Rising above at Camp CAMP

This summer I was able to return to Camp CAMP (Children's Association for Maximum Potential) for a week as a healthcare volunteer (HCV). I couldn't go in June because of the trip to Norway, and actually they've moved that medically complex week to July so there are back-to-back sessions. This will make it easier to set up the cabins and attract students. I had to travel on my birthday and initially planned to treat myself to some sightseeing in San Antonio, but for various reasons I ended up hanging out at the airport until the camp director picked me up. We made a snack run to Costco and then chatted as we drove out to Center Point.

Left: funny little rubber glove baby spotted as I made my connection

at O'Hare Airport in Chicago; right: birthday margarita (prickly pear).

Camp CAMP lies 80 feet above the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, 30 miles downriver of Camp Mystic, which flooded so tragically on the Fourth of July. Almost no one was on the CAMP property because of the holiday weekend, but they had to cancel the next week's session due to the access roads being under water. The flood was 20 feet high and damaged the camp's small waterfront, where campers did outdoor cooking, pushed off in canoes, or enjoyed swings in the shade. The area depicted above used to be grassy and lined with trees. This article describes the cleanup, and there are plans to replant and rebuild sustainably.

Above: my pathetic attempt to take an instagrammable photo of my morning mug of hot chocolate on the rail of the health center deck looking toward the Camp CAMP sign.

I was assigned to the Hawk tribe with a dozen elementary- and middle-school girls with a variety of developmental conditions like Autism and cerebral palsy. I was in charge of giving medications three times a day, assessing any illnesses or injuries, and performing the bowel and bladder program for one camper, who uses a catheter to urinate 5 times a day and a 1.5-hour bowel flush once a day. This was a weighty responsibility, because until this point she had only ever relied on her mother (or a nurse) to do this for her, and now she had to do it with an audience (the rule of 2s makes sure no camper is ever alone with an adult). With only one snafu, we got through it with open communication and some silly inside jokes.

Yours truly: my uniform for the week is a CAMP t-shirt and shorts, sneakers, my prescription glasses and sunglasses around my neck, and a hat. One of the counselors confessed as she showed a camper the HCV photo on Facebook that she was afraid she wouldn't recognize me without a hat on! I usually carry a drawstring backpack with a water bottle, a book, and a pen. This year the water bottle did me dirty and leaked flavored water onto my brand new textbook, Care of Adults with Chronic Childhood Conditions.

Tools of the trade: syringe drying rack, med minder, medication list, masking tape, marker, pen.

Still life at the med table. The Hawk tribe's color is purple.

Lunch.

We had fun, too! One evening they staged a scavenger hunt for little plastic aliens, and the Scorpion tribe created a haunted house in the dining hall, complete with tickets and jump scares. Favorite memories from the week include relaxing in the shade with the girls before dinner; walking into their cabin in the middle of a growling competition with the boys in the other half of the tribe; finding an unused bathroom in which to unwind with a shower before bed; and seeing all the constellations at night. I had a particularly good time at the Thursday evening dance this year. They find ties and dresses for the campers, take "prom" photos of the teenagers, and get as many of them out of their wheelchairs as possible.

Above: lazy river. On Wednesday I joined the other HCVs in the main pool to cheer as 7 people "dunked" a camper with a trach. This involved supporting his body, giving breaths via an ambu bag, inflating the cuff, physically plugging his stoma, and then quickly suctioned out any water that had gotten into his airway. Putting his head under water was at least as gratifying to him as the water-proof cochlear implant that finally allows him to hear splashing, shouting, and the general merriment that happens while swimming.

I answered lots and lots of medical questions, prescribed a bunch of meds, and only made one assessment error that was quickly corrected. I learned how to remove nopal cactus spines (dried Elmer's glue < soaking in Epsom salts). I came home with more mosquito bites than I had when I arrived, but no sunburn. Ideally I would return next summer with at least one Med-Peds resident from my program, and I'm in talks with some of the other clinicians about reviving the educational lectures that happened pre-COVID. I would just have to figure out the administrative details of being away from my clinic. Until then, I will leave you with the recipe for Eau d'CAMP:

