For five months in Northern Beaches Hospital ICU, Wayne Cousins, unable to move, would look out the window and wonder when his pain would end.
“They were very dark times,” he recalled.
Doctors initially thought the former rugby league media manager had suffered a stroke, but the reality was much harsher.
Guillan-Barré Syndrome, a rare auto-immune disorder that affects just 1 in 100,00 Australians where the immune system sends a message to the brain to attack the nervous system.
All of a sudden completely paralysed and unable to talk, walk, eat, and even breathe, Cousins became 1 in 100,000.
“They said to me, A, you can die from it, B, you can be paralysed, or C, you can make an 80-90% recovery.
“The hard part was just not knowing if (he would recover) or how long (before knowing). They said to me, ‘how long’s a piece of string?’”
Cousins has been a staple in rugby league circles for close to two decades.
He became media manager for the Wests Tigers in the mid-2000s where he stuck around for close to 10 years.
He followed up with a similar length stint at the Sea Eagles before his redundancy in December 2024, just weeks before the tragic day struck.
Home on a Saturday afternoon with family cooking a barbecue, he was suddenly unable to open his jaw to eat.
He resolved to make a note before bed to see his dentist on the Monday, but by 2am woke up sweating and with excruciating pains down his right side.
His partner Kerryn checked Cousins into hospital in the early morning on January 5.
Little did he know, he wouldn’t return home for nearly a year.
Players, coaches and ex-staff flocked to his side, including Daly Cherry-Evans, Lachlan Croker, Kieran Foran, Jamie Humphries, Anthony Seibold and Geoff Toovey, among others.
The Trbojevic brothers and their parents were often recurring visitors.
“It was just so sad to see someone so happy to live life and so good to other people around him to be then dealt that card. It was tough,” Tom Trbojevic said.
“He’s been an awesome help for us throughout our career and always done everything he can for us and we just wanted to give back to him the best we could.”
But despite the star studded visitors that left fellow patients more than amused, it was a visit from an old friend during his Tigers days that quickly turned despair into hope.
Wests Tigers fan Lleyton Giles was only six when he first met Cousins, who 15 years ago invited the youngster to tour the club’s facilities and meet the players.
Born premature and having undergone close to 50 operations in his lifetime, Giles suffered from a severe gastrointestinal disease and had only been given six months to live before Cousins organised for him to run out alongside his hero Benji Marshall.
Despite the diagnosis, Giles, now almost 21 and recovered, knew with the situation now reversed it was his turn to repay the favour.
“It was very emotional seeing him in that state and all I could think of was back when I was a young kid, it was always him with a smile on his face trying to help me through my journey,” Giles said.
“Seeing him that way made me a bit sad and I just said to him, ‘it’s your battle now, just keep fighting and I know you’ll get through it.’”
That was the turning point for Cousins.
“People ask me what’s my greatest moment in rugby league,” he said.
“Seeing this boy, whose now 20 and still alive today come and see me in hospital, he was my inspiration. He kept driving me to get better.”
After months in the ICU Cousins set his sights on the arduous rehab process.
Unable to lift his hands, use his fingers or even walk without a hoist, he slowly defied the odds.
“Your body just stops and is learning to almost put itself back together.
“Once I could build up some strength they got me onto a walking machine, and as I’ve been told I was walking like the whistling guy from the Telstra commercial, throwing my arms everywhere.
“To go from not being able to raise my arms or type on a laptop, to being able to then use my mobile phone for the first time in 8 months, little things like that you take for granted.”
Now back home for the first time since January, Cousins is steadily continuing his rehab process.
He has also been moved by the overwhelming community support, led by good friend and TV presenter Yvonne Sampson who has organised a GoFundMe to help try and cover some of Cousin’s medical costs.
“It’s a testament to Wayne to know that how many people are in his orbit that are willing to step up and help now,” Sampson said.
“There was no promise of a full recovery and there still really isn’t, but for him to be up and moving, … he’s done an incredible job to get back to where he is.”
The full road to recovery isn’t over just yet.
After watching every single round of NRL in 2025 from a hospital bed, Cousins is determined to return to work in the game he loves.
“That’s what’s driven me in the last year, is that I know I’ve got so much more to give,” he said.
“328 days all up I spent in a hospital this year. That’s a long season, but I never lost hope, I got through it with strength, faith and plenty of love.”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with-cuzzo-help-wayne-cousins-get-back-on-his-feet
