Category: Heart Sisters

What women with heart disease can learn from “pinkwashing”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 24 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

In this month of all months, in Pinktober, in the holy month of All Things Pink out there, author and cancer patient Mary Elizabeth Williams dared to post a brave if not downright shocking perspective in Salon she called The Smug Morality of Breast Cancer Month.

She included this jibe at a pink ribbon campaign that she describes as an “increasingly pervasive branding opportunity”:

“Perhaps it’s time to consider what this glut of pink says about our attitudes about the meritocracy of disease, and the ways in which we dispense compassion.

“This year lung cancer will kill triple the number of people that breast cancer does. Ovarian, cervical and prostate cancer will kill more individuals than breast cancer. And alcoholism, addiction and depression will this year continue to kill not just via the overt channels of overdose and suicide, but in their brutal toll on overall health.”

And let’s not forget to add to Mary Elizabeth’s deadly list heart disease, the #1 killer of women.  It was only after my own heart attack that I learned heart disease kills more women than ALL forms of cancer combined.  But targeting any disease as a “branding opportunity” is not about being anti-pink.  Instead, as Mary Elizabeth Williams warns us:

“We run the risk of ennobling those with certain sicknesses while stigmatizing others.”

Continue reading “What women with heart disease can learn from “pinkwashing”” →

Hope for the aching heart

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

This article, written by Dr. Lisa Holland, appeared in the Columbia Notebook, Spring/Summer, 2007

“Jen, who lives with her husband and two children, recently underwent an unexpected double bypass surgery. At 50, her course of healing should have been uncomplicated. But six days after surgery, she developed a fear of being alone and would stay up extremely late because she was afraid to fall asleep.

“Over a period of several months, her once-savored walks with Toby, the family dog, dwindled down to once a week until finally she stopped walking him at all. When Doug, her husband, told her that he was worried about her, she cried.

“Through her tears she replied:

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, all I know is that I’m scared I’ll have another heart attack.”  Continue reading “Hope for the aching heart” →

Caring for elderly parents: why daughters pay a heavier toll than sons

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

At the Canadian Stroke Congress in Quebec City recently, researchers presented a review of 42 published studies that had looked at the effects of caregiving on adult children who take care of parents who have survived a stroke. More than half of the studies looked at daughters who served as caregivers.

Although this review focused on the care of parents who were stroke survivors, no woman I know with ailing parents of any diagnosis would be surprised at the review’s findings: that adult daughters suffer more than adult sons from poor relationships with aging parents who need their care.  Review author Marina Bastawrous of the University of Toronto explained:

“Adult daughters place greater emphasis on their relationships with their parents, and when those relationships go awry, it takes a worse toll on the adult daughters than the adult sons. Overall, the studies suggest that daughters suffer more than sons when they don’t get along with their ailing and elderly parents. The relationships rupture when there is less cooperation, less communication and more conflict. ”  Continue reading “Caring for elderly parents: why daughters pay a heavier toll than sons” →

Why all the fuss over cardiac endorsement of Nintendo Wii video games?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

  

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

The first time I played Wii video/fitness games over at my daughter’s house was memorable.  We laughed nonstop while we were boxing, river rafting, hula-hooping and ski-jumping in her living room, and were both huffing, puffing and sweating after an hour with the Wii console. Have you tried it yet?

Next morning, my shoulders and arms (my main boxing muscles, I would guess) were so sore I could barely lift my coffee cup.  This was a sure sign that I’d been getting a great workout, while having heaps of fun.

The American Heart Association thinks it’s a great cardiac workout, too.  In fact, the AHA has entered into a “strategic relationship” with Nintendo to endorse its Wii video game system, saying that active-play video games like Wii can be part of a healthy lifestyle.  The Wii gaming console, the Wii Fit Plus, and the Wii Sports Resort will all carry the AHA’s seal of approval.

So what could be wrong with this new AHA endorsement on such a swell product? It was the TV show Good Morning America that first raised the alarm over the partnership.  Continue reading “Why all the fuss over cardiac endorsement of Nintendo Wii video games?” →