Diabetes Camp

When I was nine years old I discovered that I had type one diabetes. My world was flipped upside down for awhile. I though I was the only one who had this disease for the longest time until I went to a diabetic day camp. At this camp there were other kids, my age, who all had the same thing that I had. This was the first time that I realized that there was an entire community of diabetics. This community event made me and all the other kids realize that we were not alone but rather were a part of a rather large community. Upon reflecting on this event and from the experience gathered from this event, I now understand that the diabetic community welcomes and helps newly diagnosed diabetics.
This community gathering was a very unique situation because it was a gathering of different people from all walks of life. When I first arrived for the day camp I was worried and a little nervous as was everyone else. I could see it in everyone’ eyes. Everyone was a little anxious too. We were all newly diagnosed with diabetes and the first day was more of a learning adventure then it was a camp. The supervisors were trying to teach us so much knowledge that it was very difficult for everyone to keep up. Luckily they then told us that they would be going over all of the information throughout the week in more detail. This was a relief to everyone in the room. The day continued with a lot of fun activities such as choosing what we wanted to eat from a list of foods. On this list we had the number of carbohydrates that each food contained and we could not exceed a certain number for lunch. This made all of us learn how to count carbohydrates and how to gauge how much we are allowed to have at each meal. Then the supervisors divided us into tables. At the tables we told our stories of how we found out we had diabetes and about the day’s activities. It was very interesting to learn about how everyone else had learned that they had this disease and how they were coping with it. The community was coming together and was looking forward to the next day.
The second day was much like the first in the way that we showed up in the morning and then had various small group activities and then at lunch added up our carbohydrates. After lunch the camp came together for an entire group activity. This activity was very entertaining and fun to participate in because the activity involved drawing on a person. The person had all the main organs of the endocrine system drawn on him. The supervisors then started explaining to all of us how the endocrine system worked in relation to type one diabetes. This was as much entertaining as it was interesting. Then the students were allowed to actually draw on the person. Many things were already drawn on the person but we started to draw many other things such as lungs and other organs that had nothing to do with the endocrine system. It was very fun for all of us and made everyone come together as a community.
The camp was a total of two weeks and on each Friday everyone got to go to the pond. The camp was right along a pond and there was a beach on the opposite side. It was a lot of fun when everyone was walking over to the beach. When we got there the first Friday, we were only allowed in the shallow end. The shallow end was roped off from the deep end of the pond by a long rope about 25 feet long. To swim in the deep end of the pond, each person had to swim the entire length of the rope without stopping. This was very difficult to do but many kids swam the entire length of the rope including myself. We were then allowed to swim in the deep end of the pond which was still roped off but was a much larger area to swim in. There was also no spot to stand on in the deep end which was very difficult for everyone but was also very fun. Then the next Friday we had to do the same thing to get into the deep end. There were even more people who swam the length of the rope and got into the deep end. This was the best part of camp. It brought us all closer as a community and as a group of friends. At the end of camp, the supervisors gave us a slide show of all the activities that we had done at the camp. The slide show was very fun to watch as everyone appeared on screen. It also displayed the numerous activities that we had completed at camp. As each activity played across the screen it brought back memories of the previous two weeks and it made all of us realize that there was always a community out there for us. We are never alone. At the very end of the last day everyone said goodbye to one another and phone numbers were exchanged. The ride home was sad but also a happy ride because even though the camp was over, I made new friends and knew that I was no longer alone.
At the beginning of the camp there was numerous ways everyone was feeling. Being newly diabetic myself at the time, I was feeling the same way. One of the feelings was being different. This was not necessarily a bad thing but not many people at this camp didn’t like feeling different. Everyone also looked like they were at a funeral. Nobody seemed happy at all but this was the reason they had the camp, so none of the supervisors seemed very surprised at how we were the first couple of days. We were all still depressed that we had this disease for the rest of our lives and were still getting over that stinging fact. Before becoming diabetic all of the kids had their own community of friends that they considered themselves apart of. After getting this disease the kids no longer felt that they fit into these groups as well. We felt like outsiders in a community that we were always on the inside of. We felt as if our lives had been turned upside down and that it was never going to turn right side up again. This camp

was created to help children newly diagnosed with type one diabetes to cope with the disease and to turn their lives right side up.
