Oh Canada! Part 2
Despite forecasts of rain, the sun was peeking through the clouds when I woke up this morning. That made it easier to motivate myself to get out of bed (or rather, to have my nurse get me out of bed) and ready myself for a day of sightseeing. It didn't matter that my back and legs were aching after yesterday's long ride; I wasn't about to sit inside my hotel room.
Although the temperature outside eventually reached the upper 60s, (that's in Fahrenheit, by the way; I did a double-take last night when the meteorologist on TV said that today's high would be 19 -- Canada uses Celsius, of course) it was a bit chilly for me when we left the hotel, and I had trouble controlling my chair because my driving hand was cold.
Our first stop was the 1,800-some ft.
CN Tower, Canada's "most recognizable and celebrated icon." Though my mother and my nurse chickened out, there was no stopping my father and me, and we took an elevator over 1,400 ft. to the observation deck. It was a little hairy for us when the elevator began its ascent into the sky, but after a few seconds, it was better. Halfway up, I wondered to myself, "Gee, I wonder if being up this high is a good thing for my ventilator?" Then I thought about people living on ventilators in places at high altitudes such as Denver, and the fact that ventilator technology was originally designed for astronauts. So I figured I'd be fine.
When we got to the top, the last thing I was thinking about was breathing. I was too busy taking in the spectacular views of this city of five million people. From inside, the views were great. But I wanted to get outside to check out that view and feel the wind in my face.
After descending from the heavens, we decided to take a tour of the scene of the crime, a.k.a.
Rogers Centre, formerly known as the SkyDome, home to Major League Baseball's
Toronto Blue Jays. If you're not from Philadelphia, I call the stadium "the scene of the crime" because it is where the 1993 Phillies' magical season came to a crashing halt following
Joe Carter's World Series-ending homerun off of
Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams.
Still, the 20-year-old Rogers Centre is something of a wonder, as the first stadium with a fully-retractable roof, so I figured it was worth a visit, and indeed it was. Although I just had to give our tour guide a hard time when we passed by a portrait on the wall of Carter after his infamous shot, I found the tour extremely informative. We got to see the media center and one of the stadium's luxury boxes, but the best part of the tour was when we got to go onto the field. This was only possible because the Blue Jays were out of town (in, of all places, Philadelphia) and because a concert there tonight had been canceled. Pretty cool!
After resting my back and legs for a couple of hours back at the hotel, it was time to do something I have been doing very well lately: eat. For that, we took a drive over to the city's Greektown section, where we had, well, Greek food! After some chicken souvlaki action, I'm so stuffed that tonight, I'm going to have to cut back my tube feeding.
My talk at the ATS conference is tomorrow morning, so I'm going to get some rest. Hope you enjoy today's slideshow...
Nearly two weeks later, I'm still getting over my big cardiac scare. It has been difficult both physically and emotionally. But the way I figure, I'm still here and it's about time to get back to doing the things I love. Like going to Phillies games. Tickets to see the World Champions are hard to come by these days, but I was able to score a pair to today's game, featuring the debut of newly-acquired ace pitcher Cliff Lee.
