#1570 Body Grief
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A type 1 diagnosis impacts eveyone and everthing. Erika Forsyth is here to discuss.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
When someone is diagnosed with type one diabetes or other chronic illnesses, there's no doubt about the impact that it has on them, but it also impacts the people around them and the people who love them today. Erica Forsyth and I are going to talk about just that. If you'd like to learn more about Erica, check her out at Erica forsythe.com my grand rounds series was designed by listeners to tell doctors what they need, and it also helps you to understand what to ask for. There's a mental wellness series that addresses the emotional side of diabetes and practical ways to stay balanced. And when we talk about GLP medications, well, we'll break down what they are, how they may help you, and if they fit into your diabetes management plan, what do these three things have in common. They're all available at Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu. I know it can be hard to find these things in a podcast app, so we've collected them all for you at Juicebox podcast.com, please don't forget 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. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM, that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with with the ever since now, app no limits. Ever since this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization, touched by type one. Please take a moment to learn more about them. At touched by type one.org on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more touched by type one.org. You're looking to help or you want to see people helping people with type one. You want touched by type one.org. Summertime is right around the corner, and Omnipod five is the only tube free automated insulin delivery system in the United States, because it's tube free, it's also waterproof, and it goes wherever you go. Learn more at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox, that's right. Omnipod is sponsoring this episode of the podcast, and at my link, you can get a free starter kit. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found it, omnipod.com/juicebox, Erica. Today, we're going to talk about how diabetes impacts the entire family, like not just the person who's been diagnosed, but everyone, and how their lives have changed from the moment that it happens to like the everyday life afterwards.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:19
That's right, yes, we're hoping to give Yeah, kind of a broader picture and understanding of how it impacts not only the individual, but the parents, the siblings, the grandparents, and hopefully builds empathy around all of that.
Scott Benner 3:32
Okay, do you want to start
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:34
Sure? Sure. So I know we have discussed, obviously, how it impacts the individual and caregivers from the day of diagnosis, and even we could walk through how that impacts the siblings. Are they left at home, or does one caregiver go to the hospital? Do grandparents have to step in just from that immediate even first day of diagnosis? Whether you're in the hospital for a few hours to a week, the impact starts immediately. Yeah, we hear all the stories and all the different layers, but I think it is important to understand that. And obviously the person being diagnosed with type one, it is the most impactful for that individual, sure, and it does touch everybody.
Scott Benner 4:22
So I'll start by sharing that the other night, I was just working here at my desk later at night. And you know how your phone, like, shows you pictures from the past all the time. So this photo pops up as I'm still working it, but it was in my it was on my computer, not on my phone. This time, it's like, on this date, like, that kind of thing. And on this date, shows me a photo of my wife holding Arden as a pretty young person, and my son leaning against her there. At we're at Yosemite on a trip, and they're kind of like, like, backed up to an overlook, and I'm taking a photo of them, and I look and realize pretty quickly, oh, Arden doesn't have. Diabetes in this picture, which is not an experience I have very often, because Arden was so young when she was diagnosed, and I just very quickly started to wonder who everybody would be today if that didn't happen. And like I looked at those people in that photo, and I thought, I wonder where they were headed before this happened? I don't think that that's a question you can ask yourself in the moment, because it's if you even think to ask that of yourself, it's just going to come out as, like, Everything's ruined, like, you know, like that kind of thing in the moment when it's happening. I do think that this is an important conversation to have, but that it's more valuable coming from people who can look back many decades over something and give you maybe a bigger overview of what all this means. That's why I'm happy you've one of the few times I'm very happy you've had diabetes for such a long time. I'm happy that Arden has been diagnosed for, you know, almost, gosh, don't even know, 17 years coming up on maybe. But anyway, that was it. Like, I think that's this entire crux of this. And I can't believe that they're, they're meshing up between us, recording and this happening to me, but I promise you, this happened the other day, and I just all I could think is, like, where were we all headed before this happened? And I know you think, like, Oh, it doesn't have to change anything for your son or you or your wife, but it's not true. Like, I think we are fundamentally different people than we would have been if this didn't
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:24
happen. Yes, and it really is impactful based on the age too. I know there's always a kind of a community conversation of like, is it easier to be diagnosed when you're two versus 10, versus 20 versus 60? And really, I think we could all just maybe agree that it's there's no easy age. It just sort of no matter what, yeah, yeah, there's no better age. There's no better time,
Scott Benner 6:48
right? There's different things that will happen based on your ages, but I don't think that judging them against each other is valuable, and even not just your like, not just the person being diagnosed and their age, but the age of the people around like, you know, I have a story about my son that I'll tell later, but I want you to dig into this a
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:07
little bit. So I thought we could, we could kind of focus our conversation from mainly two lenses, or kind of definitions of grief and how the diagnosis impacts all the different family members in a kind of larger family system. And one is is disenfranchised grief, which we have talked about in various other episodes. But I think this is a really significant and important concept to understand, which basically is known as hidden grief, or sorrow. So it's something you know. We kind of know if somebody you know gets diagnosed with cancer or there's a death in the family from someone who maybe has lived a long, successful life, we kind of understand communally, culturally, what that grief looks like, and how we can respond to that person's grief, or how we can live out that grief. And I know there's maybe a lot of assumptions in that statement, but the disenfranchised grief is that most people, society doesn't really understand it, and so therefore it's really unvalidated and misunderstood.
Scott Benner 8:13
You almost don't have permission to mourn something if it's not a death or something that the that the society agrees is a morning thing. Yes, like, we're all allowed to say, oh my god, cancer. And we, like, you know what I mean? Like, you feel it like that, and you should, by the way, very valid. And death, okay, he's sad from death. But if somebody comes along and says, I just found out that I'm losing my molars, and I'm really upset by it, people are like, Why don't you pull yourself together? You're not allowed to. And what does allowed mean? Like, culturally, is that, right?
