Thu_Apr_11_20:00:37_PDT_2019

Rachel is a long term survivor and has been blogging for a number of years, she recently contacted me to ask if I could share her insightￂﾠonￂﾠher approachￂﾠon my blog so without further introductions from me I had this posting over to her
Blogging the Cancer Frights Away By Rachel Pappas www
1UpOnCancer
com When I heard the three dirty words: ￢ﾀﾜYou have cancer,￢ﾀﾝ I wasn￢ﾀﾙt shocked
Two weeks earlier, the radiologist walked into my cubical at the imaging center and threw the ￢ﾀﾜc￢ﾀﾝ word out, while I lay there, staring at the ultrasound screen
Days later my breast surgeon reconfirmed the probable writing on the wall as she stuck me with the biopsy needle
By the time the official call came, I had myself diagnosed as a gonner￢ﾀﾔI'd had far too much time to spend on the Internet, and the data floating out there rocked me
Does it help to read for a third or fourth time: ￢ﾀﾜcarcinoma associated with poor prognosis￢ﾀﾝ? Do we need to read sterile-sounding clinical-ese that we don't understand beyond that it has freaky vibes? What does it do for us to sweat over five-year survival rates? And FYI if you don't know yet: these numbers are typically based on 10-year-old studies
I moved past surgery, still frozen with fear
But it started to thaw, slowly, in the chemo suite
Who would have thought sitting with a bunch of bald ladies, attached to a fluid-filled bag for a few hours, would be my happy time? But as we shared our boob-related jokes and PBJ sandwiches, I didn￢ﾀﾙt just see a disease
I saw moms
Teachers
Funny, inquisitive, chatty human beings
We started talking about anything but cancer
Though sometimes the conversation went back to the monster
We talked about what to say to our kids
Where to buy cranial implants (aka wigs)
How fricking scared we were when we first got hit with the ￢ﾀﾜYou have cancer brick
￢ﾀﾝ This is why I decided to start blogging
I remembered how blown away I was when I first got on the Internet as a brand newbie
I thought about all the questions my chemo clique ladies had
I thought about the things that mattered to us now, and about the things it helped us to talk about
I was going to create a safe, happy place
When we first hear we have cancer, we need the positive￢ﾀﾔwe need it right then
And we need it for the rest of our lives, because life￢ﾀﾙs never the same again
Being a 20-plus-year health writer, I had my work cut out for me when I launched my site
But I still had lessons to learn because I needed to know how to only do the positive
I had to figure out how to not overpromise, to be real and informative￢ﾀﾔbut still be comforting, even funny
How do you find this kind of happy fodder EVERY SINGLE WEEK? I mean we￢ﾀﾙre talking about cancer! But as I put my feelers out, I found it was out there￢ﾀﾔtons of it
Stories to tell about cyberspace friendships that it takes an experience like cancer to understand and embrace
Stories on retreats where survivors do zip lines, paint, dance, laugh and cry together
Stories on ways we can care for ourselves moving forward (there￢ﾀﾙs so much our docs don't tell us
) Other survivors￢ﾀﾙ mountains, and how they￢ﾀﾙre taking them on
Call me selfish, but I blog as much for me as for you and whatever warriors stop by
I use it to keep me straight
How can I write about what good eating and sleeping does for us ￢ﾀﾦ how can I ask people to open up to ideas like guided imagery and wacky sounding concepts like laugh yoga unless I try them myself? Then there￢ﾀﾙs the inspiration I get from the others
The ones who are in a hard place, but not giving up, still looking for what will help them beat this monster and or live as fully with cancer as they can
When I see the flurry of clicks on my articles on end of life care, or managing metastatic disease, it breaks my heart, but it lifts me too
I am reminded, I had cancer, but today I am in a better place than so many
Still, they are searching, connecting, hoping￢ﾀﾔactually taking the time to thank me￢ﾀﾔso they are my medicine
All the folks I meet through cyberspace are my lift￢ﾀﾔno matter their stage or circumstances
We keep on keeping on, together
Thanks Rachel for that inspiring piece of literature! I think all of us who blog are hoping it will help some one out there with cancer, even just letting them know you can live a normal life but equally in letting people know you are allowed to feel rock bottom once in a while