upon being transferred to a larger hospital better equipped to handle his condition, it happened again.
“I was bathing him in the shower,” Bridgette said. “He fell, and I caught him.”
It left Richard paralyzed.
“The only way I can explain it is like the left side of my body died,” he said. “It was just a very, very weird and scary feeling not to be able to walk, not to be able to use my left hand.”
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Richard spent more than two months in the hospital undergoing speech therapy to strengthen his voice and physical therapy to strengthen different parts of his leg and improve his gait. He began to stand and walk with the help of a leg brace. When he finally saw movement in his hand, he began to cry, knowing that he could get better with proper exercise, diet and his faith.
“It was a long road, and I’m still at a point where I’m constantly working on my recovery,” he said.
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High blood pressure in the Black community
Richard now uses his voice to raise awareness about the importance of knowing your blood pressure numbers and keeping them in a healthy range.
At the time of his strokes in August 2011, his blood pressure was 220/124. A normal blood pressure is at or below 120/80.
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Richard had accepted his high numbers because his former doctor told him that “because you’re an African American, your blood pressure is normally high.”
“That’s crazy! It’s asinine,” Richard said recently.
The doctor didn’t even prescribe medicine that could’ve
