'I didn't know who my children were': How a stroke (almost) destroyed a family
Judy and her daughter Portia have shared how Judy’s stroke lead to the breakup of her family and estrangement from her children. This is an often-untold story of what stroke can take away and we really appreciate that Judy and Portia have given a voice for so many that suffer in this way.
A split second was all it took to shatter Judi Green's life.
"I was driving a car with my sister, and I heard a horrific bang in my head," she says.
When she woke up in hospital, her speech made no sense, her memory had vanished, and she didn't recognise her two children.
Doctors didn't expect her to live.
The 39-year-old Tamworth high school teacher had suffered a stroke.
In a single moment — a bleed on her brain — her family began to fall apart. Piecing it back together would take decades, a lot of forgiveness and a little luck.
Suddenly, everything changes.
After four weeks of rehabilitation, Judi was sent home from hospital — but it wasn't a home she knew.
"I didn't know who I was and I didn't know who my husband and children were," she recalls.
"And my personality had changed completely... I swore a lot."
She remembers thinking of her four-year-old daughter, Portia, as a "lovely little girl", without recognising who she was.