When I first decided to write a blog, it was originally meant to inform my friends and family about my illness and my progress as I went forward with treatment. I found it easier to write about how I was feeling and share it that way than to repeat my story many times to different people.
As things progressed, I found out how bad my prognosis was, I struggled terribly through my first few chemotherapy sessions and I realized that writing the blog was a huge cathartic outlet for me. I had so much sadness and pain that was inside me and I needed to get it out. I was so worried about dying. I was worried about leaving my kids at such a young age, and I was worried about leaving my husband.
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| Great Friends through thick & thin. Illustration by Sara Mortimer www.saramortimer.com |
Soon I found myself writing feverishly at odd hours of the night, crying over the loss of self and wondering how I would ever get back out of the dark black hole of cancer. I was mad about it. If I could not write I felt deprived, I actually craved sitting at my computer letting it all out. One could say it was because being so sick there wasn't much else I could do, but there was more to it than that. Every time I wrote I felt better, my tears flowed, my heart ached and the pain got out, rather than being stuck inside.
Pretty soon I started to get emails from people about my blog posts. These were not just from friends who were moved by my words, these emails came from people all over the world who I didn't know. They were writing to thank me for being so candid in sharing my experiences, they were writing to tell me their stories and they were writing with prayers for my recovery. The more response I got, the more I felt I needed to be brutally honest with my posts and spare no detail when it came to what I was going through, and as it turns out, this is exactly what my followers wanted. I realized my story was helping others. In writing about my experiences I was shedding a very real light on what it is like to go through cancer treatment and I was giving others hope that there was a way back out from the hell hole.
I personally wasn't even close to out of it for a long time, but as time progressed and with each new post and each new follower and each comment of "Thank You" and "tell me more", I did find my way up and out. Recovering from cancer is a huge mountain to climb and it turns out my blog was very instrumental in getting me there.
So my blog, originally designed to reach only family and friends is now shared globally and is helping cancer patients and caregivers everywhere. It has morphed into two books "The Year I Died" and "The Cancer Warriors Handbook", a Warrior Bag Program to give back to local cancer patients and sometime in the next six months the sequel to "The Year I Died" will be available.
Now that my blog is reaching a wider audience I decided it would be a good idea to become more proficient at blogging and learn a few tips about how to improve my posts and make things more valuable to you my audience. So I enrolled in the 30 Day Blog Challenge. I do hope you will enjoy my posts over the next 30 days as I go through this course and learn how to "be a better blogger" isn't that great alliteration. To add a little texture to the posts, keep an eye out for some of the amazing graphic images created by Sara Mortimer © www.saramortimer.com.
Thank you for following me.
Michelle
www.pammenteryoung.com
www.Facebook.com/MichellePammenterYoung
http://suitcaseentrepreneur.com/blogchallenge/blog-challenge-day1
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