Liquid seizure medication

CBD oil

Miralax powder

Sweat

Combo bug spray-sunblock

The sulfurous smell of well water

My Norway in a Nutshell

I used the promise to support a group of scholars in Norway starting an academic organization for health humanities and social medicine as an excuse to extend my stay in the country into a vacation using two weekends. Dear Husband had a work trip the same week, but luckily a friend from grad school who now lives in Germany was able to organize her time so that she could travel with me. While you could take the train from Oslo to Bergen in one day and either tack on the side trip to Flåm (pronounced "floam") the same day or backtrack to do it the next day (like the people on our train), we thought that was too much time sitting. We decided to break up the stereotypical "Norway in a Nutshell" train trip from Oslo to Bergen with intermediary stops for hiking and sightseeing--see our itinerary at the bottom of the post. This meant I had to pack for summer in Oslo (70 degrees and sunny + 60s at night), rain in the mountains (50-60 degrees during the day, except in the 40s at Myrdal and at night), and an academic conference (but more relaxed than most).

Packing while toggling between 2025 Eurovision music videos and the Norwegian weather site, I decided to bring my hiking boots and a pair of flats, 2 long-sleeved t-shirts + jeans for hiking, a selection of short-sleeved t-shirts + 2 pairs of slacks for the city, 1 bathing suit for the sauna, 2 pairs pajamas, an assortment of socks/underthings, and the minimum of toiletries. By the way, if you haven't yet enjoyed the 4th-place Eurovision video from Swedish group KAJ about going to the sauna, it's worth a listen: Bara bada bastu.

This is all of my gear for the weather: an umbrella, a kerchief, a knit cap, an Orioles baseball cap, a woven scarf, a fleece jacket, unlined rain/ski pants, and a water-proof windbreaker that can be folded and zipped into its own pocket to make a fanny pack (if you're really skinny!). I ended up leaving the umbrella in Oslo during our train trip and was a little sorry about it, but the combo rain pants (which I already owned) and rain jacket (new investment) plus the baseball cap turned out to be clutch in the mountainous west of Norway, where it rained off-and-on continuously.

 

I was pretty darn impressed with my packing job! I also brought some travel gear: a neck pillow, a smaller day bag, 2 soft knee braces, a pair of arch supports, a sleep sack in case the hotel sheets were suspect, and a dirty clothes bag. I should have left the sleep sack but brought flip flops and a travel bottle of shampoo for the couple of times we had communal showers without supplies. For the saunas we either used the hotel towels or rented some. I also brought my old European converter plug for my phone and laptop as well as 3 books for work: American Disgust: Racism, Microbial Medicine, and the Colony Within by Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer (he and I share some theoretical frameworks);  Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High (for my leadership seminar), and Making Disability Modern: Design Histories edited by Bess Williamson and Elizabeth Guffey (for my conference presentation on structural ableism).

I went straight from work on Friday to dinner with Dear Husband on the way to the airport. The 6-hour flight from Pittsburgh to Reykjavik didn't allow for much sleeping. Airplane breakfast: 12 Euro oatmeal, hot tea, and OJ.

On my second trip to Europe, in June 2005, I flew through Reykjavik Airport. Leaning against this angled wall in a jetlagged haze while my companions purchased something in the food court is one of my distinct memories of that trip.

Oslo to Bergen Itinerary

Saturday ~ arrive in Oslo, get sunshine to adjust internal clock, consider partaking of Oslo's fancy food and/or drink scene

Sunday ~ morning train from Oslo to Geilo (pronounce the G as a Y), hike around the lake, hotel has a sauna

Monday ~ mid-morning train from Geilo to Myrdal [we could have taken an earlier one and missed some of the other tourists], hike 1.5 hours down into valley (there's also a zipline option!), rent bicycles for a 45-minute ride the rest of the way to Flåm, then catch the last Naeroyfjord fjord ferry because there was nowhere to stay Flåm that was in our budget. Due to inclement weather, large backpacks with food, and seats opening up on the touristy Flåmsbana, we scrapped the bikes at the last minute and took the train.

Tuesday ~ wake up in Gudvangen and either take a hike or visit the Viking Village, then take the bus to Voss to ride the gondola up for a hike and/or see the (mostly outdoor) folk museum [we skipped this]

Wednesday ~ take the train to Bergen for a walking tour, check out the museums, ride the Fløibanen funicular up for a hike. E.R. discovered a sauna on the harbor that we booked for after dinner

Thursday ~ early morning flights back to Oslo / Germany

1920s garden party at Wilpen Hall

I found out that a lovely elderly couple at church had gifted us a membership to the Sewickley Valley Historical Society when an invitation to a "speakeasy" garden party landed on Dear Husband's desk. We weren't sure if we would know anyone there, but we like a fancy dress-up occasion and can usually entertain ourselves, so we RSVP'd with the "white rose" group and collaborated on our best 1920s-imitation outfits. The lower entrance fee and later arrival time meant we would miss the champagne toast and guided tour of the house but still gave us access to the buffet, gardens, and carriage house. Even though we ran into a few church folk, we still felt like we were crashing someone else' party--maybe that's what made it like a speakeasy? That, and the open bar. A pianist played period-appropriate popular music on a keyboard, and the food was good (especially the desserts). You can see that the evening was overcast, but the rain stayed away long enough for us to wander around the grounds and check out the collection of historical carriages and cars.

