Swim day falls on the last day. It does every year. The camp kids know it. “They get really excited,” said Camp Hot Shots counselor Holly Foster. Photo gallery

But before kids can jump into the Platte River, their insulin pumps must be unhooked and stored. “There’s this room with all of these pumps, all beeping,” Foster said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, you forgot us.’”

It’s as if — for an hour — the diabetic children attending the camp have left their disease behind.

At Hot Shots and Camp Floyd Rogers, blood-sugar checks are the routines, fit in alongside camp songs and riding horses.

Each year, about 100 diabetic kids and teens spend a week at Floyd Rogers. About 70, ages 8 to 11, attend Hot Shots day camp.

Both camps were held earlier this summer along the Platte River.

For 9-year-old Madeline, said mother Joye Fehringer of Lincoln, the benefit is being around other kids going through the same things.

“Nobody in her (school) class is diabetic; nobody on her soccer team. They don’t understand what day-in and day-out things you have to deal with. … just the constant risk,” Joye said.

Zondee Coakes of Petersburg has been sending her 16-year-old daughter, Roxy, to camp since age 8.

“We don’t allow her to let herself say she has a handicap,” Zondee said. “This is just a little glitch. But to feel good and do the things that everybody else does she has to work harder, take care of herself better.”

At camp, that’s understood.

Nobody stares if you prick a finger to test blood. Nobody attempts to avoid staring at an insulin pump port protruding a few inches above your bikini bottom.

Even for diabetes veteran Carly Panowicz, a 14-year-old at North Star High School in Lincoln, camp is a chance to let down her guard.

Diagnosed with diabetes at age 9, “It was like you live in a different world.” People stare when you test your blood, she said.

Testing blood sugar, counting carbohydrates, these eventually becomes no big things. But at camp, “Everybody else is just like you.”

Not only does everyone have diabetes, they’re thriving.

Foster, 22, diagnosed with diabetes at age 8 and now a UNL family science student, has been a Hot Shots counselor for seven years.

Kids see it, she said. “Diabetes doesn’t have to hold you back.”

While here, kids also add to their understanding of the disease. The youngest know something called a pancreas doesn’t work properly and they have to take insulin to survive.

Here they add nuance. The details may make the difference between living long or not.

As part of the curriculum this year, camp nurses displayed a pig pancreas. Weeks later, Joye Fehringer returned to a dinner table full of friends to hear her daughter telling them of her pancreas.

“I’m not sure it’s polite table conversation,” Joye said, but it shows she’s learning.

Most of the kids look forward to camp every year.

“It’s a second home for me,” said Carly.

Some parents fear it.

Especially first-time parents and those with newly diagnosed kids, Foster said. They’re always nervous.

They look at 20-year-old counselors, asking: What do they know?

“Think about being a parent and handing a kid over to a bunch of counselors,” Foster said, “handing over the reins to the child.”

Every day before camp, mothers match insulin to carbohydrates and check blood sugars. Then, that sacred duty becomes somebody else’s job.

Years ago, when Coakes first took Roxy to Hot Shots, she stayed with her. After a few days, she realized the staff knew its stuff.

“The first day I left her at camp,” Coakes said, “I cried on the way home.” All mothers do, she said.

For Carly, “My dad was really skeptical.”

But away from parents’ worried watching, independence thrives.

Carly went to her first camp months after being diagnosed. It was there she first gave herself an insulin shot.

“Getting away from parents — it makes things a lot easier,” she said. “They’re not looking over your shoulder, and it takes some of the pressure off.”

Camp is where she later learned about insulin pumps.

“Friends at camp started talking about how much they liked it.”

Madeline Fehringer also gave herself her first shot at camp, said her mother.

In Nebraska, Camp Floyd Rogers is the old-timer. Hot Shots is newer.

On a typical day at Floyd Rogers, said Carly, you awake, check your blood sugar, take insulin and eat breakfast. Then the kids play games, eat a snack, learn something about the disease, spend time in their cabins, test blood sugars and eat lunch. Then it’s swimming, a snack, crafts, cabin time, blood tests and supper.

Each night has a special event, like a dance or carnival. Then on the last night, it’s the final banquet.

Pictures are shown. The medical staff serves the meal.

“It’s the only time we get pop in camp — unless we do something secret,” Carly said.

Finally, the camp’s story is retold.

Dr. Floyd Rogers was waiting for a shipment of the latest miracle drug, insulin, in 1920, hoping to treat a young child with ketoacidosis. The child died waiting. The next, however, got the drug and lived.

Later, setting up practice in Lincoln, Rogers developed a summer education program on his farm. Today, the Floyd Rogers Foundation puts on the camp each June.

At the end of the week, campers stand in a friendship circle, hands joined, singing traditional songs, like “Happy Heart” — “It’s cheesy but it’s fun,” Carly said.

One person squeezes the hand of the next in line, and he squeezes the next, “keeping the tradition of camp going forward.”

Reach Mark Andersen at 473-7238 or mandersen@journalstar.com.