We're close now

What an impressive Remembrance Day ceremony yesterday. In the inside court beside our residence. Flags on the balconies, poppies on our chest, a new Canadian Remembrance Day pin (more about the pins later), a reading of In Flanders Fields and a Canadian Korean and Vietnam war veteran, a playing of the last post; the whole event was well respected.  Even in this land faraway form Canadian soil, we respected and remembered those who fought for us.





The rest of the day was another whirlwind of activities. I managed to get a look at the Aquatics centre. An impressive building. Again, although my plan is to visit these venues to assess and document their medical intervention readiness.....I was met by a vacant room with empty shelves. Hmmm, I certainly hope this will change as of tomorrow. Even if the Pan Am games just finished and we are using the same facilities, we can't assume the services will be the same. As we often hear: never assume.

Shane Esau, Physiologist with Swim Canada, discussing with an athlete

Pool lanes

training...sorry I don't have the name of the athlete

the Aquatic Center

Don't forget your shoes....

Took this picture of Adam's legs. He's one of our wheelchair basketball players that was featured a few years ago in Rick Mercer's  TV show highlighting the Beijing Paralympic Games. How many times do we say or hear : where did I leave my shoes? But here we would have to say: Does someone know where my leg is?




A member of our team had news of a family member's illness at home last night and we all scrambled and teamed up to get her organized to fly back home today. This leaves a large hole in the therapeutic services for a busy team she was working with. We are now making adjustments and modifications of duties to optimize everyone's time and work. We are a small medical team and one can easily burn out with all the work and running around between practices, games and in Village clinic work. It is Guadalajara, but we are not on holidays.........

Tonight the long awaited for Opening Ceremonies !!!!

Dr Bruce Davidson in front of our Xray view box

Goalball athletes in the post training cool down pool
There is ice in the water !

By the way, I encourage all the readers to go the www.paralympic.ca, the Canadian Paralympic Committee's website. You will find daily videos highlights of the day's event, daily reports of activities and a large quantity of great pictures of our athletes at work. A great way to get yourselves ready for the 2015 Para Panamerican Games in Toronto!!

Ole!