Porque?

So first thing's first: why does a thirty-year-old Filipino guy who just got diagnosed with thyroid cancer feel the need to start his own blog?

To be honest...I'm not really sure.  As I write this entry, I do it after setting my blog to 100% private.  Maybe I'll publicize it in the coming weeks, maybe not.  But for now, I'm doing this for purely therapeutic reasons.  According to many people I know, some even with personal experience blogging about their own cancer ordeals, there is a lot of value to writing down your thoughts and feelings.  Whether just as your own private personal journal (old-school-styles), or as a public online blog in the new era of social media where people assume you've died of starvation if you haven't posted a sepia-filtered image of your lunch in over 48 hours, they say writing it all down can help you process what is happening to you, and deal with it better.

Truth is I've never had my own blog before.  I never figured I was that important.  Besides checking in to cool or fun places on Facebook to prove that I don't spend EVERY moment of my free time binging on Netflix while wallowing in my own filth, I consider myself a pretty private person online. My Facebook feed is pretty much a list of my favorite pictures/videos/articles.  I only joined Instagram 2 weeks ago, and that was because I was bored when my girlfriend went out of town for work...and even now, I only have one picture posted.  And according to what the kids say these days, that picture is a #latergram.  #Lame.

But I've also been doing a lot of blog-reading over the past few months, of blogs belonging to others who have survived thyroid cancer, and I've gotten a lot out of them.  They've been comforting and reassuring to me.  I also noticed that, since less men are diagnosed with this than women, so few of these blogs and stories come from a male perspective.  So what the hell, I figure if I can write about my experience and help calm the nerves of or make sense of it all for some other young relatively-healthy dude (or dudette) out there, then perhaps it's worth it?

Or maybe I'm just writing all this so that one day, I can go to my friends in a fit of rage and ask:

So what's my plan here?  Not sure yet.  First-hand account of someone going through thyroid cancer treatment as it's happening in real-time?  Sure.  My chance to unleash my sad attempts at humor at an unknowing and unwilling public?  Yeah, that's likely.  Random thoughts that may come to me in a moment of inspiration?  You know it.  An excuse to post my favorite memes?  Done.

Anyway...I welcomed you to my blog in my first post, and I've explained why I'm blogging in this, my second post.  On to my story (so far)!

-W