#1617 Fifty Countries with Diabetes

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Sarah, an anesthesiologist and mom of four, shares her family’s adventures traveling the world while managing her 9-year-old son’s 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
Welcome back friends to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Speaker 1 0:15
Hi. My name is Sarah. I am a physician and a mother of a son who was diagnosed with diabetes about three years ago now, which was six weeks before we started a six month trip around the world.

Scott Benner 0:28
I am here to tell you about juice cruise 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip, going to the Caribbean. That's right, we're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one is going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes. Expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. Please don't forget 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube, free, automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections, learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox at my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox the show you're about to listen to is sponsored by the ever since 365 the ever since 365 has exceptional accuracy over one year and is the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get ever since cgm.com/juicebox the episode You're listening to is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med,

Speaker 1 2:33
Hi, my name is Sarah. I am a physician and a mother of a son who was diagnosed with diabetes about three years ago now, which was six weeks before we started a six month trip around the world. Oh, we're gonna talk about traveling today with type one. Yes, we have done a lot of travel, so we have been to 50 countries in the last three years or so. As a family, we have four kids, and it's been a wonderful experience for us, and we've learned a lot about how to travel with diabetes in that time, as you might imagine, yeah, what kind of physician are you? I'm an anesthesiologist, so far afield from the diabetic world in general, but it does help me feel more comfortable about emergencies and navigating medical systems in different kind of kinds of locations.

Scott Benner 3:16
Cool. How do you find yourself traveling so much? Well, when I was growing up,

Speaker 1 3:20
we I didn't travel at all, and then gradually started as I as I got older, my husband and I actually met when we were climbing up to Everest base camp in Nepal. And with I was by myself, and he was with a few friends. And so we've always loved to travel and love to travel together. And once the pandemic restrictions were lifted, we wanted to share that with our children, so I was able to negotiate some time off of work, and then we basically created a plan to go around the world. That first trip, we went to Spain for about three months and put our kids in a local Spanish Montes school. They didn't speak Spanish prior to that, and now they are conversational. And then went to basically places that just sounded cool and interesting to us. And it was a great experience for our family in terms of bonding and being together, and a way to spend time together where we weren't all distracted by work or school or birthday parties or soccer practice or all the other things that make a modern family kind of distracted and pulled in different

Scott Benner 4:25
directions. Yeah, wow, that's awesome. How many kids do you have?

Speaker 1 4:29
We have four, three boys and one girl, and my youngest is the one with diabetes. My youngest son. How old is he? He's now just turned nine and he had he was about to turn six when he was diagnosed,

Scott Benner 4:42
and fair to say, Sarah, we would qualify you as a go getter.

Speaker 1 4:47
You know, I love that there are so many wonderful opportunities available in life, and so I am enthusiastic about learning and discovering things in the world and spending time. In a really values based meaningful way.

Scott Benner 5:02
I met my future husband while I was climbing Everest by myself. I'm an anesthesiologist. I figured out a way to go on a trip. It sounds to me like you're a go getter, so it's an interesting model for me, like while we're talking about this, because it tells me you're always looking for ways to improve things or experience something, and I think that's going to make this conversation really interesting. So tell me a little bit about the lead up to your son's diagnosis. What did you see? How did you figure it out? What did the first days

Speaker 1 5:33
look like? Yeah, well, a big part of me feels really, really stupid, because honestly, I didn't see anything. My son was completely normal. There were really, we didn't see any signs at all, except, in retrospect, he started bringing a glass of water into his room at night. But otherwise, really no signs. And then on my oldest son's birthday, we were having cake for his birthday. And then my youngest son started to throw up repeatedly. And you know, we have four kids. We have had many children throw up many times in many situations, as you can imagine. So we didn't take it too seriously, but he just wasn't quite getting better in the way that I would have expected him to over a period of hours. And eventually I brought him into our emergency room, and the ER doctor, who I knew, looked at him. Just took one look at him. She's very experienced ER doc, and said, Oh, I didn't know better. I would think he has diabetes, you know, that was confirmed through a blood test. And because we live in a small, rural area, we had to be overnight, you know, life flighted into a larger hospital and take multiple ambulances and fixed wing airplanes and another ambulance and go to an ICU. We were just there overnight, and then he did great after that, and we were able to go back to our home. So it was a kind of dramatic diagnosis, and all of this was layered on top of the fact that we were planning to go first to Hawaii in a week and a half, and then then to this huge around the world trip that we had already planned in about six weeks after that, so that that was a layer that probably more stressful than you know, it would have otherwise been. We weren't sure if we'd be able to go on the trip. And actually, the doctors at the Diabetes Center were great, and were kind of, like, there's no reason why you would not be able to do this. And were instantly supportive.

Scott Benner 7:33
Awesome. How quickly when it's your own child, does your brain forget that you went to medical school too? Like, when do you turn into, like, somebody's mom? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, am I asking that question in a way you understand what I'm saying? Oh,

Speaker 1 7:47
totally. And there are lots of great stories about how much humility doctors should have around their own friends or family members when they're diagnosing or, you know, considering anything vaguely medical, because almost always they will miss it. I remember lots of stories about how a pediatric cardiologist missed a heart defect in his own son, for example, or a pediatric infectious disease doctor rushed his daughter for to the hospital for a routine case of croup, which any infectious disease doctor knows the difference? Yeah. So it's, it's very common, but it's still very humbling to, in retrospect, realize that my son was having signs and symptoms that I just, I just missed. It just was not on my radar at all. You know, you're going along with your life and, you know, trying to manage your life and your kids and all these things, and the fact that your kid is drinking a little more water just doesn't necessarily come onto your radar, right? I

Scott Benner 8:42
have an experience where I was contacted privately by a literal brain surgeon from Hopkins. I realized when I was speaking to him about his child's diagnosis that he was as confused and sad and scattered as everybody else I'd ever spoken to about this, about the situation. None of his background helped him. I don't know. He was so and he was honest about it. He was just like, look, I don't know anything about this, and I need help. And I was like, Okay, it's the first time that I did that math, you know? I mean, I was like, wow. Like, in this situation right now, this guy is as lost as he could possibly be. And you would think from the outside that, I mean, if this was gonna happen to anybody, here's a person who could figure it out. Now, eventually, when he had all the information, he was okay. But in the beginning it was, he was just as startled as everybody ends up being. So absolutely, yeah, so you okay? So you have to learn about type one in a very short amount of time before you go on this trip. It does occur to you, maybe we shouldn't go. Somebody gives you some support. Says, No, you should do it. I guess the question should be, what did you learn through that experience of traveling with type one?

Speaker 1 9:47
We learned so much. I think the main takeaway is that it's just extremely doable. It's really not a problem at all to travel with type one. The hard things are. Are getting through airport security and finding food that's, you know, kind of diabetic friendly, and those are things that are extremely manageable. You know, our son hasn't ever needed hospital level care after his initial diagnosis. And that was something that I didn't like you mentioned. I didn't really understand how rarely we would be interacting with the medical system, which is great. We thought that we would need a higher level of support available, like we were, for example, spending three weeks in the islands on the Galapagos, which is obviously extremely remote, with very limited medical care. And we were really worried about that, but we were able to, as most diabetic parents of a diabetic child are able to manage almost all situations ourselves, and the likelihood that we would need a a hospital kind of situation was much lower than we initially thought it might be. So that is actually, you know, that's been very reassuring. You know, it's in that way, it's easier than something like, you know, severe allergic reaction, for example, or asthma that can cause kind of unexpected needs for hospitalization. So in terms of the food, you know, it's kind of funny that the poor kind of country you go to, the more likely they're going to have diabetic friendly type foods. South America really reliant on beans, avocados, you know, some meats, those kind of things. And then in the Middle East, there's a lot of similarly kind of bean based dishes, like like hummus and chickpeas. And then also, you know, we've eaten kebabs literally everywhere in the world. Like their kebabs have really infiltrated into every country that we've ever been to, those kinds of foods are so great for our kid, because he loves to eat them, and then also just helps us guess how many carbs. More easily we're just able to able to anticipate what his reaction might be, more easily than you know, honestly, places like Europe are the hardest because they are very bread, pasta and sweet space, and so those are just harder for us to to dose them for. And the other countries you've

Scott Benner 12:05
been so many places, let me ask you about food specifically. Is America the hardest place to find food that's not hard on blood sugar, like I know you'll find it if you look for it, but I guess, like readily available. I had to go somewhere last weekend. It was an early morning thing where I drove somewhere by myself, and I ended up at this place, and on the outskirts of it was a McDonald's, and I sat and just kind of, like, remarked to myself, almost in my mind, how crazy it was that there was an endless line of cars, and not cheap cars, or, you Know, broken down cars, or, like, like, nice vehicles with, you know, full families in them, just going through and treating this McDonald's like it was a real place you should be eating. Does that make sense? And like, and everyone was leaving with, like, hot cakes and this and sandwiches. And then I sat and watched for a few minutes, all I could think was like, Wow, there's so many people around here who think this is breakfast. I know how difficult all that would be to Bolus for if it was a situation that that we were in, like, you know how much more you'd have to understand about how insulin works and the amount you're going to need and everything else. Like, I'm just wondering. Like, I think those people were mainly in that line because it was quick and easy, not because they thought, oh, you know what would be awesome if I had an Egg McMuffin today in other countries, is there just no such thing as quick and easy? Or is even quick and easy more basic staple types of foods?

Speaker 1 13:29
Those are all great points. In a lot of countries, like you're mentioning, when we lived in Spain, there is no takeout coffee. That's just not a concept. For example, like there's people would be very confused about why you would have to be walking while you drink your coffee. You know, if you need a coffee in the morning, you go to a restaurant and you interact with people while you are having your coffee, and then you go somewhere else, yeah, and maybe a very short interaction, but you're not wandering around, walking and eating and drinking like we do in the United States. There was a recent New York Times article about is the bread in Europe better for you, for example. And we actually have found that our son does react better to the bread in other places of the world, where it is, you know, does tend to be, you know, more real bread, less of the you know, many ingredient bread for the bread that is actually just right? So

Scott Benner 14:24
stuff that'll sit on a shelf and be stable for a week or so, right? Okay,

Speaker 1 14:28
right. So it's all fresh, you know, that ingredients are flour and water and maybe some salt and oil, and that his, you know, his spikes just aren't nearly as high with that kind of bread. So that is definitely interesting. And then think there's also this idea that food is meant to be a social experience, and you're you're sitting down with other people, and that also just leads to to naturally, you know, you're not throwing food in your face as quickly as you can, which not be great for your digestion. And I. Right, and blood glucose overall. So I think the culture around food in the US makes it really hard. At the same time, there are a lot more choices here than there are in other countries. Yeah, you know, we've certainly been a lot of places where the choices are, you know, hummus and hummus, hummus and hummus, baguette and baguette. You know, us is always spoiled for choice and poor on time so that, but we definitely prefer to take more time and eat better food when we can.

Scott Benner 15:25
Yeah, okay, what's his regimen like when you leave for that first trip? Are you just they give pens, give a CGM. What do they give you? Diabetes comes with a lot of things to remember, so it's nice when someone takes something off of your plate. Us. Med has done that for us. When it's time for Arden supplies to be refreshed, we get an email rolls up and in your inbox says, Hi, Arden, this is your friendly reorder email from us. Med. You open up the email, it's a big button that says, Click here to reorder, and you're done. Finally, somebody taking away a responsibility instead of adding one. Us. Med has done that for us. An email arrives, we click on a link, and the next thing you know, your products are at the front door. That simple, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, I never have to wonder if Arden has enough supplies. I click on one link, I open up a box, I put the stuff in the drawer, and we're done. Us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and the Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide, over 800 private insurers, and all you have to do to get started is call 888-721-1514, or go to my link, us, med.com/juicebox, using that number or my link helps to support the production of The Juicebox podcast. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Eversense 365 get 365 days of comfortable wear without having to change a sensor. When you think of a continuous glucose monitor, you think of a CGM that lasts 10 or 14 days, but the Eversense 365 it lives up to its name, lasting 365 days. That's one year without having to change your CGM with the Eversense 365 you can count on comfort and consistency, 365 days a year because the Eversense, silicon based adhesive is designed for your skin to be gentle and to allow you to take the transmitter on and off, to enjoy your shower, a trip to the pool or an activity where you don't want your CGM on your body, if you're looking for comfort, accuracy, and a one year wear you are Looking for. Ever since 365 go to ever since cgm.com/juicebox

Speaker 1 18:03
to learn more. Yeah, we pushed to have, at least when he was diagnosed, the kids were supposed to do just regular injections for a while, and then move to pens, and then to CGM, and then to, you know, to an insulin pump. And so we push to have all those things very quickly. And I imagine that me being a doctor probably made that easier. Just, you know, in all honesty,

Scott Benner 18:30
they assume you'll figure it out to the light you had earlier. Okay,

Speaker 1 18:33
right? And I've, you know, and I've given people insulin plenty of times in my life, too, and I have a sense of, you know, how much is too much. And you know what a normal range is. But that being said, my husband does most of my husband stays home with our kids and does most of my son's glucose management, just because he's more available and more able to follow on a you know, hour to hour basis regularly. And he, of course, picked it up very quickly and is very, you know, very structured. And, you know, he's smart, and he and just very interested in figuring out how to do it the best way he could. And so it, despite it being my medical background, that kind of allowed us to have access to these tools, probably a little easier. It was really just my husband's motivation and natural interest in tracking things and numbers that allowed us to do a good job with what's

Scott Benner 19:22
his background? Besides being able to pick up a doctor on a mountain, what's he

Unknown Speaker 19:27
important life skill? I think it

Scott Benner 19:30
might be his most important life skill.

Speaker 1 19:34
But he has an education degree and a Master's in Fine Arts and photography, nothing that would obviously point you towards being amazing at managing diabetes, but he really wants our son to be healthy and happy and and he loves he's also very good at math naturally. And so that part of it is appealing to him.

