#586 Body Fire

November 30, 2021Scott Benner

Carol is an adult lving with type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
You guys should hear how many different ways I tried to start this show. But in the end I just like Hello friends, and welcome to episode 586 of the Juicebox Podcast. See it's simple and easy

on today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast Carol is with us. Carol's from the Canada, the Canada, the Canadian. I just mix Canadian in Canada together somehow I was gonna say Carol's Canadian, or Carol's from Canada. Instead I said cow's Canavalia Oh, it's too late now I would have made that the title. Damn it. Anyway, while you're learning about Carol, remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice. Medical or otherwise, I've lost my rhythm. Please. Really? What are you gonna do? I mean, oh my god. Please consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Or becoming bold with insulin. I guess I don't know it as much as I can just say it after I started. It's interesting. Please remember. Wow, that's weird. I'm thinking about it. Stop making. 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. That's it. Thinking is my greatest enemy.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. This episode of the podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one. Learn more about them on their Instagram or Facebook pages. And at touched by type one.org

Carol 2:04
Yeah, I wish I was where you were. Why is that? It's cold here.

Scott Benner 2:08
I hate the cold. I don't know why you're anywhere cold. It's a ridiculous idea. You should leave right oh,

Carol 2:13
we had snow three days ago. Like where are you? Ish. I'm in northern like North East New Brunswick. Pretty much. Within an hour. I can get the code back. I mean, I'm on like the side of Newfoundland, but I'm originally from Halifax Nova Scotia. Actually.

Scott Benner 2:30
Those are all places. I'm just kidding. They are

Carol 2:33
actually if you know, Sidney Crosby parlor Park Boys, they're all from my hometown. Coldharbour. Yes, you got surprisingly Yes. You guys

Scott Benner 2:43
Sidney Crosby and the Trailer Park Boys. Yeah. It's a nice mix.

Carol 2:48
And actually quite couple other people like classify. A lot of people know his music up here. We all camp together as kids at the same campground. And yeah, kid actually is a pretty small place anyway.

Scott Benner 3:00
Okay. I'm from Philadelphia. I think I'm supposed to hate Sidney Crosby. So

Carol 3:06
it's okay. Most Canadians don't like him either.

Scott Benner 3:08
Oh, really? Well, you know, it's funny, we're recording, I'm just gonna tell you that I standing in a tunnel with my son yesterday. And he's hitting and we're getting done. And then we started talking about different things. And talking about how once you make it to Major League Baseball, you're basically one of the best like 1000 baseball players on the planet. And, and how we watch them and then just openly mock them for sucking and you're like, wait, what? There's so much better than everybody else. And then I just thought, like, I can imagine you starting when you're four or five years old, and you make it you're 23 you're standing out in the field, gets quiet for a second before a pitch and just hear somebody yell at you suck just like my whole life, you know? And then that made me think of it

Carol 3:59
just comes crashing down at that one person. Well, when you said like, you know,

Scott Benner 4:03
nobody likes Sidney Crosby as like, he's a good hockey player. Like what else? He

Carol 4:08
is a good hockey player. But I guess what a lot of people don't like about him is he's not as rough and rugged. So when Don Cherry kind of out of them at the start and called them a hotdog player, it kind of stuck with him. Because you know, Don Cherry before his whole outing there was, you know, everybody loved on Cherry. So when he said something, you know, and he was young, and no one really took them seriously. And yeah, it's just

Scott Benner 4:33
Can I thank you. Before we get started, and I got to figure out your microphones a little poppy, but you said about already, which I really appreciated. And if you can do that a couple more times during the hour.

Carol 4:43
Oh, don't worry. You will hear that multiple times along with other weird Canadian words. I'm sure.

Scott Benner 4:48
Thank you. What kind of a mic are you using? Because you're a little puppy like You're like it's weird.

Carol 4:53
I'm using the one that came with my phone. Oh, it paid. I paid $700 for the phone. So you would Send the microphone would be happy to.

Scott Benner 5:03
Do you have hair touching the phone by any chance?

Carol 5:05
Not at all. Okay. All right.

Scott Benner 5:07
We're good then. So, we record that, you know, you're being recorded the whole time. So, you know,

Carol 5:14
awesome. I hope you have a deeper because sometimes Yeah, I might drop the bomb.

Scott Benner 5:19
Oh, I'll just cut the word out. I are back. Yeah, I gave up on the beeping about a year ago. It just really is like you have to because you basically you're doing double the work you're cutting. You're cutting some of the audio out, right? So you can't hear

Carol 5:35
it would be kind of fun to hear someone like me go on a rant and all you heard was Beep boop, boop, beep, beep and beep to

Scott Benner 5:43
a couple of times, that

Carol 5:45
would be kind of fun for a moment.

Scott Benner 5:47
Alright, so you, you introduce yourself and then we start talking anyway, you want to be known meaning by the way, you don't need to use your full name if you don't want to stuff like that.

Carol 5:56
My name is Carol, I'm from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in your guys's northern neighbor there Canada. And I now live in a little place called neglect New Brunswick. How I found the podcast and how pretty much my story would be is I work as a chiropractor and a roofer. That's my, one of my multiple trades. Plus, I'm self employed. And all of a sudden, one day I started not feeling good. And then I have multiple autoimmune diseases. So for like, eight years, everything always got blamed on that even blood work, they would say, you know, a little off because of this, or because of this medication. And, you know, finally, something didn't match. So I kind of crashed and ended up in the ER, and, you know, went through the whole battle of our free health care, Canadian fun up here. And luckily, I actually found this podcast very quickly. Because I'm the kind of person who goes on Facebook and, you know, puts out that post and joins 1500 groups and pretty much, you know, finds everything and your podcast actually came up that a lot of times, so I figured I'd jump on. And honestly, compared to what we get up here in Canada for information, it was something even my doctors and my nurses didn't even understand is if you're an adult up here and you get diagnosed with diabetes, they automatically assume type two. And I'm sure it's the same way in America. But in Canada, we have very limited resources period, let alone if you get diabetes. So down there, I noticed you guys, you know, you have camps and stuff that that would be I think we should have adult camps where we all get together with a case of beer and you know, just bitch about our diabetes.

Scott Benner 7:56
Oh, can I stop you for a second? I have to ask you a question. You're not You're not building something right now are you

Carol 8:01
know, that's actually a woodpecker outside?

Scott Benner 8:05
I'm not hearing that. Are you maybe are you maybe touching stuff while you're talking or moving around or anything? Because I'm hearing like a lot of scraping and like, like little No, no, you're

Carol 8:14
I think in my microphone might have moved it but I'll hold it. So it doesn't move there. That's weird.

Scott Benner 8:18
No, I really, maybe it's just that you're so far away and in the middle of a frozen tundra. That could be quite possible. Yeah. Well, and we won't harp on it, but I just want to make sure that you're not some people get like they move their hands and they rub things they don't realize they tap on me

Carol 8:35
like get fidgety. No, surprisingly, I'm actually not too fidgety since you complained that you couldn't hear my microphone. Like all like still and still like talk. But unfortunately, I am a hand talker. So I might switch a bit. So I apologize.

Scott Benner 8:50
Just a little bit of noise while you're talking. And I don't want people to miss what you're saying. But there

Carol 8:54
is like four woodpeckers just going crazy outside in the woods right now. So if you're getting that as a background noise, but

Scott Benner 9:01
Well, I wish you wouldn't have said for woodpeckers going crazy this early in the episode because god damn solid title for your episode. Anyway, okay, so you let me make sure I understand. So you go in. And, you know, you said you have a lot of other autoimmune issues that came prior. So what other ones do you have?

