Here’s the situation: I was laying in a hospital bed, with an IV in my arm and a chest tube in my side attached to a gurgling machine that provided suction. I was on some pretty hefty drugs – morphine and then other narcotics for pain. At 38, I had been hospitalized for a totally unexpected reason.
For those of you who don’t know the story, I had woken up early on the morning of March 2 to chest pain, and after several hours of dithering around (because I was pretty sure it wasn’t a heart attack, so it couldn’t be serious, right?) I went to an urgent care where x-rays showed that my right lung had collapsed. Think of a balloon popping; that’s more or less what happened with my lung. As it turns out, you can function on one lung, especially if you’re relatively healthy, as I was (at least up to that point). The condition is called spontaneous pneumothorax, and no, the doctors don’t really know what caused it.
My wife was sending out emails to a select group of friends, co-workers, my boss and some relatives about my condition periodically, but there are many more people not on her email list – other colleagues, friends, etc. – who were interested in how I was doing. Fortunately, when I had driven myself to the ER (yes, I made several bad decisions that day), I brought along my BlackBerry. That not only allowed me to call my wife (“Honey, I have a collapsed lung and am going to be admitted to the hospital”), and send email to my boss (“Um, I’m not going to be coming in to work today”), but it also allowed me to update my Facebook status. And that is the whole point of this post.
I spent 12 days in the hospital, almost the entire first half of March. And without that BlackBerry and the ability to send email and update my Facebook status, it would have appeared to dozens and dozens of friends and acquaintances that I had disappeared. In addition, some friends who wanted to know – people who stopped by to visit me – would have never known that I was hospitalized with a serious medical condition. Even my sister, who called me almost every day, sometimes more than once, relied in part on my Facebook status updates to keep tabs on me.
I had lunch with a friend this week who said that my status updates on Facebook during my hospitalization really made him appreciate the power of social media. I have long been a social media enthusiast (and, professionally, an advocate), but this whole incident really brought home to me the power of these tools. I received wishes to get well, messages of concern and requests to visit through Facebook, which were instrumental in keeping my mood mostly positive during the experience. (In fact, I should say again to those people – thank you so much for your support. It made a huge difference to me.)
Most of what we post on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites is ephemeral – a fleeting thought, an interesting link, a comment or question you’re likely to forget in a few hours or a few days. But in some circumstances, these interactions can be incredibly powerful, engaging, and socially and emotionally meaningful. So the next time someone tells you that all this online stuff is just a waste of time, or it’s just for kids, or it’s not important, tell them my story.
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North Carolina-based PR & marketing professional who focuses on digital strategy. Also a father, wannabe novelist, amateur cook 
Mark!! I clearly am not connected to you well enough. I was pleased to see your name in bold in my RSS reader and clicked right away to read this astonishing news. I am so glad you’re okay and this story is unbelievable. Yes, you are the new testament for social media tools, and I’d like to interview you about it in the very near future.
All the best to you. I am stunned, you are lucky and I’m glad you’re back in full force, my friend. This story will live on. I for one will tell it often.
Angela
Thanks, Angela, for the great comment. I’d be happy to do an interview anytime you want.