Scott Benner 19:56
It lends to this thing he needs to do now,

Speaker 1 19:59
right? Exactly. So basically, when we got those tools, we had been using them for the pump and the CGM for probably two weeks. By the time we left, we didn't have a ton of experience with it, but they're pretty intuitive and easy to use. The hard part of it was really getting through the security The first few times we went somewhere, places do not like it when you don't put your stuff through the security the

Scott Benner 20:24
scanners. Boy, I'll tell you, this is a thing that I can't wait to hear you talk about, because we just traveled two weeks ago with Arden, and Arden's flown a number of times with diabetes. And I have to tell you, like, I don't get why people have trouble with security, like, and only because we never have I'm trying to figure out, what's the mechanism like, why is does it go so smoothly for us? And yet, I hear some people that are just like, they have these horrible Can I tell you that the first time we went through on our trip recently, and we were just flying inside the country, so, like, we weren't, it wasn't an international flight. But when we got to the security the first time, not TSA Pre check or anything like they were just going through regular security, my wife says, Don't forget to tell them that you have juice boxes in your carry on. So the way we do it is we pack extra supplies in the belly of the plane, like into somebody's bag, right? I bring enough to keep like, five people with diabetes alive for the amount of time that we're going to be there. And by the way, that bag almost never gets opened. And then we hand carry enough for the trip as well, like so, in my backpack I had we were going to be gone for a week. In my backpack we had five OmniPods, three dexcoms, enough insulin in a in a cylinder with ice to you know, three vials of insulin, way more than we would need, a glucagon pen, two juice boxes for the plain gummy bears like all this is in my backpack, and I say to the person when I put it on the belt, hey, listen, my daughter has type one diabetes. There's juice and insulin in here. And he goes, Okay, and then I watched him not tell anyone, and then I thought, Oh, My bag's gonna get hosed because he didn't tell the scanner person. My bag goes right through, pops out the next then nobody says a goddamn word about anything. I've got juice boxes in there. You would think they'd want to swap them, right? Nothing. And it's a major metropolitan airport, and Arden walks up to the thing and says, Hey, like, I'm wearing an insulin pump. And they go, okay, and then she goes through the scanner, they scan her, they pat her down, and then she moves right on. I was like, Huh? That's weird, because they usually at least swab her pod, you know, like with that explosive swab, they make sure it's not, you know, not even that. And we were right through and on our way. So on the way back, I forgot to say there's juice boxes in my in my no one mentioned it again. I actually watched a ladies bag get pulled out instead of mine, and she had hand cream in it. I was like, I have a metal cylinder with liquid inside. It looks like a bomb. I'm not kidding. Nobody said a word. So I'm like, I don't understand. And then you go online, and people are like, in the middle of a pat down process that looks like it takes a half an hour. So I'm interested to learn what you learned and where you had hiccups. I'm sorry that was long, but like, I this just happened to us. It's fresh in my mind. Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. We talk a lot about ways to lower your a 1c on this podcast, did you know that the Omnipod five was shown to lower a 1c that's right. Omnipod five is a tube free automated insulin delivery system, and it was shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they switched from daily injections. My daughter is about to turn 21 years old, and she has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was four. It has been a friend to our family, and I think it could be a friend to yours. If you're ready to try Omnipod five for yourself or your family, use my link now to get started. Omnipod.com/juicebox get that free. Omnipod five Starter Kit today, Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox

Speaker 1 24:18
Yeah, it is really interesting. The variability is huge, and we've experienced everything from what you just described to people literally not allowing us on the plane, almost to because of these kind of supplies. So big picture is that in industrialized countries, where they're used to seeing diabetes devices and people with diabetes, it's a lot easier, so almost always in places that have you know, there are a lot of people with diabetes these days, so they see, you know, these devices coming through regularly, and it's just not nearly as big a deal. So they the familiarity is a big piece of it. We also. Learned because we go through our local airport quite often, and every time, it seems like a completely different experience.

Scott Benner 25:07
It sounds like you live in where northern exposure was filmed, but like

Speaker 1 25:13
we have a big airport near us, and so when we go through that airport, what we've learned is that for kids, for any kind of like security issue or pat down or anything. It's up to the supervisor on at the time who can make any one of a variety of decisions on any where on the spectrum, but it's dependent on that person, okay? So that's why it's a little different. Every single time we go, we don't really know where to fall on the spectrum of whether the OmniPods and Dexcom should be put through the scanner or not, but just erring on the side of caution, we've requested that they be hand checked, in part because, since we travel in different parts of the world, we can't be sure of the amount of radiation that they're getting. You know that some of those machines just might not be checked as well or kept up to the same standard, so we just kind of ask for them to be hand checked every time. That has led to us being stopped in you know, in Egypt, for example, anywhere in the Middle East, you go through two different security checkpoints, once right at the beginning of the airport, and then again, right before you get onto the plane. And so both of those times are opportunities for people to be very confused about what, what you have, what it looks like, why it can't be can't be scanned and needs to be hand hand checked, why they can't open it, and, you know, make it un sterile, and those kinds of things. So we always bring, now a letter from, you know, from our local Diabetes Center that's translated into local language. Something we didn't initially realize was that although a lot of people in a lot of places can speak some English, that doesn't mean they can necessarily read English. A few times, had the situation where we handed someone our letter in English from Diabetes Center about the devices not being scanned, and they kind of just put it aside, and we later realized that it was probably because they just they couldn't or whatever, taught to read it. Right?

Scott Benner 27:02
Whatever, taught to read it, right? Yeah, we used to do the letter thing. We haven't done it recently. We used to carry a letter from an endocrinologist. But I can see why going overseas would make it even more important,

Speaker 1 27:12
right? Exactly. So we take that and then we use Google Translate to translate it into whatever languages, the local languages of the places that we go. We always immediately take it out of the of the carry on, put it in a container, say it needs to be hand checked often. That needs some reinforcement, because people kind of just like, take it and then put it on the on the tray to scan it. You're like, no, no, that's not going to work. By doing those two things that takes care of most of the problems. But we've had to wait for the supervisor to come many places where, in Azerbaijan, for example, super nice people, and they just literally had no idea what to do with us, yep, and they really wanted to. So first we had the, you know, the regular security people come, and they kind of looked at the letter, and they looked at the devices, and they were like,

Scott Benner 27:55
huh, above my pay grade, right? And then they go to, yeah, right. So then

Speaker 1 27:59
they call their supervisor, and they have to come in from wherever. So in the meantime, they called the doctor on call the hospital who came over and was like, Yeah, this is diabetes devices. I'm going to go back to sleep. Supervisor comes, and then the other supervisor comes. So then, then we had to go through another security checkpoint. So shortly after that, and said, you know, Would one of you mind a company so we don't have to, you know? So people know that we've already kind of been checked out, and they're like, oh, all the security department is already here. There's no one else to go through the other side, because everyone is right here already. So, you know, people are really trying to do their best and just follow their protocol. Often, just in some countries, a protocol does not exist for this kind of thing. And so, you know, understanding that

Scott Benner 28:40
too. You're waiting to get to a person in charge that'll say, Okay, fine, yes, yeah, exactly. We've also lived through that experience too, right? Right here in America as well. Like, it's not, it's interesting. Certainly, seen someone look at that Omnipod and go, I don't know what that is. I don't want to be a part of this, right? And then go get a supervisor who comes over and looks at it and starts like, what is it? You explain it to them, and then I don't know if it's more confusing, because it's on a kid and you said diabetes, sometimes you know what I mean, like. And then there's like, well, we'll have to swab it to make sure it's not explosive. And they swab it down to go back for a second. We started off asking for our stuff to be hand checked and not to go through the scanner as well, too. But over time, I'm wondering if this is one of those things, like, the longer you live with diabetes, the less you kind of if maybe, like, my way of going through airport security isn't the like swag at a restaurant version of bolusing after you've had type one or been around type one for 20 years. You know, you're just like, I don't know. It's probably like 55 cars. Let's go. Maybe you just stop paying that close of attention to it. But that's

Speaker 1 29:42
probably true. I think that's probably true, and we are probably being overly cautious. I have that thought, but then I also have the thought that, you know, any testing that they've done probably hasn't been like going through 10 different security scanners of varying level of, you know, caliber. Situation over a period of time. So, you know, I think, because, also, since we're traveling and we don't have easy access to a backup, like, if they, you know, if it did seem like, oh, oh gosh, it seems like they're all of a sudden failing, or failing quickly or something, yeah, getting new supplies would be, would be pretty challenging, and that's usually our we have almost we travel with our entire supply for the entire, you know, months of trips. Do you

Scott Benner 30:25
split it up into different bags? Like, if I did that, I would think, if this bag gets lost, We're so screwed, like, I would probably split the supplies up amongst different do you how do you manage that? Or do you not have the same fear I have? We

Speaker 1 30:36
travel very light, so we each just have one backpack, and then we have one carry on with mostly diabetes supplies in it. And we, we carry that on. It's a, it's a carry on, okay, yeah, you don't

Scott Benner 30:45
let it out of your site. Then, yeah, exactly got you. I mean, honestly, that's what I end up doing, is I bring enough stuff to get by, and then I bring extra stuff, you know, in a packed bag that gets checked the last time. I don't even think I ever took it out. Like, you know, I think it sat in a check bag the entire time. Nobody ever took out the extra stuff. We never dipped into the extra and it does. It hits me every time we travel, like, I'm bringing too much stuff. I don't need to bring all this. I just think, like, I don't, not usually like this about other stuff, but I'm like, the one time I don't bring this stuff, it's definitely gonna go something's gonna go wrong. But at the same time, like, if you don't leave America, it shouldn't be too difficult to replace stuff if you had to it just definitely, yeah, it shouldn't be too tough. But I'm taking your point about going over to seas. There are people from some of the places you've traveled. There are people who live in those places, who fly here just to get their diabetes supplies and then fly back home again. Exactly? Do you carry enough stuff to do it manually if you needed to?

Speaker 1 31:43
Yes, we also carry, we carry one of those, you know, those cylinders also with a with the ice pack, and then in there, we also carry enough pens and vials of insulin and and other supplies to to get us by, to do, to do everything manually if we

Scott Benner 31:59
needed to. Well, you said, How long was this trip for? 50 days? Did you tell me

Speaker 1 32:03
the first trip we did was about five and a half months, and then we've done since then a few three month trips. We're about to go to France for for a few months to do French lessons.

Scott Benner 32:13
How much insulin do you take with you for a five month trip? Think we

Speaker 1 32:17
had six miles or something like that. Oh, okay, his knees are pretty minimal. And that's also something that you can get, like, of all the possible things, plain old insulin. That is something that you can get almost anywhere these days. Interesting,

Scott Benner 32:31
okay, hey, what do you carry the insulin in? I'll just tell you that we I used a, it's a, you know, it's a cylinder that is made to keep things hot or cold. I take insulin out, I take a paper towel, fold it in threes lengthwise, wrap it around the insulin. I put a rubber band around it to try to insulate the glass so that it like if something bumps into it, it can't break and so that doesn't come in direct contact with ice. I put it inside of a baggie, I put the whole thing inside of the cylinder, and I pack ice on either side of it, and that's it. That's how I travel with insulin. But what do you

Speaker 1 33:09
do? We have a, and this is there's no relationship, but we have a, there's a company called all for family. I think that makes different size cylinders for medication and travel. And those have been great. They make a small size and a larger size. So for our bigger trips, we use a larger one. For our shorter like one month trips, we use the smaller version and and it's easier. We also do use those, those plastic coverings on the insulin vials, the that the shock that make them less, yeah, exactly. So we put those around them, and we just shove them right in there, and they stay for a long time. And that also means that you have to have a freezer to get the you know, to make sure that the frozen pack can still stay frozen over your period of your travels. So we've put it in a random freezer in someone's kitchen, you know, at a Airbnb, or we've, you know, at a hotel. A lot of places don't necessarily have a freezer inside their mini fridge, and so we've put it in the in the kitchen of the of the hotel. And in different countries, people are usually very nice, especially if you say that it's for your

Scott Benner 34:19
kid. Yeah, there's many places in the world that you can't get ice, really,

Speaker 1 34:23
yeah. So we don't, we definitely would not rely on ice, because it's just too unreliable. It's just too variable to be able to find ice. And also, within going through security with ice and if it's melted, is much more confusing to the security checkpoint people, I

Scott Benner 34:40
have to say, like, it's, I just put ice in, and then when we get somewhere, if it's a long travel that goes over days, like, every once in a while, I just bleed out whatever melted, and throw another handful of ice in and keep going, like, it's funny, like, you and I do the same thing. I do it with paper towels and ice, and you do it with cold packs and, like, little like, shirts that go over top of the insulin packs. Well. About the level of comfort for your son. So I know about all the things you're thinking about. Is he too young to really consider it? Because I've watched Arden as she's gotten older, think more and more about it when she's traveling, like, when she was younger, she just assumed we were taking care of it. And now that she's older, I can see her like, Hey, where's my stuff? You know, where's this kind of thing at like, how much of this does he know to be concerned about? You

Speaker 1 35:25
know, he is an exceptionally responsible young person, and he does a great job managing his own diabetes, and always has. He knows all of his carb counts. He knows how much he needs. He can he could really do it all on his own in terms of bringing stuff. He's also generally very good about saying, you know, where's my pack, where's my stuff. You know, get everything. We did have an incident where we had said, Do you have your pack? And he said, Yes. And then he went to put his shoes on and put his pack down, right before we got in the car to drive to the airport to go to Morocco, which then meant that we had no daily pack that has his finger stick stuff in it. We did not have that, which was a little stressful, but we just, you know, when we got to Morocco, the first thing we did was go to a pharmacy and buy another one, and it was $20 and totally fine. No big deal. You know, that pack had we used cashews quite a bit for him. So and, you know, and glucose tabs. We were able to find both of those things very easily. Basically, we're able to redo an entire pack within about a half hour period in Morocco. So, you know, almost anywhere now has a pharmacy that is, you know, honestly, so many people have diabetes, type two diabetes, in the world now that didn't used to those kind of supplies are much more readily available than they used to be.

Scott Benner 36:41
One of my biggest takeaways so far, takeaways so far is when you said that earlier about the devices at the airport, like they they're more prevalent now, so more people have seen them. And like maybe it was easier two weeks ago when we traveled than it was 10 years ago, because they've seen more OmniPods and dexcoms go through. Surely does have something I'll tell you the during our last trip, the most scrutiny Arden got was trying to get into a professional baseball game. Oh, interesting. They went through her bag. Actually, I'll share with you what she did. So, you know, she's like, Hey, I have type one diabetes, so there's some juice boxes in there. You know, I have an insulin pump with me, an extra CGM, like, this kind of stuff. Like, we have enough, like, in our minds, I don't want to go to a ball game, have a CGM fail, have a pod fail, and then that ruined the entire experience. And us have to get up and leave that, that event right. Like, we went to all this trouble to go there, like, that kind of thing. So she has enough stuff with her that her stuff could fail while we were there, and it wouldn't change the event for us. So she's got one vial of insulin, and the guy's like, digging around in her purse, and she's, she said to me, dad, it was going on too long. And I was like, okay, so he says, what's that? And he points to GEVO hypo pen. And my daughter goes, I know how to put an end to this. She goes, that's the thing I use if I have a seizure. And she goes, he went, Oh, and backed up out of her bag and handed it back to her. And she was like, I'm gonna remember that for next time. So basically, she's like, I made him uncomfortable. And he stopped, right? But she did it on purpose. Like, he's like, what's this? Oh, that's an insulin pump. What's this? What's this? And he's picking around in her bag with this. Have you ever done that? They use the stick to move your stuff around because they don't put their hands in there, which makes a lot of sense. And then he's like, what's this? And she just goes, Oh, that's the thing I use in case I have a seizure. And she's like, that just put an end to the entire transaction. He just was like, Okay, great. And, like, hands the back, back to her. And I said afterwards is, did you do that on purpose? She goes, yeah. She's like, it just it was taking forever. And then she's like, I just made him a little uncomfortable on purpose, and he stopped. I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I don't know where she learned that from, but anyway, there's some advice for everybody

Speaker 1 38:51
listening. There have been just a couple times where I've had to resort to saying things like, if you do whatever thing, you know they're trying to take away the insulin, or whatever they're trying, whatever kind of silly thing they're trying to do. I say, you know, my son could die. Do you want my son to die? Because that's what's going to happen if you, you know, that's what could happen if you continue to do that. That usually kind of similarly gets their attention enough that they,

Scott Benner 39:14
yeah, I mean, I said to her too, like, you know, like, in all fairness, like, here's a retired guy who grabbed the job at Petco Park, right? You know? And he's just out in the sun enjoying his life. He's supposed to be picking around, making sure nobody's bringing a gun or a knife in here, yeah, like, all of a sudden, you start talking about insulin and insulin supplies, and he's like, wait, what? You know? He got confused and and then he starts to go slower and pay closer attention, because he doesn't know what he's supposed to be doing or not doing it, whether it's in a medical situation at a hospital. And you and I talked a little bit before we started recording, and I have to be honest with you, I'm totally gonna invite you back on, Sarah, to talk about that other thing that you do, but like, whether it's in a hospital situation, whether it's at a security thing, whether it's at an airport, in the end, you're just dealing with people with different levels of understanding. Thing exactly. You have to be ready to clearly, concisely. That's not a word without getting emotional, like, explain your situation. And I do think that sometimes I see people have trouble because they get offended or they get like, like, I shouldn't have to do this like, and they're not wrong. You shouldn't have to do all that. It does suck. The person you're asking to do this thing, they have a job too, and they have a level of understanding. And, you know, like there's, it's in the end, it's communication. Really

Speaker 1 40:30
Totally agree. And we've definitely found that, you know, having that understanding has been really key for us, especially in these countries where foreigners are fairly unusual that, you know, if you're just nice to people, and you really, you know, they're just doing their job. They're trying to, they're trying to do a good job, yeah, and that's great. And they're trying to keep everyone safe, like wonderful, give them the information that they need to be able to, you know, take things to, you know, to get past whatever obstacles as much as possible. People generally are, are really nice around the world, and want to help you, and want to they see a little kid and they feel bad for him, and, you know, they they don't want to be a mean person to a little

Scott Benner 41:13
kid. Yeah, right, yeah. And put yourself in there. I know it's like overly simplistic advice, but put yourself in their position, right? They're trying to do their job and and are you also saying that you go to a lot of places where there's not a ton of Americans coming through to begin with? Okay, right? Exactly. So it's already strange, and now there might be a language barrier, etc, right? How do you find traveling to a place where you don't speak the language, where you feel very out of control? Because you mentioned earlier, I have to tell you, you mentioned my only bucket list trip that, like, I know I'm gonna get to the end of my life and just be like, I can't believe I didn't go to the Galapagos Islands. It's the only thing I wanted to do. But like, I look into it, and the plane ride seems a little too far, and the language barrier seems like a little too much. And like, I'm not as adventurous as you are when it comes to travel. How do you get through all that without it being an issue for you?

