I remember school camps as exciting events. A chance to let your hair down and escape the confines of overbearing parents and jump straight into the proverbial arms of overbearing teachers. Be that as it may, there was something about leaving home for the adventure that a camp was bound to provide. The unknown was exciting as a kid!
My son has his school camp coming up this week, which is what got me to thinking a little about these fun rites of passage. And while I reminisced for a while about how enjoyable I found them, I found myself wondering more and more, how he feels about them. Unlike my attendance at camps, my son's attendance isn't really in the realm of normal. He doesn't get to shake of the shackles of his parents, as I did, because I attend his camps. If I didn't, he wouldn't be able to go. There are already a lot of needs he has that teachers cannot, and should not, be expected to do. Without going into too much detail, he needs varying levels of assistance with most personal hygiene tasks that a healthy nine year old has already been doing solo for a number of years.
What this means is, that I attend his camps with him, an opportunity that we're very grateful to have. His school is fantastic when it comes to his care, and they could have very easily told us that I would not be attending, which would have meant that he would not be attending either. Thankfully, they are striving to make inclusivity seamless, and have recognised my attendance as necessary for my son's attendance and enjoyment of the activities. (I'm sure it helps that I'm a teacher also, and essentially employed by the same organisation, just working at a different site!)
This is the second camp he's had through his school, and it will be the second of his camps that I've attended. And while I'm a teacher, I try to make sure that I keep in mind why I'm attending - not as a teacher, not even as his Dad, but as his carer, and as such, I try to give him as much room as possible, while still assisting him whenever he needs it. Sometimes it's difficult discerning between being a father and a carer, but I try to do it so that he can enjoy being with his friends and get the best possible camp experience as possible.
Last year we struggled a lot with his wheelchair because it has these funky little wheels on the front that have flashing lights embedded in them. They flash when the chair is moved, look really cool and elicit a lot of stares and smiles when out in public. But, they're built to look good, not work well. The look awesome, but their functionality is very limited. As soon as they hit a softer surface, such as the gravel paths that were all over the camp site, the dig in and mean that the only way to move around is by tilting the chair back so that it runs on just the back wheels. Not too much of a problem when you're crossing from one side of a stretch of grass to another, but when you're trying to navigate relatively large areas for three days it quickly becomes frustrating. Thankfully, we had the loan of a beach wheelchair which had these big inflatable wheels that ate up the gravel like it was not even there. (Ironically, the weather was so poor that we didn't get to the beach, but the beach wheelchair performed extremely well off the beach as well!)
Hippocampe All Terrain Beach Wheelchair - the one we borrow for camp
We'll be borrowing the beach wheel chair again this year, and it looks like the weather is playing friendly too. We've been going through a heat wave this week, and that should break on the first day of camp with some nice weather in the low to mid twenties (Celsius) which will be great. This year, we are also hiring a modified vehicle and an electric wheelchair (EWC). His physio thinks it's time for us to consider the more permanent option of an EWC and because of the cost of the vehicle modification and the EWC, we decided that 'try before you buy' would be a very sensible option. This way, we can get an idea of what it will feel like and also gather a lot of evidence for the NDIS, who will be paying for the equipment. We'll have both for a week and I figured that taking it to the camp would be a good way to get a feel of how he will go on longer drives and in different locations.
First time using an electric wheelchair outside
Regardless of the different circumstances my son finds himself in at camp, I hope that he enjoys them. Between the school and myself, we're doing everything we can to help him have a good time, and I think he does get a kick out of going, even though his experience is quite different to what I remember camps being when I was young. At the end of the day, I'm grateful that he's being provided with an opportunity to attend and will do my best to ensure he get to for as long as he wants to.
I hope he enjoys it too! The e chair would be nice for him to get around. You have a tough job, I respect your dedication!
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He struggled more than I thought he would (we ended up leaving a day early because he was so worn our), and I've come back from it a little dejected too. It was a stark reminder that he has a degenerative condition.
Having gone last year and seeing differences in how he was able to handle various situations that he was able to do much better last year was difficult. For example, we didn't use the EWC much because it got bogged, pretty much immediately, in the soft soil/sand, so we spent the whole time using the beach chair, but he struggled a lot more to get in and out of it than he did last year.
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