Tag: victims

When a serious diagnosis makes you feel mad as hell

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 31 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Since returning from my 2008 WomenHeart Science & Leadership training at Mayo Clinic, I’ve spent a lot of time meeting, listening to, speaking with, writing for and hearing from countless other heart patients.  Once the dust settles immediately following a cardiac diagnosis – that time my heart sister Jodi Jackson engagingly calls “post-heart attack stun“ – I’ve observed that a recurring theme among so many of the freshly-diagnosed is a sense of anger at what has just hit them.

Here’s a fairly typical example.

A woman I met recently had spent decades making good health an important priority in her life, and then – WHAM! – a heart attack, out of the blue.  Her subsequent anger is hardly surprising: “How could this have happened to ME, of all people? I’ve been doing everything right!  I never saw this coming!  And now you’re telling me that I’m stuck with this chronic and progressive medical condition for the rest of my life?!?”    Continue reading “When a serious diagnosis makes you feel mad as hell” →

Are you a victim or a survivor?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

In Dr. Wayne Sotile’s very useful book for all freshly-diagnosed heart patients called Thriving With Heart Disease, he nails the description of what he calls the patient’s “homecoming blues“.  It’s that need to adjust from being cared for 24/7 in hospital following a cardiac event to suddenly being booted out the door and sent back home. For example:

“You’re now home from the hospital, and you’re expected to surf a bewildering wave of emotions, anxieties and procedures.

“Moving very slowly, bouts of depression, weeping, social withdrawal or obsessive anxiety about dying – these are all normal during the early stages of heart disease.”

Normal or not, I found “obsessive anxiety about dying” to be an extremely unpleasant way to live in the days following my own heart attack.  Continue reading “Are you a victim or a survivor?” →