Author: Carolyn Thomas

Women’s heart disease: an awareness campaign fail?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 25 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

I’ve been thinking a lot about awareness-raising lately because of a bombshell report  from the 2019 American Heart Association National Survey released this month.(1)  Among other completely demoralizing findings, this report found that women’s awareness of their most common heart attack risks and symptoms has significantly declined from a prior survey done 10 years earlier. How is that even possible?   .      .     .  Continue reading “Women’s heart disease: an awareness campaign fail?” →

Who will speak for you when you can’t?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥     @HeartSisters

Would you like a morning or afternoon appointment? Which colour do you prefer? Paper or plastic? Do you want fries with that?

On an average day (and do those even exist anymore?), we speak up freely when we’re asked countless minor questions about what we want. But what happens if we’re being asked the most important question ever – yet we’re no longer able to respond?    .       .    Continue reading “Who will speak for you when you can’t?” →

Being of sound mind: it’s time to update your will

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments

 by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I feel like I should put a warning alongside this post, because it’s about something we don’t want to talk or even think about. We live in a death-denying society. I know this, because I spent many years working in hospice palliative care. For example, even a woman being admitted to our 17-bed in-patient unit one day seemed shocked by the brochures in her room. She told us that the words ‘end-of-life care’ on the brochure cover should be immediately removed, because those words meant the dreaded D-word that she’d been denying.   .      .  Continue reading “Being of sound mind: it’s time to update your will” →

The sudden death of an ex-spouse

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 45 Comments

 by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

His body was found in his favourite chair, facing the TV that was still on (most likely, watching hockey). He’d been a lifelong Toronto Maple Leafs fan despite the team’s disappointing inability to win the Stanley Cup each year since 1967; even his obituary included his long-suffering lament:

  “When I die, I want the Leafs to be my pallbearers, so they can let me down one last time.”                .

Continue reading “The sudden death of an ex-spouse” →