Scott Benner 5/28/21 Scott Benner 5/28/21

#485 Altered Minds

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Episode 485 of the Juicebox Podcast. Guess who's on the show today.

Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Jenny Smith. Jenny, of course, is from all the defining diabetes episodes, and the pro tip series. And today she's here to talk about how people can be altered in their, in their minds when their blood sugars are high or low. Right. So if you're looking for an understanding of what high and low might make someone feel like or could make you feel like this is the episode for you. During this conversation, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

Jenny 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 on most makes and models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. One day when I grow up, I hope to be just like Jenny.

The T one D exchange needs 6000 people to join the registry. And I have to keep saying this to you until you do it. So the D one D exchange is looking for T one D adults and T one D caregivers who are us residents. They want you to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your phone or computer after you finish the questions. And they are very simple. I completed the survey in about seven minutes. You may be contacted annually to update your information. And they may even ask you a couple more questions. But this is 100% anonymous, it is completely HIPAA compliant. And it does not require you to ever visit a doctor or go to a remote site. See, this is interesting. This is a way for you in just a few minutes to help other people living with Type One Diabetes. Past participants have helped bring increased coverage for test trips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and changes in the ADA guideline for pediatric a one c goals. These are important behind the scenes things that people with type one diabetes need, and you have a unique opportunity to help them. These are not deep probing personal questions. They're pretty simple basic surface diabetes stuff, but they just need the data. Help them at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. And at the very least, if 6000 of you go right now, but I don't have to say this again. Do it for me.

Unknown Speaker 3:06
I'm kidding. Do it for the other people living with Type One Diabetes. But I mean, if you want to think of me while you're doing it, it's fine. This one's weird. But I will say

Unknown Speaker 3:18
it means it came from

Unknown Speaker 3:19
somebody came from somebody, but it's not

Unknown Speaker 3:21
from somebody.

Scott Benner 3:23
But it but it made a lot of sense to me when they said it. And then I left it on my list for a long time. And every time I look at the list, I'm like, yeah, we're gonna have to talk about that. I think so. Hopefully, I

Unknown Speaker 3:34
have something.

Scott Benner 3:37
So I'm posing this next question to you, Jenny. Because you have diabetes, and you would have you would have a real feeling for what this is? Maybe? We'll see. We'll see. Hopefully, I think you will. So I hear this from either parents or spouses usually. And it's something we make light of in communities and joke about, like I've said before, to my daughter, you know, when she was little, I'm gonna test your blood sugar. And if it's not high or low, you're in trouble. Right? You know, like, because you kind of can't, you can't tell, like, Is somebody acting a certain way because they're altered? Or are they acting a certain way? Because they're, you know, right a pain in the ass. So like, you know, which isn't, but that always makes me feel like what is the person with diabetes hearing when they're altered? And so that's what I want to understand. And when I'm we're gonna do both, but let's start with higher blood sugar. So I know there's no Mendoza line that you can point to perfectly, but I will. I've always said in the past that as ardent as active if her blood sugar starts to creep above 161 80. I could see her slow down, her reactions get slower, things like that. We know that people get cloudier. We've talked about on the podcast a million times as you get higher and higher, but what's it like to be in your head when your blood sugar's higher. Like, like, what if your kids are acting up? Or your husband's being unreasonable? Or you have to make dinner? Like and like, what does that feel like to you?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:14
Yeah, I think it to me, it feels one I'm just annoyed. Right? And it's not annoyance with them, it's annoyance for the number for why ever it is where it is, right? And it could be even worse, if it was like a bad site. Right that now, you know, like, fiddling with for a while actually get it. And I think then it the mental piece of that then comes when you're trying to manage this number that you're not happy with. And somebody interrupts that train of thought in that interrupt by, they're not like doing it intentionally to ask you, you know, can we have applesauce for dinner Mom, you know, like, it's just a piece in the mix. So I think mine is more like, it's just a mental struggle at that point. And I do also tend to, I get kind of headachy not so much when I have lows, but more so when I am higher, it's that like, mental that foggy kind of piece. And it makes me feel headachy I'm not the kind that's like a throbbing, but it's like that cloudy kind of headache that you get. Um, and again, that's just an irritating factor in and of itself, too.

Scott Benner 6:36
So there's a mechanical portion of it where it is, you know, for whatever reason, either you may be missed on a Bolus, or like you said, your site went wrong or something. So there's, there's a mechanical thing, I need to fix this thing, which becomes irritating as it would to any person, like, like, if I walked into a doorframe, I'd be like, I cannot believe I just walked into a doorframe like that. So you've got that going on. And then you have the actual act of having to fix it. And then you're focused on that someone else comes in. So this is still all mechanical, like, but then the headache happens. And that's not something like a like a, like a warning light on your palm doesn't go off and say Jenny's got a headache now, right? So when a five year old comes at you, you you can't say to yourself, I'm, I feel a pain in my head that I'm not even aware of yet. I'm going to react it you don't have like, that's not how thinking works. So then you're just level of irritation is, does it? Here's how I just went, here's how my wife puts it. around her period, she'll tell me, I'm not being unreasonable, I just have less space for bullshit is how she puts it.

Unknown Speaker 7:48
That's really great.

Scott Benner 7:52
I don't I think she's covering for herself, but I understand the intent of what she's saying. So there's a there's a ceiling in people before they get upset. Right. And there's all kinds of, of outside irritants that can limit that ceiling. But just your blood sugar being higher physically, can take away from your ability to, to abide both, basically, I guess, correct.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:16
And, you know, from my standpoint, too, you know, with the work that I do, and all of the data management that I do and interpreting things for people. I mean, the majority of my management is just because I want to be healthy, right? But the other piece of it is it also leads into my work. Can I get worked on really well, if I'm sitting really high, or if I'm sitting really low? My brain isn't functioning well on either level. So that management piece is always also there to benefit people.

Unknown Speaker 8:51
So I'm not typing out a message that's like, you know, I don't know why your blood sugar.

Scott Benner 8:58
Mary, why don't you just figure it out yourself? I paid this lady to help me with my blood sugar. And she yelled at me. Yeah, that wouldn't be great. No, but but I want people to understand that whether and I think they do. But if I do, I think they do understand that a higher blood sugar could be an issue. But the problem is, again, that you don't walk around as a person with diabetes with your blood sugar across your forehead. So what I come up to you, you're just Jenny to me. I don't know if your blood sugar's to Swanee, and you have a headache. And so how, what I guess what should those people be looking for so that they can back up and go, Oh, you know what, this could be that because even if I understand that your budget, say I come up to you, you react oddly. And I immediately understand it's your blood sugar that's high. If I say to you, oh, your blood sugar is high. I'm sorry. That's just gonna make it worse. Right? That's the, that's the diabetes equivalent of me saying, Oh, you have your period. I won't bring up the car payment right now. Right. Okay. Okay.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:58
Yeah, yeah, kind of and I think it does bring up a good. A good point, though, especially for I think this is goes more for adults who have a spouse or a significant other or partner or whatever. Because like Nathan, he follows he's got Dexcom follow, you know if it's got my stuff, but I mean, he doesn't keep it open and follow me all day, he's got the alarm set, and all of that for like, high and low. But other than that, I mean, he just, he lets me alone, honestly, which I'm very thankful for outside of counting carbs for me if he's like done dinner or something, you know, which is awesome. But in that regard, I think it also means that as the person with diabetes, you kind of also have to share more at times. Because as I do more often with my kids, I share with them, you know, this is what I feel like right now and go color in your color book for like 10 minutes while mommy changes her bad pod, or whatever it is, no, but I think it means that you have to express a little bit in order to decrease the chance that somebody is going to interpret your reaction to something in the wrong way. Because certainly, I mean, that's happened if the married a long time. And there's definitely been like blood sugar reasons for reactions that didn't really come out as response that I meant it to come out kind of sounding like. So I think sometimes you have to be open enough to be able to say, Hey, you know, I need this, like 15 minutes to manage around this, come back and like, ask me in a bit, but that's

Scott Benner 11:38
gonna come out as I wish I would have dated your brother and said, there you go. So I have a little context around this, which I've mentioned off and on in the podcast over like, the last year or so. And it's just that my, my iron level got really low. And I completely understand what you're saying, like saying words, not having the intention behind them that the words have, and also not being able to see that it's happening. Like, that's the interesting thing, like when you're saying something to somebody, even if it's a tone, you know, just the wrong tone. And you don't know what's the wrong tone, while you're saying it. Like when you're being sarcastic with somebody when you're, you know, when you're in an argument, you're like, I'm gonna ramp this up, right now, you're aware, you're going to do like, I'm going to say something now that's going to make you upset, but it's happening. And not only do you not know what's happening, but you don't think it's happening. And that's the that's the real fascinating part like is that you're doing this, it feels like it's you're doing it but it's just that there's a level of a trace element or something in your body. For me, it was iron, you know, for you, it's gonna be not enough insulin, and you're just you're not yourself. And it's, um, it's tough, because you're asking, you're getting you're an adult who's ultra where their blood sugar's, like really like your, you know, you do an amazing job for yourself. So maybe you can see it. We're all trying, right, one way or the other. But, but my point is that maybe you've been able to teach yourself over time to go my numbers up, like I won't get involved in an important conversation right now. Or I'll send my kids off the color for a second so that I don't tell them I wish I didn't have children. But But you know, when your kids 16, or you're 24, and you've had diabetes for a year and a half, and you're at work, you don't you're not gonna see that comment like that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:38
No. And mine's more so in terms of like, like, spit out of things that I don't even know that I've like said the way that I've said is more so even when I'm low,

Unknown Speaker 13:50
honestly, yeah,

Scott Benner 13:51
let's switch to that idea. Now.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:52
It's, there's much more like the it's like a fragment of like thought in your brain. You're trying to manage how you're feeling with this low while you're probably waiting for the low to not be low anymore. And in that come the things of life. I mean, unless you're a single person and not interacting with kids or adults or other people around you. There's always someone you're interacting with. And that interaction, then in that time period where your brain isn't really firing off, right away. It doesn't you don't interpret it coming out in sort of the jagad way that it does. And then Aftermath is often Well, I'm really sorry, or, you know, I didn't mean that or I've Whoa, I felt like crap. And does it bother me?

Scott Benner 14:45
Does it feel like that afterwards, like after it's over and you're okay. Do you have the guilt that you did something wrong? Because it's not true. Right, you know,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:57
right. I mean, I'm only in the scenario that You know, we may have been potentially discussing something or whatnot. And that was the case during that discussion. Yeah, I mean that obviously every time by any means do I feel bad about, you know? Yeah. But yeah, it's a hard, it's a hard thing. And sometimes even with Lowe's, I think that I will have responded to something. And it's been in my head that I've actually and my husband will be like, Did you hear what I asked you? And I'll be like, I told you, whatever. And he's like, No, really,

Unknown Speaker 15:34
he didn't say it out loud.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:39
It's just like that muddiness that I think commented about before when I feel like I'm like, sort of like,

Scott Benner 15:45
that's the real low. There's a slide in there. There in the beginning, right. And numbers wise, doesn't really matter. But you know, if you're, the way I think of it with Arden is maybe between, I would say at 65, Arden maintains herself. Hey, Dad, I feel dizzy. You know, like, she's just like that. She's a little kind of jokey about it right there. It's almost like you could be like, hey, let's not do anything and see if you die. And she'd be like, Okay. Yeah. Yeah, right. She's elated for some reason, right there. Okay. And then it goes down and her energy drops away. But if you were to catch her there, somehow she got past the elated part into that part. And that's where you first intersected her. She'd be snappy, like L'Oreal short and nasty, right? And then I think after the nasty is what you were just talking about where the last, the last fragments or thoughts are, right? Yeah. Okay. It's almost like a and then there's, you know, falling over and not being able to help yourself. But as it's happening, are you able to consciously think, hey, my brain is trying to shut off and I'm the only one who's going to stop it. Right? Or does it turn into just a physical like, eat something feeling?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:02
I think it's probably a little bit of both. I mean, in my I can remember a specific time. Soon after my first was born, we had gone. I think it was to Kohl's, actually. And I was standing in, and I was nursing obvious at that point. So all the fluxes that can kind of come with blood sugar, and whatnot, mostly like lows, and my husband had gone off looking for something in like the men's department and I was standing like, in the toy department, we are looking for something specific for our little guy. And I can remember feeling low. And like, you can determine like those dropping lows. I was dropping. And so I sat down with my baby on the floor,

Unknown Speaker 17:48
the baby.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:50
And I get out, you know, my glucose tablets, and I'm eating my glucose tablets. And I, I had my husband found me, I mean, I was fine. But I was sitting there just like waiting for the load to fix itself, because I knew that I had taken care of it. But in that I had also gotten my phone out. And I was texting him to come to the kids department. Because I was low. Only I never hit send. Okay, I was just like, that's kind of that like, broken, like thought kind of that can happen. Well, do

Scott Benner 18:25
you ever get in a moment like that? is are you Cognizant enough to think don't fall forward on the baby? Like, do you? Like do you have those feelings? Like all the reason

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:33
that I sat down? I mean, from my back thought to what I was doing, I would have thought, you know, I need to sit down. I've got a baby who clearly can't stand on his own yet, you know, I mean, it was I think he was probably like six months old or something. Yeah. And it's a sit down, treat your low blood sugar. I mean, I've always been able to treat so I've never had an issue with not being able to help myself. Outside of like, when I was a teen with my parents. So yeah, but it's, it is I mean, in those instances, sometimes there's not enough to like even like, be angry, you just can't even communicate

Scott Benner 19:10
quite right. It's interesting. It's super interesting to me the way that first of all, the way your body handles falling blood sugar, it's, it's when you start losing faculties, your it's your body shutting down, it's basically services. It's like, Oh, we don't need that one, like and it just, it just it has this finite amount of sugar in your blood. And its goal is to keep your brain running. Correct, right. And so it starts shutting. Right, stop sending sugar to this idea and this idea and so you're like, going down and it's your body going like, it really is it's like let's try to see how long we can stay alive until something intervenes. But you describe the, the actual actions you take very similarly. Like are like okay, I'm not okay, I'll sit down. I'll start taking these things down. It's more important than telling someone right now it's important to tell like you're doing the same thing. You're making these like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:06
it's just that you're not like consciously. It's almost like your brain like those, like files in the back that were like, do this now, right? They take over, even though you're not really like, consciously aware that you're like sitting down and like drinking your juice box or whatever it is you do it because it's a habit. And you know what, that that's what you need to do with with the symptom?

Scott Benner 20:31
would, would you looking back on it a scenario like that, if that if the Jeeva hypo pan existed, then would you being with your baby, would that have been enough for you to be like, I'm not going to take tablets, I'm going to hit myself with glucagon. Or no, you still would have handled it that way.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:50
You know, possibly, with, with what I remember about that being such a quick drop in my blood sugar, I mean, it's not like we're running around the story. It's just like, I'd probably nurse before we went in the store to keep him happy. And like, there was enough to feed into the store. But,

Unknown Speaker 21:11
I mean, maybe,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:12
I mean, I certainly I've got like an extra bag Sydney, that I typically take out, especially when we're like traipsing around the neighborhood to the parks, and whatever. I mean, my eight year old knows about it. So I possibly I might have done that.

Scott Benner 21:29
Just because me with the back semi and like fit g vote now being like ready to go. But prior to that I only ever thought of glucagon is like, You passed out and somebody came upon you and gave it to you. Like that's how it felt. But now all of a sudden, like it's there, and it's easy to use. And like, I wondered about that, like how you would think about it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:49
Yeah, yeah, you could, I mean, it's certainly not a bad thought by any means. Especially I've worked with a couple of women post well through pregnancy, and then postpartum who have had spouses who've been military. And so they have after a certain amount of time, postpartum, you know, their spouse goes back, you know, might be deployed again, someplace completely away from where they are, they're pretty much on their own. With a baby, they might have the support of friends or family coming in once in a while, but that's not at two o'clock in the morning. So you know, in a case like that, where you're dropping a really low and you're really worried about it not sure. That's what a product like that is therefore it's also the benefit potentially, of, you know, like mini dosing that age old red Lily glucagon.

Scott Benner 22:38
So, here's the question then, because I came at this from the idea of the people who are going to interact with a person who's either too high or too low. I have to be honest, when Arden in the past has been too low, where she's refusing I just go with like, a forceful because I think like, I've tried talking or like, you know, I've gone with the Come on Sweetie, drink it. It's really important. Like that stuff. That doesn't go it's almost like you're not talking to the complete her. Now, you know, and so you just you make these declarative, forceful statement, drink the juice, drink it, drink the juice, drink the juice drink, and I'm talking I remember I know, people say to me all the time, you know, you must know what it's like to raise a little kid with diabetes back before all the technology and I don't talk about it very much, but it's really bad. And so you know, like back before CGM and all that. There's, it's three o'clock in the morning. You're there with a six year old and you're like art and drink the juice, like drink the goddamn juice right now, you know, and because there also was no CGM, like at some point. So what's happening? Yeah, I'm like, you know, and you don't, you're not yelling, you're gonna die. But you're, it's how it feels in your head when you're talking to them. And I think that's much easier to figure out with a low blood sugar, right? Like, that's obvious to people, but it's the, it's always the high ones that make me I feel badly, like, I feel badly when I hear I've used this example over and over again, but it sticks with me, like right in the center of my heart so much that a woman found the podcast, it helped her daughter. And when she sent me a note, months later to thank me, she said, I really just thought my daughter was a bitch her words, and that we weren't going to get along for our whole life. And it turns out, my daughter's a lovely person. And I didn't know because her blood sugar was always high. And that makes me want to cry. And, you know, and and the, the idea that that could happen. Either at the beginning, right, you'll hear people say, Oh, I didn't realize you know, that that stuff happened, or I helped somebody recently with a baby, a young kid who has autism. And he end up talking, I said, Hey, you might see a difference in you know, just how reality personally and stuff. And that person was so sure that that wasn't going to happen. And then three days later said to me, you know, he is happier. And I said, Yeah, like you don't, you don't know. And then that's a sadder situation, because then the poor kid couldn't tell, you know, isn't right verbal to begin with very much. And but I just think about that for everybody else. Like, if you're running around with blood sugars that are 170, all the time your body gets used to it. So physically, you think you're okay, but you're not like you're not the person, you were going to be. Right without diabetes, you know. And so, there's just

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:35
not even from a mental standpoint to even from performance, right? You may not be, you may not be putting out everything you possibly could putting things together, whether it's in school, or college, or job or whatever. Because your brain is really not working at the level of glucose that is healthy for it to work at

Scott Benner 26:02
this conversation is at the core, why I initially years ago, brusque, so hard at the idea of better high than low. I was like, I don't think that's right. Yeah. You know, like, I think that that that does not seem right to me, I've known people who through a lifetime, we're not who they were supposed to be, I just know it and it, you lose your you know, it's it every day you lose, it's gone, every hour you lose is gone. And then days turn into months to turn into yours. And before you know what people just think you're a prick. And you know, and that's just not,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:35
and you may not be at all.

