Scott Benner 6/19/18 Scott Benner 6/19/18

#171 We Should Finish the Sentence

No not Platypus, platitudes...

Vickie and Scott discuss everything you can think of and two things that you can't about type 1 diabetes. No more platitudes... finish the sentence.

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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 171 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is with Vicki. Vicki is going to share a whole bunch of different stuff with us. Her job has something to do with type one, which is very interesting. She's tried the keto diet, she's working on her health, she's working on our weight. There's all kinds of stuff going on here. There's a little something in this one for everybody. I want to thank our sponsors Dexcom, and Omni pod Dexcom, of course makers of the G six continuous glucose monitor. And on the pod, the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been using since she was four years old. We'll talk more about those later. But for now, let's jump right in with Vicki and find out what's going on.

It's incredibly important to remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before being bold with anything. But especially in salt.

Vickie McWatters 1:24
I Scott and my name is Vicki and I am a type one diabetic.

Unknown Speaker 1:28
Vicki, how are you?

Unknown Speaker 1:29
I'm great.

Scott Benner 1:31
I'm glad you're on. Yeah.

So you're an adult with type one. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Vickie McWatters 1:36
I was just shy of my 31st birthday.

Scott Benner 1:40
And you are how old now?

Vickie McWatters 1:42
I am 49.

Unknown Speaker 1:44
Congratulations. That's right.

Unknown Speaker 1:45
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:47
I'm 46. And Everyday I wake up I think I can't make it much longer Kennedy.

Vickie McWatters 1:55
I can't believe I'm 49. Like when did that

Scott Benner 1:59
feel weird no matter what it always feels like you're like, how is this May we had these beautiful white flowers all over the front of our house this year. Right? just planted them everywhere. when they were little they got up and they were big and bushy and really beautiful. Wasn't expensive, it made the house look great. The one problem was is that they they're only one season flowers and they need that's at the end of the year, the first fraud hit frosted, and they will fit a little bit. And I was like, I'm going to go get the wheelbarrow. I'm going to pull out all of these flowers from the ground. I have a place in the back, I will dump them. And this is what I will do. And then the next day, I thought Why does my hamstring hurt so much? All I did was bend over in a slightly odd position and pick up flowers. That's not a thing that makes people upset is it but it is apparently at a certain age. So yeah, I know how you feel. So so when I heard from you, you sent me an email. Of course, she said a lot of wonderful things about the podcast because how could you not? And but you said you were listening. I was wondering how did you find it?

Vickie McWatters 3:06
Um, it's kind of been a journey for me. So I kind of around June, July timeframe, I started this health journey. And I didn't start out listening to diabetes podcasts. I started listening to other ones. And I was so inspired by them. I thought, well, I'm gonna find something about type one. And there weren't a lot out there. And I stumbled onto yours. And I wasn't really sure I wanted to listen to it because I didn't feel like it really applied to me being a an adult. I felt like maybe it wasn't like a caregiver type podcast. Okay, but I took that I took a listen, I took a chance. And it's just, it's been tremendous help for me. I'm very

Unknown Speaker 3:49
glad about

Scott Benner 3:51
something drove you to worry about your health, the person living with diabetes for Well, let me check my math 3141 887 about like 1718 years. Right? Right. Right. Very good with the whole numbers, and then the smaller one digit numbers also. And so and so what hit it was just age like, did you start thinking I better do something or like what, what brought you to like, I want to do better with my house. Do you remember? Yeah,

Vickie McWatters 4:19
well, you know, it's not like the whole 1718 years, I haven't taken care of myself, I have gone through periods where I'm like, Okay, I'm going to get money one fee down. I'm going to do a much better job of this. And it just I I couldn't seem to make it work. And I had a lot of things happen in my life where they were kind of a life changing event. And I got a job working for jdrf and I thought you know what, if I'm going to start reaching this, I got to start, you know, walking the walk and taking better care of myself.

Scott Benner 5:04
I see. So you sort of said, was it more of like, Did you feel a responsibility to other people at that point? Do

Unknown Speaker 5:08
you think

Vickie McWatters 5:11
I felt the responsibility to be genuine and honest, I didn't feel like I could go into schools and help kids with their 504 plans, not doing what I'm preaching.

Scott Benner 5:23
See, you didn't want to be the person standing up to the top with the the 9.581 say, Go now listen to here's what you have to do. Because it felt just disingenuous, and it just wasn't something that just didn't feel any of that makes a lot of sense. So it occurred to you because in this day and age as it would it occurred to you to find a podcast about about health. So was it more about just like, right away? Was it like exercise diet? Like? Was that the way you thought about it at first?

Vickie McWatters 5:51
So at first, it was about how am I going to make this work for me, I had been on Weight Watchers, I had been, you know, with worked with personal trainers. And it always been about losing weight, as well as being able to maintain my, my glucose, my blood glucose, and it just never seem to click and just never seem to work. So I'd always eaten low carb in the past. And it seemed to have the best effect on being able to control my my blood glucose. And I thought, well, I'm going to try that again. And I got turned on to a ketogenic diet. And I started learning a lot about it, especially as a type one, I was a little bit nervous. And I got a book that was for type one diabetics and the ketogenic diet, and I was able to eliminate the majority of the carbs that I eat, which made it so much easier to maintain that glucose control.

Scott Benner 7:00
Okay, so you're stuck. You were struck when you were eating carbs, you were struggling to stop spikes and lows and all that stuff. And so, after a long time of frustration, you just were like, I'm just gonna stop eating carbs, because I can't get ahead of it any other way? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Did you find it fun not eating carbs.

Vickie McWatters 7:19
I'm definitely challenging. But it got easier. And the numbers on my deck comm made it so worth it. Okay, I was just like, Oh my gosh, I've got this now. This makes sense to me now.

Scott Benner 7:33
And so what do you think that was like, when you take a guy if my guess is but when you take away a bunch of the carbs and you're down to a few it's not too hard to manipulate? What those carbs are doing is it's you know, carbs that are with vegetables. I'm assuming carbs that maybe a little bit of bread not a whole lot like that kind of stuff. For what what are the diet looked like back then?

Vickie McWatters 7:54
Yeah, it was most you mean before. Now we

Scott Benner 7:58
know when you switch to the keto diet, I know nothing about like, what what does that look like?

Vickie McWatters 8:03
And less than 20 grams of carbohydrates a day with those carbs coming from leafy greens, avocados, and maybe some that, okay, so absolutely no bread, no sugar, no grains, completely eliminated that from my diet. And when I started this, I, I, I went with the attitude of, this is what I'm going to do today. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow, but this is what I'm going to do today. And I'm just gonna see what happens. I

Scott Benner 8:34
did it and it was vector over me Oh, it affect your overall health. Like, aside for diabetes was your I mean, if you're like, did your weight, do what it wants, what you wanted to did your energy, that kind of stuff.

Vickie McWatters 8:47
Right energy for sure. Um, not so much my weight. And so I I just really started on like this journey. And I've found some other things that have maybe played into why I wasn't losing weight, why my blood sugar's were spiking when I was eating grains, you know, so it's been it's been really eye opening for me to have the opportunity to have a clean slate, which is what keto gave me and then now just kind of reintroducing some things into my diet. Knowing that I found out that I am gluten sensitive. So I don't have celiac, but I am gluten sensitive. These are all things that I would always just blame on diabetes. And now that I was able to kind of have that clean slate I am really seeing what's going on in my body and it's it's definitely not a one size fits all i got it

Scott Benner 9:46
okay and so so you wouldn't be you basically broke it down to zero and start over again then and and you've been adding things so are you on a strict keto diet now or would you not consider it that anymore?

Vickie McWatters 9:57
I am still on a strict keto diet. Okay. I And I love it. I feel better, I am starting to lose some weight. I found out that I also have some kind of degeneration where I don't absorb the V B vitamins. So by taking a supplement that helps me absorb those. I think that's part of the thing that's helping me start to lose weight and help me have more energy.

Scott Benner 10:27
I see, do you have a thyroid? Do you have any thyroid issues?

Vickie McWatters 10:29
I do, I just found out that I have mushy motives thyroiditis. So again, I had had, I had had hypothyroidism and I had been on medications for a while. But it wasn't until recently that I found out that I actually have been diagnosed with ashy meadows and hashimotos is an autoimmune disease, which means that your body is attacking the thyroid. So that was a little bit of an eye opener. For me, that was a wake up call, because now I have two auto immune diseases. And if I had to pick two, I don't know that these would be the two that I would choose. However, there's a lot worse ones out there. And I want to make sure I don't get those.

Scott Benner 11:13
So your body got tired of beating up your pancreas. And it was like, what else can we do? Yeah, I was doing nothing. And and so what's the difference between being told you're hypothyroid and your hashimotos? Which The difference was? And

Vickie McWatters 11:25
so from a traditional medicine perspective, I don't think much because I don't think they treated any different. They would just give you a centroid, you know, but from a, what can I do to make sure that this doesn't continue? Or maybe he'll it, there are some foods that I can avoid? There are some things that I can do personally, that may help prevent any future autoimmune diseases.

Scott Benner 11:54
And so what foods are those? And how did you learn about that?

Vickie McWatters 11:59
And for me, it was a sensitivity test. And it is definitely grains. I cannot eat grains. And it's interesting, because a few months ago, before I found this out, I went to my endocrinologist who was wonderful, I absolutely love her and said, Do you think I can have celiac disease? Because this just doesn't work for me What? What's down on paper and how it should work and making sure that you count your carbs. And it just it doesn't seem to work for me? And she said, No, no, you don't have celiac. So it would be different symptoms. And so I took her for her word, you know, why wouldn't I? And then, you know, come to find out doing this sensitivity testing. And I do have sensitivity doesn't mean absolutely x. But it does mean that it affects me differently than maybe somebody else.

Scott Benner 12:49
When you have a green, what does it do?

Vickie McWatters 12:52
I personally think that it last in my body? I don't know this for a fact, this is just kind of my theory. Yeah, I think that two brains don't, aren't absorbed in my body as quickly as they may be in somebody else. So it could be in because I'm doing the influence on the outside. And I'm not hitting the mark every time.

Scott Benner 13:19
Because it's staying in your system longer or then so the insulin is gone. But the grain staying behind it's still breaking thing, still giving up your blood sugar. And okay, so let me think. What was what's the outcome of that? Is it just blood sugars? Or do you have other physical kind of side effects from it? It when you're having the game?

Vickie McWatters 13:42
Yeah. So I was always so tired. I was always so lethargic. And again, I would blame it on the type one, I would completely blame it on type one diabetes. It wasn't until I eliminated everything and saw that my blood sugars were in good control. And that I'm like, okay, something else is going on here. So, I do think that the greens had some something to do with that. I'm also sensitive to dairy. So that's something that I haven't completely eliminated. But when I do eat it, I can I feel a little more swollen, like inflammation in my body. So I think that, you know, it's, and this is, again, Scott, this has been a complete journey for me, I, I made a conscious decision to kind of figure out what the heck was going on and take care of myself and I'm still learning.

Scott Benner 14:41
Do you ever feel sick to your stomach or like any of that kind of thing, or is it not like that?

Vickie McWatters 14:46
Pretty rarely. I don't really get sick to my stomach too much. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 14:50
All right. So now you've described a lifestyle that has almost no correlation to the Hey, just eat Bolus attitude of my podcast. So how? What about the podcast hit you them? Because I could easily see you listening to this and being like, this isn't what I do. But something about this is helping you. So what? What was that? Because I'm incredibly interested at this point, like, yeah, you see what I'm saying, right? Like, there's no, there's no reason to come in being like, I'm keto. And I'm doing this. And I'm doing that. And this guy's talking about, you know, if we Bolus here you can eat corn pops. So like, how has it been valuable for you?

Vickie McWatters 15:33
I think a couple things. The first one in in my profession, and what I do, and it has been incredibly valuable for me in how I guide families along especially newly diagnosed families, because I do not expect for a teenager or a small child to start eating keto by by any means. And I don't even know that I'm going to for the rest of my life, you know, but I do think that I tried to tell everyone, especially, you know, families that are newly diagnosed, that are struggling, and quite honestly have been given advice of, unless they're over 300 don't treat when they're in school. And I'm just, I'm just shocked by that, because I know how I feel when I'm 300. And I sure as heck wouldn't be in any kind of learning mode in my brain, you know, and so that, so that was one angle of it. But for me, personally, it was being bold, it was having the being given permission to just try it. And I still have a bike, I still have a few lows. There, I'm realizing that some of the proteins actually affect my blood sugar, especially for me personally, chicken, I have to Bolus for chicken. And yeah, and so I feel like you gave me permission to be bold. Oh, and what's the worst thing that's going to happen? I'm going to go low, and I'm going to pop ugly.

Unknown Speaker 17:14
Nice. I'm so glad that that's amazing. Because Well, let me think about how I would how I would say this, you and I typed into art and about our blood sugar at the same time. Hold on one sec.

Scott Benner 17:29
So it's cool, because you talked about a journey, right? Like about trying to figure this thing out. And you know, figuring out why your your health isn't where you want it to be. And, and nobody's really helping to the point in as much as that's something you don't walk into a doctor's office and somebody doesn't look, you can go, Oh, my God, this thing do this. And it just, it fixes it. Right? So I think that I think that when I think about how, what everything that led us to you and I talking today or me talking to the last person I spoke to, or whatever it ends up being, it was just so similar. It was I was lost, I didn't know what to do. And I started a blog, and I'm writing this blog, and it's great. And blogs are the way things were done back then. And you know, just that I saw it help people. But then at some point, I was like, it's not helping enough. Like it's just it's making people feel not alone, which I think is really valuable and really great. But then what's left, like I I know I said to you privately recently, you know, when you find out, you're not alone. It's an incredible sense of calm, and it really does help it does help to know somebody else has been through this. It helps to know that they've been through it and they've succeeded that it hasn't killed them, like, you know, hasn't made them crazy. But then you go home and it's you know, four o'clock in the morning and your blood sugar's 65 you are now alone, you know, like like being the memory of all the other people who have been low at four o'clock are nice, but but they don't help you get your blood sugar back up without going to 300 it doesn't help you the next night not get back to 65. Again, like it lacks all of the, the the rest of the sentence like I always think we talk. I always think about how people speak in sort of platitudes. You know, like I wrote about it recently, I actually wrote about it in my book years ago, like it really is something that sticks with me the idea of like, I remember my mom saying to me, like marriage is hard. And I remember being an adult and thinking like, why didn't she finish that sentence? Like like marriage is hard. And here's what I should have done. Here's what I could have done. Here's what would have been better if this happened? You no way do you see, you know, people say that all the time you have a kid Oh, wait, oh, you say Wait, am I see what tell me? Why is it a secret? You know, like, and so we do that with diabetes all the time. It's like, well, this is so obviously like that,

and then there's more but nobody says more. And I just thought, well, this is what this should be like it should be saying the rest of it. You know, you don't mean like let's say the rest of it. And what and what's holding people back, and I paid attention for years. And the best that I could make sense of is that people are afraid of their insulin. And I think that's the core of what happens. I'm going to read the definition of fear and unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something or someone is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. Most of what we talked about here on the podcast revolves around not being afraid of your insulin, being able to make bold decisions about your boluses and your basal rates, keeping spikes away, keeping a Lowe's away. It's all really about not being afraid. Luckily for us, there's a tool that can help us to not be afraid. When I realized years ago that it was my fear that was holding me back from making better decisions for my daughter's health. You've heard me tell that story right where Arden was upstairs, and I told her to Bolus through a text message because I could see what our blood sugar was on our CGM through our share feature. And then I realized, I don't need to be afraid anymore. It doesn't matter where Arden is, I can always see what's happening. When I got over that fear, it was a huge turning point in our life, and to mine. That's when our agency started going down. And now they stay there. The dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is at the core of how I let go of that fear, being able to see the direction and speed of Arden's blood sugar helps me to make better Pre-Bolus decisions. It helped me to be more confident that my bosses were going to work gave me the, I guess, the kind of warm embrace of confidence. And it allows me to be bold with insulin. I really think you should go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box, or click on the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com to find out more. So people are afraid of their insulin.

Vickie McWatters 22:03
And caregivers are afraid of the insolent nurses, school nurses. Right, right. You see it all the time.

Scott Benner 22:10
Everybody is and it makes sense in the moment, right? Like, it's, I don't want to kill anyone. Make sense? So I won't. But everything that comes now from that decision gets pushed off into the future and are like, our, our people brains don't exactly worry about 40 years from now, 20 years from now, 10 years from now, five years now, we don't think about things like that. You know, and especially when you're being attacked in the moment, sometimes it's what's the best thing I can do right now. And I just felt so sad for people who didn't know that there were these other things you could do right now, that would not only fix now, but fixed later. And and I just thought so what's keeping me from saying this to people like I should, you know, and more people should, by the way, but most don't. And I get it like I've heard the you know, like, well, everybody's diabetes isn't the same. And so I took that really seriously because it's true. But it's a thought that stems from 15 carbs for 15 minutes like that thinking, like, right, like everybody's everybody's looking for this mathematical perfection about how something gets adjusted. Every time I talk to somebody for the first time, they want to know, well, when this happens, how much do I bolus? And I'm like, I don't know, I don't even know how much I've been a bolus the next time that happens to my daughter. Like you have to figure out how the insulin works. And as I keep thinking through the problem now as your as a listener to the pockets, you can hear the tenants that I hit on are just from thinking through not so much taking care of my daughter's diabetes, but how do I tell you about it? And and I can't believe that any of that happened either, don't me like it certainly wasn't on purpose. And then to hear someone like you come in and say you found it and this is all it's done for me. I mean, it would be it would sound cheesy to say that it's humbling. Because my narcissism won't allow me to feel humble. But but but but but no, seriously, like, it's it's I don't feel like that I'm not I don't feel like Oh, that's so nice. What I feel like is I can't believe this happened. I can't believe it worked. And we should do it more. And other people should do it. And you guys should all put me out of business like you should make this podcast unnecessary. You know, like, I want to see people struggle, get online, ask somebody and instead of somebody responding with Well, that's just diabetes, which is what you thought and which what everybody thinks. I want to hear somebody say, oh, that sucks. Here's what you need to do. Be bold.

Vickie McWatters 24:45
Right? And it was it was very liberating for me to stop counting carbs. You know, forget the whole keto thing, but to stop counting carbs and just say, Okay, what is this trend look like? What does it do when I eat chicken and what what do I just give myself a little insulin to make sure I don't do that little spike. And it is, for me works so much better intuitively, then the numbers, the numbers don't work for me.

Scott Benner 25:12
Well, even if that if you stop and think of what people have told you, if you if you're only going to Bolus for carbs, then you never would consider bolusing when you ate chicken, like never right never occurred, right? You'd say, somebody told me this was free. My blood sugar must be getting high for a different reason. I'll wait three hours and see what happens. Oh my god, I can't tell you that, that you know, Arden's blood sugar moves. And I'm like, ah, let's do something right now. Like right now, like, unless I'm in a situation, I'm like, this is gonna stop, or this is going to be I know it is I might wait a little bit. But you know, and and this aggressiveness becomes here's why it becomes really interesting. So artists, 13. She's clearly on our way to Lady time. And so she needs more insulin all the sudden, I just two weeks ago, arbitrarily increased ardens bazel rates by 30%. I didn't tell a doctor, I didn't wait. Her blood sugar's were higher. So I said, Okay, more insulin. And I'm still not sure I raised it high enough, at some points. There's one spot in the day where I think it's a little too high. And I'm going to crank it back a little bit. But there are other spots where it needs to be up again, because I'm still bolusing for no reason. And so what happened, who knows she's more mature, something's going on with her body, she's growing, blah, blah, blah, it's happening. But if I don't have that, empowerment to do something about it, then I sit here for 90 days, in a in a pool of anxiety. While she doesn't feel well going, Well, when I get back to the.com. I mentioned this to them and see what happens. And and that's a horrible way to live. No one should live like that.

