Hello to all my heart sisters who visit this wonderful online community! I was fortunate today to attend a conference call with several of the other Mayo grads and to hear updates on what they have been doing in their communities since attending the Mayo Symposium last month. How inspiring! These ladies are giving so much of themselves, I am so proud to call them my heart sisters! Roz, you go girl! Roz is already reaching large audiences of women and educating them about women and heart disease. Carrie, Sharen, Marietta, all you ladies, you so inspire me. The call was a great motivater for me. Just when things seem to be going slower than hoped, this really helped revitalize me and the efforts I am making to get out in my community. Thank you, and I miss you all!
Please keep in touch.
Nancy
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Heart Sisters.....Mayo '08
- By Nancy-in-KC
- Posted November 6, 2008 at 7:57 pm · 6 replies
- In How heart disease has changed my life
- Shared with the public
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- By Kennarina
- Posted November 6, 2008 at 10:38 pm
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Hi Nancy - I'm so sorry I missed today's call 'in person' as I was at Cardiac Rehab, but I'll be logging in to listen to the tape. I've been stunned by how much keen interest there has been up here since my return from Mayo Clinic, with speaking invitations to speak coming at me without me doing any pro-active planning - including a Heart & Stroke Foundation annual luncheon next month, the hospital Education Committee's monthly meeting, and two interviews (one newspaper and one magazine) PLUS my first "Pinot & Prevention" party already booked for Nov 28th. I met with the Cardiac Social Worker at the hospital this week, who I'm thinking of hiring as my booking agent.... She has a million ideas of having me speak to hospital staff at General Practice rounds, staff meetings and "Cardiology Day" in February. Very exciting stuff.....
Still waiting for my speaker's package from WH though!
hugs
Carolyn aka Kenna
- By joy2day
- Posted November 6, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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Little dry here on the Omaha front. My HR contacts at work are tied up with next year's open enrollment and end-of-year performance appraisal/budget stuff.
Tomorrow, I have a meeting with the director of the fitness center (at work) to look at some opportunities for Feb's Heart Month.
I presented at a Weight Watchers meeting tonight. I'll be doing 2 WW meetings at my company next week. My WW leader wants me to talk at many of her other meetings (based on my work schedule, of course).
- By Kennarina
- Posted November 7, 2008 at 10:16 am
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Just listened to the tape of the Mayo grads conference call. Wowee Wow! So many creative and exciting presentations and outreach going on out there since the Symposium!! It's wonderful having the option of listening to the teleconference comments after the fact - I appreciate this technology! THANK YOU!!!
XOXOXO
- By goingstrong
- Posted November 17, 2008 at 11:12 am
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It was a good call, wasn't it? I'm getting ready for the new one already!
It was such a wonderful experience!
Lynn, Houston
- By itseybit
- Posted November 21, 2008 at 6:11 pm
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Nancy:
I just found this site today and I was soo glad you see I was very healthy I thought and I went cause doctor cause I thought I had gallbladder problems but when they scan they found a very large aneurysm on my aorta. I found Dr.Safi in Houston Texas.He saved my life. My surgery was done on 09-04-08
- By Kennarina
- Posted November 30, 2008 at 12:02 pm
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Hello Mayo Grad '08 Heart Sisters....
Just wanted to let you know that on Friday evening, I spoke at my first ever "Pinot & Prevention" party, hosted by my friend Kit. There were 20 women present - all dressed in red as instructed on the invitations we e-mailed out, which made for a wonderful group photo at the end of the evening! I'm sending a copy of it in to the WomenHeart office along with my Community Education Report.
Kit and I organized this as a 'heart-smart potluck finger foods' event - and the food that guests brought was fabulous: homemade low-salt tortilla chips and salsa, tuna antipasto, veggie trays, stuffed mushroom caps, and even an angel food cake with no-fat lemon yogurt, fresh raspberries and almonds for dessert!! Plus several bottles of pinot blanc and pinot noir of course....
The agenda format was 7-7:30 pm: schmoozing, wine and goodies, then I spoke for about an hour, followed by more schmoozing with cake and coffee. It was very informal - I told my own heart attack story, then we covered 'myths and facts' about women's heart disease, risk factors, how to address those risk factors, and warning signs of a cardiac event.
I like audience participation vs a 'talking head' presentation for these informal audiences; for example, I asked the group to call out the risk factors that they knew about, while one of the guests volunteered to be the 'scribe' to write the list down on a flipchart for us. Many questions and comments throughout, and also lots of note-taking (always a good sign, I think). I borrowed a big plastic three-dimensional poster of the heart from our local Heart & Stroke Foundation office, a really useful visual aid. And I brought along my Mayo binder and the Mayo Clinic 'Steps To Heart Health' book, and invited women to browse through these afterwards during coffee time if they had specific questions about cardiac disease or treatments.
The biggest hit of the evening was when Kit and I pulled out the 20 'Red Bags of Courage' at the end of my talk. Everybody was absolutely thrilled! These are really sharp-looking bags, I must say - participants went crazy for them! Along with all those great informational brochures, I also added individual squares of extra-dark chocolate in each bag just for fun. My advice: do not distribute your 'Red Bags' until AFTER your talk is over, as you don't want participants to be rifling through their bags reading while you are talking!
I have another "P&P" party booked on Wednesday and three more for January. Once I got home from Rochester last month, a number of friends immediately jumped in to offer to host one of these P&P parties that we heard about at Mayo from previous years' grads.
I also have a number of other speaking invitations coming up (to medical staff and general audiences) but I really think I have found my calling with these grassroots "Pinot & Prevention" parties held in people's living rooms.
They are like Tupperware parties without the plastic! At the end, four women approached me to ask if I'd come to speak in their homes to other groups in the future, too. More advice: bring business cards or contact info notepads - I had neither with me so ended up scribbling my phone # on any piece of scrap paper I could find around Kit's house! Not very professional...
I do need your creative help here: one of my upcoming presentations is a "P&P" party but in the afternoon. We need to come up with a catchy name for a daytime event - as catchy a name as "Pinot & Prevention" but without the wine.... Any ideas?
THX!
XOXOXO
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