Diabetes at Camp Bearskin Part IV: Camp Firsts

Relief.

He proceeded to talk about the unrealistic expectations that parents have of themselves in terms of maintaining their child's diabetes control, and the results of various studies that demonstrated that diabetes itself does not effect how a child's self-esteem but how families deal with the condition. More importantly, he touched on a philosophy that Bearskin has been practicing since its inception 70 years ago: There are no good blood sugar numbers or bad blood sugar numbers, just out-of-range and in-range numbers.

"There are no good blood sugar numbers or bad numbers, just out-of-range or in-range numbers". This is something that we have to tell parents over and over and over again until the message hits home. Sometimes we have them say it outloud as a group. So many of our parents blame themselves for their child's highs and lows. So many of our parents are wrapped up with calculating what each high is doing to their child, and contemplating what danger comes with each low. Many of parents are in a constant and perpetual state of "numbers panic". And so, we teach them... It is not the fault of the parent or the child when numbers are not in range, it is the fact that the child's pancreas simply does not work. Yes, there are contributing factors that cause blood sugar highs and lows like food, insulin, exercise, menstrual cycle, hormones, not enough sleep, change in routine, change in environment, stress, even elevation, but the parents and the child are not to blame. Diabetes is to blame, and no single human being with diabetes can ever be expected to be running "in range" at all times.

We teach our camp counselors and parents not to react when they see a child's high number on the meter screen and especially to avoid the "what did you do?" statement that is usually followed by "what did you eat?" "did you give yourself the right dose?" and "why are you so high"? All of these statements, we teach our parents, teach children to feel guilty about their out-of-range numbers, and perhaps more significantly, most often discourages them from sharing their number. Worse yet, many children stop checking their blood sugars at all for fear of punishment or because of feelings of guilt.

Here at camp we say the only bad number is no number at all. We do not care what the number is, only that we have a number so that we can make an educated decision as to what to do next. For many of our parents this is counter-intuitive, and it takes us reminding them over and over again not to react to the number, before it sinks in.

The afternoon was Color Olympics for the campers and free time for parents. Some parents went hiking on the trails near by, others went for one-on-one education, some went for adult lap swimming at our pool, while others just sat all afternoon and watched their kids. We had our giant slip and slide with sudsy soap on the field for the kids to slide through, did the traditional relays - egg and spoon as well as our obstacle course race, and of course we did the favorite of all, the cannon ball contest in the pool. Colored teams competed against colored teams in events where really no one ever keeps score and team cheers echoed throughout camp with even the smallest campers participating.