Why Blog?

I was diagnosed in 2017 with Stage IV Lung Cancer. As a middle-aged woman busy raising four children, that really knocked me back. Lung cancer was a bolt out of the blue, completely unexpected, especially since I had never smoked. But as I soon learned, non-smokers can get cancer too. All you need are lungs.

I tell people that I am one of the "Lucky Unlucky" ones because I have an ALK positive mutation. This means that I have more treatment options than some; with luck I hope to still be alive for a while yet, although of course nothing is a cure.

From the beginning I considered writing a blog about my journey with cancer, but wasn't sure I had anything unique to say. So many others have written far more eloquently about life and death matters. What more could I add to that discussion? And besides, I simply didn't have the energy at first, and I wasn't sure I'd live long enough to write much. So I let the idea go.

However, as I got stronger, I did read other people's blogs to learn more about my condition and treatment choices. I also wanted to hear the lived experiences of real people with cancer. How could I help my children deal with all this? How could I help my spouse deal with his caregiver role? What wisdom could others offer me in dealing with end-of-life stuff?

Reading lung cancer blogs gave me a safe place to process my emotions and learn about my condition without having to burden my family. It also gave me hope that there were people out there like me who were surviving and finding meaningful ways to live their lives, even with a terminal disease.

So I revisited the idea of writing my own blog as I approached my second "cancerversary." If you knew how very sick I was when I was first diagnosed, you'll appreciate how big a deal it was to make a two year anniversary. I'm feeling mostly better -- for now --  so it's time for me to give back.

My purpose in blogging is three-fold:

1. To reach out to others and help them in the way that people have helped me, with information, resources, stories, and support
2. To tell my story and leave behind some thoughts on life and the world
3. To give my friends and family a place to visit to remind them of how much I love them 

So now it's my turn to write about the information I've learned, my experiences, my hints to others, my journey, my sorrows, my joys, and my truths. My husband will pop in with the caregiver's point of view now and then too. Our topics will probably tend towards the factual and a sharing of our experiences. Don't expect Deep Meaningful Insights from us, just frank talk. And if you are lucky, maybe cute animal pictures.

As others reached out to me across the internet when I needed it most, now it's my turn to reach out to new folks. In this way we forge links across the years, one author at a time, one patient at a time, one family at a time. Hopefully, something will remain of that chain of knowledge and experience, even after a particular author has passed on. We are all part of a chain of joined experiences, weaving our life song and love into the symphony of the world's story.

Blessings on us all.