Diabetes gave me a reason to live life to its fullest.

It began one night when I received an unexpected call from my doctor about unusual test results. “How could this happen?” I asked myself, as I longingly stared at the half-eaten bag of cookies I had purchased the night before. Sure, I was a little tired and was drinking a lot of water, but I was a 28-year-old graduate student who had never been more than a few pounds overweight.

I knew that my doctor had not made a mistake. It was just hard for me to accept that I had diabetes.

After finally accepting my condition, my next big step was trying to make sure that diabetes would not hinder me from living a full life. I made a conscious effort to improve my lifestyle and health. To begin with, I changed my diet and began to exercise obsessively. A friend who needed to lose a couple of pounds and lower his cholesterol became my workout partner. We hiked every day after lunch, encouraging each other and chastising the other if one of us tried to skip a day. At first we could only do a hike called the “30-Minute Loop.” As we improved our strength, we added longer and more strenuous hikes.

When I couldn’t hike, I’d walk. I’d park on the edge of town and walk two miles to and from campus, regardless of the weather. Lovely spring days or raging winter storms, it didn’t matter. I walked.

Going shopping also became a form of exercise, as I would make an effort to hit stores that were miles apart from each other.

Then there was the StairMaster. I’d often take all of my frustrations out on the machine, nearly driving it to its highest setting. I still am a little surprised that I didn’t break the thing. I think I believed on some subconscious level that I was going to solve my diabetes problem if I exercised enough.

Of course, I never did.

But my obsessive walking soon transformed me: I was in the best physical shape of my life. Hikes that once exhausted me were now becoming challenging and enjoyable. I started to hike some of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains (14ers), a feat that I had never done before.

It was on one of these l4ers that I realized that a well-maintained human body is like an amazing all-terrain vehicle. No SUV, however, would have enabled me to ascend the nightmarishly steep slope. The only way to enjoy the sheer cliffs towering above me and the shimmering emerald green lake a thousand feet below was through hiking.

Looking back, I question if I would have ever seen that vista or many more like it if diabetes had not come crashing into my life. I could have gone through life never knowing the sights that I had missed. Without

diabetes I could have easily let the pressures of everyday life prevent me from exercising sufficiently or eating properly. Diabetes doesn’t make caring for yourself any easier; it just has an aggravating and sometimes brutal way of reminding you when you don’t.

This is not to say that diabetes has been a cakewalk. I often curse every insulin-resistant cell in my body. Some weekends, I’m too sleepy to get off the couch, much less climb any mountain.

On a deeper level, I can never rest assured that I will remain complication-free throughout my life. But until that day when I can no longer see the trail or my feet will no longer carry me, I will continue to explore the many wonders a good pair of hiking boots and determination can reveal.

Diabetes continues to remind me each day of how precious and fleeting good health and youth really are. It is for this reason I tend to consider diabetes a blessing.

Don’t get me wrong: I would never wish it on anyone, and I know that there are many out there who will see it differently.

But I feel lucky: Diabetes scared the life back into me while I still had my youth.

Source: Chicken Soup For The Soul:Living With Diabetes