#1677 Sneaky Chocolate Bar - Part 1
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Danny shares his raw journey from decades of denial and neglect with type 1 diabetes to losing his leg—finding strength, purpose, and a mission to help others avoid his path.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.
Danny 0:13
Hi, my name is Danny. I'm a type one diabetic of 37 years I am from the UK, and I want to start raising awareness to the dangers of not looking after your diabetes.
Scott Benner 0:28
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This episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi 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 I'm having an on body vibe alert. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 the only one year wear CGM that's one insertion and one CGM a year, one CGM one year, not every 10 or 14 days ever since cgm.com/juicebox us med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years, you can as well us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number, get your free benefits. Check and get started today with us. Med, Hi,
Danny 2:36
my name is Danny. I'm a type one diabetic. For 37 years, I am from the UK, and I want to start raising awareness to the dangers of not looking after your diabetes.
Scott Benner 2:48
Danny, I appreciate you coming on and doing this with me. Thank you for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure. Did I see yesterday that you logged on a day early for our recording? I was
Danny 3:00
hoping you wasn't going to pick up on that.
Scott Benner 3:03
That normally only happens to Australians, but I think you're going to be my first person from England to have that that happened to so what the date got confusing? Or I wonder how it works always, because, like, what time is it now? Where you are, for example,
Danny 3:15
is now it's by 40 PM. But I just got my I do it quite often. Get my days mixed up. I I've turned up to hospital appointments a week early, dentist appointments a day late. It's just me if, if it's not wrote down in front of me, I'll forget.
Scott Benner 3:35
Okay, so is it August 7, where you are right now? Yes, it is. Oh, geez, Danny. I was trying to give you an excuse and an out, but you
Danny 3:43
just No, no excuses.
Scott Benner 3:46
So I guess what happens to the Australians is that it's August 7 when it's August 6 here, and we often get that confusion where, you know, I log on and there's no one there, and I send the note and I say, hey, you know you're not here for the recording. And they go, No, it's tomorrow. And I went look harder. So all right, well, yeah,
Danny 4:04
anyway, no, I've got not I'm guilty, Your Honor.
Scott Benner 4:07
So you've had type one for how long again? Tell me.
Danny 4:09
So I was diagnosed in 1988 on the fourth of April to 37 just over 37 years now,
Scott Benner 4:16
wow, 88 that's a year before I graduated from high school. How old are you?
Danny 4:20
I am 48 now. Oh, gosh, 48 years young. So what were you? I was 11 when I was diagnosed. Just started high with secondary school, but high scores, I gather the equivalent.
Scott Benner 4:32
Do you recall the those days of of being diagnosed? Do you remember how it happened?
Danny 4:38
Yeah, leading up towards my diagnosis, I was always active, playing a lot of football, tennis, played a lot of sports, and for a couple of for about a month, I was starting to lose a lot of weight, really tired. Always had a really good appetite for my food. Wouldn't eat. Of food, I was going through three liters of, like, diluted squash a day, and as soon as I was drinking that pint of squash, I'd go upstairs and I'd literally, within minutes, I'll be having having a week. And remember my step dad saying to me, to my mum, like he's diabetic, so my mum took me to the doctors the next day, within an hour, I was diagnosed as type one and admitted to my local
Scott Benner 5:28
hospital. Do you have any idea how your stepdad knew the signs? I don't know
Danny 5:32
how he knew the signs to be his his dad was diabetic, or his uncle's diabetic. I think okay, because it wasn't as common as it is to see the signs these days in the four T's, you know, it was, it was a lot different back then.
Scott Benner 5:47
Yeah, yeah. I guess just the frequent urination, high blood sugars thing, if it's a thing you've seen before, maybe it just it clicked for him, you know.
Danny 5:55
Yeah, I just don't know how, because, you know, he, he wasn't the most educated man. He was, you know, a real grafter, but he was the first one to recognize it,
Scott Benner 6:09
saying, you know, I was waiting to see where you were going to go when you started like, yeah, I
Danny 6:13
was trying not to, like, downplay his role in all of this. But yeah, you know, he, he was a hard worker, and it was him that actually see the signs.
Scott Benner 6:23
Figured it out. Wow, do you remember what your blood sugar was back then we
Danny 6:27
do it slightly different in the UK, but no, I don't even remember, okay, I don't remember much of it. I just remember it was literally a week. We spent a week in hospital being educated.
