Cancer bloggers

We all know who we are. We have been through a scare or two, and we think that perhaps there is something personal that needs to be said - for family, for friends, and even for the "just curious" out there in the worlds of the Internet. I am guilty of lurking my way into other cancer patients' and survivors' lives through the pains and fears, joys and triumphs, and even tragic losses that we post.

So, what is my point? Not sure, except that I still find myself drawn into some of these stories - almost like they are chapters in a novel. "Ed has a mostly normal, mostly carefree, mostly OK life and then "BAM!" cancer appears." Insert stages of grief, frantic internet searches for information about [fill-in-the-blank carcinoma, melanoma, etc.], tears, stoicism, decisions, fatigue, surgeries, injections, nausea, more tears, and so on. It is a consuming story, punctuated by sometimes charming or poignant insights, and sometimes those are recorded for some kind of posterity in a blog.

When you are following a cancer blogger, you engage in their dance with death. For a person diagnosed with cancer, well, for this person at least, that reality forces its soulful way into consciousness rather quickly. I remain hopeful for my longevity, but still harbor a suspicion that the proverbial "other shoe" is hanging in the air, ready to drop. Maybe that is what other survivors think too?

So when I see a blog "go silent" I worry. Recently, after a several month hiatus, a blog-friend posted anew to her blog. It made me happy. So, in the spirit of happiness, I plan to write here more often.  I-know, I-know, I wrote similar words before, but now I mean it. I will try for weekly at first. Call me on it!

Namaste.