Tag: anger and heart disease

The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

Kathy Kastan’s book “From the Heart” was hot off the press when I survived a misdiagnosed heart attack in 2008. Hers was the first book I found that focused specifically on women and heart disease. Here’s how her own story was described on the book’s cover:

“After undergoing emergency coronary bypass surgery at age 42, Kathy Kastan found her world shifting in unexpected ways. Everything – her sense of well-being, relationships, daily routine, even her body image – seemed to change. Doctors helped her recover physically, but she had to find new methods to recover emotionally and create a happy, healthy life.”  

While I read this back then, my own world was crazily shifting, too. Continue reading “The 5 stages of “What the hell just happened to me?”” →

When a serious diagnosis makes you feel mad as hell

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 31 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Since returning from my 2008 WomenHeart Science & Leadership training at Mayo Clinic, I’ve spent a lot of time meeting, listening to, speaking with, writing for and hearing from countless other heart patients.  Once the dust settles immediately following a cardiac diagnosis – that time my heart sister Jodi Jackson engagingly calls “post-heart attack stun“ – I’ve observed that a recurring theme among so many of the freshly-diagnosed is a sense of anger at what has just hit them.

Here’s a fairly typical example.

A woman I met recently had spent decades making good health an important priority in her life, and then – WHAM! – a heart attack, out of the blue.  Her subsequent anger is hardly surprising: “How could this have happened to ME, of all people? I’ve been doing everything right!  I never saw this coming!  And now you’re telling me that I’m stuck with this chronic and progressive medical condition for the rest of my life?!?”    Continue reading “When a serious diagnosis makes you feel mad as hell” →