Day 4: Melissa's First Race

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

With some remarkable experiences already under my belt, today was the day that I've been especially looking forward to: Melissa Stockwell's competition in the Paralympic Games.

All of Melissa’s fans met as a group at the hotel and walked to the Water Cube together. Walking into the Olympic Village for the first time is incredibly impressive. Once you get to the main square you can fully appreciate just how massive a complex the Village is.

The Water Cube, where all the swimming takes place, is probably the most interesting of all the buildings. As you get closer you realize that it does not have solid walls but rather a transparent exterior made from a heavy cloth/plastic. You can see the steel endoskeleton structure underneath as you get closer to the building. There are projectors behind the exterior walls. This is how the Water Cube changes colors at night: it projects the light from the inside out.

Once you go in, you see the inner part of the Cube is constructed with plastic panels. The shapes resemble amoeba-like water droplets strung together with a steel frame, an incredibly interesting artistic structure.

The pool is awesome! The energy and excitement is palpable as you walk in and see the athletes doing warm-up laps. We all spotted Melissa and went nuts!

We easily have the largest cheering section, complete with matching Melissa T-shirts and visors. Melissa looks awesome warming up in the pool.
Melissa’s round is the very last of the session, leaving us all waiting in anticipation. The races were amazing! We all marveled at the determination and will of the racers. There is an intricate classification system pairing racers together that I still don’t fully understand. You will see some races where you have amputees racing against people with all their limbs that have some other type of deficit.

Some of the visually impaired racers have enough sight that they can be totally independent, contrasted by the high-level involved quadriplegics and paraplegics who need assistance getting in and out of the water. The crowd was great cheering on their home countries and giving encouragement to every racer to finish the race.

Finally…the moment we had all been waiting for arrived. It was time for Melissa to swim the 100-meter butterfly. Melissa walked out to the pool deck and our section erupted! We were easily the loudest fans, even louder than the raucous Australians! I think we were all more nervous than Melissa!

The crowd got quiet in anticipation of the starting horn and then….explosion! The place went nuts with cheering. I was screaming the whole time: “Swim! Swim! Go! Go!”

Unfortunately, as Melissa herself described in her blog, today was not to be.
Melissa swam her heart out but failed to qualify for the final round. She is a champion to us all! She races again tomorrow in the 100-meter freestyle.

We all got a chance to walk around the Olympic Village and take in the different sights. We even got a surprise chance to visit with our champ. We spent about 20 minutes in the Water Cube with Melissa. She was disappointed by the morning race, as can be expected, but looks great!

Tomorrow is another day and another opportunity!

Day 3: The Great Wall of China

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

I met some of Melissa’s very nice friends and four of us chartered a mini-van and hired a tour guide to take us to The Great Wall of China.
We were very fortunate in that our guide, Snow, was very thorough and extremely knowledgeable in Chinese history. I truly enjoy learning and understanding about local cultures when I travel and Snow did not disappoint.

We learned about the different dynasties of Chinese history and why there was a need for the great wall. First, a staggering figure: The Great Wall is 5,000 kilometers long (more than 3,000 miles, roughly the expanse of the continental United States). It was built almost exclusively on the highest peaks around Beijing. The Great Wall protected the heart of China from invading nomadic tribes of the north, primarily Mongolian tribes. The peoples of the north were hunter/gatherers compared to the peoples of the south who were primarily farmers.

The Great Wall served to protect the less aggressive people of the south. To add perspective, 70% of modern Chinese are still of the peasant class (about 900 million people!).

The Great Wall is an amazing site to behold. What is more amazing is that this structure was built by hand, brick by brick. We climbed the wall and were able to see the different generations of bricks that were laid. The Great Wall was built and rebuilt from as early as 900 B.C. all the way to the 1600s when construction was finally abandoned.

The opening ceremonies took place this evening. Along with some others from the group who did not have tickets, I watched the ceremony from a big screen in the hotel. This was a spectacle that rivaled the Olympic opening ceremonies. It was absolutely spectacular. Future opening ceremonies will be hard pressed to top the grand theatrical productions that the Chinese put on.

Day 2: Arrival in Beijing

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

Arrival in Beijing: Beautiful modern airport.

The Olympic ads and banners have all been changed over to Paralympic banners. The Chinese have created a distinct symbol for the Paralympics distinguishing it from the Olympics.

