Thanks a Million!

I have some very cool news to share with you all.

The Lympho Bob blog has reached 1 million total page views!

I didn't catch the exact moment that it happened, but this was the page view counter that showed it to me:

 

So, a great big thank you to all of you have read the blog. An especially big thank you to those of you who have been reading for years.

I've told the story of this blog before, but I'll tell it again. I started the blog very soon after I was diagnosed. It was a way to tell family and friends what was happening with my diagnosis, any testing, and any possible treatment. I know from experience how people react when someone else has cancer -- they want to know what's happening, but they don't want to call and ask and feel like they are being a bother. I wanted people to know what was happening with me, so I tried to make it easy. They could just google "Lympho Bob" and read all they wanted, and maybe leave a comment.

And people did leave comments. And they meant a lot in those early days. As I'm sure many of you know, even a little acknowledgement of what you are going through can mean a lot. 

I also used the blog to let people know how I was feeling every day. Most days, that meant telling people I felt good. So if you're wondering why I have a picture of the singer James Brown in my profile, that's why -- his song "I Got You" has the famous line, "I feel good."

Over time, because I was watching and waiting, I kind of ran out of things to write about, regarding my own cancer. My oncologist appointments were less frequent and I had much less news to share. The blog became a kind of gathering place for some family members, and for a while I wrote about a lot more non-cancer topics. And then came Facebook. As a family member told me back then, Facebook gave everyone a new place to gather online, so they stopped coming to my blog.

No problem. At that time, I was reading and writing more about Follicular Lymphoma research. And pretty soon, I started to get comments from people I had never met. And that was really cool. And then at some point, I got a comment from someone overseas. And that was even cooler.

And all of this time, I didn't really know exactly how many people were actually reading the blog. At some point, Google (which owns Blogger, my hosting platform) added a counter and some widgets, and I was able to see just how many people were actually reading the blog. And that was very, very cool.

So where am I now with the blog? Let me share a few numbers.

• I have readers from at least 82 countries, from Argentina to Yemen and many places in between. Blogger doesn't tell me anything about who exactly is reading an individual post, but it does tell me things like how many readers I had from each country for the last week, and which browser they used. So I kind of kept a running list for a while to come up with the 82 different countries. It's fun to look at.
• This post is the 1738th that I have published. I try to post once or twice a week. Once per week is more likely these days, with my schedule.
• This is not the 1738th post I have written, however. I have about 300 more drafts in my folder on Blogger that I started but never published, and probably another 500 that I didn't bother to save. That happens a lot. I'll find something online that seems really interesting and I'll save a draft with a link, and then I'll go back and read it and find that it wasn't all that interesting anymore and I'll never write or publish the post. Other times, I'll find an article in a medical journal, usually something with a lot of science or statistics, that will seem really important. But then as I'm writing, there will be parts of it that I just don't understand, and even with some research, I can't understand it well enough to explain it to you. If I can't explain it, I don't publish it. Like I said, that happens a lot. 
• I probably spend anywhere from 1 to 4 hours per post, between searching for ideas, watching videos, writing things up, researching any information I need, and editing. Some days I just don't have the time, but if I'm getting close to a week between posts, I'll find the inspiration to write something.
  

A lot of the blog has stayed the same since I started it. I resist some "best practices" -- the advice that blog writers get for how to be up-to-date. I am very aware of that advice, but for the most part, I don't make the changes that are recommended. The layout has stayed the same the whole time, even though Blogger offers lots of choices for a more modern look. The banner at the top is still lime green, the color of lymphoma awareness ribbons. I don't use a lot of images, because I have seen some blogs that use them for no real purpose. If it adds something to a post, I'll include a photo. They would help the blog become more visible to search engines, but they also slow things down for a lot of readers. I like that the look of the blog has stayed the same all these years -- simple, with a focus on the words. If you go away for a while and then come back, you know you're in the right place.

I've never had ads in the blog. When I first started writing, internet ads were kind of crude. By that I mean, if you searched for shoes, you'd get an ad about shoes. So 15 years ago, when I searched for information about cancer, I'd get ads for life insurance and funeral homes. I just didn't want those things on my blog, and if I added advertisements, that's what they would have been. Ads are much more sophisticated now, and use a whole lot of information to tailor advertisements to each individual. But I'd still want more control over which ads were shown on the blog. I could make a little money with ads, but to me, it's just not worth it. I'm lucky to have a good job that I love. I can live without the ad revenue.

I also have never collected personal information from readers. I don't have an email list, and I don't use any cookies (though Blogger might use some cookies that I don't have any control over). If you don't leave me a comment or send me an email, I have no idea who you are. I like it that way. I'm always happy to answer an email, whether it's someone asking for advice, or for help understanding something, or just saying hello and thank you. (In real life, I'm a teacher. I'm always happy to help another patient.) But I also know that we all handle our cancer in the way that makes most sense to us. For some, it's being very public. For others, it's being more private. So if you like to read the blog and leave it at that, then that's great. Use it in whatever way that makes most sense for you. I'll never demand to know who you are.

There are days when it's hard to write, and sometimes long stretches when I can't find much to say. But it seems like whenever that happens, I'll get a comment or an email that says something nice and keeps me going. Keep doing that if you are so inclined. It's all the payment I need.

So whether you've only read a handful of posts, or you've read all 1738 of them, thank you so much for reading. As long as there's someone reading, I'll keep writing.

Stay well.