'Dying' Chopper Read refuses transplant
June 15, 2008 11:00am
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 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."
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,23866918-948,00.html?from=public_rss 
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