#611 Diagnosed at 73

January 12, 2022Scott Benner

Nancy was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 73.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 611 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on your favorite podcast, I will be speaking with Nancy, who was diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of 73. Nancy is now 75. And she's coming on the show to tell us her story. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. Are you looking for a simple and easy way to help people with type one diabetes? Well, if you are, you're in luck. By going to the T one D exchange and filling out their survey, you'll be helping people with type one. Now you have to be a US resident who is either a type one or the caregiver of a type one. But after that, go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox fill out the survey does not take long at all. It's easy to do from your sofa, you know your cell phone, your tablet, very, very easy. And every time that someone completes the survey, not only does it help people with type one diabetes, but it helps the Juicebox Podcast T one D exchange.org forward slash juicebox

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Use the blood glucose meter that my daughter does. Contour Next One, find out more at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox

Nancy 1:47
My name is Nancy. And I'm uh I'm I know that the reason I contacted you was because I was diagnosed so late in life. I was 73 when I was diagnosed. So I'm Nancy, I'm a diabetic.

Scott Benner 2:03
This year you aging backwards because I'm fairly I can see Nancy and she can't see me but you're not over 73 Right. Oh, I'm

Nancy 2:10
almost 75 Good for you. But thank you and I you know, and that kind of works in my on my behalf. At this point in my life.

Scott Benner 2:21
You feel you feel younger? Or do you just are you just lucky and you look young?

Nancy 2:30
Interesting question. I think I've I feel fairly young. Just for background, my parents are both still living 101 and 102. So yeah. So, you know, I thought that was kind of that's kind of interesting. And I'm the first one, you know, like in my immediate family with with diabetes. So they're, you know, generally healthy, you know, heart problems, no chronic illnesses. Your brother's doing the same. I mean, there. We all excuse me, we've all had cancer except my sister. Okay, so that was kind of interesting. And there's a reason I brought that up. But that's kind of an interesting fact, which I never even considered, you know, I never even thought about it. But I was diagnosed with melanoma about about five years ago, and it metastasized. And I had immunotherapy treatments, which I never had a day of tiredness or anything. I mean, I felt good the whole time. And even actually thought, or wondered, you know, is this just a farce? What's going on with me, but I've had side effects from the immunotherapy. So that's where I got the diabetes.

Scott Benner 3:53
Oh, okay. Hold on a second. All right, this will be fun. There's plenty to pick through here. So you have a mother and a father who are like 1000 years old and they're still alive and how many brothers and sisters

Nancy 4:02
have a brother and a sister. Okay.

Scott Benner 4:04
So there's three of you. Each of the five of you have had cancer. Except my sister, your sister different kinds of cancer?

Nancy 4:13
Yes, yes. Breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer and metastatic. Melanoma.

Scott Benner 4:20
Wow. Which one? Did your father have? prostate, and he's doing well.

Nancy 4:27
And he's okay. I mean, you know, it's kind of like, I don't know what to say or not say, but it's kind of like he says, you know, there's a certain point when you wonder why you're still here. And that was probably about four years ago, four or five years ago. He

Scott Benner 4:43
said, how old he is. 102 Wow, no kidding. Yeah, I guess when you're I just turned 50 yesterday. And happy birthday. Thank you very much. And I was laying in bed at the end of my my 50th birthday. I'm feeling a little sad about being 50. And I said to my wife, the strangest thing is, is that here in the dark with my eyes closed, I can't tell how old I am. You know, like, I don't know, I said, I'll get up and look in a mirror. And I won't look the way I remembered. Or, you know, I'll, I'll my son in law asked me to throw with him and my shoulder won't handle it for more than, like, 20 minutes or so. And, you know, that kind of stuff, then, you know, gives you more of a perspective of where you're at. But you'll always think like, oh, I'm 50 I have so much time left. But I wonder what the difference is between time and really usable time, like any way you want to use it time. And that's probably probably how your dad feels a little bit like, Yeah, I'm here. But you know, there's stuff I want to do, and I can't do it anymore. That's crazy. Okay, so

Nancy 5:51
are you. Yeah. Can I Can I please Kevin off that for a second. Because when I when I was diagnosed with melanoma, and you know, I'm sure everybody goes through this. When you have a, you know, death threat, so to speak. I really did soul search, you know, some soul searching and looked at my life. And I had done a lot of things. In fact, at the end of the treatment and everything, I had done a lot of my bucket list, a lot of things that I had wanted to do, and I started thinking, Okay, now what, you know, now what, well, the now what was diabetes, but irregardless of that, it totally changed the way I look at life. And, and in a way, I mean, I'm old, I'm old, you know, in a way, I'm old. I mean, a lot of things that I didn't do as a younger person. I don't know that I could, would or should do them now. So yeah, kind of. I did a lot of reflecting on that and looking at it. And you know, you do at a certain point, you you go, oh, shoot, I can't go back to high school. Or, you know, whatever it might be. Yeah. How?

Scott Benner 7:06
I'm gonna get back to that later. But how old were you when you found out you had cancer?

Nancy 7:12
I think I was 69.

Scott Benner 7:18
Okay. And I think I

Nancy 7:20
was one month away from my 77/70 birthday.

Scott Benner 7:27
Yeah, at 70 years old. You just think I beat it? Like, nothing's gonna happen. Like, what the thing that happens next is, is how I die. Do you start having thoughts like that? I never had

Nancy 7:36
those thoughts. Actually, the crazy thing is, I never even had a thought that I would have cancer. I mean, the same thing with diabetes. I never, it never entered my mind.

Scott Benner 7:47
Yeah. Well, how long did the treatment for the cancer take?

Nancy 7:54
I had a supposedly preventative measure. At the end of the first, well, no. Let's see. At the end of the second year, so I didn't it didn't go anywhere after that, you know, for a while. And then five months later, it metastasized. And so those four treatments really didn't help. You know, apparently, or maybe they did, who knows. But anyway, and then I had, I didn't have a lot of treatments. I was trying to think that I think that through it's funny how I kind of forget things when when they're behind me. But I know I had four treatments of the same immunotherapy that I had before mixed with another one. And then after that, I had the other one. I think once a month for the rest of that year, so I think I think that treatment was about one year

Scott Benner 8:53
or use and how do you think of yourself now in relationship to cancer?

Nancy 9:02
I don't, I never I never saw it as a fight. Okay. I saw it as something that I you know, maybe maybe I didn't know, I don't know if I did something to do to do with it along with, you know, getting that or not, I don't know that. But I, you know, I'm not like the pink ribbon person that runs around and says, you know, I don't know. It's just something that happened. Yes. Just something that happened. I dealt, I dealt with it. And you know, my whole family is kind of that way. I mean, they never really talked about their cancer as much as I talked about my cancer.

Scott Benner 9:46
Well, okay, so are you in remission now? Like, how do they categorize it?

Nancy 9:52
I'm not sure if I am but I think this next appointment or shortly, he's gonna let me Go cuz I, I still see my doctor, the oncologist every three months. Now I only see the dermatologist every six months. Gotcha. You know, I stopped seeing the surgeon a year and a half ago. You know, so I think. Yeah, I think I don't know, you know, he said, if you get it again, the treatment will probably work again. And that's why they wanted to stop it as soon as they did, but yeah,

Scott Benner 10:27
so what about? So when do you get diabetes in this whole mess? Is it? Yeah, right.

Nancy 10:35
Exactly. So it was afterwards. I mean, I've been reading some articles just recently about it. And a lot of people get it right during their treatment. But my treatment was pretty short a year. And then I believe it was because I got it in 2019. At the October so it might have been three years after the melanoma, so maybe a year after the treatments were stopped.

