Camp Minikani: the pinnacle of 5th grade. A 5 day trip to a summer camp in the Wisconsin wilderness. Our final field trip had been hyped up to the whole class all year, and some of our classmates weren’t even allowed to go because they broke the rules too severely. Unfortunately for me and my family, it just so happened to start the week after I was diagnosed, and we were in no way confident of how it was going to go. I mean, we barely had a handle on our diabetes management at home, how were we going to spend the night somewhere else? Where would we store the insulin? What happened if something went wrong? Were there going to be medical staff there?
I really wanted to go. How horrible would it be to miss out on such an important part of my elementary school experience? At the time, this was one of the most important parts of my social life. So, we found a way to do it. My mom agreed to be one of the monitors and to remain away from me at all times.
It worked great! I have absolutely no memories of diabetes associated with Camp Minikani. I was just one of the campers. I did everything the others did. I ate everything the others ate. I slept along with my friends.
That was the most important thing about Camp Minikani. Being a T1D kid did not matter: I could do everything a glucose normal did. That—was the way I would approach every single activity in my life from that moment on.
Looking back, considering that I have little to no memory of what actually happened at Camp Minikani, it probably wasn’t all that important, but that didn’t matter. That year, it was vital to me that I went, and I did: that made me happy. With and without T1D, I was the same kid and nothing had changed.
Growing up T1D 