Scott Benner 10/9/20 Scott Benner 10/9/20

#392 Advice for T1 parents from T1 adults

Adults living with type 1 diabetes share their thoughts with type 1 parents.

From the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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
Hello friends, welcome to Episode 392 of the Juicebox Podcast Today Show will be brief, but full of great information. Let me explain while we play some music.

This is going to come to a surprise to an but an posted on the private Facebook group a simple question. She said to the T one DS in the group. What advice would you give to us parents? Like what things did your parents do? Well, and what do you wish they did differently? And I thought, this has got a chance to be a good post.

Unknown Speaker 0:48
And I'll be damned if it wasn't

Scott Benner 0:49
so good. In fact, I'm gonna read everyone's answers to you. I love that the podcast attracts as many adults living with type one as it does parents of children. It might really honestly be the only place with such a great blend. And I love how they help each other. The private Facebook group, by the way, if you're interested is called Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, there's a couple of quick questions that you answer to, you know, prove that you're a human being. And then you're right in and talking with well over 6000 people, just like Anne, and the people who answered these questions.

Before we get started, I'd like to remind you about the T one D exchange. You can be heard and support the Type One Diabetes community while you help drive research that really matters for people living with type one. The T one D exchange registry is a research study designed to harness the power of individuals with Type One Diabetes. This is a nonprofit research organization that is dedicated to accelerating therapies improving care for people living with Type One Diabetes. they translate real world experiences into real world solutions that make your life easier. The registry is a research study designed to gather real world evidence firsthand, easily and quickly. The questionnaire that you'll fill out can be done on your mobile device from the comfort of your home. And since Type One Diabetes is a chronic condition that people live with their entire lives, participants can complete the questionnaire annually to help researchers understand surviving and living with type one, this is an amazing thing you can do it is 100% HIPAA compliant, absolutely anonymous. And when you join the registry besides doing all of those things I've just listed, you end up supporting the podcast. So if you've ever wanted to support this podcast without actually spending money, this is a great way to do it and feel good about what you've done. I joined the registry. As the parent of a child with type one by the way, you have to be a US resident either have type one diabetes, or be the parent or guardian of a child. I don't think it took me seven minutes to finish. It was really simple to do. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. In just a few months, over 400 listeners of this podcast have added their voice to the T one D registry. I believe that what the T one D exchange is doing is valuable and heartfelt. And I'm genuinely proud to be telling you about it. I hope you can add your voice to the others.

Let's get to this post, shall we? Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise please always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. Now back to Ann and her question to the T one DS in this group. What advice would you give to us parents? Like what things did your parents do well, and what do you wish

Unknown Speaker 4:11
they did differently?

Scott Benner 4:15
Okay, the first should do these invoices but that would be terrible. Wouldn't it if I was like amber said that wouldn't be good at all. Can you imagine if I thought to do that. Amber made a list she said at times it will seem like you have it all figured out. But other times you will feel like a failure. Don't beat yourself up long battle. She also suggest to take your supplies out of the boxes that they come in and you know find some sort of a kit or a place to put them so you're not digging through you know cardboard all the time. She says to get a little cooler bag for travel. Amber also said that Adam and Eve juicy juice has 4.23 ounces of juice in a box. Amber that's Arden's juice box as well. She uses the ones with Sesame Street characters on them. Those are her she has two favorite flavors in there. And you're right. They are terrific for not causing a rebound. Hi. Rachel said, my parents gave me a lot of independence. It was very helpful for our relationship and my self management. I was diagnosed in the early 2000s when I was five, so texting wasn't a thing back then. And I had to be a bit more independent. Always speaking positively is so important. Like saying, quote, you did so well yesterday. How did you bolos for that? Is it productive and affirming statement, I wanted to please with my blood sugars. I always thought of them as grades. She says to try to find a way to take that pressure from your children. And just think of the blood sugars as numbers, and that they have nothing to do with your child's worth or value. Also let them know that they're total badasses. It wasn't until much later that Rachel realized the incredible stress that her parents were under. While they learn to take care of her and type one diabetes. Nancy said that she's the parent of a 20 year old that was diagnosed at 19. She's found that asking things like why are you low? or Why are you Hi, is something she tries not to do? Instead, she asks, If she's okay. Often then her daughter would tell her what caused what was happening. And then she'd help her to fix it. Her daughter manages very well now she says, but in the beginning, she didn't want to think about it. And so Nancy did most of it. Never tell them they can have something to eat. I completely agree with Nancy. However, she always tried to prepare foods that were easy on her daughter that didn't spike her blood sugar's too much. And she kind of did it without her daughter knowing. And she says don't fuss when things go crazy. Just offer to help. Now even though Nancy's not an adult who's living with Type One Diabetes. I thought her comment was wonderful. And so I put it here. Thank you very much, Nancy. Amy says let them be kids, let them make mistakes so they can learn from them don't make everything about diabetes. When they get home from school, your first question should be how was your day? Not how are your blood sugar's let them choose their level of independence, and what they're comfortable with, don't force them to do everything on their own, because they will have the rest of their life to do it without your help. Amy, again, I am in complete agreeance with what you said there. I used to see art and come in the door. And I was overwhelmed. Wondering what our blood sugar was, like, Is she okay, you know, this is before dexcom share and I couldn't see it. And I just realized one day that I was seeing my daughter as diabetes instead of herself. And I made a conscious effort to change that. Lisa was diagnosed at age 10. And now it's 33 years later, she's married. for 20 years. She has three wonderfully healthy babies. And anyone seen the high fives the low sixes and all Lisa wanted to tell you was to let them dream of the future about college and weddings and kids. Don't just think that diabetes means that none of those things are going to happen. They can absolutely have any of those dreams. Thank you. Lisa Meghna was diagnosed in March of 2000 when she was about 16 years old. Take the emotion out of treating diabetes and put your love and emotion into taking care of the kids. Because diabetes is a disease. blood sugars are data. She says when your car needs gas, the tank you just fill it up. We need new spark plugs. You just put them in, but we don't get angry about it. being mad at diabetes won't help. You have to accept that this is where you're at now as parents for your kids best life. The best thing her parents did. Never let her feel sorry for herself and never let anyone else feel sorry for her either.

She wasn't coddled, no one made excuses for she says to get involved in care from day one. Even her 10 year old son knows how to check her blood sugar she says you see what Megan saying? She She wants your children to know how to take care of themselves. Meghan goes on to say please don't settle for good enough. You're still the parent and you can still empower a team to take care of themselves while pulling back the reins when needed. No different than homework or anything else. Caitlin shares that she thinks her parents were actually scared. But it would come out as anger when her blood sugar was high. They didn't offer a lot of help, but would yell at her when her blood sugar's were high. And she remembers being afraid. She says that she actively hid her blood sugar's to keep these things from happening. So she wants you to remember that while highs are not good. You can help. And being angry is not the way that started a conversation between a lot of different people. My dad was classic for this to someone else says, I think this is very common fear coming across as anger to kids and teens, it definitely doesn't help. But I'm not sure how to prevent this as a parent. Caitlin jumps back in and says, I think by naming it and saying things like, this is scary for me because I care about you. Let's focus on getting it down. And then maybe we can talk about what happened and how to prevent it next time. She said she's not talking about parents just feeling a little anxious, she's referring to being yelled at sworn at and blamed. And then not giving any suggestions for what to do or how to prevent it. Someone says they paid their kids to stay in range. It's funny. Now people are just agreeing, I'm gonna pay my kids this is the guys are adorable in here. Hold on. Someone then says they see a problem with paying their kids to stay in range. Laura comes back and speaks directly to Caitlin saying you should never have had to endure that. With all the other weights you had to bear deserve to be held, maybe cried over protected, valued and affirmed. You did not ask for this disease. after all. I so hope that things are better between you and your parents now. We all blow at his parents sometimes. And they definitely did for this one hugs and prayers. This, by the way, is a great Facebook page. You really should get into it if you're not. Marta says they never made a big deal of diabetes, they were never afraid of insulin. And her endo was the same. She said that was the good part, the bad part. They gave her too much freedom when taking care of her diabetes. She said as a team, she needed a system of checks and balances. And I have to echo this as well. I've now interviewed well over 400 people and many if not all of the type ones that I know who did not have good support from their parents, his children regret it and are sometimes suffering because of it as adults. Jeff says that at some point, you're going to need to hand over responsibility to your kid. But he doesn't know what that age is. But he thinks it's before 18 they should know how to bowls for their meals and adapt bazel settings. Jeff has had type one for 22 years. And he feels that knowledge is invaluable. Steffi comes in and says that she wants to add that she thinks children give hints to when they're ready. She said when she was seven, she decided to take care of herself. She had already learned everything she needs to know from being involved right from the start at her diagnosis. In 1983. At four years old, her parents still stayed involved. And Jeff remarks that you don't just dump it on them, you build them up to it, which is my plan. I'm just slowly filling Arden with knowledge that I don't even think she knows she has. Caroline says I was diagnosed Caroline, you wrote a lot. I was diagnosed at 16 months. And I have an identical twin and three other siblings who are all non diabetic, Lucky kids. I was not treated differently than any of them, which I know had to be extremely hard to balance. My mom had a friend who was type one who gave her some tips. One was to never say no to letting me eat if I was hungry. And she would have said yes to any of my other siblings if they asked. So a lot of times if my blood sugar was a little high, and I wanted to say a cookie, my mom would ask me to run up and down the steps for a while

or go outside and jump on the trampoline so forth. A lot of times she sent the twins with her. So I actually never picked up on the fact that it was a diabetes thing until I was in high school. And then she like offhandedly mentioned it she laughs where if she didn't ask me to exercise she'd allow me to have like one bite if I wasn't really hungry, and I just wanted to eat something because someone else was. She says side note. It really helped me to develop self control because I can literally just have one bite and be fine. It was also a very gradual transition of her handing over my responsibilities. However, I always knew what was going on. So I knew my shot, schedule, my amounts, adjustments and so forth before I did my shots. Likewise, I was always taught how to count carbs, and knew how many I was allowed to eat before I chose what I had. I was super involved in decisions about pumps, versus shots, and things like that. I honestly don't know if I have any bad things to say about my parents. And what they did regarding my type one. There were probably mistakes, but I don't remember any. Samantha was eight years old when she was diagnosed and as soon as she was ready her parents let her take the reins. She says I think I was self managing by 12. Did they help and support me? Yes. But her situation made it so that she had to express to her medical team when she needed help. She says there are going to be failures. Some of them you can foresee others you can't. But how else does one learn? She says I'm not saying hit the brakes completely. I was really mature, but take a step back give them a choice because their life and their type one diabetes, but not a type one diabetes life. I can really see how a lot of you found this podcast This is excellent. Alaina says My mother was a dietician my father a doctor, they did a really good job teaching me because the science behind the disease, so it wasn't just high BGS or bad for you. It was a Scott, it was a discussion about the small vessel damage and the eyes and the kidneys, and the effects of different carbohydrates and glycemic indexes and how insulin actually works. What was going on at a cellular level, during hypoglycemic episodes, etc. She said it made her view her body like a science experiment rather than a piece of broken equipment. And she learned at an early age how to experiment to find what worked for her. And 39 years later, she's still experimenting, studying and learning. Thank you for sharing that. That was excellent. Holly says, Go at your child's pace. She was diagnosed at two years old. She's 25 now and she has a baby on the way. Congratulations Holly. Holly Megan, a baby. Holly got her first pump when she was six. And while it was relatively new, it was up to her if she wanted one. She was completely sure, but they supported her decision. She said she was also a late kind of quote taking charge kinda kid. Her endo kept pushing her to do her own site changes. Holly adds here that she did not like herpes, endo. But the doctor wanted her to try so many different infusion sites to find something that she was comfortable putting on. I still hate doing shots on the random occasion that I have to, and she has to hype herself up to do them. We got the Dexcom. But I didn't want to wear it all the time. So we weren't for a week for so she worked for one week out of the month. Now she sees the Dexcom is such an invaluable tool. And she hates being without it. She wants you to know that burnout is real. And that at times your children will be dealing with this over their entire life possibly. So don't shove all the responsibility onto them too early. Try not to treat your kids differently because of diabetes. Let them do what they want to do sports, food etc. She says yes, there can be limits and you know measuring but don't tell your kid No. When you would tell a non diabetic Yes. If you have other kids get them involved. She says during her childhood, all three of her siblings gave her shots, slight changes, etc. She has a very vivid memory of her brother laying on the floor with her while they were waiting for their parents to get home. Because she had large ketones. Having diabetic friends made a big difference for her. When it came to emotionally handling diabetes in her teen years. It was rough. And she had a lot of unanswered emotional questions. She says I hit it more because I didn't want people to know that she says that's okay. being diagnosed is a physical learning experience, especially at a young age. But she says that the emotional side didn't hit her for a long time. And that that was harder in her opinion than the physical learning.

She had fears about the future rejection, she wondered why it was her who had diabetes. But she can happily say now as a grown mature person, that they will become more confident and be open. Susan's here with a more low carb idea. She says now you have a diabetic in the family. So the whole family changes. You can all eat differently, but those differences don't have to be made to be huge. She's not saying we can't have cake now because Johnny is diabetic. It's just you make where you order a different cake. You don't say we have we can't have spaghetti because Susie can't have pasta. You say zoodles and Pum Meeny noodles with meatballs for dinner. Just exactly as you would do if your child had a nut allergy. You know she says nobody would have peanut butter them. So she's suggesting to just make the changes don't advertise them or make her production over it. She thinks your child will thank you when they are healthy and strong as teens and adjusted adults who know how to eat well. In any restaurant situation, low carb protein packed 37 years ago, Susan says she was taught from her from day one. No more grains, fruits, sugars or starches. She's talking about all kinds of different foods here that you can use. She says if I came and cooked for you for a week, I seriously doubt you would even realize your carbs have been cut and I think This is an excellent time to point out that this Facebook group is completely inclusive, there are people in there that eat every carb you can imagine. And there are Susan, who doesn't. and everywhere in between. There's no judgement in this page. It is unlike any Facebook group I've ever seen in my life, incredibly supportive, tons of different ideas, really worth your time. Rick has lived with diabetes for 57 years, there are more options with the current technology. He says. What his parents did for him back then, back in the day, was to instill in him that he had to take responsibility for his diabetes management, they did not hover over him. They taught him that it was just diabetes, and that he could live with it. Well, it was not something that would limit him. And he couldn't use it as an excuse for failing to reach his full potential in life. They taught Rick that he could do anything he wanted. As long as he put this condition under his control. That's excellent recommend you step back. She says Don't be afraid as a parent to use injections and finger pokes. Even with all the new technology, not to say that they aren't great. But having the ability and confidence to use any management strategy for diabetes is the best way forward. She says she tests often, she listens to people who have had diabetes longer than she has. She likes to see how they've adapted over the years. Go with your child to appointments so that everyone in the house can be on the same page. self advocacy and confidence can be built up instead of dashed, when things aren't going right. Even in spite of you doing your best. continue learning and adapting, breathe and have faith. I want to again echo this statement that you do not want to be the person who looks up one day and says oh gosh, is this not how anybody does that anymore? You want to keep learning. But using basic tools are still very important. I think Arden's Contour. Next One meter is one of the greatest tools we have. But she also has the Dexcom g sex, these things are not mutually exclusive. Thank you stuffy. Nicki says that she believes that there's a fine line between you can do anything. And this disease doesn't make you different. But you can also acknowledge that you are a little different. And you have different needs, and that it's hard. She says more on the emotional side for her. Nikki was diagnosed at four. And it didn't really hit her until she was like 23 or 24. What the emotional burden of the disease would be. I hope as you're listening that you see that different people experienced diabetes in different ways. And that all of these remembrances and advice from people isn't going to fit you. But some of it will, some of its going to fit you perfectly. I'm glad you're listening. And I want to keep going.

