TORONTO - It's been six years since the lowly mosquito ceased to be just a pesky nuisance in Canada and was cast in a far more ominous light as the carrier of a potentially deadly and debilitating disease.
But some of the people afflicted by West Nile virus, even as they pick up the pieces of their lives and learn to walk again, worry that many Canadians still aren't taking it seriously and making any effort to protect themselves.
Rev. Rick Gibson's ordeal began last August with severe headaches, tiredness and nausea, followed by aches, an inability to deal with loud noises, shaking, sweating and twitching.
"I remember getting into the car to go to the hospital, but I basically have very little memory of anything that happened for the next 10 to 14 days after that," Gibson, 55, said from Yorkton, Sask., where he lives with his wife Kathleen. "It wasn't until I came out of ICU and was in a private room that I began to become conscious, I think, again with reality."
After about a month in the Yorkton hospital, he was transferred to Wascana Rehabilitation Centre in Regina for five months of therapy that involved everything from learning how to sit up again to walking.
As his wife, a writer and columnist, describes it: "I locked my front door and followed him down and lived down there helping where I could. They put Humpty Dumpty back together again."
It's been a life-altering experience for both of them, as Gibson lost his job as minister of the Church of the Nazarene, and they had to move from the manse.
"I'm learning to find a new pace for my life," he said. "I don't have the physical or the emotional strength to do what I used to do right now."
Last year was the worst yet for West Nile virus in Canada, as 2,353 cases, including more than 1,400 in Saskatchewan, were reported to the Public Health Agency of Canada. Most people who are infected have no symptoms or come down with something that might resemble the flu.
Gibson was among the more than 130 people last year who suffered neurological syndrome. He developed encephalitis, meningitis and a polio-like syndrome, which affected three of his four limbs. He uses a walker now, or a wheelchair at home and often when he goes out. And he still has paralysis between the elbow and shoulder of his left arm, recurring headaches, fatigue and sore muscles.
"It has changed my life radically."
Connie Voynovich, another West Nile survivor, was infected two years earlier than Gibson and is still struggling. She retired from her job at a credit union in May 2005 and, in a cruel twist of fate, got sick in September of the same year, cutting short plans for an active retirement.
Her illness began with severe pains in the head, followed by vomiting and high fever. Her husband, a firefighter, rushed her to the hospital.
"Within 24 hours, I was in a coma for about 10 to 11 days," Voynovich, 54, said from her home in Welland, Ont. Her family was called in three times to say their goodbyes as medical staff thought she would not pull through.
But survive she did. She had six weeks in intensive care and four months of rehab that involved working hard every single day.
"They had to teach me how to walk, how to talk, how to use the fork, how to use the knife, how to write, everything," she recalled. "But as the time went on, I slowly started getting better."
