`Everyone has their own Everest'

Sébastien Sasseville had a mission. He wanted to show that being diagnosed with diabetes is no reason to withdraw from life.

To prove his point, he aimed high – right at the top of the world.

Sasseville, now 29, was 22 when he learned he had diabetes.

Growing up in Quebec City, he enjoyed outdoor activity. The year before his diagnosis, he travelled to Nepal and caught the Everest bug. He began the preparation and training required to attempt the 8,848-metre peak. He also took on an extra challenge – learning to prepare his body for the rigours of high-altitude climbing.

"It was a good five years of getting ready," Sasseville said in a recent interview.

Then living in Vancouver, he joined a climbing school, practised on local mountains and, eventually, lower summits in the Himalayas. In 2005, he took nine teenagers with diabetes up Tanzania's 5,895-metre Mount Kilimanjaro.

What made it possible, he says, is a small pump made by Animas Corporation, which he always wears and which he can program to deliver insulin whenever, and in the exact quantity, needed.

Even with this pump, "you have to learn how to do everything again," he says.

Because everyone reacts differently to activity, food and insulin, compensating for strenuous activity is complicated. "When you exercise, your blood sugar tends to go very low, which is uncomfortable and possibly dangerous," he says.

Afterward, it can spike, and if you take insulin to bring it down, your body could crash because, at that point, your muscles are sensitive to the drug.

The preparation involved hours of discussion with his tight-knit group of five climbers, three leaders and his doctor. They made contingency plans in the event he would have to "pull the plug" on the expedition.

The group travelled to Nepal last March for two months' more training and altitude adjustment – the same acclimatization all climbers endure.

In the end, Sasseville didn't need the contingency plans. At 9:20 a.m. on May 25 – after a "long, painful," 13-hour final push – he became the third person (and the first Canadian) with diabetes to stand atop Everest.

He and his guides had just 15 minutes to enjoy the view.

"There's a feeling of joy, but it's not a party," he says, because it's soon time for the difficult descent.

The pump lets diabetes patients adjust their insulin dose to the food they eat rather than the other way around, which is the case when the drug is administered by injections.

But the system works only if patients know what's in the food, particularly its carbohydrate content. The information on climbers' food pouches is detailed, so Sasseville could program his pump and not worry about having to take it out of his warm alpine suit.

As a precaution, he always carried juice or sweet food in case his blood sugar dropped. And he drank plenty of fluids because high altitude and elevated blood sugar increase dehydration – a condition all climbers must avoid. His blood-sugar levels swung more than usual but never exceeded the safe range.

Sasseville admits his diabetes created a "fear of the unknown," an uncertainty about how his body or the drugs would react. But it also gave him a powerful motivation.

"I knew what I did would help a lot of people with diabetes," he says.

He now works full-time talking about his climb and what it means for those with diabetes (www.sebinspires.com).

The message: "Everyone has their own Everest. If you have diabetes, you can still do anything you want."

Equally important, he learned that even if he hadn't made the peak, he would have succeeded. "The summit is great but you're there for only 15 minutes. It's not how far you go, but what you take back."

The journey also inspired Sasseville's next challenge: the world's top Iron Man competition.

The competition includes a long swim. Fortunately, the pump is waterproof.