I am definitely no newbie to this; doctors, hospitals, medications, therapies, insurance, paperwork, and the waiting. The dreaded waiting. Often the cure is worse than the disease, but the wait amplifies the symptoms of said disease. 

Like I said, I am no newbie, but I also am not an expertise. If I were an expertise I wouldn’t need the doctors, and all of that goes with being ill. But one might come to believe that after 26 years, one would at least develop a thicker skin. I try to imagine how a great spiritual leader might advise me when I fall through a crack in our system. I ask myself what lesson can be learned, for my future, and the avoidance of other cracks. I even try to learn from others who have fallen, and pass forward any pertinent knowledge I have accumulated. 

Knowledge is power, unless you’re sick. Money is power, unless you’re sick. Knowledge and money give the sick more options, but sick is still sick. Dying is still dying. Death is still death. 

With all of my knowledge, all of my wants, all of my needs, and all of my wishes, only one thing has been a constant in dealing, coping, and even healing. It is actually very basic, but often the most elusive. A placebo of sorts, amazingly it is still in short supply, but high demand. 

One cannot bottle it, market it, sell it, or cure the sick with it. But it is the most contagious agent I have ever been exposed to. A touch, a smile, a hopeful gesture or word, and I am instantly infected. Once I am infected my only desire is to infect all around me. 

So here is the big secret, the elusive placebo, the virus I covet more than any cure some specialist, drug rep, hospital, or guru peddles: Compassion. 

Devastating news is just that much easier to take in when compassion is bound to it. I accepted a long time back that I would either die from my diagnoses, or with them. No cure in sight, just a hindered life. Even though I don’t like my illnesses, I’m okay with this, I am okay with me, who I am, who I turned out to be. 

We humans don’t have to like disease, or even accept it, in us or others. But could we at least show a little compassion? For a few seconds? A fake smile? Something? 

The next time you are having a wonderful day, think back to a day that was the exact opposite. Now, the stranger next to you? That just might describe their day. Would you have liked a miniscule amount of compassion on the day you remember? Might a slight exposure of infectious happiness have helped you? 

Commit a random act of kindness and infect a stranger with some compassion! Pass it on!