My Nonprofit Reviews

i am, thankfully, not a patient at this point in time. however, i do have a friend who is and is using the site. WHO KNEW FROM THIS SITE? she sent me the link and it. bounced. my. socks. off!! at first i thought "how cool is THIS?" look at what she (my friend) made; then..."wait a sec...this isn't a personal deal...look at what is available to her at the hospital. how come i never saw this before?"; then..."umm....hang on, here, this isn't a hospital site, it's something different."; then...."HOLY WOW!!" after i read my friend's story and several journal entries, i found the parts where i could write to her and then where i could send a donation to help this site continue. i wrote and wrote and wrote to her and then..."uh oh. i haven't been working in a while. money is kinda tight." and then "I'LL KISS FEET ON BROADWAY IF I HAVE TO, BUT I HAVE TO GIVE SOMETHING TO HELP THIS CONTINUE!!" and i did. not a lot. nothing huge. just a little. just the kind of amount that says that i can't have two bags of snicker's minis and three magazines this week; or the kind of amount that says i'll have to get my darned hair cut after 8 weeks instead of my usual 6 weeks. you see, 28 years ago i watched my father die with my 6 month old only child in my arms. thankfully, it went quickly, and for the most part he wasn't aware of much. however, I was. i was hyper-aware of EVERYTHING. every breath he took; every squelch of a nurse's shoe in the hallway; every ring of the telephone which made me jump up like a cat kicked in the caboose because my nerves were so raw; all of the constant repetitions of the same litany i had to recite to every person that paraded through his room or called; over and over and over and over....had something like CaringBridge been available at that time (we didn't even have computers back then...wow, i'm a fossil) i think it would have taken me to a different place. i believe that my hair would have stayed hair instead of the live nerve endings it had become. i would have had an outlet; i would have been able to reach out; i could have let everyone know when it was a good time or a bad time to come or, when they needed to ALL come right away. i could have read words of encouragement to my father as he lay in his bed in the hospital instead of snippets from books or newspapers that had nothing at all to say to him. over the past 28 years since my father has been gone, we've gotten computers and cell phones and microwaves (WHOA) and so many friends of mine and family members, as well, have had me sitting at their bedsides asking them questions that, i'm sure, had been answered ten thousand times previously and so many of these same people hadn't heard from me at all because i didn't want to call or visit because i was afraid to disturb them and their family members during such a stressful time. lots of times i was too late to call or visit. lots of times i never got to say "i love you, you know that, right?" i would have had that opportunity if we would have known about CaringBridge. lots of people roll through life blessedly unaware of these kinds of situations; unaware of how blessed they are. then, there are the people like me; people that have watched so many of their friends and co-workers and family members heroically wrestle with impossible diagnoses only to succumb in the end while we watch them, sit with them, see ourselves reflected back to us in their eyes; helpless and lost and unprepared even though we've been prepared; people like me who could have made a great and happy present of CaringBridge to our loved ones; people like me who could have written daily; who could have been better informed by reading daily posts and who could have made sure the words "i love you. you know that, right?" would have been read. before it was too late. THIS SITE IS ONE OF THE SINGULAR MOST IMPORTANT PATIENT/FAMILY RELATED TOOLS I HAVE RUN ACROSS SINCE RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE. it is a blessing and one that shouldn't be in danger of being lost. now, i get onto facebook daily and urge, encourage, plead, cajole, bully, sweet talk and say anything and everything i can think of to get people off of their dead behinds and PAY ATTENTION!! if they can pay REAL money to play VIRTUAL games on a venue such as facebook, then they have the spare greenbacks to toss a few around to CaringBridge, in my opinion. and something as easy as MICROvolunteering? c'mon!! if you're sitting there staring at a pc screen with your eyes glazed over and drool running down the corners of your mouth while you are plowing your FARMVILLE field, you can just as easily make a post on your page for people to just "take a look at this CaringBridge thing, yo!" how simple is THAT? very. how many people can that reach? infinite numbers. how important is it? one of the most important things in the world. thank you. God bless you all for your huge hearts and your wonderful imaginations which are making dire situations more palatable and pleasant and less stressful.

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