Sep 22, 2017
TRANSCRIPT (links to follow)
This is Episode 007 of Glioblast‑O‑Cast: Why a Podcast and not a Blog?
Hello, and welcome to Glioblast‑O‑Cast, the podcast about my life beyond glioblastoma. I'm your host, Meg Turecek.
In this episode I'll answer the question, why a podcast and not a blog. In my show notes I'll have some links to other brain tumor blogs that may give you some inspiration and their perspective on living beyond the brain tumor.
One way some patients and care givers find to cope and make sense is to keep a journal or a blog to share their experience with a glioblastoma or another brain tumor.
When I was first diagnosed, I really wanted to blog. It would be a way for me to also keep my friends and family updated without having to repeat my story too many times.
But as I started to delve into reading other blogs for inspiration, I found my attention span for reading was a bit unpredictable since my surgery and treatment. And I felt focusing on a blog might not be the right form for me.
So a little bit about me is I have always had a volunteering spirit. Before I moved to The Netherlands, my Saturdays were dedicated to Habitat for Humanity, but with my new situation and my newfound clumsiness for bumping my head, with or without a hard hat, that kind of volunteering didn't feel like a good idea for my brain.
And finding myself basically retired due to my diagnosis of glioblastoma and my scattered attention span, I needed something to occupy time on a day‑to‑day basis, something to look forward to at my own new pace.
And I thought more about blogging, but I had other writing goals, like finishing my novella and publishing that. That's still a project in process.
When facing a terminal diagnosis, I think it's pretty natural to review and take stock of one's life, see what other goals you want to achieve, what you wished you had done, and what you can do now. So I started remembering one part of my life's education, when I went to radio broadcast school.
For a time I was an intern, and that developed into a part‑time job at KOY and Y95 in Phoenix. I assisted the news reporter. I rewrote articles, and I even wrote the shortest daily horoscopes and did some weather announcing. But unless you are a big name personality or part of the sales force, there's really no money in radio. At that point I moved on to graphic design. So that dream of being a radio star went by the wayside.
My desire to blog was still percolating and my taking stock of my life, it hit me that a podcast was a way to share my journey while pursuing that long‑forgotten pursuit. And the more I thought about it, the more I started to realize that a podcast was a unique method to share my story on a more personal level.
It's easy to read someone's blog, but I think it feel as bit more real if I'm just talking to you and sharing my experience. And that's when I found LibriVox, which is a really wonderful organization that creates audio books for books in the public domain. And they're completely free to listen to.
I started reading or voicing for LibriVox and set up my little studio and came up with my podcast plan. Now I'm seven episodes in and really enjoying my podcast experience.
So my advice is don't let a glioblastoma diagnosis rule your life. Continue to pursue your goals and reconnect with your forgotten dreams.
Some may wonder why not a video. I could be on YouTube. There's a lot of people on YouTube. Well, I'm camera shy.
Thank you for listening. This has been Glioblast‑O‑Cast Episode 7.
Theme music for Episode 007: “Beach Party” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Glioblastoma survivors’ blogs & sites
Ben Williams, surviving since 1995 https://virtualtriasl.com/williams.cfm
Cheryl Broyles, surviving since 2000
http://www.cherylbroyles-gbm.com/
Greg Cantwell, surviving since 2004
Greg’s Mission is a support site and blog
www.gregsmission.org
Chad, surviving since 2012
https://thebrainchancery.com/
Whitney Glenz, writing about her Dad’s survival since 2013
Dad’s Fight to Beat Brain Cancer
www.bthocancer.blogspot.com
Dave Bolton, surviving since 2014
www.journey4survival.co.uk
Steve Durrant, surviving since 2015 https://whatdoicallmybraintumourblog.wordpress.com
Beth, surviving since 2015 https://braintumorjourney.wordpress.com/
Andrea Guillaume, writing about her husband, Darrell’s survival
since 2016
www.braincanceris.blogspot.com
Sam Taylor, surviving since 2016
Cancer Cure Bus on YouTube
A collection of survivor stories: Glioblastoma and other diagnoses https://virtualtrials.com/survive.cfm
Survivors of other brain tumors-- blogs & sites
Liz Salmi, surviving since 2008 Gemistocytic astrocytoma www.thelizarmy.com
Jessica Oldwyn, surviving since 2010 Diffuse astrocytoma
Toom-ah? What stinkin’ toom-ah!
www.jessicaoldwyn.blogspot.com
Geraldine DeRuiter, surviving since 2012 www.everywhereist.com/tag/brain-tumor/
Gideon Burrows, surviving since 2012 Ogliodendroglioma
Bicycles and Brain Tumors
http://www.ngomedia.org.uk/tumourist/
Rachel Coles, surviving since 2014 400,000,000 to 1 www.rachelcole226.wordpress.com
Matthew Kendall, surviving since 2014
www.cranialcoffee.com
Nick Squires, surviving since 2016 Ogliodendroglioma www.journeybraincancer.com