Diaversary and a new diagnosis...it is my time of the year!

For most people April is a happy month filled with the excitement of spring and a fresh start for years mine has been something quite contrary. It all began on April 29th 2004 ( yes I am writing about my diaversary early) when I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. In April of 2006 I had my tonsils taken out. In April 2007 was when I trashed out my knee and had my femoral-patellar tendon reconstruction. Skip a few years..... Now yet another! Which I will talk about later. It was funny when my mom and I went through and noticed this trend how crazy!

#1. 7 years WOW! To me it seems like yesterday and yet at the same tine 100 years ago. I observe, learn from, and question everything that happens in my life. Weird I know! It's something that I don't share with people normally. I just make mental notes of things and kind of go "oh that's interesting", but for this special occasion I thought I would share what I have observed, learned, and questioned about this disease that has affected my life so drastically. What have I learned and observed? Well to start off with I learned everything about what type one diabetes is (duhhh). I have learned that a common challenge or adversity can bring people of all locations (shout out to all my diabetics in California, Maryland, Michigan, Kansas, Minnesota, Florida, Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Washington D.C., Arizona, Hawaii and Washington...I am so lucky to know all of you!), personalities, races, sexes, and backgrounds together to become each others support system and even friends!  My Facebook "friend" list proves this fact. I remember talking at camp about what we all liked about diabetes camp. One of my friends responded with "I would have never expected to be friends with these people around me but I feel that my diabetes has opened up my eyes to being non judgmental about others because really we are all the same. We go through the same difficulties and struggles everyday and the rest doesn't really matter. We are a family." Second observation is that everything in life will work out in the end. If it doesn't seem like that things aren't working out then it isn't a over yet. Three, you are stronger than you think.  Four, accept the help of others. Five, you can do anything with the help of God for he will never give you more than you can handle if you put your trust in him. Six, I am learning everyday new reasons and purposes on why God blessed me with diabetes. Seven, you get out of life what you put into it! Seven perfect. Now the things I question. One, does God want us to really find a cure? Two, what would my life be like without diabetes? Three, how can people not control this disease and try to ignore it? Four, What caused my diabetes? Five, What will my future with diabetes be?
Next the question I get asked the most about...Aren't you afraid of dead in bed? My answer: I am not. I now know three people who have had this as their ending. I am not afraid of this because I know that EVERYTHING in my life is a part of God's plan. My diabetes-part of his plan. My future-part of his plan. I know the day I go to be with my father in heaven will be the best day of my life. That will be the day I will be free from pain, free from stress, free from diabetes. Don't let this scare you I'm not planning on this happening. I stay up some nights until 12 or 1 o'clock in the morning treating those low blood sugars refusing to go to bed anywhere close to low. Yes I know that we don't know the exact cause of it but this is my theory.
I asked the researcher that I followed around last week a question. I knew the answer too a long time ago but I felt that I needed to be sure of it. We were on the topic of Cure. I looked her dead in the eye and said "I will never be cured of diabetes will I?". She hesitated for a moment and confidently answered me back and said "I am nearly certain you will not". I had to hold back the tears at that time trying not to let them out so that she wouldn't feel bad for giving me the truth, but now that I sit her and write this I am crying. Why? I can't really answer that. I feel that a cure was something that was always promised to me. Doing the JDRF walks year after year reviving the excitement and hope for a cure. I have realized that's never going to be something that I will experience. I have and still will raise money for JDRF though because I know that if a cure is possible it will prevent diabetes from ever giving someone a diagnosis date. I don't want my friends or children to ever go through what I have.
Way up in the top part I talked about how April is my problematic month. On April 27, 2011 I was diagnosed with chronic exertion compartment syndrome. I am nearly positive that my first signs were in Carlsbad or a little before when I was experiencing cramping when I ran. Since then the pain has gotten worse and stays with me well after I run. It got to the point where my calf swelled up and wouldn't come down so my athletic trainer sent me to orthopedic and I got my diagnosis. I ran like 2 miles 4 hours ago and my calf feels like it is being squeezed together and about to explode haha... all joking aside it has made me pretty bumbed because it is another obstacle that I have to face. One more problem to deal with. And most likely another surgery to have. Yeah the sucky part is that the only treatment is surgery. It is not urgent nor life threatening but something that if I want to keep doing halfs will most likely have to be done. So yet another scar to add to my leg already filled with three from my knee surgery, I didn't care then about the scars but this one will be along the outer part of my leg and I'm def not to thrilled about how noticeable it will be but that is if I decide to get surgery (the half this weekend will most likely determine this). So we handle it just like we have handled all the ones before... We face it, Deal with it, and move on...

Thanks Diabetes for our seven years together it has been a wild ride :) can't wait to see what the future brings!
love~ ashlee

A Breath



My friend Zach wanted to be on my blog so we took a picture with our blue sheets (what we fill out when we are going to miss school) for the National Qualifier and Youth Leadership Lincoln which for the both of those we missed Monday and Tuesday.