Scott Benner 26:38
Yeah, maybe with another two units of basil all day long, you would have been an absolutely delightful person. And that, and, and then I think about the people on the other side who have to deal with you who love you. And then think, Oh, I love a guy who's just a jerk, but maybe isn't, or you know, vice versa, or your kids or I don't know, I just I want people to be very aware that outside of a normal range, that the lack of or addition of sugar in your blood is having a real big impact on your personality and your ability to live and make decisions and everything right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:11
I mean, I've even had parents who have asked me, you know, how do you? How do you discipline your child with diabetes? When you're like, Do you always refer back to the blood sugar to begin with? Or, you know, do you just discipline them as if they don't have diabetes? And quite honestly, think if they require discipline, because they threw the stone through the front window? Because they were aiming and wanted to do it? I mean, really, unless their blood sugar's like 12 really loud are really high. Obviously, that was a that was like a decision on their part. They deserve to be punished right? away that your, if your blood

Scott Benner 27:52
sugar is 150, and you're breaking windows, you're just get Yeah, but but but I mean, but if you're a bunch of just been to 20 for your whole life, and you can't do well in math. It might not be because you're not good at math. Right. And you got to make that decision. Yeah, I mean, listen, I there are times there's been one or two times that Arden's been so low, that she has said horrible things to me. And I just I bear down and I think that's the blood sugar, and I just let it go. But you really have to be ready for it like because it's hard not to react. You know, I mean, Jenny, I'll bleep this out later. But when an eight year old calls your mother, you're, you know, you're like, whoa, hold on. Please drink the juice. I wasn't looking for this. I did. And, you know, I've heard adults talk about it too, in a married situation where one person is physically stronger than the other person. And you know, can get low and then get, you know, right, violent, like, not on purpose, right. And now you're, you know, a much different situation. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:05
I actually had that when I was working in DC, a couple, an older couple had actually come into our diabetes clinic. And the man was complaining, he's like, sometimes I'm scared. I think she had gone to the bathroom or something. And they were just chatting. And I think it was on the topic of like, hypose. And he brought up he's like, sometimes I'm kind of scared of her. He's like, one day she threw a coffee cup and Okay, well, that wasn't really your wife. That was a low blood sugar.

Scott Benner 29:38
So I will tell you for blood sugars every 95 and she throws something at you. I don't think she likes you.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:44
Then there was something you did really nasty wrong

Scott Benner 29:46
to her so well. That's okay. I appreciate you talking about me. That was really good.

Could you just not talk to Jenny every day? I know I could. I wish I could actually just doesn't work out like that. Anyway, Jenny does this for a living it integrated diabetes comm and you can check her out there, there's a link in the show notes. What comes next is about the T one D exchange. If you heard it in the last episode with Johnny, and you haven't done it, let's get to it. But if you haven't, the T one D exchange needs your help. And the help they need is super simple to give. You just go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. That's my link, use that link. And then when you get there, click on join our registering now. And after that you complete this simple, quick survey. It's for us residents only. But it's so easy. Like right now, if you did it right now look at your watch. Or you probably want to watch to pick up your phone, touch the face of it. If you did it right now, you'd be done in less than 10 minutes. It took me three hours to bring you this episode. And this is all I'm asking in return. One day exchange.org forward slash juice box. I mean, seriously, I the book Jenny, record the thing, edited it. I mean, you notice how there's no like pops and clicks and noises and nothing distracting while you're listening. You're welcome. That was me. Scott, click click click with the mouse. I fixed the whole thing for you. hours it took like you're just like, Oh, it was a quick 25 minute episode. It was nice. God said insulins important, blah, blah, no, no, there's more than that. It's deep. It's deep. It's building a narrative in your life about type one diabetes, giving you the tools and the access to information for the free. And all I ask is that you go to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. I only need 6000 of you to do it. I mean, there were hundreds of 1000s of downloads last month, I just need six of you. And I'm saying of the hundreds of 1000s of downloads. I need 6000 I'm tired of saying it too. I know you're tired of hearing it. I'm tired of saying it. But I mean, at some point one of us has got to pick up the manual and do their part. I can only do this I filled out the survey is easy. Alright, I'm gonna stop. I apologize. That was I that was too much, too much. I should just say T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You need to be a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of someone with type one. Please go fill it out if you have the chance. I mean, that's that's how I should say it. But I mean, come on this podcast is amazing. And it's free. Free. And what do I say to you? You know, if you want to try out an omni pod, go to Omni pod comm forward slash juice box I say if you want to check out a Dexcom go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box I say want to get a great meter Contour. Next One comm forward slash juice box I say hey, my daughter's got this G Volk. hypo pen, you should check it out. That's it. I mean, you don't have to check it out. I'm not telling you to buy an ami. But it's not like if you don't buy an ami pad and I love to listen anymore. I'm just saying if you're going to go check it out. But this T one D exchange thing. I mean, you're on the internet constantly. I see the people in my life. I know you don't put the phone down. And I'm not judging you. I'm just saying while you're doing it. You don't I mean, p one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Help a guy out a little bit. Make me beg you. It's embarrassing. I'll tell you what, if the T one D exchange contacts me at the end of the month, next month, the end of June and says we've added 1000 new people to the registry. Thanks to you. If they say that. What will I do? I will do an online talk about using insulin. Once a week, in July, once a week. Okay, I'll come on. I'll do it on zoom. It'll be free, obviously, because you helped me out with the D one D exchange thing. And I will answer everyone's questions as long as I can. If we reach 1000. Now if we reach 1500 I'll get Jenny on one of those calls. If you do 2000 I'll do the call. Right? Every day every what I say every week in July, Jenny wants and what else will I do? I'll do something else. That's cool. I don't know what yet, but trust me, I'll come through T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Use the link. complete the survey. That's it.

#484 The More Bella Knows

Bella thinks of type 1 diabetes differently then she once did.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 484 of the Juicebox Podcast.

I want to try that again. I don't like how like affected my voice was Hello friends and welcome to Episode 484 of the Juicebox Podcast. On today's show, Bella Bella was diagnosed as a small child, she's more of an adult now, and she wanted to share with you what it was like growing up with Type One Diabetes. She's gonna tell you know, how seriously she took it. And how seriously she takes it now. So there's a difference between then and now. You're about to find out. 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you're looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes, the defining diabetes episodes what else how we eat after dark, there's a lot to choose from, you can get a juice box, wow it just like bit my lip or something, you can go to Juicebox podcast.com. You can also go to diabetes pro tip calm for the pro tips and the defining stuff. And now this has gotten confusing.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. The episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. It is simply the easiest, brightest and most accurate blood glucose meter I've ever used. That's it. That's that's I mean that's the sound man. Contour. Next One forward slash juice box. If you find something that's more important than bright light, easy to read, easy to use Second Chance test strips and fits nicely in your pocket your purse your bag. I mean, what do you need? We need like be flashing lights or colors? Or? Actually I think it has that too. Let me think of something even more ridiculous. What do you need like bells and whistles. You don't need bells and whistles you need accuracy, ease, etc, etc. Oh, by the way, and reasonably priced to go check it out.

Bella 2:34
So hi, my name is Bella. I am 23 years old. And I live in Indiana in the US, of course. And I have been a type one diabetic going on 14 years now. So this December, it'll be 14 years. So I was diagnosed when I was nine years old. I was in the fourth grade. I wanted to come on the podcast originally I remember I sent you an email. And I was like during the peak of quarantine. And I was listening to your podcast on a walk I think and I was just like, you know, I think I'm gonna email him because I finally had the balls to just be like, let's thank him for the podcast and then throw in there, you know if you ever want me to be on it. Um, but yeah, I originally wanted to come on, I think just to give my perspective on growing up without taking care of your diabetes, I was very uncontrolled. Um, and now I am really controlled. Like, I'm very proud of how far I've came. And it's great. And I feel really healthy. And I think that's, yeah, no, it's really good. And that was originally why we wanted to come on. But it's been a couple months now. So I was thinking about yesterday, I was like, Well, what would I even say? So it's kind of just like whatever we talk about, we talk about.

Scott Benner 3:59
I already have questions. So a couple things. First of all, I'm from Indiana, in the United States, of course. So I'm not certain if you meant Obviously, I'm from the United States or obviously you all know that Indiana is in the United States. And now that I'm saying it I'm not sure why I said it told me that first

Bella 4:14
obviously us like after Indiana is of course in the US. Sorry. Not like of course I'm from the US because your podcast which is pretty far and wide. doesn't hate

Scott Benner 4:23
does. It was just it was it was the it was I don't know what it was like the balance of the words that came out. I was like, is she apologizing for having told people that it's in the US? I'm not 100%?

Bella 4:32
Oh, no, I'm not apologizing. Sometimes I should. We should probably collectively apologize but no.

Scott Benner 4:42
So and in fourth grade. I endured the entire the entirety of I think the worst teacher I had in the in the whole time. I was really I was your fourth grade experience.

Bella 4:56
Oh my gosh. So I had the best teacher. She was Sweet, so nice. She was like straight out of college. And I remember she was so kind to me. And she was just so sweet and I loved her so much. But fourth grade, getting diagnosed, that on the other hand was really hard for me. I remember, while I remember, my diagnosis was pretty weird. Well, it's not weird. I'm sure it's fairly common. But at the time, it felt weird. So I was, I was peeing the bed for like, a couple nights in a row. And my mom was like, obviously, like, something's wrong. You're in fourth grade, like, you shouldn't be peeing the bed. And it was like, I don't know what, two or three nights in a row. So she made me a doctor's appointment. I went to the doctor, all that good stuff happened, which I could go into detail on if you're curious.

Scott Benner 5:49
Well, but I want to know, if something if there was good stuff in details, tell me a little bit about it.

Bella 5:55
I remember going to the doctor. It was like halfway through the school day. So I left school early. And I don't really remember that much from the time period. Like, I feel like I've subconsciously blocked out a lot of my childhood diabetic years. What I do remember, I've like very vivid flashes of memory from that day. So I went to the doctor, like the local pediatrician office in the town nearby, and they I think I like peed in a cup. And then I think they tested my blood sugar. And I was like crazy high in the five hundreds. And I just remember them. The doctor, she was a female and she, I just remember her being like, Okay, I think like you have diabetes, you're going to have to go home and pack your bags and go to the hospital. And I just remember crying because my mom was upset, but I like I had no clue what that meant. So I wasn't able to really like fathom why I was upset or what was going on. And I remember I remember like the sweater I was wearing. I was wearing this like green and purple sweater with little balls on it. Very, like, early 2000s was adorable. And I remember being like, I'm so hungry. Can I eat something? And then the doctor was just like, you can go like, you should get some chicken nuggets. That should be okay. So I went to Wendy's got some chicken nuggets, which probably wasn't great for my blood sugar because they're breaded. But whatever.

Scott Benner 7:29
We're also not 100% sure they're chicken. But I digress. Yeah,

Bella 7:31
yeah, probably not. But they were Wendy's. And like to us, as far as chicken nuggets go. I feel like I don't eat meat at the moment. But I remember them being pretty good. So, yeah, when I went home, and I remember my sister was there with my grandma, and they were upset. And I feel like I was just like, Why is everyone upset? Like, what does this mean? And I went to the hospital. And I was there for like five days.

Scott Benner 7:57
And I have to tell you, though, I grew up so broke, I would imagine everybody was crying because of how much mattress cost?

Bella 8:04
Oh, my gosh. I had no clue about the reality of pricing and medical systems. And obviously, I mean, I was nine. I just

Scott Benner 8:13
had so many times I'm figuring you needed a new mattress.

Bella 8:18
I did. I assume I did. I mean better hope. I Yeah, right. You would hope so I, man, I'm trying to think about it. And I have missed

Unknown Speaker 8:29
your whole childhood just like what is that?

Bella 8:33
I literally, I had to have gotten a new mattress

Scott Benner 8:37
that with your mom and we'll put it at the end of the episode. I expect an email a couple days from now it says I've talked to my mom and mattress was not or was replaced.

Bella 8:45
I will definitely ask her. I'll ask her after I get off with you because I'm really curious now.

Scott Benner 8:52
Well, we sit fourth, fourth grades. Interesting, I think because obviously you have like real memories from the time so we're old enough to retain memories from it. young enough to not know the details. Yeah. But that's Um, I think that makes sense. I think if you were a few years younger, it would make sense. I have to tell you, I was joking earlier, but my fourth grade teacher made me hate math. So much. I'm going to admit this something. Do you mind if I admit to something? No, no, of course not. So we were learning multiplication in fourth grade. And I know that in a modern society people like yeah, I learned multiplication when I was like, you know, six, but it was the 70s and they were taking us slow. So every Friday, we'd show up, and he'd give us 100 quick multiplication, things like, you know, four times six and two times three. And you had I'm going to forget but I think it was five minutes to do 100 of them. Now the indication as I'm saying them is that these you know should be to you that these multiplication tables We're just the ones that everyone knows like three times six, and everyone listening just thought 18 except I was a little behind. And every one you got wrong. He sent you home on Friday, you had to write out each one you got wrong 10 times, what the heck, I freeze up and panic and start thinking about how it was going to lead to a weekend of writing multiplication tables. My dad yelling at me, my mom seeming disappointed my parents who were not great like, parents, they were, I don't know how to put it. They weren't good at fixing problems, I guess. And so I just would get to that test in the morning, I'd freeze up there were times I'd get 70 of them wrong, and spend every waking hour of the weekend writing out these multiplication tables. Well, he turned me off to it so much that I'm going to tell you now and people listening, I think imagine I'm a reasonably bright person, right? I used I did not know. I did not know how to do those basic multiplication tables for two and a half more years. Until, until I failed a math class in sixth grade, sixth grade, I was an algebra. And I couldn't do it. I failed it. I had to go to summer school. And that summer, sitting in my grandmother's house where I had to live so that I could be closer to the summer school. I thought to myself, This is ridiculous. And I sat at a table and taught myself all of those multiplication tables in like two hours.

Bella 11:31
That's amazing, though, that the end of the story. That's amazing. But honestly, I feel like that's really traumatizing. So I completely understand that.

Scott Benner 11:38
I mean, I'm 48 you guys here. I might be 48 or 49. I'm having trouble this year knowing how old I am. But that's funny happened to me a few years ago. But I I absolutely still like obviously you hear me joke about it. Like I'm worried that I'm not good at math. Because of that. And yeah, and it's not. It just was I think it was that exact time like I ran to the wrong guy at the wrong time was my point.

Bella 12:01
Yeah, I do get that. I definitely understand that.

Scott Benner 12:04
So what happened to you that you, you know, how was your management in those early years? Because you're really you want to talk about having not done well for yourself for a long time. So how did it begin?

Bella 12:15
Yeah, so I remember and I was actually telling my mom this morning, I was like, because I live with my mom right now. Because COVID is COVID is really making things great in the real world. But I told him that I was coming on this podcast, and she was like, well make sure you tell him that. You were sent to the hospital for a couple days. And they just had different doctors in and out every day. And none of them were specialists. None of them were endocrinologists there was like their pediatric team. And none of them taught us how like they didn't get like they didn't teach us anything I remember, like sticking things with syringes. Um, and I remember the first bit of being diagnosed, I would we would call the doctor like, I would be home and they would have us call the doctor to get like information on how to give myself injections, like how to correctly give the correct amount. And I just remember one of the doctors was so mean. And I remember he was like yelling at my mom. Or in my memory, he was yelling at my mom, who knows. I could have fabricated like that memory, in my mind. But he was mean and they were like not really helping us. But I think that in the early years, probably like the first two years, I was really resistant. I remember I didn't want to have shots. My mom said she would have to like hold me down sometimes just to inject me. And I think those first couple years my I mean, I didn't really do anything when I was nine years old. But I think that my so my dad wasn't really around much. So he was never really involved in my diabetes care. But I think my mom was completely overwhelmed. And she didn't,

Scott Benner 14:04
like, wasn't doing well. And then she got yelled at on top of that. This is my story about multiplication. Go ahead. I must Yeah,

Bella 14:12
pretty much and I don't think she she didn't have the resources to to learn how to take care of me or to teach me to take care of myself. And that's something that I've really had to come to terms with. Recently, since I started taking care of myself. It's something that I've really had to work on, not not letting myself resent her for because it's really easy for me to look back and be like man, like for all those years like I was slowly killing myself. And like you didn't know any better to help me not do that. But like I said she didn't know any better. So I think those first couple years. We were just doing what we could with the resources we had and I think that's why it's so great. So sometimes listen to your podcast and hear all these parents who take care of their kids so well, and it just gives me so much joy. But until I really listened to your podcast, I like I didn't really think that my situation was abnormal. Like, I didn't think that I didn't really think anything about how my mom didn't really know what she was doing. And it was kind of just like flying by the seat of I don't know that saying, but

Scott Benner 15:26
it's flying. fly by the seat of your pants. How old are you? I'm 23. There's an episode that went up yesterday with Julia, who's you know, a little older than you and I needed her to say like a test sentence and I said, Hey, say, I don't I forget what it was like. Susie sells seashells by the seashore or the rain. Oh, yeah. The rain falls mainly on the plane. And she's like, what I'm like the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains. And she's like, what is that?

Bella 15:53
Yeah, no, I know that Susie Selden sees seashells by the seashore. That's a hard one. Nice

Unknown Speaker 15:59
try, Bella.

Scott Benner 16:01
Well, listen, I think that your story is why I am really proud of the podcast.

Bella 16:10
Yeah, I would be too. And that's why like, I like I don't want to be like, Oh, your podcast saved me. Because it didn't. I mean, like, I saved my self. Like I learned everything on my own technically, but your podcast has been just so helpful. And like, I know that I'm not the only one out there who like, learned how to Pre-Bolus and I'm just learned all these helpful tools. And yeah, it's something to be really proud of. for you. I hope that you're so proud of it.

Scott Benner 16:40
Well, I am but not as proud as I am of this fly by the seat of your pants is parlance from the early days of aviation aircraft initially had few navigational aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilots judgment. The tip of the term emerged in the 30s and was first widely used in reports of Douglas Corrigan's flight from the US to Ireland in 1938. I guess he was flying by the seat of his pants.

Unknown Speaker 17:06
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 17:07
there we go.

Unknown Speaker 17:07
Moreno.

Scott Benner 17:09
Oh, yeah, I wish we could had like license for that in that music. That'd be right. I'd be like doing that right now. Anyway, do you even know what the see there's an interesting thing. Do you even know where the more you know comes from?

Bella 17:21
No, I don't where does it come from?

Scott Benner 17:25
Love this. It was a it was a thing on NBC. And besides the television, I wonder how far you have to go with people your age, like NBC, like Netflix, but you don't pay for it. It's

Unknown Speaker 17:37
I know what NBC

Scott Benner 17:39
they used to have these public service announcements. And on like the whole NBC thing in the United States, and they put out these educational messages. And at the end of it, there'd be this little music Hold on, let me see if I can play it.

Could you hear that? No. All right, well, I'll put it in what I'm making, what I'm making the podcast. But it was this like kind of star flying through space. And it had the words The more you know, and it played this little like, piano music behind it.

Bella 18:10
Wow, this has been so like, I'm really learning. I appreciate that learning

Scott Benner 18:15
and culturing, please, if this is culture, you're in trouble, Bella. But I'm just saying that. It's super interesting that you, you use phrases

Unknown Speaker 18:25
that you don't know or that I don't know, all of

Scott Benner 18:26
us that you you're using them properly, but you don't know where they came from or why they exist. That's so

Bella 18:31
yeah, that's really interesting. I've never thought about that. But that's a really good point. And I probably use so many that I honestly have no clue what the heck they actually like. Yeah, what you know where they're from?

