marichiko

Wolf enjoys goading me into responding to her. If I lose my temper, she wins. About the only person around I know who can read my response to Wolf and understand it is Labrat. Wolf is not a neurologist, and she certainly didn't write her thesis on the sequelae of chronic CO poisoning. This doesn't stop her from taking jabs at me and running like a bully on a playground.

I did get some donations from the people who read the story. That money helped me survive the last few months until my SSDI came through.

I had approached the newspaper 6 months before because I was furious that Colorado had cut its stipend to the Needy And Disabled (AND) to a mere $130.00/month. In the US it can take months, even years for the Feds to approve an SSDI application. In the interim, all the needy disabled have to live off is $130/month (think they may have upped that slightly by now).

I wanted to write the story of what the Colorado State Legislature was doing to the disabled of the state, and how many were dying for lack of medical care, food, and shelter.

The reporter liked the idea of the story, but she wanted to write the story herself, using me as the focal point. I am a very private person and I did not want my life splashed all over the paper. So, I refused.

After I lost my home, I went through 6 months of hell and met many people in the same predicament as me or worse. I decided that if telling my story would raise public awareness in Colorado Springs about what was really going on in this state, I needed to tell it. I went into that reporter's office shaking, and asked, "do you still want to do that story?"

So maybe Wolf is right. Its time for another newspaper story. Maybe this time in the Denver Post.