14 Comments
If you have a child with T1D, have they ever gone to an overnight summer camp that is not specifically for kids with diabetes?
You must be logged in to post a comment.
© 2023 T1D Exchange. All Rights Reserved.
When I was younger I went first to a day camp that was not specifically for children with T1D and then to an overnight camp that was specifically for children with T1D (run by the ADA).
I don’t have kids, so I answered N/A. When I was a kid I went to day camps. I was 17 when I went to my first (and only) sleep away camp and it wasn’t specifically for diabetics. My family and I did spend a weekend at the Clara Barton camp once; my parents were hoping I’d like it enough to go by myself the following the summer. I enjoyed the weekend, but I refused to go to the camp anyway.
My son isn’t DIABETIC
My daughter is 12 and has never been able to wake up from her Dexcom alarms (even Omnipod alarms which can wake a dead man) or a phone call, so all sleepovers happen at our place and no overnight camp is in the cards for her yet.
I was a child with type 1 and I went to diabetic camp it was call camp njeda in new jersey
I went to 6th grade science camp with T1D. As did my son with T1D. I expect that my granddaughter with T1D will do the same.
When I was 14 I went to a sleep away camp for 2 weeks. I was not diagnosed as diabetic yet. While at the camp about 6 of us went away on a canoeing trip that involved canoeing all day, multiple portages (carrying the canoe and all supplies past rapids) and sleeping in tents. It was during this canoeing trip that I had my first diabetic experience, but I didn’t know what it was at the time, and I didn’t tell anyone about it. During a portage I felt extremely weak and tired and couldn’t carry the canoe. I know now it was a low blood sugar. After that we had a big snack of s’mores. And the next day while canoeing I was so thirsty I was secretly scooping handfuls of water from the lake to drink (a big no-no). I know now that was because of high blood sugar.
I wasn’t diagnosed as diabetic for another 6 months.
I had gone several years as a camper and later as a counselor to a diabetic 2 week overnight camp.
I had gone on shorter overnight camping trips with Girl Scouts.
No one had to worry about e hearing my dexcom because there were no dexcoms. Or blood tests either.
Side note: I always enjoy reading comments by other PERSONS WITH DIABETES (nod to Kimberly.) Now to the Q. Thanks to the eugenics movement’s influence on Mom, then me, one of the reasons I never had kids was because I worried they might “inherit” the “defect” of T1D. Mom abruptly gave up her eugenics ideology after I became T1D, but sort of blamed my Dad’s DNA. (And my Dad blamed himself!) After reading John Hersey’s book Hiroshima, and Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, and remembering our living at Hanford for at least 4 years when U-238 was produced, our family became aware of radioactivity as a significant ENVIRONMENTAL factor affecting DNA. Assorted governments testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, “accidents” (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima, et al), and dumping of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors plus jet streams and ocean currents, guarantee the human genome has been altered. “Downwinders” from around the world have sued governments and corporations for decades. Helpful hint: make sure your salt has iodine. 🥴
I dont have a kid, but when I was a kid with diabetes I would regularly go to non-diabetic sleep away camps.
When I was a kid, I went to a couple of non-diabetic specific camps. I have never been to a diabetic one.
When I was a kid, I attended a diabetes camp for a week long session in the summer
Yes, but only when I’ve gone with her because the camps in our area do not have nursing or health staff who are educated in diabtetes care.
Neither of my children have T1D. However, when I was a child, in the 1960’s I would attend a church camp in South Dakota by myself.