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:43
Because we don't see it, we don't understand it, and so therefore, as the individual, you don't feel like the like you have permission, like I should feel grateful. Like, how many times have you heard people say, I've been told or I should be grateful? It's not cancer, at least it's not at least it's not fill in the blank, right? And in that statement, it automatically, even though the person is trying to encourage and affirm and give perspective, it automatically creates a sense of why you really don't understand what type one is, and kind of increases that sense of isolation. And then you're, you kind of are internalizing, oh, I guess I can't be that sad about this diagnosis, because I keep hearing, at least it's not cancer. So you feel like, well, I should I can I be this upset about it? And that's what we
Scott Benner 9:33
hear, yeah. And I would imagine, too that there's people who react by saying, like, oh, like, just, like, you just said, like, they have that conscious thought, like, I guess I'm not allowed to be upset about this. There's also probably people who you know will maybe bend more towards, yeah, like, there's nothing for me to be worried about here. Like, you know, at least it's not this. Just because that's their outward reaction doesn't mean they don't feel what you just described, which is, I'm not allowed to be upset by this. Do you know what I mean? Like. Even if they don't look like they're gonna like, Go cry in a corner and go, I can't believe I have diabetes. It's okay. I'm gonna cry about it. I'm gonna ask for help. I'm gonna do all the other things that maybe I feel like doing. It doesn't mean they're not being impacted psychologically by that initial feeling of, this is not a thing I'm supposed to be upset by because there's something else out there that's blah, blah, blah. That makes
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 10:21
sense, yes, yeah. And that kind of goes into this other concept of body grief, which we'll get into. But I think there's this automatic sense of comparison and like ranking our grief, like, based on like ranking hardship. Yeah, no, that's pretty common. I think, yeah, this quote. I pulled up some kind of just random quotes that are out there with, you know, disenfranchised grief. No one died, but it felt like we lost something huge, our sense of normal, our normalcy, and no one talks about that. So because you've this disenfranchised grief is just a part of kind of the journey of type one for most people, or diabetes diagnoses because it isn't you, like, hopefully you know you aren't going to die from it immediately, right? But there's so much loss around the normalcy, and that's hard.
Scott Benner 11:11
I've seen a loss of people who can't trust their bodies anymore, yes, like, that feeling of like, oh, this thing was supposed to do all this stuff for me, and it can't. And now I wonder what's going to happen next. Like, you're always in the like next, like, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like mode. You're like, well, if it stopped doing this, I wonder what else it's not going to do. I see that from a lot of people all the time, when that's possible, right? How are you not supposed to feel anxious about that? Or how is that not supposed to live in the back of your mind somewhere, or maybe it does for some people, today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. It might sound crazy to say, but Summertime is right around the corner. That means more swimming, sports activities, vacations, and you know what's a great feeling, being able to stay connected to automated instant delivery while doing it all. Omnipod five is the only tube free automated insulin delivery system in the US, and because it's tube free and waterproof, it goes everywhere you do, in the pool, in the ocean or on the soccer field, unlike traditional insulin pumps, you never have to disconnect from Omnipod five for daily activities, which means you never have to take a break from automated insulin delivery. Ready to go tube free. Request your free Omnipod five Starter Kit today at omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox type that link into your browser or go to Juicebox podcast.com, and click on the image of Omnipod right at the bottom. There's also a link right in the show notes of your podcast player. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 and just as the name says, it lasts for a full year, imagine for a second a CGM with just one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Imagine a sensor that has exceptional accuracy over that year and is actually the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. What if I told you that this sensor had no risk of falling off or being knocked off? That may seem too good to be true, but I'm not even done telling you about it, yet, the Eversense 365 has essentially no compression lows. It features incredibly gentle adhesive for its transmitter. You can take the transmitter off when you don't want to wear your CGM and put it right back on without having to waste the sensor or go through another warm up period. The app works with iOS and Android, even Apple Watch. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:56
It does, and that's where you've queued up again. This great, this new, I mean, it's not, it's not a new idea, but the coined term of body grief is exactly what you just defined. And this body grief is something that we have talked about, but we actually just last month in March, a woman named Jane Mattingly just came out with this book called body grief. I am just starting to read it, and I think it is going to help us a lot in in kind of this world of diabetes and the world of chronic illness, and it's that the emotional is defined by the emotional distress experience in response to changes or perceived limitations of the body, often due to aging, illness, injury, societal pressures, chronic illness. And it is about that your relationship with your body, where you have the sense of like, did my body betray me? There's sadness and anger, and the betrayal is kind of encapsulated in that. Idea of body grief, and it obviously affects our mental health, our self image, identity, and I appreciate this quote, particularly for children or teens. It's a quiet sadness that often gets overlooked in favor of resilience or bravery narratives. We often celebrate our warriors out there, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think that's a really healthy and beautiful mindset and thing to celebrate, like, look at my strong warrior, my type one way, or which that person can be. And is there also, can there also be space for the individual or the family to process this body grief and the sense of, like, did your body fail you in some way?