Scott Benner 6:39
And was that regular and mph, 88 what kind of insulin did you get? Do you remember
Danny 6:45
it would have been mixed hard back in 88
Scott Benner 6:48
Okay, okay. And couple times a day,
Danny 6:53
so it would have been. It was still two background insulins. And I think that was human actual frame back then interesting. And I think I remember either two, it was definitely two, maybe three, injections a day,
Scott Benner 7:10
okay, who managed it for you? Was it you? Was it your mom? How did it get handled?
Danny 7:14
To start off with it, with my mum. She was, like, amazing, like, took it all in her stride, educated herself really well on it, as did I as a kid. When you discharged from hospital, you used to be able to buy this book. Now it's all different, isn't it, it's all apps and stuff. But back then, it was a book called Countdown, and it had all your carbs in it. It was the Green was the good ones, Amber for, okay, red for stay clear, basically. Or they were the ones that, you know, the most carbs and sugars in back then we was told, you know, no chocolate, no candy, no sweets, nothing like that. It was zero tolerance. Did you grow up that way? I did. From the age of I was only allowed to have, like, a small chocolate bar if I was playing sports, and
Scott Benner 8:05
that was to help you from being dizzy. Is that how they thought
Danny 8:07
of it? Yeah, and that was to keep the sugar, sugar levels up, so used to reduce the insulin and just whack it up with a bit of chocolate or glucose tablets, right? You know, I'd have that sneaky little chocolate bar now and again. I felt like I was really naughty. After a few years of like, really being strict with it, it was like, I'll have a sneaky chocolate bar. My mum had no she knew straight away, because she'd take, like, do the finger poke when I got home, and she's like, you played football today? And I was like, yeah, yeah. She was like, Well, why your blood sugar so high? So I couldn't, I couldn't get past my mum. My mum was spot on with it. She knew if I was lying or cheating. Yeah. Oh gosh, there was a lot of sneaky chocolate bars eventually, but yeah,
Scott Benner 8:49
well, yeah, that's what we're going to get to, right? We want to dive into that. So how many years do you think until and do you see what might have caused a shift in how you managed yourself. You know where it went off the rails.
Danny 9:04
So I was diagnosed the age of 11, so I'd say late teens to early adulthood. Sort of 1617, 18. Sort of mark more, 1718. Is when I noticed I was different from everybody else. More More than ever. You know, at school, I was quite open about the diabetes, and people knew I was diabetic. But when once I hit adulthood, and everyone was going, all my friends were going out, drinking, to bars and stuff, that's when I noticed I was different from everybody
Scott Benner 9:37
else. How'd it make you feel?
Danny 9:38
It's difficult to remember back then, because, you know, up until the last five years, I've just lived my life, but back then it just, I was having to go out. Then I was having to come, you know, we'd, we'd be out downtown, in the barn. I live quite close to town, so when I'd come home, have some insulin, and I'd go back out. But at first, I wasn't drinking alcohol. I wasn't I'm. Wasn't smoking, I wasn't doing anything. And it just after a few years, these sort of things started creeping in, because I felt like, what was it? Even people peer pressure me, or just I wanted to be included. You know, I've always felt a little bit different from everybody else, okay,
Scott Benner 10:17
different like you were on the outside of something, like they were doing something you weren't doing.
Danny 10:22
It was like, right? We got into such and such, like, going to a nightclub, and it would be finishing at two, three in the morning. I blow can't, because I've got, you know, I've got to take my insulin. And obviously I started on the vials and needles back then.
Scott Benner 10:36
Yeah, so you had, like, in your mind, you're like, Well, I got to get home by a certain time because I've got to inject.
Danny 10:41
Yeah, I was, it sort of felt like I was restricted, and I was on a curfew. You know, that's when it started to plan my mind more, I think, because I knew I was different from everybody else.
Scott Benner 10:53
And then, how do you manage that? Instead of looking for a way to take your insulin at the bar or something, you just decide not to take it. Or how does it like?
Danny 11:01
So eventually I went on to the disposable pens, and that was easier, because you could put them in your coat pocket, and there was a bit more discreet, because you just had a screw on needle on the top, so it just looked like a big marker pen in your pocket. So that that was good, but then I wasn't testing my blood sugars properly, you know, I was, I was going to hospital appointments, and we used to have a diary back then there was no CGM, and used to have to write with I'd be sat outside the clinic filling in all my blood sugars, yeah, because they'd be saying, right, we need blood sugars for this day. These times, I'd write them all in this book, and I just make them up.
