#1672 Balls of Steel
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Taylor, dad of a newly diagnosed three-year-old, shares year-one lessons: Omnipod 5, Dexcom/daycare coordination, treating lows without overcorrection, mastering settings over gadgets, and facing GLP-1 stigma
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Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox podcast. Welcome.
Taylor 0:14
Hey everybody. My name is Taylor, 30 years old, and I'm the father of a top one diabetic who is now three years old.
Scott Benner 0:27
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while you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.
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 of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what'd I just say, a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com.
Taylor 2:17
Hey everybody. My name is Taylor, 30 years old, and I'm the father of a top one diabetic who is now three years old.
Scott Benner 2:27
Your three year old was how old when they were diagnosed?
Taylor 2:30
Taylor, just last year, summer of last year. So, okay, you have other kids or No, no, not at the moment. You think it happened more. I would like to
Scott Benner 2:39
does the lady you made the first one with agree with that? She
Taylor 2:43
does. I guess it's all just situational. And the the diabetes kind of threw a curve ball in there, I wouldn't, but it's still, it's still on the table.
Scott Benner 2:51
Okay, yeah, I would imagine. Were you, I mean, did diabetes literally slow you down? Were you thinking, hey, we're gonna have two, three kids, and now you're like, well, let's wait and see.
Taylor 3:00
Yeah, that's kind of what it was that I would say that was the main driving force behind that, just because of all the extra care and attention. But my wife listened to one of the podcasts, and I can't remember exactly it was a guess you had on previously. We're going to Florida on vacation, and we listened to some of the episodes on the way there. And it was along the lines of, if it's not diabetes, and, you know, it could have been cancer, it could have been this. So what's kind of stopping you from doing what you want? And I guess that kind of resonated with her, and kind of brought that back into consideration.
Scott Benner 3:35
Oh, are we going to name the next kid after me? That'd be lovely, by the way, Taylor think about it. Oh, just depends. By the way, you shouldn't do that. I don't think it's funny. I was downstairs just now. There's a guy, a local guy in our town, and he does painting such a good job and such a fair price. He's He's painting my my room. And I was downstairs talking to him a little bit, and his name is Scott. And it's funny that when I call him Scott, it sounds fine to me, but when people call me Scott, I think, Oh, what a terrible name I have. I wonder why that is. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So anyway, let's ask you other autoimmune stuff. Do you have anything? Does your wife or on your sides of the family, does anything exist
Taylor 4:15
me personally, no, my wife does have PCOS. And after, honestly, after listening to the podcast, I'm a little suspicious of some thyroid issues. Possibly we still have some appointments to set up and kind of dig more into that
Speaker 1 4:31
thyroid for who my wife, okay, okay, how? What kind of things make you think that that's a possibility,
Taylor 4:38
just the hair falling out all the time. I'm kind of blinking right now, but I'm listening to the podcast. I know there was a lot of symptoms you went over that I'm like, that sounds like my wife. That sounds like my
Scott Benner 4:51
wife. No kidding, no kidding. Was it hard to go tell her that?
Taylor 4:55
No, not really. Okay. I feel like we have pretty good relationship when it comes to health stuff. Of being open about it and seeing things from an outsider's perspective, because we both do that with one another, that's awesome. But other than that, my father diagnosed bipolar, which she has a lot of other health issues, heart, a lot of joint stuff, has had more surgeries than anyone I know. My mother actually, just last year, the year before, had her thyroid removed because they found cancer there, and the only other autoimmune I believe, I believe my aunt had lupus, and actually her daughter is the only other top one in our family.
Scott Benner 5:37
Okay, well, that's a fair amount. Let's figure out how you figured this out. So the other person within your family with type one that they have type one prior to your child's diagnosis?
Unknown Speaker 5:47
Yes, yes,
Taylor 5:48
they were diagnosed around 17 or 18. They're in their late 30s, so they've they've had it for a while now.
Scott Benner 5:55
And is this a person that you've been around, or is it just like Thanksgiving and Christmas kind of thing? No, it's
Taylor 6:01
been around grow up with I haven't in recent years. She moved to a different state. We actually seen her not long ago. She got to meet my son for a little while, and their top one buddy.
Scott Benner 6:13
That's awesome. Yeah. So type one, something you knew about. So then when your son is, what, two years old and starting to show signs like, what are the first signs that pop up? And how quickly do you figure out what it is?
Taylor 6:26
We did not figure it out. It's a lot like your typical diagnosis stories you hear on here, urinating a lot, drinking a lot, terrible mood swings. But also, he's two years old, so we were like, oh, that's kind of to be expected, you know. So we didn't really pieced anything together, and it was not until a well check at our pediatrician, is when we found out
Scott Benner 6:47
well check at the pediatrician. And so what they do? They didn't do a finger stick. Did they what did they
Taylor 6:52
do? They actually did a urine test when he had been urinating a lot and drinking a lot for three or four months. And we're like, you know, that seems kind of weird, but it's not out of the ordinary that we thought they we brought our concerns to them, and they were like, well, we'll just do a urine test and just to make sure. And sure enough, I believe his glucose from the urine test was like 473, if I'm not mistaken.
Scott Benner 7:17
Okay, that's a good office. You just mentioned the frequent thirst, and they went to the test. That's pretty awesome. Actually, I'm using
Unknown Speaker 7:26
the word Yeah, you're lucky. We
Taylor 7:28
We had just moved there probably six months prior to all that happening, and we've been very happy with their care of him, yeah, and I kind of felt bad at the time our pediatrician was training someone doing their clinicals, and he got to experience all that as well.
Scott Benner 7:46
Yeah, so it's good experience. They might, maybe it'll help somebody else in the future. You know, yeah, and that's what I was hoping, yeah. I bet you, I bet you, it will. So what do they do? Do they I mean, that's a pretty high blood sugar for such a little kid. Do you they tell you to go home, pack a bag, go to the hospital, or how does that work? That
Taylor 8:03
was pretty much what they told us, yeah, they said they would call ahead to the local, I'd say local. It's about half away. Children's Hospital north of us, told us, you know, we can go home, pack a bag, and they'll let us know we're coming. We were both pretty upset about it. I think I took it a little bit better than my wife. And I don't say that as a jab, we actually I took off work to go to the appointment with her. So all that happened. So we drove back to my work. I got out of my company vehicle, got in her car, and we just went straight there. Kind of let our parents know to see if they could get us a backpack, because we just want to get there as quick as we could, just to see what
Scott Benner 8:39
was going on. Of course, obviously, both of you are upset, and it's harried, right? There's a it's a crazy moment, but what did you mean? You think you took it a little better. What was her like? What was her initial response?
Taylor 8:51
I think, just disbelief and just a lot of worry, just what's going to happen. What does this mean? A lot of tears, which rightfully so, and for both of us. And I guess that's more of a, I don't say this in a bad way, but a womanly response, because once I kind of got past the initial emotions, I kind of just focused in. And looks like we need to get here. We need to figure out what's going on, what tests that they need to run.
Scott Benner 9:19
Yeah. So you started focusing on the task, and you think the emotions got the better of her, yes, yeah, yes. Okay. When did the emotions get to you?
