#1685 Blind Electrician
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A blind Florida electrician shares his remarkable journey through diabetes, vision loss, and a lifesaving kidney transplant—delivering hope, humor, and hard-won wisdom.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.
John 0:13
Hello. My name is John Wells Slager, and I'm from Clewiston, Florida, and I've been a diabetic since 1988 or 89 starting to lose a little bit of track on that glad to be here on the Juicebox and talking with Scott this morning,
Scott Benner 0:31
when I created the defining diabetes series, I pictured a dictionary in my mind to help you understand key terms that shape type one diabetes management, along with Jenny Smith, who, of course, is an experienced diabetes educator, we break down concepts like basal, time and range, insulin on board and much more. This series must have 70 short episodes in it. We have to take the jargon out of the jargon so that you can focus on what really matters, living confidently and staying healthy. You can't do these things if you don't know what they mean, go get your diabetes to find Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on series 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,
the episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by touched by type one. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram, and of course, at touched by type one.org check out that Programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes touched by type one.org 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 Today's episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology, if you are looking for the only system with auto Bolus, multiple wear options and full control from your personal iPhone. You're looking for tandems, newest pump and algorithm. Use my link to support the podcast, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox,
Unknown Speaker 2:34
check it out. Hello.
John 2:36
My name is John Wells Slager, and I'm from clueless in Florida, and I've been a diabetic since 1988 or 89 starting to lose a little bit of track on that glad to be here on the Juicebox and talking with Scott this morning.
Scott Benner 2:50
John, how old were you in 88 or 89
John 2:53
so I was 24 or 25 years old.
Speaker 1 2:57
Okay, I'm excited. I'm sorry. Is there somebody else talking. I'm sorry, that was my phone. Oh, take that in the other
Scott Benner 3:05
sorry about that. No, it's a good way for us to explain who you are. Maybe, right. Certainly. Yeah, you were 2589
John 3:15
okay, yes, yes, I was diagnosed with type two in 89 so I wasn't diagnosed as a type one, and I started on that for me,
Scott Benner 3:26
how long did that diagnosis stick with you and that management
John 3:29
style probably until around 2004 Wait.
Speaker 1 3:34
8999 almost 15 years. Yes, 15 years. You're a type one.
John 3:40
Well, good question. Okay, I asked my my general doctor, who I have a story about as well later on, that very question about six, eight weeks ago, and she said, I'm probably a 1.5 so whatever a type 1.5 is, is probably where I'm at. I feel I'm pretty insulin dependent right now. I'm on a pump right now, and have been since 2004 but what type am I? I don't really know.
Scott Benner 4:12
Isn't that really something? Yeah, John, you use a regular GP for your care, or do you see an endocrinologist? Both. Okay, both beginning was it just the GP?
John 4:24
No, in the beginning, it was an endocrinologist. Oh, but I didn't follow up very well in my 20s. So I was, like, I said, I was 2425 and, you know, I was, you know, back then, it was, you know, I listened to your podcast, and I listened to your guests all the time and and the awareness that that younger folks have now when they are diagnosed, especially with type one, seems night and day to the late 80s to me right now.
Scott Benner 4:53
Yeah, take me back there. What was told to you back then, and what was your process,
John 4:57
my thought process when I left out of there and I. Couldn't even tell you my doctor's name right now, I can't remember. I know it was a man.
Speaker 2 5:03
It was here take these pills and stay away from sugar kind of thing.
John 5:12
That's it, yeah. And I really didn't follow up with any kind of dietitian or anything like that. I was always pretty fit. You know, in my 20s, I was, you know, I worked out quite a bit and and I was fit, but so I stopped eating stuff with sugar in it, you know. But, you know, I may have some chips and stuff though, that doesn't have sugar, right? So that carb awareness was not even in the picture for me, okay? And that obviously is not a good situation for somebody dealing with type two diabetes, that's for sure, let alone a type 1.5 or whatever I eventually morphed into, you know, right as my pancreas slowed and almost to a stop, my opinion right now, you know,
Scott Benner 5:58
just metformin and and some diet considerations. That was what you were doing.
Speaker 1 6:03
Yes, okay, and that was what I was doing, like, 14 years.
Scott Benner 6:10
Yes, what were your a 1c during that time,
John 6:12
Scott, I couldn't tell you. I didn't follow up, like I said, as I should with my doctors in those days. You know, I moved here to clueless. Then in 1996 I came to Florida. I'm originally from Maryland, and I was diagnosed in Maryland a girl I was dating. Then, basically, during my diagnosis, she she basically said, she said, I saw a flyer where I work, and it said, If you pee a lot and you drink a lot, you better watch out for diabetes. And she said, You pee all the time, and you drink all the time, and I'm an electrician. I was, you know, in the field, a lot, out outside, a lot. And I told her, I was like, you know, I'm thirsty because, you know, I work outside and those kinds of things, and, and I pee a lot because I drink a lot, you know, that was my thing. So I got one, I got one of the little test strip things, and, you know, you peed on it and it turned whatever color it turned instantly, blue, orange, whatever it was. And so that's kind of how that went, you know. So again, as I went through those 1415, years, I took those pills and I did the best that I could, I would check my sugar, but not regularly. I asked my wife, Chris, actually, yesterday, I said, Do you remember early on when we met, and as I was, you know, on the oral meds, I checked my sugar much, and she basically no, which I didn't, you know, and obviously my fault that I didn't check it. When I checked it. It wasn't like it was 500 or anything or high, you know, I never blew those kinds of numbers. It was, you know, a lot of times in the upper one hundreds, and, you know, in the two hundreds, sometimes, okay. And, you know,
Scott Benner 7:53
were you not checking because you were lazy about it? Were you not checking because you didn't think you needed to, like, were you ignoring some direction, or were you lacking direction?
John 8:05
Probably a little bit of both. Okay, I was a very active person. And, you know, an electrician is a very active career. You know, lot of walking, a lot of up and downs, lot of exercise. And then I also worked out quite a bit. No excuse to not really check my blood sugars and mind those. You know, you know Scott, you know it's always What if I'd never look back. I'm not that kind of person. But if I could go back to 1989 with the knowledge that I have today, I would say, I don't want those pills. I want to be on insulin or something. What else do you have? Yeah, and you know what I mean, but we cannot go back. No, of course. So I think a little bit of both, though, you know, I would say, you know, did I just ignore it, or was I unaware of it? Probably a little bit of both. I would say, kind of through those years.
