FEBRUARY
HEART AWARENESS MONTH!
Bet you thought this was going to be about Valentines Day!
Happy Valentines' Day Everyone! Happy Sweetest Day, hope that the flower trucks are lining up in front of your house as I type this with my thoughts of sending each and everyone dozens of roses in all colors ... sending rainbows of roses to your hearts and homes on yet another chilly morning in sunny (haha) Florida.
February is "HEART AWARENESS MONTH" So... stop what you are doing! Put your right hand over your left side of your chest, with your other hand, place it on your wrist with two fingers until you can feel your pulse. {I'll wait...}
Feel anything? (thump/thump/thump) {ding-ding-ding....ding}
Got it now? OK YOU HAVE A HEART!!!!
Awareness; that is a good thing! YAY!!!!
February is the official month of Heart Awareness, of learning the best way to care for your physical heart; to learn signs and symptoms of preventing heart attack/stroke and to finally understand that men and women present very differently in those signs and symptoms! The classic signs we have all been taught just don't apply for most women and at least that word is finally getting out with awareness. There is also something that has often been referred to as a "widow maker", often thought only to happen to "men".
Well I'm living proof that a "widow maker" doesn't only happen to men, as I'm one of the few fortunate ones that lived to tell about it, lived through a "widow maker" after a routine cardiac catherization landed me via ambulance in a hospital in Tampa and the next day went through open heart surgery. I had a near death experience after that surgery, a wonderful visit with Granny and returned to my Mom and bestest friend of my life in the ICU... funny thing is I had no symptoms prior to this catherization, was seeing patients just the day before. I guess that moving to Florida actually saved my life when I think about it; I had gone to see a cardiologist who was big on diagnostics and he wanted to do this cardiac cath secondary to my blood pressure being high on occasion! I wasn't too worried, after all look what I did for a living, right? I had lived here for all of 4 months when that happened!!!
I will be forever grateful to that man and his love of diagnostics.
~ Heart Disease is the number 1 killer in the United States ~
More than 632,000 will die from Heart disease this year; more than 16 million actually presented to physicians with their primary diagnosis of heart disease last year. There are many coping with matters of the physical heart along with the emotional and spiritual matters of the heart around us.
For those who know of "Bear" Showalter, they know of how much it pains me to utter these words, "exercise is a necessary and vitally important thing for heart-body-mind-soul". There I said it, I mean it, and I ... well let's just leave it with that!!! Now I know I will receive comments that I am not a doctor, don't understand and all of those many and varied things. I do not claim to be a doctor, lawyer, sage or any of those things.... but what I do know is that exercise is important to keep the blood flow flowing and the heart pumping. So if all you can do is sit in your chair and lift your arms and your feet off the ground while singing your favorite song, well okie dokie call it exercise and call it a day ~ Good for ya ~ You know what you can do and what your doc orders.
I am a firm believer in "free will", choices that people make for themselves. And as you have heard me say often, "Go for it, life is not a dress rehearsal"!
FEBRUARY: HEART AWARENESS MONTH
There are a number of websites that educate, inform, and provide more information than the average bear could process in a week if they spent all day trying! However, conversations can be had with your physician about risks, lifestyle changes needed and family history that needs to be given when at the doctor. Learn your risks, pay attention to your body, your gut instinct... Research many; educate yourselves and keep in mind that one needs to find reliable and trusted sites! Do not take any wooden nickels. I would think that the American Heart Association would be a site to begin with and particularly sites geared to women, if you are a woman!
This year give yourself flowers for Valentines Day, eat dark chocolate (studies now say they are good for you, good for your heart, good for grief, good for what ails you even)!
But most importantly give yourself HEART AWARENESS...
Happy Valentines Day ~
Blessings to you today and all days...
author of Healing Heartaches, Stories of Loss and Life
http://www.healingheartaches.com
12 comments:
Dr. SES, am I missing something in this wonderful article of the Heart??? Exercise, could you possibly relay to your followers what form of exercise you do and how you stay in such good shape?? I think that would help all of us know how someone like you survived the awful heart surgery. I have family members who has had stints, open heart surgery and all of the above. One of them said, he would rather die than go thru that again. He lived several years after surgery and was productive years. Thank you for the article. Some good advice. Valentine day is a good day to share.
Yeah, GO Heart Health! Can't live without it. As for idiot comments you sometimes get in response to your BLOG.... There are a lot of Wackadoodles out there. Some obviously suffer fRom the inability to process what they read. So to the Nutcakes and Wackadoodles, read on, or don't. IT IS ALL ABOUT CHOICES.
Thanks Sherry for all the love, thought and caring that goes into your BLOGS everyday. i always lok forward to reading them even when the idiots post a comment. You are right, humor is the best medicine. To all your normal responders, you are like a mini circle of friends and I as a reader enjoy your comments each day as I read the blog.
Much love to all, wishing a beautiful day to all. Hope everyone has someone to love besides themselves. Sending out love to all those I have lost to death, but carry everyday in my private heart.
