This is the last in a seven-part series chronicling a week of life at family diabetes camp.  

Camp is quiet.

The families have all left.

The staff have spent the past few hours cleaning up and getting ready for the next session of families. Soon they will also scatter far away from camp, hoping to get a hot shower, a good meal from a restaurant, and a good night's sleep or two.

It's hard to believe that in just 36 hours we will welcome 43 new families. By summer's end we will have done four family camps, welcoming more than 150 families in total to Bearskin. We will have the same theme meals, Folk dance, Family Camp Variety show, Kick Ball game, and education session, but the camp will feel very different each session.

I have learned through the years that no two sessions of Family Camp ever feel the same, ever. It's like days with diabetes. Although you may eat the same thing each day, do the same activities, and take the same insulin, your blood sugars never do the same thing the exact way twice. This upcoming family camp won't be any better or worse, but just different.

The First List this morning was huge and took more than 10 minutes to get through at Cinnamon Roll Breakfast. After yesterday's sibling session, so many names were added for first time saline injections, first-time finger pokes, and even first times trying an insulin pump set. Imagine, a brother or sister without diabetes wearing an insulin pump set just to try it, to see. We had so many.

Families went to education, kids helped clean up and after morning snack we said our goodbyes.

We hugged, families passed in their evaluations, and within a few minutes they were all gone.

Just like that.