by Carolyn Thomas    ♥    @HeartSisters

Like many heart patients, I began to notice that my cardiac diagnosis seemed to alter my own best-before date.  It was almost as if I’d been one person for over 50 years before being misdiagnosed and sent home in mid-heart attack, and then one morning (after flying home to the west coast from Ottawa and two more cardiac episodes on that flight)  – I somehow became a completely different person. Once home, I returned to the Emergency Department (and a different Emerg doc) where I was finally correctly diagnosed and treated.  I had presented with the same textbook symptoms that had been misdiagnosed earlier (central chest pain, nausea, sweating and pain down my left arm) – but this time a cardiologist was immediately called in. 

Turns out I wasn’t alone: the late sociology researcher Dr. Kathy Charmaz called this health-related shift in a patient’s emotional state “the loss of self“.    

For most of us, this strange new state of adjustment is temporary. Temporary, but scary.    Continue reading “Adjusting to a diagnosis you do NOT want to adjust to” →