Carrie says allow your children to still be children. She says she was diagnosed at six years old, and that the diagnosis made her grow up much faster than her peers. She needed support, but also to take responsibility for her care. Completely restricting certain foods can be detrimental for many reasons. I completely agree carry. diabetics are not allergic to carbs, we just have to figure out how foods affect our blood sugars, and how to utilize insulin. Also, what works for someone might not work great for you. And that's okay. It doesn't mean one thing is right and one thing is wrong. You will figure out It feels like I just said this and then I'm reading and carry saying and I will feel silly for saying it myself. Anyway, if you will figure out what works best for you and your type one. And that all being said, What works one day might not work well the next. Allow yourself and your child some grace, you will figure out what works best for you. And remember, there's no such thing as perfection. Do not fear food or carbs. insulins not the enemy, neither of the carbs, do not compare dosages to others. certain amount of insulin isn't good or bad. Someone taking lessons and then your child or more insulin than your child means zero. Your child will need as much as they need. And that's the right amount. There are a lot of smart people listening to this podcast. I'm excited. Hey, Tara says that it may be hard now you know the sleepless nights you're having and you know being careless towards your own health, but that it's temporary. And these moments will be over before you know it. She's right by the way. Your support right now means everything. She says she can look back at her childhood and think wow, look how much my parents did for me. They sacrificed so much for me. I have a different bond with my mother than I think I ever would have if I didn't have diabetes. And it looks like Tara made Lisa cry, West cry. And Chelsea tell us that she has to say that her bond with her son has grown. He's five. And now we laugh a lot more. And I feel differently towards him. And I think it's the same for him. Cheese, you guys are all sweet. West jumps in to say thanks to the original poster. Yes, thank you very much for this question. And for the great responses. Sitting here on the beach, watching his little type one play as my wife and I try not to ugly cry reading these responses. So good and grateful for this community. I am to us. Tiffany says my mom was a type one. And I think a lot of her mismanagement stems from parenting. I could be wrong, she says, but I just don't want to cause any additional issues. So I try to pick my words carefully. Regarding food eating, I try to be forgiving, and have grace. Because most the time the numbers aren't in his control. She's speaking about her son now. Anyway, my son is eight and I don't want to cause any adverse to food or anything. And she's scared that she will. I am a I'm a big believer in that not restricting food for people with type one. Diabetes is important because of this very idea. I also want to say kind of harkening back to Susan's comment. Susan is eating low carb, but she's doing an amazing job of cooking for it. It's not a restriction. It's a exchange. I think there's a difference there. And it's important to feel that difference. You know, I'm kind of rewarding some of these with people's thoughts. Because, you know, people write differently than they speak. But I'm just gonna read Jacqueline's. My mom never restricted me from anything. And let me be a team. She gave me a lot of freedom. And then she says, I never abused my medical condition or pushed it to its limits. And I really thank her for that today. 13 years later, as an adult, she also never treated me like a baby at home or in public. I feel bad because I was diagnosed in high school. I'm sure I wasn't a peach, she says, between the hormones and the diagnosis and my new way of life. Ross's parents allowed her to independently manage her diabetes. From day one, she was diagnosed at 16 years old. And it's all I ever wanted, I took care of myself, and I never about 24 years strong. She says good job, Ross. Heather wants you to know that therapy and or support groups for the whole family are available. Don't force therapy, but encouraging normalize it by talking about it as a tool for well being in diabetes management. If you do this, find a therapist for your kid, when they are a preteen or earlier. Or a diagnosis if they've already if they're or diagnosis if they're already a teen. If you can't look for one specializes in diabetes, try really hard to get them one who has diabetes, she has the diff for any reason the child wants to switch therapist, you should support that.

Here's the last one. Melanie said that her parents just sort of ignored diabetes. It wasn't until she was 18 and moved out that she started taking care of herself and figuring out our health. It's been a long health journey, she says. But I say that to say the fact you care so much is a huge thing. There is no perfect way to manage type one diabetes. But as a parent, the fact that you care speaks volumes. What I wish my parents would have done is just reassure me that I could still live a normal life, and that food isn't the enemy. I just have to handle it differently. But I still can enjoy all the things that I love. She had major fear wrapped around food, because she was just left to figure it out for herself. She says just being a support is huge.

I genuinely want to thank and for posting her original question. I've been watching this thread grow over days. And I just thought this would be a great episode of the podcast. I hope you agree. The last post in the thread is from Anne and it says thank you all so much for responding to this thread. For all of your wonderful advice. I do want my daughter to have good numbers because it's my job as a mom to keep her healthy. But I think I've been overlooking the mental aspect. Because I don't have type one diabetes. I recognize that I won't truly know what it feels like to be her. So your words are invaluable to me. I hope she grows into a person who has a healthy relationship with food and a desire to take good care of her body. Seek out. Good advice. Just like you all you guys. Anybody else want to cry? I'm a little misty Hold on a second. God dammit. Oh, Jesus Christ. Facebook group is great. I love this podcast. I hope you enjoyed all this. I'm gonna rerun my words about the D one D exchange here in case you skipped over him at the beginning. While we're all in the mood to help each other. This is a way for you to help people you're never going to meet that may actually come back and help you. Geez, I really am crying. This is terrible.

Unknown Speaker 30:37
Guys.

Scott Benner 30:39
I really love all you guys. This is really like, I never expected this when I started this podcast. I'm so grateful. Okay, all right. Hey, don't forget if you're enjoying the show, please share it with others. If you like what you heard here today, you probably really will love the private Facebook group. There's a link in the show notes to that. If you need any of the links there at Juicebox Podcast com Please support the sponsors, the sponsors allow me to keep making the show. I have to be honest with you, it is a Wednesday afternoon. I am a grown person and that I can afford to read the internet to you is is because of the sponsors I'm not gonna lie. I definitely could not put this kind of effort or time into the show if it wasn't ad supported. So you know support the sponsors support the show.

Unknown Speaker 31:29
Speaking of which,

Scott Benner 31:35
before we get started, I'd like to remind you about the T one D exchange. You can be heard and support the Type One Diabetes community while you help drive research that really matters for people living with type one. The T one D exchange registry is a research study designed to harness the power of individuals with Type One Diabetes. This is a nonprofit research organization that is dedicated

to accelerating therapies improving care for people living with Type One Diabetes. they translate real world experiences into real world solutions that make your life easier. The registry is a research study designed to gather real world evidence firsthand, easily and quickly. The questionnaire that you'll fill out can be done on your mobile device from the comfort of your home. And since Type One Diabetes is a chronic condition that people live with their entire lives, participants can complete the questionnaire annually to help researchers understand surviving and living with type one. This is an amazing thing you can do it is 100% HIPAA compliant, absolutely anonymous. And when you join the registry besides doing all of those things I've just listed, you end up supporting the podcast. So if you've ever wanted to support this podcast without actually spending money, this is a great way to do it and feel good about what you've done. I joined the registry. As the parent of a child with type one by the way, you have to be a US residents either have type one diabetes or be the parent or guardian of a child. I don't think it took me seven minutes to finish. It was really simple to do. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. In just a few months over 400 listeners of this podcast have added their voice to the T one D registry. I believe that what the T one D exchange is doing is valuable and heartfelt. And I'm genuinely proud to be telling you about it. I hope you can add your voice to the others.

#391 Diabetes Pro Tip: Glycemic Index and Load

All carbs aren’t created equally

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:10
Hello, friends, welcome to Episode 391 of the Juicebox Podcast. This episode is a another in the pro tip series. That's right, Jenny Smith is here today, Jenny and I are going to be talking rather loosely, more colloquially, if you will, about the glycemic load and glycemic index. Now, please don't turn off your podcast player. I know that seems boring. But what we're really going to be talking about is understanding that different foods impact blood sugar differently, even if those two foods both have the same amount of carbs in them. This is incredibly important. This is something that many of you just undervalue. So while you're listening today, please keep in mind that I think this is incredibly important. And also keep in mind that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

Today, I've invited Jenny Smith to come back. Do you know Jenny, Jennifer has had Type One Diabetes for 32 years now. Jenny also holds a bachelor's degree in human nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She's a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator, and a certified trainer and most makes and models of continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps. So you know, Jenny from the pro tip episodes, and from defining diabetes, and from ask Scott and Jenny, I know Jenny from my life. And there's no one I'd rather talk about stuff like this with that her. So today, Jenny and I are going to dig a little deeper into glycemic load and index. There are other episodes that deal with this topic. But it deserves to be in here in the pro tip series as well. Because so many people think a carb is a carb is a carb. And that's just not the case. Today, I'm gonna put the ads up front, so that we can talk straight through this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. This is the blood glucose meter that my daughter uses every time she checks her blood sugar. And there's a good reason why it's not because they're advertisers on the podcast, we had the meter before the podcast that Contour Next One is small, easy to handle has a beautiful bright light for nighttime viewing a test strip that allows a second chance blood drop, meaning you can go in, get some blood not enough and go back without ruining the accuracy of the test. And speaking of accuracy, this thing is gold standard. I trust it implicitly Contour Next one.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast get there, there's gonna be a lot more than just the next one meter. Here's some other information you'll find at the website. First of all, contour makes other meters. I use the next one, and I love it. But you may want a different one that's under the products tab. Under the resource tab, you can get the contour diabetes app, which works with the Contour Next One meter, it's really great helps you make a ton of sense of your data. Then we get to the meters and test strips tab. Free Contour Next One meter, it's possible Can you imagine that that you could be eligible for a free meter. So check it out. There's also a choice card that may help you save on test trips. And of course support if you need it. All this should be enough. But while you're there, there's one more thing to look into. And it's this is it possible that the cash price for the Contour Next One would be cheaper than what you pay through your insurance. Hmm. It is possible look into it. So whether you just want the Contour Next One meter, want to read more about how it works. You need to get that app you want to look at other meters. Find out if you're eligible for a free meter. Or look into that choice card to save on test trips. Everything you need to know about this is at Contour Next one.com Ford slash juicebox. Please don't forget to check out touched by type one.org if I'm not mistaken. Dancing for diabetes is coming up very soon. Check them out touched by type one.org also find them on Facebook and Instagram. Last thing before we get going t one D exchange dot org forward slash juicebox, it will take you less than 10 minutes to add yourself or your child's information to the T one D exchange registry, you need to be a US citizen. But once you put that information in there, and it's just there's the simplest things asking you questions about life with diabetes. And then they use this data to help make better decisions in the world for people with type one. One example, just one example is that the data from the T one D exchange, led to the ADA lowering target a one C for children. That's a big important step. Because of how it impacts the practitioners and how they talk to you about expectations. It seems like one of those things you just kind of wouldn't think about, but they need to happen. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Support the sponsors support the show I thank you very much. All that's out of the way now. So let's get to my conversation with Jenny Smith, about understanding the difference between one carb and another. And the importance of that difference, and how it's going to impact your management. I know it sounds convoluted. I know it sounds boring. But it's it's everything. So please, lesson.

Okay, Jamie? So I know how people's minds work. And the problem with this episode is it's going to be incredibly important. And they're going to see the title and not listen to it. Right? Nobody. I'm just going to curse and I'll bleep it out later. For some reason. You are adoring glycemic load and glycemic index of foods. You're making me crazy. Okay. So here's the here's the problem. The core of this cod podcast, the concept behind it is, I don't think you should have to limit your diet. The unspoken part of that sentence is I also don't think you should have a bag of sugar every day. Right? So I want. Yeah, listen, if you get crazy one day, and you're like, having a pop tart, or I want to eat a bowl of cereal, I want you to understand how to Bolus for that that's really at the the reasoning for the podcast that it's at its beginning, like I said, but the amount of people who say, Hey, listen, I counted these carbs. And it didn't work. So I don't know what you want me to do about it? Well, what I want you to do about it is understand that there's a difference between 10 grams of potatoes and 10 grams of sugar and 10 grams of Pop Tarts and Cheerios. And are the I'm fascinated by how many unhealthy foods people think are healthy. Which one jumps into your mind when you say that? Because I think of wheat bread right away. Like somehow being wheat bread doesn't make it bread.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:19
I think of especially in the past five years, I would say maybe even more than that.

Scott Benner 8:27
I know what you're gonna say God,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:28
I think of

meal bars. Okay, I don't know

Scott Benner 8:35
what else to call them. That's not what makes a good.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:38
It's kind of like the bread idea. Just because Wonder Bread now says that it's wheat bread versus white bread. That's like if you want real bread, like go back to granny. Yeah, bake some bread how she made her bread, right? And even you know breads today being there's a plethora of them on the market. Right? But just because it says wheat bread doesn't mean that it's healthy bread. I mean, if you're talking about like healthy bread, if you're going to eat it, you're talking about the sprouted like low glycemic we'll talk about the glycemic since the purpose of this whole episode. But right I mean, those types of breads the unprocessed, you can actually physically see the grains in it or the seeds or whatnot. There's a big difference between wonder wheat bread and sprouted grain zekiel bread. Yeah, major difference.

Scott Benner 9:32
Even even when I make bread at the house, I'm only just making white bread, but it's at least sugar, flour, yeast, water, butter. That's it. That's what's in it. Like salt. Excuse me. That's that's what's in it. It's of course the flowers processed and the sugars processed. But you can buy a loaf of wheat bread and the first ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. And people are like, I don't know what

Unknown Speaker 9:59
happened. Right, right? I do.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:02
I do, too. Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of like I said to though, with the bars, people, lives are busy today. Very busy. And I actually did a whole, like, I think I did a blog post about this actually, or was in part of our newsletter or something all about, like, sort of the false advertising of nutrition bars, right? You're eating your nutrition bar, because it's like, it's low carb, or it's low glycemic, or it's follows your keto plan, you know, what they're, if you're gonna follow a plan, follow a plan and eat real food.

