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MONDAY, May 29 (HealthDay News) -- Will Cross arrived at Mt. Everest's Camp 4, the last stop before the pinnacle, on the afternoon of May 22, breathing oxygen and trying to stay hydrated.
Two attempts to reach the summit of the world's highest mountain had failed in previous years, and this expedition had already lasted six weeks. In half an hour, Cross and his team were scheduled to go back outdoors and attempt the summit.
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Then, the unexpected happened, something that had nothing to do with temperatures or weather.
Cross's blood sugar started to plummet.
"They were the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia. I felt nauseous, dizzy and weak, none of which you want to feel when you're going for the top of the world," said Cross, a 39-year-old former principal and father of six from Pittsburgh who spoke to HealthDay from Kathmandu, Nepal. "Diabetes is not always as predictable as you would like it to be."
Cross, a type 1 diabetic, immediately switched off his insulin pump and ate enough carbs to get him out of danger.
The next day, May 23, at 5:10 a.m. local time, Cross became the first American with diabetes to climb 29,035 feet and stand at the top of the world.
"I felt like a kid in a candy store," he joked. Cross, who has had type 1 diabetes since he was 9 years old, is about as likely to be in a candy store as most folks are to be on Everest.
Cross had hoped to be the first type 1 diabetic to ever scale the world's highest peak, but that honor went to a 49-year-old Austrian man, Geri Winkler, earlier this month.
This type of high-altitude climbing poses brutal challenges for the "ordinary" climber -- freezing temperatures, gale-force winds, ice avalanches.
The climb poses even more life-threatening challenges for a person with diabetes, particularly type 1 diabetes, when the body no longer produces insulin. People with type 1 diabetes must take insulin every day; their lives depend on it. Fortunately, methods of delivering insulin have progressed from a crude needle injection to pumps. Insulin, too, has improved, and Cross used NovoLog, a rapid-acting insulin. Drug maker Novo Nordisk, the maker of NovoLog, sponsored the expedition.
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