Despite the past weekend being previously occupied by the festival of hoops, I, being ever the eager new nurse decided to spend the days up on the beautiful Pend Oreille River at Cardiac Camp. Sacred Heart Children's Hospital is renowned for its excellence in cardiac care for children with congential heart disease. Not one to be outdone by others in its class, some of the higher ups decided it was time that an annual summer camp was started for children with congenital heart disease. Thus, Beats and Rhythms Cardiac Camp was born!
I signed up for this camp months ago, just being excited to go to the location, which was a camp I am well familiar with due to my faithful attendance whilst a youth. I wanted to go on the gunny sack slide, be catapulted into the river by the Blob, and defy my vertical challenges on the climbing walls. So I agreed to be a cabin nurse for a group of girls at Cardiac Camp 2008.
You see, kids with congenital heart disease are usually not given the opportunity to have summer camp adventures, due to their histories of surgeries, required meds, oxygen equipment, and lack of trained medical staff available at most traditional summer camps. This camp was created to fill this void and give these kids a chance to push themselves and have the most FUN EVER. My very first camper dashed into our cabin from the car, dumped her bulging backpack on the floor and screeched "I have never been to camp before, where do I put my toothpaste?!". I was so touched I could have squeezed her til her insides were out.
I was sooooo amazed by the tenacity of this little fighters. They were relentless, every kid trying every activity, even despite some blue lips and lots of fear. I kept telling Dr G, our world class Peds Cardiologist, that if we had brought 24 non-cardiac involved kids to this camp, there was no way they would have had half the energy or enthusiasm of our campers. They defeat odds. Many of these kids were born with fatal heart abnormalities and yet, they can't be told that 27 times down the slide is too many:) I admire them.
Perhaps even more admirable was their blase attitudes about their health histories. As soon as we were all gathered, stories and scars were proudly shared and displayed. Respect was given to the camper with the most "fresh" sternal scars, and also to those with the most in number. All this, mind you, was going on while we adults were stifling giggles and wiping away tears. This is exactly what we had wanted, to surround these kids with others who know!
All in all, I had a wonderful weekend. I may be trekking up Anapurna this time next year, but you can bet your ass I'll be flying in from wherever to go back to Cardiac Camp!
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