sharings from Pauline O'Shea, Patient Advocate, Public speaker, Media spokesperson & Writer on the challenges & healing that life has to offer
In the lead up to Christmas this year, a beautiful person in my life and the lives of so many of my extended family died and so, just days before life was supposed to turn festive, came a funeral. Christmas, with its traditions based on the Christian belief in the birth of Christ, seems at… Continue reading LOST & FOUND… how sharing a loss, helped find some healing
Last week I had the pleasure of being part of a presentation and discussion on the psychological impact of diagnosis. It’s a topic close to my heart, having experienced all manner of psychological fallout to my own misdiagnosis, eventual diagnosis and horrendous legacy of both, from stress and anxiety, to lows and PTSD (more on… Continue reading The PSYCHOLOGICAL impact of illness… why we need to HEAL OUR MINDS, as well as our BODIES!
As I write this week, I am sitting on a couch recovering. I’ve not been sick as much as I have hit a wall in terms of my health, that large metal wall, unbendable and unmerciful, that allows no progress forward bar breathing and if you are lucky the use of your digits. In the… Continue reading FATIGUE… a battle best shared than hidden…
But for this blog, many of you would be unaware that I live with heart failure, or that my marriage ended. To the regular person on the street, the other school parents, the people in my community, I look ‘normal’. How do I know I look ‘normal’? Because when people eventually heard/hear about my… Continue reading “But you look so ‘NORMAL’!!!”… the need to redefine ‘NORMAL’ to bring HEALING.
After my illness, I instinctively knew that words were going to be very significant to how I got through my recovery. I needed words to feed me hope, light and possibility if I was going to survive mentally and recover emotionally. It wasn’t me wanting to hear medical falsehoods about my future, but it was… Continue reading “Should I put down the pen?” – facing the dilemma… when HEALING for one, is HURTING for another…
When I was lying in the high dependency unit, post emergency open heart surgery, several years ago, grieving for my life that was, my children that I couldn’t see, and a future life that seemed, back then, so unlikely, I craved, more than anything, human connection. In the long, lonely hours of night, behind the… Continue reading COMPASSION, a vital medicine for the wounded…
It wouldn’t be quite correct to say that I bought my house because of a tree, but it wouldn’t be far off either. It's a large eucalyptus tree, God knows how old, but very mature. The first day I saw it was an exciting day. We were house hunting for a while, when we came… Continue reading THE HEALING TREE…
Holding my new-born and delighting in her arrival, I had no idea that my coronary artery was about to threaten our ability to ever have a relationship. Birth is such a time of newness, hope and promise, that the thoughts of death and ending are probably at their most alien. And for other good reasons… Continue reading When MOM’S GET SICK… the GUILT can be the worst bit
A few years ago I got a sudden illness and nearly died. With a new diagnosis, it was time to investigate everything that could help me get well. My journey led me to doctors and hospitals and afterwards to all kinds of advice and therapies. But healing, I discovered, wasn’t all about taking enough pills,… Continue reading I now know that LIFE IS MEDICINE…
The healing of life 