Most I say most of the time like these, like 9010 8020, kind of, most of the time you're doing real food, you know where it came from, your grandmother could identify it, I can guarantee that if I showed my grandmother who is no longer living something like, I'm not gonna name a brand, but a general like, a store bought processed meal bars to be like, what is this? What is this? What is this, go make yourself a peanut butter sandwich or

Scott Benner 11:12
something? No, those things are so dense, with calories and carbohydrates and all that stuff. My son uses them. So my son does not like to have a full stomach when he's playing baseball. But you can't go play college baseball in the heat without fuel. But he can take like a half of one of those bars and power them through a baseball game. There's so much jammed into it. So he likes them because they don't fill a stomach. But it goes to show how much fuel is in it and, you know, things that impact your blood sugar. I thought, you know, when you said, you know, a bar, I thought you might say vegan food. And I thought you vegan diet. And I thought you might say no gluten stuff. Because I had to remember one time, they were trying to figure out my iron issue. And a doctor said, Hey, don't eat gluten for a month. And in a month of eating not gluten. I gained like eight pounds. And I thought, but I'm eating healthier. And then I looked back and I went No I'm not. I'm just eating things that don't have gluten in them. Right, right. Okay, confused, no gluten with health. And my daughter's friend is a vegan. But she's basically a human garbage can. You know, it's fascinating.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:33
It is in terms of I mean, just those two, vegan or even being vegetarian is kind of the first right. Okay, you don't want to eat meat. Great. I mean, for the most part, the only animal that I eat is fish. Okay, I don't eat any of the other animals on the planet. I eat fish. It's occasional, not very often. So for the most part, we are mostly vegetarian. And but you could be a very unhealthy vegetarian, you could also be a very unhealthy vegan. Yeah, I mean, if you're doing a heck of a lot of the processed, oh, but it doesn't have any animal based product in it. Great, but like, How long has it been sitting in the bag or the box on the shelf just because it doesn't have animal product in it? Or? Right? I mean, there are healthy ways to be vegetarian or vegan. There are also healthy ways to be on a ketogenic diet. You know, a lot of the products that are on the market for that type of an eating fueling plan are very processed, you can be healthy and actually eat good real food on a ketogenic diet or on a vegetarian diet or on a paleo or a caveman diet. But much of the processed stuff that's out there like you found with the the gluten free stuff. Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of the gluten free packaged processed stuff. It's made out of very this brings in glycemic index. It's made out of very high glycemic, quick impacting refined carbohydrate, right rice flour, tapioca starch, potato flour. I mean, the lower glycemic ones would be things like if it's made out of like an almond flour, or like the nut flowers or like a coconut flour or something like that. Those tend to be lower impact, lower glycemic still processed. Yeah, but um,

Scott Benner 14:24
well, the reason I bring it up and I'm sure this happens to you constantly been to me far less because I don't speak to nearly as many people one on one as you do. But I am just endlessly inundated with people who want to know like, I don't understand why this isn't working. I eat healthy. It's almost like when people say it's almost like when people say to me, oh, my blood sugar got really low. I've learned not to infer what I think of is low into what they say in the beginning. When someone say to me, oh, I get really low. I'd go right over it. Now. I stopped and I go What does that mean? What number is really low? Because sometimes the person will say 85. And I'll go, Oh, well, that's not really well. And so it frames my conversation. So when people say I eat healthy, I do. I'm like, what does that mean? Because I need to understand what you're eating to talk to you about the insulin you're using, because we did everything right here. Your blood sugar should not be 200 right now, why don't understand I had a really healthy meal. And then when you talk to them, you know, it's like, oh, I had avocado toast and you think oh, that does sound healthy. Except a they don't know. There's carbs and avocados for some reason. They're completely dis concerned with the fact it's in the avocado, and there's high fructose corn syrup and the toast they made and I'm like, Yeah. Okay. So, so, I don't care how anyone eats. I would think of myself as the only real diet I stick to is an intermittent schedule. I only eat in the certain hours. But other than that, in the past week, I've had Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I'm making ribs tonight for dinner, Texas style, in case anyone's wondering gonna smoke them. And you know, I think last night we had I had chicken parm that I made last night. But keeping with Jenny's point, I made the chicken parm I took a chicken breast, I hammered it flat. I put bread crumbs on it, and a little tomatoes and some mozzarella cheese, you at least you could see what was on it, and

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:25
you knew what you put in it. Yeah, and I didn't have an idea.

Scott Benner 16:28
And I didn't fry it in any of the in, I don't use processed oil either. And the and the olive oil I use is the only cold pressed I don't I don't use the heat pressed. So those are pretty much the only things that I follow. And besides taking, you know, a reasonable amount of like, you know, vitamins. I don't really do anything differently. But I'm also not really interested. I'm not trying to impact my weight. I just want to be healthy and I want to eat something.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:56
And you're not concerned with your own blood sugar overall. I mean, you're concerned with your daughters.

Scott Benner 17:00
Yeah, I want a glucose monitor a couple of times my body handles my diet. So that that's and I'm not overtaxing it. I didn't eat like three pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. You know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:11
but I think it's also I think that actually brings up kind of a good, a good visual of the difference between glycemic index and glycemic load when you were wearing that continuous monitor. I remember you either. I think you texted and you texted like how much you physically had to eat. In order to get the CGM to register like a bump up in your blood sugar's showing that your body was actually being taxed.

Scott Benner 17:41
It was fascinating. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:43
by the amount that you ate. And that actually speaks to the load impact, right. So when we talk about glycemic index and glycemic load, glycemic index is really just it considers the amount of food that you've eaten carbohydrate that will turn into impacting sugar in the next two hours after you consume the food. But that's just the tip of the iceberg in understanding and that's been when I talk to people, you know, who are trying to consider glycemic index and like, you have to take it a step farther, there are depths or there is depth to glycemic index. And a step farther is glycemic load, in terms of glycemic load talks about the amount of the food that you're eating at a particular time. And my favorite example to give is watermelon. Watermelon has a very high glycemic index. If you're not familiar with glycemic index or not quite sure it's a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being pure glucose. So as foods are rated on that scale with a number, that higher the number or the closer to 100, the faster the impact should be on your glucose level. Okay? But again, this is in a simple lab generated testing, right where you're only eating my example watermelon, you're not eating watermelon on top of chicken parm on top of like a whole stick of butter. Right.

Scott Benner 19:13
I also wonder, are these things tested on people with diabetes when they come up with the index or people with a working pancreas when they come up with the index?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:22
That's okay, that's, I believe it was I believe it's people with a working pancreas. Yeah, to give a true definition of what the impact could be. When sort of outside insulin dosing isn't in the picture but that is a really good thing. It makes me think, maybe looking that up.

Scott Benner 19:40
Here's what it made me wonder about, you know, when somebody tries to catch a low by turning their bezel off for an hour, and then they create like, a void in front of them a black hole where there's no and then they have the tiniest bit of carbs, like my blood sugar shot way up. I don't understand it. Well, your pancreas doesn't work, and you took away all the insulin in your body and then added even the tiniest bit carbs. So the glycemic index of anything away from insulin is probably 100, right? Like everything probably hits like 100 away from insulin. And so when you've got the right amount of bazel, in, these foods are going to still hit on this chart. And before we go on, like I just want, I'm gonna roll through it real quick and just pull a couple out to give people an idea. whitebread is a 75. Right? White rice is a 73 cornflakes are 81. But an apples 36. Right, strawberry jam is 49, a potato boiled is 78. But a potato mashed is 87. So everything hits differently. And when I stand on stage, I try to simplify it down by saying foods punch at a different weight, some of them just hit harder than others. And that's and it's interesting to they have sugars listed out here. sucrose is 65. Glucose is 103. Honey is 61. And fructose, if I'm saying that right is 15. And

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:11
so it's fructose is fruit sugar. And that kind of brings into the treatment for lows, then, the reason that glucose tablets technically work the best or anything in which dextrose is one of the first three ingredients in like a candy kind of thing. That's the reason it's going to work the best because glucose is the simplest form of sugar that there is there's no breakdown to it, it gets in and it gets distributed and use. Whereas something like fructose, or galactose, which is milk, sugar, sucrose, they're more come there are more combined chemical sugar structures. So your body has to break it apart, to get the glucose out, okay, to actually impact the blood sugar. So

Scott Benner 21:52
in a scenario where a person takes a glucose tab, and it takes forever for their blood sugar to go back up, but eventually it rockets up, that means they have a lot of active insulin at the tabs fighting with is that is that what you would infer from that,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:05
that would be the estimate, you know, if there's iob, and there's a load of it, and there's a low and you only take one glucose tablet, that's like a drop in like the ocean of impact the other. The other reason could possibly be whatever is in the stomach already might be hampering the true absorption of that if the glucose tablets kind of sitting on top of that digestion. And if that other food is really highly fibrous, or very high in fat or a lot of protein, it may take longer for that little bit of glucose to definitely impact and get absorbed. Yes. Okay.

Scott Benner 22:43
All right. So I'm sorry, we kind of got away from it for a second. But it all feels really important, you know, that, that you can't just I mean, all carbs aren't created equal. I guess that's how I've boiled it down for the podcast. But again, the the amount of you out there who I try to say to people, like when they're really learning about the podcast, they're going through the pro tip episodes, and they're getting the ideas down, but they're still spiking, and they're getting low later. I always say like, why don't you just simplify your food choices for a little while, while you're practicing? You know what I mean? Like, I think I think I said to somebody recently, if you got it in your head that you wanted to learn how to box and you went to the gym a couple of times, you took some sparring, and you were starting to get confident. Once you had a little bit of confidence under your feet. Your next thought wouldn't be, you know, I had to go find iron mike tyson and see if he wants to go a couple rounds with me because you're not ready for that yet, right? But people make a couple of good boluses in a row and they're like, I'm gonna try Cheerios like, no, don't try Cheerios, it's day three. You're not good at this yet. You're getting better at it. And so if you're having trouble putting tools into practice, I always say go for things that are you know, that don't punches hard while you're practicing it, cut yourself a break, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:00
and also learn and I think I've said this before to some other episodes, but learn the foods are the that are most common for you. Take a look at what you love to eat, write them down. Most people have about 20 foods that are over and over what they eat almost every single day, right? mark them down, look up their glycemic index and see how does it work when you try to cover these foods, even if it's like a meal, let's say you eat chicken and broccoli and rice three nights a week because it's like one of your favorite things in the whole great, write it down. Figure out what you did. What happened if it's especially if it didn't work the way that you wanted it to work out and then eat it again, you know, two nights from now and try it again. Maybe it was more insulin that you needed. Maybe the timing was a little bit different. Maybe it takes into consideration though. Well gosh, tonight ate a whole cup of rice with the chicken and the broccoli. And maybe Wednesday night I decided to eat only a half a cup of the rice with this Same amount of chicken and broccoli. So there's the load impact, right? It's the portion of the rice, the rice itself in one cup versus half a cup versus four cups, still has the same glycemic index, that's not going to change. But the load takes into, I guess, what you have to pay attention to is your eating now like a whole cup versus a half a cup. And that load impact is going to then be the big driver of blood sugar after In fact, you might need to play with timing of the insulin a little bit differently based on portion,

Scott Benner 25:36
right. And so Jenny brought up earlier that I tried to drive my blood sugar up when I was wearing a glucose monitor. And I obviously don't have diabetes. And I took a I think it was a big piece of cake with a lot of icing on it. And I ate it and waited. And my blood sugar did not go up very much at all. And I was

Unknown Speaker 25:53
more right. So I

Scott Benner 25:53
forced myself for you people, I hope you're happy. I forced myself by the way, I did not enjoy it. I did not enjoy the last third of the first piece. And I really didn't enjoy the second piece. And I was just like, Oh my goodness. And and when I get to like 132 something like that my blood sugar like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:14
stayed under the defined like 140 mark. Yeah, no, yeah,

Scott Benner 26:18
I couldn't eat myself over 140 if I tried, and, and, but still, I got to 130 in a life where I wasn't getting to 130 a lot. I was having to like, do what Jenny said to get the 130 was having to stack multiple different tough foods on top of each other, like layer them on top of each other's having to have bread with potatoes, and then something else and more and more. I was I spent one night I don't know if you know those little spearmint leaf candies that are just like they're just sugar with, like, they literally they take sugar, and then they dip it in sugar. You know, I sat with a glucose monitor in front of me just going like just popping one of those in like every three minutes. And my blood sugar would not move off of 89 like it just wouldn't move. And I was just like I'm not trying to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:12
paint curious. I was Thank you pancreas. Thank you. No, I

Scott Benner 27:16
hate I told you I had a deep feeling of guilt. eating food and watching my blood sugar not go up like a significant it makes me sad thinking about it. I had a real deep feeling of guilt the first number of days I work. And I was just you know, I'm trying to do these things so I can talk about them on the podcast. And at the same time I'm looking over at my daughter while we're like correcting a 130. So it doesn't turn into a 170 you know, and, and I'm just But anyway, like, let's get back to the fun part. I am throwing these candies into the point where I was like, I hate these things now. I couldn't get my blood sugar to go up. That was it. It was it was pretty fascinating. Having said all that, again, I think that the podcast exists because I think people are gonna have a candy once in a while. I think that when people look at the you know at Harvard's good you know what you can swap out for lower glycemic index things. And I think oh, I could have corn on the cob or a leafy green or peas. Hmm. You know, I think most people are like, I would like corn. Would you like corn flakes or bran flakes? No. I want corn flakes. You know. Even white rice to brown rice is you know, now there are ways like you'll learn how to like for us. We I've switched the house over just a boss MADI rice. It just hits Arden differently. Oh, it just does and who cares Why? Like, I tried four different races. And I finally got to one and I was like this is the one that doesn't hit her as hard. This is the one we eat now.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:52
does it differ based on how you cook it or prepare it?

Scott Benner 28:56
I only prepare it one way Jenny. I have the zeros is it's a Roshi, people are making fun of me now a rice steamer I have the greatest rice steamer on the face of the planet. And let me tell you why I am able to afford this rice steamer. I was walking through a Macy's one day and they had this little rack of things that had clearly been returned to the store but bought online that they don't stock in the store. And so they just want to get rid of it because they have no place to put it. And my I luckily for me, is it zeros z OJIRUS hai they make bom bom rice cookers right? Wow. And my eye catches this rice cooker that I know in my heart costs like $500 right and obviously I'm not going to own a $500 rice cooker in my lifetime. No. And I looked over and that thing said 75 bucks. And I moved across that store, like Usain Bolt in his prime. I was like allaway people, I snatched this box up and I was holding it. I was like hugging it back. Everybody just moved, like I felt like everyone else knew as I looked around, I realized I was the only one aware that I was holding a very expensive rice cooker with a $75 price tag on it. And I actually it was so crazy. I went over to an employee, I was like, This is $75. And she goes, Yeah, and I went, I will buy this. Thank you. So I took it. It makes perfect rice. It is fascinating. You put the rice in, you fill the water up to the line that corresponds with the cups, the number of cups of rice use, you push a button, it plays Twinkle, twinkle, little star, and 55 minutes later, you're eating the best ratio ever had in your entire life. I don't know I place tinkle. Take a little star when you start up, but it does.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:49
My kids would probably love that. They would think that

Scott Benner 30:51
other than that I am the worst. I can't make rice. I screw rice up six ways from Sunday every time I try to make it so

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:58
I barely have rice. I only have rice when we do sushi.

Scott Benner 31:01
When my son is trying to gain weight, he wants it in the house too. So I make it and I and it goes in the um, it goes in the refrigerator. He just adds it to everything he's eating. You know? Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:10
my choice is always My kids love quinoa, thankfully. And then wild rice, which isn't technically even rice, it's it's the seed of a long grass. So there's little education for you.

