Tag: A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease

“Best narrative I have ever encountered on this topic”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments
Thanks to John Sawdon and his Cardiac Health Foundation of Canada  colleagues for including this chapter-by-chapter overview of my book in their Winter Bulletin:

John Sawdon’s Book Review:  “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease”

Written by Carolyn Thomas, fromVictoria, B.C. and author of the blog Heart Sisters; foreword written by Martha Gulati, MD FACC.  Published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

“Carolyn Thomas begins Chapter 1 with her very first heart attack symptoms and the decision to seek immediate medical help at the Emergency Department of her local hospital. She is misdiagnosed, however, with acid reflux and sent home.  This dramatic introduction is followed by what researchers report about the known disparities in the research, diagnoses, treatments and outcomes of women’s heart disease compared to men’s –  and includes brief case studies of women who describe their own surprisingly varied heart attack symptoms. Continue reading ““Best narrative I have ever encountered on this topic”” →

Can’t wait to start reading my book? Here’s Chapter 1!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters 

February is Heart Month, so here’s a Heart Month bonus for you! You can now read the full transcript of Chapter 1 of “A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease“  (Johns Hopkins University Press). I’m thrilled to say that my book is already in its second printing of both hardcover and paperback editions. Thank you, darling readers!  Here’s Chapter 1, and here’s how to buy your own copy to read the other nine chapters – and, of course, the gorgeous foreword written by cardiologist Dr. Martha Gulati. ♥ Continue reading “Can’t wait to start reading my book? Here’s Chapter 1!” →

The most-read posts of 2017 from Heart Sisters

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

This past year has felt in turn like the most agonizingly slow year ever, and at other times like a runaway train threatening to throw me off at the next turn. Just this week during our family’s Christmas Eve dinner, for example, my daughter Larissa commented wistfully about her 2 1/2-year-old daughter Everly Rose, whose only goal in life lately is to be a big girl: “Last Christmas, we had a baby in the house, but this year I have a kid!” Why is she growing so fast? Where did that whole year go? But slow or fast, my Sunday morning blog posts continued throughout 2017. Thank you, dear readers – here are some of the Heart Sisters highlights for the past year:
 Continue reading “The most-read posts of 2017 from Heart Sisters” →

Oscillating narrative: the learned art of re-creating ourselves

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 13 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

“We all re-create ourselves; it’s just that some of us use more imagination than others.”  ~ Madonna

Whether we want to or not, we often end up re-creating ourselves after a significant medical diagnosis. Researcher Dr. Kathy Charmaz calls this phenomenon “the loss of self“ after such a diagnosis, a loss experienced while we’re learning to adapt and adjust to this strange new life as a patient. When we try to talk about this painful loss to others who haven’t ever experienced it, most have trouble taking us seriously, or they may want to jolly us out of our current reality.

Yet how we talk about this matters to how we get through it. Continue reading “Oscillating narrative: the learned art of re-creating ourselves” →