Scott Benner 15:46
Yeah, I wonder sometimes if the bravery thing isn't a way to not have to say out loud what you're thinking, which is like, I can't believe this happened to us, or I can't believe this happened to him or me, or whatever. And instead of like, even going through those thoughts, just jumping over them, right? To look how brave. It's not brave, right. Like, right? You know, I've said this before. Like, you know, your pancreas stops working, your kid's pancreas stops working, you keep living. I mean, what were the other options? Really, I don't think people want to be brave. I think people are forced to be brave. Like, in, generally speaking, in this arena, like, you know what I mean? Like, nobody's like, you know what you should do make sure one of my organs stops working correctly, because I really want to be brave. Anybody would switch back, you know what I mean? Like, oh yeah. Like, so it's also interesting. Like, a lot of that language around the body grief, I feel like I saw this week a post that, you know, you could read through it and see a number of different things. This person was, you know, struggling. They didn't understand why this thing had happened to their kid and everything. And when I got done reading it, I thought, this person's having a clear crisis of faith. Like, that's what this is this has got, like, all the narratives that they put into this post. I'm sure this is how they feel. But big picture, this person is a believer and wants to know how God let this happen to them. And I don't see a lot of difference between the person who would have something like this happen and go, How did God let this happen to me, and somebody who could have this happen and instead think, like more like, How did my body let this happen to me? Those seem like very similar concerns to me, but maybe, maybe you'll go farther and I'll change my mind. But initially, that's how it struck
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:32
me when something happens to our body, or we feel or have this kind of either real or perceived sense of loss around how our body failed us. Our automatic responses, we need to find something to blame, because it's so uncomfortable. And caregivers go through this too, right? This is kind of there, and we'll, we'll get into all these different lenses. But when we go through this loss around the body, can we? It's very human, natural and normal to say, Who can I blame? Can I blame God? Can I blame myself as the parent? What could I have done differently for the individual, diagnosed? Could I have lived, slept, eaten, drinking, something else differently to prevent this? And so we naturally go to a kind of a blame and shame perspective. Yeah, the
Scott Benner 18:19
blame, it kind of orders things, right? Like, everything feels chaotic and but if you've got something to blame, then it's like, okay, like, the amount of times I'll interview somebody that's had diabetes for 20 years, you can still hear burning in their brain. Like, why did this happen to me? Like, it's so interesting. 20 years into it, and they sit and talk about it, and they can't hide the fact that they're still wondering. You know, they'll say something, like, I was 27 when this happened. Like, why did it happen? I was 27 like, somehow, that's important. Like, that they were 27 or I was 50, and it happened, I can't believe this. Or she was so young, that's not right. Or, like, how does a baby get sick? Like, you hear them ask that, but they're all asking the exact same question, right? And trying to find out, Oh, who to blame? So that we can start to move forward again, we have a bad guy. Now, if there's a bad guy a reason that I'm not the problem, or the kid's not the problem, or the body's not the problem, it's the thing we can blame. Is that. Does that make sense?
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 19:18
Yeah, or the way we even talk about our body as separate from our mind, right? Like my body failed me, even in that statement, we're kind of separating ourselves where our mind and body are actually together, yeah, like we're in and this initial stage of blame and shock like that is part of the body grief. And as I mentioned, I think it would be really exciting and awesome to kind of dig through these concepts, maybe in another episode, but this idea of anger, of blame, that's really normal. There's nothing wrong with that, that is part of the body grief stages, and
Scott Benner 19:54
it's hard for people to just sit in a feeling right like. Whether it's like helplessness or grief or some sort of sadness or something like that. So you blame something, and it actually helps you not to have to just in the, I guess, the wash of not knowing there's like an abyss and nobody, no, it's hard to sit in the abyss and just let it pass. Yes, when
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 20:16
you're trying to make sense of it, that's just, it's part of, like, even if you were to come out and talk about, like grief, kind of the normal five stages of grief you're in the kind of bargaining stage, right? Like, if only I had done this? What if this person didn't cross the street at this time? Like it is part of your body and mind going through all of the emotions associated with
Scott Benner 20:41
loss, right? And is, and time is really the answer to that issue. Like, I mean, you can find ways through it, like blame something or whatever, but time just has to pass so that the emotions aren't so raw, and then you kind of can go back to, I'm gonna say something really sad. Hold on a second. I've been really stunned as an older person now, realizing how time can make you like can separate you from people who have passed on, no matter how much you kind of want to hold on to them, or their feelings or like the stuff that's happened to them. The truth is, is, if you get through enough time, and I think, and if you're healthy enough to feel the feelings around it, the kind of shame of that is, is that the end of that process, is you not really thinking about that person as much anymore, and like, that is actually the healthiest thing for you, right? Because you can't, like, you know, you can't bring them back, kind of a thing. And anyway, this struck me the other day when my I thought of my friend Mike. I couldn't remember how long he's been gone, and like, I found that, like, instantly I was almost upset at myself, but at the same time, I felt like, well, that's good, because I guess I've worked through everything. It's like, come from his passing. Like, for me, I'm not struck with helplessness or grief or sadness or anything like that anymore, like over his passing, like it's a thing that's it really is just a memory now, I don't know, like he's, he's a memory now he doesn't, he doesn't exist the same way that he did before. Anyway, I was thinking about that, and then I thought, oh gosh, that's gonna happen with my mom someday, because I'm not there yet with her. There'll be a day if I if I'm lucky enough to live long enough, I won't miss my mom the same way I miss her today, or the same or the way I did a year ago, or something like that. I said it to a friend of mine. I wish I could remember exactly what I said to her, but I'm going to see if I can pull it up real quickly. I don't think she would mind. It was so crazy. This was around her birthday, we were like, talking about her birthday, and I just out of nowhere, I said, I said, you know how you can't remember how long it's been since your cat died. One day people will forget you too. Have an awesome day. That's how I said Happy Birthday to her. But it made me think of all that while she and I were going back and forth, just the strangeness that I don't know, like, the longer time passes, the more it fades from your thoughts, and that that's just very human, and it's going to happen, but at the same time, like, I use that same comfort to get through things like this too, like knowing that, like maybe sitting in this is the best thing for me, as long as I don't spin off my axis while I'm dealing with All of it. I don't know that's a long way to go. I'm not sure if I am helping the conversation or not.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:25
So Eve, you're able. I mean, that's kind of like you're kind of giving yourself hope and perspective, even reminding yourself with with Mike, wow, it has been a long time, but you couldn't remember how long. And I remember, or I imagine, that at one point it felt so overwhelming the grief and loss that you couldn't think of anything else, right? Or it was hard to function, I don't know, or whatever, with your mom, that's actually a really kind of a coping mechanism to remind yourself, as hard as it feels now in other areas of your life, where you have gone through all the grief stages, you're giving yourself hope that, okay, it won't feel as hard as it is right now. Yeah, and
Scott Benner 24:07
I think that really applies to the diabetes stuff. Yes, you get diagnosed, and it, like you said, like, maybe, maybe society doesn't let you mourn it like a death, but it certainly feels like it, it's the death of possibility, right? Like, or at least your idea of what was coming like you have, everyone's got a picture of what they think their life's going to be. And as soon as this happens, everyone's first thought is, oh, is my life going to be the same as I thought it was? And the truth lies somewhere between, yeah, there's no reason it can't be and probably not. Like some of it's going to be different, and some of it's going to be absolutely no different at all than it was going to be. But you can't have an experience and not be changed by it. That's for certain. Anyway, I'm so sorry.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 24:50
No, no, well, I think that's actually a good segue into, you know, when we have talked about it in the past, we would say that's, that's part of the grief process. Mm. I hope as I continue to read more about the book and understand that, like as we name that it's body that is body grief, not only for the person diagnosed with diabetes, but if we move into talking about kind of the partners, or CO parents, the primary caregivers, that is also body grief for not only themselves, but for their child as they kind of experience that sense of loss, of how they envision their child's life to be. And I know we talked a lot about that in the caregiver series, but that sense of wow, I really, I nurtured this child, I cared for them, I burgered them, or I adopted them, and I've fed them, and I envisioned this, this path for them. And now with this diagnosis, there's this sense of loss and and perceived loss of how their child's life will be differently from what they envision. So that is kind of, I would say, body grief through the lens of the caregiver.
