The limitations of social networking were helpful. During those first days after surgery, there were times I could barely stay awake or concentrate for more than five minutes at a time. (Several times, I actually did fall asleep while updating my social networks, only to snap awake when I dropped my iPhone in my lap.) One-hundred-forty characters allowed me to communicate without spending the kind of energy required from an actual hospital visit. I could dip in and out of the communications stream as I was able.

So I wrote about the food. I wrote about the bad TV. I wrote about peeing into a bottle. Because I'm a nice guy, I did not post pictures of my surgical wounds.

"Got moved in with a roommate today," I wrote two days after the surgery. "He's staying up late watching sports. Feels like a summer camp without colons."

Or, more pathetically, after a particularly rough day: "I can't joke or even be cheerfully defiant about the series of procedures I've been through in the last 24 hours. Right now I feel broken and I just wanna cry."

People kept responding, with encouragement, with jokes, with promises of prayer, with other comforting comments--even with "likes" on my Facebook status. All of this told me I wasn't alone, that people cared about me, that they were interested in my welfare. That was absolutely what I needed.