#1601 Kitchen Triple Threat

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Valerie, 44, horticulturist and “triple threat” cook, juggles life with four kids, including a 10-year-old recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Valerie 0:14
My name is Valerie, and I am a mother to a type one diabetic.

Scott Benner 0:24
I am here to tell you about juice cruise 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right. We're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise, 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist AI D system powered by tidepool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s t.com/juice. Box, you today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate, and waiting for you at contour next.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about missed boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Valerie 2:44
My name is Valerie, and I am a mother to a type one diabetic, and that's that's who I am. I call myself a triple threat in the kitchen because I have a horticulture degree and I have a background in nutrition, and I cook by default.

Scott Benner 3:05
Wait, what does horticulture have to do with a triple threat in the

Valerie 3:09
kitchen? Because you grow food,

Scott Benner 3:13
look at me. I'm like, Duh. You're like, I have a garden, idiot.

Valerie 3:16
That stuff that comes out of the ground, you can eat it. Friends, I thought you were

Scott Benner 3:21
talking about flowers for some reason.

Valerie 3:23
Yeah. Well, flowers are edible broccoli. Broccoli is a flower bud. Please don't

Scott Benner 3:26
start me on broccoli. I don't like it. There's a reason when I reach for food that I think people start eating when they want to be healthy. I say broccoli all the time because, right, I just, I don't understand. Nevertheless, you have just one child.

Valerie 3:40
I have four children. Wow, yeah, okay. The oldest is in college. She is applying for grad school. And the middle children are identical twins. They are going into the sixth grade, the major leagues, as I like to call it. And then there's Thomas, my youngest, and he was, he's going into fourth grade, and we were diagnosed a year ago. How old are you? How old am I? I am 44 Wait,

Scott Benner 4:11
all right, hold on a second. All these kids were the same boy. No, that's a good question. Yeah, definitely not. You could have three men in this but definitely two, right,

Valerie 4:21
right, for sure. So I didn't meet my husband now until the oldest was 10. Okay? So I had really accepted that it was just going to be her and I, and then here comes this stud just strolling along, and I just can see the rest of my life. So I go for

Scott Benner 4:41
it. It's like, you know what I need? I need to pay for somebody else's kid. It's gonna be awesome. Okay, so how old were you when you had your first? I was 21 okay? And then 10 years later,

Valerie 4:53
10 years later, I got pregnant with two babies at the same time on purpose. Yes, it was. Yes, it was intentional. Yeah, we had been married for about, Gosh, was it three months. And I joke with my husband now, because, like, every maybe three months, I'll wake up and I'll look over to him and I'm, I'll say, hey, let's get married by a farm and have a bunch of kids. And he's like, What are you fucking crazy? And I'm like, You got it, buddy? Because that's literally what we did. We did it like all in one year. And it was like, we went from one child who was 10, so she was very independent, yeah, and then it was just like, you know, we had goats and pigs and chickens and rabbits, and we, we really didn't know what we were doing with all of it. So it I'm sure, from afar, it looked chaotic. Oh my gosh, but in our mind, we were like, we're living the American

Scott Benner 5:51
dream. I sincerely apologize to my wife. Two weeks ago, there was a bunch of stuff going on in the house. One of the kids has something sad happening. One of the kids is sick. My wife's, like, gotta go somewhere for work. She doesn't want to go, like, just like, everything is upside down right. Like, as much could be possibly wrong is possibly wrong. And it's, I don't know. It's hitting you psychologically and physically in every other way. You know how it goes right, right? Oh, yeah. And I turned to her, and I was like, I'm so sorry. And she goes for what? And I said, asking you out, I apologize. I like, I feel like this is my fault.

Valerie 6:29
Yeah, I should probably tell my husband, and I'm more often as well. I did charm and Ben to all this, yeah.

Scott Benner 6:37
And I thought she was gonna be like, you're an idiot. She's like, I hear it, and I was like, no, no, no, I this is my fault. I should have left you alone. Is, you know, you looked pretty. I don't know. I should have just said, walked away, sure I didn't know all this was gonna I actually said I didn't know all this was gonna happen, right? Or I definitely would have left you alone, and I'm so sorry. And then we went and, you know, did something very important, like cleaned up something or, you know,

Valerie 7:02
right, dishes, put something away. Okay,

Scott Benner 7:05
so other autoimmune in your family, besides your son's type one,

Valerie 7:09
I have psoriasis, and then there's touches of thyroid on both sides of the family, lots of allergies, especially on my husband's side, like severe allergies like his his sister is only not allergic to oatmeal, so her throat is literally constantly, you know, inflamed.

Scott Benner 7:33
Wait, wait, his sister can only eat oatmeal and nothing else. Well, it's

Valerie 7:37
not that she can only eat that, it's that everything else that's not oatmeal is causing some type of an allergic reaction. So she's building, yeah, so it's, can you hear the diabetes alarm? It just No. Well, okay, because I it was super loud on my phone, and so I was like, Oh my gosh,

Scott Benner 7:57
that's gonna keep happening. I'm sorry. So she eats other things, but everything right inflames her throat

Valerie 8:03
Exactly. So she's having, like, oh gosh, acid reflux and all this other stuff happen now, and it's, gosh, yeah, I know

Scott Benner 8:11
I hate oatmeal. Does she like it at least? I mean, not anymore.

Valerie 8:15
I don't even know if she eats oatmeal, you know, it's just like, that's the only thing that didn't cause an allergic reaction on her, on her

Scott Benner 8:23
test, I like her resistance. She's like, I'm not. Oh, my God. Well, that's great saying your husband has what bad, like seasonal allergies, things like

Valerie 8:30
that. Seasonal allergies. Recently, I see it was about five years ago he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting. He experienced anaphylaxis. But, yeah, I know. And we, we thought maybe it was just a fluke. We'll just be more careful, because he had the whole bee suit on and everything, and he, you know, of course, got stung, like, right in the jugular. You guys keep bees. Well, not anymore, because we, we almost died. We had a few, a few more incidents after the first one, and we were like, You know what? This probably is just not a good idea. And so we sold them. And then the lady that we sold them to contacted me just after the pandemic, and she was like, two people now that she knows of have experienced anaphylaxis from the bees that we were keeping, and so they had, like, these beekeepers come out and study them, and they're like this pure strand of St Clair County honeybees, and they're great, you know, honey producers, but, but they'll kill you. Pack a punch. Valerie, how much of your

Scott Benner 9:41
life did you get off a tick tock? Do you also, do you also live in a converted school bus? What else is happening?

Valerie 9:47
No, no, that's next. That's next year. We're we're working up to that.

Scott Benner 9:51
We've got goats and bees. And I was like, Oh, she's going to convert a school bus into a living situation.

Valerie 9:58
We got out of the goat game. We are all. All done with goats. We are about to be all done with pot belly pigs. Those were an adventure. They're about 10 years old, and they're a couple of thugs. I'm just done. I'm done with the pot bellies. So the

Scott Benner 10:15
kid gets the diabetes. Sorry, trying to get back on track. How does it present,

Valerie 10:22
Thomas was going to the bathroom a lot and drinking a lot of water, and the teacher said something, I think, on a Tuesday, and she said, he's going to the bathroom twice as much as the other kids. I just wanted to let you know I was picking him up from school. I was in the playground, and I looked over at the other mom, and I said, Oh my God, what if it's type one diabetes? That was like my very first thought, jeez, Val, where'd that come from? Well, my sister, her youngest, was diagnosed when he was in fifth or sixth grade, and so I remembered what she had told me. You know, he was so thirsty, he was going to the bathroom a lot. He was having accidents. And so, yeah, I think I just had my my antennas were so your nephew has type one as well. Yes, I forgot to tell you about that. Okay, he does. What else? You forget to tell me? Anybody else? Oh, gosh, it'll it'll surface. It'll surface through the hour, trust me.