Wow what a week it has been! It all started last Friday when my club volleyball team and I headed down to Kansas City to play in the Show Me National Qualifier. We had a lot of fun and I will miss my coaches and team as the season has wrapped up. I cant believe club started 5 months ago. It is possible that I may never play volleyball again but we will see what the future holds. We played three games Saturday, three games Sunday and one on Monday then we headed home.

Tuesday I had Youth Leadership Lincoln all day and our focus was on community non profit services such as the Lighthouse, The Arc, and Clinic With a Heart. All these are wonderful organizations and have each had a huge impact on our community. I met a philanthropist who is a volunteer that fundraises money for various groups. As he talked about his projects one being raising 1 million dollars to bring the Special Olympics to Lincoln he also mentioned how felt one day that he should do something for JDRF so he signed up to do the walk independently. After the walk he wanted to know what the most a single person had raised for JDRF and if I recall it was something like $6,000 he wanted to set a new record and raised over $22,000 just because he felt like it. haha. Amazing! He now has an award named after him that is given to the highest individual raiser in the Lincoln JDRF Chapter. 

Wednesday I went out running in my neighborhood and met a nice man. He asked me how old I was and I said 16 (for those of you flipping out right now that I was talking to a total stranger...It isn't that uncommon here and I was totally safe) he was probably young 30's. I am really bad at guessing ages. Anyways he told me about how when he was my age he could do 5 minute miles and now he was required to work out cause he is in the military. He said that he wished he would have kept exercising like he did when he was my age so that he would have it a little easier now. I hope I still have the will power to get out and run when I am his age. Around this time it hit me that I have my 3rd half marathon the 1st of the month. SCARY! I feel that I have been more focused on volleyball than running. But we cant go back so I am going to face this one the best I can. The one thing that scares me most about running here in Lincoln is that I know how far things are and its scary when we drive out the course cause it seems to be so lonnnngggg. This is something that I haven't faced with my other halfs since they were in places I didn't know anything about so everything was new. Please pray for me this week that this half goes well :)

Thursday. Well Thursday was the day we left to go to Iowa city for my endocrinologist appointment. Before we left though I got a letter in the mail that said I had been accepted into National Honor Society. So that was exciting. We left for Iowa City around 5 and got there at 9:30 ish so a good long boring drive that provided me with some much needed sleep. Friday we got up and went to my doctors appointment at the University of Iowa. Nothing special happened they said I had a good A1c and that was about it. The best part of the day was when I got to follow around one of my doctors research partners. She was doing research on what causes birth defects in people with diabetes children. What was being transferred through the placenta was it the glucose, amino acids ect.  She had found that it was the glucose and she made rats pregnant and since they have two different ovaries that their babies grow in they also have two different blood supplies going to each ovary. So on one side she would infuse glucose and make its bloodsugar 400 and it would not transfer to the babies on the other side which is fascinating. This allowed them to see what caused the birth defects. The next step is for her to test her theory on how to prevent this which happens to be taking fish oils and seeing if this has an affect on stopping the birth defects. This was much more in depth and a lot more fascinating when she explained it but what they are doing in the research lab was amazing. This was only one little experiment in my doctors lab with about 6 more going on in his. Along with his lab there were about 3 more doctors with there own labs all doing research on DIABETES. I could go on and on about different studies that they were doing but like this one it would probably bore you. The doctor I shadowed showed me some other very cool things that I don't think most are allowed to see. She was also a NICU doc and took me up to the level 3 NICU. The babies there were the size of my hand and I was allowed in to see one of the little boys who was born so early that most hospitals wouldn't have tried to save him. When you see pictures of babies in the NICU you say oh they are tiny but when you see them in real life its incredible how small they are. I started to tear up a little. Right after we walked out of the room we found out that he was getting open heart surgery done. I think this was God's calling to me that I may work as a nurse practitioner in the NICU. I also received a letter in the mail that I had been selected to attend a 10 day camp at John Hopkins next summer the price was a little much but still awesome that I was nominated by someone.

If you survived this atrociously long and somewhat boring blog props to you :)

How crazy is it that something that is 6 inches long and made out of tissue could change my life so drastically. I was thinking about that the other day. I mean really! This thing called my pancreas that doesn't work has brought me to meet some of the most amazing and inspirational people in the world, because of it I have ran half marathons, climbed mountains all of these things just because of my pancreas. Crazy huh!
In less than a month I will be heading to St.George Utah to watch some of those amazing people whose pancreases happen to not work either doing one of the hardest things in the world. They are doing Ironman St. George. Their stories are incredible. I cant wait to watch and cheer them on.
A week before St. George I will be doing my 3rd (which happens to be my favorite number) half marathon here in Lincoln and a month later I will be hopefully conquering my 4th in San Diego!
The weather here in good old Lincoln has been absolutely wonderful. I love all the runners that are outside! I love the gorgeous skies with golden sunsets and fluffy white clouds! I love how everyone seems to be happier! I love how we can open our windows and let the breeze flow through the house! I love it all!
This Friday we leave for kansas city where my club volleyball team will be playing in a national qualifier for 3 days! We are all very excited and cant wait to run through the fountains in down town. Ill keep you all posted on how it goes :)