Inspiration....

In my English class we are reading a book on Erik Weihenmayer he is a blind man who has climbed the 7 biggest peaks in the world. The title of his book is Touch The Top Of The World. It goes through his his life becoming blind, defiantly one of the best books I have ever read. In the book there is one part that really stood out to me and I thought I would share it. He is at this point preparing to climb Mt. Everest. " Not all of my time leading up to the climb was spent on the mountain; as part of their public education the AFB (American Foundation for the Blind and also one of his sponsors) asked me to do some TV interviews. One was a cheesy daytime talk show, on which I was showcased among a group of blind people deemed "amazing and inspirational". All the blind people were led onto the stage, canes tapping and dogs' tails wagging, and seated in a row in front of the crowd. I was featured first, and the host opened with,"A blind mountain climber. Isn't that incredible? Even I, who can see just fine, wouldn't think of climbing a mountain." this wasn't the first time I had heard the "Even I" statement. It was always meant as a compliment, but it never failed to annoy me. There might be a dozen other factors that prevent the host from excelling in the sport of mountain climbing. She might be 50 pounds overweight, wheezing with every breath, and might never have even set foot on a mountain, but in her mind, success or failure was automatically attributed to one factor: sight or no sight." I was thinking about this and the last sentence really stood out to me. People always tell me that they couldn't do something and they have a working pancreas they say. Working or not I don't think it determines weather you can do something or not. I find that this book relates a lot to living with diabetes. I highly recommend the book its awesome! Here is a video on him  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrSLb7hWSMc 

and life goes on...

One of the dress up days for national Lutheran schools week was multiples day and my friends decided to wear my walk shirts :) I love them! 

There is nothing newly exciting in my life. I have been sick (sinus infection) for over a week now and managed to sprain my ankle playing volleyball this weekend at our tournament. We have been adjusting a lot lately in the realm of diabetes things...basals, insulin to carb.....they are all getting an overhaul! I have already cut off 8 units of my basal for a day! woohooo I also feel a lot better fixing some of the lows I have been consistently having ....but there is still some fine tuning to do! I have little motivation to run lately with being sick and having volleyball practices and conditioning....I guess I am feeling the summer coming on and all i want to do is be lazy. I better get over this quickly! I got my first muscle massage...It felt sooooooo good! Sh split my calf muscle and went down to the flat muscle underneath and massaged it....let me tell you it hurt soooo bad because it was so tender but it felt so good!! This lady is a genius! She really knows her stuff. I guess that's it for now!

Diabetes Weekend!

I am writing this on the plane back from Denver! This trip was kind of a surprise! I hitched a ride with one of my moms coworkers who was moving out her with her husband who is in seminary and there precious little boy! It was just her and the her son since her husband is in school already. My mom and her planned it on Monday and we left on Friday. I got into Denver around 11pm on Friday and spent the night with my friend Erin ad her mom Cheryl. I love them so much and they are so awesome! The next morning we got up and went ice fishing with Brian who is doing an Iornman in May which I will be attending and rooting him on! It is amazing to see his dedication to his training and diabetes it's something to envy! After ice fishing we went to his house and relaxed for the night. Zyler (who is another type 1 diabetic) and I spent the night at Brians house. That night was so much fun Brian's daughte Megan and I made a cake which we had some problems with but in the end turned out to be amazing! The next morning we all went to church and in the afternoon Zyler and I went over to John's house. It was awesome to see him and his wife again they are the nicest people on the planet I swear! Brian, his wife, and Zyler dropped me off at the airport. Brian's wife Pam was so kind she walked me to my gate which made me a lot less nervous. Which brings me to now where I sit on the plane thinking about how much fun I had this weekend. Any time I get around my "diabetic" friends it is always hard to leave! I miss them so much already! I learned a lot over this weekend.... 1. Absorb every minute of every day because time is ticking and who knows when you will get to see them again! 2. My blood sugars seem to be better when I am with my betic friends. I just think it likes to be around other none working pancreases! Maybe it wants to look better than the other none working pancreases....haha. 3.I have been blessed with parents that have allowed me to do and meet all these amazing people and experience all these awesome things! 4. I appreciate all the things God has blessed me with 5. I know some of the most amazing people in the world. As for now as the pilot just announced that we are about in Omaha I have to gou back to my "normal" live and wait till I can see my diabetic friends again! 

Diabetes in a few words....

Diabetes
Stress
Triumph
Care
Need
Love
Identity
Understanding
Scars
Deteriorating
Separation
Judgment
Watching
Questioning
Comfort
Waiting
Fun
Fighting
Carrying
Hurt
Friendship
Ever changing
Peace
Addition
Information
Excitement
Understanding
Relief
Sympathy
Strength
           I wrote these words down during school one day. The first thing that may come to your mind when you read these words may not be the same as mine. For example scars, even though I have scars from where my old sits and sensors have been I meant a different kind of scar. This is the emotional scar rather then the physical. I challenge all of you to write down or even share what words mean diabetes to you because when I did there were a lot more words it meant to me than I realized before.

A goal reached....

