46 DI A BETIC LI V ING / SPR ING 2019
IT STRUCK ME ...
being in that community of
people who got it, who spoke
my language, who were also
testing their blood sugars ...
I was in a diabetes slipstream!
“
“
Nick’s mother, Janis
Reed (left), tries her
hand at canoeing.
clip without doing all that much work. “It
struck me that being in that community of
people who got it, who spoke my language,
who were also testing their blood sugars,
and playing with insulin delivery rates, and
swallowing handfuls of jelly beans ... I was in
a diabetes slipstream!”
Upon her return, Vance searched all
over for the Canadian equivalent of Hy-
poActive, only to come up empty-handed.
“But my professional background was in
outdoor education, and I had the right
contacts. So I went for it, visiting local
diabetes clinics to ask clinicians to spread
the word to their patients.” In 2009, CIM
organized its fi rst Slipstream weekend with
19 campers. A decade later, they’ve hosted
more than 30 throughout Canada and the
northern U.S.
Anastasia Albanese-O’Neill, Ph.D.,
ARNP, CDE, assistant professor and di-
rector of diabetes education and clinic op-
erations in pediatric endocrinology at the
University of Florida in Gainesville, says
adult camps allow you to “relax and let your
guard down because you’re surrounded
by dozens, even hundreds of people who
get what you’re going through because
they’re living it too.”
In this way, experiential health educa-
tion opportunities like D-camp off er critical
peer support, meaning campers are leaning
on and learning from fellow adults with
diabetes, rather than just turning to, say a
spouse or parent without diabetes. Peer sup-
port has been shown to improve diabetes
management, including behaviors related
to blood glucose monitoring, medication
dosing, diet, and exercise; it may also help
reduce depression.
For instance, CIM campers report
post-camp improvements in HbA1C lev-
els and overall quality of life. And a 2017
Diabetes & Metabolism Journal study in-
volving adults ages 50 to 86 with type 2
diabetes who att ended a three-day camp
found that campers had lower A1C lev-
els and less variability in their measure-
ments one year later compared to their
pre-camp numbers.
“Diabetes education is woven into ev-
erything we do,” says Jen Hanson, PWD
type 1, executive director of Connected in
Motion. Heading out on a hike? “Camp
lets you try things you might not try if you
were hiking alone or with friends without
diabetes. You’ll have the chance to see
what happens when you tweak your snack-
ing, insulin dosing, or exercise intensity,
and you can do it with confi dence because
you’re hiking with experts with hundreds
of years of combined diabetes experience.
[Even] if you have a worst-case scenario,
you’re in the best place to handle it; you’ll
have a low snack in your hand before you
even realize you’re low.”
Not the outdoorsy type? You can
mostly stick with educational sessions, like
a talk on the latest and greatest in diabetes
tech; or choose laid-back activities, like a
yoga and mindfulness session with former
college athlete turned Nike infl uencer, and
PWD type 1, Lauren Bongiorno.
“Children with type 1 have opportu-
nities for connection and support,” Alba-
nese-O’Neill notes, “but once you become
an adult, those resources kind of dry up.”
Camp, she says, is one way to help fill
that void. In DiabetesMine’s 2017 Patient
Voices Survey, diabetes camp was the top-
rated tool for patient education, outrank-
ing certifi ed diabetes educators, diabetes
coaches, and support groups.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DIABETES TRAINING CAMP
