Diabetes Camp: A Necessary Escape

Perhaps the average, healthy person might wonder what it means to have diabetes. How does it change one’s life, personality, expectations, future, friends, lifestyle? I can’t answer how my life would be different if I did not have diabetes, beyond saying that I dream it would be less painful, less responsible, and much easier. Without the power to change my health, I can honestly say that having diabetes has been a…blessing. A weird, complicated, unexpected blessing. I speculate as to whether I am in actuality a better person because of my disease. Maybe it brought out my responsible, perseverant character. It most certainly threw one huge blessing my way: diabetes camp every summer—where I met my best friend.

Whenever I mention “diabetes camp” I receive fat camp jokes (which are unappreciated). It’s simply like a normal summer camp, with the addition of nurses/doctors milling about, diabetes education, and blood sugar check/insulin injection times. Diabetes camp in some inexplicable way provided me a place to feel normal after I was diagnosed with diabetes; it gave me a vacation from diabetes by completely immersing me in a little diabetic-friendly world. I’ve served as a counselor for the past few years, which gave me a new perspective on diabetics in general. I started going to camp when eight years old and have now had campers older than I was when I was diagnosed. They seem so young, too young to bear such responsibility. Diabetes isn’t something that can be forgotten, something you can just take a day off from. When a diabetic slips up, forgets to take insulin, doesn’t check his/her blood sugar, there are immediate consequences—feeling miserable, potentially passing out, even possibly having a seizure and dying—and additional long term consequences from sustained bad blood sugars—kidney disease, losing a limb, blindness, etc.

Keeping that in mind, perhaps it becomes clear why a diabetic needs a vacation even when a diabetic cannot truly ever have a vacation. Camp, even as a counselor instead of camper, with all the responsibilities of caring for kids instead of being one, has always been a haven. Away from family, home, friends, stress, away from most “non-diabetics” (and the “nons” that do attend as staff are awesome and supportive), diabetes becomes the norm, and we just relax, have fun, forget, slip away.

My week flew by this year. Instead of being a counselor to girls, due to a lack of boy staff volunteers and surplus of girl volunteers, I was a counselor to boys. As usual, we had our normal activities like canoeing, rifles, archery, horseback riding, crafts, games, nature, swimming etc. I canoed in smelly water, tried to shoot a bow and arrow the completely wrong way, dominated at limbo (sort of), was dunked countless times, went on beautiful morning and evening walks, and had our delicious camp treat called “smoogies,” which are frozen graham crackers, banana, and peanut butter sandwiches. During potato sack races I completely wiped out across the finish line and landed in a laughing, breathless heap. On our final night, there was a giant slip-n-slide that I slid down and displayed my utter klutziness, accidentally doing all sorts of random flips and turns. I received the “Not at all sarcastic” award at our campfire and ate some yummy smores while listening to the camp ghost, "Aunt Fifi," and watching seemingly hundreds of fireflies dancing in the woods.

I had hoped to perhaps come to a greater understanding of the male sex through being a counselor in a boys’ cabin; it didn’t happen. Through being comfortable discussing bodily functions, I think I mastered the whole boy thing...and I'm guessing there must be a bigger difference between the sexes. I concluded that to move from being a girl to a boy counselor, simply substitute horsing around for doing hair, discussing sports with discussing boys, and running from farts for dance parties. Children can be brutally honest, and one kid told me I looked like his mother while the cabin collectively told me I looked like Hannah Montana. Thanks, boys. I brought my stuffed animal pancreas, Patty, and the boys hung her from the rafter with streamers. While I thought it was a noose, they explained she was ziplining. Overall, despite not really understanding boys any better, the boys were awesome, and it was fun to switch it up a bit.

But most importantly, I had my annual reunion with my best friend. Jess and I usually only get to see each other for one week per year, although we talk throughout the day via text, bbm, facebook, skype, letters, phone calls—any way possible to communicate, we’ve utilized it. Every time we see each other, we act so blasé and fail to feel, even while recognizing, the significance of our time together. It always feels so natural, since she knows me best in the world. And every time we part, I say goodbye and think I’ll be seeing her tomorrow. It still hasn’t hit me that I won’t see her for over a year. Due to third term at Oxford ending after camp finishes next summer, I won’t be at diabetes camp for 2 years.

Despite trying to savor camp, the week simply evaporated. I met some amazing people, realized there had been amazing people right in front of me all along, and spent time with my best friend. Another year of camp gone, the major milestone of my summer completed. I do not miss the lack of AC, the bugs that followed my every step, the waking up at 6 a.m. I do miss the beautiful natural scenery, the nine boys who reminded me of how inspirational and courageous children can be, the belly-hurting, all-out laughter I experienced daily, the fun, the people, the experiences. I’m grateful that I live in this day and age, where diabetes management becomes increasingly less burdensome, less painful. I’m thankful for that little camp, full of amazing people who remind me that even apparent hardships can sometimes reap truly meaningful blessings.

I'm So Old, So Old

I suppose a birthday merits a blog entry. I’ve been feeling very philosophical lately, doing things so cliché as questioning the meaning of life. I haven’t done anything so ridiculous as producing an adequate answer to that rhetorical question, but I truly have been feeling really, really old.

