Day 3 of the International Lions Convention

Day 3 (Thursday, 28 June 2007):

We had breakfast at the hotel. It was an adequate although expansive meal.

Then, we mustered outside the building around 11 am or so and began waiting for the bus to take those of us in wheel chairs to the Convention Centre.

They haven't quite mastered the art of getting those in scooters or wheelchairs onto the bus. They were able to put three of us onto the back of the third or fourth bus they tried to put us onto. It took a very long time and we arrived after the session at McCormick Place had started.

The session, which was very long, featured a nicely inspirational speech and broke up into the spouses (who stayed at the McCormick Place) and the "DG Elects" (District Governors Elected) who went back to the hotel. Eventually, the afternoon session broke up. They did break up the session with a "snack" break. This lead to me eating a large brownie and some pretzels and a couple of cashews. (This was bad for the blood sugar but at least kept it from dropping too low.)

The trip "home":

Apparently, the Convention Managers had been paying attention to those of us riding "scooters" or stuck in wheel chairs or having to use walkers or canes. They arranged for us to get the usage of a school bus rebuilt for moving handicapped children around. It had a nice lift elevator and brought all seven of us onto the bus; the lift operator clearly knew what he was doing. I had a bit of trouble maneuvering onto/off of the lift and later realized I might have had a bit of hypoglycemia. (My morning score was 141 and the evening 128.)

If I were not in a chair, I would feel nervous and wonder what to talk about with those in wheelchairs. Being in the chair has given me the obvious insight that I should talk about the same things that I would talk with a fellow Lion who was not in a chair. Being in the chair was simply a reflection of my immobility; it was/is not a reflection of any mental problems on my part. Simple answer: treat fellow Lions (or non-Lions) as simply another person…

The spouses got back to the hotel about 6:25 pm and this was some time after I had returned to the room. There, I was so hungry that I had sharp pains under the bottom right side of my rib cage. I took some Pepto Bismol and that helped a bit. The real cure for this pain was going out to dinner!

We went to dinner at a nice little restaurant where I had a "half" chicken with perhaps a small potatoe and about ¾ a cup of spinage. The meal was excellent and I ordered "Diet Pepsi". It tasted strange and I later saw no the bill that it was "Diet Coke". No, it wasn't like any "Diet Coke" I remember drinking…

Maybe it was the water that went into the soft drink at the local bottling plant?

I didn't drink any beer because I didn't want to "drink and drive". I figured that if I got into an accident then I would be better off if I could pass a breathalyzer test. I was able to maneuver out of the restraint easily enough and made it back to the hotel safely.

I am well and truly tired of the motorized scooter and being the 282 pound gorilla in the elevator. I will be happy to be done with it!

Kathie heard some people talking this morning about "he broke his ankle this past Monday and he's only used the scooter 2 or 3 days". Not quite the case with respect to the date of ankle breaking but the scooter experience is accurate. I apparently have become a minor legend and maybe even a bit of a cautionary tale. A strange form of notoriety but one I can live with…