2012 in review
Posted: December 31, 2012 Filed under: breast cancer | Tags: blog friends, blogging, breast cancer in young women, cancer is not a gift, champagne, inspirational quotes, Jay-Z, Mark Twain, Mark Twain quotes, New Year's Eve, Wordpress, wordpress.com 16 CommentsWordPress is outstanding. I give all credit to the Hubs for choosing WordPress as my blog home. Actually, he gets all the credit for this little blog’s existence. He bullied convinced me to transition from Caring Bridge to a “real” blog. I wasn’t sure I had the chops or the audience for a “real” blog, but he was right on both counts. See, I’m neither too proud nor too Greek to admit I was wrong.
After Trevor bullied convinced me to leave the safety of Caring Bridge for the wide-open world of “real” blogging, he set out to find the best blog host for me, and WordPress won that contest, hands down. Not to knock those blogs hosted by other, non-WPsites, of course, but WP never asks me to “prove I’m not a robot” by entering a string of jibberish into a little box before my comment can be published. WP never requires me to identify myself each and every time I want to post a comment on someone else’s blog. The brain that powers WP is big enough to remember who I am every time. There’ve been times when I’ve abandoned a comment I was planning to leave on another blog, after carefully composing it (or just rattling off a stream-of-consciousness thought) because the process of proving I’m not a robot and having to enter my credentials took too long or crashed my computer. Not so with WordPress.
I got a handy email from the dear folks at WP the other day saying this: “The stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.”
They provided this cute graphic as well. Thanks, WP; now I don’t have to troll googleimages to find something to pretty up my post.
The good people at WP crunched a lot of numbers and came up with this analogy for my little blog:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report. Thank you, stat helper monkeys, for this annual report. What a cool gift. Those helpful monkeys laid out my all-time most-viewed post for me. How interesting. If someone — or some monkey — asked me to pick what I thought my most-viewed post was, I’m not sure I would have thought of this one. But I’m not a stat-crunching monkey, now, am I? I’m someone who still counts on her fingers sometimes, and who always resorts to a 20-percent tip in a restaurant because the math is just easier. What I don’t know about stats and numbers and most-viewed posts is a lot.
I’m humbled and tickled and perhaps a bit surprised to see how far-reaching this little blog has become. My heart is warmed by the blog friends I’ve made through this little blog. Women and men around the globe from all walks of life, united in one thing: the need to pour out our hearts onto the WP screen, to try to make some sense of the curveballs life has thrown us. Whether cancer or life in a foreign land or the pursuit of a goal right here at home, my blog friends write about the stuff that is foremost in their minds and filling up their hearts. Through good news (the latest scan was clear!) and bad (the dreaded mets), through everyday events and life-changing ones, we share. We comment. We connect. We come together.
And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.
As we shed this year and look forward to a brand-spanking-new one, I will take some time to reflect on this little blog and all its stats and numbers. As I prepare for a year-end blow-out celebration with dear friends and lots of champagne, I will think of my blog friends around the world, and I will raise a glass to our shared experience. While I’d just as soon not have been diagnosed with breast cancer at the tender age of 40, had I not, I wouldn’t have started this little blog and “met” all of my wonderful friends in the blog-o-sphere. While I still fervently maintain that cancer is not a gift, it does happen, and we deal with it. We curse it, we cry about it, we blog about it. We come together.
Readying myself to bid adieu to 2012, I think of the year ahead and hope it’s full of good health, dear friends, yummy food, sunny days, bottomless glasses, cherished children, and beloved pets. I wouldn’t mind getting back on the tennis court after 4 long months of rehab for my newly-repaired knee, BTW. I’m thinking of things I want to do in the New Year, tasks I want to tackle, skills I want to acquire, places I want to go. In the immortal words of Mark Twain, I’m thinking of catching the wind in my sails. 
The Pink Underbelly 
I love your blog. Yours is the ONLY one I’ve ever followed by email subscription. I can’t tell you how many times the words/thoughts/reflections from your blog entries have come up since being diagnosed in that fateful pink month of October (2012). I, too, have had an infection and although I wasn’t hospitalized I had to do the intravenous antibiotic route and did so from home – complete with a cadre of nurses who more often than not could not place an IV after 2-3 doses of intravenous Vancomycin. The record number of attempts was five tries (with no success). The record number of hours spent at our home by a home nurse who asked my husband to wipe his brow as he attempted to stick me was five hours. No success that night either so I would think “gee whiz, maybe being hospitalized like Pink Underbelly blogger WOULD have been easier and *gulp* healthier” (since during those missed sticks I would have to bridge with Clindamycin).
The other day I looked at a bend-y straw and thought of you as well and wondered what all my PTSD triggers will end up being a month, six months, a year, or longer down the road.
You’re an excellent blogger. Edgy, truthful and informative. Happy New Year. I, for one, am more than happy to let 2012 slide on into the past…
From yet another person diagnosed in a fateful pink month and with complications– I wish you strength and happiness in the new year. After almost 2 years I can say that it’s still hard but time has helped. Walk in beauty, Sister.
Keep up the excellent work. Wish I could be there to ring in the new year with some bubbly, but I’ll toast you long-distance. Here’s to more and better years to come.
Your comment about who we have met that we might never have known speaks my feelings about your writing. Thank you for your courage and the friendship and (en)courage(ment) you have so freely given to me. I am hoping for your hopes fulfilled in the year to come.
Yes, WordPress is a beautiful tool – and so easy. Happy New Year to you, your family, your dog and your adorable little piggie. I look forward to reading much more in 2013! ~Catherine
2013 – The Year to Sail. Lets get going sister!
Happy New Year, and yes you certainly have the chops not only for this ‘little blog’ but much more if you choose to. I’m happy to show you how to publish e-books on Amazon.
PS: and congratulations on more than 100,000 page views in 2012!
I’d buy a Pink Underbelly book (and provide illustrations).
HNY Nancy! I’ve been blogging about the non-gift that is cancer, gotta go read your post about it!
I am thankful for your blog and the sense of levity you always manage to bring to the blogosphere.
PS Wish I had chosen WordPress (rather than the dreaded blogspot) as my blog’s host!
xoxo
Happy New Year nancy! if it weren’t for WP, I might have never seen your blog. I can’t believe you haven’t been writing a blog for years. xoxo B
Love your post, thank you its very inspiring, Im brand new at blogging and I find it so theraputic to write. I have stumbled upon your blog and I love it, I hope I meet as many wonderful people as you have ! Happy New year.
Happy New Year to you and cheers to your blog that helps so many! I wish you mush success and happiness in 2013!
Thanks for an uplifting blog to start 2013– hope it is a great year for you! I am one of many who are thankful for having someone who can voice our pain in such an articulate and entertaining fashion. I couldn’t jump from the links in this post, though– so what was the most viewed post?
Wait! The one link I can get to work is the overview, so now I know that the Big Dig is the most viewed. Guess what– I think I can explain that one. I found you through a Google search about Dr. S, and one about flap surgery–that search brought up that very post. It was long after my surgery gone bad, and once I looked at your other posts and realized we had so much in common I was hooked! We both know how busy Dr. S is, unfortunately, so I’ll bet quite a few other people have done similar searches.
Well said, blog-buddy-o-mine!
Really liked what you had to say in your post, 2012 in review The Pink Underbelly, thanks for the good read!
— Cyndi
http://www.terrazoa.com