It was a bright, sunny day in Tepoztlán, Mexico, when my friends and I trekked to an ancient Aztec temple at the top of Tepozteco Mountain.
But by the time I made it to the summit, I was greeted with bad news: The ruins were closing in five minutes.
I was too angry to appreciate the splendor around me; the valley spread out below me like a picture book.
In the photo my friend snapped, I’m frowning like a petulant teenager on the verge of a tantrum. It wasn’t my finest moment, to say the least.
Two years before, that roughly 1.5-mile climb would’ve been a piece of cake for an experienced hiker like me. But that all changed when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 39.
My diagnosis changed everything
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. With little or no insulin, the body can struggle to use glucose for energy.
After my doctor gave me the news, I was forced to come to terms with a bewildering new reality: injecting insulin multiple times a day, obsessively monitoring my blood sugar, and calculating carb ratios before every meal.
If I didn’t learn how to mimic the work of a human pancreas, there was a chance I could go blind, lose limbs, fall into a coma, or die.
The disease also came with constant exhaustion, alarming medical costs, and a crippling fear of exercise — I risk a sugar crash if I so much as walk my dog around the block with too much insulin in my system.
I felt like I had been broken into a thousand pieces and had to rebuild my identity from the ground up. But I was determined to rediscover the parts of myself that type 1 diabetes had ripped away, particularly my love of travel and spontaneous adventure.
So, when my friends proposed a trip to Mexico last December, I jumped at the chance to take my first trip abroad since my diagnosis.
I’d hoped to be the go-with-the-flow wanderer I’d always been, but reality hit me hard
After our first day in Mexico City, it became painfully clear that, even if I was on vacation, my disease wasn’t.
A simple afternoon of strolling through the city, visiting a museum, and eating unfamiliar snacks sent my glucose on a roller coaster of highs and lows. By the time we got back to our Airbnb, I was so exhausted that instead of staying up late to check out the local bars as I usually would, I collapsed into bed before sunset.
The day we headed to Tepozteco, I was determined to do a better job of managing my blood sugar. But even with plenty of carbs and protein in my system, my glucose started to plummet after only a few minutes, which meant I had to stop multiple times along the trail to rest and eat carb-heavy snacks.
It wasn’t all bad, though. At a bend in the path, I came across a man selling paletas (fruit popsicles) from a cooler.
As I sat beside him and looked up at the canopy of trees, sweet strawberry melting in my mouth, I told myself that taking this moment to recharge didn’t mean I was weak.
But when I stood on that temple in the fading afternoon light, I sure felt like I was.
Despite the challenges, I won’t let this disease rob me of my joy
I have to laugh at that picture of me atop Tepozteco now. That grimacing woman, with hunched shoulders and tears of anger streaming under her sunglasses, wasn’t able to appreciate that she’d accomplished something remarkable.
If I could talk to her, I’d tell her to quit beating herself up and take in the splendor around her. I’d tell her that, although her body can never be what it was before, even a chronic disease can’t take away the love she has for the world.
I’ve learned that you never fall into a rhythm with type 1 diabetes. There are dozens of factors that can affect your blood sugar on any given day, from stress to hot weather to hormones, which means your insulin needs are constantly changing.
But things have started to get a little better. A few months ago, I made the switch from injection pens to a pump, which has taken a lot of the guesswork out of managing my diabetes.
I even put it to the test this June on a hike up Balsam Lake Mountain in the Catskills. And guess what? Thanks to a hearty breakfast, the miracles of medical technology, and a little patience, I didn’t crash once.
At the summit, I took a selfie from the top of a century-old fire tower. It may not have been an ancient ruin 2,000 miles from home, but that isn’t the point. What matters is that the woman in that photo is smiling.
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