A little over a year ago, my family had a traumatic car accident, where we hydroplaned off the highway and rolled three times down a hill. Result: totaled car and everyone walking away with only minor scratches, bruises, and muscle pains. Since then, I have so frequently forgotten the terrors of that day and significance of being personally and literally hit with an understanding of how transient life is. What if I had died that day? There’s a proper rhetorical question, scary with all its potential.

The day of our accident, I think I really appreciated my family for who they are and what they signify in my life. That realization, however, has definitely slipped since then. When I first thought about coming home for a long summer, the idea of too much family time and too little personal space plagued me. My family knows how to push all of my buttons and refuses to put up with any of my crap—the best of both worlds.

I was thinking today, though, about the horrors of being an only child, deprived of my three aggravating, loveable siblings. This summer has been an incredibly wonderful blend of relaxation and family time. It seems that we all realize this will be our last summer under one roof and have come to a consensus to have good attitudes. This weekend I got to spend some alone time with each of siblings: road trip with my sister, out to lunch with my older brother, and artistic time with my little brother.

We played my favorite game tonight, my little brother and I: we take turns coming up with a word and both have to draw the word. Our game lasted a few hours, and we laughed at each other’s poorer and more ridiculous drawings throughout. I suppose it was not a particularly noteworthy occasion, but for me, all these ideas that have been drifting about in my mind lately came together in a really beautiful way.

I have a home. I have a family. They love me, and I love them. I belong, I live, I laugh, and I know they would miss me if I were gone. They will miss me next year when I’m abroad as much as I shall miss them. That couch was my sphere, my little brother and my dog Charlie understood me. My family molded my values, and I survived childhood by getting along with my siblings and adapting to their personalities. I’ve been shaped by them to be one of them. Why is this so important? Because at home, I lose my filter between what I want to say and what I do say as much as is possible in our world. Being stripped to that extent, and accepted and loved while being that naturally myself, is beautiful.

So another birthday has come, and I’ve simply come to a greater realization of the blessings God has given me. Not of who I am or why I’m here or what I will do with my life but just that my life is good. That's all.

A Modest Beginning

I have always known that I should be a writer. Not that I will be a writer but that I have it in me to be a truly happy and (hopefully) good writer; it’s as though with a paper and pen, or a laptop to show that I am adapting to the times, I am in my element. Sometimes I envision myself as a vessel for really good experiences and stories that must be put down on paper. It seems that in connecting myself to others, in creating a bridge with my stories and thoughts, how could I not be learning more of myself and the world, how could I not be transforming my woes and joys into something more lasting and meaningful?

That is not to say that I am exceptionally talented or live some exciting, fantabulous life. It is to say that I have a dream, that I have always had and probably will always have a dream of writing. Perhaps I have this dream due to my irrevocable, passionate love of reading. Perhaps it comes from my being an introvert, in that it would allow me to make, create, produce something from all this thinking. I journal all the time, with the hope that someday my words will have meaning for someone who stumbles upon them—maybe a child, grandchild, great-grandchild, etc. With some gentle probing from my best friend, I decided to join the modern age and use all that technology that is literally “at my fingertips.”

I have no doubt that my first attempts will be modest, to say the least. But hopefully, with time, experience, and patience, I can create something worthwhile here, in my blog. The thought that currently haunts pretty much every one of my thoughts is next year, in just a few short months: a year abroad at Oxford.

“What will it be like to leave America for the first time?,” I have asked myself again and again. I have oscillated between thinking I will feel something cataclysmic and feel something akin to traveling within the US itself. I mean culture shock sounds, well, shocking, but I think I’ve already experienced that in traveling from my hometown in Kansas to Washington, DC, where I go to school. I love, love, love to travel and have dreamt of it incessantly since childhood. My thoughts range from hoping my perceptions and worldview will expand to envisioning the people I will meet and memories I will create. Visions of soaking up the history, art, cuisine, and overall culture of Europe lurk tantalizingly ahead of me.I mean, EUROPE. It is that image, that powerful word which has flitted between each of my classes, throughout my entire scholarly career (which perhaps is not saying much); look at European art, realize European history, dive into European literature--and on and on it could go.

I can’t help but wonder how I will change in the process of going abroad for the first time—for a year. People have asked me, “Won’t you miss Georgetown, being away for a WHOLE year?” Yes, obviously I will miss my friends at Georgetown, but I can’t wait to see more of the world. Culture shock sounds intimidating, but reverse culture shock sounds even more worrisome. I’m not scared of starting over and making friends at a new school, but it is, I think, a bit scary to open yourself up at different places across the world and know that you will be leaving. But it’s worth it, it simply must be. Will it be hard to leave here and hard to leave there? Yes. Will I change in the process? Definitely. If I am lucky I will miss Oxford as much as I miss Georgetown now and as much as I know I will miss Georgetown and Kansas next year. Then I will truly have studied abroad.

Worries about having enough money, fantasies of traveling around Europe and being an international student (with an accent!), student visa applications, nightmares concerning packing for an entire year in two suitcases, nostalgia creeping up on me already at the thought of leaving home....all of it will largely make up the fabric of my summer. I trust God that He will lead me where I belong, that He will guide me, protect me, and remain steadfast--even when everything else in my life shifts, changes, and utterly transforms. Psalm 27:8 seems quite fitting: "To every traveler who dares to see this journey to its end. May God grant you a heart like His. My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' You face, Lord, I will seek." I cannot doubt that my year abroad will profoundly impact me, and I hope that my relationships that matter will endure, despite distance, because they matter. Overall...I am simply overwhelmingly excited.