By the time I arrived at the hospital, they had operated, he was alive but the outlook wasn't good. The bleed was massive, he was in a coma, they didn't know if he would wake up and they couldn't say exactly how much the damage has affected him. I was shattered, I felt hopeless, frightened for myself, my kids, my husband and all of our futures. My brain was in overdrive trying to take it all in, a few hours ago life was great, now I had nothing but fear and devastation.
So I stayed in Sydney and sat by his bedside from dawn till dusk willing him to be ok, at night I would walk up to the internet cafe in Randwick researching to try to understand what was happening  because the doctors wouldn't give me any information about strokes, while my Mum stayed at home with our boys. Two long weeks he was on life support in a coma, finally he opened his eyes, but he was different, he couldn't talk, couldn't breath without a machine, he was confused and had no short term memory. After some testing they realized he had no feeling or movement on the left side of his body and he had lost sight on the left in both eyes, he couldn't even balance to sit up and had left side neglect, where he thought it wasn't his arm, it was so hard to see my strong husband like this.
In the weeks that passed he relearned  how to breath on his own and after some physio, could sit up but fell sideways sometimes and then he started to speak again. After a few more weeks he was moved to another ward where was assessed by a rehab Dr to see if it was viable to send him to rehab . This Dr spent about 10 minutes with us and said he wasn't going to recover any more and I should put him into a nursing home!  Well NO WAY that was that happening. So I started exercising his leg and doing whatever I could to help him, the nurses told me I was wasting my time, he won't improve anymore! Want a bet!  After a couple of weeks he started pushing his leg back towards me, it was working, so we worked harder and he got stronger. I asked the Dr to reassess him and this time he allowed him to go to rehab, yay.
To cut a long story short, we moved  3 different hospitals and after 3 months he came home, by then he could walk a little with a walking stick and his balance was still improving, but he was home. Then my work  really began.