Testing, testing, 1 to 5! & Squat Squad Shirts!

Tuesday - 06Nov 

Today was very busy with Physio, a clinic appointment (with our favorite NP), and then a bit of a

visit with our friend Sapna. She had a special treat for us today, her daughter, Shilpa’s, favorite dessert, Rassogolla. This is a Bengali dessert made from paneer (cottage cheese), ours was served with a sweet milk, had a mild flavour, spongey texture and was delicious!

Carman & Sapna

After our visit and dessert, we made our way to drop Jess & Carla home. From there, the 8-minute drive home took us a little over 40 minutes to do. From what we could tell there was some sort of incident which lead to the police blocking several blocks in our area, which of course, resulted in a bottle necked snarl of traffic to beat all snarls!

I missed my scheduled yoga class but thankfully was able to attend a later one. It turns out the early class was very sparse...likely due to the traffic issues, something one must accept when living in this city.

Thursday-07Nov

Today we met Polyana at UofT. Carman has agreed to participate in a study of the effects of transplant on muscle tone & strength. He will be tested today to establish benchmarks of leg and arm strength. Polyana introduces her crew for the testing, Tamara & Felipe. All three are from  different regions in Brazil and have met at UofT. They graciously agree to be included in my photographic record of the testing process and are quickly joking with Carman about his “big” leg muscle which gives Polyana some challenges when she tries to capture the tissue images with an ultrasound. 

I tell her this is because of all the squats he has been doing with the Squat Squad and that he’ll now have bragging rights when he goes to Physio this afternoon!

After the ultrasounds of his leg and arm muscles, we move to the workout room in the lab where he is securely strapped into a chair that resembles the seat in the cockpit of a MIG - almost his dream come true. He gets to sit in the seat but alas, there is no take off and G-force flight involved...unless you count when he sent Polyana sliding across the floor!

The chair he sits in is part of a machine that will measure the force he can apply against an opposing force for a period of 5 seconds. He will do this 3 times to establish an average for both his leg and arm strength. Polyana gives him a count down for the start and then tells him to “push, push, push...” for the full 5 seconds so he will know when to relax. Tamara is collecting the data on a computer and making notations of the activity while Felipe observes and I take pictures. At one point I look over and see that Felipe is having sympathy tension for Carman. His shoulders are pulled up and his face is a reflection of increasing tension as he waits for Polyana to say, “Okay, relax!”. Twice I tried but failed to get a photo, he caught me at the last minute both times! We did have a good laugh though.

Polyana then repeats the activity manually using a hand held meter. She applied the meter to Carman’s shin, then instructed him to raise his leg and hold for 5 seconds. She didn’t anticipate how strong he was so when he pushed up with his leg, she went sliding backwards. It didn’t help that the floor was tile and there was no tread on the soles of her shoe, but she braced herself well for the repeat and all went well.

We will meet again to do an endurance test for arm strength and endurance. For now, it’s off to Physio to brag to the Squat Squad...

Tamara, Carman, Polyana, Felipe & Me

Our friend, Mark’s daughter, Jessica, asked for the dress-up t-shirts last week and has returned them today, with a little work done on the back of each one...

It is immediately apparent to us what has happened, and what is yet to come. We check out the shirts and then our eyes are drawn to Mark’s new kickers!

Bright blue shoes, just like the ones on the feet of one of the stick characters on the Squat Squad logo, now covering the shoulder area of each shirt. The second stick character has red shoes, just like Jessica’s and the third has green shoes. Hmmm, wait a minute, nobody in the group has green shoes...

Carman is told that he has until Monday, to fix this situation, or the Squad will have to recruit a new green-shoed member!

We’ll have to get on that right away, it’s one thing for the order of this line up to change:

But when Jess is pooped after completing squats, there could be no suitable replacement for this...