Scott Benner 11:04
And then what was your first indication of diabetes?

Nancy 11:09
Oh, thank you cancer, right. I get was getting CT scans every three months. Okay. And so I went to get a CT scan. And my blood sugar because I always said to have to take your blood sugar, which I didn't even remember it being taken before. But apparently they always take it and she said, Are you diabetic? And I go, No, I don't think so. And she said, Well, your blood sugar is 298. And I just about dropped, because 15 years before actually 14 years before my son had been diagnosed with type one diabetes, at what age? He was 35. And his was not as easy as mine. You know, mine was just kind of like, okay, it's 298 I go home call my doctor. I have a I have Hashimotos Siberian Sienna endocrinologist every six months anyways, I go home color, tell her what's going on she, you know, suggest I go get a glucometer and start testing my blood sugar. And then I start watching videos and went back two days later, and my blood sugar was 202 I think she said I'm sorry, we can't do the test today. And I go, Well, gosh, you know, sunken in the seat? thinking oh, my gosh, do I really have diabetes? And then she said, you know, would you like me to take it again? And I said, Yeah, that's a good idea takes it didn't even entered my mind that she could take it again. Now it might be different. But she took it again. And it was 198. And so they did the test.

Scott Benner 13:06
They just didn't want to take it over. 200 Yes, Jesus, that's ridiculous. Those those meters can be off by as much as like 15% Some of them Oh, give me this real quick. Your son late in life, Baby Lips, baby. Second marriage, baby. We just waited till you had old till you were older to have kids? What was the thing?

Nancy 13:30
Yeah, I mean, we were young, when we had kids, my my daughter was, you know, I'm 21 years older than her and 24. Older, you know, 24 years older than my son. So it was just, you know, at in those years in my life, you just do what the next thing is to do. And now let's have kids. So,

Scott Benner 13:53
so you went to school, and then you found the guy and you're like, Well, it's time to make a baby and find a place to live.

Nancy 14:00
Well, like I went to school, I think the guy found me. And then I quit school so he could finish school. Yeah, boys took me a long, long time to go, you know, get back to school and did you go back? I eventually got a degree in accounting when I was like 38 And then we got divorced. And then I got my master's in social work. When I was 57. Worked. Yeah, worked for 10 years and then just retired, you know, a couple few years ago.

Scott Benner 14:43
That's pretty cool. Okay, so you're so your son has had type one diabetes for a while but as an adult, so what do you really know about it? Before you

Nancy 14:53
know what exactly that that was shocking to me because he was 30 Five at the time. And so he was an adult, and he happened to be living with me at the time. So I'm just going through the experience with him was just horrible. And then, you know, kind of watching him. I mean, he's amazing in a way because he never even gave himself a shot when he was in the hospital, and he was there for 29 days, 27 days, I think 27 days. I mean, in retrospect, I say, How did you get away with that? He said, Well, every time they'd come in and want to teach me I'd let him teach me but I wouldn't ever do it. Okay, whatever.

Scott Benner 15:41
Tell me a second. How many years ago was he diagnosed? 1515 years? Yes. And he got he was in the hospital for a month.

Nancy 15:49
He was in the hospital for a month. I mean, he was dead. Oh, I think he was yeah, he was dead. He was on life support. For about three days. He was on dialysis. He was on. What else? Do you know? He was on a breathing machine ventilator?

Scott Benner 16:06
Yeah. Wow. He really almost died from it, then they Yes. Is that how they caught it? Because he fell over?

Nancy 16:13
No, no, he No. I mean, it was like he went, he went to a doctor fine. I mean, he never he didn't have insurance or anything. So he he had told me for not very long, a little while short, while like a couple of days, you know, he had its downward stomach was bothering him. And it had been bothering him. And he was going to finally go to the doctor. So I go, okay. You know, so he goes to the doctor, I think it was on a Thursday, and calls me. And I'm at work. And he says, Mom, the doctor just gave me some insulin and I'm, I need to go to the hospital. And I'm thinking what, this is weird, you know, what's going on? So I, I said, just, I'll come and get you. And I'll drive you to the hospital. He said, I think I can make it. It's only you know, a couple blocks away. I don't know. Just wait. So I was like, 20 minutes away. I flew out of there, went over and picked him up. And, you know, couldn't find him. I didn't know where he was. But when I eventually found him, we drove to the hospital, which is further than I thought. And as he was walking in the hospital door, and I was parking the car, I saw him and he was just dragging. I mean, you've probably seen that before just dragging their foot one after the other, you know, skinny, I mean, he he was probably 175 and went down to 140 I think, okay, but we didn't notice it. You know, I remember telling him a few days before, gosh, you look so good. You know, cuz he was really thin. He looked really, really good. Yeah, so then he, you know, he went in the hospital, and I parked the car and went in with him. And then they took him back, almost, you know, pretty immediately, and I didn't know what to do. And he was 35. And he, you know, he'd never been in the hospital before. So I kind of stood around for a while and then thought, You know what, I don't, I can't go in with him at this point. And so I went home, and he never called me and I was like, normally he would call me, you know, and I was like, Oh my gosh, oh, well, my parents, you know, my family is no news is good news. So don't worry about it. He's probably fine. And then finally, the next day, he didn't call me yet. And I was like, what? So I finally called around noon. And the nurse answered the phone and she goes, you know, go house, my son and she goes, Oh, he's, you know, he's doing. He's very sick. She goes, he's very sick. But she's in good care. I go, Well, should I come home with her? You know, I mean, he's a 35 year old man, you know, why hadn't he called me? I didn't know. I was totally confused. And she goes, No, you don't know just finish your work and do what you need to do. And then you know, when he'll be fine. I'd be like, okay. But I, when we hung up, I was like, No, this is so I grabbed everything and ran over there to the hospital, and I ran in there. And he was just laying there by him by himself alone. You know, with this nurse that he told me she's so mean. You know, she whatever she does, you know, and she's just, you know, if I don't need some theme, she grabs it away from me and you know, she he said, I'm so glad you're here. I go. Oh my gosh, I'm so glad I

Scott Benner 20:00
Here's, that's insane. Oh my gosh, do you know what his blood sugar was? When they took him in?

Nancy 20:06
He was 500 and something. Wow. 545. And I don't know what his a one C was at that time, you know, we've never really looked at the records. But yeah, and then he was kind of hallucinating at night. You know, it was pretty horrible. And I'm

Scott Benner 20:24
sorry. Now, at what point do you do you start making the light connection? That is? Because you told me in your note that he had a cousin who was type one, since a little kid did that. take a while to put those two things together?

Nancy 20:38
A long while I never thought about it until probably maybe even years later. You know, or if I did, it wasn't prominent in my mind, you know, because I know when when they've gotten together and they they get together very seldom, because he lives. You know, she lives one place. We live somewhere else. So we don't really see him that often. But there's been a couple of times then yeah, they're like, sister, brother. You know, they're hooked into each other and talking, talking, talking. And I thought, Oh, that's good. You know, he has someone else to talk to about diabetes, too.

Scott Benner 21:11
Yeah. Well, now he's got you. So when you're when you're diagnosed at your age, and you're, uh, you know, you seem like you're in shape fit person, like, do they look at you? And what do they tell you when you when they realize your blood sugar's that high? What was the what was the call after they finally ran the test?

