Category: Heart Sisters

– posts here focus on general topics about women and heart disease

A motherless Mother’s Day

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

This month marks both the occasion of my mother’s birthday (she would have turned 84 on May 7th) and, of course, Mother’s Day – the first Mother’s Day in living memory that I didn’t send my Mom a card and flowers. That’s because she died this year on February 21st. Last month, she missed the birthdays of her first child (me) and her first grandchild (my own son Ben) – but since the cruel diagnosis of vascular dementia invaded her brain cells some time ago, she’d long been unable to keep track of things like her family anymore.

As Christopher Buckley wrote in his memoir, Losing Mum and Pup, when the last of your parents dies, you are an orphan:

“But you also lose the true keeper of your memories, your triumphs, your losses. Your mother is a scrapbook for all your enthusiasms. She is the one who validates and the one who shames, and when she’s gone, you are alone in a terrible way.”   Continue reading “A motherless Mother’s Day” →

Are you reading this sitting down? Don’t!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

A recent study of over 200,000 Australians suggests that you might want to stand up if you happen to be sitting down right now.  This study*, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that prolonged sitting is a health risk  independent of physical activity, and adds to the growing body of evidence that people who sit the most die the soonest – and, worse, you may not be able to exercise this effect away.

I don’t know about you, but I thought that last finding was disturbing.

In fact, Aussie researchers reported that not even getting regular physical exercise can outweigh the higher mortality risks associated with sitting more than 11 hours a day. Healthy or sick, active or inactive, the more people sat, the more likely they were to die sooner than non-sedentary people.  Continue reading “Are you reading this sitting down? Don’t!” →

When your mother dies

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments
                           Rest in peace, Mom

Joan Zaruk   ♥  May 7, 1928 – February 21, 2012

At 5 a.m. this morning, after hearing the news on the phone, I reread the chapter called When Your Mother Dies, in Rona Maynard’s wonderful book, My Mother’s Daughter:

“Baby showers herald the transition to motherhood. Roses, greeting cards and invitations to lunch celebrate mothers every May. Yet, despite our culture’s motherhood mystique, no rituals mark the psychological journey we daughters begin when our mothers die.     Continue reading “When your mother dies” →

Women live longer – but not healthier – lives than men

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

Audiences for my women’s heart health presentations are mostly female, but sometimes women will bring along their hubbies, too. One such man came up to speak to me following one of my  recent public talks. He told me in quite a stern tone that he thought all this focus on women and heart disease was “far too negative!” What I should concentrate on instead, he advised me, was the more positive fact that women live longer than men do.

Setting aside his patronizing petulance at learning the actual grim reality about women’s heart health, it turns out that he’s quite correct. But although women do generally live longer, our waning years may be far less healthy than men experience in their old age.    Continue reading “Women live longer – but not healthier – lives than men” →