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Camp ASCCA in Tallapoosa County looked like a typical summer camp last Thursday — sparkling lake, gleaming pool, noisy gym, horses waiting in a corral.

But there was also camper Angel Ortiz, an 8-year-old from Pensacola, who sat at a table with other children as they all stuck their fingers and drew drops of blood.

Or Josie Tyler, an 8-year-old from Eufaula, taking a syringe with a sharp needle and plunging it into her thigh.

Or Savannah Holliyan, an 11-year-old from Gardendale, eating a cracker and looking a little wan after dropping out of a game of freeze tag with low blood sugar.

“I feel shaky,” she said, leaning next to one of her camp counselors.

Diabetes was the focus at this one-week summer camp for children ages 6 to 11. Not only do the children have diabetes, so do most of the counselors, who were campers themselves years ago.

“I came as a 6-year-old,” said Georgia Holmes of Montgomery, now head of the counselors 22 years later. “I learned to check my blood sugar and take my shots independently. It was the first time I was with other kids with diabetes.”

Last week’s session, called Camp Seale Harris, had 105 children.

“We teach them to be independent,” Holmes said. “We teach them that independence because mom and dad are not in school with them.”

A lot of the children arrive not knowing how to give a shot. They quickly learn.

“It hurts,” Holmes said. “But it only hurts for just a second. If they’re afraid, I let them stick me.”

Just before lunch on Thursday, Angel and others stuck their finger tips, took up a small bit of blood in a thin tube and quickly tested their blood sugars.

“You see, they’re doing it without any complaining,” said Dr. Hussein Abdullatif, a pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s of Alabama. “The more they check their blood, the better the control (of blood sugar levels) and the less likely they are to have side effects from diabetes. The more independent they are, the better the outcome.”

‘I‘m normal here’
About 85 of the campers and many of the counselors use insulin pumps rather than shots. The pumps look like a cell phone worn at the waist, with a thin tube leading to the skin.

“I call it my pancreas on my hip,” said counselor Holmes.

As campers and counselors gathered for lunch on Thursday, Dr. Abdullatif sat on a picnic table and chatted with several.

There was counselor Amanda Floyd, who at age 5 was Dr. Abdullatif’s first patient when he was in Alexander City in 1995. Floyd first came to camp at age 7.

“I can never give back what I got out of camp,” she said. “I thought, ‘Hey, I’m normal here. Everybody has to take shots.’ It gave me enough energy to get through the rest of the year.”

There was young Payton Smith of Huntsville, born without a pancreas, the gland that produces the insulin hormone that regulates carbohydrate metabolism in the body. She has been treated for diabetes her entire life.

There was Lauren Hairel of Fort Payne, who had to go to the hospital years ago at age 7, where she said she was traumatized to hear the name of her disease — diabetes.

“The whole week I was in the hospital, I thought I was going to die,” she said. When she learned the word was not actually “die of betes,” she decided to call her disease “live-abetes.”

Blood checks at 3 a.m.

Inside the dining hall, the flat-screen monitor helped as the children learned to keep a food diary and count the grams of carbohydrates they eat at each meal.

It showed the menu and carbohydrates (CHO) per serving:

“Pizza, 1 = 35 g CHO

Celery, 1 piece = 1 g CHO

Fruit, 1 = 15 g CHO

Milk, 1 = 12 g CHO”

At the end of lunch, counselors at each table helped their campers count up total carbs and record their food diary. The youngest campers colored in drawings of the foods they ate.

Then counselors helped each figure out how much insulin they needed to handle those carbohydrates, and the children gave themselves insulin shots or reset their pumps.

Jordan Olbon of Florence, a 22-year-old counselor, said he first came to the camp at age 4, as a staff member’s child.

“But they let me stay in the campers’ cabin,” he said. “It changed my life. I learned to manage my diabetes better.”

Senior nursing students Samantha Bridges and Jon Gosnell of Samford University were at the camp as part of their pediatric nursing clinical rotation. They joined Dr. Abdullatif and others at midnight and 3 a.m. each night to check the campers’ blood sugars.

Lead nurse Cat Davis of Opelika said they had checked about 50 blood sugars the previous night, and all the other children were each looked at for possible signs of distress. The children are much more active at camp than they might be at home, so health care givers keep a close watch.

Gosnell does not have diabetes, but he ended up wearing an insulin pump filled with saline for a day and practiced tracking his own blood sugar. The children told him, “Hey, you’re not a diabetic.”

“No, I’m not,” Gosnell told them, “but I’m trying to be as much like you as I can.”

Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email Hansen at jhansen@bhamnews.com.

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