Cancer patients, once reticent, are increasingly explicit in sharing the details of their ordeals in blogs—and finding it therapeutic. Researchers at Ohio State looked at 50 blogs and found they helped patients cope, the Boston Globe reports. Not only do they make it easier to keep friends and family current, they make the writer feel more in control.
A psychologist lauds the “empowering process that goes on when cancer becomes something you can write about. It's not just this thing that's invaded you." There's a danger that “some people could expose themselves more than they maybe want to,” she adds, and that other patients might be frightened by what they read. But the value of sharing experience is well-documented. Says one of the researchers: "These folks will look back over the last few years and say: 'Look at what I've come through. Hopefully, someone else can read this and survive as well.' " (More cancer stories.)
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