Thank you for increasing my vocabulary. I have never heard of a Wackadoodle. So, I do appreciate the opportunity to learn a new word.
Not so sure if we should judge others...people do not know what they do not know. Is calling people nutcakes, Wackadoodles, or idiots helpful to you or helpful to them?
Yes, our life is all about choices! I made the choice to come back after a near death experience...it was my choice. Having a second chance on this earth...I refuse to judge anyone...but simply listen.
So, while you may call people idiots, nutcakes, or Wackadoodles...I give them credit for taking the opportunity to express themselves.
As far as taking care of our hearts, some of us must be on cardiac meds for the rest of our lives. These drugs may have challenging side effects that we must live with. Medications that depress one's heart ( make it beat more slowly ) also depress one's spirit.
So, what are you doing for Valentine's Day? My heart is much happier when I listen with an open heart rather than judging and name calling.
" Another real thing! I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever." ~ Keri Hulme
Enjoy the blogs as well as the colorful comments ♥
Oh pleeeeease......
If the shoe fits wear it. If you are indeed THE Wackadoodle Nutcake, good luck... It must suck to live with your deep and enduring suffering both mentally and physically. If you are not the Nutcake.... As for judging. Guess what every thing we do in life forces us to make decisions, these are based on our own judgement... So live with the hand you have been dealt, change what you can and eat chees when you whine..... Incase you don't know it, that means, I really don't feel deeply, nor am I bothered by your goofy responses.
I'm sorry that I read the comments today :(
I'm sorry that people "don't feel deeply."
I said to leave the author AND the Groundhog alone.
Can we leave the Author, the Groundhog, AND those who comment alone?
I'm am grateful that I do feel deeply this Valentine's Day.
I have sent Healing Heartaches to friends to read and encouraged my friends to read these blogs insuring them that it was a safe place to leave comments. Especially for the one who is awaiting a death in her family any day now,
I regret telling people that this was a safe place to leave their comments.
We would like to know if Sherry in interested in knowing of any book club/grief discussion groups we are holding using Healing Heartaches as a foundation.
I would rather discuss the book in a public place face to face with others than in a forum like this.
Well, I don't know about Whackadoodles, Nutcakes, or believing people who had their fruit loops pooped in this morning, but I do believe that Valentines is a day to Love, to Respect, to Honor, and Enjoy, even though today I had to bid my BFF goodbye as she trecked home to more frozen tundra than Florida! Anyway opinions are abundant, this to me IS a safe place, it's a wonderful place, and if a Whackadoodlephobic comes across anytime, just go to the next comment, This is surely a place to take care of your heart, and your spirit so it will be better for having read it. Sherry is loved by many obviously, and you can't buy a whole bunch of sweet grapes at any store without coming across at least one sour grape. Think about it! I say Happy Valentines to all!
Oh my dear readers, how loved you all are! I love the word "wakadookacle" ~
THIS IS A SAFE PLACE TO LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS ~~~
A book club with Healing Heartaches as the foundation? Really? I am honored and touched all the way to my red heart!!! Thanks and I so look forward to hearing about it right here! That is just wonderful to hear! Thank you.
Yes indeed, when shopping at the store just the other day, I bought some bisquits and got home and opened then, wouldn't you know... they were bad on the inside! Then going to grabe a handful of grapes... one was sour, but the rest soooo sweet. If you read many of the comments there are always some that are a tad off the track of the blog, some that agree, disagree, and such as that... The wonder and the greatness of life is the many colors of thread that it takes to weave coats of many rich and wonderful textures and colors.
Keep your heart in your chest, not on your sleeve, and remember what our wonderful Carol Burnett once said, "Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me".
Keep those comments coming ~ Remember, to keep me up to date on the book club, much success to you!
Walk In Beauty
I must have missed the Whackadoodle comments. I would love to read it. It sure stirred up some comments. I think the heart article was information for all of us and something to think about. I think the comment section is good no matter if it is bad? It helps people unload whether they know it or not. Lets not be so hasty to call someone a Whackadoodle, have you walked in their shoes? Keep the blogs coming and we can all learn.
Wackadackle packadackle/it is all good
KEEP YOUR HEARTS IN YOUR CHESTS AND NOT ON YOUR SLEEVES!!!
KEEP THOSE COMMENTS COMING FOLKS
CONTROVERSY IS A GREAT THING! LIVELY DEBATES, AND GREAT POSTS...
Sherry,
By the time I was down to the end of all these comments...I forgot what the blog said! Wow...am I the only one signing my name?!
Love you Sherry ...love your blogs!!
I have sent Healing Heartaches to friends to read and encouraged my friends to read these blogs insuring them that it was a safe place to leave comments. Especially for the one who is awaiting a death in her family any day now, I regret telling people that this was a safe place to leave their comments. We would like to know if Sherry in interested in knowing of any book club/grief discussion groups we are holding using Healing Heartaches as a foundation. I would rather discuss the book in a public place face to face with others than in a forum like this.
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