Speaker 1 42:04
Honestly, a big part of it is just the basic belief, which I which I can tell you already have, which is that people are nice and want to help you, and so the kind of just faith that people will help you. I mean, we have been helped by people nearly 100% of the time when they could have ripped us off. The language barrier, especially now, is just not that big of an issue. Like in the Galapagos, lots of people speak English, and I speak Spanish fluently, but there are lots of people who speak English now in the Galapagos, and we also didn't, by the way, didn't do a cruise, because those are very expensive, and I get very motion sick. We actually just went from Island Island, and it was much cheaper, and just, it's pretty amazing experience, because very few tourists actually stay on the islands instead of on the cruise

Scott Benner 42:47
ships. Yeah, I don't want to do a cruise to there. I want to, I want to stand there and wander and stare. That's what I want to do. Yeah,

Speaker 1 42:54
that's a that's the way to go. But we've been to places, you know, I can read some French and I speak Spanish, but lots of places we've been, we haven't spoken in English. You know, the translating apps are great. They work pretty well in, you know, many circumstances, not all. So those can help. You're right. A lot of times you're just not in control. You kind of look around and you kind of hope that, you know, you kind of get in a car with somebody, and hope that you end up in the right place. Usually you do. I think it really does come just down to that, having that faith that people in general are good and want to help

Scott Benner 43:27
you. How many times you've been walking down the street with your four kids and you're what I'm assuming is incredibly handsome husband. I mean, honestly, he's going up at risk with his friends. He picks you up there. Like, What is he like, six three, he's gorgeous, right? Yeah, no, no, no, I trust me. I It's like a Hallmark movie, I guarantee it. How many times have you been walking somewhere and thought, Oh, we've made a mistake, we're all going to be dead in a minute. Oh, never, never. You've never thought I made a wrong turn. We're in the wrong part of town. I did the wrong thing. Oh, my God, we're in trouble.

Speaker 1 44:00
That's never happened. We've we've definitely had moments where we've thought, Okay, we need to kind of get out of this area fairly quickly. Never have we felt that we were being targeted or people were purposely making us feel unsafe. Okay, there's just a basic human goodness where people don't want to be you know, first of all, it's a lot of hassle if you have a lot of people around to you know, you have six people instead of one person that you're trying to target, that's just more

Scott Benner 44:26
hassle. See what you're saying, you've made a brood big enough that it's not worth the effort. Exactly. There's just too much trouble. They're going to rip off a family of four. It's going to be much easier. You

Speaker 1 44:35
know, most of the ripping off that happens is more financial ripping off, like charging somebody more than, more than it's worth. But I'll tell you, you know, we were in Tunisia, and we got there, and we had a driver planned to take us to some really incredible Roman ruins. Tunisia has some of the best Roman ruins in the world, and no one ever goes there. And so they're basically completely, you have them completely to yourselves. It's amazing. And we had, we had no cash that they use Tunisian i. Money, and we had, we didn't have any, and we also were running low on euros at that point, so we were going from ATM we had the driver take us to several different ATMs to try to get money, and for whatever reason, our car just would not work at those ATMs. So we're kind of starting to get a little, you know, nervous about being in a country with zero money. And then the driver kind of figured out what was happening, and he spoke almost no English, but he said, Oh, you need money. I have money. Here's some money. Take my money. It's okay. We figure out later. And he literally just started giving us cash. You know, this driver, who I assume didn't have a whole lot of cash to just be throwing around, was just so kind. And, you know, it's like, just take my money. It's not a big deal. You can pay me back later. And then the person that I had arranged the driving the car with called and said, Oh, the driver said, you're having trouble getting money. Just meet me at this corner. I'll give you some money, and then we'll figure it out later. Like, don't worry about it, just enjoy your day. And we'll figure it out later. And to me that that is much more of the attitude that we have encountered is more like we're happy to have you in our country, our culture is such that we prize hospitality and kindness towards strangers. And we want to show you that part of our culture, for us, this is normal, like, if somebody doesn't have money, we would just give them some money.

Scott Benner 46:20
You know, that's lovely, I mean, and you're right, that is my general expectation. Like, I really do feel like most people are kind and want to be, and if I was by myself, I have to be completely clear. Sarah, if it was just me, I'd go anywhere and do anything. The minute I involve my wife, I feel incredibly responsible for her safety. And then the same thing for my kids, like, I'm like, I can't put them in a bad situation. And I know that's that's not the attitude that gets you to Tunisia. It is how I feel. Like, I don't know why I feel that way, but

Speaker 1 46:51
totally understandable. You know, I think definitely one of those things where the more you experience kindness from people in all parts of the world, the more you expect it, and this that virtuous cycle. Very

Scott Benner 47:03
cool. Hey, I noticed in your notes that you listed one thing that it never occurred to me, like dealing with a lack of outlets or Wi Fi, like, how many places have you been where you're like, Oh, the phone that runs, the thing is dying and we can't charge it back up.

Speaker 1 47:16
Yeah, that is a surprisingly common situation where maybe there will be one outlet for for all of us, you know, for all six of us in a room. And so, of course, my son's diabetes devices get priority, but it still means that then maybe my husband or I have a dead phone, or that, you know, it doesn't quite charge it as much as we would hope. Or, you know, this even happens when we're now, we have portable charging devices, which are, which help a lot, but those were not as prevalent when we started traveling. And then we've, you know, we went to Jordan in the desert, so there's Wadi Rum. Is this big desert in Jordan where it's really, it's where Star Wars was filmed. It's in the middle of nothing, right? And they just didn't have any chargers. Having to think through, you know, well, how we need to then charge right before we leave for this place. And then we need, we're going to need to charge right when we get back. Or, you know, can we ask the driver to, you know, let us stop at a cafe or something for, you know, an hour to charge on the way, right? So just kind of planning for that kind of contingency that we hadn't really thought about before we started traveling. But, you know, in a lot of places, most people don't need to charge one device per person, plus an extra, you know, one or two devices for the diabetes.

Scott Benner 48:38
I'm sitting in a 12 by 12 room, and as you're talking about it, I'm looking around, I think there's 30 things plugged into this room. We don't grow up living with, like, Oh, where am I going to plug something in most of the time? And then, right, yeah, you get somewhere else that, like, yeah. Just just occurred to me. I was like, I'm like, there's a power strip there, there's a power strip there. There's a power strip there. There's five outlets in this room. I realized it's becoming more prevalent in some parts of the US. But like, I've never once thought, like, what if I don't have electricity? Like, when people are like, I have a generator. I'm like, a generator for what I've been alive for 54, years, the power has only been out for an hour. Like, three times. I live in a place where there's so many people here that they, you know, you can't afford a power outage, because these people will go crazy, like they'll be looting and rioting in five seconds. So they got to keep the electric on, yeah. Oh, that's a really interesting and those power bricks, those new kind of, like portable battery packs, they really work great nowadays too. They

Speaker 1 49:34
really do. And so those have been super helpful. Now, my son does everything through his iPhone, but before he had a PDM, so then we would have to charge both of those, of course, and that was always those don't take those portable bricks. And so that was an issue. And the power outages are definitely an issue, including for things like the insulin and the and the ice packs. You know, sometimes refrigerators just aren't cold anymore. That's. Another thing that we've kind of just had to be aware of when those things happen is, how can we kind of quickly gather up the insulin and the ice packs before things start to melt?

Scott Benner 50:08
I also imagine in the back of your head, you know, if the ice packs go away, that insulin, you still have time, even after it warms up. It's not like, it gets warm and then it just explodes. So like, you still have a month now that it's room temperature, whatever, exactly, yeah, and you know, it's not like, it's not like it's gonna, it's not a ticking time bomb. You'd have to maybe make your way to somewhere again to get insulin if you were on a super long trip. But it's not like you're, you know, isn't it funny? Like people all the time are so worried about refrigerating their insulin, but then they put it in their pump and go outside. It's 96 degrees outside, and no one ever thinks twice about that. So,

Speaker 1 50:44
I mean, honestly, the insulin and keeping it cool was something we were really worried about. It ended up being once we figured out a system to keep it cool, because we have been to a lot of very hot countries where, you know, it can stay at room temperature, but yeah, you know, having it kind of sit in a bus for four hours in 100 degree heat is like, maybe not the best, right? It hasn't really been an issue because we've been able to keep it cool in these these cooling systems. The charging has been much more of an issue than we than the insulin being cold has been.

Scott Benner 51:13
Arden went into the city for something, and I was like, Look, I don't want to see you have to hump around a metal cylinder with insulin in it. Like, you don't even mean, I was like, and I looked in the refrigerator, I was like, well, we have this vial here. It's like a third of the way full, yeah? Like, just put it in your bag, you mean, like, and it'll get warm, and then bring it home and we'll use it up. Yep. That's kind of like how we like, if something like that, like, I honestly, I can't make her take a tumbler to New York to see a play. You know what? I mean? Like, it just feels ridiculous. And there's a million diabetes running around with pens and their purses and, you know, every other

Speaker 1 51:49
and we have, we do the same thing. We have a pen and in my son's pack that we use regularly also. So all those things. Yeah, we did. I agree, not worrying about that too much, is definitely the way to go.

Scott Benner 52:01
Even one of the concerns for like, you know, Arden is using trio now, but like, if you're using loop or another DIY, like, I used to be like, Wow, you lose this phone. You're screwed, right? Because I gotta go back to my computer to upload and now, even now, they can send the apps, like, through an email link. It's so crazy. Like somebody, you know, you can just set up. Like, you can get a note on your in your email, click on it, it loads trio on your phone. Like it's, it's awesome. Like, you know, how much better things have gotten? Have having said that? Like, how many times have you been somewhere where you don't have a signal?

Speaker 1 52:33
Yeah, a lot of times. Also we you know, just something helpful to know is that T Mobile, for example, has free five gigs of international Wi Fi or international cellular per month, and so that's been really helpful, just that way, my husband and I and our son can all have readings all the time without having to mess with E sims or anything like that. And then a lot of times we have to have him, one of us will just carry his device so that we can keep a closer eye on it, because we no longer get a signal and we don't. We're not getting alerts. We're not getting, you know, sugar mate, no more shells and those kind of things. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:08
you know, it's funny. You just said T Mobile, which made me think of the ring from the phones, which made me think of the Devil Wears Prada. That made me think about how much I, like Anne Hathaway, that all went through my head when you said

Speaker 1 53:18
T Mobile, amazing. Amazing. I was like, advertising is working, so it

Scott Benner 53:23
really is hitting me. I heard like, doo doo, doo doo. And I was like, oh, The Devil Wears Pro. By the way, I'm not embarrassed to enjoy the Devil Wears prod. It's a great, great movie. It's a great movie. Anything I've missed, Sarah, I know you like, you have, like, a real job. You have to go back to work. So I could just keep doing this, but you may have to go somewhere. Is anything we missed that we should add into this? I

Speaker 1 53:43
don't think so. I mean, I think, yeah, you did a great job of hitting all the main points. I mean, my main motivation is just making sure that people feel like it's something that's attainable and within reach for people with diabetes, that traveling is totally something that somebody with type one diabetes, a kid with type one diabetes, can do, and that it's not overwhelming, and it's not a barrier to being able to explore the

Scott Benner 54:05
world. Well, you made me feel that way, so I assume that you did that for somebody else as well. Thank you. Excellent. If you came back on, what would you want to talk about, about the health prei piece? Yeah, can you give me, like, 60 seconds on what what that is?

Speaker 1 54:18
Yeah, well, I can tell you what I mostly deal with, which is, it doesn't completely overlap with what you are talking about. It may not be a great fit, but what I mostly do is, so I worked at Rand, which is a big Think Tank, doing AI model evaluations for national security risks for a couple of years. And with that, I obviously translates a lot into healthcare, in terms of, how do you know that a lot of these AI tools that we're using are safe. There's obviously AI that's going into these dexcoms and the OmniPods and, you know, the closed loop systems in general, and the FDA is kind of struggling, honestly, to keep up with how quickly the field is moving. And then that's kind of a small piece of you know, when you multiply that into you. AI tools that go into a healthcare system. And you know, how do you know that the information that you're getting, the recommendations that the clinicians are getting, are accurate? And because AI is what we call probabilistic, not deterministic, meaning that it there's a it will give you the same answer, maybe some of the time, but not all the time. Whereas most of the systems we're used to using in medicine, like if you put these three inputs in, you're going to get this input out. And that's not how AI works. And so it's just harder to evaluate the safety of it, because it doesn't always give you the same answer. So figuring out how to use that safely with patients, and integrate that into a hospital system and the AI products themselves, and then testing them to make sure that the software is indeed safe and how it's used regularly, actually is what you intended. That's most of what I do. I do a lot of healthcare. I have a sub stack that I write, and then I have a large physician community also that that I run, but it mostly these days focused on AI evaluation and governance. I still think

Scott Benner 55:59
that's very interesting. I don't even care if what you're talking about, though. Talking about doesn't directly apply to diabetes. I still think it's a really interesting conversation. So if you want to have it, I'd like to have it too.

Speaker 1 56:09
Okay, yeah, that'd be fun. I would love that. Okay. I mean, I think it's a really I think it's interesting, and I think for people with diabetes, actually probably does apply more, because AI will be the recommendations that you see are so personal. You know, for a lot of people, this is very abstract. In terms of, like, AI will recommend something someday in healthcare, and then you will, you know, get a response. And for people with diabetes, this is very immediate and very personal in terms of, you know, some of the AI systems, how they're prompted is to be more aggressive, and some of them, how they're prompted is to be less aggressive. And you see that in your own recommendations and how these closed loop systems

Scott Benner 56:46
work. Yeah, no kidding. I think the first time it struck me was when I asked, I think I asked Jake leach of Dexcom, like, you know, how much more can you improve the sensor wire and the blah blah? And his answer led me to believe that the improvements aren't as much in the hardware as they are in the interpretation of the information coming through the hardware. Absolutely. Yeah. And what can that thing, I don't know, surmise from what it's getting? And I was like, Oh, that's interesting. And when you talk to companies about their algorithms, and you know, like, how aggressive their insulin pumps are, and you say, like, oh, well, you're gonna have to develop one that's more it's not really develop one that's more aggressive. They just need to turn a knob and then test it enough to say that it's safe. And right?

