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

Cardiac care for the whole patient – not just the heart

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 17 Comments

A serious medical crisis can yank you unceremoniously right out of your normal game and hip check you into the boards, leaving you metaphorically bruised and literally traumatized. The freshly-diagnosed wear a familiar look – that look which seems to ask plaintively:

“What the hell just happened to me, and what’s going to happen next?”

But it’s often a delayed question, surfacing only after the most serious part of a health crisis has been survived, finally allowing reality about what’s just happened to you to sink in.  

Continue reading “Cardiac care for the whole patient – not just the heart” →

Dr. John Mandrola: “AFib is your body talking to you”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 33 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

If you or somebody you care about has been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (AF),  you likely already know this about the diagnosis: it’s an irregular heart rhythm affecting the heart’s upper chambers (the right and left atria) – and it’s also the most common heart-related reason for hospital admission. As Kentucky cardiologist Dr. John Mandrola likes to describe the disorder:

“AF is both a disease and a consequence of actions. It’s your body talking to you.”

Dr. John is a bike racer and one of my favourite writers in cardiology. As my heart sister Jaynie Martz once sized up his writing: “concise, charming, compassionately light, adult-to-adult, uber-digestible with nary a whiff of condescension or pomposity.” Amen, Jaynie.  His particular cardiac specialty is electrophysiology, the diagnosis and treatment of heart rhythm disorders. Here’s his overall take on the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, as delivered to a Utah conference of his fellow electrophysiologists recently: Continue reading “Dr. John Mandrola: “AFib is your body talking to you”” →

Confessions of a non-compliant patient

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 32 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

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Consider this scenario, dear reader:  I’m lying in bed one Sunday evening, settled in to watch 60 Minutes for the next hour. But this Sunday is different from any other Sunday because I’ve had three new things to deal with during the past week that are utterly separate from my laundry list of daily cardiac concerns:

  1. I’ve been having physiotherapy three times a week because I twisted my right knee (same one I had knee surgery on seven years ago).
  2. I’m using a new prescription ointment for a pesky patch of psoriasis on my left elbow.
  3. I’m wearing a brand new acrylic mouth guard to bed every night that my dentist has just made for me to help treat a longstanding jaw alignment problem.

So. Here I am lying in bed that Sunday evening as our story unfolds . . . Continue reading “Confessions of a non-compliant patient” →

My blog post in the British Medical Journal!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 34 Comments

Allow me to share with you this thrilling sight, dear heart sisters!  It’s the Twitter page of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) plus its Tweet about my BMJ blog post called Why Physicians Must Stop Saying: “We Are All Patients“ that was published today. 

A big “thank you” for this goes to Dave de Bronkart (some of you know him better as ePatient Dave). Dave is a sneaky sort of guy who, unbeknownst to me, sent the BMJ editors a link to my recent Heart Sisters post called “We Are All Patients.” No, You’re Not. The editors then contacted me to ask if I’d also write something for them, and here we are!

Can I just say – – – WOW!!      🙂

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