Manitoba reeve learning to walk again after 3 months in coma with West Nile virus

After surviving a third brush with death, John (Lucky) Hughes figures he deserves the nickname his fellow firefighters gave him shortly after he joined the volunteer department in Roland, Man., 26 years ago.

Shortly after Hughes and his wifeMary-Loumoved to the rural community about 80 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, he told his fellow firefighters about his misfortunes. There was hislife-saving kidney transplant using an organ donated by his brother (Hughes was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 10),and a motorcycle crash that left him blind in one eye and walking with a steel rod in one leg.

"I was going on and on about all these things that have gone on with me, and [a firefighter] goes ... 'You remind of a three-legged, blind dog with one testicle I'm going to call you Lucky,' and that's how my name came about," said Hughes, laughing.

His third near-death experience was still to come, brought by a mosquito bite in August 2016 that gave him West Nile virus and put him in a coma for more than three months.

"If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all, really," he said.

John Hughes recalls life-threatening battle with West Nile

7 years ago

Duration 2:39

John Hughes speaks with CBC's Janet Stewart about how a mosquito bite put him in a coma for more than three months and nearly cost him his life

Hughes, who retired from the fire department after 17 years and is now the reeve of the rural municipality of Roland, is attending council meetings again and relearning to walk as he continues to recover from the virus that forced him out of his home for 13 months.

In early September 2016, Hughes started having flu-like symptoms concerning for a diabetic living with someone else's kidney so he and Mary-Lou decided to head the hospital in Winnipeg for a checkup if he didn't feel any better after a good night's rest.

When he woke up, he couldn't move his legs.

Mary-Lou dragged him to the car and when they got to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, he was triaged within minutes and quickly admitted. A neurological team started a battery of tests.

"The staff right away must have thought something pretty serious was up," said Mary-Lou.

Although her husband was conscious and talking the whole time, he doesn't remember any of it now.

"The last thing he remembers is telling me he couldn't move his legs," Mary-Lou said.

Doctors performed a spinal tap, or lumbar puncture, the next day.

Then 48 hours later, early on Sept. 11, he was moved to Health Sciences Centre's intensive care unit: Doctors had confirmed he had West Nile Virus.

It was four months before Mary-Lou heard him speak again.

Rarest of cases

West Nile Virus is transmitted by Culex tarsalis mosquitoes, which pick it up by feeding on infected birds, most people bitten by a virus-carrying mosquito 80 per cent won't develop any symptoms at all, U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention information says.

About one in five people who get West Nile virus develop a fever with symptoms that can include a headache, body aches, joint pain, vomiting, diarrhea and a rash.

In the rarest cases about one in every 150 infected people the patient develops a severe illness affecting the central nervous system, such as encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) or meningitis (inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord).

Hughes developed both encephalitis and meningitis and slipped deeper and deeper into a coma.

He was taken off his anti-rejection medication "because we wanted to save his life rather than his kidney at that point," said Mary-Lou, who took the first three weeks after her husband fell ill off work so she could make the 1.5 hour drive from Roland to Winnipeg to see him every day.

Even after she returned to work and for the entirety of what turned out to be a four-month-long coma, Mary-Lou drove into the city every day to be with her husband.

"Each night, when we would say goodnight, he would squeeze my hand and when he started getting more and more awake, he would mouth the words 'I love you,' and I wouldn't leave until he would say it," she said. "He would mouth the words to me so I would know he was there, thinking of me every night, as I was him.

"We've been together for 32 years, married for 27, and we've been to hell and back."

The complications he suffered included pneumonia and gallbladder issues, but Mary-Lou said she never lost faith that her husband eventually would get better.

Gradually, day by day, Hughes did just that.

He was still completely paralyzed, breathing through a tube and not able to speak or eat on his own, but by the time family gathered at the hospital to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 23, 2016, he was awake.

He'd turned 52 while he was in the coma.

"I woke up to Donald Trump being elected which I cannot believe and I woke up missing a birthday, and they also discontinued the Whistle Dog at A&W, so I had three tragedies," he said with a chuckle.

Hughes was one of 24 people who were diagnosed with West Nile in 2016, say numbers from the province of Manitoba. Of those patients, one died, a provincial spokesperson said.

"I'm one of the luckier ones," Hughes said.

By March 2017, Hughes could eat, move his left hand and his head back and forth and was talking on his own.

He was moved to the Health Sciences Centre rehabilitation ward, where he worked on relearning how to move.

He finally was allowed to go home to Roland on Oct. 6 still reeve of the rural municipality he had left 13 months earlier, after unanimous council votes to keep him in the post every three months while he was away.

He hasn't missed one of the monthly council meetings since.

"They stood behind me, and my community stood by me, and my family," he said. "I'm a very lucky guy."

Now, with the help of daily physiotherapy at home as well as weekly trips in for therapy in Winnipeg, Hughes can feel and move every part of his body, although he doesn't have the muscle strength to lift his legs yet.

He gets around in a wheelchair he controls with his hand.

The Hughes' friends and family held a social last year to help with some of the expenses, which include the cost of a new specially outfitted van.

They're also hoping to raise enough money through a GoFundMe page to buy a ceiling track and lift so Hughes can get into the family's indoor hot tub to do some of his physiotherapy at home.

Both John and Mary-Lou say they're incredibly grateful to the medical staff who helped him through his months in hospital and the recovery he's now undertaking.

He hopes to get back to his day job as a project manager at Rona in Winkler, Man., within the year.

Hughes plans to remain reeve until the next election, in October 2019. He'll wait to see how he's feeling before deciding whether he'll run again.

"There's still a lot of recovering to do," Hughes said. "Life can change in a second. You definitely have a different perspective on life when it happens to you, but what can you do? You pick yourself up and carry on.

"I'm here, I'm on the right side of the grass, and I'm making strides to get better."