Diabetic Dreams

Today, I've been thinking a lot about one of my wife's ultimate dreams; something that I would love to do, too! So, Chey wants to run a diabetes camp one day, to help kids cope with the struggles of managing their diabetes during their adolescence. I know it was hard for me, being diagnosed at 16 years old, to make a transition that stuck with me. I still have somewhat of a roller-coaster of management of my diabetes, but I have been working on it. Chey is the same way with her diabetes. This camp will have your normal summer camp activities, such as hiking, camping, mess hall eating, rifle and shotgun ranges, horseback riding, fishing, rafting, sailing, and such. You know, a normal summer camp. The only difference is that it will be only for kids diagnosed with diabetes.

Our hope with this dream is that we can help kids realize that they can still do everything normally, and still keep tight control over their blood glucose levels and Hemoglobin A1C. After all, with the increasing number of children being diagnosed with this disorder, it's important to teach kids to take care of themselves.

During this camp, we'll also have guest speakers in the world of diabetes research and management talk to the kids about how important it is to take care of themselves, but also to show them that their dreams can come true, even with a disease such as this. We would like these researchers and doctors to also encourage the kids to look into careers in diabetes research and management.

During adolescence, it is very difficult to be strong in good habits and morals when you feel like you're the only one that does those things. To combat that teenage mentality, we would like to set up a mentoring program for the kids, where younger diabetics can have cool older friends (around the United States and beyond) who have diabetes, too.

We have high hopes for this plan, and we would like it to be run as a non-profit organization.

We understand the difficulty in running things like this, but I have thought of a great way to spread the word about the camp and stay connected with the kids.

I would like to host a website that offers a blood glucose monitoring system (that keeps track of results entered in; sends email responses to users who don't log their numbers in the system daily; allows the user to see a summary of their diabetes management history, with a summary page of averages in blood glucose numbers, as well as an At-A-Glance graphical view for results for given weeks, months, quarters, and years; gives projections of their future A1c results based on average blood glucose readings; helps people set short- and long-term goals for their health and diabetes management; and offers a "Carbs-In-Food" calculator to help people easily calculate how many carbohydrates are in their food and drinks, and how much insulin they should take. I would also like the website to help the people understand how the insulin reacts in their body over the course of the day, as an educational tool for people. All they would have to do is answer a few simple questions about their personal diabetes management (questions like what kind(s) of insulin they use, when they typically take them, how the insulin is delivered, when the person goes to bed and wakes up, when the person eats, if (and when) the person exercises, how much energy the person exerts during the day, etc), and then a graph and explanation would show up on the page, the graph showing how the insulin affects their blood sugar during the day, and the explanation describing step-by-step how their basal insulin and lifestyle affects their daily blood glucose levels, in general. Also, this website would act as a social network for those people looking for friendships and help coping with diabetes.

I know, it's pretty extensive, but that's my part of the dream. I am hoping the traffic on the page will allow for some advertising revenue, which would be put towards the camp. I would also talk with endocrinologists, pediatricians, and internists about promoting the website and encouraging use in the office, and in the homes of their patients. I am also hoping that pharmaceutical, health technology, research, and medical companies will band together with us to make these things happen for our participants, especially for the kids.

Another problem with diabetes: we cannot find college scholarships for kids with diabetes. So, we would also like to offer some scholarship money for diabetic kids getting ready to pursue their dreams.

It feels good to finally get these thoughts out on paper (well, sort of *LOL*). I want to know what you think. What do you like of our family pipe dream? How can we improve on these ideas? Are we leaving anything out? If you'd like to help out, by all means, let us know. This won't be happening for a little while, but I think that it can bring a lot of help to people as the frequency of this disability increases.