Scott Benner 11:41
Can I ask you, with hindsight, why did you not test
Danny 11:46
part of it was laziness, and I never really learned about diabetes, burnout. Yeah, never knew nothing about it until I started speaking to guys in the states early this year, and that's when I, you know, really learned more about diabetes burnout and thought, Geez, I have had it over the years and not really known about
Scott Benner 12:09
it. I have a hard time imagining that many people are going to go through living a life with diabetes and not experience maybe many different seasons of difficulty just doing, you know, what seem like, simple things, you know, test your blood sugar. I don't see how it can't, like, just the same way you talked about, um, you know, just slowly feeling different, you know, yeah, it kind of creeps up on you, and then you don't know how you got there, you just, you start having reactions to it and acting differently, or doing differently, and then before you know it, it's been a week and a month and you're not dead. So you're like, This must be okay. And then you kind of don't think about it anymore. It's, it's the same, I think it's the same process that people get unhealthy, and you know, a lot of different ways, gain weight, stop exercising, stop communicating with people you love, like, I think all of that kind of drifts away in a similar fashion.
Danny 13:04
Yeah, 100% and, you know, now, when I look back to how I am now, health wise, I wish I looked after it a lot better. You know, done them. Finger pokes back then. And if I'm honest, Scott, I was doing um, once a week, if he was lucky, for a number of months between the ages of 17 and 19, yeah,
Scott Benner 13:30
once. What was once a week even accomplishing? Do you know
Danny 13:33
nothing wasn't because I wasn't even changing my insulin ratio, you know, if I was high, I wasn't giving more, you know, I wasn't giving more insulin. If I was like, I was just sticking to the same regime that I was insulin wise, that I was on at the age of 16.
Scott Benner 13:50
Yeah, before you feel too bad, you know, let me tell you this, like, Arden had a pretty simple, like, medical procedure yesterday, right? So she had her tonsils out, but she's 21 so, you know, it's a bit of an ass kicking getting your tonsils out when you're 21 so she comes home, we, you know, had it set up prior, like, I'm just gonna, like, run her, her blood sugars and everything, you know, while, while she's because she's also on pain medication and stuff like that. So she was good for a while. Actually, I have to, I want to give a lot of credit to the trio app, which kept her blood sugar super stable overnight, you know, super stable in the morning, before the surgery, during the surgery, just awesome blood sugars for the lead up to the process. Then at some point, you know, the pain is going to hit her. Little bit of, you know, all the things that come with having a surgery and everything else, and I know she's gonna need more insulin. And I still, I still spent the better part of like, six or eight hours bolusing, like, I kept bolusing and bolusing before, like, before even my brain was like, dude, turn up the basal. What do you do? You don't mean, like, and if you were to come. Them on this podcast and tell me that story. I would immediately, without hesitation, tell you, like, as soon as I saw the blood sugars wanting to creep up after the surgery, I'd probably look at, like, 150 basal, 150% basal increase, you know, yeah, you're getting a unit an hour. Make it a unit and a half, that kind of vibe. And yet, for me, like, you get caught in the moment and everything's going on. And you just like, oh, higher blood sugar, Al Bolus. Higher blood sugar, Al Bolus. And I finally, like, you know, I don't know what happened to me. Like, four in the morning I woke up, I looked at her blood sugar, it was like, 180 and I'm like, what is happening? And then it just hit me. I'm like, oh, dummy. Like, what are you doing? So I went in and and I changed her basal rate, like, I literally just turned it up by 100% like, she's getting two units an hour right now instead of one. And now I haven't even looked in a while. I'm looking right now with you. Now our blood sugar is 119 or 114 Yeah. So with all that technology and all that knowledge, my point is, is there were still 12 hours in there where my brain didn't go, oh, do the thing, you know, do this. So I can't imagine when you're taking three shots a day, and you know, I mean doing a blood sugar test that probably was meaningless, right? Like you would do them, and then what? Nothing. Why would you settle for changing your CGM every few weeks when you can have 365 days of reliable glucose data. Today's episode is sponsored by the ever since 365 it is the only CGM with a tiny sensor that lasts a full year sitting comfortably under your skin with no more frequent sensor changes and essentially no compression lows. For one year, you'll get your CGM data in real time on your phone, smart watch, Android or iOS, even an Apple Watch, predictive high and low alerts let you know where your glucose is headed before it gets there. So there's no surprises, just confidence, and you can instantly share that data with your healthcare provider or your family. You're going to get one year of reliable data without all those sensor changes. That's the ever since 365 gentle on your skin, strong for your life. One sensor a year. That gives you one less thing to worry about. Head now to ever since, cgm.com/juicebox, to get started. 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 88872115, 888-721-1514, us. Med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod dash, 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 us med.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, right? You just,
Danny 18:45
no, I'd be like, I'm a bit high, but I'm gonna, like, I said I was very active. I was doing a lot of love, playing a lot of football, yeah, so it was, it was quite easy to lower them sugars, right? Because I was, I was always active? Yeah, yeah. So I never worried too much about it, right? If that made sense,
Scott Benner 19:07
and did you have any expect? Did you have knowledge? I mean, 17, 1819, years old? Did you know what not taking enough insulin would do to you long term? Or do you have any feeling for what that could be
Danny 19:18
problem I have, I, you know, as a proud man, I would never admit defeat, or these things will happen to you. You'll end up having problems with your eyes gangering, losing limbs. That was told to me when I was a very young age, and I just I didn't care at that time, when I was, you know, early 20s, then I just did not care. I was like, I'll be all right. I'll be right. Because, like I said, I was doing that odd finger poke now and again, and not going to happen to me, right? Nothing, nothing was happening to me. So it's like, I'm okay, I'm okay. I'll just carry on.
