It was only one sentence, but it was the seminal moment when I knew I was going to conquer the symptoms of my stroke. I was on an ambulance stretcher having just been admitted to a rehabilitation unit in Brisbane, Australia, and I was about to be transferred to the bed in my room. The nurses had gone off to get a hoist so I could be moved from the stretcher to the bed; as I was being fitted into the harness, an occupational therapist walked into the room, introduced himself, and welcomed me to the unit. He watched the transfer process and, as the nurses wheeled the hoist away, he said, “I promise that you will never need a hoist again.” I was astounded at what seemed like a statement of breathtaking bravado. After all, I was a deadweight; since my stroke 16 days previously, the hoist had been part of my life as I was transferred from my bed to wheelchairs and commodes and back again. He was right. The hoist never entered my life again, and my rehabilitation began. Now, let me give you a personal insight. In the early 1970s, I was running an advertising agency in Brisbane and employed an intelligent and attractive young woman. As can happen, after working closely together for several years, we found ourselves attracted to each other. There was nowhere for a relationship to go as I was happily married, with a loving family, and Mary was about to marry her partner. She did this and moved home to Perth. Unfortunately, her marriage did not last, and, tragically, 10 years later my wife died from breast cancer. Some 19 years after my wife died and having lived on my own since then, I found myself in Perth. Mary and I met again, and 30 years after we first met, we found in the space of a long lunch that our feelings for each other were rekindled. We became partners after a while and began commuting between Perth and Brisbane, neither of us feeling we could leave our families, especially at the time of life when I was in my 70s and she in her 60s. This explains why I was in Perth when I had my stroke. Several months previously, also while in Perth, I had had a transient ischaemic attack. Brisbane and Perth are on the opposite coasts of Australia, approximately 3600 km apart. When I had the stroke, I was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Perth and went through the usual emergency procedures. Mary tells me that I experienced intense vertigo and vomiting for some 5 hours. I have limited memory of that time, except the feeling of vertigo and the impression that my boat was rocking to such an extent that I was sure we were about to capsize. My right side was totally compromised, but fortunately I could speak and swallow. I was to be admitted to a neurology ward; before that occurred, I had the experience that one reads about but cannot believe actually happens. After I was stabilised in emergency, I was put in a corridor on a stretcher for 11 hours while a bed was found. I was not alone, and at least another