The Idea
The idea is simple: Provide an online support group for Central Texas (Waco and surrounding areas) cancer patients, cancer survivors and their families and caregivers. A place where one can come any time of the day or night to exchange messages with others who have some idea what you are going through because they are going through it or have gone through it themselves.
The Forum
We have selected a forum over a mailing list because with a forum discussions and messages are collected in an organized manner on a web site. You can go to that web site when you want to visit and easily find, read, and participate in discussions that you find interesting or helpful -- or start a discussion of your own. You can even subscribe to discussions you are interested in and receive an email when new messages are posted to that discussion. With a mailing list, your email box is flooded with every message anyone posts and you have to wade through them all to find the ones that interest you.
To post on our support forum, you will first need to register an account. Then you will need to log in to the forum to post. If you have never registered on a message board before, you may find the help pages useful (especially those on Registering and on Logging In). You do not need an account to read messages as a guest, but if you have an account an log in to read messages, the forum software will keep track of what messages you have read.
(Our forum is hosted on a third party server and is occasionally not working. If you see a strange error message instead of the forum, try again later -- they usually fix problems quickly.)
The Beginning
This website/message board came to pass after I was diagnosed in October 2007 with oral squamous cell carcinoma and then spent two months on a "hamster wheel" trying to find out who to talk to and where to get treated. Not having health insurance greatly contributed to that problem, but while looking around at various sources, I found there was simply nothing local in the way of online support. So, when my radiation treatment was at the halfway mark, my husband and I discussed this lack and decided that we would try to step up and offer something online for Central Texas cancer patients, survivors and caretakers.
While this is a new endeavor as of Spring 2008, we both really hope that over time we can build a vibrant community that can provide both support and ideas for people dealing with this devastating illness.