This is drifting it a bit from WYSIWYG's exact request, but I think it might be useful, maybe to your friend, maybe to other people.

English storyteller Taffy Thomas had a massive stroke when he was 36 - which ended his activities as a fire eater and acrobat, but put him on the road to becoming one of the best storytellers there are. And a few years back, with Jim Woodland and Janet Russell, he put together a kind of ballad opera called "Take these Chains from my Heart", telling the story of what happened, of the time leading up to the stroke, the stroke itself, and the slow recovery.

There are details of how to get hold of the recording down that link I gave just now, and it's really worth getting hold of. I saw a live performance of it at Sidmouth a few years back, and was knocked out by it.