Scott Benner 11:20
Okay, okay, all right. Oh, so, okay. So you had enough background, yeah, so you said that the other person out there, and they were like, stop it, dummy, that's not what it is, right,

Valerie 11:28
right? And I was like, Well, of course it could be a bladder infection. I was like, I think don't girls get bladder infections more than boys? And I was like, Oh, well, I'll just call the doctor. We'll get them in. The nurse that answered the phone said, you know, they didn't have an opening until next week, and so I got off the phone thinking, Oh, I just being paranoid. She doesn't even think it's diabetes, so I'm just gonna I did all the steps. I made the appointment. It's for next week. Saturday, I woke up and I just knew something wasn't right. He was having accidents all throughout the night and the thirst. I mean, when you talk about that, and I hear other people saying that, it's like, just unbelievable. It really is. I mean, you just, you cannot imagine how much water they're drinking. It's

Scott Benner 12:20
like zombies with brains.

Valerie 12:22
Oh my gosh. So that Saturday, he had a basketball game, and I just started crying. And my husband was like, Well, do you not want him to do the game? And I was like, No, I want him to go to the game. And I, I think at that point I did for sure. No, like, I didn't need anybody to tell me anymore. So now it was more like, once somebody tells you that he has it, you can undo it now. And so I was kind of like, that's what was holding me back. I didn't want it to be confirmed just

Scott Benner 12:51
yet. Okay? And now the girl that one of the pot belly bigs is crying at the basketball game, and your husband's like, Oh, awesome.

Valerie 12:59
Right, right.

Scott Benner 13:01
Great. I bought the pigs. I mean, leave me alone.

Valerie 13:06
So the have you heard a pig cry? It's awful. I mean, it's like,

Scott Benner 13:10
can I tell you something very bad. Sound, yes. Would you be insulted if this episode was, have you heard a pig cry? Oh, nice.

Valerie 13:19
That's awesome. He's gonna love that.

Scott Benner 13:21
I'll tell you what. I haven't heard a pig cry, but I have very more recently heard a fox. Oh, wow. It's also very loud.

Valerie 13:29
I've been hearing people post stuff like that, like they thought it was a coyote or something, and I wonder if it was a fox.

Scott Benner 13:37
Wow. This segment's brought to you by Dr Seuss,

Valerie 13:40
that's funny. That is very funny. My God, that

Scott Benner 13:44
sounded like a dirty Dr Seuss book to me just

Valerie 13:48
now, that's another good time. Oh,

Scott Benner 13:50
dirty Dr Seuss, yes. Oh, that's even better. Valerie, you're producing good job. Keep going. All right. So do we go to basketball? We do?

Valerie 14:00
Yeah, we did. So the compromise was, Tom's dad is a type one diabetic. So he said, I'll just have my dad bring the kit. We'll test him.

Scott Benner 14:09
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Valerie 16:29
There you go. There you go. We got what? We got 40 more minutes.

Scott Benner 16:34
Does the fire department guy have it too? And the guy like, how many people in this story are gonna have right? Okay,

Valerie 16:40
right. All right. Go ahead. She Oh, my dad has type one diabetes. There you go. That's it. Valerie, your father has type one. No, actually, it's type two. Okay, type two. Both grandfathers

Scott Benner 16:53
have diabetes. One, type two, one, type one.

Valerie 16:55
No, well, I mean, he's the third stage of type two is type one, right? So that's why are you saying type one,

Scott Benner 17:01
okay, Tom's dad uses insulin, but has type two diabetes. No, no. Tom's grandfather.

Valerie 17:07
Tom's dad just checks his blood sugar every once while he's type two, he's well in control, okay, fit as a fiddle. My dad is type two, but is insulin dependent at this

point. Okay, got it all right. I'm sorry, and I'm

I'm like, constantly, like, on him, and he's like, you know, I'm just been sitting around, and someone was, oh, you might want to, you know, up your insulin if you've been sitting for more than three hours. And he's like, what? I'm like, Just a thought. I'm just gonna throw it out there. Awesome. Yeah, I think that's everybody. Okay, okay, so sorry. Okay, back to the basketball game. Back to the basketball game. So we have the kit there, and it's after the game. And he was very lethargic throughout the game, so I was quick to test him, and it it just registered as high. And so I I just looked at my husband, I said, Okay, are are we calling 911? Are we taking him to the hospital? Like, those are the options now. And we decided to take him across the river to the Children's Hospital. And I got a ride home. And then Tom called us, you know, right when he got to the emergency room, because then we're Googling and stuff, and they're like, if it tests high, then it's above 500 so then I'm calling our primary care physician, I'm calling the ER and letting them know that we're on our way. Because I'm just like, I'm just full of guilt already, like I could have done more, and why didn't I do more? Why didn't I listen to myself?

Scott Benner 18:43
Wait, wait, how long is it between the basketball game and standing on the playground telling the mom

Valerie 18:47
four it was four days. Oh, okay, yeah, so I guess Yeah, that wasn't that bad. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, five days.

Scott Benner 18:54
That's not bad. Sounds like it didn't take you that long to get it together. True, true. Was he Okay? Was he in? DK,

Valerie 19:00
no, he was not. He was actually ended up being 950 when we checked him into the

Scott Benner 19:06
hospital. It's very high. How long did they keep him over the river?

Valerie 19:08
We stayed four days. It ended up being four days. But three of the days were training. So those were the only reason why they said that they were keeping us was we had to complete our training, okay, and then we would get discharged

Scott Benner 19:24
on the way home. Did you have to go through the woods? No, because I really want you to say over the river and through the woods. At some point that didn't happen. No,

Valerie 19:35
a boy was trying on a boat. I did not have a coat. A

Scott Benner 19:40
couple more sentences we can make our own poem. Is what

Valerie 19:44
I'm saying. We're close. We're close. How old was he at

Scott Benner 19:46
that point? Again, I'm sorry, the contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than your. Paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour, next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meijer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips in meter, then you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now. I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox podcast link will help to support the show.

Valerie 21:00
Thomas was nine, and what was his reaction? He didn't really ask a whole lot of questions. And I don't think, I don't think we really talked about what was happening until the last day we were at the hospital. Now, Thomas is on the autism spectrum, okay, so he's, I mean, you would never know by talking to him or anything now, but when he was three years old, it was very obvious his speech was very delayed and he was just a wild thing, is the best way that I could describe it. I honestly think the pandemic was the best thing that ever happened to us, because we reset our schedule, and it just so happened to align with wherever he was developmentally, and so we just completely focused on his speech and understanding the behaviors. And yeah, I mean, he caught up so quick. He literally wasn't talking until he was like five more than seven words.

Scott Benner 22:01
How did having more time help? What did you do during that time? We would

Valerie 22:05
get a lot of behaviors during like transitional time. So like, going from the house, going to the car, leaving the grocery, going back to the car, and there would be, like a fit, and we weren't going anywhere. So that was all removed. It was very beneficial, which is crazy, because a lot of the behavioral plans implement, you know, how to work through those situations, because it's not realistic to take all that away and to just stay home, right? But then we slowly got back out there, and that was, that was the he kind of re emerged differently. Oh my gosh. Like a completely different person. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't get him in to private school before the pandemic, so we pulled the other two boys out of private school, signed everybody up for just regular public school, and then the public school was like, he doesn't even need an IEP. And I'm just like, I don't understand what's happened. Like he has an autism diagnosis and he doesn't even have an IEP, like, we have no goals here. Like he's they were just like, He's average. There's nothing this. He's good. We'll keep, you know, 504 open, just in case. But he's doing great. Okay, so,

Scott Benner 23:18
yeah, then you think something about who he is colored the first three days in the hospital, like, where you guys didn't really

Valerie 23:25
talk about he was watching just a lot of TV, and he was able to eat, you know, hamburgers and french fries and jerky. He was eating his favorite foods. So when we actually, I think we talked about it, like, maybe six months after it all happened, and he was like, remember that vacation that we took? And I was like, what vacation? He was like, the one where I got all the Legos and I got to eat the hamburgers and the French fries. I was like, are you talking about being in the hospital? And that's, that's how he remembers that had a good time.