Nancy 21:34
When they ran the test and saw the C peptide and everything? She came in to me and she said, you know, and I'm trying to think exactly how it went. But you know, she said, Yep, you're type one. We're not sure if you're, you know, it could be what's in the fixed blank, what li da was and type 1.5? And I you know, of course I don't I still don't know that much about it. But I just figure it's type one. I'm insulin dependent out that way, explain it. And they did the test for the C peptide and the antibodies, you know, about a week later, and I had no antibodies. And she said, You know, I think you're I think this is from the immunotherapy. And so when I went to the doctor, the oncologist I, I asked him, you know, I said, you know, I now have diabetes. And I think it's, I mean, do you think it could possibly be from the immunotherapy? And he said, No, no way, it's genetic predisposition. I go, okay. I go back to my doctor. And she says, No, we're, you know, we think it's the immunotherapy, but don't argue about it. So that was like, what, almost two years ago, and I just recently have found a couple of articles connecting the two. Because I just, you know, that was another reason why I kind of wanted to be on the program was because it's so unique. And yet, I'm sure there's other people out there that are, you know, around my age that have had immunotherapy or are going to, and maybe they're going to fall into this very small percentage, maybe it's point oh, five, I mean, it could be really tiny, of people that could end up with diabetes.

Scott Benner 23:24
Well, so I wonder if, if both of those doctors aren't right. Meaning that I mean, if your son has type one, his cousin has type one. And your note says that once you were diagnosed, your mother started telling you that, that your grandmother had type one diabetes in the 20s. Is that right? Is that right?

Nancy 23:44
Yeah. Or maybe type two, maybe she has her her food. But I don't know how she could have lived that long. She was young. My mom was five years old. So her grandmother was probably at least close to 50. Right. And insulin was only discovered in 1919. The year my mom was born. Right? So I think it had to be type two, which the other crazy thing, since you brought that up was that I was type. Borderline, I've been borderline diabetic for at least 15 years. And I always managed it with exercise and diet. You know, I would go to the doctor and I you know, you're getting closer to 6.5 You know, and I go home and exercise or, you know, cut out the junk food that I was eating and it would always drop down. I mean, it was you know, I'd always go down in that range.

Scott Benner 24:42
That is interesting. So you're trending towards type two. But then you get this immunotherapy and then boom, type one. And your son has type one, his cousin has type one, we're not sure about the grandmother. So I mean Could you have been living your whole life with the markers for type one diabetes, and it took this therapy and cancer to kind of throw your immune system out of whack and kind of your body takes takes a shot of itself instead of the illness? Right? And you get diabetes? Like, that's completely possible. I don't know that you're ever gonna really No, I don't. I mean, listen, I'm not a scientist. But I don't think there's something that exists that we just give people and they magically get diabetes, I think you have the markers for it, and something pushes you over the edge. But it's fascinating that you made it this long without had you not been very sick throughout your entire life.

Nancy 25:42
Ah, you know, the one thing that when I go to these health, you know, especially naturopath or whatever, the one thing I had, which they always bring up is mononucleosis as a, you know, in high school, and I have the Epstein Barr. So I haven't pursued what that actually means. But I think that is more related to the cancer. But I'm also wondering if it might, might be related to auto immune? I don't know,

Scott Benner 26:15
does it? Does it fill your thoughts? Do you? Do you feel like you need to try to figure it out? Or do you not think about it too often?

Nancy 26:23
I don't think about it as much as I used to. But I, I did write to these two research guys this week about you know, are there what are the markers if the if it's genetic, because I don't have the antibodies? Well, at least three of them. I don't have so I'm not sure about the others, but I have Hashimotos you know, I have from the cancer treatments, I have something called vitiligo. So my skin is all different color, different colors. So I'm really concerned about anything to do with my immune system, because it obviously acts in a strange way.

Scott Benner 27:02
Well, I'm testing my memory here. But so first of all, the one I definitely know for certain is Hashimotos is an autoimmune disease. Type one type one's autoimmune. I think vitiligo is two. I'm looking right. Yes, it is. It is right. So you just have. So I guess, Nancy, there's two ways to think about this. How long? How long have you been fighting with the Hashimotos? Has that been lifelong? Or

Nancy 27:29
I at 50, I figured out that I had it or my doctor figured out that I had it when I was 1525 years.

Scott Benner 27:36
Did you struggle prior to that? Were you tired?

Nancy 27:40
Tired? Yeah, just tired? Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:42
Okay. So do you feel less tired now that you take your, I guess Synthroid or whatever you're taking?

Nancy 27:48
Probably, you know, if I skip it, I can sometimes, you know, two days later, I might notice Oh, shoot, I you know, I get that medication forgetting it. Yeah. So, but I've never had, you know, I mean, cuz I listened to your podcast a lot. And I listened, especially to the autoimmune stuff, and the dot, you know, your doctor and all that stuff. And, and I don't have any of the I've never had, or else I don't notice, you know, the typical symptoms of like, a really bad thyroid, right? Even though even though mine is a sponge now, you know, the last time they looked at it with a ultrasound, and he said, Oh, yeah, it's spongy. You know, I don't think it's doing any good for you at all.

Scott Benner 28:36
Probably not doing anything for you. Right, my pancreas isn't helping much either. So exactly what else can go wrong? Yeah, delightful. But but but the reason I bring it up is I guess there's different ways to look at this. Like when you're describing this, there's part of me that thinks you made it pretty far without all this stuff happening. It's kind of nice. I know. That's a weird way to think of it maybe. But you could have gotten diabetes when you were 20. Or you don't I mean, your your thyroid could be really screwing with you or something like that. Like, it's not that I'm saying that your life is less valuable in your 70s. I'm certainly not saying that. But I would. From the outsider's perspective perspective, I would think well Wow, at least it waited this long. Like now to you. It doesn't matter to your life and it sucks, I imagine.

Nancy 29:26
No, no, I agree with you. I taught Yeah, I totally agree with you. The only thing is that as an older person, you know, I'm 75 I mean, a lot of people don't even live to be 75 And I think about the poor people that whose mind isn't as alert as mine used to be before I got overwhelmed with all this stuff. But you know if to learn what there is to know about diabetes to manage it in a good manner. Takes a lot of F, you know, takes a lot of effort. Yeah. And I, you know, that was I really, you know, I was really grateful that it, you know, it seems like my brain is kind of losing it lately but whatever, you know, but yeah, so I agree with you, you know, I think I went this far but you know, have to learn so much. I mean, look at you have over 500 podcasts.

Scott Benner 30:23
I mean, it's a lot. And I listen, there's there can be no doubt, like my mom's 78. And, you know, the things that she can talk about quickly and sharply go away a little by little over the last Yeah, yeah. You know, the last number of years. Politics still, though, she's like rock solid. Her thoughts about politics are like, that's the one thing she's retained, and she can sit and BoomBoom will be sometimes you start talking about things. And she sort of doesn't see the through lines sometimes right away, or you have to explain something once or twice, then she's like, oh, yeah, I see what you're saying. Or she'll forget. And I don't know what she would do if she had a serious illness where she had to control a medication like insulin. And, you know, the other day I had someone ask, someone asked, my wife heard about that knew about the podcast, you know, what do you do? If your visions not so good? What do you do if your dexterity goes away? Like, you know, how do you use these, this technology? If you can't, can't manage it with your hands? And I would imagine all that stuff is right in the front of your mind. Now.

