Sick blogs help afflicted share news and seek comfort.
Last week, two Web sites, carepages .com and caringbridge.org, which host more formal "patient pages" through hospitals, reported a combined increase from 46,000 personal sites to 95,000 in the past year.
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In the late 1990s, just as the Internet reached mainstream usage, sociologist Frank was one of the first to predict that a "new patient" would emerge from the era, one who researched his or her ailments in the comfort of home, then challenged a doctor with the newly acquired knowledge. Sick blogs and patient pages are evidence that that moment has arrived, Frank said, a sign that the new patient has gained an unprecedented sense of empowerment from his online community. In turn, he said, it also has created a new tension between patients and physicians.
"What doctor likes being confronted by a patient who's been up all night canvassing the Internet?" Frank asked.
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"You could call it a new grief ritual," said Victoria Pitts, an assistant sociology professor at City University of New York, who authored a 2004 study about breast cancer patients inspired to start personal Web sites. "These people have created a new personal narrative to their illness, which goes beyond the health protocols they might have found on WebMD. ... But whether it's helping their recovery is still speculative. It's certainly transformed it."
That transformation is being experienced by bloggers such as Jeannette Vagnozzi, a 41-year-old resident of La Verne (Los Angeles County), who writes about her breast cancer on 2hands.blogspot .com.
Transcending time and space, the internet connects people who want to be connected and puts up a little flag at each sick blog inviting people in.
For anyone newly diagnosed with an illness, sick blogs are the way to learn what they can expect as they go forward and leave a record for others.
Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert confirms in his new book Stumbling on Happinessthat the best way to imagine the future is to look to other people who are going through or been through what we now are contemplating.
Posted by Jill Fallon at June 17, 2006 3:02 PM | Permalink