Taylor 9:28
Actually, after we had got they first admitted us to the, er, you know, try to see what's going on, IVs, get blood tests and everything. And her parents had brought us some overnight stuff because they told us, like, you're going to be here for a few days, and the endocrinologist come in talk to us, and then the staff there at the hospital kind of explained a lot of the stuff. And I went out to the lobby to speak with them, kind of tell them what was going on, and to get our stuff from them. And I had it all in my head. You know, ready? I was like, they told me this, this and this, get out there, and I sit down with them, and they start asking, and then that's kind of when I clammed up. I couldn't speak, and then it all just kind of hit me there in the lobby once I actually had to tell someone else
Speaker 1 10:15
that. Yeah, no, I'm sorry that sucks, man, are you in a better place today.
Taylor 10:21
Oh yeah, we're not. We're not gonna let this bring us down. Good for you. It's just another thing. We're gonna keep going take care of him the best we can, and hopefully get to a point kind of like you and Arden, where we can pass that control over to them and let them continue to handle it. It's a good
Scott Benner 10:37
plan. That's a good point. Let's figure out how you're doing it. So a year is a pretty short amount of time. I assume they started you. MDI, yes, and then where are you at now? You're still doing, MDI, if you moved on to something else?
Taylor 10:49
Well, I know we're on Omnipod five since
Scott Benner 10:53
February. Okay, this year, how's that been?
Taylor 10:56
It had a turning curve, for sure. But all in all, it's been wonderful because, as you know, trying to give a five or a two year old shot for MDI to try to keep it in range is not
Scott Benner 11:10
an easy task, not a ton of fun chasing him around the house.
Taylor 11:13
No, it's terrible. So that was, that was the big, the big benefit to us once we got on a pump is because he doesn't have to stop and sit down and let us give him a shot or us chase him around. He can just keep doing what he's doing. And we can just, you know, those from the phone, and let him, let him be.
Scott Benner 11:33
Keep going, keep on, keeping on. What is his I mean, he's three, right? But yes, do you have a feeling about how he thinks about diabetes? You do? Like, how do you talk to him about it? What do you see him kind of reflecting back to you.
Taylor 11:45
We've kind of started, I guess, introducing more terms and kind of explaining things to him more. I don't think he thinks much of it as a three year old, but he understands, you know, the Dexcom and Omnipod, because he does mention, you know his pod. He'll say, my pod. You know, if he's high right now, he'll be like, I'm hungry. We're like, hey, you know that's fine. We'll give you some food, but first we need to get your blood sugar down. It's too high. And he'll say, my sugar high. Yeah. So he's kind of getting a few more things as we're introducing him, but as of right now, I think he's just so young, he just doesn't quite understand what's going
Scott Benner 12:20
on. Yeah? But that's the beginning of all this, right? Like, just the small, little understandings that he's capable of taking in, that you're comfortable sharing with him. And like you said, you'll build and build on it, and one day it'll just, you know, hopefully be a, you know, a thing that exists, that isn't a burden, and he understands. And I'll head off to college, or wherever he's gonna go, and you'll feel pretty comfortable that he's doing okay. Yeah. Isn't that funny how that now becomes your entire goal? Yes. What was your goal before that? Well, what, how did you see what was important in your life, what you were going to focus on with your kids? Did you have even a feeling about it, or were you just like, hey, we had a baby. This is fun.
Taylor 12:58
I would say a little bit of that. But I mean, just, just raise them to be a good person, you know, take care of themselves and things like that. I mean, just, I guess you would say typical parent things like, you want your child to do better than you. You want them to be healthier than you.
Scott Benner 13:14
Yeah, don't let me put words in your mouth. But has has the diabetes diagnosis shifted your perspective on family or life or parenting, say.
Taylor 13:24
So we've, we've always been very family oriented. We we see both of our parents all the time. Throughout the week, we'll go visit, we'll eat dinner, family, get togethers, holidays. I mean, we see our family a lot, so we're very family focused. So I wouldn't say it shifted my perspective there.
Scott Benner 13:41
So you're just blending this diabetes into how you were living before you're it hasn't changed a whole lot for you. No, no, it
Taylor 13:48
hasn't changed a whole lot. That's great. I guess one thing we kind of did not get completely into since he was diagnosed early, is like staying with my parents or her parents overnight, or anything like that we have, or just staying over there for extended periods of time, where all you have to do is say, Hey, is he alive? Is he eating? And now let's pay his blood sugar's high, can you dose him? Or his blood sugar's low? Can you dose him? Or here's lunch, dinner, breakfast. Can you dose this much for what you're giving him? How's
Scott Benner 14:19
that been for your parents, though, I mean, because obviously, what I'm hearing is that you have a lifestyle that would have been very interactive with, you know, grandparents and everything, and I assume that was going to be part of it, like, Hey, here's the baby. We're going to go to a movie, and your parents would be thrilled to have him for a couple of hours. Is that, yes, have they talked to you about that? Like, talk to you about the uncertainty that it's brought to them, or where their fear points are.
Unknown Speaker 14:46
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Scott Benner 14:48
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Unknown Speaker 17:11
podcast.
Taylor 17:13
Don't think they have any fear about it. They all we really ask of them is if you're going to give him any food, you know, let us know. So we can tell you what to give him, or if he wants something extra, like a snack or something like let us know. I mean, other than that, he's just typical kid playing, doing his own thing, hanging out with them and enjoying
Scott Benner 17:35
it. Do you think that they have a full understanding of it, or just enough to get through those moments,
Taylor 17:41
I would say they're, they're getting better. I mean, they obviously understand, you know, if he's going to eat, then he needs insulin, like they understand the concept of all that. Or if he's low, he needs, you know, something to bring his low back into normal range.
Scott Benner 17:55
Okay, is that a thing you taught them? Or did they figure it out on their own?
Taylor 18:00
Oh, we kind of taught, you know, as we learned as well.
Scott Benner 18:03
Yeah, you guys have all been learning together, maybe, yeah, pretty much.
Taylor 18:07
Obviously, if he's with us, it's a lot better. But also, we try not to put any, I guess, fear or worry on them when he's with them, you know. So if he's with them, and he's just a little bit higher than he needs to be, then, you know, if it's stable, we'll just kind of let it be. But if he's climbing rapidly, or if he's, you know, dropping low pretty quick, like, we will get in touch with him. But like, Hey, you think you could deck fly or z or give him, you know, cracker or something to try to get that back up?
Scott Benner 18:39
Are lows the thing that you deal with frequently or not so much, not
Taylor 18:43
as much. It's more highs. I've went and looked at my clarity report. I check on it pretty frequently, or, I say mine, my son's sure most of the time we're in low or very low range, 1% or less most of the time. Okay, that's awesome. So I mean lows aren't too bad, and if he does go low, usually we get it up pretty quick. But also we have the issue of, usually we're over correcting, so then we're having to get that high back down as well. On the back
Scott Benner 19:09
side, little bit of panic with the low blood sugars create a highlighter.
Taylor 19:13
Yeah, it seems like it. I'm not sure. I'm sure a lot of people feel this way, but they'll be stable. You know, 80s, 90s kind of just sitting right in there, and then it's almost like something just starts pulling it down, you know, a couple points at a time, and then all of a sudden, it's like the arrows slanted down and, you know, we just dropped 15 points. And it's like, what the heck happened? You know,
Scott Benner 19:33
yeah, and is it difficult to know how much is going to fix it at this point, or do you think that anxiety just keeps you pushing the carbs a little too far.