Vickie McWatters 26:55
Well, when when I was diagnosed 18 years ago, I was able to have access to some pretty brilliant endocrinologist and I went and talked to people, I talked to people who were on insulin pumps, and decided, Okay, an insulin pump is the way to go. I know that I need to have an insulin pump, my first endocrinologist visit. Like, and again, this was 18 years ago, but I don't think much has changed. And my endocrinologist says to me that she thinks I would make a really great candidate for an insulin pump. But she would like for me to wait six months to a year. And I'm like, Why? Why? You know, will you have your honeymoon period. And, you know, I like for people to get used to taking shots. And so they know what to do if something happens to the pump. And I said, Look, I respect your opinion. And I if you can give me a really good medical reason, I may listen to it. But if you can't, I'm just going to go find another doctor that's gonna put me on an insulin pump. And she goes, Okay, let's order your pump. until six weeks after I was diagnosed. I was on a pump. Yeah.

Scott Benner 28:09
Now pay Vicki. She's like you're not going anywhere.

Vickie McWatters 28:15
So I now I did have a honeymoon period. It was frustrating, but it would have been frustrating. Michelle. Yeah. And I have had times where my pump went out. And I was traveling overseas. And I had to give myself shots. It sucked. But I managed it. And I you know, I'm not great at shots. I don't really, I'm not the needle poke just the, you know, how much insulin do I actually need? And do I need long acting and so so we, you know, I don't have that education behind me, but I figured it out. And I

Scott Benner 28:48
I'm sorry, that's such a good point, right is that is that first of all, it's anxiety ridden one way or the other. It's not like, without a pumps better than with a pump. It's all diabetes. It's just, you know, the pump gives you more tools, it gives you more freedom, it gives you more ability to make these small adjustments. But when when the pump stopped working on you, it wasn't like you just laid down in the road was like, Oh, I guess that's the end of my life. Right now. My insulin pump stops working, I guess, where's the train to throw myself in front of it. You just went I guess I should figure out what to do with these needles now. And so and so, in a world where you're going to wear that insulin pump most of your life. Why should you wait a year because that year is so dangerous in other ways. Sure, you learn how to manage with MDI. But if it's not working for you, by the way there are people manage them the fine this doesn't apply to them. But But if it's not working for you, this is a year of anxiety. This is a year of uncertainty. It's a year of bad health. It's a year of not feeling well, to what so now I have the experience of what it's like to live crappy with my diabetes like,

Unknown Speaker 29:50
right

Scott Benner 29:50
unbeliev like what kind of common sense is that? It's not it's just something someone said at some point. That now we all just listen to for some reason.

Vickie McWatters 30:00
And I was traveling internationally. So I knew that MDI was not going to work for me. I just, you know, with going across time zones and my schedule the way that it was, I just, I couldn't imagine that working for me.

Scott Benner 30:14
Okay. Well, I just I think that's an incredibly brave thing you did back then even because I'm just now speaking with somebody privately, who said to me the other day, well, they want me to wait six months. And I said, well just tell them you don't want to wait six months. And the response back was, I can't do that. I was like, why not? And then she thought about it. She was like, Yes, I could. And I was like, yeah, you know, because it's your money, your insurance your life. Like why would you want Why do you have to do what this person says to you about this one specific idea. And, and, but it's talked about over and over again, here. We are pre wired to like, listen to certain people in our lives. Doctors are one of them. Nobody. You never throw up a flag against it. I mean, listen, I had my shoulder fixed a year ago. The guy's like, I'm gonna cut your arm open. I'm gonna move these things here. I'm going to reshape this bone. And I went,

Unknown Speaker 31:06
Okay.

Scott Benner 31:07
I really probably should have looked into it further. I mean, but I wanted to believe him. Like, I like he does it, it works. He's done it before. Like all these people that come in here. I should have looked closer at it. I mean, it worked out fine. But the idea there that overarching idea of they he said it, and I just went, hey, it's cool. You went to medical school, you must know better than me. Right? So

Vickie McWatters 31:32
let's do it. I recently went to a doctor who I had been dying to go see, he's pretty well known keto doctor. And I finally got in with him. And we actually had a video of metas Ella conference, and, and he knew I was a type one. And he said to me, I think that your basal rates are too high, I think you need to lower your basal rate. And I said, Okay, what do you want to know what my basal rates are? And so I go to my pump, and I rattle mark to him. And he didn't ask me what my blood sugar's was were a certain time of day. He didn't ask me. If, you know, I was getting a lot of lows. And he didn't ask me if I was getting a lot of highs. He just said, Yes. Let's cut your basal rate. I want you to cut it by this much. I said, Okay. Let me wrap my head around this. You want me to cut my basal rates? So are you telling me you want me to run my blood sugar higher? No, no, no, I want it below 120? I don't understand that. Right? Because I don't give myself more insulin than I need. If I did, I would have low blood sugar. I think, you know, I think regardless of who you go to, and how you feel about, I think this doctor was brilliant. But when it comes to type one diabetes, I don't think he was

Scott Benner 32:55
saying that, like what made him just go and to your to what we're talking about. It's this idea that like he's got a thought in his head. You know, it's a this is how much your bazel should be a person, your agent, your weight, your base is too high, based on based on no facts coming back from you. And this is a person that you're able to go see because of how well regarded they are. Exactly. And so what stopped you from listening, because I'm assuming you didn't listen. Let me tell you a story about a day that I didn't listen to somebody advice. Arden was four years old, and we were getting her an insulin pump for the first time. And our doctor said here use this one. It's called the Animus Ping. And I said, Well, what about that one over there? That little cool thing with no tubes on it? What's that call? She goes? That's the Omni pod. But you want anatomist pink? I said, No, no, I want an omni pod. That thing looks futuristic. In that moment, all I thought was the person or the company who designed that was thinking about comfort and ease and convenience. They were having a bigger picture idea of what an insulin pump should be. They didn't just say, Hey, this is what its own pumps look like. So we'll make an insulin pump that looks like everybody else's. They thought what would make it better? They were thinking about the future. And I was right about that. It's been 10 years since I made that great decision. And I have not once regretted it. You know, in that time on the pod has redesigned their pump to be smaller. We were upgraded right along, didn't have to pay money wasn't like oh, my insurance company didn't say no, you have to wait just on the pod made an improvement and I got the improvement. And the company is sticking with that. today. Alibaba just found out that they got FDA clearance for their new PDM the dash. Now that's going to be the remote control that you use to talk to the pump. The next thing I hear from Omnipod dash is going to be free. That's right. They're going to get the manufactured over the next couple months. Get them out to the public. You can just have it you don't have to upgrade you don't have to pay them anything. That's something How nice is to be involved with a company who doesn't try to wring every nickel out of you. They just want you to have a great experience, use your tubeless insulin pump, live a good life. If you go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box or click on the links in your show notes are at Juicebox podcast.com. Omnipod, would be thrilled to send you a free no obligation demo pod. You'll be able to hold it in your hand and wear it to see if it's going to be something that you would enjoy. I genuinely think that you will give it a try. And so what stopped you from listening? Because I'm assuming he doesn't listen?

Vickie McWatters 35:43
No, because I want to keep my I know my basal rates are good. I want to keep my blood sugar under 120.

Unknown Speaker 35:48
Yeah. Did

Scott Benner 35:50
you tell him to his face? Or did you do it? Did you not do it when you left the office? I'm interested.

Vickie McWatters 35:54
I did not tell him to advice. I told him that I was really confused by what he was telling me. But he changed the subject. He didn't dive any further and I just let it go.

Scott Benner 36:06
Who would have been great if he said, I really had no reason to say what I just said, I get bored. Sitting here this fluorescent like crazy. And I just start spouting stuff off. Just see if people listen. But it was in here. I told her to go home and ride an elephant for half an hour. I wonder if she did that. Maybe she just lost his mind, the humming of the fluorescent lights and the white walls and he says like I have to get out of here. Maybe if I kill a couple of these people, they'll fire me and I can get out. So God, I'd love to I'd love to ask him what he did that for. That's fascinating. But it's it's also such a great example. Because it's it's partly the situations fart it's partly our fault for wanting simple answers. It's also partly therefore for wanting to give simple answers. And there there are no, Well listen, I have a simple answer. Let me give it to you. If your blood sugar's high, you've missed timed miscalculated, or combination of the both your insulin and probably need more. And if your blood sugar is low, you miss time miscalculated, or need less. That's pretty much it. That's exactly it. In the end, it's I'm driving in my car, there's a tree ahead of me, I have to press on the brake a certain amount, so that I don't hit the tree. And at the same time, I don't stop the car so quickly that I flip it over. And so like where is that spot in the middle, that's where I belong. And it's all about the balance between the carbs and the insulin and you know, to some extent, what your body is trying to do, because your body's trying to lower and raise your blood sugar too. And so you just have to stay fluid. Because Because we have these ideas like oh, well, I'll put on this bazel rate. And that'll work fine. I don't understand why my blood sugar got high. Well, your body doesn't regulate your insulin by putting it at one exact level and leaving it there for the rest of your life. That doesn't work that way. Why would you think this artificial thing would work that way? The answer is, if you thought about it, you wouldn't. But someone told you that it works like that. So you said okay, and you moved on. And and you're not doing that. And so that's amazing.

Vickie McWatters 38:20
I think and I think that's what needs to change. You know, we've got to change the way we educate people about diabetes, and we do have to empower them. And I don't know, I don't know how we do that other than the Juicebox Podcast, but you know, we've we've got to make a change.

Scott Benner 38:37
It's obvious that the podcast is the answer. So here's what I here's my thought, you know, I talked a little earlier about, like the progress that I made bringing the podcast to light. I'm still thinking about it that way, because here's what I have happening now. I meet people through the podcast who are unsure, struggling new, looking for answers, then they find their answers and they go back to their life, which is what they should do. But then what happens the next day is more people come more newly newly diagnosed, more frustrated, fed up, etc. people show up again. And so I feel like there's a long road and I'm at one end of it. And scattered across the road, our nails, and people drive over the nails get to me, I fixed their flat tire and they keep going. What I want to do is find a way to get the nails off the road. And then I want to leave, I don't want to be here anymore. So So how to how do you I keep thinking how do I take what I've learned here? Because what we have to do is we have to go back to the people who make the road and those are the those are the doctors and how do we talk doctors into believing that you can give people good solid easy to understand easy to follow information in the beginning, instead of telling them things like well in a year you'll really understand these shots and then it will be okay to have a pump and and because what they don't Believe what they don't understand is that that those that year when they see you four times for 15 or 20 minutes, you are struggling and anxiety ridden and sad and sure that you are screwing this up. And you're not paying attention to all the things you should be paying attention to who would teach you how to stop what's happening, they don't offer you guidance, you don't have the wherewithal to pay attention to what's happening around you. No one's giving you any guidance whatsoever? How do we get the doctors to tell you on day one, and maybe they don't even know? Like, maybe even if, like, during me, like maybe even if they decided to tell you on day one, maybe they wouldn't tell you the simple things, maybe they would tell you something else stupid. That doesn't work.

Vickie McWatters 40:45
Hard, it breaks my heart to meet these new families that have been recently diagnosed. And maybe they've seen their endo one. And they're like, well, I've got a list of questions. Because, you know, all these things came up, and I've got all these questions. I'll go into my doctor in two weeks. And I just think to myself, Oh, I don't think you're gonna get them all answered. I just, we need some kind of a system where when people have the question they can get it answered right away. Because you're right. Well, how can we wait 90 days? In order to take our health back?

Scott Benner 41:21
Yeah, maintain it takes such a certain kind of person to I was talking to Chris Freeman the other day, I'm actually gonna put an interview up with him in a minute, this week, which will to you be three months ago, probably listening now. But he is such a certain kind of individual, that that he heard roadblocks, and he was just like, and he even says in the interview, he's like, part of it was just arrogance, I was just youthful. And I thought, you know, I'll do this, you know what I mean? And plus, it was him. So it wasn't like a loved one or a child. Like I get how it happens. Like I you know, I don't want anything bad to happen to me, I really don't want anything bad to happen to my kids. And now I'm uncertain. I'm an educated. I feel like someone hit me in the face with a shovel. This doctor told me do this. Now that all seems like a rule. And so now I'm like, Okay, and then I start following these rules, the rules get me nowhere, which makes me think I'm not following them correctly, then I feel terrible about that. And then it all compounds on itself. And then before you know it, I feel like I'm under 1000 pound blanket. And I don't I don't know what to do. And by the time and then I go back to the doctor, I'm like, have a question about my beers, or it's as if that's going to fix it. You know, it's just it's such an imperfect system. But I do believe that the podcast is really made me believe from the feedback that I get the private feedback I get from people, he has made me believe that people can handle knowing sooner what to do. And, and if it ends up being that you Vicky have one level of intellect, and I have another level of intellect, and the person across the street has a third level, and we are not all nearly as bright as one another. Maybe one of us won't get it. But that is not a good reason not to tell the other ones. That and that is really what we do right now is we just least common denominator, everything so that no one gets left behind. And I've said this a couple of times in the last few recordings, but it It always feels like school to me, like there's 20 kids in a room. Two of them are brilliant. 15 of them are average, and the rest of them are really, really, really below average. And then we don't want the kids at the bottom to fall behind. And we think that's okay, because that seems human. It's humane, I guess, right? And I don't disagree with it. But what about the kids at the top who are like, This class is doing nothing for me. And the kids in the middle? Who could be going so much faster, but aren't? Like, when did we decide who it was? Who was getting screwed? Like, do you know what I mean? Like, like, how do you? How did you decide how did doctors decide that health was going to get screwed? In case a couple of people couldn't follow what they were saying. And and and we have to find a way to empower the people who can take the information and do something with it, and at the same time, help those people who would struggle more with it. And that's why this podcast is perfect, because somehow I have some of the answers. And yet I'm an idiot. So when I say it, it's very understandable by every level of humanity, because I'm a dope, but at the same time, I know how to keep lectures a lot. So I think I honestly think this is joking aside. That's what they have to do. They have to they have to eat meat humanely and simply tell you something. And the problem is they don't know they don't have diabetes, they don't live with it. How would they know how to

Vickie McWatters 44:43
give you the tips, the tricks, and you don't I mean, yeah, and even I've had a couple endocrinologist that do have diabetes, and what they do doesn't necessarily work for me. Yeah, you know, and, by the way,

Scott Benner 44:57
you're right at the beginning that you had to take better Care of Yourself, because you were worried about standing up in front of people and being a hypocrite talking to them about diabetes, how many of those people are like that, or, or have just been at it too long or burned out of their own life, or whatever it ends up being, and it's hard to be excited when you're talking to them. The thing that keeps me motivated is I'm trying to help my daughter, if this was a podcast about how I took care of my diabetes, I'd be like, I cookies, it didn't go well. That would be that would be the whole podcast.

Vickie McWatters 45:29
Yeah, which brings up another really good point, I think that there, you know, diabetes, is very lonely. And especially if you have been diagnosed as an adult, and you don't have that relationship with a caregiver that totally understands what you're going through. So there's few people in your life, as an adult, who's been diagnosed, that really understand what you're going through. And although your family may want to, they don't really get it, unless, unless they were in your position where you're taking care of it day in and day out, you get it. When when you're an adult, and you get this, you don't have that, that person that you can go to. So it can be really, really lonely. And one of the things that we've done here, and Phoenix is we've started an adult type one group, and there's probably about 50 people that follow us, we meet monthly, and it's really an opportunity for us to just get together and either just complain about our day, or share our successes. Or sometimes we have somebody educational come in from Dexcom, or Omni pod. And it's really been a lot of fun. And I would love to see more groups like that across, you know, the US just embracing the type one adults because let's face it, our kids grow up and type one doesn't go away. And they become adults, and they become their own caregiver and it gets lonely.

Scott Benner 47:02
Yeah, I can't imagine I have the ability to step away from it. Because in the end, I don't have diabetes. Right, I can, at the end of a night of Arden's had a really terrible day, when she goes upstairs to bed, I'm, I'm where I am, and I exist, and I don't have diabetes, and in so there is a respite for me, I can escape. She can't escape at night. And it's, it's just lost. It's lost on most people, the the psychological aspect of it, it's, um, and and, and I think, going back to what we said at the beginning, it is really nice to support those people, people do need to vent, they do need to be like, oh, wow, this happens to you too. But more importantly, maybe we could eliminate a lot of that psychological pressure, if they weren't spending their whole day looking at food and going, I don't want to eat that it's gonna make my blood sugar go high. And then I'm gonna have to give myself insulin and I'm gonna give myself insulin and it's gonna go low, and then I'm gonna get this either not to eat something that's going to happen again, if people weren't having to feel like that all day long. You know, it might be it's diabetes is still gonna suck could suck a lot less. Perhaps that's the title of this episode suck a lot less.

Unknown Speaker 48:15
It's hard to know.

Scott Benner 48:16
But but but no, you just make such a great point. I think that's amazing. I know that for me, I have a couple of events coming up where I'm going to be out talking to big groups. And I'm really excited about them. Because it just because because Facebook, and this podcast, you know, there are people who are not online, there are people who are not comfortable doing this digitally. And they get completely ignored. You know, there's it's just there are so many touch people that need help.

Vickie McWatters 48:50
And it surprises me that people that have come across and said, Oh, you got to listen to this podcast. Don't listen to podcasts, which is surprising, but it is true. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:03
I don't know how it's just it's I just got a text from a girl today. And she's like, I've been looking for support for so long. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that there'll be podcasts about diabetes. Yeah, but I love it. And at the same time give any idea heartless to explain to what a podcast is a certain person over a certain age, you know, work out how to get out of their phone hadn't listened to it. When do we listen to it? I don't listen to you. You're a guy. I would listen to a guy through my phone. You know, like I only watch I only watch famous people on television. Although if everything that's going on in the news continues happening. There'll be no one famous left to pay attention to because they all apparently sexually assaulted someone. So it's just entertainment. It's insanely terrible. But it's like every time you turn around, you're like that guy. That guy that guy him well that I get him I didn't expect it's just it's how is you know, I don't think it's possible that everybody is terrible.

Unknown Speaker 49:58
But no but

Scott Benner 49:59
you like is this isn't something people think about as, like, as their entertainment. People think about television, they want to see a movie, they're gonna read a book. I mean, you know, a person over a certain age doesn't know what a podcast is. Right? And so, and then some people come on and they hear things. I like that when people come on and tell me, I learned something. It was so valuable. I went back and I told my end on I always say, to tie your endo, you learn something on a podcast, they're gonna think you're insane. And so I said, you know, I'd be like, hey, look what I figured out what do you think of so don't don't tell them about me until you're pretty comfortable that they're not gonna like, take your kid from here called Beifuss. Well, I listened to his phone made some insulin decisions. I think he had a kid from it. Yeah, like so. It is really interesting. How did you find your old life? Because you were Did we? Did we say in the beginning, you work in pharma. Right before you for the jdrf? not say that?

Vickie McWatters 50:56
I didn't know that. We said that. But I did.

Scott Benner 50:58
Okay, so how do you find your old life versus your new life? Like, did you do you enjoy this thing? Helping people as much as I do? Or do you miss getting paid? doesn't pay like a pharma job? Well, but but how are you enjoying this part of it?

Vickie McWatters 51:19
And I, you know, I love it. And this is very much a passion for me. It is feels good to go to work every day and know that you're making a difference. And when I worked in pharma, it was quite interesting. They were a big diabetes company. And I would sit in these diabetes meetings, and I would hear them talk about the patient. And I would, I would hear them just say all these great things. And me one day, well, I'm the patient asked me that. And I never felt like a patient. I never felt like, as an employee, I was free to be a type one diabetic. And one day, we got a memo. And that said that they had found some sharps and a couple of the bathroom, trash cans, and that we needed to go to employee health services and pick up a sharps container and keep it at our desk. Well, I'm pretty sure that it's a law that they have to provide sharps containers and public restrooms. And so I mentioned this to the vice president who sent the memo out and I said, I don't understand why a company like this isn't taking care of their own first, why don't we have sharps containers in the bathroom to make it convenient for us. And about three months later, we own sharps containers in the restrooms, but I don't think there were so there were so many things that they didn't think of as these employees are our patients to like even even having a focus group to say, what do you think of this new thing we're talking about? would you use it and that kind of stuff never happened. So for me to now be out of that, and looking back then, it wasn't as clear to me until I got out and now I'm looking back and I feel I feel very, very welcome. where I'm at right now. I can be who I am. It's kind of fun that I'm the only type one in the office that when they hear my alarm go off, you know, they'll say, Oh my gosh, where are you at? What's your blood sugar? You know, and and they're getting an education about it as well. It's cool. And it has been It has been a lot of fun. But yeah, I couldn't be happier.

