Month: January 2011

Stupid things that doctors say to heart patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 22 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

“It’s definitely not your heart – it’s just acid reflux!” That was the first regrettable (and wrong) thing that the E.R. doctor said to me, despite my textbook heart attack symptoms of crushing chest pain, sweating, nausea, and pain radiating down my left arm. When I raised the  topic of stupid comments on Inspire’s WomenHeart online community, cardiac survivors jumped right in.

These women were all too happy to share some of the real-life comments that physicians have actually said out loud to them.  Most of these dismissive comments were made shortly before these patients subsequently had to undergo life-saving cardiac procedures.  Each comment is true; the names of the physicians have not been disclosed in order to protect the stupid (a word, by the way, which I’m using here in its most charitable dictionary definition: “lacking common sense, dazed, unable to think clearly”).  Here goes:   Continue reading “Stupid things that doctors say to heart patients” →

“The Winter I Lived On Potatoes – And Loved It!”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

Is there any veggie better than the humble and versatile potato? It is and always has been my very favourite comfort food. Potato pancakes with those crispy brown edges, twice-baked stuffed potatoes oozing with cottage-cheesey goodness, those exquisite first-of-the-season new potatoes tossed in my mother’s incomparable dill sauce, creamy garlic mashed at Sunday dinner – heaven, absolute heaven, every single forkful!

But potatoes sometimes get a bad rap for being fattening (especially given all the goop we like to scoop or pour or melt over them) and not quite as healthy as, say, the boring broccoli floret. Not so for Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission. Chris ate nothing but potatoes throughout October and November of 2010 (that’s about 20 5-ounce potatoes a day for 60 days) to help publicize the nutritional value of potatoes. He varied his clinically-supervised menu by eating things like potato pickles and even (seriously!) potato ice cream. (Read on for some of my favourite – and more conventional! – heart-healthy potato recipes!)   Continue reading ““The Winter I Lived On Potatoes – And Loved It!”” →

Heart attack funnies: “You suck at pessimism!”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

“Catastrophizing” – why we feel sicker than we actually are

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 19 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

It’s distressingly common in cardiac circles to run into people who don’t have heart disease, but who are very certain that they do. When I first heard some of their stories, I suspected that these people are being misdiagnosed, but the reality may instead be that there’s no heart disease here at all.

This scenario came up recently with a woman with few if any cardiac symptoms, no definitive test results, and very little reason for believing she might have a heart condition. Yet she was so utterly convinced a heart attack was imminent that she described feeling like a “ticking time bomb”. A fellow heart attack survivor, far braver than I, suggested to this woman that she might be experiencing a phenomenon called catastrophizing.   Continue reading ““Catastrophizing” – why we feel sicker than we actually are” →