Thomas (The New Catholic)

Hey everyone! Tis me! Tom. I'm chronically ill and house bound so forgive the decrepit state here. My family are all agnostics or atheists so I am learning the faith in secret. I've been Christian for some years and trying to complete the Catholic catechism for near a year now. Started officially I think November last year maybe. But was trying to work out how to join before that whilst being too ill to go out and not alerting my lovely parents who care for me. It's slow going getting through all the catechism material online with a brain and body that feels oxygen hungry with altitude sickness and concussion like & poisoned a lot of the time. But I'm getting there! For a good chunk of my illness I was bed bound so at least I've improved from that. There are no known cures but science is advancing and treatments that help a bit are becoming more known. IvIG may well be one that can cure my sub type of chronic illness which I got in 2020 from an unknown virus, but which was greatly exacerbated by the vaccine in late 2021 when it looked like I was finally improving well in the months before that. Have been stuck in limbo since. Autoimmune type reactions with the vaccine probably hence the IvIG has a decent chance of helping me a lot. Not certain. However it's not funded for my type of condition and probably won't be for at least the next decade. I was 23 when I got I'll and super fit. I'm now 28. To self fund it for my doctor who's happy to administer it if we could ever afford it I would need 60,000 NZD for three months. 20 grand a month. NZD as I live in NZ. Far out of reach for my family. So in the last wee while I've also been attempting to spend ten percent of my energy effort on writing a story. Directing it mainly as I can't focus enough to write the whole thing and am instead poking and prodding AI in the direction I want it. It's my ideas and themes and world but written out not fully by me due to my unfortunate limited capacity. I am going to aim to publish some chapters and see if anyone finds it interesting enough to help pay for the IvIG. But I also set up a donation link and people need not read the story to donate. I'm not expecting anything really but it is an attempt to really make it happen. It's a fascinating Catholic tale delving into a sci-fi future. An adventurous tale. It helped me apply my learnings of the faith into pondering what the future will look like for Christians and Catholics once AI really takes off as well as medicine that allows us to choose longer and longer lives. Immortality even. The moral choices and how evil will use it all. People even having to make choices between being 99% AI and one percent human in their brains and the disadvantage societally choosing to remain human brained only might put them in (perhaps for faith and moral reasons), instead of picking augmented Ai brains. Oh and there's some adventurous action packed twists that blend in the spiritual reality made more physical. I'm fully open to being told any wrongs I've made theology wise also. I've been careful. It was as much about applying the Catholic faith I have been growing deeper with as anything else. Most of my time being spent on Catechesis, with some remaining spare time on further study in my chronic illness, writing this, and family. Sometimes a few small social hellos in my house with friends when my body isn't crashing out. My number one goal is to be baptised and confirmed in the Church by the end of 2025. And then somehow bring my antogonistic family over once they know about my faith. I'll write up a synopsis of the story sometime soon. I think I'll probably crash over the next week having trying to set up all these subscription and financial donation things and where to publish the story. But I will be back. In the meantime here's a donation link: ko-fi.com/tomcrusader Also please do not donate if you cannot afford it! Donate to your church and such first. And people you know in person in need.