#1626 A River in Egypt - Part 1
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Patty, living with type 1 diabetes since 1987, reflects on denial, resilience, and decades of management—sharing how acceptance, support, and learning transformed her journey. Part 1 of 2.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.
Patty 0:13
Hi Scott. My name is Patty D, and I have had type one diabetes since 1987 diagnosed in 87 but I think I'd had it before then. If
Scott Benner 0:31
this is your first time listening to the Juicebox podcast, and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all. Look for the Juicebox podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold beginnings, the diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. 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. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, this episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox Hi Scott.
Patty 1:52
My name is Patty D, and I have had type one diabetes since 1987 diagnosed in 87
but I think I'd had it before then. No kidding. Well, how old are you now?
I'm old. Well, I mean, in years, I'm going to be 71 next month,
Scott Benner 2:18
71 Well, listen, you're calling yourself old. I don't know if you heard today's episode where I was making a Tennessee tuxedo reference, making a cartoon reference from the 60s.
Patty 2:29
All right, all right. Well, we're, we're kind of on the same page. I would imagine I
Scott Benner 2:34
might have been there with you, yeah. Well, so you're, you've had diabetes since 87 diagnosed. But you do? You feel like it was before that? What do you mean by
Patty 2:44
that? Well, I there were signs like a year or so prior. I I remember specifically one New Year's Eve, we went out with some friends, and we're waiting way too long to get our meals. And I remember like I was seeing black spots in front of my eyes and and, you know, hey, I was, what, 3031, years old. And I just thought, ah, you know, it's late. And didn't give much more thought to it, but, but, you know, there were other things, but that one in particular, I was thinking last night. So I think, you know, it was starting. It was starting sooner, the year prior to when I finally took my stubborn self to the doctor, who my regular GP, and I had all the classic symptoms, you name them. I had them, peeing, constantly, drinking tons of water, really tired, oh yeah, and oh, I could eat everything, but I kept losing weight, and I've always been thin, and so in my crazy mind, I'm chalking it up to we had just adopted our first son, so, you know, a new mom. And I was like, Oh, it's just because I'm tired. I'm a new mom, but I'd be reading to him after lunch, and I'd fall asleep, and here's a baby, really, yeah, so I just kept ignoring it, ignoring it until I couldn't ignore it anymore. I had a raging infection. You know? Where down there? Yeah. And I was like, Okay, I can't live this way. I'm going to go to my GP. It's 1987 and I was thinking about this as well. He did a urine sample, and. And he comes back and he says, Did you just have like, a sugar donut and put your finger in the specimen? And I was like, No. He said, I'm going to do it again. And he did it again. And he he came back and he said, You have type one diabetes. Now I'm 30 what was I 32 then, I guess, yeah. And, you know, just that reference as well. Why? You know, I mean, here I'm an adult. Most doctors back then would say, Oh, you have type two, right?
He knew I hated him. I don't have type one.
I was so mad, angry. I was like, I'm not taking needle shots. Forget about it. So the poor guy, he was like, Oh well, you know, all right, we'll, we'll try, you know, oral medications,
Scott Benner 6:03
but your pushback made him change his diagnosis.
Patty 6:07
He was like, Well, if you don't want to take insulin, try this. I don't think he changed his diagnosis. He was like, hey, you know you have type one. You scared him. I Okay. I'm a very peaceable person. I'm a yoga teacher. I ran a preschool for 23 years, but I am stubborn, oh, and also denial. Think just a river. I think it's the strongest emotion I'd always been athletic. I ate well, I was like, How dare this guy tell me that I have type one diabetes, which, honestly I didn't know too much about. So
Scott Benner 6:53
you didn't have any backgrounds in it, or actual feelings about what that meant. You just didn't like that somebody told you had an issue. Do you think, yeah,
Patty 7:03
well, yeah, no, yes, and that I was gonna have to take insulin shots, okay, for the rest of my life,
Scott Benner 7:09
he would have told you had type one diabetes and had to take a pill. You think that would have been better for you? Think it was the injection part?
