The Facebook Effect

I'm not going to lie - we braced ourselves a bit before posting the news of Ashleigh's diagnosis to Facebook early this week.  I tend to avoid Facebook as a general rule, since it is not always a vehicle of particularly edifying discourse.  I tend to swing to the opposite end of the spectrum to avoid over-sharing, and encourage Ash to do the same.  That's why you all think Noah is so cute...we achieve that illusion by only posting the very best pictures a maximum of about once a month.

...okay, so he's pretty darned cute.

Anyway, even if I wanted to submit a clever thought or dearly-held opinion for public scrutiny, I find it difficult to imagine a message of any substance that would be well-received by both my pastor and my drinking buddies.  Or both my hippie-liberal Boston friends and my gun-toting-right-wing-nutjob Texas friends, for that matter.  (I love you all.  Though I have been known to occasionally tote a gun)

Fun fact: the only reason I have an account at all is because it was all the rage in 2004 (back when accounts were limited to a few select universities) and Ashleigh made me sign up for an account so we could be "in a relationship".  You know, officially.

So Facebook and I have a live-and-let-live relationship.  Still, I can't deny its power to disseminate information very rapidly when the winds of social media are blowing the right direction.  Even though we braced ourselves, we were still unprepared for (and entirely humbled by) the amazing outpouring of support we've received in the last few days since we went public. 

We intend this blog to be primarily for friends and family who want to stay updated, and in the back of my mind I'm hopeful that maybe someday another family touched by IBC or another dangerous cancer could draw some encouragement from our journey chronicled here. We certainly don't have any delusions of bloging grandieur, so the sheer number of folks who have passed through here over the last few days and read our story boggles my mind.  Sorry I wasn't prepared for you - I feel like I invited you into my house with dirty laundry strewn everywhere.  Had I known you were coming, I would have cleaned up the place a little, or at least tried to make previous posts a bit more witty. :-)

I don't want to say that any messages we've received are more or less meaningful than others because we value dearly everything we've received from friends and strangers alike.  But perhaps the most surprising are the messages from friends of friends of friends - people we've never met (and may never meet in person) who have let us know that they are praying for us.  So if you re-posted our announcement on Facebook, decided to follow the blog, sent Ash a message of encouragement, or just took the time to peruse our posts here: Thank You.

A special shout-out is warranted for Emily over at The Journey of Parenthood for sharing our story on her blog.  Emily is a friend of Ashleigh's from all the way back in 9th grade, but she typifies the kind of support and encouragement we've received so far: people who have dropped everything (a tall order in today's world) to think about us, pray for us, and share our story with others who will do the same.

The offers of "anything we can do to help" are overwhelming in their scope and sincerity.  For these offers we are unspeakably grateful.  Please don't feel slighted if we haven't responded to your offer yet. Here's a great way you can help us (if you feel so inclined): go to your outlook or google calendar and set an appointment for sometime between 2 and 8 months from now, and make your offer to help again at that time.  In a few months, after the Facebook furor dies down (it's already trending that way), we're still going to be living with two babies and chemo.  I promise we'll take you up on your offer for food then. :-)