#651 After Dark: Recovery

March 23, 2022Scott Benner

Ashley has type 1 diabetes and is the mother of a T1.

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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 651 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Alright, let's see what's on tap today. We have Ashley, she has type one diabetes. She's also the parent of a child with type one diabetes. She is also in recovery. There is a lot going on here, in this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, I have to tell you, it wasn't until late into this one that I even thought to make it an after dark, but I think it qualifies. So while you're listening and trying to decide if I'm right, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or care for someone who has type one and are a US resident, please head to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox and take the survey. It will take you fewer than 10 minutes. And when you do this, this nice thing this survey taking. You will be helping people with type one diabetes and supporting the Juicebox Podcast T one day exchange.org forward slash juice box this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod. Find out more about the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod promise at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox.

Ashley 1:48
Alright, hey guys, my name is Ashley. I'm here to talk with Scott.

Scott Benner 1:52
Perfect. Ashley, you're the first person to get it right. Don't tell the other people. That was excellent. What's your connection to type one? Do you have it? Are you the parent of someone that has?

Ashley 2:02
I have it? I was diagnosed in 2001. And my daughter was just diagnosed in August of last year. So 2020

Scott Benner 2:11
Wow. So you've had it for 20 years? Yes, sir. How old? were you when you were diagnosed?

Ashley 2:17
Seven or eight? Right around there?

Scott Benner 2:19
Wow. Actually, you're young? Yeah, I didn't realize how young you were.

Ashley 2:23
Yeah, seven or eight. And I don't really like remember diabetes? At all. In my childhood. You know, my parents controlled most of it. But like, I don't remember food restrictions. I don't remember, you know, any devastating things about you know, diabetes back then. Because tech and everything was not much different. Yeah.

Scott Benner 2:43
It just felt like a normal part of your life. And it wasn't, it wasn't very intrusive, or you just didn't think of it that way.

Ashley 2:50
I guess I didn't think of it that way. It just was something I had to deal with.

Scott Benner 2:54
Can I ask you did you have Did you hit any of this common speed bumps? High school years College? To start taking care of yourself? Did any of that stuff happen?

Ashley 3:03
I'm most definitely I've, um, I had a wild childhood. Not that I like grew up in a bad area or did bad things. But like, you know, I had a sense of entitlement. And I, you know, thought nothing could kill me. So I had, you know, I had a rough patch of fun things that could be an after dark episode. Well keep that for that type of podcast. But um, yeah, I ended up you know, getting clean. And I stayed like that for, you know, eight years I got pregnant in the mix. And then once the pregnancy happened was really when I cared about things.

Scott Benner 3:42
Okay. So I'm just going to pick through this lightly, because I feel like you are okay to talk about it. But you don't want to go too deeply. So an addiction

Ashley 3:53
and addiction of more anything, really, whether it was more, more drugs, more sex, more food, more weight loss, more, anything that I could have more of, is what my problem was,

Scott Benner 4:06
I understand. Well, you know what, it's funny. I there's this person who jogs through my town, and they look like a human muscle on top of bones. And no matter when you're driving, you see this person running, and I don't know them. But I always imagine if they weren't running, they'd be addicted to something. Like, that's just the vibe I have from them like that. Like, I know, I don't know that. It's a ridiculous thought to have, but it feels like a replacement hearing. I definitely got that 100% Feels like that. Like I just I think if I lock this person in a room with any of the things that you just mentioned, they'd be like, Why don't anymore because I'm going to do heroin, you know, like, and I'm going to do a great and 100 miles an hour, the best heroin user like I feel like that's the vibe is that how it felt like, like that, like, just, yeah,

Ashley 4:55
just anything, whatever. Whatever made me feel good. I wanted more of so it could have than a person that could have been really anything, you know, when I was younger, it was books. You know, I would stay up late in the middle of the night with a flashlight reading books. I liked Mary Higgins Clark. I was reading that in like seventh grade. Why? I don't know. But I did.

Scott Benner 5:14
Actually now making every parent of a reader worried.

Ashley 5:19
No, it's fine. It's not, don't worry about that. It's fine. Reading was good. I just, I didn't myself have any other source of expressing things. So I took everything to the extreme.

Scott Benner 5:32
This was not because of like a, like, you weren't filling a void, there wasn't something that you've noticed now as an adult that was missing. Oh, of

Ashley 5:42
course, we, you know, I've unpeeled all of the onions if you wanted to unwrap that route and got, you know, maybe not too close, but close enough, I think to realize some some patterns and things like that to change my life, you know,

Scott Benner 5:55
okay, well then swing around to how did that impact type one did it just like, if I'm, like, a million miles an hour, not gonna take care of it.

Ashley 6:04
I'm, pretty much I ran my Basal really high I didn't when I was when I was younger, and I was rebellious. And whatever the case may be, I ran my Basal really high because I was just not correcting. I wasn't carb counting. And I just did whatever I did when I look back on those things. When I see now like, I took a I went on vacation recently, and I took a walk right? Maybe it was like a half mile walk and my shoulder dropped. You know, because I didn't tempt my Basal. I didn't do the things that I would normally do now. And like my sugar tanked. If I was I don't know how that didn't happen to me when I was a kid, but it just never happened. Like I was never, maybe once I was in the hospital for DKA. And I've never used glucagon or any of those things.

Scott Benner 6:55
So yeah, you were like jacking up your Basal insulin so that you can eat with impunity and not think about covering carbs or any of that stuff. So just this a massive amount of basil, that data. And then

Ashley 7:07
yeah, almost like I knew that I needed the insulin and I knew if I was going to be a jerk, I needed to do something about it. My mom was still test your sugar, prick your finger, test your sugar prick your finger, you know, but after 1617 She wasn't getting through to me.

Scott Benner 7:27
So So up until then it was she was just badgering you to check.

Ashley 7:32
Yeah. And then I hit 18. And she, she took and, you know, she gave me control. And like, you know, it was my decision. I was an adult. Like, if I wanted to do the right thing. It was my time to do so. Yeah. Like she let me you know, hit that bottom. And every bottom has a trapdoor. So like, I hit all of those bottoms. My sugars, you know, by a Wednesday was like 1314. Wow, just regularly, and I felt fine. So

Scott Benner 8:00
you're, yeah, well, because you titrated it up to that spot where your body was just like handling the mess really like it? Yeah, it was letting you feel like you were okay. Even though obviously you weren't

Ashley 8:11
exactly I felt comfortable with my sugars at 300 all the time, you know?

Scott Benner 8:16
So let's juxtapose this conversation on to a different one for a second. So now you have a child who has type one. Yes. Okay. How old were they? When they were diagnosed?

Ashley 8:24
She was diagnosed at six, or maybe five. She was diagnosed at five and then she had her sixth birthday. This January, we're seven. How old?

Scott Benner 8:33
Is she now?

Ashley 8:36
Six and a half. Okay,

Scott Benner 8:37
so not too long. So let me just ask you this one simple question. You're going to dump all of her diabetes care onto her when she's 18? Or will she be too young?

