In 2020, comedian Keith Robinson was on a flight from New York to Arizona, enjoying drinks in first class. About 20 minutes before landing, he took an erectile dysfunction medication. When he got off the flight, “things started to go wrong from there.
” “My vision was ,” Robinson, 60, tells TODAY.com. “I had the choice: Should I go to the hospital? Or over to the girl’s house? And I went to the girl’s house first.
” Robinson visited the hospital the next day and learned he had a . But despite the health challenges he’s faced, he's performing stand up again and recently filmed a special, “Keith Robison: Different Strokes,” which starts streaming on Netflix on June 11. “I’m thinking back to where I was to where I am now.
It’s good,” he says. The day after taking the ED medication, Robinson was diagnosed with a stroke at the Arizona hospital. He'd previously had another one in 2016.
When he returned home to the East Coast, he went to a hospital in New Jersey and then another in Philadelphia. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Robinson felt isolated. What’s more, he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and had to stay longer than he hoped.
“I wanted to find the funny in the pain,” he says. “It was very painful going through all of that.” The stroke caused immobility on his right side, and Robinson now uses a cane when he walks.
“I have some paralysis. I can’t fully extend my arm,” he says. “My leg, I can walk and move around.
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