Scott Benner 18:42
Well, you have to wonder too, right? How many people managing their diabetes or doing things? Because they heard it or heard enough of it to know that it's a rule in this one situation, but don't know why don't have the background information around it?

Bella 18:59
Yeah, and probably so many. I mean, like, I mean, so many, I mean, I didn't even fully understand until like, probably a year ago, how fat and protein affect the blood sugar and I still sometimes struggle with like really high fat meals. Um, but that's besides the point they're not

Scott Benner 19:23
it's not really know what I'm telling you is that my silly little stories and diabetes all are basically the same thing. It's, it's you just said the more you know, like you understood what that was, and you did enough, but not completely. So your, your mom's at home, she's got the needle, she's got the insulin, she understands a bit of it, but not enough. Like she gets to like when and the maybe the why, but not the how. And she has no context for what she's doing. And she's trying to make her way through this incredible difficult thing. Meanwhile, you're running around the house, like, being like, you're not putting a needle in me. Yeah. And, and, and it sounds like and not that I'm digging, but your dad might have been a spy or something because you said he wasn't around very much. She's doing it by yourself. And that's a lot of stuff for a person. How old? Was she at that time? Do you know?

Bella 20:19
Um, so she had me when she was 40. So she was an older lady birth older. So she was probably what, like 49, almost 50

Scott Benner 20:27
years she was done with you already in her hip her?

Unknown Speaker 20:31
Yeah.

Bella 20:34
Yeah, it was. I think that also, it's been really easy for me to focus myself in that story of like, this was so hard on me, like, this is my life. Like, how could you not have known better, but like, we've had some brief conversations about it here and there. And I know that she's really good at talking about her feelings. I mean, I'm not that great at talking about my feelings, either. Vulnerability was not something that I saw modeled in the household as a kid, which is something that I really strive to be better at, and more vulnerable. But so the small conversations that we have had about it, I can tell that it was hard on her. But I don't think she fully knows how to talk about it and like, unleash those emotions with me. So I can't really say much of how she like was actually thinking and what was actually going through her mind.

Scott Benner 21:30
That's called for your mom. Yeah. Is that cultural for your mom? Is she Irish? Oh,

Bella 21:37
I have no clue what it is. And I have tried to think about it. I don't know what it is, Neither of my parents really modeled vulnerability. I assume that neither of their parents did either, like the generational trauma that just goes down and down. But

Scott Benner 21:56
how we deal with it? Because it sounds like you're aware of it, or do you break through? Or do you I'm

Bella 22:01
trying, I'm trying so hard? Yes, I am aware of it. And I really want to be better at the things that my parents missed out, on or could have improved on. And I know that if I ever have kids, I'll have my own, you know, own stuff, that is gonna be my stuff. And then they'll probably want to be better than me at that stuff. But yeah, with emotions and vulnerability, that's something that I really have been trying to work on. And I think that also, it comes back to diabetes. So largely for me, because I remember that I was so overwhelmed when I was younger. Because I was pretty, I was like, once I was in like, sixth grade, I was practically managing everything on my own, like, my mom would take me to doctor's appointments. And she would call insurance, and she would go get my prescriptions and pay for everything. But I, you know, I was the person who was giving the shots. I was testing my blood sugar, and I just wasn't doing it like, and I wasn't doing a good job. Well, that's what I was trying,

Scott Benner 23:10
were you not doing it willfully? Were you not doing it? Well, because you didn't know how and did you just give up at some point?

Bella 23:18
Yeah, I didn't know how. And then. So I feel like diabetes is like, I don't know, it's I feel like it's like, you're told that you have to write a book in a different language, but you don't know this language. And you're given a dictionary in the other language, it's like, you're not like, I unless you have this information, you're not able to do it. And I didn't have the information. My mom didn't have the information. Um, and so I was just doing what I thought was normal, which was really not doing anything. And I remember I would like go to the nurse to check my blood sugar every day at lunch, you know, it would be in like the two hundreds and I would be so ashamed because I didn't think that it should be that. But I didn't know how to like, I didn't know why it was that high, or I didn't really know how to get it normal or what tools to use to get it normal. And well, yeah,

Scott Benner 24:13
you know, the evolution is, first I'm gonna go back for a second. Do you see you're describing, you know, things that your parents didn't have, that their parents probably didn't give them? And how you're trying to break free of that. Do you see why human evolution takes so long?

Bella 24:30
Yeah, there's really no I understand that. And I understand it's just a lot.

Scott Benner 24:36
Well, yeah, because you're also living at the same time. But if I if I took you and you know, I set you out in a nice field and put you in a small cabin and gave you all the things you needed to eat and said Bella, hey, we're here's all your you know, your your human failings and shortcomings work on them right now. You'd still struggle with it. But yeah, you got to go to school and get a job and have personal relationships. You're building a life, again, with incomplete tools, just like you're trying to manage your diabetes with incomplete tools.

Bella 25:10
I completely agree with that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 25:12
Well, it's just, it's the obvious nature of figuring out something complicated.

Bella 25:19
Yes, and complicated. It is.

Scott Benner 25:23
I'm sorry, you broke up for a second.

Bella 25:25
complicated it is like, it's definitely complicated.

Scott Benner 25:29
Everything's complicated, but when. So you can break it down as far as you want, and say, you know, the doctors didn't give you good tools. But the doctors are also people who were raised by people. And they're working through their stuff as they go to their job, which happens to be the most important thing in your world. At the moment, you've just been diagnosed with diabetes, you're counting on the doctor that came in, that doctor could be fighting with his spouse could have been raised by terrible people, like you have no idea like what leads somebody into their profession, maybe they're there in that room struggling with your demons, maybe your mom got on the phone with a doctor. And your mom reminded the doctor of his mother, who was who was helpless in her relationship with her husband, and he wishes subconsciously that she would have stood up there was like, who knows why he was mad. You don't mean like, it's, it's crazy. So at some point, we all have to take control and responsibility and say to ourselves, I don't read the words in this dictionary. I can't understand what they are. But I have to write this book. And then forget everything that anyone's told you in the past and approach it from a common sense nature, which I think is what I tried to do here. And it sounds like you did it on your own at some point. So So how long did you struggle and when did you start figuring it out?

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My favorite part, so I probably shouldn't have talked over the Contour. Next One blood glucose meter, like I said earlier is simply great. It is accurate, easy to use, easy to hold easy to handle, it has Second Chance test strips, which means you can hit the blood not get enough go back and get more without messing up your test accuracy. And it's got big numbers on it. Right? I mean, what else you need, like the light at night is showing in bite. Deep in the heart. Never mind. It's got a bright light for at night. I can't believe I run that twice. I didn't mean to now my brains and I'll loop. Listen, you need a great meter. It's one of those things you don't think about. We all just take the meter the doctor gives us they yank it out of a drawer. They're like here meter go I go free. Great. Something's easy. Except is it accurate? Is it easy, really? Or is it just the one they had? meters are not that expensive? At least the Contour Next One is and so check it out. It's an amazing website with all the answers that you need. They have a test trip program, if you are eligible, some people are even eligible for a free meter. Listen, I've said free and great and accurate a lot. And it's worth clicking on it. You know what I mean? Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. You deserve a great meter. It's not. meters shouldn't be throwaway items they shouldn't be. What's that word when you just like, you don't think of something? God like me, this is ruining the flow of this. You know what I mean? Like an afterthought. afterthought is what I meant. meters shouldn't be an afterthought. It should be a choice you make and get something good. Maybe forgetting something, right? Like you have an ice cream cone on the table and an ice cream grown on the ground. And one on the ground has rocks in it. And there's an ant crawling on it and some bird crap on the cone. And there's one on the table. It's clean. Do you go Yeah, I'll just take the first one someone asked me. Now put in the tiniest bit of effort. You get a good ice cream cone. It's not a really deep metaphor so you understand I'm saying like put in a tiny bit of effort and make sure you have a great meter contour next comm forward slash juicebox links in the show notes links at Juicebox Podcast comm thanks for listening. Let's get back to battle.

Bella 30:02
I struggled until, I mean, I still struggle. Of course we have our days, but I struggled all the time, I think, until I was about 20. So it hasn't been that long. And I would have some good periods where my blood sugar would be fairly stable in those periods. But like, my a one sees, well, first of all, I think this is important to tell you I didn't know what an AE one c meant, until I was like 20 years old. So that's like, what, like 11 years of diabetes without knowing what an AE one C was. I just have a hard time fathoming that at this point,

Scott Benner 30:49
yep, that a one C. And you'd be like, and they would tell you, there's a number you're shooting for basically, you'd be under it or over it, meaning, you know, I guess they'd be like, Oh, you missed or you're doing great. And then that was it. No one ever told you what the agency was or what it did. And you didn't take any steps to figure out what it was. And by the way, I find I'm not coming down on you. I think this is incredibly common. So

Bella 31:11
I think it is too. I think it's easy to feel like it's not common, because like we hear the podcast and, you know, you see all these people on Instagram who seemed like they have everything figured out. But I think the reality of diabetes is that I'm a more common story than Well, now I have not everything together. But now I'm pretty well controlled. And I'm really proud. But I think that my past is actually way more common than people like me with agencies that are good now, because even now I'll go to my doctor, and she's like, you are doing perfect. In my head. I'm like, are you serious, like, I'm not doing perfect at all. But to her, when she sees people all day, that you know, the air agencies are in the eights, nines, 10s, whatever they are, when she gets me coming in, my agency is in the fives. And it's been in the fives for over a year. So I'm really proud of that. Yeah, but when she sees that, I bet she's like, holy crap. This girl like she's got it like, I don't even need to. I don't need to do anything.

Scott Benner 32:11
I know. That's how they treat us. That is,

Unknown Speaker 32:13
yeah,

Scott Benner 32:14
and I'm standing there. I'm like, now you have no idea. There are things I don't get about this. And I don't even bother asking them because I think that their norm is keeping people in the seats. And I think they turn into cheerleaders for people. Like I think so. You know, um, it's, you know, you said that everyone on Instagram looks like they have it figured out. I would say that, you know, remove diabetes from that sentiment for a moment. And remember that Instagram is all about making you look like you have everything right.

Unknown Speaker 32:44
Yeah. You know, yeah,

Scott Benner 32:46
right. It's just is it is that it's pictures. And by the way, I don't come down in those I know, it's a systemic problem at this point that everyone is showing their best moment. And therefore the people who are looking in feel like oh, everybody's doing better than me. But at the same time, if you start a social media platform with photos, did you expect people were going to put up like ratty looking pictures of themselves? Yeah,

Bella 33:10
that's true. Like, it's not like I wake up, and I my hair isn't something you know?

Scott Benner 33:15
Like, my friends?

Bella 33:18
Yeah, no, that's a really great point. But also with Instagram. Like, I don't know how I, this was a couple this, I was like 20, like I said, so I don't know how but I started following someone that did yoga. And they were also a diabetic. And I don't know how I found them. But I remember seeing like that this person can take care of themselves, because they would share about their diabetes sometimes. And I remember seeing that and seeing that they could do all these things and have normal blood sugar. And that really motivated me that was kind of like a wake not a wake up call. But I was seeing it modeled for really the first time that it is possible to control yourself. And so that was actually a huge push for me to get my shit together and to learn and to start trying. So even though Instagram is something that can be so negative, and just not always great in that context. It was very, I don't know, it was helpful. And it's weird to think back and think that Instagram was helpful in that way. But it's pretty cool at the same time that it was,

Scott Benner 34:27
I 100% believe, but I also think it's interesting that you think of it as negative because the people you're following and the things they're sharing aren't negative. It's people's responses that are negative.

Bella 34:39
Yeah. And it's how we use it. That makes it negative.

Scott Benner 34:43
Yeah. And meanwhile, you can even understand those people's responses. Like imagine this. Imagine you instead of living for 10 years with diabetes and not doing great with it, you were 30 years into it, and now you're at home and your health is as you know, pours 30 years worth a really Bad management leads you to, and then you open up Instagram because you know, you're like, oh, maybe I can find some community here some light. And the first thing is, is somebody who comes along and they're just like, look at me, I do yoga, I perfect my body's tone, I can bend my leg back behind my head, and my eight one C is, you know, 5.1 a lot of people do not have the, the emotional maturity, some of them to blood sugars might be swinging all over the place as well. So they could be in their head kind of all over the place. And you would understand if their response was, you. You don't I mean, like I'm dying over here, literally and figuratively, and and, you know, you want to lash out at somebody, I don't even know if that's luck. I don't even know if that's negative, or if it's just a reasonable response. Some people have better responses, there's a person who will stick in my head forever, who was on Facebook, I don't know, were on some group, begging for help for people with her diabetes. And she was an adult who had had type one for I think, like 30 years and a bunch of kids. And she had come to this realization that she was going to die sooner than she wanted to, and that her children were going to be alone. And so she's helped asking people for help. And some of them came in and said, you should you should ask this guy Scott and tagged me in it. So I had her call me on the phone. And I gave her like, basically like, you know, the our primer on the way I think about blood sugars. And a couple of days later, like no lie, like two days later, she sent me this. This graph, and she had never been over 125 or 120. And she wasn't under 70 for like a whole day. Wow, super excited. Asked the sugar callback calls me back. She's crying. And I think these are gratitude tears allow the and then I realized No, that's not what this is. She was angry. Super, super, super angry, by the way that for 30 years, no one could get across to her what only really took an hour to understand, oh,

Bella 37:06
I completely understand that. I completely get that. And it's such a hard thing to come to terms with. And that's something that I personally have had a another hard time accepting. I have had periods where I'm just so angry at myself for how horribly I was controlling myself. And I guess not controlling my blood sugar's

Scott Benner 37:34
though you know that that's unreasonable, right?

Bella 37:37
Oh, yes, of course. I know that. That's something and I feel like it like I said, it's a process. So it's something that I've worked on. But yeah, I used to have those periods where I was just angry about, well, holy crap, like, Look, look at how I treated myself. And I think that also what that comes back to with me is fear for the future, which is also unreasonable. So I know that as well. I know, these things are unreasonable. But still, they persist. And they're hard. Because I think, with diabetes we hear all day long. Well, not all day long. But it's constantly being spouted in the media, and in all these things, that diabetes, you know, kills you complications, yada, yada. And so I think something that I've had to have a hard time with is trying to accept that how I treated myself in the past doesn't necessarily equate to how my future health will be.

Scott Benner 38:34
Well, do you think you who you are right now, the person Bella is today would have done that to herself, then? Like would have done like, if you could go back in time, and relive your life with your thoughts and knowledge that you have now? You wouldn't have done that to your viewer?

Bella 38:51
Oh, no, of course not. Right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:53
But you didn't know the things you know now.

Bella 38:56
Exactly. And that's why it's something that is accepted. Like, I can't be angry, but you can't be angry about the past, you don't know any better. Everyone's just doing the best that they can with what they have available. And that's what I was doing at the time. So a lot of wisdom, though. No, thanks. I try.

Scott Benner 39:18
I'm really impressed. Because usually your generation goes one way or the other. It's very, it's really interesting. It's either it's either very much like, Hey, did you see this thing on Twitter? Or, like these very deep thoughts? Um, I'm hoping more people have deeper thoughts.

Bella 39:34
I hope so too. I do agree with that, though. It's funny, because I'll connect with people my age, and sometimes I'm just like, I don't care. what you're talking about. This is silly. And then, but then also, like, I don't think I'm one of those people who has very deep thoughts like I have some friends that I'm just so intelligent and they'll say stuff and I'm just like, Man, I wish that I had an ounce of your ability to formulate words in such an intelligent manner, don't you think?

Scott Benner 40:00
The desire for that is what leads to it. Honestly, like, don't you think 10 years from now you'll listen back to this. And you'll think, Wow, I didn't know what I was talking about back then. But now I really do.

Bella 40:11
Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. And I hope so like, I hope that in 10 years from now, I listen to this. And I'm like, This girl is a girl, like, I'm still a child. But also, I feel like 10 years from now, I'm still gonna feel like a kid because I feel like something that I've thought about a lot lately is how we're all just kind of big children just trying to do the best that we can. Like, even a seven year old, you're just a, you're essentially a child in an adult's body.

Scott Benner 40:39
It's funny, you said that because yesterday afternoon, I said to my wife, I'm gonna go to Costco to pick up like bulk like paper towels and toilet paper, like these kinds of things that we need, like in you know, a bunch of it. And I was just gonna go in and grab a few things and leave, I got a, I think I got a case of water and paper towels and stuff. And I'm all the way to the back of the store. And I'm walking to the front and I'm on a side aisle, this is really wide aisle, and there's no one in it. And I just took a few fast steps, and then jumped up on the back of the cart and rode the cart all the way down the aisle. Oh, that's

Unknown Speaker 41:12
so fun. It was just,

Scott Benner 41:14
I didn't when I got done. I did think like, I wonder what, what somebody would have like thought like is the security guy right now going look at this old guy riding the cart up the thing and what he would have thought and I wish I would be able to tell him in that moment if he had that thought. I feel like I'm 12 in my head.

Bella 41:33
Yes, exactly. You know, I completely understand that. That's all. Well, listen,

Scott Benner 41:37
I think first of all, you're doing terrific. And you're having a ton of realizations that are building your life up and your health. I I can't see where you'd be doing any better. Unless you're like, you know, breaking laws in your free time.

Bella 41:50
No, I am not breaking laws that I know of.

Scott Benner 41:56
I know. Yeah. Like you could wake up one day and go, Oh, my God, I had no idea that was a good.

Bella 42:02
Oh, man. That would be that would be something but no, I'm doing well. And diabetes is something that I've come to really welcome in my life. I used to be very not ashamed of it, I would say but I was just, I think I was so angry that I had diabetes, but I was trying to pretend like it was all okay, because I didn't know how to ask for help. And now I try to really just accept that diabetes is with me, and live with it and embrace it. And yeah, I still have days where I'm like, screw you, you're, you're in, you're making me mad. But for the most part, I've tried to use it as something to really grow from, because it's not going anywhere. So

Scott Benner 42:50
don't think it's just gonna get bored to you and go somewhere else.

Bella 42:53
That would be great. If it wanted to leave, it could I would be so I would love for it to go. But also, I thought about this recently, I have lived more of my life with diabetes than without it. And I can't imagine not having it. Like, I can't imagine what a normal brain thinks of who doesn't have diabetes at this point.

Scott Benner 43:13
Here's the question for you. You and I are in a room together. No one's ever gonna know. I bring in a complete stranger, your age, a girl your age? And I say, Bella, I have a magic wand here. I can give her your diabetes? Would you let me do it?

Unknown Speaker 43:34
Um,

Bella 43:37
I don't think so. Well. You know, it depends if this person I knew would be capable of managing but then I don't know. No, I don't I don't. I don't know if I think someone deserves to

Scott Benner 43:52
know the struggle in your voice is the answer.

Unknown Speaker 43:55
Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:56
There's no real answer. It's, you know, it's not, you know, it's not Hey, you, me and your mom are on a boat, and it's sinking. And one of us has to get thrown off, or the boats gonna say which one should go? Which I'm assuming you'd throw me off. But maybe you wouldn't.

