Today is the day. Surgery is this afternoon so I thought I should get today’s blog in before then.

I started this blog-a-thon to encourage some other bloggers and want to be better bloggers to write more. But I also started it for me. I started it to step out of my comfort zone and talk about some personal issues.

I failed

I gave you the facts and history. I kept blogging every day save for Christmas Eve and Christmas  Day.  But I did not get personal. They were not really about me, what I was feeling,  how I was reaching out to people and who was talking back.

What I found

I’ve searched for people tweeting about kidney stones and had a few conversations of encouragement from me. Usually asked some questions, but did not make any real sparks.  (People in pain are not real conversationalists.)

I’ve had conversations with @LeeAase , Director, Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. Even with the strong initiative that they’ve started at the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, there just are not a lot of doctors tweeting. If you’re a doctor, nurse or medical researcher reading this tweet me, I want to talk to you.  

Real Jewels of Twitter

Aside from @LeeAase, I wasn’t really able to make connections with the group of people I’d intended,

Here’s what I did find – One night I wasn’t sleeping because I was worried about the surgery, trying to cram in some last minute work. so I popped on twitter for a distraction. Saw a tweet from a friend and replied with a RT as he had done.

“Me too! RT @evanashenhurst: Me! RT @313Nick: Hey Twitter. Who’s still up?”

The three of us tweeted about random things, getting to know each other better.  I had a new person to follow that was interesting and fun, who then suggested I follow a friend of his he knew I would like: @AllisonNazarian  Another new person to follow.

Then it occurred to me this happens all the time on twitter. Someone RT’s you, someone else joins the conversation, and real connections are made.