Tony Moore
Appearances
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
OK, so after going through that, because I'm kind of standoffish and there's some history behind that, and I'll unpack that a little bit later. But so I get, you know, the needles and everything. They rush me to the hospital and they're having a conversation with me. And then from there, they take me into a room. And so there I go into a room.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
and um meet with a couple of doctors and then they do they send me in to get a uh an mri come back from the mri and then i go back to the room and then from there it's well we'll have somebody come back and explain to you what's going on from that standpoint but um I didn't have what my buddy had, which is like a blockage that they had to open up and go in and get that moving some kind of way.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Cause if you don't have oxygen or something like that for a long enough time, then that's an issue. So that's kind of where things were left it at that.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
I think I did both. Right. I think the CT is the first one. Right. And then I went later on that evening for the MRI.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Yeah, so cut to I'm antsy, right? I can move. I'm not really getting a lot of information per se, but I did go through some testing. All the tests sort of came back a little bit negative. And after I had my CT scan, they said, well, you have a little bit of a blockage, but that's all they told me.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
You have a little bit of a blockage, we think, behind your eye, and we think that that's maybe the cause of what it was. But that's all I was given. So the night before, I'm in the hospital. They tell me I have a little bit of a blockage. OK. Then I go into the hospital. I stay overnight. And I see another person that does the echo on my chest.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And after that, it's pretty much, you know, they keep checking on me, but there's not really a lot going on. And so the discharge time is coming up. It's three o'clock. I'm ready to get out of the hospital. You know, I'm okay. I can move. And still hadn't seen a neurologist. No, I've seen somebody that was... Not you, not your team.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
I, you know, they send in the hospital staff that sort of comes in and do those kind of things. But nobody that was, I guess, part of my actual true care team or anything of that nature. So about two o'clock, they tell me they're going to release me for the three o'clock switch over or whatever. And so I pack up my things and Julie and I leave the hospital.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And we're approximately 20 minutes from the hospital when Dr. Hussein's colleague gives me a call.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And at the time, he says, Tony, can I talk to you for a moment? And I was almost even hesitant to answer the phone. Like, why are they calling me to leave something at the hospital? And we start having a conversation and he tells me, well, I shouldn't have been discharged. And I said, well, and then that so that's instantly one of the things that coming from a diverse community that was upset.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Right. Then he says, well, we'd like to review all your information. And that's why we want you to come back. And at that time, I was I almost had like an attitude of like, you know, no, not doing it. Don't care what you got to say. You know, all that should have been taken care of. Where were you during the 12 hours? I was at the hospital. Right.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Well, I came into the hospital at nine something that night and I left at three o'clock the next day. So 12 plus six, I was at the hospital for over 18 hours.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Go ahead. The reason behind that, though, is the worst part is my initial information that was given to me is that I have a little bit of a blockage. Dr. Hussein's colleague told me that I had a 70% blockage. So there's a big difference between 70% and a little percent of blockage. No kidding. At least 69%. Yeah. And so at that point, I was thinking that I'm kind of on death's door.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And why did it take for me to get information about me being that blocked? having that much blockage or being in that much danger that that wasn't dealt with between 9 p.m. and 3 p.m. the following day.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Chris. Yeah, so Dr. Chris was trying to have a conversation with me and it goes a little something like this. Well, Tony, you know, you have the 70% blockage and we really want to go back and go through your films. And by the way, we have a study that we'd like you to do.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Or be part of. Yeah. And Clarence, I'm going to involve you in this portion of the conversation. As another minority who is African-American, does every Black household grow up knowing about the Tuskegee experiment? I could tell you, no. I could tell you that.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So in communities where history has shown that America has done these clandestine little experiments in Black communities, I was really angry that I was approached for something left out. So I was discharged under one pretense. asked to come back and then in the same breath, asked to participate in some revolutionary new study for black people, black and brown people.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And only thing I thought about was the results of the Tuskegee experiment, syphilis and all those other kinds of things and sickle cell and everything else that has happened throughout time when minorities have been, in terms of my brain, used as a Guinea pig to do something.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And so without being rude at that time, I said, I'm not sure. I'll have to check with some other people. But as soon as I got off the phone with him, I think that I was using every... I went full Richard Pryor in my own car and started having little conversations about how I felt and using language that wasn't appropriate to air in a podcast. Right. But we get the gist. Yes.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So that was the situation. And I had a lot of angst about the way moving forward.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Well, I believe I needed further medical attention. I just didn't know if I wanted to do this study, right? Okay, got it. Okay. That's the piece. So... while I needed that, it became that I finally had a chance to have a conversation with Hyzen. And did we talk first before I saw you or actually in your office and we talked candidly?
