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

“School’s in!” every day for heart patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Annette is a 42-year old Pennsylvania artist, teacher and mother of two kidlets (10 and 6 years of age). In August of 2010, after returning home from a run, she suffered her first cardiac symptoms: “a tired I never felt before along with shortness of breath, chest tightness/pain, low blood pressure and low heart rate.”  Since then, she’s been volleyballed about by cardiologists, an infectious disease specialist and a rheumatologist – until finally arriving at the diagnosis of Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction.

Annette’s now being treated for this small vessel disease by specialists at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and considers this diagnosis to be her “major health issue.” She admits:

“It feels like life as I am used to is a memory. So I am trying to use my time to learn the practice of meditation and use the time (during the day when I have energy) wisely.”

I’m sharing this recent back-to-school essay from Annette today – with her kind permission:   Continue reading ““School’s in!” every day for heart patients” →

ICD warning: defective defibrillator leads recalled

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

It’s nail-biting time for hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide who have had a Riata defibrillator implanted next to their hearts (79,000 in the U.S., 5,300 in Canada, 4,000 in Australia – just for starters). The recent news about the Riata recall might feel like being told you now have a ticking time bomb inside your chest. Trouble is, you just don’t know if that time bomb will start firing when it shouldn’t, or fail to fire in time to resuscitate your heart when it should.

And worse, neither does your doctor.

In December 2011, following reports of premature erosion of the insulation around the electrical conductor lead wires in these devices, the FDA ordered an urgent Class 1 recall (the most serious type of recall) of all Riata and Riata ST Silicone Endocardial Defibrillation Leads manufactured by St. Jude Medical Inc.  Here is the FDA recommendation to all patients with these Riata devices implanted in their bodies:*    Continue reading “ICD warning: defective defibrillator leads recalled” →

How hot weather hurts our hearts

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 28 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Welcome to Lotus Land, where, alas, it’s been stinkin’ hot lately. This is tragically unfair, I think. I moved here to Canada’s beautiful West Coast decades ago in order to escape the kind of soul-sucking sauna that passes for summer back east.

And because uncomfortably hot weather is so deliciously rare here, few of us even have air conditioning, although I do have a little electric fan that I’ve started carrying around the apartment with me from room to room this past week.

Since surviving a heart attack, I’ve learned a whole new reason to hate the heat.  I walk around feeling sick, clutching my little fan, a damp cloth pressed to the back of my neck, hot and cranky and looking like I’ve been hit by a very large bus. Here’s why heart patients can feel so much worse when those temperatures soar:   Continue reading “How hot weather hurts our hearts” →

Finding the funny when the diagnosis isn’t

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas  ♥

Today, out of left field and with the kind permission of Disruptive Women in Health Care – where it was originally published by Casey Quinlan on November 23, 2011 – I’m revisiting the classic post she called: “Finding the Funny When the Diagnosis Isn’t”. 

NOTE:   Sadly, “Mighty Casey” died on April 25, 2023 from a recurrence of metastatic breast cancer.  Her wonderful tribute published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine is a must-read. And here’s what she wrote about humor in “Finding the Funny When the Diagnosis Isn’t”: 

“It’s not easy hearing your name and [insert dread diagnosis here]. I know this only too well after having to find the funny in my own journey through cancer. Cancer is, however, most often a diagnosis that you fight to a defined end. What’s it like to find the funny in a chronic condition?

“I have a number of friends who are battling MS, one of whom, Amy Gurowitz, shared a link on Facebook the other day to Jim Sweeney’s online empire of improv humor and chronic disease. Jim’s MS journey started with vision problems in 1985, he was officially diagnosed in 1990, and has been dealing with the disease – finding the funny most of the time – ever since. Continue reading “Finding the funny when the diagnosis isn’t” →