Carol 9:28
I have a condition called ankylosing spondylitis. I'm being diagnosed for lupus. I have fibromyalgia. rheumatory arthritis. I have psoriasis. I have a condition called beulas pemphigoid. And I learned I had hash nietos thyroid disease right before I got diagnosed actually a couple months beforehand. When I have anemia I know I'm missing something. You

Scott Benner 9:58
just list my autoimmune diseases you don't have Would that be easier?

Carol 10:01
Honestly, I think it would be but some of them I can't even pronounce myself. Some of them like, there's a couple in there. Oh, I'm Renault's syndrome, the one where your fingers turn white. That's a fun one. How old are you? I'm 41. Right now,

Scott Benner 10:18
how long have you had these things? In the past 10 years, they

Carol 10:22
all started coming up about 12 years. Right after I had my middle child, baby birthing. And I said I honestly, I tell her all the time, she sucked the life out and she's a teenager. Now.

Scott Benner 10:34
May I say? I don't believe you're supposed to tell them that.

Carol 10:38
I do though. Unfortunately, where it's okay, though. She understands because she believes in herself. Like, her father agrees. Like, you know, she, she's fun. I'm very proud of her. She's on Team Canada for cheerleading. So she has, you know, even though she's been a pain in my bum, she has done big things.

Scott Benner 10:57
Very nice. That's, that's nice. Okay, so prior to this, this first thing happening into your 20s Nothing going on. You just broke nothing.

Carol 11:06
I was actually at the time working as an automotive mechanic. And life was great. I to smoke actually had my first kid very young. And after my second kid, I had always complained about back pain. And they checked me for everything. And they told me that my sugar's were kind of elevated. But when I was pregnant, they weren't too concerned. And life went on, I was very active. So nothing really came up just a lot of nausea, but they always blamed being pregnant on that. So had my baby went back to work. And yeah, everything was fine. And then about two years later, then I started getting, but not feeling right. And they told me I had anemia. And at that time, it was anemia. And they just told me I had arthritis, what they do for Aimia nothing, they told me to eat some more iron a lot more red meat. Pretty much no i I've always eaten, right anyways, not big takeout person. We do like me, like, we do a lot of home gardening and stuff like that. So if we don't get ourselves, we always get from a market, like, we're pretty healthy either. So I never really thought of food or anything. And, you know, again, life went on. So five or six years goes by and the pains are getting worse. Now they're telling me I after MRIs and stuff, and you wait a while up here for this, by the way. So if you complain about a pain today, and you're not dying, you wait about 12 months to get an MRI

Scott Benner 12:49
is that the free health care that everybody here wants

Carol 12:52
for free health care that everybody wants up here. So I mean, some provinces are better than others. But unfortunately, on the east coast, ours is not. So if you complain today, they just give you painkillers. And they'll usually start as naproxen or something and they know tell you to, you know, limit your daily you know, everything and wait for your appointment. So when the year comes up, you'll get your MRI or CAT scan or whatever it is you're going in for even simple blood work. Like if you get blood work today, we'll say it's about two months sometimes to get into a doctor to get the results of that blood work. That so now you think about it. If you complain today about your problem, you wait a year for an MRI, that MRI now takes about, you know, two months sometimes for the doctor to get back unless it's you know, really, really, really bad. And then to get into their office now you're talking anywhere between six to eight weeks to get an appointment to get bloodwork now you're up to two years for something started bugging you two years ago.

Scott Benner 13:56
And a number of different things going on in that process. Exactly.

Carol 14:01
And then you get you'll get to a doctor and they'll be like, ooh, that doesn't sound and you'll wait all this time and then there'll be like, that doesn't sound like me. You should go see this doctor instead. Oh, and then you got to do to get so to get to a rheumatologist to get diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, which is it's a deformity that will happen in your spine. It's kind of if you ever see people who are as they get older, they're very hunched over and they're human, their shoulders are pronounced. And you know, they have a hard time walking very seized up. That's what it is actually the lead singer of Imagine Dragons has it looking but he does have it.

Scott Benner 14:42
It's an inflammatory arthritis affecting the spine and large joints. That sounds right. Yeah. More common among men usually begins in early adulthood. Typically,

Carol 14:54
I don't know why they say it's more common among men. Because women is women. Name of is called the working man's disease. So I've been doing trades since I was 18 years old. And when I say trades, like up here we call anything. I mean, like building or fixing anything, that's a trade. So I have multiple licenses in different kinds of trades over the years. So I started off as an automotive technician, I did exhaust fabrication, then I moved on to carpentry, cabinetry, roofing. And then now I kind of do art with carpentry. Plus, I run a small business based off of different art and stuff with which I made.

Scott Benner 15:39
But always working with your hands leaning forward, like exactly,

Carol 15:43
so on your feet, they never really with women, they don't really think of diagnosing as like women, it's very hard to get a diagnosis with it, they'll usually tell you at Fibro, or give me something, it's, it's a certain blood marker, I guess it's an HLA B 27. Marker, it's all on the same lines is diabetes with the whole HLA family. And, and autoimmune diseases come in pairs. So usually, if you get one, you'll get two. And if you get another one, another one's gonna come along. That's what I've learned over the time. But the problem up here is, is if you want to learn anything besides basic, you have to do it yourself. Okay. So example, when I got when I got sick with diabetes before I actually got diagnosed, last year, when COVID started. In the end of February, we all got really, really, really sick. But COVID wasn't here yet. So my spouse and our daughter, they didn't get as sick as I did. So I went into the hospital, and they told me I had an upper respiratory infection. And they gave me an antibiotic, and they told me to go home. So I went home with the antibiotic, but nothing really happened. But because of COVID, you don't want to go back in because, I mean, they make it seem like you shouldn't less you have COVID. So I sat and waited. And I guess, between the time the antibiotic ended, and when I actually went into DKA, I had a kidney infection, because my blood sugar was so high. But no one ever checked my blood sugar because I don't look. And this is what they told me is I don't look like a diabetic. Because for 40 at the time, I was just before my 41st birthday. I'm in shape. I work yeah, I mean, like I don't, and their eyes up here and adult who's diabetic, you're overweight, you're lazy. It's very stereotypical. And they automatically assume you're cute. So when I get really sick, no one really paid attention to they just kept telling me it was something else. So I called my doctor and said, I'm having a really hard time breathing, My chest hurts, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But because of COVID She couldn't see me in the office. So over the phone, she told me I had asthma. And then two days later, I drove myself to the hospital. And they told me my blood sugar was 20 that 28 was 28 point something. I don't know what it is. And your guys's American term. I'll tell you in a second. A one C was 18.3.

Scott Benner 18:30
Jesus, okay, hold on. I

Carol 18:32
didn't understand how I drove myself there, let alone waited in the waiting room for six hours. And was still coherent when I got to them.

Scott Benner 18:42
Yeah. What did you say your blood sugar was? 28 It was

Carol 18:45
28 point something and what they have your a one so yet 18.3. And I hadn't eaten in a day or so because I was so nauseous. Yeah. And

Scott Benner 18:57
it was like for people listening that don't use that scale. Her blood sugar was over 500. That's crazy. And she's like that a long time it for a once he was that high too.

