Twitter as Social Support

Many of you know I went through a bit of a family crisis recently. My 5 1/2 year daughter Kate was hospitalized, then put in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and soon after that, put on a ventilator. Not only is it remarkable how fast it all went down but also how fast she recovered. Within a little over 24 hours after being removed from the ventilator, she was sent home.

Over the years, people have asked how I can air my grievances/likes/dislikes/personal stuff/etc openly via this blog. I have never really had a good answer...usually something about taking control of my online persona comes out...

Over these same few years, I've been privately contacted by many people. Some completely random; like recently, a mother who's 1 year old daughter was going in for the first of a few syndactyly surgeries and then others, who read the blog, who have similar family situations (a sick child) or know someone close to them that does.

I've gotten quite a lot out of those encounters...something I would never have been able to get had I just kept to myself.

So here's one argument for putting personal stuff "out there." Support.






















































































In case you weren't counting, there are 83 replies there. A couple of duplicates. Most of you, I have never met in real life.

Pardon my language, but how fucking cool is that? You all rock!

katezilla: day 5

No more ventilator! w00t!

After 10 long days of not being able to hold Kate (I was in Chicago for 5), I, we, finally got to hold our precious little girl. She's pretty groggy from all the drugs she has taken and she quickly fell asleep in my arms.

After a couple of days with good stats, doc decided to let her try on her own. As I mentioned last night, she was doing most of the work; the ventilator was only doing 6 breaths per minute.

Her sats (oxygen saturation levels) have remained strong, but after a few visits from friends and family, and probably sheer exhaustion, they began to hover in the low 90's range only occasionally dipping below 90 (that's typically when the alarm goes off). You can probably see a bit of it in the picture, she still has an oxygen mask, but it's a blow-by and doesn't need to be on her face (which she objects to, vigorously). She may still need the nose plug-in variety for delivering oxygen, but she just hasn't needed it yet.

Naturally all this is great news. The support we have received from all over the world (love the interwebs) has been amazing. Thank you all so much.