Scott Benner 26:05
Yeah, that's something you're not wrong. I mean, you know, we'll talk about, I guess we should move on to partners and CO parents. Yes, yeah.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 26:12
So obviously, from diagnosis and beyond, kind of how diabetes impacts the parents, the caregivers. Whether you're a single parent, your co parenting or partners, there's the obvious changes in in your work patterns, your sleep patterns, physical and emotional intimacy. There's the division of labor. There might be increased conflict. There might be a question of, like, what kind of parent can I be? Can I do this kind of questioning your capability? And so all of those things, those start immediately right, even in the hospital, and continue on, and how we talk about it with the disenfranchised grief for the parents. I like this quote. We mourn the spontaneous life we had before, but it's hard to say that out loud when your kid is alive and you're supposed to be grateful that sense of WoW, our life has changed. No one really understands it, but we're supposed to be outwardly grateful that now we have a diagnosis and we have an answer. Or Or, how often do we hear, Oh, well, you've got a CGM and an insul pump. Doesn't that make it easier? Yeah, all the time we're supposed to hold this, yeah, we're grateful that they're alive. But yet we know that it impacts all so many layers,
Scott Benner 27:35
right, right? It's, it's that same societal thing, like, you're, you're still alive, so just you can't, you can't complain, right? No, no, there's a lot here to be disappointed by. There's a lot here to be concerned about and to get ready to try to impact and affect and and then, on top of all that, you don't really know what you're doing, and nobody's you know. You probably haven't had diabetes explained well to you, and if you have, it's still probably like scrambled eggs in your brain. You can't really think about it correctly, and so every minute of every day is uncertainty. And on top of that, this other stuff. And like you said, like you're, you know, you're not supposed to complain about it because, like, everybody's alive. This is awesome. Like, you know, could have got hit by a car today, but this happened instead that that sort of feeling also hard to ignore, that a lot of people will never be hit by a car and never have diabetes, right? And how come I didn't get to be that person you know anyway,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 28:27
I think there, even with this disenfranchised grief, could be even nuanced within two partners, or if you're you know, separated or divorced or co parenting, you know how much you take on who is the primary caregiver and manager of the diabetes, and how does that change over time? Sometimes or oftentimes, there can be a kind of different balance and who does more oftentimes that's really normal and natural and works for families, but there can be kind of further disenfranchised grief around the individual who is taking on kind of the brunt of the responsibility of caregiving
Scott Benner 29:09
that can show up a lot of different ways than people to the body grief, right? It's not just, I mean, you've mentioned a number like anger, shame, you get depressed, right? Some people feel a numbness. It can affect your mental health, sense of identity. I'm imagining confidence that you have out in the world, probably socially, your self image, like it's crazy, that it's not crazy. Crazy is, like, obviously the wrong word, but it's as a an idea that you're just presenting to me now, like, I understand why it's called body grief, but at the same time, like, I can see why that might not make sense to somebody until they really understand the way you the way that grief hits you.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 29:49
Yes, so I think, well, the way the author, Jane Mattingly, defines it is that body grief is a universal experience, and it happens to anyone. Living in a body which is all of us. And it can be, it can look like so many different things, but it's basically a sense of loss, a loss of freedom, she says, a loss of control, a loss of safety, or a loss of hope. So if we're looking at this from the lens of the person diagnosed there, you might experience all of those things right at different stages right in your life, with diabetes, the loss of freedom, loss of control, loss of safety, loss of hope, and for the caregiver, you might experience that too, particularly if you are managing, if your child's younger, most of it, I think
Scott Benner 30:38
it's important what you just said, too, that it's not like it all happens at once. You don't get diagnosed and have, like, a bad day or a bad month or a bad year, and then it's over. You could wake up 10 years from now and have one of these feelings, yes, yeah. Okay, so it's yeah, a thing to be aware of. And also, you know, when we go back to the topic of, how is this impacting the family, and I think about, like, where the topic came from, which is people online saying, I wish people understood how this impacted my family. I don't think they were even thinking that, you know, when they're asking that question online, or when I was posing it to you. I know I wasn't thinking like this could be very slow waves like this could hit you, and then three years could go by and you'd be okay. And then it might another piece of it might touch you again, and then you might find your way past that, that could continue through your life or not really like and how do you even know when it's I guess you don't see it coming either. Probably just gets on you, at least before you were diagnosed, and then you felt bad. You're like, Oh, I got cause and effect here. But you know what happens when seven years from now, you just suddenly feel like I don't want to take care of myself anymore. I hate this. I'm not doing this, you know? And then people call that burnout. So, oh,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:47
you're burned out, right? So, yes, so, I mean with, with burnout, that is so now I would like to call that also the body, the grieving of the body, and how, yes, you're burned out from doing all the things that we need to do to keep ourselves alive, but connected to that is the sense of loss around why can't I just eat something and not think about it? Why do I have to do all these things, I guess, with with the grieving, and whether it's burnout or maybe all of a sudden you have a complication from your diabetes, or you get held up at the airport. I mean, it could be really simple, right, but painful. You can have that moment of like, dang, right? Why do we have to deal with this? So
Scott Benner 32:33
all the other out front arguments like the listen. You know, the most popular post on the Facebook group last week was understanding why the TSA checks your devices to see if they're explosives. In my wildest dreams, I would not have thought that I'd put up a post about that, and it would be as popular and well and but there it is, like it's, you're living your life. You're doing great. We're going away, blah, blah, blah. This is all good. We figured out this. We can Bolus for that. We're all packed up. We know what to do. You gotta swap my what, because you think what, and then there it is. Right now, there's that that grief hits you again. Oh, I am being pulled aside because I have diabetes. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. But yet here I am, and I'm being reminded of it again, and then you re open all of the misunderstanding in society again, like it's it all comes rushing back this person swabbing me doesn't understand what I've been through, or my kids been through, and do I want to explain it to them? No, I don't, but I might have to, or I'm going to end up missing my plane and like, oh, it just it gets Oh, look at this. These conversations are great.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:40
And just because it happens maybe one time, right? Like you might, who knows what the other factors are when you're walking through that X ray machine, where some days it might feel extra painful, yeah, and in other times it might just be like, Oh, extra five seconds. Move on, put my shoes back on. And
Scott Benner 33:59
also, it might never happen again, but your dad might be a dick at the airport for the next 10 years, because in the back of his head, he's like, waiting for this thing to happen. He knows all the other the feelings and the that are gonna come from this one like, one moment, even just the dread of, like, is this gonna happen? Like, am I gonna get pulled out of this line? Am I not? I can't believe I didn't. Then you get to the next place, then the next person grabs you, or whatever. Oh, wow, this is very interesting. Do
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 34:25
you want to do under what? For the first time ever, I didn't have to do that, and I and we plan I go first before the next three family members in line, because I know I'll take an extra few minutes. And I went first, anticipating. And they didn't ask me to touch my pump, but I was wearing the new Moby ever like they were like, Okay, you're good. And I kept walking. I didn't touch my Dexcom or my pump.
