Alphablogs

When you google “Susan Reynolds” peas cancer, you get 23,300 results. Two months ago it would have been close to zero.

Two months ago, Susan Reynolds found out she had breast cancer.

I had met Susan Reynolds online through a virtual book tour in which my blog was a stop. One of the co-virtualists had a link to an interesting-sounding blog: Case Notes from the Artsy Asylum. That’s one of Susan’s blogs. I found out she was on Twitter, my favourite online connection tool (sorry, I’m not much of a Facebook gal), and we became Twitter friends.

When Susan found out she had cancer, she twittered about it. It was and is very moving – all the Twitterers flocked around her.

So what’s it with the peas? Well, Susan discovered that frozen peas were ideal in helping keep the post-surgery pain down. She twittered about it. And thus, the humble pea started on its way to becoming a symbol of people fighting cancer online, together. (Or is that peaple?)

All kinds of things are happening. For example, there is a Frozen Pea Friday flickr group.

Even Techcrunch, one of the most influential blogs on the net right now, wrote a peas about it.

Now – are you ready to throw a few peas at Susan? Here’s your chance. Every Friday – yes, today, my friends! – is Frozen Pea Friday. Donate the price of two nice round globes packs of frozen peas to the Frozen Pea Fund, a fund for breast cancer research.

And this, good people, is the power of social media. Is that cool or what??