“Every human being is the author of his own health or disease.” – Gautama Siddharta (aka Buddha)
Sometimes I meet people who are in the same boat or a slightly different healthcare boat. The dilemma they feel in “talking about it” all the time, coupled with the understandable desire to keep their friends and loved ones up to date and informed with accurate information. Life is always about balance and transition.
What if you are a novice on the computer, never been much of a writer, but you want to give it a go for all the right and noble reasons?
There are a couple of things to know. If you want your blogging to be available to family, friends and acquaintances, but you are uncomfortable with throwing everything out there on the world wide web known as the internet. I highly recommend a Caring Bridge Website.
Caring Bridge is completely protected and your website will not be “searchable” (i.e., it won’t come up on search engines like google), or even within the Caring Bridge website. Its a fabulous service and its completely free.
Once you get there, you will need to decide if you want to have your website password protected. Its optional. Its already pretty protected, so I didn’t bother with that. Caring Bridge requires your visitors to put in their email address and create a password to leave messages on your guest book.
Each of your visitors can optionally sign up to receive email notifications that you have updated your journal.
When you get there, you will find “themes”, which are subjects you can choose that will be what your particular webpage will look like. You can even change them routinely without losing any of your content. All Caring Bridge webpages function exactly the same. You don’t have to know anything about setting up websites or webpages to do it. You go through a step by step process of answering questions with clear descriptions of what you are doing to get started. Then you email out your new “link” to all your friends. It is up to you then to dictate whether you want them to share this link with others or not.
“The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.”– Norbet Platt
Blogger is also free, a bit more complicated, but also not as hard as you might imagine. More for the adventurous computer user, but its also used by very savvy internet/computer users as well. It is supported by Google and you will need to create a free Gmail email address. It too gives you multiple designs that you can manipulate to suit your needs. Its very fun.
Blogger is public. So you have that decision to make.
My blog is a WordPress which can also be free, but mine is “hosted” and I pay a nominal fee for that service. WordPress is very powerful and yet I find it limiting in some ways, mostly because I’m still learning how to use it. I have a friend “in the business” who supports me in my efforts, or I would have just stayed with Blogger.
Content
The main thrust I was hoping to touch on here, besides what platform to use is, “what” you write about. This is very important. You can absolutely find some great information on how to write a blog. Things like, posting often or regularly, using photo media, headlines, breaking up your copy, etc. All of these things are important. But initially, you are keeping your friends and family informed. That is the main focus.
When you do this, I urge you to find the right balance between telling what is going on and how graphic you want to be about that. Having said that, there are some great bloggers who are very specific in detailing their Myeloma, but in that process they inject their own particular humor and character that for me anyway, is pleasant to read with chuckles of “shared reality”. However, I had a friend who has since passed, who had a very ugly cancer. I encouraged her to do a Caring Bridge website to alleviate the repeating herself over and over again what was happening. Well she set it up and when I read it I was aghast at the graphic, explicitness of “her story”. I knew most of it, but the level of detail was beyond anything even I was comfortable reading, and I’m a pretty tough cookie!
So if you are a particularly humorous guy who can make fun of the runs, losing your hair, constipation and the like, go for it. But if that’s not really how you write or express yourself, your friends and loved ones might not really want to read about these daily battles on the toilet, if you get my drift. Certainly you can allude to it, but perhaps keeping track of Constipation Day #110 should be avoided.
While you can certainly share some of how tough things might be, your loved ones and friends are looking for hope and courage, if its available in your situation, certainly that is what they are hoping for. You don’t want them to get your email notification and dread opening it. You can have some very honest portrayals of your journey, but do try to have some inspiring and hopeful entires as well. Its all very personal.
“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth
Checking In
Feel free to ask some close to you for feedback.
I found as Dave and I got more into a routine that I wasn’t blogging as much and suddenly I was getting phone calls and emails. “Is everything OK? What’s going on?” Well I said, “We’re fine, do you really want me to write about the banalities of our day, squirrels in the backyard, Kip made a new doggy friend at the park?” I got a resounding “YES!” Do realize that your journey is indeed of interest and its OK if everything is going normally and you are writing about the cat getting out of the yard. It gives everyone a sense of calm.
Photos
Definitely try to use photos. Either your own, or free ones on the web, or a combination. I try to always figure out a photo to use at the beginning of each of my posts. If warranted I will include more.
Links
Learn how to include links in your blog. Its not hard and so important, particularly if you are doing a public blog. It helps the reader to go to the specific information you are referencing and it helps the search engines to find you. Linking up to other blogs and websites is the incestuousness of the internet that links it altogether (no pun intended). So there are two kinds of links I’m talking about here. One is in the content of your post and the other is in your “sidebar” where you might want to have some important websites or other bloggers you enjoy reading. (Its always a good idea to check your links after you have posted your blog or when its in a draft-able view, just to make sure they are working they way you intended.)
Writing Rules
All other writing rules apply. Good grammar, crediting appropriate articles, websites, authors and the like. Don’t steal or plagiarize. Trust your writing style, it will develop and you will find your voice.
Names to Protect the Innocent
If you are doing a public blog this is something you will want to think about. If I’m talking about someone who is on the net with their own blog I don’t worry about using their name and I always link it to their blog. So I feel good about promoting them. If it is about someone else, not in the medical field. I may use initials, first name with last name initial, etc. If its my family, I don’t care. But you do want to be considerate of other’s privacy concerns. So keep that it mind how you want to handle that.
Tags
If you look at the bottom of each of my blog posts you will see words. These are “tags” I enter when I write the blog. This makes it searchable on my website and on search engines. Its a habit you should form as you begin your blog. (It doesn’t apply to Caring Bridge at this time.)
Anyway, these are just a few tips I can offer. Very basic. There is more to know, but this should get you started. I hope you find it helpful and I hope that if you are so inclined that you dive in and use the world wide web as the tool to serve you, which is what it was intended to do. You are in the driver’s seat, you set the tone and tenor of what you want to do. If you have already started, good for you. If not, and you are thinking about it, do it.
One of the most wonderful and unexpected benefits for me, was that I didn’t have to talk about Dave’s Myeloma incessantly. When I would go back East for a visit, my friends would say, “Hey, so I heard the kids are joining you for Thanksgiving!” It was their wonderful way of letting me know that they were reading my blog and all up to date. This freed me up to ask about them and their children and their lives. It was really great!
Note: I started with Caring Bridge because I was uncomfortable putting Dave out there publicly. It was perfect. I blogged for 18 long months almost every other day. Then I decided I had more to say from a caregiver’s point of view and started a Blogger. From there I moved it over to the site I have now with my name fully out there. It was an evolution in my comfort level. Some day I dream of having a blog like The Pioneer Woman (#4 on PW’s list is IMPORTANT!) where I can put up my art and recipes and this blog will just be a “part” of my efforts! Sigh…
And for the record, this post is WAY TOO LONG!
