Archive:Stories: Difference between revisions

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+{{cquote|I am the mother of a beautiful 20 year old college girl. She was diagnosed at age 2 with neuroblastoma, a cancer of the developing nervous system. That was before the widespread use of the internet. I used to go to medical libraries and spend hours trying to find a little information about her disease. The terms used in the medical journals were beyond my scope of knowledge and I was frustrated in my ignorance and my total reliance on the medical staff who cared for her to give me the information. They were very good, but did not satisfy the missing part of my knowledge about what whas happening with my little girl.
+Twelve years later, at age 14 my daughter was again diagnosed with cancer. Many childhood cancer survivors will get another primary malignancy later in life due to the treatments for the first cancer. This time she was diagnosed with a bone cancer called osteosarcoma. Our battle began again, only this time I was armed with a knowledge of her disease, causes, treatments, side effects, biological processes of the theraputic treatments as well as the pathways of the the disease.
+I became an expert in this disease in short order. With no medical background my learning curve was a steep one that was surmounted with wikipedia's help. Each article that I read would require me to look up nearly every term used. With the use of Wikipedia, I was remidiated quickly.
+Wikipedia and the internet has helped me gain a sense of control over the uncontrolable. It has helped me in making decisions regarding her treatment and helped me guide my child's medical teams towards her survival.  }}
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 {{cquote|I thought I would just say, that my favorite Wikipedia memory occurred in 2006 when in a class a friend looked up some scientific definition- something like "synthetic lethality" - in order to answer a question.  The professor said it was wrong, where did he get the answer, and he said wikipedia.  Both student and professor changed raced to change the definition.