Scott Benner 34:49
Erica turned back, and she's like, how do you know this isn't a bomb? You people aren't even doing a good job. Yeah, I know. I was like, Wait, aren't you gonna swap me? I need to be swabbed so you care about the plane. I'm. Sometimes,
Speaker 1 35:00
yes, I could lean that way, like, Wait, come on, check.
Scott Benner 35:04
I swear this won't vlog. Test it. Test it. Go ahead. This conversation is really interesting to me, because it should be to anybody who's listening, actually, I hope. But the idea that, like, there's little grenades all over life that are waiting to blow up in front of you that you're not aware of, but yet, somehow there's this thing buried in the back of your brain that knows that this is gonna be, like, it's that's why, like, when a device errors out of nowhere, it's so annoying. It's not because, like, I gotta pop the thing off and fill up another thing and slap it back on like, That's bullshit. It only takes a couple minutes. Not a big deal. It's the waiting to get slapped in the face for no reason, like it always exists a little bit. And it's funny, because Arden had a pod error the other night, the middle of the night, and I get a text from her dad my pot error, I'm so tired. And I was like, okay, and then I fell back asleep. And then an hour and a half later, we woke up and her blood sugar is, like, 320 so I went downstairs, I got insulin, and I put it in a pod, and I brought it up, and I woke her up, and I'm like, alright, and I'm sorry I fell asleep. Your blood sugar is really high. Like, we're gonna have to swap this and, like, make a pretty big Bolus. And then I realized, if we're gonna make a really big Bolus, that's great, but if the Bolus doesn't work, she's gonna keep going up. So now I'm gonna sit up and wait to see if the Bolus works. And now that's four in the morning, and now I'm up till 6am now the sun's coming up, and I'm pissed because the sun's coming up, but I haven't gotten any sleep yet. And all of that, like, you know, happens we live through all that. And you say, oh, Scott, that sucks. Like, but I've been through that before. Like, I would say that, you know, I don't care, whatever. It's fine. But then the next day, she was going out somewhere, and I said, Is there any chance you'll stay the night at your friend's house? And she goes, No. And I said, You're sure, because sometimes she'll go to her friends and then spend the night not say and I actually said out loud, because you know, no one expected that pod not to work last night. So if you're going to spend the night, you got to take spares with you. And she looked at me, and she was like, I'm not spending the night. And then she left, but she was pissed, like, and I was pissed. We were all pissed because you're trying to plan for getting slapped in the face out of nowhere. Like, really, like, that's what it feels like, right? Like, it feel, it feels like somebody's gonna come up to you for no reason whatsoever, and just say to you, yeah, I know you haven't thought of this in a while, but yeah, your daughter has diabetes. And then shake you really hard and make it, make everything feel like a snow globe, and then go, Okay, now keep living again. That is what it's like, yeah.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 37:33
All right, yes. And in again, depending on where you're at, like, there was fatigue, there is stress. That could be, you know, just a blip on the radar of, like, ah, you know, this thing failed. I'm so frustrated. Or it can go deeper to I can't trust my body, or my body failed, right? And that in this naming it, naming it again,
Scott Benner 37:56
cascade, yeah, yeah. And, you know, the funny thing is, is, I don't find it frustrating intellectually, because she's been wearing an Omnipod since she was four. Like, you know what I mean? Like, this doesn't happen with any frequency. It probably won't happen again this year. It could. And I think that's the piece of it. Like, even, like, putting on a device, like, people are like, Oh, it doesn't hurt. Sometimes it does. But even though it doesn't hurt most of the time, but once in a while, it does your expectation. Every time you do it is, oh, this it's gonna hurt, yeah. And then it doesn't, you go, Oh, it didn't hurt, but you still have to live through the whole process of, oh, this is yeah. All right, what do we got? Keep going, Okay,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:29
so these are, I know we're kind of doing this, this high level, how it impacts each kind of subgroup, from the individual, discussing the parents, the caregivers, I think the impact between the partners in how you know, the fatigue and the stress and the conflict, and how you know, I want to manage it this way, but they want to manage it that way. That isn't necessarily discussed a lot, and I think that is a really beyond the normal understanding of how a caregiver, how it impacts a caregiver taking care of the child with diabetes, that the partner conflict, or even if you're co parenting and the children are going back and forth, is really significant in terms of how it can impact the relationship between the partners. So just, I think it's important to kind of validate that, and that if you are struggling, though you guys are, you're not alone in that space, and there is hope to work through it. But I think just initially understanding that, oh, this is we're experiencing grief, whether it's disenfranchised, grief, body grief, our own, maybe past trauma is coming out right now.