Scott Benner 19:56
Feel invincible. Yeah, was. What happened after 20 Which way did it go then? So I
Danny 20:04
start when in my early 20s, I decided to go and work away for the summer in Portugal, got my big stock of insulin, went to the hospital, got signed off big prescription to take it with me. So I was over there for six months of the year, and it was a completely different culture for me. It was Drink, drink a lot, party hard, and sleep a lot. Okay, so I stuck to the same insulin regime that they give me, and I went six months of that year not testing at all, not one, not one single finger poke back, then you're right. I've done that for three summers consecutively,
Scott Benner 20:45
really, yeah, so summers, summers were, uh, were a vacation from reality.
Danny 20:53
Yeah, okay, vacation from reality, you know. And it's like always say, you know, you can go on holiday, but your diabetes doesn't. Mine did. Mine had a six months vacation. Set yours off. Yeah, so just, and I was a heavy smoker, but yeah, I was 22 years old. Cigarettes. Yeah, smoking 60 cigarettes a day, nearly, wow, between 40 and 60 cigarettes and just every night just drinking for six months, pretty much
Scott Benner 21:23
three packs, 63 packs, right? Yeah, wow. So just awake, if you were awake, you were smoking or drinking, and then you were sleeping. Otherwise, let's talk about the tandem Moby insulin pump from today's sponsor tandem diabetes care, their newest algorithm control, iq plus technology and the new tandemobi Pump offer you unique opportunities to have better control. It's the only system with auto Bolus that helps with missed meals and preventing hyperglycemia, the only system with a dedicated sleep setting, and the only system with off or on body wear options, tandemobi gives you more discretion, freedom and options for how to manage your diabetes. This is their best algorithm ever, and they'd like you to check it out at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox when you get to my link, you're going to see integrations with Dexcom sensors and a ton of other information that's going to help you learn about tandems, tiny pump that's big on control tandem diabetes.com/juicebox. The tandem Moby system is available for people ages two and up who want an automated delivery system to help them sleep better, wake up in range and address high blood sugars with auto Bolus. Yeah, taking any insulin. How are you doing?
Danny 22:43
I was doing the insulin. All the insulin, I was doing that. And it was literally just the same regime. So I wouldn't even know, because I was drinking a lot of vodka red balls. Obviously, Red Bull is full of sugar, isn't it? So, you know, I was drinking a lot of them. So, God knows what it was doing to me inside, but at the time, I didn't care. I was having a good time.
Scott Benner 23:07
You hadn't changed your settings since you were 16, no, eight.
Danny 23:11
So I changed it about 1890 No, sorry, I changed it when I was about 20, when I knew I was going to Portugal. And I thought, right, I need to sort of prepare for this a little bit. So I sort of behaved myself a little bit before I went away. Then I got over there, and it was just like, you know, by the end of the summer that that blood monitor, blood glucose monitor, had dust on it
Scott Benner 23:33
and and the amount of insulin you were taking didn't change if you gained weight, it didn't change if you ate
Danny 23:38
more. I wasn't gaining a lot of weight because I wasn't eating a great deal because I was spending all my money on going out partying.
Scott Benner 23:46
Yeah? Let me also, I would also imagine if your blood sugars were high all the time, that's another reason you weren't gaining weight, yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay, and so for six months a year, you'd be in Portugal.
Danny 23:58
I did, yeah, I'd done that from for six months of the year for the summer season, I'd come back to the UK. I think between the first and second year, I didn't even go back and see my Endo. It was just went back and done the same again. I was doing finger pokes and stuff. And I got back, and I thought, right, and back in the UK, you need to sort myself out of it. So I did then I was and not frequent, maybe twice a day, once in the morning, once in the evening, before I knew I was going to bed or falling asleep, I'd do another one. See what was like overnight.
