jamie, I was actually asking about the random stranger speaking for Mary. If Mary had been offended, she would have said something to me right away.
More background for the story, it was the blizzard of the century…or at least of the decade. Schools shut down, government offices shut down, most businesses closed. All the news reports had people begging us to stay home. Our agreement with Petplace said that if the store was open while adoptions were scheduled, we (rescue group) had to be there. Mary was there at her scheduled time. I think that says a lot about her independance and pride.
Why did I drive 40 miles in a blizzard to be there? Because I’m the muscle for the group and had to be there in case we had donated critter food to move. In other words, because I’m an idiot. :smack:
Yes, but it’s distressingly common. I get it from the other side, as the able-bodied person in the relationship. “So… you knew your husband before he got messed up, right?”
Er… no, his primary disability occurred about 2 months after conception, no one knew him before he got “messed up”.
So far the champion rudeness statement/question was the one I got shortly after our marriage: “So, when are you going to get rid of him and get a real man who can give you children?”
I assumed nothing. I call everyone ‘dude’. It implied no gender specificity. And nothing had any impact on me answering each and every one of your questions.
Ice and snow really are the worst enemies of those in wheelchairs. It doesn’t matter how well I can navigate a chair, how strong I am, ice presents an obstacle I simply cannot muscle through. And snow, snow is even worse. I’ve had some down right nasty stories of my mis-adventures in snow. In the worst of the worst conditions, which it sounds like you were in, a bad situation can leave a person feeling momentarily helpless and even panicked. So I see nothing wrong with what you did, I can’t see any sensible human seeing anything wrong either.
Did you specifically choose the RX8 because it was easier to load the chair into? (it’s the only thing short of a Bently Super Spur that I can think that has suicide doors)
It sounds like you were a national level athelte - was drinking breaking part of your training regime?
What part of the operation was negligent? Presumably had they removed the clamp after 30 minutes you would have died? Isn’t paralysed a whole lot better than dead?
And if it were me, if you were a friend I would no more ask you about the details of your disability than I would ask someone about why their girlfriend broke up with them or why they failed something - unless the conversation naturally called for such questions.
This may be going further afield than you had planned, but you did say to ask anything…
Did you get “pain and suffering” damages in your lawsuit? What do you think of state-law caps on these types of damages, and/or other forms of tort reform?
While I did say “ask anything”, it was in the context of my disability itself, not the legal details of my lawsuit. For hopefully understandable reasons, I don’t wish to tread much on that terrain. However, I can say that yes, a portion of the the money was in the form of “pain and suffering” damages. It wasn’t the majority, or even a large portion of the overall findings. And the frivilous lawsuits that have neccessitated such tort reform are what is to blame, not the tort reform itself. But it can have negative, unfair consequences when it impacts someone who genuinely has a right or need to such damages.
Wait a second, you were underage drinking and crashed your car, the hospital saved your life and you sued them? O, wheelchair or no, you sound like a real prince.
He didn’t sue because of the accident - he sued because the surgeon used a technique that was certain to leave Jamie in a wheelchair for the rest of his life when there was a different technique, with the equipment there and on hand, that could have allowed the surgeon to make the repair that much more likely would have left Jamie with the full use of his lower body.
Ok, sorry.