On Friday evening, December 2, 2022, 84-year-old Glennie Thompson drove to Rite Aid in Hampton’s Fox Hill area, not far from home. She was waiting in the pharmacy drive-through when she had an acute stroke and lost control of her car, causing it to hit the truck in front of her. The driver called 911 and paramedics arrived immediately, transporting Glennie to Riverside Regional Medical Center (RRMC), the Peninsula’s only Certified Comprehensive Stroke Center.
Around 6 p.m., after receiving a call from a Riverside emergency room physician, Glennie’s goddaughter Gwen, who had just spoken with her two hours earlier, picked up Glennie’s sister and headed to RRMC, where they learned that she had suffered a stroke and that her body’s right side was paralyzed.
Neurointerventional surgeon Pankajavalli Ramakrishnan, M.D., explained that surgery was necessary. “Dr. Ramakrishnan looked at me and said, ‘I'm going to take care of her,’” Gwen remembers. “I felt the peace of God come over me because that doctor showed some compassion. She put herself in my place.” Gwen found the anesthesiologist and the waiting room staff to be just as caring.
Gwen began making phone calls, asking people to pray for Glennie. Two hours later, Dr. Ramakrishnan reported that the surgery had gone well. She had removed 95% of a two-inch-long blood clot, leaving only 5% to dissolve with medication. “She showed me the picture of how her brain looked before — it was like a cloud — and after surgery, the blood was flowing through her head,” Gwen says. “But she said we’d have to take it hour by hour.” Overnight, the family was able to briefly see Glennie, still sedated, in the intensive care unit as a nurse reassured them.
When morning came, Gwen walked into Glennie’s room with a cautious “Good morning” and was thrilled when her godmother replied, “Good morning!” The nurse reported that she had been improving each hour, and Gwen could barely contain her joy when she saw Glennie raising her right arm and leg — and even eating a meal!
Glennie soon moved out of the ICU and, 10 days after her stroke, she was transferred from RRMC to a Riverside rehabilitation center, where she spent two weeks before returning home on Christmas Eve. She received a few days of 24-hour care, followed by two weeks of in-home therapy. “Riverside’s physical, occupational and speech therapy was excellent,” Gwen says. “It's one thing to be trained to do something, but it's another thing to enjoy what you're doing and want to help people. This is what I've just seen so much with Riverside.”
At a January follow-up appointment, Dr. Ramakrishnan told Glennie she looked fabulous and suggested that she visit the hospital staff. “Everybody was really excited about her recovery and how well she's doing,” Gwen says. “They took pictures, and she showed them what she could do — the PT people said, ‘You don't even need that cane!’”
Though Glennie only remembers some of the events surrounding her stroke, she knows that she was well cared for. “Riverside was an excellent place for me to be,” she says. “I thank God for all the people who have been concerned about my care — for those who helped me and for all the attention they gave me. It's good to know that people do care.”
With some daily in-home assistance, Glennie is now living independently. “Thank God she’s been progressively getting better all the time,” Gwen says. “We are certainly indebted to Riverside for the care she received. From the time I received that 6 p.m. phone call until she left the hospital, and even through rehab and in-home therapy, Riverside folks were awesome. Every person that crossed her room’s threshold to do anything for her showed so much love and compassion.
“I can't express enough gratitude. It's one thing that I love her and I'll do whatever she needs, but it's another thing when people don't know her and they do it anyway.”
It sounds like Riverside’s mission to “care for others as we would care those we love” was carried out in the care of Glennie Thompson.