Scott Benner 8:59
Yeah, so we don't know what our a one sees we're not taking the world Med, exactly like there were supposed to be correct. Do you have an expectation back then about what you're doing to yourself? You know what I mean? No,
John 9:13
not necessarily. Okay, I can tell you this. When I moved to clue, I moved to Clewiston. I met my wife in 94 and I moved to Clewiston, America's sweetest town, by the way, right on Lake Okeechobee. If you don't, anybody knows where Clewiston is. It's a very small farming community in South Central Florida, okay. But I moved down here and I got up with a doctor here, a family doctor that my wife had gone to for years and years, delivered my wife, actually, and an old country doctor, if you will, accepted payment with vegetables and and actually, my wife's birth was probably paid for by watermelons and tomatoes. So that kind of doctor, a good, excellent doctor, though. And Scott what he told me the very first. Time I went to see him was, you know, you need to try to try to keep your sugars, 150 or better. He said, If you keep your sugars, 150 or under, you'll never have a problem. And this was 1996 when I established care with him. Okay, he is. He has since passed. But, and then, you know, obviously the knowledge that I have now, you know, I look at 150 and do that little conversion everybody does on the internet, and that's a seven. That's where everybody tells you to be right, seven or better on an A 1c kind of thing, you know, like a target for diabetics. Yep, Doc Forbes knew what he was talking about. You know, I continued to do the best that I can on those oral meds.
Scott Benner 10:41
So you were shooting for that seven just with the way you were eating. Is that? I mean, he's telling you to take the oral meds, which, right, weren't getting taken every day. Is that correct?
John 10:50
No, they were getting taken. They were okay. They were they were
Scott Benner 10:53
but we weren't tracking outcomes to know if the medication was enough for doing anything, not specifically. And meters, you're not, you're not testing on any, yeah, I
John 11:03
had, I had, basically, you know, your blood glucose meters. And I was testing, you know, but not every day, not religiously, like, got it. I should have been, yeah.
Scott Benner 11:12
Okay, so what's the first time that you I mean, there must be something that happens that makes you think I need to be paying closer attention to this. Like, what was, what was that thing?
John 11:23
Yeah, that thing was a job site in South Tampa in October of 2003 like I said, I'm electrician. We used to do a lot of Lowe's Home Improvement centers all over the state. So I was traveling out of town quite a bit, you know, for three, four months at a time, while we built, built these, these buildings, and I was in charge of them. And many, on many occasions. And Scott, you know, like at a Walmart, places like that, they have that big, huge light poles in the parking lot, real bright, right? Like a stadium, of course. So probably about noon one day, we were just getting the power turned on in the building, and I turned all the breakers on to make the lights come on. And I walked out there to look at them, and I will never forget the day. And I looked up to see if they were coming on, and I saw, like a big brown splotch run across my left eye. My vision in my left eye was like a little floating blob looking thing. Okay? I was like, Oh, wow, that's probably not good. This is 2004 I am 40 years old. 2003 39 sorry. So I, I went to the job trailer, and I got a yellow pages and and I called an eye doctor. I went that day to eye doctor in Tampa, Florida. He did a retinal examination on me, and he said, You need to go to a retinal specialist now. And I was like, well, it was like a Wednesday, Scott. I could be called a workaholic, I think. And I told him, I said, Well, it's Wednesday. I mean, could it wait till like Friday? You know, I'm up here working. And he said, No, you need to go like today, you know, I called my wife, and I headed back to Clewiston and had an appointment the next day, and went to a retinal specialist in Fort Myers. And that set off a course of events that lasted about a year. Had my first eye surgery in April of oh four, tax day, actually, April 15 of oh four on my left eye. I know that you use Google a lot. Scott, check out a vitrectomy. Vitrectomy. I think I've seen it before. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to see it too much. It's a pretty, rough looking, I think, for somebody that would watch and see exactly what they do. But I had that surgery April 15 of oh four. The results weren't real good. So when I took the patches off, I saw fingers. Could see fingers kind of, you know, real close, within six inches of my face, but that was about it. Basically, my retina had detached. They tried to put it back on, and it didn't work very well. It's all went that. About six months after that, I continued to work with one eye. Basically, I could see a little bit out of that left eye, but not much. It was October 21 of oh four that after some troubles with my right eye. I had my first eye surgery on my right eye in October of oh four, when they pulled those patches off, the next day, had pretty much a similar result in that eye. Very limited vision. I could count fingers, that was about it. So basically, after that surgery to my right eye in October of o4 I was pretty much blind. After that little bit of vision, not a whole lot. Definitely couldn't walk around by myself. And subsequently, after that, for about two years, I went back and forth from Clewiston to Memphis, Tennessee. Seeing the specialist that I was told by the guy in Fort Myers, the only guy that could help me was either in Memphis or at Bascom Palmer in Miami. The gentleman from Miami was out of the country for three weeks, and so I established with a guy in Memphis. Crisscrossed from here to Memphis for two years, eight more surgeries, pretty much has left me totally blind since then. So basically, I'm coming up today is October 9. So here in about 10 days, about two weeks, it'll be 21 years.
Scott Benner 15:33
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John 17:44
to get started. No, I'm black. Blind. Scott, okay, I don't see anything. I tell people a lot of times. I'll come home from work and and I'll be sitting here my wife, beautiful wife, Christine, you know, she may be working late or something, or out with some friends, and if I come home, say, at five o'clock in the afternoon, you know, I don't turn on any lights. I don't really need them. And Chris will come home maybe, maybe she gets home at eight o'clock or something. She comes in, she says it's dark in here. It's like, oh, is it? You know, because I don't need lights at all,
Scott Benner 18:16
John, they don't tell you. The The upside of losing your vision is that your electric bill goes
John 18:20
down, not with my beautiful wife. She loves lights. But you know what the joke in this house is, Scott is I tell her all the time, Chris, you're not allowed to rearrange furniture. It's not allowed in here, and if you do, I'm gonna turn all the breakers off in the house, unscrew all the light bulbs, and so
Scott Benner 18:38
that fixes that I have to ask you said you come home from work, What work are you doing? I
John 18:42
am an electrical contractor. Still, yes, before I lost my sight, I was an electrician superintendent that would work in the field. I would be in charge of those larger projects that I referenced, right? You know, used to do Walmarts and lot of box stores like that. Is what they call them, retail, you know, large, you know, pretty good size retail projects. So I was in charge of 15 guys, 20 guys, whatever it takes to get the job done. And so that was kind of what I did. Had became the vice president of the company that I was working for here in clueless and more of a supervisory role when I lost my sight, but I would still be out on projects a lot of times, guys, you know, would need some help. And, you know, I would tutor them along, if you will, and that kind of thing. So after I lost my sight, if you're an electrician, kind of hard to do anything out in the field or physically you're doing the electrical. So I had a very, very, very gracious boss at that time who basically made a place for me in the office, being that that tutor to some of the younger guys as they were coming up and learning how to run work and how to manage people. Since I had done it for a while, I, you know, I was very accustomed to that kind of thing. Yeah, so, you know, but answering the phone. Those kinds of things and and getting used to a computer, which was a four letter word for me back then, kind of still is, depending on the day, as you saw, my technical issues here before we got started, but I learned how to use a computer blind. Once I lost my sight, they sent a gentleman from the Division of Blind Services to basically show me how to
Scott Benner 20:24
work again. That's really impressive. And do you read Braille?
