Social Can Be Private

A cancer diagnosis never comes at a good time, and for me I was too young, too busy and not about to share my new status with the world. How would it help me?



I’d be the topic amongst friends and friends of friends and potentially complete strangers.  There would likely be concern and empathy, but no personal experience to help me navigate a new normal.  I was an executive leader in my company, a mother of two young children, wife to my college sweetheart and friend to many! In my mind telling the world I had cancer was not an option, but if I could of leveraged social media to be “unidentifiably social” I would have felt better connecting with those on similar journey without having to be personal outside of my medical concerns.  Hence the inspiration behind a different kind of social found on TreatmentDiaries.com, born out of personal experience and addressing a growing demand for privacy centered around health related needs.  My name is Amy Ohm and I am the Founder and CEO of TreatmentDiaries.com.

 

Social media is quickly bringing the patient closer to the center of their care and providing tremendous empowerment.  Knowledge about health  continues to be the most popular topic on the internet and patients want more specifics when it comes to a particular ailment, treatment, symptom, diagnosis…the list is LONG.  But, what they don’t need is more information.  The internet is peppered with clinical slants protected with litigious disclaimers.  If you want the truth, it’s captured in the personal stories of actual patients, living with health related challenges.

However, with over 4 billion searches occurring every day for 10’s of 1,000’s of health related topics, how do you find and connect socially with someone who is living with Desmoid Tumors, Scleroderma or ITP?  What if you had all three?  Could you Google it?  Yes, and you would find numerous links to various information sources about these conditions, but the needle in the haystack – that person with all three conditions – is nearly impossible to find.  

Treatment Diaries believes in a different sort of social.  TreatmentDiaries facilitates a superior digital health connection on behalf of all users to those you don’t know physically, but who share your experience - across any and all medical conditions and with complete anonymity.  Eliminating the need to be socially identifiable and overexposed, but directly connected to those who can truly relate to your journey – who know you intimately through your experience, because it is shared.

Some of the attributes which make these connections valuable include:

 

  • The growing number of health-related challenges, complexity of needs, and management of multiple diagnoses
  • Living longer with chronic illness and the need for increased support
  • A growing demand for virtual support

 

People join Treatment Diaries for a number of reasons, but primarily because they want to be private with their thoughts and connected to those who can help.  Many vent about doctors not having sufficient time and compassion for those with a chronic illness, families who have grown tired of their medical condition and friends who have disappeared.  These real life scenarios make their online family central to their daily needs for encouragement, treatment insight and support.

 

Many are newly diagnosed and in desperate need of finding someone “just like me” – take this example of a nurse practitioner who has unlimited access to a overabundance of healthcare professionals who could likely put her fears to rest or at least in clinical perspective, instead she turns to the privacy offered on Treatment Diaries and those with actual experience, as a way to share her unspeakable fears and connect with those who can relate, provide actual insight and proof that people do beat cancer.

Actual diary…

Response from those who shared the experience…

 

Users from around the globe share insight into clinical trials for late stage cancers of all types; sharing side effects and often successful outcomes and perspective.  They write about a life dictated by mental illness, the stigma placed on them by society and the desire to be accepted.  Caregivers share the “real” struggles of caring for a loved one – the resentment, joy and exhaustion and often illness that comes from putting the person they care for first 24x7.  With no time to invest in a physical support group, Treatment Diaries becomes their sanctuary.

Actual Caregiver’s Diary…

Encouragement, perspective and acknowledgement of emotions, pain and struggles is exchanged by the minute.  To be anonymous gives one the ability to share the things they often would never say out loud to those they know, but to a supposed stranger who can grasp the underpinnings of a diagnosis, treatment and yearning to survive – this makes all the difference in the lives of those participating.

This is a place to tell your story – the whole story if you choose.  No limits on characters, no overexposure of posts on a social media platform with reach out to a billion people – but a personal diary which captures the essence of your intimate experience with illness, shared with those who can relate.  Your diary, the ultimate story and empowerment for those who read it - with the mutual outcome of shared healing.

Uniquely, this platform is for everyone.  Any illness and role in and patient’s life with participation at any level.  You can come to read, search, scribble and interact with the diaries of others.  There are no restrictions to how much or how little you share, no forms to fill out and nothing that identifies you publically.  Your secrets are safe with us and your wellbeing is our primary interest.  We care about connecting you to great people and resources.  We want you to feel well, despite an illness and to be empowered by helping others while growing through the knowledge and experience of those who share your condition.

Living with an illness does not have to be isolating and being social does not have to mean being known.  Patients are empowered by their ability to share and be heard.  Connections empower them to be healthy!