Speaker 1 57:30
So that's exactly it, yeah. How do you test it at safe? How do you show that it's safe? And we don't really know, is the answer, right? The the what is the standard for demonstrating safety? Is not as clear as you would think it is, especially for AI since, since it's going to give you a different answer every time, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:47
that so that's what I'm interested in talking about. Okay, so hold on one second for me. Thank you very much. I appreciate you doing this very much. Today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 you can experience the ever since 365 CGM system for as low as $199 for a full year visit ever since cgm.com/juicebox for more details and eligibility, this Episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube, free, automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections, learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox of my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox, us, med sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at us, med, Comm, slash Juicebox, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card if you or a loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers stress. Forward answers to your most pressing questions, you'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series, and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and@juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private. Facebook group Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome. Type one, type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com,

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#1616 Somebody’s Always Peeing - Part 2

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Laura, 55, diagnosed with type 1 in March 2024 after severe illness, is now honeymooning on a GLP and hasn’t needed insulin since October. Part 2 of 2.

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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
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Hey everybody. This is part two of a two part episode. So this was a longer conversation, and we split it into two parts. If you have not heard part one with Monica, you gotta go find it. It should be the episode right before this in your podcast player, I am here to tell you about juice cruise. 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip, going to the Caribbean. That's right, we're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise at that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan.

This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox This episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox. That's t, w, i, i s t.com/juicebox.

Speaker 1 2:41
Yeah, I don't think my husband has ever heard that one. That's very interesting. That just

Scott Benner 2:46
happens, Monica, like you hear your mom and dad say something one too many times, like, I don't want to be connected to this anymore, and you don't want that to be diabetes, exactly. It's funny because you listen to adults, come on here in their late 20s, who grew up through high school with type one and went off to college, and they tell you, I wish my parents were more involved. I wish when I pushed back, that my parents wouldn't have given up. But that's hindsight. If you could go back and ask the 17 year old them, they'd say, my mom's an idiot, my dad's an adult. They don't know what they're talking about. They're bugging me. Everything's hindsight. When you hear somebody say something thoughtful, it's almost always in hindsight. So you know, the problem is, you have to deal now and in now with the person you're speaking to, and that's why I think it's always important to keep a really long view of what you're doing, like you're not trying to win the day. You're trying to make sure that in the future, you've raised a person who wants willingly to take care of themselves.

Speaker 1 3:46
That's all right. And I think that that that's really a complicated thing that move, you know, moves to a bigger point is the worrying too much about the future or obsessing too much about the past. That's where you know, you can be depressed about what you didn't do, and you could be anxious about what might happen. And they say mindfulness, you gotta, gotta concentrate on the current moment. But to count, you know, counteracting that just as you're saying, it is the current moment. But what are these current moments leading up to how is this going to play out in the future? You know what you know? What are the possible ramifications? You know, both health wise and relationship wise. So I think it's an interesting and complicated place to be, because you do need to be tactical, but then also know what I'm doing now. I need to get comfortable with the fact that the end goal is independent adult, and this is a long game.

Scott Benner 4:44
Yeah, no, I understand. I mean, honestly, the way you talked about what you enjoyed, about the nutrition, conversations about like, hey, we need to think more about the building blocks that we're putting in, this is really the same thing, right, right. You're putting in information you don't need to see. I. Mean, honestly, this works well, with my example about the vitamin D, like, you take vitamin D today, you don't wake up tomorrow and go, ha, I did it. I'm Superman, right? But you do have better outcomes over years and years and years. And the same thing goes, I think, with this stuff, like, it's not as easy just to turn to your kid and go, you have to Pre-Bolus because you have to. And now just start doing it. And because that's not how it's going to work. But if you get the idea in there, and you build it up a little bit, you add more and more building blocks of ideas and thoughts without pushing somebody away, right like so that's a very slow layering, because if you dump too much on them at once, most people are going to rebel. They're going to be some people who are rule followers or want to, you know, they're pleasers, maybe, and you'll get them to just do it, but most people are gonna just go like, eh, don't tell me what to do, and then you waste it so it's very slow. You're almost dropping seeds, you know what I mean, just hoping that they take root and sprout, and if they don't, you throw some more down. I'm telling you, I think the vibe here is, if you're raising kids in today's society, you have up until their mid 20s to impact them, right? And then after that, if you're lucky, you've got an adult on your hands who, if they have questions, will actually come back and ask you, or will go find out on their own. And if you're unlucky, you're gonna end up with somebody who's not gonna take care of themselves. But I don't know that just beating them over the head is the way to that, especially when it's between a parent a child. Now, have I heard? Listen, I'm against people trying to scare you into taking care of yourself, but I'd also be lying if I didn't tell you that people have come on this podcast and talked about being in dire health situations for many years, and that somebody, usually a doctor scared them straight, and it actually worked on them. Now I don't mean that you should try that on a 12 year old. There is a world where you might do everything right or do everything wrong, and your kid ends up 35 years old with an 11 a, 1c, and one day, some doctor says to him, are you interested in seeing for the rest of your life? And it gets to them, my brother has type two diabetes. It's in a much different situation than before, and he related that conversation to me. Our brother's a bright guy, thoughtfully, cares about himself all that stuff, but it was a doctor who said to him, like, you want to be able to, like, keep your legs and your feet and everything and like, he scared the out of him, and that made my brother call me and go, Hey, what am I not doing I should be doing exactly.

Speaker 1 7:21
Yeah. What are the things that you may have mentioned to me before that you know that now they're willing to listen and

Scott Benner 7:28
you have that podcast. What is it? You tell people on that thing?

Speaker 1 7:31
What is it? Yeah, what is that? Did you have that series for type two

Scott Benner 7:36
email that over to me please? Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:38
What's that? It's the, it's the when I had this is again, bigger picture. You know, Mel Robbins has her let them theory book and all of that. Is it that we look and we think we want to help people, but we can't. You know, you can't control someone else, nor get them to change. A person only changes when they want to change. So as much as we want to give people information about diabetes, about nutrition, all of that, right, helping people that want to be helped. That's the important part. If that's

Scott Benner 8:08
not how it worked, I could just run downstairs, grab Arden by the shoulders and start yelling tag lines to her from the podcast. She'd be okay in an hour and a half. Exactly, exactly. I mean, imagine this like I know by the way, Monica, let me say while people are listening. You're a big supporter of what I do. I really appreciate it. Thank you, and it means a lot to me. And at the same time, like, you'll know this when I tell you, like, if every one of the 67,000 Facebook member group members saw a post from somebody who was like, oh my god, I listened to blah, blah, blah, and it saved my life, which happens every day, like, you know, multiple times a day, somebody is going to write a post to me to say, hey, I really appreciate what you're doing, what you did. Here's the thing I heard that really helped me. And they'll go to the TR you can see they're trying to help other people. They go to the trouble of laying out where they were, what they did, what helped them, what they think might help somebody else. If it was that easy, that would take one of those posts, all of those people would see it and go, Oh, you know what? I can listen to 20 hours of a podcast to figure that out. But that doesn't happen. It's a daily slog of waking up, scanning that group and looking for the people who, on that day, decided I have had enough, I got to figure this out, and then being, being there to meet them with information that will

Speaker 1 9:24
help them, right? And that is something that I struggle with in in this space, and then also in others. You know, other areas of my life, when you are you maybe repeatedly are suggesting things to someone, and you realize they aren't ready to change. They don't, you know they, they, they, it's the lead the horse to water, and there they are standing next to the water. And we, you and I say water a little differently, but I didn't mean to be repeating water on purpose. It's trying to remind yourself that there are those people that want to be helped, and we can give them that information because. Yeah, I get really frustrated with the face, with the Facebook group, with people saying, Yeah, I don't. I don't have time for that. I don't, you know, that's not the way that I can learn. Like, I said I had never listened to a podcast before. I don't. I can't, for the life of me, think of who it was that had suggested this. I can't. I tried tracking down, like, was it the CDE? Somebody said Juicebox podcast, and I can't figure out who it was. You know, who it was. And I wanted to before coming on here, but I didn't figure it out. However, first podcast that I listened to, I don't like YouTube videos. I'm a reader. I've always been a reader. I don't love Facebook, you know, you know, reading on there. I want credible sources of information. First podcast that I listen to, I do listen to others now, you know, I was listening to pretty early on the episode that you did that was the 411 that was the equivalent, then, of Isabel's lists and things. And it was you talking through listen to this one, this one, this one. And I did the, you know, the Netflix binge type of, type of thing in a podcast way, and went through those episodes and then just continued to want to listen to more of that, even though I hadn't listened to a podcast. And I would tell you, I listen, you know, I learn much better from reading than I do from listening, but all of that, it was a different way of me taking in the information, but it was so helpful, and it turned me into a podcast listener, which I hadn't expected, because I didn't think that that was something that I would enjoy. Yeah,

Scott Benner 11:34
I'm glad, I'm glad you found it, and I'm glad you found other stuff that you enjoy, too. I think it's a great way to experience other people's ideas almost passively. You don't need to be sitting staring at it to hear it. I think it's awesome. I'm glad it found you and that it was helpful. You talked me, by the way, into making another kind of explainer about why you'd want to listen to certain series. Like, I can get lost sometimes and just think, like, I've said that already. I don't need to say it again. But I think that there are always new people every day showing up in the group takes on probably 100 new people a day at this point. So it's always incumbent upon me to to find those people and let them know where they can begin.

Speaker 1 12:13
True. True. I do. I do agree with what some people have said too, when we've had, had had people discussing it back and forth on the Facebook page is that there do seem to be people that are, they really are into Facebook, and they're not. They're like, No, you're not going to get me listening to a podcast. I just want and that's I think that that's hard. I think it's frustrating. It's really frustrating that they'd rather go back and forth with posts, and there's going to be a lot of noise. They might say, okay, you know, I will go to the link that Nico just posted about that episode, but I can understand that sometimes, with the overwhelm, they think podcast I, you know, now I have to download something and listen to something again. That's it is. It's a tricky thing because I see so many people that do want help, but then they say, Yeah, I can't do that.

Scott Benner 13:01
I'm I would also tell you that I think that my data tells me that they do eventually make it. It just takes some people longer than others to dive in, and so they do eventually get back to it. I've had people send me emails. They just hate me, you know? Yeah, I'll get another email from them six months later and they'll just say, Hey, I'm really sorry about that last email I sent, but I did find my way to that information now, and really has helped me, and I appreciate it. And, you know, sorry again for, you know, calling you those names, it's okay with me. I didn't, I didn't take it to heart. Don't worry about it. The brand new twist insulin pump offers peace of mind with unmatched personalization and allows you to target a glucose level as low as 87 there are more reasons why you might be interested in checking out twist, but just in case that one got you twist.com/juicebox, that's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. You can target glucose levels between 87 and 180 it's completely up to you. In addition to precision insulin delivery that's made possible by twist design, twist also offers you the ability to edit your carb entries even after you've bolused. This gives the twist loop algorithm the best information to make its decisions with, and the twist loop algorithm lives on the pump, so you don't have to stay next to your phone for it to do its job. Twist is now available in select areas, so if you'd like to learn more or get on the wait list, go to twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get on the twist wait list and be notified as soon as it's available in your area. Links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meals. Analysis and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control iq plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head now to my link, tandem, diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today.

Speaker 1 15:48
No, no, no. Well, I think it was maybe it was no, maybe a day or two ago that you were just talking about that, that on that. I mean, this is, this is something that is really surreal to me when episodes are aired and you realize what time they must have been recorded, yeah, because there was one episode. And you said, Yeah, you know, don't take a look at any of your investments. I bet you'll know what day it is when you're listening to this stuff like that that you've you realize what's, you know, what was going on. But it was a day or two ago, and you were talking about the people that hate listen and you know, they're just, you know, they come back every day. I hate this guy, but I but I can't stop listening. And how, how much you you enjoyed the fact that, despite the fact that they cannot stand you, that they they're back for more.

Scott Benner 16:31
There's a great scene in the in the Howard Stern movie, the producer from NBC comes in and he says, we have, you know, we have the listener feedback about the Howard Stern Show. And he says something like, people who love him listen for an average of 45 minutes, and people who hate him listen for an average of four hours exactly, or something. It's something like that. I don't know the exact words of it, so, you know, there's always going to be that. But there was a girl on recently. It's called modern fairy tale. The episode she said, Yes, she was really awesome, and young, in her mid 20s, had grown up through she's her third generation of type one in her family. Her grandfather had great outcomes for no good reason. Her father thought, oh, that's what you do. You don't really need to do anything. It all just works out. Except he passed very early. She was probably on her way to following her dad's footsteps. Somebody put her in onto the podcast. She starts listening to it, and then she gets, I forget why. She gets mad at me for a reason, or she decides that it's not for people who are MDI or something. She makes some leap, but she kept listening. She was hate listening. At that point, she was mad, and she was listening. And then something got said. She was out shopping, she heard me say something, and her brain went, Oh, I could do that. And then she just did it. And now, you know, a couple of years later, she's a guest on the show talking about all the awesome success she has in her life,

Speaker 1 17:52
right, right? And yep, and it was, it was that she, because I just did listen to it. And I know that you listen to things before you post them sometimes too. But I it was, it was that she said, This doesn't relate to me. It's, it's, it's MDI. And she was listening anyway. But she was, she, you know, described as kind of bitter that this all this stuff, and it's about pumps. And then she was like, wait a minute, this does apply. This does this does work.

Scott Benner 18:16
I tell people all the time, MDI and pumping are exactly the same. You can't change your basal. You know, you have to shoot more if you want a Bolus more, and you can't split a Bolus. But that's the extent of the difference between MDI and pumping. Now, you know algorithms are different, obviously, but yeah, if you can do it with insulin, you can mimic it with MDI,

Speaker 1 18:37
right? We did really well on with, with MDI, and then with, and then with that, with MDI, dash, Omnipod, five. We haven't. We've been steady with our good results that whole time. What's been different is the ways that I put in effort, and what you know, what you know, what I'm looking at, and the more that we've learned about the inputs, meaning the combination of the inputs of the food and then the activity related to it. I agree with you so much that it's it's time, you know, it's timing and amount of the insulin, and then also it's taking a look at the type of foods that you're eating and how to strategize for how that is going to be processed by your boy, by your body, or your type

Scott Benner 19:23
ones body. I don't know. Have you ever seen the movie Moneyball? Are you a baseball fan? You know

Speaker 1 19:28
what my my husband just was talking about this. This is a brad the Brad

Scott Benner 19:33
Pitt movie. Brad Pitt, yeah, there's an awesome scene in Moneyball where they decide to go get this beat up catcher and have him play first base, the general manager, and one of the one of the coaches, goes, sits down in his living room, and he says, hey, you know, we'd like to have you come out and play for the team. He goes, You know, I don't think I can really throw the ball anymore from, you know, from home to second. He goes, That doesn't matter. You're not playing catcher for me. You're going to play first base. And he says, I've never played. At first base, and the general manager goes, doesn't matter. It's incredibly easy. We'll teach you. And he looks at the coach, he goes, tell him wash. And the coach goes, it's incredibly difficult. And so, like, I think that about diabetes a little bit, it is just timing an amount, right? And once you understand all of it and have the tools, it is pretty easy. And but if you don't have those things, it is incredibly difficult. I think that's where the podcast helps people, not differently than the building blocks. Idea about nutrition or the building blocks. Idea about teaching somebody something, you slowly hear things, they build up over time, and then one day, you just have the full force of having taken your vitamin D every day and you get the benefit of it, you don't even know what's happening to you. You just have that benefit now. And I think that's what listening does. It gives you tools and ideas about insulin and living with diabetes and a lot more. Not that humbly, I would say, I think there's more to the podcast and all that. And then one day, you'll just have better outcomes. You might not even know why they're happening. You just suddenly have built up those building blocks almost unknowingly, and now you have more information in your head when it comes time to make a decision. Contour, next.com/juicebox that's the link you'll use to find out more about the contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter. When you get there, there's a little bit at the top you can click right on blood glucose monitoring. I'll do it with you. Go to meters, click on any of the meters, I'll click on the Next Gen, and you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. Smart light provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips, as if all that wasn't enough, the contour next gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour next.com/juicebox and if you scroll down at that link, you're going to see things like a Buy Now button. You could register your meter after you purchase it. Or what is this? Download a coupon. Oh, receive a free contour next gen blood glucose meter. Do tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there. Now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use.