Nancy 31:33
You know, one of the things that I really love about you, but that I see sometimes slips away from me is common sense. You know, is just, but I'll tell you like your your mother loves politics. Well, guess what, I love diabetes, because it has changed my life. And I kind of mean it in a tongue in cheek kind of way, you know, but thank God for the COVID because everybody was home. And so was I, you know, and I learned a lot I learned a lot. So, yeah, it in some way, you know, it's given me a new step this somewhere, you know, it's given me a new focus on my life, one that I never thought I'd have. Sure, you know, but also one that I, you know, it's good, I'm eating so much better than I ever have before in my life. I, you know, I, the doc, you know, some of my doctors are seeing a change in, you know, my makeup. My, you know, and, and all that is because of diabetes. So, yeah, so

Scott Benner 32:48
this time, this COVID time gave you the kind of the the pause to be able to really think about this whole thing and try to put it into perspective and put ideas into practice. Right? Yeah. What did you just say that I want to follow up on? Oh, common sense. Can you give me some examples of how you feel that sometimes there, it's not there for you when you need it?

You know, speaking of common sense, common sense might tell you that when you get type one diabetes, or you start using insulin, that your doctor would give you the best blood glucose meter that was available. But that's not how that works at all. What happens is the doctor gives you the meter that they know about, or the one that the practice prescribes, or, or maybe they're in a rut, and they've just been prescribing the same meter for so long, that they haven't stopped to think that newer, better meters exist. I've thought about that. And I found one for my daughter. And then after that, I was able to talk them into becoming advertisers on the podcast. So I'd like to tell you today about the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, it is a very simple device. It is easy to carry. It has a super bright light and easy to read screen, and second chance test trips. But most importantly, what the Contour Next One blood glucose meter is, it's accurate. You're over there trying as hard as you can making decisions with insulin and carbs. And the very least that you could expect while you're making those decisions is an accurate response from your blood glucose meter. The Contour Next One is that meter, it is the most accurate and easy to use meter that I've ever held. And I know in a world where people have glucose monitors now and you know using Dexcom and libre or whatever you got there, you think I don't need a meter. But first of all, yes, you do. And secondly, you're going to use one once in a while even if you don't use it that often. And again, you should be expecting accurate results. The Contour Next One blood glucose meter is easy to carry fits in your pocket. The bag that you put your diabetes supplies in, and it has a super bright light. For nighttime viewing the screens, absolutely legible block letters, I can see it every I never once looked at it like what does that say nobody got fancy with the font or anything like that. It's simple to see and interpret. And the test strips if you get a little blood on but not enough, and you go back to get more, those test strips support, Second Chance testing. So no more error codes, or the strip just failing. Contour next one.com forward slash Juicebox. Podcast things not expensive, it actually could be less in cash than you're paying right now through your insurance company. For the meter you have now isn't that crazy? You may be paying more now for a substandard meter than you would with a Contour. Next One. Just take a few minutes to find out you deserve it. It's easy to accomplish Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox.

Nancy 36:08
What I believe is that common sense is kind of a spiritual quality, you know, it kind of it kind of surfaces if we allow it. But I think sometimes when we get anxious or you know, wound up or have a low like I had last night that won't go away, and you're thinking what the heck, I only took three units, I had 105 carbs, this doesn't make sense. You know, I'm eating and eating and eating. And of course, then, you know, that was you know, when you're 40 and it's still sitting there. But you know, so you don't have you know, it's hard to sit there and wait, you know, common sense says just wait another few minutes and it looks circling up. But yeah,

Scott Benner 36:55
but she can't because it's for it's for is it? Are you do you live by yourself?

Nancy 36:59
I live by myself? Yes.

Scott Benner 37:01
Is it a fear? Is it just like, What? What drives that then?

Nancy 37:07
I mean, the 40? The 40 does that. But you know, the 60 doesn't do it so much. But when I it's 60 and going down and then 50 and going down? Yeah. And I think it's I mean, I don't think I would pass out. But I'm alone. Yeah. You know, I'm alone. I mean, my daughter lives not that far. But right now she's in New York. So she's not stuck downstream. Yeah, she's not across the street. And I you know, I'll take her off of my follow app, continually. Because she'll call me and I'm just sitting there eating, you know, so there's no reason for her to call. So if I can see her going down, you know, sometimes I'll take her, take her off of it. But

Scott Benner 37:53
Nancy, you're telling me that the exact thing this thing is made for when you need it the most you're taking it away so that you won't, so I want to know why to not bother her or to not feel like

Nancy 38:04
you're not bother her like 11 o'clock 12 o'clock at night, you know, she has to work the next day. And I know that I'm going to come back up at 40 No, I mean, then I'm okay if someone calls. But 65 No, I'm not okay, if someone calls. And I think hers is I think hers is set at 55. But I rarely, I rarely get to 55. But, you know, occasionally I don't know what happened last night where I only gave myself three units.

Scott Benner 38:37
So when it happens, let her get woken up. It's fine. She wants to do that. You I tell you, I It's funny. This has never happened before while making this podcast, but I just had a feeling like you just said something that mimics a conversation I have to have with my mother all the time. And it's frustrating. I almost found myself getting frustrated at human use, which is what people want to help. You're not taking advantage of them. They're you're not wasting their time or bothering them that your your daughter wants to do this. And so to take it from her is is I think it's kind of sucks because she's worried about you. And now suddenly she can't see it. So it's not like she's gonna let it go. She's gonna call you anyway so yeah, I don't I know what you're trying to do. And I appreciate it. Like not to be a burden. Like that's the vibe right? You don't want to

Nancy 39:32
be Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just don't want to bother. No, this is the thing. If if she if she caught if she ever asked me anything about my diabetes, not anything but you know if she ever asked me how I'm doing or, you know, how's it going or, or if I call if she called me and if she didn't Tell me that she didn't like the alarms going off in the middle of the night. It might be a different story. But she's told me, I don't like those alarms going off in the middle of the night. Why?

Scott Benner 40:09
See? She's not as altruistic as I was thinking. I gotcha.

Nancy 40:13
Yeah. All right. You know, it was my idea to have her follow me.

Scott Benner 40:18
You're like, listen, I saved my life. And she's like, not if it's gonna wake me up. Exactly. She's got everything she needs out of you, I guess by now. Wow, this is a file. How do you do? You know, you

Nancy 40:30
probably got, she probably got that out of me too, though.

Scott Benner 40:34
Raise this kid. And now she doesn't want to help save your life at the end. Goddamnit. Oh, that's something. Well, how do you find day to day management? I mean, I guess that's not my first question. Let my first question be. How do you find a podcast when you're in your 70s?

Nancy 40:52
So I was in the mastering diabetes Program. And I love that. And that might be another conversation. But there was a girl in there that I was texting back and forth. And we were talking about insulin and trying to get you know, less rise in our insulin, you know, and are in our bread, blood sugar levels. And she, she recommended I listened to you. Well, your name, you know, your podcast had popped up several times before, but I thought this is for kids. I don't, I don't really want. I'm not a kid. I don't really want to talk about kids anymore. You know, whatever. Although I, I have to say I enjoy your interviews with the kids as one of the best ones that I like. But anyway, so when she sent that to me, I listened to it. And my original thinking was this is this is this is this is a guy. This is a real guy. He's spontaneous. He's casual. He, he's goofy. Sometimes he's. Anyway, I felt like, you know, when you just kind of sit, You're finally home. I felt like I was home.

Scott Benner 42:13
That's really lovely. Thank you. You're catching me on me. You're catching me a day after so many people sent me well wishes for my birthday that any? Any nice thing you say to me, Nancy right now could make me cry. So please be gentle. Okay, that was really nice of you to say thank you.

Nancy 42:30
But I want you, you know, I want you to know that. And I. And I thought, you know, I think I said maybe even after the very first time I heard you I might that might have been when I sent the very first email because I thought you know what? I bet there's not that many people that are my age that just got diagnosed and are having to deal with it.

