Not once during the agonising eight-minute wait to talk to Ambulance Victoria call-takers and get paramedics on the way to their rural home did it cross anyone's mind that it was something even more sinister.

It was only after they reached hospital that doctors discovered it was a stroke that had felled Mr Zadow, 30, and left him with severe communication difficulties.

The life-changing stroke occurred just two days before Mr Zadow's wife Rebecca was due to give birth to their third daughter.

"My husband was moving wood in the backyard with my dad on Saturday, January 8 and I noticed him watching my dad pick up a heavy log. I was sitting inside and wondered why he was not helping, but I couldn't see his face," Ms Zadow said.

"He went and grabbed a smaller piece of wood but was struggling with it. As he walked away he stumbled a little bit then collapsed."

As Mr Zadow, who had a mechanical heart valve replacement in 2018, drifted in and out of consciousness his wife and father-in-law tried desperately to discover what was wrong. Eldest daughter Payton, 7, came out and was sent to fetch Ms Zadow's mother who was nearby.

"I was on the phone to the triple-zero operator and it took like eight minutes until the ambulance people answered to ask what was the issue. We were yelling out to neighbours asking them to help," she said.

One neighbour with a medical background came down and they started checking Mr Zadow for a snake bite given he had been moving wood.

"When I took his glove off, next to a mole there was a little scratch which was quite round, with a little bit of blood. We thought snake bite and knew we had to start quick so we bandaged it and thought that's what we were dealing with ... little did we know it was actually a stroke."

Because Mr Zadow could not communicate, Ms Zadow signed consent forms with the ambulance crews to agree he be administered anti-venom because COVID restrictions prevented her from going in to Ballarat Base Hospital with him.

"He went off in the ambulance and I just hoped for the best," Ms Zadow said. "They were asking all sorts of questions, like whether he takes drugs, because things were not adding up to why he was like that."

When she finally allowed to see him in hospital he turned to smile at her and it was then she saw his face had dropped and she realised he had a stroke.

Despite his age, Mr Zadow became one of the first of an estimated more than 185 people who will have stroke in Ballarat this year.

Scans revealed a blood clot in the brain and a clot-busting drug was given but it did not clear the blockage and he was rushed to Royal Melbourne Hospital for surgery.

Everything happened so quickly - it was just seven hours between Mr Zadow suffering the stroke at home about 25 minutes from Ballarat, and surgery at the Royal Melbourne.

When she visited her husband the following day, she was shocked when she showed him a picture of their two daughters and he could not tell her their names.

It was the first sign that the stroke had left him with aphasia, a communication disability.

"I went home distraught and hastily made a photobook of all of the important people in his life and attached labels with their names. I presented it to him the next day, but he looked at me strangely like 'of course I know who these people are!' That was a huge relief," she said.

With her husband in hospital in Melbourne, Ms Zadow cancelled her booked induction on the Monday and staff helped her reorganise to give birth in Melbourne so her husband could be present.

"They tried to organise for me to have the baby there so I could be close to him, thinking he was going to stay in Melbourne, but I did ask if in a week or two he could be transferred back to Ballarat but little did I know they were already organising to get him back to Ballarat while I was organising to come to him."

On the Tuesday she was about to head to Melbourne when she received the phone call her husband was about to be transferred back to Ballarat.

And within days of his return, baby Oaklee became the fifth member of the Zadow family.

"Aaron was not only able to attend much of our darling daughter's birth, but he also helped deliver her. It was a joyous celebration of life in more ways than one," Ms Zadow said.

In the months since they have adjusted to a 'new' family life and Mr Zadow's aphasia.

"In his head he knows exactly what he wants to say ... but it doesn't come out," Ms Zadow said. "He has made a great recovery physically but is struggling with aphasia. He can string words together but is unable to read or write at this stage. He has good days and days where he is really frustrated.

"Despite everything Aaron has been through, he wants people to know that stroke can happen to anyone at any age. We were not aware of aphasia before Aaron's stroke, so it has been a bit of a learning curve. Aphasia is difficulties with communication. It certainly does not mean a loss of intelligence."

Mr Zadow has twice-weekly speech therapy and occupational therapy to try to regain his communication skills.

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"If you look at him you would never know (he's had a stroke) but he has literally just lost communication which is what makes aphasia really hard," she said.

"We are all grieving for what was prior, and how having to come to terms with this new way of living.

"The biggest thing is when we are out in the community and people come up and start talking - it's very overwhelming to him. He listens to what they have to say and he might respond to the usual key message of 'how are you?' with a 'good, thank you' because it's second nature so he seems completely fine but that's it."

Mr Zadow worked as an underground truck driver at Ballarat Mine but it's unclear whether he will recover enough to return to the job.

"I know it is challenging for Aaron at the moment, but we are finding comfort in the improvements he is making and are giving him plenty of love and support," his wife said.

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