Scott Benner 53:49
And your Omni pod is shutting down in eight hours. Is that it is didn't know you're on an ami pods. I heard that beeping and it was like yeah, I think I only got like three hours. Three hours left.

Unknown Speaker 54:04
Right away. I'm

Scott Benner 54:04
like I parked up like a dog. I was like, oh, we're gonna have to change the pot soon. Okay, here's what we'll do. I've got a new pot filled already, by the way, Vicki as soon as I heard it. I'm already Oh, that's really cool. We only have a couple minutes left and and so I you know, is there anything we missed that you want to talk about that

Unknown Speaker 54:32
I didn't get to?

Vickie McWatters 54:35
I think we covered it. You know, I just again, I I just want to thank you for what you do. And I do think that we need to get this out there more like you said the more people that you can talk to the more people that we can get the word out that people just this is this is a disease you have got to take ownership of. And while our doctors are there to help guide us along the way they aren't making the final decision. And that's something that I try to get across to my family. You know, as we're doing some of these five oh fours and going into the schools and helping educate. I just think it's so important.

Scott Benner 55:11
I couldn't agree more, I really could not. And I really appreciate you coming on and talking about it. Because you have a really unique perspective, as you know, being an adult who is diagnosed plus being working for the jdrf. Now, having been in the private sector, you don't you don't get that kind of mix all the time. I think it's amazing how you how you kind of chase down better health, and how it all led to this. Like, that's always the thing that I wonder the most like, how did you find this because I can only do so much to get out into the world. And I'm pretty sure that all the things I'm obsessive Li doing, trying to get more people to understand that the podcasts exist so they can give it a try. I don't think I'm the one who's reaching the people I think you guys are. So it's pretty cool, you know. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 55:55
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Vicki

Scott Benner 56:01
for coming on the show and sharing your story. Thank you also, on the pot index comm for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Please go through the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com. To find out more about next comment on the pod. You can also type into your browser, my omnipod.com Ford slash juice box, or dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. At the end of the last episode, I told you that this episode was going to be with Sam, but then I realized I made a mistake.

Unknown Speaker 56:30
So you got Vicki. Right.

Scott Benner 56:31
I think it was a winner. Sam apparently I put out like 20 episodes ago. Just I read it wrong. Sorry about that. But I'm undaunted. Now I'm gonna try to tell you who's on next week. Okay, I think it's gonna be john. I'm pretty sure it's john. It's not john then it will be Colleen or Natalie. Could be Monica, Brian. Emily, Alicia, Melinda, Mandy Janae. Ella, Jess, Katherine. Ginger, Jen. A great episode about burnout might be with Ashley. It could be with Ryan could be with Susan could be with Alina could be with. George, Mike. Lisa, Sam, another Sam. Aaron. Turns out I have a lot of episodes coming up for you. I hope that makes you excited because it makes me excited to bring them to you. There'll be a new episode of the Juicebox Podcast every week for the rest of the year and beyond. Forever and ever and ever. As long as we need to do this podcast. It's going to be here.

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Arden is wearing am Omnipod and a Dexcom G6 in this photo. Her Bg is 86 and she is on her way to the formal. To learn more about these devices use the links just above this picture.

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Scott Benner 6/12/18 Scott Benner 6/12/18

#170 Just Another Tuesday with Type 1 Diabetes

Sugar Rush...

Erin shares her thoughts on T1D management, anxiety, depression and the rest. It's just another Tuesday with type 1 diabetes. (Scroll to bottom to see Arden's dress).

Sugar Rush Survivors - Erin's Blog

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
You've chosen today to listen to Episode 170 of the Juicebox Podcast and allow me to say, I think you've made a wise decision. Today I'm speaking with Aaron and her conversation is filled with story with management ideas. It's got the fields, she talks about everything from diagnosis to depression, anxiety, everything, everything you can think of wrapped around Type One Diabetes gets involved in this episode, somehow or someway, and it pays off right until the last moment, some of the biggest topics don't come up until after it's been on for an hour. I was even stunned when I went back and read it. I was like, Man, this thing pays off. So I hope you enjoy it. Before we get going, let me ask you two questions. Do you have your Omni pod? Do you have your Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor? Have you clicked on the links in the show notes? Why not? If you haven't Dexcom is a proud sponsor of the Juicebox Podcast. They've never actually said they were a proud sponsor, but I'm assuming they are. And let's just say right now that on the pod is a proud sponsor as well, and that I've actually heard them say, so pay for what I just said was absolutely true. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making changes to your health care plan. And my dentist office is calling so this is going great.

You're having a rocky morning.

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Um, it's just a Tuesday.

Unknown Speaker 1:38
Oh my gosh. So

Scott Benner 1:39
you What did you do? You went you took you went to school and forgot? The dexcom receiver, what

Unknown Speaker 1:44
did you what was what? Yeah.

Erin 1:46
So normally, I asked my son to be five. I asked him to pack his sling bag with his kit, and XCOM and his water bottle. And I was in the moment, I was asking him to do a couple of other things to you know, put on shoes, and all this stuff and the other. And so I had all of the stuff. And I thought okay, well, I'll just put it in the sling bag today. We've been pretty adamant lately, especially about just getting him used to, you know, this is what you need to have with you. It's your responsibility to put it in the bag and make sure you have it with you. I should have just done that.

Scott Benner 2:29
For five years doing pretty well, though.

Erin 2:31
He is yes, we're just we're trying to get him. Yeah, you know, get them there. So I put in the kit and the water bottle in the bag. And I sat down the Dexcom we have the phone, we sat down with the Dexcom phone. And it was just time to go. We all went out to the car. My five year old son, my two year old daughter and myself. And it wasn't until I was driving on the way back home. And I always check you know, to make sure that the the shares

Scott Benner 3:03
working and you can see

Erin 3:05
that comes on is peered I'm getting numbers. And I didn't see the numbers on the way back home. And I thought oh, boy, I think I forgot it.

Scott Benner 3:14
So which version of Dexcom are you using? Is it the?

Unknown Speaker 3:18
We're on the G 5g five?

Scott Benner 3:20
But he needs the receiver.

Erin 3:22
He's not No he doesn't it? It's not the receiver. It's a it's an old iPhone. Oh, okay. I

Scott Benner 3:28
was gonna say I was like that, that didn't make that say for a second. But that's great. Let's say you're like, Oh, where's the numbers? And the numbers have been gone forever?

Unknown Speaker 3:35
Yes. Well, we should

Scott Benner 3:36
know he's not at least you know, he's not addicted to a cell phone. I five, five years old because my daughter would never leave the house without her cell phone. Oh, gosh. Well, it's

Erin 3:45
what's good about it is it made it can't do anything. We don't it can't make calls. You know, we've got it set up right now. We only just recently made it so that we can send him a text. But he doesn't even know that yet. Because, you know, he's not even he's learning his his letters and numbers. You know, he's learning how to write sentences. He doesn't know how to text yet.

Unknown Speaker 4:10
So well, that's cool. So

Scott Benner 4:11
so I was gonna say that. So of course he doesn't want the phone doesn't do anything. And right. If it did something he wouldn't, he wouldn't

Erin 4:20
know if it is boring.

Scott Benner 4:23
So we obviously started and not really started so Introduce yourself for just real quickly. We'll keep going.

Erin 4:30
Sure. I am Aaron Showalter. I have been a type one mom since December 27 2013. And my son was diagnosed when he was 21 months old. Yeah, he's now five. So it's been you know, a rocky couple of years but we're here and Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:55
well, so. Yeah, I Sharon reached out and she was like you don't have enough people on who have really little kids. with diabetes, and I was like, you're right. And so, so she came on, and I think it's a, I think it's gonna be interesting. So let me just we'll start off, you know, with a couple of questions that get us rolling. So, any reason to think your kid was gonna have diabetes? Was it in the family, your husband? Has it? Grandmother? Nothing like anything like that? No, absolutely not. We

Erin 5:19
have no family history of it whatsoever.

Scott Benner 5:22
So you just, you're just there. And he is he? Is he your oldest?

Erin 5:27
Yes, he's my first. Okay. So

Scott Benner 5:28
your first your first kid, 21 months old, you're probably pretty excited. Coming up on the second birthday. haven't killed him, right. So you're like, doing it, you know, paying your bills, things are happening like this. We made a family. And

Erin 5:46
we really didn't know until I guess around Thanksgiving, I kind of started to realize that there wasn't something something just wasn't quite right. I had absolutely no idea what you know, I have, I have no medical background. This certainly wasn't anything that we were looking for. And in really little kids, it's really hard to tell because they can't tell you how they feel. So looking back on it now, I can look back on the photographs from Halloween from that year. And I can see that he was thin and gaunt and pale and had the dark circles under his eyes. And my husband is very tall and thin. And we just kind of assumed that well, you know, he's growing up and not growing out and he's going to be tall, like his daddy. And I went on we went through Halloween and Thanksgiving. Christmas preparations. And it was just really, you know, story that I'm sure you've heard time and time and time again. But with a with a really little kid. What happened was we were he was being through his diapers at night. We thought we had a diaper problem. So we were looking for industrial strength. super absorbent diapers on Amazon. And you know, it's still happening. He was being through the diaper through his PJ's through the peach in the mattress pad and everything. Anything he was close to. Yeah. Yes, exactly.

Scott Benner 7:19
That's fun. Isn't it interesting that you're because I don't why wouldn't it but you like wow, they the diaper doesn't hold the urine.

Unknown Speaker 7:25
Right?

Scott Benner 7:26
We need better diapers? Yes. makes total sense. It really genuinely does make sense. When did you by the way? Did you find industrial strength diapers at any

Erin 7:37
point? I think we switched brands a couple of times funny. Yeah.

Scott Benner 7:45
So did you did he gets sick? Or I mean, what pushed you over the edge and made you go?

Erin 7:50
There's something wrong? Well, no, not really, it was just kind of a collection of things. He would drink a nine ounce bottle of water and immediately ask for more. Those two things together were just something just wasn't quite right. And he was, you know, we would go for walks just the two of us. And he would be so excited. And we'd head down the block, and then halfway down the block, he would just want to sit down. And I was getting so frustrated. And I feel really guilty about it. Now I know that it shouldn't. But there it is. It's just there. You know, and I thought, Oh, come on, you know, we're out for a walk, let's have a nice walk. But he would just shut down. And you know, now I know that was because his little body just couldn't go anymore.

Scott Benner 8:35
And you're stuck thinking, Hmm, I made a baby. And it's lazy. This isn't how I saw this going at all. I thought maybe some sports or something would happen. We I could be that mom, I can watch a game on Saturdays, but this kid walk up the street.

Erin 8:50
And it wasn't even just just a human sitting down. It was I mean, it would be like a full blown meltdown. And of course, you know, I'm thinking, Well, you know, we're coming up on on the terrible twos. And this must be what happens. But there was still something that just, you know, I saw my friends children. And I saw their tantrums and they're just there was something a little bit different about this. And I really didn't know what but the thing that really made me question what was going on was, there was the smell on his breath. And I've since learned that not everybody can smell it. And over Thanksgiving, I was asking my husband to smell my son's breath and my mom does smell his breath. And nobody else could smell this weird smell. And I couldn't even I couldn't describe it to it. The only way that I could describe it, then was snow plasticky.

Scott Benner 9:42
Yeah, I told Kelly metallic when I told her

Erin 9:44
Yeah, yeah, I've heard a lot of people say that to you. So it didn't click until I started. I mean being a 21st century parent. What do you do? Dr. Google. I started typing in symptoms and it didn't click until somebody online I mentioned that it smelled like fingernail polish like acetone. That's what it really smelled like to me. Well,

Scott Benner 10:06
it's funny because I said to Kelly I was like, it's like metallic or maybe it's fruity. Right? And then she was like, oh, it just right right there. And Kelly was like, she's diabetes. And I was like, really? And we weren't a couple years ago. We were a decade ago. The we you know, we were we were on vacation. In like a rental house. It didn't even have Wi Fi I took I took my sister in law's laptop because not even everybody had a computer at this point. Right. hanging over a deck stealing Wi Fi. From a house next door typing in signs and symptoms type one diabetes.

Unknown Speaker 10:40
Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 10:41
That's that's really something so you guys,

Erin 10:42
How far away are you from medical care?

Scott Benner 10:47
wasn't bad. We it was but it was like one o'clock in the morning. So I called I called a friend of mine who was my is our pediatrician. He actually went online and found me a hospital ago though.

Unknown Speaker 10:57
Wow. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 10:58
But are you far?

Erin 11:01
No, we're not we're, we're right in town.

Scott Benner 11:05
To see ever are you?

Are you out west? No, we're in the south right now. Yeah, this Africa since it because I'm hearing like, I'm hearing your Southern?

Unknown Speaker 11:13
Oh, it's not Southern to you a little

Scott Benner 11:16
bit. Yeah. And but at the same time, our times difference was that I thought maybe like maybe she's more or less than I think in a transplant. But okay.

Erin 11:23
So that's really interesting, because most most people don't hear the southern that's interesting, cuz I've been here, like pretty much all my life. But

Scott Benner 11:31
it's not. It's not strong years. It's phrasing next time you say something I'll get? I'll put it out to make you feel really, really self conscious about?

Erin 11:41
No, it's okay. I'll feel more at home. I've kind of felt out of place for a while.

Scott Benner 11:46
So okay, so, so we're at the hospital now.

Unknown Speaker 11:50
And, oh, no.

Erin 11:54
Christmas happened. And we're opening presents, and he would open a present. And then he didn't want to have anything else to do with it. And it's just not normal, you know, for a little kid not to get excited

Scott Benner 12:09
about all of those just like the walks he just he kind of couldn't keep it going.

Erin 12:12
Yeah, very long, right? Yes, exactly. So that was the 25th. The next day, you know, I was I was googling, I think, probably that night and the next morning and found, you know, all this kept popping up. And I call her pediatrician. And I said, I think that I need to have my son in to get checked out for type one diabetes. And I told my husband after I called her pediatrician. And he had a little upset with me, he's very analytical. And he didn't want my guessing to influence, you know, what, what the diagnosis might be. But I was like, I can't fool a blood test.

Scott Benner 12:58
Right, right. I mean, what if you called the Doctor off and said, Listen, I think my kid can fly, but I need him to test. It's not like doctors gonna go Wow, you're ready, Ken. That's amazing. Yeah, I hear what your husband saying though. I think that sometimes when you're like, you know, I think of it more like when you're on on the phone with customer service, like sometimes you don't know, lead them the wrong way. Because they get out of there. They get out of their path that they usually use, and then

Erin 13:19
they get and I and I completely understand and I understand where he was coming from. And yeah. And the

Scott Benner 13:27
doctor say to the doctor, like, Oh, you,

Unknown Speaker 13:31
the kid doesn't have

Erin 13:32
diabetes who are and I'm really glad that that was not our story, because I've heard that story from so many, many people. We went in, we saw our favorite nurse there. And I told him what I thought might be going on. And he went and got their blood sugar, Escott their, their their glucose kit, and check his blood sugar, and the blood kind of drained from his face. He went to get another test trip. He said I just needed to make sure he was very calm about it and came back and checked his blood sugar again. And he showed me the result. And it just said hi. And you know, it was over 600 it was higher than their meter could read. So they set up for us to go up to our nearest Children's Hospital. And we went home and packed a bag and went up there

Unknown Speaker 14:27
still Christmas Day.

Erin 14:29
This is the two days after December 27.

Scott Benner 14:32
I've come to realize that I think that everybody says that they're diagnosed on vacation or on Christmas or something like that. But I think what really happens is, stuff's going on for a while. And when your life slows down, you can actually pay attention to it.

Erin 14:45
That is exactly what happened.

Scott Benner 14:46
Yes. So it's not that everybody's magically diagnosed on Christmas. It's, we're on vacation because vacations a big one. You know, we figured it out on vacation. You hear that constantly. I think it's just you know, you slow down enough to really start putting the pieces together.

Erin 14:59
Saying Exactly, yes, there's been so much lead up to the holidays that, you know, yes, I think there might be something going on. But I need to focus on this.

Scott Benner 15:08
They consider him to be in decay when he got to the hospital or no,

Erin 15:11
no, actually, thank goodness, he wasn't. I don't even remember what the number was. Yeah, and the we didn't, we weren't given any sort of instructions on the way up there. So he's upset and you know, he's in the backseat. And in his little car seat, he has a bottle of water and a bag of pretzels.

Scott Benner 15:34
a lollipop and five pounds of sugar. Just started eating, he was very hungry.

Erin 15:39
I mean, we didn't know any better. You know, we we knew that we had an upset toddler. And we were going to something that was going to be pretty scary for all of us. And we kind of needed some calm and we kept feeding him pretzels. I think that's interesting. Yeah, considering Phil other things, but because that

Scott Benner 15:57
ride is so you know, I've described

Erin 16:01
it for us, it was about an hour and a half, two hour ride.

Scott Benner 16:05
Wow. And that whole time, you're just sitting in the quiet together thinking,

Erin 16:08
all of the things that you're thinking, or be facing? Yes, exactly.

Scott Benner 16:14
What it said a couple years ago, what what's the what's the so you're in a children's hospital? What's the play when they come out? Are they? Are they giving you you know, talking about insulin pump? Or are they just giving you a pen? Do they talk about glucose monitors, like how does it how does that conversation go? Once he's in and they get him stabilized? And everything? What's it sound like?

Erin 16:35
Do you remember everything? I know, that's part of it. It's such a blur, it was four days. Of course, we're you know, sleep deprived as everybody is at diagnosis, and just worried as all get out. I have to say, I'm really, really grateful for our children's hospital and for the training that we've received. I've talked with a lot of parents, and then who I don't think got the level of training that we got, which really scares me. And this and this is a whole other topic of conversation. I've talked with adults who have been diagnosed with type one, and they get ridiculously low amounts of information. It's It's frightening. It is shocking

Scott Benner 17:23
that people out here they just gave me insulin needles. They're like, Well, here you go

Unknown Speaker 17:27
and collapse in two weeks. Yeah. Do you then hopefully, yeah,

Scott Benner 17:31
that I've heard I've heard stories that are the people would have been better off on their own. Like, if they just had access to the medication on their own and Google, they could have figured out better. Right, but yeah, so you get so you got good direction. And but you know, at first, I can go back for a second. So I hear like, you're, it's it's a confusing time. And so even asking you a specific question about what happened in the hospital, you're not gonna be able to come up with a specific answer. Like, it's, it's interesting. I remember feeling exactly the same way, just really like someone whacking me in the head with a bat. And I was just trying to pull myself together the whole time.

Erin 18:03
And do a bunch of math problems at the same time.

Scott Benner 18:05
Yeah, yeah, you were back at school, all of a sudden to

Erin 18:08
math is not my strong suit. So when I learned that my son's life was going to depend on me doing equations all day, and that was, I had a big laugh about that. This is, this is ridiculous, God.

Scott Benner 18:25
I'm not doing this. Well, do you? Do you still do you lean on the math now? Because I don't I pay no attention to I feel kind of guilty that I don't.

Erin 18:36
We have a pump, we've got an anonymous pump, which again, that's another conversation. Right? So he was on a pump, excuse me about seven months after diagnosis. Okay. So for those first seven months, yes, we had the notebook and doing the equations all day and trying to figure out how to dose him afterwards after he ate. Because he's not even do yeah. And I can't guarantee that he's going to eat everything. And I literally cried over spilled milk. After measuring it out,

Unknown Speaker 19:14
I measured that.

Erin 19:16
I measured it out. It got filled on the table, he had already had some how on earth do I measure the volume that's on the table that you know?

Scott Benner 19:27
And now you know, right? It doesn't matter at all. Like it just it's sort of meaningless at this point. Like it's just more so. So let me let me let me ask you a bunch because I think this is where like, the real value in your conversation ends up being so talk about having a 21 month old probably weighs I'm guessing around 20 or 25 pounds, probably not that not that bag, right? Using injections, and a meter. So what were your days like? Were they just like, like you're saying, just measure the food. See how much of it he eats figure how much of it he, you know, he actually gives him some insulin. Were you even trying to keep his blood sugar? Like from spiking? Are you just like, was it just constantly like a like a dam with cracks in it, you just kept putting your fingers in the holes? Like, what does that feel? Like? What was your goal, I

Unknown Speaker 20:16
guess?

