Blogs to help those just diagnosed and going through treatment

Skibunny

Hello all,

I don't know if this already exists, but I thought it might be nice to have a thread including links to our blogs. When I was first diagnosed I felt so alone and confused and reading blogs, in addition to the forums, really helped me feel less alone, less overwhelmed, gave me an idea of what to expect and answered many questions I had spinning around my head.

I've written a blog based on my experiences with pracitcal tips to deal with everything from diagnosis to the various treatments and living with a cancer diagnosis at http://chemoforbeginners.com. It is in an easy to follow A-Z format, covering the following topics:

A is for… Alternative and Complimentary Medicine

B is for… Beauty Tips During Chemo

C is for… Chemo Schmemo

D is for… Diagnosis – A Life-Changing Event

E is for… Emotions

F is for… Family and Fertility

G is for… Gift Ideas

H is for… Hairloss

I is for… I’ve finished but I still feel rubbish…

J is for… Jumping the Gun – “Scanxiety”

K is for… Keeping Hair – Cold Capping

L is for… Lymphoedema

M is for… Menopausal Symptoms

N is for… Nutrition and Diet

O is for… Operations

P is for… Preparing Yourself for Treatment

Q is for… Quacks

R is for… Reconstruction

S is for… Sex and all that Jazz…

T is for… Tamoxifen

U is for… Underwear

V is for… Virtual Friends

W is for… Weighty Issues

X is for… X-Rays, Tests and Scans

Y is for… YAAAAAWN – Dealing with Fatigue

Z is for… Zapping those Cancer Cells – Radiotherapy

Mine's still a work in progress and I am making the other links live over the next few weeks.

I'd love to hear about your blogs...?

Thanks. x

mdg

My blog link is below. I know I too was looking for some blogs to read when I was first diagnosed. Great idea to post them all here!!

Skibunny

Great. Will have a read. See you kept your hair too. Cheers cold cap!!  

Beesie

I think blogs can help those who are going through BC see how others have dealt with their diagnosis and treatment, how they've dealt with friends and family and co-workers, etc..  They are great for that. 

But I find that lately too many blogs have started moving towards offering medical information, sometimes intentionally or sometimes just as part of the discussion ("here's what my doctor told me today").  What I've been finding more and more of late is that newly diagnosed women are picking up diagnostic or pathology or medical information from blogs and are assuming that what they read is correct and medically accurate and applies to them (rather than just to the person who wrote the blog). Because everything is accessed in the same way on the internet, lately what's written in blogs seems to be getting as much weight and significance as what's written in medical journals.  What everyone should remember is that most blogs are written by other patients who don't have any more medical training than you do, and the information provided is just one person's opinion, interpretation or experience, based on her specific diagnosis and treatment plan.  

Personally one of the reasons why I like this board is because we cover off every possible topic about breast cancer in the discussions here, and at any one time there are dozens of women reading the board and commenting.  So no one is ever getting just one person's opinion or what happened in only one person's experience. Plus this board is connected to breastcancer.org, where there is full range of information about breast cancer, all written and/or vetted by doctors, experts in the field.  

What I've learned over the years is that breast cancer is very complicated and our experiences with breast cancer are tremendously varied - no two diagnoses are exactly alike and no two women are exactly alike.  Reading about how someone else has dealt with her diagnosis can be very helpful (and humorous!), but anyone reading a blog should always remember that it's a blog.  

Skibunny

Totally agree Beesie! But I also think there's a danger with forums for the same reason. Everyone needs to read forums keeping a balanced view. It's all too easy to get a warped view as the majority of the people on the forums are at a point where they NEED the forum and are struggling in some way. I know women who've refused to even TRY Tamoxifen because of threads they've read with ladies discussing side effects - whereas the majority of us with no side effects are off, living life, not needing to post about it - leaving newbies without seeing the whole picture.

To be honest you need to keep a balanced view WHEREVER you are getting information (forums, blogs, internet).