Health Discoveries Winter 2020 | Page 13

type 1; many kids are the only one in their school who has it. “It was strange being the only person in the nurse’s office during lunch, getting injections,” recalls Liam Scott, of East Greenwich, who was diagnosed when he was 7. “I always tried to hide my glucometer under the desk when I was testing.” But the following summer he started coming to Camp Surefire. “Just to see everyone had their glucometers out on the table, and everyone was doing injections—it was a really good sense of community when I was in such need for that,” he says. “When they’re here, everybody is the same,” Fox says. “From the very minute they show up, they feel like they’re part of something.” Most of the counselors and other leaders, like Brewer, have type 1 and were longtime campers themselves. “The counselors model good diabetes manage- ment,” Fox says. They normalize the blood testing and carb counting, and celebrate when children give themselves an insulin injection for the very first time. “We make a big deal out of that, actually,” he says. Liam, now 16, is a leader-in-training— the first step to becoming a counselor— and a role model like the ones he had when he was a newbie. “I just feel responsible to give back what I was given,” he says. Counselor Jessie Nouman helps campers determine their carb counts at dinner in the main lodge. PEACE OF MIND FOX , W HOSE FATHER H A S T Y PE 1, began volunteering at the camp when he was a pediatric endocrinology fellow at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. He was the only doctor on staff, so after that first summer “they made me medical director for life,” he laughs. “I walked out of that very first camp, like, this is something that I absolutely love.” His enthusiasm was infectious; soon the whole family was coming too. His wife, Ali, has been executive director since they formed the Camp Surefire Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), in 2007; their kids, Joe, 18, and Anna, 16, now have leadership roles. “It’s such an incredible part of our lives,” Greg Fox says. “We treat this as a family.” Each year the camp adds more programming and diabetes education. What began as a weekend for about 20 campers grew to a full week, plus smaller events throughout the year. “It’s really evolving every year,” Ali Fox says. They recruit friends and other volunteers to play music, lead Zumba and yoga classes, teach cartooning and karate, “in addition to the regular arts and crafts and swimming and capture the flag and all those good things,” she says. Camp Surefire is often the first—and only—sleepaway camp that its campers, ages 6 to 17, have attended. Type 1 diabetes requires 24/7 vigilance, something few parents will entrust to anyone else. Belle Channell, a camp counselor and senior at URI, says of her first summer at the camp, at age 9, “My mom was nervous. … She wanted to work in the kitchen to keep an eye on me.” Liam Scott’s mom, Susan Ramsey, PhD, was equally concerned when his doctor recommended Camp Surefire. “I didn’t send my daughter, without a medical condition, away,” Ramsey says. “I thought, wow, I’m just trying to figure out how to keep this kid alive.” Even her husband, Stephen Scott, MD, an internist and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School, says he felt unprepared. In medical school, “you learn the nuts and bolts,” he says, “but the day-to-day minutiae, I had no clue.” He gets up every night, he says, “mostly HEALTH DISCOVERIES l WINTER 2020    13