Erin 20:18
To keep them alive, really. I mean, it's we started having some issues with him not wanting to eat. And I had to back off a lot. Because I was so anxious about getting it right and doing the math, right. And figuring out beforehand, how much is this portion? And trying to get him to eat nice round numbers have it and you know, please, can you eat just half or three quarters of it so that I can do the math? And all within a 30 minute timeframe, which is became really a battle between us. And it shouldn't have been?

Scott Benner 21:14
Well, you had that rusher, right? Like if he doesn't, first of all I need to it needs to be equal amounts so that I can do the math. And then it needs to be fast enough so I can put the insulin in. Yeah. Because what happens when when it took longer? How far did his blood sugar shoot up?

Erin 21:29
Oh, gosh, in those first months, and I would say until we got the Dexcom you know, like seven or eight months later? And it was easily he would go into the 400.

Scott Benner 21:39
Yeah, and this is almost every meal. Almost. Yeah. So you spent all day. Big number trying to get the big number back down. Yes. Time to eat big number, boom, boom, go to sleep. Oh, my Yeah. Well, that sounds

Erin 21:54
intense. And constantly worrying in between? Because, you know, not knowing Yeah. And he can't tell me how he feels. He can't say whether he feels low, or they feel high. And you know, not that he wouldn't even know what that felt like in the first place. Yeah. How

Scott Benner 22:07
often? Were you testing in that time?

Erin 22:09
Oh, gosh, at least 10 times a day. And I have to say that. Because of my anxiety about it. It was probably a lot more than that.

Scott Benner 22:20
No, I think 10 was my number. For sure. Yeah. in that space. And so talk about a little bit about the so this is this is multifaceted, right? So you're sitting there thinking is your first kid, first of all, I mean, you know, my first child was two, I was still just like, every day, I was like, I can't believe I've been lost this kid like, you know, like, he's here every day. Like, I've never left them somewhere or like, you know, like, you're still you're still having very minor, you know, celebrations, and so and so but you get you lose all that. First of all, I think that's not, that's not talked about enough. All this joy that you were looking forward to and expecting it just doesn't exist anymore. Now you're just an untrained, anxiety ridden? Nurse. Right? With

Unknown Speaker 23:07
a very good description. Right? Just

Scott Benner 23:09
you just like, Oh, my God, yeah. all day, every day, all day long is that I felt exactly like you did. And I want I want to say for a second that if for people who really do listen to the podcast, I think it's really important to know that what Aaron's describing is exactly how I was, I just, I would stare at Arden and just look for like a sign on her face or circles under her eyes or I don't know what the hell I was even looking for just something that would tell me what her blood sugar was. And you know, am I supposed to be it my whole life was like that. I talked about it here very briefly, but there was a time in my life. Where if you just randomly said to me Hey, Scott, an hour from now tell me when it's been an hour. I could do it. I could do it like down to 10 seconds. Because I was always thinking like that like, okay, in an hour, I'll test and an hour, I'll do this an hour, I'll do that. It got so like, like, the weight of it was so incredible that my anxiety was it was absolutely through the roof. Like, it was crazy. And I'm such a mellow person, you know, and so I just and there was no like, somebody didn't come along seven months later, go, Hey, here's a glucose monitor. This is all gonna be better for you. It just went on and on and on. And I don't know. I mean, this conversation makes you think about everybody who doesn't have the insurance or the money to have I think Scott I think about that every single day. And I wish

Erin 24:35
that at diagnosis if if the person wanted it, I wish they could have a dexcom we would give up the pump before we gave up the dexcom Well, you're gonna be we love the pump. I mean, the sump pump is a really great tool. Yes,

Scott Benner 24:50
intent are amazing. If you if you had to choose I'm sure. This is a fairly common sentiment that if you had to choose just knowing Which way your blood sugar is going? how fast it's going is such an incredible

Erin 25:04
support system to be perfect. It's like me can do something about it.

Scott Benner 25:08
Yeah, right. Yeah. And so so you spent that so i cuz I hear from people a lot are like, hey, my kids, little I have injections, I want to listen to the podcast, I want to do what you're doing. But I don't know how to like, you know, we've tried a couple of times to have people on who talked about MDI and how they do it. In the end, I think what it always came down to was if you're willing to test enough and, and live in the uncertainty, it's probably doable. But these couple of leaps to make with little kids. And the one the one is, are they going to eat? Like, how do you Pre-Bolus a little kid and then have them look at their lunch and just go harmony in that?

Erin 25:47
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 25:48
I still ask Arden at lunchtime when she'll and she's gonna text me in about 10 minutes. I still, the thing I still say to her first is Are you hungry? Yeah. You know, I have currently the same thing. Yeah. Because I need to know, like, I mean, if you're, if you're ravenous, then I'm going to Bolus one way. If you're not, it's going to be another way. You know, but I can't. I can't not Pre-Bolus because it leads to the ruination of a day, like just like you. Yeah, it just one time eating food without putting the without balancing the timing of the insulin with the timing of the food. And you're just shot. It's over. And so and so you live like that for seven months, when you got the dexcom What was the most impactful thing like first like when you could see what was happening? What was the first thing you thought to change? When I think about our insulin pump, just now I sit and I think on the pot, what would I say about it? First thing that pops to my mind is that it's easy. It's easy to change. It's easy to use, it's easy to hide, it's easy to swim with, it's easy to take a shower with, it's easy. And that ends up being long term in your life maybe more important than anything else. Because at some point in your life, but type one diabetes, your goal is to just not think about it. Yesterday, Arden needed a pod change. You know, it's time to change your pod right after school and she had a friend over and they were doing homework. We were in the kitchen, she came around the other side of the island, filled the pod, pushed a button, stuck it on, pushed another button, went back and sat down with our friend. That was easy. Later she needed insulin. She pushed another button. Easy. It's not attached to anything. You don't get caught on doorknobs. That's easy. Seems like a small thing right now. But when you're walking through the house with YouTube pump and the tubing gets caught on a doorknob and rips your set out, you'll think I wish that didn't happen. And you'll probably curse a little bit. But if you want your life to be easier with Type One Diabetes, I really think you should try the Omni pod insulin management system. You go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox or click on the link in your show notes. And on the pod, we'll be happy to send you out a free no obligation demo pod. So you can try it for yourself. Even that's easy, you just fill in the tiniest bit of information, and it shows up at your house. Hey, you know what, I'm going to put a picture of Arden in that red dress on this episode's webpage back at Juicebox podcast.com. My omnipod.com forward slash juicebox. So when you got that Dexcom and saw the data, what was the first thing you thought to change leap?

Erin 28:36
I was I was literally afraid to go to sleep I still am sometimes. And of course that leads to a whole host of other things that you know, I mean with with the anxiety and I do want to kind of go back to that in just a little bit because I really don't think that's talked about enough with caregivers and the the anxiety and the depression. So, but when we first got the Dexcom just that burden was released of not knowing. Because I would check his finger, we were going to be going out for a walk, for example, and I would check his finger before we go. We're going out for a walk and five minutes into the walk. I would start thinking what's it doing now he's exercising, and it doesn't take much for a little kid. You know, for his it doesn't take much for anybody with type one for the blood sugar to go down quickly. But you know, I'm walking beside my son and his little legs are going three times as fast as mine are just to try to keep up with me. And I don't know what his blood sugar is doing now. Is it steady? Is it going down? What and just the not knowing was excruciating. Right? And getting the dexcom for me, at least it was you know, it is a fantastic tool for him. And it's a fantastic tool for our family. Because at least we have an idea of what's going on.

Scott Benner 30:00
The first two, the first impact that made on you was just the knowing and then you felt like maybe I could sleep a little bit because at that point seven months in without sleeping, you get a little weird.

Unknown Speaker 30:11
Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:13
You start losing who you are, you, you, you, you know, a lot. So last night's good. A good example for around here i got i get sick in an interesting way. I don't feel well, then I fall asleep. And when I wake up the next morning, I'm okay. And so I really don't get sick very often. And so last night, I'm trying to do some things around the house, I'm folding laundry, I'm making dinner, I'm kind of bouncing back and forth between the kitchen upstairs. And finally around seven o'clock, I'm out in the kitchen. I'm like, I'm thinking I'm going to eat now. And I just didn't feel well. And I thought my legs hurt and my feet hurt. Everything was aching. I was like, Oh my god, I'm getting sick. And so I kept pushed on a little more. And then I said to Kelly, I'm like, Listen, I something's I gotta go to sleep, you know. So I just, I just, you know, Kelly took care of things. And I just passed out. And but before I did that, I was still working on Arden's blood sugar a little bit. And I had a site that I should have bailed on sooner. And it was one of those sites where I couldn't tell if it was the pump or if it was her. And like I stuck with it too long. Yeah, so I'm there trying to figure out the food. I'm I'm starting to not feel good. It's later at night. And somebody said something to me. And I really did like snapped at people. Yeah. And Kelly came out to the kitchen. She kind of joked with me, I think to diffuse it a little bit. But I was like, trying like, like I was like I'm trying, you know, all the things that I usually am so good at about like being real fluid about the blood sugar and the insulin, all that stuff that I'm good at. As soon as I didn't feel good. And I was a little tired. I lost my ability to do it like a person. Yeah, you know, and and that's just one day. If you're living like that for seven months for two years, you know, for 10 years. That's just now you're just surviving. Now you're just now Your days are just not dying. You're not driving at this point, you know? Yeah. Um, so you were at that spot in just seven months. You were you were pretty shot.

Unknown Speaker 32:07
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 32:09
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. Because that sucks. It really does. I did it for two. I want to say the first two years. That's how I felt like the way you're the way you're talking. And then we got a pump, pump made things that they only made things a lot easier. And yeah, and I got her blood or you wouldn't see the move. That was the first time I got her a one C to move. Right? Because I was doing like eight and a half 981 C's for the first two years. Is that where you are in this for seven months? Do you or do you mind saying oh, gosh, I

Erin 32:37
don't remember. I think when he was diagnosed it was it was really high. It was like 12 Yeah. When we went back for the first time, I think it was in the nine.

Scott Benner 32:53
That just sounds right to be perfectly honest. Because you're, you're you're giving insulin after food. I think nines about the best you can hope for that situation. Do you perfect. Yes. Yeah.

Erin 33:02
Yes. So right. It really It wasn't until I think it was a little after we got the pump. And we kind of got our, our footing with all of that. I think we got the pump first. And then maybe like a month later, we got the the dexcom. And then we started to try bolusing beforehand, and just, you know, talking with him a lot more. And just opening up to all of that communication. You know that? Yes, you can have this, but I need to know that you're going to eat at least half. So I think that we probably started with, you know, bolusing for half beforehand, and then waiting to see if he would finish it and then bolusing the other half afterwards. But yes, the the getting the pump made things a lot better also. So when he was

Scott Benner 33:56
good, No, I was just gonna say that I I found my nerve with the Pre-Bolus thing early on, but something that I now consider to be the juice box theory, which was if I can Bolus for a juice box, then if I if she doesn't need a quick juice box will fit. Yeah, exactly. So and so I always think that way, even when I'm working on high numbers still today, if I look, if I look at a number that's stuck at like 180, let's say it's, I can't get it to move. And I think a unit is what she really needs to get this 180 down. There are times where I'll just bolts two units. And then because if we go low, we can bail out with some fast acting sugar. But if I if you kind of like you know nickel and dime the high blood sugar, it takes forever to come down. You know, and so you have and then what you realize if you do it a couple of times, wow, I thought I needed a unit. I really did you I did like need like 1.5 or 1.7. I never would have done that this that's how this blood sugar would have stayed at 180 all day. Yeah, you know, so and so. It's funny. It's something I've said in the podcast a number of times, but until I saw it Online, someone say oh, I, it's it's funny because I'm aware of myself being myself. But you don't realize it when you get outside out into the public. Like some people don't really know. I'm Scott, or they're just like, I listened to this podcast and this guy said this thing, you know, and I saw this woman say, it all changed for me when I realized I could just over Bolus for the, the amount of a juice box and then save it. save myself later if I needed to. Right I thought, wow, that's I said that. And this woman's talking like, this was like the, the combination of like, how, how it all worked out for and I realized that I stopped and thought about it. And I thought wow, that is really was such a big part of how I did it back then. I just wasn't thinking about telling it to somebody else at the time when I was doing it, you know? But yeah, I always think that like just until are you doing that more because you're he's five now and you've been through all this stuff? Is your a onesies? Are your blood sugar's Do you ride the roller coaster the way you used to? Or have you figured it out? Are you still, um,

Erin 36:00
I certainly wouldn't say that we figured it out, we have gotten to a point where we're able to not have as much of a roller coaster. And we're talking with him about what he eats when he eats. If his blood sugar is high, then we'll Bolus and we'll wait a little bit longer, sort of Pre-Bolus. And then maybe also suggest that you eat his proteins before he has carbs. And vice versa, you know, if his blood sugar is low, then Okay, we'll, I'll give maybe two gummies any fruit snacks that are his low treatment of choice? So

Scott Benner 36:41
if you throw that on, and then

Erin 36:44
yes, just you know, have maybe two of those will dose you for for your meal. And this is what we're having? Are you going to eat all of it? And that really has been that communication has been really key for us. And, you know, because in the middle of the meal if he says, Ah, you know, I really I don't think I want all this like, well, I asked you beforehand, you said that you would. So got to eat it. Okay,

Scott Benner 37:10
well, so do you. So when you get to that spot, like when he's like halfway through and he gets full? I mean, I think I've heard enough of what you said earlier, like when you tell him he's got to keep eating, that breaks your heart, right? You're not you don't want to tell him that you'd like to be able to tell him like Well, okay, stop eating if you're not hungry. But so do you ever consider just like shutting his bazel off for an hour to try to catch it that way? Like to trade the the Bolus for bazel? Kind of an idea? Are you not to that point, because that because that's what I would do if if, halfway through. And I if I gave her eight units for something, and she ate half of the food, and they might shut her bazel off for an hour. If she told me she wanted to stop eating and see what happens. Oh, God, me like, but that's

Erin 37:58
what we do. We do sometimes, but it's usually only when it seems like he's getting sick. Okay. Most of the time. He's, he's okay, eating whatever it is. there really hasn't hadn't been that many times when he's that, you know, halfway through a meal that I really don't want to finish it. And I'm not I'm certainly not going to force feed him.

Scott Benner 38:23
I just

Erin 38:25
said yes, I mean, we we have done that on occasion.

Scott Benner 38:28
Because that really ends up being first of all, I think that food ends up needing more insulin than you always think, you know, because people are so stuck and you know, I'll say it a million times I don't count carbs. I just look and I think this takes about this much. And let's get you know, get the insulin going ahead of the food. Add the food I heard somebody say online the other day the food works so much faster than the insulin I was like it's such a simple and yet powerful. Yeah, actually I have to do Arden's insulin right now hold on a second she pre long I had to say hello. So she was stuck. I put a new pump on at 930 she runs up to 170 we got it down she's 129 diagonal down right now. I believe that if I did nothing right now this 129 would continue on to at least 90 before level but I need a boss so I remember this morning putting a food in the bag and thinking this is like nine and a half years. So let's say 9.50 extend and then we're gonna do Hmm

Unknown Speaker 39:34
This is interesting, isn't it because

Erin 39:36
I think the last This is really interesting hearing somebody else do I think the

Scott Benner 39:39
last bolus is acting as a Pre-Bolus for me right now. I think she's gonna keep falling over the next 20 minutes. So extend Here we go. zero percent now and the rest over half an hour. So by the time she sits down by the time she sits down two thirds of the Insulin will be in the very first bit will be active. And I think she should be around at when she starts eating. Oh, and you and I are still going to be on when that happens. So that'll be interesting. We can we can check me. Of course now of course not. She's not answering. So now I have to go with okay and the question mark and then she's gonna be like, I have to answer you every time I saw something like that'll happen. More interesting as she gets older Eric, by the way. Oh, personalities coming.

Unknown Speaker 40:35
I'm not ready for this.

Scott Benner 40:37
Yeah, we have a boy so he might just be an idiot instead of a pain in the butt. If you're lucky.

Unknown Speaker 40:46
Because here we are currently

Erin 40:48
sure did trending up for some reason.

Scott Benner 40:50
Now see, now what do you That's interesting. So he's at school is five you can't text? Well, you could text with him, but

Erin 40:57
I text. Good grief. Okay, yeah.

Scott Benner 41:00
So what do you want to do here? So tell me what what's happened. His blood sugar is what? You know, there's some things in life you just don't think can get better. Pizza? Ice cream, right? You just think of pizza and ice cream. You think pizza is perfect. Ice cream is fantastic. You know those days when there's no humidity, and it's like in the 70s. You walk around, there's some nice sun, but it's not too strong. And you think why can't the weather be like this every day? It's perfect. You know what else used to be like that? I thought Dexcom I used to think this thing is fantastic. He couldn't get any better. It couldn't get any sweeter. It couldn't get any warmer. But then it did. And the Dexcom g six, it arrived like a sunny day. It washed over me like that feeling you get when the salt of the pizza hits you. When the sweetness of the ice cream melts in your mouth. Next calm JSX is new. It is way improved. And I didn't think that was possible. But it is it is better than the last model. It is more accurate. It works right away on day one without any kind of like, Oh, you know, sometimes people say whether g five like it, I don't really completely trust it on the first day, boom, right away. Auto insertion. it's painless auto insertion, I mean, legit, painless auto insertion. And it takes two seconds, you just, I don't even know you put the inserter thing on, stick it to yourself, you push the button, it's over. And then magically, the number pops up. And that's your blood sugar. Somehow Dexcom made ice cream sweeter, they made a warm, beautiful day feel better. And now all you need to do to enjoy those things. Go to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox.

Erin 42:56
So we have the Dexcom connected to my phone. I have a Pebble watch, which I wish that they were going to still make those but they don't. And my husband set up a Raspberry Pi display. Excuse me for our kitchen counter. Okay, cool. So, while we've been talking, I've been glancing at the Raspberry Pi. And I shouldn't have been glancing at my texts from the school nurse. So she and I text all day long. His classroom is literally right across the hall from her office. And which I'm extremely grateful for that he doesn't have to wander all around the school. She goes in to his classroom they the kindergarten class just eats there in the classroom. And she'll go in and check his blood sugar text me what his blood sugar was. And for snack and lunch and afternoon snack. Text me or how much she's giving. And if there any if there's any sort of change that I suggest and I'll send her you know that whatever changes and she's in the taxi you come back she said 135 before snack 18 carbs point nine units. milkshake is a hit. I sent the was it called the fair life milk shake. A little little one in the in the bottle. Okay, next complete four minute snack. I think that's a record. So he's trending up now. We haven't had this milkshake in a while. And I honestly did not remember what it does, but I think it's a if he drank it pretty quickly, it's

Scott Benner 44:44
gonna hit a little fast. And so so did she was it because you weren't responding to her texts or does she not Pre-Bolus and does she do it after he eats still?

Erin 44:53
No she she Pre-Bolus is that there's not usually much of a Pre-Bolus There's not a whole lot of time between the when she gets the insulin and when he starts eating the snack.

Scott Benner 45:05
How positive Are you of when that snacks gonna happen? Like was like 135 and a milkshake coming? I mean, you could have Pre-Bolus. And he could have started drinking that milkshake when he was 90 and you would have been still really kind of golden, I think.

Erin 45:24
Right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 45:26
But is it does it? Does it always happen at the same time the snack

Erin 45:30
around the same time? They're they're usually not usually they're there sometimes, you know, program that happens at school that delays the snack.

Scott Benner 45:39
So is that something you're comfortable doing at home? But you haven't you can't translate to school just quite yet like the at home At home at a 135 at home. If he was going to have waited waited, you would have like gotten his butcher going, going to write it down. And then you would have liked to introduce the milkshake at that point.

Erin 45:56
Yes, we would have waited, I would say maybe 10 minutes, or actually it was it winds up being a little bit longer. Because usually what we do is I give him the insulin, and we set a timer. And then I asked him to go to a party and wash his hands. And so that's, you know, kind of a Slowpoke. I love him. But he is.

Scott Benner 46:17
But that's good. Because it gives you time and he doesn't feel like he's being restricted to that one.

Erin 46:20
Yes, it just kind of build it in.

