The Power of the Internet

The internet is a powerful resource. It can be an asset or a liability, a friend or an enemy, depending on how we use it.

I want to tell you a story, but it isn't about spanking. Some of the details have been altered to protect the identities of the people concerned, but it really happened a few years ago.

I belong to an online group of people who correspond by email to discuss a [vanilla] interest that we all share. Some groups don't permit off-topic posts, but in this group, anything goes, so the conversations are about anything and everything.

One day, a group member asked us all to think good thoughts about her son, who would be undergoing surgery the next day. Many members responded that they would. At the time there were about 800 people in the group.

The following week, someone else asked us to think about her mother who was ill. These requests became more frequent as people realized this was a place where people cared about each other. The moderator added the names of those who were sick to the home page of the group, as well as to the bottom of each email that went out to everyone. Names were added and removed as time went by.
Ron has a friend whom I'll call Pat. On a holiday long weekend Pat came down with something, probably the flu, but serious enough to warrant a trip to Emergency. The diagnosis was indeed the flu, and that was that.

But Pat didn't get any better. After a few days another trip to Emergency resulted in an airlift to a bigger hospital that was better equipped to deal with whatever this was. And the news from the big hospital was not good. Pat was having organ failure and was put at the top of the transplant list. 

Ron had known Pat and Pat's partner Chris for many years, and had watched their children grow up. He was as upset as they were, and there wasn't anything any of us could do but stand by helplessly and wait. Then I had an idea. I told my group about Pat's predicament and soon another name appeared at the bottom of every email. Pat was in the hearts and minds of 800 strangers all over the world.

I told Ron what I had done and expected him to be sceptical. But I was wrong. He was touched by my gesture, and told Chris and the children, who were also very pleased and grateful.

We were all prepared for the worst. But after a few days, Pat started to improve, and by the end of the following week was released from hospital and sent home with medication. We'll never know exactly what was wrong or why the condition suddenly reversed itself, but I like to think that my 800 friends on the internet--strangers I've never met and probably never will--played some part in it.