Ashley 8:47
Ah, you want to know what I am so very conflicted by it. I am so very conflicted by that because like, I want to, you know, be overbearing, I want to send the text messages, I want to do all the things that I'm doing now, right now, she has an under a six a one, say, within one year of diagnosis, she has no restrictions. She does whatever she wants. And she's fine, you know, but like, when she gets older, I I feel like I want her to have control and like make the right decisions. Because like it wasn't, you know, I wasn't coddled, and I appreciate not being coddled, you know,

Scott Benner 9:25
is it a personality thing? Like, I don't mean like, so. It might be Yeah, cuz like, what you're seeing is kind of my thing in the right context might just be seen as like, supportive. Like, yeah,

Ashley 9:35
I want her to be able to make the right decision, right decisions and make the right choice and things like that, you know, I'm not going to tell her. I don't have an answer for that question. If she asked me for the help, obviously, but I'm not going to force it on her. You know, she needs to be responsible for our own actions, but that's probably because of the time I did getting clean and sober stuff, you know,

Scott Benner 9:56
yeah, you have a different perspective. Because what I was gonna say is if it if it If it takes her till she's 21 and a half to figure it out, like there's I don't see the value in just abandoning her at a number. Do you know what I mean? Like saying, well, you're 18 you're No,

Ashley 10:09
I mean, my mom definitely didn't abandon me at a number. But like, she put doctor's appointments on me. She put my refills on me and things like that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 10:18
that's, that's reasonable. Like, I'm not Yeah, that's a completely reasonable way to handle things. I just think it's the management part of it. You know, like the, hey, Mom, I'm 20. Like, I can imagine Arden calling me being 25 years old and being like, I'm about to have a really complicated meal. And I don't know, 100% know how to Bolus for this. You know, like, Do you have any insight, and I don't know that I would be disappointed to hear that phone call. I think I'd be like, Well, no, I

Ashley 10:42
definitely wouldn't be disappointed. But if we flipped it from my daughter asking me and I asked my mom that question, she'd be like, Are you kidding me? I have absolutely no idea. Once I switched from shots, and they put me on a pump. I think I was diagnosed in 2001. So I was in fourth grade. By the time I was in seventh grade, is when you know, the school is changed. I went to middle school, and that's when I started the insulin pump. Yeah. So once I started the pump, I was kind of like, you know, somewhat mature ish kind of person. I'm so I handled all of the pumping. Right? So she at this point, has no idea how to handle that. And it's funny watching her with the kid. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 11:22
realizing listening to you. And thinking back on other conversations, that when that trans transition happens, from MDI, to pumping, if it happens at a certain age, the parents don't come along for the ride. That's really common. Like, it's like, okay, well, this is a new thing. She's old enough, or he's old enough to understand it. I don't need to understand it as granularly as I did this, this previous management style. Yeah, exactly. I think that's pretty common. How does this is going to be a little bit of a side road, but how does overcoming an addiction? Change your perspective on what people need to mature? Huh?

Ashley 12:12
All right, so I was trying to think of how it's gonna work out. So I took a second. So like, they teach certain principles, they teach, like going through programs, they teach acceptance and things that you can change and things that you can't change. And then it allows you to realize that you're not in control of everything. And there's other things that play and just like the common you know, I don't want to call a dog my style of religion, because it's not religion. It's not book like that. But like, the concepts that most dogma styled religions incorporated are things they just kind of lay out in simple form. So like, things like, Okay, I listened to an episode about that the Eminem kid, right? So if we want to pull that all into play, like, I like my coffee, every time I drink coffee, I had an issue every single time. So I could accept that there's an issue with coffee, what can I do to change it? Or how can I better it? Or can I just not do it? Right. So then from that point, it gives me decision makings and options and things like that, it doesn't make me feel so backed into a corner with things Gotcha.

Scott Benner 13:16
Okay, yeah, I just I'm trying to, like, the more people talk about things like this, the more addiction seems like an odd like, like the other side of a coin of control, like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm looking for something to control, I can control how much or how little of this I eat, how much or how little I run, how much or how little I'm high, like that kind of stuff. Like that seems like the control part.

Ashley 13:41
Yeah, then that's, that's my everyday life. Like, I don't obviously use anything recreationally and things like that, you know, I'm not the mess that I was when I was, you know, but all those things still come into play. I go through days. Right now we're doing an experiment. So my partner, I'm with a female, I've been with her since 2008. We had, you know, breaks in our relationship and things like that. But so regardless, my part, my partner is now wearing a Dexcom. So we've been you know, feeding her things and trying to see what's going on and you don't care and I totally lost when I was,

Scott Benner 14:19
that's okay. I happened to me too.

Ashley 14:23
I talked too much all the time. So we're doing that okay. So the control issue and the wanting more, that's where I was going. She's wearing the Dexcom and like, it bothers me watching a normal pancreas work right. So now I'm being more carb conscious and making you know, better timing decisions and things like that. And we can even bring it to like when the baby was diagnosed, she was diagnosed that like a nine point something. The next couple of months, she came back down to under a seven. So I was like, How does she have better effing blood sugar's than I do? Like I'm handling everything. Why is this better for her what was the so like that ego and the competition and the wanting better and like the that, that that addiction concept like she's doing better than me? That's not possible, you know? So then I started doing more and more for yourself, for myself. Exactly

Scott Benner 15:17
right. That's fascinating. It is fascinating to hear that if you see someone without diabetes wearing a Dexcom, you could be like, angry about

Ashley 15:25
it. And not that I'm angry, but like, I want to do it better. I see. Okay, like when you were talking when you were the Dexcom and you were comparing it with, you know, your daughter's information and things like that. You were mad that you couldn't Pre-Bolus Yeah. So like, I watch my partner and their body pretty much instantaneously. Pre-Bolus is them. The minute I start saying, like, I'm gonna cook dinner now, her sugar drops, the minute she starts eating, she drops a little bit more, and then the food picture back up. And I think that's wild. Like, how come my timing doesn't work like that. So that's what I'm doing now.

Scott Benner 16:02
Crazy. Do you hear Jenny say that your body through like smells? And like it anticipates that you're going to eat? And when you have a when you have a healthy pancreas, like it'll start to isn't that crazy? Like it starts to break down like that.

Ashley 16:16
I definitely believe that like how the brain can make a woman pregnant, like look pregnant, appear pregnant, have all the pregnancy symptoms, but not actually be pregnant.

Scott Benner 16:24
What do they call it? Is that still called hysterical pregnancy? Or do they have they changed that? That sounds like people I

Ashley 16:29
don't know. I would call it a placebo pregnancy. But I'm not really sure about that.

Scott Benner 16:33
I might be getting this from a episode of mash in the 70s.

Ashley 16:38
So Oh, you're aging yourself and man.

Scott Benner 16:42
They may have called it something different between. I'll tell you what hysterical pregnancy is. I can look it up. thing here. I think that's what it's called.

Ashley 16:51
Oh, I'm on it right now. And stearic or pregnancy false pregnancy. Yeah. psuedo sucks. ISIS is this I don't know. I'm not pharmaceutical.

Scott Benner 17:01
It's crazy. Okay. All right. So just a real quick question, because you mentioned that your partner's female. Your daughter is yours biologically.

Ashley 17:12
Mine biologically? Yes.

Scott Benner 17:14
I just I was just like, did they? Did they adopt a baby that had type one diabetes? Because that's some random?

Ashley 17:21
No, I imagine that. No, I actually, we had a break in our relationship over a course a couple years. We've been doing this since 2008. And we were young, whatever the case may be. I was confused if you want to call it that. I don't know. But I met my daughter's father. And I was with him for a couple years. And then we had the baby tried the whole thing. It just didn't

Scott Benner 17:41
work. Gotcha. Okay. Do you still is he still involved in like this? Yeah.

Ashley 17:45
I mean, we co parent with him. I'm not gonna say that it's the easiest, but they do great. For what it's worth, you know? Yeah. Is that we Becker, but we Becker because we're axes, you know?

Scott Benner 17:58
I mean, why wouldn't you? I don't, I don't understand talking to people that you used to date. So it the only time when you have to was because of children. And I understand every time

Ashley 18:08
we're in like a giant group chat. We have one with me, him. His sister has parents, my parents, then we have one with me, my partner him and his sister, we do this whole silly diabetes talk thing that custody is a little silly. We both see the baby or the child. Every day, for the most part, I handle mornings before school, he picks her up, you know, after school, we switch around dinner, and then we do it all over again.

Scott Benner 18:35
Excellent. Really? Sounds nice. I mean, nice, you know, for the, for the situation.

Ashley 18:41
Yeah, for the for what it's worth, it works out great. We live maybe 10 minutes away from each other, you know, we do our best for what it's worth, you know, that's where we get along, when we have to we do joint holidays, we do joint birthdays. And you know, I give them diabetes, cheat sheets, and you know, the whole to do,

Scott Benner 18:59
how did you come to such a reasonable agreement?

