Category: Women and heart attacks

– posts here focus on warning signs and symptoms women experience during a cardiac event

How can we get female heart patients past ER gatekeepers?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 22 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Sometimes, people in my Heart Smart Women presentation audiences ask me if I’ve ever gone back to confront the Emergency physician who had misdiagnosed me in mid-heart attack with acid reflux and sent me home from the E.R. – despite my textbook symptoms of central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain radiating down my left arm.  No, my heart sisters, I never did. But what did happen was, I think, even more satisfyingly juicy.   

Months after surviving that heart attack, and freshly fortified with Mayo Clinic cred after graduating from their annual WomenHeart Science & Leadership training for women with heart disease, I received an invitation to share what I’d just learned at Mayo to local Emergency Medicine staff.  I was offered one hour on the agenda of their annual Staff Education Day to talk about my own fateful misdiagnosis – and how, according to the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic, that scenario might be avoided for future female heart patients like me: women who present with textbook cardiac symptoms but “normal” diagnostic tests.  Continue reading “How can we get female heart patients past ER gatekeepers?” →

Study: “91% discharged from hospital without care plan”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

When I was discharged from hospital following my heart attack, I was wheelchaired down to the front door, patted on the head, and waved off with just a follow-up appointment with a cardiologist in six weeks’ time. I carried home with me my appointment card, a prescription for a fistful of new daily cardiac medications, a one-page photocopy on post-op wound  care, a couple of pamphlets on cardiac rehab and heart-healthy eating, and a Heart and Stroke Foundation booklet called Recovery Road. But nowhere in this small stack of old growth forests was there anything about me.

Me personally.  Me, Carolyn Thomas, the shocked and frightened and overwhelmed heart attack survivor.  Continue reading “Study: “91% discharged from hospital without care plan”” →

Three women, one heart attack and a sound asleep husband

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments

This post written by Susan Bengivingo RN* was first published on Women’s College Hospital’s Women’s Health Matters site, where I was happy to discover it so I could share it here with you:

  ♥   ♥   ♥

“It was around midnight. My hospital colleague Donna Stairs and I had got the patients settled down for the night, and we were having a well-earned cup of coffee when the buzzer rang.

“The buzzer is there because our hospital is locked up at night. Visitors from the city find it strange to lock a hospital at night but it’s a security issue in rural areas like Strathmore, Alberta. We don’t have guards – just a couple of nurses!

“I went and looked out and there was a young woman, in her late 20s or early 30s, I would guess. She was wearing a long raincoat and had slippers on her feet. Let’s call her Mary.  So I buzzed the door open and she was very apologetic.

“I have a terrible pain in my shoulder,” Mary said. “And I’m feeling nauseous.”  Continue reading “Three women, one heart attack and a sound asleep husband” →

World Heart Day: focus on women and children

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

It’s easy to forget that heart disease is not only our biggest health threat here in North America, but it also wins that dubious prize worldwide.  Over 17 million cardiovascular disease deaths will occur this year – half of whom will be in females. That’s why the Swiss-based World Heart Federation has launched an international goal of reducing premature heart disease deaths by 25 per cent by the year 2025.

The Federation also reminds us of the myth that cardiovascular diseases, including heart disease and stroke, are lifestyle diseases that primarily affect older, wealthy, male populations.  Continue reading “World Heart Day: focus on women and children” →