This drawing represents the Gift of Emily, my hope for the future, and the joy I felt after twelve long years of relating to what Avril Lavigne shared in her song, "Head Above Water,” (https://youtu.be/v686vG5PSac) …followed by a beautiful human being, a complete stranger, becoming my angel! Now, I’m paying her gift forward. 

She rescued me from the clutches of a Longhaul illness so catastrophic that it strips you of your identity, hopes, and dreams.  (It’s worth mentioning that Longhaul Lyme and Longhaul Covid have much in common.) The afflictions caused by Lyme creates a mega storm in which you battle every day to survive living. So many tears. So much loss. So much torture 

I will always remember the day I received the gift of relief from torture for the first time!  Torture that

felt like a live-wire that comes loose and thrashes around inside of you. You desperately want to escape your own body, but you can't. It becomes a merciless prison. And this is just one of the symptoms.

Lyme is so catastrophic that many, like Wren Sparrow  (our first patronn attempt to take their lives, In the extremity of her suffering, before arriving here, Wren fantasized about unzipping her prison of a body, so she could finally break free. Anthropologist Aaron Jackson, who also tried to take his life relates, "I know how fragile life is in the throes of illness and how easily it can be clipped with the shears of [physician] domination and misunderstanding."

Like Aaron, I almost took my life fifteen years ago for the same reason. We both thought that our families would be better off without us. This is primarily due to lack of access to medical care, misdiagnoses, and skepticism among doctors and family members as you become a mere shell of yourself. 

When Avril Lavigne's song, "Head Above Water" came out, it was everything I needed; she gave me a voice. If you watch this video, you'll get a feel for the desperation and the consequent elation that comes when your head is lifted above water. 

• MY WORLD CHANGED forever, a month later. Learn about how this stranger changed the trajectory of my life!
• NOW I’m devoted to paying this gift forward, empowering those who are debilitated by illness and/or severe intractable pain to take back their lives, their dignity, and hope for a better future
• HOW YOU CAN HELP: In the course of helping the first two individuals, I’ve encountered a grave inadvertant injustice and need our story shared in the media AND IN CONGRESS to remedy it. Can you please share it as far and wide as possible?