Tag: parents with heart disease

When you’re the adult child of a heart patient

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

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” →

When you have a family history of heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 23 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

A young 30-something in one of my Heart-Smart Women presentation audiences asked an intriguing question while we were discussing cardiac risk factors.  She was especially  worried about her own personal risk for developing heart disease one day because of her family history.  Her mother had died several years earlier from a heart attack while only in her 40s.  But then this young woman added a few additional facts about her Mum.  For example, her mother had also:

  • weighed over 300 pounds
  • rarely if ever engaged in physical exercise
  • lived with poorly controlled Type 2 diabetes
  • been a heavy smoker for over two decades

This young woman, however, shared none of those risk factors.  So what do you think? Should she be concerned about this family history of heart disease after all?    Continue reading “When you have a family history of heart disease” →