{"id":2113,"date":"2011-09-19T14:37:17","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T18:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pmedicine.org\/journal\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2023-02-20T11:03:34","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T16:03:34","slug":"a-skydiver-jumps-and-an-online-community-exults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/participatorymedicine.org\/journal\/opinion\/commentary\/2011\/09\/19\/a-skydiver-jumps-and-an-online-community-exults\/","title":{"rendered":"A Skydiver Jumps, and an Online Community Exults"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Abstract<\/h3>\n<p><strong><em>Keywords<\/em><\/strong>: Support groups, online patient communities, e-patients, cancer, lung cancer, internet, survivors.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Citation<\/em><\/strong>: Loew B, Novack J. A skydiver jumps, and an online community exults. J Participat Med. 2011 Sept 19; 3:e43.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Published<\/em><\/strong>: September 19, 2011.<br \/>\n<strong><em>Competing Interests<\/em><\/strong>: Brian Loew is CEO of Inspire and John Novack is Inspire\u2019s director of communications.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201cbucket list\u201d appears regularly in the online patient support communities of our company, Inspire. Members of our cancer and rare disease support groups, not surprisingly, discuss making such lists and acting on them. <\/p>\n<p>A recent posting in our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inspire.com\/groups\/lung-cancer-survivors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lung Cancer Survivors Support Community<\/a> caught our attention for a few reasons, not the least of which was that our member Patricia Gale Flowers, 52, from Port Arthur, Texas, went skydiving: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It was great, and the best part is that I feel like such a \u2018bad ass!\u2019 I went with my son Patrick and nine of his friends. Yes, I got a little nervous, but not afraid. I have Stage 4 lung cancer &#8212; why should I be afraid of anything? The video and pictures are great and make me laugh out loud. I am more amazed watching it than I was doing it. Got a little nauseated and the harness hurt my femurs a little. I can&#8217;t wait to tell Dr. Kim next week at my checkup. I think I will print a picture for him. Maybe he will hang it in his office and see me and know I am still living the good life and NOT ready to give up. Please, no one let depression get them down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Upon returning from a checkup at her doctor\u2019s, Flowers wrote: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[The doctor] loved my picture skydiving. He said a lot of patients talk about it but none have done it except for ME!!! Next check up he will see me zip lining in Alaska. I am going to try not to overthink the future and enjoy my life even if it is three months at a time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>What really struck us even beyond Flowers\u2019 wonderful story were reactions from fellow support group members. Here\u2019s a small sampling: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cI took airplane flying lessons once, and would love to do it again, and go for a license, but too chicken these days, but, you know, just maybe?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhat a morale booster you are! Here I was worried about a 7-hour drive to the Jersey Shore next month! You sure knocked that fear out of my head!\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cYour wonderful attitude is exactly what I need to regain for myself. Thanks for reminding me that I was once like you \u2026 full of spunk and courage &#8230; learned to fly a Cessna when I was 17. Maybe enough of your wonderful saga will push me up the hill \u2026 so keep your stories coming! I need you, and the gutsy courage and &#8216;can-do&#8217; attitude that you share with us.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cWhat an awesome attitude. This gave me new strength to get through this. I read it to my husband (who has cancer) and he really smiled for the first time in weeks. Thanks for pushing us and making us realize that there are things to live for.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We contacted Flowers to ask her reaction to how her online community members responded. \u201cIt amazes me,\u201d she said, \u201cthat it can make a difference to someone who doesn\u2019t even know you, to motivate someone to do something. To see the reaction to what I wrote, it made me feel really good.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Certainly the relatives and friends of those members have urged them to create and live out a \u201cbucket list,\u201d no matter how modest. Yet Flowers, who does not know the real names of most of the members on her community, and has not spoken to them or met them, got through.  <\/p>\n<p>Flowers thinks her words connected with her peers because of the common bond of cancer. \u201cFamily and friends say, \u2018I know how you feel, I know how you feel,\u2019 but no one knows how I feel except for those people I talk to on (the lung cancer support group),\u201d she explained. \u201cThey\u2019re the only ones who could possibly know how I feel. You can have compassion but until you\u2019re told you have Stage 4 lung cancer, well, it\u2019s like we\u2019re an elite group, and no one other than us knows how we feel. The good times and bad, it\u2019s there the rest of our lives. It\u2019s just a life changer. I live in a small town. I know the big towns have support places you can go to, so going online was my support, to find other people like me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t Flowers\u2019 intention to convince her peers online to jump out of planes to fulfill a bucket list. \u201cI\u2019m just telling my story,\u201d she said. We think she also got some others\u2019 lists started. <\/p>\n<p class=\"note\"><strong><em>Copyright: <\/em><\/strong>\u00a9 2011 Brian Loew and John Novack. Published here under license by The Journal of Participatory Medicine. Copyright for this article is retained by the authors, with first publication rights granted to the Journal of Participatory Medicine. All journal content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. By virtue of their appearance in this open-access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A cancer patient shares a joyful story with her online support group and is surprised to learn how much it means to her fellow members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,181],"tags":[268,291,37,375,77,374,279,292,376],"coauthors":[377,378],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-vol-3-2011","tag-cancer","tag-e-patients","tag-feature","tag-internet","tag-issue","tag-lung-cancer","tag-online-patient-communities","tag-support-groups","tag-survivors"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - 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