Most of my official job this year was essentially being a writer and actor. On most nights counselors would perform plays for the kids and that's what I worked on. I became pretty adept at adapting popular tv shows and movies to work in a kid friendly camp setting. This year we chose Harry Potter, Brooklyn 99, and the Princess Bride. This job turned out to be a great fit for me because it mostly doesn't require standing and if I'm occasionally nocturnal I can just write the scripts at night. Since I sleep through entire days it was definitely a challenge to make scheduling these programs workable but my coworkers did a great job of accommodating me so I didn't miss any of the super important stuff.
Acting has always been a favourite activity of mine and camp is a great welcoming place for that kind of thing. It wasn't just limited to the plays, though. Interacting with and entertaining the many children is essentially constant improv acting. It's one of the most fulfilling feelings when kids come up to you to say things like "Mitch, you're really nice. You made my camp experience way better. Are you coming back next year? Are you going to winter camp?" I even had kids ask me to take them on their trip counselor-in-training to Israel and had to explain I couldn't even go on my own group's trip to Israel in 2011 because of my health issues. Aside from the great feedback I'd know the plays were good when the cast was too busy laughing at the jokes during rehearsals.
I loved doing silly things like creating an army of children with water guns at the local splash pad and directing them to attack other counselors. Of course they inevitably eventually turned on me but for awhile they were running around literally chanting my name. One group of little girls figured out I was ticklish and took full advantage of it. The problem for me is my legs are not capable of simply running away like anyone else would. One or two I could handle, but they had an entire squadron. There was one instance where I made the mistake of trying to run away, for just a few seconds, to the staff only area. Even this tiny burst of quickness made me deeply regret that decision because of the extra leg pain over the next few days.
In the rare instances I got serious about something they'd listen; which allowed me to make rules like "no tickling Mitch while he's eating so he doesn't choke to death." I'd make deals like "I'll tell you what the play tonight is about if I get a temporary break." They'd agree and then gleefully tell me their fingers were crossed. My goals were simply to make sure they had a good time and that certainly happened because when I approached the kids to say goodbye at the end of the summer their parents said they'd already heard all about me, even though I wasn't even a counselor. Other staff would observe my shenanigans and said sent me messages saying things like "You are amazing! The kids love you and you always somehow have the energy for them." This is interesting because the main reason I always seemed to have energy for them is that when I didn't have the energy I'd stay away from camp at an Air BNB in Perth. Usually I'd be sleeping on the camp grounds so I'd be visible even when I'm not well enough to be productive but since this year was different people only really saw me when I was at my best.
That's right, for my first time ever I didn't sleep on the campgrounds this year. The person in the place I usually slept in was an older guy and not willing to share the space with me. Instead I found a very cheap Air BNB in the nearby town. I had my car with me so I'd drive to camp whenever I happened to be awake. Since my sleep schedules are very random I'd often take over the night watch job if those assigned to it wanted to go to bed. Normally I would have declined a paycheqeue because I don't do this for the money and it's a non-profit camp. However, paying a few hundred dollars for a place to sleep so I can do work isn't the best situation. So myself and those in charge agreed to a compromise. Since I'm awake roughly half the time, I'd take half of what my paycheque would have been and put it all towards partially paying for the rent. That covered around half of it.
As for the place itself, it luckily had a very loud air conditioner right outside my room which masked all the noise from downstairs where the owner would hang out. I helped take car of his 2 cats and 2 dogs which probably would have been a problem for most people but I didn't really mind. His neighbors were supposed to watch them while the owner was gone but I felt they were often lacking diligence. There were a few weird rules too. When you finish taking a shower (which is also the room where the cat food is) you'd have to make sure the door was propped open enough so that the cat can get in but closed enough so that the dogs couldn't get in and eat the cat's food.
It's almost tradition at this point that I have to get sent to the emergency room for one reason or another whenever I go to camp. I've had to go every year for the past 5 years except the one summer I wasn't at camp. This year the problem was an unexplained very strange rash. It was a bunch of tiny vescicles that were sometimes white and sometimes red and they appeared all over my body. They could be scraped off but I was warned by the camp nurse not to do that in case they were dangerous pustules. They only mildly stung but was told by doctors to get it checked out quickly. The emergency room doctor said they'd never seen this kind of rash before and didn't think it was related to my heat allergy. They thought it might be inflammation of the hair follicles, but I noticed that they also appear where there's no hair so myself and the docs in my family disagreed. I have inflamed hair follicles on my feet and they present very differently. They gave me antibiotics but said not to take them unless it doesn't go away in 48 hours. It didn't go away permanently but I started to strongly
suspect it was in fact heat allergy related, so I never took them. The doctor got very excited when I mentioned I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and said she'd never seen one of these before either. This has happened to me several times now. Pictures of rash below:
Eventually I noticed that these vesicles tended to appear in concert with my regular red hives heat rash. It seemed like it was just a sudden new symptom of an old problem. I don't know why it decided to get worse now, but the dots are quite ugly and bothersome. I'm getting quite sick of new symptoms popping up with no explanation while lacking in potential treatments. In contrast, very little seems to be improving. My lactose intolerance is getting better, so there's that. What threw me off about this new problem's causes is that my regular heat rash hives go away quickly once I cool down but these lasted for another 24-48 hours.
Overall, camp is both an extremely challenging and fulfilling experience. On the one hand, the pain was at times so bad I was in tears. On the other hand, it's a huge mood boost because writing scripts and entertaining kids is something I can excel at despite my health problems. Sure the kids were curious, asking about why I use a cane and bugging their counselors about where I was when I would sleep through the day. Ultimately, they didn't care about my associated baggage, they just cared that I was fun and were upset when I wasn't around. It's almost therapeutic in its own way to be a strong presence at the camp despite everything and expressing my creativity in a productive manner. It's rougher than you can imagine, but somehow definitely still worth it.
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