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

Dear Carolyn: “Did I have a ‘real’ heart attack?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 27 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

As part of my occasional Dear Carolyn series featuring my readers’ unique narratives about how they became heart patients, I offer today a medical mystery from an Oregon reader. After dueling physicians differed in their opinions of her diagnosis, Lynn Bay now wonders if she actually did have a “real” heart attack, as one of them had diagnosed. Her story may seem familiar to you if you’ve ever had your medical experience dismissed or minimized. Here’s Lynn’s story, with her permission: Continue reading “Dear Carolyn: “Did I have a ‘real’ heart attack?”” →

“Dear Carolyn: I was never one to complain”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Sometimes, the story of how another woman first discovered she had heart disease can seem eerily familiar to our own. It’s that familiarity that first attracted me to this Dear Carolyn episode (our fourth in the occasional series that features my Heart Sisters readers sharing the unique experience of what it can feel like to become a heart patient).

This particular reader, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains her reluctance to seek medical help while repeatedly blaming her distressing symptoms on non-cardiac causes. I completely identified with that reluctance because I went through that same surreal refusal to seek help for my own worsening cardiac symptoms after being misdiagnosed in the E.R. with acid reflux. If you, too, have ever engaged in what researchers call “treatment-seeking delay behaviour“ during a heart attack, her story might feel familiar to you, too. Continue reading ““Dear Carolyn: I was never one to complain”” →

Dear Carolyn: “I’m having the time of my life!”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

As part of my Dear Carolyn series of posts featuring my readers’ unique stories on what it’s like to become a heart patient, this one involves a woman with not one but several medical diagnoses. When distressing symptoms were initially diagnosed by her oncologist as lymphoedema (a condition sometimes associated with cancer treatments), her first response was: “My future looks positively bleak.” But when she finally heard the corrected diagnosis of heart failure from an internal medicine specialist one year following her chemo treatments and radiation, her surprising reaction was this:

“I just about hugged the internist when he told me it wasn’t lymphoedema after all – it was just my heart!  I thought he’d given me my life back again. And he had! Like receiving my own Magna Carta. And in a single week, with the help of my new cardiac medications, off came the 30 extra pounds of fluid I’d been hauling around.”

That was certainly a first for me (somebody thrilled by a heart failure diagnosis!?) Today’s Dear Carolyn letter focuses on a favourite subject of mine: resilience in the face of a medical crisis, and it starts with a woman known to us simply as Honey Bee:  Continue reading “Dear Carolyn: “I’m having the time of my life!”” →

A letter from your heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 30 Comments

To whom it may concern. . .

Congratulations! You have been selected to be the host for heart disease. You will begin to experience many or all of these symptoms — and may even deal with several of them all at the same time.

  • Pain! We are equal opportunity destroyers, therefore we will choose many places for you to experience pain. We have even devised many different types of pain, but we’ll throw in some nitroglycerin to keep your mind off the pain temporarily. We are continually improving our repertoire of pain categories, so expect updates.
  • Mental confusion: This can be accompanied by embarrassment, memory loss, shortness of breath, poor co-ordination, inability to concentrate, and sensations of confusion or even having somehow lost your sense of self. We try to simulate the experience of riding a never-ending roller coaster to satisfy your adventurous spirit. No safety harnesses required, and you have no choice of when the coaster ride starts, ends, or how fast it goes. Continue reading “A letter from your heart disease” →