Sarah Howard
Sarah Howard has worked in the diabetes research field ever since she was diagnosed with T1D while in college in May 2013. Since then, she has worked for various diabetes organizations, focusing on research, advocacy, and community-building efforts for people with T1D and their loved ones. Sarah is currently the Senior Marketing Manager at T1D Exchange.
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Did you (or does your child with T1D) ever go to diabetes camp? Share your experience in the comments! Cancel reply
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It was 1986 at an ADA or JDRF sponsored camp called Chinook in So Cali. Less than 1 year after diagnosis at the age of 10, it was horrible. I met and feared nurse ratchet the entire week and have zero good memories from the experience. Back then, the lancets were huge and they were rammed into our fingers with no lancing device. I came home with blisters and my dad, also a T1D for over 30 years at the time was mortified. I never went back.
I went to Camp Chinook ten years before you, also when I was about 10 years old (7 years after diagnosis).
I remember that in the afternoons, there was a period of time between peeing and snack, when the nurses were testing our urine, and then kids got called up for shots. I had NEVER had an afternoon shot before (oh, how times have changed!), and found it humiliating to be called out like that.
That said, I enjoyed the campfire at the end of the night, gagged on the “bug juice” and sugar free “maple” syrup, and I learned from my bunk counselor about menstruation.
Unfortunately, the camp did NOTHING to educate us about our disease, which seems like a lost opportunity. I hope things are better for today’s campers.
I went to a camp for kids with diabetes at Swope Park in Kansas City, MO. It was my first camping experience a year after my dx. in 1955. My memories are of lining up four times a day for urine tests in an outhouse, standing in long lines before breakfast for daily insulin injections and waking up one morning and seeing a copperhead snake coiled next to my cot by the tent door. The first year I stayed the full two weeks, but the next year when I was ten the novelty had worn off. After a rather miserable week I asked my parents to rescue me and I never went back.
Hello from a fellow Kansas City person.
No. Diagnosed as an adult.
Went when I was 13. Great experience. We went canoeing down the Wisconsin River to Prairie du Chein. It was a good time. Started giving my shots in my stomach. This would have been around 1977. Had a good time.
I went for 4 years to Camp AZDA in Prescott, AZ (also my home town). It was hosted the first year at Sky-Y camp and subsequent years at Friendly Pines Camp. Very very happy childhood memories! I’ve sent my son 2x as a regular camper to Friendly Pines as he’s not diabetic.
It was wonderful to be around kids who understood. We ALL had to line up to test our urine, so it was not embarrassing. My first year, when I was 10, was shortly after my diagnosis. At that time I was having trouble getting up the nerve to give myself a shot. Seeing 5 year olds do it without any hesitation changed my perspective. I returned aas a camper several times, and eventually Ii became a counselor.
I went to camp in the mid 1980s and had a great time. At that time it was not possible for me to attend a regular summer camp, so this was a wonderful opportunity to hang with other kids. I went back as a counselor years later.
I went when I was younger and honestly think that all kids with diabetes should have that opportunity. I met a ton of people with diabetes and learned so much every year I went. I have so many great memories from camp and I still talk to people from there 15 or so years later.
I didn’t go as a kid but counseled during a session a few years ago. It was amazing. Couldn’t recommend it more highly for kids with T1D!!
I went to one in Upstate NY once when I was 13, this would have been 1990. As a shy, insecure tween kid, I hated it. Instead of feeling connected to other kids with the same problems, I felt like an oddball who was managing my condition all wrong compared to everyone else.
My son was diagnosed in his early teens and preferred to be with his school friends working at the local golf course. He refused diabetic camp and both of his T1D parents were encouraging him to go. My husband was scheduled once to come as a speaker to the staff but he had surgery that year that cancelled his invitation. Teen years mean learning to drive and become independent, so that doesn’t seem appealing for a week at a diabetic camp.
I went to boy scout camp. Loved it.
Went to Camp Variety for 5 years in the early 70’s. Best week of the summer.
I now volunteer at Camp Courage (our local ADA camp) every July. Most rewarding.
I wish I would have gone to camp, because I did not have any friends that could relate to T1D until I was in college.
camps were unheard of 70 yrs ago !!
They had them back then – some started in the late 1950s. The one I went to from 1963 to 1968 was founded in 1956 by the Toledo Diabetes Club and drew T1 kids from all over Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Camp ZaNiKa met for two weeks of overnight camp experience for children with diabetes on the shores of Lake Erie situated between Toledo and Cleveland.
I went to diabetes camp for two weeks just two months after a big move to a different city, away from my best friend. I was terribly homesick the first week and didn’t know I was sinking into a deep depression (I was 10). The second week I started enjoying myself and began to make friends. The camp was great, the counselors, the nurse, the other kids. It would have been a much different experience for me had I not had a lot of other stuff going on. It was then known as Camp Chinnock and now I believe it’s Camp Conrad Chinnock.