Speaker 1 22:18
That's precisely one of, one of the points that I, that I did, did want to make, is, is that Timothy and I, again, before, you know, before different technologies even. But I wrote down here, found the podcast in January 2021, so we were diagnosed in October of 2020, so I did go, you know, I did, I did go for a while without the podcast, and I had figured out a lot of these things. So one could say, well, why are you listening almost daily to diabetes podcast? And why are you going through all of this? It is that the repetition of the of the ideas, finding out, there's always more to learn, there's all there's always interesting things to you know, to find out about ways that people deal with things. Even if you think you know a lot, there's so much more. And honestly, it's the conversations with such interesting people about all kinds of things. It's kind of little like Seinfeld. Sometimes the show is the show about nothing, you know. And that's not insulting you in any way, you know. It's just that it's entered, it is entertaining. And there was always something that I take away from someone and and their life story. And, you know, everybody comes on and says, you know, I don't have anything to say. And of of course, they do. And there's, there was always something that you can relate to, or that you know someone that could relate to. And again, lot of it is not about diabetes, and I know that that's probably going to have more people think, well, I don't have time for that stuff. But in the lessons that that I found, it's about attitude, it's about your approach to things. It's about how to deal with other people, about relationships. There are so many things that are woven through the conversation conversations that it really is about a lot more than diabetes. My husband calls it diabetes radio, and I keep talking to him about the fact that it's really not just about diabetes, because it isn't he would probably like it. I think he would

Scott Benner 24:27
just a good podcast, not like about diabetes. And I think that that's why it, it succeeds where it is, because where other, you know, offerings maybe don't get so wide. There is an entertainment factor to it. It isn't cold and calculated. It isn't buttoned up and stuffy, and yet, you know, the things you hear will definitely help you. And I couldn't agree with you more. Like I feel like I've said this a couple of times, but I'm happy to say it again. When I was a kid in the 90s, I listened to Howard Stern interview a porn star. Yeah, and he never asked her about being in porn one time, right? And she was so interesting, and her life was so interesting, and her ideas and her thoughts and her fears and everything she talked about, I just was ensorcelled by like, I really was just, I don't know, riveted by her conversation, and then I look back on it, I wish I knew who he was talking to, because I'd go listen to it again if I could. But you look back on it, and you can hear him expertly picking through her life, right? And you don't realize it's happening while it's happening, and she doesn't realize it's happening while it's happening, and she doesn't know how much she's relating to other people. I think I make a conversational podcast that happens to only talk to people who have diabetes or a kid with diabetes,

Unknown Speaker 25:49
right? And I agree, I agree,

Scott Benner 25:51
yeah, but I could easily get 10 people on here who don't have the thing to do with diabetes. And I guarantee you, I could interview them, talk to them about life, and you wouldn't unsubscribe. You'd be like, Oh, those were good conversations.

Speaker 1 26:06
That's absolutely what I'm saying. And, and then with the different series that you had, you've had, I mean, there's the thyroid series and, you know, and then now the nutrition series, and that's, that's kind of proving that too, is, is that, yes, these things can relate to people with diabetes, and are important however they you know this, you know, this is general information. This is a lot, you know, this is a lot of stuff that's applicable. A lot of this stuff, like with the talking about about social media and the way people respond, and all of that. It's, you know, it is, it is absolutely true. And it's, you know, it's important information for people to think about is, is that the, you know, when we talk about how people just want to be on a side, and then you, when you look at, when you when you've talked about the comparing how with the chameleon Facebook group and your Facebook group, and you look and you think, you know, we're all so different, and we're dealing with different things And and, no, no,

Scott Benner 27:00
it's all exactly the same. Exactly. There aren't people with diabetes on Facebook who are unpleasant. There are people who are unpleasant. Some of them are on Facebook. Some of them are talking about chameleons and some of them are talking about diabetes, like the arguments and the hot takes and the perspectives, they're all exactly the same. From topic to topic to topic. It doesn't make any it doesn't make any difference, right, right? A woman put a post up the other day. I wish I remembered her name, and she was just thanking me for an episode that went up last week called, I think it's called sorry a or something like that. And she goes on to say, like, there are so many valuable life lessons in this conversation, yes, like, Forget diabetes, they're in there. I'm touched by that, like I and I know it's me talking about me. So some people will think it sounds distasteful to talk about, but I mean what? I don't know what else I'm supposed to do when I wrote my book about being a stay at home dad. Again, I don't know how good of a writer I am, or how good of a book that is, or anything else, but I can tell you that when it was over, the publisher came to me and said, I don't think I could have paid a professional writer to do the job you just did. That entire transcript that you gave us is full of common sense, life lessons explained simply. She goes, it's a roadmap for living a better life. I know people usually brand that or they call it stuff, and then they, you know, they try to sell it to you. It's funny. I just had a long conversation this morning with a contemporary of mine, and where we were just talking about the difficulties of getting around the platforms and how they want creators to pay money to for their stuff to be seen. It's how Facebook set up. It's how it's how they're all set up right now. Like, if you're not a creator, you don't know this, but when I make a post, the next screen that pops up in front of me asks me to pay you. They pay pay them so that people will say it, ah. And so I don't do that, but then they limit who sees your stuff that's on all of the platforms. Facebook does it, Instagram does it, Tiktok does it, YouTube doesn't. But I don't put video up. I only like, I'm only like, basically like, you know, repurposing my audio on YouTube, which is not how people listen to podcasts. It's not really important, right? But no, yeah, I'll make a post on Facebook, and then it will ask me how much I want to spend to make sure people see it. And then it will tell me, if I spend this much, it'll show it to this many people, and if I shouldn't that much, it'll show it to this many people. So all the stuff you're being delivered on Facebook, if you're seeing it, you either really love that thing and you are interacting with it constantly, or you're somebody is paying to shove it in your face, right? So we were talking about that, and during that conversation, she said to me, like, Hey, you could probably make maybe do one of your episodes a week in video and put it on YouTube, maybe people would be interested in that. And I was like, Well, it's a lot of money and editing and time, and I don't know, I'd have to find people who were willing to be videoed while we were doing it. Like, I don't know if I could really make it all happen. I already have a pretty significant cost paying my editor for audio and stuff like that. And so we were talking all through that, and she said, Well, you. Probably, you know, if it got popular, you'd make money on YouTube. And I stopped her, and I was like, I don't really care about that. Yeah. And she's like, well, you know, you got to make money. I said, I make money. I'm okay. Like, I pay my bills, I save money, I'm good. My concern is that, I know you don't like me saying this, but my concern is that I'm 53 I don't, I don't like you saying that. I've already kept this thing going for 11 years, right? I mean, the honest truth is, like, if, if I made a podcast for 20 years, that would be pretty uncommon, like a popular podcast for that. So let's say I can accomplish that. Let's say I can make this for nine more seasons till I'm 62, years old. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 30:35
don't say that. I need to hear that out

Scott Benner 30:37
loud. Okay, right, right. So, like, let's say I can, I can accomplish that. I have a finite number of people I can help, and it's not grandiose, and I don't have a god complex. But trust me, I said to her, if you were me, if I sent every note that I receive every day to you every time I get one, if I just emailed it to your text it I said you'd be crying by the end of the day, and that happens to me all day long. 24/7, and it's a response. It now it feels like a responsibility. The podcast feels like a public trust to me, like I just want to get it to more people, because there'll be a day where I can't get it to anybody. And if we go back to the reason I started writing that blog in 2007 the thought in my head when I started writing that blog was is very simple. I started it because I wanted people to understand type one diabetes, and I realized that they didn't. I kept it going after reading an article about a man who passed out at a train station parking lot, a commuter train station parking lot, they kicked him off the train for being drunk. He was found early morning by commuters laying face down in stones. People passed by him. They mocked him. They made fun of him for being a drunk. And one woman recognizes, I think my sister or my brother has type one diabetes, and this looks like low blood sugar, and she stops and saves this guy's life, right? And I thought, I wonder if I could write enough stuff and put it online, it'll reach a person who might find my daughter laying face down somewhere. One day, I'm gonna write this blog and see how I make myself cry. It's late in the afternoon. This isn't good, Monica, I gotta get my headshots done in a couple hours. I don't need to have red eyes. I just can't believe I said headshots in the middle of this touching story. I know me either. Nevertheless, that is what I'm doing tonight. And so, like, maybe I can write a blog that will reach a person and educate them so they can save my daughter one day. It's how I thought about it. And now, at the end of this some I'm almost 20 years into it now, right? Like, I started in 2007 right? Is 2025, and now I'm looking at the back end of my life, at least professionally, and I'm like, I don't know if I reached enough people to find that person that's going to help her. But more importantly, now, the way I think about it is, I don't know if I've put enough into the world that when she's ready to go find it, if it's going to be there, because the biggest travesty I can imagine is that the daughter of the guy making this podcast, because she's the daughter of the guy making the podcast, doesn't listen to him, and then one day, decides to go to try to find it, and can't even find it. I'm trying to find a way to keep this all alive for my daughter and for whoever else is benefits from it on the way. But hey, spoiler alert, I'm just making this podcast for my daughter. The rest of you are benefiting from it. That's awesome. I need the last thing for this podcast to do is to find Arden in a bad moment and pick her up. That's what I'm trying to do. So anyway, that's a lot of high minded bull, right there?

Speaker 2 33:41
No, but I is, what is what you're saying, that she'd go

Speaker 1 33:46
looking for it, but she'd go looking for it in in a voice other than your voice, meaning she wouldn't look for the

Scott Benner 33:51
maybe, yeah, Monica, maybe

Speaker 1 33:55
you're saying you she, you need to educate enough of us so that, though, that those of us and our descendants, obviously, because since I'm your age, I all I will also be gone. Well, it will be done. We'll be gone. But enough of the, enough of the, the listeners and the followers will have created their own entities. Like you know is, are you thinking of it that way?

Scott Benner 34:19
Because, yeah, with any luck, and I do think it's going this way, Arden will know how to take care of

Speaker 1 34:24
herself. Yeah, I think, I think you know that she already does. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I know a lot. She knows a lot, and and I know your fear is apparent, as apparent is that she's going to turn around and have all of these unanswered questions. But you know that she's again, like you said, the little, little breadcrumbs, little dribs and drabs, the little things over all the years. You know that she's got your, she's, she's got your, your philosophy, and the, you know, the way that you look at all of these things, even if she doesn't have all, you know, all of the little ninja tricks that you might,

Scott Benner 34:56
I agree, it will surprise me if Arden ever has an A one. See that's higher than six in the sixes. Like, that'll surprise me, right? So yes and no, like, but a little bit yes, my daughter's gonna get older. She's gonna age. She's gonna end up in an ER one day. She's gonna, and I'm not gonna be with her, she's gonna end up in an endocrinologist. Like, she's got a great endocrinologist now, but that lady's older, like, she she's not gonna be around forever. Like, she's gonna have to go find another endo someday. I have the really like, I don't know what to call it, I want to make sure that people understand I feel very blessed about it and grateful, but I have a really far and wide reach, and there are plenty of we talked about it today on the call I was on, there are plenty of nurse practitioners out there that sit in your room with you while you're talking to your Endo, and they hear you getting bad information, and they grab you in the hall, and they go, let me. Let me help you out. And they grab you in the hallway, and they go, Juicebox Podcast. I'm trying to seed the world with those people, not people who are mimicking what I'm saying, right? People who understand that it's timing and amount. That's who I want out in the world. People who understand that if you're tired, you might be anemic, people who understand, if your hair is falling out, that your thyroid is probably not regulated Well, like I want people to understand the things that I've come to learn they don't understand, right? Because my kids going to ask them a question one day, and I'm going to be too old to help her, right? And one of you sons of bitches better know the right answer.

Speaker 1 36:21
I have to say, I think that you, you must be feeling bad for Rob and think that he needs to be paid more, because I think that you've, you're giving him a lot of work during this episode, actually,

Scott Benner 36:32
that'll make him laugh. Okay, you're a good point. Good. We're done, Monica, is that what you're

Speaker 1 36:36
saying? It's over. No, no, no, no. But you

Scott Benner 36:40
go ahead, I'll tell you something like this. Is also another consideration. We've been talking for an hour and 20 minutes. Rob will do a great edit on it. He'll probably take 10 minutes of noise and gaps out and stuff like that. It'll go down to around 100 you know, about an hour 10. He'll put in the ads. He'll do all the good work, etc. But if it was me, I'm more of a two hour, three hour podcast person, I'd keep going with everybody, but I don't think anybody cares. Like, I don't think the people listening are looking for 15 hours worth of podcasts every week, but for my personal listening, I prefer to listen to longer podcasts, right? Yeah, and we're all down to like, now it's all one hour because of editing costs, or it's 10 minutes, because that's what YouTube wants. I just think, talk till you're done talking, and then those who like it will listen to it, and those who don't will stop. At some point. It's all right with me. The reason I put five episodes out a week is because I don't think you're gonna wanna listen to all of them. And I say to myself, imagine if I had five episodes. I think they're all good, but they're not all for you, and I only put them out on Mondays. Well, that's five weeks of a podcast where you might only see one episode you're interested in. I want to give you five days and then let you say, hey, you know what I'm going to listen to Tuesday and Friday, and maybe I'll maybe I'll check out Wednesday on the weekend. But I don't give a shit about Monday to your husband's point, it is diabetes radio, to me, because I think there should always be something new being broadcasted, in case you want to turn it on and listen to it,

Speaker 1 38:09
right? That's how, in that sense, right? And what he's thinking is, is that I'm I'm long, I'm listening to a podcast, you know? I download this and start listening, and it's discussion about dosing of insulin. 24/7, that's what he doesn't understand. He does not understand that. You know, he likes smart lists. And he, you know, I said it's it, honestly, it's a lot more like smart list than you than you would think, yeah,

Scott Benner 38:34
no, it's very, I mean, this is completely conversational in my head. I'll tell you something. This will sound, I'll sound like an asshole for a second. I don't mind see and you're paying Rob again. All right, Rob, hang in there. Rob. I was listening to smart list one day, and they were talking about something that we had kind of talked about on this podcast. And I thought, Oh, I handled this conversation better than they did. Not to say they don't have a good podcast, but I've heard them, and thought I did a better job on that. Or, like, I think mine's more conversational than this one ended up being or more open minded. Like, not pre I'm not calling out smart list. Like, I also think, by the way, if you have not watched the HBO documentary on the Smart List podcast, you're missing out because it is, if you like watching people be mean to each other who are friends. It is very, very funny. Oh,

Speaker 1 39:19
and I have to tell him he's big fans of all especially will he loves Will Arnett, he loves all of them. But

Scott Benner 39:25
you tell your husband to go on to max and watch that. It's just, I think it's six parts. It's very well done. It's hilarious. But also, you know, I mean, like I said, I grew up listening to Howard Stern like, I want to turn my radio on at six in the morning, and I don't want him to be done till I go to lunch. I want five hours of that. That's how I like listening to things. But I like hearing people talking who I'm acquainted with. I will turn talking on in the car more often than music. That's just sort of my vibe. I listen to podcasts that I don't even agree with the host on. Be like, oh, that's an interesting topic. And like, I know. Don't really agree with this person's perspective, but I'd still like to listen to this, or they have on somebody who I'm interested in, and I think, well, I don't like them, but I do want to hear what that person has to say. Like, I'm not a person who's like, I can't listen to this because I don't like that guy's politics, or I don't like what he said about this or that, or the car they drive, or, like, I don't care about anything. Like, I just want to hear what you're saying. If it makes sense to me, it makes sense to me. I think it's possible the closest thing you have to Howard Stern right now is a comedian named Tim Dylan, and his YouTube he is trying to make socially relevant content that is so biting and sarcastic that while you're listening to it, I guarantee you won't know if he's kidding or not. I think that's an interesting way to try to talk to people about the world. Wait Anyway, like I don't hear every one of his episodes, but when I see him, I'll stop and listen for a minute to see what he's doing. Yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 40:49
I'll put it on as long as, as long as I'm caught up. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:53
don't, don't. If you start listening to other stuff instead of me, I'm in trouble.