Taylor 19:44
Think it's a little bit of both. Usually, we've kind of got a good routine right now. We know if it's a pretty significant drop, certain things we give him, or if it's kind of a slower drop, it's not as aggressive. I think where the panic sets in you. Which is still something we're working on, is once we give him something, we obviously know it's going to take time for his body to digest it and get that in its system. But it turns into a 65 turns into a 60 and then it turns into a 55 after we've already given him something, we're like, okay, when's this going to work? When's this going to work? Yeah. And we wait, and then it's like, Okay, we have to give him something else to get this up. And then usually it'll, you know, start shooting up after that.
Scott Benner 20:26
Okay, is he good about it, you know, or is there some nervousness that he won't eat when you need him to,
Taylor 20:33
not typically, right? Now, he still sees we use a lot of some gummies or fruit snacks, the Welch's fruit snacks or peanut butter crackers. Usually he sees that as a treat, which I'm sure that thinking will change once he gets a little bit older and he gets tired of eating the same thing every time. So he's usually pretty good about that. The only issue have in terms of eating is we'll fix dinner, lunch or something or breakfast and bring it to him, and we'll dose him, and then it's like, well, I'm not hungry now. It's like, Listen, you have got to eat this. We just
Scott Benner 21:06
dose you. Please just eat this. I'm
Taylor 21:08
convinced that parents with small children could be terrorist negotiators. For the most part.
Scott Benner 21:16
That's so funny. You can make some things happen when you're under enough pressure, right? You got to succeed. My gosh, that's hilarious. Who does most of the diabetes work like does is your do you guys both work? Does you want to you stay home or you want to split schedule? How does that go?
Taylor 21:33
We both work. My wife is in the school system in the county we live in, and so she's off in the summertime. She has breaks throughout the year, so it kind of defaults to her when she's off, yeah, but when we're both working, it's kind of 5050 actually, my wife just texts our daycare and asked if he could have some gummies, because he's starting to drop a little bit because they're eating lunch right now. So it's, I would say, during normal working between her and me, it's kind of 5050, and sometimes I'll be busy and she catches it, or she'll be busy, I'll catch it, yeah,
Scott Benner 22:06
but a lot of the management happens through text messaging and and remote monitoring. Yes, that is correct. That's awesome. I mean, it's really great. Like, people haven't been around this for a long time. It was so much harder when you couldn't see blood sugars. I used to have to like text art and ask her what her blood sugar was. We actually had a system. She'd sent me a number with an arrow too, because at first I was like, you know, just send me the number. And then I realized the number was meaningless if I didn't know the direction. So, you know, when I noticed I sound old, but when they started adding like emoticons to texting like they weren't there at first, you know. And in those little arrows in the boxes showed up one day. I was like, Oh, thank God. And then they put then they put arrows with like, two arrows in it. I was like, this is like, I feel like this is just for me, you know, yeah, catering to me. Yeah, those little blue gray, if you have an iPhone, the little blue gray boxes with the white arrows inside of them, they actually have diagonal, up, diagonal, down, left, right, you know, it was just perfect. And when you need, when you need dual arrows, you would just do two of them. I'm remembering now, and that's how we managed for a long time. Like, I'd be like, I would type BG, she'd send a number with arrows. I'd say, you know, three carbs, five carbs, you know, Bolus point this like that. We did that a long time. Like that is made me really good at it, and it helped her be out in the world without having to stop and start all the time, which I always thought was a big deal. And it really, like, warms my heart to see people doing it like all these years later, and now you can pick up your phone like you said. See the number right there, contact people quickly. I think texting, still to this day, is a, is a diabetes tool? Yes, yeah,
Taylor 23:49
especially in the case 100%
Scott Benner 23:51
Yeah, 100% Yeah. With, especially with children, etc.
Taylor 23:55
And like you were talking about the technology, you know, you have a lot of people come on with frustrations with, you know, these companies coming out with these new technologies. Once I got caught up on the podcast, I was like, You know what? I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to the first few episodes and start listening from there. So I'm kind of burning the candle at both ends. And it kind of shocked me when you explained how all that worked back then with the cradle and the older Dexcom and stuff. I was like, holy cow, this is 10 years ago, and we've got from there to here. And it just kind of shocked me, yeah, how far it's coming that short amount of time I
Scott Benner 24:31
had to install one year, I had to install a I don't even know what they would but they called it back then the cell phone company made these extenders, and I had to install one in a central location between all of Arden's middle school classrooms so that her phone would work and that I could get her blood. Oh, my God. Like you should just saw the loop the hoops I had to jump through to get the school to let me, like, plug this thing in. You know, the last day of school, I had to go back and get it. They're like, come get your thing. And I was like, also. Uh, kind of to jump into something you said a second ago. I just this morning online, saw a post, and it was, was specifically about people like this woman's like this Omnipod five I don't like it doesn't work. Blah, blah, blah. Look at my kids blood sugar online. And I started, like, picking through, trying to understand who she was like, before I answered, right? And you could see that, yeah. You know, the kids had diabetes for a couple years now. I've been using the Omnipod five for a little while. I looked at some pictures. The kids grown a lot. She had good success with it at first. Doesn't have it now. But what I realized, moreover, is that, like, she came into diabetes at a time her son comes into diabetes at a time when the idea was like, put this thing on, put that thing on, and push these buttons, and the thing is going to do the thing, you know what? I mean, it's going to take care of your high but, and I realized, like she's having these conversations, she doesn't fundamentally understand how insulin works. I guess never had to really like they put it on a more newly diagnosed child whose insulin needs were probably lower, and then the needs grew. The kid got bigger. I could see that in the pictures. And, you know, nobody went back and rechecked these settings, and, you know, and now all of a sudden, she's up to the part where I see people all the time like, this device doesn't do what it's supposed to, and I'm thinking like, you're gonna switch to another device and have the same exact problem. And so I just said, Look, I would look at these episodes that talk about how to figure out where your insulin to carb ratio, where your sensitivity and where your basal should be, and switch that thing back into manual. And let's get those settings straight first. Then when you can do it well in manual for a little bit awesome. Then I listen to these three tips, these pro tips about Omnipod five make sure you understand how the system actually works, put the thing back into automation, and then go listen to those pro tip episodes. Because I don't know for sure that you understand the impact insulin is having, how to use it how the timing works and how your different foods are impacting and, you know, that might seem like a big thing to do, but, you know, you can't just put this tool in someone's hand, set it up incorrectly, and them not understand why they're pushing the buttons and then blame the thing, because if they get caught in that loop, They're going to change pumps 1000 times. Like, you know, right now, tandem might be listening going, Oh, and this is awesome. They're going to switch from Omnipod five. Omnipod might be like, Oh my god, no. They're going to leave Omnipod. Like, they're going to leave Omnipod, they're going to go to tandem. They're going to leave tandem, they're going to go to Medtronic. They leave Medtronic. They're going to go to twist. They're going to just keep jumping around thinking that the thing doesn't work and never quite understanding what they're supposed to be doing, and so I've been paying a lot of attention that lately, with more and more a ID systems coming up. Anyway, I don't know why I said that. I think it's because it was fresh in my head. Hopefully that fits in the conversation. I
Taylor 27:53
would say that's probably one of the hurdles that I'll put it as I have one leg over the hurdle right now is adjusting settings on the fly. I just recently actually adjusted them a little bit. We had a few weeks stretch where it should. I'm not sure if he's going through a growth spurt. Nothing physically had changed about him. He was eating about the same, but we were just running high, more than I would like to, and it just seemed like we were pumping him full of insulin, because right now we put in, like, the minimum 80 units in the Omnipod right now, and typically in the three days, I mean, we may use 30 to 40 units out of it. And we got to a point in that, that few weeks stretch, where, when we would change it, there'd be 20 units or less. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And I just found it took me a, you know, a couple changes to recognize, like, maybe something's going on here, maybe I need to tweak something. So I went in, adjusted the sensitivity, and I adjusted the insulin, the car, kind of changed some of the schedules up. And it seems like that has kind of got it under control. I'm not sure about anyone else, but that was one of my biggest, I wouldn't say fears, but just like I said, a hurdle to get over is like, I don't need to run to the incorn endocrinologist every time to change the stuff on the fly. I need to try to figure this out on my own. Because, like, we've just say we, like, I'm on the podcast every day. Like has been discussed on the podcast. I mean, you you know your child, or you know yourself better than your endocrinologist or your GP, or anyone like that. And if you can get over that hurdle of I need to tweak this, then I think it, you know, that just makes it better.
