When Kootenay-Rockies MLA Pete Davis walks into the B.C. legislature next month to take his seat in the house, the miracle will be that he’s even walking at all.

Davis suffered a stroke in late December, and has had to re-learn basic things like how to stand and walk. His recovery has been steady, and on Monday, 30 days after the stroke, Davis posted a video to his Facebook page where he tossed his cane aside and strode without assistance for the first time down the hallway of his Cranbrook home.

It looked much easier than it actually was for the 43-year-old first-term MLA. Davis still can’t feel anything in his right arm or right leg. That means every step is an act of faith that his leg is actually there to catch him.

“It’s really tough,” he said in a phone interview Monday. “You stand up and you go: there’s nothing there. You can’t trust it, because you don’t feel it.

“I had to train myself to still trust the leg even though my brain is not getting a signal that it’s there.”

Still, Davis knows he’s lucky. He didn’t have to re-learn how to speak, read or write, like some stroke survivors. More than 8,000 people are hospitalized due to a stroke every year........

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