The death of 18 year old Regine Stokke in Norway demonstrates in a tragic way the power of social media. For more than a year ten thousands of people have followed her blog about the fight against cancer - up to the day of her death.
Not often is the death of a teenage girl front page stories of major national newspapers. But it happened this week. The personal blog of Regine Hansen Stokke has captivated thousands of Norwegians, who have followed closely all the suffering, mourning and emotional outbursts involved in fighting cancer.
Front page of Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, Friday Dec. 4th, 2009
She died on Thursday this week. Only two days earlier she had written her last blog post:
“Things are going really bad for me these days. Today I have been sitting up only two hours in total. Otherwise I have just been in bed …
I can die at any moment now… I have never been so sick in my whole life, and it is an incredibly scary feeling. But at least I am less scared of death now than before. Maybe it is because I am so exhausted and have so much pain. “
Regine was given the diagnosis MDS/AML in August last year. It is a serious form of blood cancer.
Two months later she decided she would start a blog about having a serious illness. The blog was named Face your Fear – and adding: “Accept your war. It is what it is.”
Since then she has blogged almost daily sharing the pain, her fear, joyful moments, stays in hospitals, the love of her family and her own reflections trying to stay hopeful at the same time as she was scared.
Over time more and more people started following the blog. And they shared their compassion and gave her all their support. Blog postings frequently had several hundred comments from readers. The last posting, in which her younger sister told the readers about her death, so far has received more than 8.400 comments from readers sending their condolences.
Regine was telling openly about everything which happened in the last year of her life, including posting photos from her childhood. Sometimes she wondered if she was too open, for example when she published a photo of herself without hair.
“So far only my parents, my sister and the nurses have seen me like this.”
Regine's blog post from November 23rd, 2008. "Maybe I am little too tough now, but it helps me to somehow accept it."
At some point also the media discovered Regine’s blog. She was interviewed by several newspapers and also appeared in television programs. In her blog she wondered whether she was right to accept all the interview requests.
April 14th this year she gave the shocking message to her readers with a blog post titled “I shall die”.
“The doctors will not do more than give me chemotherapy to prolong my life. That means that I have not long left to live…
I really do not know what to do. I shall die. How will I handle the waiting? I refuse and I am in tenacious pines. My body is getting weaker and weaker. I refuse to die in a hospital bed as a vegetable. I refuse to lie there until I can no longer talk or move. I cannot bear to have pain.”
Some of her readers were so moved that they started to collect money to help fight cancer. A lot of people thanked her for her openness, and wrote that it had been of great support in their own suffering and mourning.
In one of the last blog postings Regine told about how her family had moved the celebration of Christmas Eve one month ahead, knowing that she was about to die.
A few days before her death several hundre people from Kristiansund, the town she lived in, walked through the streets and to her house with torch lights to show here support.
Regine’s blog became one of the most read in Norway and this week has topped the list. Almost 200.000 people visited her blog yesterday. Several Facebook groups have been formed in her memory. The biggest one has as I write 40.600 member. Also a second group has more than 30.000 members.
Today the death of the blogger has been a major news story in Norway.
I just wanted to share this story with international friends without too much analysis. But as this is a blog about online media trend, I will at least point out how this tragic story demonstrates the power of social media. This was a young girl who decided to share her pain as well as her hopes and captivated a nation publishing from her hospital bed. And by doing so she brought out floods of positive engagement from thousands of people and became a symbol of bravery and strength.
Rest in peace, Regine.
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Here is one interview with Regine – in Norwegian:
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