Category: Women and heart attacks

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

What I wish I knew back then: “Am I having a heart attack?” Part 1 in a new summer series

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Part of what made my “widowmaker” heart attack so frightening at the time was simply how much I did not know about what was happening to me. Like many women, if I ever thought about heart disease – which was approximately NEVER! – I considered it to be a man’s problem. And as a healthy woman in my 50s (and a distance runner for 19 years), becoming a heart patient one day was never on my radar.

“What I Wish I Knew Back Then”  is a new back-to-basics summer series of posts here on Heart Sisters that will revisit some of the most frequently asked questions from brand new heart patients. Today, we kick off the series with the very basic question that accompanies almost all frightening cardiac symptoms: “Am I having a heart attack?”         . Continue reading “What I wish I knew back then: “Am I having a heart attack?” Part 1 in a new summer series” →

Women’s heart disease: is it time to hang up the Red Dress?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 20 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters 

We were driving home around dusk when I noticed that the fountain at our beautiful provincial legislature buildings here in downtown Victoria was illuminated in bright purple light. I immediately guessed that the lights must be part of some kind of awareness-raising campaign – but awareness of what? I asked my friends in the car, but none of us knew why the fountain was now purple.

So I looked up “landmarks lit up with purple”.  I learned that lighting a landmark in purple raises awareness of pancreatic cancer – but that’s not all.  It’s also the colour that’s supposed to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s Disease, epilepsy, ADHD, domestic violence, lupus, testicular cancer, Crohn’s Disease – and probably many other such causes.
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So how does seeing a PURPLE fountain really help to raise my awareness about anything?

Continue reading “Women’s heart disease: is it time to hang up the Red Dress?” →

Do Emergency physicians diagnose? Or not?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

Australian researcher Dr. Mary Dahm and I were emailing back and forth about her recently published study on diagnostic uncertainty in medicine (one of my favourite subjects, I might add – especially when it involves female heart patients).  I mentioned to her that the Emergency physician who had misdiagnosed my heart attack as acid reflux seemed remarkably confident at the time – despite being remarkably wrong. That misplaced confidence is what researchers who study diagnostic error call unwarranted certainty – a contributing risk factor for misdiagnosis.  But Dr. Dahm raised the issue of whether diagnosing is what Emergency physicians actually do:

“The question about whether or not Emergency Department doctors diagnose is highly contested within the specialty. Regardless, they do exclude life-and limb-threatening conditions.”          .
 Continue reading “Do Emergency physicians diagnose? Or not?” →

Happy 15th Heart-iversary to me. . .♥

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 41 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

I can still vividly recall the hospital volunteer I met while in the CCU (the Intensive Care Unit for heart patients). She told me that several years earlier, she too had survived a heart attack like mine: what doctors call the “widow maker” heart attack. That’s an ironically male-centric name for a heart attack so severe that it could transform a (male) patient’s wife into a widow. But what really struck me about this volunteer was that she was walking, talking, and most surprisingly – looking completely “normal” – at a time when I doubted I’d ever feel “normal” again.

Yesterday, May 6th marked 15 years since the day I met that woman in the CCU. On that sunny spring day back in 2008, while recuperating from a misdiagnosed heart attack, I not only doubted my capacity for normalcy, but I certainly didn’t believe I would live long enough to celebrate a 15th Heart-iversary. Continue reading “Happy 15th Heart-iversary to me. . .♥” →