Scott Benner 39:40
Oh yeah, definitely gonna happen. And it's easy to say we're on the same team, right until you think, the thing you think is gonna save someone's life and the thing they think isn't. And you look over and you go, Oh, that's the girl I've been going out with since she was 20. I love her, but she's wrong, and she's gonna kill the kid and like. And then, boom, you just and you. You're not, usually not, right? Like, usually either thing would have helped. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's the thing, the thing she thinks would help, the thing I think would help. But you get in that, like, fight or flight situation, you're like, I've had an idea about how to save us. I trust myself. This is the thing we should be doing. And then everybody else is an enemy at that point. So, yes, yeah, I hear you.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:21
Okay. So moving on from caregivers, partners, co parents to the siblings. Oh,
Scott Benner 40:29
another upbeat topic, yeah.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:33
So this, I think we can call it kind of like the invisible impact. So you know, a lot of a lot of you are really aware of how the diagnosis impacts your other children, and you, you do your best to kind of give that person time and honor them, that the other siblings, your other children. But it it can and really normal. It's normal for the other children to experience some of that, either their own grief, maybe jealousy, that not necessarily jealousy of the diabetes, although that could happen, right? Like I'm jealous of my sibling having diabetes, because, look, mommy and daddy pay attention to them all the time and and maybe also demonstrate some some either depression or anxiety and their own behaviors, because either a they're experiencing their own grief and they don't know how to communicate it, or don't feel like they're allowed to, or they might
Scott Benner 41:22
be worried it's going to happen to them too, that that could easily happen as well. Yes, I'll take you down to the beginning of this conversation. I told you about the picture at Yosemite. And how is it going to change things that you that there's no way you can like expect, or maybe even sometimes get in front of? And as an example, you know, in more recent years, we've been talking about this stuff in like, you know, in a rear view mirror with our kids. And my son definitely feels like he was ignored. And because Arden needed more help, or we had, there was times that, you know, we'd go somewhere and, like, something would happen, like, oh, we have to stop for a minute till Arden's blood sugar comes up, or we have to change a thing, or something like that. And the amount of effort and time that my wife and I put into over doing it for him to make sure that it didn't feel like that, like once he said, as an adult, like, you know, I definitely felt like you were paying more attention to Arden than me. I was like, Oh my god. How is that even possible? Did you see the brown spots on my cheeks. This is just son from standing on a baseball field. I've been with Cole like every step of the way, at everything he's done and needed us for, and some of the things he probably didn't need us for, and yet his memory is he got a little less than she did. And I was like, Oh, it was so defeating. I was like, because we put so much effort into that not being the case, I don't think like actual physical acts can overcome the feeling that comes and then, by the way, the irony is, what Arden remembers is that we spent way more time at Coles baseball games than with her. And I was like, You gotta be kidding me. Yes, it was like, Oh, my God, I'm like, your a 1c has been in the fives forever. Like, we're ahead of, like, the curve on every one of your health issues. You're doing things right now the people won't be doing as a matter of course, for 10 more years with GLP medications. And look how well it's helping it. That's because of how much effort and like attention we've put but she doesn't see that as her she sees that as the diabetes, right? And like, and at the same time I stood like this. The rest of this is from this time I stood in a softball field, right? Boy. It just made me feel like Erica, like, no matter what you do, the opposite is going to be the thing the person wanted. And I know that's not true, like, right? Like, but it just feels like, it feels like no matter what you do, someone's going to tell you the thing you didn't. Do, and that that feels like a very human response, like this was not perfect. Let me tell you about the stuff that I still hurt from. It doesn't mean I shouldn't have done the things that we did right like, I think what we did was great, and trust me, had we not done them, things would be terrible, and things aren't terrible right now. Like, they're good and everybody is adjusted and living their lives as well as they can, based on the idea that one of us got a lifelong illness that has to be managed day to day. Like, seriously, like, I think we are is good of a place as we could possibly be. But there's no doubt that if I get in a time machine, go back to Yosemite, take a magic pill. Arden doesn't get type one. This didn't happen, but I would bet you that some version of it happens. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I would bet in another universe there's a family like us where Arden doesn't have diabetes, and the son is saying, I don't know, I remember you spending much more time with her. And her saying, I remember you spending much more time with him. I don't know that you can avoid that. Maybe
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 44:41
I don't know, right? Is that that might be just normal sibling.
Scott Benner 44:46
Maybe that's just the price of doing business,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 44:50
right? But then I'm also thinking about, you know, as kind of thinking about your children where they are in their life stages. You could also like that is part of you. His disenfranchised grief, right? Like, that's and that's also maybe part of his kind of perceived not again, it wasn't his body that was diagnosed, but he experienced a sense of loss, yeah, to name that for him, like that. Like, wow. Like, cool. That's part of your disenfranchised grief, that feeling like we spent more time with Arden and trying to keep her alive, that, you know. And so it doesn't make it some bad or wrong. And part of doing business having more than one child,
Scott Benner 45:29
we brought this up after we picked our heads up off the table, because it got said, and you just heard like, that was my head just hitting the table. I was like, oh my god, I tried so hard. Like, I can't believe we're still standing here. We did talk through it like we had that conversation. You know, it's much like what we talked about earlier, is, I think this is the feelings, right? Like this is the part where you're sitting in the abyss of the feelings, and you have to live through it, and one day he won't feel like that about it anymore, but that day could be 15 years from now. It might take him having his own kids to fully, you know, get through the process to figure it out, or whatever. I'm just trying to stay alive long enough for somebody to come up to me afterwards and go, Hey, not bad. And I'll go, thank you. And I don't even know if that'll happen. I'm sure, I'm sure that a lot of people don't get to live long enough to watch their kids come full circle. And then have to, on top of that, realize that the last bit of this full circle is to go find your parents and tell them, hey, I get it. Now. That really is what you're waiting for as a parent. Like you're waiting for somebody to come tell you, you know, I saw what you did there, and I get it pretty much it. Or, thank you, you know. I mean, that would be a bonus. Like, I would take a meal even, and no, thank you. Like, I mean, just like, especially with what the restaurants are costing nowadays, this one meal and a nod, like, it just, I see what happened here. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know, like, and not everybody gets to live long enough to close those circles and and not everybody gets to it, and even tries so
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 46:58
well, I know we work so hard, right, as you did in trying to attend to both of your children's needs and give them what they needed, emotionally, physically, logistically, medically, right? And we work so hard to prevent and protect them from pain, but they both have experienced less right and pain as a result, and that's okay, yeah. Like he is so even as he reflects back, gosh, you spent more time with Arden, perhaps he doesn't feel that significant loss as much as he did, maybe at moments when he was a little boy. But also, it's okay, like it's he, he worked through it. He can communicate. You can validate that you love him equally.