Scott Benner 23:57
I was sick over the weekend, and besides being horribly disfigured by the fever and the shaking, oh gosh, I did enjoy sitting on the couch for a couple of days. I actually found myself thinking, I should try this once or twice when I'm not sick, right? It's interesting, at his age, that he thought of it that way. Is like a little break from life, and he got some toys, anything

Valerie 24:17
that he said he wanted. It was like, there within 15 minutes. So I'm sure that that was, that was a nice treat. I mean, it was, like an early Christmas. Pretty much, we just continuously were buying stuff and looking on Amazon. It was like, What do you want now? Oh, what can we get you? Oh, okay, that looks fun, because it was just my husband and I were really struggling. I wasn't eating or sleeping. I was just, I was beside myself. I stayed by his bedside the whole time. I didn't leave leave aside. I was just, I just remember this terror and just so much fear and the fact that no matter how bad I wanted it to go away, it just was never. Things were never going to change. I really struggled with that. For that would that was a hard one. It was a really hard one for me. How

Scott Benner 25:06
do you handle that? Do you speak with somebody, or is it family? Or what do you do?

Valerie 25:10
I journaled. I started a diabetes log or a book, and I just started, like, pouring all the information onto these pages. And then was, you know, talking about how I was feeling. I was literally grafting, you know, his insulin, the time of day, the activity, writing it all down, like when the insulin was peaking, what we were doing before, during and after. And it gave me so much peace of mind. I guess I was having such a hard time with processing how everything overlapped and affected each other, I just kept thinking I was going to get upside down or something, or drop off a little bit of information and Miss dose. And

Scott Benner 25:58
I always worried about everything you were doing and how the double checks. When you said you were graphing, yeah, I thought you said grafting, and I and then my mind jumped at the horticulture, and I was like, she was hybridizing plants,

Valerie 26:10
yes, yes, I was fusing, yes, fusing it together. I waited a little

Scott Benner 26:19
longer, got more context clues, and then I figured out what I was doing. Did it help? Did it help? The journaling helped you?

Valerie 26:24
It did help? It helped a lot. And then I, like, had this idea that I was going to try to, you know, publish the journal to help somebody. And then as I sat with it, I was just like, I don't know, it's so personal. It's, it's hard to know what to do with it. Yeah, I know it, but if I could just help one person, I would feel. I mean, that would be enough, right? I hear,

Scott Benner 26:46
did you end up doing anything with it? Is that what you're talking about? You were thinking about getting on Facebook?

Valerie 26:51
Yeah, it's sitting right here in front of me. I haven't opened it up, and in a really long time, it's, it's a lot. I mean, I three meals a day. I wrote down every food, every carb, every activity. I mean, it's a little crazy. I think that's what maybe that's what's holding me back from letting the world see this is because I went so extreme with it. Oh, you think you look nutty. I definitely not gonna look normal. It's a little concerning. Just because I did it that way doesn't make it the right way. It was just I knew that I couldn't control Thomas as a little boy, because it's not healthy. But if I obsessed about this notebook and how I wanted it done, then that that was a better choice, right? So

Scott Benner 27:42
I'm a little not confused, but I want to clarify, did the act of writing it down just make you psychologically feel better, or did it, did it actually functionally give you ideas about how to manage or both?

Valerie 27:54
It was very functional. So I'm a I'm a visual learner, and so when I would see it, it was, you know, permanent. And I, I did get peace of mind with, like, okay, I can let that go. I don't have to keep saying, has it been 15 minutes? I just open up the page. Oh, look, it was an hour ago. Okay, we're

Scott Benner 28:12
good. Yeah, it's interesting, because people's minds work differently. Sure, I had to rejigger the ad calendar the other day for the podcast. I mean, I'm sitting in front of like a color coded, you know, graph of like, days and episodes and, you know, advertisers and stuff like that. I found myself thinking, I'm like, I wonder how, like a person who doesn't think like me would do this, because there must be, like, a functionally correct way to handle this, but I just stared at it until I went, I'm gonna move this over here and that there, and put that there. I'm gonna do this and that, and that'll all work. And I was like, and done, right? And then I looked at it and I went, that it won't work. And then I did it again, and I was like, and now it's done. But I felt dumb while I was doing it, it, you know, like, just because I thought, like, I don't know what I thought, like the people, somebody's brain is better suited for this than mine. Yeah, it sounds stupid. I have a certain number of names and a certain number of times and a certain number of places they have to go, and you would, but I don't have any. I think it's why I'm bad at algebra. I didn't know the steps and, like, I didn't know if there were steps or if I should learn steps. It just sounds like you just didn't know what was happening, right? Like, so you just, like, I'll just keep putting it down in front of me exactly. And then when stuff happens, I'll refer back to the list I wrote, and I'll go, Oh, I did this. And then that happened, right? Yeah, right. And that happens a few times, and you think, Okay, I got a rule now, right? Yeah. And then

Valerie 29:41
just follow it, yeah. And then it was just like, I wonder, what else I don't know. I'll just write down everything.

Scott Benner 29:49
Oh, I see. And then did you find new ideas through that?

Valerie 29:52
Yes, and no, I can't remember. When I came across your podcast, somebody had forward it to the. They sent me a link or something, I can honestly say that your podcast changed everything for me. I was feeling so I don't know, alone, like, just completely alone, like there was just this. This was how it was going to be. Nobody was going to understand every time it was, like, every conversation that I had with somebody, it was the same it was the same conversation. It would take 45 minutes to explain. There would be like, 15 minute questions, and then that was our conversation. And it was exhausting to a point where I just didn't even want to really bring it up anymore, or I didn't want to talk to people about it. And then when I started listening to the episodes, I could relate to everything I mean, every single interview I can find something in the interview where it's like, wow, that I get that. Oh, I'm glad that's awesome. I like completely. I just found it so healing. It really made me feel better, like they're doing it, I can do it, it's going to be okay.

Scott Benner 31:11
Oh, that's, that's awesome. I'm glad that worked for that way. And I feel bad about making funny about the pigs, really, yeah. I mean, honestly, why would you buy a pig? What are you thinking when you do that?

Valerie 31:21
They were so dang cute. I mean, this little pig fit into dune. Do you know the American girl like stuff?

Scott Benner 31:28
No, I don't know anything about American girl. Stop it. No, I've been to that store. Go

Valerie 31:33
ahead. My daughter had an American girl sleeping bag, and this little pig would just like, go right inside of it and sleep. It was the tiniest little thing, and it was the run. It was like some Charlotte Webb story when we went and it was at an auction, they're like, it's the run, and it had a few bites on it from its brothers and sisters. And I just was like, oh, we gotta take this little pig and gonna be so much fun. We named him Timothy.

Scott Benner 31:58
And how much drywall did Timothy eat Exactly?

Valerie 32:01
Oh, he did not stay in the house. We knew. We knew after a month you've got to be outside this and yeah, it would, he would rip the binding off of a book, like, just like he was ripping a piece of paper into two pieces. It just was nothing.

Scott Benner 32:17
Maybe the bite marks were from the people who owned him. They were just like, bite that pig, see if it'll stop by eating the

Valerie 32:22
book. You're like, does he taste good? Let's try. Yeah. Let's eat the pig.