Scott Benner 29:30
I was on stage last weekend. I gave a couple talks that touched by type one. Did one with Jenny. We did a cute we did a like an ask Scott and Jenny. That was awesome. Did this thing in the kids room, which was fantastic. It must have been like, God, there must have been 60 or 70 kids in that room, and, you know, and all different ages. And I just, I sort of do a thing with them, where I just kind of go around, like they ask questions, and, you know, we let them talk to each other, just let them see how similar their lives are. You know. Yeah, and let them ask their questions and make their statements and their pronouncements about things. And then I ran right into a room gave a talk. I actually based it on the all the small sips episode this year. I basically said, like, you know, like, look, here's the things that people said that helped them from the podcast. These things might help you, too. And went through them, and towards the end. Got the vibe from somebody that they just were unsure, like this, you know, more newly diagnosed, how's this gonna go? And I looked up, and I'll be honest, it's the biggest crowd I've ever spoken in front of. You know, there were a lot of people in that room, and it was a giant room. It's a much bigger room than I'd ever spoken before, like, to the point where you can almost hear your voice echoing off the back. And there were people so far away, you couldn't make out their faces. And I just told I said that the whole crowd. I said, Look, you're all going to be okay. And I said, I've been doing this a really long time, spoken to a lot of people, the people who do well, have have two simple things in common. And I said, you all have one of them today because you're here. I said, the one, the one thing you have to have around diabetes is a desire to understand and to be involved. And you obviously have that, because here you are. And I said, and the other thing that I see successful people have is the confidence and the knowledge to change their settings. That's it. I think, if you care and you're involved and you know how to change your settings. That is a huge part of making it through the actual management portion of
Taylor 31:25
diabetes. Yes, I mean, just like you said, I mean, it doesn't matter what product you use, the settings are wrong, or if you don't have the confidence or the knowledge to work on those and try to make it better, then it's just, you're just going to be in that same situation where you just, you're having poor management, not necessarily in terms of because you don't try, but it's, I don't know if it's the confidence or a fear thing, but if you can get past that, it's going to make it
Scott Benner 31:51
better. Yeah, you know, it's like getting in a car and not knowing how to drive it, then blaming the car when you lose the race. You know, it's, yeah, gosh, I think I'll probably just come out and say this, all these systems are great. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I know I do ads for a lot of them, and thank them all. I hope they keep doing their ads. But, you know, get the Medtronic, get the Omnipod, get the tandem, get the twist. Like they're insulin pumps. They have algorithms. They're different, and you're going to find one of them that fits better with your lifestyle or your vibe or the way you do things, there's no doubt about that there's a better choice for you out there, but I'm not going to tell you that the best choice is A, B, C or D or whatever. It's, whatever fits best with you. But in the end, they all have algorithms that work pretty damn well, and they're probably all going to keep trying to improve them a tandem. Just put out a nice little update for theirs. What did it do? It, among other things, gives you the opportunity to do extended boluses while you're in Automotion. That's a great ad. I think, yes, that would be great. Yeah, right. Fantastic. Omnipod five is right now, in a they're doing studies to, I think they're, I don't know what they're calling, I can't remember, but it's like a 2.0 version of their algorithm for, for this, like, right for, you know, for the back the way this thing works. And, you know what? If Medtronic, medtronics, got a new CGM and that 780 G, I hear a lot of people love that pump. Like, I've talked to a lot of people where that pump think that pump is awesome. You're going to update the CGM. It's probably that system is going to get better. Twist allows you to target a lower number. It's using, you know, a version of loop. You think that's going to be the last version of loop it uses? I bet not. I bet you they're going to get the okay to like, I bet you they're out there. This stuff is all awesome. You don't know how to use it. You don't know why you're doing what you're doing. It ain't going to work. And it's all going to look just as random as if you were on MDI and you didn't know what you were doing, as if you were on a regular manual pump, but you weren't Pre-Bolus in your meals, like it's all timing and amount people. I really I don't care if you're using the latest and greatest algorithm, if you're using some Do It Yourself system like Arden is or anywhere in between. If you don't understand how insulin works. These things are not going to work out for you. Your settings have to be right, and you have to understand how to use the insulin. Yeah, and you're it sounds like you're doing a pretty good job. First of all, do you think there's any honeymooning for your for your son, or do you think you're at his full need?
Unknown Speaker 34:16
I would say that it's full on.
Taylor 34:21
I would say, which, I think I've heard you talk on the podcast about this. You know, seems like, usually when they're diagnosed younger, the honeymoon is not as long. I think we may have had one or two days where we went from, you know, three to four units a day, MDI to one unit for the whole day with with his basal as well. But, I mean, we just had a few days shortly after diagnosis, we had that. And then other than that, it's kind of been, I would say, the norm as of right now. So
Scott Benner 34:51
not a lot of honeymooning. I was interviewing a doctor recently. I do so many of these, like, I'm sorry if I, if I get this a little wrong, but I feel like. What he was telling me was like, yeah, when you're diagnosed really young, you're smaller. Pancreas is smaller. You have fewer beta cells. And I was like, oh, like, I had never occurred to me,
Taylor 35:09
yeah. And it makes sense once someone points it out,
Scott Benner 35:13
and maybe a few words, not the right word, but like, you know you're whatever. I don't know. You have to find his episode was really good. It was the first time I felt sad about Arden being diagnosed when she was younger. Like I was like, oh, had she been alive longer, maybe there would have been more. And I was like, Oh, I didn't think of it like that. And I, you know, again, if you're looking for me for the technical explanation, you're in the wrong place. But it was just sort of the way he put it touched me. I should find his name and tell people where it's at but, but I want to hear more about your story right now. So you have a couple of notes in front of me. I'm going to jump around a little bit. Are you on a GLP medication yourself? Are you thinking about doing it?