Patty 7:16
No, I think I was just pissed off that my body wasn't working, yeah, the way I thought it should be, yeah, the way, you know, I mean, I was grief stricken, and I gotta tell you, it carried through for many years, because I'm stubborn, you know. And fast forward a couple of months, and I'm, I mean, I looked like a skeleton, right? And my baby was getting chubbier and chubby. I thought I was gonna, yeah, I was gonna die. Where you weren't taking insulin then, right? I wasn't, no, I was still like, well,
Scott Benner 7:54
then Patty, you, you were gonna die. I was gonna
Patty 7:57
die. And, you know, really, it's remarkable that I didn't end up in the hospital, because that's how stubborn I am, you know, and tough time a tough I'm a tough Italian. My husband's job got trained, he got transferred to London, so we were moving to London, and he was already over in London, and we went about three months later. And as well, I went to the doctor before I left, and the same doctor who I scared and who still was like, you know, you really have type one diabetes.
Scott Benner 8:37
You're gonna die, lady, yeah,
Patty 8:41
stubborn idiot. He was probably thinking, probably wanted to smack me upside my head. He said, Listen, do me a favor when you get over to England, here's the card for the British Diabetes Association, and if you need, please get in touch with them. I got on the plane, we had a JFK, my cousins took my son and I to the airport, and they were really worried. Everybody was worried about me, sure, you know, but, but they're afraid of me, you know,
Scott Benner 9:15
like Skeletor,
Patty 9:17
yeah? Well, I mean, no, honestly, yeah, nobody like said the patty, you know, no, they were really kind of afraid. Because I was like, I'm gonna take care of this. Don't you worry.
Scott Benner 9:28
Yeah, Patty, stop for a second. Was that your vibe in general? Do you think people were scared of you in general? Not normally. So you weren't like a person who lured it around and and, Oh no, not, like, just on this
Patty 9:41
issue, on this particular Well, you gotta ask my husband on other issues, but this one, really, yeah,
Scott Benner 9:49
I take him out of it because I assume he has a different story. But I'm saying, like, generally speaking, throughout your life, you didn't see yourself as, like, bullish or or somebody that people kind of kept arms. Distance with Oh God no, no, no, okay.
Patty 10:03
The the opposite, really, is
Scott Benner 10:05
there any hindsight that tells you that the high blood sugar had you Cloudy and not thinking correctly?
Patty 10:11
Oh, sure, yeah, right. Well, absolutely, I was cuckoo, yeah, out of your mind at that point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I didn't know, Scott, you know. I mean, what the hell did I know? I didn't know. I knew nothing. And but when we arrived in London, Heathrow Airport, we're getting off the plane, and I fell into my husband's arms and said, I gotta go. I gotta get me some insulin, or I'm gonna die. You know, it then I just, yeah, I mean, oh, so thank God. We went. They got us in, and he gave me a vial of long acting and a couple of syringes, he might have said, the doctor there, maybe you want to come back and, you know, we can do some more education or whatever. But hey, my life was going on. I was going to be all right, just giving myself this injection and going on my merry little way. And, I mean, it really is remarkable that I I never ended up in the hospital, because
I would,
well, you know, long acting back in those days, the peaks and the valleys and all that, I knew nothing about that either, but I get my son in his stroller and we'd go walking all through London. It was a beautiful spring, and I always had cookies for them, or biscuits, as they call them over there. And I'd be walking, and all of a sudden, oh, I'm starting to slow down. What the hell I got to pull over? I sat on a stoop and and Mark, my son, very peaceable. I said, Okay, Mark, we're gonna have our snack now. Here's one cookie for you, 23 for mommy.