Speaker 1 40:57
Yeah? No, no, no. Subscribe and download. All of you. Thank you. Subscribe and

Scott Benner 41:01
download. Please follow in a podcast app. Set up auto downloads in your apple. I mean, if you want to help me follow an apple podcast and make sure auto downloads are on and then listen to this, listen to the show. That's the biggest way

Speaker 1 41:13
to help. Yep, nope. And that's you know that that's what we keep doing. We'll keep getting out there. Get the get the downloads. My plight. She does. I do. I do. I know pictures for the algorithm.

Scott Benner 41:25
Here's the business model. Monica, I wake up and think about how to try to help you and your son, Omnipod, Dexcom. Ever since they pay me to do that. Now they don't really. They pay me for ads. They buy the ads because you guys click on the ads, and they get a reasonable percentage of you looking seriously at their devices. That's what they want, right? So as long as I'm delivering those clicks to them, they don't care what we talk about on this podcast, right? Like this, we could get on here and talk about Spider Man movies for 50 years, if you guys were still clicking on a, you know, an ad for, you know, touch by type one, then that would all be fine. And so that's the I take their money to make the content for you, and that's so that I don't have to take your money to make the content. Because the other, the only alternative, other alternative is, is to charge you guys for the podcast. By the way, not everybody would do that. I wouldn't make a living off it, so I wouldn't be able to actually make the podcast. And a lot of people who could use the information might get priced out of it, and I don't want that either. So it's just a very simple business model. I make content people listen to. Enough of you guys click on the links, click through, and that's why they buy the ads. They're also good people in a lot of those companies, like I as an example, the circle group that I have set up is being funded by an advertiser who does not want their name on it and does not want credit for it. They just want to give me a chance to see if I can make it work for you. It's very cool. That's a very trust me. Yeah, that's awesome. There's not a lot of companies. I'll give you clarity. That group cost me about $5,000 a year to run. There is a company who just wrote a check for $5,000 and said, Here, go see if you can make something that will help people with diabetes with this. They don't want credit, they don't want ads, they don't want their name on it. They're just trying to help. They're just That's it, and as long as you guys use it and enjoy it and it's valuable for you, they'll keep paying for it. And the alternative to that is that most of those private groups charge people between 25 and $50 a month to be members, right, right? And I'm saying, just take it for free. And even knowing, by the way, that if I got it set up and running and it was super popular, I could just charge you for it, not take their money, and I could probably make a lot more money on it. I'm not even trying to make. I don't ask them for $1 more than it costs me. I said, Can you please cover this? This is what it'll cost. They wrote a check. To be perfectly honest with you, I forgot that I have to pay taxes on the five grand they gave me. So I'm now, oh, don't do that. No, I'm paying the difference. I think it's a thing worth looking at. It could be really great for you guys. And if it works out, great, and if it doesn't, I'll put my head down and say it didn't work out, but, like, I'm giving it a shot, and I found somebody to support that. So anyway, you guys are being supported by a lot of diabetes device companies and other companies that you know they want your business. I'm not gonna lie to you, but they're also supporting this podcast because they know how much it helps people, right, right? Not just because it creates clicks.

Speaker 1 44:20
That is a great story, and the fact that they don't want credit for it, that's, you know, that's something that that really says something is that they believe in this. And they're saying, Hey, we don't, you know, we're not, we're not going to try to get a pat on the back for this. We just know it's the right thing to do, and it's what we want to do at this time. But you know, really, really, that that that also does speak to that their belief in your ability to continue to grow the community, and that they know that you know, if you've got this idea that there, there's something to investigate here,

Scott Benner 44:52
I appreciate that, and I agree, and that they've said that much to me, that's absolutely true. And they said, look, we've seen you help people in other avenues. Because this sounds reasonable to us, we think you could probably help people here too. Like, here, take some money and go see what you can figure out. And so, like, that's what I'm doing now. I'm going very slow at it, because I'm still learning the space as well, but I would tell you, like, to me, it's a much better version of Facebook.

Speaker 1 45:17
You know, as I said before, I am not a fan of Facebook. And I don't, you know, I go on it and I go, you know, I go in, and I can only do small doses of trying to help some people in the group. And I feel overwhelmed. I, you know, I wish there were different, and again, different channels and things like that, and this circle community, I think I when I look at the Facebook group, I have always wanted there to be a spot where you could clearly go and discuss the recent episodes, that you could talk about the guests, and ask if they're there, all that kind of stuff. But you try to post about an episode, and it gets it gets lost. And so this is, you know, this is becoming more and more of an anti Facebook discussion, but it's true, we're not able to see what we want to see. We can't organize things the way we want to organize that because I, you know, I love talking about the specific episodes, and that was one thing that and my husband's always like this, as soon as you lay down your head on the pillow, and all of a sudden I've got admin that I need to talk about. But in closing, I do have to publicly say, say thank you to you, because I have a dear friend, I guess they would say across the pond in England, Sarah. And she was her, she is Mom of poppy, who you interviewed back I think maybe it was March or so, but I wouldn't have become friends with her if I hadn't seen her post on the Facebook site. And then I probably wasn't supposed to just message her privately, but I did. We've become good friends. And we talk, you know, we talk on on WhatsApp, or you know, or you know, voice to voice every once in a while, and we love to discuss, did you hear the episode? What's you know? What do you think about those? What did she just say on that? I can't believe, you know, we love going back and forth, and I would love more people to be able to talk about the episodes, and I'm hoping the circle group can eventually.

Scott Benner 47:08
It will be, I think, and but I also think it's a slow build. It's going to take a it's going to be a bit of a heavy lift, and it's going to take a long time. The one thing I'm not anti Facebook group. I love that Facebook group. I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1 47:18
I'm overwhelmed by it. I really am. Because, again, you know how you saying you've got the helper mentality and all that. And I look, there's so much here, and what did I miss? And, you know, I

Scott Benner 47:27
can't think like that, Monica, you can't, you can't manage that and think that way. It's, it's all very like, whatever I can do, I can do whatever I see, I see, you can't put it on you to go find more or to do more. Yeah, it's all out there, and it gives you access to, I'm telling you, I love Facebook, and Facebook gives you the opportunity to get more new followers more frequently, and you know, and you're never gonna, and most people just, you know, they go the Facebook's their go to. So to get them to even leave an app, to go to another app is difficult, but it's there. Hopefully people will, will go find it, enjoy it. Okay, now we are gonna have to go where Rob's gonna like, he's gonna call you for $20

Speaker 1 48:04
well, that that, and you've got to go powder your nose for your headshot. I do. So I

Scott Benner 48:08
just want to let people know that I was asked for headshots by the people who are taking me for children with diabetes. I need headshots for the cruise. And I need, I

Speaker 1 48:18
was gonna say it was about the crew. About the cruise is they're going to have those, they're going to have glossy flyers that they're handing out. Yes, they're going to they're going to embark, and they're going to be handed the glossy flyer with the schedule.

Scott Benner 48:30
That's not what's going to happen. Yes, it is. A friend of mine is actually a headshot artist, so he does an awesome job, and I'm going to go meet him very soon. He's going to take care of it for me. So thank you. I appreciate this was great of you. I really do appreciate your

Unknown Speaker 48:45
time. No problem. Take care. You too.

Scott Benner 48:55
Head now to tandem diabetes.com/juicebox and check out today's sponsor tandem diabetes care. I think you're going to find exactly what you're looking for at that link, including a way to sign up and get started with the tandem Moby system. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pool if you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind. You want, twist, twist.com/juicebox, having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour, next.com/juicebox, that's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. When I created the defining diabetes series, I picked. Lectured 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, Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community. Juicebox podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook. Of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a body. Not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com,

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#1614 Somebody’s Always Peeing - Part 1

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Monica shares her son Timothy’s type 1 diabetes journey, from diagnosis to teenage independence, opening up about fear, resilience, and finding balance as a parent learning to let go. Part 1 of 2

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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
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox podcast. Welcome.

Monica 0:16
Hi. I'm Monica. I am mom of Timothy, who is 17 years old, and he was diagnosed with type one in October of 2020

Scott Benner 0:27
I am here to tell you about juice cruise. 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right. We're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to St Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization, touched by type one. Please take a moment to learn more about them at touched by type one.org on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more. Touched by type one.org. You're looking to help or you want to see people helping people with type one. You want 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 where 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 this episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five and At my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what I just say, a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Monica 3:05
Hi. I'm Monica. I am mom of Timothy, who is 17 years old, and he was diagnosed with type one in October of 2020, almost five years ago. Yes, almost five years ago. Okay. He was 12 at the time. He was 12 at the time.

Scott Benner 3:21
Okay, do you have any hype, any autoimmune stuff like hypothyroidism, or anything like that?

Monica 3:28
It's interesting because I was hypothyroid during my last couple years of high school, and then beginning of college, was on Synthroid, and then it went back that I didn't need to take thyroid. I've had it tested for the rest of my life since then, and right now, I have a very kind Doctor Who is saying, Hey, your t3 and t4 levels are a little bit low. I don't have antibodies showing that it definitely has Hashimotos or anything. But she said, let's, you know, let's try working with a little bit of the natural thyroid to see if we can improve some symptoms. And thanks. So it's interesting, because I do, I know your next question may relate to any auto immune in the family. My sister has mixed tissue mix connective tissue disorder, which has features of scleroderma and dermatomyositis, so they kind of can't categorize it, but I have a sister in law, not related, who has lupus, and she said, really, with a lot of the autoimmune you've got overlapping symptoms, and they doesn't really matter what they call them, they're using the same treatments for most of them. So it doesn't really matter, but you have characteristics of

Scott Benner 4:47
each different things, right? Yeah, so you have how many children

Monica 4:52
I have, three. I have Peter, who's 13, Timothy is 17, and Jacob is 19,

Scott Benner 4:56
and when he was diagnosed, to. You by surprise,

Monica 5:01
yes and no. So it was, it was October, and during that summer, it was covid, and we had decided to get a water cooler. We noticed that he was drinking a lot of water. Actually, my my husband noticed it, and he had been diagnosed pre diabetic, and then type two. And he, he first started saying to him himself, oh, I'm drinking so much water. I'm drinking so much water. So when Timothy started drinking on a lot of water, he had, you know, Dave was thinking, hey, you know what? You know what, if there's diabetes. And so he was thinking it from a type two perspective. I think, you know, there was no reason for us to believe that there was a type one issue. But he's he was drinking more and more. Your

Scott Benner 5:45
husband gone through that, and he saw it with you know, at first he probably just thought, See, I knew they were going to drink all this water is going to cost me an arm and a leg to have this water cooler here

Monica 5:55
Precisely, precisely what we thought, because it's a novelty. And it was the summertime, and it was hot, and we were home all the time. We weren't out and about as much, so the water consumption was high. And I Yeah, and I looked at and I thought, oh. I said, No, you know. And I I didn't want anything to be wrong, so I didn't in. And I am tend to, I do tend to worry about, you know, possible things. I overthink things. But I didn't jump on that. And I didn't, I didn't really think anything of it. Then as the summer went on, Timothy said, you know, I've lost some weight, and now he had gotten a little bit, I mean, thicker, I guess. And teenage boys tend to do that as if they'll go through phases where they grow out and then up and out and then up. So he was, he had a little bit of a punch, but nothing big. But he said, You know, I've lost weight, but then he had lost a bunch more weight. And I called the pediatrician. I said, you know, we need to come in and get checked out. We got in there and he had lost, I'm trying to think, 10 pounds or so, and I could see on the his face, the PA his face, that, you know, he was like, because he was reassuring me, you know, everything's probably fine. Then he looked and he said, he went, Okay, let's, let's

Scott Benner 7:12
test him. Did you bring up diabetes when you brought him in, or did they bring it up?

Monica 7:16
I honestly am blanking. I remember, I think I said we're wondering if he possibly has diabetes, and it was the weight loss, and the, I said he's got weight loss and he's he wasn't saying that he was going to the bathroom all the time. And I don't know Sure, my my boys, somebody's always going to the bathroom. I don't know. Um,

Scott Benner 7:35
three boys is a lot, isn't it? Plus your husband is four, right? Yeah, right,

Monica 7:39
exactly. So I don't know somebody is always peeing, so I hadn't noticed that, but I say he's been drinking a lot of water, and he's lost weight. And so I think they thought, okay, nervous, mom. But then when he got on the scale, then he said, Okay, so they had someone in to did blood work for the A, 1c, but then after that, they came in with the meter, which I don't know why it wasn't in the other order, it read high and they said, Wait a minute. And they got the doctor to come in and try it again. And they said, Okay, we're sending you over to Morristown hospital, to the children's hospital there. You want to go there instead of the hospital that's near me, because they'll be well equipped to deal with this.

Scott Benner 8:21
You said you can overreact to things, right? And so did you have that kind of reaction, or did you hold it together? Was your husband with you in the office? Did you go right to the hospital? I

Monica 8:31
came home, and I don't know where. I'm trying to think of where Dave was at the time, but I remember very clearly I went out in the in the driveway, and I called my dad, and I said, we're going to be, you know, Timothy has type one diabetes, we're going to be going over to the hospital. And I said, you know, it's all going to be okay, but I don't know how much more i i can take, because in March of 2020, my mom passed away from stage four cancer. It was the weekend that everything shut down for CO for covid, yeah, so we actually were driving back to New Jersey. Exits were shutting down, and everything hers was the last funeral they were able to have at that church. So I had been grieving, and, you know, at home and by myself with the kids over the course of that summer, but then to be hit with this and say, All right, I'm going to pick myself up, and now we're going to, we're going to work on this. But I thought I remember feeling this is this is overwhelming. And you know what was me? And you know, how come I gotta deal with one more thing.

