Dying 'Chopper'

[mighty_tiger_79]

Dying 'Chopper' refuses transplantArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment NUIE TE KOHA, MELBOURNE
June 15, 2008 12:30am
MARK "Chopper" Read has deadly hepatitis C – and refuses to seek a liver transplant to save his life.

"I am dying and I accept that," the notorious criminal said yesterday.
"All I want now is to do the right thing and make sure my two young boys are looked after."

But Read, who is also a bestselling author and artist, has ruled out a life-saving liver transplant, saying he does not deserve it.

"A transplant would save me, but why would anybody give 53-year-old Chopper Read a liver over and above an 11-year-old girl with liver cancer?

"They wouldn't – and I wouldn't ask. I need a transplant, but I don't want a transplant."

Doctors have given Read two to five years to live.

Recently they told him he would die in 20 months if he did not stop drinking. Read believes he contracted hepatitis C while using shared razor blades in prison.

"The diagnosis shocked me and I hit the bottle hard," he said. "I drank and drank and drank. If I kept drinking, I would've been dead quicker."

Read has two sons, Charlie, 8, and Roy, 4.

He continues to paint and, on the advice of Archibald Prize winner Adam Cullen, is putting his art work in storage.

"I am told my paintings will be worth $10,000 to $20,000 after my death.

"I'm working hard, and putting half away for Roy, and the other half for Charlie."

The criminal cult figure says he does not fear death.

"I am not frightened of dying," he said. "But I want to get a few things done before I die. Most of all, I need to look after my sons."

Charlie lives in Tasmania and Roy in Melbourne with Read.

"Fatherhood changed me," Read said. "I reckon I became a human being at 45, when I saw my first boy born from a caesarean section.

"That's the moment I joined the human race.

"Then, when I was 50 and I saw my second boy born, I became a fully paid-up member of the human race.

"I have no regrets, but those moments told me what I should have been – a good human being."

Read, who is bankrupt, says he is an attentive father. He drops off and collects Roy from a day care centre four times a week.

"I love being a father. It gives me the same things as every other parent feels. It mostly gives me an empty pocket," he said.

Read strives to tell his boys to be good, productive people. "I don't want them to grow up doing the same things I did," he said.

He says he has no desire to learn more about hepatitis C. He sees a doctor twice a week and is taking medication.

"I do what I'm told and try to live a clean life. But this is killing my liver and killing me. I will die."

Read blames it all on jail-issue razor blades. "They didn't even have a name for hep-C back then. It was either non hep-A or non hep-B," he says.

"Prisoners who had never used needles in their life ended up getting hep-C. They made us use the same razor and watch us shave in front of the mirror."

But he has no regrets about his violent and colourful life.

"Regret is like saying if you had time over again, would you change anything?" he said. "Nah – I would run over the same a...holes if I had my time over."

But Read does wish he could repeat his time with Hoddle St killer Julian Knight.

"If I had my time over again, I would've killed Julian Knight," he said. "They put him in the same yard as me for two days. We were going to kill him, but he started crying and I felt sorry for him."

Read said his illness made him feel tired. "I sleep all the time. I have no energy. I'm listless. I take a foul-tasting concoction the doctor gives me and try to get on with life, or what's left of it," he said.

He is bemused by a rising fascination in the underworld and its characters. "I'm making my own movie called Fatbelly," he joked. "It's my honest critique of (TV hit) Underbelly, which as far as I'm concerned has too much r...ing and not enough shooting."

[Mr66]

Chopper should apply to the Make A Wish foundation so he could get
a crack @ Julian Knight.
He may have been a crook but he's an honest crook.

[bayman]

i would agree with chopper except that he has kids surely he'd want to see them grow up, i know i would

[Punk Rooster]

i would agree with chopper except that he has kids surely he'd want to see them grow up, i know i would

write to chopper & ask him if he minds you watching his kids grow up....

[bayman]

i would agree with chopper except that he has kids surely he'd want to see them grow up, i know i would

write to chopper & ask him if he minds you watching his kids grow up....

you idiot you know what i mean

[Snaggletooth Tiger]

Uncle Chop Chop avoiding the Chop (ie. liver transplant)
I s'pose he's got his reasons, so ya gotta respect that!

[Magpiespower]

Chopper - a martyr?

Who's he kidding?