When you have a young child in the hospital for epilepsy brain surgery, and two other daughters and a husband at home, you have your hands full. You don't have time to call every concerned relative and friend with the latest information about your child's condition.

Thanks to a free Internet service called CarePages (www.carepages.com), Shannon Davis and others like her don't have to. They can post their loved one's progress online.

"I found the link to CarePages through the MCG Health System Web site (www.mcghealth.org), and it was really wonderful," Davis said. "It was easy to set up, and I just took the laptop with me to the hospital and posted daily updates. Everyone who is registered on the site to follow Brooke's progress receives an e-mail when an update has been made."

On Aug. 8, relatives and friends in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Virginia read, "Today Brooke has been seizure free for 3 whole months!"

It was happy news and the end of a long ordeal that included two three-week hospitalizations in the Medical College of Georgia's Comprehensive Epilepsy program in Augusta.

Doctors monitored Brooke's brain activity and seizures using an EEG (electroencephalograph) in order to operate and place a grid in her brain to help locate the source of her seizures. She later developed osteomyelitis (a bone infection), which required another surgical procedure and massive doses of intravenous antibiotics.

Brooke celebrated her seventh birthday in the hospital on July 11.

Her mother was able to post good news and digital photos on the Web site to keep friends and family informed. The site also was useful when there was nothing to celebrate.

"On particularly frustrating or bad days, it was good to have a place to vent, and there was also a place for people to leave messages, and Brooke really liked to get those," Davis said. "In all, 102 people signed onto her CarePage, and I only knew about 40 of them. When we'd request prayer, the family would forward the request and the site on to others."

"CarePages are sponsored by a national organization and are not unique to the MCG Health System, but we have been promoting them communitywide because it's part of our patient/family-centered care philosophy," said Bernard Roberson, director of family services development at MCG Health System. "It gives families another way to gain emotional support."

MCG Health System began offering CarePages early this year. The Care-Pages are private, personalized Web pages provided to patients and family members before, during and after their hospital stays, with no expiration date.

"I'm not particularly tech-savvy, but I found it easy to set up a CarePage, and most of our families are computer-literate and like being able to post news from a laptop," Roberson said.

MCG has computers in several resource centers around the hospital, where volunteer librarians can help families create CarePages or look up medical information.

The pages aren't just for sick patients. Roberson has been promoting CarePages to school and church groups. New parents at many hospitals use the pages to let grandparents and others follow the progress of their newborns. People have set them up when family members are deployed overseas, and teachers can use them to communicate with parents about their children.

"The CarePages Web site is a wonderful tool that really helps families stay in touch. We know that when families and friends are involved in the healing process, it helps patients heal faster," Roberson said. "Families have really appreciated the fact that we are trying to care for the whole person — not just their physical needs, but their emotional ones, too."