by Carolyn Thomas ❤️ Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)
It all started with a burger a few weeks ago.
My lovely daughter-in-law Paula had picked up a takeout lunch for me from the village. The burger looked perfect: a freshly baked crusty bun, butter lettuce, juicy ripe tomato slices, yellow mustard and garlic dill pickle relish. I took a nice big bite – and then immediately spat it out onto my plate. Continue reading “Remember when food tasted like food?”
by Carolyn Thomas ❤️ Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)
Almost exactly one year ago, I started feverishly begging everyone I know to please-please-please ask their own family doctors to take on just one more new patient (ME!) despite every family practice clinic in town having a policy of “Not Accepting Any New Patients” during a doctor shortage.
And my wonderful longtime family doctor had just sent out a “Dear Valued Patient” letter, announcing her upcoming retirement by Christmas time. Worse – her letter said she’d been unable to arrange a replacement physician for her patients.
Continue reading “It’s not what you know, or who you know, but who knows you”
by Carolyn Thomas ❤️ Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)
A quotation I like a lot (thank you, Bruce Springsteen!) is this: “You get used to anything. Sooner or later, it becomes your life.” As regular readers already know, I’ve been a heart patient for a long time, ever since surviving a misdiagnosed widow-maker heart attack in 2008 – enough time to really get used to the idea of living with heart disease.
In fact, that’s 17 years of getting used to saying things like “my cardiologist”.
In 2009, I launched this Heart Sisters blog. That’s 16 years of getting used to Sunday morning deadlines and reader comments.
Then in 2017, Johns Hopkins University Press published my book “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease” That’s eight years of getting used to publishers, editors, book reviews – and one unhinged (now former) publicity manager.
But on April 1st, I learned that the lump I’d found on my right breast while showering was a malignant tumor (called invasive ductal carcinoma – the most common form of breast cancer, accounting for 80 per cent of all breast cancer diagnoses).
So far, that’s only 75 days of getting used to being a cancer patient. That makes me a rank amateur. No wonder I feel so utterly overwhelmed. Continue reading “75 days – but who’s counting?”
by Carolyn Thomas ❤️ Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)
“If you have to get cancer, yours is a good kind to get!” That’s what someone recently said out loud to me. It’s the kind of thing you might say out loud if you were truly trying to cheer me up but weren’t quite sure what on earth to say to a heart patient with a newly diagnosed malignant breast tumor the size of a small grapefruit. Yale University professor of psychology Dr. Laurie Santos calls this cheerfully minimizing response to a cancer patient as “the kind that decides ‘bad’ negative emotions could be fixed if only we had a more ‘look on the bright side!’ attitude.”
Nobody wants to say the wrong thing to any newly-diagnosed patient, but that perky “good kind of cancer” comment landed with a hollow thud. It’s also an example of something that only a patient might say one day – when this is behind her.
Continue reading “When “Look on the bright side!” feels wrong”
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