Mix 106.3 breakfast co-host Nigel "Nige" Johnson has revealed he suffered a stroke in early June.
It was a "terrifying" wake-up call when he realised how close he came to death.
The much-loved radio man has been off-air for weeks, first recovering at the Canberra and North Canberra hospitals, and then at home.
He returned to the airwaves briefly on Tuesday morning to discuss his health with co-host Kristen Davidson, but isn't expected to be back full-time at work until later in the year or early 2027.
In an interview with The Canberra Times, Nige could not thank enough the doctors, nurses and all the staff at ACT Health who treated him.
"I would be dead were it not for them," he said.
A stroke happens when blood cannot get to your brain, because of a blocked or burst artery.
For Nige, he didn't experience the classic signs of a stroke such as a drooped face, arms unable to be raised or slurred speech.
Instead, he couldn't swallow, felt a strange sensation down the right side of his body and had the hiccups.
The 51-year-old was at home when he Googled his symptoms, and they pointed to a stroke.
He calmly rang triple zero and packed a bag waiting for the ambulance to arrive and take him to hospital.
Even then, Nige had a niggling worry that maybe he was making a fuss and shouldn't have called for help.
"Thank Christ I did," he said.
The 30-year veteran of radio was found to have suffered not only a stroke but doctors also diagnosed him with type 2 diabetes.
When he arrived at the Canberra Hospital, his blood pressure - and blood sugar - were off the charts.
"One of the doctors looked at the numbers and then looked at me and said, 'Jesus Christ man, you would have to be one of the robust human beings I've ever come across'," Nige said.
"He said, 'Assuming you've had these symptoms for more than a year, which I'm guessing you probably have, I'm absolutely astounded that you're still even here. This is crazy. How the hell did you survive as long as you did?
"And I'm like, 'I felt fine. I felt indestructible'."
Nige was in hospital for more than a month and had to be fed food and medicine the whole time through a nasogastric tube because he couldn't swallow. The tube was one of the most disconcerting parts of his whole treatment, but it has now been removed.
"It's been a month and a bit of absolute hell," he said, not just for himself, but for his distressed family and friends.
Medication has since brought his blood pressure to a healthy level and he is using insulin for his diabetes. He can now swallow mostly soft food. The hiccups have almost gone. His distinctive voice is unchanged. And he is still as quick-witted as ever.
But he can still feel neither pain nor temperature on his right side. "It's irritating and weird," he said. But he can put up with it if he has to.
"It sounds great not to feel pain but when I'm cutting things with a knife I've got to be really careful or if I do anything with hot or cold, I've got to be super careful. You could put an ice cube in my left hand and it'll feel icy cold and wet. Put it in my right hand and it feels like a room-temperature pebble. I have no sensation of temperature at all."
There is hope that problem, too, will subside.
"The human brain is amazing at rewiring itself," he said.
Nige is still Nige. Funny, down-to-earth, no crap. He says he suffered a stroke because he was "a d--head". He was a bloke who rarely went to the doctor. And ignored the evidence right in front of him.
His dad, Barry, has type 2 diabetes and his mum, Chris, has high blood pressure.
Even with that family history, Nige put his own health check-up on the backburner. Mainly because he felt fine. Great even.
"I knew my mum had high blood pressure. I knew that it was hereditary. I knew that my dad had been a type 2 diabetic for 15 years. I knew that was hereditary as well," he said.
"The problem was twofold. Problem number one is that I'm a bloke. Problem number two is that I felt fine. The problems I had were fairly well asymptomatic."
Nige had no idea he had high blood pressure. The only symptom of the diabetes, which he now knows in hindsight, was that he was drinking a lot of water.
"Had I dragged my sorry arse to the doctor at some point, which I should have, none of this would have happened. They would have gone, 'Holy shit'. Like, my numbers were ridiculously high."
Looking back at the time of the stroke, Nige was feeling "as sharp as a tack". He was riding his bike to work. He was drinking a lot of water, which he thought was a good thing.
At work on the day of the stroke, Nige had a bad headache - and the unsettling sensation of not being able to swallow.
