My first stop on my Canadian tour!

In my first stop on my Canadian tour, retracing the route of my run, I visited Janeway Hospital to share stories, meet the amazing staff and patients and give books away.

Lisa Lane walked me around. She’s one of the Child Life staff, which means she takes as much stress as she physically can away from the kids and parents throughout their journey in the hospital. It’s a special role, and Lisa’s a special person.

As we walked around I met, Jack. Jack’s 18 years old, and suffering with cancer. “I’m the oldest kid here”, he told me. It always hits home just how fortunate so many of us are, usually without even knowing it. I meant every word of what I wrote in his book.

I walked around meeting other kids, medicine and surgery staff – many of whom thought my Glaaaawster accent was hilarious! When speaking with Brenda, a Child Life staff member, she just sat back with a wry smile and said, “I could listen to you all day with that accent.” Oh – and then she said she wanted to take some ‘legendary selfies’ – you can see from the photos that she’s quite a character!

One thing that always amazes me is the way people deal with sadness and tragedy with hope and optimism. Nearing the end of my tour, we bumped into the house keeper, Karen Wall.

On the front of my new and improved Adventureman suit, there’s an ‘A’.

“The ‘A’ on your costume reminds me of my son, Adam.” I asked her to tell me about him, and she told me how he passed away 10 years ago. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.”

My first hospital tour of the trip, and if I ever needed reminding of the reason I do this, well – wow, I was given that reminder.

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Here’s the book-tour schedule here: https://www.jamiemcdonald.org/canada-book-tour/

While in the province, just to reiterate, I’ll be putting 50% to Superhero Foundation, and the other 50% of royalties from the book and any other donations to Janeway Children's Hospital Foundation.

If you know of any businesses (especially businesses that have offices all the way across Canada!) that would like me to speak and do a book signing, do let me know - it would be nice to get some big donations in to make the biggest difference possible.

While in Rome and all that!