Author: Carolyn Thomas

Recuperation and a red leather chair

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

I loved the questions that Nancy Stordahl recently posed to her Nancy’s Point blog readers:

    “Do you associate certain things with certain events in your life? Is there something that always takes you back to that time or place – a piece of clothing, an item of food, a scent or smell, a vehicle or even a piece of furniture? What is a trigger that reminds you of your diagnosis, treatment, or ‘that time’?”

Nancy went on to tell a touching story of getting rid of her much-loved blue leather sofa and matching chair, and the association of those items with her breast cancer diagnosis and recuperation, among many other important family events, both happy and awful, over many years. Inspired by her nostalgic recall of such associations, I answered her questions by describing a piece of furniture in my own home that still reminds me of what it was like when I first became a patient.   Continue reading “Recuperation and a red leather chair” →

The dilemma of the death certificate

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters 
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In a good old-fashioned murder mystery, we know that the plot starts to heat up when the dead body is discovered and the cause of death determined. But in real life, most of us will not die quite so dramatically.
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If we live with one or more chronic illnesses, in fact, the name of at least one of those diagnoses will probably be listed on our official death certificates someday. (We could also get run over by a bus long before then, but let’s face it, chronic diseases cause 70% of deaths worldwide).
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It struck me recently that, had I died during what doctors call my widowmaker heart attack in 2008, the official cause of death would have likely read “myocardial infarction”. But that would have been wrong. The actual cause of my death would have been that I was misdiagnosed with acid reflux and sent home from the Emergency Department.
Continue reading “The dilemma of the death certificate” →

Drawing a picture of your diagnosis

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 17 Comments

 

                  .    Part of my latest mandala (a work in progress)

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

The late Madeleine Shields was a gifted artist and teacher here on the west coast of Canada. But more importantly to me, she was MY teacher. Her artistic expression of choice was the mandala, a Sanskrit word for “circle”. The mandala practice of Madeleine Shields was not what you might see in adult colouring books or on painted rocks at craft fairs. Hers was based on an ancient spiritual and meditative practice that she compared to “painting a mirror”. I can sometimes still hear her distinctive voice in my ear asking pointedly, “Did you do it well, or did you do it fast?”

A recent study supports what Madeleine had already figured out 20 years before her death:  art can intuitively reflect our deepest emotions in a surprisingly accurate fashion – and that’s especially true when we become patients. Continue reading “Drawing a picture of your diagnosis” →

Failure to inspire

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 34 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Blogging sometimes feels like a cross between therapy (writing about what I’m obsessing over at any given moment) and planning a classroom lecture (getting emerging research, current journal references and my own thoughts in order about very specific subjects – mostly women’s heart disease and the experience of becoming a patient). 

But if you’ve been here before, you already know that one of my favourite parts of noodling away on this blog is the interactive response from my readers. This is always a two-way street. Your comments make me laugh, they make me cry, they almost always make me want to respond. My favourite kind of reader comment: “I thought I was the only one who felt this way. . . “

But what some of you may not know is that sometimes, reader comments can also make me feel tired and cranky.    Continue reading “Failure to inspire” →