Scott Benner 46:23
Yeah, that's fine. That's really good. I love the way you think about that. Because if you if you give it a little consideration ahead of time, then it's not a situation where he's sitting there staring at this milkshake going. Well, yeah, I can't believe I have to wait for me to work because that sucks, right? You know, and that's where you cause conflicts with food, too. Yeah, well, and so if you can just give it that kind of consideration, I do try to do that as well. And I think that I do it more than I talk about probably. But you know, just the idea of getting things going in the right direction before because you don't know how it's been a while since we talked about on the podcast. But this whole thing, at its very basic level is the balancing of, of the insulin in the carbs, right like so. I think of it as a tug of war between the carbs and the insulin. And you don't want either side to pull first. Because if you do, then their momentum is going to win, you're never going to, you know, if you if you get into a tug of war match, and you let the other side pull first, even for just a couple of seconds, they're gonna yank you off center, and you're going to spend the whole time fighting hopefully to get back, but you're probably going to get pulled on your button to lose, right. And if you dump if you have nine more people run behind you start pulling, all you're going to do is yank them over and you're going to end up being 20 feet farther, the new one to be back again. And, and so you can't just need to start equally, you need and the way that happens at the moment with the way insulin works is you have to get the insulin in and get it active. So that when the food starts working, that tug of war happens and both are pulling at the same time. And it's it's I guess easier said than done maybe much more easy with a dexcom CGM being able to look at the data. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how you would I don't know how you are helpless that honestly, it's, it's, um, it's, it's it but at the same time, you could, because you're thinking about it in a five year old, right, like in a person who might stop eating who but but people who are a little older have a little more body size adults, we use that you'll see in a couple of years that you won't even care about the data that's on your Dexcom as much because you'll you'll you know how to expect what it's doing. Which is an interesting thing. Like you'll eventually just know what's happening, like, and so because everything you heard me do with Arden's Pre-Bolus isn't based on anything, except except my knowledge of this like, right, it's not like I used math or or, you know, science or anything I just looked and I said, Okay, this is what's happening. I know what I did, here's what I expect to continue to happen. If I do this with the new Bolus, I expect it to do that. And then I have to trust the time and she's actually going to go sit down, eat, maybe with a five year old, that would be scary with a 13 year old, it's not as scary. If it was a doll, it's not as scary. There's plenty of people out in the world, who are doing things like this with with pens and nothing else. But they're also comfortable in that in that space. It's almost like I always tell people when you're negotiating for something that you know, whoever after after an ask is made whoever speaks first loses. So if I say to you, I want to pay $1,000 less for this car. And you're the salesperson, if you speak first you're going to say okay, if I speak first I'm giving up. And so and so that's kind of a basic kind of concept of that. And I think the same thing, sort of about all this, like you know you have it, how do you not speak first in that situation? You have to be really comfortable in the in the uncomfortable silence. And so if you can be uncomfortable and then not knowing what your blood sugar's about to do, you can still do these things. Okay, you tested 135 and didn't have a CGM and you thought I'm going to eat 10 minutes from now i'm going to give myself my insulin now nine times out of 1099 times out of 100, that's going to be okay. And so that's the other side of it, which is you can't let the data you can't let your knowledge of what might happen once this month stop you from doing it the other 29 days. And I think that you and people who are newer to it can get stuck in that spot a little bit like,

Unknown Speaker 50:29
I can do that. You know, I'm

Scott Benner 50:30
saying designer, that was a long way to say that, but, but I wonder if that makes sense is like sometimes, you know, I don't know if you you know, I don't know what there's a million different ways to say you walk out your back door 100 times you never trip and the one time you trip, you now know you might trip on that step. It doesn't stop you from walking outside ever again. Right? But But sometimes you see one bad low, and then everyone backs off. And I'm like, No, don't back off. Assume there might be one bad low every hundred days. Right? You just built build in your plan for that. Don't let that make you comfortable with higher blood sugars to begin with. Not that you're doing that right now. But it just made me think of that. So and this podcast is nothing but a stream of consciousness. So

Erin 51:12
that's okay. You're gonna

Scott Benner 51:13
say things when they come up. But yeah, I think that there's, there's a million there's I listen, that sounds perfect. For me. I think what I get out of it is amazing. But I do see where sometimes it scares people. And and that's where you have to have the nerve to live in the silence a little bit like,

Erin 51:28
you think that it scares people because of how much data it is?

Scott Benner 51:33
Well, I'm not sure that's that way. For some people. I just mean, like, once you've seen a low happen in front of you, I wonder, then some people are just like, Okay, I'm just gonna, I'll err on the side of caution. Again, I'm saying, once you've learned how to balance the insulin, you're and you're bold about it. If you get one low, like truth allow, but but don't let that change what you did, because you had one low in hundreds, if not thousands of diabetes decisions over the last month, one time you got like, Don't Don't make your decisions off of that make your decisions on other stuff.

Erin 52:06
I definitely agree that having the dexcom has made me able to be more bold about especially at night about dosing insulin and to bring down an impending high or a high and, you know, trying to make the decision whether to Bolus or set an increase. And that definitely has helped. And actually, right now I'm texting his nurse to set an increase on his pump

Scott Benner 52:33
for his tablet like a Temp Basal increase. Yes, like a half hour an hour. What will you do?

Erin 52:38
I'm probably going to do half an hour.

Scott Benner 52:42
Just because the milkshake got a little ahead of you know, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 52:45
that's very good.

Unknown Speaker 52:46
That's excellent. Or straight up.

Scott Benner 52:49
See now, I'll tell you, little kids obviously different. I mean, the way you think about it, the minute Arden after food, if she's 130. And heading up, eyeball is more. That's when I start that's when I start thinking about stopping the arrow. Because Because, you know, and and will that bite me in the butt. Sometimes every once in a while. I'll see like, one hour straight up, and I'm like, ah, more insulin. And then five minutes later, it levels off and I go, ooh, oh. Oops. Well, no, no, I just did I'll just trade out the bazel. Like, so I don't bolus enough that I can't get out of it didn't really mean so like, say I put in another young like 135 straight up what has happened, another unit, where most people are like, really? And I'm like, Yes. And then it goes to 138. It levels right off. And I'm like, ooh, I wonder if that would have just happened anyway, without the bullets it would have. But Arden's basal rate is 1.5 or 1.15 for an hour. So right now I'm just going to shut off for an hour. Do you have any idea how many how often 20 minutes later, I have to turn it back on again. Like Like it's it's that it happens more frequently. I think for the most part, people are using less insulin than they need to be. And so once you start using more, you'll be surprised how often nothing bad actually happens. Then you go Oh gosh, this is the amount of insulin I supposed to be using. Right. I'm airing airing erring on the side of caution. I should be that I need this since one here. But like right now, so she's it's one. Let me take a look here. So I told you I thought she was gonna continue to drift down off of the bullets that I gave her an hour ago. That was an 1123 it is 13 minutes later. She's four minutes away from eating and her blood sugar's now 111 diagonal down. And so 13 minutes in is half so nine and a half units. So basically four and a quarter of the units are in her now. And they're going to start activating soon. You know, they're going to start actually working soon but I've got the bullets from from getting the 160 or the 170 down to where it is. Now I've got these 15, you know, this half of this 4.2 is in it starting to work. In the next five or seven minutes, the rest of the other 4.2 is going to be in, she'll start eating, the first 4.2 is going to start working, she'll put in more food, the other 4.2 will start working. And by noon, she's going to be at five. And that's and, and it's not magic, right, and I'm not a guru, it's just, it's just, it's just, you just have to pay attention to it, like, you know, look and see, I did this, this happened, if I would have done this, I bet that would have happened, and then just sort of go with that it's just a very basic, it really is a basic formula. It's, it's if if that then this if then you know, and that's pretty much it. Like there's, there's not a lot to it. If you can see it, obviously, and if you can trust a little bit and and I think that's the best advice I got

Erin 55:58
on mobile learning to trust the Dexcom more, it's taken me it feels to me, like forever to get here to be able to trust it. But

Scott Benner 56:06
you have to I say to people all the time, you have to be able to believe that what you know is going to happen is going to happen. Right? And it's a it's a it's a BS kind of statement. But but it but it's true. Like, you know, I do this, she eats this, she goes up. The next time I do that I can't go well, what if it doesn't happen this time? You can't do that. You have to say it's going to happen. And the one time it doesn't happen, you go Hmm, I didn't happen. But I think that, but that's very infrequently. You know, once you just have to learn historically, like, I know this is going to happen. And then but then the next step, like you said, is trusting yourself and actually doing it then. Right. So and you're getting to that spot. So what what do you consider, like after he eats? What's a blood sugar that you're now like? I've really botched this? Because before you were at 400 going, you know when he was first, you know when he was first tournament? What does that number for you now where you go, Oh, I wish this would have went better.

Erin 57:06
Now it's a lot more about the direction and speed, I guess. So we have his Dexcom parameters, at least, we've actually got it set a couple of different ways, like on my phone and the Raspberry Pi are set at slightly different levels. Because when grandmothers come to watch him, we need for the low alert to be at 100. So to give them a little bit more time to check just because they're not as familiar with everything. So but on my phone, I've got things set, the low is at the highest 170. And I'm I'm constantly looking at it before then. And just kind of judging Okay, you know, he's at 150. Is it? Are we going up quickly? Or is it leveling out? Whatever? And then, you know, from there trying to decide what to do next.

Scott Benner 58:03
Do you? Could I at some point talk you into on the weekends changing the 170 to 130 or 140? Yeah, I think we could probably do that pretty soon. Because Because here's the thing, and I know you're not doing this, but if you give it You're giving me the opportunity to say it out loud. Nothing makes me crazier than to see people say, Oh, I have the high level on my Dexcom set it for 100. Because I don't want that thing beeping all the time.

Unknown Speaker 58:29
Oh, gosh.

Scott Benner 58:30
I'm just like, Oh, wait, why'd I The other day I saw it. I found myself thinking Imagine if you had a I don't know a problem in your house with carbon monoxide. And you had a carbon monoxide alarm that you could either have it go off when it you know now when you can do something about it or later when you're going to pass out and die in your house. And you think well, I don't want to hear all that beeping. And so so you know, your problem is you have a carbon monoxide problem your house you need to you need to fix it, fix it, like maybe your fingers dirty or whatever it ends up being to say that you have an alarm that's meant to tell you something that you don't want to tell you something right even ignore is insane. And so and so what people do is they use Well, I use my Dexcom for Lowe's. And and I'm like, Yeah, but you get the lows. Because of the highs. I heard somebody say it the other day, it made so much sense highs cause lows, because eventually you dump on this insane amount of insulin and you get low. So never get high never have to use all that insulin. Right? And so when when your blood sugar's 121 30, you go, Oh, let me just bump a little bit here and it comes right back again. But if you wait until it's at, you know, 250 you're already in the fight. And for you, I think 170 puts you into the fight too, because of how little he is, though. Right? And so if you, you know, not that you'd want to, and I think this, I think that when you react at a lower number, people might think that that sounds like a lot of work. I think it's less work.

Erin 1:00:00
I agree and I yes. And I think it's it's taken us a while to sort of step down. I don't even know what the what the phrase is for that. But to realize that, yeah, that we can go ahead and act a little more quickly at a at a lower number with less. What do you how do you balance though? The exercise? Because he has, you know, recess some days he has PE and then he'll have a second recess?

Scott Benner 1:00:27
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's easier now that she's older, obviously. But I've also put a lot of effort in the past and the like going in, in the summertime before the year and going, look, please don't give me Jim right after right before lunch, you know, like, or something like that what she had last year, we were Pre-Bolus. And while she was out, she had recess before lunch last year. So we were pretty ballsy while she was outside. But she doesn't have any more. It's funny, I mean, to say something completely, that's gonna sound ridiculous. But I don't really think about the exercise that much anymore. I just, I just continue to do what we're doing, then. And so if you need less insulin, or more carbs, or whatever it is, we just keep going. I mean, it's recess at school, she's not climbing a mountain, you don't mean like she's outside running around throwing frisbees at a target or something silly like that for gym class. But if you have a kid who just a little bit of exercise makes them come down, yeah, then you need to, I would set up a Temp Basal, you know, the 40 a half hour or hour, but however, your insulin works for you, prior prior to bring his bazel down so that he doesn't have a ton of active bazel while he's a gym,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:39
or a reasonable.

Scott Benner 1:01:41
And, and I would try that first. There's been other things, you know, we had the one year where no matter what we did, it was just that time of day, where she was going to be lower. And so she would just get to the gym and like pop a couple of fruit snacks and go to gym. Right? You know, like, I think you just have to look at the specific situation. I think there's a big there's a big feeling that there are static answers to any of these questions. Okay, I think within the the community, everybody's like, tell me what to do. And I think it stems from the 15 carbs 15 minutes walk,

Erin 1:02:18
I was, I was gonna say exact same thing, which is

Scott Benner 1:02:20
his bowl. It just, it just, it just, it makes people think that there's rules for things. So when you add so when you ask me, What would I do for this, what I would do for this is keep your blood sugar and range. But But and but I would use the multitude of tools that I have to make that happen Temp Basal, a little bit of carbs. You know, just like thinking ahead a little bit about it, you know, and and these devices. The next upgrade you see to like I know about ami pod I know about Dexcom. And I don't know that we're allowed to speak specifically about everything. But there are going to be multiple bazel rate days coming up for people like it's not just going to be like you're going to be able to weekdays bazel rates and week that you'll be able to have a Monday base or a Tuesday off or you're going to be on Dexcom you're going to be able to set I want to have alarms here on at this time of day. And

Erin 1:03:18
that's what been one of the things Yes, that we've been we love that account. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:03:23
A little more user definable. Right. And so I really believe that that is coming. And so and once that comes stuff like that gets easier, because because then you get to say, you know, I know he has Jim on Tuesdays at 11. So on Tuesdays starting at nine, I want to know when is blood sugars this instead of this. And then when it gets to that I'm going to cut this bezel off for 50% for an hour or, or whatever, or you know, you know, I've had arting Chapa Jim and her blood sugar's at. And I go like, dude, you know what you're doing? And she's like, I don't know, we're playing, you know, this. I'm like, Okay, well, that sounds anaerobic. Shut your Basal off for a half hour.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:59
Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:00
and just let's try to let's try to get lucky here. Like, like, I don't plan for disaster, I plan for success. And and so I just think that that's a in the end, once you've got the tools, right, you know how to use them. You can't plan for something to go wrong. Like if you just stop and think about your whole life. All the decisions you've made. You wouldn't own a home, you wouldn't have a car. If you plan for disaster. Nothing, nothing good. Whatever happened. Yeah, yeah, you let the fear stop you. Yeah, you just always be curled up with your hands up thinking somebody's gonna punch me in the head. I just want to cover my face. You need to want you need to want to get hit. You need like you need to run into it not not not shy away from it. So I think that my answer is I would just do what you've learned and make your good adjustments along the way. And you'll and maybe it'll go wrong one day, and then you'll and then you'll say, Oh, I did this. I should have done that. And then you're back to that that equation of I did this this happen. Next time I'll do this and before you know it, those experience As pile up in a way that you just start making these adjustments like mindlessly almost you don't even think about it anymore. You just like I talked through Arden's bolus because you were with me and we're recording the podcast but right, I never would have done that. Like I would have just, I would have just given to the bolus really quickly and told her do you think Yeah, and right now she's 102. And I'm still on a diagonal downtrend. So she's actually a little higher than I thought right now. But I can see the bend in the Dexcom line is starting to come around like it's gonna go off in a second. But as soon as it tries to level off, the rest of the Bolus is going to kick in. So my goal is I want her blood sugar to continue to go down over the next 10 minutes. You know, I think some people would hear well one of the two this is this is amazing, you know, and I'm saying no, because here's the thing you don't know. me get a drink. In Arden's bag today is a grab bag of Doritos. A full a full size banana, a half of a bagel, a giant bag of grapes, a carrot and yodels. You don't eat that stuff and have diabetes unless you are unless you are being bold with insulin. Okay, so you need to you need to like be you need to push to make that happen. I brokenhearted last night saw online, woman's kids poor kids graphs all over the place. You know, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. One person comes in and says just feed him low carbs. And he'll be fine. And I was like, oh, that wasn't what she was asking. You know, like, I

Erin 1:06:36
don't care. In fact, a big, big topic in our community.

Scott Benner 1:06:39
And I don't care if people want to do low carb. They absolutely can. But I agree. But don't be like, hey, let's wait. Don't forget, push it even like, Let's wait till she understands what she's doing here. And once she understands it, if she wants to do low carb, that's fine. But you're basically telling her, this isn't doable with insulin. But it is it's simply do I'm doing it right now in front of you. And so and so it's very doable. And if she if she learns the right steps, and and it and she doesn't want to do it, then she she should try low carb, but she wants to try look arbitrary anything else she wants to try?

Erin 1:07:15
I'll completely agree with with that statement. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:07:18
First understand how this works

Erin 1:07:20
exactly as we are. I think that low carb has been a good thing for a lot of people. But I really want to get to a point where if he wants to go out with his friends when he's 14, and they're going to go to a pizza place, then he knows how to handle it and can bolus appropriately. And if he later on decides that he wants to do low carb or either thing cool. Okay, good. Sorry. I just I saw that there was a little icon that was suddenly gone from my screen, that if he decides to go low carb later on, and it's his choice, then that's fine, too,

Scott Benner 1:08:02
right? But I always worry like, what if you don't teach somebody how to use insulin, and then you're able, you're controlling them because they're a kid. I mean, it's so easy to control a kid, right? Like, you just give them the food, they don't have a job, they don't have a car, they're pretty screwed about buying food on their own. So you don't see if you if you do it, then they'll do it. But what happens if they go to college, and they're just like, I'm not doing this. And now they have no tools and no perspective and no historical data to help them make these decisions. So if once you understand it, that's fine. The problem isn't that the problem is that nobody teaches you this stuff. Like, you know, nobody tells you, the insulin isn't like a light switch. They just give it to you, you know. And once you understand how to use it, then it's a different situation, you might still struggle with it. Or maybe you can't find the courage, like we talked a lot about that today, like the courage to just sort of do it. Maybe you're maybe you're the person who the anxiety ran you over or you got depressed and you can't dig your way out of it now, like I get all that maybe you need to do something drastic to level things out. I gotta tell you, I have some speaking engagements coming up, Aaron, I'm gonna be on low carb pretty soon. Because I need to get rid of a little bit of what I'm seeing here is a double chin. And so but but but you know, but so everybody's different. But overall, when you're just talking about people, we're just trying to figure it out who aren't burdened by these other billion things that could come up with diabetes. Right? Let's let's try to help those people first. You know, and we're way over an hour, but I want you to talk for a minute about you because you said you want to go back to it and I never I never did. Did you? Did you find yourself depressed after his diagnosis?

Erin 1:09:45
Yeah, absolutely. It really honestly. I didn't even know that I was depressed. And I have to say that it wasn't even until this past May That I kind of came to terms with, you know, I was having panic attacks. And I honestly didn't know what was going on. And it was a pressure that I put on myself for, you know, trying to do all of this, right and perfectly. And that's laughable because it's not perfect it is, as you have illustrated, it is doable. And you can have excellent numbers and eat the things that you want to eat and do the activities that you want to do. But it's not perfect. Right. Right. And it's not going to be perfect. It's never going to be perfect. Yes,

Scott Benner 1:10:47
absolutely. I I don't think I said, say this enough. So let me just be clear about this. Like it said, at the beginning of the podcast, I had a bad sight that i i bet on too long. And so in the last 24 hours, well, now it's been for the last year, like, everything's been fine now in the last three hours, but the 24 hours prior to that I didn't have Arden's blood sugar under 130 once, and we were always stuck at 150 or 180. And we were boasting like crazy and nothing was working. We so should have bailed on the pump sooner, and we didn't. But But, you know, it was an entire day where it just didn't go well. Right. And I don't I can't imagine if that happened. I didn't have the tools that I had. And then it happened again, the next day, how quickly it would, I would think to myself, well, I guess this is what it is. Right? Then you're still stuck with that feeling of I don't want this for my kid or myself. And then the anxiety starts to pile on because you don't know how to do it. And then you get depressed because it's not working. And it is something like when you're thinking about this stuff, like let's not like lose sight of what what it is you're considering as as, as a mother, you're, it's you're you're thinking about the short and long term health of your child. Like it's not just numbers, you know, so panic, how did the panic attacks kind of show themselves what what would happen?

Erin 1:12:06
It was really random, I was on the way to pick up my daughter from her school, and driving in the car, and I drove past sign that showed the date. And I just I started crying. And it was there, the date has no relevance whatsoever. It sounds really, really weird coming from my mouth right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:30
And you were just like September 30.