Scott Benner 32:28
Seriously, all right. Well, how long ago is this now? His diagnosis? Couple

Valerie 32:33
of years. It's just been a year, just a year a little over. Do you feel differently

Scott Benner 32:37
today? I do. And how do you manage? Like, is it like mdivi pump? What do you do? We

Valerie 32:44
have the Omnipod five, and we're on the g6 we were on the g7 and then that wasn't compatible with the iPhone, so we had to downgrade, okay,

Scott Benner 32:56
and then you'll wait for the next thing to happen. You'll keep moving, and you running in automation. Yeah? Awesome. Yep, yep. How's it working for you?

Valerie 33:07
We love it. We absolutely love it. For a little while, we were 80% in range, and then every once in a while, it'll go back to 50. But I still, I still do my timers, and I'm pretty religious about watching the trends and checking the numbers, and so we catch when we need to up our insulin. So Pre-Bolus

Scott Benner 33:28
your meals. Oh yeah, oh yeah, okay.

Valerie 33:33
And, I mean, thanks to the podcast. I know you know, not all foods were created equally, and you'll find that, you know, you can Pre-Bolus more so on certain things, and just, yeah, roll with it, right? That's

Scott Benner 33:47
what I've been trying to do. Yeah, I haven't died yet so, and she seems good, so, right, yeah, I mean, the roll with it thing, and I don't, I don't know if you can't put it better than just, you know, stay flexible, and it's just not static, you know? And you can't, yeah, you can't bend it to your will. Sometimes, sometimes you just have to,

Valerie 34:07
gotta go with it, you know, there's no perfect number. I've held on to that that was in my training. And, yeah, there is no perfect number.

Scott Benner 34:15
Okay, all right, so would you call yourself better in your mind, or is there still?

Valerie 34:22
Yeah, I do feel better about things. I still worry about Thomas being on his own a little bit. He's starting to wanna put in his carbs and dose himself. And when we left the hospital, they said, you know, when you can drive a car, you can give yourself insulin. And so we've held on to that rule. I didn't realize that at school that they were letting him put in his numbers. Hence,

Scott Benner 34:51
you got me for a second. Here, I cut you off. I apologize. No, the hospital told you that he can't give himself insulin till he's 1816,

Valerie 34:59
until. I can drive a car. Do you think that's right? I'm wondering now, because

Scott Benner 35:03
that sounds sorry. I know we're not all using that word again, but just the word popped the bite. I was like, that don't sound right, right? Is it possible you misunderstood them? No. Do you live on the side of a mountain?

Valerie 35:19
No, sure. On the side of a river,

Scott Benner 35:21
okay, does the river anywhere near like a city or people or anything like

Valerie 35:25
that, right outside of St Louis? Okay? Yeah, our Children's Hospital was

Scott Benner 35:28
an encampment or something like that somewhere. No, no, no. I in my life have never heard anyone say that really, yes, not once, ever has anyone said that to me. Oh, wow. Arden was giving herself insulin when she was in third grade. Wow, yeah. Like, I would be like, hey, that's 30 carbs. And she'd be like, right on, and then roll it up on the pump and do it okay.

Valerie 35:51
So back to what I was saying. Cool. So he was eating a Blow Pop, and it was 17 carbs, and he entered it as 71 Yeah, and nobody double checked him.

Scott Benner 36:04
We don't want that, that's for sure, right? Yeah, I'm not saying, like, why? Just give it to him now, let him get going. But I'm like, I don't know that you can't work towards it sooner than that. He doesn't have any developmental reasons why he couldn't handle it, right? I mean, autism, but I mean, you said you also told me I wouldn't notice. Yeah, he doesn't have an IEP, right? You said about his autism specifically, if I didn't tell you at autism, you wouldn't notice exactly so does it impede his ability to understand

Valerie 36:28
numbers or, I mean, he processes information differently. My husband's probably better at explaining this. My husband is a BCBA. We have our own practice, so he's a board certified behavior analyst, and he specializes with autistic clients. So there's a little bit of irony

Scott Benner 36:52
there. I'm an analyst, I'm not board certified. I just have a podcast.

Valerie 36:57
I mean, I've said it a million times. I don't know why the best type one diabetes training is a podcast, and it's you that I'm referring to. I don't I don't understand it. I don't know why, but there it is. Because I've had, like, the school nurse and stuff when I'm, like, referring to the podcast or something, and they're like, you can't just, you know, ask somebody to listen to a podcast, and I'm like, the hell I can't I'm telling you this. This is the information. It's all right here. Just let me send you the link. It'll be great. School

Scott Benner 37:26
nurse. Not interested. Not interested. A lot of school nurses do listen, though, I have a nice contingent of school nurses in the Facebook group. They believe it for everyone and who don't have kids with type one and come and listen to podcasts. So the truth is, is that, you know, if they wanted to, they would, and you know, they don't want

Valerie 37:41
to, right? I think it says something more about me also, is that when, you know, when I was so emotional when we first got diagnosed, I think that the school got to know me as that person. And that's not, that's not who I am. That was the situation that I was in, right? And that was awful, little nutty. Wow, gosh, it was, it was really rough. I mean, I was just like, I could just start crying, and I would just try to just talk right through it like it wasn't happening. Because I'm not really a crier. So that was how I would deal with it, like, oh, I don't know, it's like water coming from my eyes, and I'll just keep talking. I don't know,

Scott Benner 38:20
consider yourself stable before this happened. I just want to check,

Valerie 38:23
I mean, I'm flighty. Is that a

Scott Benner 38:27
thing your dad told you, wait, what the hell? I

Valerie 38:29
guess I've heard people joke like that. I have ADHD because I'm high energy and I thrive on, you know, solving problems and creative thinking and stuff like that. But

Scott Benner 38:43
well, when do you think your son would be able to handle this? Like, I think that's maybe a more appropriate question. Or what, forget the age. Like, what do you think he would need to be able to accomplish for this to work out for him?

Valerie 38:55
I think he's just waiting for me to say, you can do it, because that's just the type of person he is. So if I say, you know, we're he does like rules, and he likes things done a certain way. And for that reason, diabetes is probably going to be a slam dunk for him, because that's his personality, following the rules. So I think he is just waiting for us to be like, you can do this, Thomas, here's the plan. Let's

Scott Benner 39:20
start. Is there any reason you don't do it together? It together?

Valerie 39:23
I guess, just because we haven't sat down and talked about starting? Maybe

Scott Benner 39:28
what that would look like, because I think maybe, like, start slow, start volleys at the house.

Valerie 39:33
Yeah. I mean, it's summertime, so this would be the best time to and don't start before

Scott Benner 39:37
you think he's ready, but like, like, you know, listen, I don't know him. I'm I'm judging him based on what you're talking about, but he's definitely old enough to understand numbers, yeah, yeah, and push buttons and understand why being right is important about, you know, carb counts and stuff like that. And if you see an and you could also, you said earlier, he entered a 71 instead of a 17. Or somebody did, you could set the pump up so it won't give them that many carbs. Like, you can, you know, like, like, put in a safety of, like, Look, if you know, a Bolus is over this many carbs, you know, it won't take exactly, and that way that should, you know, be, I mean, valuable there, but yeah, I like the like, are you home during the day? Or no,

Valerie 40:19
I've pretty much dedicated the past year to type one diabetes. So we, you know, we pretty much let our farm slide a lot. And I just was like, This is what I'm going to focus on. I'm going to master this. And

Scott Benner 40:36
how are you doing? What does anyone say?

Valerie 40:38
I don't even know. What Is anyone C is? It's so crazy that I am sure that they're checking it every time. They never really say at our appointments.

Scott Benner 40:47
Well, you now making me think that might be the oddest thing anyone's ever said to me. You said in concurring sentences I've made my life about diabetes. I don't say 1c I know, I

Valerie 40:57
know I'm a contradiction. So humiliated.

Scott Benner 41:03
So wait. How about in his like Dexcom clarity app, can you not see what his GMI is? Can I? Yeah, you

Valerie 41:09
can. Should I put you on speakerphone and look, is it possible you're smoking

Scott Benner 41:13
crack during the day and not paying attention to diabetes? What are you doing? Yeah, you can these timers, his phone, not in yours. Oh, yeah. Oh, wait, you have a, you have a follow. Of the follow, yeah, hell. I don't even remember.

