Couple of guys talk about how they used Twitter to make it through chemotherapy. (description)

A lot of the people in the room seemed seemed to be there for the chemo part of the talk.  Quite a few cancer survivors, and quite a few people who lost loved ones to cancer.  I have to say that I was there for the Twitter part.  I’ve never really been touched by cancer.  Yeah, one of my grandfathers died of it, and that sucked.  But it’s not something I’d normally think about, and I have absolutely zero understanding of what folks like Drew and and Brian (the speakers) go through.

I was there because I’ve been following @thatdrew on Twitter for some months, and appriciate his Twitter antics from the point of view of a fellow activist and Twitterer.  Basically, I wanted to get some tips.

What I got instead was a whole lot better.  What I got was a whole new perspective on Twitter.

Big take aways:

Twitter’s low bar to participation makes it ideal for people who are having a hard time participating.

140 characters is enough to say something meaningful, something that impacts people.

Twitter is both personal and public at the same time.  It let’s you control how you present yourself, but demands authenticity.

To beat cancer you need two things. You need to fight it like hell, and you need to get lucky.  (Some people put up a truly heroic fight, but they just loose. ) Their connections through Twitter helped keep these guys fighting.

Here are some raw notes. I didn’t record who said what.  They both seemed to be pretty much in agreement anyway.

Why did I Twitter?

I didn’t want to look at anybody, didn’t want anybody to see me with no hair and sick.

Wanted to connect to regular people.

Just wanted to say I had cancer.  Wanted to get it out there. Vent.  Wrote a blog post, tweeted it.  After a while, people started telling his story for him.

Was kind of shocked when it turned out people were listening.  At one point I was Twittering about stuff I made up.  Then when I posted that I was in Central Park, some random (friendly) stranger replied, saying they were also in the park and we should meet up.  This really shocked me.  After that I stopped lying.  I still was selective about what I said on my public stream.  Like sometimes I would be crying, whole posting a happy tweet.

Lot’s of DMing.  Can be teary in private.  Then pop back out in pubic and say something cheery.

Little messages of support are really valuable.

“Blame Drew’s cancer” meme, public.

Some friends couldn’t handle my cancer.  Just too freaked out by it.  Twitter is good for them as well.  They couldn’t handle seeing me in person or even talking by phone, but they could manage sending a tweet.

@thatdrew – “140 characters is all you need to tell somebody you care about them, that you love them.”
“I wanted to keep people at arms length, but at the same time I wanted a big hug.”

Twitter, createds a bigger circle.  Could keep tabs on each other without having to jump in the conversation.

Calls to action, can get people, even celebs and buisnesses to do hings.  Like how he badgered the taco truck people into coming to his event.  That it’s in public helps.

“Where the hell would I run into Drew Cary?  All it took was a blog post and Twitter.”

“Stop. Shower time”  People thought it was funny, but for him, it was so hard to take a shower.  It was a big physical effort. Once he tweeted that he was going to do it, he had to do it  It was a motivator.

Use Twitter to attach to something bigger.  Cancer fighting orgs have their own infrastructure, donation pages, etc.

Recognized that they were also lucky.  Sometime people don’t make it, not because they don’t fight hard.  They do.  It’s just that sometimes they don’t get lucky.

Kick cancers ass

Be the match – bone marrow donors.

Planet Cancer – great resource

Live Strong (Lance Armstrong Foundation) – Drew works with them a lot, seem to be his main peeps.