Death With Dignitym2

2014 was thought to be my last year here
a diary of posts by Robert M

 

At the age of fifteen I contracted acute rheumatic fever, was in quarantine the first three days of the twelve days I was hospitalized. From that moment on was doomed to have a different life than most other people, I was a “severe” medical risk, a time bomb set in slow motion. At that time I did not know what was in store for me, though I was told some scary stories and that I wouldn’t live past the age of 45. And if I did live past that, it would only because I would have had parts of my heart, if not my whole heart replaced.

Robert M's First Call Into The Norman Goldman Show

Contact me at info@Dying-With-Dignity.com and please Skype me using my Skype name: Dying.With.Dignity

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

I need a sponsor please!

Is there anyone out there that can help me out please?

I am looking for a corporation or organization that would be willing to be my sponsor during my last few months. I need help in keeping my bills paid as I am not really able to real work for clients now. It is truly becoming difficult to concentrate and think hard these days. In fact, it is tough to read pages of text.

If there is such a company or person available, I could be a “spokesperson” or promoter. This would only be for a few months time, as I do not have that much time remaining. But it would be nice that for the remaining time that there would be no worries about rent, utilities, transportation and food. Though I am now getting food stamps, it would be wonderful to be able to go to a few restaurants that I like while I still have the chance.

So is there any type of a sponsor out there?

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Al Jazeera News!

Hey everyone, sorry I have not been good at my blogging duties, but I’ve been busy trying to get some things accomplished. Hopefully it will all mesh together. Though it is now Tuesday officially, it is still Monday night to me and earlier this evening I went to TV studio here in Denver and was on the Al Jazeera evening news!

The news anchor is John Seigenthaler and there are two sides of opinion, mine “Dying with Dignity” and John Kelly’s “Not Dead Yet”. I honestly don’t agree with most anything he is saying on this issue and his situation is very, very different than mine. And when you listen to him and check out the organization, they are speaking out as if everyone is severely disabled and that everyone can just endure the pain if they have enough “support”. Some of John Kelly’s statements this evening when applied to my situation simply made no logical sense in my book.

And bottom line, that’s the whole point. This is a personal choice that belongs to each individual and no one is to decide but the individual and John Kelly is trying his best to decide for me. That I will not allow. All the doctors and surgeons agree it is my right to not get another aortic valve replacement, if I choose not to. Then why don’t I also have that right to decide when and how my life ends, rather than drag it on to where I basically drown in my own blood as my heart can no longer pump out.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Middle of the week

Well the New York Times article from last Saturday has been causing a bit of a stir now. Lots of curious people, as well as people with strong feelings on this speaking out. I may have the chance now to speak out on Democracy Now! in the near future.

It is time to bring NATIONAL attention to this issue! This should NOT be decided via state by state! This is a HUMAN RIGHT and as such ALL CITIZENS deserve this right! I was told at first by Diana DeGette’s office that they did not need to be involved in this because this is a State’s Right issue and not national. I corrected the person I was speaking with and told them this is a human right and as such I need to speak to Ms. DeGette and they agreed! (So has Senator Bennet! Now I am just waiting to hear back from Senator Udall.)

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Why Your Donations Can Help Me Survive A Few More Months...

It has been more than four months now since I have last received any type of income for my work. For the last two months I have been surviving and paying my bills because of all the kind people that have donated some money towards my cause. But at this point, I am worried about making rent and the bills for March.

By some of the comments I have seen, it seems that some people think I am doing well with the donations. So far, I have paid the existing bills and nothing more. I use food stamps to eat with. There’s no money left over for me to consider visiting any friends out-of-state, going to the restaurants I love or any sort of luxury/partying. I’m just getting by without so far being forced to leave here.

Rent in the City of Denver has gone sky-high in the last few years and places are very difficult to find in the City. I have the perfect place to live, the perfect location for me. I’m in the same neighborhood that I have been living in off and on since 1981. I do not want to leave here. I am not able to leave here. It would take professional movers to get my stuff out of here and then where to? I do not have the money, energy and stamina to move now!

This is how I live:
$1000.00 month rent
$125.00 electric, gas, water, trash paid monthly to the landlord
$70.00 monthly to Comcast for internet service (I need broadband! Theres’s no TV or phone included)
$60.00 per month for my cell phone from CricKet
$70.00 per month for Geico car insurance
$27.00 monthly for my UPS mail box that I’ve had since March 1999
$25.00 monthly for my HostGator web hosting services (reseller plan)
$40.00+ monthly domain renewals for the many domains I own
$29.00 per month for the Adobe Creative Cloud software program (excellent deal!)
$70.00 per month on gas, oil for the car
$50.00 household stuff that is needed

$1566.00 and that just covers the bills

As of today through January 26th there has been a total of $45.00 in donations. I truly appreciate it, but at this rate I’m out on the streets at the end of February.

And it might upset some of you all, but that doesn’t cover my Medical Cannabis (marijuana) which is THE only pain medication I am presently taking. Though I get my medical care taken care of by Denver Health and Medicaid, I have to buy my pain meds on my own. That can be another $300.00 per month pretty easily.

I rather not just sit in my apartment and stagnate, but rather be able to go out and do some things while I am physically able to. I’m scared to spend any money I have now.





Don’t Waste The Suffering!

This was the advice from caller Paul from Washington after I made my second call into The Norman Goldman Show, he said “Don’t Waste The Suffering!”