Scott Benner 9:42
How old are you today? I am 5353 Oh, wow. Are you okay? Yeah, yeah. So you're, you're in, you're 48 when this is happening. Then, yep, yep, your mom, your mom's passed away. Cove, it's happening. Your son gets type one diabetes. So I hear you saying that I know this is going to be okay, but I. Don't know if I'm gonna make it to the point where it's okay or not. Was that the idea like, maybe I'll sputter out here before we even get to the part where this has worked out,

Monica 10:07
I see, and I've noticed this too, is, is that I I'll get really nervous ahead of time. Of a lot of things now, all kinds of things with parenting, things going on is, and I keep telling this to my kids too, is that most of the time, that anticipation and the worry of what if is way worse than when you're actually dealing with something? Yeah. So when I when I am in a situation where there is something that's wrong and I need to fix it, I am not freaking out until afterwards, and there's a letdown. So I, you know, I shed a little tear in the in the driveway, went in, finished packing up the bag with Timothy.

Scott Benner 10:50
How did your son handle it like it not just in the moment, but in the preceding days and weeks? Was it overwhelming for him, or did he seem like he was feeling

Monica 10:59
again, knock on everything, because I do still have two kids who, you know, have a lifetime ahead of them. But we say if one of them was the one, Timothy was the Timothy is the one, the chill just rolled with it. This is kind of funny that there was this magazine. I think it's run by like, the same place they made highlights. You, since we're the same age, you might know the highlights magazine that we all look looked at as kid. There's these different ones, and one of them is a science magazine, and they had had a cartoon thing about type one diabetes, like a two pager. We had gotten home from a pediatrician, he went over to that he's a big reader, and he flipped to it, and like re read the little cartoon of this girl on a playground explaining to her classmates in the cartoon format that she has type one and what that means. And so he read again over what those details were as we were getting ready to go to the hospital. My story about how he accepted it, though, is after our stay, and we stayed, I think, about three days, they asked him if he wanted a wheelchair out, and he kind of looked at them and he, you know, he was like, you know, he's like, I'm fine. He said, Really, not that much has changed. Now I'm going to be taking a little blood out and putting some insulin in. And

Scott Benner 12:22
that was just his attitude about it. Yeah, that's awesome, yeah. And you think just seeing that little cartoon gave him some, I guess, perspective that he that he needed,

Monica 12:32
you know, context and a little bit of information about what it was, yeah, that was his only sense of what I mean. Thankfully, he'd had that. Because I don't know how with 12 year olds, you say to them, what's type one diabetes? Yeah, I think it varies depending on the people's families, and you know who they've come in contact with that, they may have no understanding of that, but what he had, and he could kind of grasp at was, wait a minute, I just read about type one diabetes. Let me read through that. And I think that cartoon probably did calm him down.

Scott Benner 13:09
Yeah, as much about how he deals with it changed in the five years.

Monica 13:15
No. One of the things that I, that I did want, want to talk about was the transition that I'm dealing with now, with him at age 17, with me starting off in the beginning, I am a researcher. I immediately I read, think like a pancreas and pumping insulin. And I I have not been a Facebook person, and I had never listened to a podcast, so I reached out for books, and I knew of I knew someone who that knew someone who had been diagnosed with LADA and was put into contact with her, and those were my initial sources of information, along with the people at at the hospital. So I have always been, okay, I've got all this information. This is what we're going to do now. As the years go by, I'm explaining to him more and more what's going on, what to do, how I handle it, and this process of what I think a range should be. And what Timothy thinks an acceptable range is is a bit of a difference.

Scott Benner 14:27
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Monica 16:44
I think it's it's that. But then also he and my husband, they, they were told from the beginning they don't die, advice, right? 70 to 180 7180 and so I don't want to scare Timothy, and I'm not doing it out of panic, either, but I know that every time you're going higher, you're introducing some more possibility of risk, or a possibility of things that are not good for your body. So I, you know, I really do want to keep it in a tighter range he doesn't understand the, you know, stickiness, and the, you know, the tiny little vessels, and all the stuff that we've talked about

Scott Benner 17:30
Monica, because you haven't shared that with him yet.

Monica 17:34
I have, you have, but I have, and I say, you know, every time your blood sugar gets high, it's sort of, it's kind of scraping. You've, you've described it as the scraping, you know, sort of scraping away in there. And that's not good. But he doesn't have, and I'm glad he's chill, and he doesn't have the sense of the sense of urgency, but I see something, and I think, crush it. Crush it. We gotta take care of this. And he's like, Yeah, I, you know, I took some insulin, it'll be fine again. It's the sense of urgency and how he reacts, and it's not that he ignores anything, yeah, but he isn't as aggressive, and he doesn't act as as quickly as I would. And I need to gradually accept that we're different people, and I've been managing this, but the goal as a parent is to have your child become independent and manage their own life, and you are equipping them with the skills to do that.

Scott Benner 18:32
It's probably one of the more difficult parts of the maturation of this relationship, the diabetes, part of the of the relationship between a parent and child. I think maybe one of the most difficult parts is when you make the realization that you've told them they understand, and now you're waiting to see if they care enough to implement Yes,

Monica 18:52
exactly, and that is what I really am struggling with as especially during this past year, because he's gotten his driver's license. His friends have driver's licenses. There's a lot more of hey, we're going out to eat, and then I'm texting him. I do have to say that I really, really wish that insulet would have given a View app for us, because when we were on the dash and I could see what boluses he had given, I felt like so, you know, so much less of a nag than I do now texting him saying, Did you correct already fat and protein, please. And he'll say already did. Or, you know, sometimes he doesn't. But I could see before I could look at the I could look at my app, as you know, in that follower sense, and say, Oh, I see what's on board. I see that he just gave so then I didn't have to nag him. So I feel a little bit more helicopter ish now, because I'm always having to ask.

Scott Benner 19:57
So the visualization that you can make. Often stops you from needing to actually contact him, which stops you from bugging him, and him feeling bugged, and vice versa, you feeling like you're bugging him, right?

Monica 20:09
If I had the data, which I don't anymore, because, because of Omnipod five,

Scott Benner 20:13
Omnipod five doesn't have an app where another person can kind of see what's going on, how much insulin is in that, right?

Monica 20:19
Because the dash had the View app. It was Omnipod view. And then so you would look, and you would see, you would see iob, and you would see the lat the time of the last dose. Now we've got the three hour delay in these glue row and different apps that I've because I've looked to see if there's anything, but no, you you can't get that information.

Scott Benner 20:40
Omnipod say they were going to make that and they haven't, or did they never mention it? Never

Monica 20:45
mentioned it. And I've looked and I haven't seen anything. I've, you know, I, you know, I'm sure I was on the customer satisfaction review survey things. I'm filled it out a dozen times because we went to Omnipod five in June of 2022 as soon as it came out, we had been on dash for four months, and I switched right away went, you know, went with it, and just was figuring this out, and then realized over time how much I missed, even just the four months of having that the view, yeah, before that was we had in pen, and So I had visibility with that. And I really do think that that was, that was an awesome thing for us, the in pen, because you could see the doses. And so I again, we had a history of what's going on, and with two people doing don't and with the doses, and with having a teenager, that's an, I think it's a really an excellent thing to be able to see that without the nagging

Scott Benner 21:42
part, yeah, of course. Well, I mean, you're making your plea here, they'll definitely hear it here. So, oh,

Monica 21:49
hopefully. So trust me, it would be great. Yeah,

Scott Benner 21:53
that's awesome. Well, there you go. I think it's a great idea. I see the value in it, like, beyond just management stuff. But like you said, like helping to, you know, not put extra stressors on people's relationships. It's a big I think it could be a big deal, you know, right?

Monica 22:08
I would love to loop, but I know that both my husband and my son would be hesitant to do that. They would be concerned not FDA approved. What is this? You're just dealing with some guy on the internet who's creating something they they would be opposed to that. I would love to have the ability to loop for several reasons, but one of them is being able to have that real time information without constantly being, you know, the diet and the diabetes. Why do

Scott Benner 22:38
you think you're comfortable with it, and they wouldn't be, is it because you're involved online? You see people using it?

Monica 22:43
Yeah, I know so much more about it. My husband is not past a lot of the information that we got at the hospital. He didn't read books, he didn't dive into that. That's always been how I was, how I have been. I thought I wanted to be a reference librarian when I was in elementary school, I just dive into a topic, learn all that I can about it. I just love information. So I when I had something to direct this information, the information gathering, you know, I went into and I read all of that. So I have a more of a comfort level, because I hear of so many people and listen to the loop and learn videos, stuff like that, that I am comfortable with it, but they think, Wait a minute, you know? What if something goes wrong with with the computer program? You know? What if,

Scott Benner 23:32
well, when you share that with them, I mean, have you shared that with your husband? Like, Hey, I've really researched this, and I think this is a great idea, yeah. And you don't get a lot of response back on that, not

Monica 23:43
enthusiasm. No, we started out in the beginning with that, with the MDI, Dave, you know, I have always had a big problem with needles, so, and then now, all of a sudden, I got to inject my kid all the time, and our hospital and malar endo had said, No, it's a year until you can have a pump. So that's, you know, as you know, a lot of needles. He gave a lot of the shots in the beginning, and then I got more comfortable with it. So in the beginning, we were real good with the you count the number of carbs we had our little log. We had to write every single thing down how much we'd given. He was involved in a lot of that. And then we were waking up, Timothy up for blood sugar checks every three hours overnight for the first couple weeks. Couple months in, we got the Dexcom. So Dave was involved more in the beginning, but again, as I'm saying, he still believes that it's you do this, you do this, and you and then you've got to you've got a good outcome, because you did what you were

Scott Benner 24:39
told. He bought the sales pitch that he got the first time, exactly,

Monica 24:43
yeah. And he missed the part where someone in the hospital did say, this is more of an art than a science. But he sort of missed that part. It truly is with all the variables. And he'll look and say, Well, what you know, didn't he dose? Yes, he dosed. How? However, there's the fact that another thing, Timothy likes to run the pods right up into the end. And I know that at two and a half days, or less than 50 units, if we get that,

Scott Benner 25:12
that's not the best time to have a loaf of bread. No,

Monica 25:15
no, because we know that the absorption something's going on and it requires X percentage increase in the doses. But I don't really know how to figure out how much. I just know it definitely takes more insulin on the last 12 hours or so. I say, Timothy, can you change the pod?

Scott Benner 25:35
So, yeah, well, no, I hear what you're saying. That's the human part of it, like if people with type one who don't have kids with type one are listening to you. Probably think when I say it too, they're probably like, oh, yeah, get out of their business. It's up to them. There's more to it than all that, right? And that's part of it, like, but then the the rest of it for you is to realize that they're right to some degree as well. Yes, like, it is just, it is his thing, and it's just, it's hard I imagine, if you're anywhere in your mind, like I am, it's hard to imagine that 10 years from now, you'll have absolutely no sway over your son whatsoever. And what if he's a person who just doesn't take care of his health, right? Like, that's what scares you. And it's funny, because you have two other kids, I bet you don't think about it once, about them. I

Monica 26:20
mean concerns about what, about what they might do 10 years from now.

Scott Benner 26:25
It's tough, because it puts you into that like, into that mindset cost. I think about stuff like that all the time, and when I talk to my brother in law or my sister in laws or whatever, like people, I know that I can sit down and speak like very candidly with about their parenting styles. They don't think about their kids at all, all, not at all. Like, you know, like, I one point, somebody close to me is kid, you know, kid in their 20s is having trouble. And I was like, Well, are they going to the bathroom regularly? And she goes, How would I know that? And I was like, Oh, all right, you know, I said, What about, like, vitamins and this and, like, I'm asking questions. I have no idea, right? Like, no idea. And I was like, oh, okay, right. By the way, there's part of me, Monica, that yearns for that, but then there's also part of me that looks up and sees 60 and 70 year old people with their 30 and 40 year old kids, and their kids are in horrible health situations, and I think they didn't get the information they needed. And now it really, I mean, it's not too late. You could certainly do something for yourself, but it's a lot of wasted time, right? Yeah, right. So you have that feeling too, yeah,

Monica 27:29
it's, it's that balance, because, again, like I said, always into into research, diving into stuff. So I've, before all of this, I've been super interested in nutrition and the effect, you know, the effects on, you know, what, you know, what we eat, and the, you know, supplements and all of that. So when I look at this and think, all right, pre, you know, for long term health, the, you know, these are things that are good for you. And you know, with all three kids and my husband, too, with, you know, I really like the it won't be new now, but it's new as of right now. The series with Jenny about nutrition and looking at these, these building blocks that we're putting in, and how our bodies are processing all of that. So I have to say that in the beginning, I felt a little carb phobic, because we had to count everything. And I thought, okay, so we should be reasonable, not restricting, but kind of restricting the carbs, because that's going to cause more variability. And so we looked for lower carb options, and I realized some of that was fear, so I started working towards being able to dose for what he wanted to eat. However, as Jenny points out, and you were pointing out yesterday with a story about Velveeta, what we want to eat is not necessarily what's best for us to eat. So like you've said just before, you can't you can figure out how to dose for a pop tart. Is that the goal to try to support your child eating Pop Tarts. If you know that that is not the way that long term health is is going to be secured. Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:08
it's a balancing act, that's for sure. If it makes anybody feel any better, this wasn't about diabetes, but it was something health related. Still, I suggested something to Arden recently, and she goes, You don't know what you're talking about. Like, she just hit, and I was like, I've had 17 different conversations with 14 different doctors about this. I might have a grasp of this stronger than a lot of people, you know, like, and what I realized was, is that it was one of those things where she was like, I think this happens to a lot of people. Like, I was trying to talk to her about a supplement, like, nothing crazy, just, you know, keeping her vitamin D level up. That's not a thing she sees impact from Do you understand, like, what I mean? Like, she doesn't wake up one day go I took a vitamin D tablet yesterday, and the next day I felt better. Nobody feels that, but I know it's important to keep her vitamin D level up for a number of reasons. And when she turned to me and she's and I realized for a moment, she just saw me as like, Oh, that's my dad. He thinks he knows something. Thing. And, like, then there was part of me that was, like, on this, like, I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, but on this, I'm right. I absolutely do okay. And then I realized, like, That's it, like, this is a is this a thing you're gonna argue about? Like, it's not, like, I don't wanna create a divide with her over vitamin D, but at the same time, I can think off top my head of four really good reasons why she should be taking it, and I think they're all backed up by a lot of science and a lot of experience with people. And then I just sit there, and I think there's going to be a time she'll be in her mid 20s, like I just have to wait till then, because then you say it again, and she'll take it more seriously, like she's still growing as a pre I know she wouldn't think this. If you brought her in here right now, she'd be like, I'm a fully formed person. I'm as smart as I've ever been. I'm smarter than you, old man. I've heard you say stupid stuff, like she's still stuck in that. But I know, because my son's a little older, that once you get through that last push of defiance, like you start turning into an adult. I really am beginning to believe, like, that's going to be my last stand with Arden. Like that's the spot where I'll have the most success now that she's older, it's going to be like after she's in her mid 20s. I think,

Monica 31:17
anyway, I'm I am hoping for that. But then when I look at talking to people about nutrition and health and wellness in general, I think you have people that are in the realm of they can see why they might want to try something, and some that are not that's just not a higher priority thing for them. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:39
and they, they might not connect the dots to ever that can happen as well. I mean, nutrition is an example of, like, it's such a good one. Like, I know I'm probably losing listeners by putting up content about nutrition, because some people are probably like, don't tell me how to eat. And I'm I certainly don't think we're doing that. But no, no, no, definitely not. But at the same time, like, I watched a conversation online the other day about soda and there, I mean, people do not understand how bad soda is for them. Like, generally, spam me people, there are people who do understand, but like, the of those who don't, they're just like, it's a drink. They don't see it, you know, like, and you could, you could try to sit down and make that argument anything like, I would tell you right now not to drink orange juice that is, generally speaking, not healthy. Like, have I had a small glass of orange juice with breakfast? Sometimes, because it's, like, very tasty, like I have, but there's 3000 better ways to get the nutrients in orange juice without all the sugar that comes with it.