Erin 1:12:35
May 9, I pulled up into the car line to pick up my daughter. And I couldn't stop crying. And I've you know, I've been realizing that you know, okay, this is this is not normal. And I was in the middle of texting my husband. And I'm going to say, you know, I think I need to go see a therapist. And it's just really weird. Some of the things of thoughts that cross your mind your mind anyway. And that will you know, I don't need to do that right now. I don't want to interrupt his day, he's going to worry. And you know, I can hold off. I'll just talk to him tonight. And one of my friends who was in the car, a couple of cars ahead of me got out of her car and came over to me and I rolled down my window and she just asked Are you okay? I had to say no. Sitting you're pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm not Yeah, bawling my eyes out over I don't even know what may 9 obviously,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:37
night. Yeah,

Erin 1:13:39
exactly. And I you know, just really thank her for coming in, you know, trying to see how I was doing. And as soon as I rolled my window back up, I sent my husband the text, because I said okay, well, obviously, if people are getting out of their cars and carline is to ask him I'm doing I am not okay.

Scott Benner 1:13:59
I'm not holding this together nearly. And so what I did was how much value Did you find in Did you go to therapy at some point then?

Erin 1:14:08
I did. Yes. I went to my primary care doctor, I think maybe just a couple of days after that and described to him, you know what was going on. And he went ahead and prescribed Lexapro, which I'm not ashamed to admit, it's, I've gotten back to feeling like me. And from there, I found a therapist. And that has really helped. And just, I have to say that you talked about reaching out. And going through all of that. being diagnosed with depression. and communicating with the diabetes online community has all been part and parcel for me knowing I am not alone in this, which you had mentioned earlier, too, it is so incredibly powerful. Just knowing that there's somebody else out there who has dealt with this, and is dealing with this, and that you've done this for years now, and you are looking at her numbers, and you are being able to more finely tune what you're doing. And you're teaching her to do that. And you're passing that on. Knowing that you've been there where I am, is so, so powerful. And I want to I mean, that's the reason I wanted to come on the podcast in the first place, is to just let your listeners know that they are not alone. There is always somebody out there who is willing to listen, and who has experienced a very similar things. And who can relate. And dealing with all of this is enough. You know, the the constant highs and lows, the questioning, am I doing this right? What do we need to do next? All that is those decisions every single day. That's enough, no one should ever have to feel like they're alone, dealing with that on top of everything that they have to do.

Scott Benner 1:16:20
Well, I'm very glad you found the other people because it is it is easily the most important step to the whole thing. It just to see somebody doing it ahead of you. gives you the feeling like it's doable.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:33
Yeah, you know, so

Scott Benner 1:16:34
instead of this massive, uncountable number of uncertainties ahead, it's okay, here's a lot of stuff I have to overcome. But apparently it works. It happens for people, you know, so there's no reason to think it can't happen for me too.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:47
Yeah, exactly. Instead

Scott Benner 1:16:48
of the opposite, which is I'm never going to overcome any of this, this is all going to end in a giant trash fire. And I'm going to kill and I'm gonna kill my kid. Right. So, which is really probably the pressure that you were feeling, you know, and it's, it's, you know, it's overwhelming to think that you're just your one voice, but that this happens to so many people. And, you know, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that at one point, I was overwhelmed as well. You know, nobody told me I didn't get a diagnosis or anything like that. But I know for sure that I was crying in the shower a lot. So that that probably isn't okay. And, and so I don't know, it's just, it's, it's really I have to thank you so much for sharing that because it I think it is the conversations like this are the ones that are the most valuable to people. Because, you know, not enough people are open enough about something like this. So

Erin 1:17:41
we really well, and I really, I really feel like that a lot of the caregiver situation is often overlooked, because we're so focused on trying to care for our kids. Yeah. That, you know, like they say, in the on the airlines, and you have to put your own oxygen mask on first. And it's really true. Because if, if I can't get my head together, in order to be there for my son to teach him, you know, what he needs to do and to help, you know, to manage his blood sugar day to day, then I'm not helping him.

Scott Benner 1:18:16
Yeah, it's, it's, it's being so incredibly like, focused today. But burning yourself out, then what was the point of that? Like, what was it's almost like the no carb? Like not eating carbs thing? Like, okay, sure. Today, it's okay. But what about tomorrow? Right, you know, and you have to plan. This is a this is a long term thing. You have to plan big. You don't I mean, you can't you can't just worry about today. You it's it's got to be, you know, whatever the it's a it's a What is it? It's a it's not a sprint, you know,

Erin 1:18:47
that whole marathon, not a sprint, right? So if we have a lot of things in the diabetic community,

Scott Benner 1:18:54
these things are all very helpful. And at the same time, I don't know if you know, I saw But well, let me say goodbye. First. I'll tell you one other thing that because we've been going on so long, I have to actually stop the recording. So

Erin 1:19:05
I there's one more thing I do want to do is that if you don't mind me plugging, I started after this diagnosis, depression. And I started up a blog called Sugar Rush survivors with a friend of mine, who was diagnosed in her 30s. And we just really want to be able to provide kind of a counterpoint of an adult dealing with type one and parent of a child with type one. And just the discussions that we've had together because we we came together, we didn't know each other before. We kind of bonded over type one. And we both learned a lot from talking to each other. She didn't have a pod or Dexcom before we started talking and I've learned from her how a lot of things feel because You know, my son wasn't able to tell me all of that. And so we want to be able to bring that sort of reaching out, you know that, just that saying that you know that you're not alone and being a being someplace where people can go to read, you know, what our experiences have been read linking to resources like your podcast, and just showing that there are other people out here dealing with this and Friday.

Scott Benner 1:20:32
That's excellent. I'll put links in the show notes to it so people can find it, maybe I can get you to write a blog post

Erin 1:20:38
for my blog middle, I would love to

Scott Benner 1:20:41
talk a little more about it. Well, thank you very much for coming on. And

Erin 1:20:45
thank you for having me.

Scott Benner 1:20:47
My pleasure. I'm gonna stop the recording. And then I'm gonna tell you one more. You can check out Aaron's blog at Sugar Rush survivor's calm, there is a link in the show notes and she is going to write a guest piece for ardens.com. Thank you so much to Dexcom and Omni pod for sponsoring the podcast. There are three very important things that bring you this podcast every week. Sponsorship that allows me the time to do it. And you guys sharing the show with other people so that it continues to grow. Guys, listen to you understand that what you're listening to today was probably recorded five months ago, right? At this point, the podcast is become so popular, I have a lot of episodes, what they call

Unknown Speaker 1:21:26
in the can.

Scott Benner 1:21:28
So I'm going to slow down on my recordings in the summer. Don't worry, the show will still happen every week. But I'm not going to record as many so I can make the time between when recordings happen and when they're aired less. But I'm going to pick right back up in the fall September October and be recording in earnest. So if you're thinking about being on the podcast, now's a great time to reach out and get that ball rolling so we can get you scheduled. Thank you so much for listening for sharing for the great reviews on iTunes. And I'll be back next week with another show. Do you want to find out what next week is on?

Unknown Speaker 1:22:03
Hold on.

Scott Benner 1:22:05
Let me luck. I think next week is going to be Sam. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be Sam. Alright, that's it, I'm babbling. I do have a fantastic joke about a three legged pig but this thing's already an hour and 22 minutes long. It's gonna have to wait for another day.

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Scott Benner 6/5/18 Scott Benner 6/5/18

#169 A Whole New Can of Worms

Type 1 gives you the 'feels'...

Christina's husband is a doctor who was diagnosed during his residency. Not long after, one of her three children was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Today we talk about life with type 1 and those diabetes 'feels'.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 169 of the Juicebox Podcast. In today's episode, I'm going to be speaking with Christina. Christina, his husband is a doctor who has type one, and one of her children and she has three children, but one of them also has type one diabetes. This conversation goes in a lot of great directions. But mostly in my mind, it's about the feelings around type one diabetes. And Christina is incredibly open and honest with her thoughts and how she feels and so I want to thank her right up front for her transparency. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitoring system. Now FDA permitted for zero finger sticks. You can make diabetes treatment decisions with zero finger sticks and no calibration. Always know where your glucose number is headed with the new Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitoring system. I am also super excited and proud to be sponsored by Omni pod makers of the tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been using since she was four years old. Why use multiple daily injections or a tube pump. When the Omni pod insulin delivery system is about to make a huge dash forward itself simple, smart and discreet as always, it's tubeless and waterproof, like always. But now the new pods are going to be Bluetooth enabled. Why? Because Omni pod has just received FDA clearance for their new dash personal diabetes manager. It is small and thin and sleek and what is today and now exciting. It's a touchscreen, personal diabetes manager, you're still tubeless you're still wireless. But now you're holding state of the art technology to control your insulin pump blood. And let me tell you something, it's pretty.

If you don't mind, I just like to remind you that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should ever be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. I am not a doctor, this is just a podcast.

Sorry about that. That was actually my fault.

Unknown Speaker 2:26
No problem.

Scott Benner 2:28
I sent it the first time and realized I had one wire not connected. And I was like oh and I tried to stop it.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
Christine, you

Scott Benner 2:36
I say this to a few people when I start but I this one absolutely has to be the winner. This is the longest amount of time between when we first started talking when we actually were able to record.

Unknown Speaker 2:47
I really

Scott Benner 2:48
just sets a record I believe I think we've been talking since maybe June. Yeah. So I'm very glad we're able to do this.

Christina 2:58
Yeah, I'm like everyone, I hear them say they were nervous. And I was like, Oh, I won't be nervous. And now I'm nervous. And I'm like, What am I gonna talk about? There's nothing, nothing special over here. But

Scott Benner 3:08
so it's funny. I was speaking just the other day to somebody on the phone privately. And we really discussed it, they should come on the podcast, they completely agreed in the first thing they said was, but what would I talk about? I said, Well, what did we just talk about for the last 45 minutes? And she's like, well, that's not interesting. I said, I don't know. I was pretty interested. And and then I told her, you know, all the people that you said you listen to on the podcast that that make you feel so much better. I said, you know, they all have one thing in common. None of them thought their story was interesting. Alright, she was like, okay, so you this will be the same for you. Really? I mean, you have you have interesting stuff going on. So yeah, I think we I think we can make two Why don't you just introduce yourself Anyway, you want to be known and we'll start.

Christina 3:50
Okay. Well, my name is Christina and I have three children. And my husband was diagnosed with diabetes five years ago, and then my oldest was diagnosed almost two years ago. type one. So

Scott Benner 4:07
your husband was in his, like, early 30s when he was diagnosed? Yeah, he

Christina 4:11
was 32

Scott Benner 4:12
Okay. Out of nowhere was it was there a family

Christina 4:16
tro later, it was out of nowhere and he's actually a doctor, and he was in residency, and he had just started residency and he was eating like crazy and everything and then he said, you know, you need to make a doctor's appointment. I either have diabetes, or I have cancer, like one or the other cuz he had lost like 25 pounds in a month. And, you know, now that we know like, all these symptoms made sense, but never in our mind was type one. So his whole family is surprisingly 100% type two. And there are some autoimmune issues like he had an aunt that died from RA and then we're finding there's another cousin here, they're sprinkled with type one. So he was born and raised in Mexico. And so I know there's a strong genetic component. But there's also you know, a lot of his, his brothers and his dad Dale smoked, and they're overweight. And so the type two made more sense. But they were all diagnosed in their 20s as well with type two, which is more rare.

Scott Benner 5:19
I mean, your husband really has the doctors bedside manner all fixed up already. He's like, Christina, honey, I have cancer or diabetes. Can you call the doctor for me, please? Yeah.

Christina 5:28
Yeah. So it was like in the doctor was like, well, we can see him in three months. And I was like, No, he needs to be seen like now.

Unknown Speaker 5:34
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 5:35
Can I ask

Scott Benner 5:36
you when he said that to you? Were,

Christina 5:38
I mean, did you notice he was losing weight? You know, it's a funny thing is that other people had made comments, and I was like, Oh, no, I, you know, like, I didn't really like I had noticed that somewhat, but I thought it was the stress from going from med school to working 80 hours plus, you know, and trying to keep up as a first year resident.

Scott Benner 5:58
So unless you're married, you have three kids, you weren't probably looking at him to begin with. Right? You were just

Unknown Speaker 6:02
Well, yeah. Well, at that point, I just had one. Okay. And so that was your mistake, he

Scott Benner 6:08
kept looking at him. That's how you get the other ones. What I've learned from my wife is when I come in the room, she just she looks the other way. Even if it's into like a vacant corner. She's like, Don't make eye contact with them. Or it's almost time for bed. Like I can see you just did it wrong, Christina.

Unknown Speaker 6:24
Oh, God. Well, that's

Scott Benner 6:25
that's it. Listen, that sucks. And then so when he's diagnosed, how does that it's interesting. He said that he's a basically a doctor at that point, right? He's in his residency. So that's it affect you. How does it affect him? did it affect his residency? Your marriage, like what all happened?

Christina 6:42
Well, they diagnosed him with type two and send him home with Metformin. And then, you know, with the blood sugar is that his blood sugar was like 600 something. And then we were like, Okay, and then the next day, the doctor called him and said, You know, I think you have type one. And he was like, I think this doctor is crazy.

Scott Benner 7:01
Okay, you know, but it's age, right? It's always the age you think.

Christina 7:04
Yeah. So it just, you know, but then there we were within 24 hours in line for needles and insulin and, you know, realizing, but no, it you know, with him, they didn't I didn't really realize, like, it didn't change too much for us, because I didn't realize how dangerous it is and everything. And they didn't tell us about ketones. He never got ketone strips. It was like nothing, you know, like, I didn't even

Scott Benner 7:32
do you think because of his profession. They just, he didn't get the full walk? Yeah.

Christina 7:38
Yeah, they do that to us a lot, though. They say, oh, you're you know, you know, this, your husband's a doctor. But the thing is, is that they don't even teach nutrition. In med school, they get like maybe an hour, people think doctors know a lot about things that they don't really know about. So they did kind of just rush us through it. And it was his health care system. And you know, like his doctor was his endocrinologist was a co worker. So I think they kind of just, you know, said, Oh, you know, this and,

Scott Benner 8:05
but everyone just assumes and yeah, and your husband doesn't know what he doesn't know. And yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. So how did how was this beginning? Did he have a really rocky road figuring it out? or How did he figure it out?

Christina 8:17
You know, he just kind of did it. He's more like, he gets mad at me sometimes with my daughter because I'm burned out or I'm angry, or I'm like, this sucks. And he doesn't like me to be able to say that this sucks. Like he says, that's a negative outlook. So he doesn't even ever talk about it. He just goes with it.

Scott Benner 8:33
Gotcha. He's gone. He's going the Catholic route on you.

Unknown Speaker 8:38
Yeah, he's

Scott Benner 8:39
like, everything's fine. Just keep moving forward. Well, first of all, let me let me say this to you, it does suck. And, you know, I will absolutely sit here and reinforce with you, it sucks. I also don't think that giving a voice to the fact that this isn't a lot of fun, makes you negative, it just makes it it just makes it what it is. You know, I get I hear from my wife sometimes, too, because I think I must wear my emotions right on my face. And I'm probably not completely aware of it. And so you know, just little things happen. Like you make up you make a bolus and you expect it to work and it doesn't work and it goes the wrong way. And I must just express all of that on my face. And my website guide you every time I look at you about this, she's like, I feel like you're just you're mad. I'm like, I'm not mad. I'm just like, you know, I did this and I thought it was gonna work and it didn't. And now I'm starting to do the math that I'm going to be up until two o'clock in the morning. And you know, like it's Yeah, it's irritating.

Unknown Speaker 9:30
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 9:31
So I have a good I mean, I think I I think I have a good outlook about it. But my outlook still has space for the fact that it socks. Yeah. Well, okay, so if you ever need to tell somebody at socks, tell me I'll agree.

Unknown Speaker 9:43
Okay. Thank you.

Scott Benner 9:46
very welcome. So So does he get what does he managed with like you said needles in the beginning Does he still do Is he still on like MDI, how does he handle?

Christina 9:54
No, so he was diagnosed in September and then December he started Omni pod because for him tubes were like, out of the question. And so he started on Omni pod, you know, three months after being diagnosed, but they never approved a dexcom. For us, his doctor tried and tried, and they just wouldn't approve it on our insurance. And so once he did, you know, once he graduated from residency and became a real doctor,

Scott Benner 10:22
real Doc, he was a doctor, you know, I'm sure you've heard those words from somebody at some point.

Christina 10:27
Yes. It's not as fabulous as it sounds.

Scott Benner 10:30
I have a friend who says that. He's a doctor and his his boys when they were really young, he could see moms in the neighborhood, like trying to like buddy up their daughters, and he's like, I think they're trying to marry off their nine year olds to adopt like, he's like, it's creepy.

Unknown Speaker 10:47
That is creepy. So yeah, no, I

Scott Benner 10:49
know. It's not all it's cracked up to be. Yeah, I gotcha. I'm sorry. But he got the on the pod. You couldn't get to Dexcom he became a real doctor. And what happened? Well, then

Christina 10:58
he finally got the Dexcom. And then we were like, shocked by what you know what happened. And I think he had a lot of like, hypoglycemic episodes at night that we didn't know. And, you know, and I had had another baby, like, a month after diagnosis, I was pregnant with our second and then, you know, so a lot of the times he was on nights and all these different shifts, and he slept alone in the room. And then I would sleep in a room with the baby because he didn't want to be, you know, woken up. And so I had some mornings, I did feel like, oh, let me go check on him. Oh, my gosh, you know, he hasn't come out yet. So those were the only times when I kind of felt scared. But after we saw what was happening, it's a little terrifying.

Scott Benner 11:38
That's definitely how it went for us. Like we were, we got Dexcom back when the beginning of it wasn't as easy. You didn't just go, Hey, I want this and your insurance said yes. And you got it. It was the our doctor put her put on a blind sensor for a week. And we first we had to prove that she needed it. So they said like, well, we'll take our readings for week. And if you know, there's danger going on that'll that'll help you get it through your insurance. And it's like, whatever, yeah, I'm sure it's fine. Like, I'm like, I put her to bed at 190. And she wakes up at, like, 8590 It's perfect. Like, I'm really good at this, don't worry, I don't know how we're never gonna get this, you know, but what it showed was that her blood sugar would fall and sit at 54 hours. And then probably her body, like her liver or whatever, something would kick in morning, you know, the morning, the dawn phenomena would happen or something bounced back up again. So I had that feeling. For a long time, like, this is fine. You know, this is so good. Like, I put her to bed a little high. And she wakes up and it's all good. And I see when I see people talk online about that. Like that always breaks my heart like I'm always like, I want I want to say don't like you should probably test a couple times, right to see what's really happening. Right? You can't spend your time. You know, I can't you can't you can't grab everybody who thinks that. So hopefully people find it out safely. So he finds it out. Gets it Dexcom did it change how he thinks about the diabetes? Do you think?

Christina 12:58
Yeah, I think it changed, you know, every aspect. And you know, when you get the Dexcom, then it does take a lot more of your time because you know what's going on, and then you're treating loads and alarms are going off. And then you know how high you are constantly. So it's like, you know, you You just have to, he's pretty easy to manage the like he barely ever goes above 200

Scott Benner 13:19
is the brand new oven is eat well, and things like that, like stuff that makes it easier.

Christina 13:23
He keeps a really high bazel going and then he knows like there's two points in the day when he crashes. So you know, he doesn't eat a lot, because he's so busy. And he works through lunch and everything. So he kind of knows when to eat a snack. And

Scott Benner 13:38
so he almost he kind of cranks his bazel up in the nose are certain times a day he has to feed the insulin kind of Yeah. Kind of a doctor as you can you say he's internal medicine. Okay. Okay, so Okay, so he's working in an office or in a hospital setting. How's he?

