Steve Kirsche – Heart Sisters

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

For more than 30 years, Dr. Wayne Sotile was the director of psychological services for Wake Forest University’s Cardiac Rehabilitation program. Which is to say that he’s spent a lot of time with heart patients and their families. In 2008, while recuperating from my own heart attack, I discovered his must-read book called Thriving With Heart Disease. That title, by the way, has always bugged my Alaskan friend Dr. Stephen Parker (a cardiac psychologist and himself a heart attack survivor) who once made this comment about the book’s title:

“Just as soon as I can gather myself together, I am planning on writing a book called ‘Thriving After I Lost All My Body Parts’…”

Despite that small quibble about the title, Dr. Sotile is a terrific writer who nails it when it comes to guiding those who are freshly-diagnosed with a chronic and progressive condition like heart disease. Continue reading “Living with heart disease – and your whole family” →

by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters

Physician Dr. Robin Schoenthaler once wrote in a Boston Globe column that, instead of looking for men who like those long romantic walks on the beach at sunset, women would do well to picture how the man of your dreams handles things when you’re sick. In fact, her recommendation for ideal husband material is a man who will hold your purse in the hospital waiting room.

It can be rare to hear in person from men about what it’s really like to live with us while we’re living with heart disease. It isn’t often, for example, that our WomenHeart online support community of thousands of female heart patients on Inspire.com hears directly from a real live male. But when Steve Kirsche of Wethersfield, CT stopped by to write about his own perspective as the spouse of a heart patient, I asked him for permission to reprint his personal observations here for you. Here’s what Steve had to tell us: Continue reading “A wife’s heart disease teaches her husband a big lesson” →