Bella 44:12
Oh, man. Also unfair question. Right?

Scott Benner 44:15
They're all fair questions. The reason that they're fucking fun to ask is because your struggle in answering was the was the answer, which is, I can do this. I don't need to give it to somebody else and burden them, but oh my god, I love this to go away. And I don't know them. So if I suddenly make that girl, a friend of yours or your cousin, your answer becomes what?

Bella 44:41
No, of course not. And I've thought about that. I've thought about well, like, what if my sister would have been diagnosed or someone else? And I think that, I mean, given the circumstances you never know because I'm the one with it. But I think that I, I mean, I i've I can handle it. And I've had the strength to handle it and I I've used it to really help me. But you don't know how someone's gonna, gonna react to that, and you don't know how they're gonna come out of it. And for all, you know, they could be like me, they could be a lot better than me and have it figured out. Or essentially like, you know, fake figure it out from day one. Or they could be like me in the beginning and never get it figured out and just, you know, slowly killed themselves every day, which is not the way to live. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone, you know? Oh, do

Scott Benner 45:29
you know that you just made me feel very emotional with your answer. I thought that was incredibly insightful. Oh, thank you. That was wonderful. He was thrown together quite a little good episode of this podcast. I don't know if you realize yet or not. I'm able to judge them on the fly. Because I've done so many. This is very good.

Bella 45:48
Looks, I'm so nice to hear. I was honestly thinking about and I was like, man, I wonder if this is gonna be this is gonna be a bad one.

Scott Benner 45:55
Wait, are there bad ones?

Unknown Speaker 45:56
Well, no, but

Bella 45:59
I meant like, if you were gonna listen to this and be like, Oh, I don't know if I want to put this out there.

Scott Benner 46:04
Do people have that expectation that there are episodes that have been recorded that nobody hears? Because I think they're bad?

Bella 46:11
Um, I don't think so. I would assume that you put them all out there. Because I feel like that'd be a really awkward conversation if someone emailed you. And they were like, hey, like, just checking in? Are you gonna put that like, what are you putting the episode out? And you're just like, Oh, well, actually,

Scott Benner 46:25
less than a while ago, because there were two that I was 100% sure, were terrible. I kept pushing off using them and pushing off using them. And then I got stuck one day, I was like, Oh, I need an episode. And I put it out. And then the response I get back is so overwhelmingly positive. That I think, Okay, this episode might not have been right for me, or right for someone, but it was right for enough people that I got emails about it. Oh, yeah. Even the other day, we put one up. By the way, when I do that, it freaks me out. Because I don't know who we is. Because I do this myself. I'm like,

Bella 47:05
Oh, that's so funny. I understand that. I sometimes do that, too. And I'm like, so we need this. And I'm like, wait, no, yeah. But

Scott Benner 47:12
so I put one up the other day, it was like this very long conversation with this with this guy, and I thought it was an important conversation is around insulin pricing. And

Bella 47:23
oh, I just listened to that. I thought that was great. I really liked that.

Scott Benner 47:26
Okay, great. I'm glad you did. I immediately woke up the next morning to an instant to a message somewhere on the internet. That was like, hey, Scott, listen, that's the worst episode you've ever done.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
Are you serious?

Scott Benner 47:38
And you talked way too much. And I thought I did talk a lot. But I was really jacked up and like, passionate about what we were talking about. And I also thought the entirety of the episode was different than most of them. It wasn't his back and forth. It was more of like, Hey, here's what I think about something for a few minutes. Here's what he thought about something for a few minutes. It wasn't as back and forth. I just thought it was kind of an episode unto itself. And so the message of I didn't like that was the first one I got of the day, which, by the way, to all of you listening. It's lovely to wake up in the morning, work so hard at something and hear somebody be like, that sucks. Like,

Bella 48:15
oh, man, but I'm okay. That's a day. ruiner

Scott Benner 48:19
No, no, no, not anymore. I know how to. I just I wrote her. I was like, Alright, it's his opinion. He didn't like it. And then I started wondering, I wonder if I'll hear back from anybody else. And then I started getting other messages from people. That was great. A guy on Instagram goes, best episode you've ever put out. And I was like, Boy, that's the interesting thing right there. Because this was neither neither of the best or worst episode I've ever made. But for them, it was.

Bella 48:45
Yeah. And I understand that completely. And it's so interesting, because you never know how someone's going to take it. So like you said, for someone that was absolutely horrible, which I don't think that I don't get how that would that one was a bad episode. Because if anything, it was informative, if someone didn't really understand what's going on with insulin pricing. And the other thing he was talking about, give me

Scott Benner 49:09
give me a sec. So interesting. You, you do know how, because we talked about it earlier, because I spoke a lot. And he probably didn't feel like I was given the other guy room to talk, which I feel like I did, probably grew

Bella 49:23
i guess i get that

Scott Benner 49:24
he probably got that probably grew up with a parent who dominated the other one and didn't let the other one speak. Or he works for a guy who dominates people and doesn't let them speak. Or, or or or there's some sensitivity. He had to that thing, and I don't begrudge him that I think that's completely reasonable. You know what I mean? But but also in fairness, it wasn't like he was like, and I'm never listening again. He was just like, I loved the podcast, but you know, I didn't think this was good.

Bella 49:53
Interesting, but you know, that does make sense and instead of just, you know, taking that situation and You know, asking himself why it bothered him, he decided to tell you that it bothered him. And I also

Scott Benner 50:06
don't want to. This is a two step statement. I don't want to hear everyone's thoughts because that would overwhelm me. But I do like getting feedback. And it was Yeah. You know what I mean? It was helpful, because when I got done when I was finished with the Edit, I was like, Yeah, I did talk a lot here. But I felt like that the content overwhelmed the pacing. So I was just like, I'm gonna let it go out just like this.

Bella 50:31
Yeah. And I also think, I mean, in that situation, specifically, like, that was a long episode. And I think it also could have been even longer. Because I think with a subject like that both of you guys probably could have talked and talked and talked.

Scott Benner 50:44
Yeah, no, I think Cameron, I probably. So here's the other thing Cameron's amazing. But he's also. And this was the first time I had ever spoken to him. But he struck me as a little reserved. And so when people are a little more reserved, they don't they have a hard time projecting, they want someone to I don't know, like, I don't know what I mean, right. They're like, there's one of these things where I have a sense about something while I'm recording the podcast that I can't put into words, but some people, some people start out nervous, and they need to be, you know, relaxed, and then they find their groove. Some people will fumble for words forever and can't find them, but they know what they're saying. So you just have to give them time and let them go. And some people are just polite, and they don't play people sometimes don't initiate.

Bella 51:33
I do get that and you have to coax it out of them kind of

Scott Benner 51:36
Yeah, or I have to get you know, in that case, I found myself getting real worked up. And then when I got worked up, Cameron said something. I was like, God, I agree with that guy. And then so he liked it. And so it would go back and forth. And I don't know, I felt like it went well. And I'm not apologizing for i thought was a good episode.

Bella 51:52
Yeah, you shouldn't apologize for what you put out. That's great.

Scott Benner 51:55
That's not good. Do you know,

Bella 51:56
unless you do actually have something worth apologizing for, then of course, I would hope that you apologize.

Scott Benner 52:01
I have so far I think avoided that. I don't have a lot of thoughts that I believe that if you heard I would have to apologize for so that's that's why they're not slipping out. Because I'm not holding. It's not like I'm talking right now and about to say something horrible. But I'm stopping myself. You know,

Bella 52:16
I would hope so that would be I would not be ideal,

Scott Benner 52:18
where you'd be upset. You'd be like, I like podcasts. I like that guys, actually.

Bella 52:22
Yeah, I know exactly. I would leave this conversation and be like, man, I don't think that Oh, that really didn't live up to my expectation. Imagine

Scott Benner 52:30
if like after the recording, I shut it off. And I was like, so. I don't know. I pick some like, you know, some group of people and I was like, how bad are they? Hmm. Wait, what? No, you can't have my episode.

Unknown Speaker 52:45
Exactly. People.

Scott Benner 52:47
Well, well, what do you like today? How do you manage your blood sugar's today? Like you said your blood your even season the fives.

Bella 52:55
Yeah, my ANC has been in the fives for over a year. Now. My, I just got it done a couple weeks ago when I was 5.4, which I was kind of. I wasn't frustrated, but I was a little frustrated because it was 5.1 previously, so I was like, man, it went up. But honestly, I should not be sweating a point three increase. That's ridiculous.

Scott Benner 53:17
But I'm not a doctor, but 5154 I think you're okay.

Bella 53:21
Yeah, exactly. But so I managed. So right now I'm on Medtronic. And I'm currently switching over. I just got my Dexcom a couple days ago, but I'm not using it yet, because I'm getting the T slim. Um, and I don't want to use the sensors until I have this T slim because I don't know, I just don't want to waste them. But I yeah, I'm on Medtronic. Right now I have the 670 G. And so I first got on that 2018. And my mom wanted me to get it for auto mode, because I was going I was studying in New Zealand for a semester. So she was like, I think this will be helpful for you. yada yada. And so I got that I used auto mode for the entirety. I was in New Zealand for like six months, and it sucks. And I would be I would just it was horrible. Like I would wake up in the sensor would tell me that I was like 130 and I checked my blood sugar and I'd actually be like, 170 and I'm like sweet because that's really gonna do some good for my health in the long run. Um,

Scott Benner 54:21
so I imagine that Medtronic has like designated a person to listen to this podcast, everyone comes out and says stuff like that. I always feel like bad a little,

Bella 54:33
honestly. Okay, I do appreciate Medtronic because they have a very good financial assistance program. So they really helped me out with that. But then their sensor just could use some work. And I'm also interested though, so when I start using the Dexcom I really hope that I don't have things to say about it like I do with Medtronic, because if that's the case, I'm just going to be I'm just going to throw up my arms and say okay, I guess you can't win.

Scott Benner 55:01
Here's what I can tell you about Dexcom my daughter's a one c matches my expectations based on our readings.

Unknown Speaker 55:07
Okay,

Scott Benner 55:08
that's good. That's how I that's how I judge anything.

Bella 55:11
Yeah. And that's a really good point. Yeah.

Scott Benner 55:13
So I get what I expect. And if it's telling me this, and that's what's happening at the end. I mean, listen, can Arden's blood sugar be 110? When it's really 95? Or it's gonna say it's 95? When it's really 110? I'm sure that happens. Oh, yeah. But in the end, Arden has a stable steady a one C in the fives for I think we're coming up on six or seven years, I've

Unknown Speaker 55:38
lost track. So great.

Scott Benner 55:39
Yeah. So it works well for us. And I listen, I don't doubt there are people whose body chemistry doesn't jive with it. Like I'm sure those people exist as well, you know?

Bella 55:50
Yeah. But I'm excited to switch over I am. I yeah, I just think it'll be good for a switch. I've been on a Medtronic pump since I was in sixth grade. So it's been a while, but I wasn't using a sensor until I was like, until 2000, like 16. So I went a long time without using a sensor.

Scott Benner 56:12
Wow, that's I listen. That's how that's how things go. You know, stuff gets better. And people come online slowly. And eventually, everyone who can afford it, who wants it? I will have it. I think as long as they know about it.

Bella 56:28
Having a sensor is just so important. Like if I I really hope that like I can't imagine being on injections, I think that would be really overwhelming for me. But I also, if I had to choose between a pump or a sensor, I think I would have to choose a sensor because I can see what's going on. Like, I don't want to test my blood sugar's 20 times a day, just so I can see what's going on.

Scott Benner 56:52
Yeah, no, I listen to if you know, it's sort of like a false choice, because you don't have to choose between a CGM and a pump. But if you did, I I'd have trouble disagreeing with that. I'd go I go Dexcom before I would have a pump.

Unknown Speaker 57:07
Yeah,

Scott Benner 57:08
yeah, I think it just, you know, it makes sense. Hey, earlier. Earlier, you said something that I want to remember, and I didn't write it down. And now I'm like, I'm sitting here thinking like, what was it? I'm so sorry. Um, give me a second. I'll make that noise that makes people think of things. Ah, I think I think you said already, but I want to make sure that I'm right. Okay, what was the value of the podcast for you?

Bella 57:37
Oh, okay. So this podcast has been great on to two levels of initially, it gave me the tools to, you know, be bold with insulin, but to really give myself insulin in a smarter way, in a way that works with my body in a way that works with my food. So it was immensely helpful for that. And I will always be grateful for that. But I think that it's also given me this weird sense of community that I don't really have. And everyone talks about how it's so important for diabetics to have community within the diet with other diabetics. And in person in real life, I don't really know many diabetics. But I, it's so comforting to listen to your show. And especially when it's people, you know, my age a little bit younger, into, you know, like people into their 30s to like, the younger generation. And it's also it's nice to hear, so like some of the parents talking about their kids, but I really connect with one or two people just talking about themselves and their own experiences with it. And it gives me a sense of community. And I think that is, that's just so valuable. And I really appreciate that i'm

Scott Benner 58:53
glad i 100% believe that community in any way that it manifests itself for you is very important. I also really appreciate that people listen to the show, because it allows me to do something that I don't think most of you listening would imagine is difficult to accomplish. But Bella just said, I like to hear from kids a little younger than me a little older than me people my age. But I also like to listen to parents, but you hesitated on that a little bit. Like maybe that's not as good for you as it is hearing like people living with diabetes.

Unknown Speaker 59:27
Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:28
if you guess if everyone didn't listen with the veracity that they do, I'd get penned in. And I'd have to make a decision. Like this is just going to be a podcast for the parents of kids with diabetes. This is just going to be a podcast for the for adults living with diabetes, because because stuff like this dies quickly. And if I if I put four episodes out in a row that nobody is willing to listen to. I can't keep making the podcast.

Unknown Speaker 59:55
Yeah, well, that's

Bella 59:56
actually really funny that you say because I remember This summer, I was talking to a co worker. And I was like, Yeah, like, what kind of podcast do you listen to? And he was like, yada, yada. What do you like to listen to? And I was like, Oh, I listened to this diabetes podcast on top of other podcasts. But I obviously mentioned this one. And he was like, What doesn't that get old? Like, don't you run out of things to talk about? And I was just like, I felt offended. I was like, Well, you know, when you have an illness that doesn't go away, you'd be surprised at how much there really is to talk about?

Scott Benner 1:00:28
Yeah. Oh, I listen. I was, excuse me, I, I've said it on here a couple of times. But I spoke to somebody as I was doing this. And so before podcasts exist, there was something called like, blog talk radio. And it was like, the audio was bad. Like it was coming over a phone line. And but it was it was interesting. And I talked to this guy who had a blog talk radio show about diabetes have to clear my throat. Wow, I'm so sorry. And he, he was like, Oh, I think you'd be great at this. I'd been a guest on his show. While I was selling my book. And he, he's like, Oh, I think you'd be great at it. But his one piece of advice ended up being I don't know, it wasn't it didn't ring true in the end is like you'll run out of things to talk about eventually. That's what happened to me. And, and so I began this journey, thinking that it had a finite end. I think you can even hear it. I'll say it. Like in earlier episodes, I don't know how long you can keep this going. And now I don't believe that at all. Now, I believe exactly what you just said, I think I could make this podcast forever. And I think it would be just as popular if not more popular than it is right now. Because people think so always need to have conversations. And and I hope that I make this more than just about diabetes. I feel like I do.

Bella 1:01:51
I think you do, I think, yeah, I definitely do. And I think that that's good, too. Because I listen to it. And you know, I get to hear about people's experiences that live. I mean, you get some people from all over the place that come on here. Yeah. And you have different experiences and who different things who do different things. And I definitely think you make about more than diabetes, which is also great, because living with diabetes, you can't let it be the all consuming thing, like you're so much more like I'm so much more than just a person with diabetes, like diabetes affects how I do everything. Yeah, but I mean, I'm still I mean, I'm diabetes is just one thing, but I am so it can't be all that you talk about.

Scott Benner 1:02:33
I think that I agree. And I appreciate you saying that I just recorded the other day with a woman in Israel, who was just just diagnosed recently as an adult. A cellist you know, who is a classically trained musician. You know, and you and I think you all have equally valuable things to bring to the show.

Bella 1:02:55
Yeah, I think so. You were really well, so thing I don't think it'll ever end because people are you gonna keep wanting to come on and talk to you.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
I just have to make enough money that I can hire I you know, I say this, like, I was gonna say an editor, but that's not true. Like, because then I don't know how to teach somebody my sensibility. Oh, yeah, I understand that, you know, you mean, but there are days like I am. There are days that I sit in this chair all day to bring the podcast to you guys. And it's like, oh, my gosh, like, I got one of the things I should go for a walk, I keep thinking about how the podcast is gonna end I'm gonna have a heart attack from not moving around. That's funny. So is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:36
Um,

Bella 1:03:40
I don't think so. But I? No, I don't think so. Because the thing is, like, the people that listen to this podcast care, they care about either someone with diabetes, or they care about their diabetes. And I think the only thing I would want to say is to actually no, I do if you're a parent, to someone with diabetes, or your you love someone's diabetes, I think that you should definitely encourage them to talk about how they feel about it. Ask them if they're okay. And don't just take Yeah, I'm fine for an answer. Because I know personally with me, I would be asked if I was okay as the kid. Um, and I would just be like, Yeah, I'm fine. Like, it's not cancer, but in my head, I was like, screaming, I'm not okay. So I think that's just what I want to put out there. You know, definitely ask those with diabetes, especially the younger ones, you know, how are you feeling? How can I help you?

Scott Benner 1:04:42
I just yeah, I wonder if I wonder how far that goes. Meaning if how far could your mom have pressed you before you would have told her how you felt? I mean, I

Unknown Speaker 1:04:54
you might not know, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:56
I I'm here's how I do it. I like hugging. I like to Stop people in the middle of the day and just give them a hug and linger for a minute. You don't even like I'll hug Arden or my son, my wife and people are having, you know, stressful days. And, and of course we all live in the same house out right now in this house. There are four people doing four completely different things in four different rooms. Yeah, because of COVID.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:18
COVID. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:19
so everyone's a little like, I don't know, we're all vibrating a little bit, you know, and I think somebody has to hug sometimes just kind of like settles down a little bit. And I do I completely agree with you said. And at the same time, I don't know, like, I've pressed people who I know are struggling with things in my life, and they are not gonna budge over it.

Bella 1:05:40
Yeah, that's a really good point. And I do get what you're saying. Like, as a kid, if I would have been asked and asked again and asked repeatedly what I have said that I wasn't okay. Probably not like it probably would have taken a lot of pushing. And

Scott Benner 1:05:57
build. You know what you never hear on this podcast, you never hear me bring on a quote unquote, expert to answer questions about how we should do things, because I think those are just nice. They're nice concepts. You don't mean like, like, here's one never lie. We should all be kind to each other. treat other people the way you want to be treated. These things are obvious, right? 100% obvious. But people don't do them. Why is that? Yeah. Cuz they don't know. They know Do unto others, right? Like, everybody knows that phrase, you even know, the more you know, even though you don't know why you know it. And so, but how many people actually spend their days just treating people the way they want to be treated?