Scott Benner 42:47
Yeah. Now it's it's not completely uncommon, but it's fairly uncommon. If you're part of a handful of people, over 60 I think that I've that I've spoken to who's been diagnosed with type one. But that I mean, you just had a confluence of bad health events at the end. I bet you without the cancer, you might have made it without the diabetes. Hmm. Yeah, you feel I think so. Yeah. I'm trying to sell my question is, so you find the podcast, and it all makes sense to you? And you start doing it, like, how do you how do you manage right now?

Nancy 43:31
Well, I'm on MDI, but I have a pump, it's gonna get trained on in a couple of weeks. And that's another chaos but anyway,

Scott Benner 43:42
worried about it, or it's just hard to get it set up?

Nancy 43:45
I don't know. It's, it's gonna be hard to get set up. I, you know, because I haven't been trained on it yet. But I said the thing I'll tell you why I've wanted a pump for quite some time. Mastering diabetes really emphasizes MDI, because they think you have more control. For the, for the way that you eat, when you eat. It's whole food plant based low fat, you get very insulin sensitive. And so So anyway, I'm very insulin sensitive. So, when I was I was on to Seba and trying to get it to stay be keep me stable. But I could tell when it I called it kick in, I could tell when it kicks in, because then I would I would drop and I could tell when it's wearing off because then I could I was rising. So I, you know, I kept thinking I would like to get a pump, but then it kind of freaked me out because I know it's gonna be probably two weeks at least, of not knowing if things are working or not. And, you know, while I'm saying this, I want to there's one thing you said that that really stuck out To me, one of the early podcasts that I listened to, and I think this applies to a lot of things that I do, but it said, within, you know, with insulin, what you said was something to the effect that if things aren't working the way you think they should, then there's something else going on.

Scott Benner 45:22
Yeah, I understand. So the way I feel about it is that once you have your settings, right, you know what you're doing. If something randomly, the way I think of it is if if the insulin doesn't do what I expect it to do, I don't think that there's like a magic fairy that's come in and messed up my diabetes like situation with my daughter, I think something's wrong. Like it's wrong. Yeah, this do what it was supposed to do. I miscounted carbs. I didn't in take into account fat and protein the way I should have this sites old. Like that's the stuff you start, like, like, I roll through my head very quickly. And it's most of the time, I have to say, for me, most of the time, it's just not covering the food correctly.

Nancy 46:05
Yeah. Well, I flew to Miami. And when I got there, my insulin, the insulin wasn't working. It didn't seem like it was working. And I, you know, and my doctor had told me, Nancy, if it doesn't seem like it's working, just give yourself more. So I had those two things. You know, you said that, you said that if something if it doesn't seem like it's working, it's probably not you, it's probably something else, you know. And she said, just use more. So I kept using more and more and more and finally, stupid that I was I primed my pen. And there was nothing came out air and myself, but I was like, oh, so I think I probably did about, you know, six or seven times. And finally, I did eight units. And finally I got a trickle. So So then after that, I was fine. So incredibly

Scott Benner 47:01
stretch, you brought that up, because tomorrow, there's a variables episode going up with Jenny and I about travel. And she brings that up about how to prime things when you're going on off airplanes. So

Nancy 47:16
that kind of opened my mind up to Oh, a pump. I know that's going to happen with me, there's going to be air in there. And I'm going to think I'm giving getting insulin. So I'm just I'm preparing myself for all the all the things that could go wrong.

Scott Benner 47:29
I guess it depends on which pump you end up with, too. Because if you have tubing, then that's more of an issue on the pod, you won't see that problem with the same way.

Nancy 47:36
Right? Yeah, I, you know, when I first listened to you, I tried to get on the pod, but Medicare wouldn't cover it the way that they cover the T slim, really, with my insurance, because I don't have a, you know, a really good prescription plan. And at the time, you know, they, which was about a year and a half ago or so, at the time, they were a prescription, you know, you got it in your pharmacy, whereas the T Slim is DME. Yeah, medical equipment, and the insulin is included. So and that goes through the DME so I'm on Medicare Part,

Scott Benner 48:16
blue, you know, just out there. Remember to prime your tubing when you get off a plane and do this. Thanks, Jenny. It describes it all really well. And that it's like a really short episode, but she does such a good job with

Nancy 48:26
it. Yeah, yeah. Listen to it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:29
thank you. i I'm, I'm so thrilled that you love the show. It's, um, it just it tickles me that we're the show reaches people in all kinds of scales of, you know, spots in life. And I also enjoyed when you said that you thought originally it was for children. And I've always maintained that the podcast is for anybody who uses insulin, it doesn't matter how old you are. Was it the name that made it feel younger? Was it that I was the father of a child with diabetes with part three?

Nancy 49:04
I didn't even know who you were. And I mean, I should because I said before that I knew who you were, but I didn't I what I knew was that I'd seen juicebox come up, you know, on the look. I don't know what it looks like, because I but it looks like a little cartoon. Kind of thing. Or

Scott Benner 49:20
Oh, good. No, it used to be a picture of my daughter when she was young on the thing. And now it's just a logo. So it looked like there's a kid so you thought kid, whatever it

Nancy 49:31
was, whatever it was, yeah, I just thought, well, you know, and it was juice box and I thought I've never had a juice box. So you know that I didn't fit in that category. But

Scott Benner 49:41
now this you know, I'm amazing. And you should have started listening right away when you saw it. Is that right?

Nancy 49:47
I know. I agree. 100% Yeah, no, and I mean, if I could make you cry, I hope I do. Because I think that you you the other thing that I see you is that you just the best episodes are when you're just you, you know you have a real, you're really interested in people, you're really not critical at all, you're not judgmental, you really want to help you. You really, you're very supportive. You know, I go I can I get it, if you get pissed a little bit, and you try to contain it, you know, but I just I, and I think a lot of people can identify with that. And I think that's just something that you have tapped into, you know, you figured it out. And a lot of people don't ever figure that out.

Scott Benner 50:39
I very desperately for reasons that I don't completely understand. want people to be okay. Yes, I feel very responsible for things that I'm not responsible for sometimes. You know, so you make this thing and you put it out into the world and it find somebody, and then it proves out. And then somehow that makes it feel like my responsibility to find more people. And I know it's not, and I'm not tortured by it. I'm just driven by it. So, you know, I think you are such a great example, at your age to find a thing that really, I mean, it's a podcast, it shouldn't. It shouldn't be for you, you know what I mean? Like, like, common sense would tell you like, I'm probably not talking to a lot of people in their 70s. But then here it is, and it works. And it works for you, too. And that. And that makes me happy. And it's fulfilling. And then I can enjoy that for a split second before it makes me feel like well, then aren't there more people I should be finding with the podcast?