Scott Benner 47:42
It's important to live in that idea not to look backwards and say, Oh, me, you mean, you mean to tell me there was a 14 year old boy that felt like that. I didn't know. I hear what you're saying. And I would implore people to not look backwards like once you've gotten out of a problem, don't go back and punish yourself about it again, if you can at all help it, because, like you said, like he is okay, you know, like he's not struggling. And if he was then voicing this stuff may be the only way to pull him through it, too.
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:12
And you could even, I think, whether you're on that kind of the other side of it, so to speak, where you guys are maybe, or when they're younger, too. I think giving the siblings permission to have space, to hate diabetes, to like I think that can be maybe scary for some families to invite or give permission to the siblings to say it's okay, like we see that you're you're, maybe you're not as you're we're not giving you as much time, or you feel like we're not we're abandoning you, or it's okay, like, let's all you know, going back to letting the siblings write the letter to diabetes and how much they hate it, yeah, I think just giving everyone permission to have their sense of grief and loss around the diagnosis, it's going to look different For every single family member at different ages and stages, but giving them permission, I think, is a big step and then and naming it.
Scott Benner 49:08
Yeah, awesome. Anything left for siblings?
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 49:10
I think, oh, just one thought of, you know, caregivers who have siblings, kind of, I know, but let's get one step beyond in terms of the family system. We're thinking about for caregivers who have adult siblings who either are really close, or maybe not as close, I know that can be really impactful sometimes, where you might look to your immediate family members for that love and support and understanding, and that can be Another can be really helpful, but also that sometimes can shift that dynamic momentarily, right? Like, let's say you're you have your your adult siblings, and you've been so close, and you guys went through so much together. No one else knows what it's like to grow up together with your parents, and then your one child gets diagnosed, and they might not understand it. Right to the level that you need them to. So I think that's just that might not happen all the time, but just I felt like it was significant enough to name,
Scott Benner 50:08
feeling let down by that too, right? You could turn to that person, they could be like, ah, at least it's not cancer, and you'd be like, yeah, oh my gosh. That's not what I needed from this, right? Erica, before we move on to grandparents and extend a family, true or false, if we all just had autonomous sex style and a cave to live in by ourselves, we'd feel better.
Speaker 1 50:27
Oh, we'd be so lonely, though. You know, maybe the dog can talk. My
Scott Benner 50:36
gosh, you picked the weirdest profession, like trying to understand the inner mingling of people's thoughts and emotions is it's a never ending bowl of spaghetti. It feels like you know, all right, all right. Grandparents and extended family older generations may handle the shock of medical diagnosis. Go ahead, they may not fully understand what
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 50:57
right? So they, I think we hear this a lot of they have their own sense of grief, again, whether it's the disenfranchised grief, where they might have this image and vision of how they want to take care of their grandchildren, like, you know, be that, be the grandparents that show up with the candy, be the grandparents that kind of just like the carefree, like they worked really hard, You know, I don't know, kind of stereotyping, but I hear
Scott Benner 51:23
what you're saying, like I had kids so that their kids would bring me a beer. That's all I was was hoping for,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:28
right? And so they, they have their own sense of or maybe they're, they're local, or maybe they're multi generational household that can cause a lot of stress. Of, you know, they might not understand it. So then they kind of go through their own sense of either failure or disappointment in their identity as a grandparent, of, how am I going to support my child? How am I going to support my grandchild? I've worked hard all my life so it and that's totally fair and valid. So just naming that sense of of grief, they might look at their peers, right grandparents who just, you know, get to show up, be carefree and but learning either a new way to if they are hands on, you know, grandparents or kind of multi generational caregivers, it's a lot, right, particularly how technical and mathematical and all these things that are really hard to understand that might be really challenging
Scott Benner 52:25
right now, I can tell you that the stories that I hear from people about their parents don't know what to do, and then that's frustrating to them, and you never really stop to think about how frustrating it is to the grandparents, right? Like the people who, by the way, your kid is that has diabetes, they feel bad for their children, and then they feel bad for their grandchildren. And then on top of that, even though society would say we're not allowed to, they have to feel bad for themselves, like, right for the disenfranchised grief, they have to be like, Oh, but they probably have body grief over hell, over what's happened to you, over what's happened to their grandchild. And then they get the disenfranchised grief as well over what happened to their lives. Yes, because this isn't what I expected. Yes, I will tell you this my father in law, who has passed away recently. He was not a very emotional person, like giving with his feelings and his thoughts, but I could tell that once he saw the effort we were putting into raising our kids. He stopped thinking I was his head. And I thought that was kind of nice, like, like, you knew, like, at first he just was like, this, you know, I mean, listen, my daughter has a boyfriend. I know what he was thinking. Like, you know what I mean? And, and then, even after you get married, it doesn't just magically go, I'm like, still, some guy pawned his daughter, you know, when's this guy going to show his value? And then, you know, we have kids, and we're doing a at least, listen, as good a job as we could do. And probably familiarly to my, my father in law, we we probably look like the parents of the year, you know what I mean, like, compared to what he grew up with. So he's like, all right, these two are taking good care of these kids. I think that's the first time he saw me as not like, not predatory, but like, not valuable in this like, you know what I mean? Like, until then, I was just the guy taking advantage of his daughter one way or the other. Like, and by the way, I was a stay at home dad, too. So go back a couple of generations, I just look like a sponge to him. And then he's like, one day he said, he said to us, like, you guys do really good job with these kids. And I was like, Oh, thanks. And then I could see him, he started treating me differently. It took for that to happen, but still, in all, he didn't know a damn thing about Arden's diabetes. And, yeah, I mean, I didn't see that. He even had the bandwidth to try to understand it, to be perfectly honest, like he kept his, you know, distance from it so and that I'm sure was hurtful for my wife, you know, anyway, again, sex doll in a cave, and you're saying, and somebody to talk to, that's all we need, yeah, and then I don't have to, like, I don't have to coexist with other people's feelings and emotions, honestly, you know, I was thinking as as you were talking, like, even if you could fit. Saw this. Like, if you could snap your fingers and make it so that people didn't feel this grief, or if they did, somebody else didn't judge it or not be supportive of it. Like, I don't even know what life would like you ever think of like, What would life be without all this? Is this life like, Do you know what I mean like, is, is this? Is this the thing we're doing, like, the trying to figure each other out and be as happy as possible and supportive as possible. Like, is that the whole game?