Carol 19:10
Yeah, what he told me was is that because of my job, and because of the fact that I'm active, I was always burning the over amount of sugar off and keeping my body in a fight or flight mode. And then when COVID head, everyone lost their jobs. So even though I was eating good, I was still eating carbs,

Scott Benner 19:33
sitting still not moving around as much not working. Exactly. Because

Carol 19:36
we weren't allowed out of our houses. Like if you want to walk your dog, you had to stick in a certain block radius. It was and this was right in March. It was one person per family to go grocery shopping or anything like that. Like it was very you couldn't do anything. And at the time we live in the city and we had a very small yard. And when I say small yard like I mean it was literally our house. driveway and a pile of the sod for grass. So you couldn't do much. So going from working 12 hour days, five to six days a week. Plus coming home and being busy. That didn't happen anymore, so I wasn't. So I was just taking me tactically and just building up building up. So when we couldn't work in March, it was, you know, three or four months it was just building up. I guess that's why I was so high they told me right now it makes total sense. They describe it as I was really sweet is pretty much like,

Scott Benner 20:36
that's just those that's because of the sap the the what do you guys put on the pancakes? Mabel Sarah, that's it. That's what

Carol 20:45
you understand. Like, I put that on everything. Like I played on my rice like this is before I get diagnosed early. On bacon, I put it on rice. I put it on eggs, I put it on, I get my french fries in it, like literally like it. Everything like I love even in the wintertime if you know someone with a tap, you can pour it on the snow and you can make your own candy with it. So you roll it up on a soccer stick and it's like maple Taffy

Scott Benner 21:17
gonna move you people somewhere warmer, so you can find other things to do.

Carol 21:22
Yeah, but with the cold comes the fun. Like we have four wheelers up here like we ever land in the middle of play kind of like the back roads up here. So up here, I can jump on my four wheeler and I can go more places and I can in my car. Or if you have a snowmobile up here, you can literally make it anywhere like it. There's a good with the bat. But we also live in a fishing village. The ocean is right beside me. So I'm willing to almost freeze to death sometimes to be able to experience all that too. Is in the city. We didn't have that. So

Scott Benner 21:58
yeah. Well, that sounds nice. I mean, honestly, outdoors is nice. I'm teasing, but the cold is insane. And oh, you're in what? Florida? No, I'm in New Jersey.

Carol 22:09
Okay, yeah. And even still warmer than that. Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 22:11
it's way warmer here. And I don't think warming off here. So that's, that's. So you've been on. Even on quite a journey for the last 10 or so years?

Carol 22:24
Oh, it's not even like the little bit. I told you. That's not even the start of it. So when I made it to emerge, I would like I said, I was they told me I was in DKA. But because of COVID. I was sent home within 12 hours with a prescription for Metformin. They had done a gad test, a C peptide, and something else. And they told me to go home and wait for results. So they sent me home with metformin, and insulin Lantis to Use as directed. But no one gave me any direction, because I hadn't seen an endo team. And then I had homologue again, uses directed. But again, no one get all they told me was 10 units at each of my meals. Hmm. But I don't always eat. I mean by weight. Food.

Scott Benner 23:18
I'm trying to imagine what you do. So you're holding prescriptions that say use this directed on them, which is what they all say. And then no one helps you with what that means when you're told to go home. Yeah, what do you do next? Because you're probably

Carol 23:30
well, I still was so they gave me I guess two bags of fluid and antibiotics for the kidney infection I had. And they sent me home like, Yeah, me too. And they told me if I have any more problems to come back it but I waited seven hours to get in there kind of thing. So

Scott Benner 23:50
how am I ready for this? Right? Wait a minute, had you been on antibiotic right before this as well?

Carol 23:55
Well, back in March, when I first got sick there with the upper respiratory infection,

Scott Benner 24:02
see it back to back antibiotics, this I'm sorry, I cut you off you sent they sent you home.

Carol 24:06
So they sent me home with it. And then it wasn't working like I was they gave me a play called a blood glucose meter. The one touch or whatever, they told me to go to the pharmacy and get it. And I was taken what they told me but my sugar wasn't coming down. And it just like I could get it the 13 but then it would go right up again. And it was crashing down to 1.8 I think I was going back up because no one had told me anything about Pre-Bolus carb counting, you know, write down your meals, figure out some stuff. It was just 1010 1010

Scott Benner 24:43
Well, that's the only issue count in my opinion. You can't you can't treat DKA with just the way people manage diabetes, like your you need to be hospitalized and that needs to be brought down kind of slowly,

Carol 24:58
I guess. Yeah. From what I've learned If I was a kid, I would have gotten that, like a little better. Hospital if I actually wrote the patient advocate in the Hospital Authority, and describe my experience and told them, you know, this is not right. And they guys

Scott Benner 25:21
is that they did, they apologized and said, you're free maple syrup.

Carol 25:25
God knows. So they apologized. And they explained that, you know, they understand that shouldn't have happened, but unfortunately it did. But because of COVID. Do there's sometimes things happen. But the kicker is, is at the time, we only had like four cases and their whole province.

Scott Benner 25:44
Here, they couldn't see they couldn't see DK because of COVID. That doesn't make

Carol 25:48
sense. What they told me it's right in the letter is because of COVID restrictions and the fact that they needed so many beds open in case the wave came that they were waiting for. They had to send me home and because I didn't present as someone because of where I have so many other conditions. I'm so used to pain and stuff that I hold it well because I always have a little bit so the body aches and the headaches and stuff. I wasn't in there crying and losing my mind because it was the first time I'd ever felt it. I can take it because I'm used to being in pain sometimes. So where I didn't present as someone in high distress, they felt that that was another reason to send me home.

Scott Benner 26:35
You have at the knees enough to stop like anybody like that. That's enough, whether it's type two or type one or you're complaining or you're not complaining.

Carol 26:46
Oh, it's not the firt like this is not the only if you if you think that's bad the rest of it's gonna blow your mind.

Scott Benner 26:51
Okay. G voc hypo pen has no visible needle, and it's the first premixed auto injector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is G voc hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G voc glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used in patients with insulin Noma or pheochromocytoma. Visit GE Vogue glucagon.com/risk Have you checked out touched by type one.org? You haven't. Why? You trying to make me look bad? Is that what this is about? This personal between you and I? Because if it's not head over there, touched by type one.org Just pick around a little bit. Look at their programs, see what they do. Learn about their D box program. If you're newly diagnosed chicken I love it. I don't ask a lot. You know what I mean? Touch by tight bond.org Check it out. Follow me on instagram. Follow me on the Facebook machine. Alright, that's it. We're getting back to the show Quick, quick ads. You like it? Ah, Porsche do you say Scott, thank you for keeping the ads quick. My pleasure. Really? Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't say have you gone to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box yet? Hmm, have you t one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box for US resident who has type one diabetes, or you're a US resident was the caregiver of someone with type one, you can take a quick, less than 10 minutes survey that will help people living with type one diabetes and support this podcast, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice bucks. And as the music winds down, I'll remind you to check out the private Facebook great grade private Facebook group, the did that private Facebook page for the Juicebox Podcast. It's called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, over 17,000 people just like you talking about type one right there in the privacy of that page. It's just another lovely benefit of listening to the Juicebox Podcast. There's links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. Let's get back to Cairo.

Carol 29:26
So after I got through all of that, and I finally I had to go back because my sugars wouldn't come down properly because then that forum was making me super sick. I couldn't keep food down but I'm on all this insulin. So I'm going super low. And I go back to the hospital and they make me wait and emerge again for another six hours. But every time I go into a merge because of diabetes, all the symptoms of diabetes are the same as COVID. So every time I go I have to get tested I have to get isolated and They started once it's only diabetes, they just quickly do something and they sent me home.

Scott Benner 30:07
So they kill if you even if you come back in the same process, I

Carol 30:11
came back crying the second time I came back, because I didn't know how much to use, right. And they told me that it was going to be, they told me to check my sugars and my sugars at the time, I think we're one at 21. And they told me that it wasn't that bad. My vision was getting kind of spotty. And I was getting the tinglies in my hands and feet. And they told me again, because of, you know, there's no beds, there's no doctors available that they couldn't help me. All they could do is just, you know, watch me while I wait, kind of thing

Scott Benner 30:46
this a people, right, this wasn't for elk and moose and stuff. And you just happen to be close to it this for people.

