“It’s a girl!!”

May 7, 2015September 30, 2024 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 64 Comments

Welcome to the world, my darling little grandbaby! Everly Rose, born at 7:07 p.m. on May 7th, 2015 (which would have been my late mother’s birthday!) Proud parents are Larissa and Randy – Mum and babe doing “FANTASTIC!”, says the new Daddy.

Let the spoiling begin!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Q: Any words of grandmotherly advice for me?

UPDATE: Everly Rose makes her television debut at age 4 weeks (starting about 1:10)

And a few more photo updates as our girl grows . . .

Our house decorated to help spread the news!

Tiny little feet . . .

So alert . . .

On my two-month birthday (notice the “Happy Birthday Peanut” cake)

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I love my Baba (that’s me – her grandmother!)

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Such a happy little girl!

Having a little chat with my Baba

First Christmas!

Just lyin’ around on the living room floor . . .

One year old already!

“I have six teeth now!” ~ on the beach at Black Creek with Mummy

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Playing with my onion. . .

Trying on Baba’s scarf

Feeding the ducks at Beacon Hill Park

Daddy throws me up high at the annual Oak Bay Tea Party (age 2!)

♥

Out for a walk around Oak Bay Village with my bunny Lou Lou

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Baba getting me ready for our walk to daycare

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Riding the carousel at Hillside Mall

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I’m four years old today! (with Mummy’s homemade Piñata Cake!)

Age 7: Making cabbage rolls with my Baba for Ukrainian Christmas Eve dinner!

Age 8: Guess who Baba and I saw while we were walking home from school!?!

Age 9: I baked this cherry cake from scratch for afternoon tea with Mum & Baba

♥

“It’s not your heart. It’s just _____” (insert misdiagnosis)

May 3, 2015May 26, 2023 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 46 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

It’s fair to say that you would not be reading these words had my heart attack not been misdiagnosed with a cheerful “You are in the right demographic for acid reflux!” Had I been correctly diagnosed, admitted and appropriately treated during that first trip to the Emergency Department, I would likely never have started this blog in 2009. Nor would I be still writing years later about female heart patients being misdiagnosed in mid-heart attack.

We know that women continue to be under-diagnosed – and then under-treated even when appropriately diagnosed – compared to men presenting with cardiac symptoms. In fact, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, female heart patients in their 50s and younger are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed than our male counterparts.(1)

You know your body. You KNOW when something is just not right. Even if, like the following women, you too are sent home, do not hesitate to return to Emergency or to your physician if symptoms worsen.

Here’s my latest round of true tales from women whose cardiovascular disease is still being missed. Continue reading ““It’s not your heart. It’s just _____” (insert misdiagnosis)” →

“I’m just not a pill person” – and other annoying excuses

April 26, 2015January 2, 2023 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum writes in the New England Journal of Medicine about a friend who is worried about her father since two of his sisters have recently died following strokes. She asks her friend:

“Is he on aspirin?”

“Oh, heavens, no,” the friend replies. “My parents are totally against taking any medications.”

“But why?”

“They don’t believe in them.”

Curious about what she calls this instinctive non-belief, a commonly observed reluctance to take the medications their physicians recommend (aka non-compliance or the slightly less patronizing non-adherence), Dr. Rosenbaum wanted to understand how patients feel about taking cardiac medications. The consequences of not taking one’s meds can be deadly, yet almost half of all heart patients are famously reluctant to do so.(1) Dr. Rosenbaum, a cardiologist at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, wondered: Are there emotional barriers? Where do they come from? Can we find better ways of increasing medication adherence if we understand these barriers?*

So she interviewed patients who’d had a myocardial infarction (heart attack) – first at the time of the initial cardiac event, and again months later. Their answers fell into five distinct themes that might be surprising to doctors feeling frustrated by their non-compliant patients. Continue reading ““I’m just not a pill person” – and other annoying excuses” →

Slow-onset heart attack: the trickster that fools us

April 19, 2015December 17, 2022 ~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 109 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

As I’ve noted here previously, there were a number of very good reasons that I believed that Emergency Department physician who sent me home with an acid reflux misdiagnosis. Despite my textbook heart attack symptoms of central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain down my left arm, these reasons included:

1. He had the letters M.D. after his name;

2. He misdiagnosed me in a decisively authoritative manner;

3. I wanted to believe him because I’d much rather have indigestion than heart disease, thank you very much;

4. The Emergency nurse scolded me privately about my questions to this doctor, warning me: “He is a very good doctor, and he does not like to be questioned!” (The questions I’d been asking included, not surprisingly: “But Doctor, what about this pain down my left arm?”);

5. Most of all, what I had always imagined a heart attack looking like (clutching one’s chest in agony, falling down unconscious, 911, ambulance, sirens, CPR) was not at all what I was experiencing. Instead, despite my alarming symptoms, I was still able to walk, talk, think and generally behave like a normally functioning person, i.e. one who is definitely NOT having a heart attack!*

So it all made sense to me as I was being sent home from Emergency that day, feeling very embarrassed because I had clearly been making a big fuss over nothing.

My experience, however, might have been what researchers in Ireland refer to as “slow-onset myocardial infarction”. Continue reading “Slow-onset heart attack: the trickster that fools us” →