Our annual report on readers 2024

I commenced writing on WordPress in 2017 with a view to creating a positive approach to Lymphoma Awareness. As I am not really into social networks our main source of promoting the site was Facebook and within the first year we had 4,448 views. I back dated procedures commencing Feb 2014 and had wrote a very abbreviated account of the previous 3 years . Articles covered everything from proceedeurs, side effects, mental health etc.

I also personally designed our website www.hlai.ie and upgraded it over the years to what is now a very visual website with multiple visitors generally found by Google searching. The two sites are linked as http://www.hlai.blog is where we write our blogs.

Now the site has reached  46,100 visitors it is incredible to see the growth. We have also commenced writing on Medium so it will be interesting to see the growth on this dedicated site.

The two sites www.hlai.ie and www.hlai.blog cost me roughly €2,500 per year to maintain, the cost of hosting, domain payments and promoting are included. We had hoped to raise enough funds to commence SEO, on WordPress we have a premium account but to have the account upgraded to Business word cost an average of €300 pa extra or Commerce at €550 pa. As I am on invalidity benifits this type on expenditure is not possible and we are therefore reliant on people finding the sites by searches and referrals.

I have had many people both victims and victim families contact us for advice and clarity . You just never know who is actually reading the articles or where they may live.

In June 2020 a close friend was diagnosed with Sarcoma. He asked me to create an article about his experience with this rare form of cancer and we created a detailed article of his experiences and mental health https://hlai.blog/2022/12/31/cancer-warrior-terrys-sarcoma-war this article is now the most viewed from all our 120 post. The main point of writing this article was to spread Awareness to Sarcoma via the Lymphoma Awareness and it really worked. Terry’s social network would have been greater than ours so the personal views would have been massive. Our seventh biggest viewers geographically is Spain and this would be both because of our connections to Spain along with Terry’s.

Our biggest viewers are in Ireland, which comes as no surprise as I am based in Ireland and all treatments have been done here. The USA are our second biggest geographical stronghold. This is due to individual referrals to the site . However we feel that the report is not accurate as we can have up to 3,000 views per article on LinkedIn which means that one of the two sites are failing on the reports. LinkedIn have a better individual analyses right down to who actually viewed the pages. This option on WordPress is only available on the more expensive plans.

On multiple occasions over the past number of years I have met people who have commented “Yes I read your articles as they are released” some have really surprised me, they range from victims to medical professionals. In some cases particularly in the USA some Oncologist recommend cancer patients to read the blog to help them understand what path is ahead. We have now helped close to 70 patients worldwide via emails and direct contact.

The WordPress site has also lead to connecting with The Lymphoma Coalition who have asked me to be a Patient Advocate to the European Hematology Association (E.H.A) with the first meeting online in April 2025 – I am honored to represent the Lymphoma Coalition, this particular meeting will be to review the EHA practice guideline for Hodgkin lymphoma. New avenues are now emerging to promote Awareness and the attitude “Talk about Cancer openly”.

Back in July 2017 during my Stem Cell Transplant I was very close to stopping the websites, one of our viewers and a long term supporter of my battle Ms Rachael Manning with her “Never give up, that’s our motto :)” pushed me to continue writing which I am now grateful that she did. I have known Rachael since 1994 and it is inspiring to see how her career has grown, this young lady is an inspiration to career growth. Anita has been a great source of enthusiasm  since I commenced writing, initially she felt that my style of writing, which tends to be very direct and honest really worked in getting a Positive Mental Attitude across. But over the years my writing had developed and the Positive Mental Attitude has been backed by an honest open view to long term survival and the challenges faced.

Whats ahead for the next year…

I have just paid for another year on WordPress so plenty more articles to come

I have entered discussions with a company with a view to full time work. Fingers crossed on this

In April I commence the Patient Advocate roll with the EHA and looking forward to helping where possible

And Medium, which is our latest platform for generating awareness and the only paid platform we use. I write from the heart and promote Open Talk and Awareness- it’s real life not fiction and I hope that our readers will eventually equal our WordPress site.