The Search for "Normal."

A major part of my journey growing and maturing as a diabetic was at the summer camp, Camp Carolina Trails. To most of you Camp Carolina Trails, or as attendees like to call it “CCT,” may just sound like an ordinary summer camp. CCT is located at YMCA Camp Hanes, in King, North Carolina. The camp lasts from a Sunday to a Saturday in June, one week long. The week is packed full of fun, games, and activities all week long for campers entering grades third to eleventh. During CCT, campers stay in cabins furnished with six to eight bunks, a locker for each person, and a three stall bathroom with a shower. Typically, around 12 people stay in each cabin, ten campers, and two counselors. Activities at camp range from swimming, hiking, crafts, campfires, dances, etc. Although camp is full of fun and games, there is one major thing about CCT that makes it different from a typical summer camp, almost everyone lives with Diabetes. Camp Carolina Trails is a summer camp for diabetic children to come and experience the fun of camp while in a safe, learning, positive environment. The majority of the counselors and staff at Camp Carolina Trails are former campers, which means they also have diabetes. Since diabetes is not the minority at camp, being at camp allows everyone there to feel comfortable and “normal.”

All of that being said about Camp Carolina Trails, I will now tell you about my personal experience with CCT.

Let me rewind a bit...

Before I was introduced to Camp Carolina Trails, I only knew maybe three other people that had type one diabetes. Living in such a small town minimized my circle in the diabetic community. Growing up not knowing anyone else “like me,” was (is) not easy. My parents were, and still are, the biggest support in my life when it comes to living with diabetes. The many questions I had while growing up for them, such as, “why am I the only one checking my blood sugar?” or “Why do I have diabetes?” “Why me???” I was constantly having to explain myself to people and answer questions that were asked to me daily from my peers and others, “Why do you get a snack and I don’t?”or “What is that weird box in your pocket?” Those are the thoughts I had daily, the questions, and the constant mental battle of the difference between normal and different.

“What made ME different?”  

As my parents began to realize I needed clarification and a support system to help manage living with this disease, they started researching, that is when CCT was introduced for the first time to my family. My endocrinologist (diabetic doctor, you could say) talked to me and my parents about CCT, after a year of research and working out my nerves, my parents filled out my application for CCT. After a few months of an anticipated wait, I received an acceptance letter from the director at CCT, “Congratulations Allison! Welcome to Camp Carolina Trails!...” I wasn’t sure, being only 9 years old, what I was about to get myself into (little did I know). The weeks before camp were hectic, it was my first time ever going away from my parents for more than two days (over night), I do believe my mom was more nervous than I was. The last few days before my departure were spent packing everything I could possibly need for seven days and six nights spent in a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere, including enough diabetes supplies (test strips, sites, lancets, insulin, etc) to last three years. On arrival day at camp, I knew from the moment I stepped into the gymnasium to check in that something there was different, or maybe even normal. Every camper checking in also had a pump, meter, or some kind of diabetic tool, with them while talking to a camp nurse during the check in process. Even though the only people I knew during the check in process were my parents it felt like everyone around me already knew everything about me. I felt at home and I had never been more comfortable being me.