CaringBridge

Welcome back to The Bridges Between Us, a podcast from CaringBridge sharing real stories from real people navigating health journeys.

Stories about caregiving, connection, uncertainty, and the many ways support shows up when life changes unexpectedly.

My name is Andy Thieman.

It was weird and awful, and I've never...

Every night I would open the Bible and read one of the Psalms and change the word enemy to cancer and would try to find my rest in that.

And then I went into project management mode, set up a CaringBridge page.

In fact, that's one of the very first things we did.

I looked at Stan and said, I think we need a CaringBridge page.

I didn't know that.

And then after the stroke, somebody uploaded that talk to CaringBridge or whatever.

So people who are checking in after I've had a stroke are hearing a talk in my old voice of me saying who I am in Christ and telling these

women.

I mean, people everywhere.

This was before everyone had a blog, you know, before everyone was telling their story on, like, CaringBridge or GoFundMe.

This was just very different.

The Romans 828 posts were coming out on a regular basis and people still wanted more.

I would say early in the hospital, my parents, they were getting flooded, and my sister, with updates.

Like, hey, what's going on with Chris? What's the new progress? And they couldn't really take all the messages, and so they created what's called a CaringBridge page, pretty much a Facebook page to give people updates on what's happening.

And then on that page, people could respond and share a message like something inspirational, something encouraging, or just like some support towards me.

And every single night, my dad would read the posts people were sharing to me.

I mean, people everywhere.

This was before everyone had a blog, you know, before everyone was telling their story on, like, CaringBridge or GoFundMe.

This was just very different.

The Romans 828 posts were coming out on a regular basis and people still wanted more.

[gentle music] Welcome back to The Bridges Between Us, a podcast from CaringBridge sharing real stories about caregiving, connection, uncertainty, and the ways support shows up when life changes unexpectedly.

My name is Andy Thieman.

I've got a big question for you.

He spent his career studying the difference between curing disease and helping a person heal.

Our healthcare system is very good at asking, "What's the matter with you?" Dr.

Jonas believes we also need to ask, "What matters to you?" We talk about the science of human connection, why CaringBridge could become part of the standard of care, and Wayne's own deeply personal experience supporting his wife through five cancers over thirty years.

This is a conversation about science, but ultimately it's about something much simpler: caring.

Here's my conversation with Dr. Wayne Jonas.

As I said, people are kind.

Michael, I have to, you know, I thanked my family and I have to thank my wife again, who I didn't know about this, but CaringBridge is essentially Facebook for people who are injured or have cancer or something.

And my wife kept the CaringBridge up to date, which is how you communicate with, you know, a thousand people and by one keystroke.

And So many people across the country and some across the world got to follow their Caring Ranch.

You know, last year I had the opportunity to go to Ukraine and I operated with Homo and Haida over there.

And when I came back around, I got a WhatsApp.

And it was from one of the surgeons in Ukraine.

He said, we've been following you on CaringBridge.