I've chosen to start a blog at Macmillan for several reasons:
Habit. I run a blog already, and writing about my life has become an ingrained diary-keeping habit. This is perhaps a selfish reason, but writing helps me handle difficulties.
Privacy. I don't want to write about this side of my life in my existing blog, yet. My parents are elderly, none too well themselves, and very stressed by other circumstances. I don't want to add to their worries. We're on good terms, but they live overseas and we don't often meet in person, due to travel costs, so I've decided not to tell them about my illness unless it becomes unavoidable. It was a difficult choice - one to be weighed against the potential insult of not confiding in them - but after long thought, that was the way I decided to handle it.
Help. Writing about my illness and treatment might just help someone else deal with similar. "Similar to what?" is a fair question. All we know is that it has turned up in chest lymph nodes. I should know what precisely when the PET scan results come through.
- James
