diabetes gives you a 'short leash' but you can still climb mount kilimanjaro

when you’re getting ready to have a baby, life can be overwhelming. and those feelings only intensify for many parents when the baby is born. that was definitely the case for new mom sunny wishart. the ontario woman had an additional hiccup in her third trimester to contend with—gestational diabetes.

between three and 20 per cent of women develop gestational diabetes, where their body can’t produce enough insulin to handle the effects of a growing baby and changing hormone levels, so it’s not considered rare. the condition typically goes away after giving birth, although it can put women at risk of developing type 2 diabetes later on.

for sunny, it was more serious. she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, the type that requires daily insulin and constant monitoring.

type 1 diabetes diagnosis put her in denial

in hindsight, were there warning signs?

“i did lead a pretty healthy lifestyle. i enjoy exercise and was on a clean eating journey and getting a kick out of that and learning about what i’m actually consuming. but there were some signs along the way, you know, you look back and go, oh, i fainted a lot. it felt almost like something normal i did. and i drank more water than anyone else i know and thought, ‘i’m just thirsty,'” she says of what she now knows is a common symptom of diabetes. but she was focused on getting pregnant.

“so there were a few things that were indicators, but then we were also trying to have my son, we had many losses,” she says.

happily, little bentley joined the family. he’s now 12 years old.

at first, though, sunny was told she had gestational diabetes and it was going to go away. she was referred to the diabetes clinic where she quickly learned about nutrition, finger pokes for blood sugar testing with a glucometer and insulin injections with needles.

“so anyone who knows me knows my number one fear is needles. and now my life is riddled with them every day,” says sunny, 46, who works as a financial planner but trained first as a classical pianist. she has a piano at home that bentley is learning to play.

“i thought, well, it’s going to end and i won’t be doing this forever. so it was a bit like that. and just get this baby here healthy and safe and get over yourself and your fears,” she explains of the diabetes learning curve.

type 1 diabetes is a chronic autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. this results in little or no insulin production that normally manages blood sugar levels. there’s no one in her family with type 1 diabetes, so the diagnosis was unexpected—so much so, that sunny decided she’d ignore it for a while.

being a new mom was all that mattered

“i was just trying to figure out how to be a new mom and i decided i wasn’t going to pay any attention to this diabetes. i liken the diagnosis to the grieving process and i 100 per cent went straight into denial. i’m like, they’re wrong.”

she was referred to an endocrinologist for diabetes treatment who advised her to take care of herself and avoid the long-term effects of heart disease, vision problems and nerve damage that are linked to diabetes. sunny finally decided to get on board and warmed at the suggestion of using a wearable sensor device for blood sugar monitoring. she wouldn’t have to do the finger-poking for blood droplets to test with a conventional glucometer.

this was in 2019 and the technology has only gotten better. the continuous glucose monitoring (cgm) sensor is a small device inserted under the skin that continuously measures glucose levels in the fluid surrounding your cells, giving you real-time data to help manage diabetes. sunny has it on her upper arm.

confidence and support of continuous glucose monitoring

“it was honestly awesome,” she says of the sensor. “i treated it more like looking at your numbers out of curiosity and not shame. there’s a lot of shame around blood sugars and people are always assuming that they’re high and what you can and can’t do. it is this amazing data that was like, ‘hey, when you go for a walk after you eat, you could eat this’ … the monitor working in real-time unveiled all these strategies that don’t work for everybody, but i learned work for me.”

the sensor, with data she can check through her smartphone, boosted her confidence living with type 1 diabetes. she does her insulin injections with needles, becoming adept and comfortable with self-injecting at least twice a day and more often when needed.

three years ago, she even decided to join a group of women on a trek to summit mount kilimanjaro, a famous dormant volcano in kilimanjaro national park in tanzania. there’s unexpected weather, scrambles up rockface and changing altitude to deal with, for example, which is challenging for anyone, but especially for someone living with a chronic disease. higher altitude stresses the body to use more glucose to manage the decreased oxygen, so blood sugar can go dangerously low. when you combine that with the extra glucose used in exertion, climbers with diabetes need to be extremely careful.

“i was ready to go do stuff on my own. i have to go do something for me,” she says of her plan. her doctors were excited for her to go as long as she was well prepared.

“the advice was ‘do what you want to do and have it running in the background.’ that’s what the cgm lets you do, right? you can lay eyes on it and move on instead of making a big thing about it.”

one of her friends was her tentmate for the trip, whom she told how to care for her if her blood sugar went low, which was the main concern. she compares the warning sign of low blood sugar to being intoxicated with a slow response.

mountain trekking requires precautions

“clearly i’m not drinking, so you have to find me fast sugar,” sunny told her, explaining that her supplies always include a pack of gummies and other quick sugar fixes. “just do that. and don’t ask me questions. i’m not capable of answering them. that’s people’s go-to. when they see me go low, they’re like, ‘what do you need? what can i get you? do you need to sit down?’ and i get peppered in questions and my brain doesn’t process.”

her monitoring system also has an alarm that indicates low blood sugar, but that’s not foolproof “when you’re climbing a mountain and you’re in five layers of clothes,” she says.

the group also had porters and guides for safe travelling, so she showed the lead guide how to read the data from her smartphone and locate her emergency sugar supplies. she also talked to the local cook who accompanied the expedition.

“they believe that carbohydrates will get you through the climb and that’s fine for those who can tolerate them. but just to be heavily eating those, i said,’ i’m going to need a lot of protein.’ they fed us gorgeous food three times a day.”

reaching the summit was worth all the effort, and she lights up when she talks about the feat.

“it was the hardest thing i’ve ever done. they want you to summit for sunrise, so they wake you up at midnight and say, ‘start climbing,'” she recalls. “we start climbing with our headlamps on and it took us longer than sunrise to get up there because the air is so thin. you’re exhausted from climbing uphill for days and days, and you’re climbing and you’re rock scrambling. and you’re hiking on volcanic scree, so it’s loose because you’re coming to the top of a volcano.”

when she came down the mountain, people asked her if she would do it again. she wasn’t keen, given the time it took for the feeling to come back to her toes, numb from the cold.

diabetes has ‘changed everything’

diabetes, though, hasn’t held her back. it’s been transformative in many ways.

“it has changed everything. i always tell my son, the worst thing about it is i have to eat healthy and exercise. but i do feel like i’m much more cautious,” she adds. “you miss feeling like there’s no consequences where you can say, ‘oh, well, i shouldn’t have done that,’ and roll your eyes and move on. you’re not allowed to do that anymore. you’re constantly on a short leash.”

she says she’s up for the challenges of her short leash and ready for more adventures.

“it’s hard to get away to africa regularly, but as my kid gets older and things like that, 100 per cent, i will be doing way more trekking.”