Last weekend, the three major television networks staged a major fundraiser for cancer research and raised more than $100 million. What an awesome outcome! That got me thinking about what I might be able to do to help others since I don’t have great financial resources and decided that my role would be a little different. I want to be a resource for breast cancer survivors who can share their experiences with someone else who has gone through the same thing or is about to do so.
Now I know that there are lots of organizations out there that are wonderful support groups for cancer survivors. But I also know that there are lots of people out there who are like me who do not wish to join groups, who do not wish to go to meetings and face others in the midst of their own very personal battles and need a different type of resource available to them. I believe that there are those who would like to have a venue available to them where they can express their feelings or address questions from their own emails or through a shared website and I would like to provide such an outlet.
So I thought that I would begin by providing the following email address for anyone who may want to use this type of forum. It is www.barbarajacoby@gmail.com. I welcome your expressions of experiences, feelings, questions, etc. and would like to share them with others who may be helped in their own battles or who would like to have feedback from others who have shared their particular experiences. The purpose is to provide a positive outlet for everyone. Should the response be of significant interest, I would like to expand this forum to our own support website.
I know that when I received my first diagnosis of breast cancer I would have loved to have had such a resource available to me. I felt very alone and did not want to discuss my feelings with anyone else, in person. When I looked for online resources, I found medical sites with outdated information and nothing else that didn’t feel rather impersonal. By the time that I was diagnosed the second time, it was a different story and that difference came from the information that I had learned the first time around that took away the fear that had been that first experience. If I can help even one person to not have to experience that fear, then I will have succeeded in this project. And if I can establish a network for others to help by sharing their experiences and information then many others just might be spared the fear that many of their predecessors have experienced.
So if you would like to be a part of this experiment or have any input that you would like to provide, please feel free to contact me at www.barbarajacoby@gmail.com and see what we can do to make a difference.
Barbara Jacoby is an award winning blogger that has contributed her writings to multiple online publications that have touched readers worldwide.