We just finished up an amazing week here at the Double H Ranch. It is called Camp Inspiration and it's a little more medically intensive than a normal summer session. Inspiration is for kids on ventilators. They cannot breathe on their own and are dependent on machines for this basic necessity. It is amazing in itself that HH can provide care for children such as this in this setting. We are based about an hour north of Albany, in the Adirondacks, in a converted dude ranch. There are a multitude of log cabins which provide housing for campers, counselors, housekeeping, maintenance, doctors, nurses, etc.
To hear of the children we had here, and how they spend the rest of their year, makes this week we just had all the more special. We have doctors who tear up as they relate to us the struggles these children endure day in and day out, but come to HH and fish at our waterfront, swim in our indoor pool, go down zip lines at our high ropes course, make slime at discovery, construct crafts at arts and crafts, pet bunnies and guinea pigs in our barn, make tshirts at outdoor extreme, and be social in ways that aren't permitted the rest of the year for them.
Surrounded by an awesome team of nurses, respiratory therapists, and doctors, we took the kids to all our program areas, not letting their disabilities get in the way, but giving them the opportunity to do regular "kid stuff". For these children, it is stuff they really only get to do at camp. We each had a role to play: the nurses, RTs, and doctors job was to keep the kids safe and healthy; the counselors jobs was to make sure the kids had fun.
"We do stuff here that isn't done anywhere else in the country" our nursing director related to us. And you could definitely see it in the children's faces.