Robin Stone was a fighter.
by Kate Vibbert, Iowa Voices Digital Director

Editor’s Note: In late August, Iowa Voices Digital Director Kate Vibbert traveled to Manchester to interview Robin about her struggle with diabetes for a forthcoming project. In light of her passing, Iowa Voices wants to honor her memory with this essay, and note that before her cancer diagnosis, she had consented to the quotes included in the piece below.
I first met Robin on a hot August day at her home in Manchester. Her street was lined with conventional colonial houses, but the garden in her front yard caught my attention. Tall, commanding sunflowers loomed over a few other plants in the plot. As they swayed and we shook hands in her doorway, I remember she apologized for what she deemed their “unruly appearance.” She mentioned she worked long, sometimes unpredictable hours at her job in a home for women with intellectual disabilities. She said the garden — and all the maintenance it required — had just gotten away from her. Over a cold drink in her living room, we discussed the parameters of my project. I was there to interview her about the struggles of being diabetic and navigating the health care system. I explained that as a storyteller, I was interested in making personal stories the centerpiece of our mission to educate Iowans about the broken health care system — an engagement tactic she fully embraced and was all too familiar with already.
“If you’re really concerned about this health care debate: Tell your own personal story. That’s how people relate. Cold hard facts are boring and they don’t inspire anyone to do anything, but the personal stories do. When I say to someone that my life depends on this, my child depends on me to stay healthy, that’s personal and that’s real. So we need to tell these stories. People need to hear them.”
As the county chairperson of the Delaware County Democrats, Robin became widely known in the activist community after confronting Senator Chuck Grassley at one of his town halls back in April. In the interaction, she demanded to know why he voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act seven times — a piece of legislation, she stated, “I would be dead in 60 days without.” Without a moment of hesitation, she refers to it as, “the day I kicked Chuck Grassley’s ass.” Some might argue she kicked Grassley’s ass a second time with the video she made in the hospital soon before she died.
As her cats pawed around in the adjoining room, Robin explained how she had to make the hard decision to forgo health insurance for several years, then how the proceeding diagnosis of insulin-dependent diabetes came on after an infection nearly cost her a limb.
“I had a raging infection, nearly septic, and the first thing the doctor talked about was hoping he didn’t have to amputate my foot — the infection was that bad. And it was at that point when they ran some routine blood work that they found out my blood sugar was off the charts: I was severely diabetic, and I had no idea. So at that point, the doctor estimated that I probably had diabetes for as long as ten years, untreated. I walked out of the hospital insulin dependent — most people take years to get to that point, but I was already there.”
As Robin laid out her tale, it became clear to me that she wasn’t telling it for any sort of personal gain. She wasn’t just telling it either. She was living it, and it was her whole life. She was genuinely fighting to make sure something of this magnitude wouldn’t happen to anyone else. She was played by the system — by the health insurance racket and the country’s obscene for-profit medicine machine — but she wasn’t going to let that bully her into oblivion. She was fighting this, with everything she had, because she knew if she talked loud enough, people would have to listen.
“First of all — no politician and no corporation should ever make a profit off my illness. That is the biggest immorality we have in this country right now, that my illness is lining someone’s pocket. I can’t think of anything more sick than making money off someone who’s sick.”
Her passion to not only define, but explain — to anyone who would listen — the inequity within our health care system and the power structure that controls it was unlike any other conversation I’ve had with an activist. Calling out the systems that keep health care affordability and accessibility out of reach is often a topic we tiptoe around. We try our best to keep discourse “polite.” But really, debilitating illnesses don’t care about your manners when they’re busy robbing you of your health. Robin knew this and understood the conversation demanded bold words and concrete action.
“Senator Joni Ernst was elected to serve and represent the people of Iowa. What Ernst does is serve and represent the pharmaceutical companies. It’s clear who she listens to — and those are the people who are lining her pockets with campaign donations. Rather than acting in the best interests of Iowans — people like me in the middle class — rather than paying attention to us and the needs we have, she’s paying attention to the pharmaceutical companies.”
She was fired up — which seemed to be her permanent state! — and you’d be damned if you failed to match her enthusiasm. Part of the reason Robin spoke with such conviction is that she not only understood the issues inside and out, but she was able to articulate them in a way that ignited ferocity. A way that demanded attention. As an insulin-dependent diabetic, she was demanding to be recognized by her legislators, demanding to be seen by the very people who swore to protect her health. That ask to be recognized boiled down to a few, core tenants. Health care as a matter of fairness, as a matter of dignity, and, as she explained, what was simply the “practical reality”:
“It is so much less expensive to keep people working and healthy and productive than it is to have people get sick. And this is what I wish Senator Grassley and Senator Ernst would realize — that I am a valuable member of my community and I contribute here. I couldn’t do this if I was sick. It doesn’t make sense to me that you would allow people to just be sick — because it costs us so much more in the long run.”
And she was right — it just doesn’t make sense. For someone who was effectively priced out of health care, someone who went into debt over health care treatment, and someone who spent most of her free time dealing with health insurance malarky, she still made time to call it out for the racket it is. Getting up every day and fighting for your own right to exist as a sick person in America is a full-time job. Not to mention all the different hats Robin wore as a mother, wife, caretaker, Democratic leader, and activist.
When I first heard about her rare thyroid cancer diagnosis and the GoFundMe campaign her family set up to lessen the financial burden, I reached out to tell her I was thinking of her. In the final few weeks of her life, support poured out on social media — from Representative Ro Khanna to Senator Bernie Sanders. I told her that our organization was sending her love, and I told her she’s a fighter if I’ve ever seen one. She responded, “I never realized it until the last couple of years!”
It was then that I was reminded of the sunflowers in her front yard that day in August, and how they fought for their space and for the light. Stretched tall, casting long shadows, and commanding space among the other flowers in the plot, they demanded to be recognized. They soaked up the sun with a determination that only truly beautiful creatures can. Like Robin, they demanded to be seen; they demanded to be acknowledged for the space they fought to occupy and shared their stories with those who passed by.
Iowa Voices is an issue advocacy, education-focused organization that communicates with Iowans on key issues as they apply to Senator Joni Ernst and her voting record. We aim to persuade Senator Ernst to take progressive action on critical issues that impact her constituents while holding her accountable when she fails to do so. Learn more at www.iowavoices.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Share your own health care story with us at www.iowavoices.org/story-submission.