John 20:27
Now, no, I never learned how to read Braille. You don't really have to learn now,
Scott Benner 20:32
okay, I guess everything can talk to you at this point, right?
John 20:35
Yeah, yeah. Everything you know, like, you know, my iPhone and and my computer, I use a program called JAWS on the computer and stands for Job Access with speech. It's a pretty powerful program. A lot of visually impaired people use it. You know, that enabled me to start communicating in a management role at my office with purchasing and management. You know, I'd never sent an email before I lost my site. No, Kevin, no, no. And again, you know, the one thing I did on the computer with my site, I wanted to surprise Chris with tickets to like Kenny Chesney or Brad Paisley concert. I don't remember which. It was a country artist, and by the time I got our tickets, because those things time out, like if you're picking your seats and stuff like that, I don't know if you're familiar, but I am. We were in nosebleed section, dude, by the time I was able to get everything in there, and so I despised computers.
Scott Benner 21:36
You didn't care how far you were from the stage. Your wife probably didn't like it so much,
John 21:40
right? Right, right, yeah, but, uh, but actually, that was before I lost my sight.
Scott Benner 21:45
Oh, you were that bad. I didn't realize that's what
John 21:50
I'm getting. That's what I'm getting at terrible on the computer. But anyway, once I learned how to do the computer, navigating that again or not again, initially, I would say, because I didn't use a computer, you know, I was able to start, you know, accessing a National Electric Code, which is kind of the Bible for electricians, and establishing myself a little bit in the office where I could, I was able to do a few things, you know. And, you know, God blessed me with a a very good memory and a ton of patience. Those are key to being blind. Scott, I would imagine, just imagine, you know, I mean, you got to have, you have to have a lot of patience, because you're always waiting on a ride, or if you need some assistance getting somewhere, or these kinds of things. And the memory, you know, think about it. When you know, where are your keys? You know, where'd you, Where'd you put the food for your iguanas in there? If you set that down, you don't remember where you put it. The iguanas are gonna get hungry, man,
Scott Benner 22:49
go on, and it's gone forever, right? You have, yeah, yeah. You have to add, yeah. You probably make up a lot of systems, I imagine, for things too,
John 22:57
yeah, yeah, a lot. I i put stuff in the same place all the time, right? You know, when I eat my drink goes to the right, upper right of my plate. You know, there are systems. Scott, you brush your teeth every day, right? Couple times a day, probably, yeah, close your eyes and put the tooth paste on your toothbrush next time you do it, challenging, challenging without getting your fingers messy, right? Interesting? Yeah, every little thing. But if you squirt the toothpaste in your mouth, you don't have to put it on your toothbrush. Oh, little little easier, right? So, there's just different little things when you're blind, but John,
Scott Benner 23:34
that's a better idea. What else are you doing that I should be doing? Oh, well, you drink coffee. No, I don't, I'm sorry. Okay, it's quite all right, yeah, I
John 23:44
drink it. I love it. Well, when you can see, drinking coffee is very easy. You put the amount of cream you want in, you pour it to color, and you drink it. Yeah, right. So when you're blind, you have to use four senses instead of one to make a cup of coffee. You ready for this? Yeah, I am number one. You open the cream and make sure it's not sour. You can do that with smell, all right. So then you put the cream in the cup to make sure how much cream is in there. You use your finger in it to see how much cream you pour it in, right? That's two. That's touch. Then the second, the third one, I'm sorry you pour your cup. You don't want to use your finger to see how much coffee is in there, because you'll get a burned but you listen and the pitch changes as it fills. That's three and then obviously you give it a taste to make sure you have it right. That's four senses to do, what one used to do,
Scott Benner 24:57
where you used to just pour it till the color looked right. You were done perfect.
John 25:01
You know it's gonna taste good. You don't have to smell it. You look at the label on the cream to make sure it's not bad.
Scott Benner 25:06
John, when this happens to you, do they say this is from, like, mismanaged diabetes? What do they tell you the the reasoning
John 25:15
for this is, yeah, diabetic retinopathy. Okay, so my vision loss was caused by diabetic retinopathy. The reason I had 10 eye operations Scott is because during the healing, once they reattach your retina, which is a very small membrane in the back of your eye that basically connects to your optic nerve to allow you to see the scar tissue from the healing process was ripping my retinas back off so my body, the miracle of my body, was trying to heal, but it was being too aggressive. The scar tissue there from the manipulation in the eye surgeries was grabbing the retinas and pulling them back off and detaching them again, and then I had to go back and they reattach.
Scott Benner 26:09
Is there any conversation with endocrinology about Well, obviously, things aren't going well. We need to do a better job for you.
John 26:17
Yes, okay, yes. After I lost my sight, I went on insulin.
Scott Benner 26:21
Okay? I mean, there's people that come on here all the time and talk about balls that are dropped by physicians, and then you have to go back in, and they're, you know, they're basically like, well, oops, you know, but the oops doesn't usually end with you not being able to see correct. And I mean, I realize you have your part in it as well, but, you know, along the way, if someone would have put you on insulin. Maybe this doesn't happen. Maybe you're tested your C peptide or, like, you know, whatever. I don't know, what else could it be done? But it doesn't sound like any of it happened. So is there, I know you said you don't look back, but is there anger there from you?
Unknown Speaker 26:55
No, no, no,
John 26:56
no, because why? I've never been angry because of God. Okay, so not
Scott Benner 27:03
because you feel like it's, it's your fault, or like, no, no, no,
John 27:07
okay. I don't think it's anybody's fault. I see, I think our God has a plan, and this was all planned. That's how I feel. Okay? Now I've discussed this with a lot of people. There's a lot of people that say, Well, how do you have that attitude? If that was me, I'd put a gun in my mouth.
Unknown Speaker 27:26
Well, about that was me. People say that to you,
John 27:29
yeah, really, I've had employees say that to me. You
Scott Benner 27:32
know, when you hear people say, like, Oh, I could you got diabetes. I could never give myself a shot. Is that their version of that? Oh, you're blind. I couldn't live that way. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. It's
John 27:42
very sad. Yeah, it's very sad in today's world. I think vision sometimes can be a detriment. I think that vision, lot of times, people are crippled by their vision, because they come to conclusions about things before they even let those things happen. They come to conclusions about who somebody is because their eyes are lying to before they even know that person.
