Twelve years ago, Phyllis Lau Siu-cheung was lying in a hospital bed with her life in the balance. She had undergone an operation after suffering a stroke, and now doctors were asking her mother to make a life-or-death decision: whether to perform another operation that would leave her partially paralysed - but without which she would die.
She had the operation, and since then the active woman who always put her work first - ahead even of a good night's sleep - has had to learn to adapt to life without the use of her left arm and leg.
She returned to her early love, drama, and in 2006 won acclaim for directing a performance of a play in which she had once acted, as a student at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.
The same year she was judged one of the 10 bravest rehabilitated patients in Hong Kong and, now 48, is writing a book about her experiences while working on a project to take drama and music classes into schools,
The day she had her stroke in 1997, Lau had spent a seven-day stint working on a television programme, getting almost no sleep.
On the eighth day, she rushed to the office for a meeting - during which she felt ill and drove home. As she got out of the car, she felt a weakness in her left hand and leg and went to hospital. There she was diagnosed with a haemorrhagic stroke, caused by a ruptured blood vessel in her brain.