Taylor 35:57
I'm currently not. I'm still kind of on the fence about it. I am pro GOP one. I do believe it helps a lot of people, and there's a lot of benefits to it. Still just considering it right now, and my wife, at the time of the email I sent you, was currently on one. Now she's off of it right now.
Speaker 1 36:16
So tell me why she started it and why she came off of it,
Taylor 36:20
I think, just to help with some weight, to try to get where she wants to be. Think she started on the mongero or mongiarno, okay, started there. I think she got up to, I believe, the second highest dose, and kind of plateaued there for a little while. And when she stepped up to the highest dose, that's when she kind of started getting sick from it a lot more leading up to that, no real issues, and she had lost some weight, but just like I said, plateaued.
Scott Benner 36:50
So wait, was she up to 12.5 or 15? I want to
Taylor 36:54
say maybe the 12 okay was, because this has been a while back now,
Scott Benner 36:59
yeah, that's okay. But like she so she just did it for weight. So it was that bound, or it was somebody gave her a manger. She didn't have a pre diabetes diagnosis, no.
Taylor 37:10
How the hell did she get I think she was able to do it because she had PCOS, okay, okay. She actually had it prescribed from her OB.
Scott Benner 37:18
Ah, I see and how much weight did she lose? I
Taylor 37:21
believe she lost 20 pounds or so, 20 or 30 pounds right in
Scott Benner 37:25
there. Did it help her with her PCOS symptoms? I
Taylor 37:29
believe a little bit like I said, I still think there's some kind of underlying thyroid issue there, but I think it hopefully she doesn't kill me for saying this, but I believe she'd become more regular on it, which she's also taken birth control. But before, even with the Bucks control, she still was having irregular periods and things like that.
Scott Benner 37:47
Okay, oh, Tyler, you're so sweet. He's like, I hope she's not worried about this. I sometimes don't remember that everybody's brain doesn't work like mine. Because I was like, why would anyone care if you said that?
Taylor 37:59
But I she knew she knew all this, doing this, but she never really asked, like, Hey, what are you going to talk about, or anything like that. So she has no idea
Scott Benner 38:07
her period was going to come up. Okay, so, but you're saying at 12 and a half she was doing well, but that at 15 she started not feeling well. What did that? What were the adverse events she was having?
Taylor 38:18
Nauseous all the time, throwing up, just felt terrible in general, on
Scott Benner 38:23
the 15, you think so. Did she just go back to the 12.5 then? Or did she stop using
Taylor 38:28
it? I think she stopped using it for a while because, and it was fairly quick. And I don't know if it was something you know, that was already on its way, because it was the day after when she went up to the next dose. It was like, immediate, woke up that morning, felt terrible, was throwing up, so she come off of it just because they wouldn't let her refill for the lower dose, just because she had just filled the higher dose. So she came off of it until her prescription come up. But it mean it went on for a week or two, and she was like, I just don't think I can do it right now again, because she just felt that bad. I see, I see, once she kind of got up, not necessarily the habit, but just got out of doing it, and she started feeling better. She's like, I'm not sure if I want to do that again. I'm like, Well, maybe that one just doesn't agree with your body. Maybe you need to try a different one. So she tried the Z bound, and it was the same thing, even at the lowest dose, just almost immediate, just that same sick throwing up things
Scott Benner 39:22
like that, because that Benner manjar are the same drug so like so after using it for how
Taylor 39:26
long? I want to say it was probably five or six months, I believe
Scott Benner 39:30
interesting. Did she gain the 20 pounds back? Yes, that's the part she's going to be upset with you about, not the period thing, by the way. But okay, so it was really helping her. You think it was helping her metabolically, or was it helping her just eat less? How do you think the value was? I
Taylor 39:45
believe it was eating less as well, just having that, like you've talked about the noise in your head of food, noise in your head just gone. Helped without help with eating less, she just felt better. In general, had more energy. I guess from, I'm not sure what's happened, because I believe she even went back to, I can't remember which one she even tried another one and still had the same effect. Was, I'm not sure what goes she's not on one, but is still considering trying it again. And I actually took advice from you and told her, I was like, Well, you know, on the podcast, I'm sure she hates hearing me say this all the time. On the podcast, they micro dose the GLP, I was like, maybe that's what we need to try instead, is, you know, just start smaller doses and kind of work up from there, or try to get that in between.
Scott Benner 40:35
I am a big believer tailor in the idea that the companies had to do testing on dosing. So they picked doses. I think there's probably also financial reasons around this, but I don't understand that piece of it as much, but as as raw as around the dosing, I think they had to pick plateaus, like, you know, two and a half, five, whatever, seven and a half, like that kind of thing. I think people are shooting that stuff where they could get value out of less of it, or maybe more or having it more frequently or less frequently, or whatever. Like, I think there's not this similar to insulin. I think that in the future, people will think about dosing GLP medications in a more personal way. And like, Arden has the smallest injector, the number and I think she has, like, 2.5 pens, but we don't use all of that. And yeah, if you guys would have, I wish everyone could have seen Arden and I trying to choose lunch yesterday. It was, it was freaking hilarious, because I was working downstairs. I bought a laptop last year so I could be a little more mobile and be in the, you know, more social part of the house more frequently, instead of sitting in my computer all the time. So she's gonna study all day for a French exam. And she's like, do you want to study with me? And I was like, Sure. So we kind of, like, staked our spot out in the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table together. I brought my laptop down. I was writing a, I'm putting together a speech that I'm giving somewhere in a couple of weeks, and she was doing that, and she's like, you know, I gotta eat lunch. I haven't eaten today. And it's funny, we don't say I'm hungry, we say I have to eat. It's a different vibe now, right? I said, Oh, I said, I say, Yeah, okay, I could eat too. What do you want? She goes, I don't know. And I She's like, Well, what do you want? I was like, I don't know. And it's not like, the I don't know, like, you know, like, Oh, we're all going to the restaurant. We can't pick one of our favorite restaurants to go to. Yeah, you are not hungry, in the same way that people think about hunger. So start, she brings one thing up. She goes, what about this? And I said, okay, like that, that sounds like a good idea. Do you want that? And she goes, I don't know, just tell me what to eat. We finally, like, she finally kind of landed on an idea. And I was like, all right, but she couldn't commit to it. Like, I was like, you want to do that? Like, because it was a thing, I was gonna have to run out and get something for and she just couldn't commit to it. She's like, she's like, Just do it. I'll eat it. And that, to me, is like, if you've never experienced that idea of like, you know, you're hungry, it's time to eat, but you don't feel hungry in your stomach, and your brain is not giving you one idea in the world about what you should try to eat. It's a fascinating thing. And I'm sure some people might think it's like, oh, God, that's horrible. You don't crave anything or but if you're a person who craves too much, or, you know, has a propensity to overeat, or whatever, it just, man, it just takes that away. Yeah, and not only that, but, you know, the week before, she didn't, she didn't have the medication on board, because, I mean, I've shared with people on here, like, Arden's got a bit of a needle phobia she's working through. And, you know, there are some weeks that we go to do it and she just can't bring herself to do it, and so we have to adjust her insulin needs, and everything changes, etc. But last week, you know, I said to her on Sunday, I was like, you know, try to do the GLP, you know. Just looks at me like, yeah, if you brought it in here, maybe we could try it. You know what? I mean? I was like, okay, so I, I filled the syringe, I went to her room, but she was in the shower, so I just, I left it. And I thought, like, well, I'll leave it here on the table, and when, you know, she gets out of the shower. But then I fell asleep. There's the end of the night. Next morning, she sends me a text. She's like, Hey, are you, are you recording right now? And I was like, No. And she's like, Could you come here for a second? And I went to her bedroom, and she's barely awake, like she's literally just pulling herself together and, like, the first like, half conscious words, she's like, I did my shot last night. She was really proud of herself. That's awesome, yeah. And I was really excited for Yeah, and, but then, you know, two days later, we're sitting at lunch, she's like, I don't know what to eat, and she's not using a full dose of the smallest dose. It's fascinating. She can still eat like, there's not she's not too over full or anything like that. But that part in her brain is gone, and her blood sugars, I wish you could see the difference from the stability. Ability today, just last week, even on, like, more food, but less variability, it's really fascinating, nevertheless. So what makes you think about doing it? Yes, I
Taylor 45:11
would say mainly just the weight loss part of it, but also just I needed. I guess my thought is, like, I want to be here longer, like you've talked about, like, if there's something I can do, something I can take to help me be here longer, for my son, for my family, then I need to try to pursue that.
