After being held at gunpoint in 2008, Tyrone Morris noticed that he was often short of breath and “didn’t feel right.” Shortly following the incident, he got the shock of his life when during a hospital visit, he was told that he had a failing heart.
“I just knew that I didn’t feel the way I should,” he said. “But I had no idea that my weird feelings was actually congestive heart failure.”
Tyrone’s story is not unlike millions of Americans living with heart disease. According to the American Heart Association, heart failure diagnoses are expected to triple by 2030. Almost 1 in 4 of those will be diagnosed with advanced heart failure – the stage where managing symptoms and traditional therapies no longer work – and will die within the first year.
Although heart failure is one of the leading causes of death in the US, in recent years it’s been found that more Black people are dying from the epidemic, often earlier in life.
In his thirties at the time of the diagnosis, Tyrone Morris refused to be