Doctor's dream to speak fluently again

Dr Joanne Scott with her husband Leon Brit and their son Connor,2. Photo / Jason Oxenham

Joanne Scott did not achieve her dream of having a conversation with her husband and young son by Christmas, but the brilliant young doctor's resolve to get her speech back remains strong.

The Auckland 33-year-old's life was turned upside down in July 2013 when she suffered a sudden cerebral haemorrhage, or bleed on the brain, which left her unable to speak and almost killed her.

Doctors had to operate immediately to remove an abnormal connection between an artery and vein that had ruptured, causing a rare type of stroke that jumbled Dr Scott's speech and affected the right side of her face.

It meant her speech language centre in the left frontal lobe of her brain was badly damaged, causing the aphasia.

In March, husband Leon Birt told the Herald the couple were optimistic that Dr Scott, a haematologist, would get back conversational language within a year.

But last month, Mr Birt said his wife had not achieved that yet despite intensive therapy.

While Dr Scott could now say a lot more than the 50 words mastered by earlier in the year, the progress had been painstakingly slow, Mr Birt said.

"Jo has been working really hard on acquiring useful phrases so that words are in clumps rather than individual, because it's still so hard to formulate a sentence or find the right sounds to make the words go together."

She spent the year doing up to six speech lessons a week through Auckland University's speech therapy training programme, and private care.

About a third of the $30,000 raised for Dr Scott on Givealittle has gone towards the treatment costs.

Her writing ability, which was also affected, has steadily improved to a point where Dr Scott can put together short emails, but she still struggles to read bedtime stories to son Connor, now 2.

The couple's fears that Connor would miss out on crucial language interaction with his mother were unfounded. Mr Birt said the aphasia had had the opposite effect on the little boy, whose language skills were advanced.

However, the 38-year-old St Cuthbert's College teacher said his wife could not be the parent she would have liked and daily life was difficult.

"To pull out, 'Wash your hands, Connor', at the right time is still such a struggle for her.

"With something as big as this in your life, there isn't much else."

Dr Scott told the Herald she was very frustrated and felt "trapped".

She said her goal of becoming a doctor again was driving her to re-learn to talk and write.

"I want to speak, yes. I want to be a doctor."

She said the stroke had ripped her life in two but she was taking it one day at a time.