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September 7th, 2008
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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. (READ MORE)


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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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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. (READ MORE)


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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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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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(Continued From Previous Post)
I am dependent on insulin. But I am otherwise an incredibly independent person. I like taking risks - on my own. I enjoy the feeling of having accomplished something by my own will and my own action. I am more outgoing and more confident than I think I would have been if I'd not been diagnosed. A combination of wanting to be able to handle my disease on my own, without pity or judgment AND the experiences I had as a young woman - through the Clara Barton Camp and the ADA's Youth Congress - transformed me from a shy, albeit precocious kid, to a person who stands on her own. A person who keeps her head up and battles mightily - in the face of whatever wrong she sees and whatever challenges she faces. But would I trade my independence for a life without diabetes? I would - though again, who's to tell if something else might have brought me to this same place. (READ MORE)


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While waiting for Olivia to take her swim test at Clara Barton last week, I was eavesdropping on a couple of girls standing in front of me. They scared the crap out of me.
They were both talking about how they hated having to take insulin because insulin makes you fat. "It's true," one girl said, "I read it on the internet." The other girl was amazed, but believed her readily.
Then they started discussing how they both let themselves run high - so high that their meters just say HI - in order to maintain or even lose some weight. They both said that they rarely checked themselves, maybe checked a couple of times a week, lied to their parents about the frequency of their checks and made up bg readings. At this point, my eyebrows were practically at my hairline and I was trying to unobtrusively move a little closer so I could continue to listen. (READ MORE)


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Olivia met a girl at Clara Barton last year named Sam. As luck would have it, Sam lived the next town over. The two girls hit it off really well and exchanged phone numbers at the end of the session.
I admit I was eager to foster the friendship because Olivia doesn't have any other friends with diabetes. She knows some D kids, but they're all considerably younger than her and she doesn't have anything, other than diabetes, in common with them. The other kids in school with diabetes are not in her classes and she hasn't made friends with any of them.
Olivia invited Sam to sleep over a couple of times and the girls got along really well. The only fault I could find with Sam was her picky eating habits and considering we're talking twelve year-old, squealy girls here, that's saying something. (READ MORE)


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For a number of years, I was the only diabetic I knew. Diagnosed when I was a little kid, there wasn't an army of advocates knocking down the doors of my school. As far as I knew, the only meter in my elementary school was mine. In my high school, there were two meters: mine and the one belonging to a classmate's older sister. No one else I knew was taking a fingerstick before having the orange slices at soccer practice, or before tap dance lessons.
My first taste of a diabetes community came one summer at camp. Growing up in New England, I had access to one of the best diabetes camps in the country - Clara Barton Camp. I spent six summers at CBC, giggling with my fellow campers, singing my lungs out at the nightly campfire meetings, and making friends. (READ MORE)


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I get an email from Google every day. (And boy, do I love me some Google. I don't know how I survived before it - I had to actually look things up. In books! And card catalogs! Now, tap-tap-tap and lo, I have a bajillion links at my fingertips.) Sorry. I digress. Frequently.
(READ MORE)


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Lindsey Guerin
Lindsey is a typical, yet unique, Texas girl who loves shopping, movies and reading. She loves to travel and take risks. She dreams of diabetes cures, never-ending cheesecake and her own airplane. The rest you can discover in her blog!(Read More)

Latest Posts: One of a Kind | Let Me Eat Cake? | What 43 Feels Like

Rebecca Abma
What happens when a health writer develops a chronic illness? As Rebecca K. Abma can tell you, it turns into an obsession. Since being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in December 2003, 90 percent of her non-work computer time is spent researching the disease and chatting with fellow diabetics. (Read More)

Latest Posts: Tethered, But Not Bound | A Constant Reminder? | I Deserved That

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