I have a 12 year old Son heading to an intense week long basketball camp 2 hours from home. Pretty much his entire team is going and I felt he needed to go as I would have never held him back before he was diagnosed in July of 08. We are 1 year into this. He attended summer Camp Hertko Hollow a camp for kids with diabetes this summer and I didn't blink an eye. Now that he's off to a camp with intense physical activity and their staff is not geared for diabetics; I'm approaching operation freak out.
It's not like a Y-camp where they have a nurse on staff full time; and the kids check their meds in at check in and have scheduled times for that.
I have reached out to the staff at the university; and will send all the information that he needs they will inform the trainers and coaching staff. We will meet with the staff for an "overview" before we drop him off on the curb. J The first person I talked to said; sure just come 10/15 minutes earlier at registration and give us the run down. (umm yeah right) so I found the RN for the Athletic staff and made friends with her!
My concern: these kids are left to sleep in dorms by themselves without coaches/counselors in their rooms. I'm sure their nearby and I will get this all setup and straighten out. As we all know; when the kids have had lows we have to get up in the middle of the night to check and recheck. Ummm who is going to do that? Yes: I will have to hope that he can do it himself and send an alarm clock with him to wake him up and recheck. But, that is only as good as the kid setting the alarm or waking back up to it.
With basketball his numbers will go sky rocketing to over 275 to dropping in a matter of minutes. He came home from basketball last night said he felt “weird” checked 156, and within 15 minutes he was 77. He knows and feels "weird", and I will have to trust in him to check BS often. I have to allow him to make mistakes and hope he learns from them.
He has a cell phone and could call me if he needed to; for advice. I will send plenty of snacks and protein for him to have on hand in his dorm and the gym. I’ve told him to check often to prevent having lows, and that way you are not chasing numbers all day and can enjoy your time at camp.
I'm not sure what I'm looking for here, as I've already talked with the RN at the University and she will work with the trainer and coaches. She even offered to give my son her number in case he had an issue in the middle of the night. Which is AWSOME! I want him to have as much "normalcy" as possible. But with that, I get more of those “natural high lights”, become greyer with high anxiety. Am I over thinking this? What in the hell will I do when he goes to college? Maybe after a few more years under our belts I’ll be better.
As I always tell him. Make diabetes work for you; don’t make it a lot of work.