Carol 30:51
Well, this is our city hospital resolutions. And yeah, so I got pissed off and I left. Yeah, I mean, like is I'm like, Okay, this is and I sat in the parking lot of the hospital. And that's what I started looking at stuff. I'm like, Okay, if they're not going to help me, I'll do it. Like, I kept telling myself in my head, I'm like, girl, you can build a car, you can build a house. Yeah, I mean, you can do all this stuff. You can figure this out. I still didn't know yet. If I was type one, or type two, because, right, you have to wait 10 days for the results of these gad tests to come through. And I put up my plea on type one and type two groups, Canadian groups. And I found you guys. So I was reading a bunch of different posts and a lot of people's stories kind of related. But just obviously I'm a different age. And instead of just waiting for the doctor, I just started applying stuff. I'm like, either way, whether I'm type one or type two. Like if I just do this, what they're talking about, what's his Pre-Bolus they're talking about? Me trying this, this and just, I just started slowly chiseling away at it. And I started, you know, first day, not so much. day two, day three, I could see a little bit and I was like, huh, and then all of a sudden, they call me back and they're like, you're type one. That was like, okay, cool. What now? And they're like, Well, an endo should be in contact with you soon. So to me, when someone tells you, you know, they're going to contact you soon. And you just got diagnosed with up here. It's a critical illness, like I can actually claim it as a disability like me, so I can get a disability tax credit and stuff. So I waited for this call from this, you know, endo team that was going to help me if a week goes by No One, two weeks goes by no one. Now my spouse is getting mad. So he calls and he's like, you know, my spouse is, you know, waiting for a call from you guys. Because he knew if I call, I'm going to lose my mind on them. So he was trying to, you know, be the calmer person, right. And they said that they didn't have my file yet. And it would probably be about up to 30 days because of restrictions. I could only have so many people in office that day. And, you know, some of we get back to me. Well, that was I get diagnosed June 3 and 2020. When I had my first appointment with an endo team. It was November 15. I think 13th or 15th. That's five

Scott Benner 33:21
and a half months later. Yes.

Carol 33:25
So yeah, wait. So when people say that listening to your podcast was more than they learned, they're not joking. Because by the time I made it into my Endo, I got myself a Dexcom. From listening to your show. Wow. Because you kept saying get a Dexcom. And I'm very fortunate that my spouse is a veteran, like for Canadian military. So we have a very good medical plan. So I got my general general, like family doctor to write me a prescription for Dexcom just to cover me insurance was right. And I ordered the Dexcom. I started the subscription 299 a month and we just let it build up on our credit card. So when I finally got into the Endo, they were surprised at the fact I had a CGM. Guess where my blood sugar was from listening to your show? times 7.6 or 7.5? I think it was Wow. From 18.3. No kidding. Good for you. And it was an honest to God. It was no help at all. From any one up here.

Scott Benner 34:34
That's amazing. Yeah, I'm like stunned. I did not expect to hear this from you today. And so it really has put me back on my heels a little bit. I had no idea that did something like this. I guess I hear people talk about it. But having it laid out like this is really something else.

Carol 34:53
Oh, and it gets even better.

Scott Benner 34:56
Can't be crazy. What you've just said but nothing inland. I said it can't be crazier than what you just said. Unless it's somehow better. Are you gonna ride a polar bear at any point in the story?

Carol 35:07
I wish I could see a real polar bear. But so after I finally get into them in November, and I had to do blood work, I think it was like a week before I went, so they had something to see when I went in. And that was something I requested. Like I told my family doctors, okay, and I lock in, she's really close. Like she's, um, she's not only our family doctor, but she's from the same village my spouse's from, so I can message her and be like, hey, and I can get in a little quick with her, but she's very limited to what she can do. So I was like, Hey, I have an appointment coming up with my Endo. Can you put me in for some blood work? And you know, put this stuff on it. And at the time, they had me on 50 milligrams of Synthroid. And I asked for my TSH to be check because I remember you had said anything, you know, around anything to it was Yeah, over to you need. And you also had made an episode about your wife, you weren't sure, and just threw her on some anyways. So how I got the centroid was my family doctor. I said, Hey, I have all these symptoms, my tongue swelling, my hair's falling out. Can you hook me up with some Synthroid? I know, it's like, I feel like I'm talking to a drug dealer sometimes. I'm like, you know, can you give me some of this? So I can, you know, it's not going to kill me as you go. Sure. And even with that, 50 my TSH was still really low. So when I hit the Endo, she was surprised at the fact that my a one C was low. I'm already on Synthroid and she's like, holy, did you go to medical school? And I not even joking, I looked her dead in the eye. I said, No, I learned it from a podcast.

Scott Benner 36:48
Got to be embarrassing for the doctor.

Carol 36:50
She literally swallowed and looked at me. She goes, Oh my God. Like, are you kidding? I'm like, not at all.

Scott Benner 36:56
Yeah. Hey, you know what she should know she ever hears this. I didn't even go to college.

Carol 37:01
That's amazing. Because when I go into her office, there's all kinds of diplomas and stuff. Yeah, I barely finished high school. And I did trade school because I knew I could at least make some money and not have to go to school for a whole lot of time. And I literally, I am their unicorn patient because of you up here to get up here to get an insulin pump. So in order for me to go back to work, I had to have control of my diabetes because I work me up in like buildings and set me up for stories in the air monsoon booms, God knows what I'm doing. So my boss isn't gonna let me at work. If I'm roller coaster, and you mean like they have no empathy. I mean, like so. But being an MDI, it's very hard to do a vigorous job, because you have to overcome so you know, burn it, but then sometimes you'll do the work you think you're going to do so next thing, you know, you need insulin, but you're, you know, hanging up here doing whatever and you don't want to pull out your pen, you know, I mean, like, so it makes it very difficult. So, at that November appointment, I literally walked in with a notepad and I knew I own that room near me because I knew I was going in there fully loaded. And I told them straight out I want a pump. And they're like, you can't get one for usually two years. I said no. I said I've learned you know, like as long as you have control, you understand MDI in case your pump fails, you know, I should be able to get a pump as I have coverage, why can't I get a pump and they kept giving me you know what, we want to see it for at least six months. So I hit the six month mark and now my a one C 6.1 or 6.2 is almost below set. And I got my thumbs and they told me I am the first person that their clinic in Moncton New Brunswick has ever given a pump to under six year

Scott Benner 38:58
over two years maybe they should learn something from that instead of just

Carol 39:02
actually told by my nurse that I missed my calling. She's like you should have been a diabetes educator because they learned from me now because when you look at my we have Daya signed up here for my tea slim. And um, unless I have a cheat you'll probably see my posts on Facebook. Where like I had lobster the other night.

Scott Benner 39:26
Oh yeah, that's me. Yeah, I saw you look good with that

Carol 39:30
lobster the lobster was great. It was Protein A hit me a little bit later. But the potato salad the broccoli salad and all the other stuff that I overlaid on kind of put me up to eight. But they told me they have never seen someone with pump control that I have.

Scott Benner 39:45
Oh, this they were here they have a stroke. Like what am I actually

Carol 39:51
directed them to your Facebook group. And my nurses listened to a couple like just the part of the question. Tip series. And she straight up told me she's like, if I let my patients listen to that, they wouldn't know what to do I said, then that's a problem on your it. Yeah. Everything had the proper knowledge and education from you at the start going in. They wouldn't be so scared. Yeah, it's it's all fear it because you guys don't teach anyone anything.