Scott Benner 31:23
I love I love a nice long rice because I like the the this sort of like, you know, spices that go on with it too.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:30
Yeah, but those some they work glycaemic Lee better. And I've just found long term that I mean, my family likes it. So it's not like I even have to cook it separate for me, and then something like brown rice. So

Scott Benner 31:42
yeah, I can't believe I spent so much time talking about my excitement about getting a cheap rice cooker in this podcast episode. I'm sorry for all that for everyone who's listening is like yeah, buddy. This is not helping me. I'm not buying a $500 rice cooker? Well,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:54
well, because of the way I asked him how you cooked it. And that does bring in as you were talking about the glycemic index before about like a baked potato versus a boiled potato versus you know, the glycemic index can change based on how something is prepared and or how ripe something is. So for example, like your Apple that you mentioned before, I think it's in like the 30s or 40s or something right? Most apples are considered low glycemic, anything under 50. On the glycemic index scale is considered low glycemic slow impact. Apples are there a kiwi fruit is there most of the berries are there. But then you get into the fruit that you really eat at its peak sweetness. You're talking about the summer melon, you're talking about pineapple, papaya, mango, bananas, grapes being cherries. They're all high glycemic, because their sugars are so developed to get that flavor that you want. I mean, I guarantee you're not going to eat it. Well, some people do. My husband doesn't care. He's one of the people can eat like a green banana, put it in a smoothie, he doesn't care. He's like the bananas there. Because I like the nutrition in it. I don't care how it tastes right. I cannot eat a green but

Scott Benner 33:10
he's dry on the outside when you're biting Do you notice that like the fob? Like, why is that doing that to my mouth?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:15
In the my mouth? Yeah, I wish people could see us that we make when we're talking. Oh, but I mean, I bring that in because glycemic index is higher for a ripe for fruit. And the impact is going to be faster. And I can tell you if I make a smoothie with a less than ripe banana because it's what we've got, and I want a smoothie. The impact is definitely different for me. And I strategize my bolus timing, different based on that. Based on that,

Scott Benner 33:47
well, you hit one with Arden loves cherries, and they like I have to like swing at those with both hands. You know, when your bolusing there, they're really tough. That is, see I I find all this fascinating. And I find it sad, because I don't think that many people think about it at all. They just count the carbs. And then they're like, well, this I counted the number and the number says 10. So it's 10. I do right? You know what I mean? Nobody thinks about the insulin, because I don't think about the carbs that much like I look at the food and I pick the insulin. I saw somebody the other day. They were you know, they had this meal. And they're like, we used two units or three units. And I was like, What is this like a? Like, I don't understand is this like a four year old kid and it wasn't it was a teen and I'm like, that's not gonna work. And you know, and then I asked them their ratio, and they're like, Oh, it's one to 10 and I was like, You think this is 25 carbs? I was like, This is 60 carbs. You know, if it's one it's 60 and I'd be scared to say 60 as I was looking at it, I was like I'd like to go 70 to be perfectly honest with you and and and they're very 2030 they're not sure. And then the kids blood sugar jump Up to 240. And they don't know what happened. And then they're correcting, correcting, correcting, then the food gets digested out the kids crashing down, and then they're correcting, and then they won't and it goes by and it's just, it's never ending,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:12
I think, you know, the topics of glycemic index and glycemic load are, they really are such, they're kind of the, like, further down the road when you're talking about like, just correct carb counting how to get that squared away, right? That is step number one, get, get some carb counting, get some labels read, even if you have to do portion estimation, that's your tool that you're get good at portion estimation, then for again, those foods that are on your, these are the typical things that I eat. Great, then we can move on further to things like glycemic index glycemic load a little bit better bolus timing, and then you kind of then maybe another step further is how is it cooked? Right? Am I boiling? My potatoes? Are my baking my potatoes? Am I you know eating a green banana? am I eating a completely black but

Scott Benner 36:06
what you're you're kidding on something that I know I want to talk about on the podcast more with you in the future, which is F after speaking to so many people, like I realized that there's a an order in which you should pay attention to things when you're starting. Right, right. And like in an overly simplistic way, like I always say, if I was if I was on the Titanic, and I was thinking you, you somehow recognize me as a person who could help people with diabetes. You know, like, Scott, I have a tape recorder, you're 30 seconds. What do you want to tell people about type one diabetes, I'd say get your basal insulin, right? Learn how long your Pre-Bolus is, and then understand the glycemic load index of food. And then I would go under and freeze to death and drown. But But those like if the if I could only say those things to you like three things to you, I'd say that. And then from there, I'd start talking about well, it's timing and amount, you know, and you can't forget about overnight, this happens. And you know, protein and fat cause rises. Like there's the variables, I just think of it as the seed of the idea. Like I always think of like management of diabetes is a tree, it's 100 year old tree with 1000 branches. And every point of that tree is important. But at its core at its seed, it's bazel. And then it's you have to Pre-Bolus and then it's you have to understand the impact of the food. Like that's the start of it, you never, but I see so many people who are out on the tip of the 700th branch going, I really want to understand this part. I was like there's a lot more to understand before you dig into that, you know, they're back at the trunk. And here's the problem, right? No one tells you to Pre-Bolus no one ever tells you basal insulin is important. And the words glycemic index and glycemic load are not sexy, and I don't like to pay attention to them. When I hear them. My brain goes in boring. That's for people who eat good. Like that's how it made me feel when somebody said to me in a doctor's office one day, I'm not trying to run a marathon. I don't care about glycemic load. They instead of saying, hey, you over here, these are the three most important things you need to understand. They told me the most important things and then moved on to stuff that doesn't matter as much. So not that none of it matters at all matters, but there's a core of it. And if you do the core, you're okay. I'm telling you bazel Pre-Bolus glycemic load glycemic index. Is anyone seen the sixes? That's my guess. You want it in the fives. start crawling out in the edges of the tree and figure out the rest of it. But this is an exercise. Yeah, get a pump and go for a walk. Like there's I could say stuff all day, but you know, stop eating Pop Tarts and telling me like it's not fair. I can't help it. Of course, it's not fair. But first your poison.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:58
I remember the last time I had an

early college because there was like nothing left in the cafeteria or something. And I was like, Oh my god, I have to eat something but

Scott Benner 39:08
my insulin Chinni assigned to that if you want to goddamn pop tart, eat it. I don't care. Just don't act like you don't understand what happened afterwards because that makes me sad. Like I just you're killing me online. Okay, you're putting things up online. You're making me sad because I want to come say all this stuff to you. I don't have time. And you're breaking my heart. So and and when I when I help people privately. Some people get it more quickly. And some people get it slowly. And then some people give it away like after they know it and I've seen him do it and then they stopped doing it. I'm just going to tell you like I don't follow many people's tax comms. And when I do I don't for long. But when I do, and I've seen you do it, and I've seen you understand it, and then you have a 300 blood sugar. I got to stop following you. It just it breaks my heart like I just can't like it eats me up. You know, I look at the graph and I'm like, Oh my god, like they didn't Pre-Bolus? Or why are they not correct?

Unknown Speaker 40:05
Could have

Scott Benner 40:06
been a bad pump site or could listen, it could have been anything. The problem is, it's just, it's ripping my guts out. I can't look at it anymore. Like with my daughter, I can do something about it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:15
But it's it's hard to follow people. I agree. I mean, with the, with the many, many, many people. I see their data. Yeah, it is. It's hard. Because I think, you know, there's, there's no, there's no stop to, like, my job isn't like, I go to the office, I do my job, I put everything away, I close the door, and then I go home, right? Like, the people that I work with become like, they're almost like family to me, right? There are people that I care about the people that I get the privilege to work with, and help and I want the best. And I sometimes I feel like I could just like go home with everybody. I

Scott Benner 40:57
just texted a person this morning. And I said, if you could just come here for, I think 18 hours. I could just do this for you. And you could see, but they and they know what to do and they won't do it. And I'm just like, oh my god, it just really I listen, I'm not trying to turn this. It's hard on me. Like a really does. Like it just rips me up. Like I'm like you keep making the same mistake over and over again. But it's not out of ignorance. You you quite honestly know not to do it. And you just I don't know if it's fear habits

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:29
are hard to break.

Scott Benner 41:30
Yeah, or habits are hard to break. But you're just you're doing the wrong thing. Like it's and I've told you it's the wrong thing. 10 different ways. And each time I say you say I understand I now you know what it is. I now know what my wife feels like when she's talking to me. It must be Kelly. I'm so sorry. It must be incredibly frustrating to say the same thing to me a million times, amigo. No, no, I understand. I hundred percent understand it three days later. I'm just doing it again. But But and so it's like, I don't mean to come down on it. I'm not trying to come down with evil. I'm just saying that. Jenny's not wrong, like following someone's blood sugar is it's a lot. And it's tough to win a guy. I don't think I know everything. And I but it's tough. When you look at a graph and you go, Hey, you know what, you need more? bazel? And they go No, you know what I think? And I always think to myself, I actually started saying it out loud. I started going like, why don't we stop worrying about what you think cuz what you think led to this graph I'm looking at, you know, so try what I think first I get and see what happens.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:32
That's even try it my way for a little bit. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:35
here and listen, I'm gonna cost Jenny some money and save all of you and our paying or Freddie, stop explaining to Jenny what you think, let her tell you what's going on. Because you're just in therapy at that point. And that's not getting you to a better blood sugar thing. You know what I mean? Right? How many stories people tell you where you're just like, stop talking, this doesn't matter.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:59
And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's a marriage of what I see. And sometimes it's adding in then what they've seen, but they're addressing a certain way, because they think something's happening, that isn't really the reason for it. So it's kind of a marriage of what I see and how to tell them about what to do differently. It's not that what you're seeing is wrong, it's that the adjustments are not quite the right, adjust. You're

Scott Benner 43:24
100% right. And I was being too flippant, like you do need to hear it from them. But it's fascinating how infrequently their interpretation of what they're seeing is right. Right. You know, you need to you need to hear what's happening. You don't need their interpretation of what's happening. It's much it's interesting. Anyway, it's like it's like trying to do I don't know it's it's the weirdest customer service in the world like it people. This is like that except times like a million. So anyway, Jenny has to go. She's She's so I do drop bombs of knowledge and truth all over this episode. So I really appreciate that. I will talk to you soon. Awesome. Huge thanks to Jenny Smith. Hey, Jenny services are for hire. You can find out more about her at integrated diabetes. There's a link right there in the show notes. There's also a link for the Contour Next One meter touched by type one, the T one D exchange, and all of the other sponsors of the various podcast episodes that includes Omni pod Dexcom and G Vogue glucagon. All right, they're right there, right there right there. In your podcast player notes. Those links are also available at Juicebox podcast.com. But I'm gonna roll through them really quickly for you just in case and then I'm going to do a little freeform chatting about this topic. All right, ready, touched by type one.org. Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. The other sponsors that aren't in that aren't on this episode, but are still incredibly important. Dexcom is available@dexcom.com forward slash juice box, you can get a free no obligation of the Omni pod at my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box and learn more about GMO glucagon at G Volk, glucagon comm forward slash juice box. Okay, now, almost everyone who uses insulin runs into this specific problem. And that problem is this. You count your carbs, you put in your insulin, and everything goes exactly the way you expect. Next day, you make a meal, you count your carbs, you put in your insulin, and nothing goes the way you expect your blood sugar gets low later, or it gets incredibly high. This is confusing, because yesterday, I counted my carbs, I put it in my insulin and everything worked. Today I did it again, some of you will question your carb counting skills. When this happens, some of you will run out and buy a very expensive scale. Very few people say to themselves, I bet the glycemic load of the food was greater or lesser than the glycemic load of the food from yesterday. Now you wouldn't think that because nobody tells you to think it or they say too soon after you've been diagnosed, and you feel like somebody just hit you in the head with a baseball bat. So you're not really listening, or the words glycemic load and glycemic index seem difficult, or maybe next level or whatever. But it's not. It's very simple. Some foods impact blood sugar differently, even if their carb count is the same. That's it, you just have to see it happen, except that it's true. Remember, and adjust your insulin for that food. That's what this entire episode told you. That very simple idea. You make yourself meatloaf mashed potatoes, you put some broccoli with it, you count the carbs. And somehow you've decided it's I don't know I'm making up a number. It's 40 carbs, which by the way, it's more. And you give yourself your insulin, your blood sugar shoots up later you correct with, I don't know, a couple more units, your blood sugar comes back down, it doesn't get low. The next time you have mashed potatoes and meatloaf and broccoli, and you count the carbs and you come up with 40. Again, you have to remember the two units you corrected with, you have to remember that those two units belong in the initial bolus. Maybe not every drop of two units, but pretty close. The reason I say that is because once you have a higher number, it takes more insulin to bring it down. But some of that insulin, if it was in the initial bolus, the spike would not have happened from these potatoes. And by the way later, the fat and protein and the meat that keeps your blood sugar higher layer, which you know, you need to go listen to the fat and protein pro tip episode to understand that.

So the next time you have this meal, I don't care what the carb counts that you have to trust that what you know is going to happen is going to happen. So all these little sayings and isms that you hear throughout the show, they're really just shortcuts to understanding that there is a different glycemic load from food to food to food. Because the next day, you could have a meal with 40 carbs in it that doesn't have those starchy potatoes in them. And I don't know wasn't mixed with the fat and the protein. And all that insulin could end up being too much. Now your meal ratio works. So what you're hearing is that your meal ratio isn't set in stone. It's all dependent on the foods you're eating, the glycemic load and the glycemic index of the foods. But you know, you can go check it out if you want. It's a matter of fact, I'll I'll find the chart that Jenny and I were talking about. from Harvard right now. I find it right now for you. And I'm typing. So I'm vamping a little trying to kill time. Because I don't feel like editing this part out. You're looking for a link called a good guide to carbs the glycemic index from Harvard health publishing and a link called glycemic indexed for 60 plus foods, which will give you an idea of what we're talking about that white bread punches different than corn tortillas. It's sweet corn punches different than porridge that on orange raw hits you differently than a potato boiled, which by the way hits you differently than a potato mashed which by the way hit you differently than a potato fried. These are the things you need to understand when you're watching your blood sugar's move all over the place, and sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't you love to hear people say, Oh, you know that about diabetes? One day, everything just works. And the next day it doesn't. It's not really true. If you had the right ratio of insulin, it would work every day. That is true. I promise you. All right, I'll put links in the show notes to those two blog posts from Harvard. I hope you're enjoying the pro tip episodes. If this was the first one you heard, you're probably like, you should definitely go back to Episode 210. And start at the beginning. Diabetes pro tip newly diagnosed, we're starting over and then listen through those pro tips. The pro tips are also available at diabetes protip.com. But you know, listen to your podcast app because that's how kids do things and they know way better about technology than us. Thanks for listening. I genuinely appreciate it. I'll talk to you soon.

More Diabetes Pro Tips from the Juicebox Podcast

May 1, 2023

#899 Diabetes Pro Tip: Transitioning

May 1, 2023

Jan 14, 2022

#612 Diabetes Pro Tip: Female Hormones

Jan 14, 2022

Jan 7, 2022

#608 Diabetes Pro Tip: Honeymoon

Jan 7, 2022

Apr 23, 2021

#470 Diabetes Pro Tip: Weight Loss

Apr 23, 2021

Mar 5, 2021

#449 Diabetes Pro Tip: Postpartum

Mar 5, 2021

Oct 8, 2020

#391 Diabetes Pro Tip: Glycemic Index and Load

Oct 8, 2020

Aug 24, 2020

#371 Diabetes Pro Tip: Explaining Type 1

Aug 24, 2020

Aug 5, 2020

#364 Diabetes Pro Tip: Pregnancy

Aug 5, 2020

Jun 29, 2020

#350 Diabetes Pro Tip: Bump and Nudge II

Jun 29, 2020

Mar 5, 2020

#311 Diabetes Pro Tip: Long-Term Health

Mar 5, 2020

Feb 21, 2020

#307 Diabetes Pro Tip: Emergency Room Protocols

Feb 21, 2020

Jan 31, 2020

#301 Diabetes Pro Tip: Glucagon and Low BGs

Jan 31, 2020

Dec 9, 2019

#287 Diabetes Pro Tip: Illness, Injury and Surgery

Dec 9, 2019

Sep 23, 2019

#263 Diabetes Pro Tip: Fat and Protein

Sep 23, 2019

Aug 27, 2019

#256 Diabetes Pro Tip: Exercise

Aug 27, 2019

Jun 24, 2019

#237 Diabetes Pro Tip: Setting Basal Insulin

Jun 24, 2019

May 27, 2019

#231 Diabetes Pro Tip: Variables

May 27, 2019

Apr 26, 2019

#226 Diabetes Pro Tip: The Perfect Bolus

Apr 26, 2019

#225 Diabetes Pro Tip: Bump and Nudge

Apr 26, 2019

#224 Diabetes Pro Tip: Mastering a CGM

Apr 26, 2019

Mar 25, 2019

#219 Diabetes Pro Tip: Insulin Pumping

Mar 25, 2019

#218 Diabetes Pro Tip: Temp Basal

Mar 25, 2019

#217 Diabetes Pro Tip: Pre Bolus

Mar 25, 2019

Feb 26, 2019

#212 Diabetes Pro Tip: All About Insulin

Feb 26, 2019

#211 Diabetes Pro Tip: All About MDI

Feb 26, 2019

#210 Diabetes Pro Tip: Newly Diagnosed or Starting Over

Feb 26, 2019

Please support the sponsors

Donate

Scott Benner 10/5/20 Scott Benner 10/5/20

#390 Nuanced Rose Garden

Chris is the father of a young man living with type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:11
Friends, how are we? How are you? Who's we? Friends? How are we? Oh, I have no energy to re record that. So let's just keep moving. Welcome to Episode 390 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today I'm going to be speaking with Chris. He's the father of a child with Type One Diabetes and he does an absolutely marvelous job about discussing this subject about discussing the subject does an absolutely marvelous job discussing the subject but this is what happens when you let me do this on a Monday morning. Anyway, don't let my marble mouth influence how you think the rest of the episode is going to be because it's going to be absolutely spec donkey Lois tacular. Understand. And Chris very quietly does a job here today that he didn't realize he did. This is a very good episode. Please remember while you're listening, that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, you can go right now to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to get yourself a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent directly to your home. do that now and a pod experience kid will be waiting for you in the mailbox. After that you can try it on and see what you think. The show is also sponsored today by the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And you're going to want to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to find out more about that amazing device. There are links in the show notes and to Juicebox podcast.com to these and all of the kind sponsors of the podcast. Now let's get the Chris. Here. Ready?

