Dawn Oldnall, 18, travelled from the small Ontario community of Fenelon Falls to compete in the 2009 World Transplant Games in Australia. Dawn, who has had a double lung transplant, is competing in tennis, volleyball and running.

Dawn is keeping a dairy about her time at the games. Here’s her latest entry.

Sunday, August 23

I couldn't believe it! Last night was the Opening Ceremony, 45 countries, over 1,000 competitors and a beautiful room!!! During the Ceremony, I was looking after two little kids; I volunteered of course; and had to run after them a few times; not as bad as it sounds; all I missed were a few speeches and some shows. It started with an amazing dance and amazing singing ability! We got to hear the song that was especially written for the Transplant Games entitled ‘Our Victory’ by Tania Doko. It was absolutely AMAZING! After some speeches, we had some Opera singing and normal singing, Highland Dancing and an amazing Youth Choir.

Today, my personally dream came true! I played on the Canadian Volleyball Team!! Although we were unable to hold onto our defending title, we played well enough to take 6th place out of 9; for a team that had never played together, we did well!

So far, in two days of competition; Team Canada has 3 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 2 bronze!!!! Don’t forget to keep rooting for us back home!!!

Also, tonight I had my ankle all taped up, someone told me to run in sandals, on hard concrete, and well, my ankles aren’t nearly as strong as they use to be…the right one is sprained.
We had lots of fun today, and I’ll let you know how Tennis goes tomorrow!!! 

To read more from Dawn, visit Dawn’s Diary on the World Transplant Games page on the SickKids website. You can check out the current medal count there too!

View the latest photos added to our Flickr account and watch Team SickKids in action below:

If you cannot see the video player above, or to watch the video on YouTube please click here.