Scott Benner 40:20
Right? Let me jump in for a second and say something. First of all, I Googled zoom, boom, they're really cool. Now I want one. And the other thing is this, a little story that I think you said that the the somebody in your office said, you missed your calling, you're better at this than we are that kind of stuff. It made me think of this. While my son was out trying to find a college to be interested in for baseball, he had to go to all these workout things. And they'd play sometimes for days on these fields and hundreds of kids would show up and everyone, you know, got the play. And you were being evaluated by all these colleges. And usually on the last day, at the end of the day, they would run out of pitching before they'd run out of kids that had to hit. So they go into the dugout and say, can anybody throw a couple of innings for so we can get, you know, get finished. And my son by then was exhausted and tired and wanted to go home. And he put his hand up and say like a pitch if it gets us out of here, you know, but I don't I just I'll do it, right? So we'd go out and do it. This would happen almost every one of these things, and then they would catch us on the way out. And someone were to grab him and say, hey, you know, you had one of the best velocities here today, or you threw harder than anyone else today? How come you didn't workout as a pitcher? And my son would say, just because I throw faster than them doesn't make me a pitcher. It makes them not a pitcher. And I feel that way about the story you told, like you know, you can't that is such a it's such a bullshit thing to say to somebody like wow, you went out learned more than us. You missed your calling. No, you're not good at your calling.

Carol 42:02
backtracked on it. So, you know, once I got my Dexcom and I allowed them to see my data. No one's really taught me how to care care yet, like I've gone to dieticians, but they're still telling me the same you know, free foods this is where they killed me at the start was vegetables are free meat is free, and only read the labels. And you know, if it's not if it's a fiber, just take away the fiber. You mean they never ever talked about that and protein, like, oh my god, like if they would have told me about fat and protein besides just carbs. I think I would have brought my a one C down so much quicker, because I don't eat a whole lot of carbs, right? Like we're not like a Keto low carb hosts. But we like to eat well, like I said, so. But to me eating well was eating chicken eating, you know, pork, beef, avocados and stuff. But I didn't realize that all that fat and protein was affecting my diabetes. Yeah. I couldn't figure out why. I'm counting the carbs and a Pre-Bolus thing. I'm doing everything. But I'm just getting that right. And they kept telling me, Well, you're doing something wrong. And I'm like, No, I did everything you told me to do. It's not working. That's horrible. But thankfully you and Jenny did the episode on fat protein. No, I'm glad you like so I started listening to it. And then all of a sudden now I'm 90 95% and range, like I still got a spike. And you can't be flat all the time. But I had my ranges set between 3.9 and 9.5 at the time, and I was still in range like very well. But every now and then I would go low, because they were just telling me to carb count one to 20 and that's that. And that was it. Yeah, one to 20 and it wasn't working for me. So I had to start playing with it myself. But anytime I called them for help. I had 22 appointments cancelled between June and I think it was February the last time I counted like February of this year. And it wasn't just in person appointments like it was phone calls, Zoom calls, like in person like 22 appointments cancelled. So I just I gave up on my endo team and I just took everything in my hands. I think I drove my spokes nuts because I would listen to like your thyroid podcast. That one. That one was good because that's how I got 250 milligrams of Synthroid and got my TSH down to I think it's one 1.5 or 1.6.

Scott Benner 44:49
That's excellent and he would be very happy with that number. Exactly.

Carol 44:53
But doing all this stuff. My doctors are getting mad at me because first it was you brought your a one C down to quick. And then they got mad at me because I had a low here in there. And I'm like, instead of highlighting how good I've been doing, you call me to pick on me about one thing I said, but on top of it, you didn't teach me anything, but you're getting mad at me if I make a mistake. And if I wouldn't listen to them, I would have been high, but according to them, as long as I was between eight and 12, they were okay with that.

Scott Benner 45:28
I have a, an email here that came this morning from a pediatric endocrinologist. And I am hoping that they'll come on the show. And I can't I don't want to tell you what it seems wrong to just use her words. But it really makes me feel like you can reach these people. And that they that if they're in the right mindset to see it, that they might go, oh, wow, the thing I'm doing for people isn't really all that valuable. Maybe I should think about this a little differently. I'm beginning to wonder as you're talking if the sad part of your story, which was, you know, because of COVID. They kept like giving you the bum's rush out of the facility over and over again. If that isn't what maybe eventually saved you like is forcing you to pay attention to yourself. Well, I

Carol 46:22
think it did like that was kind of the silver lining of it. But what makes me wonder, too, is, I'm sure even beforehand, like most adults, I talked to you with type one. Up here, they don't know a whole lot, because they asked me all the time. They're like, Oh my god, like how are your numbers so well, because I'm in like, you know, type one Canadian groups. And we always do the number share and stuff like that. And I mean, I I'm not perfect, but you know, I keep some good lines. And they wonder you know how you do it. And it's amazing how it's pretty broad up here, the lack of basic education and knowledge, they kind of cookie cutter everyone up here. So people like me, when I asked questions and stuff, I've actually been written up as non compliant. Because I asked too many questions. And I didn't just do as I was told, I actually had one team tell me I was going to kill myself by making my a one see, as low as I was six. Below six, like right now I'm at 5.8. And they told me anything below 6.5 is dangerous, because that means you're having too many lows in their eyes. But my low percentage on my Dexcom is below 1%.

Scott Benner 47:42
Wow, are you doing great. And it's usually because

Carol 47:45
I'm at work and you know me like birth through more CareOne it's usually a car birth thing. I'm still kind of learning that. But yeah, sadly, only my nurse really sees how good I'm doing. But the problem that they so I'm trying to think I could work it by being me the problem that they over the years, they've given everybody such little help and information, it would be kind of hard to take everything you guys do, and start giving that to people. Like I have an ex boyfriend who long before I had diabetes, actually, I was dating him when I first started getting sick back in 2011. And he was a type one. And when I was with him, I cared about his diabetes to the point where I made him start eating right like me eating at the market and really helped him in the three and a half years I was with him. So I find that that really helped me when I get diagnosis pipeline. But I'm terrified of needles. So that was always my biggest fear. When I get that like when I get diagnosed that when I cried because I could not wrap my head around the fact that I had to give myself a needle now, multiple times a day,

Scott Benner 49:02
you know, count, let me say it's incredibly interesting through 45 minutes of talking to you. You have never once complained about having so many ailments. No,

Carol 49:14
that's because honestly, how I take it is I luck in that I'm one of them people that I don't succumb to it. I own it. So even I was talking to my died patient last week because of the Warsaw method. So that really worked out well for me along with like using because like I said I eat a lot of fat and protein. So when you guys did that episode, I was like, oh, like oh my god. That was the puzzle piece I was missing. Yeah, I mean like to finally nail that spike I couldn't get rid of

Scott Benner 49:51
did it feel good? Because Michelle was Canadian by any chance.

Carol 49:55
And when she was Canadian, I was like yeah so When I you know, I used it for like almost a week before I call my dietician, because they're kind of I know they want to believe what I do. But the problem is, is, if they do, they'll probably be outed for doing it. Do it. I mean, like to think outside the box up here is really taking a chance. Because if everybody did what I did, they wouldn't know what to do. I don't think I

Scott Benner 50:32
have to say to anyone listening who's in the profession, if you are knowingly not helping someone, you are willingly hurting them.

Carol 50:39
Yes, thank you. Because they are, because they make us feel like we're overthinking. We're crazy. We should just sit back and wait and listen. But we know our bodies. And especially when someone who has multiple conditions comes in and tells you, I don't feel right, listen to them. Because they've already been living with issues. For times beforehand. You've been paying what we've been doing for these past couple years that was working, all of a sudden, they come to you and they say, Hey, this isn't working anymore. Don't just push it aside and try to up a payment. Like, listen, because I can tell you that if I would have they told me I probably had like type one diabetes back they said for probably at least two to three years. But not really, really bad until probably about they said probably eight months is when like the honeymoon in ended enough to where my body couldn't keep up anymore. But during that time, no one listened to me. So when I was complaining about pain, they were like, oh, no, it's that. So no, it's that. But I never changed any of my payments. All I did was get my blood sugar in control. And I can tell you that between getting that and my thyroid in check. I feel better now. But I did. Before I ever complained about getting sick man,

Scott Benner 52:00
I say something. I think that the next step for me if I'm you is is your iron still bad?