At first I didn’t figure out what he meant and it took a few minutes to sink in. I totally understand and it was his words that inspired me. Yesterday I got to speak again on The Norman Goldman Show and this is the audio of me and two other callers speaking on this very important subject.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Tomorrow morning, Saturday February 8th, 2014 my story will be on the front page of the New York Times!!! It is online now at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/us/easing-terminal-patients-path-to-death-legally.html
I find it amazing that within minutes of the New York Times posting my article online that Compassion and Choices glommed onto it like it was an article all about them! They are the very people/organization to turn their backs on me when I went to them for help in making my statement. They told me to go away and now they want to claim this article as theirs. No question this pisses me off! C&C’s Facebook post

In all fairness, they should have said on their Facebook post that Compassion and Choices decided to completely turn their backs on me and my situation! As soon as the news broke of dying with dignity in New Mexico, I started to research how it happened. It was a lawsuit brought on by C&C and the ACLU. My next step was to contact both. I had no problem getting in contact with C&C but I’ve not been able to make a dent getting through to the ACLU. I wanted to be someone that could do a little hell raising and speaking out about my situation before I pass.

I told them my plans of how I am not about to wait out the last moments of death before going, that I was going to go on my own terms. Though I qualify for hospice care, I am passing on it. The help that I would get from a hospice is something that I just won’t be needing. When I can no longer cook for myself, get up and down the stairs to my apartment, and/or use my Mac/software is when I am going to go, after eating a very nice last meal.

A couple days later I get a phone call from Pamela Mottola of C&C stating that in order for us to work together that I would have to agree that I would only starve myself to death as my form of dying!!! AYFKM!!!!

Everyone that I have told that story to, my friends who know me first show rage, then amazement and then end up laughing because of the insanity of it all! I am an ultimate foodie! I live to eat and food is about the most important thing in life. At least for me it is! To suggest that I starve myself to death is about the most bizarre and upsetting thing that I have had to deal with as far as this situation goes in a long, long time. It was truly an insult to me and I let Pamela know exactly this. The next day C&C quote “this effectively ends our relationship”. Yet minutes after the article comes out about me today, it is C&C that is trying to glom onto this article like it was about them.

Yes, they do serve a purpose. They helped New Mexico for sure. But it is not helpful for them to try to find puppets to die the way they demand the person die in order to get their help! That is EXACTLY what happened in my situation! No! This is a matter of choice! My choice! Not theirs! No one is going to be able to enforce their way of my dying my death. Not the State of Colorado and not Compassion and Choices.

Compassion and Choices turned their backs on me yet it was my face and my cat that was their last post on Facebook. They should have been fair about this and posted that they already were well aware of me! Now they ought to just keep it there and accept the flack the they might get.

Now my question to the audience out there...

Is there ANY organization/s out there that have the balls to help me fight this fight while I can? If so, let’s work together as my time is getting limited. I spend too much time resting/sleeping.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Arrrghhh! (Or something like that!)

Sorry ya’ll I’ve just not been in the mood to post anything lately! Went to the doctor to today for my monthly check up. I had a few errands to do before I got there and by the time I got to my appointment, I was in a lot of pain. Not my usual shoulder/neck/back pain, or my knees, ankles or elbows that all have been problems for decades but this time is was my heart that was hurting the most. And it has been now for the last few days my primary pain.

Believe me when I tell you that you can put off pain from your extremities, or just about anywhere else better than you can true heart pain. It is a deep and disturbing pain that has a special troublesome feeling. Some of the heart pain I have been putting up with since recovering from the operation 14 years ago and it took a decade for them to figure it out too...

When they nearly cut my heart in half in order to cut out the aortic valve, they created scars of course. The scarring caused nerve damage and it is neuro pain that I feel there. That can not be stopped with your “normal” pain medications, it takes a neuro med like Gabapentin, which I took for about three months before giving the shit up! It made me a zombie and I could not use my software, I could not study or concentrate on anything. So since then I have just put up with that pain, next month being two years since I stopped using it.

Now though, there is a new pain in a different area of my heart and it was quite difficult to explain the pain to my doctor today (now yesterday technically). It is deeper and more serious. It feels like major construction is happening there! I told my doctor it has been lately as if all the warning lights on my personal dashboard are flashing brightly.

For years now the medical people say to me when I say “heart pain”, they ask “Do you mean chest pain?” And it sort of pisses me off. I didn’t say chest pain did I? NO! My fucking heart has been cut in half! I know where my heart is and what the fuck it feels like! I know exactly where the pain is coming from. So in the future when I say heart pain, that is what I mean. If my chest starts bothering me, I’ll say so. (I have not been a happy camper the last few days!)

So my doctor and I talked more about death and my dying soon today as well. He is a very good person and he and I have talked politics for nearly a decade during my visits. He is a good progressive socialist like I am, like the Founding Fathers were. The doctor is visibly upset that his hands are so tied on this matter. He is not allowed to use his medical training and thoughts on some of this, rather he must obey the laws of Colorado, which are not humane or dignified. He knows that I will have to commit suicide at some point and that I do not yet have a good means to do this.

Speaking on that subject, on my way home from the doctor this evening I was listening to the Norman Goldman Show and they were talking about the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman. So I had to call in to talk about this death.


I am actually quite jealous of how Hoffman got to leave this planet. My goodness, he didn’t even get the needle out of his arm! How cool is that? I’ve always heard that a heroin overdose is an ugly, bad way out. But if it is that quick, how bad can it be. I never thought I would be hunting down heroin for my death, but after this weekend I’ve really been thinking about it. Amazing that it is so much easier to buy heroin than it is to get Nembutal when you are terminal! That needs to change.

There is no reason that I should have to commit any criminal acts in order to Die With Dignity!

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Below is the audio clip from the Norman Goldman Show that started this all off for me.

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