By Jennifer Jacobs

WHEN Major Arul Prakash Subramaniam was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus Type 1 at 18, he thought his life was over.

The doctors, with their usual list of don'ts, did little to console. And loved ones were no better, greeting the news with hushed voices and sombre expressions.

"I became depressed. Everyone was sympathetic, without offering the least encouragement," he recalls of that day some 24 years ago.

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder. Type 1 is the more severe form, where the pancreas has ceased to function, which is to produce insulin.

Type 1 patients need to inject themselves with insulin two to three times a day.

It didn't help that Arul, who had just entered the job market, was sacked from job after job, as soon as his condition was revealed.

"Sometimes I would be in the job for two weeks and when I went for my treatment, they would ask me to leave," he says.

Then he met Datuk Dr Singaveraloo, now president of the Johor chapter of the Malaysian Diabetes Association, the first person to assure him that he would lead a normal life.

He also started reading everything he could lay his hands on about the disease.

He learnt that many famous people, including Elvis Presley, Thomas Edison and Marilyn Monroe, were diabetics, but that didn't stop them from living fulfilling lives. He wasn't going to, either.

Arul finally found a company willing to him prove his worth, regardless of his condition. And prove himself he did, working his way up from junior planner to factory manager.

Then, 11 years ago, he started a logistics company handling road trucking and air freight. But his illness had been steadily worsening.

In 2007, his kidney function had deteriorated by 70 per cent and he accepted that his treatment, which he followed religiously, was failing him. It was time to take matters into his own hands.

He went online to research on the best diabetic facilities in the world and came across Dr Mohan Diabetes Hospital And Research Centre in Chennai, India.

He got an appointment, was put through tests and told that his condition was reversible.

The doctors changed his medication and adjusted his insulin dosages. The results were almost immediate. Within a few months, his blood sugar had moved from "poor control", according to the HBA1C test, which measures the average glucose content in the blood over three months, to "fair control".

Now, after three years, it's "good control", and his kidney function is almost perfect.

This immediate improvement brought about other positive effects as well. Arul, who's active in Rela (where he holds the rank of major) and a few other non-governmental and sports organisations, decided to show other diabetics that they too can achieve whatever they have set their minds to.

He planned a single-man rally from Johor Baru to Cambodia, covering 7,000km in just eight days. To achieve that target, he knew he would have to push himself to the limit.

The drive would be gruelling, even for a perfectly healthy person. For a diabetic who had to inject himself with insulin twice a day, it would be even more gruelling.

He bought an olive-green Mitsubishi L-200 and made the trip in August. That month was special for two reasons: It was his birthday month, and it coincided with the 50th Merdeka celebrations.

Clad in a Malaysian flag that he had tailored into a shirt and festooning his car with little flags, he took off with little fanfare. The Malaysia leg was easy, but once he got to Thailand, things got a little more challenging.

First, the rest stops were effectively huts where you can break your journey and cook food. He lived on high-fibre biscuits with canned tuna fish dips for about two days before going back to proper meals of rice and curry cooked on his portable stove.

At villages, he would stop at wet markets to get fresh supplies. Failing this, he would eat canned food.

A cleanliness freak, he would stop at waterfalls or rivers to bathe. If there were no waterfalls in sight, he would knock on doors of the village huts and convey his request through smiles and gestures, offering packets of biscuits as payment.

"Some not only allowed me to take a bath, but even offered me coffee. And they were so happy with the simple things I offered them for payment of their hospitality," recalls Arul.

Quite often, he lost his way. He recalls desperately trying to communicate with the locals by pointing to a spot on the map but was met with chuckles.

He eventually worked his way out of the mess, losing only a few hours away from his route.

The entire trip cost him only RM2,000 (S$852).

The next year, he drove right to the border of Myanmar, covering 9,000-12,000km. But this time, he wanted to get other diabetic patients to join him.

His rationale? "If I can do it, so can they." But none took up his offer.

So he set off on another one-man rally, again with little fanfare, and finished the trip in nine days. It cost him RM3,200 (S$1373).

Arul was unable to go last year. But this year, he plans to drive 21,000-23,000km in 14 days, from Malaysia to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia - despite his calculations showing that it would take two days longer.

He's packing spare parts, extra tyres, 200 litres of drinking water, high-fibre biscuits, cans of tuna fish and chicken curry, grains, assorted spices, and packets of instant noodles (to give away to villagers he meets along the way). He still wants other diabetics to join him, but as yet, there are no takers.

He pushes on, nonetheless. His motto: "Always bite off more than you think you can chew. And then go ahead and prove that you can do it."