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He was told he would die within months, then didn’t. It seemed the virus stopped. He recovered but scar tissue destroyed certain pathways in his brain, including those that controlled his legs.

But friends helped him embrace life again, taking him lobster fishing and blueberry picking where he lived then, in Halifax.

In 2003, he moved to Edmonton and made his living playing soprano saxophone on the streets, dragging his chair behind him when he met a set of stairs and sometimes using crutches for short distances.

Photo by Codie McLachlan / Postmedia Network

Then in 2014, he fell sick again, with a seizure on Whyte Avenue landing him in the hospital. A spinal tap confirmed the virus was back in high numbers but he didn’t stick around the hospital long enough to get a confirmed diagnosis. He thought he’d rather die at home.

That second illness was a bad as the first, with Wade even losing the ability to talk for about half a year. But again, he recovered. Now he believes that’s what shook things up again, enough for his brain to build new connections.

Last fall, on a trip to California, a friend noticed his legs jerking involuntarily as he climbed a rope ladder. When he came back to Edmonton, he started therapy at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.

Things went really slowly, he said. It felt like those brain connections just kept shorting out. In January, he was still using his wheelchair full time. That’s when he got tickets to see Vicky Vox at Evolution Wounderlounge.

He won a dancing competition in his wheelchair and found a whole new motivation to get out of that chair. “I always loved dancing. I learned to dance in my chair and then when I won that contest, it become a motivator. It was something I wanted to do on feet.”