Nancy 51:46
Wow. You know, you know, when I, when I recommend your podcast, the phrase I use the most is he'll help, you know, if you listen, you'll learn how to use insulin. Okay, you know, so and a lot of times, I'll you know, there'll be a certain like, there was a researcher that you had on that would have some kind of treatment for diabetes, and I was thinking home, maybe I should contact him to find out if he knows about this genetic predisposition or whatever. But, you know, certain certain podcasts will just ring a bell for someone, you know, sometimes it's my sister who doesn't have diabetes, but that I think that she might be interested. I think you did a nurse you interviewed a nurse one time and, and how she was shocked that what she knew about diabetes wasn't enough to help him for her to Jen, was that. Was that? Remember you, Todd? Yeah. Yeah. What's your nurse? I didn't she

Scott Benner 52:48
was, yeah, I put up an episode today, I have to tell you is probably the proudest, I've been of the podcast in a while. It's with an endocrinologist, who, if you really stopped and listened to her whole conversation, the podcast changed the way she helps people. And as she's describing, becoming educated, and being enthusiastic, and then kind of settling into the way things work, and I forget the exact for, I don't want to put words in her mouth, but maybe not doing as well for her patients as she could have, and then finding the podcast and being revitalized by it. That's the most proud I felt in a while when I was talking to some guy. So yeah, you know,

Nancy 53:31
you know what I mean, one of the things that I look, look at sometimes is I'm 75 Can I start another career at this age? I mean, I did at 57. But can I do it at 75. Because what I've learned about diabetes, and, and even the way that I eat has been so helpful, that I would love to be able and I'm a social worker, you know, so I like to help people. You know, but I mean, this is such a, such a helpful, helpful thing for people to understand, because I think once they, once they, once they really understand that they have more control over their life, and they think they do they don't have to just give into it like a deep well, you know, just keep going deeper and deeper. For some people, you know, and I know all people aren't like that, but for some people, it would make a huge difference. And I'm sure it does make a huge difference.

Scott Benner 54:27
Yeah, it's um, I think it's lovely. And I I've known a lot of people over the years who have tried to help other people, and it's always valuable and always selfless, hopefully, and they do a great job in their own way. It's when it scales up that it becomes strange, like when you start really reaching people, and it's a lot of people, you become very aware of the other stuff that you don't think exists, like you have an interpretation of me. And so does everyone else who's listening. And it's based on things that you probably think I'm doing on purpose. And many times, it's I'm not doing anything on purpose. There are times when I, you know, I talked to a guy about his automotive engineer. And we, if you listen to it, you could be confused to thinking that we talked about cars for a while. But I was talking about diabetes in my head, like I was talking about staying abreast of new technology keeping up, not falling behind. And to me, I mean, I didn't Did I do it on purpose? I did a little, you know what I mean? Like, but it wasn't some Machiavellian thing where I thought, I'll have this guy on it. It just it's the way the conversation went. And we got towards the end of it. And he said something like, well, to bring it back to diabetes. And I laughed, and I was like, nah, this whole thing's been about diabetes. I've been talking about diabetes the whole time. And he's like, Oh, yeah. And I'm like, so there, there's little stuff like that, you know, once you realize you're talking to a large group of people, and that nobody's going to feel the same way. Like, there are things about me that you like that other people hate? And probably vice versa.

Nancy 56:16
Can I Can I say something about? There are things about you that I don't like, but because the core of you? I, I know what you're, I know what you're about. I know, you're about helping people to manage their insulin. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because that's what you know that, you know that you're about that?

Scott Benner 56:43
I have to say anything, I think that when you're when you're broadcasting to a lot of people, you there's two decisions to make, you can either be yourself and know for certain that there are going to be some things about yourself that that are going to rub people wrong. Or you can sanitize yourself. And in my opinion, then just sound like you've I don't know the best way to put it, but it's not real anymore. If you know I'm holding something back then how could you possibly believe anything that I'm saying if I if I started talking in a big fake voice, and then oh, you know, like that all was happening constantly. Even when I like when I make the beginning of the podcast, like when I'm like, welcome to the juice box, I'm kind of messing around, you know, like, by doing a stupid voice in my head, it's a stupid voice for a couple of seconds. If I had my way, the podcast would just start with people talking. Like it wouldn't even you know, but I have to brand it, I have to say this is the episode, I gotta tell you who the sponsors are. But if it was up to me, if I didn't have to have sponsors, this, you and I would have started talking, I would have hit record and that'd be the first thing you'd hear when you turn the episode on. I really don't want to shine things up too much. Because I know people who put out content like that, and frankly, I don't know how anyone listens to it. So you know, so rather me curse once and that make you uncomfortable, or I tell a sex joke or something and that makes you uncomfortable or something like that. But it's better than me, swallowing my thought and you hearing through your headphones. He was gonna say something and he didn't say it. Because then I think it sounds disingenuous. So I don't know. You have to hate me a little like, you're a couple of generations ahead of me. I must do a number of things you don't like. And that's not why. Why? Tell me why. One of the things you really don't like about me, I'm gonna start asking people what they don't like about me. It'll be more fun. Good. Oh,

Nancy 58:30
my gosh. Nothing pops in my head.

Scott Benner 58:34
See, you just don't want to say it. But you do.

Nancy 58:39
Know, I want to I want to say whatever it is because I I agree with you. Yeah, I think if we're as honest as we can be, then we're more. Yeah, more listenable?

Scott Benner 58:52
I received a letter one time from a woman who she she went on to tell me everything about me that she didn't like, and it felt a little disconnected. Like at some point, maybe she was yelling at somebody that wasn't me. But she said a couple of things in the letter. I was like, she's right about this. So but I, but I wouldn't just stop it. I just took it into account. And I thought okay, she might be right about this. Let me let me make sure I now I have a way. Like for instance, she's like you talk too much. And there's part of me that's like, well, it's a podcast, like if I don't talk, you know, like that. She's like, well let the guest talking over some guests are chattier than others. You know, like, do you want to be interested? Or do you want to sit and listen for someone to come up with a thought like I have to make a decision. But what I do now is when I make the transcripts, the service I use tells me what percentage of time I spoke versus what percentage of time the guest speaks. And I do let my eyes run over that number at the end when I'm done every time and if I see it get farther than a 6040 split. I stopped To like, like, I pay attention to that, no, I had, but most of the time, I do not speak more than 10% more than the other person. So,

Nancy 1:00:08
you know what I? What's my thought on that? I was gonna say something about that. Oh, yeah, one of the things that I think is that you we don't know which people are chatting in which people aren't because you're the one that's having to interview them. But you know, you're the one that's having to talk to them. So you're the one that kind of sit there Oh, do I have to know, are they gonna say something if I went a little bit longer, or, you know, so you're the one that has to make that decision, whereas we have to do is just sit and listen to you.

Scott Benner 1:00:38
I guarantee you that I can think of three episodes right now that if I did not spice up and get talking, you would have considered jumping out of a window while you're listening to it. I can't take this. But they were still good interviews, those people just didn't have as much to offer. In in volume, they still had good content. It just they didn't. They weren't voluminous with their content. And but I'll tell you another thing that the podcast taught me was just to slow down. I mean, I think if you go back, I'm speaking more quickly. In older episodes, I had a real desire to not let there be any pauses I wanted, I wanted it to be, you know, I didn't want you to lose interest. So I think that's helping me too. And I genuinely believe I'm doing this two years from now, I should be better at it two years from now than I am now. And I'm thinking I'm doing pretty well now. So we'll see, I

Nancy 1:01:33
think you're doing well, you know, you're doing well. But I think that sometimes, not often, I haven't seen this very often. But there are some times you get someone on there that talks so fast. It's probably nerves. But they talk so fast, that it's, you know, that it's kind of hard to keep up sometimes. Yeah. And they'll kind of curl over their time, you know, roll over there. It's probably nerve, you know, nerves. And that probably just happens in the beginning. But because I've heard you say many times that you talk fast, or the East Coast talks fast. And you know, I'm California. So you know, I don't talk fast, I guess.

