RDBlog Week Day 5 – Everything Else

Today is Day three of RDBlog week. The annual time when those of us who blog in the Rheumatic Diseases space blog about our condition.  Today’s prompt is:

Everything else – Is there something we missed in this year’s prompts?  This wildcard is your place to add it in.  Not everything made our list so be adventurous and take us in a new direction.  Sometimes the everything wildcard is the seed of a new prompt for next year so let your mind roam and see where it goes.  Maybe mindfulness is on your mind?  Or perhaps you have a funny story?  We are all ready to hear the scoop on what is on your mind that was missed elsewhere.

I decided to take this prompt because this will be the last blog I will write for RDBlog week as is currently hosted on RADiabetes.  Some of you know I have decided to stop sponsoring the series after this year, and I want to look back a little bit on this journey over the last five years and explain why I decided to retire from hosting RDBlog week on my blog.

A look back

I had this crazy idea five years ago to host what was then RABlog week.  I thought I saw an opportunity to work on building a greater sense of community in the RA space by finding and bringing together bloggers from all over the world. To blog about common interests and to have some fun.

I modeled blog week off of the incredibly popular Diabetes blog week (DBlog), which was itself taken from a blog week in a knitting and crochet community.  I essentially took Karen Graffeo’s wonderful idea and tools, then with a few changes I made the concept applicable to the RA community.   I had no idea if anyone would follow especially since I am a male in a 90% + female blogging community.   It was important to me then that I find the right partner.  That partner is Denise Nolson who has stuck with and advised me on almost every idea, except the one I made in August to stop holding the event.  Denise has been terrific, and I am convinced this would never have gotten off the ground without her.  Thank you, Denise.

I also am eternally grateful for the many bloggers who have contributed over these past five years.  Some have blogged every year since Blog Week’s inception.  This idea does not work without the support of the blogging community.  Thank you so much to the 60 plus bloggers who have written at least one blog in the past five years.  It has been a thrill to know you had enough faith to embrace an idea which was foreign to most of you.  If I mentioned even one, I would be missing  dozens. But I appreciate each and every one of you.

I knew since I am male, I had to make sure I was not seen as making all the decisions.  So to be successful, I had to do things differently than DBlog week which was very much a top-down operation.  Karen decided the prompts and the logo, and the community followed along.  I knew that would be a recipe for disaster in our community.  For that reason, I decided to vote on prompts and the logo each year.  Actually the voting has been one of  my favorite parts.  Karen asked me how we get such great prompts.  The truth is that they come from the blogger who participates.  I was fortunate to find a logo designer who gives us terrific choices each year, and you have responded by using the logos over the years.  Thank you for doing that.

Why am I stopping?

This has been a labor of love for our community for five years.  I still love our community of bloggers and besides not holding blog week not much will change for me.  I intend to keep RADiabetes going and I am still blogging in two health union sites.

The reason I decided is that this year in particular has been a tough health year for me, the foot surgery was difficult and even to this day I am still worried about the outcome.  On top of that I have developed a deeper relationship with the Arthritis Foundation serving now as a local group leader in in the Indianapolis northside Live Yes program.  I am finding my work with Creaky Joints, Health Union, the FDA, and Medtronic diabetes is taking up much more of my time.  Then in August, I decided to cut back in some areas.  Stopping blog week was a big tough decision.  But it is the one thing that requires at least two months of attention.  Given the time commitment and the work I am doing elsewhere something had to give.  I chose to let this one go.

But what if someone wants to take it over?  I would love that, but I know what Rheumatic Disease places on all of us, and I could not ask others to take this on.  However if someone wants to step up, I will give them my contacts, files, notes, and history.   But given the time commitment I do not feel comfortable asking anyone.  This is something that has to be in your heart.

I am hoping that at some point a newish blogger will say wouldn’t it be nice if we built a stronger blogging community doing what all of us who love Blog week do.  Namely tell our stories.  If someone does, I will be here to help, support and participate.  It will never be the same as this current format, but that is okay, these ideas need innovation.

I cannot wait for the next innovation.

With that, I just want to say once again thank you to all of you for coming on this journey with me, and as always, I will see you in the blogosphere.

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