Scott Benner 28:07
I thought you were crazy when you started saying that, but let me tell you something that I just shared probably with only one person outside of like, you know, my family. I don't look at people when I'm recording with them on purpose, because I don't want to make a snap judgment about them. And you will, you can't help it. It's human. You can't help that. Yeah, people are all the time like, why don't you have a camera? And I'll say, like, oh, it's not on video. It's not necessary. And some people say, well, it's easier for us to talk. If I hear when you stop and start, I go, Oh, don't worry, you'll get used to it. It's like talking on the phone. The real, honest to God truth is, is that I found in the past that if I put my camera on, I make some sort of like a micro judgment about the person that changes the conversation.
John 28:49
Yeah, yeah. That person may look like somebody that you don't like. Well, that reminds me of my cousin, that that rascal, yeah, and boom, now you're always thinking what your cousin did to you, or something silly, you know, just silly stuff like that. It happens, right? Just does, yeah, again, my, my attitude is, I really don't think about being blind. Don't get me wrong, those first few years when we were, you know, fighting for my sight, and going up to Memphis and fighting with insurance companies. And, you know, Chris, she was absolutely crying one time when we were up in Memphis, because they said that they're, they wouldn't cover the surgery and this and that, you know, you know you're talking to somebody like that, and they don't understand what you're going through, you know? And that's, that's what's tough. I mean, it's, it's like that with everything. I mean, I hear you talking about, they don't want to give you a pump, they don't give you a Dexcom. You got to test your sugar for two months before. You know, to make sure that you're diabetic or whatever, you may get better from type one. I mean, come on, give these people a Dexcom, man, right, right. You know, instantly you gotta, you gotta have it. You know. Why are you gonna make that? Those people struggle through that? It doesn't make sense. It's, it's all about money, and that's a shame. You know,
Scott Benner 30:02
once the pivot happens there with your with your diabetes, like, where does that new information come from? The new focus? How do you, how do you figure out how to take care of
Unknown Speaker 30:11
yourself? Little bit of a challenge.
John 30:15
So first I was on the insulin pens. I was on a 7030 mix, I believe was one of the things I was on. I think that was the first one I was on. The pens weren't too bad, you know, you click them. You can listen, you know, I don't remember what dosages or anything was 20 years ago, but click it, you know, however many units, and stab yourself and go with it wasn't long after the pens, though, that I got introduced to an insulin pump, probably about, I've probably been on a pump about 20 years. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 30:46
yeah, I use a mini med pump.
John 30:50
He has the physical buttons on it that you can, you know, listen and count, count the audio beeps and those kinds of things got introduced shortly after that, probably during that process your podcast. And I told you this when I initially emailed you, in the last years, it's changed the way I manage completely. Don't get me wrong, I have a really good endocrinologist, and he told me, but he did not stress the Pre-Bolus to me enough and just some of the tools that you you have introduced to me, you know. And I think I told you that I had a kidney doctor tell me, I don't know about it. Six, eight months, 10 months ago, whenever I come on to your podcast, or found your podcast, I think I was a 7.4 a, 1c, is what I had. He said, you need to do better than this. So I started Googling a little bit, and I found your podcast, and just some of the, you know, the Pre-Bolus changed my deal. Man. The reason why I was 7.4 I had, I had a really bad low, probably about, I don't know, two months before that kidney appointment. Okay, a real bad one. And it was all about pizza. It was, it was a pizza low man. And I hit it perfect. I thought I had it perfect. I've heard you guys, you and Jenny and them, talk about that. That how pizza, you know, in rebound and jump on you. Yeah, it jumped on me that night. Chris wasn't there. I don't know what happened. Okay, she, she kind of shook me out of it. I mean, the lowest I saw was 40, but I think it was lower than
Speaker 1 32:24
that. Did you pass out? Did I pass out? Chris, close. You said,
John 32:29
close. Did you see? I wanted to completely out. I beg your par. Did you have a seizure? No, no, no, no, no. I was just, you know, I'm good, I'm good. And I was watching it. It it was 60, you know, 70 something. And then it was 60 something. And I had some more Skittles, and then it was, you know, yeah, 62 and the last time I remember, it was like, 62 or 60 or something like that. And then she's shaking me. She's because you get out of she's putting, you're saying, giving me coke. She's like, you're saying off the wall stuff. And, yeah, yeah. She said, I'm not myself. But, you know, I think everybody gets like that when you get into that state. You know, of
Scott Benner 33:10
course, hey, I'm embarrassed, John, John, I'm embarrassed to tell you that you made me think, like, maybe I'll get a pizza tonight for the Eagles game.
Speaker 2 33:17
I'm telling you, I don't do you're not eating pizza anymore.
John 33:24
No, man, I kind of avoid it. Stem from potassium. My potassium sometimes gets a little high, so I kind of stay away from a lot of tomato stuff and potatoes things like that. So basically, I was, what had happened with that 7.4 I was, I was scared to death. Yeah, the Bolus right to you know, I mean, I didn't mind 150 up, that's good. Good enough. I'm good. And, you know, then I started listening to your podcast. There's just so many things in your podcast that are so important. I've shared your podcast with so many people over the last six months, everybody that I talked to, my doctors, all of them, I appreciate it. And, yeah, man, it's, it's, it's a life changing thing. You know, Pre-Bolus, the bump and nudge the it's not stacking if you need it. And you know all of them, all, all of your your pointers, man, are are just spot on. They work perfectly.
Scott Benner 34:21
I appreciate knowing them. Yeah, yeah. I have to tell you, the most fun thing about going back and forth between you, you know, and me and email is that you pretty consistently refer to yourself as a blind electrician. You're like, it's John the blind electrician. Like, I get that, like, that email from you a lot, and I tell you, for the last six months, you know, I just been thinking, like, I can't wait to find out if he's still an electric electrician or not. Because, Oh, yeah. I mean, what are you, you know what? I mean, you'd be, you maybe be a surge tester at this point. Like, just reach out if John yells, don't do it. Yeah.
John 34:53
Yeah, yeah. So, I got curly hair all the time, right? But, uh, so. But. Anyhow, so I am an electrical contractor, yeah, yeah. So I wound up taking that certified electrical exam blind back in oh seven after I lost my sight, me and my wife decided to try to buy my boss's business, which we subsequently did. So I sat a state certified electrical exam blind up in Orlando back in those seven Oh, and yeah, that was very interesting as well. Were you the first person to ever try that? I don't know if I was the first person, but when I got the call that I had passed that exam from the people from the state, you'd have thought they were related to me. There was two or three ladies on there. They were so fired up, yeah. So I was blessed and able to pass that exam, and, you know, so we wound up buying our business that I had been working for for 810, years from my boss back in oh eight, and then also, and we've, we've been running it ever since. So I just feel super blessed to be able to continue working. You know, I don't know what I would do if I couldn't work. You know, I'm 61 years old now, and, you know, people talk about retiring, and it's like, and I think I'd get bored. I really do, you know, I mean, there's only so much you can do blind. I mean, I've golfed a few times blind and fished and, you know, those kinds of things. But, and I like to write, you know, I'm kind of an amateur writer. I wrote a book back in 2020, okay, so I have, you know, a few things that I'm interested in, but, you know, my work is what I love to do. You know, I'm an electrician. I'm a blind electrician, but I'm, I'm still electrician at heart, you know, so and my memory allows me to work with the folks that you know work for us, and, you know, help them along when they have questions and stuff like that. And I have some really, really, really, really good people that have helped me along the way. Talk
Scott Benner 36:55
about that a little bit beyond your wife and your boss. Sounds like he made a job for you in the beginning, and then you grew into it. But he did, what about day to day stuff like, where do you count on other people?
