'Running for My Life' earns best blog award

I'm not that big on promoting myself, though I guess I should be. That's how freelancers get more work.

It probably stems from my reporter's sensibility that you don't make yourself the focus of the story.

Well that was then and this is now, and we displaced journalists trying to make a go of freelance writing have to market, pitch, and promote.

In that spirit I forgot to say that for the second year, Healthline.com gave me a best leukemia blog award. I heard the news early last month. I was honored to get it, as I was last year. Sometimes I think of stopping, but then I hear that a post has made an impression on someone or I get an idea for a blog post and off I go. Nine years already.

"We’ve carefully selected these blogs because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information," according to the press release that put mine in the top 10 leukemia blogs.

"For people living with leukemia, those who know them, and those who have lost someone to the disease, support can come from many different sources, including these incredible blogs," it continued.

The editors wrote this about my blog: "Though she was cured three years ago, Ronni continues to face a host of chronic side effects, sharing her continuing struggles with the after effects of the disease on her compelling blog."

You can read the rest of the release and the list of the top 10 blogs here.

Healthline is a health information site with more than 40 million visitors a month.

Mixed reaction to winning an award

So I got an award for one of the 10 best leukemia blogs of 2016 from Healthline.com.

The letter said: Congratulations! Your blog has made Healthline's list of the Best Leukemia Blogs of 2016! Healthline's editors selected each winner based on their reach to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high quality information. We created a badge to help you publicize your achievement, and I encourage you to embed the badge on your site and share your 2016 status with your followers. 

Winners list: http://www.healthline.com/health/leukemia/best-blogs
Thanks for providing a great resource to the Leukemia community.

I followed the link and saw this:

Over 60,000 people will be diagnosed with leukemia in 2016. While survival rates for this type of cancer are higher than ever before, it’s still a very serious and potentially deadly diagnosis. These outstanding blogs are a way for people who have the disease to share their experiences, be a part of a community, and educate others including loved ones about the short- and long-term effects of leukemia. The camaraderie, compassion and resolve these bloggers display is truly remarkable. 

I was happy to receive it of course but also it made me really miss my blog friends, one of whom, PJ, turned into a friend off the screen as well. I looked through the list to see if there was anyone like me, (with multiple transplants) and there wasn't. Someone once suggested looking through leukemia blogs to find other friends but I didn't have it in me. I think of PJ and Ann a lot when I have some odd side effect to share and they were the only ones who really understood. Their husbands have left the blogs up there. They are The Plog and Ann's Love. They died two years ago, five months apart, almost to the day.