posts here focus on the “new normal” you’ll discover once you get home from hospital and the reality starts to sink in
Back in 1974, a writer named Emily Perl Kingsley had a baby boy she named Jason who was diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Years later, the writer for Sesame Street wrote an essay called Welcome to Holland about living with a child with that diagnosis. This essay has become a classic, and it may help those of us who face any life-altering reality we didn’t see coming – like a serious cardiac diagnosis.
Here’s what Emily wrote: Continue reading ““Welcome to Holland!””
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
“There may be times when the joy you feel about survival far outweighs any anxieties you may have.
“Then, there will be times when your fears and uncertainties seem to take over your life, and you wonder if you will ever feel normal again.”
This sounds so familiar to any of us who have survived a catastrophic cardiac event, doesn’t it?
But these words were not written about heart patients – they’re for cancer survivors. Which made me wonder about this thing known as “survivorship” – a popular concept in oncology that defines a cancer survivor “from the time of diagnosis and for the balance of life.”
But where, I ask you, is the concept of “survivorship” for heart patients and their families? And why haven’t I found it yet? Continue reading “Where’s the “survivorship” model for heart patients?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
“Medical websites created by medically unqualified individuals (i.e. persons who are not physicians) are unreliable and should, de facto, be considered medically unsound. Don’t you agree?”
That’s a question that the late great Dr. Tom Ferguson said he was often asked during his public talks and workshops. The pioneering physician, author and researcher studied and wrote about the empowered medical consumer starting in the 1970s – a time when most people had never even heard of such an animal.
So as one of those “medically unqualified individuals” who in 2009 launched this site about women’s heart disease, I was particularly interested in Dr. Tom’s answer to that question. Here’s what he wrote:* Continue reading “Reliable health info from the ‘medically unqualified’?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I blame genetics – and three decades spent working in public relations – for generally making me one of those smiley, glass-half-full, annoyingly über-positive personalities much of the time. Not even horrific symptoms during my heart attack could alter the weak happy face that seemed freakishly pasted on throughout that ordeal.
It’s as if I were channeling Elizabeth Banks‘ classic character in her short yet brilliant film “Just A Little Heart Attack“ – in which she attempts to smile brightly despite textbook cardiac symptoms, and even good-naturedly taunts her concerned family:
“Honey, do I look like the kind of person who’s having a HEART ATTACK?”
Don’t make a fuss. Chin up. Don’t worry, be happy. Just get on with it. I’m fine, just fine.
Trouble is: people like me who sport a perma-smiley face may not be “fine”. Not at all. And I now believe that feeling obliged to pretend we are what we’re not can be both physically and psychologically damaging. Continue reading “A heart patient’s positive attitude: a “crazy, crazy idea”?”
Heart Sisters 