“It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
-Invictus, William Ernest Henley
These words, which conclude the famous poem “Invictus,” by William Ernest Henley describe how I feel about my relationship with Type 1 Diabetes, but this wasn’t always the case.
I was diagnosed with Type 1 in the fall of 2010. I had left my small hometown in Western Wyoming to go to Community College in a town 100 miles away. Shortly after arriving at school I began noticing rapid weight loss, constant thirst, and other symptoms which I now know to be classic indicators of Diabetic Ketoacidosis (“DKA”). As someone who grew up heavy, I was excited about the weight loss rather than concerned for my health, so I ignored these symptoms for several months. Eventually my foolishness earned me a trip to the emergency room and a week-long stay in the hospital where I was diagnosed with Type 1 at the age of 18.
Although I put up a strong front, I struggled with my diagnosis. At that point in my life I had a pretty pessimistic outlook anyway, and when the new set of challenges that comes with Type 1 was layered on top of it, I struggled under its weight. I look back now and can see the evidence of these pressures on different parts of my life. My weight steadily increased, well beyond where I had been before I began experiencing DKA, because turning to food was one of the things that helped me feel better. I couldn’t always control my blood sugar, but I could choose to eat if I wanted to. I also took an active role in many different organizations at my college, which appeared to be a good thing, but I was partially motivated to do so as a means of not addressing how I was feeling, making it unhealthy.
I continued on with these coping mechanisms for the next 8 years while earning my bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and juris doctorate. The whole time I felt like I was on a roller coaster with my diabetes management, weight, and self-confidence, which were all very interconnected. I would have a good summer or semester working out and taking care of myself and my blood sugars, weight, and attitude would reflect it. Then, inevitably, I would fall into disarray again and find myself in a dark place where I didn’t really care about my health or future.
I wish I could point to the moment when I began to turn things around, but much like most of the significant changes in our lives, it happened a little bit at a time and not all at once. While I was finishing law school, the endocrinologist I was working with left the state and there wasn’t another one within roughly 300 miles. Although I love living in Wyoming, having an illness that requires specialized care like Type 1 Diabetes can be challenging in our sparsely populated state because there simply aren’t local resources to provide care and support. I wanted to take this opportunity to find a care provider who could help me make a change and, with my mother-in-law’s help, I started seeing the folks at UC Health-Anschutz in Denver, Colorado.
I can’t say enough good things regarding the quality of care I have received with my new team at UC Health. For the first time since I was diagnosed, the question changed from, “why can’t you understand?” to, “how can we help you succeed?” Once I had a supportive diabetes care team in place, my wife went above and beyond to help me transition to a healthier lifestyle. At this time, our wedding was roughly a year away and I knew that I wanted to be my best self when I started that journey. So, her and I started focusing heavily on balanced nutrition and being active in whatever ways we could.
Please do not think, even for a second, that this journey was without challenges, learning curves, and frustration. I remember when I first started working out, I would focus on eating well all day and work out in the evening, only to wake up at 1:30 am to a low glucose alarm. I would find myself sitting on the kitchen floor in the dark feeling like a failure, eating the calories I had done my best to forego the previous day in order to treat my low blood sugar. I didn’t understand how to properly dose and eat while undertaking physical activity, so I was constantly experiencing peaks and valleys with my blood sugar. I also initially made the mistake of associating carbohydrates with weight gain when I was trying to work on my nutrition. This left me feeling lethargic all day and unmotivated when it came time to work out.
Although I felt defeated, I wasn’t going to let that be the end of my story. I kept at it. Day by day. Week by week. I worked with my care team and relentlessly researched how my body was responding when I exercised and what I could do to work with it, instead of against it. I eventually embraced the mantra that although it wasn’t my fault that I had Type 1, it was my responsibility to understand and manage it if I was going to become the person I wanted to be. I started attending therapy regularly and worked through a lot of the underlying psychological challenges that were leading me to make unhealthy choices. I also found folks in my community that did the cool stuff I wanted to do and asked for their help in understanding and improving at it.
Specifically, I found friends who were into trail running. I want to be very clear; I have never been a runner and I still wouldn’t call myself a runner. In fact, when I was finishing law school, I couldn’t walk up a single flight of stairs without getting winded. However, I always admired runners and when I began my health journey, I felt like if I could run a race one day, I would know that I was where I wanted to be. So, I put on my shoes and hit the road. Running has a completely unique impact on my blood sugar and there were many scary times that I had to stop mid run to treat a low blood sugar.
Putting one foot in front of the other, I got better and better and eventually completed a 5K race. I felt on top of the world, but I didn’t want to stop there. I worked my way to completing a 10K race, then a half-marathon, and eventually an 18-mile trail run. At that point I began to feel like I was running not only for myself, but for all the other folks out there with Type 1 who have been put in a box, and who have had their abilities questioned by folks who don’t even know them. So, I resolved to complete a 32-mile trail run in 2021, my first ultramarathon. It took over 12 hours and a whole lot of grit, but I finished that ultramarathon in June of this year. I am very proud to have ran that race wearing a shirt that read, “access to insulin is a human right,” to bring awareness to the insulin affordability crisis our community faces.
My parting thoughts to you are these. Whatever your ultramarathon is, get out there and do it. For far too long in my life, I let other folks and my own fears tell me what I was capable of, especially when it came to what I could accomplish as a diabetic. My life truly changed when I realized that who I am is up to me, and no one else. For those of you on a journey like mine, I see you struggling and striving, and I am proud of you and you should be, too. Remember, diabetes doesn’t define your limits; you are the master of your fate, you are the captain of your soul.