Ashley 19:04
Because it's not about us. It's not about me, it's not about him. He comes to the house and my blood sugar will skyrocket, you know? 30 points just because, you know, he's pissing me off, but like, it's about the baby. It's about the kid. It's not about me. I can handle that, you know, rise in my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 19:23
I think so. Did you did was this a was this a joint decision? Or Did one of you was one of you the one to say, hey, this isn't about us. So we're going to just have to, you know, deal with how we feel and and handle the things that are right for her.

Ashley 19:40
Even before the diabetes that kind of just worked like that. Okay.

Scott Benner 19:45
All right. So you split before she was diagnosed?

Ashley 19:47
Yeah, exactly. We were split for like three years before she was diagnosed. Okay,

Scott Benner 19:51
I have to take a drink. I'm sorry. Hold on one second. Here. Okay.

Okay, before we restart, just because I I know, I know this and I can't pick through it for some reason. do two things for me say coffee, coffee, and then tell me where you're from, like what state or city or where do you think I'm from? Sounds very New York. But yeah,

Ashley 20:16
I am from New York. I'm from Long Island. If you weren't

Scott Benner 20:19
on Long Island, I was like baffled, so I didn't

Ashley 20:25
know that's me born and raised. Yeah, coffee

Scott Benner 20:26
and pissed off so far are like two of my favorite things that you've said. Just it's, it's I don't know if other people here but it's, I find it to be a fun effect. But you of course, don't hear no big deal. Do I sound like I'm from Philly to you?

Ashley 20:46
I don't, I don't really know. I mean, I don't know I work in a call center. Right? So I deal with people of all walks of life all the time. I can't pick out where anyone's from ever thought

Scott Benner 20:56
I get lost in in the, in the wondering sometimes even when I'm on the phone with somebody from like, inevitably, whilst while someone at a call center is looking something up online. I'll just go real quickly. Like, are you in Nebraska? Like how do you

Ashley 21:10
know I have absolutely no idea about those things. But for a fun side fact that has no diabetes relations. I used to do the translation calls for Spanish appointments and things like that. And when I would be speaking with Spanish patients that you know, I'm relatively fluent. They would ask me if I'm from Brazil, and I'm like, No, I was born and raised in America on Long Island, you know, just here I am.

Scott Benner 21:37
Can I ask you a question that since you said that, I always dream of having to voice actors, rerecord pro tip episodes? Is that an impossible thing to do? In Spanish for me?

Ashley 21:53
I am not. I'm not the one for that. I'm not gonna do it. But you could be able to do it

Scott Benner 22:01
just cost money, right? Like, I'd have to pay somebody pretty well into it. Because they'd have to, I'm imagining they'd have to listen with headphones on but then speak into a microphone. Is that?

Ashley 22:12
Yeah, I mean, I, you could just transcript it and just have someone speak read it? Yeah. Yeah. I don't like narrate it. I guess, like an audio book type thing?

Scott Benner 22:24
Yeah. I don't know if that would get clumped like I don't. My problem is that, you know, a would be affording the talent to do the job and be that I don't speak Spanish, so I wouldn't be able to QC anything that was happening. Yeah, I wouldn't know. You wouldn't be able to verify it. Yeah. Like, I could have two people looking at me and like, let's just drop a couple of really horrible curse words in the middle here. He'll never know, you know, so I wouldn't be able to verify it. But it is one of the things I think about.

Ashley 22:48
I could definitely try and figure a way out about that. I think a lot I stay up late.

Scott Benner 22:55
What are you thinking about when you're up late?

Ashley 22:57
Oh, I'm, I'm kinda like a type A personality to an extent. So I'm one of those like, I'm going to make a grocery list. I'm going to do you know, a to do list I'm going to do with this list I'm going to do with that list. And then I'm going to do it all on paper. And then I'm like, Oh, why am I doing this on paper? Let me do it all digital. And then like, you know, the first hour on paper, and then the next hour and a half put in a digital and it's just a hole to do.

Scott Benner 23:21
How does your partner enjoy that aspect of your personality?

Ashley 23:25
Ah, okay, organizationally wise. Yeah, I say it works out well.

Scott Benner 23:30
So she always has like a good list at the grocery store. Or do you?

Ashley 23:35
We don't really grocery store we kind of do the whole either P Potter, you know, do the pickup from the store thing. I hate going in the grocery stores.

Scott Benner 23:42
No one likes going in there. No, I won't do it. Okay, okay. So I just I always imagined when I'm leaving the house to go pick up a couple of things. Like as I walk past Kelly, now that COVID is here, and Kelly works in our dining room. I always like I'm like, I'm gonna go to the store. And then I wait because I'm expecting to hear a piece of paper rip off of a pad. And be like, here are the things that I have written down over the last couple of days that we need. And when she doesn't hand me one, it's off putting to me.

Ashley 24:11
That's how she feels sometimes. So she doesn't normally do those types of things. I'll do the big list. And then I'm like, here, this is what you need to do. And it's all mostly already saved on the you know, saved on the stupid app anyway,

Scott Benner 24:22
does that make you feel good to see things come off the list?

Ashley 24:26
Yeah, okay. I'm one of those like so. So I wake the kid up around like seven o'clock or so or maybe I Pre-Bolus or around seven then I get her up at around 730 to do the whole thing, but I'm up but like, most days, I'm like a five o'clock 530 type of person because I like the quiet. I like the house. You know, no one's yelling at me. No one's asking me anything. And I don't get foot on the floor that way. If I wake up wait and there's chaos and you know people are already asking me if things I'm maybe it's not fun on the floor but it just automatically the minute I wake up, it's just blood sugar. Rise instantaneous.

Scott Benner 25:05
Will you describe that when your ex comes your blood sugar can go up? Is it just yeah, that's it or like life like life stuff? You think

Ashley 25:13
probably, I mean, maybe. But if you're up more than likely anxiety and things like that, but, you know, if I wake up by myself and no one's asking me for breakfast, or where's this or where's that? You know? I'm like, Ah, right, good. No rise on my bookshelf.

Scott Benner 25:29
Interesting. It'd be You said you stay up late, but You're up early. How late do you go to bed?

Ashley 25:35
Maybe like 1130 or so. Okay,

Scott Benner 25:37
so you're getting like six hours, maybe five, six hours a night?

Ashley 25:41
Something like that on a good night.

Scott Benner 25:43
Gotcha. Okay, how about baby stays with you overnight?

Ashley 25:49
Not always five nights out of the week.

Scott Benner 25:51
How do you find man? You know what, I didn't even ask this. I can't believe on my half an hour into this. Let me ask you some more diabetes related questions. Pumping both of you one of you

Ashley 26:01
both of us pumping both of us on Dex comms? When we, when she got diagnosed. That weekend, my partner was away and I was at my mom's house. And she kept saying like, she's drinking a lot of water. She's drinking a lot of water. And I'm like, Shut up my like, it's, you know, it's August, she's thirsty. And I'm not thinking anything of it. And Friday night, she wet the bed, which was abnormal. Thursday night, I'm sorry, Friday night to wet the bed Saturday night you wet the bed. That Sunday, I mentioned it to my mom and she was like, You should prick her effing finger. And like, you know, then I go home because I didn't have a kid or anything on me because I was an irresponsible person at the time. And you know, I couldn't do it. So I got home, pricked her finger, and I got the lovely Hi. So I call her father, like, Hey, we're gonna pick you up. Now we're going to the hospital. So we went to the hospital, we got the diagnosis, we came home that night with the emergency endo appointment the next day. And I walked in with my Dexcom I was like, here's a sensor, here's a transmitter, you're gonna put this on the baby before I leave here today, because there was no way that it was not going to happen like that. So I kind of forced their hand on it to put the Dexcom on or they fought me for a pump for you know, for as long as they could. You need to see the nutritionist, you need this, you need that you need this, you need that. So I booked the nutritionist appointment, and then I gave them a food walk that day. They want me to do a virtual with the nutritionist within a couple nebula within a couple of weeks. And then I got her on a Omnipod iros the other one not the new one. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:38
well done. You had a Dexcom. But you also described yourself as not taking great care of yourself. So you had a CGM before you made the change to

Ashley 27:47
once I was pregnant. I met with you know, one of the reps at the time. This was 2015 and they put me on one of the old scary ones that you had to like, hold all weird and have like the holding right and the sticky right? And you had to like break things off. And it was a whole scary mess. But so I started using one of those back then and I stockpiled it because I didn't always wear them all the time. Okay, you know, closer to the time of

Scott Benner 28:14
Yeah, gotcha. I understand what what made you begin to take better care of yourself. Was it that wasn't the pregnancy? Was it

Ashley 28:21
the pregnancy I ended up with? I think I delivered at like a 5.8 and then my a one same thing. Did

Scott Benner 28:28
you go right back to how you were before after the pregnancy was over?

