This morning as I read the Michigan papers online, I was forced to pause, and be consumed by a story that literally took my breath away.
The headline from the Detroit News reads: Hundreds log on to teen's blog as he battles cancer and I read it again, and again and again and I cried.
We all go through our days time and time again, set on auto-pilot doing what we need to do each day. How many times do we really stop to reflect, to really think about things?
I'm probably a lot more sensitive to stories like these because I see myself and my story so clearly in theirs. It's the reflection of what I've been through, what I've overcome and what could still happen to me, or to any of us.
It's because of my story that I sit here at this computer and share some of the deepest, most personal things that have happened to me. I believe like Miles, that by sharing my story and being honest and open about it, that my story will help others. How else can I explain my life and the fact that I'm still alive besides believing in a greater purpose than just being sick and not dying, even though all of the doctors tell me I should have, time and time again.
My journey into advocacy, politics, blogging, and now biking has always been about reaching out and sharing. For the same reasons Miles shares in this story, this world is too small and life too short not to come together as a community and grow as a community. This world is not about how you live or how I live - it is about how we live, and what we do together to change our world.
Here's to Miles, and to the millions others out there who are truly living by example for all of us.
(Cross-posted at DailyKos)
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This is a good story. I hope he can be as well as possible. If your interested in such things, , the San Francisco Chronicle has a long-running series about a young staffers cancer treatment. In addition to that, the column spawned a blog after the paper stopped running her column.
The internet provides some interesting opportunities to raise awareness about diseases beyond close family and friends. In the pre-internet age, such a story might've run in the paper. But it would've taken the work of a disease-based nonprofit organization nagging the media to get it done. Now, anybody can sign up for a free account on the web, and write from the chemo center, or from the surgery waiting room.
I hope that's a good thing. But I'm also not so sure. The internet is merely a reflection of reality. As any nurse knows, people always have tantrums in the hospital (and the drugs don't help with that). Now, there's a fair chance that those tantrums will be exposed to a greater, less professional, audience that may take things the wrong way. But it's probably too early to tell on that one.
The big, cumbersome support/advocacy organization of the past is probably long-gone. I imagine it'll be replaced by semi-formal networks of patients reading each other's blogs.
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