Valerie 41:27
I mean, it's, there's the new, what is that new app, the glue co I don't

Scott Benner 41:33
know. Yeah, if I told you the number of apps that have come and gone since I've been around all this that I don't pay attention,

Valerie 41:40
that makes my heart hurt to hear you say that, because that's the it is very annoying, all of the passwords, all of the accounts, I

Scott Benner 41:47
just mean the third party companies are like, this is gonna help with that, and this is gonna I'm like, Okay, we'll see, right? Let's find out real quick, though. Like Dexcom follow

Valerie 41:59
GM, I

Scott Benner 42:02
check my Google foo here to see your glucose management indicator and Dexcom g7 Nope. Dexcom g6 Do you think people at home were like, g6 like, yelling as I was typing, yeah, yeah. Allows user to share the glucose data when we know that. I don't know if your follow. Oh, why am I looking mine? Sorry, if only I knew were to get one of those damn Dexcom follow upset. I definitely don't think you can see it and follow. That makes me feel a lot better. Yeah, awesome. I mean, how often you think I'm looking at this thing?

Valerie 42:37
So I have, like, all these questions ready every appointment. And I think I focus on my questions too much. I do. Sorry. I paused because my diabetes alarm was beeping high.

Scott Benner 42:54
What's the alarm set up for? High i is above 150 Okay, and he's, yeah, he's at school. Now, what happens that you just wait for the algorithm that takes take care of it. I

Valerie 43:05
mean, if he's at home, I'll give him a blood correction, if it's after an hour from the Bolus. And then if he's at school, the nurse, it's not in his plan. And I've, I've talked to her about giving them a correction, but it's they're having a hard time with taking him off exercise mode. So like most of the day at school, he's on exercise mode. And I'm like, Was he really at recess for four hours? And why are they that's not true. Is he getting low? There was a period of time where they were forgetting to put him on exercise mode, and he would go low, especially because, you know, they have lunch and then they go straight to recess. The temperatures, you know, getting warmer. Well, now they can get him on exercise mode, but they can't get him remember to get him off. So it's like, if I push for them to turn it off, are they gonna forget to turn it on. Like, it's just, like, where, what's wrong? What's going on here? Like, why?

Scott Benner 44:06
Valerie, listen to me. You okay?

Valerie 44:09
I mean, most days, yeah, I can't tell if you're okay

Scott Benner 44:12
or not, really. Oh, 45 minutes, I can't figure it out. Oh,

Valerie 44:17
that scares me. That's not good, Scott, that's really bad.

Scott Benner 44:21
There's like, I stopped myself from asking you, were bipolar 10 minutes ago, because I don't think you are. But like, oh god, that's really bad. You feel like somebody put you in a box and shook you up. Yeah, yeah. I don't think you need to feel that way, so I'm trying to figure out how to get you through it. But you really knocked me over when you said you don't have any idea. What does anyone say? Is like, Yeah, I'm confused by that, in a way that I'm having trouble putting into words,

Valerie 44:47
yeah. I don't really even have a good, good answer for that.

Scott Benner 44:50
I spending your day doing

Valerie 44:52
I think I feel good about seeing that we're 80% in range, and so if we're 80% in range. Range, then the A, 1c, is where it should be at, right? No, I guess that. No, what's the range? The range is 70 to 160

Scott Benner 45:08
Okay, that's awesome. And being that 80% of time is fantastic. Like, I don't know how often you're low or high or anything, or if high means 400 and low means 30, then this isn't great, just being right. Get in range 80% of the time, right? I'm trying to resolve the idea that you told me that your whole life is diabetes and that you don't work and you're at home because you're taking care of it, but you don't have that information like so what are your goals? Are you just shooting time in range that what you're worried about? No,

Valerie 45:38
I spend a lot of time cooking. I'm preparing all of the meals. I'm out in the garden, you know, planting and getting things ready. I make my own sourdough. We do our own yogurt. I just started brewing kombucha for gut health.

Scott Benner 46:01
Valerie, when I asked you how much of your life is from tick tock, how come you didn't say most of it when I tick tock, is it really like you're doing a lot of social media, things like making sourdough? Like, not that you can't make sourdough and not be on social media, but if you knew what social I guess if you're not on these things, you don't realize this,

Valerie 46:18
but I don't know. So I'm like a, what do they call caricature?

Scott Benner 46:22
It feels like you're a caricature of a person on Tiktok, but I don't think you are, though, no, I'm not on Tiktok. Yeah, you're not. Like, where did you get the idea to do sourdough from? I think it was,

Valerie 46:33
that was about 10 years ago I started doing sourdough. And so

Scott Benner 46:38
Val, is it possible that Tiktok is a caricature of somebody living your life.

Valerie 46:42
Oh, thank God, am I an algorithm? Oh, geez,

Scott Benner 46:45
maybe they're watching you and you're what's feeding the algorithm. They're like, what's Val doing now, kombucha, we can make a video about that. You know,

Valerie 46:53
that's really funny that you said that because I live next to one of the largest you pick farms in the country, or at least it was 15 years ago, every time I was doing so I would, like start hosting, like a DIY stuff. And then months later, this farm, this big, like Walmart of a farm, would start doing the same type of thing. And I was like, Am I really that close to being successful? Like,

Scott Benner 47:23
Valerie, your chat. GPT, am I missing? Am

Valerie 47:27
I Am I really a day late and $1 short? Is it that close for me,

Scott Benner 47:33
your ideas are being stolen. Two of you, first of all, we're gonna have to make a hat for you out of tin foil. Right now, they're watching you, and they're taking all your ideas.

Valerie 47:41
They are not. Tell me that's not true. God, yeah,

Scott Benner 47:48
sorry. I'll start.

Valerie 47:49
I'll post to my friends, like, oh, let's have a seed exchange. And then all of a sudden, like, it's happening all around me. And I'm like, How did, how did that happen?

Scott Benner 47:58
I tell you a story. Yeah, one summer night, it was so hot we were dying, like, we didn't have air conditioning. I don't know about you people who grew up rich, but back then, you had to be rich to have air conditioning. Like, so we didn't have air conditioning. It was like, ungodly hot outside, and my buddy and I went to the toy store and bought a baby pool and filled it up outside, drug A television outside, with a extension cord, and we just laid in a baby pool trying to, like, not die and watching TV. We were watching Seinfeld first run because I'm old. There's this bit on Seinfeld, and I promise you, I don't remember the bit anymore. It was so reminiscent of, like, a running joke I had like that I would do like, I don't know, like, I don't want to say that I was out there doing bits when I was 20. But like, you know, like, sometimes you got stuff that works. You use it a lot. I always thought it was very unique and different. Made people laugh and everything, and it's happening right on screen in front of me. And I turned to my friend, I was like, Are you selling my fcking ideas to people, and he laughed, and he goes, that was oddly similar to what you said. I was like similar. And he goes, no word for word. We couldn't go back and check, of course, because it was before time shifting or nothing was re you would never see that episode of our game, but it just flew by in front of us. And now I want to point out that I did not think he was selling my ideas to people, but I do think maybe the internet is chasing you around. Oh my god. You said, I make my own yogurt. You said, beekeeping. You said, kombucha. You said, Pop belly pig. You said, so many sourdough you did. Yeah, your husband is does what for

Valerie 49:38
a living. Is this gonna help? Is this gonna help your views and your likes. I mean, I'm sorry,

Scott Benner 49:42
all the right words is, apparently everything people care about

Valerie 49:46
now we have to say puppies and pizza and we're done. It's all stick a fork in it. We did it exactly. We have arrived. Oh

Scott Benner 49:55
my gosh. I want to get back to this. I hear you're busy, like, obviously you're doing a lot. Of stuff, right? Yeah, yeah. And you're jamming that diabetes stuff into any little bit of free time you have, and right? And so it feels like the day is overwhelmed with diabetes.

