Kids Learn To Manage Diabetes At Camp Roaring Sun
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) - For an 11-year-old living with diabetes sometimes it can feel like you're all alone.
"Get to know that I'm not the only one with diabetes and I can face this with more people and not by myself," said Javier Fornaris.
Fornaris is attending Camp Roaring Sun for the 3rd time, a place that perhaps more than anywhere else kids like him get the sense they belong.
"Most of these kids count their carbohydrates and give themselves insulin based on their carbs, we teach them about what are good carbs vs. what aren't necessarily the best carbs to eat," said Jacqueline Verme, a nurse practitioner with Nicklaus Children's Hospital which helps put the camp on.
Children ages 6 to 12 learned skills to manage their lifelong condition, nearly all of them have type 1 diabetes.
The camp has three to four nurses on staff, the kids get lessons on things like self-injecting insulin and healthy living through food.
"Diabetes affects blood glucose levels and depending on whether the blood sugars are high or low they can experience different symptoms headaches, dizziness fatigue," said Verme.
All the while the kids make new friends in the process with a whole lot of other's who just get it.
"It's like 2nd nature for kids with diabetes to understand what that's like," said one camp attendee.