I guess my age is showing. Yes the title implies I use Facebook and I do. I don’t only use Facebook but also e-mails.These to me are such amazing tools.
You have to remember that I have been the spouse of someone with a serious medical condition for over 25 years. I have seen the benefits of certain forms of technology, especially Facebook and e-mails, in keeping families connected.
You see I have an amazing family. I also have a really large family compared to my husband’s really small family. He has one brother and his family, one aunt, two uncles and their spouses, two cousins and two step-cousins.
I on the other hand have 4 siblings and their families. I have had 18 uncles and aunts with their spouses and 66 cousins and their families.
That is a lot of people who wonder about stories they heard through the grapevine. It also accounts for a fair number of prayers for which I am grateful.
My husband’s first two surgeries were in the pre-personal computer era. If the news did not come from me, it often went from the matriarchs of the family to others and through the grapevine. There is a danger of how information is interpreted when it passes through many.
Surgeries numbers 3 to 6 were done in the home computer age. How magical it was to write one message and address it to as many people as had e-mail addresses.
The magic that this brought to my life is threefold
- The first is that everyone gets the same information
- the second is that it takes one message to reach many, so it is quick
- the third is that it is instantaneous.
I appreciate that it can be accessed at a reasonable cost if any. There is free WiFi in many fast food places. You can access computers in public libraries and some hospitals have a family room with a computer. I have even seen computers in a mall near home.
I was lucky enough to get access to a computer at the hospital to send messages on a couple of occasions. I didn’t even have to wait to get home. Now with smart phones, for those who have them, they have access to communication almost all the time.
Please remember to respect signs that ask for your cell phone to be off in the hospital since it may cause havoc with certain machinery. Note that hospital personnel are given a special phone. If your cell does cause interference with machines, remember it may be interference on the machine attached to your loved-one.
As time went on, I joined Facebook. What a lovely invention. I got to find amazing cousins who I am getting to know. Remember there are a fair number of cousins out there. Not only do they seem fun but they seem to have pretty amazing families. I seem to come from pretty good stock.
Facebook also proved a great way to share info to loved-ones as well as people you did not expect to be worried for you. Through these platforms, people have a quick way to drop you a line.
What I particularly loved about the use of this technology, that isn’t as new as it used to be, is that everyone gets the same information at the same time. It is a terrific way to avoid misinformation or faulty interpretation that people passing messages can cause.
What is very delicate about the use of these technologies is the danger of exposing too much personal information of the patient though. Remember the patient has rights to his or her privacy.
The types of things which are relatively safe to share on these formats are to say that a surgery is over and when the patient is released from the hospital. Any type of information that can cause embarrassment and even cause problems on the work force should be avoided.
If at all possible, check with the patient to see what he or she is comfortable sharing and with whom. Remember whatever you write via these tools can spread out beyond the scope you wished, though.
Join me next week for more thoughts on dealing with illness.
I would love to hear from you if you wished to share your own thoughts, questions or comments.
Please share the blog. You never know who might need it as they are starting out their own medical adventure.