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Olivia left for camp on Sunday. This was the first time in six years that I didn't bring her myself. I was at a blogger gathering in Niagara Falls, thoroughly enjoying myself, albeit a bit guiltily. I talked to her several times on the phone over the weekend and she seemed fine with me not going. "Well, I won't have to watch you cry this year," she said. Rotten child. (She's right. I do cry, every year. I'm a sap.)
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Olivia heads off to Clara Barton Camp in a couple of weeks. This is her fifth summer attending, so she will become a Bartonian this year. I'm not sure what that means - fellow CBCers, help me out. She is beyond excited. I swear she'd live at camp all summer if I let her (and I had the funds - at $2,000 for 10 days, it's very, very expensive.)
I was initially hesitant to send her to camp. I was worried that she would be lonely, that she wouldn't speak up when she wasn't feeling well, that they wouldn't take care of her the way I do. The first time I left her, for her first mini-camp session, I cried the whole way home. I fretted and worried and lay awake at night, wondering how she was doing.
I shouldn't have. When I picked her up, she was ecstatic. She chattered non-stop the entire way home, talking about the other campers, the counselors, what they did, where they went and "There was a dance, mum! With the BOYS!!" She was over the moon.
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I took Olivia to camp today. It's always a little bittersweet for me to take her there. I miss having her at home, I miss seeing her around the house, I even miss (god help me!) her incessant playing of Hannah Montana CDs.
I remember the first year she went to camp. I was terrified. She was eight years old and had never been away overnight, except to stay with family members. I knew that Clara Barton would be a safe place for her but there was a part of me that wanted to cling to her, to hold her close, thinking that no one, no one was going to take care of her the way I could.
That first year she only did mini-camp. She stayed from Sunday until Thursday. When I went to pick her up, she bubbled over with stories of what they'd done, telling me about this girl and that girl, talking enthusiastically about their activities and games. It was wonderful to see her that enthusiastic.
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I finally got a letter from Olivia today - she comes home on Thursday. It never fails to amaze me how long it takes a letter to go roughly 45 miles. I wrote to her on Friday - I'm hoping she got that one, but I have my doubts.
She misses us (awwww) and has been running low a lot while there. They even had to give her mini-glucagon doses a couple of days because they couldn't get her to stay above 50. Scary. She must be more active than last year because last year, she ran high, high, high, pretty much the entire time she was there. She seemed to think it was pretty funny to be low all the time. Me, not so much. Her big comment? "My a1c is going to be PERFECT next doctor's visit." Eh, yeah. Only, maybe lets go about it some other way than sitting at 36 for a couple of hours, m'kay?
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My fellow blogger Nicole Purcell, wrote an amazing entry the other day called, How Do Our Bodies Do It? She captivates very brilliantly what it is like to experience a severe late night episode of hypoglycemia. Some of us, fortunately, have never had an experience quite like the one she describes. Others are all too familiar with them. Speaking for myself, I am one of the fortunate ones, who has only been
dangerously low a handful of times. I have never been injected with a glucagon shot and I've never really lost consciousness due to a low. But still, I could definitely relate to her experience because I can recall the episodes where I was just so unbelievably out of it. But her post got me thinking of the time when I was a camp counselor at a children's diabetic camp.
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My fellow blogger Nicole Purcell, wrote an amazing entry the other day called, How Do Our Bodies Do It? She captivates very brilliantly what it is like to experience a severe late night episode of hypoglycemia. Some of us, fortunately, have never had an experience quite like the one she describes. Others are all too familiar with them. Speaking for myself, I am one of the fortunate ones, who has only been
dangerously low a handful of times. I have never been injected with a glucagon shot and I've never really lost consciousness due to a low. But still, I could definitely relate to her experience because I can recall the episodes where I was just so unbelievably out of it. But her post got me thinking of the time when I was a camp counselor at a children's diabetic camp.
(READ MORE)
My fellow blogger Nicole Purcell, wrote an amazing entry the other day called, How Do Our Bodies Do It? She captivates very brilliantly what it is like to experience a severe late night episode of hypoglycemia. Some of us, fortunately, have never had an experience quite like the one she describes. Others are all too familiar with them. Speaking for myself, I am one of the fortunate ones, who has only been
dangerously low a handful of times. I have never been injected with a glucagon shot and I've never really lost consciousness due to a low. But still, I could definitely relate to her experience because I can recall the episodes where I was just so unbelievably out of it. But her post got me thinking of the time when I was a camp counselor at a children's diabetic camp.
(READ MORE)
When I was at diabetes camp as a kid, we played all sort of games around our diabetes. That was one of the best things about camp - the fact that diabetes was just another something that my camp friends and I had in common. We all brought sleeping bags to camp, we all wanted to go swimming on hot days, we all had diabetes.
One of our games was guessing what our bloodsugar levels were before the counselor told us the results. I loved this particular challenge, mostly because I often won. In the first years after my diagnosis, I could guess my bloodsugar within 10 mg/dl 9 out of 10 times. At camp, we'd all make our guesses, and I'd win. That's how it went... Among my many prizes, diets sodas from the camp Trading Post and lots of velamints.
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Olivia got a huge campership to Clara Barton this year. I was thrilled because that camp? REALLY, really expensive. Way more than I could have afforded to pay on my own.
So we have to pay a small amount and Olivia gets to go back to camp for her sixth year. She loves it there - all winter long, she and her camp friends keep in touch via email and IM, counting down the days until they can see each other again.
And so the next few weeks will consist of shopping ("Mom!! I need something to wear to the dance!!") and packing and unpacking and repacking and making sure she has enough supplies - to a previous commenter, she does use Silhouettes, so that's not the problem with the thigh. I think it's just her thigh.
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Yesterday, the big manila envelope arrived in my mailbox. In it? The application for summer camp at Clara Barton. Already.
Olivia loves camp, so we'll definitely be sending her again but I was dismayed to see that the price has gone up. It's now $2,225 to go for two weeks. Last year it was around $1900. That's a big jump.
I understand why they charge so much - the staff is huge there. The buildings are in excellent condition (way better than any camp I ever attended, that's for sure!) and the grounds are very attractive. Because they have such a large medical staff, I feel really secure sending Olivia there year after year.
Plus, the camp is really great about granting camperships. They also send out information telling you how you can put together your own fund raisers and how to solicit organizations like The Lions Club or Kiawanis to help subsidize some of the cost.
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