I have decided that I need to write a book. I've trawled the library shelves, the bookshops, searching. I'm not looking for the perfect book - no-one can write about my exact experience. Cancer doesn't discriminate and yet everyone's experience of cancer is so individual. I don't want a definitive guide or a cancer bible. What I want is a book for people like me.
Living with stage IV cancer, having chemo (and thankful for it), not fighting to survive, not very brave, trying to celebrate life, trying to take control of what I can, learning peace and accepting my failure to learn... learning to love my image in the mirror and trusting others to see me as I am. Not wanting to feel guilty for not being positive
Jen's words made me reconsider if I should do something more with this blog. So far I'd only thought of archiving it every so often, perhaps printing it out for the boys to have a record of these reflections. For Jen herself to write about her experiences, she would have needed to live a lot longer, to have had larger gaps between phases of treatment, to have had a less rapidly developing cancer.
Should I put the whole blog into a more publishable form (even if only to distribute to friends), perhaps going back to first diagnosis and completing the picture, drawing on both our diaries? I have hoped that apart from being a form of communication to my friends, this blog would also interest or benefit others who are acquainted with cancer or with grief. As you'll see from the blog itself, I've gained much from reading the printed reflections of others and their insights. Jen and I certainly wanted to break out of the stereotype of 'fighting cancer', and point to a road less traveled.
The show-stopper is privacy. You'll see that I've gone to some lengths not to mention anyone's name apart from Jen's, and that was a joint decision that Jen and I made at the start of 2009. I'm happy for people to pass on the address of the blog, but I don't want it linked to our names or other identifiable details (e.g. I don't want it to turn up in a google search for my name). This is as much for the boys' sake as for mine -- digital footprints are very long lasting, and it's impossible to take things back. Going to a book form rather than a blog would remove those shreds of anonymity.
So gentle readers, what do you think? Should I keep these thoughts in the shelter of the blogosphere? Is there any value in a potentially wider audience, but at the cost of some privacy?
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It depends how much you value privacy! I personally think it is over-rated and behave accordingly. But that can lead me not to consider the implications for those around me.
ReplyDeleteI also think some people over-share, by which I mean they provide information (frequently of a medical nature, but also to do with sin) which is rather repulsive or grotesque, or unhelpfully fascinating. Both are bad.
But if the cause is important enough to you (and I agree that it is an important and useful thing that you are doing by sharing), then surely the cost—which may be less or more than you think— is worth bearing.
You will bear some of that cost. I suppose the question that will pose the greater difficulty is what cost can you foresee that you will be asking the boys to bear? Or possibly people from Jen's side of the family?
Mind you, you (and they) may also discover that there is great and unexpected benefit in the important task of telling Jen's story.
I suggest that you be led by your heart, and don't think too much about it. I'm guessing you will know instinctively what is the right thing to do, even if you don't know why you know it.
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