When I was growing up, I worried about Ruth much of the time. Because she had practically no kidney function, she suffered frequent health crises and had to be rushed to the hospital. I never shared my concerns with family and friends.
The only time those worry clouds lifted was at Eagle Island, a rustic Girl Scout camp in the middle of Saranac Lake in upper New York State. For six summers, from ages 11 through 16, I boarded a charter bus with other girls from Essex County, N.J., and endured the eight-hour ride to get there.
At Eagle Island, my sister’s illness took a back seat. As soon as I got off the bus and took the 20-minute boat ride to the island, I came under it’s spell. My first five summers I was there for a month. My last summer, when I was a Mariner and then a C.I.T., I stayed for the entire summer.
It’s been more than sixty years since I last stepped on the island, but I can still smell the pines and hear the rippling water along the shore. We slept in tents on platforms in the middle of the woods and used outhouses. We walked down wooded paths to the showers where the water was often cold. Yet the majestic trees and natural beauty captivated me.
At Eagle Island, I learned to swim, row a boat, paddle a canoe, and man a sailboat. We played outdoor and indoor games, took hikes, and sat around the campfire singing songs. When I was 15, I did three- and ten-day canoe trips with nine other girls and two counselors. We paddled through a chain of lakes, portaging our canoes from one lake to the next. Most of all, I remember the camaraderie I experienced with a group of friends who returned year after year.
One thing I never talked about at camp was my sister’s illness. My camp friends had no idea she was so sick. Each summer, I buried that part of my life deep inside me.
At the time, I never knew how jealous Ruth was that I got to go to camp and she had to stay home. Mom told me much later that my sister was inconsolable after my bus left for camp. She wanted so much to go, too, and couldn’t. On visitor’s day, she, Mom, and Dad always came, and Ruth never wanted to leave.
Today I am chair of The Ruth Gottscho Kidney Foundation, established by my parents in Ruth’s memory. I took over the leadership position after my mom died in 2009. (Dad had died in 1971).
For 44 years, the foundation has sponsored a sleep-away kidney camp program for children suffering from kidney disease. We pay most camp and medical costs, Frost Valley YMCA in the Catskills runs the program, and Children’s Hospital at Montefiore oversees the medical staff in The Ruth Gottscho Dialysis Center on camp grounds. The program was the brain child of my mother. She never forgot how badly Ruth wanted to go to camp and was determined to provide the enriching experience to other kids with kidney disorders.
At Frost Valley, children with chronic kidney disease, on dialysis, or who have received a transplant get the treatment/and or medications they need and live with and do all activities with healthy children. Ours is the only program in the country that mainstreams kidney campers with healthy campers.
Every summer, I visit Frost Valley to meet our kidney campers and to see how the program is going. The kids are enjoying the camp’s 5,500 acres of woodlands, mountains, playing fields, clear streams, and pristine lake. Youngsters many years younger than I are enchanted by the bubbling brook, scent of the pines, and the brilliant night sky. Most have formed close friendships with cabin mates.
These kidney campers feel the magic at Frost Valley that I experienced at Eagle Island so many years ago.