We've been in Montreal since last Saturday. Out of the 7 days we've been here we have seen 4 major accidents. When I say major accident I mean, cars crushed, people being put on stretchers in an ambulance. WTF?? You people need to learn how to drive! People here drive absolutely crazy. You have the people who are actually following the posted speed limit (which is ridiculously slow) or you have the people who think its the frickin' autobahn. All posted traffic signals and signs are obviously only suggested to the drivers as most weren't follow them as the rule. I think when I get back home I'll be at the doctors for meds to treat an ulcer. For future reference 2008 Ford Escapes do not come equipped with the standard "OH $HIT!" handle as did our previous vehicle.
Another oddity that we experienced in Montreal, when you go out to eat at a sit down restaurant, and you order a soda, you get a glass and a can of pop. Or sometimes you just get the can of pop with a straw stuck in there! Just struck me as odd. I'm still flabbergasted by how crowded the Wal-Mart was. I don't think I've ever seen so many people at one time in a Wal-Mart, and there is just a ton of crap shoved in there, the aisles are super thin...just a trip, you'd definitely have to be in the right frame of mind to go shopping. There are NO
7-11's here either. To drive 2 miles you have to drive for 15 minutes on 20 different roads driving at 100km per hour and on the same road some are driving 40 km. Frickin' scarier that chit~ Thank Gosh Lonnie was driving, cause I would have had to have someone come pick me up and drive me home because I'd be too scared.
OK - ABR. Wow, a lot of information to process, a lot of details, a lot of wonderful kids and parents too. It was so nice to sit and talk with parents and not have to worry if someone was staring at your kid, I wasn't sitting on the edge of my seat ready to attack anyone who was staring. And if they were staring, it was because they were like, "hey he moves just like my kid", or "Wow he's got good head control". No one is looking at your kid with a nasty look, or anything. Everyone talks, enjoys themselves and is able to be around other people who have children with medical issues. Besides being at ABR to learn the techniques, and the reason for ABR, it is an awesome place to swap stories, and learn of new things we didn't know about. I am still in awe about how cool some of these people are.
So we picked the nearest location to us for the satellite location which we will be going to next. Being that this is our first year with ABR, we are required to attend Montreal and 4 satellite locations throughout the year to make sure our technique is correct, to get new exercises and be trained in them, and for the trainers to review Daniel's progress.
Here is our schedule for our first year of ABR
Chicago - Feb 19-22
Montreal - May 6-10
Chicago - August 1-4
Chicago - November 6-9
This means tons of saving money and being creative with finances! Tons of research for cheap hotels, driving, flying or train....bus. Planes, trains and automobiles! I am interested to see, the differences that will be with Daniel at each session. Most will probably not be able to be seen by us because we are with Daniel each day and won't notice the subtle differences, but with the hundreds of photos that they took and they will take again...they will be able to tell. The minimum hours per day will be 3. An hour on each exercise. Anterior thorax, anterior neck, jaw/larynx. Those exercises will be etched in my brain forever I think! They also showed us a simple exercise that will help with constipation, and another one for reflux. We shall see how those work. Daniel was such a trooper through the whole thing. He was just awesome.
Got to get to bed, we're leaving early tomorrow morning for home!! And along the way we're goingto figure out how we're going to manage the 3 hours a day of additional therapy! All this of course for a very good cause!
Fletcher, Daniel and Nathan (3 tired little boys!)
Angus and his mom
Gavin, Leonid, Christina
Melanie, Daniel, Jessica, Paxson, Robert
Melanie, Daniel, Katy, Charlie, Kelly & John
4 comments:
ha! That's the picture where the kid wiped out right in the middle and I didn't want to look and ruin the picture, so I just smiled extra-hard.
I am going to try to do the exercises during Charlie's one-hour naptimes. That will give me a least two hours a day. I'll have to squeeze that last hour out of somewhere!
I glad you got all these pictures of everyone. It was really a great experience.
Melanie, it was so great to meet you and Daniel. I hope you dont mind, I stole some of your pics to add to my blog. We havent downloaded our pics yet.
One question - why are you guys going back to montreal in May, I thought we had to be back in Nov. did I miss something?
I really hope we get to run into eachother again. I'm excited to see how our kids take to ABR
Hey Jessica- it was nice meeting you guys too, I had really wished that you and Katy (Charlies mom) were in the same training session we were in. Then we would have had all the blogger moms together! Yes we are back in Montreal after six months, reason being because we are getting on the Chicago rotation and I guess that is how it goes, otherwise we wouldn't see Leonid for over a year...
The driving is crazy there. It took me days to find about no turning on a red. After 2 1/2 weeks there my car only has some body damage from a sign that jumped out at me (okay I missed it while backing up). I laughed reading your post it is pretty crazy there. It is so nice to be home. I hope the ABR works well for Daniel.
Post a Comment