Ashley 28:31
Um I stayed at like a seven. Okay, for the most part. I said I like a seven a for anyone say somewhere around there. Maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower.

Scott Benner 28:41
Where are you now?

Ashley 28:43
I am my West a one C was maybe a month ago and I'll pull it up from my quest app because I don't want to lie on recording.

Scott Benner 28:56
That's what you're worried about.

Ashley 28:58
Well, yeah, actually, you want to know what Yes, I actually stayed up a lot thinking about this because there are, you know, I was nervous about parts of my life that I may not have wanted to come out but because of programs you know, I've done experience strength and hope types of like conversations like I've sat in front of a room before and spoke about, you know, hard drug addiction for 20 minutes and like if I came on to you, and I lied for an hour Who am I helping? I didn't want to do that. So I tossed in charge. And here I am not wanting

Scott Benner 29:35
like this podcast, don't you?

Ashley 29:37
Um, I think it's interesting to be honest, I may not listen to like the interviews but okay, listening to the pro tips. It was kinda like He's not wrong type of thing. Oh, this

Scott Benner 29:49
so I'm interested by this. So you're doing an interview, but you don't particularly enjoy the interviews.

Ashley 29:56
Yeah, I guess I don't know. I just I don't have the time in my life. I can have, you know I want to know how to fix my diesel so I'm gonna listen to that diesel pro tip for God knows how long but I don't have the time I'm doing I work nine to six. I deal with the kid you know she gets home at six I'm doing dinner I'm doing homework. She's in bed by eight, eight o'clock I'm cleaning up from everything and

Scott Benner 30:18
no, I understand I listen. There's a TV show. I've been trying to watch for three years and I don't have time to watch it. It's not that I don't get that. I just think you referenced the couple things that made me think like she's listened to this.

Ashley 30:29
Oh, I have I've definitely listened to some I've listened to you know, some after dark episodes, I listened to the the young Russian girl I thought she was hysterical. I listened to your daughter's episode. I've listened to a few but I don't actively,

Scott Benner 30:43
actively listen to the interviews. But then what made you want to come and do an interview?

Ashley 30:48
I was intrigued by what you had to say. And you know, I I agree with a lot of the things that you say and things like that. And I thought, you know, because of my program. And you could if you could see me I'm sitting here I'm making like a silly face and silly arms and stuff like that. But like, if I could help just one person, you know what I mean? That's really all that I wanted.

Scott Benner 31:08
I'm up for? What's what most of what is the fixed point?

Ashley 31:11
Oh, I'm sorry. My ANC as of October 4 was 6.2.

Scott Benner 31:15
Well, congratulations. That's excellent. You're still you're managing yourself and your daughter in a co parenting situation. You both have very respectable agencies. How about what do you see? And in terms of variability? Where do you like to keep your what range Do you like to keep your blood sugar?

Ashley 31:34
Um, I, my alerts are 70 and 130. But I'm a strange character. I don't. So when we were younger, diabetes wise, they had me on like the old insulin that my mom had to know what my carb count for the day was before, like, giving me any type of insulin. So I was on strict meals at this time, this and this and that, and it was a whole, like feed the insulin type thing. Once I started the pump, the manipulation of the insulin was a game changer for me. So I pretty much go all day I wake up and I drank six or seven cups of coffee and I don't eat dinner until like six o'clock. 630. So my fasting, no variables involved, like my day basil was great. But my carb counts if aren't particularly correct at all times.

Scott Benner 32:30
Okay, do you do not eat a lot? Because you're not hungry? Are you trying to manage your blood sugar that way?

Ashley 32:38
I just don't eat like that. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I'm more. I'm not a carb count person. I'm not a carb ratio person. I'm more of like, like when you said it, I heard you say it before in an episode like, that looks like it's six units of insulin. And like, I get that, you know, I can't tell you how many carbs are on that plate. But I'm going to need more than five units to start for sure.

Scott Benner 33:05
Yeah, no, I definitely believe in that. Okay, how did you find the show?

Ashley 33:13
The baby was diagnosed. And then I was sent home at midnight, and I was up till four o'clock having no idea what to do.

Scott Benner 33:20
So you're just looking around online? Yeah.

Ashley 33:23
That's interesting. Then I joined the group I saw people had to say and like, I didn't realize diabetes existed, like, online. I? Yeah, at all. Like, in general, I thought it was a myth. I swear, I swear on everything. I thought it was a myth. I didn't know anyone who had it. I didn't know. It was like a possible thing. And I just kind of like, didn't talk about it and dealt with it. So like, all these people online, were talking about Dexcom graphs and doing this and doing that and like, I want it to be better, because that's just I have a sense of entitlement. And I wanted to do better than the graphs that I was seeing. And that's where I

Scott Benner 34:04
am. Okay. I have two questions. First, when you say because you've said a number of times that you have a sense of entitlement. Is that something that you believe about yourself? Or is that something someone told you?

Ashley 34:15
I'm probably both at one point. I just, I was in a relationship at one point, not with my current partner, not with my daughter's father. That was not the healthiest. It was a little narcissistic, to say the least. So like, at one point, I realized what I deserved and what I was worth and things like that. So I don't like settling. Yeah, for other than that at this point. So I think it's a self grown sense of entitlement. I don't like the way that I'm feeling so I want to feel better. So I'm going to do better type of thing. I guess

Scott Benner 34:55
I have to tell you that I don't see that as feeling entitled. Like I don't think wanting to do better for yourself. Unless you're using that word in a way that I'm misunderstanding like, I don't see,

Ashley 35:05
maybe I'm not using it right. Well, that would be maybe, I don't know, let's find

Scott Benner 35:08
out. I, I think when you say that when anybody says that, I think of the idea that you feel like you deserve something without having to put in any effort. Yeah. Okay. But do you feel like do Is that how you feel? Like, is this something you deserve? You should just have it.

Ashley 35:28
Mmm hmm. After 20 years, maybe, you know, I feel like I should have better control. Oh, okay. Things like that. I don't know, maybe. I don't know,

Scott Benner 35:39
though. So maybe it's like, well, I've been in this game for a long time like this can't like this can't possibly keep happening to me. Like, right. That's not fair. Like I've done this for a while. Yeah, I should know how to do this by now. Okay. All right. I just want to understand what you're saying. I wanted to make sure I understood what you're saying. But now,

Ashley 35:55
maybe I wasn't saying it. Right. I don't know.

Scott Benner 35:57
It's, it's okay. I I really just want to, I want to make sure that you're clear that my second question was, you wanted to do this, so you could try to help somebody else. So what is it from having diabetes for as long as you've had for living through an addiction for having a baby who now has type one diabetes? What is it you think people should know?