The infrastructure is incredible. There are multilingual volunteers stationed all over to help people. There is a huge corps of young volunteers for both the Olympics and now the Paralympics. There is even a mascot for the Paralympics, a colorful cow. Driving from the airport, I was very impressed by the wide-open incredibly clean modern roads.

You see people periodically cleaning on the sides of the roads. There are Paralympic banners that span the entire length of the main road from the airport leading towards the Olympic village.

Once arriving at the Olympic village the first sight to grab you is the Bird's Nest, or Beijing National Stadium, site of the Opening and Closing Ceremoniees as well as the track and field events.

There is heavy security all around, making it difficult for cars to navigate close to the hotels. My hotel is across from the Olympic Village and I had to walk a good distance as they would not let my cab in to the complex.

The hotel is clean and orderly. The staff tries very hard to be accommodating to the many tourists. The staff's English is marginal at best but not for lack of trying. I met Melissa Stockwell’s parents and a portion of her fan club (20 in total!).

We all had dinner together and retired for the evening.

Day 1: Flight To Beijing

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

Flight to Beijing: No problems sleeping thanks to a previous week’s grueling schedule. I made a new friend on the flight by the name of Louis.

Louis lives in Aurora but was born in Beijing. He explained a lot of the history of Beijing to me. Beijing is an ancient city constructed in successive circles. The oldest circle begins at the center which is the Forbidden City, home of the emperors of China, which was ruled by emperors for millennia before the revolution of 1911.

Louis also helped me with some key words in Mandarin (the national dialect). Although I have my Berlitz book, Mandarin is different than English in many ways. One of the key distinguishing factors is the use of tones in the pronunciation of words. As an example cited in the book, the same word can mean four different things depending on how you emphasize the vowels.

Louis was nice enough to write the name and address of my hotel in Chinese characters so that I could show that to the cab driver when I arrived.

Sight-Seeing At the Paralympic Games

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

Well, today's the big (travel) day. China, here I come.

Lately, when people have learned of my trip to the Paralympic Games, they ask if I’ll be doing much sight-seeing.

And the answer, of course, is yes. There’s no way I could go to such an historic land and not take in the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, and some of the other landmarks there.

But I am also looking forward to seeing the hundreds of Paralympic athletes representing the many countries there. With world-class athletes in 20 sports, ranging from judo and wheelchair rugby to wheelchair fencing and archery, I will be surrounded by a mind-boggling lineup of talent and determination.

Every time I see amputee athletes, or amputees in general, there’s always something to learn and then try to apply to my work to help patients. I am going to make a special point of trying to see as many track meets as possible. I think it’ll be phenomenal.

My main focus will be rooting on Melissa Stockwell. Besides preparing herself physically and mentally for her swimming competitions, she's been amazing at keeping updated with her own blog. You ought to check it out here.

Reflections on Ron Mann

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

In July, I had the opportunity to watch one of my patients, Ron Mann, at an event called the Extremity Games.

A motorcycle crash in 1996, when Ron was 24, resulted in an amputation of his left leg below the knee.

Ron was a key organizer of the event, and the exhibition he put on there was truly amazing. He arranged for mixed martial arts fighters from all around the country to converge on a town called Waterford, Michigan, between Detroit and Lansing.

So there they were, with the cage they’d put up for the bouts, and Ron and the other competitors had the crowd completely riveted with the action.

It’s another example of amputees that are very much not held back by their disability but rather focused on what they are able to do.

Meet Jason Wening, Paralympic Champion

From David Rotter, Scheck & Siress prosthetist:

At Scheck & Siress, we are proud to be associated with U.S. Army Veteran Melissa Stockwell.

She has inspired so many people across the country.

And if she earns a medal at the Paralympic Games, she won’t be the only one at Scheck with that distinction.

Jason Wening, the clinical research director in our Oak Park office, is a five-time Paralympic Gold medalist (plus one Bronze medal) before retiring after the Sydney Games in 2000.

He still holds three Paralympic world records, in the 800- and 1500- meter freestyle and the 400-meter individual medley.

I see a lot of similarities between Jason and Melissa. Both are tenacious when it comes to competition. There is a very strong drive in both of them to excel. It's humbling to work alongside both of them.