelchair.

She's spent the last half-hour repeating words to a key member of her treatment team, speech therapist Carol Manly.

"Horseback riding," Manly says.

"Hore-back riding."

"Come on, let me hear that S," Manly says, giving the patient's arm a nudge.

Michelle shoots the therapist an annoyed glance.

"Hor-SSSSS-back riding!" she declares.

There's a moment of silence, then the two break into laughter.

At their first meeting a decade ago, Michelle couldn't speak. Manly handed her a device that allowed her to type out her thoughts, but she pushed it away - determined to talk on her own.

It took a few years, but Michelle is now no longer afraid to begin conversations - even with strangers.

"My dad says I need 'be-quiet therapy,' " she joked.

At the age of 34, she walks with assistance but mainly uses a wheelchair because of balance problems. It hardly holds her back. She's chair-skied at Windham Mountain, ridden horses in Islandia and vacationed with her parents and three brothers.

Michelle lives in a small apartment her parents added to their home. She recognizes her achievements but refuses to be measured differently than anyone else her age.

"I'm proud, but I'm not overly proud," she said. "Even if I didn't have an accident, I could be better. A person could always be better."