Scott Benner 24:33
Was your mom checking in on you with diabetes? Or had she stopped at
Danny 24:37
that time, I was living on my own. I had my own place so I was able to, you know, I was living on my own. Yeah, you know, I'm 48 years old now, and she still tells me off to certain things, not so much these days, because it is pretty much, really well controlled. Still have the off day, but I'm pretty much
Scott Benner 24:59
there. Now. So you said the last five years you've been kind of on top
Danny 25:03
of it to a certain extent. Yeah, okay, you know, even when my first child was born, she's 21 this year. So I was 27 when my first daughter was born, and I ended up having a Hypo when my ex wife, now she was delivering a baby. I like to go outside and get some sweets inside me because I was having a high five, so I didn't look after it for a number of years, a long, long period. Okay?
Scott Benner 25:30
I mean, I think this is the crux of why you came on, right? Like when you first introduced yourself, you said you want to help people to not ignore their diabetes. So tell me, let's jump to your first complication. What? How old were you and what was it?
Danny 25:45
So 2018 I started losing feeling in my feet, really suffering with a lot of pain in my lower limbs. And basically I was losing all the feeling in my feet and people saying to me, you know, my father in law was a diet type one diabetic, and he was an amputee. He ended up having a leg amputated as well for different reasons, not through diabetes, but he was like, You need to stop smoking. You need and I was still smoking, not as much as I was when I was younger, but still smoking quite a lot, and I was like, you know, the same old Danny, you know, I'll be alright. You know, it's nothing. Nothing's wrong with me at the moment, but the pain I was in of a night time was incredible. They ended up giving me some amitriptyline to help me sleep at night time, because I was, I was constantly fidgeting at night.
Scott Benner 26:41
Danny, let me stop Let me stop you for a second. So your father in law had type one diet. Has type one diabetes.
Danny 26:47
He did, yeah, he passed away a couple of years ago, but yeah, he was a type one as
Scott Benner 26:53
well. But back then, when you're telling this part of the story where you're having neuropathy and leg pain, and he says to you, you got to stop smoking, does? He has he had a limb removed at that point,
Danny 27:04
it was 2018 No, he was too. He was during covid, 2020
Scott Benner 27:10
Okay, so he but he knew about neuropathy, because he was experiencing it as well.
Danny 27:15
He used to end up going to podiatry because he had a bad shark over and he could see the people in there losing limbs through their diabetes. And he's like, Danny, you really need to get control of
Scott Benner 27:28
this. Gotcha Okay? And you said, No, I was
Danny 27:32
Scott I was always the one that would be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I will do. I will do, yeah, definitely. And I do a couple of weeks of eating better, you know, testing my blood sugar, then I'll go back to the old routine again, of now and again, testing my blood sugar, you know, just same old thing, yeah, become invincible.
Scott Benner 27:54
And even with the pain in your legs, did you connect those things? Did you say, Oh, my blood sugars, my smoking, etc. This is where the pain is coming from. Or did you not connect them? I
Danny 28:04
didn't connect them, if to, if the truth be known. You know, when I started looking up about what was going on with my feet, losing the sensation in them, my mum was like, it's your diabetes. Danny, is she diabetes? You need to sort it out. You need to sort it out. And I was like, I will, I will, you know. And I did start looking after it better. And then 2019 I was admitted to hospital in the in the August DKA, which I didn't know. I think I'd had it a couple of years beforehand, like quite a few years ago, twice, and that had misdiagnosed at the hospital, or they told me it was saying. They told me it was gastroenteritis. Okay, it was a gastro thing, so I didn't think nothing of it. But this, this one really scared me. In 2019 the dka scared you. The DKA, yeah, my ketones were like, greater than seven. They couldn't even get a reading of how high my blood sugar was. It was that high?
Scott Benner 29:03
Yeah, I want to make sure I'm right. That's 31 years after you're diagnosed, right? Yeah, yeah, okay, please tell me like if I asked you five minutes before you were in that hospital, if I would have asked you to describe to me the level of care that you provide for yourself. How would you have described it? Poor, very poor. You knew it, yeah, oh yeah.
Danny 29:27
I know. You know. To be honest, I just thought I had a stomach bug that week. I was just being sick. What I was doing, I was still giving insulin, but wasn't eating, yeah, I had, I needed re educating about diabetes.
Scott Benner 29:43
Yeah, you're not wearing a CGM at that point.
Danny 29:45
No, no, that that came in 2020 War One, I believe yes, 2021 or 2220
Scott Benner 29:54
22 Yeah, in the last 10 of the 31 years that we're talking about right there, do. Did you see an endo every year? Sometimes, sometimes
Danny 30:04
the problem I had, I was too busy. You know, the job that I'd done was very, very physical, very active, but there was a lot of money to be earned, if that makes sense. You know, you'd never turn the overtime down. If there was a shift there, you'd be like, Yeah, I'll do it, I'll do it, and never for the repercussions.