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Okay. So I have family members that are in the medical field. So as soon as I got off the phone with Dr. Chris, I started making some phone calls and I started asking them about what their thoughts are from a professional position. And then they were assuring me that where things were 40, 50, 60 years ago are not where things are today in working with medical professionals.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So you at least need to go hear them out. So I put on my skeptical hat and went to go see Dr. Hussein and we had a- Good decision, good decision. So, and we unpacked a lot of historic information and dealing with one another to get to a level that to me is missed when minorities have issues in coming into the hospital.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
maybe not stroke-related, but heart-related, all things related, there are a lot of things that if it's not the common cold or a broken bone or something like that, and it gets to these other things that are warranted where you need to start taking different type of care of yourself and internals, that everybody is met with skepticism because...
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
there's that innate thing in a person that says, I'm the getting pig in this, or I'm not being treated the way that I need to be treated compared to my contemporaries of a different color.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Well, Stan, here's the situation. There's choices that are typically given out, like you can do this or you can do that. I'm not the professional. But to me, white folks have a better survival rate on things. I don't even know if it's an ask. It's more of a, you know, what did you do there? Why am I given this choice that I could take a lesser route than go all in? Right?
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And that was kind of my thought process is, what are you going to do for Jim Jones, CEO of US Bank? That's what I want.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And to the point of what Hytham was saying, my thought was there's no way they would have let a 56-year-old white man leave the hospital with 70% blockage without having a conversation. Absolutely.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So one of the things, Clarence, I think you might've missed. I was, I had asked you, Blacks in general, typically girl understanding are hearing the stories of the Tuskegee experiments.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Right. And so when you are raised that your government or institutions do things to minorities that they typically don't need, that you don't hear about white America being treated a certain way. You grow up with sort of a reservation for anything being introduced new as, hey, we want to try this new thing with you. So cut to me having my conversations with Hytham and moving forward.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
One of the things about communication and trust was I basically posed, how is this different? than anything else in history that has been done for black folks under the guise that it's supposed to be better for them. And turns out 20, 30 years later that it was actually a setup distrust and, oh, there's no accountability for injecting people with something that actually makes them sick.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And we can sit back and watch them because it's an experiment, right? Yeah.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And those were the issues that I was having with this whole thing, along with the fact that if I would have been a Caucasian male or female, I would not have been released out of that hospital with 70% blockage in my brain without seeing the top neurologist that the hospital had to offer.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Yeah. Yeah. That's part of where Haitham and I had gotten to in terms of lack of information. So we finally got to here. But I think that that was the root cause of apprehension for most people. I agree. Is exactly what you're saying. We can't get to the solution because there's distrust there. And that's what we had to work on was...
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
How do we bridge that gap to get that trust involved, not only with myself, but with others in the community and moving forward? And so that was the phase that we really were talking about working on moving forward.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
as I sidebar before I get back to this. Sure, go ahead. So once I got about 45, right, a lot of the things that start happening are things of, you know, are you where you need to be in your career? Because now you're on the second half of your life and relationships and everything else. And one of the things that I was raised is, You're stoic.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
You don't talk about, especially in a black household. All my life, it was, we would always joke, Prozac Nation, right? And so that was the running joke because it was like, yeah, they're on drugs and volume and this and that and everything. But to us, oh, you gotta be strong and sturdy.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
However, I dealt with a lot of things that from a lot of death was happening between age 45 and 52 and things that were affecting me that eternally,
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
i didn't really know how to deal with because you're told just to internalize it and move forward sort of suck it up right and now i'm understanding that that's the wrong thing but we were taught to do things a certain way and there's a lot of things about being taught that carry over which is the wrong thing we don't have the right conversations at the dinner table or just in life going back to what clarence was saying to share
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
how to better have a better health situation with being healthy and what you should be doing, how to eat. You know, I grew up eating a lot of fat and grease and everything else and all those other kind of things.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And I, you know, maybe I thought me working out and being an athlete trumped dealing with that where, you know, my health issues happened in my late 50s compared to my uncles and those guys in their 30s, 40s and 50s. So I didn't really think that I ever, I thought I was the one that beat the system because I was healthier.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Thank you, Stan. I know you want to wrap because it sounds like the end of the program. So let me just share my points that if nobody can take anything away from this. One, ask the right question to have transparency of your doctors. I think that's probably the biggest thing. Two, while we didn't touch on it, to the point of had I not entered into this study, the care, standard care is 90 days.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Well, I was back in the hospital in January, right? So if standard care is only 90 days because of how things work out there in the world, this is that changing point to really how people live longer and not go back into their same practices that they were doing that caused them to have a stroke. And most people do. There is no change in their household diets and things of that nature.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So then that becomes an educational piece. And on the third portion is education to those that can, when you have these types of situations, the elephant in the room to Dr. Hussein's point is, listen, I need to have a conversation with you and the results of what I would like to have be an outcome or is a better outcome for you. But I need to share with you that I understand what I'm about to say.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
that there's a lot of negativity and issues that have to be addressed in order for us to get to the right place so we can have the right conversation.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Well, hello and thank you. So this is new to me. I have friends that do podcasts, but it's a little bit different because I don't know where to start here. But I want to say thanks to everyone for even inviting me to come and share my story in some narrative once again. So, yeah.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Absolutely. So, um, was actually on a walk with my significant other. We were going for, you know, the, um, Hey, we should go for a walk. I was like, I don't want to. And then I'm like, maybe I should. So, um, we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And about maybe five blocks down the road, so 10, 15 minutes down the walkway, I started feeling my left foot kind of going a little bit numb. And, you know, I was thinking that old athlete, you know, it's kind of, you know, maybe it's one of those kind of things that your foot's just acting up. But, you know, and so... We continued on and we crossed the street.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And by the time we crossed the street at the corner, that numbness had gone to the bottom of my knee down. And so I felt instead of walking, I was more like throwing my leg forward. And I was telling Julie that, no, this is something a little bit different. And about halfway up the next street, it now had sort of gotten to my hip level. And at that time, I'm thinking, so...
