Making Friends

On the face of things the blog has died down a bit, I rarely post more than once or twice a month and as a result page views are starting to tail off a little bit, not that I care as it seems the important people are still getting onto this blog and are still contacting me for information.

In the last few months the number of people that have contacted me on facebook or through commenting on the blog has increased and the number of people that are in regular e-mail contact with me has increased. There are now several people through the blog with whom I am in regular contact and have been for a year, kind of like plantar fibroma pen pals. In some cases meeting up seems unlikely but in other cases it looks like it is going to happen. 

One of these people lives near me, we are hoping to arrange to meet up next week, we have already spoken on the phone and he is already seeing Dr Shaffer because of the information he has read on the blog and the internet as a whole. 

Another patient I am speaking to is coming over to the UK next month to see Dr Shaffer (they are from the US) and in the process they have decided to spend the night in the Brighton area before returning on their travels so that they can meet Katie, Amelia and I for dinner. It was so nice to hear that she wanted to meet us and made special arrangements so that it could happen, this is someone that I am hoping to interview and whilst I don't want the meeting to be all about our feet (how odd would that sound to a casual observer) but I can at least hand over a list of questions in person. She has done a lot of research and seen many specialists so it will be great to meet her.

Another lady in the UK is hoping to meet us at some point but it is just finding the time, we live just too far away to make it a day trip and just need us both to be in the right place at the right time so that we can meet up, again this is someone I have been in contact with for quite some time. 

In the last week or so there has been one person in particular who contacted me who I have tried to help a lot, this disease can really isolate you as you feel stuck, you can't move around too much as you don't want to aggravate it and if you are living alone without family close by it will be hard to get anyone to listen. She has decided to start up a blog, once she gets going I will post a link on here so we can see another patients experience and what she finds out. The network of people that I am starting to know now means I have been able to put her in contact with a patient that lives fairly close by and has done a lot of research so they can compare notes and know there are others out there.

So although the surface of the blog itself may not be teeming with life just under the surface of the water there is a lot of activity which is more important than what you can see from above.