Scott Benner 30:24
Yeah, you skip them because you feel like you didn't have the time. You're making money, and things are going well that way. Okay, I'm sorry. So we have neuropathy. Your father in law says, hey, get some help. You don't do anything there. 2019, the DK comes that, let's pick it up. From there, you're in the hospital with the DK, how does that process go? So, yeah,
Danny 30:48
basically, and that my partner called an ambulance for me, and I was like, don't need the ambulance. Just got a sickness bug. Paramedics came into the bedroom. My blood glucose meter had run out of battery. We found a spare one, but the test strips were out of date, so we couldn't even get a reading like that. They tested me, and they said, you're in, you're in DKA, yeah. And I was like, What's DKA? And they explained it to me, and I was like, No, I'm not I feel fine. It's not doing my diabetes. Got a stomach bug, and they just said to me, listen, Danny, if don't get in the ambulance, now you're going to die. And I was like, I'll just pack a bag. So did you believe them? I think it took that scare factor for me to if they would have just been like, Okay, leave you. You know, you don't want to get in the ambulance. Very thankful for them paramedics, because they were like, you're gonna die if you don't get in that ambulance and got blue lighted. I've never been I've been in a car quite fast, but I've never been that far. If my partner said they were like, land speed record to get me to the
Scott Benner 31:55
hospital. Yeah, they were. They really thought you were, you're in significant trouble.
Danny 31:59
Yeah, yeah. And I remember being in the emergency ward my local hospital and just being pumped for like, doctors working all around me. It was a bit of a haze, if I'm honest, and just being hooked up to all these having all these cannulas put in, but they couldn't get the cannulas in properly at first, because I was dehydrated, real, real scary time, and ended up being in ICU for three days not really know what's going on. You know, having members of family, I remember, like, sort of being semi conscious and seeing members of family around my bed. Yeah, wow. Thinking like, why is everyone here? It's not that bad.
Scott Benner 32:45
How long? How long did it take to get through that?
Danny 32:49
It was three days, and after the third day, they let me come home. Third or fourth day. The only downside of it was I was meant to be taking my partner to Ed Sheeran on Friday, so she ended up going with her mum. So my mum got a free ticket to go and see Ed Sheeran, and I still never seen him. So, yeah, that that was the one that really, really shook me up. You know, I come home and I was really lethargic that weekend. Yeah, still feeling a little bit underwear. But I was, I was testing my glucose. I was being religious with it. Then, you know, for that, for that first week had come out of hospital, I was, I was testing everything. They were getting me in, back in to see the endo in a different hospital, really good hospital that I'm under now. And it sort of kick started my diabetes again, if that makes
Scott Benner 33:44
sense, yeah, I got you back on track. What's the next thing that happens to you after that decay?
Danny 33:50
So you know, during this time, I've had some laser surgery on my eyes as well, so that that's been sort of going on for the couple of years beforehand, I said I Doctor tame, you know, you need to fuck your ideas up, your your blood sugars, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started doing all that, right, in 2020 I don't know if you, I don't believe you guys do it in the States. It's called a Daphne. Course,
Scott Benner 34:18
no. Daphne's specific to England. I believe, yeah,
Danny 34:21
and that opened my eyes up to a lot of things. And I had been really looking after it then. And that was, that was in the January of 2020 when I had done the Daphne
Scott Benner 34:32
course, and you got a more modern look at what it meant to manage type one diabetes.
Danny 34:36
Yeah, it sort of re educated me again. So I went to the hospital for a week to, you know, carb count again, yeah, they showed me all these apps that was available. And then obviously I was looking after it great. And we went into lockdown. And, you know, was really still. Like looking after it quite well over lockdown, still having my bad days. Like, I know a lot of diabetics do have the bad day, yeah, you know, and that even now, I still don't say on the perfect, you know, I'm far from the perfect diabetic, but I try my hardest now, yeah,
Scott Benner 35:19
not. You're not pretending to try or pretend you're just gonna make it through no matter what. None, not Absolutely. No, I have two questions. Give me a second. I have two questions. Yes. So my first one is when you say it's not going to stop me. I can do it. I'm tougher than this, but you're getting laser surgery and your feet hurt. Do you ever have like an honest moment with yourself and you go, I am not actually beating this like you don't
Danny 35:46
even mean, no, I still, at that point, I was still, so I can turn this round. Was, was my thought, even in 2020,
Scott Benner 35:57
but like, I'm talking to you. You're a bright guy, you're thoughtful, you're thinking about your life. I can tell all that, right, like, so, so you're lying to yourself. Then, yeah, pretty much, yeah, because I can turn this around, but you're not actually doing anything to turn it around. That that's, you know what I mean?
