X-Message-Number: 16446
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2001 09:44:08 -0400
From: James Swayze <>
Subject: Would love to be signed up...wanna help?
References: <>

Dave Pizer wrote:

<snip>

>
>
> The very first thing to be done for one who wants to be a part of this
> unique project is to get personally signed up, at this time.  Only then,
> should you go out and try to help others.  You should not be taken
> seriously as a supporter of biological immortality, if you are not at least
> signed up for cryonics suspension.  I would also think it was acting
> irresponsibly if someone was advocating biological immortality and was not,
> at the very least, signed up for suspension, since often actions are
> counted more than words.
>


Dave, I know you didn't mean this to apply to me. At least I hope you didn't. I 
feel you just didn't

think of my situation existing. I'd love to be signed up!! The problem is I 
can't afford it yet. I hope

to one day but there are some significant hurdles in the way. First, I am a 
quadriplegic and I have

diabetes and a bone disease and have had one kidney removed due to chronic 
bladder infection which

reached the kidney. No insurance company that, could be trusted to actually pay 
off, would in their
right mind sell me a life insurance policy.


Then there is my income. It's not much on Social Security disability, a mere 
6k/year (yep that's not a

typo 6k), and it has the added baggage of hindering rules that prevent, without 
fiscal miracle, ever

improving that income. If I work they  merely take away the amount I make from 
what they give. So why
not work?  Because if they take away enough they stop my medical.


Some of the rule are; I'm not allowed to have on hand or in savings or own 
anything that if sold will

when combined amount to over $1500. I'd better not tell them about my pc. i'm 
not allowed to own stocks

or bonds or the like. It gets worse. I just learned that along with rules like 
those, I cant have any

more than $1500 in death benefits. Now that wouldn't even pay for most funerals 
to take the dirt nap.


In short I'm supposed to be using every asset up before depending on the 
government. That's ok as far as

that goes to keeping people honest but it throws the baby out with the bath 
water. It prevents people

from achieving independence by their own efforts especially new and not so 
mainstream efforts. I once

won a lawsuit for an eye injury that occurred before the paralysis. A faulty 
built tool hand exploded
and put a needle point 3/4 of an inch through the center of my right eye.


My end after the lawyers got the a lot of it was 46k. This was back in 1982 
about the time Microsoft was

becoming something to note and invest in. It was also 3 years after my paralysis
and so I was under

obligation to go off of all benefits, spend the money down to nothing, then as 
if a criminal for having

gotten the windfall wait six months on probation (while of course having nothing
to live on and no

medical the whole time it took to spend down the windfall plus the probation 
period), then sign back up
to be no better off again.


I cheated. Well not really but my social workers sure hated me for it. I did 
what they hadn't

volunteered that I could do. I bought a house and there was no rule against that
but there is against

having more than the one you live in. Since I really couldn't afford the monthly
on the house and

needing more attendant care than the government would pay for I had boarders. I 
had very low income

boarders because some of the rent was in exchange for help. To make a long story
short, the people that

I could get that needed low rent had problems of their own and so in about 6 
years my house was in such

bad shape and without power two winters in a row and being that I was by then 
living there alone the

state stepped in and refused, if I intended to stay, to pay for my one attendant
remaining since they

considered my living condition not livable.  I had to move back in with my folks
and sell the house--so

long 46k, so long investment losses....the house I bought for 57k is now worth 
120k.

Now imagine if they'd just allowed me to buy Microsoft stock in 1982!


Dave, while I dream and scheme and hope for a way around my predicament, I hope 
I can also have a
valuable say in how the future is shaped.


Addendum: I have an application for $20,000 in life insurance by Globe Life. 
Twenty thousand added to

the pledges made here for me on cryonet might get me into CI. There are health 
questions on the apps so

the chances they will take me on despite my condition are very low. The thing is
I filled out something

with the same questions and they send me back something else with the same 
questions yet again. I'm

going to try it but I first have to be ready for the ever increasing premium 
that will start at around

$43/month. On my income that is not a small amount and so I must reduce some 
debt load before I can
afford the premium...but hey I'm trying.

James Swayze
--
From the point of ignition
To the final drive
The point of the journey
is not to arrive --RUSH

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