Pay it Forward

Recently, I received a rather uncommon diagnosis.  One of those odd sorts of medical trivia that send you on a scavenger hunt of tests, diagnostic procedures, specialists (eventually sub-specialists) and an endless parade of waiting rooms with bad magazine selections.  I came home from my various appointments armed with what bits of the lingo that I could recall or at least had thought to scribble down in my ragged notebook, phonetically guessing at the spelling.  Ever the diligent researcher, I would immediately march over to my laptop and begin to google and wikipedia search every tidbit (because everything found on the inter-web is completely accurate.  Right?), looking for some information that would help translate the medical talk I had heard to something that I could identify with, a personal example of the situation.  Someone who could describe how things felt, physically and emotionally, beyond the carefully metered speech of my healthcare professionals.  Usually in my web searches, I would stumble upon some random website, or blog or other account of whatever I'm looking for.  These provide links to other sources, and my curiosity is eventually satisfied.  This time all I could find were definitions and textbook excerpts that left me with nothing. Well, nothing except for very graphic photos and descriptions of things gone wrong.  Not helpful.

But then I received an e-mail from a stranger.  Apparently, my mother's co-worker's child's teacher, Dee, had the same diagnosis.  Random.  Dee e-mailed me because she wanted to be resource for me if I should happen to have any questions.  We chatted on the phone and it made things a million times better because I had that first person story.  I had the resource of information that I could go back to if I have any questions.  That is a wonderful feeling.  Thinking about it, it made me want to be able to be there for someone else if they should be in the same situation.  But the chances of meeting someone by chance aren't super likely.  So I figured, for the first time in my life, I'd write a blog.  That way if someone else has sub-glottic stenosis, they can search google, and find a personal story mixed in with all of the medical definitions and kind of icky photos.

So, I plan on writing about my situation as things progress.  I suspect that the act of writing stuff down is somewhat therapeutic in its own right but I'm hopeful that it will be of actual use to someone else who is in a similar situation.  Um.  So I guess here goes . . .