The Healing Compassion of Father Michael Bassano

"The spirit of compassion goes beyond language, culture, tradition...and makes us one with all living beings." -- Father Michael Bassano

We with Lyme disease know what it is to be sick. We know what it is to fall ill and not get better. We know what it is to be abandoned. I look at the patients in this video and I know some of what they go through. It's true, I don't know what it's like to be almost dead from AIDS. I don't know what that is like because the physical effects of AIDS are different than those of Lyme. What I do know is what it's like to be bedridden. I know what it's like to be written off by family, to be abandoned and have no one.

How do I make it to the other side of this damn disease?

I don't know about you, but the above question is probably my most popular thought since I got too sick to work or leave the house very often. It's the place my mind goes when I feel isolated and therefore depressed and therefore generally unhappy and therefore purposeless and therefore...hopeless. The above thought has ultimately been a hopeless thought for me, not because it is inherently a hopeless thought, but because for the last two years I've been thinking it and coming up without an answer. Rather, I suppose it would be more accurate to say I've been coming up with only one answer and that is: I don't have an effing clue.