"I went to have the last sip of water in the glass at work and that was the first thing I noticed was weird. It was like it went down the wrong way, or in my case, it didn't go down at all. It was like the hole to your stomach just sealed up. I could breathe perfectly fine. But when I tried to drink water, it kind of bounced back."
Nige thought nothing more of it. He went home. Went for a walk. Had a shower. And took a nap. Waking at about 7pm, he still couldn't swallow. The right side of his body "felt weird". And he was hiccuping. That's when he went online to look up his symptoms.
"It said 'stroke, stroke, stroke'," he said.
Nige said the whole experience was frightening, due to the myriad of stroke symptoms that could have hit him.
"My heart could have stopped. It just so happened that I got the hiccups, I got the weird pain and temperature thing on one side and the inability to swallow. They were the only three things that affected me," he said.
"I've got to be honest with you, the inability to swallow is mildly inconvenient at first and a little bit troubling. After the first five or six hours, it's terrifying.
"I just had this realisation that, 'If I don't get medical assistance immediately, I would survive not even three days. I'd be dead of thirst'. I called triple zero. I felt fine. I didn't feel like my life was in immediate danger. But someone needed to give me something to fix it."
I am so incredibly proud of him. He's met this challenge with his usual humour, humility and grit. He's a stubborn bugger. This stroke doesn't know who it's up against.
Nige is now recovering slowly. He does not want to risk another stroke. And he wants his story to be a cautionary tale for others.
"Even if one person goes and gets themselves checked, then it's a win. We'll call that breaking even in the universe. If two people get themselves checked, well, we're in front."
And he'll never forget the people who helped him; from neurologists to speech pathologists to wardsmen to doctors and nurses.
"The people who work in our health system are absolutely incredible, they are superheroes," he said.
"We don't deserve them, we really don't and we're very lucky to have them, and I would be dead were it not for them."
Nige is one half of the popular breakfast show Kristen and Nige with Kristen Davidson.
The pair have been on air together for eight years and friends for 15 years.
Kristen rushed to his side in the stroke ward at the Canberra Hospital as soon as she heard what had happened.
The first thing she said to him was, "Well, this is a bit much - if you wanted some time off, you could have asked!".
That playful banter would be familiar to anyone who listens to their show.
Kristen says the whole breakfast team is a family and Nige is her work husband.
"I am so incredibly proud of him," she said.
"He's met this challenge with his usual humour, humility and grit. He's a stubborn bugger. This stroke doesn't know who it's up against."
Kristen said herself, breakfast producer Haylee Potts and newsreader Kate Rice would push on "with all the usual segments and fun" while Nige will "swim in and out of the show when he feels like it".
"As far as I'm concerned, this the Kristen and Nige show and it will stay that way until my work husband walks back through the door," she said.
"We will keep our friends of the show updated with how he's doing and have regular check-ins.
"I hope Canberra gets behind him and sends their love via the show every morning. I feel like we are all part of the support crew."
Emily Moss, the general manager of amplifyCBR, owner of Mix106.3, thanked the listening public for their "kindness and ongoing support".
"Nige is much more than a beloved personality on Mix106.3 - he's a role model and a deeply valued member of our team and the Canberra community," she said.
"On behalf of everyone at amplifyCBR, I'd like to thank our listeners and the wider community for the incredible support you've shown Nige and the Mix106.3 team. As Nige focuses on his recovery, we hope his experience serves as an important reminder to prioritise regular health check-ups."
Kelvin Hill, from the Stroke Foundation, said anyone could experience a stroke.
"It is always a medical emergency. When a stroke strikes, it attacks up to 1.9 million brain cells per minute," he said.
The foundation recommends the FAST test to check for signs of stroke.
"More than 80 per cent of strokes present with at least one of the common FAST signs, " Mr Hill said.
"However, people can also experience less common symptoms such as sudden balance problems, vision changes, dizziness or vertigo, sudden sensory changes (numbness or tingling especially on one side of body), and severe unexplained headache. Vision changes include double vision, blurred vision, loss of part of visual field.
"If you experience any of these symptoms, the best thing you can do is call an ambulance.
"When it comes to stroke, timing matters. The sooner a stroke patient gets medical attention, the better their chance of recovery."
