Tom Joyner is opening up about his health issues.

In a two-part conversation with Patrice Harris, MD, MA, the first female Black president of the American Medical Association, the retired host of the Tom Joyner Morning Show opens up about having a stroke and recovering.

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Joyner begins by revealing he’s also an amateur boxer and tells Harris that due to a knee replacement, he opted to obtain a full-time physical therapist. 

“We are training and doing rounds and my physical therapist is counting punches,” says Joyner about the incident that occurred about five months ago. He says after throwing about 140 punches, he began to lose his balance so he leaned on the ropes to hold him up.

He says that’s when his therapist said to him, “‘Stop stop stop,”’ she said “‘I think he is having a stroke.’”

Joyner says he thought he simply “punched himself out” but then the therapist called attention to the way his left arm was hanging.

“We called 911 and [I was] rushed to the hospital, sure enough, they said I had a brain bleed on the right side… and I had lost mobility and range of motion in my arms and legs.”

He says he remained at the hospital for about a week.

He says since the incident he has been working hard to recover.

“I do physical therapy twice a day, but recovery is slow, it’s very slow,” Joyner said, revealing he recently started walking again. He goes on to say, “The reward does not match the workload because I work hard every day.”

He says he is lucky and blessed that someone was there to recognize the signs of a stroke.

“I am God’s favor,” he says, “to have someone there who immediately knew what was happening was the biggest blessing yet, I could have been completely paralyzed, complexly immobile, or maybe I couldn’t talk.”

Joyner says high blood pressure played a major component in him having the stroke. He says he was initially reluctant to take medication based on the experiences of his parents who also struggled with hypertension.

Now he wants to help others from suffering from the same situation, urging people to keep track of their blood pressure numbers and take care of their health by eating right, exercising and keeping up with doctor’s appointments.

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Signs of a stroke can include trouble speaking, lack of coordination and confusion.

The second part of their conversation which focuses on Black health in America, will air on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020, at 8 p.m. CT.

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