Scott Benner 45:28
How much weight do you think you have to lose? Tell her, I
Taylor 45:30
would say I think I would be happy with, you know, 3040, pounds. I work in a pretty active job. I'm climbing ladders and crawling down in pits. You know, I'm working on my hands all the time, but there are sometimes I'm in an office for a week at a time. It just kind of depends on what we have going on. So, I mean, it's not like I'm sedentary or anything. There's periods of it, but, yes, but yeah. So I mean, I still stay pretty active. I think the the food noise, I would like that to kind of quieten down. But I would say mainly
Unknown Speaker 46:02
that explain it
Scott Benner 46:03
to people like you just bored. You eat, or you start eating, you can't stop, or what? How would you put it into words? I
Taylor 46:10
would say it's probably like that. For example, I'll leave work. I'm heading home, you know, I know we're going to eat in a couple hours, but I had lunch earlier in the day. I'm not hungry. I know I'm not hungry, but, man, a milkshake and a large fry sounds good, right now. You know something like that, like it just comes in your head. It's almost like a little ear worm. It's like, Hey, that sounds good. You should stop. It's on the way home. That sounds like something you need stuff like that. I ran
Scott Benner 46:35
to the grocery store yesterday to pick up three items, and it was at that time of the day, it was like 435 o'clock. It had been a while since art and I had that lunch. It's weird to talk about like that, like I knew I should eat, like I knew it was time to eat, that I was hungry, right? That I could eat something if I wanted to, but yet there's no compulsion to do it whatsoever. And compulsion is even the wrong word. There's like no idea to do it whatsoever. Yeah. And I had this, like, thought in the past I would pre there's this one aisle that has, like, you know, like, small, like, I don't know, little candies or stuff like that, like a grabbable thing that you'd have a few of, and they'd be gone. And it's, like a treat, like, as an example. And, yeah, I thought about all the times that I'd been to that grocery store, walked back up that aisle, spent $1 or two on something and snacked on something in the car on the way home. Yes. And I actually thought, like, is that a thing I'll do today? And then that was it. I was like, No, I have no desire. I pictured that aisle in my head. Of all the different things are in it, everything that I thought. I was like, You know what I mean? Like, I just, I felt like, not nauseated by it, but just like, I have no desire to do that whatsoever. And when I tried to consider, like, like, what if I just pushed, pushed through and grabbed one of those things right now, I was like, I would really hate that. Like, I would really just not want it. It gives you a control over your life, that is, if you hadn't had it in the past. Is pretty awesome, actually.
Taylor 48:01
Yeah, the weird thing about when it comes to or, for example, you know, that gets in my head, it's like, you know, that sounds good. You should have this. But other things in my life, it's easier. I have that control. I can be like, No, I'm not going to do that. Or, Yeah, I'll do that. Or, but when it comes to the food, I guess it's just not the same, whatever chemicals that they put in, you know, all these foods. It's, it literally has you addicted to it, sugar, salt, fat, I believe combination, they've got it down. Yeah? Well,
Scott Benner 48:29
look at you. You're like, milkshake, sugar and then fat, fat and salt on the fries. Perfect. Yep, you know what I mean, perfect. Yeah. I mean, they found a way to Jack your brain, that's for sure. Yeah, so not for nothing. Like you think it's maybe a little bit about weight right now, but more about just overall health
Taylor 48:47
and longevity. Yes, that's the main thing, you know. If I knew, I mean, obviously I'm not at a weight that I want to be like I said, I can. I'm still active. I still, you know, I don't really have any aches and pains or anything. I can't see, you know, my heart or my liver, kidneys, you know, I can't see that stuff, yeah, and don't know what's going on with it. So I just know, hey, I think eating a milkshake and fries, you know, every so often, it's probably not the best thing to do, you know. So I would say that's the main thing. Is I just want to be here for my family. Yeah, of course, as long as I can, Lord willing,
Scott Benner 49:25
good for you. That's awesome. I'm glad you're thinking about yourself like that. I mean, so what's stopping you?
Taylor 49:30
I don't know. I guess it's just some hurdle I have to get over mentally, just getting over the stigma of it's like, oh, well, why can't you just say, No, I'm not going to eat carbs or fries or, you know, why don't you just eat healthier? Why don't you exercise? That's interesting. And, you know, I guess just a ridicu ridicule from others. It's like, Well, why don't you just do this, you know?
Unknown Speaker 49:52
Well,
Scott Benner 49:53
listen, I'll, I'll share this with you right again. Back to this weekend, I was up on that stage and giving that talk in front of everybody. And, you know, there's, you know, little things you hit along the way. And I bring up thyroid stuff for people, by the way, as soon as you bring it up, you know, end of the talk. 20 people come to the stage, yeah, and they're like, Oh my God. Like, wait my TSH is four, and I have all those problems. My doctor said I was okay. And I was like that. They all like, go off to help themselves. And I shared too. I said, you know, for those of you who have been here for many years, I've been coming to this event since its inception, probably, gosh, I probably been there eight times. You know, I forget how long they've been doing me, but I've been at every one of them. And there's a covid year in there. They didn't do it, maybe. And I said, some of you might recognize that I don't look the same anymore. And I said, I said, I just want to be completely clear, like I lost this weight by using a GLP medication. And if you have any questions about that while I'm walking around, I'd be happy to spend free time talking with you about it. You know, I know there can be a stigma around it, but here's some other things that I've seen it help people with. And you know, there's a couple of episodes you might want to go listen to if you want to hear about some impacts that people with type one have had, or people with type two, and people started to clap. And I just, I put my hand up. I was like, Oh yeah, I don't really do much. But then somebody pulled me aside later and said, No, I'm on a GLP two. You did a lot more. And you think it's not just the commitment of sticking yourself once a week with the thing, it is all the other stuff that comes with it, like it's a it's more about the psychological stuff, the fundamental shift about how you think about food or, you know, or that you have to consider, like, what you're talking about, like, you know, Am I cheating? Am I giving up? Am I not doing a thing I should be doing? Like, is this, I don't know, whatever thought popped into your head. And all I can tell you is that that's you're not gonna care about any of that when you're clutching your heart and going to the floor 25 years from now, when you're like, Oh no, you're not gonna go like, I could be not having a heart attack right now, but I didn't want to cheat. It's all bullshit. Taylor, you know what I mean? Like, and I wouldn't, yeah. And in the end, what I would tell you is that those people in that room are very supportive. And I'll tell you the same thing that I would tell my kids when they were growing up, like people who don't have our best interest at heart, we don't care what they think, yeah, you know, so, trust me, those are just people wanting to judge something. Yeah, always, yeah. I don't know what. I don't know what, what, what they're missing in their life, but, like, don't let them take it out on yours. Yeah, diabetes wise, like, going back to your son for a bit here, you've talked a lot about, you know, you the podcast and listening to the podcast and everything. Like, could you? Could you give anybody who's got, like, a newly diagnosed kid, like, a little bit of like, What helped you here? You know, what was your takeaway is that that were valuable for you.
