Debbie

We passed a couple milestones recently.  And the occasion was made even more special by an email from a grateful reader.  It’s the sort of thing that keeps us going.  The visit counter just ticked over 70,000.  About the same time I recalculated the blogs on all the lists.  I have discovered quite a few new ones lately.  The new total comes to over 1200 personal cancer blogs!

Just before I wrote this post I finished doing some redesigning of the Cancer Blogs Lists.  I have combined the cervical and ovarian lists under a new “Gynecologic Cancers” section.  I renamed “Widows and other Survivors” into the more direct title “Grief Blogs”.  I edited the “Uncommon Cancers” section, moving many of the blogs to other more appropriate lists (for instance, “Wilm’s tumor” blogs to the “Kidney Cancer” section as this is a type of childhood cancer of the kidneys).  Diseases with smaller number of blogs – bone, bladder, pancreatic, testicular, etc – move to the “Miscellaneous Cancers” page.  Finally, the now smaller “Uncommon Cancers” list resides on the “Miscellaneous” page also.

What I am really excited about today is the following email:

Hi Dennis,
I found your blog a little over a year and a half ago. After being diagnosed with oral cancer on January 20, 2009, I started frantically searching the web for any information I could find. I found a blog of a young woman who had a diagnosis of cancer almost identical to mine, hers was the one and only blog I found, at that time, that was so close to my diagnosis. I found her blog to be so critical in my understanding of what I was going to be facing. Since then my computer crashed and I have been unable to locate her blog again. I did, however, after viewing her blog, create one of my own to chronicle my experience in the hope of not only keeping our many family, friends and acquaintances informed in how I am doing, but also to hopefully be a help to anyone who may receive this horrible diagnosis in the future. I have tried to be very informative on by blog including some graphic and very unflattering pictures of my cancer journey.

I check your blog daily, excited to read each new post. I can’t tell you how much help and comfort I have received from reading the blogs of other cancer patients you have made available from your web site. It was so wonderful to find your web site at a time when I was desperately seeking to hear from others who have been through what I was facing. I don’t know if you would be interested in including my blog on your site or not. It has been my desire, in writing it, to possibly be a help to anyone else facing this rare form of oral cancer. My blog is    There Will Be Grace

Once again THANK-YOU for taking the time to set up and continue to add to, and maintain your web site!!!! It seems as if every post I read, touches my life in some way.

Today’s entry, Cancer Symptoms Endure, is so relevant to what I have been experiencing lately. It is wonderful to know I am not alone in the things I am experiencing a year after finishing treatments. Before my cancer diagnosis I hadn’t been to the doctor in probably five years, but now sometimes, I find myself wondering if I have been sick for so long that these symptoms are somehow only in my mind. Then I read something you or one of your guest speakers have written and it helps to know I am not so unusual!!! Wow, I can’t say thank-you enough!!!

Sincerely,
Debbie Ruppe

Nana & girls at Colts stadium

Well, I have to admit that I was a little proud of myself after a spent a few hours in front of the computer Sunday (before the Colts game).  I did several things that will make Being Cancer Network much easier to navigate.  The week before I had been analyzing various statistics.  They showed what I already knew – that the Cancer Blog pages were the most visited, most useful of all the features of the site.

So after we had passed 60,000 visits this past week, the time felt right for, once again, altering and improving both the design and the focus of the website.  I learned how to make parent and child hierarchies in the blog’s static pages.  So now this cleaned up the menu under the header.  In addition to “Home” there are now only four basic sections top the blog: “About”,”Cancer Blog Lists”, “Resources”, and “Community”.

Then I redesigned the “Cancer Blogs” feature so that users would not have to do much scrolling to locate the personal cancer blogs they are interesting in.  Most major cancers now have their own page.  A few cancers with smaller numbers of bloggers share a page.  This should make it easier for me to maintain and for readers to use.  As we are approaching 1000 personal cancer blogs on our lists, the pages were becoming unwieldy for all.  I am now going to put major efforts into expanding that list.  And again I want to put out the call to all the cancer community to PLEASE LET ME KNOW OF ANY BLOGS NOT LISTED.  Sorry for shouting.

The new “Community” section is an idea I want to develop more.  It is oriented around the concept of helping cancer bloggers to grow and develop, not only as survivors, but also as interpreters of the cancer experience.  Any suggestions are welcomed.

Finally I dropped the Amazon ads after netting only $3.94 over the past year.  The “Features” menu on the left in now a “Site Map” so readers can more easily be directed to the exact page they are looking for.

All in all, it seems that since “Being Cancer”, the blog, has steadily evolved into Being Cancer Network, the website.  The thematic focus has turned from personal sharing to a service offering blogging resources to the cancer community.  I hope you approve of the changes.

