On Feb. 12, 2010, stroke survivor Keetra Thompson laid down with a slight headache behind her right eye around 7 p.m. to get some rest.
However, when she woke up around 2:30 a.m. the next day, she knew something was wrong when she couldn’t move the left side of her face.
Thompson spoke with the American about how she didn’t know that she was in the middle of a stroke this fateful night.
“I woke my husband, at the time, and I was like, ‘Hey, can you please help me get to the restroom? I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t move,’ so, he helped me to the restroom and I was cognizant,” she said. “I was able to talk the entire time, but I immediately thought of my son, who was two years old at the time.”
Thompson explained that she called her mother, who was a registered nurse.
“My parents live 10 minutes away, which would have been quicker than calling an ambulance, so my parents came over and my husband and father literally cradled me to get me out of the house because I couldn’t even sit up on my own,” she said.
According to Thompson, her mother saw that there was a slight facial droop on her face and that her parents administered a shot to stop the stroke’s progress. From there, she went to the hospital for care.
“I ended up being in the hospital for five days; after that I was in inpatient rehab for three months and outpatient rehab for three months,” Thompson said. “Then, I was able to return back to work after a full six months’ time.”
Healthcare inequities for minority groups
Dr. J. Gmerice Hammond, a Washington University physician and cardiologist who has practiced medicine for 15 years, studies stroke equities as a health services and health policy researcher.
According to the doctor, there has not been a significant impact made on the inequities that are “particularly striking” among racial groups in stroke care and heart attacks.
“If you look at African Americans, this group has a disproportionately higher prevalence of stroke; they also have the highest death rate from stroke compared to any other racial group,” she said.
Her research looks at the ways that policies impact equity. The primary group that Hammond tends to focus on are patients who have been categorized as minorities as well as those who are struggling with poverty.
“I tend to examine the way that healthcare payment policies impact and influence the way that healthcare systems operate and whether or not that promotes or reduces racial inequities and health outcomes,” Hammond said.
In a research study published in April, Hammond and nine other researchers examined whether or not stroke care was different by race and place.
“We looked at race – we also looked at morality – and what we found is that interventions for strokes, particularly thrombolytics, interventions for strokes were inequitably distributed by race,” she said.
According to the National Library of Medicine, thrombolytics are a group of medications used to treat and manage heart attacks.
“It was even worse among rural Americans and then rural Americans who were also African American had very low rates and considerably lower rates of appropriate stroke care when they presented to hospitals for strokes,” the cardiologist said. “Among all people in the United States, African Americans and Hispanic people are less likely to know common stroke warning signs, which is a big issue.”
According to Hammond, not knowing the signs and the symptoms delays pursuing management and care. In the research study mentioned previously, they found that once a person experiencing stroke symptoms does show up to the hospital, unfortunately they are less likely to get the appropriate interventions for your stroke for “a myriad of reasons.”
“If you don’t get the appropriate interventions, your outcomes are going to be worse, and thankfully, we are now able to speak more candidly to audiences that I think have a heightened awareness about the real impact of race and racism on cardiovascular disease processes,” she said.
Hammond went on to say there are researchers who are examining the stress of discrimination and trying to quantify something that has been difficult to quantify in the past, by asking questions like “What is the impact of structural racism?” or “What is interpersonal racism on the cardiovascular system?”
“One in five women between the ages of 55 and 75 will have a stroke, but the issue with this is that strokes are preventable,” Hammond said. “I just want to emphasize that women need to be aware of this and African American women have the highest prevalence of stroke and the highest prevalence of high blood pressure among women.”
According to research from the American Heart Association, African American women in their 50s may have more than triple the risk of stroke compared to white women of the same age.
“I think that one of the things that’s an issue in the Black population is that strokes happen at some of the older ages, which is really devastating because having a stroke in the prime of your life in your 40s and 50s can set you up for decades of debilitated existence,” the cardiologist said.
From stroke patient to community advocate and survivor
Now in her 14th year as a survivor, Keetra Thompson works with the American Heart Association and visits the Rehab Rehabilitation Institute of St. Louis to talk to some of the people that are survivors there.
“I let them know I’m a walking miracle,” she said. “I was 33 at the time when I had my stroke, and people may say [that’s] the prime of my life … but I had a complete paradigm shift, becoming an advocate and talking to people when I was in inpatient rehab in a wheelchair.”
According to Thompson, she and her mother had season tickets to the Fox Theatre, and her mother got permission from Thompson’s doctors to go to one of the shows while she was in therapy.
“I remember going there and the accessible access [being] difficult to navigate, so after I wrote a letter to the Fox Theatre Association and told them I noticed a lot of areas where accessibility needed to be improved so that people can have better access because I never noticed that as a person that doesn’t have a disability,” the survivor said. “I’ve been trying to work with people in different industries to help with accessibility for people that have disabilities.”
The Motivational Factor: Family
“My motivation was getting back to a new normal to be able to be here for my son and be active with my son, and so that was like my driving factor to do all the extra things that I wanted that the therapist gave me to do,” she said.
According to Thompson, the left side of her body was incapacitated after the stroke. She had to relearn how to walk and stand. Her driving motivation was her son: Danté Thompson.
“At the time I had my stroke, my son was two years old, so we were both toddling around the house, learning to walk. I remember being the youngest person in the inpatient rehab facility,” she said. “A lot of people were talking about their independence, so that was their motivating factor, but for me it was because I wanted to be an active mom.”
As an African American woman, her advice is to make preventive care a priority due to the stressors within the community that can interfere with health.
“Be mindful of what you put into your body, not only food-wise but also just your thoughts,” she said. “I think it’s important to have a positive attitude, be mindful of what’s going on in your life and address issues like stress because stress and food are big things, especially in the African American community and our culture.”