Jordi Brockovich

Today I walk with my head held high. Today others just like me are smiling through tears - silent no more. You see, after an uphill battle Qwest has just awarded me $21. I was one of the many who were duped, and now Qwest is making it right.

Qwest. The monster I spent hours upon hours and sleepless flu-ridden nights doing research has finally surrendered. Through files and testimony, and pure feisty tenacity, Qwest saw what they were doing to people...tricking them into extra payments....causing all that cancer....It makes me sick to even think about it. Sick! But they have let the people...people who have lost lives around them and their own children rise up. Some of these women have lost their uteruses.

Over the past year, I have met plenty of sick children; children who played by the Qwest payment drop-box on SW 5th and Salmon many times....without a single thought to their future. Just last week, I sat with a young girl...we'll call her 'Fighty Spirit Helen'. As she lay coughing and weak on her bed clutching her favorite companions (the cage and the boot from Mousetrap) she whispered: "I thought it was safe....we all did". And then she died. This morning I received a call from Fighty Spirit Helen's mother who told me Qwest had just awarded her with $17.35. "$17.35 won't bring Helen or my whole vagina back, but now we are free" she said. "Now we are free".

I can now move my kids out of the motel and back to our home. I can now give my children the life I always wanted for them.

Like the spirit of Fighty Spirit Helen, Fighty Spirit Helen's mom, and her vagina...I can be free.