Take care, Dennis

1st day back at pre-school

Disability woes

Sorry I have been away from the computer for a while.  Came down with another viral thing – just a bad cold but without a fever.  Still it slowed me down.  I figured out that my new job – working at a gourmet wine and spirits shop a few hours a week – is mainly for my mental health.  Unnum, the insurance company that I receive my disability income from, figures this is a good time to do a complete review of my case.  I spent an hour in a phone interview with a nice-enough “case specialist”.  The company wants to make sure that I am able to live up to my full potential.  Working three hours three evenings a week pouring wine at the tasting bar has sent up a red flag from them.  Of course I only make 1/3 per hour and 8% a year of what I would be making if I were able to work full-time in my chosen profession, nursing.  And I have had to call in sick a number of days since I started work three months ago.  They plan to contact all of my physicians and get back in touch with me.  I guess they’re just doing their job.  It’s a reasonable enough request.  Yet somehow I sense that their primary agenda has more to do with their financial health than with my reaching my full potential.  I’ll keep you posted.

New thyroid blog

Another email from a new blogger:  Hi,
My name is Ann Dunlap, and I’d like my blog to be included on your wonderful website.  It’s a thyroid cancer blog, and the link is:   Strong in Weakness, Glowin’ in the Dark
I really appreciated finding your website today, as I’ve been recently diagnosed, and looking for anything I can find.

Author, Richard Schimmel, dies

I heard on the news today that Richard Schimmel, author of Cancer on $5 a Day, died of injuries sustained in a car accident.  His book was reviewed as our January Book Club selection.

Site plans

Plans are coalescing for streamlining the look of this site.  I want to put more focus on the Cancer Blog List as it is our most used resource.  I am working on ways to make it easier to navigate.  Coming it soon will be a couple of book reviews.

Diana Raab

Following up on our interview Monday, today you can read Diana Raab’s thoughts on the healing effects of writing.  During her career she has shared these ideas with people enduring a variety of life’s challenges, not just with cancer.  As you know, Being Cancer Network rests on the premise that writing, particularly in a blog format, promotes both a degree of self-healing but also, as a consequence of its shared nature, contributes towards the healing of  other cancer survivors and their loved ones.  If you are interested in hearing more about Diana Raab, you can visit her website Learn more about author Diana Raab, author of Regina’s Closet. From here you can link to her writing blog.

How Writing Heals

When life takes an unexpected turn, writing can be a beneficial form of release from stress, due to either emotional or physical factors. Writing grounds you and gives you a reality check. It brings you face-to-face with your own truths, and in the end, it is the truth which will set you free from pain.
From a physical standpoint studies have shown that therapeutic writing, such as journaling, can decease anxiety and the incidence of depression and can also increase your immune response.
Journaling has saved my life on many occasions. The first time was at the age of ten when my mother gave me a journal to help me cope with the loss of my grandmother. I poured my grief onto the pages of my journal. Writing then helped me navigate through a difficult adolescence and then years later, a high-risk pregnancy. Eventually that last journal evolved into a self-help book for other women also having difficult pregnancies. The book has recently been updated and is now called, Your High Risk Pregnancy: A Practical and Supportive Guide. And, my most recent book, a self-help memoir, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey is a self-help memoir which also began on the pages of my journal.
Many famous writers, such as May Sarton and Anaïs Nin have used their journals to pull them through difficult times. In her book, Recovering, May Sarton chronicles her battles with depression and cancer. Anaïs Nin used her journals to write to her deranged father who left the family when she was young. In Nin’s case, her journal entries became a springboard for a four-volume collection of her diaries.
Writing provides an opportunity to vent both small and large issues, from problems with your boss to the death of a loved one. It takes a great deal of energy to be angry at someone; it’s much healthier to drop it, as one would a suitcase full of trash. If you must express your feelings, better to do so first on the pages of your journal. My attitude is: “Direct the rage to the page.” Then you can see about talking with someone you are angry with.
By writing down our fears and concerns it forces us to release them. Once we are able to let go, it’s easier to gravitate to the joys in life.  In addition, the act of moving the pen across the page can be meditative.
At an Associated Writing Conference a few years ago, Dr. James Pennebaker, the author of Writing to Heal said, “Writing dissolves some of the barriers between you and others. If you write, it’s easier to communicate with others.” He does have one rule that he calls, “the flip out rule,” which proclaims that if you get too upset when writing, then simply stop. Pennebaker believes that there’s a certain type of writing which erupts when we’re faced with loss, death, abuse, depression and trauma.
Learning to open up about issues from your past and present lives doesn’t happen over night, but it’s all a part of the healing process. Author Louise DeSalvo, also advocates writing for healing, began writing her own memoirs, Vertigo and Breathless as a result of coming to grips with her own pain.
Whether you’re affected by change, loss or illness, finding the time to write is critical to your healing process. Some people prefer to journal about their experience, while others may lean toward fiction or poetry to help them escape their own realities. Whatever your choice, once you try it, you’ll see that writing, in any form, can be healthy and empowering.

Good reasons to keep a journal

To discover about yourself
To vent frustrations and express joy
To record and remember events
To fine one’s purpose
To plan for the future
To tap into your intuition
To build self-confidence
To allow self-expression
To uncover secrets
To improve communication skills
To improve mental health

10 Tips on Writing For Healing

Find a quiet uninterrupted time and place to write

Choose an inspiring notebook and pen

Create a centering ritual (light a candle, meditate, play music, stretch)

Breath deeply

Put aside your inner critic

Date your entry

Begin by writing your feelings and sensations

Write nonstop for 15-20 minutes

Save what you have written

Write regularly