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.
Support Community
As of January 2009, we have replaced our forum with a support community on Ning. You can join our Ning support community and get a blog, a photo album, and more. You can invite friends and family to read your blog or even to join and participate themselves. Our community still has a simple forum where you can easily find, read, and participate in discussions that you find interesting or helpful -- or start a discussion of your own.
To join our support community, you will first need to register an account. Then you will need to log in to the community to set up your profile and to start using your blog and other community features. As you do not need an account to read blogs, messages, etc. as a guest, your family and friends will be able to read your blog, see your pictures, etc. without being forced to create an account.
Our support community is hosted on a third party server and is occasionally not working. If you see a strange error message instead of the support community area, try again later -- they usually fix problems quickly.
The Beginning
This website/support community 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.
Contact
You can contact the Hosts, Donna Hurst (oral cancer patient) and Randall Stukey (Donna's husband) via the contact form or via email.
