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HIGH POINT - On the first day after chemotherapy, Cathy Weaver felt tired.

“Tired but not impossibly tired,” she wrote in the journal doctors encouraged her to keep to track her response to the treatments.

“Washed a couple of loads of clothes, wrote a newspaper column and either answered the phone or ignored it a lot.”

Weaver, 52, found out Dec. 9 she has breast cancer, which had spread to her lymph nodes. Eight days later, doctors removed her left breast. She started chemotherapy Jan. 27.

Weaver, a public relations consultant who writes a column for the News & Record, decided to make her journal public, joining a handful of patients in the Triad who have blogged their experiences online for local hospitals over the years.

“I think it will help people,” she said.

She uses the blog to share what she has learned in the hope that others going through the same experience can learn something from her bout with cancer.

High Point Regional Health System is encouraging patients to blog about their experiences. The process can help patients as well as others looking online for information about a particular illness, said Aaron Wall, public relations and marketing manager.

The hospital also uses LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube and has fan pages on Facebook — avenues where patients can discuss their experiences at the hospital, said Kelley O’Brien, the hospital’s new interactive media specialist.

“By having these outlets, that’s a way that people can continue that conversation,” she said.

Like High Point, Moses Cone Health System is on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

The hospital system also has offered patients the opportunity to blog about their experiences in the past, but does not have anyone blogging now, said spokesman Doug Allred.

Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center offers patients the option to set up a Web page and create a journal there through CaringBridge.org, a spokeswoman said.

Randolph Hospital started a Facebook page in June and has posted videos on YouTube. But there’s no plan to offer blogs, said April Thornton, director of public relations and development.

The hospital, which offers traditional and online journals for patients, likely will look at posting more interactive video clips online as a way for patients to share their experiences, she said.

Hospital officials say journals, whether handwritten or electronic, help patients cope with the emotional aspects of dealing with their health issue.

Weaver said the writings help her mull over all she is feeling about what is happening to her body. It also creates a road map of what to expect for the next round of chemotherapy.

“I think when you prepare, you regain some of the control that you initially lost to cancer,” she said.

She writes on the blog most days, lounging on her favorite couch in front of the fireplace.

Short posts mean she had a tiring day. Misspellings and jumbled grammar point to a bad day.

She shares tips on how to handle bills, what to expect from the chemo treatments and a commenter favorite: how to use a lint roller to pick up the tiny hairs that fall out of your head. That was her “wacko tip” for Feb. 18.

She also provides humorous anecdotes, such as what she named her wigs — the first was “Vanessa.”

“Those little things, hopefully, will help somebody,” she said.

Weaver likely will continue the blog through her next surgery with the hope that she can help other women who decide to undergo breast reconstruction as she has.

“I’ve got to make something positive come out of this,” she said.

Contact Jennifer Fernandez at 373-7064 or jennifer.fernandez@news-record.com