Camp Conrad-Chinnock Offers Respite For Kids With Diabetes

Camp For Diabetic Children

by Vickie Oddino

Technology and medical research have dramatically changed the lives of children with chronic diseases. However, they have done little to ease parents' fears. That's where Camp Conrad-Chinnock comes in.

Camp Conrad-Chinnock was established in 1958 as an opportunity for children with diabetes to go to sleep-away camp. At the time, there was little to help manage diabetes - no home blood glucose meters, no disposable syringes, no insulin pumps. And research offered little hope. Children were often put on starvation diets, kept from exerting themselves, and given a short life expectancy. But Dr. Robert Chinnock was determined to give these kids a chance to prove everyone wrong. And he did.

In 1958, Dr. Chinnock brought 17 children with diabetes to the Angelus Oaks area of the San Bernardino Mountains. At the time, he checked the children's blood sugars by boiling chemicals to add to their urine, and he sterilized glass syringes for insulin injections.

Technology has improved dramatically in the last fifty years. Today's owner of the camp, a nonprofit organization named Diabetic Youth Services, no longer needs to prove that children with diabetes can lead the lives of regular kids and accomplish the extraordinary. These kids do that all the time, from nine-year-old Emily, who takes ballet, jazz, and tap, to Gary Hall Jr., who won the Olympic gold in swimming.

The parents of children with diabetes haven't changed much, though. Facing life with a child who has a chronic disease is beyond frightening, especially when that life is fraught with complicated calculations that have both immediate and lasting effects. Plus, while a generation ago parents begged for information, today's parents are overloaded with information, from ill-informed friends to outdated doctors, to unsourced websites to sensationalized media stories. It's hard to know what to believe.

Camp Conrad-Chinnock comes to the rescue yet again. Dr. Wesley G. Smith, the Chief Medical Director, and Rocky Wilson, the Camp Director, provide kids with diabetes support and the chance to take control of their own diabetes care. When Emily first went to camp at eight years old, she had never given herself a shot and had declared that she never would. But after shot class with Dr. Smith, she proudly boasted about giving herself a shot in her upper arm. This is a life-changing accomplishment. Not only is she gaining a sense of control, but she has just made it possible to spend the night at a friend's, go to a birthday party alone, or to go to lunch with Grandma.

As anyone associated with diabetes knows, diabetes affects the entire family. So Camp Conrad-Chinnock offers not only youth and teen camp sessions, but also family camp. At family camp sessions, parents meet the doctor, the therapist, and the counselors who themselves have diabetes, while the children befriend kids their own age with diabetes. Parents are comforted that there is no place safer for diabetics.

But this unique camp experience does not happen by itself. Every fall, parents graciously donate their weekends to paint, repair, construct, etc. Without funding from the state and federal government, or from any corporate sponsor, the camp depends on program fees as well as on donations of anything from roofing materials, to couches, to refrigerators, to cash, 98% of which go directly to the camp program.

While Camp Conrad-Chinnock offers many things to many people, Emily puts the camp's main accomplishment best: It feels good to be just like everyone else, even if only for a week.

Diabetic Youth Services accepts donations, can use volunteers, and will rent the site. Camp Conrad-Chinnock, 74-141 Chinnock Circle East, Palm Desert, CA 92211; Phone: 888 800-4010; Online: www.dys.org.