Unknown Speaker 2:18
Hello, everyone. My name is Chris. I'm the husband to Amanda stepped out of Alyssa who's 19. My daughter Emily is nine and Cameron who's our 12 year old with type one.

Scott Benner 2:30
Okay, so you and your wife have three children together and then you're the stepfather to one other Is that right?

Unknown Speaker 2:37
So Alyssa is our oldest She is my stepchild. And we have two others, Emily and Cameron to others.

Scott Benner 2:44
Sorry. Okay. three kids. type one in the family at all.

Unknown Speaker 2:51
Not on my side. My mom has type two that she developed way later years in our life. Amanda's my wife, Amanda, her uncle has type one. He had type one when he was a little boy, since he's been a little boy.

Scott Benner 3:07
Right? So there's a pretty clear line there. Was it one of those things that people expected or? Not really?

Unknown Speaker 3:16
Not really. I mean, as we missed all we missed every sign that was there. The way it kind of started was we we were sitting around the dinner table one night, and we looked at Cameron and said, Wow, he's looking kind of slim. Maybe he's going through a growth spurt. And he was drinking a lot of water. And Amanda drinks a lot of water just because she's active. And we just thought maybe he was being a responsible kid. And he ended up losing he lost about 10 pounds over the course of a month, which we didn't learn. We didn't learn that till his diagnosis.

Scott Benner 3:54
Yeah, no. I mean, how would you? It's tough. How old was he?

Unknown Speaker 3:58
He was 11 at the time. So today's actually his one year diversity. So 325 19 was when he was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 4:05
Oh, well, congratulations. So a year is a big accomplishment. Good for you. It is it's gone by quick. Oh, wait, you see how the rest of them go by? Well, you know, it's interesting. Let's kind of jump off of that for a second. What is different today than say nine months ago?

Unknown Speaker 4:24
stress level stress level is very much reduced.

Scott Benner 4:30
Do you think it's just the time that did that? Or like what do you think got you to that spot?

Unknown Speaker 4:35
I think it taught I think time was all of it. I think it was it was getting comfortable with making decisions. It was getting comfortable that not every decision was going to end to a to a better consequence. Okay,

Scott Benner 4:50
so everything just felt dire in the beginning.

Unknown Speaker 4:53
Yeah, it was scary. Yeah. I mean, I was I was absolutely frightened when it happened.

Scott Benner 5:01
frightened that in the short term, there'd be a problem in the long term. Can you kind of put into words what it was you were worried about?

Unknown Speaker 5:10
I just had no outlook, right? I was I was sitting here thinking that every every level of normalcy, normalcy was going to be taken away from us that, you know, he wasn't going to be able to do sports. How are we going to get through injections and constant finger pokes and watching his diet, all of those things were just huge concerns. I

Scott Benner 5:31
remember feeling like, there was a regular life that most people got, and a messed up life that some unlucky people got, and that we got that one. Like, in the very beginning, and sort of, from a youthful perspective, I guess that, you know, I always think of that old song, like, you know, what is it that at some point in the course, it's I never promised you a rose garden, or whatever that is, like, you know, right, but but when you're young, you just sort of feel like, Oh, I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna learn something, I'll get a job, I'll meet a person, you know, maybe we'll buy a house or make a baby. And then you know, the kid will go to school, and I'll buy a couple of cars and save up a couple of bucks, and I'll get old, look at a tree and drop that. And that's how it's gonna go, you know, like this kind of just kind of idea, like idea of what a long life looks like, with a family. And then when you really start meeting other people, and talking to other people and seeing what's happening to them, you recognize that, that really, nobody has that, for the most part, you know, anybody who gets that is just, that's random. That's the, that's the random, right? The that nothing really went wrong the whole time. You know, that that's the 1% not the, not everybody else. So you know, everybody gets a thing and, you know, art and got diabetes. And, you know, we just were like, Alright, well, let's figure this out. But yeah, in the very beginning, I remember feeling like, oh, some people get a good life. And some people don't, we don't, you know,

Unknown Speaker 7:03
well, and this was another step of just tragic events, somewhat to us. are life changing events, I guess I should say. So, Emily, who's nine, she had wilms tumor when she was four months old, which is a kidney cancer. So she had to she had to lose a kidney and go through 26 weeks of chemo. She's all good now, other than not having one kidney, right. And then Amanda, my wife had, she had a brain tumor a couple years after that, which she is 100% in grade as well. But just, this was just another having Cameron have his diagnosis, just like, what's next?

Scott Benner 7:43
Yeah, I would imagine after those stories, that it's hard not to, like wake up in the morning and think like, is this the day my foots just gonna fall off? You know, like, what crazy thing is gonna happen? Wow. So your daughter? What was that called that with her kidney? It's called wilms. tumor

Unknown Speaker 7:59
wi lmsw. tumor. And she was

Scott Benner 8:01
very young when she had it.

Unknown Speaker 8:03
She was four months old when it was picked up on a wellness check and sent us straight to children's that our local one of our local children's hospitals for a scan. Wow.

Scott Benner 8:15
And is that something they they couldn't remove that? So they just took the whole kidney?

Unknown Speaker 8:20
Yeah, it was attached to the kidney. So the only safe way to get rid of the tumor was to take the kidney with it.

Scott Benner 8:26
Now, if she does that make her I don't know a lot about cancer, I guess thankfully. But does that make her in? She they consider that a cure? Is it remission, like how did they talk about it? It's their follow up to it.

Unknown Speaker 8:39
Yeah, so they considered once she was five years. free of it. She was in remission. So we would go back. And you know, initially, after it happened, you'd go back every three months for a new scan, and bloodwork and then it would stretch out to six months, then it would stretch out to a year. And then once she hit five years, it was official, you're in remission. You could come back, you know, every couple years, just to check in with us. I see. And that was it. And how old is she now? She's now nine,

Scott Benner 9:12
nine. So this is this is a long time ago. Do you still think about it? all the time? Yeah, I can't imagine that. It would be I just feels like it would be impossible to just forget.

Unknown Speaker 9:24
Yeah, that was that was tough, you know, and then getting through that and then getting to getting to Amanda and her her brain tumor and getting through that. That was That was tough because I was sitting there thinking, you know, I'm gonna have to rape you know, what could happen with this? Right? So,

Scott Benner 9:41
how old was your wife when that happened?

Unknown Speaker 9:43
You know, it was 2014 so

Unknown Speaker 9:47
she's, she's 44 down, okay?

Scott Benner 9:53
Anything like that in her family like this cancer run in her family.

Unknown Speaker 9:57
Um, not to my knowledge, interest. Single enough my mom, my mom's at like, she's 84 now. Yeah. And she had a brain tumor when I was a little kid. I obviously there's no correlation between the two of

Unknown Speaker 10:09
them. I don't know, Chris, maybe you give people a brain tumor. It's possible.

Unknown Speaker 10:14
It's possible.

Scott Benner 10:15
I don't think it is. But you're the only you know, the only thread I see between those two people not knowing much about your life. Sorry, I don't think most people would joke about brain tumors. And I'm not joking about brain tumors. I'm, I'm literally calling you a mush.

Unknown Speaker 10:32
Yeah, well, I know once you once you move past these things, you know you definitely in Cameron's another side of that. I mean, we've moved past and yeah, we're, we're getting on with life.

Scott Benner 10:42
So anything you can do, right? I mean, what do you like it? Yeah. What do you do you sit around and just wait for something bad to happen, you know, it's either going through or it's not and in between now and then or never, or a lot of days that you get to enjoy. So, you know, in your house avoiding the Coronavirus

Unknown Speaker 11:00
are Yeah, exactly. Are you

Scott Benner 11:01
sequestered?

Unknown Speaker 11:05
Yes. To some extent. So we live in Washington State. Okay. You know, this is kind of where it started. We live south of the Seattle area about 50 miles and I'm fortunate to work from home right now. Okay. kids are out of school. So we're, we're staying put as much as possible.

Scott Benner 11:23
Yeah. Are you making out? Okay, we're doing all right, actually, so far.

Unknown Speaker 11:28
Yeah, we're doing okay. I mean, kids are doing great. I mean, you know, endless, endless games a fortnight for Cameron and Emily doing whatever she's doing plus mixing in some school stuff and some outside activity. I think. I think the the the kids are definitely faring better than the adults.

Scott Benner 11:43
Yeah. I, I feel that

Unknown Speaker 11:45
they don't stir crazy. Well, they're not

Scott Benner 11:47
worried about paying bills. So correct. Yeah. Correct. They've got that they've got that for them. My kids are on a personalized sleep schedule. At this point. They just go to sleep when they want to get up when they want to. They're getting their work done. It's like odd at odd times of the day. I passed my son at midnight last night. I'm like, What are you doing? He's like, I'm getting a shower. Like, yeah, this seems like the perfect time for that. So

Unknown Speaker 12:09
yeah, you know, I've, uh, you know, through all of this, I think I've, you know, I've kind of learned to stay away from the news as much as I can. I just, I don't I don't have the capacity to take all the all the all the bad stuff. So I, I kind of shelter away from that a little bit. Would it hit you hard if you if you

Scott Benner 12:27
got a daily dose of what's happening? Do you think it would be overwhelming? I think so. I think

Unknown Speaker 12:35
I get I get more concerned, you know, after everything I've ever that our family has been through of, I get stuck in the what could possibly be next? And I don't want to be there.

Scott Benner 12:43
Right. Right, right. Well, I think the good news is, is that if you're a healthy person, you know, you have a better chance of maintaining a healthy situation, if you do get sick, you're got a better chance of overcoming that illness. And you know, your, your son's doing great with his diabetes, right? Like, you're, you're definitely one of those people. I know. Because you're communicative with me. And you know, from online, obviously. And I feel like I've watched you figure this out and stay focused on it. In an impressive way. I know, I've never said that to you, I would have no, I would have had no reason to say said that to you, but you're interested work, you work hard at understanding the diabetes. You don't. You're not not impacted by it, but you don't let it get you down. And you're always looking for more information. I think that's just a perfect way to be. So

Unknown Speaker 13:38
yeah, and that's kind of how this all started. I mean, when when, when I talked to you the very first time, what I was ultimately looking for, at that point was just I wanted to surround myself with, you know, people that have the knowledge that could help us do this as best as we could. Yeah. And, and that's why, you know, Jenny Smith's in our life right now, I just, I we had our, our monthly Skype meeting yesterday. And she's gotten us to a good place. And the the, the juicebox Facebook group has just been I mean, I've never been a part of a Facebook page that just had a group of people that just undeniably wanted to help each other. It's just, it's amazing. I, you know, it's so funny. I don't usually record twice in a day, but I just finished with Jenny like an hour ago. And that Facebook group came up. And I told her how there's times,

Scott Benner 14:31
I do my best to look at it. And you know, but it's not a it's not a conduit directly to me, I just, I get in there as much as I can. And there are times I'll see something, and I'll think, Oh, this is the answer to that. And I'll go to type it in somebody already typed it out. And I'll just like, I'll just like like it and like, you know, be like this. This is what I would have said, uh, but I told her there's also times when I look and I think oh, that's, that's more thoughtful than what I was going to say. I just realized that he used to talk all the time about people come into the diabetes community, they learn what they learn. And they go back and live their lives, which is incredibly valuable. But it's also very cool to see a small band of a couple of thousand people stay back to say, you know what worked for me hear this, or you should consider that and I should knock on nine pieces of wood. But never judgmental, not snarky. Nobody's, uh, you know, once the like, start a flame war, like, I keep thinking like, This can't go on like this forever. But maybe it can, you know, maybe if you get the right people together, and you're, and they're, you know, comfortable. And then the new people come in who need information and feel like I'm in a place where there are people here who know better than me, I'm going to sit quiet and learn. Maybe that's the right mix. And because I do agree, it's working, like incredible. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 16:00
I mean, boy, I really hope so. And, and I can, I can tell you that I was right, about the time that camera was diagnosed, I was I was just mentally burnt on social media. And, you know, Facebook in particular. And I was I was, after Cameron's diagnosis, you know, you sit in the hospital for five days, I mean, he was in, he was in DK when we got there. And we were in the ICU for three days. And I just, I just started doing research. And I reached out to a couple things, and I got these just all of a sudden, I just getting these these private messages from strangers, that were just offering help and assistance. And, you know, one of them had led me to you and hopefully I would have found the podcast anyway, but just people just jumping in and wanting to do nothing, but you know, share and not dictate, but share what it worked for them and, and things to go look into. I was just and then find it. And then once you started that group, I'm just I'm re energized. And and there's some toxic groups out there too. I mean, I got into a some type of an online altercation on Facebook with with on a on a group that that I won't say, but she was chastising me because we were on a CGM so early. She says, you know, you really need to be, you really need to learn diabetes for a year before you start getting on technology. And I was I just I, I couldn't fathom what she was trying to tell me because I understand. I've been around people that had type one. And I seen their struggles of the constant finger poking things and, you know, the shots and the stresses of that. And I guess maybe we're I don't know if there's a term for it. But we're maybe one of those, you know, new new generation diabetics, like Cameron's had one injection of insulin, since he started on his on his own his pump. Back in middle of May, last year, he's only had one injection. And he's scared. I mean, he doesn't want he doesn't want to have a needle. He doesn't. You don't want anything to do with it. Mm hmm. And so I guess the point of my story was, is that the the podcast is absolutely refreshing. And it's great. I love the people that are over there. And I love that they help out. But like I said, there's just there's some toxic groups out there that are just not don't seem like they're given really good information. And I've, I've subsequently, you know, deleted myself for most of them. Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:34
it's tough when someone has come up through a generation of doing something. And then the next, like you said, like a newer generation has different tools. They're having different outcomes. They're having different experiences. I always try to put myself in the shoes of the people who came before and think. Would I sit there if I was them and think, are these new people they're having like, what like they just what they just put on a pump and a CGM listen to a podcast and they have a one C and the sixes, like, That's not fair. I struggled forever. You know what I mean? And, and the or the idea of like, you have to really live in the, you know, in the battle, so you can understand it. I get the overall idea behind that. But that was something people used to say when pumps were available, but not CGM. Right, and so like you really have to understand the ebbs and flows of how your blood sugar works. Okay. I don't know what that has to do with how I deliver my insulin First of all, but I do think it's, it's a reasonable statement, except it used to take years to learn. And now, you know, if you had a CGM on you could probably figure it out in a week. You know, and and that's got to be hard to hear if you were one of the people who had to spend years because the tools and and the direction were different. And having said that, Jenny and I just spoke at length about how most doctors are still teaching like it's 1986. So, you know, it's a very weird space. You have to be careful where you get your information from, I guess

Unknown Speaker 20:14
it's interesting you say that because, you know, we part of the, you know, being in the hospital for five days, as you get a, you get a diabetic educator that comes around, and they really teach you the very basics of diabetes. Yeah. And if we left the hospital with the types of strategies that we were taught there, and nothing against them, because I know that they see so many people. And you can't, not everybody can get the advanced course at that point. But if I was still invoking, and those types of strategies that I was taught when we left the hospital, I don't even want to know where Cameron's a one c would be right now. I mean, he was he was 11.8 at diagnosis. And he two weeks ago was 6.7. And, and I think with with a ton of improvements still available to us. There's a lot of good road ahead of you still. Absolutely. And I don't I don't think that I don't think we'd be anywhere near a 6.7 using the strategies that we were taught in the hospital.