Bella 1:06:38
Very few? Well, not very few. But less, you know, not everyone. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:42
right. It's fewer than you think. And I just think that it's it's a little disingenuous to say, this is how you should run your life. And look, I told them now. So they'll be okay. If you have to have, everyone's got to have some sort of an awakening around everything. Whether it's how you treat people or how you treat yourself, how you manage your insulin, you have to come to it on your own. I've had, I've had people come to me privately. And they're like, I heard you help people sometimes. Can you give me a hand? I helped a woman last week, she was easy. She asked questions, got answers, took the answers, put them in the practice in three days, we were gone. She's amazing. I've also had people fight me every step of the way. And I'll try for a day or two. And then I'm like, Look, you're not ready for this. So I and then I feel terrible. Because I've seen their graphs. And I'm like, now I'm walking away from them. It feels like but I'm not, they're not ready for it. I could stay with them forever. They weren't ready to listen. And one day they either will be or they won't be. And that's not under my control or anyone else's. That's true. That's what I've learned in this podcast so far. Plus, how do we use this? Like editing software? But no, I just think that I think what's obvious, and what you're ready to do two completely different things.

Bella 1:08:09
No, that's really true. That is a great point.

Scott Benner 1:08:12
I don't know. We'll see. So the best you can do. You've already said the answer is model. Gandhi said it right. What did Gandhi say? How do they say? You said you wish your parents would model? What would you talk vulnerability? And you think if they would have you may have picked that up, right? Uh huh. Right. And what do you got to say Be the change you want to see in the world?

Bella 1:08:37
Yes. Yes. Be the change you wish to see. I want to see yes.

Scott Benner 1:08:39
Yeah. So

Bella 1:08:41
yeah, all I can do is be is I want to be

Unknown Speaker 1:08:46
modeling vulnerability. Yeah. And hope people take that from you. Right,

Bella 1:08:51
definitely don't go. Yeah, I agree with that.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:54
Life Cz.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:56
Oh, yeah. Right. Super simple.

Scott Benner 1:08:58
Just seriously, it really is, by the way, just, you know, good intentions. Do the best you can. I honestly run my life on like, a couple of basic ideas. I don't lie if I can help it. And I treat people the way I want to be treated as often as I can.

Bella 1:09:17
Yeah, and those are two very powerful things.

Scott Benner 1:09:20
truly the best I can do. Because otherwise, I've got other things going on too. And sometimes my needs come before your needs. But every, every time I can put you before me. That's my intention. I don't always get it right.

Bella 1:09:34
Yeah, but but we're human. So of course not. I'm just

Scott Benner 1:09:37
shooting for the best. That's all I'll fall short most times, but at least I'm trying. I think yes.

Bella 1:09:42
Trying is the big thing.

Scott Benner 1:09:45
Yeah, I think it resonates with people. And then eventually they grow up and hopefully they'll do the same. I have a little example is that when I leave the house, which I don't do as much anymore Or even when I leave a setting in the house to go to something else, I tell the people around me. And it's not like I'm asking permission or checking in, I'll just be like, Hey, I'm going to go to the store. I expect to be back pretty quickly. Yeah, where I'm going to go to the store, but I got to make a couple stops, I'll be a little longer. I'm going to go upstairs now and work. I don't know why. I think that lends comfort to people. The idea of like, I know where the people I love are. And I think that's kind of important. My son. He's 20. Every time he leaves the house, he's like, Hey, I'm, I'm just hanging out. He doesn't feel like he has to tell me I've never once made him feel like he has to tell me I've never once in my life said to my son, you have to tell me where you're going before you leave the house. But he always does. He just sort of makes his intentions clear as he's moving around. And I think he got that for me. And he doesn't even realize,

Bella 1:10:49
Oh, yeah, most definitely. That makes complete sense. You can do that with other stuff. Yes, you can. Oh, I love that. That's a good. I mean, I I feel like that's something that I know already. But I don't think about and that's very true. You can't do that with other stuff.

Scott Benner 1:11:03
Well, once you make a baby ballot, and your intention is to not screw it up royally. You'll start having the thoughts more consciously.

Bella 1:11:10
Oh, man. Yeah. We'll see though. We'll see if that. I got a while.

Scott Benner 1:11:13
Yeah. Oh, please, man. Good advice. Your mom waited a 40 I might have been too long. But early 30s.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:22
Nothing wrong with that. Oh, yeah, definitely.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:25
I'm not I'm not thinking about my Russian.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:30
Is there a boy?

Bella 1:11:31
Oh, sorry. I didn't hear that. No, no, there's not. Okay. Good, but that would be great, too. So but one thing before the other. Of course, I don't

Scott Benner 1:11:39
even know how people in your generation are gonna end up pregnant.

Bella 1:11:42
Oh, man. I don't know parent. I mean, especially with everyone uses dating websites. I hate that.

Scott Benner 1:11:49
Yeah, I mean, listen, as far as I know, you can't get pregnant through tic tocs. You guys are screwed.

Bella 1:11:53
Oh, no. Okay, so I think tic tocs a little earlier. Well, I think tic tocs earlier than my generation. But I do have think like I have friends that use it. But I don't. I'm not on the TIC Tock.

Scott Benner 1:12:03
Yeah, you know, when some guy slides up in your DMS, he can't actually slide up to where the babies get made. You understand? That doesn't work, though. Yeah, I'm

Bella 1:12:10
very well aware of that for you. Yeah, social media. That's,

Scott Benner 1:12:15
I'll tell you, if I could do one thing. I, if you put me in charge of something you're like, just make some blanket decision that you think will help the world. I think I would take social media away.

Bella 1:12:27
Honestly, I think that would be so interesting, because I think that we would be forced, especially my generation younger, we'd be forced to do things in person. And we'd be so much more personable. And we wouldn't have so much phone anxiety. And I think that would be great. But then also, like we've talked about social media has so many benefits. And there's a lot of glide. I think the costs sometimes outweigh those benefits. Sometimes the popularity

Scott Benner 1:12:55
of the podcast is because people have the ability to tell each other about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:59
Yeah.

Bella 1:13:00
So I mean, I wouldn't have found it if someone hadn't posted about it most likely, because it's not like I was searching the internet for like, diabetes podcast.

Scott Benner 1:13:09
Okay. All right. Obviously, I can't take social media while hurt the podcast, but I maybe I would say like, you know, let's not spend so many the scrolling and double tapping on Instagram is maddening to me. I'm always like, Did you see the picture? What? What are you doing? Just giving out likes? It's weird. You know,

Bella 1:13:27
I agree. It's an odd thing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:13:30
I don't know. Y'all are listening. And I gotta tell you one thing, you don't realize it's gonna go away. Yeah, there, there have been social media platforms in the past that have been incredibly popular and have

Bella 1:13:42
Oh, yeah, like my space. My Space was my jam as a kid as a kid, but kind of as a kid. No, no one uses my space anymore.

Scott Benner 1:13:50
No, your little animated GIFs and your sparklies and stuff. Like that was exciting, I would imagine. Yep. Yeah, there'll be something else. There will be. Alright, golly, you are really great. I appreciate you doing this. I'm going to go now and eat some breakfast and prepare for recording at one o'clock with Dr. Paul salad. Dini Sala I should figure out how to say his name before Saladino. Okay. He is an MD, who has a book about eating carnivore. And I think I'm going to use it to his recording to add to the how we eat ideas. I've got a few recorded now and I want to add nice.

Bella 1:14:36
I'm excited for those. I think those will be interesting.

Scott Benner 1:14:38
I have a good one that's plant based. That's recorded already. I have a keto one that's recorded already. This one will be you know, carnivore, he doesn't have type one. But I'm making an exception here because he's a sort of an expert in the fields. Want to hear if that makes sense. Yeah, but I'm dying. I leave I'm leaving this in your episode. Because if if you have a specific way of eating that you can really Talk about the highs and lows and the benefits of please let me know because I want I want more of that on the show.

Bella 1:15:07
Yeah, I mean, I am a vegetarian, but I don't think my diets that special.

Scott Benner 1:15:14
Are you like a vegetarian? Like you really eat vegetables? Are you a vegetarian? Like you're gonna have like a pop tart now when you get done?

Bella 1:15:21
No, I eat I go through phases, but I eat pretty good, generally speaking, like, I had an apple and a banana, and some peanut butter for breakfast, but I and I read the mastering diabetes book. And I thought that was great. Cool. But also, it's hard to cut out fat completely. So, you know,

Scott Benner 1:15:44
I think it's hard to do anything completely. Yeah. And I think that there are a lot of people who have like, there's a way to eat, there's a way to eat, it seems to me like it would be very difficult to keep that going forever. And maybe I think so maybe it wouldn't be for some people. But, you know, I listen, I made a decision. On today's Thursday, I made a decision last Friday that I was going to cut carbs out for a week, just to kind of reset myself because my body begins to hold, retain water. If I have Yeah, I have too many carbs. I'm seven pounds lighter today than I was last Friday.

Bella 1:16:20
That's wild. But carbs are so thick. We need carbs. I don't know

Scott Benner 1:16:25
if we need them or not Bella, because I'm not like, like the knower of everything. But what I can tell you is I want a piece of bread so badly.

Bella 1:16:33
Oh, I know. I bet I had I had garlic bread last night with my dinner. So I understand that I had

Scott Benner 1:16:41
a cheeseburger last night without a roll. And as horrible I was like, this is like I'm gonna beat this out. But I was like, this is like having, right No, I'm not gonna be no.

Bella 1:16:50
Yeah, no, that's disgusting. It's so

Scott Benner 1:16:53
like, just I'm just gonna do this, but I'm not nothing about it was enjoyable.

Bella 1:16:58
Yeah, I can't imagine eating a burger without a bun. Well, mine would be a fake hamburger, which is also horrible for you. But I don't eat those all the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:08
All right, well,

Scott Benner 1:17:09
I'll get a vegetarian on at some point. I thought I had one that I missed. But

Bella 1:17:12
well, if you ever need one, I do. Like I could talk about it. But I don't know what I would. I don't know, I would have to think about what I actually know. Yeah, I have

Scott Benner 1:17:20
been a vegetarian for like four years. So I have some time. You know, I had someone come on and record a whole episode about being low carb and and called me or sent me a message four days later and said, don't run that episode. I did not do justice to the idea of low carb eating. Oh, so I am gonna be very careful to make sure that I have people that really feel like they can can articulate the position. You know what I mean? Yeah,

Bella 1:17:42
I don't know what I would say. Oh, I'd have to think it over.

Scott Benner 1:17:45
No more. Don't know what I'm gonna say. Bella, if you want to be back on again. Okay. Okay. All right. Good. So I go enjoy your day. And thank you so much for doing this.

Bella 1:17:54
Thank you. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

Scott Benner 1:17:56
I appreciate it. Take care.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:58
Okay, well have a great day. You too.

Scott Benner 1:18:05
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. Je Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box, you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juicebox. I'd also like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for sponsoring this episode. Learn more at Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. There are links to these and all the sponsors at Juicebox Podcast comm or if you're listening in a podcast app in the show notes of your app, they're right there. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing, where you're listening. Thanks for telling friends about the podcast. Thanks for leaving great reviews where you listen, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And that's pretty much it. All right. Thank you, I guess Bella? Yeah, I did everything I meant to do. I'll see in the next one.

#483 Jessica No Longer has the Meats

Jessica is an adult living with type 1 diabetes

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 483 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today we're gonna be speaking with Jessica, and Jessica has the meats.

three, today's guest is an adult who has been living with Type One Diabetes for quite some time. And I have to be honest with you, I just want to say that this is her very interesting story. Like I could tell you a little bit about it. But I don't want to, you have to listen, if you want to know. I just don't like the idea, I guess of me offering cliff notes before the podcast. It's like, hey, in this episode, you're gonna hear about this and this and this, like you don't trust me by now. Just listen. I'm not gonna give me a crap. You get me to promise it's gonna be good. It's called Jessica no longer has the meats. Done. Right? Done. Get in there. While you're listening to the Juicebox Podcast, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. were becoming old with insulin. And I just would like to say one other thing. If you have the opportunity, or the desire, or the need, please support the sponsors that support the show.

Okay, let's play a game you guess who the sponsors are? Ready? Think of it. Now find out if you're right. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor and touched by type one.org. Now it's possible you can get a free a free trial, how long 30 days of the Omni pod dash, and to find out if that's going to work out for you. Right, because not everybody's eligible. But a lot of you are check out on the pod.com forward slash juice box. And to get started today with the but let's just say it's the best thing ever, the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Or to find out more about it, you can go to dexcom.com, forward slash juicebox. And let me finish this up by saying that touched by type one.org is it's just a landing space on the internet where you're going to feel good. You're just going to get there and you're like, Wow, look at all these people doing really cool stuff for people living with type one touch by type one.org where you can find them on Facebook or Instagram.

Jessica 2:44
My name is Jessica, I'm 32 years old, been a diabetic for like nine years now. And still trying to figure it out. That makes sense to me

Unknown Speaker 2:53
perfectly.

Scott Benner 2:57
Because it's something happens every day that you think, Well, that was no.

Unknown Speaker 3:03
It's

Unknown Speaker 3:04
I I still kind of beat myself up for not realizing how many things are out in the world. And then I'm like, you know, things that you learn every single day. That's how you get through life, right? You figure it out eventually.

Scott Benner 3:19
Yeah, if I understand your meaning, though, like once you see a bigger thing. There's almost unavoidable feeling that you should have found it sooner. And then you start you start going over what you've lost by not finding it sooner. But that's not how that's not how things work. So

Unknown Speaker 3:36
they always say it's last place. You look. So

Scott Benner 3:40
I thought that was about your keys. You mean that's everything?

Unknown Speaker 3:44
I mean, I guess To be fair, I continued looking and found more and more and more, because I'm a curious individual. But

Scott Benner 3:50
well, and that's a good point, actually. Because there are plenty of people who hit those roadblocks once, twice a dozen times. And then just they're like, Well, obviously this, there's no answer here and they stop. And that's and that's terrible.

Unknown Speaker 4:02
That's basically what happened to me when I was looking for some sort of reasoning to like figure out diabetes is I just kept looking. And then I kind of gave up I was like, all right, it just doesn't exist. I'm just gonna have to wait for technology to advance. That's all there is to it. And

Scott Benner 4:21
Was that your idea that one day, the magic machine will just come along and do all the things you didn't understand.

Unknown Speaker 4:28
There's a lot of so mostly surrounding, like blood sugars for a long time, my doctors would basically look at me and be like, I don't get what you don't get. And I'm like, Well, if I hear someone say, Oh yeah, I saw a spike. They're obviously looking at something that's much more in depth, or they're stabbing themselves in the figure 50 times a day. Like data points just don't come from nowhere. And that was one of the things that I struggled with. And finally I was like, you know, this is exhausting. I spend my days on Google Trying to find stuff and just get more and more confused. So I was like, okay,

Scott Benner 5:05
I'd like to know more about that. So tell me how old you were when you were seriously. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Unknown Speaker 5:10
I was 22. I think I was. It was in 2011. November 2011.

Scott Benner 5:17
Done college, I guess.

Unknown Speaker 5:19
Yeah. I had just moved to where I live now in Colombia. And I just started college. I was in my second semester, and was running around and figuring everything out trying to finish up a bachelor's degree. And one weekend, I work at the local warehouse, and I was throwing some stuff around. I was like, man, I have to go to the bathroom for the 15th time and I've chugged like seven liters of water today. It could be diabetes. And my dad had been diagnosed with Type two, like, maybe eight months before that. And my mom was super on my case about you know, warning signs, and I was like, Nah, just chill. It's fine. If it happens to happens, it's no big deal.

Scott Benner 6:05
Wait a second. So your dad got type two that made your mom think you were gonna get type two.

Unknown Speaker 6:13
That was kind of the initial thought. Yeah, she was it was more like she was on alert, like her mind knew what the diet, what the symptoms look like. So now she was like, Oh my gosh, these are things I have to look for. And everyone. And especially for me and my brother. She was like, Wait, you're drinking a lot of water? Are you feeling okay? And I'm like, yeah, it's fine. Like, whatever

Scott Benner 6:34
her number sign her neuroses must have been thrilled. Because like, you know, I mean, like that, that that, that center of your brain that rewards you that reward center, he must have been like, I knew I'd find more things if I was diligent. I wonder, I wonder after your diagnosis, how much longer she was like, I wonder what else I can figure out.

Unknown Speaker 6:54
Oh, it was funny as I was like, a Sunday, Saturday or Sunday was over the weekend. And I had called into work because I couldn't even stand in the shower. Like I was so weak that taking a shower was sitting on the bottom of the tub, and literally like letting the water spray on me. And then I would stand up and like crawl out of the bathtub and get dressed to go to work.

Scott Benner 7:15
Oh my gosh, that's Thailand. I've been sat in the tub since I was a child. That's what, by the way, it wasn't the lack of your body control that I was upset by I was the sitting in the tub. Like, everyone stands though.

Unknown Speaker 7:29
It was

Unknown Speaker 7:30
it was one of those deals where like, I was throwing boxes that were 60 pounds. And I was struggling to pick up a box. It was like seven pounds. So I was like, All right, I'm gonna give in. Something's wrong. This is more than just me being super tired because I was slamming energy drinks. Like a kid in a candy store. Like nothing was happening. Yeah. And I was like, had this do anything. All these people run around like they're freakin doing drugs after they drink one of these and I'm over here. Like, I don't feel any different.

Scott Benner 7:58
I'm not getting the cocaine kick out of this energy drink that everyone else gets.

Unknown Speaker 8:02
I'm like, I got cheated in life. Apparently, I'm immune to this stuff.

Scott Benner 8:06
So okay, so you go when you get diagnosed? How does that give me just go to a doctor's office, I guess and be like, hey, something's wrong.

Unknown Speaker 8:13
It kind of tricked my way into a doctor's office. I had just moved up here. So I didn't have a doctor at all. I have

Scott Benner 8:20
a doctor and ever give me one second, could you? You said you're here in Colombia. I'm not sure if you're in a South American country. If you're in if you're in South Carolina, or

Unknown Speaker 8:30
Oh, Missouri, sorry.

Scott Benner 8:31
Well, I haven't even gotten to all them. I think there's a Colombian, Ohio. There's just like, and I started realizing I didn't. I'm like I don't know where you're at. But okay, we're in Missouri. And and I'm sorry. I don't know why that's important. But it is so keep going.

Unknown Speaker 8:47
But yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 8:48
I called a doctor's office. That was someone that I worked with who is pregnant, and they're like, Oh, this is a great doctor. And I was like, Sure, why not? So I called them and they're like, Are you an existing patient? I was like, Yeah, because she wasn't seeing new patients. So I got an appointment because the person working the front desk, didn't know very much. And I walked in and I was like, Hey, I think I'm diabetic. I haven't been able to eat anything for two days. And I don't really have the ability to like, do much. She was like, Okay, well, we'll do a urine test. And she walked back in the room. She goes, Alright, here's your prescription for insulin. And I was like,

Scott Benner 9:26
that saw Wait, that was it. Yeah, you didn't even get a like, oh, guess what? You do have diabetes. That's crazy.

