ParapanAm Experience: Toronto 2015: Day 4: time to get out of the hole

Well, I might as well come out and say it: I'm not as tough as I thought. I have worked ER for over 20 years (...am I that old...?) and infrequently get ill or succumb to the flus and viral illnesses that assault daily when seeing all these patients. I have been involved in many Games and have never been ill.

These last few days have been difficult. I suspect the many hours spent here for 3 days hauling gear, setting up, dusty underground parking lots, not much sleep and then the athletes and teams arrived and we were busy with a lot more medical issues than usual. Some individuals were ill and we were busy in clinic. More medical "admin" type work had me juggling many more balls than I was happy with. This led to very long days with 5 hours of broken sleep per night. So mix the exposure with vulnerability and I went down. Congested and this second day with my voice on the edge of being gone....I am looking forward to getting out of this hole. I'm supposed to lead a team of professionals who are here to help athletes stay healthy, recover from illness and injury and put the performance of their lives in front of Canadian fans. I cannot allow to be the weak link or function at less than 100%.
I am also VERY aware of contact with athletes as I cannot be the vector to spread illness. Close quarters and incessant person to person close contacts make these events a viral party house. AS I have heard a colleague state in the past : "Major Games are where the virus come to play!"I am therefore practicing almost obsessive self hand hygiene and probably would fail a driver's sobriety test with all the alcohol gel I absorb through my hands.

Anyway, enough about me.

Teams are all in. The Village looks busy. The best place to notice this is at the Dining hall. I went for a small dinner last night around 10:30 (yes, you read that right) and the place was packed. I guess athletes eat all the time. If they served alcohol one would think it was a popular nightclub. Loud conversations, laughs and even a few Columbians who stood up and broke into a percussion music jam getting part of the crowd into it.

I managed to get a vehicle yesterday to better travel between venues. I left the Village near the Distillery District and headed to Markham where the tennis players were on court from 10-12, back to the Village and then to Milton where our track cyclists were training from 3-4:30 and then to York University where a few of our Athletics athletes were getting some training time on the track then back to Village. Then dealt with some serious medical issues until midnight.....A day in the life of a Canadian Doc with the Canadian Team. We, the CASEM docs working at these Games, do it with a smile on as it is an exciting experience to help our athletes stay in the Game.

A few pics from the last few days.