I got to spend another week as a healthcare volunteer at
Camp CAMP in central Texas; the main camp was not touched by last year's flooding, and they have rebuilt the canoe launch. Tried to enjoy Saturday as my first day off after 14 straight rounding in the hospital, but it was a travel day, which meant that I couldn’t sleep in, signed and billed notes from the airport / airplane (including discovering an incorrect discharge medication list and being unable to reach the patient or spouse), and gave up on my 2-year-old plan to visit San Antonio’s
Witte Museum to take a ride-share downtown and find a restaurant where I could work on my laptop with a margarita.
Just before the chatty driver—on his first day of working for Lyft—dropped me off at the
Canopy Hotel, the heavens opened, and it poured rain. The
Domingo Restaurant was able to seat me immediately without a reservation. But I had to sit inside instead of enjoying the Riverwalk, and you needed a room to use the wifi. So I treated myself to a late lunch of enchiladas and said drink, and the waitstaff kindly let me curl up with a book in a corner until my ride came several hours later, by which point the rain had ceased.
Hammock selfie
I woke up very early Sunday morning (body still on Eastern Time) for a quiet start before the cabin and the camp filled up. After greeting the day from the hammock on the health center porch, we had orientation. Most of the healthcare volunteers were new, but I had been assigned to the cabin of the most complicated campers for the first time—which felt like a promotion—so we were all learning new things. Sunday is always hectic: meeting the campers, finding out about them, their conditions, medications, habits, etc., enough to take good care of them while their caregivers get some respite: some stay home and sleep or clean, others go out of town, one was looking forward to a dinner at a nice restaurant and a movie at the cinema.
My digs for the week
Monday morning came all too early, especially because it was still dark when we realized the counselors in one of the adjoining rooms had locked us out of our shared bathroom overnight (this was a repeated occurrence all week, despite verbal reminders and signs newly posted on all the doors). Having spent the day in the med room reading the book I am reviewing, I followed the group to the pool in the afternoon and for 20 blessed minutes lay on my back next to the pool, enjoying the sun. With an unexpected break in the evening, I slipped away to shower before coming back to give night meds. Except that another vicious storm began, and I ended up sheltering in the healthcare training lounge for an hour and a half with campers and counselors who hadn’t made it back to their bunks, until the thunder and lightning ended and we were allowed to move around the campus again.
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings were rainy, so everyone hung out in their cabins, watched movies, colored, and did each other’s hair. In the afternoons they were able to do activities like arts & crafts and swinging. (Canoeing was not allowed.) Evening activities included karaoke, carnival, and a dance. The camp director DJs and takes requests, which ranged this year from "Brick in the Wall" to "Baby Beluga" and from Prokofiev's "Romeo & Juliet" suite to "The Chicken Dance." It always ends with everyone swaying in a circle, singing "Lean on Me."
Thursday morning, as the Guadalupe River rose 32 feet in 4 hours, and they activated the emergency protocol (if not new since last year's devastating Fourth of July flood, then strengthened), which included generators for all the cabins and inventorying our campers’ meds and tube feeds. If the roads were impassable and we couldn't leave until Saturday, then the Texas National Guard would air drop food and supplies. We were instructed not to post anything about the situation on social media while at camp, and to give a friendly, reassuring wave if we saw helicopters overhead. Anxiety levels had been high all week, what with a tornado damaging the roof and facade of a building on the outskirts of San Antonio (I drove by it on my way to the airport) and two deaths reported nearby.
Solitaire in the med room
Me and the Med-Peds resident who came this year; our yellow tie-dyed Med Team shirts say "Mo-Love" (the Mustang Cabin used to be the Mohawk Tribe)
Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. Friday dawned wet with only occasional sprinkles. Everybody packed and cleaned in between giving medications and taking pictures. There was an awards ceremony, and we said our thank yous and good-byes.
Rain had prevented the “star ceremony” that usually marks the end of a week of camp; it’s a time of reflection for the staff and volunteers and usually involves lighting a kerosene-soaked metal outline of a star. Even without it, I had some realizations:
I realized that I don’t actually care what the flavor of my tea is, if the creamer is French vanilla flavored. I realized that I will dig through a garbage can or a crate of dirty laundry to look for lost items. (One item was found somewhere else, and the other two remain missing.)
I realized that holding up a sheet so a camper can be changed in semi-private doesn’t take a medical degree—but "camp is for the camper." I was once again humbled by the gymnastics of getting liquid meds from the bottles into a camper via a G tube with the wrong connector (complete with a “shower” of medication). It was a good reminder to go slowly, to ask questions, and to role model equanimity for the younger volunteers.
With all the canceled activities, it was an unusual week at camp, but I'll always remember it because of this beautiful drawing I received from the counselors of one of my two campers and plan to hang it in my office. Until next year!
