My New Diabuddy

Sorry for my lack of posts last week. I was preparing for Jr. High Winter Retreat with my work. Now, normally I don’t attend these trips because I am not a leader with our youth group. But this time was different. A student’s mom emailed me before camp wondering if there would be anyone there to help her Type 1 diabetic daughter while at camp. I decided to go to camp for this student because I love meeting people with diabetes and I loved the idea of helping someone become more independent with their diabetes. So, off to camp I went.

I was extremely nervous about going to camp, after all, I didn’t really know any of the students or leaders attending the camp and wasn’t sure how I would fit in. We left on Friday and before we got onto the bus I met Kaylee, my new diabuddy. I asked her what kind of pump she had and when she showed me I over excited jumped and told her I had the same exact one color and all. After she laughed at my outburst I told her that we were extra cool because Nick Jonas had the same one too!

I think I earned cool points with that little fact and knew we would be ok. Kaylee got on the bus and I got into my car and we were off to a great start.

The first night Kaylee let me know where she had issues with her diabetes and how she needed help. I showed her a few new tricks with her pump to make her life a lot easier. We talked about her insulin to carb ratio, carb counting, and reducing her basals for an active weekend. When I was playing with her pump she looked me at me said “this is really cool to have someone else who knows about all of this stuff” and it made the entire weekend. I mean come on, someone in Jr. High thinks I’m cool, it was kind of a big deal.

Throughout the weekend we checked our blood sugars together, bloused for our meals and snacks together, and I helped her with her carb counting at dinner. Each day I would check in with her to see if I was bothering her or being overbearing. It was really cool to see her excited to share that she had diabetes too when other students would ask me questions about my insulin pump. You could see the confidence beaming on her face she had diabetes and was proud of it. It was amazing!

By the end of the weekend she was celebrating her independence with her diabetes. We kept calling each other diabuddies and she was always willing to ask me for help when she needed it. Every chance I got we celebrated Kaylee and her managing diabetes without her mom. It was a really cool experience to be able to help her along her diabetes journey and see her come into her own with it.