Scott Benner 21:11
I Oh, yeah, I think it bears repeating that, you know, a year into Arden's diagnosis, I was frequently crying in the shower. And her a once he was closer to nine than it was to eight. And I did not know what I was doing. I constantly felt like I was killing her either today or, you know, tomorrow. And I was listening to what I was being told. And my daughter goes to a good hospital. You know, I mean, we're not we're not in the middle of Podunk somewhere, you know, hoping that the guy at the general store who's also the barber understands diabetes, it's, I was at a real place and I was doing what best practices dictated. You know, 15 years ago, I,

Unknown Speaker 21:55
I was telling jetty, we went to our into appointment. And our endo is great. She's absolutely fabulous. And but she hadn't she had nothing for us. I mean, she didn't have any changes to recommend or anything. She thought we were doing great. Right. And, and we moved on.

Scott Benner 22:13
That's cool. So you're using Jenny now to fine tune is that which because six seven is pretty great. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker 22:23
One of the one of the challenges that I'm still struggling with is I think I'm, I'm, I'm sort of still in reactionary mode. Like, I don't I don't dose off of any history, I dose off of what, what some what feels right. I mean, there's some, there's some card counting in there as well. But, you know, I would say looking at Cameron's diet. I mean, there's you know, there's there's less than there's there's less than a dozen meals that are on, on repeat. I look at every meal, I look at those meals and I basically dose and based upon what, what feels right at that time. Yeah. And sometimes I'm right, sometimes I'm not. But you know, we have to there's, there's an occasional bump in nudge that has to happen, or there's an occasional Temp Basal that has to that has to be adjusted. And I think that's what I could get a little bit better at. And that's kind of what I need a Jenny for was, I needed Jenny for advice on how to manage Cameron's blood sugar's and it just really having somebody that could be there to look at the data and say, and just be another set of eyes. Because for a while there, and I think I messaged you a while ago when I was struggling. And it was I feel like I'm just I think this is this was an episode earlier on. I feel like I'm like this plane just flying over dropping insulin on Cameron with no regard to what it's doing to him. Because I couldn't figure it out. And once I got the bazel, right, and that was that was the biggest thing. And I've heard you say this in different Jenny say it so so many times. You got to get the bazel right. And once jetty helped us get that bazel, right. That's when things really started to click for us. And Cameron's eight one c went from I think he was seven, four. Right, before we started with jetty. And then he went to 6.7 on this last one. And I think that, you know, Jenny and I are gonna keep working together, but I think we're gonna, we're gonna continue to improve,

Scott Benner 24:18
I have to tell you that. In the episodes, I can, I can obviously see how many times episodes are downloaded. And in the pro tip episodes, the one they're all pretty close to downloads, you know, I mean, so, you know, we the first one, and the third one, you know, have about as many downloads as the 10th one and the 15th one in the pro tips. But the one episode that has less and it's measurable, is the basal episode. And I'm at the point where I want to run around with a bullhorn like yelling at people like you got to listen to me. It's the basal insulin like stop Ignoring that, it's it's everyone treats it like, like it's just not important. dictionary mean like it's it's it's the whole thing. Nothing works without bazel. No one believes that and I wonder how did they make it that far with that feeling? Like is everybody is it all reactionary in a way that, but listen, when I miss a bolus of a meal, I see my blood sugar go way up. But I don't think like, Is it the difference between micro and macro? Like, is that why Jenny's helpful even like, because while you're so busy, like just drilling down on the small things, Jenny's able to step back and see the big picture, and then talk you through the big picture. I think that's it. I think that while you're in the fight, you don't I mean, like, while you're in the foxhole, you're worried about getting shot, not worried about the geopolitical ramifications of the warrior fighting, I guess is the way to think about it. Yeah, in a way that nobody will relate to. But But, but But seriously, like, you're so busy in the fight, you can't see the war,

Unknown Speaker 26:01
I guess. I think we I just got tunnel vision. And I felt like I wasn't making any improvement. Because it was just constantly it was it was it was all about the bazel. It was because the bazel wasn't right. And nothing that I did, would produce good results, because because we didn't have the Basal where we should have. But you

Scott Benner 26:21
heard me say that on the podcast, and it still didn't. Am I right?

Unknown Speaker 26:25
Oh, absolutely. I just couldn't, I couldn't do it on my own. I couldn't find the bazel. I couldn't find it on my own. And once Jenny gave me the basis from it, and I've probably created two or three more bazel programs. And the other thing I've learned is, it's an It's It's not every day is not the same. There are adjustments that got to be made. I mean, this morning, I was looking at, you know, Cameron woke up it, he woke up at 131. And I was like, Yeah, I think I can make an adjustment. Because what Jenny saw yesterday, when she looked at Cameron's data was there's a certain point in time somewhere around 4am, that he starts to just kind of slowly drift up. And, you know, and then I go back and look at the data. I'm like, Okay, well, you know, let's, let's make a, let's make a small adjustment here. And we'll, we'll see what happens tomorrow. And if that doesn't work, then we go back and make another adjustment for you. So it absolutely I needed someone I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it by myself anymore. I just got to a point where I needed that extra set of eyes to point out the obvious, which was the bazel

Scott Benner 27:30
right. Now, I know I I was giving a talk recently, and I just set up and I was like, Listen, guys, I could just tell you, it's timing and amount. Okay, I'll see you later. You're gonna be like it, but that's but what's the rest of it? And I think even when people hear timing and amount, they think bolusing, but it's the bazel needs to be timed and well measured as well. It's you know, so I'm helping Arden's friend right now. And we, you'll hear she's going to do an episode you'll hear what happened to her, but she had a significant improvement quickly, and then got yelled at by her doctor. And that scared her mom who re changed her settings and her blood sugar's went right back to the way they were. And, and, you know, when I finally, because I was following her CGM, I let them go for a while. They're not my family. I'm not in charge, you know. But I finally texted, I was like, Listen, you know, if you want the success you were having, you got to go back to this. And these three bazel rates, you suddenly have that I can't make any sense when I'm looking at them seem like they're set up to keep her higher, not lower. And so let's go back to one basal rate and start over again. And, you know, we did that and took us two days. And I just looked at I literally while you were talking, you made me think of her I just looked at her 12 hour graph. And we're good. It's amazing. But yeah, you know, again, when you're that's me looking from the outside, it's not them because they were trying they weren't not trying at home, you know what I mean? So yeah, this is it's super important.

Unknown Speaker 29:08
We got a long way to go. We you know, we got a long way to go because I want Cameron to be at that place where, you know, he's, he's comfortable with doing sports and activities. So there's still a lot there's still a lot for us to learn. It's school time is one that's been challenging for us. And it was interesting because there was a there was someone that had posted something in the in the podcast, Facebook chat, and Cameron. His blood sugar goes up as soon as school starts. And as soon as school gets out at two o'clock, he plummets. And it's social, those Yep, stress. So those are areas where we're we're still working on trying to try to figure that out. So Jenny's Jenny's going to help us some more with that. Unfortunately, you know, sports has been canceled. I really need a Jenny for that as well. football was getting ready to start for Cameron We last year he did all of his sports he did. He did baseball, he did football.

Unknown Speaker 30:07
And we were able to manage through those.

Unknown Speaker 30:11
But we needed a little bit more help.

Scott Benner 30:13
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. I'll tell you that since you know we've all been locked in our houses now. All in second, I'm going to tell our new Bolus even though this thing goes up what anything Arden's blood sugar has required significantly less insulin, since she's not going to school. Arden gets good grades. She's reasonably popular, she has friends. There's nothing about school that is a burden to her, other than she doesn't particularly like it. And she's using significantly less insulin now that she's not in school.

Unknown Speaker 30:54
So it sounds very similar to what's going on here too.

Scott Benner 30:56
Yeah, it just, it could very well be for a lot of people. And I don't think it's something you would think about, you know,

Unknown Speaker 31:05
I've been, I've been filling pods with probably 20 or 30 less units the last two weeks.

Scott Benner 31:12
Well, it's significant. I had to move Arden's bazel down, I had to move, I had to move a lot of settings, and, you know, take take insulin away. And it took me a day and a half to figure it out. Because I went the wrong way at one point. Excuse me, and I had to dial something back again. But you know, it didn't, it didn't take long. And that's something it's interesting. I hear you actually, in a half an hour have made me proud of the podcast and made me feel bad. Not on purpose. But let me let me tell you why. Because I know the answers are in the podcast. But I can't be there with each person to say, hey, that thing you're hearing, that's not the right, you're taking the wrong thing from it. You know, to me, like I really wish I really wish everybody could, like, you know, as I'm helping Arden's friend or making an adjustment to ordens thing, or listen to Jenny, talk to you, like every person with diabetes deserves a day and a half with a person who can just look at their data and go hey, this is this move this here. This is why nobody deserves to like struggle along like this. And I it makes me makes me a little sad that I mean, that's reality, I guess right now.

Unknown Speaker 32:26
Yeah. And, and we're absolutely fortunate. I mean, I'll be straight up honest financially. It's okay for us to use jetty. Yeah. Insurance won't, insurance won't pay for it unless I can get the window to say that it's required, right. But I'm not ready to go there yet. So I'm going to do it as long as we possibly can. I'm going to learn as much as we can. And keep moving forward. I think. I think everyone should leave the hospital with a CGM, and they should leave the hospital with a prescription to go listen to to some podcasts.

Scott Benner 32:58
I got a beautiful note from a CDE last night from Australia. And she said that she teaches from the podcast every day. Every day, she talks to people she talks to them about the stuff that she learned listening to the podcast. So

Unknown Speaker 33:14
a few a few episodes behind.

Unknown Speaker 33:18
I think it was a do hard things. I think that one took a toll on me. So I slowed you down a little bit. it slowed me down a little bit. So I got to I got to catch up.

Scott Benner 33:27
A long time ago when I was a young boy, my parents bought me a remote controlled car. Now this was in the 80s. So technology was you know, dicey. This car had a controller, and the controller had a long wire. It was wired to the car. So as the car moved, I had to walk with it. So was it remote control? Not really, it was controlled. I guess remotely from the car but you know not didn't give me any real freedom to pick that car out for a ride and really see what it could do. That is sort of how I think of the on the pod. It's a tubeless insulin pumps. And because there's no tubing, the pump, the site that is on the body is not connected back to a controller. You see what I'm saying? So you can go run free, live your life jump over hills made of dirt. This is how I imagined I was going to use my car until it ran up the hill and then flew into the air and the wire ran out of you know slack and it just yanked and came back. But that won't happen with you. If you try the Omni pod because it's not attached to a controller. This is very, very, very important. It's also important because you can keep it on while you're swimming, taking a shower activities. All places where tubed insulin pumps often require removal and you need Insulin 24 seven, not just when it's convenient. You can try this for yourself because on the pod we'll send you a absolutely free. Zero obligate, do you hear my voice obligation sent absolutely free, no obligation demo of the pod today, go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box they have that sent to you right now. No Obligation doesn't cost you anything yet Can't go wrong. In this scenario, let them send it to you figure out if you like it. It's that easy. And you know what else is easy? Huh? Did you see that coming? I bet you did. The Bolus that aren't in just made from macaroni and cheese for her lunch. I know most of you hear macaroni and cheese and think, no, I can't do that I've tried and that makes blood sugar's 400. And it stays like that for hours. And it's just impossible. Except Arden's blood sugar is 119 actually started at 140. She got a little rise, we're not sure for what Dexcom said, beep beep. We put in some insulin, the 140 started to come down. As it began to move. It wasn't even falling yet. She said, I'm going to have macaroni and cheese. So we made macaroni and cheese. We Pre-Bolus for it. We were properly aggressive with the insulin, able to wait until it was time to eat, meaning I was able to balance the action of the insulin with the impact of the carbs. Because I could see Arden's blood sugar on her Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, I was able to make an accurate bolus for a food that most of you think is almost impossible to Bolus for. But it isn't not when you can see the data dexcom.com forward slash juice box Get yourself a G six right away, as soon as possible. Have macaroni and cheese again, without a blood sugar that ruins your day and makes you feel like let's be honest, makes you feel like crap. There are links to all of the sponsors in the show notes of your podcast player, and at Juicebox podcast.com. But you're looking for my omnipod.com forward slash juice box to get that free, no obligation demo today. And dexcom.com forward slash juice box to start with the G six. The results had and these examples belong to us. And yours may of course vary. But I like your chances much better with rock solid technology than I do without it. Okay, we're gonna get back to Chris now. A lot still to come.

Unknown Speaker 37:48
I thought one thing that would be interesting to share and I think this is you know, the, the the Miss signs. You know, kind of Cameron's story of of how this went. You know, he he was drinking lots of water. He looked like he was slimming out. We went he went to a baseball game. My daughter's boyfriend had a baseball game and then they decided to go to dinner afterwards. And Cameron decided he wasn't hungry. And so he didn't eat dinner that night. The next day I had him. We were going to Supercross and Cameron was so excited to go to Supercross. And he just he looked tired. He just didn't look like himself. And we got on the train. We got to Supercross and we had to walk from the train to the stadium. And we had to stop multiple times because he had it. He was trying to catch his breath. Yeah. And I couldn't figure out why he was exhausted. And we went in we kind of did the whole little, you know, walk through the pits thing and, and you know, Cameron said he's a huge football fan. And and one of the one of the writers Pitts was marshawn Lynch in camera. You know, he Cameron just adores marshawn. Lynch. And he wasn't even excited. Wasn't even excited that he was there. And I have a photo of Cameron that I took. And he doesn't even just I don't know if you could tell in someone's face that they don't look right. But you can tell in his face that he didn't look right. going back and looking at those. Those photos now. Yeah. And we got done with our pet walk and the race was getting ready to start. So we went and sat down. We watched the first race and we had a conversation. He wanted a snack, and he wanted like some type of ice cream and, and then a minute later, he said that he didn't want it. And then a minute after that. He said, Hey, I think I want some ice cream. And I said, Kevin, you remember the conversation we just had and he just kind of looked at me and he said, No, I don't remember. Yeah. And he had water with him and he said that water was tasting funny. And I said okay, he says Can I can I have a soda? And I said sure we don't. We don't drink a lot of soda in our family. So we walked up the stairs and bottom of soda. We went back and sat down and then he said he needed to Go to the bathroom and we were one race into this and, and I said, Cameron, are you okay? And he said, No. He said, I'm just I'm really just not feeling good. And I said, well, let's, let's get out of here. And he says, No, I feel bad. I know you wanted to come and I wanted to be here. I feel bad. And I said, No, I said, we're, we're getting out of here. Mm hmm. So we we went to the trade walk back to the train, same thing just exhausted. You know, he had to stop a couple times. We got on the train. And you know, I had the the big plastic, you know, clear stadium bag that you take in that they require you to take, and I started emptying it, and I put it on my lap because Kevin says, Hey, Dad, I don't think I'm gonna say much on the way home. And I know what that meant. That meant, hey, my stomach doesn't feel good. I'm gonna focus and try not to get sick. Yeah. So I took that bag out. And I'm like, Alright, just in case the inevitable happens, right? I'm gonna be somewhat prepared for this. And we're halfway back, you know, to the parking garage from the train station or on the train. And he just unloads and, you know, I catch as much as I can and kind of inconspicuously clean up as much as I can. And we get off the train. And I tell the, I tell the security guys, hey, you know, my son got sick, and he threw up on the train. He's like, I don't worry about it happens all the time. So I got camera cleaned up, we got him in the car. And you know, he slept the whole way home.