John 37:06
I count on so many people, Scott, I mean, our town, small town, like I said, on Lake okoby. And I could call literally dozens of people right now if I needed a ride to go somewhere. You know, I don't do public public transportation at all. I have so many friends and family around here that help me out. You know, if they're in town, you know, though, they can, can help me do this or that. My staff is awesome. I have gentleman, right hand man that's working with me, that's been here since 2002 he's been worked for our company for almost 25 years now. You know, he'll do anything for me, aside from work, if I need something. You know? Yeah, you're my boss. Is my next door neighbor. He's still we live right alongside of each other. When I say my boss, the gentleman that I bought the business from, got a great church family. You got it? Yeah, this little town is something else. I'll tell you. It's there's nothing like it.
Scott Benner 38:08
John, let me. Let me share with you. I was flying to Orlando a few weeks ago to speak at the touch by type one event, and I overheard a guy talking on the plane, and he was flying from New Jersey to Orlando to help a friend of his just go grocery shopping and do some stuff that he needed. And he was a guy. He was in his 60s, but he had a friend that was much older than him, you know, probably 1520, years older than him. And he just the guy was it was getting tough for him. He needed help. He couldn't find help anywhere else. This guy got on a plane and flew down to help him. I was, that's amazing. Super impressed by that, you
John 38:43
know, yeah, it's amazing. You know, people, there are things Scott in this life that people do that you don't know about, right? And, and I, you know, I'm a Christian man. And I, you know, I believe God puts people in our lives, right? Things don't just happen they you know, I mean, just like my vision loss, that just didn't just happen, you know, there's a reason for everything in our life, I think. And, and I'll tell you, you know, you know, I had another, another health problem hit me a few years
Scott Benner 39:14
back. I wanted to ask you about the rest of your health, actually. So this is perfect. Tell me about that. Well,
John 39:19
it kind of ties into your your friend coming down from, yeah, would you say Atlanta, Atlanta? You said, Oh, they
Scott Benner 39:24
went from New Jersey to Orlando. Jersey, yeah, Wow, geez, yeah.
John 39:28
That's, that's a trip, man. That's, that's, that's awesome. That's love, right? There is what that is. I wanted to share with you about love, something that happened to me so I had struggled with a kidney disease now for 20 years or so, probably about the same time, I lost my sight, you know, I started to see a nephrologist and my my kidney function, had, you know? Had you know, was in like the 40% range there for years and years and again, you know, diabetes, long time diabetic. And you know, it started decline. And, you know, 15 years ago, you know, 35 you just sitting watching it, do the best that you can. You know, kidney function is all about blood sugars and blood pressure. If those get wound out, our kidneys don't like it. You know, I struggle with hypertension. I take blood pressure medicine. I have for years. So that's, you know, something else that I had have as far as a health situation. But anyway, so my my kidney function had declined, and it kept going down and and I remember, I go to that, down to Cleveland Clinic in Weston, and my kidney doctor, I don't know, about four or five years ago, I guess Scott, I was in the 25% range kidney function, which is, it's a GFR, is what it is, okay, that's the test. But I can't remember what it stands for. I should know anyway, that's, that's basically your function number, right? So I drifted down like 2423 for like, two or three tests in a row, two, I think it was two. He said, If you come in next time with with another sub 25 on that GFR, he said, you'd be eligible for a transplant. And my wife could tell you right now, if she was on here with me, I started sweating like crazy in there. I was like, oh my god, oh my god, this is real man. Yeah, I couldn't get out of that that doctor's office fast enough that day, it continued to decline. In 22 probably the summer of 22 it had gotten down to 15% function, and it was drifting around there, back and forth, 14, 1516, all in there, yeah. So I wound up getting on a transplant list. Well, you know, first, basically, you have to get tested for went through a whole bunch of tests, take a whole bunch of blood out of you and make sure you don't have cancer or something like that. That would disqualify you, right? And in the meanwhile, Scott, I was me and my mom were talking, my mom has helped me through me and Chris through so much, through my vision, loss and everything over the years. You know, moms are moms, right? And she's awesome. I was talking to her. I was like, I said, Mom, you know, they're talking about, you know, a living donor kidney is better than a deceased donor. You know, I was doing my research on it stuff, and how do you ask somebody for that? How do you ask somebody Scott for
Speaker 1 42:28
that, right? I don't, I can't wrap my head around it, actually, right? I know.
John 42:33
And she's like, well, you know, I've seen on the internet where people do the Facebook and this and that I'm not really a Facebook guy, what have you? I sat and thought about it for a little while, and I drafted a letter to my family and friends, basically explaining my situation, where I was at that kind of thing. I sent a mass email out to a lot of lot of my family and friends, nearly everybody I could think of, and I attached this letter, and I, you know, basically said, you know, hey, can you see my letter? I'm struggling with this situation in my life right now, and take a look at it, consider. And it basically talked about my the kidney disease and the function and where it was at, and how a lot of people get to that area. Now, I was not on dialysis. I was never on dialysis, okay, but I reached out to all these people, and it was the hardest email I push send on in my life, really hard. So I was going through all my tests at Cleveland Clinic. You know, that kind of thing, Scott, and one day I was at work, I got used to the Cleveland Clinic phone number 954-659-5000, by the way, so that number comes across on my cell phone, and I was like, wow, that's probably doctor wants something, you know, another test, whatever was the lady at the transplant center. And she said, You have a couple more take you got to get colonoscopy and this and that, we've had an overwhelming amount of people who
Unknown Speaker 43:57
want to give their kidney to you. Yes.
John 44:01
She said to me, we're going to list you today. Before these all these tests are done because we list only list on Wednesdays. It must have been a Wednesday we only put people on list on Wednesdays. Our committee has decided to put you on we've never seen anything like this. How many people? They didn't say they didn't tell you. They can't do that because a HIPAA, they can't tell you anything. I hung up and literally started crying.
Scott Benner 44:26
Yeah, you almost made me cry just now. Wow. That is love.
