Thursday, May 19, 2016

Jody Schoger, #BCSM, and loss

I started this blog when I was diagnosed in 2009.

I had grand visions.

I wanted to use my journalism skills to create something new and vibrant for people with breast cancer.

It's ok that is never happened.

I went back to work a year later, and social media became a bigger and bigger part of my job. I lost the desire to be online in my off time.

Back in the day Jody Schoger also wanted to create something.

She did it.

A simple hashtag, #BCSM marked a path for how patients would use social media connect.

More than that it allowed us to interact with medical professionals like Dr. Deanna Attai and others. For the first time doctors were "us" not "them".

People with other diseases followed suit with similar hashtags.

Over the past few years our contact was quite infrequent, but I was glad to see her fufulling her vision.

I have never trusted the whole "you are in the clear after 5 years thing." The slower breast cancers can stalk you for years. I believe Jody was 15 years out at the time of her progression.

I have not posted on this blog in several years, but I had to do more than just write a tweet for @JodyMS.

Here is a beautiful post by @stales.

http://bcsm.org/good-night-jody/