Christina 13:52
He works in the office. He does primary care. Okay,

Scott Benner 13:55
okay. Well, that Yeah, so his day is pretty regimented, then. And that makes sense. Because when Arden's at school, I have a way easier time managing our blood sugar when she's at school than when she's at home. Yeah, because there's less factors. And you can count on things happening at certain times and stuff like that. So Alright, so he's got diabetes for a few years, you're going along? It sounds like you're fairly removed from it. Like it's something he's taking care of on his own. Do you think that he didn't fully explain to you what was going on? Because he was trying to be private? Or do you think that you were just so busy with the baby? Like how to like, because it happens that most adults I talked to don't have a lot of interaction between Yeah,

Christina 14:36
without I think he just, you know, like, with his attitude of, this is fine. And I got I have this taken care of, and it was, you know, sometimes I would see him up at midnight and be like, why are you up? And he said, Well, because I I ate and I need to wait a few hours to see what my blood sugar's doing before I go to sleep. So he was aware of it. You know, knowing that he didn't want to go to bed. You know, too low. Everything but he didn't. I don't know, I didn't even think of it.

Scott Benner 15:03
Yeah, he didn't, he didn't put enough of an explanation together where you could be like, oh, there's more to this than just right. He ate. He's got to wait. So, Alright, so now it looks like but it may be if like four years later, your child's diagnosed from his diagnosis or about a year. Yeah, I

Christina 15:23
think it was 2016. So at the end of 2015, so he was about three years into it, I started noticing. Well, of course, I had, you know, been waking him up in the middle of the night for juice boxes and stuff like that, now that I was hearing alarm, but I was pregnant with my third one at this point.

Scott Benner 15:42
And exhausted by the way, Christina, you're not doing much for that, that calf, that Catholic miss about like, what like, did you? What did they call it? Where they call that Catholic twins, right? Is that what you had? there? Is?

Christina 15:52
No, they're all like about three years apart? So it's not since 2013 2016, you know,

Scott Benner 15:59
are you like, do you dodge him now at this point, like with three kids? Probably you have a stick on the side of the bed.

Christina 16:05
Kill me for saying this. But like I demanded of a sec to me this year. So it happened. Because I you know, I actually wanted more because I'm crazy. But with diabetes and everything. And I know this is like a sensitive subject, but I don't think I would have had my son had I known. I didn't know that the risk was so high either. Like, if the dad has it, the risk is even greater.

Scott Benner 16:26
It gets 10% I think is the is the number it raises your your possible I think 10% is it but I listen, I understand what you're saying. I've always been very open and said here that I think that my wife and I were always planning on having three children. And and that Arden's diagnosis, slow that down, you know, if for no other reason, who would have time or energy to have sex, and but the rest of it, too, I mean, you know, joking aside, it's, it really is I've heard people make the, you know, have the conversation on both sides. And it sounds completely reasonable both ways. Like I, I remember back to like Sam fold as an example. And I was talking to him, and he said, No, I just like, you know, doesn't stop me from having kids. He's like, Look, my life's fine. And I was like, Oh, that's completely clear headed and reasonable. Like, you know, and I've had the feeling where, like, oh, gosh, like, I don't know if I can do it, you know, or you hear people who have two and three kids with type one diabetes, and you're like, Oh my gosh, look, their whole life is like feels like it's this and I don't know, there's you know, it's it's a personal preference for sure. So okay, so so now he's you're giving him juice boxes, because you can hear the next time now. Now, you know, he's low while you're pregnant. Probably really thrilled to be being woken up at night and five

Christina 17:41
year old still not sleeping through the night. So you know, it's it's fun.

Scott Benner 17:44
Yeah. It sounds like a lot of fun. I don't know why you wanted more kids by describing a party, Christina.

Christina 17:52
It gets worse.

Scott Benner 17:53
Okay, well, let's hear it. By the way, I've been married for 21 years. I know it gets worse. But, but seriously, so how old is it? Your daughter was diagnosed then? Yeah, so

Christina 18:06
she had just turned five and in November and then in, you know, around Thanksgiving and stuff, I start noticing that she's peeing a lot at night. She's drinking an obscene amount of water all throughout the day and night, and I didn't really notice the weight loss. But now when I see pictures, I'm like, how could I not see it? Because she was very thin. And, you know, it's just all these things. And I would tell my husband, and he said, Oh, she's just growing. And so he didn't want to face it either. And then Christmas came. And then after Christmas, I was like, this is just getting out of control the amount of food she's eating. Then she started getting leg cramps, which is also what my husband was getting.

Scott Benner 18:48
Yeah. Did you tell him she's either got cancer or diabetes.

Christina 18:53
I was like, you know, so on. And it was like Martin Luther King Day, and she was home from school. And I said, I had been begging her for a week to let me poke her finger. And she was melting down over it. So I was pushing it off. And I just said, I have to do this. So I did it. And it said Hi, which means over 500 for her meter. And then I called my husband at work and I, you know, told him and then I called to get into a pediatrician, she happened to be, you know, covering the clinic that day, because they were off. And so I have to drive her down to a clinic further away. And then the doctor is a personal friend of ours, and they had her pee and she walked in the room. And she looked at me and said, You know, so what brings you guys in today? And I just said, Well, you know, so then she like you looked really horrible inside and said, you know, you need to take her to the ER right away.

Unknown Speaker 19:42
Well, so that is Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:44
that's terrible. And I'm sorry. Yeah, but at the same at the same time. I'm interested to know what happened like I it's interesting to hear what happened to you because I think so many people put off that thing. Like the people who have a husband or a wife or or another child who has type one, they see it coming. And they kind of just don't want it to be, you know, so that you pray, I think it's kind of comforting to hear that a physician and his wife were like, no, it's probably this, it's probably that it's probably, you know, the same thing everyone else does, you know, that horrible feeling of, like, I don't want to, I know what's on the other side of the door, but I don't want to open it and prove it, you know, so maybe we'll just stand in this room forever, and it won't exist, you know? Right. It's, it's, it's comforting. I think we're here to hear that it happened to you too, you know? Yeah. In some strange way. So

Christina 20:36
she's how old when this is good, just turned five. And so she was, you know, she was fine. She didn't have I think she had like mild, maybe moderate ketones, but she was perfectly fine. She was an MDK or anything. And you know, we went to the ER and so they wanted to admit her, but I refused. Because, you know, I'm sitting there pregnant as can be my two year old saw me, my husband was never able to make it to the ER, he wasn't they wouldn't release him from work. And my mom was with me, thankfully. But, you know, so I said, you know, we can handle this can Is there a way to do it outpatient, so we have to drive like about 45 minutes to where they have pediatric endocrinology for us. And so we just did that four days in a row and met with them for about four hours a day. And it was overwhelming, you know, and I couldn't quit crying, I was sobbing hysterically. And I was angry with my husband, which is another sensitive subject, you know, because it's not like, it's his fault. Like, he has to be born with that, you know, or to have this happen to him. But I was angry because it was, you know, it felt like it came from him, right? Yes. And Had I known this, you know, when I married you or something, maybe we wouldn't have had kids? Or maybe you know, like, you just have I don't know,

Scott Benner 21:49
you put your rerunning all your decisions and right, yeah,

Christina 21:54
so it just opens this whole new can of worms, and I have to work through all these feelings of anger. And you know, like, what am I doing now? What about my other kids now? And, you know, and it becomes this horribly overwhelming, because when he was diagnosed, it was like, guy, you know, here, here you go. And then it was like, oh, here's a social worker, here's a, you know, I don't know, like a child development specialist. Here's a nutritionist. Here's the you know, here's the doctor, and here's the nurse, and, you know, you're holding her down. I, you know, I hear people say on your show, like how easy it is and how their kid handles their shots. Well, well, this was not the case for us. I mean, it was like, I mean, I remember sitting outside, begging her, like, you have to take this and I have to tell my five year old you're either gonna die, or you're going to let mommy give you this injection because this is what's gonna keep you alive now and having to tell your daughter that at the age of five, but it totally changed after that. Then she kind of realized the, you know, the seriousness of

Scott Benner 22:52
it. Yeah. This lady's not just trying to poke me cuz she's more. And yeah, no, I hear you. I've, you know, I've said before, Arden was never really thrilled with shots. And there were times where I had to, like, sit on her to give her injections and things like that, you know, like, actually hold her down to do it. Because she would just run if you didn't, right. And you know, even to this day, at 13 when she's she's pretty good with like changing sights and stuff like that. But you can still say she tenses up a little bit. And it's still not even though she's like, it doesn't. At this point. She's like, it doesn't hurt but I can't not tense up. Yeah, I'm like, No, I understand. This is my gosh, at this point, what are we talking about here? This is 11 or more years later, and it's still, you know, it's not just free and easy for

Unknown Speaker 23:39
right?

Scott Benner 23:39
I get the end, how do you? How do you rationalize with a five year old like, you made me think when you said it, you know, you had to be like, Look, you're gonna die if we don't do this. It might sound really harsh to people. But I remember the first time my son made a made an all star baseball team. He was like it was the summer he was six years old. And I remember dropping them off at the first practice and kind of like leaving him alone, let them be there. And at the end, he scooped him up, and we're walking over to the car. And I said, you know, what did you think? How was it? He said, he was really excited. He loved it. And he said, but the coach kept saying this thing, because I didn't know what he was talking about. I was like, Well, what maybe I could explain it to you because he won't, he said that we should all be more aggressive. And I was like, yeah, so you know, be more aggressive. He's like, well, what is aggressive mean? And I thought, Oh, he sex. There's a word he's never heard before. Right? He has no context and any has no context for it. So he does spend time. Like I forget how I ended up doing I think I ended up using like a tiger as an analogy as like, imagine if you know, there was a tiger and it attacks something. I'm like, the act of attacking that act is aggressive. That's aggressive. And then I broke it down into other ways into sports metaphors. Took the entire ride home to explain a word to my six year old. Yeah, you know, and like so how do you how do you take a five year old and say, hey, look, there's this medicine. There's this thing inside of your body, it stopped working. It's just like, like there's that's a lot of information for a five year old and That's why it's such a weird spot because Artem was too. And she was diagnosed. She didn't know we just did. Well at five. You kids got context. She can talk. You don't mean like, like, she's she's going, Wow, this was not happening to me last week. You know, it's not pleasant. It's a it's a very strange and you're pregnant. How pregnant were you when she was diagnosed?

Christina 25:21
Well, that was January, and I had them in May. So.

Scott Benner 25:24
So anyway, yeah. So you were in second trimester? Yeah. Hormones happening. All that stuff. husband's a doctor. Yeah, there's a lot going on. you're by yourself with those kids and the pregnancy and yeah, gosh, and then you

Christina 25:39
know, having to hold her down. And it's just, it's just horrible to do. And so luckily, you know, because of him being a physician and stuff, they moved us along, because they don't normally let people start pumps so quickly, but within a month we were on a pump. Does she like that better?

Scott Benner 25:54
Did she use the same pump that her dad Susan or no?

Christina 25:57
Well, we use the Animas. Well, she's on Omni pod now, but we did use the animals, our insurance actually doesn't cover Omni pod. And so we pay out of pocket for it. And so we went with the one first and we liked it, and I act, there's something that I actually miss about it when I switch to Omnipod. Okay, but I definitely don't miss the technology because they were so behind.

Unknown Speaker 26:23
And that's that is the company that's going out.

Christina 26:28
But the canula, I think is where we struggle the most, because she used the needle infusion set before. And so I think we have more issues now with absorption and stuff like that, that we didn't have with a needle set. But do you just change more frequently? When

Scott Benner 26:41
you get it must be hard as you're paying cash, but you must just change it more frequently.

Christina 26:45
If Yeah, well, we do if we have to. But I mean, even just doing slight changes is just horrible for ya. Know,

Scott Benner 26:53
I hear that she still has issues with it. Arden doesn't like said on the pod clicks before it goes in, right and so. But the insertion doesn't always happen on the same click and artwork. allergen counts them. And she's like, 1234, and she'll get the five and one five doesn't happen. You can see she's like, in that gap of time where Oh, my God, that didn't happen. But it happens. And I have to be perfectly honest, if it wasn't. So if it wasn't something she didn't like, I would have to let I do laugh at her something happened, something Solaris. I think I know we've changed this pump every three days. Since you were four, like we she said on the podcast. She's four. I'm like, so what are we talking about here? like seven, eight years, right? Maybe more at this point? And I was like, are you really surprised by it? She goes, No, it doesn't hurt. And she has no and I'm like, What is all this about? She's like, I don't know. I think is your daughter gets older, I said this to a couple people. And you've probably heard me say it to them. But I'll say it to you because I think you maybe need to hear it. By the time aren't done using shots. I calculated that I probably stuck her in some way shape, or form. But over 10,000 times, and a couple of years, like into on the pod. We want to she got sick one day, and I thought I couldn't tell if the pod was not you know, just needed to be changed or if she was resistant to insulin. So I thought well, I'm gonna inject some insulin. And I thought well, because if our blood sugar moves real quickly, then I'll change your pump. And if it doesn't, then it's not the pump, and she just needs more insulin. Excuse me. So I get out the syringes that we have are kind of like backups, jammed way down in a drawer somewhere I pull one out, I draw some up, I tell her, Hey, I'm going to give you some insulin with this. And she just looks at it. Like she just she'd never seen it before in her whole life. And she goes, What is that? And I said it's a needle I'm going to give you the insulin with and she's like how, like just like really? Like, what are you even talking about? Like I get my insulin through that pump? You know? Yeah. And I explained it to her. She had literally no recollection of ever having a needle in her entire life. So maybe your daughter will, maybe a lot of it will go for dinner. I mean, like it was impactful on her as you're imagining. It's probably more of the the sadness on your side. But I have to tell you, too, I don't I don't remember that sadness anymore very much either. So there will be a day where this all doesn't exist for you get you don't even good. Yeah.

Christina 29:17
Yeah, I think it is harder for the parent sometimes than it is for the kid. But

Scott Benner 29:22
it absolutely can be like there's no I've admitted here before. I've never given myself a shot. I've never tested my blood sugar. I've never inserted a pod or Dexcom or none of that because I always thought if it hurt, then I'd know it hurt like and then I would know what it felt like and then how would I do it? Give me like at least now I have this veil of ignorance. And I know that everybody doesn't agree with me on this, but I had this veil of ignorance. I don't know what it feels like. And I am the one who's supposed to be doing this. Like I'm the doctor in this little situation in our life, right like I can't, I can't cut your leg open with a scalpel. If I know what it feels like, maybe like you don't like so i just i have to do this thing. I think it's better for me not to completely know what it feels like. And I'm sure some people agree and some people don't agree. That's how it always struck me. So, yeah, I definitely get how hard because it was very, it was hard for me to like I would, you know, do something and then go cry. And then, you know, come back and, and be like, everything's fine. Everything's great. I'm not crying. Now, I totally get it. Well, in your email, this is funny, people won't know how to you won't know how to like make sense at this time. We're recording this in November of 2017. You and I started talking in June of 2017. This probably won't post until February or March of 2018. So it'll almost be 10 months since we actually spoke the first time. But in your initial email, you said that the podcast sometimes feels like therapy for you. Yeah. And I was wondering how so. earlier in the show, I told you a little bit about the Omni pod insulin pump. And now I'm going to tell you a little more. Today I want to focus on the ease of use for the Omni pod. So not only is it tubeless, and wireless, so the personal diabetes manager doesn't actually in any way connect to the pump itself. It's wireless. And the pump itself doesn't have any tubing. So, you know, how does it do that you might be wondering, it's pretty simple. The Omni pod is just this tiny little device that you fill with insulin applied to your skin and then press start on your personal diabetes manager. It inserts the candle automatically and begins delivering your insulin all with a touch of a button. It is actually as simple as I just made it sound Arden's been using it since she was four years old. And next month, she will be 14 years old 10 years we've been using the alley pod, it is spectacular. Please go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on the links. Or there are links in the show notes to your podcast app. But in the end, you need to go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box and they're on the pod we'll set you up with a free no obligation demo pod. But you can actually apply a pod to yourself and wear it and see what you think there's no risk doesn't cost you anything. And I'm telling you after 10 years, you couldn't make a better decision. My omnipod.com Ford slash juice box with the links in your show notes or at Juicebox podcast.com. Also, if you'd like to see the new personal diabetes manager from Omni pod, the new dash PDM I'll put a link in the show notes for that too. I have some pictures back on my blog. You said that the podcast sometimes feels like therapy for you. And I was wondering how so?

Christina 32:48
Well, I think it's just because you you know, you live in your little bubble. And for me, like we've tried to make other friends with type one or other families. So you have some type of somebody that understands because people, no matter how much they want to they don't understand what your life is like or what you go through. You know, and you hear people whining that, oh, their kid was sick. So they had to stay up with them last night, you're like, well, that's my life every day.

Scott Benner 33:15
You know, find compassion for them. And yeah, did that happen to you once this year?

Christina 33:21
you for saying? Yeah. So to hear other people and just even like you said, Just hearing other people's stories of diagnosis or how it, you know, unfolded for their family, or how they're dealing with it or anything, it gives you that, you know, kind of sense that there's other people out there doing it, you know, struggling with the same things and that we're all you know, we're spread out across the country and across the world. But we're all in it together still. And just to hear that just gives you like, I don't know, kind of a sense of relief or to hear other people's they they're struggling with something that you're struggling with or you know, makes you feel like you're not doing it wrong, right,

Scott Benner 33:59
you can have that feeling like, Oh my gosh, I'm struggling, I must not understand something about this. But when you find out that that's something that happens to everybody, maybe it's part of a growing process or a learning process takes a lot It takes a lot of the guilt away.

Christina 34:13
And then you know, you help all the time, like you say how it doesn't get easier, you just get insanely better at dealing with it or you know, you say, you know, don't beat yourself up and you're you know, you're constantly giving the kind of things out there that I think people need to hear. And if you're listening to it after you've had a particularly rough night or day, it's just you know, it's therapeutic to hear that, you know, everything's gonna be fine and it's, you'll get this and you know, start over you always say start over that's in the past. It's done. I think you should do like, like, Scott's best advice episode,

Scott Benner 34:49
but then we'd have to say it's not advice.

Unknown Speaker 34:51
I just call it what you should plug in

Scott Benner 34:54
best advice. Not really advice. I have considered just putting Together, it's like, these are the episodes that people find the most valuable. I actually, I actually might put a call out to people and have them tell me what their five favorite episodes are. So we can sort of because, you know, because the other thing is too is like, I'm the one making the podcast sometimes. After I go back and I edit it, I have a chance to listen to it again. It's been months since I've recorded it when that happens. And I listen, I'll be like, this person was great. Which is why you'll hear me on like, the beginning of the episode. This is like the best episode because it's not that I have like, you know, a memory problem. And that I didn't just say that two weeks ago, but for me, like I hear it again. I'm like, Oh, this was great. Like, I forgot how great this was. Or even in the midst of saying, like having the conversation. It didn't strike me right away. That something someone said was so impactful, or at times, you know, humbly like I'll say something that later I'll hear and I go, Wow, that was really smart. Like, I didn't know that when I was saying it.

Christina 35:52
I actually write things down that you say, and I keep them to go back and read them sometimes. Oh,

Scott Benner 35:57
I I'm embarrassed and touched very early like that. I always tell people, it's like, Can we just get my wife on here real quick. So she can I had a private phone call with somebody last week. And she was going online about what the podcast mentor. I think there was part of me like this little just childish part of me that like I wanted to put it on speakerphone and be like, Listen, other people how they think about. But it's also very, you also don't have to live with me, Christina, you are you very much might not like me, either. If you had to spend the whole weekend this. Just kidding. I think my wife likes me. I can't it's hard to tell. And so well, let me let me so that's really I first of all, I'm really great to hear that the podcast does that for you. So it makes me feel like it must do it for other people too. which I find really, like, it's heartwarming. But you said something that I just found really super interesting. Like you tried to make type one friends. So imagine that like when you go out to make friends. First of all, making friends as an adult is not that simple. And then then when you put parameters on it like well, these people have to be probably near my age have kids near my age have similar interests as us they got to be as excited to go see for this weekend as I am, you know, or an arthouse movie, not for like whatever it ends up being I wouldn't I like this kind of food. And then on top of that you narrow your field down by plus I have type one diabetes. That's like Craigslist kind of stuff. Like how are you ever gonna find anybody that? Can you? I picture you at a dinner party going to your husband? I really like these people find out if they have diabetes.

Christina 37:35
You're making me sound crazy. No.