Scott Benner 1:02:10
Well, there are some people I've that your pauses are so long, some of you, I can just I can hear my brain is yelling at me. It's like, Oh, my God, say something, say something, I've taken pauses. I did it once for this one guy. I loved his content, but he spoke so slowly. So I spent like an extra hour, and I took all the I took the gaps out of his of his pauses. And that's not easy to do in like, trust me, it's, it's not easy. So like, I just was like, I like what he's saying I want people to hear it. But man, if he pauses like that, again, I'm gonna like lose my mind, you know? So, and I tried to think of what it's like for you guys to listen, I also am a fan of audio. And I know what I like to listen to. And if it if this podcast gets too far away from something I would listen to, then I wouldn't even know how to give it to you. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting it out. So

Nancy 1:03:07
the format of it is so is cool. Because you know, whatever you're talking about, it seems like there's always and I used to say this, I probably would still say there's always at least one takeaway, oh, Pre-Bolus a little bit sooner or, you know, whatever it might be, there's always some, you know, some little takeaway that makes it worth listening to. And it becomes, I think it and you and you say this, too, it kind of grows in you. And then all of a sudden you realize, oh, wow, yeah, wonder how, how did that?

Scott Benner 1:03:42
How do I learn all this?

Nancy 1:03:42
How do I get? Yeah, how did I get to where I am? You know,

Scott Benner 1:03:45
same way my kids yell at their yell about their math teacher at the beginning of the year. This lady doesn't know what she's talking about. She sucks. And at the end of the year, they have good grades, and they understand the math. I don't know how it happens, but it does. Yeah, I'll tell you that part of that for me. I won't say the name of it, obviously. But there's a website that has rock solid information about type one diabetes. And I don't read I don't read it all, if I'm being honest, but I don't read it. But I know it exists. And I've seen it enough times. And I know the person who runs the site. And if you back in the day would have said Who stuff is more popular Scott's or this site, you would have just assumed that site is very professionally done. It's well supported with money, like it's done really well. But that person came to me and said, How do you get so many people to read your blog? And I thought, Wait, they don't read yours. And then we dug into it. And wow, nobody reads that site. And I'm like, but that doesn't make sense. It's full of really great information. So then I started paying attention to the site for a little while, and they were putting out great stuff. But nobody cares. Nobody's gonna read your boring descriptions of whatever it's not if people have a finite amount of time to live and then And even if it's there to their benefit, they're going to have a hard time absorbing stuff that's so dry and it's boring, you know. So if you get to listen, if somebody gets to listen to you and I talked for an hour, and they take something from it, that's terrific. But if you and I had five points to make, and I went through them like a schoolmarm, and you answered, like you were reading from bullet points, I guarantee and no one's listening to this podcast. And so I'm not gonna do that, like, off the top of my head. You were diagnosed in your 70s. That's on? That's weird. You had cancer. Right? Right. You had cancer. That's amazing. You're doing well, you learned about your family members who have cancer, you know, you have parents who are older, you found a podcast that that helped you, you've, you've looked around, you're worried about yourself and looking into it, but you're not overwhelming yourself with what ifs and y's. You talked about not looking backwards, even though you don't think you said that you talked about staying forward moving forward. And you're going to make someone comfortable, somebody is going to have gotten this. Also, you said something that I'm always thinking and never say the episodes were little kids are good. And they're worth listening to, except, you know, those are the ones that don't get listened to as much. But I still put them out. Because I know they're important. And I think people are gonna figure out that they're important to listen to an 11 year olds opinion of what it's like to have diabetes, and not you just infer what you think it's like for him to have diabetes on to him, you know,

Nancy 1:06:31
you know, shocks me about those interviews, is they age of the kids and how kind of mature they are, you know, the understanding that they have about things? And I'm like, There's no way I was like that at that age. You know, I don't know if I had diabetes early, if it would have made a difference, because I've heard from some of them, and I think you've even asked that question sometimes do you think that diabetes has, you know, changed the way that you look at things? And yeah, I don't know if they're even old enough to understand that it does. But

Scott Benner 1:07:06
no one knows how it impacts them. It but that's why you ask the questions to hear them. Think about it. Like that's they're not going to anybody who thinks that you can just say today's episode is going to be about XY and Z. And that that's going to be interesting is wrong. Anyone who thinks that when you ask someone a question, they know the answer, you're wrong. I've asked a lot of people a lot of questions. And the people who know the answer in a split second suck, it's boring. And it's an it's, and it's it's pre rehearse, they've answered the question 1000 times, I get nothing out of hearing from that person. It's not it's not valuable. That's just not real. No, it's somebody's reading their life out loud. And they, for some reason, are in a position where they have to say that a lot, I want to hear you just dig into your brain for a second, or to come out of nowhere and say, You know what, I'm losing sometimes common sense. Like, that's not a thing people would admit to, you know, and you have to have a conversation like this, if you want to get to those things. And for people who understand that, they'll listen to these episodes. And for people who don't understand that this isn't going to be for them. So that's cool, you know, but I can't make something that's for everybody. I got to make what I think is interesting, and what I think is valuable.

Nancy 1:08:21
But I mean, I think the amount of people that you have following you and the amount of people that listen to the podcast and amount of downloads is, to me is an interesting reflection of how many people are really real or identify with realness, or even common sense. Like you said, you know, how many people because you, you know, that that isn't, as I don't know, if it's not as common, but uh, you know, I was a counselor. So I met, I talked to a lot of different people. And it's shocking, that you can trust your common sense. That's shocking. But I, you know, you talk about it all the time. And I think it's, it's like,

Scott Benner 1:09:05
you know, you just have to trust your gut and see what's happening. And listen, some of those people who tried to put out content that's inauthentic. I mean, I don't know if they're in authentic, but they might not know who they are enough to be authentic. And I've interviewed people before, who don't know themselves. It's clear when you're talking to them, they don't know how they feel. They don't know why they do things. And sometimes that's even interesting to listen to somebody not understand. i I'm probably forever going to use this as an example. But there's a young girl that came on to talk about psychedelic drugs. And she wanted to talk to you want to tell people about how to use drugs safe safely. And I was like, okay, come on and talk about that. And I really, we talked for a while, you know, we were maybe most of the way through the episode, and I had the feeling like she mostly probably smoked pot and took mushrooms once in a while, like recreationally and I said you don't really do any real hard drugs just now. And there's a pause because, well, cocaine. I was like, Well, you know, but I didn't say what in the moment in the moment I just said, Okay, this is how she feels. Let her say how she feels. And you know, and but in my mind, I was like, she's the Think of cocaine as a hard drug. Well, that's interesting. You know, like, and maybe, and then I started thinking like, is it? I mean, I've never done it, but is it not? Is it me? Does she not know? It just brings up all these like, these interesting questions that should make your brain think like, I think when you're done listening to the podcast, you should still be having a conversation with yourself when it's over, or I didn't do a very good job. That's all I'm not supposed to make everything right, or answer everybody's questions or scold some girl for saying cocaine's not a hard drug. You know, I mean, like, that's not my that's not my job. My job is to let her talk about it and let you hear it. And, and see, I can't I don't how did this turn out therapy for me, Nancy, what's going on?

Nancy 1:11:01
I don't know. But let me say something. Because I, you brought up something that really had, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm kind of on that about, you know, how our thinking kind of creates our reality. And, you know, what, really is reality and all that kind of stuff. But anyway, one of the things that I've been wondering about because of my age, is am I sick? You know, am I considered sick? I mean, if, when I first got diabetes, I kept hearing, you know, you can do whatever you want to do, you know, you don't have to change your life, everything. Well. I tried that. And I would have lows in the middle of a counseling session to eat or I'd have a high and have to inject insulin, you know, and I thought, What does this mean? You can't you know, you can do everything that you could do before. So I thought like very black and white like, okay, yeah, very black and white, you know, that everything I was doing before, you know, the way I was eating, I could continue eating, I could have snacks I could have. I mean, I couldn't do any of that stuff if I wanted to have a good blood sugar.