Taylor 52:42
Honestly believe the what you've always said, Just be bold with insulin, because I think that was one of our biggest fears when we were first diagnosed. Like we don't want to give too much, you know, we're afraid we're going to hurt him, or, even worse, you know, kill our our kid that is still new to us. I mean, he's two years old, so and we just got trouble getting, yeah, we just got him, and we also had trouble getting pregnant and everything. So like it when I
Scott Benner 53:10
almost asked PCOS made it more difficult for to have the baby, right?
Taylor 53:15
Yes, yes, it did. We had one miscarriage. Unfortunately, I'm sorry. In terms of some people on those you know, there's some people they've tried for 10 plus years, is probably, I have a child, and that's wonderful. I'm all for that. You know that that makes me happy when someone else has a child of their own, because it's just a feeling you can't really describe. It's joyous. I think it took us about two years. We did take, you know, short break there for a little while after the miscarriage. So, I mean, it took us a little over two years to have our son, and like I said, we were just scared to death of doing something that would hurt him. And it just eventually, I just kind of got over that. And I'm like, we have to get this blood sugar down, like we need to get more insulin, you know, if it's high, you know, things like that, right? And just give yourself more credit. I want to say this, and don't take it the wrong way, but people that have good results, it's due to what they do, not because of what you've said, because you're not I mean, what you've said is correct, and you give them the tools to do it, but give yourself more credit, because Scott is not doing that for you. Scott, give you the tools you have to do it. So give yourself more credit.
Scott Benner 54:26
You know, I try very hard to tell people all the time when anybody you know, very graciously will reach out and they'll say eventually something like, you know, look what you did for me. Or I'm like, I didn't do any of this. Like, that's first of all, someone else should have told you this a long time ago, and I'm not some great genius. I don't understand a thing you don't understand. You know, I've laid some ideas out in front of you. You've decided which ones fit in your life best, and then you're doing the hard work. You're putting them into practice. You're remembering to do them every day. You're learning things going off on your own. Yes, you know. I guess I've said this in a lot of different ways. I really just do see myself as, like, the coach that's just yelling at you, like, get out there. You can do it. You know what I mean? Like, like, you know, just go, go, go, try the thing. It's gonna work. Like, you know, run the play. If it doesn't work, run it again, you know, we'll get there. Like, you know, Let's be together on this. I really just think I'm a cheerleader, like, to a great degree, you know. And I might be a cheerleader who first says, like, hey, you know, you got to understand how this works. And, you know, you can't just go out there blind. You're going to have to have some some tools and knowledge. But yeah, you know, I'd even go so far as the is the one to be honest, and tell you that in the beginning, I didn't realize all that, like, in the beginning, I thought, like, well, this is how I do it. If they do it like this, they'll be okay. And it is, until I put it out there for so long, that I realized that you guys were going to cherry pick from what I was talking about. And it wouldn't just be for me, but it would be from other people that came on the podcast and shared their ideas. And like, you're going to cherry pick from all of this and build your own thing and make it work best for you. And then again, if you don't do the work and you don't put in the effort, none of that's going to matter anyway. And so I agree with you. I agree with you
Taylor 56:12
like you said, the tools are there. I mean, there's some things like, I think you've kind of said you kind of have to read between the lines, because what works for this person may not exactly work for you, but you can take what they've done and kind of tweak it for yourself. When my son was diagnosed, I think his a 1c was like 9.5 something. It was pretty high for a two year old, and within a year's time, we just recently went to the end, though, maybe a month or so ago, and we're all the way down to 6.2 just just from putting to practice. What I've learned from this? Well, that's because we have, we have no one else personally that we know, other than my cousin. That's top one where we live. So it's kind of, it's hard to get ideas off other papers, you know, see what they're doing.
Scott Benner 57:01
Well, that's really well done. Taylor, good job. How do you find the podcast? Like, how do you like find it to begin with?
Taylor 57:08
It's kind of funny. My wife is not a podcast listener, but also at her job. She works in the school system, like I said, so she doesn't really have the time to sit down when you have 30 kids running around the room, sit down and listen to a podcast. But once we were admitted to the PICU, I guess my wife got online and was looking up different things. She was like, Have you heard of this podcast? I'm like, no, because she knows I listen podcast, because I'm able to with the job I do throughout the day. I was like, No, I haven't heard of it, but all you know, I'll look into it. And a month or so went by, and then one day, I was just like, I kind of forgot about that. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna look for that and listen to it and just put it on, kind of listening. And I guess the turning point was, I don't, I think I started listening in the 1200s somewhere in there, is when I first started listening. And you had said Your daughter was diagnosed at two years old as well. And it's like my ears just immediately turned on. I was like, what does he just say? Like, I felt like I wasn't alone. You know,
Unknown Speaker 58:05
yeah, yeah, no kidding.
Taylor 58:06
And just from there, I've just started listening from there.
Scott Benner 58:10
I'm forever going to be fascinated by the different roads that people get to it that pit hit you and captured your your idea. I think some people make it because they're lost, or some people are, you know, like, they feel like they've tried everything they can. They're willing to, like, well, I guess a bike, I mean, because, I mean, it sounds ridiculous, right? Like I listen to a podcast and it helps me with my diabetes, like, gets,
Taylor 58:33
you know, yeah, you're like, there's no way that works, yeah, right. I
Scott Benner 58:37
swear to you, I would think the same thing. Like, if I intersected myself, I'd be like, this is probably some bullshit. I would feel the same way. It's not until you dig into it and you really find out it's interesting to me to know that you were aware of it for months before you listened. I just got another one of those letters again recently, where the person's like, Hey, I started listening and really did not like you, and then came back to it, and then, you know, now we're really having a lot of success because of the podcast and etc, like, it's fascinating all the different ways that I don't know that people end up here eventually. Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that with me. I really do. It's very, really, uh, lovely of you to want to do this. Well, then that's my really. My last question is, like, what motivates you to want to be on the podcast after? You know, after this
Taylor 59:21
year, at the time, I hadn't heard a lot of guests come on that had, you know, early diagnosis stories. You know, seem like a lot of the people you've had on. It's like me or my child have, you know, we're five years after diagnosis, three years after diagnosis. And when I applied to try to come on at the time, we weren't even to a year yet. And I just kind of wanted to give my perspective to someone that's in the grand scheme of things, very early diagnosis, right? And pretty much, to let those people, maybe someone, when this episode comes out, this that's their first one they listen to, and just let. Know, like it's gonna be fine. Use this podcast as a tool. You can figure it out it's gonna be all right, that's
Scott Benner 1:00:06
a good message. I'm up for that. All right. Well, the only thing that we didn't accomplish today, Taylor is we didn't come up with a catchy title for your episode. That hurts me. You didn't say anything ridiculous, other than the negotiating with terrorists. Well, yeah, you know what? That was good?
