Summer camp helps kids with Type 1 diabetes

Children living with Type 1 diabetes are attending summer camp to learn how to manage their condition.

It allows kids to experience all that summer camp has to offer while learning about how to maintain a healthy life with Type 1 diabetes.

"You get to meet a lot of new friends here and you get to learn more about being diabetic and how you can control it," said Lara Abramson, who is a former camper and the manager of camps for Canadian Diabetes Association.

Camp Dia-Best has been operating in New Brunswick since 1967 and is the longest-running camp in the region.

The camp has three staff members for every camper, including dieticians and doctors to help administer insulin shots and check blood sugars.

Type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with health or lifestyle, but can occur in children and adults of any age. The number of people with Type 1 diabetes in New Brunswick in 2014 was 3,800 and that number is only expected to increase.

Sebastian Morrow has been a camper for seven years. He's made new friends while learning more about his diabetes.

"You get to meet a lot of new friends here and you get to learn more about being diabetic and how you can control it."

Camp Dia-Best moved this year to Green Hill Lake, they outgrew their last location at Camp Rotary at Grand Lake.

Abramson says education is the best way to combat the disease. There are also family camps that help to educate everyone involved.

"The education is kind of passed forward to their parents or their grandparents or aunts or uncles … because it really is a family disease," she said. "Everyone's doing it together. There isn't anyone not doing it, so they get to feel that this is their normal."