Last week, virtuoso violinist Rachel Barton Pine refused to board an American Airlines flight, because the pilot would not let her place her $20 million violin in the overhead bin. Not surprisingly, she refused to board and took another flight. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/04/30/violin-carry-on-crisis/83750264/ I say not surprisingly, because Ms. Pine only has one leg. She lost the other one 11 years ago, when her violin case snagged in a train door. She refused to let it go, and was dragged by the train, and it ran over her legs. Focus: What do you have for which you would be willing to trade your leg? Alt. Focus: Overhead bin stories.
Probably nothing. I'm pretty minimalist and things quickly turn into clutter. I cant tell from the story if the other violin survived the train incident. Either way she sounds like an idiot, virtuoso or not. Bump.
I'm not sure, either. But, that violin was only worth $500,000 and she won $29 million in the lawsuit from the accident. She also plays in a heavy metal string group, and has patches of her favorite bands - Led Zeppelin, Rush, etc. - sewn into her violin case. Since she was awarded $29 million, maybe there should be an alt. alt. focus. Alt. Alt. Focus: How much would it take for you to have your leg removed?
I have some opinions on this subject. My wife's leg, doctors did seven surgeries, removing most of the muscle and tissue from her lower right leg, from below her ankle joint to just below her knee. They really butchered it. She now lives with CRPS, intense chronic pain. She has a spinal cord stimulator, that doesn't work, only irritates her. She's in a wheelchair most of the time. Battling severe depression because of her disabilities. She receives ketamine infusions and boosters, takes some very strong painkillers that allow her to function at a small fraction of her former abilities. This woman, when we met, jumped dirt bikes farther than most men. We sailed thousands of miles. She could and would do anything. She is medically retired from the military, she was active duty in the Navy when it happened, and gets paid monthly because of it. That pay is a blessing, but we would give it up in a second if she didn't have to live with the pain. At the time she wanted to save her leg, she now wishes they'd have just amputated above the knee and given her a prosthetic. No question, if I'm injured and they tell me there is a possibility they can save a limb but it will be fucked up forever... I'll tell them to take it off and give me a fake one. But I'd not trade a limb for anything.
My mom, brother and I were just talking about this the other night... My brother has a C5 incomplete spinal cord injury and is medically classified as a quadriplegic, even though he can walk with a cane. To the paralysis, add that his right foot was basically ripped off in the accident and they stuck it back together and sewed the skin up. They didn't expect him to survive, much less make the recovery that he did, so at the time it was a completely appropriate treatment. Now, 19 years later, his right foot is basically dead weight - he drags it into place. It has terrible circulation and those toes are various shades of purple 24 hours a day, sometimes bordering on black, so I frequently push (massage) blood out of the foot until we get a healthy pink color. He'd be much better off if they amputated that foot, but now it's a matter of finding a doctor willing to do it. He's exceptionally independent, goes to his appointments alone and claims that "the doctor doesn't want to help him and is afraid to treat him" so I'm stepping back into the pushy little sister* role that doesn't accept "he just has to live with it" as an answer. *This is a bit more serious, but advocate for yourself and the people you love. After my brother's accident, he got pneumonia and his fever topped out at 106.8. The medical staff basically gave up on him and gave our family a private waiting room. We weren't giving up that easy - my parents and I started wiping him down with ice water soaked washcloths and didn't stop until his fever broke. The nurses stood outside of his room and looked at us with such pity and sadness, like we were doing it for nothing. I know, without a doubt, that we saved his life that night.
Wow this thread got dark... Alt focus: I just got back from a work trip to India. On the way there, the airline fucked up my reservation, cancelling it as I was meeting my connecting flight in Newark. As a result, my nice aisle seat became a middle seat between 2 large gentlemen. Not even a joke, one was well over 3 bills and the other a good 250. The larger one was nice enough despite having stains all over his shirt and smelling rough. The other dude was an asshole of the highest order. He boarded late in the process and thus the overhead bins near us were full. He proceeded to open bins and begin moving other people's shit around, unsolicited and without permission. Shoving bags tightly into other bins and forcefully slamming them shut so he could fit his bag directly over him. During the flight he pushed my arm off the arm rest at least a half dozen times and pretended to be asleep when I tried to get up to go to the bathroom. I hope his leg gets severed at some point.
Well, that'll do it for me suggesting threads for awhile. Amputations and dismemberments are not as funny as they used to be.
It would be pretty funny to be able to call my brother Stump for the rest of his life. I didn't mean to get all serious, it just kinda happened. But back more on topic, that bitch is crazy. I look at the train accident that it could have been her arms/hands. Sure, it was a very expensive violin and it wasn't hers but wouldn't losing it be better than risk ending your career? And everyone on that train was probably late to wherever they were going because she got her legs all mangled. Selfish. And these days, you have to be pretty ballsy to make any kind of scene on a plane but realistically, a violin case isn't huge right? It does seem feasible that it can go in an overhead bin.
Says she was caught in the train door by a strap she couldn't unfasten. That sounds a little better than some dolt who wouldn't let go of a $20 million insured hunk of wood. Only romantic movie characters get caught in train doors. The file photo makes her look deranged. Focii: Not a damn thing. Not one item, no amount of money, no contrived scenario where someone's life is in jeopardy. Mobility is probably the thing I value most. I'm keeping my getaway sticks. Alt. Focus: Everything about the overhead bin sucks. Ever since the advent of the baggage fee people just body check luggage into that thing with zero regard for anyone else's personal items. Why she would want to place her multi-million dollar instrument anywhere near some eurotrash mother fucker simultaneously eating and cramming an overstuffed suitcase into the bin is suspicious. Pilot is also a dick. Just let her store the thing in the crew's hold so we can leave on time. TL;DR: everyone is an asshole and I hope they die.
Perspectives change when they're forced upon you. After my brain surgery, the ability to walk was way down there on the list of things I was going to re-learn, if I even could at all. Top of the list was filled with things like "live until tomorrow" and "take a shit so I can leave this fucking hospital" and "make it through next month" and eventually "make sure my sperm are still alive so I can have a kid one day" (side note: if you ever wondered, jacking off when you are hydrocephalic is literally one of the most painful things I have ever done; don't recommend it... whoops!). If you're a healthy person and you lose a leg, yeah, it's gonna be catastrophic. If losing a leg is the worse thing that has happened to you, medically -- if that's your rock bottom -- it's gonna feel like the worst thing ever. But if you've been through a little, then all the sudden losing a leg isn't that bad. For me, I'd consider losing a leg to be a nuisance. Slap a prosthetic on there and I'd get a badass tattoo of a skull on the stump, "In Valuptas Mors" or something. Could be worse. Focus: I'd trade both legs for my son, my wife, anyone in my family basically. Not sure about my in-laws, I'd have to think about that. Some of them I really can't stand. I'd trade a leg for the health of any of my co-workers or students. Like if someone held a gun to my head and said "I'm either amputating your leg or pulling a Brian Stewart on one of them," hell give me the hacksaw and I'll start cutting!
When the doctors were discussing amputation, I sweetly and lovingly told my wife that without her leg we could still do everything we ever wanted and still live our dreams... She would just swim in circles. It lightened her mood, she was on the swim team in school and back then still very fast in the water. Some guys I worked with and I, we thoroughly read our insurance policies provided by our employer. Just wondering what we would get paid if we got fucked up. Apparently you get very little if you lose only one finger per hand. You get a significant amount if you lose two fingers on one hand. Lose both thumbs, you're fucked, you'll never open another jar in your life and you don't get shit for it, it's spelled out in our policy.