Make-A-Wish Organization Flies OC Teen To Italy To Meet The Pope
ORANGE COUNTY (CBS) — Seventeen-year-old Olivia Kassien had one wish -- to go to Italy and see the pope before her disease took over.
The Orange County teen was diagnosed with Behcet's disease, an incurable autoimmune disorder.
"I just felt that I couldn't go on anymore because I was so sad and I was so debilitated," Kassien said.
Kassien takes drugs to fight the disease but they also cause cancer, for which she undergoes chemotherapy. She also takes drugs to control her symptoms.
Devastated by her daughter's pain, Lisa Kassien submitted her Olivia's story to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, who granted her a trip to Italy. Her brother's school arranged to have her meet Pope Benedict XVI while she was in Rome.
"It was magical...and I just felt like it can't get any better than this," Kassien said.
"We were so close I could see right into his eyes. And I felt that, when he was looking at me, he was looking right into my soul and he knew everything that I had struggled through."
Kassien said the week before the trip her symptoms of intense joint pain, fatigue and ulcers were so bad she nearly canceled.
But when she say the pope she said she forgot her pain and even managed to kneel and kiss his ring.
"And I said, 'Papa, I came here special for you. I'm very sick and I came to Italy with my family just to see you,' and he said, 'Grazie', and then he put his thumb to my forehead and made the sign of the cross," she said.
The pope gave Kassien a rosary.
She said, "He blessed me and I thought, maybe this could be it, maybe this is what I needed."
