Month: December 2011

Year in review: top 10 Heart Sisters posts for 2011

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

It’s that time again, when navel-gazing pundits everywhere compile their Best Of or Top 10 lists for the year that’s just about to slip away.  Same here at Heart Sisters!  So let’s take a nostalgic look backwards today at what I like to describe as this “cardiac rehab for my brain” – and why almost 280,000 people like you have visited this site since its launch.

I wish a very Happy New Year to my readers, especially to those of you who choose to share what you like here with your colleagues, families or your health care professionals, to my loyal subscribers, to those of you who have generously shared your heartfelt, inspiring and sometimes very entertaining personal comments here, and particularly to all women living with heart disease. You are not alone.

Now here’s our Top 10 list of the most widely-read Heart Sisters posts of 2011:    Continue reading “Year in review: top 10 Heart Sisters posts for 2011” →

The lost art of common courtesy in medicine

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 15 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

So I showed up for a scheduled medical test at the hospital the other day. It was one of those particularly distasteful tests that involve a full day’s prep at home choking down a range of hideous chemical cocktails, consumption of which is designed to induce explosive liquid diarrhea that requires staying very, very close to a toilet all day long. The procedure itself  on the following morning was right up there on the Creepy Disgusting Embarrassing Cringe Scale of medical experiences.

Hospital procedures like this feel invasive, uncomfortable, distressing, and revoltingly undignified for most patients. All the more reason that medical staff who administer such procedures need to start treating us like we’re more than just the nameless, faceless 10 o’clock patient in Bed 8, what I’ve previously described here as “the obstacle between them and their next coffee break, just a piece of meat on a slab – but worse, an invisible piece of meat.”

Call me crazy, but I might even go so far as to insist that patients deserve to be treated with common courtesy, and let’s start with the simple basics of saying something like:

“Hello. My name is _____ and I’ll be doing your ______  today.” Continue reading “The lost art of common courtesy in medicine” →

How to have a waste-free festive family dinner this year

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Since surviving a heart attack, I’m smugly happy to announce that my consumption of heart-healthy fruit and veggies has increased nicely.  I should preface that by explaining that I grew up in a Ukrainian family where we considered dill pickles to be a vegetable course.  So veggies are not my favourite food.

Sometimes, when shopping for that lovely fresh produce at the market, my “eyes are bigger than my stomach” – as my mother used to say – and the veggies at the very back of the produce crisper in the fridge can begin to resemble slimy, mushy compost instead of tonight’s dinner. My distress about this slime is why I like what Wasted Food blogger Jonathon Bloom is doing.  Continue reading “How to have a waste-free festive family dinner this year” →

Pregnancy: the ultimate cardiac stress test

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

I’m not interested in this Canadian women’s health initiative in Kingston, Ontario just because it will help identify links between our pregnancy complications and heart disease.

I’m not interested in this just because during my first pregnancy I was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia – a serious complication that has now been “strongly linked” with a marked increase in cardiovascular disease.

And I’m not interested just because I have such a personal soft spot for the historic limestone city of Kingston and for its venerable Queen’s University, along with other members of our family who are Queen’s grads – “Oil thigh na Banrighinn! Cha-gheill! Cha-gheill! Cha-gheill! ” (for those of you who happen to have your Gaelic-English dictionaries handy).

Here’s why I do care about this innovative new women’s program.   Continue reading “Pregnancy: the ultimate cardiac stress test” →