This is why I love the internet

Today I feel better. I am grateful for every single blogger out here on the net. I love you all for your honesty, your support and your decency to your fellow internet neighbours.

On that last post, I wrote about the anger I felt after my son died. It is the anger I have felt welling up in me on many other occasions since.

When every doctor in Toronto told me that an FSH higher than ten meant I would never get pregnant again, and that I should just give up, I was upset and in disbelief. But when I looked on the internet and discovered it was BS I was angry at their incompetence. Yes, my chances were lower of having good quality eggs, but ovaries don't have an on/off button. Things gradually decline and they can swing back and forth for years. I figured my anger at being misinformed was justified.

After my subsequent miscarriages, my endless medical misadventures, I was treated both competently and incompetently. With compassion and cruelty, (sometimes in the same day). Then I was given so many conflicting diagnoses and bad medical advice I could've opened my own law firm with the sheer volume of potential litigation. My anger at that is justifiable.

And all along I have been told that I should just be grateful for my two living kids. (Like that negates the staff rudeness and poor quality medical care...??)

But out here, on the internet, we get to compare stories and talk and people read and listen when I rage, and laugh and have fun when things are going well. And I enjoy reading about their lives and their successes and fun, and hope I can help console them when they are full of sorrow and pain.

My support group was like that for a long time, and it was good, but after a while, it gets harder to attend at the exact time they want me too, and drive out there, and it's only every two weeks. But here, I can go to a "meeting" (AKA a blog) anytime day or night and talk with people who've been there. Who get it.

My favourite reason for talking to a fellow life traveller instead of an expert, is a quote from the West Wing.

This guy’s walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out. A doctor passes by, and he shouts up, “Hey you, can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.

Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up, “Father, I’m down in a hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.

Then a friend walks by, “Hey Joe it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before, and I know the way out.”

– Leo to Josh on The West Wing about sharing his problems at AA.

I've been down in the hole for a long time, and you are helping me to get out, each and every one of you.

Thanks everyone

Thanks