sharings from Pauline O'Shea, Patient Advocate, Public speaker, Media spokesperson & Writer on the challenges & healing that life has to offer
First published 2021. Re-issued for Father's Day 2023 When I regained consciousness in ICU after open heart surgery, bleary eyed and with a raging temperature from an infection that made me feel like I had landed at the gates of hell, the first thing I remember seeing was my Dad’s red coat. He was coming… Continue reading The power of LOVE in healing…
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
Diagnosis can bring devastation, but after 10 years living with a pretty big one (heart failure, post misdiagnosis of SCAD), I have learned that it doesn't bring only devastation... There are times in life when things take a turn for the worst, and times in life when things take a turn for the better because… Continue reading Yes, GREEN SHOOTS are possible after and because of, that pain in your heart…
I recently got a message from a lady in the US. She had read a blogpost I had previously written on the impact of SCAD, heart failure, and open-heart surgery, (see '10 years on...') and having experienced all three of these herself, only a few months prior, wanted to know what my medical results were… Continue reading Could SHARING YOUR STORY be the purpose of your pain?
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!
I've been ill since last I wrote. It lasted for weeeeeeks. A virus. Not Covid... officially... but a definite stepbrother or stepsister. First came the excessive tired, then the cough, the sore throat, the weak limbs... it felt like someone had pulled the bath plug out... Then there was the chest infection, the reduced oxygen,… Continue reading ‘LISTEN TO YOUR BODY’!… yes, but what happens to the rest of your life while you do🤦♀️ ??
I am blessed to have my mother still with me, but I know many who do not. I know those too who have lost a child, and those who longed for them but never had them, both having to live with absence in their hearts, often invisible to the outside world. I have met people… Continue reading ‘A MOTHER’S DAY FOR ALL’, reflection and poem, by Pauline O’Shea
As I lay in my bed in a large cardiac ward some years ago after open heart surgery, I became somewhat fixated on a tiny window on the opposite side of the ward. It wasn’t even showing a great view, unless you count a metal fire escape as ‘artistic’. If I was asked at the… Continue reading NATURE’S HEALING… science shows that connecting with nature can improve our physical health… so is it time Doctors prescribed ‘Nature’ to patients?
Main photo by Michelle Leman from Pexels thank you to Michelle and to her brave and beautiful model. In a recent conversation with a fellow heart failure patient, who has had the condition for five years, she began to cry when she talked about her interactions with a lifelong friend post diagnosis. With her permission, I quote her… Continue reading The INVISIBILITY of our illnesses or struggles can be an extra challenge, but there are ways to overcome…
From political conflicts, to culture wars, celebrity twitter rows, to mask wearing divergent opinion, it seems conflict is the new dominant feature in our daily lives, now that the Covid tide is receding (we hope!). We are back to hearing about lots of ‘outrage’ to this and that, lots of accusations of fake news when… Continue reading CONFLICT & CANCEL CULTURE are now bed fellows, but is this combination a missed opportunity for ALL to heal?
Love is in the air this week, in case you've missed the card and chocolate stands emblazoned with reminders of February 14th being Valentine's Day. We have been commercially encouraged everywhere it seems to deliver our love in the form of chocolates, flowers, cards and well, whatever else we might be willing to stretch to… Continue reading To LOVE regardless… how St. Valentine’s message can help our wellbeing & healing
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”?
In case you missed it, last Monday was called ‘Blue Monday’ (Jan 17th), declared the official saddest and most depressing day of the year back in 2005, by Cliff Arnall, a tutor at the time, attached to Cardiff University, in response to a request from a travel company to provide a scientific formula for the… Continue reading Are you, or a loved one FEELING BLUE?
The healing of life 