Author: Carolyn Thomas

The “emotional labour” of living with heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

♥ “My hubby is stuck with me for another 15 years as long as I keep following doctor’s orders.”

♥ “I told my family that I now had a pig valve in my heart – but I was disappointed when the doctor told me I couldn’t keep the bacon.”

♥ “I am determined to outlive my husband – because I want to clean out his garage!”

Heart patients often use humour* like this to distract themselves from the high levels of stress and fear often associated with a life-altering diagnosis like heart disease – such as distressing symptoms, upcoming surgery, diagnostic tests, or even the ongoing awareness of a significantly increased risk of future cardiac events.  So reports Nicholas Lockwood, whose research focused on how heart patients use humour to help them cope with their condition – but ended up showing some surprising results.  Continue reading “The “emotional labour” of living with heart disease” →

Do you think you’re a “somebody”?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

I'm the little blonde standing up...
I’m the little blonde with the funny haircut

When I was a little girl in the 1950s, my parents were stingy with praise and magnanimous with criticism. To be otherwise would result in a child developing a “swelled head”, which, as all parents knew back then, would be the worst possible thing that could ever happen to any child.

“She really thinks she’s a SOMEBODY!” was a phrase delivered with withering contempt by my mother in describing any person whose sense of self-esteem seemed even remotely healthy.

Continue reading “Do you think you’re a “somebody”?” →

How Minimally Disruptive Medicine is happily disrupting health care

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I went on an adventure to a magical, faraway place. It was my second visit to the world-famous Mayo Clinic in beautiful downtown Rochester, Minnesota. My first trip there was back in 2008, five months after surviving a misdiagnosed widow-maker heart attack.

I was there that first time because I had applied (and was accepted) to attend the annual WomenHeart Science and Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease at Mayo Clinic – the first Canadian ever invited to attend. This is a training program that arms its graduates with the knowledge, skills and (most of all!) Mayo’s international street cred to help us become community educators for other women when we go back to our hometowns.

Thus, a circle that began with me sitting in that 2008 training audience of 45 women (ages 31-71, all of us heart patients) was completed on my second trip as I became one of the presenters onstage – this time in front of an audience of cardiologists! – at a Mayo Clinic medical conference on Heart Disease in Women (Thank you Drs. Hayes, Mulvagh and Gulati for your persistent invitations!)  But long before I took the stage that weekend, I’d been invited to come to Rochester a day earlier to meet with some pretty amazing Mayo staff. Continue reading “How Minimally Disruptive Medicine is happily disrupting health care” →

What kind of heart attacks do young women have?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

In your average garden-variety textbook heart attack, the cause is typically a sudden lack of oxygenated blood supply feeding the heart muscle, caused by a significant blockage in one of your coronary arteries. This blockage is what doctors call the culprit lesion.

But in a new study led by Yale University cardiologist Dr. Erica Spatz, researchers remind us that although this “culprit lesion” classification of heart attack applies to about 95% of men under age 55, only 82.5% of younger women experience this kind of heart attack.(1)    Continue reading “What kind of heart attacks do young women have?” →