Taylor 1:00:28
Like, please eat this food. It's almost like, yes, we'll give you a million dollars in a helicopter to escape. I
Scott Benner 1:00:33
don't really care. It's fine. We'll do whatever you want to do. We need to get past this part right here. I've had that deal. I've begged in those situations too, like, please just take a bite of this. Or that, that horrible feeling like you're not hungry, we already pushed the plunger. Like, that's,
Taylor 1:00:48
yeah, it's already in you, like, we have to do something. Oh my gosh. I would say one of our one of the times we were, like, almost frantic, that we were like, You have to eat. This was this last Thanksgiving, so his first Thanksgiving post diagnosis, and we made a plate, and it was the most insulin we'd ever give him at one time. And we give him the insulin, and then he's like, I don't want to eat. We're like, we almost immediately lost it. We're like, we've never given him this one, like, Please, you have to do something, which we did. We did have a low then, but we were able to catch it. It wasn't his lowest low that we've ever seen.
Scott Benner 1:01:26
But I would have with the pie out. Taylor, I would have pulled the pie out right away. I would have been like, immediately, just like, here please. Ate dessert for dinner. Here you go, buddy. Something. Do you like an apple pie? Huh? That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? What did you end up doing? Did you talk him into eating something?
Taylor 1:01:41
Or, pretty much, like you said, kind of got some kind of dessert out, and was like, Here, eat this. And then once he had that, he was like, oh, now I'm gonna eat my other food. And it's like, we didn't account for the dessert part. Now we're gonna have to wait till this comes up, catch it on the back end, you know.
Scott Benner 1:01:53
But you figured it out, right? Yeah, we did, yeah,
Taylor 1:01:57
you know, we did have a low and we had a immediate hot bike afterwards, but, you know, give it some time, you know, let it play out. And we, you know, got back in range.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:06
I think
Scott Benner 1:02:08
that that day probably lent you more more knowledge and experience than you even realize right now. You'll pull from that experience multiple times. Yes, if you already have it,
Taylor 1:02:19
to put it bluntly, having the balls of steel when you're, like, my son would be at daycare, and like he's going low, was told, you know, the people that run the daycare like, okay, give him this. Give him this. And like you're just sitting there, like waiting to pull, you know, tell him to give him more. Like you're waiting to see that, you know, curve flatten out from the low, like you just literally have to, like, you've said, I don't remember how you word it, but like, you know what's going to happen, just like, wait for it to happen.
Scott Benner 1:02:47
Yeah, but you have to trust that what, what you know is going to happen is going to happen, and then act at the appropriate time.
Taylor 1:02:54
Yes, it's just kind of hard for us, because we're both of us where we work, we're like, 30 minutes away, so it's not like we could get there in a short amount of time.
Scott Benner 1:03:02
Feels like if something really got sideways, it would be too late by the time you got there.
Taylor 1:03:06
Yeah, and we have had a situation at daycare where I have called them, and I'm like, not trying to scare you, but his glucagon is there and explain the whole deal. And I'm like, look on the package. It'll tell you how to but I'm also going to tell you how to do it. Only use this in this situation, like I'm just letting you know. And then my wife had called him and kind of explained the same thing as well, because she didn't know I called. She just seen the number. And then we, we communicated after the fact, it's like, oh yeah, I just called him too, which, you know, luckily we didn't have to use that. But after the fact, when we went to pick him up, they're like, we prefer to talk to him. He was a little more calm.
Scott Benner 1:03:46
Your wife was coming hard. Yeah, she wasn't like,
Taylor 1:03:49
super frantic, but she like, I guess they could tell in her voice, like, she was pretty worried about it, and I just tried to stay calm. I'm like, this is, you know, this is what could happen. So you're aware. This is how you take care of it.
Scott Benner 1:04:02
She was like, don't you let my baby die,
Taylor 1:04:07
which we broke a record the other day in terms of the blow while at daycare or not at daycare those other night. Actually, it was one of those stubborn like, we didn't overdose for food. I'm not sure what was going on. It just kept dropping and dropping and dropping. We actually kind of underdosed for what we thought, because he was a little bit on the lower end. We didn't give him as much food, okay? And eventually said low when we're like, okay, like, let's check this just to make sure. And sure enough, we were at like, 28 and we're like, holy crap, my gosh. Like, that is not good, which we knew we'd already given plenty of stuff to try to get that up. So I know it's going to take some time, but I mean that once I've seen that 28 come up, I'm like, my eyes just popped out of my head. I'm like,
Scott Benner 1:04:48
holy crap. You don't have any feeling for how it got to that.
Taylor 1:04:51
No, no, just normal, kind of normal dinner, actually, like I said, a little bit less than what we would normally give him just because we knew he'd be. Up and around and kind of active. And this was after we actually had gotten bed to go to sleep, because we kind of leveled out after the meal, and it just started slowly creeping down. And then, like I said, I don't know what it is, but even if we're just slowly creeping down in like the 70s and 80s, it's almost like just someone pulls a lever and then we're just dropping.
Speaker 1 1:05:19
Wow, yeah, is activity you think it could be,
Taylor 1:05:24
but I'm not nearly as knowledgeable. But things like, I'm not sure if it's after he's kind of calmed down and we're, you know, ready to get in bed, if all of that just kind of starts working then, because I would think he would start working as he's doing whatever the activity is, whether he's running around the house or playing or something like that, jumping off my head onto the couch or something, you know,
Scott Benner 1:05:46
head diving. So you think that when the day winds down, he starts to calm down and relax, his blood sugar starts to drop.
Taylor 1:05:54
It seems like it, for some reason, interesting. I'm still kind of testing that theory. But then, then also, you know, we'll be in a good range. And then middle of the night, you know, he had some kind of spike in the middle of the night, it's like you're asleep. You've not anything. It was stable coming into the night, you know, yeah, not sure what's going on there. And there's sometimes, you know, we have to wake up and, dose, yeah, it ain't
Scott Benner 1:06:15
a whole lot of fun with the diabetes, I'll tell you that much.
Taylor 1:06:18
Yeah, I would not recommend it to anybody,
Scott Benner 1:06:21
yeah, with that meme like diabetes, do not recommend something like that. It's like a Yeah, I agree. I genuinely appreciate you coming on, spending the time. I know you're at work, so it's nice to you to be here and to share your story like this. And I do think we now call the episode Balls of Steel. That'll be good. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming through at the very end there. Thank you. Yes, no problem. I appreciate it. Yeah, hold on one second for me. Okay, all right.
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