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

Women heart attack survivors may be as psychologically traumatized as victims of violence

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

I’ve sometimes heard doctors describe a heart attack as “small”. But only doctors – you’ll rarely hear a heart attack survivor say it. Doctors who talk this way are looking only at blood tests that assess heart muscle damage, angiograms for coronary artery blockages, EKG readings for erratic heartbeats, and echocardiograms for valve damage or reduced heart function.

If these test results on paper aren’t too deadly – well, it must be only a “small” heart attack.

But a study reported in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology last month reinforced what all heart attack survivors already know but their doctors may not: a heart attack can leave people as psychologically traumatized as victims of violence. Continue reading “Women heart attack survivors may be as psychologically traumatized as victims of violence” →

The seven levels in the ‘Hierarchy of Heart Disease’

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

During my first evening at our “Heart to Heart” support group, the man sitting next to me leaned over and asked me: “What are you in for?”

I told him that I’d had what doctors call the “widowmaker” heart attack two weeks earlier, and that I now had a stainless steel stent implanted in a major coronary artery that had been 99% blocked.  He interrupted me with a cheery:

“Me too! But I have THREE stents!”

As he went on and on in exquisite detail about his cardiac event, I felt like my own was suddenly pretty puny by comparison. Three stents? How could I possibly compete with that? My previously-fascinating heart attack misdiagnosis story now seemed hardly even worth mentioning, really.

I came to observe during the  following weeks and months that heart patients, consciously or not, seem to slot themselves arbitrarily into what I call the unspoken Hierarchy of Heart Disease.  Continue reading “The seven levels in the ‘Hierarchy of Heart Disease’” →

Six personality coping patterns that influence how you handle medical crises

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

As regular readers already know, I like to include the work of cardiac psychologist Dr. Wayne Sotile on this site, mostly because what he writes about the psychological challenges of heart disease and recovery rings so true for me since my own heart attack.

His 1992 book Heart Illness and Intimacy: How Caring Relationships Aid Recovery looks at the profound impact that the stresses of heart disease can have on patients, spouses and children.

The interesting chapter called The Personality Factor: Can We Change? explores how our personalities and coping patterns can often determine how we’ll react to a life-changing cardiac event.

Based on the 1987 pioneering work of Stewart and Joines on Transactional Analysis, Sotile outlines in this chapter the six basic coping patterns that seem to drive our perceptions, our behavioural choices, and our corresponding emotional reactions to both everyday life and to a chronic and progressive diagnosis like heart disease. He explains:

“These six personality drivers become especially influential in shaping our reactions during stressful times like a serious illness.”

I recognized myself in more than one factor on this list. The six personality coping patterns are:  Continue reading “Six personality coping patterns that influence how you handle medical crises” →

The topic that doctors don’t want to talk about with female heart patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

There’s a touchy topic that many doctors apparently don’t want to bring up with their heart patients  – particularly with their female patients.

A study reported in Washington, DC at the annual Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association found that fewer than 20% of women had a talk about sex with their physicians during the first year following their heart attacks – half the rate reported by male heart attack survivors.

This is significant, because sexual activity declines in the year following a heart attack for patients who do not receive specific advice on this topic from their doctors, the study showed. And fewer than half of all patients questioned in this study reported receiving any guidance on sexual activity – with women even less likely than men to get such information. Continue reading “The topic that doctors don’t want to talk about with female heart patients” →