Welcome to the sordid chronicle of my medical adventures, mishaps and triumphs with a side of assorted helpful links. Although I recently achieved that coveted clean bill of health, The Cancer Dancer will oh-so-gracefully trudge on as a means to share the personal and practical findings I continue to discover. Join me from the beginning (as the wide-eyed new patient) or join me now (as the seasoned survivor).

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The Social Media Conundrum...a continuous plight

With our convenient and exhaustive list of ways to instantly share anything and everything with  400+ friends, you would assume that it would have been easy to sound the alarms with an ever powerful Facebook status update the moment I got my diagnosis last December.

As the girl who makes everything in her life more difficult than it has to be, you would be so very wrong. I have spent every day since so cautiously keeping my NEWS out of the news feed. As I sat in the hospital that night, I tearfully begged my mom not to tell her close friends what was going on with me yet because I thought that they might spread the word. I feared it would end up posted on my Facebook wall before I had the chance to make obligatory phone calls, send countless emails or patiently explain what a lymph node was while perched on my couch with concerned friends. Meanwhile, I had my sister lock my Facebook wall so that no one could post anything "suggestive." (Or anything at all for that matter.) My "friends" did not need to be digesting this new information at the same rate/timeline that I was.

And when you don't feel like you've got control of much else, what's more satisfying than shutting people out on the internet?

Cancer is really tough thing to share with people in your life who are not family, close friends or bosses. There is an obligation and need to notify in these cases. When I consider whether I should let people know who are outside this circle, the thought of just having to bring it up inevitably changes my mind. Especially having to bring it up to someone you haven't seen in six months or a year. And it certainly doesn't get any easier. Therefore, Facebook does not know about my recent adventures without some sluething (via my other very neglected blog link).

Although it does know about the small, accidental fire I started in my kitchen last week.

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