Kaelan went back to school on a Tuesday. The very next week started Camp Minikani, the big 6th-grade camp that Kaelan had looked forward to for months: 4 days and 3 nights out at camp.
Mary Pat and I were still shell-shocked about Kaelan’s diagnosis. We weren’t excited about Kaelan going to an overnight camp so soon afterwards. We were afraid of what would happen at night: would he go too low while away from us? Could he manage himself alone for several days, so soon after full blown DKA?
At the same time, we had just decided that he should never feel limited by diabetes. It seemed that the only way to move forward was to let him go. Kaelan, of course, had no qualms about going. It was our fear that we had to get over. We decided that Mary Pat would volunteer as a chaperone for the trip, in a different cabin (with the girls). This way she would be on hand if there was a problem. The chaperone for Kaelan’s cabin, who had Mary Pat’s phone number, agreed to wake Kaelan up in the middle of the night for him to do a mid-night glucose check.
In the end, everything went well. Kaelan was able to be a normal kid with all his friends: for him, it was just a normal activity. That’s how we wanted his life to be. We, of course, had been somewhat worried all the way through. We were relieved when the camp was over.
This first camp, right after coming back from the hospital, gave us the impetus we needed for the next few years. From here on, whatever Kaelan wanted to do (that other normal kids would do), we would strive to make it possible. It was not always easy, and it often left us anxious (parents…) but we have always opted for normalcy for him. Making it possible at low risk for him has often involved large amounts of research and planning, but this has been, for us, the price of keeping a normal life for our T1D son. It is a price we are gladly paying—-and it illustrates what we told him that first week: “anything other kids can do you can do too. It may require a little more work for you, that’s all.”
Growing up T1D 