T
he dinner bell rings at 5:30
on a perfect summer day,
calling campers of all ages
from across the University of
Rhode Island’s W. Alton Jones campus in
West Greenwich to its rustic main lodge.
Fox, a pediatric endocrinologist and
clinical assistant professor of pediatrics
at the Warren Alpert Medical School.
“We know that our kids are getting good
food that’s safe.”
PARTY OF ONE
CA R BOH Y DR ATES A R E CR ITICA L FOR
Kids and counselors grab seats at the long wooden
tables, under the gazes of the faux animal “trophies”
that adorn the wood-paneled walls and stone fire-
place mantle: an ibex head, a skunk family, a red-tail
hawk. The din of talking, laughing, utensils clattering
on plates is instantaneous and deafening.
“It’s controlled chaos,” Gregory Fox,
MD, says, smiling down on the fray from
his lean, 6-foot-plus frame.
The order he’s seeing in the swirl of 90
hungry, energetic kids is the charts,
pencils, and calculators they pick up
before they eat. Fox is the medical director
of Camp Surefire, the only camp in the
state for children with type 1 diabetes,
which takes place every June. What looks
like bedlam is, in fact, a well-oiled
machine that he’s been refining since he
started volunteering here nearly 20 years
ago. With a seasoned staff of health care
providers, professional chefs, and
longtime volunteers, they’ve made meals
a time for everyone to come together, talk
about their day, and do math.
“We base everything around carb
counting,” says program director Tommy
Brewer, of Cranston, who has type 1
diabetes. “You get familiar with what a
cup of pasta will cost you. It’s good
practice for everyday life.”
On each table, sharps containers and
bins of medications share space with
pitchers of water and bug juice. Counsel-
ors and medical staff help the little ones
check their blood sugar, calculate how
many carbohydrates they will consume,
and dose their insulin. Each camper gets
12 HEALTH DISCOVERIES l WINTER 2020
a half-page sheet of the foods on offer that
night, picks what and how much they
want to eat, and tallies carbs. Only then
can they fetch from the kitchen platters
of chicken tenders, broccoli, and salad,
which they dish out family style with the
aid of measuring cups.
“We have certified dietitians and
[URI] dietetic students that help pore
over every single morsel that these kids
will eat over the course of the week,” says
a healthy diet. The body breaks them
down into sugar, or glucose, which our
cells then convert into energy. Usually
insulin, a hormone secreted by the
pancreas, enables that process, but it goes
haywire in people with diabetes: the
glucose stays in the blood, raising blood
sugar levels, which over time can damage
blood vessels and organs and cause
serious health problems. That’s why
anyone with diabetes has to carefully
monitor the carbs they consume.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune
disease, brought on by genetic, environ-
mental, or other, unknown factors, in
which the immune system kills the cells
that make insulin. While people with
type 1 make dietary and other lifestyle
changes to keep symptoms in check, they
also must check their blood sugar and take
insulin daily just to stay alive. If their
blood sugar dips too low, say from taking
too much insulin or skipping a meal, they
might have seizures or lose consciousness.
All this can be isolating. Just 4.1
percent of Americans with diabetes have
Counselor Jack Mahalaris helps campers
check their blood sugar and treat any lows.