Scott Benner 1:12:13
So I think that good. Go ahead. I was gonna say when they say that, I think that's them going. I think that's them saying, You don't have to go home and pull the car into the garage and close the door and let it run. Like, don't worry, your life's gonna be okay, you can do all the things they don't say the rest of it's always the rest of the sentence they live out, you know, hey, you can do everything that you used to do with diabetes, except you better make sure your Basal insulins, right and don't go Bolus in a big meal before you go for a run. And but like they don't say that they never say the rest. They say the upbeat part. They say the easy part. They don't say the stuff you need to know. And that's the fascinating thing.

Nancy 1:12:52
And that, you know, that was the shock. That was the I think the shock with because I had seen my son, but I never really got involved with his insulin or anything like that. So I saw my son and he just looked like he was doing the same thing. He's, he's always he'd always done. But once we started talking, you know, when I was diagnosed, I mean, I have a CGM. He doesn't, you know, he, you know, one time we went in, and you know, the thing I want to tell you that you said, but, you know, I went, I looked at my blood sugar, and it was like, 150 or something. And he went, I said, what's yours, Jeremy? He runs and takes his blood sugar. He goes, Oh, my gosh, I need insulin. It's 320. So every, you know, when I'm around him, he sees the benefit of having a CGM, but he didn't. I don't think he was even aware of it before.

Scott Benner 1:13:44
I told him, Do you think he'll get one?

Nancy 1:13:47
I think he will. You know, I think he will. Um, there was one other thing I wanted to say about, about what we were talking about how life I don't remember, I don't want to make it up.

Scott Benner 1:14:03
Well, what I was gonna say is, start by talking about a t shirt slogan, you saw one point? Well, this is the point where I asked you if we've talked about everything that you want to talk about. So have we?

Nancy 1:14:18
I mean, I think so I can't think of anything that I told you how great you are. And I love the podcast and like, talk talked about the common sense that you express and you know how I share that, you know, if you want to learn how to use insulin, listen to this podcast. And I mean, those things were important to me so that you know, oh, your picture is great. This This is

Scott Benner 1:14:43
the photo that you get that you're seeing on the Zoom. That's me that's me posing in front of Mount Rainier, except you can't see Mount Rainier anymore, just because I was happy with how I looked in the photo. I don't often take photos of myself where I'm like, huh, I don't look hideous. So I was like,

Nancy 1:15:02
you know, I feel like I'm really, you know, given to you. Yeah, like I'm talking to you. I mean, I know I turned my video off for a minute. And that was, but no, I, you know, we could probably talk all day if we wanted to, but everything good.

Scott Benner 1:15:17
I'm glad so and I think you're right I am. I agree we can keep talking. I'm going to go to Home Depot with Arden now and pick out a new ceiling fan for her bedroom because hers just stopped working. And she very adamantly told me it needed to be replaced quickly. So I was like, Okay, we will Arden's body doesn't regulate temperature as well as any of us would like. So she needs to have a couple of implements around her to help

Nancy 1:15:42
her out. Unfortunately, sometimes thyroid does that.

Scott Benner 1:15:45
Yeah, that's definitely part of that. And her medications really dialed in. So it just, I just think it's gonna be her her cross the bear. But actually, she's, uh, I just ordered today, I can tell you this, because this won't go up forever. I just ordered a microphone stand today, I have her microphone, I've got the stand now. And she's on my schedule twice in the next couple of weeks. So I'm gonna record a bunch together. And I'm basically going to interviewer and then we're going to trance kind of move into the stuff I want her to know when she goes to college, and have those conversations. So I have been trying for years to get her to do this. I think I finally got her. I know she doesn't want to do it. But I don't know why. I don't know if she'll know why exactly. But she needs the she needs hours, community service hours for school. She asked her, she asked her, her guidance counselor, if I did this with this kind of community service hours. So she's going to get hours for the time she's being interviewed. We're gonna show her how to edit the show. And so she's gonna get a bunch of different stuff. Wow. But anyway, so that's, that's hopefully it'll be of some service to people when they hear it. But yeah, I'm gonna,

Nancy 1:17:03
I'm sure, you know, because you talk about her all the time. And you know what you've learned? There's one other thing I wanted to say, Okay. One time you said something to the effect. I don't know, you were talking about something and interviewing someone. And maybe you were talking about? Well, you know, when I first when Arden was first diagnosed, and I was frustrated, didn't know what was going on, took probably three or four years and you know, gradually things started, you know, I started I think what's your 500 series, you know, started knowing more and everything. And you know, when I hear that, because I've only been diagnosed for a year and a half, or almost two years. But I'll tell you, when I was first diagnosed, I read so much I learned so much. I I saw it. And when I heard the first time you say that I thought, but I know a lot. I really know a lot, you know? And then I thought how much more can I know? I mean, I'm putting 24/7 into this diabetes, you know, and how to eat and how to manage insulin, and you know, what kind of insulin and all that kind of stuff. And when I hear you say that, that, you know, it could you know, wait till you've been a diabetic for three years. And I go what, right? But but it's, it's, it's very comforting, because now I'm going to get a pump. So I know it's gonna change, you know, but it's very comforting to know that there's always more over 500

Scott Benner 1:18:31
Yeah. No, I definitely thought I definitely thought there'd be an end to it when I first started doing it, but I was just taking advice from someone that it didn't end up being great advice. They said that you'll run out of stuff to talk about. And I should have known when they said it. Like, I can't imagine me running out of things to talk about, but I meant important things. I just think it's gonna keep growing, I think, you know, algorithms are gonna come and I mean, look at you, you're gonna, you're gonna probably be using an algorithm soon. You know. And that's really exciting. And I think if we really think of you specifically, you have this kind of, like amount of time here, too. And don't get me wrong, you're very, like, you know, you again, you do not come off like you're 73 When I'm looking at you and I'm talking to you, but you have an amount of time to get really good at that. And then because there might be a day where you're a little slower, and this thing still gonna work the same for you. And that'll be amazing. You know, like there won't be as many opportunities for things to go wrong. And I think that'll be a big deal for you, you know, in your life just the way it is when in anyone's honestly. So and I'm ready to talk about that stuff.

Nancy 1:19:44
Yeah, now fortunately, I have a son that's diabetic, so he understands. So my daughter I might be living with my son.

Scott Benner 1:19:52
Yeah, well, I hope he ends up with some, some upgraded technology. I think that would be really great for him. And I want to thank you so much for doing this and taking the time out of your day to do this. It was it was really fun. And I know you were excited to do it. I could tell by your notes, so I appreciate that very much.

Nancy 1:20:10
Okay. Wow, great talking with you.

Scott Benner 1:20:13
Yeah, you too. Hold on one second. Go. Go. What? got fat? Yeah, I get getting the fans not the problem. It's that I got to put it up. And I don't know the last time I did that, and I gotta remember how to put up a ceiling fan. But now I thank you hold on one second.

A huge thanks to Nancy for coming on the show today and telling us all her story. And I'd like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for being a longtime sponsor of the Juicebox Podcast. Find out more and get started today at contour next one.com forward slash juice box. It's actually a really good website. I mean, as far as websites for medical stuff goes, it's very complete and informative. I mean that sincerely. I'm a fan of well done websites. Contour next one.com forward slash juicebox even said it again. Don't forget to head over to the T one D exchange T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. Take the survey help out people with diabetes in the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.