Reflecting back on the camp, I realized numerous things about the diabetes community. The first thing that I realized even while at the camp was that the community was more then willing to accept new people into their community. The community came together to help and welcome all of the kids who were newly diagnosed with diabetes. This was very encouraging and made all of us feel more like the way we used to feel before we were diagnosed.
When the community came together to welcome us into the community, it made all of us kids realize that we were not alone in fighting this disease. There are thousands and thousands of people just like us who fight this disease every day and who win. The supervisors also told us that many of them were diabetic themselves. It was weird because they did not seem to care that they were diabetic at all, while all of us kids did. We felt different and thought that we looked different. Then we saw how the supervisors did not look any different then any other person that one would run into on the street. This made many of us feel better because we were no longer starting to feel different. Now on the inside we knew that we were different because our pancreas no longer functioned like it should. This bothered all of us kids, but not the supervisors. We all wondered how this did not affect them as it effected us. We eventually asked one of them. What he said changed many of our lives. He told us that we do not look any different and we give ourselves insulin so why should we feel any different? One said because our pancreas no longer functions correctly. “True,” he said but think about this. He then continued to tell us that we now know how to pay attention to what we eat and how much we exercise. Being diabetic might sound bad but it isn’t. He told us that type one diabetes forces us to live life like we should be living it anyway. At the time this did not make much sense to any of us but as we have gotten older it has started to make sense. The doctors always tell us to eat healthy and exercise. Many of us do not listen and eat a bunch of junk food and sit on the couch all day. However, with diabetes a person can not do this everyday if they want to take care of themselves. Diabetes forces a person to eat healthy and get off the couch and do something. The disease forces us to do what every person should do to stay healthy.
Not only was day one of camp a gathering of the community it was also a day of making friends. The community is a pot full of all different kinds of people from all different walks of life and day one was a clash of cultures. There was all different kind of people from every ethnic background and numerous religious faiths. The first day was more of getting to know who everyone was as well as learning about this new disease. There were no culture clashes but there was defiantly some people who were just no going to get along. This observation leads me to believe that many diabetics will identify with other communities before they will identify with the diabetic community. There were two kids at the camp who were very religious but believed in different faiths. They were not getting along the first day because of these two communities that they identified with besides the diabetic community. This was very interesting because I would stand next to my diabetic brethren before other communities. However in these two young children other communities came before . This displays division among the diabetes community itself which leads to many sub communities.
Not only was there division among the community between religious lines there was also division among the community based on how people took care of themselves. There were three main sub communities at the camp. There were those who were scared of the disease, those who were not scared of the disease at all and those who were a bit of both. This also reflected on how the people acted. Those who were scared of the disease were always afraid of what they did and how the disease would react. These people would not do certain things because of their fear. Those who were not scared of the disease at all did not care how the disease would react to what they did. However, this got many of these people in trouble because they would put themselves in life threatening situations. They did not do this at the camp necessarily, just in general. Finally there were those who were a bit of both. They wanted to live life as much as they could but did not want to put their life at risk either. The camp was designed to gather all of the newly diabetics into this group in numerous ways. It was designed this way because the community does not want the people who are scared to be scared of the disease. They want these people to live life to the fullest but yet remember that some things a diabetic must approach a little different. The camp was designed to also rope in the people who did not care. These people could potentially endanger their lives and the community does not want people to die because they do not know how to take care of themselves. They want to tell these people that they can still live life to the fullest, they just have to approach certain things differently then a non-diabetic would.
In conclusion the diabetes community learns not just from the doctor but also threw camps such as these. They learn that things in life need to be approached a little differently but everything is still possible. At camps such as these newly diagnosed diabetics get to learn and talk to people who have been diabetic for awhile. This gives the newcomers some vital knowledge that otherwise would be learned threw the difficult route of trying different things with the disease. The community came together to not only to unite but to teach the newly diagnosed diabetics so that they were not wandering in the dark.