Unknown Speaker 9:34
Nothing. No, she just handed me the prescription. And I was like, Okay, so what about right now because I kind of feel really bad and don't have any energy and she goes, Oh, yeah. Yeah, go over to the ER, they should be able to help you. And so she directed me to the ER which was literally all the way across town from from where her office was okay. And I almost got like three car wrecks going there was on the phone with my mom. Who was standing next to someone who is a type one diabetic at her work, like basically freaking her out by going, she's going into a coma. So through all of that I finally get there and they put me in a room hooked me up to an IV and I passed out like I just took a nap for like four hours, huh?

Scott Benner 10:21
Hey, there are other cars to hit Missouri.

Unknown Speaker 10:25
A couple.

Scott Benner 10:26
That's all I heard was that, wow, you almost had a number of accidents like what would you What were you gonna hit? Like, what is there once I've never been to Missouri, but for

Unknown Speaker 10:35
years, it's a college town. So there are lots of young college drivers that have better things to do than drive.

Scott Benner 10:43
So you have an answer, and you just ruin my stupidity. I was just being stupid. But

Unknown Speaker 10:46
I know. If you've ever if you ever come to Missouri, you should enjoy the college drivers that are in college towns.

Scott Benner 10:55
Listen, I've driven in Manhattan and Los Angeles. And if Missouri is taxing for me, I'm giving up. I'm just telling you right now, I will think that my skills have diminished and I'm too old to be in the game anymore. Have you ever been to have you ever driven like through the heart of Manhattan?

Unknown Speaker 11:11
No, I want so I went to Chicago and I've been down to the, like 14,000 get pump gas station in Texas. And both of those were like, Okay, so that's big.

Scott Benner 11:26
I'm forever reminded of my brother coming home with his wife for the first time from Wisconsin and they landed at the Newark Airport and I picked them up. And we were driving through the parking lot. And there's like, I don't know, there's a hotel in the parking lot. That's gotta be maybe 10 or 12 storeys high. And she just goes, that's the tallest building I've ever seen. And I was like, you're in for a hell of a shock. We get on the highway and you can see Manhattan just so you know. Thanks. And then we were out there in traffic, you know, on the New Jersey Turnpike. And she's just like, huddled in the backseat covering her head because, I mean, there were more cars than she'd ever seen. At one time. We were all going like 85 miles an hour there. You know, there's lanes and lanes and lanes of traffic and it was just so much sensory overload. Looking back, we should have given her a tranquilizer before. It was like just like taking a puppy and showing it like 1000 other puppies.

Unknown Speaker 12:25
I think I was 10 the first time I went out to California and we hopped in my cousin's like giant jacked up truck and got on. I think it was five, the main highway that runs through like San Diego and I remember sitting in the backseat, just like I know we're bigger than these people, but they could still hit us. Why are we going 300 miles per hour.

Scott Benner 12:47
Everyone who's got something like that going on the people of Atlanta right now are like oh my god, they they live with like nine lane racetracks down there. And it's all fascinating. But anyway, I'm so sorry. doctor's office, hospital pass out, wake up four hours later, and mom's there I imagined by now.

Unknown Speaker 13:07
So mom and dad lived three hours from where I am. And they my mom had called every hospital in Columbia and every doctor's office in Columbia trying to find me because my phone died in the middle of all this. So the nurse like politely wakes me up and goes, honey, your mom is calling. Can you please call her back? And I was like, okay, so mom got a little aggressive with the nurse because the nurse wouldn't tell her if I was there. Not due to HIPAA. And I was like, Okay, yeah, so I called her back. And I think the conversation basically went, yeah, I'm in the hospital. I don't know what they're doing. Okay, Love you. Bye. And I just hung up. Wow. And so they ended they got to Columbia as soon as they could. And I ended up in the ICU for a week and I learned lots of things about being in a hospital because I was the first time I'd ever been checked into a hospital.

Scott Benner 14:05
It was the first Have you ever been checked in a hospital? You're 22 It's not the first time you ever saw a hospital though, right?

Unknown Speaker 14:10
No, no, I mean, I grew up in Springfield, Missouri, so Oh, you're there. I was. Yeah, I was like six blocks away from one of the bigger hospitals there. But there's lots of I don't know me and my brother never really broken bones. We've always like scuffed ourselves up but we've never done anything so bad is that that's pretty funny

Scott Benner 14:33
by the way. Just never dropped the knife and caught it on the wrong side or you know something? Nothing.

Unknown Speaker 14:39
No, everyone else always did that. I was got to watch their pain. Oh, wait, I take that back. I did have stitches, but I don't remember because I wasn't old enough to, like recollect getting them. Have you

Scott Benner 14:50
said anything true in the last 15 minutes. What are we doing?

Unknown Speaker 14:54
When I was a kid I was on a rock or I jumped onto a rocking horse and the ears of the rocking horse. forehead, my forehead open, because I wanted to be like the Cowboys in the westerns that my dad used to watch and jump on a horse.

Unknown Speaker 15:07
So

Unknown Speaker 15:08
it's it's an image of that if you hitting that little rocking horse, the head coming back and slapping you while you're while your weight is still moving forward.

Unknown Speaker 15:17
Much and I would jump off my brother's bed like we were in his room and he was just like, Oh, my God, and I like I remember wanting to jump onto the horse, but I don't remember anything after that. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 15:29
So okay, so so we will let's get out of the hospital. So you, you know, I'm saying like, I want to find out about the rest of it. So blah, blah, blah, they bring your blood sugar down, they start telling you have diabetes, etc, etc. You get home, what do you have to manage when you get home?

Unknown Speaker 15:44
Um, let's see, they gave me so they showed me how to use an insulin pin in this like little dummy Silly Putty thing. And then they sent me to, I think it was a prescription with the needles and the 7030. I don't remember what blood meter I had or glucose meter I had, though, I want to say it was just like rely on or something like that. And it was basically take this, this many units are 7030 twice a day, and test your blood sugar like four times a day. So when you wake up after you eat breakfast after you eat lunch after you eat dinner before you go to bed,

Scott Benner 16:24
they have you eating at certain times certain amounts of carbs.

Unknown Speaker 16:27
No, they like I remember driving home because that was the week before Thanksgiving. So I went home for Thanksgiving break break after that. And I remember stopping at Sonic and eating my first hamburger without a bun. Because I was so paranoid of eating carbs.

Scott Benner 16:45
That that data that resonates with me Actually, the the being being afraid once you know that something can make your blood sugar go up. Like just avoiding it because you're like, Oh, I don't need that. That's, uh, that's not the right way. Dude, Sonic that's for sure.

Unknown Speaker 17:00
Well, that's,

Unknown Speaker 17:01
I remember the first like, probably three months because I think it was every three months that I had to go to the doctor then. And my agency was like, in the fives after that, because I was literally eating no food. I was just eating like chicken and green beans every day.

Scott Benner 17:18
Did the doctor know that's how you were achieving the five or did you not tell them that part?

Unknown Speaker 17:23
At the time, I was seeing a general practice doctor, and she was the one that just handed me the paperwork and said, Here's your insulin. So she was like, Oh, yeah, it's almost like you're not diabetic, and then dismissed me out of her room. I was like, Okay, cool. That sounds great. Well, and so how long do you live like that?

Unknown Speaker 17:41
It was,

Unknown Speaker 17:42
let's see, from November two, I had my first doctor's appointment. And then it was almost immediately after that she sent me to a diabetes education thing. And so I went into a classroom with almost exclusively type two diabetics, which was really confusing for me. And one of the people that was leading it actually figured out that I shouldn't be on 7030 because I handed her my journal, like our little food journal and blood sugar journal. And she goes, you had a 29 blood sugar at three o'clock in the morning. And I was like, yeah, that happens all the time.

Scott Benner 18:21
That's how I get this great. A one thing? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 18:25
I was like, yeah, it was really amusing because I woke up the next morning, and I had chocolate, excuse me chocolate covered ramen noodles. And my kitchen was like how that

Unknown Speaker 18:33
happened.

Scott Benner 18:34
So they're just over, medicating you with insulin. And yeah, you're getting low, you're probably getting super high and other times and only Were you aware of spikes, or no,

Unknown Speaker 18:46
I could feel like I felt funky that I didn't know enough to like, associate it. So like I would test my blood sugar. It would be you know, in range, so to speak, because at the time, they wanted my range between like 70 and like 180. So as long as it fell between those two, I was like, Okay, cool. I'm doing great. And then I would wait until the next time I was supposed to check my sugar.

Scott Benner 19:11
And that was that. Wow, it was Tell me again. That was 2000 2011 1120. That's 10 years ago.

Unknown Speaker 19:21
Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:22
thank you speaking I'd like do we I was gonna make a joke about Missouri, but I won't because people listen there and I don't want to insult them. But I was thinking we like the doctor another like we add another 15 years of it to that for the eye anyway. It's frightening, by the way, because 10 years ago, you should not have been given that insulin or that lack of instruction or lumped in with a bunch of type twos and been like, hey, diabetes is just a word. So get in there. How long do you so they get you off the 7030 and they put you on what?

Unknown Speaker 19:54
So they put me on a Piedra and I I had it all written down and I'm like, I don't remember where I planned.

Scott Benner 20:03
It was a mirror.

Unknown Speaker 20:04
Yes, Lance's a patron Lantus, right. And so I took that for a very long time, it was like three or four years, something like that. No one still no one explained to me like how the sliding scale works, they just handed me a piece of paper with, like a form on it that had some calculations that I was supposed to like fill in the boxes, to figure out how much insulin to take. Yeah, and I may be math minded, but that got real old real fast. So I kind of just resulted to 10 units usually works, let's go with that. So my standard dose for pretty much every meal was just the same, like between five and 10 units. And that was just, that was it. Like, I didn't go higher or lower until I noticed that, like, if I tested my sugar, I felt funny that I adjust it, but they never really explained to me anything other than, like, here's your, your sugar. This is what it does. So food and have fun.

Scott Benner 21:09
I think this is much more common than I'd like to believe it is or that the, you know, immediate bubble around me, you know, meaning that people who end up listening to the podcast, believe it is I get there's this, you know, it's almost like anything else in the world, right? Like there are people who are lucky enough to have access to, you know, technology, or better education or doctors who are more thoughtful about how they talk about things, or even you know, finding a podcast means you're on a cell phone, it means you're like you don't mean like there's there's a lot of ways that you could be precluded from getting information. But I don't think I mean, if there's, I don't know what the number is now, it's something like 1.6 million people in the United States have type one diabetes, I forget what the number is it goes up, but number of hundreds of 1000s every year. But I think that most people get substandard direction around this. And it's shocking as you're saying it and at the same time. I'm not surprised by what you're saying. Can you talk a little bit about how it impacted your life during that time? Oops. Sorry, the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is in fact, the greatest thing in the world. That's it. I know you're thinking like Scott isn't like water important. And air? Yeah, I mean, it is. But what fun is breathing if you don't know the speed, direction, and number of your blood sugar, I've picked up my phone, I've swiped up upon it. I'm opening the Dexcom g six application and to learn what, what have I learned? Arden's blood sugar's one to nine, and it is stable, you just need they're going up, we're going down. But if it was, I would know, I would know what direction her blood sugar was moving, and how quickly it was moving in that direction, not just the numbers, the numbers nice. But the other information. It's what makes the difference. Later, you can go back and see grass over three hours, six hours, 12 hours, 24 hours, and really begin to get a feeling for what's happening. We ate here and there was a spike. I wonder if a little more of a Pre-Bolus might not fix this, these kinds of things become evident when you can see the data that the Dexcom g six provides. It's also got a ton of safety features for you like it'll alarm wherever you want it to my my phone goes off at 70 and 120. You could choose at five if you want it and be like oh, I want to know when I'm getting down at five and it'll say a BBB. And you'll be like Oh, hello. And then you know you can do something before a problem arises. Same thing with highs. And not only that, but up to 10 people can follow on an iPhone or an Android device. 10 people that could be you a school nurse, your spouse, your sister, just somebody that wants to help dexcom.com forward slash juice box Do yourself a favor. Get there today. While you're out and about on the internet and the web's go to omnipod.com forward slash juice back, because you don't need to give yourself shots every day. And wouldn't it be nice to do an extended Bolus for pizza or Chinese food stuff like that? Oh, yes, it would. But wouldn't it also be nice, even nicer, in fact, to not do those things with a tube pump? Right? You understand that most pumps have tubing that goes back to a controller and you got to clip that on your belt or your bra or something and then you have an infusion set but the Omni pod is all in one. It's got this little tiny wireless tubeless design. It's amazing. It's probably could be difficult for you to picture so why why try. instead go to Omni pod comm forward slash juice box you have two options when you get there. You can see if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the on the pod dash, that's crazy. Or you can ask for a free no obligation demo pod. It's just one nonworking pod that you can wear to see what you think. So you can start slow with a demo pod if you want. Or just jump right in and get that free trial if you're eligible. It's up to you. Choice is important on the pod knows that. And so they'd like to give you a choice. And I want to make you lock into something before you know if you're comfortable on the pod comm forward slash juicebox dexcom.com forward slash juice box, links in the show notes, links to Juicebox Podcast COMM And when you get to those links, you know what you're gonna see, you're also gonna see a link to touched by type one.org. It's an amazing organization doing amazing things. For amazing people who have type one diabetes, click on the link, and be amazed.

Was that too much? It felt good in the moment. I was like, Oh, so many amazings like, I felt like I was like, Oh, this is fun. But now I'm not sure. I'm gonna leave it.

Unknown Speaker 26:27
I was super frustrated. I am a research person. I'm like math minded. So I want to see numbers, I want to see the reasons why. Like, I probably asked why more times, then my dad loved. He always used to tell me like you're thinking about it too hard. And I'm like, No, I need to understand it before I can actually like go through with it. So not understanding what I was supposed to be doing. It was just complete frustration to the point that I just started ignoring it like I completely, I would take insulin, I would eat to reasonable effect, like I would be aware of what it was doing. But to the degree that I look at it now, not even close, like not even 10% of the amount of information that I have now. I would search on Google for hours just trying to find stuff. And it was mostly that my searches weren't good, like I would put in just diabetes and just scroll through pages of results. And everything that I would get would be you know, science journals and stuff like that. I didn't know what a CGM was or what it was called. So anytime I tried to search for anything around that I couldn't find anything. I was told that insulin pumps were for people that were just really bad at managing their diabetes. So anytime someone said anything about an insulin pump to me, I immediately shied away and was like, No, no, no, it's fine. I'll get better. Oh,

Scott Benner 28:01
I didn't. Well, that's interesting. I don't disbelieve that. But I don't think anybody's ever said that before. The idea of insulin pump was if you're failing, you use an insulin pump.

Unknown Speaker 28:11
It was basically presented to me like it was if you can't take control of MDI, then they put you on an insulin pump, because you're just having too much trouble with MDI. And so I remember actually, like vividly remember being in an Arby's where it was like a little Arby's gas station unit. And I remember seeing someone with an insulin pump and my first thought was, oh, man, I feel really bad for that person, because they're diabetes must be really bad.

Scott Benner 28:40
You didn't feel for both of you for being in an RV that was connected to a gas

Unknown Speaker 28:43
station. No, I will say their curly fries are really good.

Unknown Speaker 28:49
What is what is the tagline of Arby's? We've got the what?

Unknown Speaker 28:53
I don't I can't even tell you more. I haven't seen an Arby's in years. Like there's two that are semi close to me. But they're such far ends of the town that I probably haven't driven by him in a month or so

Scott Benner 29:04
it's we have the meats.

Unknown Speaker 29:06
There we go. say like, I don't even listen to ads anymore. So

Scott Benner 29:10
here's the frightening way I know that I taped My gosh, I opened up a browser, I typed a RB. rb com popped up. I want to promise you a website I've never been to before in my entire life. And the like, you know how the URL like you can write like a message in and it says Arby's we have the meats and it's a registered phrase. They must be super proud of it.

Unknown Speaker 29:38
After you said that I definitely had the jingle like in my head and I was like, yep, that's it.

Scott Benner 29:43
I'm now starting to notice it. Wow, there's a lot of stuff about Hey, they do a good job of taking pictures this food. It looks like food.

Unknown Speaker 29:50
Like Arby's is not a bad food. It's I they used to have a BLT that I absolutely loved. I think they sound better than that. And

Scott Benner 30:00
while I believe you're confusing how things taste with how good they are for you, when you said I don't think they have for each slice of Turkey is exactly the same thickness, which is a problem for me. Because I will,

Unknown Speaker 30:16
I will say that my tastes have advanced since I did for you, they figured out, you know, food stuff

Scott Benner 30:23
for you. Okay, so you're in the Arby's ignorant of the fact that you should be scared for yourself. And instead, you're scared for someone else. Because they had a pump on. So Oh, my gosh, they must be doing terribly. And does that then give you a false feeling of I'm doing great because I don't have a pump.

Unknown Speaker 30:39
No, it I used to kind of have like this permanent, like petrified feeling of every time I would go to the doctor, I'd almost hide my meter and just be like, Oh, I forgot it today. Because I didn't want to be judged to be told that I was doing bad. And like, I knew I was doing bad. I knew that I wasn't doing the things that I should have been doing. But I always had that like it's okay, I can fix it. And like I had that like inner desire to just find a way to fix it. And that's why I would constantly be on Google trying to find something like just some piece of information that would tell me something more than what I already knew that would make it easier to do whatever it was I needed to do.

Scott Benner 31:24
Let me ask you the belief that you could fix it was baseless, though, right? It's not like you, it's not like you had, how do I put this, it's not like you had a tool box. And in the toolbox was a hammer and a screwdriver and some pliers, and some electrical tape and you looked at an outlet in your wallet needs to be changed. You've never changed an outlet before. But you said to yourself, I think I could do this. It wasn't like that. It wasn't like I have the stuff. And I know what I have to do have to take that out and put another one in, I'll just figure out how to turn off the electricity. And I'll take the wires off and match them back up and put them back on, which is how everyone, by the way changes their first socket. Hopefully, except for my father who didn't think that it was important to shut electricity off while he was working on it. But he was just, you know, one of those badass guys from another time was just like, how do I find enough this is hot, you just touch it real quick. I'm

Unknown Speaker 32:13
like, No stop batteries on the tongue.

Unknown Speaker 32:16
That's how you do things.

Scott Benner 32:17
You didn't put a wire in his tongue. But he would reach out he used his fingers, his electrical testers that's live. I'm like, Holy God, man, what's wrong with you? And but, but But nevertheless, like you didn't My point is you didn't have the tools or the knowledge or even understand the parts you had to move around. You just had the feeling of I'm going to figure this out.

Unknown Speaker 32:36
Pretty much. The only thing like I remember reading, like people, you know, have blogs and stuff on the internet. And I would read like the comments and they'd be like, man, my, my spike or my graph for like a Bolus and a basil. And I'm like, What are all these words mean? And I would you can't Google the word diabetes graph, by the way, in 2011, and figure anything out? Yeah. The only thing that comes up is just a graph and a person with diabetes.

Scott Benner 33:07
You're like, hey, that's all right. That is the graph. That is a guy with diabetes. I have properly googled diabetes graph. Now, what do I do with this information? And I don't know. And then you're done again. Yeah. It's the thing we talk about sometimes, about knowing that there's something that exists beyond your understanding, but having no meaningful way of getting beyond your understanding.