John 44:29
That is, it was unbelievable. The amount of how loved I felt, how how that makes you know, there's a God man, and I'm telling you, it was most overwhelming thing I've ever done, I've ever been through, yeah, so it went along. I had a couple of buddies, you know, I got a good buddy out in Oregon, kind of a hippie guy, and he, he was keeping me updated, wow, I'm calling every day, and they said that I'm not written, you know, they haven't put me in so, yeah, I knew he, he had volunteered. Right, right? And I have a very best friend in Maryland, and I knew he had done it. But aside from that, I had no idea you know who and what, you know what, not. So
Scott Benner 45:11
John, and that happened, you got that kidney. I did get that kidney. Yeah, yeah. So I want to know how that changed your life, and I want to know about the relationship with the person moving forward. So first, you know, obviously, what is it? What is the the new kidney mean for you?
John 45:26
It's a rebirth. I celebrate three birthdays now. I celebrate my birthday in 1964 March 17 of 23 that's when our kidney transplant occurred, and I now have our kidney in me, and I celebrate the birthday of my
Scott Benner 45:47
angel donor. Did it end up being a friend of yours or a family member or
John 45:53
not a family member? So very special friend of mine? Yeah, we go to church together, Scott. She is actually my general doctor as
Scott Benner 46:04
well. No kidding, yeah, did that strengthen your relationship over time, or was it already a really great relationship to begin with?
John 46:11
I think it was a it strengthened our it actually ties
Unknown Speaker 46:16
people together.
John 46:19
It's such a selfless act, sacrificing a part of yourself to save somebody else, sincerely. And does that sound familiar for a Christian person to say that? No, no, of course, sacrificing for somebody else,
Scott Benner 46:35
opening yourself up too to the possibility that, if she has a problem later in life now she only has one kidney, you're only putting your chips on the table,
John 46:42
yes, yeah. And she has, she has kids, so, yeah, that is a such a selfless act that, you know, it's still to this day is, you know, there's no way that I could ever repay that gift. It's impossible.
Scott Benner 46:59
Yeah, I did want to ask you, has it ever felt the gift was too big? Did you ever, do you ever feel like, what the word is here, like you ever feel like you're not deserving of it, or that, you know, you feel guilty that it happened anything like that?
John 47:13
No, I don't feel that way, because, you know, I know the heart of the person that shared this experience with me, okay, I'm good friends with her husband as well. And I was told once that sometimes some of the
Speaker 2 47:30
patients that walk into her office,
John 47:35
you know, you get to a point with some patients obviously, that you you can't help them anymore. I was told that this is something she can help. John,
Unknown Speaker 47:45
so beautiful.
Scott Benner 47:46
Well, it says a lot about you too, John, because a doctor intersects a lot of people with issues, and you can't give of your own body that many times. But, and I would imagine she's probably never done it before and probably won't do it again, but something about you motivated her to do this thing.
John 48:02
You know, I don't know what it is about me at all. I don't think it's me at all. I just think it's the heart and of the person that generously gave to me.
Scott Benner 48:13
Yeah, that's very kind of you to say that, but I'll tell you right now, nobody's given me a kidney. So like,
John 48:21
I think you'd probably be surprised.
Scott Benner 48:23
I could probably write a pretty good letter, and I bet you that people Oh, I didn't get that. I think it would have been my junk mail. So sorry.
John 48:30
Oh, yeah, our kidney is doing great. Things are good. I just feel blessed to be here every day. I mainly wanted to come on to let people know that, heaven forbid anybody have to go through complications from diabetes. But all complications don't, you know, don't let it limit you, like I've heard countless people come on with young people being diagnosed, you know, parents and even some of those young people, it doesn't limit you. And even vision loss that doesn't limit you, it doesn't make you who you are. You know, struggling with diabetes, that's, you know, that's just part of life. It happens. And, you know, dealing with those things is the Bible tells us that, you know you're going to have trials in life just the way it is. But God overcame all that. There's way more to it than me walking around here bumping into stuff. It's Hey, you know, everybody does that, yeah.
Scott Benner 49:27
Is there an ability for you to separate yourself from your religious beliefs? Like, do you have any idea what it is about your personality that even opens you up to the idea of being available, to the idea, you know, prescribed you by your religion. Do you understand? I mean, like, there's plenty of people who hear religious messaging and they still don't have your response to it.
John 49:49
Well, you know, I met with some guys just this week, and I was, I was telling them about this. There's a lot of Christians, Scott that have that exact day when they say I was. Because I took Jesus as my Savior on this date, and I was at this location, a lot of Christians, I think, had that testimony. I don't have that
Speaker 1 50:09
just always felt this way. No, no, I didn't.
John 50:13
I always believed, and I always went to church, maybe on and off, if you will, right? I sit here at 61 years old. Now I look backwards, my thing is, he was there all the time. I know it. I don't see to me a flesh and bones reaction to some of the things that I've experienced without something else being there. And I think about that footprints, picture and poem, you always see, a lot of people have them in their house, of course, yeah, you ever seen that one? You know what I'm talking I do know that reminds me so much of my life. How so well, because when you're carried and you don't have that burden, it's not hitting you right? Your steps aren't in that sand. You're not really walking through it now, why is that you're there and you're going through it? Right? That's all I can relate it to. I don't really have a perfect answer for that, but I just know that I was carried through a lot of these situations by and I don't want to just
Scott Benner 51:17
you're not dismissing people's effort or, yeah, I understand that's
John 51:22
not what I'm saying, not because I've had so much help, my gosh, but there are those times when you're quiet and by yourself, you know, yeah, I don't drift into that. Why me? And how come and why? You know, I could go back and my first eye doctor that I chose probably wasn't the perfect one for me. I think he might have made some mistakes. Scott, yeah, but I can't sit and thrive on that. What good does that do? It
Speaker 1 51:49
is definitely not gonna help you. No, it definitely is gonna help you.
John 51:53
No. So, so that's just kind of how I view things. And, you know, I tell people all the time, and my wife, I don't think likes it when I say this, but it's the truth, if God gave me back my sight right now, sitting right here in this living room, you know what the first thing I do, Scott, I wonder. Close my eyes.
