sharings from Pauline O'Shea, Patient Advocate, Public speaker, Media spokesperson & Writer on the challenges & healing that life has to offer
Back in my student days, I lived in a house where an art therapist also resided. Art therapy wasn't a big thing in those days. He was viewed with a mixture of fascination and pity... pity for how little demand there was for his business and how 'broke' he always seemed to be, fascination for… Continue reading Could your CREATIVE talent become your healing therapy?
With patients, ‘that place’ can refer to the venue where they received their diagnosis and/or treatment, or 'that place' where they were when they first noticed the lump, or experienced the sudden pain that would change their lives utterly. For others, it can be more of an experience, 'that place' in memory that holds the… Continue reading “I JUST CAN’T GO THERE!” But what if going to ‘that place’ is key to helping you heal?
I have always been a reader, in fact books are my ‘shoe addiction’. A bookshop is my go-to place. Little wonder then that when I have faced the challenging times in my life, I have dived into the world of books, in part to seek connection with someone else in my predicament, but equally to… Continue reading BOOK MEDICINE… GREAT READS to help heal the heart, mind and soul!
On this month, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. On the very day I brought my beautiful baby daughter home from the hospital, I suffered a condition called SCAD, where a tear occurred in one of my coronary arteries, causing a heart attack. I was 38 years old. A trip to A+E, a medical… Continue reading 10 YEARS on from a SCAD & HEART FAILURE diagnosis … here are some of the things I’ve learned…
We all do it… criticise our bodies. We find them too big here, too small there, too round here and maybe even too flat there. When you’re a patient the criticism levels can rise even further… the heart that won’t beat like it ‘should’, the body that won’t deliver enough energy to meet your life… Continue reading In GRATITUDE to the bodies that keep us alive each day….
Covid 19 has been a challenge for everyone. Two years of uncertainty and at times tremendous fear, has taken its toll. It is understandable therefore to see the jubilant faces of so many, staring out of our newspapers and newsfeeds, as they celebrate our departure from so many restrictions. But what about the medically vulnerable… Continue reading Our society has reopened, but have the medically vulnerable become a “forgotten people”?
When you’ve been through great pain, there is something within, that wants to help prevent that pain for another, or at least help them get through it, if indeed they have to bear it. It is hard to explain that feeling, or why it is there, but throughout the world, we hear this reaction from… Continue reading HEALING through HELPING… and how it sows seeds for the better
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…
The healing of life 