Regular readers of this web log (did you know that the term "blog" is a contraction of "web blog"?) will know perhaps more than they want to about the new health/wellness center. The lower floor (where Arts & Crafts will be housed, as well as a 150-seat theater with stage, curtain, video display equipment, a backstage, etc.) is not ready and won't be until September--and not until next summer for summer campers. The upper floor is divided into two sections roughly, the southernmost two-thirds is the health center and on the northern end of the building is the dialysis/renal center. The health center has been open since the beginning of the summer and is functioning beautifully. This has to be seen to be believed. How much simpler it is for kids and counselors who take medications to get them, get the attention they need--not to mention how relatively nice it is for kids feeling ill to wait comfortably in the (ahem....) Alumni Reception Room. The dialysis center is very nearly ready to be opened. So far--two full sessions and the first few days of a third--the dialysis program is operating out of the old facility, the extension Chuck White built onto the back of Smith Lodge. The moment the furniture is in and health officials from the State of New York has given their final complex approvals (that's the slow part), Maureen (our fabulous coordinator of the unit) and her staff will move up to the new building.
One of these photos shows you the bathroom in the middle of the large main dialysis room. With a genial campy sense of humor the architects and Jerry Huncosky designed this bathroom superficially resemble on old camp outhouse. Like it? I do.
The other photo is of Rick Kaskel standing in the same room, deliberately looking forlorn and lonely (hoping for furniture to be delivered soon). Blog fans will know Rick, a prominent nephrologist (kidney doctor) who has been associated with our program since the late 70s. Rick will be spending his annual turn as dialysis camp doctor next week. Come on home, Rick!
