’ I’ve always gone backpacking or hiking all through school. I think the only difference is, I have diabetes.’

Tom Jackson, a lifelong diabetic, has had to have shots twice a day, every day for the past 21 years. He carries his syringe and needle with him everywhere. Jackson, a mechanical engineer, was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 6 years old. At 8, he learned how to give himself the life-saving insulin injections so he could spend the night at friends’ houses. Jackson says diabetes has not slowed him down--if anything it has made him more independent. An avid nature lover, the native La Jollan has sailed and backpacked all over the world. Recently, Jackson took a group of diabetic teen-agers from the Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology on a daylong sail on his boat. He wanted to do something to show these children that diabetes doesn’t have to take control of their lives. Jackson lives with his wife and 5-week-old baby daughter on their sailboat on Shelter Island. Times staff writer Caroline Lemke interviewed him, and Robert Faaborg photographed him.

My parents gave me my injections when I was 6 years old, but I learned pretty early, when I was 8, how to give my own shot. I remember it was a big deal. If I screwed up, it just hurt more.

After a while, it becomes like brushing your teeth. The injections aren’t the hard part. I think the hard part is avoiding the complications. You don’t want to overeat or undereat, and you have to make sure to eat the right stuff.

I’ve always gone backpacking or hiking all through grade school and high school. I think the only difference is, I have diabetes. When I was 16, I traveled through Central America by myself. When I was 18, I worked on boats and just did odd jobs through college and did boat deliveries up and down Mexico’s coast.

I did a five-week, cross-country trip with my cousin and my wife before we were married, and we never once came out of the mountains. Five weeks with hardly seeing a trace of another human being. We packed in our food ahead of time and just hiked from food drop to food drop. It was a great trip. When we finally came out on the trails and saw people, it was quite a shock. We had been living pretty simply, and things seemed very complex when we got out.

With this sailing trip last week, there were six kids from the Whittier Institute, and they were all diabetic. We talked about a lot of things--insulin control and independence and dependence. We really developed some teamwork because you’re fairly dependent on each other when you’re sailing.

But, more importantly, I let them know that diabetes doesn’t have to be an anchor tied around them. They can carry the weight, and it becomes lighter and lighter as they stay in control and just face up to the fact they have diabetes.

I have to admit, though, I’m lucky. It doesn’t get frustrating for me. I’ve had a lot of exercise, and I haven’t had any complications. I’m not saying there aren’t people who aren’t frustrated out there, because there are some serious complications. But it doesn’t have to be such a big deal that it controls your life.

I try to be an independent person. You see more that way, and you see it on your own. It’s worth the effort. It’s definitely not the path of least resistance, it’s the path of greatest resistance a lot of times because there are people who think you’re crazy for going out and doing things, like living on a houseboat. But I enjoy it. You get the opportunity to see places and meet people and experience different cultures that you sure wouldn’t see if you just sat around. You might read about it, but you’ll never get that rush of excitement from finding it out on your own.

The world is a pretty neat place, but it’s becoming smaller. I’m in a little bit of a rush to show Sarah (his daughter) some natural places while they’re still natural. Just the places I’ve seen, I go back to them now, and there’s concrete and signs and people. You can go to these national parks, but that’s a wilderness with a boundary. The ocean is the one place I see that is limitless.