Unknown Speaker 33:29
And that's like, I didn't even warn a CGM for the diabetes education class. But the way that they presented it to me was they were like, Oh, this is the doctors. And that was all they would tell me it was it just a doctor tool,

Scott Benner 33:43
like a diagnostic tool that you no different than if you went in and they put a pulse ox on you. You don't get the lead with your pulse ox, they take it off and gotcha.

Unknown Speaker 33:50
And for that week, I actually I intentionally ate bad food. Like I remember going to McDonald's. It was the first time that I got to McDonald's in like four months. And I was like, this is the best hamburger ever. And I was like, I just like enjoyed every bite of it. And it popped up on the CGM graph, and they were like, What

Unknown Speaker 34:07
was this? I

Unknown Speaker 34:07
was like, that wasn't McDonald's cheeseburger. They're like, okay, and I'm like, Hey, I haven't been eating carbs for like four months. That cheeseburger was the best thing that happened to me in my small budget that

Unknown Speaker 34:19
day. Don't judge me.

Scott Benner 34:25
Oh, my gosh, yeah, I okay. All right. So how do you What's the first leap that gets you to a greater understanding?

Unknown Speaker 34:34
So I switched from the general practice doctor to an endocrinologist because the general practice doctor basically said, I don't know what I'm doing. Go see this person. So I wouldn't saw her. She's an amazing doctor. And she was like, hey, there's this new technology out. It's called a Libra a. It literally just came out. I think it would work really well for you. And I was like, Okay, cool. I guess and So I immediately hopped on Google started researching. And of course, I found out that Libra is, you know, a flash glucose monitor not a continuous. So I got the Libra and had it. See, that was 2018. I think I got it in. I think you may know it was it was right at the end of June.

Scott Benner 35:22
Well, you live seven years like that. Yeah, I'm sorry. No, seriously, how you just made me sad, dammit. You know, because like, Listen, here's the weird thing we talked about at the beginning of your notes. I told you not to feel bad about it. And then it happened. And I was like, Damn, I feel bad about that. Because if you and I would have bumped into each other at Arby's, and you would have said to me, oh, your daughter's wearing an insulin pump. Like I in four minutes, I could have like, set your brain right about how to like what you wanted to do. You know what I mean? It's

Unknown Speaker 35:54
Yeah, I found there's a lot of like, parts of me where I'm just like, man, if I would have searched this phrase, instead of this phrase, I would have found a whole plethora of information. Well, I just didn't know the terms. And I didn't know the, the right words to plug in to get to it. So. And then, for probably the two years before, my doctor suggested delivery, I had given up like, I don't think I googled a single thing outside of like things to carry your diabetes stuffing. Like I just gave up on I was like, this is the way it is technology will get there one day. And little did I know technology was already there.

Scott Benner 36:31
Yeah, what you need to do was find a doctor who understood things better, or a podcast or at mean anything like that, seriously. It's ridiculous. But it's so you understand that as I asked the questions, I'm a bit incredulous, because I know what I know. Okay. And it turns out that what I know about diabetes is fairly significant, over what you knew about it, you know, even at the same times, right, I didn't have a blog, I didn't have a podcast in 2011. But I had the knowledge. And, you know, so I'm thinking of a new person right now, who is, you know, the next, Jessica, who's being diagnosed right now. And I, it's hard for me, I have to, it's not hard to do, but I have to physically stop myself and do it to remember that my understanding of all this is not equal to most people's understanding of it. And and that you could get lost in with the, for the lack of a better term, the system and all the sudden just think, well look, this my meter, I need a bag to put it in, I take this insulin here, I count the car by do this, I hide my meter, because I don't want the guy to know I'm doing bad because I am doing bad, I feel bad about doing badly. I'm getting some bad information from people about what technology is, etc, etc. And then before you know it, you're so far down that rabbit hole. There's no way out. You're never in most people don't dig their way back out of it. And I'm I'm maintaining that your story is incredibly common.

Unknown Speaker 38:04
And that's, there's actually people that I worked with that were the same way. And when I found the library, like when she gave me the labor, I was like, Oh my gosh, look at this. And they're like was like, Yeah, like it's a thing and it shows you things.

Scott Benner 38:19
It's magic. I hold it to the disk, and it tells me a number.

Unknown Speaker 38:24
And, like I remember so prior to that there is twice that my now husband had to wake me up with an ambulance because my sugar got so low in the night. And I remember the first time that him and I like sat down and had a discussion about having the libri and you can just see like the relief on his face because going to bed every night was just I don't want to say horrible, but like it was so stressful for him. It was anxiety.

Scott Benner 38:50
Do you think he didn't want to go through finding another girl and starting all over again?

Unknown Speaker 38:56
I can't. I already got some time invested in this

Unknown Speaker 38:59
one. Like, you know how this girl likes it? I mean, like, I don't want to do it again.

Unknown Speaker 39:04
What's funny is we him and I started dating in the January after I was diagnosed. So our relationship is like literally the entirety of me being diabetic.

Scott Benner 39:16
So it was a break for him as well. Yeah. He was like, oh, finally.

Unknown Speaker 39:21
Yeah. And then once we found he It was funny because he was the one that was like, it doesn't have an alarm that tells you when you go low and I was like No, but wait. And that's when I found the next comment. I was like, Oh wait, let's do this. Wow. And so you sure instantly agree with it. But

Scott Benner 39:37
did they eventually?

Unknown Speaker 39:40
Yeah, I convinced them that I was just gonna use my phone. And they were just gonna send me the sensors and then I got it on the Costco cheap receiver. I don't even know why I spent that money but I have a receiver.

Scott Benner 39:55
That that's over now, though. I think I don't think that I'm not sure somebody would have to look at this It was a big push for Dexcom through Costco. And then I sometimes think maybe it's my fault. It doesn't exist anymore because I told people about it and the podcast has such a reach. I think it's possible they sold more Dexcom at Costco that they were ready for. I don't know where people might have been, like gaming the system about how to pay for it or something like that. I don't remember exactly what happened. But I do know that it was like, this is a thing. And then suddenly, it wasn't a thing. And that wasn't my fault. You know, so

Unknown Speaker 40:29
I know that Sam's Club still has a discount, but it's not as much of a discount. Like I think a receiver there is now like, to almost $300 like two or $300. Okay. But I think if you get it through, like, I want to say the number that I was told when I called Dexcom was like 600. And I was like, okay, $100 is substantially cheaper. Costco it is. I'll take that.

Scott Benner 40:53
Okay, so now you've got a CGM that actually tells you when you're leaving ranges and things like that. Is this is this the beginning is this where you're like, Oh, I could make different decisions to stop things from happening.

Unknown Speaker 41:06
It was,

Unknown Speaker 41:08
it was kind of one of those moments where like, the the lights, you know, everything lights up around you, the halo comes down, and you're just like, Oh, my God, it all makes sense. Because I was able to see all of those things that everyone was talking about. And like, I was able to see that when I ate, you know, a cracker, that I could see the spike, I could see what was happening. And I was like, wow, all of those little dots. Like I was absolutely convinced that there is just some people out there in the world, that prick their finger like 50 times a day and made their own charts on paper. Like that is how that has to happen. So me being able to see it in like a digital representation. I was like, it makes so much more sense. How was I so dumb not to think that this is a thing?

Scott Benner 41:57
I'm glad you said that. Because there are times when I'm doing the Dexcom ad. And I'm like, and I think to myself, people won't believe this, if they don't know about it, like like, just not that not that it does it but that it's such a big impact. And it is it's like it's that AD AD is easy to do. Because I genuinely believe everything I'm saying you see that data, and you start making better decisions about insulin, you start making better decisions about you know, carbs, and I don't even mean like better like not Arby's, I mean, you know, understanding that, I don't know, a Kaiser roll may say it's got 22 carbs in it, but it might hit you like it's got 35 carbs. So you use 35, you know, as the number for Kaiser or the doesn't matter what the what the package says like when you start learning things like that. It all just goes. It's magical. It's so easy. I just looked at Arden's last 12 hours. And her line is so flat for the last 12 hours, that I might be embarrassed to show it to you. Like you might be like, Hey, don't show off. You know what I mean? Like, but it's just, it's fascinating. And how do I and that was a lot of overnight time. And so how do I figure out that much? How do I figure that out? It's not because I was like, Oh, I know what I'll do. It's her basil is definitely point nine, five an hour overnight. It's not I didn't just make that guess. It's like, I got to look at this graph and say, Okay, this is too much. This is too little look at it over days, then finally come down like this is it right here? It's point nine, five overnight, it just absolutely is. And so unless something a variable comes up that I can't foresee, overnight, Arden is just super stable. And you know, therefore, during the day, I can make a mistake, she can you know, not Pre-Bolus or, you know, get something wrong. And I see a spike that goes to 150 or 160 and get it right back down again, again, with the data. And then you know, you still end up with us a one C in the fives. It's just you know what it is

Unknown Speaker 43:57
on that. Like, I remember when I first was able to like see the Libra graph, like I was absolutely in heaven. Like I was like, this is it. This is the thing that I have been like I knew it existed. I just didn't know how to find it. Yeah, like I couldn't figure out how to get this information. And finally having that was, I mean, it was literally like someone opened the doors to the biggest library in the world. Like I had all of the resources I needed, because that one key word to type into Google will literally open the gates to everything you need for diabetes. And it's so funny, because I actually went back and replicated some of the searches that I'd done because I have search history from them. And I was like searching those things still shows the same bad results. But if you add the word Dexcom to them, the search history or the search results is like so much more in depth than like what I was looking for. It's like man, one keyword that's all I needed.

Scott Benner 44:56
No kidding and everything was just suddenly the doors was thrown open and you're like, Oh look, there's the garden I've been looking for. It's bright and sunny and there are butterflies flying around and I'm eating. Now I'm now I'm eating Arby's, like a mad genius. And

Unknown Speaker 45:12
it's actually Pinera cinnamon crunch bagels. But

Scott Benner 45:16
hey, well not know why those things have about 80 carbs in them.

Unknown Speaker 45:20
No and I. So well, I tasked myself because they had the unlimited free coffee thing going for a little bit. So I was going in the morning to get free coffee. And every morning I'd be like, do you want to send him in bail? I'm like, stop app, you know my weakness. And finally, I was like, You know what, I'm gonna master this, like, forget it. I'm doing it. And so every day for like a week, I ate a bagel. And I finally figured it out. And I'm like the second to last day of eating them. I remember showing the graph to my boss and being like, look at this. You don't understand why this is so important. But I am like three shades of happy right now. I am so static.

Scott Benner 45:58
Who's the man? jumping around? You're like, calm down. Jessica. You don't understand a bagel? Look at this line. Everyone's like, I didn't think it would be her that lost it. But she's got to work by herself in a different room now. So

Unknown Speaker 46:16
yeah. Especially working at a like customer facing tech support. Type job. Yeah, there was a little bit of like, okay, and we're gonna go back to fixing this person's problem. People come in and like,

Scott Benner 46:29
tell me what's wrong with my, my Ram. And you're like, only after you look at my Dexcom grab it smell it, you could still smell the cinnamon on my fingers to get closer. Here, you can't smell I'll let them hold on. I'm sorry. Like my hand, you know, like, yeah, you're out of your mind. So excited. I understand. Like, the first time I realized I could, I could figure out a bowl of cereal. And then I didn't even have to measure it. I was just like, I want something. I don't know what it is. poor health, I guess for my daughter because she's eating cereal. But, but, but I figured it out. And the truth is, is that I took what I learned using, you know, on that really difficult to Bolus for item. And I use that information on more easy, you know, things on your system and more healthier things. And But the truth is, if you can do a bowl of Apple Jacks, there's a lot of things you know how to Bolus for all the sudden, you know, it's very cool. So so when you googled it, what did you find?

Unknown Speaker 47:32
There was so that a lot of the stuff was like ads from Dexcom. And I'm weird. And I do image searches because I'm a visual learner. So I was like, find graphs, find things that I can relate to. And it was actually funny because like the probably fourth or fifth line down the page was the Juicebox Podcast like the little excerpt from the ad that's at the bottom.

Scott Benner 47:55
I have terrific SEO. Very proud of it. I've been working on it for over a decade. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 48:01
So I remember like, I was clicking on all the images so that it would take me to the website and you know, tell me about dex calm and all that good stuff. And I remember seeing Omni pod and I was like, what this do. I started like, just basically searching for tubeless insulin pump because I was like, You know what, forget it. Like everything I forgot about or I learned about diabetes is wrong. I'm forgetting it all. And I'm just starting fresh. So I immediately started going out and just like diving into a deep hole of jargon. And then I ended up in the catalog for edge Park. And that was like day sell it. And I basically emailed my doctor was like, hey, this thing. I'm getting one. Thanks, bye. And she said the prescription and then in a matter of a month, I had all everything that I needed lots of insurance phone calls, but like it was a whirlwind when I really want

Scott Benner 48:58
to give up. That's excellent. necessarily. I'm being serious like this seven years is long enough to give up. And you really didn't like you saw one thing that like reignited you and you're like, Oh, I'm back in the game key. I can't believe keyword searches where your where your downfall and diabetes. Like your Google food sucked. Therefore you didn't know how to take care of yourself. That is a sad statement, by the way about the health care system, in case you're wondering, and why the podcast is so popular.

Unknown Speaker 49:30
When it was like I remember them sending me home with a folder that had a bunch of like community outreach programs, and they were all defined, like every single one of them. I'm closed down like some random lady and she's like, Oh, we don't do that anymore. And I was like, Oh, great. Okay.

Scott Benner 49:46
Again, if I can just bring this background to me. And I pause here so all the people are like, Oh, this is what he does. But, but seriously, when I say something like support the sponsors because when you support sponsors, the sponsors buy more ads. And when the sponsors buy more ads, Scott gets to keep making the podcast. This is what I mean by you know, besides the money part, this is what I mean, right there is that if you want the podcast to keep going, and if you have an eye on this being a tool for everyone, not just for you, like you can't look at this podcast, like, you have to look at it like a cow, right? And that makes milk and you need some milk, but you want there to be milk for other people, you don't take all the milk, and then kill the cow and have a steak and laugh about it. You know, I mean, like, you Milk the Cow for what you need, you make sure the cow has hay and water so that the next person that comes along can get a little milk as well maybe even make butter out of it. Who knows. But the point is, is that you have to, it's important to me to support the podcast and keep it going because you're not the first nor will you be the last person with your story. And the next person is going to come along what I don't want for them to do is to Google something and come along and find a defunct podcast, I want them to find a vibrant tool that that continues to exist and, and and help people. So yeah, I mean all that stuff. When I say it, I just you know, I wonder if sometimes people take it the wrong way. But But I need you to support the ads, you know, and I'm not saying I'm not saying buy an insulin pump you don't want but if you're going to get an omni pod, for the love of God, go through my blank, like like, you know, like that kind of an idea. Because it's helpful. And look, look how it found you. It's amazing.

Unknown Speaker 51:30
And he was like I remember listening to I couldn't tell you which episode was first. But I remember listening to it and just sitting there and being like, Oh my God, this guy thinks like I do. This is perfect. This will actually work.

Scott Benner 51:44
Although I think like you because I would need it Arby's

Unknown Speaker 51:50
it was I think it was the insulin. I think it was one of the ones about insulin, like how it works in your system. And the way that you were being like analytical but not overly analytical. And there is lots of like, is and Ms. And like, that's how I talk. So I was like, he knows it. I know what his ed is. And I know what his net is. And like, it makes sense to me.

Scott Benner 52:14
Yeah, I'm just smart enough to understand it not quite smart enough to make it hard to believe or understand. I can get it out just on my level. So I really, I'll tell you what I mean, I'm very happy about that. Because who I am is a very strange blend of how I grew up just like everybody else's. But I've said this in the past, I haven't said a long time, I'm adopted. And I was adopted by lovely middle class blue collar hard working people lived outside of Philadelphia. And I am probably this seems bad to say but my dad's dead. My mom's an older person who doesn't listen to podcasts, I'm probably somewhere in the 40 to 45 IQ points smarter than they are. Okay. So if had I grown up with other people who probably had my possibilities, I would probably be not who I am today. But they didn't look at education like that. They they looked at school as something you did before you went and got a job. And so I'm a crazy blend of, you know, bright, but grounded at the same time and my intellectual side has never really been fed. Honestly, you don't mean like or grown it had no real attempt to blossom. So I have the that's why I think your story is so interesting. Like there's a ceiling above me, I'm never going to get anywhere near in my lifetime. Because I'm married, I have kids and I have responsibilities. And it's not like I'm going to head back to college and you know, find out about stuff. So I get to like, wonder about things, diabetes being one of them. And then I get to build a narrative around what I'd learned. That is incredibly blue collar and incredibly middle class and very easy to understand. Because I don't know enough big words to make it not understandable. Trust me, if I knew more big words, I'd use them. And then everyone would be like, Ah, that's a sign. And that would be instead I talk like an idiot. And it's understandable. So

Unknown Speaker 54:19
it's always been amusing to me because my entire life You people are like, oh man, you're so smart. And you're like I just know how to explain things really well,

Scott Benner 54:30
if that makes sense. Is that is that one of your superpowers? You can explain things? Well,

Unknown Speaker 54:35
yeah, apparently I've been told that more times than I can count like that's basically how I got my current job. I had absolutely no IT skills and I was like put my customer service is on point. Like you want me to sell a phone to someone explained them how that phone works. I can do that

Scott Benner 54:52
in a way that's crystal clear to them in a way that they'll remember that it'll be valuable to them walking out the door and all that stuff. That's how I feel about this. And I've got enough feedback about it now that I believe it, you know, is that I'm just, I don't know, I'm good at talking about diabetes. So you know, and I understand how to do it. But I don't overcomplicate it. And I think that there are probably people out there who are talking about it, who were much more specific about it. And I think that at some point along the line, that's what makes their information less usable by more people. And so that's,

Unknown Speaker 55:30
there's definitely a personality that has to go with it. Like, I know, I've tried reading, like science journals, for instance, sitting down and trying to read, like even the piece of paper that comes with the insulin, I've sat down and actually read that. And I had, you know, it's one of those deals where it's like reading a textbook, you have to kind of force your way through it. But because there's something gold at the end of the, at the end of the rainbow, you're like I can make it through. And there I've seen other people that explain things in that same language. And you're just like, I have to pick my dictionary up five times. That's five times too many, like use words that are commonplace. And I think that's what you really accomplish is like making it easy to digest. So they don't have to go pick up a dictionary 15 times to figure out what a word means.

Scott Benner 56:19
I really appreciate when there's an intersection to a thought like, Terry comes to mind now if you've ever heard Terry lives on a boat, or or the or his follow up episode, I think it's called Tony lives in a house. Yeah. Anyway, I, I'm not gonna apologize to people about what the episodes are called. Just,

Unknown Speaker 56:37
you know, I enjoy it.

