Radiating Optimism

July 20th, 2006 by john

SUNDAY, JULY 09, 2006 07:58 PM, EDT

I’m back. Kind of? Physically, I’m living it up in Chloe’s Middlebury bedroom. The AC is cranked, the new DVD player is hooked up and we’ve got a walkie-talkie lifeline to my downstairs “nurses.” At-home recovery is pretty similar to the hospital, except I get to sleep more than 4 consecutive hours between drug dosages and temperature checks. My big goal this weekend was to sit up to eat every meal. Sounds easy, right? Haha, not even close.

A few weeks ago, I got a note from my sister telling me that the daughter of one of her best friends had been operated on for a brain tumor. Casey is 25 and otherwise strong, the tumor was benign, and the surgery was thorough and successful, so the outlook is extremely positive.

In a follow-up yesterday, my sister let me know that Casey will be writing an online journal so that friends and family can track her recovery as she undergoes daily radiation treatments in Boston for the next six weeks.

One of the interesting things about this story is that the blog is appearing on a site called CaringBridge, a nonprofit organization that lets people in the midst of “significant life events” set up free Web sites designed to help them stay connected to family and friends. Huh — using the Web to make it possible and easy for people to share their stories. What a great idea.

 
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