Saturday, June 11, 2011

#96: Blog it Up!

After I was diagnosed last August, I happened to stumble upon a website called Carepages. It ended up being the most influential site I stumbled upon throughout my treatment.

Carepages is a website made for patients to update their family and friends on their health status. After trying the website out on my mom and my sisters, I realized it could be very useful in keeping my family in varying time zones up-to-date. Also, it would prevent the rumour mill from running with untrue stories of my diagnosis.


I loved updating my Carepages. Not only did it give me something to look forward to during the long days of my sick leave, but it also ended up being a safe place for my family and friends to tell me how much they supported me, and ask open and honest questions about my treatment.

I loved it so much, I wanted to keep blogging after treatment was over. But the idea of blogging in an open forum scared me shitless.

In my internet perusing, I again stumbled upon another influential website, A Fresh Chapter. After reading through Terri's insightful postings, I wrote her a message telling her how much I was inspired and motivated by her perspectives. After exchanging e-mails, she discovered I was an aspiring writer, and suggested I write a guest posting for her blog while she was away travelling.

The happy result of that e-mail exchange is available here.

After having such a positive experience blogging with Terri's guidance, I decided to set up my own blog. I've been updating with positive results since March. It was a leap at first to put my thoughts, feelings and aspirations out in the open to those beyond my family and friends, but one that has so far had a big reward.

Not only has this blog been something that keeps me excited about writing and sharing, but it's also something that has improved the quality of my experiences.

No comments:

Post a Comment