Category: Living with heart disease

posts here focus on the “new normal” you’ll discover once you get home from hospital and the reality starts to sink in

How health journalists help “to make people who feel invisible feel seen”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

I was late in discovering the writing of Ed Yong. The British-American journalist had already been a staff writer at The Atlantic for six years before I first read one of his articles, but it was his rare ability to make the most complex science make sense which convinced me to start reading everything he wrote. Here’s how Ed’s own editors described his series of articles on the COVID pandemic which won him the  Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2021:  “Ed Yong anticipated the course of the coronavirus pandemic, clarified its dangers, and illuminated the government’s disastrous failure to curb it.”

One of the early issues that Ed Yong zeroed in on was that physicians seemed  remarkably dismissive of people who were suffering terribly with what’s now called Long-COVID. But Ed and a small spattering of other science writers were taking those patient reports seriously. And in his regular newsletter, Ed described the important role of journalism as helping “to make people who feel invisible feel seen”. 

Continue reading “How health journalists help “to make people who feel invisible feel seen”” →

New Year’s resolutions for those who hate resolutions

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas     ♥    @HeartSisters   

Well, we’re into the New Year now. For some of us, that’s almost enough time to notice small cracks beginning to appear in the boldly announced resolutions made in the midst of all that post-Christmas excess. This is not new.

When I was one of the volunteer run leaders at our local Y Marathon Clinic during the last century, we’d often hear such resolutions from first-timers starting our training workouts every January – something like “This is the year I’m finally going to quit smoking, lose 20 pounds and run a marathon!”

“Honey,” I would say gently to them:   “Pick one!”          .  Continue reading “New Year’s resolutions for those who hate resolutions” →

What I learned from writing my most-read ‘Heart Sisters’ articles in 2023

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 17 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  

Five months after my heart attack, I attended the 2008 WomenHeart Science & Leadership patient advocacy training at Mayo Clinic – the first Canadian heart patient ever accepted. I learned so much from my 44 American heart sisters – ages 31 to 71 – who also attended that year, and of course from our rock-star faculty of female cardiologists from Mayo and beyond, brilliantly led by the one and only founder of the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic, Dr. Sharonne Hayes.♥  When I returned home and started writing and speaking about what I’d just learned at Mayo, my public relations friends teased me: “This is what happens when a PR person survives a heart attack: you just keep writing, speaking and looking stuff up – because that’s all you know how to do!”  And they were so right! Here’s my annual overview of what I’ve been learning while writing some of the most-read posts this past year:         .     Continue reading “What I learned from writing my most-read ‘Heart Sisters’ articles in 2023” →

Adding more years to life vs. more life to years

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

I’ve noticed that a specific conversation topic keeps popping up when my girlfriends of a certain age get together – particularly when we start comparing what we used to be able to do with what we’re able to do now.          .

Here’s just one simple example:  I used to be able to sit down on the floor and then casually stand up again without any help. Now, with a wonky left knee encased in a big skookum brace, plus two painful wrists (one sporting its own brace), I know those days are gone.  (Thank you, osteoarthritis!)  Yes, I might still be able to painfully get myself down onto the floor, but there’d better be two strong adults around to pull me back up by both arms.    .   Continue reading “Adding more years to life vs. more life to years” →