HBOT Day 4: The Galloping Goose

Here is a view of Victoria from the Galloping Goose, the bike trail similar to the Burke-Gillman. We saw a harbor seal (not pictured) while stopped to take pictures.



Today's therapy was a little more productive. Naomi did her Spelling (AVKO Sequential Spelling) while doing her first dive. We were able to do yoga and a cross-crawl pattern in-between both dives today. A routine is emerging!



Today's movies, the last part of Pride and Prejudice and A Bee Movie.



Inbetween HBOT sessions today, we took a ride on the Galloping Goose. Despite the beautiful day, it was c-c-c-cold here today at a balmy 39 degrees F.



Today in Canada:

Big news in Canada today! Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, suspended the Parliment to prevent them from voting him no confidence (and kicking him out). There was a candle vigil that had signs implying that the (freezing) protesters wanted him thrown out.

Canadian Impressions:

More people rollerblade here, and rollerblade way better than what you would typically see on the Sammamish River Trail.

More people seem more environmentally conscious. There is a VERY large contingent of Smart Cars. The city made them their own parking spots in places where there wasn't enough room for regular cars, and with reduced parking fees.

Victoria is pretty flat, (well incomparison to where I come from), therefore there is a LARGE bicycle contigent. Not as many as in Portland, but the population is quite a bit less as well. We also see way more people walking everywhere.

On Canada and dogs. It seems like almost everybody has a dog, and walks their dog(s), and their dogs are way more balanced than the dogs in my neighborhood. The Dog Whisperer has his dogs walk next to him. All of the dogs here walk next to their owners. In the States, dogs walk in front of their owners and seem more out of control and out of balance. I wonder why? People really like walking their dogs here.

What I miss: (a rant about Jon Stewart and the Daily Show)

Okay, so we all type in www. before web addresses which stand for the WORLD WIDE WEB. I am outside of the US. I SHOULD be able to go to http://www.thedailyshow.com/ and watch Jon Stewart every night. I can't! The videos don't come up and I am redirected to a Canadian TV site, that is at least 2 weeks behind shows, and the site doesn't download the episodes in a way that is condusive to being able to actually watch without stopping every second or so to download more of the show. What is this travesty of justice?

Otherwise, Canada is pretty cool.

From Naomi: I had something happen my foot can lift in my Dafo
which didn't happen before. Canada is pretty cool. I like the animals here (especially Seals).

Skinny-the-wolf-hybrid came in to the HOC today. His owner Bob let us take his picture. We love Skinny!

Day 3: Here Come the Seals!

Inbetween HBOT sessions, we went to Oak Bay in search of wild seals to feed. We were rewarded with two seals and a passle of gulls that tried to take the fish from the seals and each other.



Did you know that it costs .95 cents to send a card from Canada to Seattle? WOW!



We had forgotten how expensive food is here, it being an island and all. A quart of Rice Milk at home is less than $2.00. Here a quart of rice milk is almost $4. Organic eggs are over $5.00/dozen.



Glutathione.



Today I read that glutathione was recommended for doing HBOT dives to aid in body healing. We are doing more research on this one. More to report later. Has anyone else read about glutathione as an aid in healing specifically with respect to children?



Water.



The HOC has this FAB water filter. You can choose slightly acidic or slightly alkaline water.



Peat Bath.



Alex had a Peat Bath today while waiting for Naomi and I to go through our morning HBOT. Alex enjoyed his bath very much and came out feeling relaxed and happy.



We did 3-1/2 hours worth of diving today while watching the perennial Naomi/mama favorite movie, Pride and Prejudice, the 5 hour BBC version.



Benjamin tried some Hum Bao in Chinatown for dinner tonight, and we are perfected new ways of doing stir fry.

Day 2 of HBOT

Here we are in the larger tank with our diving masks on, just prior to our morning dive.

For this mornings movie, Speed Racer! Well Speed Racer for the kids and relaxation for the mom. Naomi was able to do a few more exercises in the tank, but really just wants to watch her movies unimpeded by the pesky mama and her exercises.

After HBOT, we went to MEC (Mountain Equipment Company). It's like a Canadian version of REI, but more like old, old REI than the REI of today. We picked up some bike riding gloves for Naomi, and then took a short ride out to the beach. It was a lovely partially sunny day.