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
About, so this was last year. So five years ago, one of my good friends that I played football with, just a, we call him a fawn, a freak of nature athlete, played for Dallas Cowboys, went to school, ran a, was as fast as me, weighed more than me, but he ran a 4.3, could lift out the gym, all the things from an athletic perspective that you would just say, this guy is the one. And
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
We were going to go back to our alma mater and unfortunately he couldn't make it because he had a catastrophic stroke where they had to do some surgery and he's now in a home. So at the time that I started feeling this, I'm thinking like, am I starting to have a stroke? So I sat down.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
because I didn't want to do one of those things where you get full paralysis, if it is a stroke, and then you fall flat. So I sat down and I'm holding my arms out, you know, doing, you know, trying to move and everything like that. And then once it hit my arm, I told Julia, I said, I think I'm having a stroke. And I got to say that maybe about three times.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And then I lost my tongue and the face droop and everything happened. Wow. And from there, that's kind of where a little bit of the panic and more the real panic sort of set in. And, you know, it's funny because the stream of consciousness, what I was thinking about that time is. So I used to have a motorcycle back in the late 90s, early 2000s. Stopped riding.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And then that year, I think I just had bought my motorcycle. And so my whole thought process is I just bought a motorcycle and I can never ride it again because I'm having a stroke.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
When you say knowledgeable, I would say that because of my buddy Rodney, I sort of versed myself as to what a stroke looks like. Yeah. Okay. But I don't really think that I went down into the trenches of salt, meat, all the other kind of things. And from that standpoint, because they were my lifestyle was one that, you know, I was proud of myself for my age, for my age.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
I always look better, did everything better than all my peers at that same level. Right. So, you know, all my peers typically outweigh me by age. 30 to 40 pounds. They eat way worse than I do. They drink way worse than I do.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So all the things that I've purposely stayed away from and tried to, you know, like I didn't believe in medication, so I always wanted to do things so I didn't have to go on medications, right? So let me ask you this.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Not with me. I was telling Julie once my arm, once it hit my hand, I'm having a stroke. I'm having a stroke. We need to call 9-1-1. I'm having a stroke. We need to call 9-1-1. And the conversation was really, no, you're really, no, you're not. Oh, you know, it was one of those kinds of things. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And luckily for me, where I was having my stroke, I was on the corner, um,
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Near a neighbor's house. And we didn't take our phones. We were both together. So why do I need a phone? So, you know, I wouldn't not be paying attention to her, those kind of things. And luckily, a lady was coming by walking and she had a phone. And so we called. And it seemed like it took forever for help to arrive. Yeah.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
So the first thing that happened was the officer showed up and he had no clue whatsoever in terms of really what to do, except it felt like he was trying to keep the area clear, but there was nobody to keep the area clear from. Right. And but I did stay kind of calm. But again, the things that were going through my head, I was telling you about, you know, the motorcycle and some other things.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And then I started thinking on the positive things about, you know, I'm grateful. I took care of, you know, my life insurance and all these other kind of things. And I mean, I went from from not being able to do something to the worst tragedies of the whole thing. And then finally.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
about because i it was it seemed like it was 30 minutes before the ambulance showed up it seemed like yeah yeah a lot of time and that is a lot of time yeah and in the time from the phone call to them showing up i started to feel i could close and open my hand again
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And in the midst of them coming, getting me off the ground and putting me into the ambulance, then I could start to get some movement back.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
Yeah. So I have a... I don't like needles. Right. So first thing they want to do is start poking me with not just the small needles, but the big ones. Right.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
And I'm like, do I need to go through that and everything? Hey, I can move my arm now. You know, don't poke me. But they said, well, you know, this is the protocol. I was kind of, you know, again, disappointed.
Health Chatter
Stroke - A Patient Story
A lot of things going through my brain is you don't need to have medical personnel unless you know that you had a bad issue, like you're having a bad issue, and then therefore you need to have something. So don't poke a hole in me if I don't know that what you're doing is a necessity to be putting holes in me.