Scott Benner 12:13
Eat your slow buddy, because Mommy's getting the rest. He talked about, you know, the denial and that it lasted for years, you said, so kind of explain that to me, like, how long did it last? And how did it impact you? How'd you find your way through
Patty 12:29
it? Oh, God, by the grace of God, I guess, you know, well, I never did go for education over in England. And I, you know, I was young, I was healthy. And so I guess that alone kind of carried me through, and I could ignore things. And then when we got back to the States, we were living on Long Island, and I went to Stony Brook hospital, and I, I found a good endo there, and he, I don't know, you know, did he tell me things that I didn't hear? Probably, but I guess my management got a little better on MDI, you know. So then, you know, I was doing long acting, which still was messed up as far as the peaks and the valleys and lows overnight, and then, you know, giving a Bolus of regular for each meals. And I did that for years and years. I didn't tell a lot of, you know, a lot of people, because, you know, it was my thing. My husband, he was scared of me, you know? And so he was like, Okay, you got it, it's okay. But, you know, everybody around me, like, when I'd go low or high, they'd be like, oh, boy, is
Scott Benner 13:51
it interesting that you've been very forward and you you completely know your story. Then I asked you to talk a little bit about the denial part of it. And you got, I don't I fighting for the right word, but you got wishy washy, like, once I asked you to kind of dig into the psychology of it. You You aren't as direct anymore, and you're you said, you must have said, you know, 15 times in the last three minutes. Like you, yeah, it's interesting. You didn't finish a thought. You just kind of were like, well, this, you know, and this you know, like, is it hard to talk about or do you not understand it? This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best out. Rhythm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, us, med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys. They have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating With a better business bureau at usmed.com/juicebox, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do
Patty 16:52
denial. I think I have a pretty good understanding about it. I think I was in denial that I had a really serious chronic illness, and kind of wanted to ignore things about it. Thank you for bringing me back, because I have so much in my head.
Scott Benner 17:18
I know you're doing wonderfully. Were you were you ashamed to have it? Were you embarrassed? Ah, you just, no, you just didn't want it to
Patty 17:27
be the case. I don't think I was ashamed. I don't think I was embarrassed. I think that I just was in denial, and it was something that came out of left field that I wasn't expecting. I never anticipated. You know, living with a chronic or prepared
Scott Benner 17:48
to do what you needed to do, yeah, I'm beginning to believe, Patty, over the years of doing this, that when people are like, it doesn't bother me. It's okay, blah, blah, blah. Like, I think that's partially denial too. Like, yeah, we can look at that and think of that as bravery, or they're so strong, or whatever. Or, like, you know, I mean, but yeah, as I'm, you know, listening to people talking to people watching hard and get older, like, as I'm doing all these things, I believe that there's a cycle here. I know it's going to be at your own pace, but you have to go through that entire cycle and get to the part that says, I think it's acceptance, like, I'm not a therapist, but like, I think you have to get, yeah, I think you have to get to that part where you just say, like, this is it, and it is what it is, and all of the T shirt slogans that go along with that, right? And I might have a seizure one day. I might pass out while I'm driving. This might happen. That might happen. None of these things may happen. All the possibilities exist. I'm aware of what they are, and I'm Zen about it. And and I think those are the people that I that when I speak to them, I think they found the closest thing to balance with diabetes and maybe auto autoimmune in general that I see right? Yeah, that's what it feels like to me at this point.
Patty 19:11
You You're so right, and what you just said made me think about
you as the parent you had no choice.
