Tag: WPLongform

Why I decided to start loving my grey hair

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 48 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

When I saw the finished product after a photographer took new head shots of me last September, my first horrified reaction was:

“Good grief!!

“Where did those wrinkles around my eyes come from?”

And no wonder.  Let’s face it: gravity is no friend to women of a certain age. Little jowly pouches begin to sag below what was once my strong jaw line. Eyelids droop inexplicably southward. And where once I could bounce a dime off each tricep now hangs delicate crepe paper-like flab. Continue reading “Why I decided to start loving my grey hair” →

Dr. Barbara Keddy: “I was pitifully ignorant about heart disease”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 31 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

heart BehanceI’m very pleased to share this with you, my heart sisters – although this is not a happy story.  It’s essentially the journal of a heart attack. The author is Dr. Barbara Keddy, a teacher of nurses, professor emerita at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and author of the book Women and Fibromyalgia* – a condition that Barbara herself has lived with for over 40 years. Barbara and I first “met” each other online when we both happened to be named recipients of the 2009 Women’s Health Hero awards from Our Bodies Ourselves of Boston that year – she representing the east coast of Canada, and I out here on the west.

I’ve been reading her Women & Fibromyalgia blog and quoting her wise words ever since (here, here and here, for example). And we’ve been casually emailing back and forth for four years – until one day in January, when I received a terse one-line message from her: she had just survived a heart attack.

Barbara’s experience is unique because she’d already been living with the constant pain of a debilitating chronic illness for decades. What happens when such a person gets hit with the double whammy of a serious heart attack on top of everything else?  Here’s her story, in her own words:  Continue reading “Dr. Barbara Keddy: “I was pitifully ignorant about heart disease”” →

Why I’m nothing like – yet just like – my mother

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

www.myheartsisters.orgA few months ago, my favourite son Ben and I stopped by the annual fundraising luncheon and sale of Ukrainian tchotchkes – цяцьки – at St. Nicholas the Wonder Worker Ukrainian Catholic Church. (Ukrainian churches here in Canada often have fancy-schmancy mouthful names like this: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church or St. Demetrius The Martyr Ukrainian Orthodox Church, or those simply named for obscure saints you’ve likely never heard of – like the churches of  St. Paraskevia or St. Onufry).

We sat doing some first-class people-watching and borsch-eating while observing the women cooking, talking and laughing together in the church kitchen.  I was struck by an intense frisson of nostalgia. “These are my people!” I whispered to Ben. And as I said that, I had a strange and unbidden craving for a piece of pie. Continue reading “Why I’m nothing like – yet just like – my mother” →

Emotional intelligence in health care relationships

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

I’m so pleased to share, with her kind permission, this guest post written by Colette Herrick, originally published on the Six Seconds website. I especially love her example of how a new puppy taught her twin grandchildren a powerful lesson in compassion.

♥

“While medicine continues to advance, receiving health care as a patient is fundamentally a human process.

At the center of effective care delivery is a connection between the health care provider and patient. Yet in the last 25 years, many pressures have eroded the quality of this human-to-human healing connection. The good news is that in spite of all the external and very real pressures on the patient-provider relationship, research reveals something many of us have known: health care providers can learn fairly simple skills that make a large difference.  Continue reading “Emotional intelligence in health care relationships” →