Wilpen Hall home was built for William Penn Snyder and his wife between 1897 and 1900 as a summer home in the tony Sewickley Hills area. Snyder was the founder of the Shenango Furnace Company. Designed by George Orth and Brothers in the style of an English Manor house, the residence was subsequently named "Wilpen," using a contraction of Snyder's first and middle names. Today it is the home of a couple of doctors, who got it listed as a historic site in 2021.

This is some of the original sculpture on the property;

there are many more modern pieces, almost all of them animals.

It was a little late for the roses, which must have been stunning at their peak.

The current owners clearly have a sense of humor and wimsy!

There were at least four terraces from the main back yard, to this lawn, a lower level with an abandoned swimming pool, and then a further grassy expanse below that.

Off in one corner was another abandoned swimming pool (to the right, not pictured), and behind me here, a duck pond in which a concrete goose had drowned (not shown out of respect).

To DH's disappointment, there were no fish in the pond. There was however lots of frog statuary.

All manner of antique conveyances

Also 118-year-old horse show ribbons plus old tack. No horses, though.

Come for the conference, stay for the vacation: A photo essay

I have been so busy that I was (am) desperate for a break. So when one of the five conferences I am attending in May-June ended at lunchtime on a Saturday, and it wasn't substantially cheaper to fly home the same day, I decided to spend an extra night at the hotel. Originally Dear Husband had to work that weekend but he needed downtime as much as I did, so he took the weekend off to attend our nephew's high school graduation in Ohio. In Florida I had good time connecting with friends old and new; co-presented two workshops; and absorbed what felt like a firehose of information. At last year's conference I had split my time between medical content, publication advice, and career development. This time I live-Facebooked areas in which I am weak, like the musculoskeletal exam, cardiac devices, and hormone therapy. The organization's staff try to keep things light, so that's me with the conference mascot, a stuffed yeti doll wearing snorkel gear. The plenaries were appropriately inspiring. I was a member of the winning trivia team for the second year in a row (and runner-up the year before that), so I've decided to sit out next time and contribute a category of medical history questions. Then I spent ~25 hours recharging my batteries. 

I was tickled to fly out on Maryland One.

Approach to Ft. Lauderdale.

View from my balcony on the 32nd floor. I think that's the highest floor I've ever stayed on.

It was a looong way down.

Society of

General

Internal
Medicine

They ran out of blue Meds Peds ribbons, so I wrote it on the bottom of my badge.

My institution hosts a dinner for current and former members.

I staged photos of the program as part of my posts. The gold rectangle is my business card holder with pearl inlay that was a graduation gift from My Awesome Parents.

George (NYU) and I defended our trivia title!

UPMC Med Peds had a great showing, especially of residents.

I was sad nobody noticed the scarf that I designed using Renaissance anatomical illustrations.

This medical conference prefers pricey hotels, but I was still shocked that the bill for a working lunch at the restaurant was $54 (one salad, one dessert, no alcohol or tip). I heard they were charging north of $20-35 per cocktail. After the conference ended, I walked to the nearby grocery store to stock up for the rest of my stay. Two lunches, one breakfast (sans yogurt pilfered from the conference), one dinner, and snacks cost $48. I figured out how to make hot tea with the espresso machine in the room.

Hotel pool on my way to sunrise yoga. The clouds protected us from the worst of the sun's rays, but we still sweated through our workout while the yogi--a young man from Los Angeles--explained anatomy, philosophized about mind over matter, and reminded us how "dope" our bodies are for the things that they can do or have done.

During my mini-vacation, I played games on my phone and ate dinner in bed while watching a movie. I got to spend time in the ocean waves and in the hotel pool. After showering and checking out I read on the back deck until the sun was high and the temps were uncomfortable, so I moved inside to recharge my devices and write this blog post, a sort of farewell postcard for both you and me.