This was your child's life you were going to find out. And all parents, you know, they cannot be in denial. And my heart just goes out to all the parents parenting children with with any chronic illness, but because I have type one, I know all that it takes. And I was thinking for for parents of children with type one, it's a it's a different, a different way of approaching it. You. You cannot deny this. And you know also, most children get a week or five days in the hospital with this, with intensive, you know, care and education and blah, blah. But adults, they're like, Oh yeah, here's a vial of insulin. Some syringes go out there. You'll, you know, you won't die. I think you
Scott Benner 20:26
know to your your just your very recent point that it's different for caregivers. And I think you might have been talking about me specifically, like, even though, I mean, there's a good argument to be made that I have thrown myself into this in a different way and come up with a number of workarounds, you know, tips, tricks that we use every day that's kept my daughter's like, variability down, her a 1c, down, etc. Like, as she's getting older, it becomes more and more apparent to me
Patty 20:58
that none of that
Scott Benner 21:00
addresses the other part of it, like the management's great, but her journey, whatever her journey will be, is still going to happen. It doesn't get mitigated. I'm sorry for people who are hearing this for the first time, that psychological part of this whole thing is not mitigated by knowing how to Bolus or understanding, you know, the impacts of fat and protein. These things make your life better. They make your health easier. I think they make your day easier. It doesn't mean you don't have to at some point in the back of your mind, in a quiet place, in a dark room, come to grips with the fact that your body let you down, and it does every day, and it's going to continue to and you're going to fight against that until your last breath. It's not a thing that's going to go away. And how do you do that without making yourself angry, sad, lonely, sick, tired, all the other things that could possibly come from this, as much as I wanted it to be true, everything I figured out it didn't give Arden to get out of jail free card on all that other stuff, and I don't think it's going to do it for anybody else, either. That is the thing I hoped for earlier on as time goes past that. I just don't think that's I don't think that's how people work. There's no like you can't jump ahead through your feelings and and how your mind works. You have to, I don't know, I honestly don't know how to quantify it, but there's a thing you have to do, a process or a journey, or call where the hell you want. You don't do it. You get stuck where you are. And also, life happens, and life throws us a lot of
Patty 22:49
excuse me, stress. And for me, the longer I've had type one, and I have come to acceptance, I have I still get pissed off. I still have anxiety due to the fact that I'm running out of real estate or infusion sites. So every time I change it out the other day i i use true steel. I'm on a tandem tea slim, which I love, which also I had no clue when I switched from Medtronic to tea slim, all the intricacies. And I guess I was still like, oh, it's kind of like Medtronic. It's not. And here's where the Juicebox podcast came in, and your podcast has changed the way I can manage this disease better, and I'm so grateful. And I tell everybody who has type one or type, I tell everyone you know this, you gotta tune in. You're gonna learn so much. I mean, from pre bolusing to bumping and nudging to, I mean, all the tricks I may not I wasn't doing that up until, like I want to say I've been listening two years, and I kind of knew about the podcast, I guess, through Facebook, maybe. And then I was like, oh, that's just for, you know, parents with kids, Juicebox, I thought. And then I decided, you know, to start listening. And I was like, I was blown away. I've tuned in a lot. I love Jenny. I've had a session with integrative diabetes systems. I am finishing up the blue circle Health Program, which I found out from listening to your podcast. Me about blue circle health, and I just have to put in a big yoo hoo shout out. That program is another thing I tell everybody about a free program where you have endocrinologist, social workers, nutritionists, insurance, people that are there for you,
Scott Benner 25:26
it's a great idea. I hope they can get the word out wider about it, because that's always the biggest problem with anything, really is like, how do you, how do you make people aware of it? And so
Patty 25:37
word of mouth is one of the best marketing tools. I believe that I have found,
Scott Benner 25:42
