Patient blogging sites are routine at major cancer centers now, and friends and family can follow their course, thoughts, and feelings through their blogs. Would blogging benefit in other chronic illnesses? And does blogging provide therapeutic benefits to the patient?

These questions will be discussed at a session at the ScienceOnline2011 conference to be held in RTP this weekend.

And, a couple of months ago, pediatric nephrologist Dr. Pascale H. Lane invited me to participate in this session. I responded that I’d love to participate. I saw no downside. I get to get out on a Saturday afternoon. And I get to go to a sciency thing where everyone will be ten-times smarter and more accomplished than I am! No, seriously, it’s pretty intimidating. I live in a neighborhood filled with Ph.D. candidates who probably “do talks” at conferences all the time. The closest I come to that is the 90-second WebEx demo I did today at work showing how I had put in a URL that pops up a web page.

The whole conference seems appealing, and while I’d be able to sit in on anything and go to dinners and other events by virtue of my participation, I’ve got too much going on right now to have planned any attendance other than by 2pm session on Saturday.

I’m stressing because I have yet to give serious, deep thought to what I’ll have to say. I don’t know how these things work. I’m not an academic. All I know of such events is what I’ve caught on C-SPAN. There should be pitchers of water on the dais. There will be a dais, right?

As of tonight, I have new reason to be nervous. I have just learned from looking at the ScienceOnline program that my panel will include Joe and Terry Graedon of public radio’s The People Pharmacy! Now I’m super-intimidated!

(The blog post’s title is a reference to a product that the Graedon’s frequently tout. I was making a pun, darn it.)

(Man, if the Graedon’s read this, they’re gonna hate me. I shouldn’t mock utter cream until I’ve tried it.)

Oh, and if I had been on-the-ball, I’d have mentioned that Durham resident’s usually don’t appreciate being called “locals of Raleigh-Durham”. But because I have lived in Raleigh, I will let this slide.