Unknown Speaker 41:21
You know, it was it was late. When we got home. He went to sleep. I checked on him in the morning, when he woke up and said, Hey, are you feeling bad? He said, he said, I'm okay. He said, Can I have some toast? And I said, Sure. So I made up some toast. He laid around most of the day, just not feeling good. And then, you know, a little bit after lunch, I said, Hey, you know, what's hurting? What do you what do you feeling? And he said, is lower right hand side is lower right side of his stomach was hurting. And, you know, first thing I thought was, you know, maybe, maybe appendicitis. So we ran them over to the urgent care. And, you know, I told the urgent care, Cameron, you know, as a, as a younger child, he had, he had some constipation issues. And he said, You know, I don't the urgent care doctor, so I don't think that's it. He said, and I'm going to do a couple other tests. We, he did a couple stretches with him and said, You know, I can't really rule out appendicitis, he said, but I can't do anything about that here. You got to take him to the Children's Hospital. So I called Amanda and I said, you know, hey, we're going to the Children's Hospital. So we go there. And, you know, we sit for a few hours and wait, finally, get us back there. And, you know, the doctor comes in, looks at looks them over? and says, Well, I think we're gonna do an X ray. So does an X ray. And determines that Yep, sure. Enough, you know, Kevin's Kevin's backed up. So they do you know, they do their wonders. And and, you know, by that time, it's like, you know, it's nine o'clock at night. And you know, Kevin's not having any, I mean, we're laughing about it, because he's, you know, he's got to keep getting up and going to the bathroom. And he just, he doesn't want he doesn't think any of this funny, right? And no blood test, right? And what I've learned from this, just all you needed was the simple blood test. Yeah. So we were discharged from the hospital, and he's exhausted, we're driving home. And we get into bed, probably a little bit after midnight. 4am comes around, and you know, I watched him, you know, I'd wake up every it felt like I wake up every 20 minutes, and I'd look at him just to make sure he was alright. And I'd see he's breathing super fast. And it gets to about 4am. And he wakes up and I said How you doing? He said, I'm okay. He said, I'm going to I'm going to go to the bathroom. And he had climbed in a bed with me and Amanda went and slept with Emily. And he came back and I said, I said You're right. He said, Yeah, I'm okay. He said, Can I have some water? so sure. So I went, got him some water. And then about 10 minutes later, he was having, he said he couldn't breathe. And he was having just tremendous pain in his stomach. And I looked at Amanda and I said, you know, we got two options here. we'd throw him back in the car and running back to the ER we call 911. And he just said, Dad, I can't breathe. And so I said, that's it. I'm calling 911. So waited, you know, waited a couple minutes for them to show up. And they came in and checked him over. Because heart rate was at 180 beats per minute. They said he was getting 100% oxygen, but he just kept saying he couldn't he couldn't breathe. And so they called the Children's Hospital right then and they said you need to bring them in. So they said, Do you want to take them or do you want us to take him? I said, Well, why don't you guys take and we'll probably get the fast track. And so they said, Well, can you can you pick them up and carry them out? I said sure. And what I picked him up, Scott, I could not believe how easy he was I either had superhuman strength at that point, or this kid was I mean, he was super light. Yeah. And I couldn't, I couldn't figure out why. So they got him in the hospital. Amanda went with Kevin in the ambulance and I met them there soon as we got out wheeled down the corridor there and then the different emergency room doctor comes out and says is he diabetic? and I, we said no, not that we're aware of. And she said, he's presenting signs like he's diabetic. And she says, I have a test that will prove it. And we're looking at each other. And I'm like, there's no way this kid's diabetic, right? And she comes back and says that his, his blood sugar is 640. And then at some point, I don't remember if it was at that point, but down the line, they determined that he was, you know, he was in DK. So, you know, talk about, you know, missing the signs, right? We, we missed all of them. Yeah. I'm wearing I'm wearing a juicebox sweatshirt right now. And on the back of it has all the signs, and we missed and that was where the rough start have the rough part came in for us as we just we went into this level of guilt, like, Oh, my gosh, we we missed this. Right? how did how did we put him in jeopardy? And we had wondered how long I mean, we'd go back and thinking that How long had this possibly been going on? But there were little signs where he would eat and he would get sick? And and we're just wondering if maybe this this had gone on for some period of time? Yeah.

Scott Benner 46:07
I think I think you're telling a story that a lot of people can relate to. It really is. It's how I felt how Kelly felt like, how did we not see this? You know, Arden was Baba dead by the time we got into hospital. Yeah, you know, it just in hindsight, everything makes sense. You know, like,

Unknown Speaker 46:27
it's just that blood test, just that blood test. All we needed right the night before.

Scott Benner 46:32
Yeah. And they sent him home. And if you wouldn't have, if you would have taken what they said to heart just been like, Look, it's okay. Or maybe if he doesn't say I can't breathe. Maybe you maybe you can continue to persist without It's alright. You know, it's gonna be fine. You know, what I'm interested in at any time in this process? Did your thoughts get really dark? Did you think God he has cancer too?

Unknown Speaker 46:55
Yeah, interestingly enough, when we got the diagnosis that he was diabetic, I was relieved.

Scott Benner 47:01
Yeah. thought maybe you might be. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 47:04
Well, I was I was relieved. Thinking about, you know, Emily. And and, you know, he had had previous stomach issues, like, you know, just to see if something more serious going on. Yeah. And I was relieved that he had, I mean, who could say they're, they're relieved that their son's diabetic. But at that moment in time, I was relieved that we knew what was going on with him. Because for the previous couple of days, I was like, what's going on with my little boy here? Yeah,

Scott Benner 47:27
right. No kidding. Arden could barely, like she couldn't even like Shuffle Along. By the end. She just, you know, we'd stand her up. And she just stood there.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
Now she was she was a couple years old. She was two

Scott Benner 47:40
years and a few weeks. And, you know, find

Unknown Speaker 47:44
it a little bit. What is it? Was it hard to see this? I mean, do you think it would have been harder to see the signs and an infant or younger?

Scott Benner 47:51
Yeah, it's insane. Because it now I look at the pictures of her. And during that time, and I think, who in their right mind doesn't look at this kid and go, Hey, that kid's got to go to the hospital. Yeah, like just it's she was I described her before she like air. She was like a, you know, a heroin chic model. She was like, you could see her ribs and she was just, she had clearly lost weight now on a 19 pound frame should last, you know, a couple of pounds. But it's a it was a lot on her. You know, like vacant eyes. You know, peeing constantly, for no reason. It's just bizarre how, again, micro and macro, right? Like when you're in the fight, you don't think diabetes? Like you don't think that you think why is my kid thirsty? Why, you know, why are they paying a lot like nobody and nobody sits you down? When you have a baby and goes, Hey, by the way, here are the side. You know, here's the things look for, for all the possibilities that could happen to you while you're raising this kid. But that those things don't seem dire enough to do something about to a lot of people is telling and that you can get to a hospital or a doctor and they still not figure it out. That's ridiculous. You don't I mean,

Unknown Speaker 49:03
what what what I mean, I don't understand why regular the regular blood testing isn't part of you know, just checkups

Scott Benner 49:10
with kiddos. I think I you know, Adam Edelman was on the show a couple days ago or last week now and he was nice enough to come on and explain the Coronavirus to us but he's, he's my kids pediatrician, too. And he'll describe you I'll ask him next time he's on to describe this job. But you know, his job is to you know, look at what's happening and say, okay, I've been seeing this in the community right now those symptoms normally point to this. And that's how we'll we'll move forward. You know, I mean, he's you know, that's that's how it's done that's what being a doctor is you know, it's not we all watch Dr. House at some point. So you think like, you know, that you say hey, my kids paying a lot and, you know, some genius like snaps in is like, Oh, you know what that could be it's not how it goes. And because the decay progresses so quickly at that point, you don't have a lot of time to figure it out. You know? Yeah, but

Unknown Speaker 50:07
the hardest part. You know, Amanda and I one night, we, you know, it was it was really, it was late really late or really early in the morning, Kim or what it was in the hospital. And I remember we just, you know, we had this big, bawling cry fest over this. And that was the last time that we ever, I feel like that was the last time we were ever sad about Cameron having diabetes, and then we just move forward after that. But the hardest part was him laying in the hospital bed, and All he wanted was something to drink or something to eat. And Hey, buddy, maybe tomorrow, right? And I had to do that for two days. Maybe tomorrow was

Scott Benner 50:42
bringing his blood sugar down.

Unknown Speaker 50:44
Yeah, well, they were bringing his blood sugar down and trying to, you know, clear that clear as DK out. Yeah. And that was tough. And then, you know, somewhere around third day, you know, they were able to get him up. And he was having a hard time walking. And we never figured out why he had to go to physical therapy for a period of time after he left, because he looked like he was walking on invisible high heels. And we don't know if that had something to do with the diabetes diagnosis, or if it was, you know, from laying in a bed for multiple days.

Unknown Speaker 51:14
But he he struggled with that.

Unknown Speaker 51:18
And then, you know, we went home, and everyone, everyone in the car had tears in their eyes when we left the hospital. Mm hmm. Maybe except for me, because I was trying to be the, you know, the tough dad at that point, right. But I think there was some there was some genuine fear about what his life at home going to be like with diabetes. And we got home, and we unsettled. And you know, we were inundated with these books and these charts. And I don't think we made it two hours before we called the hospital line and said, Hey, we don't know what to do here. Right. And we just continue to move through a couple days got better. You know, Cameron went back to, you know, playing video games online with his friends. He missed a spring break last year with all this going on. And then, you know, we started before we left the hospital, we started looking into the technology. And one thing that was nice about the hospitals and in the packet that we got from the the educators was, it was a Dexcom pamphlet. And it basically you fill it out and you add it to them and they send it to a rep and they figure out how to get you on a CGM. And the next week, and this happened by mistake because they didn't even pre authorize it with our insurance. But the day the next week after we came home from the hospital, this box shows up that we didn't ask for and it was a G six. And it was the receiver for the G six and you know all the parts that we needed. And we we call the office and they couldn't get us in for a little bit. So we we waited, I think it was it was three weeks, excuse me was three weeks to a month before we got them on the CGM. And while the meantime that was going on, I was already trying to get an insulin pump going. We did pump trials. And we did the first trial we did was a was an omni pod dash. And then the next one was going to be one of the two pumps and Kevin's like, Nope, not doing it. He said I'm not doing it, I'm not gonna have tubes. So we proceeded with the dash. We, we ended up having to fight for it. And this is my other message to everyone to I see all these people online that that say, you know, we can't get dash, and maybe unfortunate but I just got to the right people on my insurance company and just said, Look, this thing, he wears this thing for three days, and he it gets thrown away and he puts on a new one. I don't understand how that could be considered as a durable medical equipment, right, it needs to go as prescription. And luckily, I got to the right people. And they my insurance company wrote an override to their policy. And, and we now we don't have to ask me that dash since middle of May. Yeah, last year.

Scott Benner 54:06
There's a it's interesting, because another insurance company would see it the exact opposite way. They'd be like, that's horrible medical, that can't be farce. It's just ridiculous. And then the companies have to fight through that mess. And then when people can't get them, they're like, it's the company's fault. You know, like, Well, you know, they're working within the system and the system is bipolar, you know, they mean like, one one minute at once one thing and, you know, go to another company once another thing, so,

Unknown Speaker 54:32
and I think that's my message to is you know, the the pump companies are doing everything they can through the channels, but sometimes it just takes you to be, you know, diligent and try to get to the right people and try to you know, really explain what you what, what you need and, and that's just that's what this was really all about. This is, you know, part of why I reached out to you early on after I learned is just I wanted to, I wanted to provide the best I could for Cameron Yeah. And I wanted him to have the best, the best things that he that he Could have and you know, I, I can't wait for the next piece of technology. I think any, any type of looping situation would be very helpful for, for our situation with school time and just everything in general. Yeah, I know it'll never be just plug and play. But you know, I mean, I'm excited for what's in store for him to make his life easier. Do you think that

Scott Benner 55:25
you would you you're using dash now would you go to horizon when it comes out this the day that we can Oh, gotcha. Okay, so you're up for all that?

Unknown Speaker 55:34
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've watched with some of the other I've watched some successes that people are having on other systems and, you know, I, I, I listened to, I've listened to all the loop episodes, and I even considered at one point about trying to go back to the older pods and trying to loop right, I just, I couldn't, I couldn't get my head wrapped around it. And it seemed like just a lot of extra stress that I didn't feel like I could afford. So

Scott Benner 56:00
sounds like you're doing really well. That's what I wanted to ask you to is that, you know, we told him, you know, a really great story about, about being diagnosed and all that but a year later here on his first, you know, anniversary of his of his diagnosis. Yeah. How's he doing?

Unknown Speaker 56:16
He's doing great. And, and, you know, and I think I think this is, you know, one of the challenges that some faces I've seen, you know, his, one of his school nurses was, she was absolutely condescending to us, because we hadn't released him to do all of his own work, right, do all of his own blood checks, administer all of his own insulin, and I'm sitting here thinking that kids 11 years old, right, he he gets he has to do this the rest of his life, if I have to be the person to make the decisions right now that I'm okay with that. And, and honestly, Scott, he, he knows how to he has a device that he checks his blood sugar with what he needs to Yeah. Kevin's a type of child, he's, if he had to do it, he could do it. But he doesn't do as dex changes, and he doesn't do his pa changes. Could I teach them to do it? Sure, I could. But I'm somewhat of a little bit of a, I don't know, I kind of want to hold on to that responsibility of, of, I have to take, you know, I want to take care of him. And I want to help him out. I want him to learn and we express to him how important it is. But at the same time, I don't, I don't want to feel I don't make myself feel bad. Because he can't do it all on his own. And I refuse to let other people make me feel bad for that too. Cameron wants to be as normal as possible. He he doesn't. He didn't go back to school. And he didn't announce that he has type one. Maybe irresponsible. He didn't tell us coaches that he has type one. Because we have control. He is under control. We are with him all the time. We don't leave him at football practice. He he has this fear of not wanting he wants to be like everyone else. And there's been a couple of times at school where, you know, he's had a pot alert, and he's had a dexcom low go offer or high alert go off. And he's mortified when that happens, because he doesn't want the extra attention. He has a plan that, you know, he can take his phone out, and he can do whatever he needs to do during a school day. He won't do it. I bought them an apple watch so that he can see his blood sugar. So he didn't have to take his phone out to look at it. He just wants to be like everyone else. He doesn't want to be singled out. Do you think that that's

Scott Benner 58:28
sustainable? forever? Or do you think he's gonna have to get a little more comfortable with people seeing and I don't know that half is the right word. Like maybe he never will I listen, I've over the years, I've seen Coldplay with three or four kids who have type one diabetes. And I can tell no one knows. Like, I pick it up because I'm watching what's going on. But I'll say to call him like, you know that kids got diabetes, right? He's like, Yeah, I saw him do something. And I knew he goes, I don't think anybody else knows. And he's never said it that anybody? Yeah. And he's like, so I don't even I don't even talk to him about it. But I but that's, you know, Cole doesn't have diabetes, but he's grown up here. And he's like, I can see it. But it's kept very, very quiet. And he's like, there's He's like, I saw this one kid, check his blood sugar ones. And he's like, dad, he's playing with like a 220 blood sugar. And I'm like, a probably afraid it's gonna get low, and he's keeping it high. And that even made my son like, sad, dude. I mean, like, he's like, he doesn't need to do that. Right. And I was like, he doesn't, but he probably doesn't know how. And, you know, we eventually went out to dinner with that kid and his family and I spent like, three hours in a restaurant explaining everything to him. But he, we approached him like he never would have, you know, he wasn't he was us going along with it. So like, there's part of me that 100% understands exactly where you're coming from. And as an observer, I wonder how sustainable it is over a lifetime. But I also don't think that it'll stay that way. I think that as a As time passes, and as your son has more experiences, you know, one day he's gonna have to do something in public and nothing's gonna go wrong from that. And he'll be like, Alright, that wasn't too bad.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:12
Yeah, and I would say he doesn't. He's not afraid. Like, he'll go out and you know, rock his CGM on his, you know, on the back of his arm in the middle of summer heat. Yeah, that doesn't bother him at all. He'll test his blood sugar if he needs to. That's That's not it. There's just that there's that little piece of him from being around civil or being around friends that he just hasn't reached that level of comfort yet. And when he get there, sure, he will see as he gets more confident with his type one, he will I think he just, he doesn't want to be perceived as different

Scott Benner 1:00:44
than everyone else. And in this moment, there's no need for him to feel that way. And so I like so what you're doing is perfect. I mean, listen, Arden can swap her CGM and her pump all by herself. She doesn't need anybody's help. But still, when she does it, she's like, Hey, you want to help me with this? Because, you know, she's 15. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:05
what the hell

Scott Benner 1:01:06
you don't I mean, like, it's, it's, it's not a, it's not a great thing to have to do. And it's nice that somebody has your back while you're doing it. It's you know, and if I'm, if someone's not around, she just does it herself. It's not a it's not a it's not like, Oh, my gosh, I can't change my pump. because no one's here.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:22
You know,

Scott Benner 1:01:25
I just think that there doesn't need to be a rush. To 1,000,000% independence.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
That's my take. And, you know, I, I've I've seen, you know, both are both sides of the argument. You know, one side is, you gotta you got to make it theirs, and you got to make it make it theirs right now. And I just, I haven't gotten there. I don't know why it can't be a blend. I don't

Scott Benner 1:01:50
know why everything in life is a zero sum. proposition like everybody does, that. It's always this or that. No one ever says a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Not so bad. You know, like we do it in sports, in our politics, the way we talk about our kids with diabetes, the way everyone wants everything to be a zero sum policy. And that just is, it's lazy. Really, you know, like, there's nuance, like, there's nothing wrong with living in the nuance a little bit.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:20
Yeah, I know, we're just we're trying to keep life as normal as we can write in, maybe it's our maybe it's our new normal, but you know, life for him is his life for him is not much different than what it was before. Other than you got to check your blood sugar every once in a while, you may have to go drink half a juice box or eat for gummy bears to keep your blood sugar up to an elevated level. Or you gotta you gotta raise your bazel up for an hour or you need a right. You know, you need a you need a correction. But for the most part, it's it's pretty normal.

