Tag: living with heart disease

Women heart attack survivors know their place

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

American broadcast journalist Barbara Walters once did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.

Years later, she later returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands.

From Barbara’s vantage point, the women walked even further back behind their husbands, and seemed to appear happy to maintain the old custom.

She approached one of the Afghani women and asked: “Why do you continue with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?”  

The woman looked Barbara straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said: 

“Land mines!”

We don’t walk five paces behind our men here in North America, but when it comes to taking care of ourselves after a catastrophic health crisis like a heart attack, we might as well be.

Continue reading “Women heart attack survivors know their place” →

How that ache may signal depression

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas

There is a disturbing link between women’s heart disease and depression.  Those suffering depression are more at risk for developing heart disease, and those diagnosed with heart disease are more at risk for suffering depression. The majority of depressed people never get help, however, partly because they don’t know that, along with emotional changes, their physical symptoms might also be caused by depression. Doctors may miss these symptoms, too:  Continue reading “How that ache may signal depression” →

Not just for soldiers anymore: PTSD in heart patients

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

When I was at my WomenHeart Science & Leadership training at Mayo Clinic, we watched a short film about women and heart disease. A 40-something woman onscreen told the interviewer that ever since her heart attack had happened, she was afraid to go to sleep every night, because now she wasn’t sure that she would ever wake up.

I began to weep when I heard her say this.
 Continue reading “Not just for soldiers anymore: PTSD in heart patients” →

Why are heart patients who smoke leaving hospital still smoking?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 37 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

If you ever needed a swift smack upside the head to convince you to finally stop smoking once and for all, you’d think that a heart attack would do it.

Hospitalized survivors, shocked and traumatized, are already lying there in the cardiac ward unable to light up, and certainly prohibited from smoking anywhere inside the hospital buildings. In my town, smoking is banned on all hospital grounds, thus requiring a long walk clear across the street to huddle near the bus stop – if the patient is mobile enough – with the attractive hospital gown flapping in the wind behind. These smokers are already well underway, whether they’d planned it or not, to quitting cold turkey. So why are they starting up again by the time they get home?

What many non-smokers may not understand about this question is that smokers generally LOVE their smokes. They love the longstanding associations between a cigarette and their daily routines. They love that first early morning cigarette. Or coffee breaks with workmates. On the phone. At parties. That last smoke of the day out on a quiet porch.

Smokers on the cardiac ward already know that smoking is likely what landed them in that cardiac ward in the first place. Just in case, here’s why smoking is so damaging to the heart: Continue reading “Why are heart patients who smoke leaving hospital still smoking?” →