Today, I will be taking these few moments in the middle of the podcast to tell you about the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump. Are you on MDI right now giving yourself injections? Would you like to get rid of those multiple daily injections? You can you can get your insulin delivered through this wearable little pod called Omni pod. Maybe you're using a different pump, and it's got a whole bunch of tubing on it. And that tubing is sneaking through your bra and up your shirt and down through your jeans and you think I don't like this all this tubing. Well, I'm the pod doesn't have tubing. So that might be a nice thing for you to do. You know, make the little switch. You can you know, you may actually be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the army pod dash. I did not time that statement to coincide with a magical music. It just happened because the Omni pod is magic. All right, listen. My daughter has been using an omni pod. Since she was four years old, she is going to be 18. This summer, she has been wearing one every day for all that time, it has been a fantastic partner with her and her insulin on the pod lets you bathe and swim without taking off your pump. That's a big deal. It allows you to involve yourself in sports or other frolicking activities without having to take off your pump. When you take off your pump. You're not getting insulin anymore. And that's not okay. So all those two pumps that have to come off when you're playing soccer, or going for a run or whatever it is, I don't know, wherever you're like you're roughhousing. You know what I mean? I'm saying sacks, like stuff like that, right? You can leave your pump on for that. When you have the Omni pod, and you get a nice even delivery of insulin just the way you're supposed to. There's no tubes to get caught on doors. Sure, that's a pretty cool thing. But mainly the Omni pod is small, it's very wearable, it goes right on to you. Right, and then there's no tubes that come off of it. There's also no controller that's connected to the pod. So when you make decisions in the personal diabetes matter and little PDM that thing is wireless. Understand, nothing's connected to you, nothing has to hang on your belt, nothing has to come off for you to get in the shower. It's pretty damn cool. I'm the pod.com forward slash juice box head there now see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod Dash. And if you're waiting for the Omni pod five, there's no need. Because with the on the pod promise, you can start with the dash today and switch to Omni pod five. When it's covered by your insurance, no muss, no fuss. One link covers them all. You can get started today, you can find out more, you can learn about the Omni pod promise you can find out if you're eligible for a free 30 day supply of the dash. Or you can get full safety risk information and free trial Terms and Conditions. All these things, right. All this stuff that you might need. It exists in one place on the pod.com Ford slash juicebox. For full safety risk information and Omni pod promised Terms and Conditions. Just visit that link. There are also links in the show notes of the podcast player that you're listening in right now. And links at juicebox podcast.com on the pod I don't know what else I could tell you it's Awesome. You know what, I'm gonna bleep that out. I'm not supposed to curse the ads, but it really is awesome

Ashley 40:22
I would just say keep it simple. That's really all that it comes down to, like I see. I see a lot of things about my diabetic kid, I'll left the house again without their bag. What am I supposed to do? Like, depending on their age, you know, teenagers wise, keep everything in their car, keep maybe not a vial insulin, but pump supplies, Dexcom supplies, finger test supplies, like 1617 years old, they're gonna want their car no matter what they're doing. And if it's in their car, they're always going to have it. Like I don't go anywhere without my car. I don't carry a big giant bag with supplies for me and the kid and the whole to do like that'd be a really big bag. I keep like a makeup case in my car with supplies. I carry a finger sticker and like loose land sets and strips and a little thing in my bag and call today does take up a square me and call it a day.

Scott Benner 41:19
Does it wait pick up what?

Ashley 41:21
The swimming? I don't think I say it right? The nasal injector. I don't say it right.

Scott Benner 41:26
That's excellent. Your glucagon is the nasal injected glucagon. You keep saying yeah, you keep saying misquote me. I like that better. Don't worry. So are you saying that big picture, when you see parents of children with type one kind of, you know, like doing too much being upset and worrying about everything that you're saying, Look, yeah, some of these things that you're worrying about. You don't need to be as worried about so I feel

Ashley 41:50
Yeah, don't don't worry about it. I mean, worry about it. But don't take it to the extreme. Like, I keep supplies for, for me at this point in my life. Not in the past. At this point in my life. I keep supplies for me and the kid in the car. at my mom's house. When I was in the office, I kept supplies on my desk. And like, I never had to carry about it like, what am I? What else am I doing? I'm at work. I'm at my mom's or I'm at my own house. I don't need a giant thing as supplies. If I'm going to the grocery store, I don't need the whole 50 pound bag. If I'm going shopping for a couple hours, I don't need the whole 50 pound bag, you know, so I think vacation is a different story. But simple day to day activities is just right. Simple.

Scott Benner 42:36
The way I see it is that people are online, normally, in a moment when they're unsure. Like even looking at you like you found the podcast in a moment where you were unsure, right so that people get online. They're new, they're trying to make sure everything's okay. They're you know, parents are trying to keep their kids safe. And there's overkill and but after time, I think you figure out what's overkill. And what's necessary for a good example would be that Arden went back to high school this year after COVID for her senior year. And it was like four days into like four days into the into the new school year. And I said to her Do you think we should like take the nurse some supplies or something? And she's like, I don't know if you want to sit Okay. Well, we'll just give her like an extra pot and some other stuff. And you know, give her your glucagon. And like can

Ashley 43:26
your school change it for her or she's pretty much self administering at this point. So they can't doesn't even matter.

Scott Benner 43:32
Yeah, they wouldn't touch her. I don't think anyone there's I mean, I don't think No one's ever touched her insulin pump or anything like that. I just mean like the, the idea of like, you know, you see people who spread juices boxes into every room their kid goes into which by the way at some point when my daughter was like six or seven there was a little supply in every place that she'd be. But as she got older, that became less than less than necessary. Arden has a small makeup bag with a juice box in it. It has a Contour Next One blood glucose meter and it has a lance some test strips to go with a meter G vote hypo pen. I don't think there's anything else in there. And to be honest, she only she's only started carrying glucagon since it has become easier to carry like since since she voc has happened because prior to that, like I did not have her carry around like that big like that red box with all you know like

Ashley 44:28
Yeah, and I don't remember carrying that thing around either as a child

Scott Benner 44:31
Yeah, I just that's a it's a strange I mean I get it like if she used to have them like the nurse had one but I never Yeah,

Ashley 44:39
they're always in the school, the school box supply and you know, in the home but yeah, regular day to day carrying it wasn't something that I thought to bring. Right. So

Scott Benner 44:48
I think that people I mean, maybe not everyone, but I think everyone starts out super enthusiastic. You know, and you've you've seen the pictures online like big, like plastic boxes and there's you know Yo label makers on the front to explain Oh no. And

Ashley 45:03
I felt weird this year sending in my box, comparing my school boxes for the kid to everyone else's school boxes. I'm like, am I not doing this right? And like, I felt weird about how little I sent but like, she doesn't need anything. And I need to go crazy.

Scott Benner 45:18
So you don't have that feeling because you've lived through diabetes. And you don't you don't think like, oh, I have to have everything that we've ever owned that has anything to do with type one with us at all times.

Ashley 45:30
Yeah, pretty much I just, it's, it's a regular it. I set it to someone recently, and another group that I'm in something like, walk hand in hand and you're with your diabetes, so you're not, you know, one or the others not dragging the other around. Like, if you know, you're not going to avoid certain foods, like just figure out how to Bolus for it. If you know, like, you don't need all this extra nonsense all the time. Like there's a time and place for everything. But keep it easy on your regular day to day, you don't need an extra 50 pound bag, you could just breathe, it's okay, you're going to the grocery store who's going to rip the pot out, you know, you're sitting calmly the baby sitting calmly and the thing is, I don't think they're gonna I mean, maybe a baby might but you know, my six year old sitting in the car, and she's not going to rip a pot off. I don't need to bring 50 pots with me in case of

Scott Benner 46:21
Yeah, I have like a distance in my mind as a driving distance. Usually, if I'm going to be, you know, 30 minutes from the house, but we're just going to the mall and the Ardennes pods in like 18 hours old. I think this will be okay. If our pods you know, almost, it's 70 hours old. And we're going to the same place. I might think I'll bring in a pump just in case only because I don't want to be there in the middle of something and then have to

Ashley 46:48
exactly yeah. But that's why I keep it on the car already. If I'm if we're doing a family thing. I'm the one that's driving I have the Jeep you know, so I keep everything in the car already. If something happens, it's already in the car. Replace it next time I go home. Yep. Yeah, that's not like a constant thought of it was just like that was one of the easy things that I could do because I am a headless chicken half the time I'm running. Where's my phone? Where's my glasses? Where's this? Where's that? matching that with diabetes supplies? Where's my pod? Where's this? Where's that? Where's my PDM? You know what I mean?