Carol 52:08
Well, actually, my iron how I got control of that was during this time period. No doctors were listening to me like they were just, you know, pretty much treat me like I was just looking for pain meds because I'm a medical marijuana patient. So I have been for 12 years for pain, because I know, they gave me a lot of narcotics when you know the opiates were first introduced and are safe to use, they said and then when I started getting addicted to them, they blamed me. So when I called them for help, they were like, Well, you asked for them. Now I'm like, Oh no, you are not pulling me

Scott Benner 52:44
out. Canadians are supposed to be friendly. What's going on here?

Carol 52:48
Well, we are two other people, I guess. Other people, but so I was like okay, and I was already smoking weed recreationally because I was a single parent of two kids. And I'm not a drinker. So it was oh my god, like some women use. I use wine Xanax, you know, walking the dog. I need to join.

Scott Benner 53:14
I have to stop you for a second was walking the dog a euphemism? Or did you really mean going out walking the dog?

Carol 53:19
No, like really mean walking the dog like friends or like a dog for watching? I feel so much better than like, No, I own a bulldog. So I don't have to walk it.

Scott Benner 53:27
I totally. I totally thought you mentioned and I'll just bleep that. 100%

Carol 53:35
Well, you can after deck that part if you want. But so where I was a medical marijuana patient, a lot doctors didn't like that either, because I wasn't taking the payment. So it was kind of a catch 22 Because I knew it worked. But it wasn't because as you know, we only became legal here. I think what like five years ago six years ago when Trudeau got voted in which I didn't vote for by the way yeah 2014 I think it was so

Scott Benner 54:06
I took his weed but I didn't like him Yeah, well

Carol 54:09
well it's not even paid for is the worst part like even though I have a medical prescription for pain. I have to pay full price for my wheat. Oh, they won't cover no I have a prescription for it the only way in which I can get help as I can claim now my taxes as a medical expense. Okay. But if I had cancer, I would get it paid for and if you're a veteran in the military, you get a paid for. It's interesting. If you don't use it for anything, I mean, like it's very limitedly paid for up here. It's supported for use but you have to pay for it. So they would pay for all my pills and stuff but they will pay for my CBD oil but with the pills I take the pills I need another pill. I now need a pill to sleep now. I need a pill to heal. I mean like yeah, they're happy to pay for the CBD oil. Yeah, so CBD

Scott Benner 54:53
oil companies to get a better lobbyist and then that would be covered too.

Carol 54:58
Yeah, so I'm hoping one happens, but not yet. Gotcha. So I take a drug called cosentyx. It's a biological drug. That's how I got around having to take a lot of payments, because it's one injection. But I've learned now being diabetic, it causes a lot of insulin resistance. So I have to make a special profile double my Basal and my doctors thought I was crazy. So I got diagnosed with the pain conditions and everything, and they wanted me on this biological drug, but I just got diagnosed with diabetes, and I didn't want to do you know, deal with diabetes, throw this biological drug in, you know, I mean, like, just Yeah, I am. I dumped that much into my body fire at the time. So I just dealt with the diabetes. And I was like, I'll get to the pain because I've already been dealing with pain so long. I mean, like, I can wait a little bit longer just

Scott Benner 55:49
name the app. Oh, did you hear yourself? Do it? DIY you just named the episode. Did you hear yourself do it? No. Body fire. Nice. Yeah, that's it, you just on your own. I have a

Carol 56:01
second thing was is after once I started getting my diabetes and control. I didn't have as much body pain. So I went from meeting like, I think it was 600 milligrams of this drug. Now I'm down to 150. Because having my blood sugar in control and my thyroid in control, really lessen my pain.

Scott Benner 56:21
We didn't answer the question. Did we about your iron? Where's your iron level at now? Your ferritin? Do you know?

Carol 56:27
I don't know. But they told me it's perfect. They don't listen to them. Because, well, I listen to this stuff. There's a reason why I listen to this certain doctor is because he's the one who found it. When no other doctor would listen. He was a pain clinic doctor and he's like, look, he's like you are on enough medication to kill a small animal if you add it all up. Really? Yeah, he's like something else is fueling this fire. Let's do a full blood panel. We're gonna check your iron. We're gonna check everything. And he put me on an iron infusion.

Scott Benner 56:58
Oh, good for you.

Carol 56:59
That's what I was gonna so but I laugh because where you keep doing the maple syrup reference is it looks like maple syrup. In an IV bag up here.

Scott Benner 57:07
I think it looks like rusty water to me.

Carol 57:09
Well, up here just when I first seen begins with a V. I can't remember the name of it. venofer That's it. And yeah, when they first hooked it out to me was like, oh my god, it looks like maple syrup and a bag and she kind of laughed. I was like, It's my Canadian super sauce. I just think like,

Scott Benner 57:24
I don't want to inject it. Can you mix it with snow and I'll eat it like a lollipop.

Carol 57:29
But after I got three injections of that, yeah, that was a that was last summer. So it's been almost a year. My iron has been it's him that's checking it. Yeah. I mean, not just my general practitioner. It's that doctor. Yeah, I mean, so I think he was the one who found it. I really trust you mean him looking? I see so many other doctors I lose track sometimes. Who? You I mean, like what what is sometimes he told me he was like you are like right where you where you need to because I was borderline going to get a hysterectomy. Because I was getting such bad periods that they were saying, Oh, it's it's your period causing your anemia. So I did the Appalachian first and then that didn't work. Because I still got one in a way.

Scott Benner 58:15
Wait, you laser. Oh, you laser lady business. You still got your period?

Carol 58:19
Yeah. Wow. And that's when this doctor was like, Okay, no, like something's wrong. Because they told me if I were to go get a hysterectomy, my blood levels were so low, I would have had to get a blood transfusion before and after the surgery and I was like, Okay, I'm not comfortable. Like, give me something. They write that sounds pretty risky. And he goes, No, no, he goes before we do that, like let's try this. And after I did the iron infusions he came back in, I think it was like two months and four months later and did follow up bloodwork. And I didn't have to get the hysterectomy I would have to get the blood transfusion.

Scott Benner 58:54
I'm not a doctor which I think is obvious to anybody who listens. But if you have any kind of autoimmune stuff going on or in general you're a lady and you feel rundown tired a little snappy with people confused foggy get dizzy, anything like that I get your iron jacket your iron check and don't take it's in range as an answer. Listen to what Addy so in the thyroid episode if you're a if you're a woman of baby making age over 70 At least. And if you want your you know if you want to feel well. I'm a huge proponent after I found out that my iron was low and saw what havoc it was wreaking on my life and now you know, every day I walk around here like a pill pusher with vitamin D. O iron, a sorbic acid, a couple of different vitamins. I just walk around and just leave

Carol 59:47
them I take the men Centrum, because the women Centrum has extra iron and where I got the infusion I didn't want to like give myself too much

Scott Benner 59:58
right? Oh no, I understand. It's like It's like gassing up your car. And you don't want it to get to. But you don't want it

Carol 1:00:03
to over octane boost in your body like every now and then you see people pour those little additives in your car I find it's like the same thing. Your body is only what you put in it, you immediately get out of it what you put in it.

