by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I’ve come to learn that a common reaction to a heart attack is others’ utter shock that this could happen to “YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE!” Women in particular report reactions like this because, generally speaking, we’re used to being the strong glue that holds our family life and relationships together.
How dare we get sick. . . . . . Continue reading “How could YOU – of all people! – have a heart attack?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
As Bruce Springsteen once sang, “You get used to anything. Sooner or later it just becomes your life.”(1) Bruce was right. Since being diagnosed with heart disease in 2008, I’ve observed a bizarre and surprising change in my ability to adjust to ongoing cardiac symptoms. My symptoms have not changed. But at some point, I just got better at adjusting to them.
In fact, I suspect that the chest pain which just feels “normal” to me by now would make most other people head straight to the Emergency Department. . . Continue reading “The familiar self, the unfamiliar self and the recovery of self”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @Heartsisters
I once heard the late author Dr. Leo Buscaglia tell a conference audience his story about how he grew up equating caregiving with love. When he was a little boy, for example, his own mother seemed cold and distant – except when he was sick. During those times, she would sit at his bedside, stroke his fevered brow, spoon-feed him homemade soup, fuss over every painful twinge, listen carefully to his every word, and become the kind of loving mother he rarely knew when he was healthy. . Continue reading “Choose your listeners carefully”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
As regular readers already know, I like to include the work of cardiac psychologist Dr. Wayne Sotile on this site, mostly because what he writes about the psychological challenges of heart disease and recovery rings so true for me since my own heart attack.
His 1992 book Heart Illness and Intimacy: How Caring Relationships Aid Recovery looks at the profound emotional impact that the stresses of heart disease can have on patients, spouses and children.
I was especially intrigued by the chapter called The Personality Factor: Can We Change? which explores how our personalities and coping patterns can often determine how we’ll react to a life-changing cardiac event.
Based on the 1987 pioneering work of Stewart and Joines on Transactional Analysis, Dr. Sotile outlines in this chapter the six basic coping patterns that seem to drive our perceptions, our behavioural choices, and our corresponding emotional reactions to both everyday life and to a chronic and progressive diagnosis like heart disease. He explains:
“These six personality drivers become especially influential in shaping our reactions during stressful times like a serious illness.”
I was surprised to recognize myself in more than one pattern on this list. How many of these six personality coping patterns seem familiar to you? Continue reading “Six personality coping patterns that influence how you handle medical crisis”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
My Dad died of cancer at age 62, my mother decades later from a stroke following years of increasing dementia. So I have some experience being the adult daughter of a parent diagnosed with a life-altering medical condition. And I’ve also seen the faces of my own grown children right after they flew home to be with me right after my heart attack. Honestly, I don’t know which felt worse.
The majority of heart patients in North America have adult children. And when heart disease strikes, it can affect not only the patient, but the immediate family of that patient. If one of your parents has a cardiac event, as psychologist Dr. Wayne Sotile warns, you might have the makings of what he calls “the best hidden victims of heart illness: the patient’s adult children”. Continue reading “When you’re the adult child of a heart patient”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
For the freshly-diagnosed heart patient, the immediate and sudden change from “being well” to “recovering” cuts directly to the core of self-concept and self-esteem, according to Dr. Wayne Sotile. He offers a surprisingly familiar list of seven sudden changes commonly observed after a cardiac event. When thinking back on the new reality of my own early post-heart attack days, I was able to tick off his list, point by point. If this had been a midterm exam, in fact, I’d score a perfect 7/7. On his list of seven stressors that newbies often face, how many ring true for you, too? Continue reading “Do you fear change? Then don’t have a heart attack”
