A stroke is a cardiovascular disease.

Blood issues - too thick - too thin, High blood pressure, weak cells that burst? Cholesterol? Take food with medication, healthy food.

Don't go to a medical clinic where you get a random doc each time, as this will cost you a useless fortune, you need one doc to establish your needs. Test your remaining and available reflexes and physical sensitivity responses and help you measure your progress.

Get healthy (eat right), build up your strength and find out from your Doc:

1. What type of stroke did I have?
2. Will it reoccur?
3. Where was it specifically, and what deficits does that mean and how long to recover, allow the Doctor to research this and get back toil you, how many stroke patients has he/she got?
4. What sort of damage must I repair? Aboulia (lack of will power flutuates, ability to make decisions or come to conclusions is not available at times), Spasticity (Muslce control comes and goes, with pain) Neuropathy (damaged to your Central Nerve Pain. Vestibular Ocular Reflex. Aphasia is a talking issue, it can also affect your ability to read and make sense of what your reading, you will find yourself reading the same sentence over and over, try reading out loud. Balance, stamina and dexterity, anxiety, oh and crying and getting angry. Rolling your ankle once you can walk, numbness, loss of feelings in your limbs, Memory issues, vertigo (a new fear of stairs especially without rails) and nostalgia. Concentration and focusing on things that don't rock your boat may be gone, like maths - transposing numbers and letters when typing, finding the right words and talking to strangers - it's a confidence thing. Repetition will get you back in a year or two.
5. How do I retrain my brain, will Oxygen therapy help? Oxygen therapy and retraining the brain to balance the body and massage therapy is good, warm water to relax anxiety issues. etc Anxiety is huge, the reason we lost our license is because it could reoccur at any minute. Anxiety is huge as we lost our income yet the bills still stack up. Anxiety is huge as we can't do so many things we use to do. Like talk and walk as we did. There will be residual blood that needs to be gone, this may take a year.
6. Was it genetic?
7. Nature vrs Nurture? Diet concearns can be changed, where should we start - what is my cholesterol?
8. Get repeats on any prescription.
9. Mention your vestibular/balance issues, pretty much every one has them, those lovely 4 drinks in feelings that are calm and not conducive to getting much of anything done in a sensible timeframe, the dizzy feelings of vertigo - some people paint the stairs and the risers different colours as our depth perception got shot to hell..
10. Peripheral Artery Disease, is the intermittent core tunnel pain, and the numbness in your limbs. It can cause you to think it's cold when it isn't, toenails may no longer grow as they did, hair loss, shiny skin, erectile dysfunction in men, groin numbness in women.

Get medical certificates for a minimum three months at a time. Depression is very real and will be on your shoulder until you sort out your odds of recurrence, isolation and financial issues. Depression comes with poverty, and the unknown if or when will it happen? It's one of the most painful things I've ever experienced and I vote for Euphanaisa and DO NOT RESUS!

How will you get better? When will you feel your feet again? Month 6? A year? Some things will get worse, as the bits of your brain die from a lack of blood, they still need to be absorbed and the surrounding tissue needs to recover. Maybe 9 months - maybe several years. It depends on your stroke the size of your damage and this can be mapped with modern technology - the real question is how do you not punch the next person who tells you - we don't know each stroke is different. Get the map - work out the size and the cause and the location. Really after this you will be thinking you should have gone into medicine - they accept apathetic doctors and it's a world wide issue.

Don't go on the Deferred Dole, that is crippling and no doctor in their right mind will do that to their patient - a medical center doctor will tho. You need a real doctor who has seen stroke patients and who knows how WINZ works, and he needs to stand up for you. If you've been promised home help this is the person who makes it happen. Get to a real doctor as soon as you are out of hospital, else nothing happens, and yes we know you lost your drivers license. and income.

If he or she is worth their salt they will give you prescriptions with repeats, they will understand that you income took a hit and you won't have a viable job for at least six months. Their medical certificate to WINZ should reflect this.

They should be helpful. They will argue you are not permanently disabled - ask them specifically when you will be able to have zero drunk symptoms and if they can't answer - get a disability sticker for your car and go strait to winz with your 2 year disability. If your able to get a job within 12 months, bloody good on you, meantime you may lose your house. If your doctor can not answer you find one that can. When will you be normal?