You can always count on diabetes camp for a wet and wild experience. After my last volunteer nursing stint, I’m reminded once again that my job is never done – even when its lights out.
Life’s a Picnic (with Type 1 diabetes)
One evening while watching kids gather around with lows, busting open juice boxes and tearing into snacks, I experienced a moment of diabetes truth: we eat ALL of the time with type 1 diabetes, hungry or not, day and night. At camp, no sooner is a meal snarfled down and wiped up than preparations are made for the next one.
It’s one continuous picnic.
Night Shift
At midnight, a mere two hours after the kids cleared out of the kitchen and went to bed – my alarm bellowed out. Searching blindly in the dark I located my headlamp and palmed my own continuous glucose monitor to be sure my blood sugar was dialed as well.
Decked out with my headlamp, clipboard, pokers, alcohol wipes, glucose strips, and glucometer in hand I padded my way down the hall to find each of my campers in various stages of sleep.
After bringing a few up from lows I safely tucked them back in and chuckled my way back to bed.
One camper vigorously squirted himself 3 times in the face trying to hold onto a juice box (half awake) and another gal had a death grip on a cheese stick squeezing it until it resembled a limp flower – incidentally later sharing that she hates cheese. The alert crew of roommates were my witness to the sleepy antics of their low blood sugared peers.
I’ve decided there are two types of campers.
The zombies – These kids are the ones that you seriously cannot wake up and much to my chagrin, usually pick the upper bunk.
The hyper-alerts – The second you touch these kids they suck in their breath, sit up and knock all of your supplies onto the ground.
The hyper-alerts are much easier to manage in the middle of the night. Once awake they usually poke their own fingers and can carry on a conversation. It’s the zombies that give you a run for the money and funny camp stories.