We met another traveller to the HBOT center today. He raved about the wonders of HBOT, and its healing capabilities. Skinny is his wolf-hybrid that is TOTALLY WAY Cool. Since we neglected to get a picture of Skinny-the-wolf, here is picture of our dog that we miss very much:

Our second dive was unremarkable. We went down a little deeper, so our ears hurt for a bit. Naomi watched "a girl and her horse" movie, Moondance Alexander.

I feel like doing the therapy is healing in the sense that our normally very, very hectic lives have slowed way down. I, the mom, personally am feeling very relaxed.

No healing to report yet though.

We had a vitamin b12 shot today to enhance the effects of hbot.

On an economic note, Canada is certainly not feeling the same effects of a recession that we are in the NW. While housing prices have dropped a bit, employment seems to be high, and although the Canadian government is doing a stimulus package at the behest of the American Government, its quite small in comparison to ours ($50b versus $7trillion).

Cheers, eh!

Day One of HBOT Therapy

Mom and Naomi in our 3-person bench seat dive tank just after the 2nd dive.

We successfully completed two dives today!

Dive 1 started out a bit rough. Naomi, remembering her fear from the coffin-like HBOT from a year ago, started crying. Benjamin saved the day! He said, "Turn on the video now and everything will be fine". So Naomi started watching The Boxcar Children and agreed to do it for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, she was engaged enough in the movie to continue going for 1-1/2 hours. We went down to about 30 feet, and our ears popped a lot. The only uncomfortable parts were when the tank pressurized and de-pressurized. When we were "on the bottom" we watched the movie while breathing oxygen through a mask.

Naomi had a constant or "free-flow" oxygen mask. I had an "on demand" mask. I liked hers better, but there is only one of the constant oxygen masks per tank. Three people can easily be accomodated in these chambers which do resemble a bathosphere with a bench inside.

Naomi wasn't much interested in doing all of the therapy I had planned today, but was able to do about 30 seconds of moving her ankle up and down during the second dive. Movie #2 for today was Nim's Island. The HOC where we are diving has over 500 movies on demand for us to watch.

Benj and Alex went for an hour dive in the second tank during our first session today. Alex and Naomi both had slight headaches after they were done.

Pictured above is the 2-person tank Alex and Benj went into.

The "on demand" masks are heavy and you have to hold them to your face, making so your hands are not free. For the second dive, I got a mask with straps and went about figuring out how to make it work. It does work, but then you have this really heavy mask hanging off of your face.

Naomi's impression of Day 1:

If anyone wants to try it Note that your ears might hurt After.

and It was okay and I felt I was crunched and My legs hurt from sitting in one place too long. Tomorrow I will remember that I can stand up and move around in the tank.

When I looked at my hurt thumb before I went into the chamber, it looked bad. But when I got out after the first dive, it was all pink and looked better (mom note: 2 weeks ago Naomi fell while riding her bike and scraped ALL of the skin off of the top of her thumb. While it has been healing right along, it was definitely, surprisingly better after the first dive).

My highlight of today was going to eat lunch at the White Spot (mom note: White Spot is a Canadian Chain sort of like an upscale Denny's).

Back to mom:

More about our accomodations:

We are staying at Cardiff Place in Victoria. It's a former 17-unit urban cohousing condominium. Since it was formerly cohousing then there are lot's of common spaces for us to roam. We are in a reasonable-sized guest room with a full bathroom next door (and the common laundry facilities one door beyond the bathroom). On the same floor is the great common room, which has a livingroom area, diningroom and commercial kithchen. We have lots of space to do our homework and cook our meals (the common room was reserved for today which is why we ended up at the kids favorite--White Spot). Here is a picture of the very comfortable common room.

Coming to Canada

We had am amazingly easy trip over to Victoria yesterday. It took only 5 minutes to cross the border, and we drove onto the 2:00 PM ferry to Victoria with no wait. It was a new brand new German Coastal Class Ferry, called Coastal Celebrations (even nicer than the super ferry!).

We ate lunch aboard, saw two otters and an eagle while sailing through the beautiful Channel Islands and drove to our friend Kathleen's house.

After we unpacked, we had dessert with our friend. Here we all are just before we eat pie!

Everyone is excited for what Monday will bring.