Danny 36:13
Problem I was doing, Scott, I was saying the right things to everyone else, but I wasn't actually putting these words into action, no motion. Yeah, okay. You know it was just, yeah, I'm doing it. I'm doing it, and it was getting better. But, you know, the eyes, the pain in the feet, yeah, you're right. At that point I should have been like this. This is This needs to stop.
Scott Benner 36:38
Yeah, you're on fire. And you're telling me, Don't worry, I'll put it out. But you're not, you're not turning the hose on. You're holding the hose going, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it, I got it. And yeah, and then you just don't take the step. Do you have any any reasonable idea about why not, beyond the like, I'm gonna beat it, or I'm a guy and I think I can win. Like, do you like? I'll ask it a different way. We'll get back to that question, a different way, would you ever describe yourself as not wanting to be alive, as not feeling like you're valuable? Like, did you have any bad self esteem problems? Like, any reason? No, you wanted to live?
Danny 37:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, no. And I had two massive reasons to live with my children, but I was so focused, my health came second after my work. Sure, I was very, you know, it wasn't even like a massive career that I was doing. It was just the money was good when you put the hours in. And I was so focused on earning money, earning money, my health came second. That was always my thought process.
Scott Benner 37:43
Do you think it's possible you're just you're a victim of being diagnosed so early that the expectation for people with diabetes was so low, and then the way management became different and different over the years, you never found out about so is the Daphne course, like almost learning, like you have a different disease than the one you had before.
Danny 38:03
You know, when I, when I was diagnosed, it was very strict. He wasn't allowed to eat, like I said, chocolate, sweets. He was not allowed. That was like, it's a big no no. And if you had a lot of diabetic chocolate, it was like a laxative, so it wasn't great for you. Yeah, so I stayed cleared of it. But then, when I had an appointment when I was about 18, it changed quite a lot diabetes management. And it was like, well, you can eat certain stuff as long as you you do you know, insulin to cover them carbs. And I was like,
Scott Benner 38:35
oh, right, so you ate the food, but didn't cover the carbs.
Danny 38:39
No, I did at first, but after a while it was like, Well, I'm doing okay. Got it? I'm doing okay, okay.
Scott Benner 38:46
And so it really is the way I describe on the podcast. Like, if you wake up the next day and you're not dead, then you just feel like, Oh, I'm what I'm doing. Must be okay, 100% right? And then the medical stuff happens so slowly that you don't necessarily, even though it sounds, I mean, you and I are talking, we know, we know it sounds ridiculous to say, but like you don't associate it with the decisions.
Danny 39:10
Oh no, yeah. Never, even before, never went through my mind that I'd be in the position I am in now.
Scott Benner 39:17
Yeah, you didn't connect that the pain was the diabetes management or the eyes, was the diabetes management? It was just these things are happening to me
Danny 39:26
because it's not visible as such. You know? Yeah, the pain was there in the feet and the legs. I just thought at some point, because my job, I was on my feet quite a lot. Yep, I'd drive to a job, then I'll get out and I'll be on the feet for a couple of hours back in the van, off to another job. I just thought it was the footwear I was wearing at first. You know, I never thought of the diabetes at one point, then, until I done that thing.
Scott Benner 39:52
And the reason I'm asking you the questions this way because you're kind enough to be here and share your story, but because I want people. To hear two things, like, if they have type one, I want them to hear that this, this slow kind of drift away from health can happen without you really knowing it. And I want them to hear that it can happen without you being malicious. Yeah, you're not consciously or even subconsciously saying to yourself, I don't want to be alive, I don't want to live. I don't want to take good care of myself. I don't want to be good health. You want all of those things. And, yeah, I don't know. I just think that's important for people to hear. I don't even know that. I want to justify what I mean by that. I just think it's important for people to hear that you're a reasonable, thoughtful guy with kids and a life, and you have desires to be alive and have fun and life and love, and you're not just ignoring your health. Because I think that it would be easy for a person to come in from the outside hear your story and say, well, here's a guy that just didn't care and didn't try hard enough. And I don't think that you would characterize yourself as either of those
Danny 40:52
things. No, I don't think it was that. It was my thought process was earn the money quickly to have a better life with the kids and stuff. You know, I hear I was very driven by money, which I'm not no
Scott Benner 41:07
more. So, okay, so we paint in the feet. What happens next?