I think that's the only reason the pop, the what you just said for the past three minutes, is the only reason why the podcast is popular. I can't really impact it on a marketing side, I've looked at things. I mean, I'm sure if there was, like, an unending amount of money here, I could just pour over top of something like that. Maybe you could force it, you know, but in the end, people need to hear it and think it's valuable enough to tell somebody else about. That's really how it works. It's the only way it works. Honestly, that's true. I want to thank you for your kind words, you know, over the last couple of minutes, and tell you that I've been having a rather emotional couple of weeks meeting a lot of people who have type one in person, who listen to the podcast. So touched me very deeply what you said, and I appreciate
Patty 26:28
it. I was thinking, you have a really, really tough job. I hope you're going to take a vacation and relax a little bit, because I know you did the cruise, right, and it sounds to me like you are an extrovert, and I think I am somewhat an extrovert, but I know I do need to have time to just kind of recharge my battery, especially when you're working so closely with so many people that have a lot of you know issues, yeah, you know health issues, families, all, all the issues. Well, then
Scott Benner 27:06
it will make you happy, Patty, to know that in nine days, I'm getting on an airplane with my family and I won't be back. Let's see I leave on Saturday and I won't be back till I won't be home until I think we land midnight the following Saturday when we come home. So there's a nice I know where I'm gonna be. I will be somewhere in a chair somewhere near an ocean, sitting very still and staring out into it and trying to comprehend everything I've learned over the last couple of weeks. And, you know, trying to relax and spend time with my kids and my wife and the four of us together, which, you know, those days are gonna get numbered as the kids get older and older. So yeah, I am gonna do that. I'll tell you that couple of things happened. So the cruise was awesome. We took about 100 people on a on a cruise, all listeners. We're gonna do it again next year. So if you're interested, there's links in the show notes that come with us in 2026 and six. And 2026 we're going to go out of Miami. I'm not going to get all these details right out of Miami through some like Coke Okay, Bay or something in the Bahamas. And then we're going to St, Thomas, st, Kitts, and then just the whole Caribbean cruise. It's going to be seven days this time. I don't want to say the cruise line, because I don't want to get it wrong, because they, there's two of them that begin with the C whichever one is the nicer one? Is it celebrity carnival? I guess now I have to, I'll figure it out.
Patty 28:30
Yeah, yeah. I forget, I forget which one's the nicer one. I guess it depends on who
Scott Benner 28:35
it's not the one where everybody's drunk on the on the and running around for seven days. Yeah, oh, that's
Patty 28:40
good family good. You wouldn't want to have a bunch of drunk diabetes running around. It's going to be
Scott Benner 28:45
family friendly. But also, you know, adult friendly as well. On this giant, newer ship, it's really awesome, like so we learned a lot running it the first time, but, but one of the things that I did that I don't know how well I'm going to be able to accomplish the next time, because I imagine it. I mean, with much luck, it'll be bigger than it was the first time. So this might end up being a one time experience for me, but I ate dinner with everybody that I went with. Wow. I basically ate dinner twice a night and sat at a table with 10 people. I didn't really eat the whole time I was picking and, you know, talking, right, just to hear people like face to face to, you know, they tell their stories and, you know, talk about how it's been valuable for them to show or, you know, you know, tell me other things that they wanted to tell me to really get to know people, look them in the eye and talk to them. I was exhausted while I was doing it, so hopefully I wasn't like a maniac, yeah, but I did basically a five o'clock dinner and then a 715 dinner, and then at nine, at nine o'clock, I was done five nights in a row, and yeah, I was so happy to meet everybody that way, because it just it was different, like I sat on the deck with a gentleman and his two kids, and we played a board game with a. Kids. I just sat there for an hour and we, I put and his, you know, his son has diabetes. We just sat there and just played a dumb board. You I beat those kids, by the way, they, they were no match for me. You didn't let them win. The first time, that was enough. The second time, I don't know, I caught a rhythm and, you know, listen, he was little. If I didn't beat him, what would it upset about me? You know, Kid beat me twice. He'd
Patty 30:25
say, Oh, he's not as smart as he thinks he is.