My daughter was diagnosed at 5 yrs; date of diagnosis happened to be a week or two prior to Gales Creek Camp’s “Family Camp” during which parents and T1D children and siblings had a chance to learn about the camp, attend seminars, participate in learning activities, eat measured meals, and meet and interact with camp counselors, medical staff, and the other parents. As a parent very new to T1D, that experience was invaluable for me and my spouse. My child returned to Gales Creek Camp (Forest Grove, Oregon), for many years after and only the pandemic put an end to recent participation. As a parent, having a week-long overnight camp during which one knows your T1D is having fun, meeting and learning from T1D peers, exceptional counselors, capable medical staff, and being well taken care of was very precious to us.
Camp Huronda, Huntsville, Ontario, Canada for 2 weeks in 1990 (age 9).
Yes, in 1997 at 12 years old. It was a good experience. Horse back riding, archery, swimming, etc. I remember it was the first time a nurse/doctor told me I could eat something like a half of a candy bar if I traded away most of my dinner. I did not do it because I was too scared to try back then because I thought I might die if I ate something like that!!!! Times have changed since then!! That was before all the technology that we now have to keep us well.
I was 57 yo when I went to my first Diabetes Camp. Bunch of us “over-the-hill” Pumpers got together for Camp Lobegon, just a few days of fun, eating, playing and comparing numbers! I miss those kids!
It was in 1979, camp chinnook
Yes, a few years in the early ‘70’s. YMCA Camp St. Croix, Hudson, WI (Camp Needlepoint when the diabetics were there the last 2-3 weeks of the summer). Later, for a college summer job, I returned as a counselor for a whole summer. There I met my future wife.
Yes, in the early 1970’s. I believe it was called Holiday Home camp on Lake Geneva in Williams Bay, WI. It was great seeing 99 others who had diabetes. I knew no one in my school. It was also where I learned to give my injection on my own. Peer pressure worked great here! I was the only one who didn’t do it myself. My parents were thrilled. I went for three years. We were the middle session for two weeks. Others used the camp for the other sessions but the ADA had the middle session for years! Loved it! All kids should have the opportunity for camp. Wish I could go to an adult diabetes camp!
While I am the T1D member of my family, my wife is a pediatric endocrinologist and works at a diabetes camp for 1 week each year (minus 2020 & 2021). She brings our non-diabetic son along and he loves the experience and finds it interesting to be around diabetics, especially due to growing up with a diabetic dad. I haven’t been able to go in the past, but I may go as a volunteer in the future.
I volunteered as medical staff at ADA’s Camp Aspire in Rush, NY (upstate) which was a fantastic experience helping children with T1D manage their glucose control while in an active camp setting. These children all had this large part of their lives in common aside from the ostracism they might normally feel dealing with their regular school routines.
I was 19 when I was diagnosed so I was too old for camp.
I was diagnosed at the age of 2 and went to the Tennessee Camp for Diabetic Children (TCDC) from the age of 9-15 and was a counselor for 3 years. Loved TCDC and still keep up with several friends I made there.
Yes! Best time of my life. So much fun, I didn’t want to stop, so I became a consular and once I graduated nursing school I became part of the Volunteer medical staff. I wish my brother wouldn’t have been so chicken, that he even refused to get out of the car when they took and picked me up from Camp E.D.I., he would have had so much fun. His T1D daughter sure did.
No, I never wanted to either. I didn’t want to be TD1, I didn’t want to be the freak they had the school assembly about, I didn’t want to be the kid who was not invited to birthdays because I “might die from the sugar there” and that made me not want to spend time with other “freaks”. Right or wrong, when I was diagnosed my small rural NY town made me an outcast and I wanted nothing more than to be normal after that.
Went to co-ed Camp ZaNiKa on the shores of Lake Erie in Catawba Island, near Port Clinton, Ohio – located between Toledo and Cleveland from 1963 to 1968. Several dozen kids (aged 7 to 18) with T1 diabetes came in June every summer for two weeks to have fun doing kid things away from home in an overnight camp experience with other kids and teenage counselors also living with diabetes. Medically our diabetes care was attended to by an awesome staff of adults that included nurses and dietitians, lovingly led & supervised by the amazing Dr. Fred Hiss who guided the whole operation.
We had so much fun being kids doing creative and wholesome activities while learning self-care survival skills beyond our daily urine tests and insulin injections. We engaged in all kinds of land and water sports for physical activity, learned to eat a variety of healthy foods – including occasional treats like regular ice cream, cake and select candies in moderation. We learned problem solving skills to prevent & treat lows. Through it all we were building confidence and affirming hope that we could cope with diabetes, do anything we set our hearts & minds on doing, and could/would live long, active, healthy and productive lives.
Best experience of my younger life. Diabetes camp prepared me to handle T1D in high school, and later when living away from home in early college and young adult years!
Both my boys went to camp. My oldest went to a in Massachutes and loved it. My youngest went to a local camp not too far away, he wasn’t a fan! I would love to go to a camp now, think they have one for older adults LOL
I attended Camp Glyndon in Maryland. It was one of the best experiences ever. I went for several years and by the last year that I was eligible, I was an honorary assistant counselor. It was educational and fun. It taught independence and how to thrive with diabetes. It was an experience I will never forget. I’m not sure if the camp is still in operation, but back then… in the 1980s, it was a lifesaver.
I was diagnosed as an adult, so I did not attend as a camper. After I was diagnosed in Pharmacy school, I got to attend as medical staff during one of my clinical rotations. I learned more from the kiddos than they learned from me!