Danny 41:13
So, you know, like I said, from I've done the Daphne course in 2020, went through lockdown, was looking after it reasonably well. I wouldn't say it was brilliant, but a lot better than I had done for the last 20 years. Maybe right at least, yeah, 20 years, and it got to 2022 and I was at work one day, and my my foot, my right foot, felt like really wet. And I was like, This doesn't feel like me. And I was working with another guy. We went back to the van to have a lunch, and my foot just felt really wet. And I was like, This isn't right. And I pulled my sock off, and basically half the bottom of my big toe was hanging off, as in, like, an ulcer, a blister on the bottom of my toe. And I was like, yeah, yeah. Panic time
Scott Benner 42:07
settled. First time you'd ever noticed it, yeah, okay. And it was like,
Danny 42:11
right, that's he went and got in his van. I drove to the local hospital. They bandaged it up, and it's a small hospital, and so they sent me home with some antibiotics. And this, this was on like the Friday, so I had a couple of days this on a Thursday, sorry, a couple of days at home. And it got to the Sunday, and I was in so much pain, so much pain in that foot. I took myself to my hospital, which is a massive Hospital in Cambridge in the UK. And sat in the emergency department for a good eight or nine hours, and they had another look, sent me back home with stronger painkillers and antibiotics, and I had hospital the next morning in the eye clinic, I had an eye checkup. Went to my eye checkup appointment, it just didn't feel right. And I just thought, I just thought I'd try my luck and poke my head into the diabetic clinic. And I spoke to one of the diabetic specialist nurses, when can we just have a look at it? They got me into because the podiatry was in the same area. It took me into podiatry, and they were like, right, we need to admit you to hospital. You could see the infection spreading up my leg. It was like, up to halfway up my shin by then. So I got hit. That was February 2022, and I was in hospital for two weeks on IV antibiotics. Told not to go put weight bear on that for a while. So signed off and working, which was the biggest at that time, the biggest killer for was me. Was like, I can't work, yeah, but still think, like, thinking everything might be okay. Went back the following week, and ever said, you know, I had a procedure when I was done in hospital called an angioplasty, where they run a line from your groin all the way down your to your feet, and they put these little balloons in to open up the veins to get the blood flow going again. And they told me that it was unsuccessful, and eventually, if these antibiotics didn't work, I was gonna have to have a bologna amputation on the right leg, and that was like, wow, yeah. You know, I was devastated. You know, some to hear something like that at the age of 40 odd.
Scott Benner 44:34
Wasn't great, no? And by then had your father in law lost his leg?
Danny 44:39
Yeah, he had been in an amputee for two years by then, sort of, sort of, you know, he was, he was on hand for advice and stuff
Scott Benner 44:49
like that. But you had real context about what life looked like after the amputation too.
Danny 44:54
Yeah. So I was like, you know, this is gonna be a minor setback. Be back at work within a year. So that they said, right, we're gonna have to do an amputation. This was in the February, and I kept going back on these. They said, if it didn't improve, so obviously, I'm still pinning my hopes on that this leg was going to stay. And it got to it would have been April, and they said that nothing's working. You know, the foot's dying. We need to do a baloney amputation. Yeah. I was like, okay, sort of got my head around it, and they phoned me up on the fifth of May and said, Oh, we want to book you in for your amputation. And I was like, All right, when's that? And they said, Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. And I was like, I didn't know what to say. I was like, I was like, Can I phone you back? I need to speak to my partner. Yeah, spoke to my girlfriend. She was like, What you thinking about? It needs to be done. Just phone them back. Get it done. So, yeah, on the sit for May, I ended up having a right leg below knee amputation. And, you know, it completely rocked my world.
Scott Benner 46:11
This episode was too good to cut anything out of but too long to make just one episode. So this is part one. Make sure you go find part two. Right now it's going to be the next episode in your feed. A huge thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Don't forget us, med.com/juicebox, this is where we get our diabetes supplies from. You can as well, use the link or call 888-721-1514, use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us. Med, the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem mobi, with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com. I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast.
Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy the private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, Facebook, Scott, please, but no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community. Juicebox podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. My grand rounds series was designed by listeners to tell doctors what they need, and it also helps you to understand what to ask for. There's a mental wellness series that addresses the emotional side of diabetes and practical ways to stay balanced. And when we talk about GLP medications, well we'll break down what they are, how they may help you, and if they fit into your diabetes management plan. What do these three things have in common? They're all available at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu. I know it can be hard to find these things in a podcast app, so we've collected them all for you at Juicebox podcast.com. Hey, what's up? Everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way, recording.com. You got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want Rob.
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