The Christmas truce – 1914

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥  @HeartSisters

Christmas Truce 1914As World War I raged on in the trenches of Europe in 1914, Christmas Eve arrived cold and bleak. But German soldiers put up Christmas trees decorated with candles, on the parapets of their trenches. Although their enemies, the British soldiers, could see the lights, it took them a few minutes to figure out where they were from. Could this be a trick? British soldiers were ordered not to fire but to watch closely. Instead of trickery, however, the British soldiers heard the Germans singing carols and celebrating. One young soldier wrote home about this remarkable event:  Continue reading “The Christmas truce – 1914” →

Live to 100? No thanks!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥  @HeartSisters

Today’s guest post comes to you from the engaging blog called PinkUnderBelly, written by Nancy Hicks, “a sassy Texas girl dealing with breast cancer and its messy aftermath.”  Her messy aftermath is substantial: diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer in April 2010 at age 40, a bilateral mastectomy within three weeks of diagnosis, a nasty infection three weeks post-op, which led to four more hospitalizations and two more surgeries.

While Nancy’s blog focuses on breast cancer, her message on living until age 100 will ring true for many of us heart patients, too – republished here with her kind permission:    Continue reading “Live to 100? No thanks!” →

25 tips to manage the crushing fatigue of heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 211 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas ♥  @HeartSisters

For my whole life BHA (Before Heart Attack), I can hardly remember feeling real fatigue. Oh, sure, I’d feel sore working long hot days on our fruit farm as a teenager. Or sleepy after pulling those all-nighters in college. Or out-of-my-mind exhausted coping with a teething baby and a sleepless toddler. Or tired at the end of a stressful day juggling deadlines in my public relations career. Or maybe even pleasantly pooped after my running group finished a long road race. But generally speaking, on a day-to-day basis, never ever the kind of severe fatigue I experienced AHA.

I’ve always  been one of those disgustingly perky early risers who leaped cheerfully out of bed the minute one droopy eyelid cracked open to discover the clock showed anything past 4:30 a.m.  Once I finished leaping, I’d hit the coffeepot and then the shower, in that order. Then away I’d go, tap dancing 90 mph to meet the day ahead, rarely slowing down until I hit the pillow much, much later that night.

But after I was discharged from hospital following my heart attack, I was gobsmacked to suddenly experience daily bouts of extreme bone-crushing fatigue that I could never have even imagined existed before.  Continue reading “25 tips to manage the crushing fatigue of heart disease” →

Why don’t patients take their meds as prescribed?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Compliant is one of those words that makes my skin crawl. It’s the word that our doctors use to describe good patients who take their prescribed medications exactly as ordered. The Teenage Cancer Trust’s Simon Davies in the U.K. once described the C-word (and its ever-so-slightly less patronizing alternative adherent) as words that “sound like they have punishment at the end of them.”

But for most physicians, both words mean the same thing: a serious health care issue. That’s because when patients refuse or stop taking the medicine their doctors have prescribed to help manage a serious medical condition, the consequences are often devastating.  From organ transplant recipients to those living with chronic diagnoses like diabetes, heart disease, epilepsy, HIV or Hepatitis C, those consequences can be swift and sometimes even fatal.  Continue reading “Why don’t patients take their meds as prescribed?” →