Monica 32:31
Absolutely, absolutely. I just heard someone, a medical doctor, on a podcast, talking about metal you know, metabolic issues, and you know how? You know how we're looking at glucose spikes in every day, you know in everyday people, and why, and the effects over time of what happens and metabolically what happens as we get older. And he said, I love the taste of oranges. I love to eat an orange, and I do love to drink a glass of orange juice, but within a couple of seconds I have consumed eight oranges, yeah? And so our body wasn't meant to process that delicious orange in that quantity that quickly, yeah, 100%

Scott Benner 33:12
and anyway, my point is, you say that to somebody and they really don't know or something so, like, prevalent in their life, they don't even, like, they're like, Wow, how could that be bad? Like, there's a whole aisle of that at the grocery store. Like, how could that be bad for people? I see all kinds of people buying it. They're not dropping dead in the driveway Exactly, exactly. And I tried to be open about it. Like, when I was talking to the person online, I was like, Look, you should do you I don't care. Like, don't do whatever you want. I was like, but I don't think you should drink sugar. And I said, I think that a lot of what's in soda is bad for you. And I want to be clear. I'm saying that as a person who's literally drinking a diet soda while I'm having this conversation, I'm not like, perfect. I'm just and I know that I'm having all the bad things that you're having, but at least my bad thing doesn't have all the sugar in it, and it takes five seconds for someone to come in and go, you're using an artificial sweetener that's more dangerous than sugar. And I'm like, I just said, I know this is bad too. Exactly, both not good for you. I'm just trying to limit the sugar. And my point isn't that you should be drinking diets so deep. And my point is that that's not good for you at all. Now I know you're going to have some of it like and a lot of people are, but that point that Jenny and I are gonna, you know, either have made in an episode that you've heard, or you're gonna hear us make at some point we both, I think it is the one that just went out. You probably just didn't hear it like we both related a story of watching someone walk out of a grocery store with what appeared to be months worth of soda, hundreds and hundreds of dollars of it stacked up in carts, and I'm like, God, like, have a glass of water that's gonna kill you. And in my experience, the person I saw doing it did not look like they were having great health outcomes. And so anyway, like, it's neither here nor there. I'm not even sure how we got farther down.

Monica 34:57
Yeah, no, I Well, I do. Yeah. It's because I'm here. But the the episode was yesterday, while I was mowing the lawn, I was listening to you and Jenny talk about this and how you had similar people. And she said, I think I saw her in my grocery store too. What I liked about that is, in that afterwards you were talking talking about, and I do sounds dramatic when we say it and we talk about, well, there becomes somewhat of a an addiction, that you get hooked on the taste, and you get hooked on these, the the formulas that they've they've got, and then that becomes a habit that what you do is you drink several, several sodas. Or we're in the day, you know, we're in the days now of you know, oh, you know what that that restaurant doesn't have free refills,

Scott Benner 35:42
yeah? And then it turns into a quantity issue. Yeah, you're just taking in so much like, yeah, like, Listen, I'm not a perfect person. I have a diet soda with me while I'm recording the podcast constantly, because it keeps my mouth wet without I don't know how to put this, but if you talk a lot, and you're being recorded, water's not the way to go, because it somehow dries your mouth at the same time you get, like, Smacky. And so there's something in this poison that's in this cup that stops that from happening. So I use it while I'm recording. Also the not for nothing, I take in no caffeine except for this. So it does also help me. While I'm recording, it gives me a little, a little bump. You know what? I mean? I

Monica 36:24
kind of wanted to ask about that. You net coffee tea. You never did you try it and not like it. Or

Scott Benner 36:30
as an adult, I have never drank coffee. Okay? As a teenager, I've never drank it. I probably had a few sips of it when I was a kid, because my parents drank it all the time. It just never occurred to me to try to coffee. I will have a cup of tea a few times a year. But I have to admit, that's even a thing that bothers me. I like hot tea. This is going to sound ridiculous to people, but like, I'm so busy and running around so much that warming up the kettle and putting in the it's almost more time than I can, I can give away, and I know that once my life gets calmer, I will drink more tea. But no, I've never had coffee, and I don't think I'm missing anything, and I don't care,

Monica 37:11
see, I do like the smell of it, and that, you know, like it's, it's something that I smell it, and it's, you know, it's part of my morning, all of that. And I think for a lot of people, it does feel that way, but, and then no one in the house drinks, drinks coffee.

Scott Benner 37:24
No, my wife doesn't drink coffee. My kids don't drink it. Yeah, my kids don't drink alcohol generally. I mean, I'm certain that they've, you know, I'm certain Arden's been in a party and had a shot of something or something like that, but she doesn't drink at all. My son went to college and, like, he's, like, I don't drink. Like, it's just not a thing I do. It's, I don't know, we're not that's not the stuff we do, I guess, and for no reason, like, it's not a I'm not making a judgment about anything or anything like that. And I think coffee smells good. I think it smells awesome. Actually, it just never occurred to me to try it. And now the truth is, is that, like, even if I wanted to, I'm so cheap, like, I don't know what a coffee cost at Starbucks, for an example, or dollars? Yeah, no, no, you wouldn't get that money out of me if I was bleeding to death. Nope. Yeah. So

Monica 38:10
me, no, me either maybe is a little bit of a segue, as it's something that I did when I saw there was an email that went out earlier today saying, you know, say, you know, sign up to be on the podcast. And I looked and I thought, hmm, if I did what I need to tell Scott is that he needs to stop saying how old he is, because this I'm so old. I'm so old when you are about a week older than me, you know, I'm yelling back at you. You upset? Yeah, I'm guess, because we are not that old, sir,

Scott Benner 38:43
yeah. Well, I'll tell you, Monica, I just, I brought this up the other day, so I don't, I won't belabor it, but there's a tick tock trend right now, of like, this is 50 or something like that. And every one I've seen I'm like, Man, those people look way older than I do, right? I have to tell you, I don't feel old. Like, the only time I feel old is now when I get tired, I'll tell you that I think the thing that saved my life is the woman who came on and told me to try looping back before tandem had control IQ, before Omnipod had Omnipod five, before Medtronic had so before all those automations were available, this person was like, you should try this. Do it yourself. System and it let me sleep, sleep, and when I got rested, I had the opportunity to look back to see how exhausted I was, right? I think it would have killed me eventually, especially now this many years later. Of all the things that I used to be able to just put my head down and run through a wall like if I don't get sick often at all, but if I did, I'd get up the next day. I'd be fine. If I didn't get a good night's sleep, it didn't matter. I'd get it the following night. But now, if I just had this happen to me a week ago, Arden like got high overnight. It woke me up. I got up. I realized she was asleep already. I made a Bolus. I adjusted some basal. This whole like, I pushed her like, I pushed her blood sugar back in the other direction. And I found myself thinking, I want to wait 20 minutes to make sure this does what I think it's going to do. If it does what I think is going to do, 20 minutes from now, it's going to be okay, and if it doesn't, I probably have to put in another half a unit. This was my thought, right? Well, in that 20 minutes, I woke up, and then it was two o'clock in the morning, and Scotty wasn't sleepy anymore, and then I didn't go back to sleep till four, and I just missed two hours of sleep in the middle of the night and the entire next day. I wasn't worth Yep, and that, I think, is my age, honestly, Yep,

Monica 40:35
yeah, I see that with the with the sleep and the effects of sleep, yet I still do the stand up a little bit too late get, you know, reading something, whatever. I really should be in bed, because I know I'll, you know, I'm going to pay for it in the morning there. I still kind of believe that I'm able to do that, and I'm not. The other thing is, driving at night. That's some, that's where I do see that I feel

Scott Benner 41:00
older part on your eyes you can't see. Well, yeah,

Monica 41:03
I have contact lenses, and I've had glasses since I was six years old, and so because of that, and then the slightest stigmatism, but just with getting older, the eye doctor says, yeah, the you know, the nighttime driving vision is,

Scott Benner 41:16
yeah. Every day I come in this office and I sit down, and for the first five minutes, my eyes have to adjust the distance I am from the keyboard and the monitors. And I sit here. I don't want to lie to you. I sit here angry, waiting for that to happen. My eyes were so perfect my whole life. When I first sit down and fire up my monitors, they're not clear. And then after I'm here and I adjust to the distance they are, and even, like, I'll look down at the keyboard in the beginning, I can't even start working because the keyboard is blowing like, if I didn't know how to type, I'd be stuck sitting there waiting for everything to come into

Monica 41:49
focus. I wonder what that is, though, because that's not like a reading glasses sort of issue.

Scott Benner 41:53
No, if I put my reading glasses on, it would be fine right away. I don't want to do that, so I sit there and I just wait for my eyes to adjust, and I'm irritated the entire time. Like irritated is the wrong word. I'm angry the entire time, and I do, and I think that's age as well. Now, having said that, I don't look like I'm 25 but I think if you line me up against a bunch of people in their mid 50s, no, you could easily believe I was 10 years younger than they

Monica 42:17
are. You've told several of these anecdotes on the podcast. I'm very young looking. So there are, there are young women. And who are, you know, who are baristas and sort of things. And they comment about, about how useful you are.

Scott Benner 42:29
It's lovely, you know, it's, it's, it's lovely. This is the secret, Monica, it's there. It really is like, if my hair is dark, so I pull it off. Well, I haven't gotten to that spot yet where my hair looks like it's markered onto my face because my skin is too light, you know what I mean? Like, when white? Yeah, that hasn't happened to me yet. So that's it. The day that happens, I just give up. It's

Monica 42:49
over. Yeah, I have friends that hate me, but I haven't had to color my hair yet. Yeah, either. And so it's, it's a big deal.

Scott Benner 42:57
I'm not going to color my hair. I'm just going to give up.

Monica 43:01
I don't know if I'll just give up, but, but, yeah, I, you know, I get it. I think it's part of it, though, because you you can tell when somebody's got a natural hair, hair color, male or female, yeah. And I think that that might be part of it. I don't know. Inside, I definitely don't feel as old as as we are. There are things that I think, wow, I used to be able to do X or Y, but, you know, I think it's true. It's the stuff with the sleep and then, yeah, the vision, the vision stuff. It's, yeah, it's, I mean, there's nothing we could have done about it.

Scott Benner 43:31
No, not at all. It just is what it is. But I'll tell you that one of the things that I'm very aware of is that I know my personality, my language, and how I think about things, probably comes off decades younger than I am, right? So when you're in public and you start talking, I can see sometimes that either, like, younger people are, like, confused. I mean, I'm not gonna use the word creepy, but it comes off. I probably comes off oddly to them that apart like I look, I look younger than most 53 year old people, but I don't look like I'm 25 you know, I'm an older person right here I am talking about, like, stuff that they just don't see people their parents age talking about. And I know at some point I'm just gonna have to bite my tongue, because it's gonna come off so weird. And then when I get around people my own age, I have no interest talking about any of the crap that they want to talk about, I know. Like, so that becomes a problem, too. So you're around a bunch of people your own age, and you're like, Have you heard this song from this like button? They're like, What are you talking about? I'm like, oh, it's really great. Like, you start talking about it. You're like, you bring up something, and you know that's happening, you know? And you're and they're, I'm like, Have you heard about this? And they go, No. And I'm like, What do you think about Kanye? And they're like, who? And I'm like, Oh, okay. Now people don't know this, yeah, but Monica has wanted to come on the podcast. Was too nervous to do it. She's been listening for a long time. She's very active in the Facebook group. She's a great supporter of the things I do. And she and I were messaging about something today. She was literally trying to help me with. Something. And I said, Have you ever thought of coming on the podcast because I suddenly have a slot available today? And she's like, Oh, I'd be too nervous to do that. But then two and a half hours later, here we are recording, so she didn't get the time to, like, write a note and tell me what she wanted to talk about. So is there anything you really want to make sure we get

Monica 45:16
into I when I thought about that in the couple of hours of thinking that I had Timothy and his development there. And, I mean, we've talked, we've talked about that a little bit. I'm trying to think about anything

Scott Benner 45:27
else, because I have stuff to ask you, but I want to make sure you get what you want to

Monica 45:31
say. I'm looking over here because I did have a note, a little page, in case I ever did have the nerve to go on the podcast, the details of when he was diagnosed, what we're doing it now I think that, like, it's a recap what we were talking talking about, just I think that it really is hard for us as parents when we take a look at what we always want better for our children, and that combined with the overthinking, and I'm saying, All right, so I, you know I want, you know, I want between 70 And 140 I want 70% or more in that. And with all the data and information that we have, we can keep looking at that, and we can get into the area where we are bugging our children, or, you know, stepping in too much. That's something that I that, I definitely think that that, you know, balance is important, but really difficult to do because you want the best for your kid, but you also don't want things to be all about. Come on, you should have given more. Yeah, come on. You've got to correct this. This now

Scott Benner 46:30
it's definitely the fast track to you not having a good relationship as the as adults, or them pushing back and willfully not doing what you're asking, because it's the thing you're asking for them to do. I mean, like, listen, the easy example is, is that nobody makes more Democrats than Republican parents, and nobody makes more Republicans than democratic you know what I mean? Because you're because your kids are going to just hear what you're saying and then look to the other direction. That's all.

Monica 46:56
I don't think my husband has ever heard that one that that's very interesting.

Scott Benner 47:01
Monica, like you hear your mom and dad say something one too many times, like, I don't want to be connected to this anymore, and you don't want that to be diabetes, right? Exactly. It's funny because you listen to adults come on here in their late 20s, who have who grew up through high school with type one and went off to college, and they tell you, I wish my parents were more involved. I wish when I pushed back, that my parents wouldn't have given up. But that's hindsight. You can if you could go back and ask the 17 year old them, they'd say, my mom's an idiot, my dad's an Assal. They don't know what they're talking about. They're bugging me like but like, everything's hindsight. When you hear somebody say something thoughtful, it's almost always in hindsight. So you know, the problem is you have to deal now and in now with with the person you're speaking to. And that's why I think it's always important to keep a really long view of what you're doing, like you're not trying to win the day. You're trying to make sure that in the future, you've raised a person who wants willingly to take care of themselves.

This episode was too good to cut anything out of but too long to make just one episode. So this is part one. Make sure you go find part two. Right now it's going to be the next episode in your feet. I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days, you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juicebox cgm.com/juicebox one year one CGM, touched by type one sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at touched by type one.org. On Instagram and Facebook. Give them a follow. Go check out what they're doing. They are helping people with type one diabetes in ways you just can't imagine. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you can get yourself a free, what I just say, a free Omnipod five starter kit, free. Get out of here. Go click on that link, omnipod.com/juicebox check it out. Terms and Conditions. Apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox links in the show notes, links at Juicebox podcast.com. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference. Ins, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025, in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu if you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private Facebook group Juicebox podcast type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome type one type two, gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com,

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