Scott Benner 1:02:54
Yeah. I think that I think it sounds like you guys are well on your way to something great. So I couldn't find fault with what you're doing. I think it's, uh, I think it's personal. And I think it's, you know, your son, and you know, yourself. And, you know, as long as you're not playing scared, I think you're good. You know,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:13
yeah. And I and I think that's, you know, that's where our, that's our grateful This is to you is, you know, you gave us that you gave us that mentality to not be scared, right, or gave us the courage to not be scared. You're not going to get it right every time. And sometimes you just you have to deal with what's put in front of you. And that's maybe given a, you overcorrected. And maybe you got to give a little bit of juice. So you got to you got to have a free stack to get back back in range. I appreciate

Scott Benner 1:03:46
that. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:47
And I and I think one of the biggest things that I have learned is my gosh, Lowe's, Lowe's for us, Lowe's are better than highs because when he gets high and he gets stuck, I mean, and you're sitting there and every year, you're laying in bed, and he's he's in the two hundreds and every you just you keep giving him you know, you you extend his or you run his bazel up and you give them a correction when you can and you just sit there and you look at it and it just doesn't move. It's so frustrating over Hey, man, you got to go eat for gummy bears, or you got to write have a couple of Smarties or you got to drink apple juice box. I would much rather be in that position. Although I don't really love the low alarms going off in the middle of the night because sometimes that just scares the heck out of me. But uh,

Scott Benner 1:04:33
I just said the Arden last night I was like, Listen, she had spent the better part of a day. She got her period right now. And usually during her period, she runs like fine, but she's been a little off for this period of time. Right? And yeah, so we had our bazel really jacked up the keeper at like 190 and as we got at the start coming down, I said okay, we You know, we've broken whatever dam has been holding us back here. And I said, there's going to be a moment where you're going to need to eat something. So I sent her a text. I was like, Listen, if you have a small snack right now, it's going to stop you from getting low. And she didn't respond right away. And I just responded to her. And I said, Listen, if you don't do this now, later, you're gonna have to eat more than you want to. I was like, so at 104, diagonal down, coming down from a 190 that's been stuck like that for, you know, a day. I'm like, this is it right here, like right here, like, do it right this second. And I recognize that that sucks. You know what I mean? But it's gonna happen anyway. It's gonna, it's just gonna be it's gonna be 20 minutes later, and you're gonna be 65. And you're gonna have to eat, and you're gonna get a little lower, and then it's gonna come back. I'm like, why not just just do it now, like, be ahead of it a little bit. And she actually, like, stopped what she was doing and came down. And I was like, oh, wow, that might have made sense to her. But I'm probably gonna have to say that to her a million more times before that becomes part of how she thinks. Because she's 15. And she's a kid. And Yep, she's learning, you know.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:11
And, and we had we had one the other night where we couldn't you know, Cameron was staying like one night, he was just stuck at one night, he would not move. And I decided this is the second time I've done this, I waited a little longer than I should have. And I just changed this pot, I just abandon that spot where it was, yeah, changes pod ranas bazel. We always run as bazel. As soon as we change this pod, we do 95% for an hour is kind of our mo is our rhythm. So we read at 95%. I gave him a correction. And he went, he dropped pretty darn fast. And it was it was good. And we caught it. And we didn't we didn't run it back up. But that was that was one thing I've learned too is don't don't sit on it and just wait for it to get better. If it's not getting better. Just change it out. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:59
do something. Now I just did that with Arden's friend yesterday, I was like, I know your pumps, good for like, 10 more hours. I was like, but I think if you blow if you just dump it right now, I think you're gonna be okay. And sure enough, an hour later, she was back to where she wanted to be. And just wasn't quite getting her and so on the way she had to, you know, in the, in the 70, you know, hour or whatever it was of, you know, the time it had been on So, right. It's just, you know, it's all about insulin, I I say it a lot, I try to say it a lot when your pump site isn't acting the way you expect it to, you know, you can you can hang on a little bit. But once it's proven to you that this is the best that can do now you have to make a decision, you know, I mean, like, This site is not working the way I want it to anymore. What am I going to do next? And I always think of that as when the insulin stops reacting the way I know it should, then I start becoming suspect about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:56
Yeah, and those are, those are things that you only learn with confidence, or you only learn with time, you know, we're still we're learning lessons all the time. You know, we we've had a, we've had a Dexcom issue the last couple days. And we I did what she told me to do, I just I just calibrated it a few times and it gets settled down.

Scott Benner 1:08:15
Yeah, so beat it to submission. Did you?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:17
Somewhat Yes. The one before that we couldn't beat that one into submission. But we did beat this one into submission and in fairness to dex calm and Omni pod, I mean, they have been so good to us. I mean, I've read these, I read these things online about people saying, you know, how horrible their customer service is I Scott, I haven't had one bad experience. And I've called in a dozen pods. I've we've had, you know, plenty of CGM errors, not plenty. I mean, we've had, we always get 10 days. And we've we've had reasonably good luck. We've we've had a couple issues. But every time I mean, yesterday, there was a box that showed up that they overnighted us to new sensors, because we were having an issue. Yeah. And ami pods been nothing but great. I have nothing but good things to say about these people. They've just been nothing but fabulous to us.

Scott Benner 1:09:04
Yeah, I think it's a I especially now right now, while companies are moving their customer service back to people's houses. Basically. I like how someone's like I held forever today. And I'm like, yeah, did you hear about the quarantine? Like, yeah, what do you expect it that, you know, a company's like a magic entity and you'll somebody will jump off and be like, well, they should be prepared for this. Like, come on. You know, what do you mean? Like, like I should have, I should have a perfect though. contingency plan for the for the moment where the whole world has to go home and stay there like no one thought that was gonna happen, you know? And now what happened and I bet you next time there'll be a plan, you know, so no one's perfect.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:44
It was it was an hour and I think, you know, I knew it was gonna be a long wait. And I expected that so i i called Dexcom. And I put it on speakerphone. I went about my business for an hour, 40 minutes and the lady got on the phone and you know, she apologized for the way to say it's fine, you know, I mean, I expect Get that Listen, I'm gonna make it.

Scott Benner 1:10:01
I'll make a criticism at Dexcom right now, and I hope they listen to it. You guys have made a couple of bucks over the years, I'd like to see some more money put into that hold music, how's that? I can, I could sing that little tune in my head, I'll be able to sing that tune. And I don't spend time on it's just it's been for a decade now. It's that same little rhythm like somebody just think a couple bucks into changing the music up. I really appreciate it. That's my event. There's more

Unknown Speaker 1:10:28
if that's if that's not if that's not bad enough cameras endos. Hold music is the exact same. And when I was on the phone with Dexcom on hold the other day Cameron's like, you got to turn that off dad that music is horrible. It really is.

Scott Benner 1:10:41
I mean, honestly, I'm sure they're not thinking of it. You know what, I'll tell you what you want to know what a good company Dexcom is, hold on a second. I am gonna pull up an email here that I just got from Rick Doubleday the other day, you remember Rick came on the show? Oh, yeah. And we were just talking about things were going on. While I was talking to him. I told him that I was in the middle of, you know, I got the phone call from Dexcom about our reorder. And the guy told me that you know, after a benefits, investigation, art and stuff would come out. And I stopped at the end of the call and told the guy Hey, investigations, it's like a, it's a too harsh of a word. I'm like, there's a better word you should, you know, you should, you know, find a better way to say that now, okay. I told that guy, um, he has no power. He's the customer service guy. But, you know, I happen to be, you know, interviewing Rick the few days later, and I mentioned it to him. And I don't know, like, there's sometimes I say things and I'm like, no one's listening to me. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just talking out loud. But literally, two weeks after I interviewed Rick, I got this note from it says, and this is a personal conversation, but I don't think he'd mind. It's just this, Scott. I hope all as well. I don't have an update on this other thing you asked about. But I did want to let you know that we took your comments to heart on the term benefits investigation, we've updated the language to benefits update, it tested really well with customers appreciate the heads up brick double that. And so, you know, he could have I mean, he could have Yes, me to death and gotten off the phone. But he's like, Alright, somebody's saying something. It's a person, you know, I trust and, and that makes sense to me. And then they did something about it. And it probably didn't take that much effort to do something about it. But there are a lot of places who would have been like, Yeah, whatever. And, you know, just let it be. So now when somebody called, they won't be told that their benefits are being investigated, which can I'm not a real I don't know what the word is, like, I'm not a I'm not a soft person, like a lot doesn't impact me. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't hear things. I'm not always running around, you know, virtue signaling and telling people you

Unknown Speaker 1:12:55
shouldn't be doing

Scott Benner 1:12:55
that. That doesn't sound right. I don't feel that way. But I heard benefits investigation, I thought, hmm, seems like you're looking into whether or not I've done something wrong or not. And, and that's it. So now it's benefits updates. The next time somebody tells you there have a benefits update. That's because, you know, somebody was paying attention to how you feel and I think they don't just pay attention to me. I think they pay attention to a lot of their customers. So I think feedback, feedbacks good.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:23
I think they do I mean, look at the look at the outage and how they responded to that.

Scott Benner 1:13:27
Yeah, yeah, there's a site now where you can go to literally track how dex comms what, what their status is, right? Which was not something that that existed until, until somebody said to them, hey, it would have been nice to, you know, to know how things were going and they boom, they fix it.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:46
The one thing that's really for us, the CGM. At least it's been so important. I mean, the last, we've had some issues the last I'd say three weeks, maybe off and on. And we've also had some good success too. But the one thing I've learned is when that CGM is not, it's not working right. You learn how important that CGM is. I mean, yeah. And so don't help me. Take away anything we have. Don't take our CGM, right. Yeah, I love Cameron probably wouldn't say that, because I don't know he would like to insulin injections, but petsy jams really been important to us now. I agree.

Scott Benner 1:14:21
All right. Well, Chris, I really appreciate you doing this. I know we had to put this off once and I appreciate you being flexible about it. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:27
Now we we can under emphasize how important that that everything that we've learned has been to us. I

Scott Benner 1:14:35
appreciate really, we really appreciate it. I it's it really is my pleasure. I will not be humble for a second. That's probably making people laugh. But I I really do appreciate you saying that. And it means a lot to me that the podcast struck you and your family the way I intended. So I'm just very glad for you that it did.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:56
Yeah, we appreciate it a lot. I think without the podcast, we wouldn't be where We were we wouldn't have found Jenny. I mean, maybe we would, but it wouldn't. It wouldn't come. Let's

Scott Benner 1:15:03
just say, Chris, I fixed it for you. And it wasn't gonna work out the other way. I don't know why we're being so kind other opportunities and possibilities that we don't know exist that are not clearly I'm the best person. Like, let's just say that I think it's easier that way.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:18
I will. I will not fight you on.

Scott Benner 1:15:22
If anybody wants to leave an episode. No, I won't say that. I'm going to get a bunch of other people. But I would like a review that just says Scott's the best.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:30
Yeah. I haven't even asked you yet. I don't think you've even i don't i don't think i got got you to say the word at all during this podcast

Scott Benner 1:15:38
delightful. It's water, water. Oh. Well, I do have I have a bottle of water right in front of me. And I know, that's not how everyone says it. And, you know, you all enjoyed those rocky movies. So leave us alone. Okay. It's a it's how we talk here. I don't know what to tell you. I'll tell you what I do hear a lot from his people on the West Coast who used to live on the East Coast, that say that listening to the podcast makes them feel at home because of my atrocious grammar and other problems

Unknown Speaker 1:16:07
with speaking.

Scott Benner 1:16:08
It is true by the way the West Coast, especially California, and, and right up into Oregon, Washington State all in there, you really don't have an accent. It's just it's, it's, you know, it's the language sort of the way it's meant. You know, they mean, mentally. We've all bastardized that by being around for so long. But um, you know, listen, you just, your coast isn't close to where people came in from Europe. So

Unknown Speaker 1:16:36
you know,

Scott Benner 1:16:36
you got a bad whole 3000 some mile trip at a blended out a lot of people by the time they got to California.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:47
Well, hopefully, hopefully at some point, we'll all be traveling again. And it'd be great if we could get you out this way to, you know, teach them teach them or some of the things

Unknown Speaker 1:16:54
that we've learned and be very cool. I hope

Scott Benner 1:16:56
so I'm looking forward to it. Hi, Chris. Thanks so much. Hey, huge thank you to Chris for coming on the podcast and sharing the story that his family is experiencing with Type One Diabetes. Thanks also to Dexcom, makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor. And of course, the Omni pod, the tubeless insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old. Go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box dexcom comm forward slash juice box links in your show notes links at Juicebox podcast.com. Hey, why not even hit up the other sponsors T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. Contour Next One comm forward slash juice box touched by type one.org g vote glucagon.com. forward slash juicebox. Support the sponsors support the show. During the episode, Chris mentioned the Facebook group. That's right there on Facebook, which makes total sense. That's where you would put a Facebook group, you're going to want to search for Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's a private group, you have to answer a couple of brief questions about yourself just to make sure you're a real person that you can get in there and start having the experiences that Chris spoke about. Give a great diabetes practitioner, or are you looking for one, you should check out juice box docs.com. And when you get there, you're going to find a list of great doctors that have been submitted by listeners like you. You have a great doctor, go to that same link juicebox Doc's dot com and send it in to me. I'd love to add it. I'd love to add your great experience to the list so other people can find those experiences. And of course, if you're looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at Episode 210 in your podcast app, but if it's too far to scroll back, go to diabetes pro tip.com to get a feeling for what episode you're looking for. It's also a great way to share the pro tips with other people. Thank you so much for listening. I genuinely appreciate your time. I'll be back soon with another episode.