Scott Benner 47:20
Yeah, absolutely disaster. If you listen to more of the interview episodes, you'd know not to say stuff like that, because your episode can easily get called headless chicken now, and

Ashley 47:28
oh, I would love that would be great. Actually headless chicken. I thought I thought you were gonna use the two babies and a baby I'm sorry, the lesbians and baby daddy co parenting dual diabetes, but you're gonna have something around those lines. I'll take her was checking the last

Scott Benner 47:43
42 minutes I've just been me basically trying not to ask you how often your ex tries to have sex with you and your partner. So like, or how many times he like playfully brings, there's

Ashley 47:53
always one conversation on how we do like, we do like a quick easy bar crawl kinda I don't know, we take the kids trick or treating. We go with a whole group of kids, you know, the adults have their drinks and the kids do the running and the candy thing. Then we end up down at one of the bar at one of the bars where the kids could sit down and eat we sit down and eat and that's a good time. So once those drinks start happening is Windows.

Scott Benner 48:20
When the joke I mean, it's all joking. It's all joking, of course like, oh, we have a cute kid, right? Like, oh, yeah, yeah, actually, he's joking. Unless you say okay, and then he's not joking anymore. Like, one time?

Ashley 48:33
Oh, there's so many things I want to say when they listened to and they're great people. They're great people. So I don't want to say anything like that. They're great. It wasn't anything like that. Whatever.

Scott Benner 48:44
I got that off my by the back of my brain to think about that. He only

Ashley 48:47
asked once, once every year when they're drunk. Maybe joke, maybe not.

Scott Benner 48:54
We'll find out. How do you handle? Are you do you drink? Still? Or do you not?

Ashley 49:00
Have I actually I do I do drink. I do live in a legal state recreational wise as well. But I wouldn't say that's a everyday type thing. I definitely do not for those listening who have heard me talk about recovery and programs and things like that. I don't count time. I don't do any of those types of things. But I live in a legal state. And alcohol is legal to so

Scott Benner 49:22
okay. So for you. The hardest, like avoiding the harder stuff

Ashley 49:28
is yeah, I won't even take Tylenol. If I had a headache. I don't take you know Mitel if I have my period, I don't like I stay away from that type of stuff. Interesting.

Scott Benner 49:37
Okay. That's really it's a it's a not a world I completely understand. But I have conversations where I'm starting to figure it out. But it's so it's nice. Yeah,

Ashley 49:48
I mean, I know my limits. I know when certain things shouldn't be a discussion. Like if we start talking about one thing too long, you know, let's not do that have this conversation anymore. It's the ideation Have the other things that will get you nervous.

Scott Benner 50:02
So you could have like thoughts that you'd be afraid would lead you to an action.

Ashley 50:07
Yeah, exactly. Gotcha. And that's something I've learned from the program, things like that.

Scott Benner 50:11
Gotcha. So you stay away from that kind of thing? How much yeah, do you do you mentor anybody? Or does someone mentor you? Or do you not do that? Oh,

Ashley 50:19
no, no, I'm an isolated isolated with all work from home thing I just, I you know, I upload my Google every night and go through all my data and then I do the kids and then I send out the group text message to the you know, other half of the kids family and say, Hey, look at this from today, should we change this? So I've replaced it with diabetes is really what I've done. Yeah. Okay, so you're on my list making and my diabetes

Scott Benner 50:42
you're putting your effort into this which is obviously working out really well because your agencies again are terrific in your ranges or do you keep the I liked that you call her the kid do you keep the kid is arranged like yours yours hers different.

Ashley 50:58
Um, my follow alerts go off at 160 But her phone alerts because you know, I have run a regular phone on so I can read it in school. I have them set the highest so they don't really go off and bother in school. Okay, so you she has a little bit more leeway than

Scott Benner 51:14
me. So you know prior to when somebody who's with her nose and like so yours will be but

Ashley 51:20
oh, they will everyone has the follow up on their. on their phone. Everyone either, you know, has the sugar made on their watch or whatever the case may be. We're all crazy. I'm actually looking at Oh, I don't know if I could say it because it's the thing. Am I like to say things like products? I don't care. I have one of those. My partner's just bought me one of those or two rather, because it was a two pack. They were kind of expensive. That's why one of those glucose bowls like the glowy thing that connects to the sugar mate and like I could see my sugars and stuff like that like in color.

Scott Benner 51:53
I've seen people talking about them online. I've never seen them. Yeah, I've seen it on your

Ashley 51:57
on on the Facebook, Facebook, that glucose thing. So I'm looking at that right now for everyone's colors. Just

Scott Benner 52:04
wow, I hate glucose. Have you experienced a uptick in sales and to figure out that it came from here I'd be open to selling you ads

Ashley 52:15
it's a great product guys like

Scott Benner 52:17
a little like that. I don't work for them like a ball right? That it changes colors or? Yeah, exactly.

Ashley 52:24
Does it make like a little LED ball when she's well it's red. And then the higher her number goes, it goes to like violet. When she's in range, it's green. Like right now I'm at you made me nervous in the beginning. So I you know temper my basil earlier today. And I ended up dipping a little bit I ate a cup of Skittles and now jumped up to 147. So my bowl was blue, but I could see that I'm okay and steady.

Scott Benner 52:51
You were nervous to come on the podcast.

Ashley 52:54
I was I normally most days I have to tempt my Basal up because of work for the most part anyway. Yeah, so I increase it a little bit more I got stuck at like 130. And then you know, I bumped it up just a little bit too much and came down to like 120. I thought a scale would fix it, but it didn't fix it. And now I'm 147

Scott Benner 53:15
Wow, you're really on top. It's interesting to talk to somebody who went from, like not paying attention to it to paying attention to it. So did you always know how to handle it? Or did like the advent of the CGM help you understand it better? Like, what's it the pro tip episodes like? Why do you Why are you so?

Ashley 53:36
I don't know. To be completely honest. I just I don't know.

Scott Benner 53:42
I figured it out where you cared?

Ashley 53:43
Yeah, it just happened. I guess it just it just kind of happened. It might have more to do with, you know, with the kid since we're going to call her that, because they're following her numbers too. So like, if I have her and like her numbers a little bit at a range. I'm like, Oh my God, they're gonna text me and they're gonna yell at me because their sugars are so high and I don't know what I'm going to do. So it was just more of like a felt like being watched type thing. So I just wanted to do better or show off maybe I don't know,

Scott Benner 54:09
somewhere between accountability and peacocking

Ashley 54:14
I guess Yeah. Okay. Exactly. Accountability. Like what I'm sorry,

Scott Benner 54:21
I'm saying accountability seems important to you. I think that's how a lot of your like, I think that's a lot of the ways that you've helped yourself is to be accountable. Yeah, you know, to her during your pregnancy or to yourself or her for her diabetes or to other people in your life. Because you've taken responsibility for a baby and other people care about that. So you want to be accountable like and that accountability seems to work for you.

Ashley 54:47
Yeah, I guess that's like, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

Scott Benner 54:52
Doesn't make you feel badly right. Like you don't feel pressure. No,

Ashley 54:54
I like knowing that my word you know what I say mean? is what I say and like I can you know, answer that if you have a question, I'm not nervous to answer it. Authenticity, I guess I'm real you have not felt I want people to believe that, you know, like, I didn't want to come on to you and why that, you know, I wasn't a drug addict and I've been doing this great all these years now like I was a drug addict I had horrible blood sugar's I ended up cleaning myself up took a little bit better care. And then now it's exactly a peacock thing.

Scott Benner 55:29
Were you. Were you lying to people during a big part of your life?

Ashley 55:35
About everything? Okay. About everything? Yeah. How did you see the stars last night? No, it was cloudy. Why would you say that? I

Scott Benner 55:43
don't know. No idea. Just nothing was real.