Valerie 50:09
It's timers, yeah, the time. And I've tried to, I've tried to take a step back, and I've tried, I mean, it was really hard to stop doing the logging after 100 days. And I told myself, you're going to do it for 100 days, and then you're going to stop, because this is it's this isn't the way. This is it's okay for right now and for this amount of time, but then you will be done. Because what I have noticed is like with with the sourdough and with the yogurt, is I jump in and I go deep. I like, want to know, like, everything there is about it. I don't want to do it, like, six times a day, and then I'll burn myself out. And it's like, oh, I need something else. Let's start, you know, crocheting. What are we going to make? Or soaping? Oh, that's another thing. There you go. Can't believe you just said that. I'm a soaper.

Scott Benner 50:59
You did not know to keep that to yourself when it was started coming out of your

Valerie 51:05
mouth. I am also a hooker, but only at night. It's rug hooking.

Scott Benner 51:10
Yeah, wait, you're doing hook rugs. Oh, my dad

Valerie 51:14
used to do this. Oh, yeah. Those are fun. Those are a lot of fun. Is there any chance you're autistic? Oh, gosh. I mean, how could I not be and I and I always have told, you know, all the kids that you know, if Thomas is diabetic, then we're a diabetic family. If one of us is autistic, then we're an autistic family. It's just who we are. And you guys come from me, and so how could I not have that somewhere in my body? Because that's, you know you're the byproduct.

Scott Benner 51:41
Well, I want you to be calmer, like, and not feel like you're like, running towards timers all the time for sure, right, right? And your time is difficult to know. Like, I'm not telling you a 1c is everything, but I just it would have been a launching in place for the conversation. Like, if you understand that, you know, he can't be low all the time and then high all the time, and then say, like, you know, oh, is a 1c is good, because it averages out. Like, if you understand that, that's true, and you're pre bolusing meals, and he's, how often do you think he's low? Like, how many times do you find yourself stopping a low blood sugar? What do you call low?

Valerie 52:16
I call double arrows down and like the 150 range that I just call that a low that it's happening, it will be low within 15 minutes. That usually happens about twice a week. You see

Scott Benner 52:30
double arrows, twice a week. Yeah, is that during activity, or after a meal, or after a meal, and then activity like, do you see a pattern how that happens

Valerie 52:40
so, and I think that it is maybe part of the autism. Maybe I have downplayed that a little bit, Thomas will spontaneously, like, do like these spurts of jumping. And so, yeah, that can trigger, that can trigger a quick low, quick low. If he gets, like, really excited, he could start like jumping. It's less noticeable, though, because I, I mean, he's coping so well with the autism, so he's masking it a little bit better. Or, you know, if we just didn't get the timing right on exercise and the last meal, I do like to do the sports with no insulin on board, but it doesn't always work out like that, because, you know, with school in session, everything's around dinner time, right? So it's like, you Yeah, yes, I have cucumbers and string cheese to hold them over before. And sometimes I'm like, You know what? We'll just, we'll roll with it, and I'll just keep, keep carbon you up to keep you afloat.

Scott Benner 53:41
You don't see the double hours after certain meals or a certain size boluses.

Valerie 53:47
Not anymore, okay. Well, it does feel kind of random

Scott Benner 53:51
activity with insulin on board gets you a low. Oh, yeah. And so if you see 150 double hours down, you give them something. How low does the CGM ever say, before you

Valerie 54:01
stop it, I'll usually catch it in the 90s. Okay,

Scott Benner 54:05
that's awesome. Good for you. Yeah, yeah. So he doesn't get the or does he get feelings of being low? Then,

Valerie 54:10
yeah, we've had two scary lows in a year. What were the numbers, 43 and then almost to 40,

Scott Benner 54:19
okay? And how did he feel? Then, did he? Did he verbalize it?

Valerie 54:23
Yeah, he his eyes got really red. He said he was tired. And then the other time, he got very nauseous

Scott Benner 54:33
and but you haven't seen that recently. Actually, last month, we had a really scary low. You know, where it came from? Could you put your finger on it, yeah,

Valerie 54:41
he was sick for a week. Was sick for a week, and he went so he wasn't eating very much at all, and his blood sugar was like, just beautiful. I was like, Oh, I like, Thomas sick. This is amazing. He's just a straight arrow buddy. And then he started. To get his appetite back. And it was about on day five. And so I was like, Okay, well, you want to eat this donut? Well, you only eat half of it. And I was like, Okay, it's cool. Don't worry, because it's still gonna, it's still gonna hit. We'll just give you something when it's when the insulin starts pulling harder than the carbs, right? That's how I'm always looking at it as like a tug of war. Yeah, you know, you just don't want the insulin to pull harder than the carbs. So he, all of a sudden, just started to feel nauseous, and we were like, oh, no, let's just start sipping some juice. And then we tested his blood, and it was like, 60s. And then it's his CGM started reading double arrows down, and I was like, Oh my gosh. And he got all the way down to the 40s, and then we couldn't get him to go above 60 for like, almost an hour. And then I couldn't get him above 90 for almost three hours,

Scott Benner 56:00
because you Bolus for a whole donut, he had a half a donut, yes? And he hadn't had much food recently, right? Sick, use a little lower to begin with.

Valerie 56:08
It just like, it just blew my mind. Like, I was just, like, I can't believe that was so hard to correct when juice is, like, you know, usually the magic, oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it's gonna, just the littlest bit will send you to the moon.

Scott Benner 56:22
Yeah, the illness can make you really insulin sensitive sometimes,

Valerie 56:26
oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, I was, I felt sick. I was even to the point where I was thinking about, like, putting, like, honey on his gums and stuff, because he was just so low and not going up. And I kept thinking, what if he slips further down and we're already so low? And then we tried to call the on call doctor, and their system was down. Of course. It was just, it was rough, right? It was, it was Yeah. And then when we did get the doctor on the phone, she was like, You should have given him his emergency medicine, the nasal

Scott Benner 57:04
glucagon. Yes. Well, did you feel like that was necessary? It sounds like you managed

Valerie 57:08
it. I'm very hesitant to give it to him while he's conscious, but then when I say that if he goes unconscious, that's even scarier, and that's what you're trying to prevent, right? When Thomas throws up, the vomit usually comes out of his nose, and it's just so painful for him, he gets very upset, as anyone would, right? Yeah, to give him medicine in his nose and to know that that's how he feels with like the burning sensation in his nose, I just know he's gonna be so unhappy, and I know it's gonna happen. I haven't talked to him about this is what this medicine is. This is how it's gonna feel. And I don't even know if I should

Scott Benner 57:53
you're afraid he wouldn't use it if he needed it. I

Valerie 57:56
mean, we would make sure that it happened regardless. But yeah, if it were up to him, would he, would he pass on it? Yeah, yeah. That's

Scott Benner 58:03
a tough one. And I don't know that he needs to know that it, it might burn in his nose afterwards. You know what? I mean, like, right? I don't know it's tough. They're going to be people listening to this and say, you have to tell them. And there's going to be people are like, Oh, God, don't like so, I mean, that's a personal decision. I think, you know, right? You're going to know him better than anybody

Valerie 58:22
else. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's the sweetest. He really is just the sweetest boy every all of his teachers are. You know, he's just an amazing kid. And he's,

Scott Benner 58:33
how did the other sisters, brothers handle the diabetes stuff?

