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

Financial toxicity: can you afford to have a heart attack?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Here in the Lotus Land that is Canada’s beautiful west coast, my total hospital bill after my heart attack was ZERO. The costs of my Emergency Department visits, all cardiac diagnostic tests/procedures/treatments, my hospital bed, physician/nursing care – plus all follow-up appointments with a cardiologist – are entirely funded by our provincial government health plan. Unlike so many of the American heart patients I’ve encountered since my own heart attack, I left the hospital without ever worrying how I was going to pay for my medical care.

Yet I’m highly aware that cardiac patients far less fortunate than I am often leave their hospitals not only worried about their hearts, but now worried about paying catastrophic bills.  Medical researchers call this financial toxicity.     .   Continue reading “Financial toxicity: can you afford to have a heart attack?” →

Medical Minimizer or Medical Maximizer: which one are you?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I’ve been thinking lately about why so many heart patients don’t seem to follow their doctor’s advice (because that’s the specific topic I was invited to speak on during the annual Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit being held in beautiful Vancouver, BC).

I’m pretty sure I was invited to speak because I’ve been harping on about the patronizing term “non-compliant” for years.  This is how some physicians label patients who are not advice-followers. I’m not a physician, so I tend to rely on what others far above my pay grade offer as suggestions to replace that cringe-worthy term. See also: First, There was Compliance. Then, Adherence. Now, Concordance.

No matter what you call it, researchers tell us that there are several commonly reported reasons that many patients don’t follow ‘doctor’s orders’. This week, I learned about another reason:         .

Continue reading “Medical Minimizer or Medical Maximizer: which one are you?” →

The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

Kathy Kastan’s book “From the Heart” was hot off the press when I survived a misdiagnosed heart attack in 2008. Hers was the first book I found that focused specifically on women and heart disease. Here’s how her own story was described on the book’s cover:

“After undergoing emergency coronary bypass surgery at age 42, Kathy Kastan found her world shifting in unexpected ways. Everything – her sense of well-being, relationships, daily routine, even her body image – seemed to change. Doctors helped her recover physically, but she had to find new methods to recover emotionally and create a happy, healthy life.”  

While I read this back then, my own world was crazily shifting, too. Continue reading “The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”” →

Struggle care: a new way to rethink housework

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 41 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Regular readers might recall my story of a bizarre housecleaning ritual that started after my heart attack.  I felt so frightened and overwhelmed by what had just happened to me that I became convinced I would die overnight in my bed – very likely tonight! – from another “widow maker” heart attack.

So pervasive was this conviction that for several weeks, I would clean the entire apartment every evening before bedtime, so the paramedics (or worse! – the family) wouldn’t find a mess when they discovered my corpse the next morning. The curious part was my worry that I’d still somehow be judged by my housekeeping skills – even after death!?  Continue reading “Struggle care: a new way to rethink housework” →