My eldest child has a brain tumor.

Those were the first words of my second-ever blog post back in 2006. I’d started the blog as a place to store ideas and random musings, but it soon became The Cancer Blog, read by friends and family and very many strangers around the globe. It ended up a treasure trove of blow-by-blow reporting I’ve been grateful to have ever since.

After my daughter died, I eventually took the blog down; I created an anonymized site, Sadie’s Brain Tumor, to share the medical details. But I think it’s precisely the personal that helped me when we were in the thick of things. I felt less alone because other people shared not just their MRIs and symptoms, but their days and nights and grief. If you’re going through someone’s cancer, I hope this journal helps you feel less alone, too.

Her name was actually Meghan, by the way.