Scott Benner 30:30
But you know, between that and just like hearing from someone like we went out of a port in Galveston, there are people there that drove from Alabama, from South Carolina, that flew in from Toronto, from California, to get on that ship to, you know, some sun and fun and, you know, jump in the pool and stuff like that, and to meet other people with type one diabetes. But each and every one of them, I'm not lying, found a moment to come to me and say, I really appreciate that podcast. Thank you. And some people hugged by people. People told me they loved me, people I've never met before. Was really impactful. And then I was only home for a week before I went back out and went to friends for life in Orlando, Jeff Hitchcock's organization children with diabetes, and I did some work for tandem. While I was there, I interviewed a bunch of little kids, which you should probably be seeing on their social media already, and hopefully here on the podcast, we'll have audio from it at some point as well. And then I was a vendor, basically for three days. So on opening night, the vending tables open at I think it was 7pm and it went to 10 maybe. And for three solid hours, there were 5070, people in front of me, at times, waiting in line patiently to come up and say, Hey, this podcast really helped me. A new group of people, yeah. And then, and then a lovely guy named Rob Howe came over. And Rob has a podcast about diabetes too. He came over to me, and I, you know, I won't say his words here, but he was effusively kind about what I've done making this podcast, it to the point where, like, I can't, I couldn't quantify it the way he did, yeah, and what he thinks it's meant to him and to the people that hear it, and the community at Large. And I have to tell you, I was like speechless. I just said thank you. When I was done, I didn't know what to say, but it was one of the first times. I don't do a lot of industry things, right? So this is maybe the there's about 2000 people there, and I mean, they take up the entire convention center. As I walked around and experienced the space, and could see that like, no kidding, that every third person that walked by me looked at me like, that's the guy from the thing. I didn't know my place in the whole thing, you know what I mean. And then I got there and saw it, and I realized maybe all the nice things you guys come on and say to me, like, maybe they're like, real, you know, like,
Patty 33:07
yeah, they are real. They are real. And you know, you know, you do a podcast, and like you said, you don't, you don't look at the people. So you know people are saying it to you, but are you really getting, you know, the impact that you have made, and this, this legacy
that you've built for
yourself. I mean, you know when you didn't go into it saying, Oh, I'm sure you know you, you went into it to share your knowledge about what you have learned. And you know, I gotta say, I think you're really smart too to have all of that
come back at you and to
just let it wash over you, because I know people are mean, because I see some of the things I don't read them all, because people online or in Facebook that you know, people say things that are kind of ridiculous. We as human beings, what do we focus on? That's how our brains were set up way back in prehistoric times. The negative, you know, if a big monster bear is going to come and get you, you're going to be focused on that more. Then it takes 1000 good things to balance that out also.
Scott Benner 34:39
So I'm not a maniac. So, like, I was I so when, when, you know, yeah, but meaning, like, like, I am in a weird position where no lie daily, a couple of dozen people are going to tell me something really lovely. And if I sat there and read every one of those things and thought, That's right, I'm awesome. I'd be out of my mind. And I don't, so I don't, you know, you don't even allow yourself to do that,
Patty 35:04
really. That sounds like your wife keeps you home, seems to
Scott Benner 35:08
enjoy it. I don't want to take away her favorite thing to do. Yeah? I mean, every the whole life makes you humble, right? Like, yeah, and oh yeah, and at the same time, like, You're not wrong. I guess plenty of people like don't like me, and that's I would say that, you know, commiserate to the number of people listening. My ratio is pretty good, you know. And I think some people have legitimate, they make legitimate points, and some people are probably jealous, and some people are probably a little out of their mind, and some, there's a, you know, a spectrum of all that, just like, on the but, but again, you'd be a maniac. If, like, if you're gonna say, look, some people are crazy, you also have to say some people are overly enthusiastic, too. And like, so, you know, what's that saying is, like, you know, if I'm gonna believe the bad ones, I gotta, you know, you know, I gotta believe the, if I'm gonna believe the good ones, I gotta believe the bad ones and or, like, maybe, and so you just get to a point after you're doing it for a while, where you're just, like, I just don't care. Like, I, if I'm gonna keep making this, then none of you exist. Like, do you know you mean, like, I can't like, The Good, the Bad, that it doesn't matter anymore. Like, I'm a stream of consciousness. You'll take what you take from it, hopefully something valuable. And if not, I try, right? Yeah. So when you're in that mechanism, when you're doing this thing that I'm doing, and you're doing it to so many people, I mean, the podcast is about to hit 20 million downloads. Not a lot of podcasts do that. So like, when you're in that space,
Patty 36:38
I never listen to a podcast. It's possible I'm 70 years old, never was interested.
