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I'm scheduled to have surgery on January 20th.

When I had surgery in 2009, I used eHope as an online tool to help me stay in touch with my community and ask for help.  It was an awe-inspiring experience,* although eHope was probably a much more powerful tool than I needed.  It was designed for long term care in very serious cases.  It was almost an anti-climax when my eHope crew found that they weren't called upon to perform any dramatic Florence Nightingale tasks; I didn't need any serious nursing, and I was working again (albeit from my sofa at home, wearing pajamas and slippers) within about a week. 

However, using eHope gave me a raft of new insights, about how online tools for coordinating care should really be all about building community on a face to face basis, and about how mission-based organizations could learn lessons about collaboration. 

This time, I'm going to try out two other online tools:

CaringBridge, which will help me update my farflung family, friends, and colleagues about how I'm doing.  They seem to do a good job of combining ease of use with concern for privacy.  Use of this online tool is free, and the host organization is a nonprofit.

Lotsa Helping Hands, which will help with coordinating my care.  It's great to have a practical way to respond when kind people say "Let me know if you need anything."  Once again, I won't need any real nursing, but there are always lots of little tasks (such as dropping off chicken soup, keeping me company on walks, and doing some light housekeeping) that will help enormously.  Use of this online tools is free; the host organization is for profit, but has several nonprofit partners.

Basically, surgery is a bummer, and so is the slight possibility that the tumor that the surgeon will be removing is malignant.  However, it's pretty cool to turn this situation into an opportunity to experiment with social media tools that help communities and mission-based organizations support those who need assistance.  I'm constantly striving to learn more about matching needs and resources, and to bring the lessons learned to nonprofit and philanthropic organizations.



* Actually, the privilege of knowing Jeffrey Wood, the founder of eHope, is an awe-inspiring spiritual experience in itself.  If you ever have an opportunity to meet him, I strongly suggest that you go for it.