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

Six rules for navigating your next doctor’s appointment

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

A beautifully-dressed older woman with beautifully-coiffed hair raises one beautifully-manicured hand during the Q&A portion of my Heart-Smart Women presentation. She stands and asks aloud:

“Carolyn, my doctor told me I have a heart rhythm problem. What does that mean?”

What she wants is for me to explain to her what her doctor has not. But what I want to do is to grab her by her beautifully-clad shoulders and shake her, very hard. How is it possible, I wonder, that such an articulate, well-trotted-out woman doesn’t know what her own diagnosis means, and, worse, hasn’t gone back to her doctor to find out? How can she be capable of making decisions about her expensive wardrobe, hairstyle and nails, yet somehow still be incapable of staying on top of the most important thing she owns: her heart health?

Sadly, she is not alone.  A 2008 study of women over 40 done by The Federation of Medical Women of Canada called the LIPSTICK Survey reported that women spend more time thinking about their weight than they do about their hearts. And only 10% of women surveyed knew their personal heart disease risk factors versus the 64% of women who know how much they weighed in high school! Continue reading “Six rules for navigating your next doctor’s appointment” →

Why don’t patients listen to doctors’ heart-healthy advice?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Imagine that your daughter is preparing for a junior ski race. It’s five minutes before the start of the race. You want to give her some meaningful advice. Which one of these two messages are you going to use?

1. “Honey, remember to do XYZ – it will help you avoid losing!”
2. “Honey, remember to do XYZ – it will make you faster and you will have more fun!”

Austrian physician Dr. Franz Wiesbauer, writing to his fellow doctors in a Medcrunch article called Why Your Health Message Does Not Work, has asked this question many times in an informal little experiment. His results?  Continue reading “Why don’t patients listen to doctors’ heart-healthy advice?” →

Listen up, ladies: 16 things I’ve been meaning to tell you

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

I always ask women in my Heart-Smart Women presentation audiences what they imagine I would have done had it been my daughter Larissa suffering the same heart attack symptoms that I’d been doing my best to ignore while on that cross-country flight from Ottawa.

Would I have patted her nicely on the head and urged her to just hang in there for nine more hours?  No, my heart sisters, you can rest assured that I would have been screaming blue murder to get immediate help for her.  Yes, even if it meant turning the damned airplane around during this medical emergency.

I was lucky. I managed to survive a heart attack that night on that plane – despite my very foolish determination to “not make a fuss”.  Ever since, I’ve been trying my best to bonk women on the head with reminders to put themselves first on their priority lists, and to be their own best health advocates. But this is an uphill battle that is being waged throughout all levels of women’s health care. Apparently, not even surviving a cardiac crisis is enough to convince some women that they need to start carving out “me-time” every day for the sake of their physical and mental health.   Continue reading “Listen up, ladies: 16 things I’ve been meaning to tell you” →

Take your pick: carrots, eggs or coffee beans?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

A young woman went to her grandmother to talk about life and how things were so hard for her. It seemed that as one problem was solved, a new one that was even worse cropped up. She didn’t know how she was going to make it, and wanted to give up.

She was tired of struggling.

Her grandmother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil.

In the first she placed some carrots, in the second she placed two eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them all come to a boil, without saying a word.  Continue reading “Take your pick: carrots, eggs or coffee beans?” →