Speaker 1 55:27
Oh my gosh. Erica, well, I mean, yes,
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 55:31
oh my gosh, yes. I think we all want to be as happy as possible. But also, grief is something that that can't be fixed, and that's, that's the hard part, right? But it can be felt. It can be named. It can be felt. It can be we can offer ourselves and each other empathy and compassion, and that's moving through it, right? Yeah, but we it's hard to wrestle with and hard to feel.
Scott Benner 55:55
It's difficult for me. I can only speak for myself personally that to know that life, it feels like you're trying to mold something out of clay, but we never get to the part where we turn it into something. We just keep molding it. Like, does that make sense? Like you just like something happens and you go, Okay, I gotta live through this. I have to try to understand it. I'll apply it my life. Hopefully people around me won't get sick of me while I'm trying to figure it out, or I won't be snippy with them, or whatever happens. Oh my God, look. I wake up the next day. We're all still here. This is awesome. Nobody died, nobody got hit by a car. Then the next thing happens, the next thing happens, and and then you start, you know, this is very trite to say, but as you get older, it all starts to make sense. And then as soon as it starts to make sense, you are hit with the idea of, like, Oh, I'm gonna die. Like, I've just starting to get this figured out. Like, I'll joke on the podcast all the time. I've only been an adult for like, five years. I'm really starting to understand things. I almost joked with you earlier, before I had this thought that we only had two kids, and I think that's pretty good, like, because it was a lot to deal with, but if you gave me a third one, I'd be an awesome dad to the third one. Like, I really think I could get it, like, really, like, fix a lot of, like, hiccups. And the irony is that if I did that, the other two would be pissed, because they'd be like, Oh, sure, you know what I mean, like, when, like, you know, like, when, yeah, I don't know. You look up in some famous guys in his 70s, and he's a good dad, and you see his 30 year old son is like, well, he was a coke head. When I got him, I actually thought for a second, like, I bet you, almost effortlessly, I could do a 3000 times better job raising a baby right now, but then my kids would be upset with me, and they'd hate the kid over it too. Sex style in a cave. Is someone to talk to? Is there anything else, like crackers? Maybe we just need crackers and a bottle of water, right? We'll do it. Okay. All right, all right, all right. Do you have anything you want to save you for research?
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:47
No, oh yes, I do. I think it's easy. We, as we kind of validate and and we kind of define, identify, define and validate every person's grief journey in relation to the diagnosis. I think this is understood, but I think important to say, we never want to make the person with diabetes feel like it's their fault. That can be absorbed pretty easily. If I'm thinking of you, maybe younger children, you know, if they're seeing everyone cry and grieve, and I'm not necessarily. I'm not suggesting you go hide in a corner, but as you do, kind of validate one another's or kind of in the multi generational family system, impact of diabetes that we it's about the diabetes and that it's not, it's not little Joey's fault.
Scott Benner 58:36
Yeah, yeah. Don't. Don't put that on your kid. Then don't worry, your mom will put it on you anyway. What'd you give? Him? Awesome. Mom, thanks, right, right. Yeah, it's great, mom, really, I've been waiting 40 years for you to come through. That's what you got, huh? All right, listen, people are laughing right now because their parents
Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 59:00
or they're working hard to understand it.
Scott Benner 59:02
You know, what the truth is, is that I believe that, I think, even, like, the crappiest parent that somebody had, I think in their quiet moments, are thinking about, like, like, What didn't I understand here? Like, what did I not do or, and, you know, it's a completely other conversation, but I think that, you know, we ask, it's interesting that there's a there's a spectrum of intelligence and a spectrum of emotional intelligence, and yet we expect everybody to do exactly the right thing all the time. And I don't think that leaves enough space for appreciating that people are often doing the best they can, and that you could, you know, if you could just give away your expectations for five seconds, you could find a way to love that person for, you know, what they tried to give you? Because it's not going to matter, like, I'm a my kids are going to, you know, are going to have a moment where they're like, I got a guy's a moron. They did everything wrong, and it's just going to feel that way. So I try to remember that, because. Because I figured that out early enough in life to tell my mom that I that, you know, the things that we talked about earlier, and it's very freeing for me as an older person. So I hope everybody gets to that spot in enough time to tell somebody, yes, you're awesome, especially to put up with me, although I think my I think I am making a good point. But for people have so many thoughts and feelings like there's a lot to balance.
Speaker 1 1:00:27
It really is all right. Hold on a second. Thank you.
Scott Benner 1:00:38
The conversation you just heard was sponsored by touched by type one. Check them out please. At touched by type one.org, on Instagram and Facebook, you're gonna love them. I love them. They're helping so many people. At touched by type one.org, summertime is right around the corner, and Omnipod five is the only tube free automated insulin delivery system in the United States, because it's tube free, it's also waterproof, and it goes wherever you go. Learn more at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox, that's right. Omnipod is sponsoring this episode of the podcast, and at my link, you can get a free starter kit. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox, the podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by ever since CGM. They make the ever since 365 that thing lasts a whole year. One insertion every year. Come on. You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe. Will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? Hey, kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know? What else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox Podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. Of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in. We make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you wrong wayrecording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?
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