Tag: PTSD

Moral injury in cardiac misdiagnosis

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

After surviving a misdiagnosed heart attack, I came home from the CCU (the intensive care unit for heart patients) feeling afraid to go to sleep at night. I felt a cold creeping dread that I would suffer another heart attack. Probably tonight. And probably fatal this time. I have since learned from many other freshly-diagnosed heart patients how remarkably common it is to be afraid to go to sleep in the the early days and weeks – if we no longer feel certain that we’ll be able to wake up.

The worst part was that even when I finally did fall asleep, I had frequent nightmares. They were always the same: having a heart attack on a plane (vividly reliving what had actually happened in real life during my last late night flight home from Ottawa to Vancouver).

But in these scary dreams, I was the only passenger on the flight. The cockpit door was open. I could see the empty seats where the Air Canada pilots should be at the controls. Just me, flying alone in an empty Boeing 787 at 40,000 feet. A terribly frightening nightmare.  Continue reading “Moral injury in cardiac misdiagnosis” →

The delayed ‘Trauma Drama’ of heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 61 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Summer Ash is a self-professed space cadet. She’s an astrophysicist at Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy in New York City, where she serves as the Director of Outreach.* Five years ago, she underwent open heart surgery after she was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm (that’s when the tissue of the aorta balloons out dangerously). This condition was likely linked to a congenital heart defect Summer was born with called a bicuspid aortic valve. About 99% of people, as she explains, are born with a normal tricuspid aortic valve (meaning three leaflets in the valve), but she was one of the 1% born with only two. With her kind permission, I’m running her story here as it was originally published on her blog, Defective Heart Girl Problems.
 Continue reading “The delayed ‘Trauma Drama’ of heart disease” →

Post-Traumatic Growth: how a crisis makes life better – or NOT

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 36 Comments
Full disclosure: I’ve always felt a bit squirmy when patients facing a life-altering medical crisis cheerfully declare that this diagnosis isn’t only NOT dreadful, but it’s actually quite fabulous! But before I dig into that theory, let’s look at this positivity phenomenon.
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Psychologists sometimes refer to it as “Post-Traumatic Growth”.
 Continue reading “Post-Traumatic Growth: how a crisis makes life better – or NOT” →

How a heart attack can trigger PTSD

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 27 Comments

 by Carolyn Thomas  ♥   @HeartSisters

This guest post was originally posted online by Holly Strawbridge of Harvard Health Publications on June 25, 2012.

Joep Roosen Amsterdam A heart attack is a life-changing event. For some people, surviving a heart attack brings renewed appreciation for life. For others, the event is so traumatic that worrying about having a second heart attack consumes their lives.

By the latest account, one in eight heart attack survivors experiences a reaction called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although PTSD is usually associated with extreme trauma such as war, rape or a natural disaster, heart attack survivors can experience the same key symptoms: flashbacks that occur as nightmares or intrusive thoughts. As a result, the survivor actively tries to avoid being reminded of the event and becomes hyper-vigilant worrying that it will happen again.  

It’s a high price to pay for having your life spared.   Continue reading “How a heart attack can trigger PTSD” →