Valerie 58:37
Well, right or wrong? I like, shut down the kitchen, because we were pretty much free range, like anybody could come into the kitchen and get anything they wanted. I had snacks all prepped. And then once we were diagnosed, it was more like, Hi, how can I help you? Can I get you something to eat? And you know, I was turning people away. We weren't allowed to just eat anywhere we wanted in the house. I didn't realize at the time that Thomas was feeling guilty because he felt like he had done that to the whole family, like changed food for everyone. We have just started talking about that, and we've we're seeing a psychiatrist here in town just to make sure that we're talking about our feelings a little bit more because it's with food. I mean, gosh, it. There's not a single thing in your life that it doesn't touch, right? Yeah. So I just want to make sure that we're staying checked in, and that we're having the conversations, and that we continue, continue to talk about what's bothering us and what we can do better. You

Scott Benner 59:42
said you're in the kitchen all the time. Are you the security? Are you standing there making sure nobody has food or, like, what do you how do you managing it?

Valerie 59:48
I mean, I was, I was then, like, the first three months that we got diagnosed, and then I started labeling everything and saying, you know, okay, just let me know what you want, and I can get it for you. Or the timer with the pre bullet saying, so it's like, he goes in there and he wants it. I'm like, Okay, let's set a timer for 15 minutes. And he, like, looks at me, like, Well, I'm not going to be hungry in 15 minutes. And I'm like, Yeah, you will, don't worry, buddy. I'll just set it real quick. Just go play a game or whatever. That's been really hard,

Scott Benner 1:00:16
the weight, it's hard for everybody, not just him, like, Yeah,

Valerie 1:00:20
what a liberty to just be able to throw food in your mouth and not

Scott Benner 1:00:23
think about it, right? And what happens if you do that? He gets high, yeah,

Valerie 1:00:28
oh, yeah, for sure. And just two days ago, he was sitting on the couch and he was eating some pretzels, and I was like, Oh, I didn't realize you were, you were having a snack. I could have given you some insulin. Do you need? You know, do you need me to take a look at your numbers, and I was trying to be, like, casual about it and not guilt him. I didn't really understand if he forgot or if he just didn't want to care in the moment. But that has been happening more often, yeah, where he's just eating something and not saying anything, and I'm I'm trying to handle it the best I can and just

Scott Benner 1:01:01
listen. Only been at it for a year, first of all, and it sounds like you have a handle on a lot of it, and you're getting a handle on the rest of it, like it's not going to be see. Listen, I teased you a little bit earlier. It's a year. Yeah, you know what I mean, you're doing great, and you're going to do more, and you're going to learn more, and you're going to build on top of your grade, and it's going to get better and better, and you'll be less flustered, you'll be less focused on, like, constantly looking at it. You'll probably get to a point where you realize you can't, like, safeguard the kitchen, and that everybody gets to eat and stuff like that. Like you'll get it's just a process, right? It'd be easy for anybody to listen to, like, one section of anybody's, you know, interview, forget you and go, oh, like, they can't do that. Like, you know, I'm not telling you that there's not an argument for the other side. Like, I don't think you should have shut your kitchen down because eating disorders come weirdly from stuff like that too. You don't want that, right, for sure, but I see what you're doing. You're like, I gotta figure something out before we just, like, for like, like, something's gotta slow down a little bit so I can get a handle on this, like, firmly. So just keep doing that, keep learning, having experiences, adapt and expand your understanding, and keep going. You know what? I mean, like, I think you're getting there. It sounds to me like you're doing well, honestly, like, after, yeah, you know,

Valerie 1:02:23
I feel better. I have to keep reminding myself, too, though, that this isn't really happening to me. This is happening to Thomas. You

Scott Benner 1:02:30
have said a couple of things that I know that a like an adult living with diabetes would, like, cringe at, right? Yeah. It felt like you were looping yourself in with his experience. Yeah, yeah, and, but it must feel like that to you, right? I want to carry it. Oh, you're still stuck on that. Yeah, that has to go. I know. I know. Strap it to one of the pigs and let it go. Never abandon your animals. I'm sorry. I was just, gosh, those pigs, I don't know what you're doing there. You've made a couple of hinky decisions. The pigs is one of them. Although the soap thing sounds nice,

Valerie 1:03:08
oh, the soap is amazing. Which I started doing that because of my psoriasis. So that's been, you know, 20 years, 20 years making soap because it, you know, the fragrance isn't regulated as a lot of things aren't in a country that's quote, unquote free. So yeah, I was trying to eliminate those byproducts that were drying my skin out. But is

Scott Benner 1:03:31
it possible your psoriasis is autoimmune?

Valerie 1:03:34
Yes, yeah, psoriasis is autoimmune, right?

Scott Benner 1:03:37
So you have that going too. Gotcha. Yeah? Listen, here's what I think. I think you got to find out. What does anyone say is that's first he's got blood work done, right?

Valerie 1:03:48
Yeah. And I'm sure that they've said it, and I've been like, Oh, that's good. And then I just disregard the number, because there was nothing to worry about. So if I'm sure that that's what happened, I wonder if my husband knows. I mean,

Scott Benner 1:04:01
somebody said you it's good, and you were in, oh, they said, it's good. That's fine. I don't want you to do that, if that's what's happening. Like, I want you to know, yeah, I don't want you to obsess about it, but I want you to have that information, because I don't know how else you're supposed to begin to gage how things are going. You know, timing, like I said, timing range is great, but I can't see the rest of the range. I don't know what the other 20%

Valerie 1:04:21
look like. So okay, so maybe I don't understand what a 1c is.

Scott Benner 1:04:25
Is he going to the doctor, like quarterly and having a blood draw? Yes, and they're checking his a 1c Yes. Okay, that's the first step of every appointment. Okay? And then that number comes back and someone says to you, the number, or they say to you, it looks good. How do they handle it?

Valerie 1:04:42
Yeah, I don't. They're not really, like, focused on it

Scott Benner 1:04:46
at all. Okay? And you've never asked.

Valerie 1:04:49
I've never had to ask, yeah, because I think that they are just saying it, and I'm maybe I'm distracted when they're going over it. I

Scott Benner 1:04:57
hear you find out next time, like, next time something. See what's the A 1c i got my 80% time and range here, but I want to just make sure that, you know, correlating to what we're seeing. And you know, like, like as an example, right? Like, if your blood sugar went all day long, say it went from 50 to 450 to 400 it just did that. Like mountain peaks all day long. Oh, gosh, if that happened, your a 1c wouldn't look that bad, because it would do an average. It would show you an average between 50 and 40, which would put you somewhere in the middle. And you'd be like, Oh my one sees not bad. It's seven or something like that, right? That's not the right way to come by a lower a 1c but you're looking for stability, which I think your time and range is showing is pretty damn steady. You know what I mean, 80% between 70 and 160 is awesome. But are we jumping up and down in there? Are we having big excursions and leaving 150 or 160 and going to 400 or 300 and staying there for an hour and coming back down? If so, then this is not what you're shooting for. You're looking for more rolling, you know, gentle rolling hills on that graph. Like I said, again, anyone sees not everything. But I'm not asking so much because of the number. I'm just asking because it's a weird thing that nobody's made. It's so strange to me that somebody hasn't told you the value in knowing what it is. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. And you've been to how many appointments now since he's been 230, 230,

Valerie 1:06:22
gosh, like five or six, yeah, because there were special appointments when we got our pump.

Scott Benner 1:06:27
But I mean, like, the actual, like, quarterly appointment where you go in and they, they pretend to look at all your stuff and ask you how you're doing, and take the blood,

Valerie 1:06:35
yeah, like four. And I think our next one is, like, in a couple of weeks. So this is, this is going to be at the top of my list.

Scott Benner 1:06:42
I'm super interested, okay?

