Cardiac College for (Freshly Diagnosed) Women: “Your heart is like a house”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I typically spend about one hour per year checking in with my wonderful cardiologist (barring setbacks that may send me back into the hospital) but like many/most heart patients, I spend 8,765 hours per year managing the day-to-day reality of cardiac symptoms, concerns and meds on my own.

I learned long ago while participating in my free Pain Self-Management classes (thank you Canada, commie-pinko land of socialized medicine!) that I needed a basic understanding of how the heart functions – not a medical-jargon-med-school-textbook-understanding, but a solid patient-friendly one.  I wish I’d had this helpful and jargon-free overview back then describing the heart-as-a-house – from the Toronto-based resource (more free stuff!) called Cardiac College for Women.  For example:     . Continue reading “Cardiac College for (Freshly Diagnosed) Women: “Your heart is like a house”” →

Feynman’s Razor: “Explain it like you’re talking to an imaginary child”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 17 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/no-other-love-heart-wrenching-letters-from-richard-feynman-to-his-late-wife-arline

 

Heart Month 2024: my interview with Lindsay Dixon

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

It was such a pleasure to be invited to do this February interview with award-winning pharmacist and brilliant science communicator Lindsay Dixon – our second Heart Month chat together for her Friendly Pharmacy 5 YouTube channel.   .   Continue reading “Heart Month 2024: my interview with Lindsay Dixon” →

Swedish death cleaning isn’t only about death

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

In 2017, Margareta Magnusson, a Swedish artist who describes herself as being “somewhere between 80 and 100,” wrote a best-selling book called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning:  How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter

She explores a Scandinavian concept in which you work on eliminating unnecessary items from your home so that your loved ones won’t be burdened with those tasks after you die. And she urges everybody 65 and older to get started on this process of shedding possessions. 

It’s not imminent death that has prompted my recent interest in reducing clutter. This spring, I’m selling the tiny perfect 1-bedroom apartment I’ve loved for 17 years. And although pre-move sorting, packing and cleaning would be most heart patients’ idea of pure torture, I’m so surprised to discover how much I’ve been enjoying the immediate before-and-after results so far.      . Continue reading “Swedish death cleaning isn’t only about death” →