Archive for October, 2008

Rock ‘n’ Roll

After our Asheville rally, a couple of young men came up and told me they’re in a rock band and they’d like to get together with a couple other bands and put on a concert to raise awareness of health care issues.
I didn’t think much more about it until I got a call from one [...]

Be nice, dammit!

Sarah Palin came to town tonight and I was the “live blogger” in the office. People called in vignettes and scene setters to me and I posted them and monitored the comments.
Since I was in charge of which comments got posted, I laid down the ground rules pretty early. I told people I would not post [...]

Making plans

Janet and I started talking today about the next rally. I think Rob had hoped we’d take a little time off, but I can’t stop. There’s this huge, gaping hole in my life and the only way to fill it up is to try to right the wrong that killed Mike.
It gets harder as our [...]

The economic crash and health care

The Associated Press had a story this week about how the economic meltdown has more people putting off health care. In part, it said:
The numbers show Americans are increasingly putting their health at risk:
— More and more are postponing needed care, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Tuesday. The portion who said they [...]

Held hostage by our jobs

The movie “Sicko” gave Michael Moore’s dramatic perspective of our healthcare crisis. My perspective is more limited, but equally real, for any Sarah Palin fans out there.
I had not had much reason to think about the situation until I moved three years ago. Until then, I had been fortunate; I had always had health insurance. [...]

Our second rally

We had about 125 people, and if you count the people who came and went, we got the message out to a couple hundred people.
Bryan Brooks happened by Pritchard Park as we were talking about how Mike died, and he came to the microphone to talk about his own fear that he has stomach cancer. [...]

James is here

My niece, Christina, flew in last night and we called James at lunchtime today. He’s had a really hard time with Mike’s death and I’ve been letting him find his own way to deal it.
Christina thought otherwise. Being a Boyd woman, she decided James has had enough time to deal with his emotions.
“The hell with that! [...]

Gary’s story

Gary Mitchell is a musician — a gifted choral director and tenor. He’s the music director at my church, which is a part-time job and doesn’t carry insurance.
Gary’s spouse is a minister and has insurance, but the policy doesn’t cover domestic partners, and in North Carolina, Gary can’t marry his domestic partner, the Rev. David [...]

Cornering politicians

I know a lot of politicians, and I like a lot of them personally. I don’t agree with all of them of course. Lately, though — since Mike died, to be specific, I’ve had some interesting discussions with them.
I was in an editorial board meeting week before last with our Congressman, Heath Shuler, a Blue [...]

Check us out on Ashevegas!

The blogger here, an anonymous guy named Jason Sandford (he was outed a couple years ago), worked with me when Mike got sick. He saw how shabbily Mike was treated, and he agrees that people should have access to preventive care.
We like Ashevegas.
http://ashvegas.squarespace.com/journal/2008/10/7/life-o-mike-wants-to-hear-your-stories-about-lack-of-health.html

Help Life o' Mike

We need your help now more than ever. Your tax-deductible donation will help us get Patient Pals and Family Friends off the ground. Please consider a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one.

Patient Pals & Family Friends volunteer training

Our Feb. 27 training had to be postponed, but we have rescheduled. Join us 9 days, as we train our next group of volunteers for Patient Pals & Family Friends. The four-hour training will run 10 a.m.-2 p.m. and will include lunch. Patient Pals are people who have experience with an illness or disability. After training, they will be paired with someone who is newly diagnosed or disabled. Family Friends will be volunteers who are paired with family members of people who are ill or disabled, and will have been through the expeience of having a loved one with illness or disability.

In Loving Memory

Life o' Mike has participated two memorial services to remember those who have died from our broken health care system, one in Asheville and one in Raleigh. If you would like to organize more of these services, please contact lifeomike@gmail.com and we will help put it together. The services include stories, prayers and information on how people of faith can make a difference. About 45,000 people die each year because they don’t have health insurance, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. That breaks down to one American every 12 minutes. Those people can be honored in the service by a bell chime and a moment of silence every 12 minutes in the service. For more information, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712.

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