Valerie 1:06:44
And then I bet. And so they have a log of all of it. Obviously, find

Scott Benner 1:06:48
it if you put, I'm not asking to do that now, but you would have access to that, right? Yeah, once you take a look and see, like it's just good for you to know where you're at. And you know for goal setting, too. If you, you know, some people don't like to think about the number, but like, I'm doing this, and this is the outcome I'm getting, you know. So if I want a different outcome, I can maybe change how we're using the insulin and how activity is being done, how eating is happening, like, a number of different things that can, you know, help you manage that idea. So I don't know. I just think you just have all that information. So

Valerie 1:07:22
I'm trying to apply the information that you did give me. So let me just double check that I understand if we are having, like, the the lows and then the high, and then the lows and the high, and our a, 1c, is like, at seven. Well, the graph with the number says that things could be better. But if the graph is showing, oh, you know, you're these rolling hills, and you're getting stuck every once in a while at 200 but then you come right back down with a good a, 1c, it's like a double check system, because

Scott Benner 1:07:53
it's like, yeah, you want to stay in range, and you want that range to be tighter. Like some some people will be like, Oh, I'm in range 100% of the time. And you look in their range is like 50 to 400

Valerie 1:08:01
and, oh, my god, yeah, I did listen to that episode, I remember. But if you're

Scott Benner 1:08:05
at 70 to 150 or 160 I mean, that's a pretty tight that's a pretty tight range, that's awesome. Yeah, you don't even mean all this a 1c is doing is measuring time and range. It's glucose on your red blood cells. I just think that's a thing you should understand, because then it'll lead you understanding other things Gotcha. And not only that, I just honestly, Valerie, like you stunned me, because I just No one's ever said that before. No, I swear to God, are you being serious? I've been stunned three times in the last three months. One of them was somebody telling me about their porn addiction. And the other one is, you telling me about this a 1c thing people have said, Oh, I don't know what my 1c is right now, no one's not been able to after a year of getting a 1c tell me about what their a 1c is that's interesting to me, like, and I don't know if that's incredibly healthy or disconnected. I can't figure out.

Valerie 1:08:54
I mean, I'm I'm asking myself the same question. I'm like, wow, I thought I was ninja level. And now I'm questioning, I'm questioning my process.

Scott Benner 1:09:02
I don't know, like I would, I mean, don't question yourself too much, because it really is a process. Just roll through and keep, keep adding to yourself. Like, I'm not saying, like, feel badly about any of

Valerie 1:09:11
this. No, I'm not. And, yeah, I get what you're saying. You talk to a lot of people. And yeah, people know the number, and I didn't. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:19
have you ever heard this sound effect that went off in my head when you said that? I was like, I was like, because you literally, you were like, Mom is on this I spend my whole day with this thing. I was like, What's your 1c he was like, I don't know. I don't

Valerie 1:09:35
know, whatever. What's your a 1c? What's a two? Yeah, you got a problem with my a 1c

Scott Benner 1:09:42
I definitely don't have a problem with it. I mean, I don't. I never get an A 1c done, and I can tell you my last day 1c

Valerie 1:09:52
Wow, I wonder, yeah. I mean, I know it's not above seven. I know that it's coming back to me now. I think that they did. Say, I want to say that it was like six, because it was the first one that's, this is what it is, okay. So the first appointment, they were like, well, this isn't going to be very accurate, because you guys just got diagnosed, right? And so then the second one was a little bit closer, but still not really accurate, I guess. And maybe that's why I've just been writing it off ever since

Scott Benner 1:10:22
they keep telling you it's not accurate. So why pay attention to it?

Valerie 1:10:26
I don't think that they told me that. I think that I just was kind of under the impression that, oh, we're still kind of that there's not enough data to really give us a solid number yet, but now that we're at a year, that's that's a lot of a one CS now we've got four. That's a good average. You're

Scott Benner 1:10:43
not going to average all four of them together. I would just look at the most recent one and take that as what's going on. Don't average all four of them together. If you because, like, one of them's during, like, diagnosis, right, right? You don't want to average them together. That's meaningless to average for a one CS together in this scenario. Like, if you want to look back over 10 years and go, Hey, like, on average over the last 10 years, my 1c has been six and a half and go, like, Oh, that's pretty great. Over the last four a one CS, one of them being a diagnosis one, there's no reason to like, in my opinion, to combine those four numbers and try to come up with and try to read anything into it. I would look at whatever the most recent one is the next time you get it and say, this is a good example of how we've been doing over the last three months. That's all you know. What have we done? And how is it? What are the outcomes? And this is about it interesting. Yeah, you got to keep going. Like, for only being at this for a year, you were doing awesome, yeah, right. Like, just awesome. But you're also probably not doing what you think you're doing, either. But that just happens to everybody. Like, everybody gets that, like, if you're lucky, you get to a point where you feel like, this is rolling. I'm doing this. You know what I mean, like, and I think you're, you're there now, which is, it's like, it's awesome, but you don't know everything. And, yeah, there is an exception. You're gonna keep learning along the way. You know what I mean? Like, I swear to you, a year from now, you'll be like, Oh my god. A year ago, I was on a podcast, and I thought I knew what I was talking about. That's insane. Yeah. And you'll feel like that, you know, over and over again. As this goes on, I find at least, like, I look back all the time and I'm like, Oh, that was weird. I thought that. But that's life in general, isn't it? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Have you ever considered jettisoning a few hobbies? Maybe you're not really busy.

Valerie 1:12:27
Mean, I so the way I justify everything is, like the focal point is like farm and like crafting and so I mean that just making money? No. I mean, I'm a hobbyist, so I try to cover my costs of the hobby, sure. So sometimes I'll, like, rope a few friends, and I'm like, hey, you know, I did the price breakdown. Let's do this this weekend, or whatever. And so, yeah, usually, you know, pays off or or not, but, and I think before, before diabetes, I I was thinking that I was gonna, like, open up a shop, or I managed a farmer's market for about 10 years, and so, yeah, a lot of my craft came from that. So, like, if we didn't have an enough soap, then I would start soaping and fill that void in the market. And the same thing with the bees and stuff. So there's just been ways that I've tried to apply my degree and be able to stay home. And, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:13:33
I mean, it sounds like you're doing it actually, I just don't know. Like, if you're like, you said I'm so busy. And I was like, Maybe you should just stop doing a couple of things. You wouldn't

Valerie 1:13:41
be as busy. Yeah, I have, I have thought about, yeah, dropping a few things off. I mean, hitting the easy button. It's exhausting more often than not. Yeah, it is really exhausting. And there's, you know, now that I am getting older, it's, it's not as easy physically on my body. And so I'm starting to, like, understand, like, Hmm, like, how, how long am I going to be able to manage five acres? Like, how long is that realistic? And I'm like, Well, I got all these kids cracking the whip on these kids

Scott Benner 1:14:14
tie yourself to the pig and just hold your arms out while it runs around the

Valerie 1:14:18
field. Boys are so different than girls, I tell you what? Yeah. I mean, I had just Ava for ever, and, you know, she potty trained herself for Pete sake. And then I have these three wild things, and they're just the opposite. I used to have to remind my sixth grader to tie his shoes.

Scott Benner 1:14:38
It's Where the Wild Things Are, that's for sure. Sounds like they're at your house. Yes, well, I appreciate you doing this with me greatly. I really do being so transparent and and just sharing how you feel and what's happening to you is such a big deal for people. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want you to walk away feeling like, Oh no. I can't believe I didn't know that thing. Like I thought it was like, No, I thought it was AWESOME. That you said that, because it made me wonder, how many people are going to hear that and go, I don't know my kids. They won't say either. Like, I'm interested now. Like, so take a poll. Let's find out. I don't I won't put you in charge of it. You have no time, but I'll do it all right. Hold on one second for me. And thanks again. I really appreciate

Valerie 1:15:15
it. Yeah, thank you. You foreign

Scott Benner 1:15:23
thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night. Whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set. It all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

the episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool if you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind. You want twist, twist.com/juicebox, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter, the my daughter carries the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour, next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have then you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You foreign if you or a loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one. Our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and@juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com,

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