Scott Benner 1:00:15
I just watched an iron infusion bring Arden back to life again. So we got crazy. Yeah, it um, what what had happened to her was low iron. We got an infusion didn't realize the low iron was because of like crazy periods. So we pumped our iron back up, watched her feel better. And we're like, we fixed it. And then it went back down again. Yeah, we're like, Wait, what happened? Then we started really talking to her. So she was young. And she wasn't really saying a lot. But we started noticing like she was going through like a lot of like, like, accoutrements for a period of time. And, and we were like, what's going on, and it was turned out, she was getting her period for 11 days in a row, and then get up getting a break for a couple of days, and then getting it again. Wow. And it was just happening over and over and over again. So girl, oh my god, it took us a month to figure out what to try to do. Then we decided to put it on birth control than the first Bearskin first birth control they gave her wasn't strong enough, they made us use that for two months before they said up it. So by the time we got to the birth control, that was right, we were four or five months into it. It took a couple of months on that birth control to regulator periods, and then we got her another infusion, and then the infusions don't work right away. So now just in the last two weeks, has she started feeling she's starting acting like herself again, she's not dragging all over the house and stuff.

Carol 1:01:35
It's crazy. Like low iron can do do

Scott Benner 1:01:38
Yeah, it's literally like you're dying. And yet, it's not enough that you would notice it because of that. It's that slow fall that you don't notice you're falling. You know, you just you get a match until you're at the edge and you can't fall anymore, right? And then you just out of your mind. And then people are like,

Carol 1:01:57
when I got my iron infusion, I got my first one June the first. And I went in to emerge in DKA on June the third. And part of what my pain clinic doctor said what happened was is my body was so dead. You mean like it was just I was they told me I was borderline of a coma. And when I got that iron, he said, I gave myself something good really fast, and my body didn't know what to do. And that was kind of the the straw that broke the camel's back, even though it was healthy health. It's still my body just didn't know what's

Scott Benner 1:02:32
going on. You know, you really might a year from now be a different person? I think so. Yeah. It's interesting. You, you don't I mean, like you put out the body fire. And now like, let's wait and see how because even like when you get an infusion, it doesn't work immediately because your body has to your body's constantly making red blood cells. And prior to you having enough ferritin iron in your system, etc. Your body was making these cells with incomplete building blocks. And now it makes new ones with the correct amount of ferritin in your system. But he

Carol 1:03:07
told me that's why he did it at two, four and six months was to watch the progression of it, I guess. Yeah. Because he would be because some people need it for more than three months. I did three months. And luckily I haven't needed any more. You mean Yeah. And my iron still good. Like I just had my blood work done about two weeks ago at the clinic down here and my like they told me my iron was still good. Yeah, my TSH is below to my a one C is 5.8. And, yeah, but compared to what I was last year, like I already feel like a whole different person.

Scott Benner 1:03:47
You almost made me cry. And this the conversation was not going like that you just rattled off your numbers, and I got a little misty here. Um, so

Carol 1:03:54
it's crazy that and my doctor team, like my team knows it that if I would have listened to them, I would not be where I was. Yeah. So if I would have you I mean, like if I would have did the 1010 and 10. Now I gotta wait three months for a follow up appointment to make a change. Then you gotta wait. You mean wait, wait, wait. So in order to get where I am listening and waiting for appointments, it would have taken me a couple years. Yeah, I did it. But I got to where I needed to be without before I even got a chance to see them. I demand

Scott Benner 1:04:27
that those people send me two months of their salary. What do you think of?

Carol 1:04:33
This Well, the end even worse, but you're really up here on this side of Canada. Not a lot. A whole lot of people have type one because I mean, there's not a whole lot of like a big population here. But no one in my clinic had a T slim so when I did my training, my endo nurse sat beside me and did hers two

Scott Benner 1:04:54
guys did it together. Well that's nice. Yeah, at least it was

Carol 1:04:57
funny cuz well it was funny because before you do it They send you a thing that says, watch all these videos. And I was already like, I mean, oh my god, I already listened to your podcast three times over. And I mean, like, I was ready for this pump. And we get in there and the woman's talking and she's asking, like, you know, page six questions, and I looked right at her, I'm like, Girl, I had an hour, did you read the book and watch the videos like she told us to, like, You're messing with my time here.

Scott Benner 1:05:27
I have an hour. And then it takes me four years to come back and see you again.

Carol 1:05:30
Pretty much like God. And the trainer, just laugh because she couldn't believe from listening to your podcasts, how advanced I was, like, we got to talk about, you know, really in depth stuff. Because for my training, because of COVID, it was done by zoom. So they sent me my pump, I didn't get the, you know, the, the saline pass or anything, I was literally just, you know, sent it, they watched my Dexcom they looked at my blood work, the doctor did up her numbers. And that was what I had to wait for. And they took two and a half months to get her to do that. It took so long. But literally, I get tired of waiting. And I started looking up how to do it yourself the whole math theories of your times and things by 1800. And dividing by this and figuring out my own correction factor was my first pump. So I needed to figure out correction factors and hourlies. And the only all that stuff and I just for curiosity, I made a list of what I thought it was. And I'm closer to because on now I got my pump March 11. So I'm two ish months in, and my pump is closer to the values that I figured out that were my endo team had me,

Scott Benner 1:06:48
I'm glad for you. That's really lovely. But

Carol 1:06:51
again, it's one of those lack of education. And doctors always tell you don't listen to what you hear and find on the internet. But if I wouldn't listen to what I found on the internet, I would have died.

Scott Benner 1:07:05
Well, let's be fair, a lot of things on the internet are ridiculous This podcast is

Carol 1:07:09
they are but if you have common sense, you can figure out the difference. You can figure out the difference between facts and

Scott Benner 1:07:15
bullshit. No, but now we're asking for everybody to have common sense that might be

Carol 1:07:18
that's the thing, like I know, say 1000 People watch the same thing, you know, maybe 10 of them are gonna have common sense. But doctor should be able to kind of tell the difference. And a little bit to like, if you're scared that your patient knows more than you. Don't ignore your patient, and maybe try to figure out what they did to me. Like when I was doing things that they couldn't believe how I got there. But I didn't do it their way. They just ignored me when I would call or I get the you're doing better than we could help you with Why are you calling us?

Unknown Speaker 1:07:52
Yeah, okay.

Carol 1:07:56
I have ADHD. So it's one of those. I strive for, like, a very competitive. So my time in range, it has 100% possibility. So if I only have 90%, that means I have 10% failure. Like that's how I look at it. So to me, that means I can do better. There's room for exactly. But when you don't have the support, like I understand that, not everybody cares as much as I do. But there should be help or resources available for the people who actually do care. Treat everyone and educate everyone

Scott Benner 1:08:36
like they don't care. Well, there should be resources for everyone.

Carol 1:08:39
And but there's not really like when you leave up here as an adult. Like I said, I was sent out within 12 hours, I was given no follow up, no courses, no counseling. I was given a pamphlet in November when I finally made it in. And it had very basic stuff in it. And it had all these free food ranges where you know, these, you can eat these Neopia to worry about it. And everything in that book to me was bullshit. Because I had learned and proven to myself that that isn't right. But if I questioned it, I'm non compliant, it

Scott Benner 1:09:14
would actually write you up. That's it. Like a slip in your file.

Carol 1:09:18
Yeah, so it got to the point that I guess I don't really I call them I just call them if I need prescriptions.

Scott Benner 1:09:26
You should start writing them up. You should.

Carol 1:09:29
Well, doesn't really do any good up here. Like I tried on other issues I have and yeah, you're better off just to pat pat yourself on the back and realize that you know, you figured it out before you

Scott Benner 1:09:41
let the rest of it go. That's That's good advice.

