My Life As a T1D

Chapter 3: Ecuador Camp

Sorry for the late update. I have been really busy recently. Hope you enjoy

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My doctors have always suggested that I join the diabetic camp in Quito called Fundación Diabetes Juvenil Ecuador. But my mom would always say no. She thought I wasn't ready to spend a week by myself in an unknown place. She was right, when I was younger I was absolutely terrified at the thought of being away from my parents for a whole week. My parents didn't feel secure and neither did I so we decided to wait till I was older.

The summer before 5th grade when I was 10 years old my parents decided I was finally ready to go to camp by myself. I was really excited and really nervous. I was amazed at the number of diabetics that Ecuador has. I didn't think we had that many and that's when I realized that Ecuador is one of the countries with the biggest population of diabetics in South America, that is considering Ecuador is pretty small. It was the first time that I was going somewhere and I didn't have to pack my diabetes supplies because the camp had a ton of supplies for every kid. I remember entering a basketball court that was pretty old because you could barely see the painted lines. Then ahead were 10 stairs and a long building. To the right of where I was standing, was the cafeteria and to the left was a big soccer field with big pine trees around the border. In the middle of the basketball court were a ton of counselors with clipboards and pens and many kids dragging suitcases and walking with their parents to the dorm. There was also a small pile of suitcases in the center of the basketball court. I got out of the car and my dad put my suitcase next to the pile. We walked up to one of the adults with the clipboard and my parents told her my name and she told us to go to the door to the right, which was the girls dorm. The room was huge, 7 times the size of my bedroom, maybe even more! I saw rows and rows of beds with lots of colorful bed sheets. All the beds were taken except 2. I choose one that was in the last row, against the wall. I set up all my things there and then said goodbye to my parents, trying my best not to tear up. I don't remember exactly what we did after all our parents were gone but I remember that we all went to the field where the camp leaders explained a little bit about what we were going to do that whole week. Then we went to get our insulin for lunch and had lunch.

I remember that everyday they would wake us up at 7:00 am and we would go to bed at 10:00 pm. We had an assigned adult that would take care of us during the day and night and an assigned group of kids depending on your age. I was assigned with all the kids who were either 10 or 11 years old, like me. Then they would tell us the schedule of that day, everyday we had what we called "education class." Education class is where they would tell us about counting carbs, figuring out insulin dosages and how to take better care of ourselves. I remember finding education class very boring because it felt like going to school in summer and I didn't like that.

After education class we would get a break to check our blood sugars and get snack. They passed out very good snacks, you usually had an option between fruit and a packet of cookies, crackers or sweets. Then we would do exercise and have competitions. We were put into different colored teams and would compete against each other with every type of sports game that you could think of. This was very fun because one day we did this relay race and one of the activities that you had to do was use a hat with a needle at the top and pop balloons filled with water that were very high up on a rope. The older kids (15 years old and up) would pick up some of the little ones (7-9 years old) on their shoulders. We would put the hat with the needle on the little one's head and try to calculate to pop the balloon, and each time we did water would fall on them. There was also another game where we had to act as a bowling ball. They put a large piece of black plastic on the ground, they flooded it with water and a bit of liquid soap. At the end there were bowling pins in the normal position for a bowling game. The idea of the game was to slide on the plastic with water and hit as many pins as possible. It was so fun because you would get soaked and then we would go to the dorms and take a shower.