Official Luthiers Forum!

I don't hear anyone condoning what happened.

It's an interesting point. Propose that third point and let us see how practical you can be.

Zlurgh- it must feel good to be perfect .

Lars

Zlurgh- it must feel good to be perfect .

Lars

Stop it Lars! Have some restraint already!

folks ---

can we please dial back the bickering. Clearly there are differing points of view here. Maybe it is best just agree to disagree. Nobody is running for congress, we don't need to campaign that hard.

Also, please keep the religion to a minimum ok? Our forum has been well served by 3 basic rules, clean language, no religion, no politics. Here too there are strong opinions and little chance of swaying someone off of something they believe strongly in. I suggest we try to find the common ground rather than our point of diffferences.

I don't hear anyone condoning what happened, but there are varying POVs about it.

Please, let's not let this end in a big squabble. This is a very unfortunate incident and having this post go down in flames won't help the situation at all.

Brock,

I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to respond to what has been all over the forum, but wanted to
drop you a note on a personal level in light of what's really going on.....and not going on. First, I am still in
Philadelphia and have been staying between the Fox Chase Cancer Center and the Astrazeneca Hope Lodge
across the street from there between treatment and procedure appointments. Treatment, procedures and
all the pain that I've been dealing with have had me literally tied up and unable to do so until now.

To date, I've been diagnosed with and advanced case of pancreatic cancer that involves a large tumor in
the head of my pancreas that has engulfed much of the vasculature there. I am currently under the care of
Dr. John Hoffman who is one of the chief surgeons here at Fox and his team have been busy getting me and
Paula ready for whatever treatment they will be able to try in an effort to shrink the tumor, break its grip on
the major blood vessels so that I might be a candidate for future surgery. I'm sure it would easy enough for
anyone to contact Fox Chase to see whether or not I've been admitted and have been being treated there if
they'd like and I would certainly understand if they would.

Concerning the car accident in January, Paula did in fact suffer a compression fracture to her L2 lumbar
vertebra and was in a custom fitted orthopedic back brace 24 hours a day for a full six weeks. My back pain
that seemed to escalate after the accident was directly attributed to the pancreatic trouble that I'd already
been experiencing since my hospitalization with it last June. I wasn't even x-rayed for several weeks after
the accident because the pancreatic pain was suspect. It was then that an MRI revealed the four herniated
discs that I suffered and have been treated for since. The extent of my treatment has been for too many
pain medications, some pretty aggressive chiropractic adjusting and a round of steroids that brought on the
colitis that caused the bleeding that landed me in the hospital this year when they found the pancreatic tumor.

The car accident never saw me receiving a speeding ticket, but a citation for simply failing to observe
traffic direction. We slid off of the sharp turn as a result of hitting a long patch of loose stone and gravel
coming into that turn. We found out that day from the EMT people that there was an accident just 25 feet
from the scene of our accident on the Friday preceding and another on the same turn, but on the opposite
side of the street on that Saturday while our accident occurred on that Sunday afternoon. Those four discs
have played a huge part in complicating and compounding the pain issues that I'm dealing with and being
treated for in connection with the pancreatic cancer.

[... snip]

The crux of the issue right now is that people in the community know that facts were inflated, embellished
and even fabricated concerning this insurance thing by the local paper, that is known for it as a common practice
for them.

Brock, know this , my friend, I have never....ever.....had even a misdemeanor charge leveled against me....
not once in my entire life. I've never been in trouble for anything ever. This insurance issue is much less than
what it has been made out to be by the local papers and I've never even seen the inside of a jail....except to
go in to do music and ministry for inmates that needed us to. [snip]

I do have a life threatening case of pancreatic cancer, will be starting chemotherapy treatments at 7:00
AM tomorrow as a few months of rigorous and demanding sessions begin for me and my wife is along to support
and comfort me.

My wife did break her back and I suffered four herniated discs in the car accident that was violent enough to
damage our vehicle to a point of being a total loss.

The insurance thing will pan out to show itself to be what it is, in fact, over the next few months, but I'm not
at liberty to discuss in a public venue at this time.

Please forward whatever portions of this that you see fit to forward in good judgment and in good taste. I
thought it important to at least contact you or Lance and your email address comes up first in my contact list
so you it was. Thanks for your consideration as you read this and consider how to possibly set
some minds and hearts at ease with it at the forum and in the community there that I hold very dearly as
friends and family.

All the best and sorry for the delay in getting to you,
Kevin Gallagher

Zlurgh- it must feel good to be perfect .

Lars

Let the proper people and then authority investigate before any judgement of what is and what is not true and if there is an issue take care of it. Prejudging anything now is just that. It is taking one set of facts from another incident and going full bore into something else. The folks who I trust will look into it and determine what is true or not and then things can be dealt with on that level.