On our second night at the 14er mountain climb we were having our first night camping in the woods. For some reason I remember this night perfectly. That night was what made me fall in love with that trip. We were all sitting around a campfire talking about things related to diabetes. I had my arms crossed on my knees in front of me. I remember I was facing southeast hahaha I love directions, my face was resting on my arms and I was looking up at the moon. There was no clouds in the sky with the moon as full as it could be. The question was then asked why did you want to come on the trip.  It came time for me to answer and my response was " I want to be a role model to younger kids with diabetes and inspire them to reach goals just like people inspired me".The point to this...I just had my Youth Leadership Lincoln retreat...On the retreat we met people from all over the city, we talked to each other and really got to know the people that we would be spending the rest of the school year with. In one of the group discussions a question was a raised on if anyone in the group has impressed or inspired you? A girl that I had just met that morning raised her hand...she was sitting in a rocking chair in front of me and she turned around and said "Ashlee because she has done all these things and she is diabetic". This is a girl that I would look up to and for her to say that gave me chills. I thought back to the moment on the mountain climb. I felt like I had started to reach that goal. This past Tuesday we went to a local diabetic support group. There were these two little girls one of them was diabetic and the other was her sister. They were so excited to have me teach them about my pump and both girls fearlessly put in pump sights for the first time. Which when I first did that I was hidding under tables with fear. It was so cute to see, they gave me their valentines day crafts they made during the kids class and kept asking there mom when they could see me again. It made me realize that this is what I want to do. I want to hang out with these kids so that they can grow up and embrace diabetes and not think of it as something to hate. I want them to be healthy and happy and even inspire other kids. That is what I dream and that's what I'm going to work for.....

It's your life what you gonna do...the world is watching you...

So California...It was so much fun. The whole trip started with me going to school in the morning and leaving after two class periods to head to Omaha. The flight was a little late because of the weather so I ended up getting to San Diego around 5:30 instead of 5. Ashley picked me up at the airport and we went right to the Heros of the Marathon dinner. We met some amazing people there including Zyler who is also a hero of the marathon as well. He is an awesome kid. The next day we got up and went to the beach where everyone met for breakfast, talking, and surfing. Yeah I pretty much failed at the surfing bit but it was fun. My FAVORITE part of the day was seeing Katie. I hadn't seen her since the mountain climb which was 6 months ago. I literally flipped out when I saw her on the beach. She is awesome and the next day she ran a marathon which is amazing. After the beach we went to the expo to check in for the marathon. That's where I saw Erin she is so cool and we love getting together. After the Expo we went and got cleaned up and went to a dinner with insulindependence...that is where I got to see Eden for the first time also since the trip.  We got to take a picture together of everyone from the climb that was there at the race we were only missing a few people. The next morning we got up bright and early and headed of to the half marathon. I learned a lot from this race. One...God is always teaching me lessons. This time it was that he is in control and that not everything in your life is going to turn out the way you plan. For example this time I trained more for this run than my first and was expecting to PR. That didn't happen. I was 17 minutes slower. Somewhere around mile 4 1/2 after running at a good pace with Eden I stopped for water and felt my knee starting to cramp. At that moment I knew this race wasn't going to go the way I had planned but instead the way God had planned. The cramping got worse and spread down my leg. It was probably from a high blood sugar and not enough salt. But me and Eden kept going and actually at a point when we were walking we saw three dolphins. I then realized that if I had been so self consumed with trying to PR that I would have missed that moment and many others like it. It was awesome being able to run/ walk :) with Eden she is awesome and we had fun talking about life. We finished the race and I got to watch Ashley finish the half and Katie the full ....I could never imagine doing a full even though its a future goal of mine I have so much respect for Katie for doing it. She truly doesn't let her diabetes stop her. After the race we went to a bbq where I had to say bye to too many people. I would not see either Ashley or Erin again on this trip. I did however get to go drive around and look at some colleges with Michelle. This was probably a highlight of this trip as I laughed so much in just those few hours...she is also another important person in my life. She then dropped me of back at the bbq and I also had to say good bye too her too :( That night though was fun as I got to spend the night with Katie. I cherished that time with her and was soooooo sad when I had to leave her and the rest of the insulindependence crew the next morning. The truth about me is that I don't really cry ever but it seems like every time I'm with this group of people at some point I cry. I safely got home and navigated my way through the airports by myself. On the flight from denver to lincoln I sat looking out the window the whole flight. I thought about my life and I the amazing experiences I have been able to do. I thought about what I wanted to do and become when I got older and I thought about how hard it was going to be to go back to my normal life and wait until I could see those people that play such a big role in my life again. I feel that the age that I'm at and the circumstances under which I live my life have people watching me and the decisions I make everyday. But I challenge everyone including me to look at there lives and live it to the fullest and push yourselves to do things that at the moment seem so far fetched and to work at reaching them. Whether it is as simple as getting a certain grade in a class or reaching a fitness goal. Live your life like the world is watching you....Live with Fulfillment, Serve with Passion so in this Lifetime you will have the ability to Die with NO Regrets-Randy Gonzales

16 & a New Year

Wow! So much has happened since I last blogged. As many of you know I am running another half marathon in a week. I will be heading down to Carlsbad California this Friday. I will be going by myself and even though it will be sad to leave my family I am excited for it. I found out some great news though. The Carlsbad Marathon picked me to be 1 of 10 people selected for Hero of the Marathon. I am blessed to have been chosen and know that there are many other people that are just as deserving. I also found out that I have been selected to be part of  Youth Leadership Lincoln. They are a group that promotes people of all ages to become leaders in their communities. My group is second semester 10th graders so everyone will be my age and it will be exciting to get to know kids from across the city. I got my drivers license in the mail a couple of days ago. I haven't driven a lot but it is still fun to be able to go places by yourself. The weather has been bad so right now driving is on a hold. Because of all the bad weather we had two snow days which gave us a much needed 5 day weekend. Before all of these snow days though we had finals and I ended the first semester with a 3.95 missing a 4.0 by one percent on one grade. The snow days brought some much needed fun also. My friend Chelsea and I went and played in the snow the first snow day and the second day my friend Hannah and I hung out inside relaxing all day. I will keep you all posted on how next weekend goes!