Scott Benner 56:39
Thank you. But Terry's a great example, an older gentleman, engineering background, really bright guy talks about diabetes in a way that I completely understand. But I could never do. Like I couldn't have, I would never think to put the words together that he puts together, but when he's talking, I'm like, Oh, this is brilliant. I completely understand this. And for some reason, no matter how smart he is, he likes the way I talk about it. So and that's, that's really, I find that, but I don't know what the word is. I am. Wow, I just lost the word. Jessica. Well, I'm making my own point aren't I goddamn Give me a second on push the microwave on my face? Well, I think

Unknown Speaker 57:24
I was really good with humble

Scott Benner 57:25
Yeah, humbles. No, you can't say humble because people don't believe that when you say it. It makes me feel. I don't mean proud. I mean, oh, my God, I'll edit it in later, I'll fall when I'm editing it back, the word will pop into my head. And then right here, you'll hear a future Scott say it, and then we'll go back into the conversation. But it It feels good to me that, that Terry vibes with how I talk about diabetes, when it is so different than how he talks about it, but it's not. But it's not really that different. I guess. It's just he just, he's smarter than I am. Like, I don't know another way to put it. You know what I mean? Like, everybody's still clear. And he's concise, and he's thoughtful. And he's not just bullshit. Like he, he, he knows that what he's saying is accurate. And I have that, for me through that part of it's very important for me, like I would never say anything on this podcast, or anywhere about diabetes. That wasn't at the very least tried and true in my daughter's life. You know, like that, just I like people who are patient with how they disseminate things. And

Unknown Speaker 58:35
I think that sincerity like that was one thing that pulled me in as well as there's a sincerity in the discourse that's very, like, you know that it's not Bs and like, you just have that feeling you have that trust with it. But I remember listening to the Terry's lives on a boat. And I don't remember what he was talking about. But I was like that man is that that's engineer all over. Like, you can just tell by the way he talks. Yeah. My father in law's does engineering. And I actually started school of engineering. I'm like, yeah, that's that trademark, that trademark speech of just enough analytics to get you by it and a little bit of humor to make sure that everyone's still following.

Scott Benner 59:18
It is a very specific way you know what I'm hoping one day and if anyone's listening, I'm looking for an actuary who has type one diabetes, because you people are so boring. I want to interview you to see what I can find out. I'm being quite serious and not insulting. I'm looking for an actuary who has type one diabetes who wants to come talk about it because I've had more conversations with more actuaries in my entire life. And there is something about how your all brains work. That is fascinating. So there is a certain kind of person who is drawn to that kind of work, please, Scott at Juicebox Podcast comm send me an email. I would just love it.

Unknown Speaker 59:58
There's a person that I work with I remember trying to explain to him, like the ins and outs of the Omni pod and Dexcom because I just gotten them and I was still, you know, like super jazzed about it. And he looked at me and just holds his hand up and goes, Okay, Jessica, I need to go back to work. And I was like, guy respect that you say that. But man, I really want to continue this conversation. And I hate that you're able to shut it off so easily. I just

Scott Benner 1:00:24
really want to tell you about how great this little tubeless insulin pump is. It's very exciting, guys. Like, I'm not excited by this at all.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:30
But anything that he's done with like, he literally just puts his hand up and says, I really need to go back to whatever it is. And like, I don't know how you have that power. Like,

Scott Benner 1:00:40
my wife has it, it's hurtful.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:44
I don't get it. And he's such like a, I don't want to say like a plain Jane. But he's very, like meticulous and he's very methodical. So things that he does are like, kind of like the actuary just very, like, analytical and they have a purpose. They're not done unless they have a purpose type person.

Scott Benner 1:01:03
I have so every bit above it on the podcast, like if I get bored with people are talking, there's like a alarm that goes off in my head. And it says it says this is boring. Change the subject like this is boring, keep moving. Do not like make people listen to this any longer. You know, it's just I and that voice in my head is screaming at me while it's happening as they move on. I'm like, Okay, all right, I hear you. And then sometimes I ramble on and on. And I don't even hear that the voices yelling at me. I'm like, shut up.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
It doesn't apply here.

Scott Benner 1:01:34
Yeah, but I'm the host, I get to do whatever I want. Stop it now. Now, the other times I talk too much. It's obvious, but you know, it's just what are you gonna do?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:46
Say My dad always made a joke. He's like, I swear to God, the owner's manual for you how to diagram where the off button was, but pretty sure that page got ripped out. So

Scott Benner 1:01:56
listen, I don't know about in your life. But in my life, if I can't speak, you know, forever. It's not my ever listen to a podcast where nobody knows what they want to say next. It's painful. I'd rather say something that's a little wordy, then just have everybody talking. And then well, what do you think, Jessica? And then you pause for 12 seconds before you answer. And I'm just quietly listening. Like I could never

Unknown Speaker 1:02:20
Oh, it's painful. Like I even listening to podcasts that have that I'm sitting there just like, if I hit the skip button, do you think it'll break into the conversation? Or will it like cut just right?

Scott Benner 1:02:31
I don't I like when people speed up podcasts. I think they can't possibly speed mine up. Like I understand why you might speed up another one. But mine, I don't imagine you could. And if you can, God bless that your brain works really quickly. But I don't know, I like I like it to keep moving. I wanted to keep moving. And I wanted to make points and I want it to be interesting, and entertaining, and thoughtful. And I want there to be some advice. I didn't mean advice, some information that's really valuable to you, you know, throughout the way, but I don't think an hour's worth of valuable information every week is something people would want you know, and ignores people who need community but very badly and don't know anybody else who has diabetes. And you know, for me, like your your your conversation is really interesting, because this is your person. Your story is interesting. And how you how you kind of made your way through it is interesting, but you're also like light and bubbly. And and there's a community aspect of this conversation as well. Like people will also listen to this and feel like oh, Jessica, I know Jessica, she's that really nice. I have a friend just like Jessica she's cool, you know and, and that makes you feel good about it. So I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
I'm down with being friends

Scott Benner 1:03:47
with her. That's me. No, I'm busy.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:51
Anyone I'm one of those people that's like okay, cool coffee as long as coffee is involved for fine.

Scott Benner 1:03:57
Everything go nuts. Go find her. Listen, she's sorry. There's like four things. There's no trees just yell out loud. And I know nothing about Missouri other trees there.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05
There's more trees and buildings probably it'd be the other way around. There's like four buildings and all trees.

Scott Benner 1:04:11
The only person you're going to find when you get there, just go to an Arby's wait out front, leave your Omni pod exposed and she'll jump on you. It'll be easy. Will you buy the coffee just oh you'll you'll drag them to free coffee at Panera.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:23
say there's free coffee in the world. Why would I buy it?

Scott Benner 1:04:28
Just realize as I was saying it was like Jessica is gonna sniff out a free cup of coffee. You got to be on your way.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:33
Are you kidding me birthday coffee is like on your birthday. If no one knows this, you get free stuff from like every single restaurant so you sign up like two months before and then you spend your entire birthday day just going around to different restaurants or getting free pizza ice cream sandwiches, whatever you can eat for a week. That one day

Unknown Speaker 1:04:52
you go with a cooler and dry ice.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:56
No I usually I usually try to refrain from getting All of the things but I am known to go to firehouse and Andy's because those are my my cruxes and then Panera because a free cinnamon roll or a free cinnamon crunch bagel is kind of like giving someone happen. So

Scott Benner 1:05:15
let's, let's do something from it. Mr. Murray that's like two thirds left and two thirds up right or now I'm picturing a map in my head. I don't really know where it's it's not the it's Is it the West mid it's, it's where we are.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:32
So right above Arkansas and then right below Iowa and there's like Iowa and then Illinois and Ohio like that stretch.

Scott Benner 1:05:43
Oh, I think I think it's just you know, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa like Illinois, Indiana. That's like the same place to me. So we're below

Unknown Speaker 1:05:53
that.

Scott Benner 1:05:54
You're below that. So you're like left of Tennessee?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:57
Yes.

Scott Benner 1:05:58
All right. So before I get to like the top of Texas in there do you think people are horrified that that's how I think of the map.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:08
My brain says I'm in the middle and everyone else was around me but who's touching again? Cuz I forget what states are actually touching the Missouri State line. I'm like, as in Nebraska, Colorado, so

Scott Benner 1:06:19
is Missouri is like Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, all about the same place.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:26
There's, there's actually a lot different like I we have family lives in Tennessee, and there's a second. It's like we're all the same place. But we are very different people.

Scott Benner 1:06:40
I don't mean what kind of people you are. I just meant like, generalized geographic location. Hold on a second. Oh, wow. I'm oddly off by a lot of this. Oh, okay. So where our console is. and Oklahoma is more like Arkansas, or Arkansas on the top of Mississippi is is where I thought Missouri is. But Missouri is above Arkansas. I guess it's Kansas that I don't really think about what I'm factoring all that's common.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:08
Yeah, Kansas and Nebraska are just like flat sheets of dirt. I've

Scott Benner 1:07:13
been to Kansas. I was in Kansas City. They had this like adorable little like, they called it a city but it was like a, like a town on steroids. And they were like, they're like this is the city and I was like you guys have never been to a city if you think this is a city, but I was like it was really nice there. I liked it.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:31
Were you in Kansas City, Missouri or Kansas City, Kansas?

Scott Benner 1:07:34
Hello there two different places.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:36
Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:07:37
I don't know. Are there Wait, there's Kansas City in Kansas in Kansas City, Missouri.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:43
So it's one town that's basically on the state line.

Scott Benner 1:07:48
I think it was in the Kansas side.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:49
Oh, that explains it.

Scott Benner 1:07:52
But I have not liked it as much if I was in the Missouri side. had to be the Kansas side because they took me to a barbecue. Oh no, that

Unknown Speaker 1:07:58
happened to both sides. Kansas City barbecue is a that's a thing. Kansas City and St. Louis. So where I met I'm the I 70. The interstate 70 that runs through Missouri goes from Kansas City to St. Louis and about midway is Columbia. So like we have the I 70 challenge where it's like Kansas City versus St. Louis on lots of things. Or Columbia versus Kansas City. So that stretch of highway is like the barbecue.

Scott Benner 1:08:28
I had BB everything seems so scary. I thought I was gonna die and up at the food was amazing. I have to tell you once when I was in Oklahoma, it snowed for a brief second and that threw me off because I felt like I was in Mexico so I didn't understand how it could snow that's how like, poorly I understand the geography of things. In Mexico, how's it snowing?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:52
I just had a debate because I was like it snows in Texas and they're like no only once every like 40 years I'm like no there has like it snows in California. Which is weird to me.

Scott Benner 1:09:03
They have mountains they're closer to the clouds. The mountains.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:07
Oh my I have family out there and they drive like two hours north from San Diego and they're like we found snow and I'm like it's two hours north I don't know that's still desert

Scott Benner 1:09:16
there's no way for me to understand any of this meaningful as I'm looking at this. I just saw Iowa and I was like oh Iowa yeah, I forgot about that. That's it's I really should look harder. And by the way it just so people don't think I'm like a like some sort of a northeast snob anything east of like Pennsylvania like you know all that like Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine for I don't know about any of that either. I basically know where I am and where New York is. And then even once I get South I'm a little confused, to be perfectly honest, like the North and South Carolina things nice because that's pretty easy to remember. So I know I know. It's like Pennsylvania, like Delaware wash. Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina. But then if you made me bet money that Georgia was Next, I don't know that I'd be able to do that. Exactly. There's probably part of me who thinks that Tennessee is more like where the northern part of Alabama and Georgia is. I don't know anything about this.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:15
We were taught in geography that Iowa is the guy's head and the Missouri and Arkansas makeup like the guy's belly and then Louisiana his feet. So that's the only way that I remember that. It goes I was Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:28
What guy? What are you talking about?

Unknown Speaker 1:10:31
So if you look at a map of you know,

Scott Benner 1:10:34
like a god, Holy God in Minnesota looks like his big like, colonial hat. Yeah, I didn't realize that. Has anyone else ever seen this?

Unknown Speaker 1:10:45
And then Kentucky looks like a Kentucky Fried chicken leg.

Scott Benner 1:10:50
Tennessee looks like his penis if that's what's going on there.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:55
And we don't we don't say that out loud. We just kind of mockingly laugh at it and move on. Oh, so

Scott Benner 1:11:01
this is not something you've never thought of before because it's obvious once you see Wow, people listening. So Minnesota is the hat I was the head. Missouri's like the chest belly. Arkansas is like the belly pelvis. Louisiana is the feet Tennessee is clearly an aroused penis. And

Unknown Speaker 1:11:18
a chicken wing

Scott Benner 1:11:20
hitting on Texas. Holy, I've never seen this before. Alright, everyone who comes on if you have like a map thing you have to tell me about it from now on. That's alright. We're ending on that. Thank you, Jessica.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:33
That was great.

Scott Benner 1:11:34
That was absolutely perfect. Oh, by the way, is there anything about diabetes we didn't talk about that you

Unknown Speaker 1:11:37
wanted? I mean, I think we got it all. I can't remember anymore.

Scott Benner 1:11:42
I did a great job. I look back at your email. While you were talking. I was like, Damn, I had all this. I'm so good at this. And No, but seriously, I want to make sure we didn't skip anything.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:55
No, I I had notes as well. And like everything that happened. And I was like, Okay, I think we got them all. I stopped looking at it like 20 minutes ago.

Scott Benner 1:12:02
So I think we're good. I am really good at this. Did you want to say that out loud? Or

Unknown Speaker 1:12:06
that you're really good?

Scott Benner 1:12:08
Justin diabetes? No, no is making in the pocket just in your own words. Pretend I didn't say.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:15
I think we're good. I got everything that I can start over.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:20
laughing

Scott Benner 1:12:21
I know, it's fine, that we're good. And we got everything else how I talking about how good I am at this. That was what you were supposed to do one more time. Just go ahead real quick.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:32
I appreciate everything. And I'm really glad that you are doing everything that you're doing. Because if you weren't, I'd still be in a deep dark hole of MDI and not knowing what a glucometer was.

Scott Benner 1:12:43
You what you're supposed to say, You're really good at making this podcast. I can't count on you to disseminate. You know, my I forget it. Although what you just said was very nice. I appreciate that.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:56
I was just trying to be a nice person is, you know, a step above.

Scott Benner 1:13:01
I was just like, I was just looking for some baseless, like pandering. You know what I mean? Like, I was like, Scott, you're so good at making this podcast. And it's just, it's amazing. And they should probably give you like a peace prize or something like that. And then instead, you said something very heartfelt. And I was gonna say something dumb afterwards, and you ruined it by being nice. So that's just fine. All right. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:22
parents taught me to give 110% I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:27
Did they really ever tell you that?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:29
That was a big thing. Like that was a steady thing. And growing up was like, it's always 110 100 is not enough. And I'm like, okay, that's not how math works.

Scott Benner 1:13:39
Because I want to ask a question, but I don't want to embarrass anybody.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:42
They're still here. They're not here, but they're in Springfield.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:46
Are they gonna hear this? They might depends on if I tell them about wondering what their 110% looks like. Yeah, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:55
so I can honestly say that my mom can still to this day run circles around me when it comes to manual labor as well as my dad, like, the amount of gumption that they have to do something because it just needs to be done. far outweighs mine. Like I look at something and I'm like, do we have to, and my mom's already halfway done with it. That's cool.

Scott Benner 1:14:17
I like that I love I'm a big fan of getting things done that need to get done because they need to get done. And for no other reason that somebody's got to do it. Might as well be you. Oh, look, I was gonna make fun Your parents are they probably given 150% you're probably the lazy one. In this scenario.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:34
I honestly think I am because I'm decently sure that nine times out of 10 if the dishwasher got loaded, I did it wrong so that my mom would load it right. And I didn't have to actually do it. I just told my wife the other day

Scott Benner 1:14:45
will end on this. I just told my wife the other day in all sincerity. I said hey, should I die before you at my funeral? Spend a good 30 or 45 seconds, telling people how good I was at loading and unloading this dishwasher. She's like, what am I, I spent so much time doing it, I want people to know, I took pride in it. I am proud that this stuff goes through the dishwasher once and it's clean, because I know where to put it. And I don't let things sit in there. So once stuffs dry, I take it out, and I put it away. I'm very good about that every morning, I make sure the sink is I think the house needs to start a morning with a open sink and clean dishes.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:27
You and my husband would have a very clean house, he does the same thing.

Scott Benner 1:15:32
It's important like what if I need to bring something off later and there's a pan, I don't want to get involved in that mess.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:37
You know, I'm saying take the pan, you set it aside for a moment, do your thing. And then you go back and you're wrong.

Scott Benner 1:15:42
That is 100% incorrect. That is not how you do it. You sound like a girl. Alright. My wife's like, it's fine. I'm like, it's not like she's like just peel the potatoes. I'm like, there are other dirty things. And the thing, I will clean the sink out first. And then the potatoes will go in and get washed. We are not animals.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:02
I will say before I start cooking, I clean the entire kitchen. So I will stand by that one.

Scott Benner 1:16:08
You need a nice palette to start over with. Alright, we said a lot of important things here tonight, and many things that have no importance whatsoever. So I think we're done. I really appreciate you doing this having such a great sense of humor. And seriously writing me that wonderful note, I am thrilled that this podcast found you and that it has been so valuable for you. It really is wonderful. It makes me happy. And I hope more people find it. I have to be honest. There's some times online, I see people jump into the Facebook group. And they're just like, what's the secret to this podcast? I'm like, huh? You gotta listen to it Really? Like, you know, you can't just you can't just ask for the the answer. Like it doesn't work that way or the next time you need the answer. You all know how to get it. And so

Unknown Speaker 1:16:55
it's very cool fish.

Scott Benner 1:16:57
teach a man to fish, right? Yep, you can teach them to not eat an Arby's. So although you've in fairness that you don't need Arby's anymore.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:07
No, I switched it out for Panera.

Scott Benner 1:17:10
So you don't have the meats any longer.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:13
I have the sliced turkey meats. If

Scott Benner 1:17:17
anything, I get my own Turkey and slice it. So I think it's possible that this episode will be called Jessica no longer has the meats.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:25
I will say that every single one of my friends would look at that and just absolutely know what it means.

Scott Benner 1:17:31
Tell you what, it's a strong contender.

I want to thank Jessica for coming on the show and telling an amazingly entertaining and fun story. I want to thank Dexcom on the pod and touched by type one for sponsoring Jessica's tail. All you have to do to support the sponsors is click on the links touched by type one.org omnipod.com. forward slash juicebox dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. That easy. If you're in the market, use my legs. If you're not in the market, don't feel pressure. I mean, do something else support a different sponsor, send me a lovely email and say, Scott, I love the podcast that will friend leave a great review. There are so many ways for you to support the show.

But if he gave me a choice, I'd say like, you know, click on the sponsor links, please. That's really, really helpful. And sharing the show with other people. I guess I'm being specific now. These are the things that would specifically really helped me share the show with somebody else. Let me add, subscribe or follow in a podcast app. And of course, if you're in the mood for some of the gear that we talked about here on the podcast, use my sponsor links there in the shownotes of your podcast player on there. Juicebox Podcast calm it's an extra click for you to get to the thing to help me but I mean, in the grand scheme of things right what's the click? Thank you so much for listening and for staying till the end at the end of my like bla bla bla bla stuff. I really appreciate that you love the show. I love you. I feel like that purple dinosaur right now. Which is weird because I've never seen that show once. But as soon as I said I love you made me think like, I love you. You love me. Where something something lots of words, I don't know. And then there's some thing and some thing and something else too. And then I think that's about the end of the song.