Carol 1:09:45
But yeah, that's her. Yeah. That's why sometimes I'm like, everyone's like, oh, we need health care like Canada. I'm like, Oh, if you guys do it, please do it better than we did. Well, we have great insurance, but there's no private here. So if I In Quebec, I could get better care because there's a private clinic. If I lived in Ontario, there's a private clinic. But on the East Coast, there's no private clinic. So even

Scott Benner 1:10:09
in a scenario where they are providing free health care for everyone, you're saying that where you can spread some money around you find more competent people?

Carol 1:10:16
Yes, yeah. Well, you find people who are more like your thyroid doctor. Remember the one you had on who actually like, Addy? Yeah, she's up here. When you get into see a doctor. It's not like, they even read your file, because I've even had to like, ask them, you know, like, have you read my file? Like, if you try and give me that I know, that's going to go against this other medication, Amman. And they're like, oh, yeah, no, like, it's so rushed here. And it's so overbooked and stuff that you can't completely blame the doctor. It's the structure of the healthcare system itself. Because there's so little doctors and nurses hear that they don't have time to give. Because they only have 20 minutes with you. And if you're lucky, you get that 20 minutes because usually, if you go to a doctor's appointment, say your appointments for one o'clock, I get there 10 minutes early, I probably don't get in until quarter after 20 after one. So now I'm going into someone else's appointment. But yet at one o'clock they booked in someone else too. So that doctor is expected to see two people in that timespan. How do you get adequate help and service with someone who doesn't even have time to read your file before you

Scott Benner 1:11:30
talk to them? When you come back? Do you see the same person or do you see a different person

Carol 1:11:33
you see the same person but it's another one of those unless you stick out? It's just a cookie cutter. You open the door? It's bad, but like, yeah, sometimes I don't even have time to look you in the eye.

Scott Benner 1:11:45
It's a difficult job. I mean, I wouldn't want

Carol 1:11:50
a lot of people always want to blame the doctor. But I know it's not all because the doctor I have now the end know she's awesome. But the problem is, is she's it took me a bit together. But she's so overworked that I get calls from her at seven o'clock at night. She emails me I have her cell number, because she knows that I don't mind the after hours help. And she knows that when she helps me. I'm going to use it. Right? Plus she knows I appreciate the time she has to give me but it's so bad up here for appointments. And this was before COVID that thankfully, because of COVID Doctors can call you now instead of always seeing you in office. My rheumatologist the other week calls me at 830 at night. Because I agree to an after hours call at 830 at night. Yeah, I mean, I'm not expecting a call from my specialist. That's the only time he had time to call me. But I had time to talk to him. It wasn't rushed. You mean like I got a 40 minute call with him. Wow. So it is one good thing, but not every doctor has that time either. Because up here like everyone, you know, I think everyone thinks like, our free health cares is big. Like, you know, you just go in and you get help whenever you want. And to me like it's it's free. Yeah, we don't pay for it. But you have to wait.

Scott Benner 1:13:20
Everybody wants to imagine that something that sounds better is better. And I'm not saying I am genuinely not saying healthcare shouldn't be, you know, free? I think I think it should. And but I think you're also being crazy. If you don't imagine cool. Yeah, you're you're also being crazy. If you don't imagine that people who have more money to throw around aren't getting better service, like forget health care for a second. You know, if I go into McDonald's,

Carol 1:13:47
I know a personal experience where I know someone who needed an MRI. Now me I can't afford to pay for an MRI out of pocket dirt. I think 15 1800 bucks out of pocket. And then if you have insurance, you know, I mean, like you can submit your receipt or whatever. So if you go into a doctor, and they're like, Okay, you need an MRI, but we can't get you in for six months, if you can't afford to go to the private place here in New Brunswick, and pay that you gotta wait that six months. But if you're the person who can go in and the doctor says you gotta wait six months, and you're like, No, no, no, no, I'll just go pay for it. Next week, you'll have it, they will actually call the MRI office. And you'll get in, they'll squeeze you in because they know you're serious. That's how they take. Like, I find in my own personal experience that when I threatened to pay for something or do it on my own. They take that as oh my god, she's serious. And then they kind of rush it a little bit more

Scott Benner 1:14:40
interesting. It's the version of giving $20 to the maitre d and saying please don't put me near the bathroom.

Carol 1:14:45
It is but when they say you know, like, it doesn't matter whatever but in a way it does is if you threaten to do it yourself. They don't want you to do it yourself. Don't find a way to get you in like I've gone from having to wait six months being told we can get you into

Scott Benner 1:15:01
just seems like if it takes six months to get an MRI, if you bought one more MRI machine and hired a few more people than it would take three months, which then would make me think if we bought another MRI machine, you know, like maybe just a couple of MRI machine system technicians is the answer.

Carol 1:15:16
It is right. I don't know if you pay attention to how Canadians waste money on absolutely the stupidest things ever. But um, yeah, that's why we don't have money for those said MRI machines because we give away a lot of money and spend a lot of money on stupid things.

Scott Benner 1:15:31
Are you talking about that game where you push the thing on the ice? Like, oh, hockey? No, not that one. What's the one that um, that was funny, but that's not what I mean. What is it a shoot, what is it carrying it? I don't I mean, you can keep guessing if you want, but let me it's an Olympic game.

Carol 1:15:51
We have lacrosse, but you'll play that ice I guess.

Scott Benner 1:15:56
Oh, wait, here it is. I found a picture of it. I'm gonna click on the picture and see what they call it. That by the way, everyone, that's how the internet works. It curling.

Carol 1:16:10
Oh, curling. Yeah. Roxanne's and stones around and tried to get in the circles there at the end.

Scott Benner 1:16:17
It's mesmerizing to watch on television.

Carol 1:16:20
But it's one of those sports you're like, it's kind of like watching to me. It's like watching someone play poker or play pool like or darts. You're just like, why, but you can't help but watch. Because it's so cool how they can actually, you know, glide that stone thing right where they needed to go.

Scott Benner 1:16:36
It's amazing. It really is. I'm assuming we wouldn't have this if it wasn't for Canadians. It looks like two kitchen mops and a stone with a handle on a nice thing. It's fantastic. I

Carol 1:16:46
like sliding the kettle like one of those old titles used to see on like windows back in the day like slide one.

Scott Benner 1:16:52
It's wonderful. It really is.

Carol 1:16:55
kourlis, the news, Canadian?

Scott Benner 1:16:58
Yeah, I want to thank you for doing this. You were terrific. I thought you did a really good job of presenting what was happening to you. i There's something about our connection where I couldn't talk too much. Because you would talk she would like just keep going. Or that was your ADHD. I'm not 100% sure which one it was, but a little bit of column A and B, but it worked fantastic for this because you just did such a good job. And you were answering questions as I like I'd get a question in my mouth that you would keep talking. I was like, Oh, she's got this. So is there anything though, that we didn't talk about that you wanted to that didn't come up? I want to ask before I let you go.

Carol 1:17:34
Not really just to I don't know I just to remind people that if you are like if you're a parent or say you're listening and you're like a friend of someone, don't think that you can't get diabetes, type one diabetes, just because you're not under 21. And you're not in perfect health or whatever. Because I think I got it because I had a serious infection and stuff. And if you have other autoimmune diseases, always watch for piggyback diseases. Yeah. Because everything's an umbrella from what I learned, like, it started off as one then it developed into two, and everything's related. So don't ignore anything. And don't ever let your doctor like dismiss you like if you honestly believe it, fight for it.

Scott Benner 1:18:32
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, GE voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank touched by type one and remind you to go to touched by type one.org and find them on Instagram and Facebook. And of course, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Go take that survey. squared. You take your lesson take eight minutes I can do it right there on your phone. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.