I keep a running list of topics I’d like to blog about here: social gaming, mashups as detournement, all manner of geeky, techie, academic stuff. On that list is the topic of social media and cancer, a topic much more difficult to write about than any densely theoretical or technical essay.

I began blogging four years ago when my husband was diagnosed with liver cancer. I didn’t actually intend to start blogging regularly. I was an active participant on some Reality TV forums (don’t judge!) and as I struggled to deal with his diagnosis, with our finances, with politics, I wrote a little rant that seemed deserving of a far wider audience than the couple of hundred folks who checked in regularly to deconstruct Survivor and to smack-talk American Idol contestants.

A student had told me I should get a LiveJournal, so I did and posted my essay there.

I had a built in audience in some ways of friends I’d made via the forums, and it felt really good to be able to tell my story and to get feedback and support from both friends and strangers. After all, I think all of us have in some way or another been touched by cancer. We all know someone who’s had / who has cancer.

I kept blogging, and truly blogging kept me sane. The writing kept me sane. And the comments kept me sane.

I think when you’re experiencing a crisis like this, you can feel like you are completely alone. And having a blog diminished that feeling. But furthermore, watching my husband die, dealing with the grief – there were times I felt like no one understood. After all, most of my friends had never experienced the death of a loved one, let alone that of a spouse.

But while feeling alone in your tragedy is one thing, I found via the blogging community that there were far too many women my age who were experiencing similar things: Dorcasina and Snick to name but two. The three of us – all in our 30s, all with children – lost our husbands to cancer within the year.

Social media has grown immensely since we started blogging about our experiences with cancer and death. I’ve blogged more or less over these past four years (sometimes more, sometimes less). I spend a lot of time on Facebook and on Twitter, two tools that have altered the way in which I share my story about cancer and survival. On the fourth anniversary of Anthony’s death, for example, I posted a note on Facebook, linking Hurricane Katrina (Anthony died on the same day) with Anthony’s death with the call for health care reform. And I always keep the Livestrong ribbon on my Twitter profile.

And I’ve long followed Drew Olanoff on Twitter. Drew, like me, is a geek (yay!) and someone with a long history in social media. Drew has initiated a number of awesome social media campaigns to advocate for cancer survivors, including the #blamedrewscancer hashtag and the sale of his @drew twitter name to Drew Carey with the money going to Livestrong. One of Drew’s latest projects is a Posterous blog – Our Special Someone – featuring loved ones lost to cancer. Drew featured Anthony today on the site, and when I got the email informing me that “Drew Olanoff is now following you on Twitter,” I had knew his Posterous post was forthcoming. I knew I had to shed a tear over the grief, and then shake my fist and add my voice to the assertion, alongside Drew’s, that we are going to never forget those we’ve lost and we are absolutely going to kick cancer’s ass.

(And I knew I had to blog about it.)