print page | send as email | email editor

Wayne Bakus, 38, who is recovering from a stroke he suffered in January, chats with friends during a Feb. 28 fundraiser for him at the Elks Club. The event featured a chicken dinner, silent auction and gambling. NEWS&GUIDE PHOTO / PRICE CHAMBERS

View our entire photo gallery >>

Wayne Bakus flung himself out of his wheelchair and onto the bottom of the steps of his sister’s Melody Ranch home.

Quickly, almost with expertise, he pulled himself to the top. Part of him is young and strong.

The first slivers of gray in his dark beard hint at his age. Another part of him has aged rapidly.

Bakus is only 38. Two and a half months ago, he was healthy. Then an artery tore on the right side of his brain. A clot formed, blocking blood to the brain. He had a stroke.

Since then, Bakus has learned that the brain has compartments for everything.

There is the part that made him young. When it shut down with the stroke, his voice graveled, and his ability to walk more than a few steps disappeared.

There is the piece that had aged him enough to swallow solid foods, but that shut down, too.

It seemed like Bakus lost everything as quickly as an artery tears.

But already, he’s getting it back.

On Dec. 13, Bakus knew something was wrong. The Jackson native was in Nashville, Tenn., visiting girlfriend Sarah Tams.

The left side of his body numbed. He felt a burning sensation under his ear and on his neck.

That night, he stumbled, losing his balance before going to bed.

At 3 a.m., he got up to get a glass of water. He couldn’t walk straight. A few hours later, he tried to rise. It felt like his head exploded. The right side of his body gave out. He collapsed to the ground.

I think I’m having a stroke, he said.

Then his throat tightened. He couldn’t speak. He felt control of his body slip away.

Doctors aren’t sure what triggered Bakus’ stroke at such a young age. He didn’t have the warning signs of high blood pressure, cholesterol or diabetes. Anyone can have a stroke, doctors said. But it is rare in people younger than 40.

Bakus was a carpenter with Dynamic Homes LLC, active hunting and fishing.

After the stroke, it took two weeks before he could swallow ice chips and sip water.

Two months after his collapse, he still had to use a wheelchair.

His eyes were crossed, blurring his vision. Without realizing it, he would sometimes tip his head sideways to see better.

His vocal cords haven’t fully recovered. When he talks, he expects the deep, clear voice he knew to come out. The actual sound startles him.

Hunter Bakus, 11, likes to call his father’s voice mail. “This is Wayne. You know what to do,” the recorded message says. It’s so different than the raspy voice his dad talks in now, which sounds more like a faked greeting for a prank phone call.

Bakus can’t feel temperature on the left side of his body. A glass of ice water doesn’t feel cold in his left hand. Put it in your other hand, his family has to remind him.

Ahead of Bakus are hours of rehabilitation. Three times a week he is in physical therapy, working on regaining balance, standing and walking. He is often dizzy; the stroke stole his sense of equilibrium.

He didn’t wobble as he stood with the help of physical therapist Erin Downey last week, but he felt like he was off balance. He scrutinized his image in the mirror, watching for a lean in his body he couldn’t feel.

His progress seemed slow at first. But he couldn’t even sit up on his own when he started, Tams said.
He graduated to standing and eventually, with help, to a gait that’s something like a slow wedding march.

He can move around with a walker and using furniture. He falls, but each day it seems he walks a bit farther, his stride a little smoother.

He can walk laps through a set of  parallel bars while Downey holds him by a belt, just in case.

It’s not only his brain that’s been affected by the stroke. His muscles atrophied while he lay in bed in the days after his fall.

On his first day of physical therapy, he struggled to touch his nose with his hand, Downey said. The stroke affected the part of his brain that lets him know where his body actually is.

Physical therapy is supplemented with occupational therapy, where he refines his motor skills. In speech therapy, he works on remembering words that slipped from his mind. He accidentally wrote neither, but he meant underneath.

On the flash cards therapist Shawn Ragon shows him, he named bed, tree and camel easily. The word “harp” eluded him. “I know it makes a sound,” he said. It is the words he knows but doesn’t often use he seems to have forgotten. “Protractor” hung on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t form the sound.

He knows the date and who is president. But he can’t remember how many suits are in a deck of cards.

Eventually, Bakus should fully recover, doctors say. For now, he is trying to relearn to walk. His goal is to go to deer camp next year. He wants to fish. He wants to be himself again.