Stroke Story - what to expect?

Hello, I would like to explain the events that occurred about 1 week ago today & hopefully get some insights and comments!

My Uncle, who is/was a healthy 59 year old male, woke up the next morning after being the MC of a wedding, after coming out of the shower, he sat down on a chair after feeling light headed before passing out. He was able to regain consciousness and walk down to an ambulance that was called for him.

12 hours later he was having brain surgery.

As some background, he had been complaining of a headache that seemed to come and go for the last week, there was a sense this could be worse than your usual headache, but stubbornness and whatever got in the way and a doctors visit never eventuated.

From what I could understand from the Stroke director and surgeon, the cause was a burst aneurysm, which was apparently a big one. Somehow (i dont understand much from else from here) a clot formed. WHen the aneurysm burst i dont understand either.

But apparently when the surgeon when in to remove the blood clot they were unable to because it had hardened. The clot had obviously formed a few days ago and travelled along until it couldnt go any further.

But my uncle was admitted to hospital around 10am on Sunday morning but wasnt operated on until later Sunday night, so I guess my first question comes there, if it was a complete blockage wouldnt that warrant emergency surgery? Would you be able to assume given surgery was put off til later that they wer able to get medication in there to reduce the blockage?

Anyway, so the surgeon had to improvise i suppose, given they were unable to remove the clot, so they cut off vessels surrounding the clot to force a rupture of the clot and that was successful. THe blood was stopped here for roughly 5 minutes. I guess that type of method would be a last resort as who knows what type of damage and to how much of the brain that would have caused, but thats what needed to be done. I assume only a neuro surgeon would have the right insights on this point, but if there are any of this forum, I would love to know and understand the medical science and methods behind that.

So the surgery finished, in about 3 hours & he occupied the ICU for about 8 days.

He was obviously heavily sedated until about day 4 or 5 and by day 6/7 he was opening his eyes and holding hands with family, but no talking and no movemnt at all on theright side.

The right side of the brain was affected and the stroke director did comment that speech would be affected, but they were not sure by how much and that they were not sure how much impact there would be to the movement of his right side.

The good news is that by day 8 he had been moved to the neuro ward, and out of the ICU.

Today was day 9, and he seems to have come to some sense at this point, he recognises family, he has been crying and trying to talk, noises come out and you can see the frustration because he knows what he wants to say but just cant.

So for the experts, what does that indicate so far? is this normal? Given that it seems he knows what he wants to say but cant, does he need to learn how to talk again?

He understands what has happened and when the nurse writes things on a notepad, for eg. poke out your tongue or hold up your arm, he follows perfectly.

It's such a shame that this can happen to a 59 year old, but thats life hey.

Would love to see some insights and comments to help me understand a bit more.

Thanks

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