Scott Benner 52:10
You really feel like you're seeing the world differently. Now,
Unknown Speaker 52:13
I do. Yeah,
John 52:14
I do. And think about it. You know, think about closing your eyes for 21 years, Scott, and then open it again. I don't even know how to imagine it would be sensory overload. Yeah, yeah. I mean, what are you 5354 I am looking for. Yeah, yeah. You ever go to like, a place that's like, way too loud, way, way, way too loud, sure, it gets a little too much, right? I see that times like 100 million open in my eyes, like, wide open right now, like I could see everything. It would be like I'd have to close them. I know I would, well, I'd want to peek them back open, obviously, you know, once I get that miracle. But yeah, and, you know, I believe miracles happens every day. I know I had one two and a half years ago when I was blessed with our kidney, your kidney, yeah. So, you know, I know they happen, so I'm if it doesn't happen in this life, that's okay, but I believe it still
Scott Benner 53:07
will, John, I feel like I hear you telling me that you're comfortable and happy where you are, like, that's pretty astonishing, because I don't know that people can say that, who can see all the time, well, is that fair? You're you? It's super fair. Yeah,
John 53:20
it's super fair. And, and, you know, again, you know, I listen and, hey, I'm not perfect. Nobody is right. And do I get in a bad mood? Yeah, not too often. On this, honestly, every now and then, my wife keeps telling me, you sound more and more like your dad every day. And I was like, well, that I think all of us are like that, aren't we? Scott,
Scott Benner 53:41
hey, listen, I do know from the grocery store sometimes, John, I'm like, we got to go. And at
John 53:45
54 you probably things just come out of your mouth. Now that might not have come out when you're 24 or 30. My
Scott Benner 53:53
wife's like, where are we gonna go? And I'm like, I don't know, but I just saw a little kid spit in a trash can. The dad didn't yell at him, and we got to go wherever. That isn't going to happen. I want to go to she's like, I don't think we're getting away from this. And I was like, okay,
John 54:04
yeah. And that's what, how it is. As you get older, you just say what you want. A lot of times, yeah, and no filter, my wife just said, and lot of times that happens. And that's, you know, I want to try to avoid that, but I'm Cliff wells leggers. I'm Cliff walls Lakers. Son, man, you know, I watched him for years. That's just how it is. It's gonna happen.
Scott Benner 54:26
I think sometimes you know you just you're alive long enough you gather up enough information, you know how you feel, and you know pretenses are are wasteful. As you get older, you realize that time's limited and you don't have a lot of time to apologize to everybody before you say something. So, you know, they can like it, not like it, whatever. That's all fine. But yeah,
John 54:49
even, I guess, over the last 30 days, I mean, throwing all political stuff aside, you know, the Charlie Kirk assassination really impacted me. It did hugely. It. It impacted me terribly. He was a Christian man, and obviously he debated for, I want to say, a living or whatever his movement was. I didn't know anything about him, honestly, okay, till all that happened, but I started listening to those kinds of talks, right Scott and then I listened to the how that man debated, right with folks again, forget politics. I don't care about that anyway, the way that he talked to people, interjecting fairness, but wanting to give his point, right? You know, at 61 years old, you know, I think he was 31 I almost feel like I've wasted time, by the way, sometimes I react, and really how the world reacts in, let's call it a debate situation, or any kind of, really interaction, right? What do you wish you would have done differently? Reacted different, responded different. In other words, yeah,
Scott Benner 55:54
disagreed with you. You, you wish you would have heard him out.
John 55:58
Yes, yeah, always. I think that's, you know, and I think, as I get older now, sometimes I have the propensity to talk over people, and I don't mean to Chris, reminds me that a lot think it happens and and again, you know, I'm just, I'm just trying to do better in in respect to that. And sometimes I lean on my vision loss to to that feeling. You know, it's just like you don't feel like you know, when we go out to eat, let's say me and Chris. They don't ever ask me what I want.
Unknown Speaker 56:32
They're looking at Chris.
Scott Benner 56:34
They talk to her and like you can't hear them,
Unknown Speaker 56:37
yeah, yeah, yeah.
John 56:38
I understand most people, very few, come across a blind person every day. Yeah, they just don't, they don't know how to react to them, you know. And I understand that. It's just, you know, sometimes it's like, hey, hey, hey, I'm over here.
Scott Benner 56:52
That doesn't change how you feel about it. Yeah, their misunderstanding isn't going to help you feel
John 56:57
better about it. Yeah, no, you know. I mean, there's but I mean playing blind is I'm telling you, man, it's sometimes it's just so funny. Man, I could sit here for two hours and tell you different blind jokes that have happened to me along the way. That's what I call them, blind jokes, and basically just things that have happened that are hilarious due to my vision loss. You know, there's so many stories. And you know, everybody has funny things that happen to them in life, but yeah, I've had my
Scott Benner 57:27
share. Well, John, I'll tell you, I it's not too late to start listening more to people and talking less. And you know, I mean, if you already know what you think, then telling everybody else what you think maybe isn't as valuable for you is hearing what they believe, and then, you know, see, if there's not, not a little bit of what they've got to say that you could blend into your thinking, is all and maybe not, maybe you'll throw it all away. Maybe you'll hear them and think like That's bullshit. I don't believe that, you know, and you'd be on your way, yeah. But every once in a while, I think it surprise you, somebody will say something. It'll stick on you, yeah,
John 58:02
for sure, yeah. And not, you know, that's, that's, that's kind of my things. Why I even said that? Because I know I need to listen more. I mean, you know, right? I read that and, no, sometimes I don't listen to it. We always want to try to get our point across right.
Scott Benner 58:17
I would also think that not having visual cues probably makes it difficult in a social setting too, because you don't know where to jump into the conversation, so you probably have to be a little more aggressive, right? You don't know when people are pausing all the time, and so maybe you're talking over people when you wouldn't normally if you could see their their physical cues. I mean, there's to be some of that.
John 58:37
That's 100% I mean, I don't know how many times, Scott, I've, you know, I may have a meeting in my office with some sales people or whatever, and they get ready to leave, and they've already turned and walked away. I'm standing there with my hand out, wanting to shake their hand. And, you know, we've, oh, I mean, yeah, no, I couldn't even count how many times that has happened. You know, it
Scott Benner 58:58
just makes sense. I mean, there's reason, there's some reasons, why you might end up doing that and being frustrated with how people treat you, is probably just one of them. And then this is another. There's stuff going on.
John 59:11
I mean, I, you know, and I don't get frustrated about it, you know, I'm a very humble person. Anyway, you know that most of it doesn't bother me? Okay, it really doesn't, I mean, you know, and there's a lot of technology now that, like at a restaurant, since I don't read Braille, you know, they have something called seeing AI on this iPhone, and you can take a picture of the menu, and I can listen to it with the voice over on the iPhone, and, you know, it's awesome. Figure out what I want. I'm not a picky, I'm not real picky about what I eat anyway. You know, I usually first from second.
Scott Benner 59:45
Yeah, that's pretty glorious John, that somebody could do that. You know what? I mean? Like, yeah, yeah. Especially, too, because it, you know, give you I mean, if there were carb counts listed on menus, you'd get those as well. Like, there's diabetes, reasons why you'd care. You know. The same money,
John 1:00:01
that's for sure, because it also has, like, a product, little area on it. That's product. You click on that, and you can look at the barcode, and it'll read you the carbs on, you know, container, can of whatever, that kind of stuff. So it's kind of neat, you know? So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there. Now, for the folks that can't see you, I
Speaker 1 1:00:22
didn't ask you, do you have kids? No, we don't have any kids. You don't
John 1:00:26
have kids? No, no, we have nephews and nieces that are grown now and then we're starting to watch their kids. So that's kind of how that rolls.
