Blake is the third kid God has put in my life through BigStuf camp. He was a seventh grader when I met him. I believe he was diagnosed at the age of six with type 1 diabetes and had an insulin pump. From my nursing experience most people with a pump know way better than any hospitalist how to manage their blood sugars. I have never worked with the pediatric population but I have a feeling the same is true. I wasn’t even nervous about Blake until the first morning when his sugar dropped to 40’s and he slept right through his alarm.

I’m pretty sure it was that first year he lost his insulin and didn’t say anything until his blood sugar was sky high and only reading high on his dexacom monitor. I knew it would take some time to get insulin called in locally and to get it picked up. Luckily, I had another type 1 who had insulin in my fridge Blake had syringes with him so he dosed himself with 20 units of regular. His mom got a hold of diabetic coordinator from Cardinal Glennon and I spent the next couple of hours on and off the phone with them. When I told them how much insulin Blake had dosed with, they said it was way too much and he would crash. However, that never happened and he only hit about 200. That just led me to believe his sugar was pretty high and I think his breakfast carb load was 65. About this time his leader found his insulin and we changed his pump site. I would find out later he texted his mom saying he thought he was going to die. The rule is, no one dies at camp, too much paperwork.

The next year I connected my phone to his blood sugar monitor. Now that was an eye opening scary experience for me. He would be alarming high 400 and then low 42. It was up and down the entire week. I had one friend I would share the numbers with to keep me from panicking. It was this year that Blake was given his nickname.

In the Mole family if we like you, you get a nickname. My girls friends all know theirs. We must love our dogs because they all have had many names. Now I’m horrible at remembering names, in part because of hippa. If I don’t know the patients name, I can’t get fired for talking about them. Because of Blake’s blood sugars all over the place I came up with blood sugar Blake. Of course I never told him this, I cannot remember if I ever told his mom.

Blake graduated from high school this year so it was his very last BigStuf. No better time than to reveal his nickname to him. He is going to be a paramedic/firefighter so I told him the same think I told a kid name Jack ten years ago. It doesn’t matter if you do CPR wrong, the person is dead and you can’t make them more dead. If you bring them back it’s a bonus. Blake told his friends my nickname and they all started calling him it. So I guess I didn’t offend him too much. This week he decided to try Lantus so he wouldn’t have to wear his pump. I never saw him for blood sugar issues so I’m assuming it was a nice break.

Somehow I managed to not take any pictures the other years. I can blame 2019 on my sabbatical before I changed jobs. 2021 my father had just died and I have zero memories of camp. Last year I was so sick with respiratory stuff (not covid, two negative tests) I didn’t even notice the band had changed. This year I was finally back to my old self and had an absolute blast!

Mole Moral~ Invest your time in others, the payoff is incredibly high and rewarding.