Ashley 55:47
Yeah, nothing was real, I guess because the the the life quote unquote, that I was living didn't, I didn't want it to be real. So I said whatever I wanted to say just Howard Stern quote, unquote, I wanted to say things to get a reaction out of people, I see

Scott Benner 56:04
what I'm, when you're living like that. You're aware that you don't want to be or no.

Ashley 56:13
Um, I guess at one point, I had to be aware to make the decision to, you know, to make an actual decision to do something different. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting different results. If you do the same thing over and over again, you're always gonna get the same result. So if you do something different, that result is going to change, and that I use and diabetes all the time.

Scott Benner 56:38
Is there is there I want to, I'm gonna re ask my question, because I'm not sure I was clear. Oh, did

Ashley 56:44
I not answer? No, no, it's

Scott Benner 56:45
not that you didn't answer. I definitely wasn't clear. I'm gonna say that. Like, is there a moment in your life where you're using? And you're consciously thinking, I don't want to do this, but then you do it anyway. Where do you not consciously know that you want to not want to be or shouldn't be doing what you're doing? Like what's Is there any conflict while you're doing or does it just feel like the right thing?

Ashley 57:13
It was always a conflict. Okay, I, you know, I didn't want to steal my mom's jewelry. And I didn't want to point it at the pawn store. And I didn't want to use it for X, Y, and Z. But I still did it. And I still got caught. You know what I mean?

Scott Benner 57:27
You're standing in that pawn shop. Are you thinking, I cannot believe I'm selling this, but I need to because I need the money for drugs. For the most part, yeah. That's how it feels when I was alright. So it's not like an abandonment of your morality. It's just that it's been, it's being held down by the addiction. Like the morality is not as important as the addiction. Is that how that works?

Ashley 57:53
I don't know. I'm not really sure how it works. It's just I don't even know what the word to put to it is it just didn't matter. Like you know, as long as I could do this, I'd be able to get through this if I could get this I can get through this day. If I had x y&z I can go through my normal workday, right?

Scott Benner 58:14
I see. Okay, so just Yeah, yeah, it was

Ashley 58:17
just forced, I willingly handed everything over to it, because I had no other option. Or at least I thought, once I realized I had the option to stop is when the whole thing changed. Yeah. And I think that comes into play with everything with with diabetes with, with everything, once you make that decision that you're going to handle it better, or do something different, like you willingly make that choice every moment. And that's that so to

Scott Benner 58:44
you, if I'm going to extrapolate here a little bit, but to you, if you can be addicted like that, and recognize that that doesn't have to be your world and get out of it, then you're saying that we're then the assumption here is that around diabetes management, if you're feeling overwhelmed by it, like, oh, I can't do this, or this is more than I can do. The truth is, you probably can do it. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Okay. You just sort of have to decide to let go, Yeah,

Ashley 59:15
every everything is, and that's what I took away from, from all of those years of of using was that once I made a decision, like, I can stick to that, like my word meant something which is why I didn't want to come on and lie about that type of stuff, because I wanted my word to mean something. So like I now I've made a decision to upload my gluco every day because my phone buzzes at a certain time so I can make sure I go through my data. And if I willingly make that decision, I can consciously take care of my blood sugars to ensure I feel better the next day.

Scott Benner 59:47
That's excellent. I also want to try to give you a little bit of comfort like Ashley if you came on this podcast and decided not to talk about your addiction. You could be honest about your life without lying to me like omitting some thing wouldn't be lying. Now, if you change the story. Yes,

Ashley 1:00:05
yes and no, you know, to you it would feel like lying. Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:00:10
I appreciate that a lot.

Ashley 1:00:12
I wanted everyone to know that, like, you know, no matter where they are at their diabetes management or where they are in their personal life choices, like, there's always an opportunity to do better, there's always a way to get yourself out of a situation if you're struggling with whatever type of food and like, you really don't want to let go of those lucky charms. Like, I did that with the kids, you wanted the stupid monkey charm. So I spent like two weeks with playing with Pre-Bolus thing and timing and manipulation of insulin and pulling it here and cutting it back from there. And like, I realized that just yesterday, she can, you know, take X, Y and Z of whatever her ratios are, and I don't want to give dosing instructions. Then I added seven minutes of jump roping to the stupid thing and a sugar state fine. She taught that at 130. With Lucky Charms came back down, I caught her with like, three apple slices and she stayed like 90. And like that took me so long to do. But I made the choice to continue trying to get it right. And that's that's why addiction is so part of my diabetes. Now,

Scott Benner 1:01:24
after it happened. Did you run around the house singing the lucky charm song? Like did you ever find yourself thinking this is magically delicious? I've done it like I usually have like you were really proud I would have been

Ashley 1:01:34
honestly, I think I was pissed because my blood sugar was high.

Scott Benner 1:01:39
So I did have a very similar thing with, you know, with cereal at one point, I just kept pushing and kept pushing until I figured out what did it and like you said it was I felt it's crazy, because Arden doesn't really eat cereal any longer. But when it happened in that moment, we did all the things that you kind of outlined, like we tried, didn't do a good job of it didn't have the right tools didn't have the right understanding. So she stopped eating it. And then one day, I thought I do have the tools and understanding how I bet you I could Bolus for this. And then I figured out how to do it. And then one day, she just sort of grew out of eating cereal anyway, it was like I don't want this anymore. All right, well, at least I know I can do it, then you apply what you've learned to a different situation or a different meal. Yeah. And then you just kind of grow with it. It's kind of exactly, it just takes time. Everything takes time. Like no matter where you start, you know, if you start on level ground or in a hole, if you just keep at it. Eventually, you get to the other side, I had this sort of weird. I was interviewing someone recently who had been married a number of times, and was a much older person, meaning like a person in their 70s. And it was super interesting to hear her talk about times in her life, that just were memories at this point. Like she had lived an entire life with a man, right, like they had been married and had children and owned a home and put their children through school and and he passed. And then there was time. And then she met another person and then lived another 35 years. And to hear her like, I'm not saying this right. But there was something I

Ashley 1:03:22
know what you're trying to say the different lifetimes and lifestyles, I know where you're going

Scott Benner 1:03:27
lifetimes inside of a lifetime. And how how she could remember back to that first one with just kind of joy. She only remembered the good stuff. And that none of the painful things that people think about day to day existed in her memory at all. And I was incredibly like, buoyed by that. I thought wow, like that's amazing. So so things, little things that you worry about day to day, are genuinely meaningless. And if you if you could find a way to understand that in the moment, everything would be so much better. And I wonder how then would you look back, like I realized not everybody is going to have a couple of like, families in a lifetime. Not everybody is going to live into their late 80s kind of thing. But there's there's a lesson from that. You know, that. And I think you've kind of figured it out too. Like you've lived through a really bad thing. That's now not part of your life anymore.

Ashley 1:04:26
Yeah, and I do I do feel like that I feel like three different people living inside one body.

Scott Benner 1:04:33
And the further you get away from that time in your life, the more it'll just seem like an education that you received, and less I imagined it'll feel like disappointment or pain. But you have to

Ashley 1:04:49
stay. Yeah, I guess so. Kinda like talking about things that happened like and for you maybe like things that happened at the beginning of yours and your wife's marriage, you know, talking about like, that one really big fight that you guys had, like, now you're not screaming at each other, you can laugh about it now.

Scott Benner 1:05:04
It's just there's a big, there's a big existential thought in there that you I'm gonna leave everyone listening on their own to at the end of this episode just to think about on your own. But if you stay alive long enough and you persevere and you don't give up everything you're worried about in the past, kind of doesn't matter. And yeah, that's cool. All right. Ashley, is there also Ashley in the kid is in my mind for a title as well. So we'll go back and forth figure it out. Is there actually in the kid works? I don't know. You sounded like you liked headless chicken.

Ashley 1:05:37
But oh, the headless chicken and the kid that could work? I'll tell

Scott Benner 1:05:41
you right now. Headless Chicken and the kid. Done deal. That's it right there. I'm gonna make a note. So I don't forget. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you hope to bring up today?