Scott Benner 1:00:36
Did you guys not want children? Or did it not
Unknown Speaker 1:00:39
work out? It
John 1:00:40
was kind of timing. Chris lost her parents when she was real, you know, pretty young, and in her 30s, early 30s. And you know,
Speaker 2 1:00:49
we got married little later. How old were you 2029?
John 1:00:54
She just said so. And then our her parents passed soon after that. And then, and, you know, which was around 2000 and then, oh, four, I lost my sight. And not at all times, just baby, just things just kept happening. I mean, you know, not things, just life, I guess, you know. And and again, you know, once our nephews came, came along, Chris's brother and his wife had had a couple of boys, and they came. They became like ours. They were here all the time. You know, we kind of have kids, but we don't. I understand
Scott Benner 1:01:29
that's lovely, by the way, you're making me think I would definitely watch a reality show of you raising a baby when you're blind. I think that would be pretty amazing. Well, I feel like you could
Unknown Speaker 1:01:39
figure it out. Doug
John 1:01:42
got the guy that trained me on the computer. He was blind as well. I don't know if I mentioned that, so that was definitely the blonde blind on that deal. But, yeah, but he was telling me he had, he have triplets, Chris, he had twins or triplets. No kidding. They were little, little, little kids. Yeah, he's blind. He was telling me one time he's like, I was I was bathing Jeremiah, or whatever the kid's name was, had the shampoo there and all this. And he said, I picked up the tube and put it in, rubbed it all in his hair, and I smelled it. He said, John. I put toothpaste in his hair, wash his hair.
Scott Benner 1:02:16
I was like, Doug, man. What are you doing? Probably bright and shiny. That's nice, though,
John 1:02:21
but I would imagine that it would been, you know, I would have demanded the kid, you know, they would have had have bells on their shoes and, you know, little things like that I had thought of over the years. That might not be beneficial bringing up kids and stuff like that. But, you know, but again, you know, those nephews, they were right there with me, and as I was testing my sugar, he would, because I have a talking meter, you know, blood glucose meter, yeah, say I wouldn't. The Lawn Boy would always say, apply blood now, you know, you know, because it was like a little robotic right voice on the sugar meter. And he would always mimic that when come running over to see how my sugar was, that kind of stuff. That's
Scott Benner 1:03:03
very nice. Have you mentioned living on with Lake? Ok? How do you say it Lake Okeechobee. Okeechobee is that? Is that the Everglades? Are you in? Are you in that part of the state? Yeah, yeah.
John 1:03:15
This is the Everglades. We're in the Glades. Basically the towns surrounding Lake Okeechobee are considered the Glades, if you will. Okay, so, yeah, Lake Okeechobee is the big, huge lake blue spot in the middle of the state there, out of the South Park, we're right between Fort Myers and West Palm Beach. You put your finger on the map, that's where our little town is. So, yeah, awesome.
Scott Benner 1:03:39
Yeah, that's it's really something. You've been there since you moved there from, from
John 1:03:43
Maryland, yeah, 1996 Yeah, when I came down here, wow, I originally relocated to the west coast in Bradenton, around the Bradenton area on the west coast of Florida in 1992 okay, but Chris and I got set up on a blind date. Yeah, that's right, a blind date. I wasn't blind then, but I knew what you meant anyway. Yeah, it was blind to me, though Chris had seen a picture, but anyway, whatever, she cheated a little bit. You bragging.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:14
I hear John, okay, yeah, man,
Scott Benner 1:04:17
how worried are we that being blind is not going to get you, but you're going to get snatched up by an alligator or a snake at some point. Is that a concern or?
John 1:04:25
No, not terribly. They stay over in the lake. Pretty much. We don't have too many right here by our house. There's a lot of canals that run up around Clewiston, you know that they bring up and down for the farming and stuff like that during different times of the years. And the Gators kind of hang out in the canals and stuff, but they don't venture out of those too much, you know, run around in people's driveways or anything. There was a black bear running around here, I don't know, six or eight years ago, running around town. People saw it in some trees and palm trees and stuff around town. Right now we have. Have a, we have a coyote epidemic here in town. They're killing a bunch of cats. They come out of the cane fields and eat up people's cats and stuff. So they're, they're trying to get rid of them.
Scott Benner 1:05:10
So my last little like, throw away question that I've been wondering the whole time is, what kind of farming goes on there?
John 1:05:15
Sugar cane. Sugar cane. Yeah, it's America's sweetest town. Is coolest in
Scott Benner 1:05:20
Florida. Say that before. Okay, all right, yeah,
John 1:05:23
that's why. If you come into Clewiston from pretty much any direction, Scott, all you will see is sugar cane fields, basically real tall, Leafy, I don't know if you wouldn't know what sugar cane looks like, but it's like a tall, leafy kind of plant that you know, it's kind of pretty when it's blowing in the wind, yeah, you know, you come down just it, just fields and fields full of it. And you've probably seen pictures of of, you know, they they burn it before they harvest it, to get all the leaves and stuff off, because the stalk is where all the cane is, where all the sugar cane stuff is. They have big fires every now and then, everybody's, yeah, a lot of people that don't know anything about it be like, Oh my god, the whole place, they're basically controlled burns, you know, that kind of thing.
Scott Benner 1:06:11
John, I actually have a meeting. I have to jump on but I want to tell you first that I don't know. Did you hear episode 1591 it was called the sweetest irony. It was Renee. Her father was a Louisiana sugar cane farmer.
John 1:06:24
I don't think I have, I have to go back and check that one I
Scott Benner 1:06:27
grew up on a on a sugar cane farm, and has type one now, yeah, I'm sorry to tell you like I do have to get to a meeting. No problem. No, no, I want to thank you. This has been really lovely, and I appreciate you. I know it was, you know, more effort for you to come on the podcast than it is for a lot of people. So thank you. Thanks. Thanks to your wife, your lovely wife, for setting things up with you and everything as well. Oh, yeah,
John 1:06:51
no, I appreciate your time. And you know, just encourage people you know that are listening. If you you know, if you get any complications from this disease is not the end of the world, and just trust things will go your way and keep pushing on, and everybody keep that trigger under control. It's really important.
Scott Benner 1:07:10
John, I appreciate your message and sharing what went right and what went wrong for you, too. I think it's really valuable for people to hear
Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
yes, sir, no, for sure.
Scott Benner 1:07:18
I heard Chris the back, by the way, I heard Chris in the background. She's not wrong. You do have a passion for this that is commendable, and I really do hope people heard it like the way, the way that I did today. So thank
John 1:07:29
you, all right, thank you, Scott, and I appreciate your podcast and everything you're doing, you're changing lives, man. Thank you very much.
Scott Benner 1:07:37
Awesome. You're very kind. Hold on one second for me. Okay, you
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