Scott Benner 36:45
May have drug A lot of new people into listening to podcasts. So, but the point being is that you just can't like to get through all these years of doing it. You have to do that. Well, listen, I'm just not going to listen to anybody because I don't think I'm the I don't think I'm Satan, and I don't think I'm Jesus, right? Like, so if people are saying stuff, I'm like, just, I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do. But I realized on that cruise, and I realized that friends for life, and I realized when I stood face to face to people by doing that I'm minimizing the stories and I'm overvaluing the clicks and the downloads as as my measurement for my value. And I promised myself last week that I'm, I mean, listen, I'm still going to do the business of the business right, like and I know what I need to do to make it popular enough that people buy ads and so that I can keep making it I'm not I'm not an idiot. I'm going to keep doing what needs to be done. But when I stop at the end of the day and value myself, I'm going to value myself based on people's stories, their outcomes, their health and their happiness, and that's just how I'm going to do this from now on. Because I think I stopped listening to all of your I didn't stop listening to all your it's a weird thing to say, like I've read everything that someone sent me a note about, right? And it means something to me, but after you hear the 1000s or the fifth, you know, or the 5001 it's, you know, you're like, oh yeah. Like, I mean, you're not like, Oh yeah, I saved your life. Awesome. Like, it's not like that, but it is. You do expect what you get when it starts coming back. I'm like, yeah, they the podcast does what it does and and for the people it helps, this is usually their outcome. And I don't want to be blase about that. I don't think I have been, but I want to make sure not to be. And moreover, when I value myself later, the currency I'm going to value myself in is not downloads and listen through rate and all the other stuff that podcasting is behind the scenes. My value is going to be people with a smile on their face, saying I figured out how to do something. I feel healthier. I'm doing better, like that. That's my currency. So that's what I learned. Going out
Patty 38:48
immediately. Thank you. That's good. How. How many years have you been doing the podcast I
Scott Benner 38:54
started in January of 2015 so this is 2025 this is the 11th I'm making the 11th year right now, yeah, and that'll be over, you know, at the end of and the other thing too is that I put out five episodes a week. You know, I probably put out more episodes in, I mean, in fairness to people like, probably in two months than most podcasts put out in a year.
Patty 39:24
You know? Yeah, it's intense. It's an it's an intense workload that that you have. I mean, you're, you're a worker, you know, and you know, I'm really glad that you've come to this place in your journey, and you've recognized that, you know, you, you might have been coming,
not blase, but, yeah, I think I just got you, I got accustomed to it.
Yeah, right, but, but that you've realized that, in the end, it's about the people sleep. Lives that you have impacted in such a real and valuable way that, as you said it just before that, that we can go on having this knowledge that we've learned from you and use it in our own lives to help ourselves to manage this disease.
Scott Benner 40:30
I found myself giving myself a little credit yesterday for something. It was something that was said to me. I'd like to be clear before I say anything else. Like, I'm always really clear about it, like I make a living from this. Like, it's not like, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's not. But you said it earlier, and I, I know my intention, my intention is to help people that it, that it became this popular, or that it made money, was not the intention. It's a variable that I didn't expect, right? But I was speaking to have to be very vague here, I guess I was speaking to somebody I do business with yesterday who was talking to me about another person in my space ish, that they do business with that they said, We're going to stop, we're going to stop associating with them. And I said, Oh, that, you know, okay, like, I didn't know where, where this was coming from, because people are, generally speaking, do not. The people I work with professionally are not talking behind other people's backs, you know what? I mean, gotcha, yeah, what it came to is that I have a very good relationship with this person and I and we've known each other a very long time. And I think they were asking me, like, do you know this person? Like, am I making an assessment that that's accurate? And on this third person? And I said, don't know them personally. I've never spoken to them, never corresponded with them. I have one story that was given to me third party, and it scared me about them. Here's my here's what I was told by another person that I, you know, I think, was looking out for me, and I believed, and was in a room with a lot of other people, and so I've heard corroborating stories, you know, subsequently that could tell me that I that I think what was said to me was accurate. And I said, So my feeling about this person is
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