Ashley 1:05:54
Um, I would just say keep it simple. For everyone who's listening lower. Don't let your high alarms go off at 180 If you're not comfortable with your blood sugar at 180, set the alarms to go off earlier. Like, keep little easy go bags in your main designated places. Like just take things easy. You're gonna be dealing with this forever. Like, yeah, you always trip over the you know, you never trip over the big rock. It's always the little rocks that you trip over all the time. So just stay easy. And know what you need. That's all. Well, how you feel.

Scott Benner 1:06:27
Ashley, thank you very much. I really enjoyed this conversation. Oh, I hope so. Do you feel like you did what you wanted to do?

Ashley 1:06:36
Oh, I maybe I don't know. I just like talking. And I thought it would be fun to talk with you. I fangirled really hard when when I saw that post that you put up and I was like, I'm gonna blow this guy's mind. And I'm gonna send them a wild email. And it worked, obviously, because here I am.

Scott Benner 1:06:51
Do you think this is an after dark episode? Probably. It might be I think you might be right. I'm fascinated, like, really, that you wanted to do this so much. But that you didn't feel but you don't feel particularly Do you think there'll be Let me ask a different question. Do you think there'll be a time where you'll get more out of listening to other people's stories?

Ashley 1:07:16
I think I'm just half lazy half doing too much all the time. I've definitely listened to you know, the more commonly spoken about ones. But I just I don't know, when I got too much, I think to sit down and listen to someone

Scott Benner 1:07:32
that we're gonna have to get you a job where you're not wearing a headset so you can do other stuff.

Ashley 1:07:36
Yeah, exactly. I sit here with the headset, I get calls. If you know when the person hangs up, I get another call three seconds. And it's not like I could sit there and yeah, Facebook and listen to things. It's it is what it is. It pays my bills. My insurance is great. So excellent. I'll take it

Scott Benner 1:07:54
is there. I don't I don't think of this as weird. But I would like you to speak a sentence that includes the words pissed off coffee and call. Let's think about how we could do that real quickly.

Ashley 1:08:05
I got Oh, I got it right now. You ready? I don't even need the prompting. So I was drinking my coffee. And I received this call from whoever it was right. I was talking to dolly Johansson. And they were telling me how their husband was yelling at them. And you know, it pissed her off so much. I spilt my coffee. Perfect.

Scott Benner 1:08:25
Thank you. And by the way, we might now have to change the episode title to Molly Johansson. That was fantastic. I don't know where you came up with that. But that was wonderful. I love your accent.

Ashley 1:08:37
Have you seen? Have you seen the imposters on Netflix? No, I think what? Oh my god. Well, that's where it came from one of the main girls are her hidden name is Johnson without an H they see it all the time. And then one of her name she pretends to be as Molly so it just clicked. But watch the imposters? What do you mean don't watch them the pastor. That's why I can't listen to the episodes because I'm watching Netflix.

Scott Benner 1:08:59
I'm almost done squid games. My son is badgering me to watch what if? And I have I have that's pretty much it. So

Ashley 1:09:11
imposters is good. It's the did you watch Lucifer by any chance my

Scott Benner 1:09:15
wife watches Lucifer. I don't watch it.

Ashley 1:09:18
That the girl or the actress rather? Who plays Eve and Lucifer is the main character of imposters. So it's a good show. All right. All right. I'm on nice to look at.

Scott Benner 1:09:28
Oh, I see what you're saying. I gotcha. Well, then maybe I'll take it. Maybe I'll check it out. Well, we'll find out if you're if what you're attracted to is what I'm attracted to. I'll Google in a second try to figure it out.

Ashley 1:09:42
She doesn't look like my my wife or almost wife. We're getting married in April, but she doesn't look like her at all. Two different people. graduations. I

Scott Benner 1:09:49
didn't realize you were getting married.

Ashley 1:09:50
Oh, yeah. It's a whole to deal with me. Yeah, diabetes is the least of my worries for the most part.

Scott Benner 1:09:56
I said, I mean, we're done now, but let's just do this while we're together. So The Lucifer app. Sorry, this is the MP, you can go if you want people, but I'm going to figure out who this actress actress is for a second. Lucifer

Ashley 1:10:11
the dark haired girl all right. And bar lavvy.

Scott Benner 1:10:19
I got her. It's funny. I just looked like a bunch of women popped up in front of me on Google and I went to the one with the dark hair right away to say, you and I might be on the same page. Ashley? Alright, so this, she's about your speed.

Ashley 1:10:35
I mean, she's nice to look at, but my wife is blonde.

Scott Benner 1:10:39
It's interesting. All right. So you don't care. Blonde, brunette, tall, short doesn't matter to you.

Ashley 1:10:47
Um, I don't even know if it's a gender thing. If we even want to have that part of conversation. I like how you make me feel like obviously, I had some type of feelings for my daughter's father, right? Like you have a baby together. You know?

Scott Benner 1:10:58
So it's like,

Ashley 1:11:00
yeah, yeah. How they make me feel who they are as a person. Like, I've been me and my partner have been doing this dancin for 12 years, you know, three years on, then we broke up and then you know, we're back on like four years at this point with a engagement and a wedding. And

Scott Benner 1:11:19
by the way, I'm fascinated by how short actors and actresses are. Like as soon as this big picture in bar popped up, I'm like, That is a tiny little person. And then that made me Google. In bar lobby height. She's five, three, you know, she's probably lying about that.

Ashley 1:11:34
So oh, probably. My license is 5325353 house dollar. Now I'm a little bit shorter. Maybe I'm like five, maybe 5152 unreality.

Scott Benner 1:11:45
I say five three, Scott, but I'm 411. All right. Alright, we're definitely done. Now. I really appreciate this. Hold on one sec.

Ashley 1:11:53
Oh, I appreciate you. I loved it. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:12:03
First off, a huge thank you to Ashley for coming on the show and sharing her story so openly with all of us. And of course, I'd also like to thank Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and they on the pod promise. Head over now to Omni pod.com forward slash juice box to get started today, you may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod Dash. And don't forget to find 10 minutes today to go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. Join the registry, fill out the survey help people with type one diabetes. I'm going to say a few things after the music but if you don't want to hear them, just hear this and go. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Okay, quick stuff, little what they call housekeeping for the podcast. Check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. A private group where people are talking about using insulin. How many members are there 22,000 and counting. Earlier I made up said 23,000. But I got ahead of myself. We're almost at 23,000 I mean, listen to a lot of people. They're all really cool. You should check it out. Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. Are you looking for the diabetes Pro Tip series. It begins at episode 210. In your podcast player, it's also available at diabetes pro tip.com and juicebox podcast.com. If you're newly diagnosed and don't understand a lot of the words you're hearing around diabetes. The defining diabetes series begins at episode 236. There are currently 36 episodes that are defined. You can also find those at Juicebox Podcast Icom and at diabetes pro tip.com. We have just finished the defining thyroid series which began at episode 616. That's a 10 episode series about fibroid disease. Don't miss it. Trust me. Trust, there's a lot to know. But it's easier to understand than you think. And when you have good information, your thyroid care will be a lot better and so will your life. What else do I want to tell you about before I go? I am a fan of the variable series that begins at episode 491. That's 22 episodes, where Jenny Smith and I talk about variables that impact your life with type one. Some of them are expected and some of them not so much. How about like pumped site placement, alcohol hydration travel, jumping on a trampoline, and so much more. diabetes variable series begins at episode 491 Do you ever eat french fries and and an hour and a half later your blood sugar goes up and you don't know why does that happen to you? You might want to check out episode 360 Defining diabetes, fat and protein rise and Episode 263, diabetes, pro tip fat and protein. You also might want to look at episode 264 bolusing for keto, or episode 471 bolusing insulin for fat. How about that? Did you know you might need insulin for fat and protein? You do now, head over and check it out. There are so much to choose from at the Juicebox Podcast some things for everyone you might say. Like Lastly, if you're loving the show, and you think you might know somebody else who would love it to please take the time to share the show. It is how it grows. It is the only way that it grows, word of mouth. So get out there and tell a friend. Like I said before, I really appreciate you listening, and I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.