Scott Benner 37:38
Listen, I'm gonna tell you what I tell my wife. You're doing that yourself. No. I'm just kidding. She's not crazy. You're not crazy. It was just a cheap joke. But, but but but you're not. But you're, I understand what you're saying. Like you're looking for this person. who cannot just be a friend. Yeah, but but understand what's happening, you know,

Christina 37:55
more so for my daughter, because she asked, you know, so we did meet a boy, that's nine that has type one. And that was the first type one she met. And she just thinks it's the most amazing thing ever, that there's someone like her like she can't even grasp. You know that there's people out there like her and we haven't taken her to camp because it's it's hours away. And it's kind of inconvenient to get that week off. And then to do that with all the kids, you know, the family camp?

Scott Benner 38:18
Yeah. Where are you at in the country.

Christina 38:21
We're in California, in Northern California. So they do have a camp, but it's like, in the central California. It's a three four hour drive, which is not fun with little kids. And you know, it's just not something by on our list right now.

Scott Benner 38:37
Drive four hours home and you're four hours away, then. Yeah, when she's at the camp, and if you have an issue, that's how far she you know, it's funny. My daughter has never been to diabetes camp. And yet I've had people on here who talked about it directors from camps, people have gone, they all find it to be the most amazing thing. When I talked to Arden about it, she doesn't seem to be in any way interested in it. And so I'm like, Alright, well, I think my kids just not a camp person. Like, like, take the diabetes out of it. Right? Like, when you're like, hey, so we'll take you to this place for a week and a cabin and you can already see. She's just like, whoa, wait, what have I done something wrong? You know, like, like, Am I being punishment? I don't need to leave that. I got Netflix here. I don't understand what you're saying. Why do I have to go?

Unknown Speaker 39:22
with artists?

Scott Benner 39:22
Yeah. I don't think she's a camper at heart. Yeah, the last vacation we took that was just in Vermont. We rented a house for a few days. And the house was wonderful. And they were still like, way too much nature. And I was like, Okay, all right. So I think my kids are more of I think they're more beat. They're more beach people to be perfectly honest. So and that even has been our our family getaway for years. You know, we don't go every year. It's way too expensive to do that. But we've been a handful of times to St. JOHN in the Virgin Islands. And now it's been hit so hard by the hurricanes that I don't even genuinely know if it's there to visit or not. You Yeah, so Okay, let's not let so let's let's kind of like regroup for a second. Well,

Christina 40:07
let me tell you what I have done. So you don't think I'm so crazy? Oh, first of all,

Scott Benner 40:11
no one thought you were crazy. Again, just a cheap joke. This is a really great episode, you are being really honest, I don't think you're crazy at all. But tell me more than I'll follow.

Christina 40:19
Well, I, so we, I reached out to the school nurses, right. And we have a lot of schools in our city. And ironically, my daughter goes to a private school, and 30 minutes away in another town, which has its own set of issues with diabetes, and that they don't have a school nurse. And, you know, that's a whole nother can of worms, but I'm trying to manage it from far away, but I reached out to the school nurses and I, you know, I said, I'm trying to start this group, you know, for our county, and, you know, just with parents so we can get together, we can get our kids together, maybe we can have some education or something, you know, I'm, I have my Master's in Public Health, and I did the health promotion, health education. So I was kind of routing it that way. But nobody responds. And parents just start kind of interested. So I think everyone's so busy with their own life, that it's hard enough just to deal with, you know, everything they have going on in their family that that's how the world's going on, it's hard to get people together. Often.

Scott Benner 41:16
I agree, I, I am a stay at home dad to two kids, one of them has diabetes, I do this podcast. And other than that, I pretty much vacuum and grocery shop and do things like that. And I've been trying to get together with a friend of mine for lunch for like six months, and I can't seem to make it happen. And so I get that. And I also get the how much all those people would love it. If you guys did get together once in a while. And you know, I'll have to think about how to i, it's, it's going a little slower than I hope but we're really thinking of like taking the podcast out into the world and doing it in front of like a group. So I'll be doing it. In March, I think in New Jersey at a at a jdrf conference. And I have a phone call tomorrow, about one in January in Arizona, which by the time people here, this will have happened a long time ago. But But I just think i think that the conversation you and I are having, but with a bunch of people who could all, you know, have like, like maybe a little micro conversations with me back and forth. And like we're doing now and then move on to something else. By the time everybody got through their question. My imagination says that all everyone's question would pretty much encompass what everybody's thinking get out. Yeah. And I think that would be really cool. I don't know if you heard the last episode number 168. But it was an interview and a review of the Dexcom g six. Here's how it was an interview, review and interview, if you will, I had Jake leech on he's the Senior Vice President of Research and Development for Dexcom. And I basically gave Jake my feelings about having used the GS six now for the past four or five weeks. And then Jake was there to give us a deep dive into how some of the things that I asked about work, I thought it was interesting, I hope you heard it. And if you didn't, you should go check it out. But I bring it up, because it's gonna give you a lot of information about the new Dexcom g six. And that's what this ad is about. If you go on the link in your show notes, or Juicebox podcast.com, or just go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box there, you'll be able to get all the information you need in the world about the glucose monitor that is the center of everything you hear about here on the podcast. You know, it's easy to say yeah, I want to be able to see my kids blood sugar while they're at school or my mother's blood sugar. While she's in Florida, I don't know where people go or why they do things. But it is nice to be able to see their blood sugar when they're not with you. That is good. I love that. I think it's great to know what direction your blood sugar is moving in and how fast it's going. It can be a real safety feature as well while I'm sleeping. But in the end, to me the real focus of what the dexcom g six is, is this. You need to understand where your blood sugar is, where it's going and how fast it's going to get there to make good decisions about your health. The Dexcom opens up a world of information that allows you to make those decisions simply easily and effectively. Definitely go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box or click on the link in the show notes to find out more. She really talked about in your email like burnout. You said there was one specific episode was it super Stephanie was that the one yeah. Yeah. And and you said that it just really helped you. Where were you at that point before you heard it before you heard that episode?

Christina 44:38
Um, you know, I think that I'm just kind of really, I still feel burned out to be honest, but I just kind of keep it in because people in my family do not like to hear that. You know, it's like you're not allowed to feel this. This is just go on with the day and that's it. So it's, it's I just feel overwhelmed. With alarms constantly going off, my husband sleeps through his he sleeps through my daughter's and then you know, the baby being born and then having, you know, breastfeeding a baby, you're up all night anyways, breastfeeding that requires more and you know, just everything going on. And my daughter also has a hole in her heart. So she needs she's going to need surgery to fix that at some point. So

Scott Benner 45:22
we've gone through that her whole life. And then Christina, which was the second which you were just like, oh, not only that, which child is the child with diabetes are different? Yeah. She's losing the luck lottery. So So is that something that we're not worried about? In the moment, it's just as to get to a certain growth spot before it can get fixed?

Christina 45:40
Yeah. So she, when we she was born, she was born in New York City. We were there for three years. And then we moved on to Connecticut for three years. And he worked in Massachusetts, but we lived in Connecticut. And, you know, we were seeing they found it when she was six months, she had a murmur, they sent us to a specialist. They were pushing us for open heart surgery, this needs to be done Now. Now. Now I met with someone at NYU, I couldn't stand the surgeon, he was so arrogant. I told there's no way he's touching my daughter. And the idea of them stopping your child's heart cutting in and then putting her on bypass and circulating the blood. You know, this is not high on my list,

Unknown Speaker 46:13
since to do with somebody with my

Christina 46:16
firstborn, who I'm super protective of. And, you know, somebody that just rubbed me really the wrong way.

Scott Benner 46:22
And so one of the other options was to wait a little longer.

Christina 46:25
Well, so we were he was ending his. He was graduating and starting residency. So I said, Let's wait and we'll we'll find a new doctor in Massachusetts, you know, Boston Children's is there, it's the best. And so we found another doctor, and they came up with completely different numbers and said, it's not as big as they were saying, I don't know why they were saying this. And so I was like, You're crazy. So we go to another doctor. And they said, it's not that big. So then we went to Boston Children's, and you know, they were like, Oh, she's totally purse candidate to do a cath lab procedure instead of open heart surgery, and she can wait until school age. That's great. So now we just had follow up, and they said, she might even be able to wait till she's in her 20s to close this.

Scott Benner 47:05
So that's really something in that first guy was just like, just I'll just cut her chest open, and it'll all be fine. Yeah, as well. You did you sniff them out? You did the right thing. Does that help you with the diabetes too? Like, how often are you with an endocrinologist who says something that you're like, I don't think that's right.

Christina 47:23
I'm an endocrinologist. Don't bother me. The dietitians kind of drive me crazy.

Scott Benner 47:29
What do they want from you?

Christina 47:31
Well, I just think that they're not realistic in life. I mean, they, they really annoy me, Scott. It's like at the last meeting, if I so we had this nurse that we really loved. And she moved to a different site. And so then they started seeing patients here one day a week in our town, and I just didn't, I think your relationship with the nurses more important with the doctor, the doctor comes in for a few minutes. And you know, says, All right, maybe we can make this change or looks, everything's great. Right? So the nurse is more important with this nurse here, I just wasn't feeling it. And then the dietician last time, it's just like, gas, I'm feeding her, you know, yogurt in the morning, or cereal, and that is just so sugar laden, and I wouldn't feed that to my daughter. And, you know, it's just like, they always come in. And for some reason, they're like these anorexic older skinny women that look like they barely ever eat.

Scott Benner 48:28
All you have to do is eat this kelp. It's great, you'll learn to love it. So you know, that makes me think of what you're saying makes me think of, I love it when somebody's standing in front of me in like this person's perfect physical condition. And they're like, you could do this too, what you just need to do is you have to quit your job. And you work out about 19 hours a day, and you just run and you eat this and you drink this protein. And I'm like, Wait, is that what you do to be like that I'm like, I would like to be more in shape. But I can't, I can't do that. Like, I think some people are lucky enough in either their constitution or their, or their situation, where they can put themselves in almost a perfect situation to accomplish this thing. Right, which is great. But if we all were Instagram, workout models, then none of the other things in the country would get done. And so like we all can't do that. And I think sometimes it's almost like you forget, you would be pulled over by a police officer who gives you the letter of the law. And you're like, I do agree with you and con, you know, in theory, but here are these other things you're not considering. But they always have the law on their side. They're always able to go, No, no, this is how it goes. Because this is what the law says. I think that the dietitians do the same thing. They go look in this perfect situation. If you exactly did this, then everything would be great. And we're like Yeah, but this isn't the real world. The real world is I have three kids, and they're all hungry and I you know, I am like how am I gonna do all that? You know, so once in a while my kids gonna get a bowl of cereal. And then I got it and then not that I feel great about the cereal to begin with. And then I have to sit down and listen to you tell me that it's bad. I already knew it was bad. Yeah. Don't go to those. Yeah.

Christina 50:06
So I called the nurse that you know that I'm like, and I said, Look, I'm gonna drive all the way over there to see you at this new site, because I can't handle this stuff anymore because we had had it before to where we would see the doctor. And then they would say you have any more questions, we'd say, No, we'd leave. So the four hour appointment went down to like, 45 minutes. And now this new site, they, they don't Oh, and they don't know what Omni pod is. They don't know how it works. They're overwhelmed. Where's her data, and I'm having to give it to them. And you know, it's just like, overwhelming for them.

Unknown Speaker 50:36
And tax.

Christina 50:39
It's just like, so he agreed to let us go every six months now, because this is ridiculous to go every three months, for a one sees fine. I mean, I, you know, and it's, it's 7.1 I'd like it to be better. I'm working towards it being better. But, you know, like, the doctor told me last time, you know, you need to relax. He said, I think what you're looking for is an A plus, and you have an A so just, you know,

Scott Benner 51:02
calm down. If you can keep the variability out. I don't I can't disagree with that, like, as long as as long as her blood sugar is not like 300 for a few hours, and then a 70 for a few hours. And that's how you're getting your your middle ground number. I think if you can keep the variability, the up and down out of the blood sugar, seven ones amazing.

Christina 51:21
Like, they're very, they're very against the lows, you know, and I told him the last time I said, you know, what, show me the evidence of that, you know, having lows every now and you know, every now and then. But unfortunately, it's a little more than every now and then. But how low

Scott Benner 51:37
are we talking about?

Christina 51:39
In the 650 60s, most of the time in the 60s. Oh,

Scott Benner 51:43
um, so I would tell you that I don't like Arden's blood sugar to get under 70. But when it's 65, I don't think it's low. I just get it back up again. Right when she's if she hits a 50. And I can bounce it right back again, I don't think twice about that. If she has 50 and sits there I work very hard to get out to grow quickly.

Christina 52:03
You know, I do things now like I said it at the alert sometimes at night, I'll set it to go off at 100. So that way, yeah, because I'd rather be able to stop her bazel and instead of having to wake her up and give her juice because inevitably it's like this with her. She's very sensitive. So you stop her pump. And she usually reacts very quickly. Pretty quick stuff. Yeah. But you know, otherwise you give juice and then it's this ping pong and it's like, should I give insulin? Should I not give insulin? Sometimes I do and then it backfires on me. And then you know, you're needing more juice. And so

Scott Benner 52:38
yeah, I'm actually gonna give me a second. I'm gonna turn the balls here for a second.

Unknown Speaker 52:46
So

Scott Benner 52:49
I know exactly exactly what you're talking about. And we go through the exact same things here. I think giving yourself the the warning. Giving yourself time to do something with the basal rate is such a such a great way to handle it, because it also nobody wants to be drinking juice in their sleep. And yeah, stocks, you know, like it all really does. And so yeah, I definitely try to do as much as I can with with manipulating through the base of this morning art and got up this morning. She was upstairs, I was downstairs, packing her lunch and she was upstairs. And I saw her blood sugar at 95. And now she'd been going up in the mornings. So I watched and the arrow never changed. So the arrow was still always straight across. It wasn't diagonal up or up or anything. Let me get a drink. And, but then the next time it refresh, she was like 98 and she was 103. And then I said, ooh, it's happening. Like she's going to go up here. So I said to her when she answers it real quick before you stuff everything in your backpack. I think I had her Bolus, like point eight or something like that. And she's like, my blood sugar is like 100 I'm like, it doesn't matter. It's gonna go up. So Bolus the point and it worked. And she was just like 110 like all morning, and she started to drift up again right before lunch. And I actually didn't do anything about I let her drift up to like 140 and then we just gave her this, this great Bolus, this Pre-Bolus Now she needs like now it's been let's see 20 it's been like two hours and 40 minutes later and she needs another half a unit because she just as you and I are talking I saw her drift up to 160 and so we just bought again and my goal is she'll be home in about an hour and I'd like her to be back down around 90 because she's going to come in the house hungry and want a snack and all that other stuff. So I love the idea of manipulating the bazel I think it's one of the absolutely most undervalued tools in a if you have an insulin pump, you know you're just definitely can make so many great adjustments with the basal insulin. Good to see you're doing well. Like you're you're I mean seven one you've got it figured out you got 33 kids that's a problem but but I mean and the husband is seems a little focused on being a doctor which I am matches what being a doctor is. And that sucks, do you feel because you started to talk earlier, and I wanted to get into it. And at the same time, I was like, I don't want to, like ruin this person's life. But at the same time, like, you feel I know how you feel right now, like you feel alone, right? Like everyone's looking to you for something, not just the medical stuff, but the medical stuff seems bigger, it feels bigger. It feels like you're sort of in charge of the of people's life and death decisions and their long term health and it's a lot of pressure. And then your husband's got his diabetes on his own. So he probably feels like he's already doing this. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, so you're your daughter, but you're also worried about him? You've got these other two kids holding the heart mom somewhere, you got a lot going on.

Unknown Speaker 55:45
On that allergy.

Scott Benner 55:46
Do you really? What is that to say?

Christina 55:48
My, my middle child is allergic to nuts, you know, so I say,

Scott Benner 55:52
go for adoption. That's enough.

Christina 55:55
Free playground, you know, glucagon audit, epi pens, got it. You know, like, come to me if something's wrong,

Scott Benner 56:02
I can save like, 15 different people's lives. If you guys need anything, I have a bag full of stuff over. But But is that about? Right? Does it just feel like, it all kind of falls to you? Right?

Christina 56:12
Yeah, it does. And then, you know, like, I have, I mean, not to get too much into, but it's like, you know, I gave up working when I was and gave up nursing school, when I found out I was pregnant with my first one. And then it wasn't planned. So it was kind of a surprise, and that kind of, you know, my life's been on hold for eight years, and I'm ready to kind of do something more than be, you know, listen to everyone, and do you know, meet everyone's needs? So I'm kind of starting to feel like, you know, like, what about me? Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 56:41
it's a common Listen, if it makes you feel any better. It's not gender related. either. I have the same exact, I didn't think that I would be a stay at home parents still when my when my last child was 13. Yeah, you know, but you look at our day, and how things go and what my wife's job requires ever, and it's just, we both couldn't get up and leave in the morning, it just wouldn't work. Right. And so here I am, I'm going to be a stay at home dad until I'm 50. And then I'm sure the working world will open its arms right back up to where I can become a cashier. It's not, you know, I mean, I'm assuming, right? Like, that'll be like pretty much what I can shoot for. And it's just, it's just one of those things like, it is hard not to feel like your life is passing you by, you know, while you're taking care of other people, which is why I've talked before about having to find, like some really deep meaning in taking care of your family, so that it doesn't feel like you're just performing tasks. That right there's a bigger a bigger thing for you like, I mean, I hope you could find that or maybe have but

Christina 57:51
I think we only way out of it. To be honest. We had some people over for dinner, they were all doctors and actors, friends. And one of them was talking to me kind of just mentioning, kind of saying that he kind of understands what I go through. And then he looked at me and he said, What an honor to be able to take care of your family. And it made me feel so horrible, because I'm like, that should be how I'm looking at it. But that's not how I feel most days. Just like what an

Scott Benner 58:15
honor and you're like, actually, I was thinking of putting all these people in a sack and throw them in there. So is that okay? We can we all go out to the garage for a second sit in the car and listen to some music. Let's start the car to stay warm. Everybody look over the bridge. A little farther, a little farther. I hear what you're saying. And again, that's um, that's that's just like the nutritionists really that that that's advice from a from a an academic place? isn't an honor to take care of your family like this? Well, yeah, sure it is. Except that doesn't take into account any of the real world things that are happening to me, right. And, you know, wouldn't it be if your kid just ate the celery for lunch? Or blood sugar would never move? Well, yeah, that's great. You talk my five year old into eating the salad every day. You know, like that kind of an idea. And yet you get the intent of what the person said to you. Because, again, academically I do feel like that. Like, it is really great, but there are definitely days where you just like no one listens to me. I'm like invisible here. Yeah, I'm just the person who makes things happen. Right? You're just you're just you're the switcher that makes the trains run on time. Nobody. Nobody ever gets on the train and thinks I really should find the guy that made sure this train was on time and thank him like right right never works that way. You know you think the you know you think the guy running the train because it seems like he's doing it but it turns out he's not there's somebody behind the scenes doing it. And that's you It's me. It's everybody who's in our position and I do think that it is largely a thankless job that you have to find your own thanks and because it to think that you're that my 13 year olds gonna stop and be like, Hey dad, right on good job with this. Yeah, like, she's just like trying to get to the next thing, do her homework, brush your teeth go to bed, she's got her own stuff she's trying to remember, you know, it's it's as fulfilling as it is crappy, kind of, like, you know,

Christina 1:00:14
I think also it you know, that's where the show helps me too, because it's like, there was a diabetes educator on not too long ago. And, you know, she was talking about how their brains aren't developed till they're 25. And they need their parents help. And of course, I know this, I've taken these classes, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, you know, like, and then I hear you say, how you're in the background, helping art and you guys were at a birthday party or something. And she, you saw her look on the look on her face, and you were just like, I got this, you know, eat what you want? Or do what you, you know, I'll be back here. And they do need us. And it's an extreme, it's a huge burden that they're going to live with for the rest of their life. So if we could, you know, take some of it off of them for now, why they are, you know, just being a child. You know, that's,

Scott Benner 1:01:00
it seems important. Oh, yeah. Right. It's, it seems very important to do I think you're right, I feel that way. I do think there's stuff to learn trial by fire stuff. But it doesn't have to be every day all day long. It doesn't have to be at the expense of their a one c two, which is, which is when you hear other people talk about like, hey, my son's that he's 15. He's doing this by himself. He's doing greatest plays a once he's like eight, I'm like, well, but you know, it's it's amazing. A 15 year old, maintaining an eight a one seat is crazy. Good. But what if you, you know, what, if you were in the mix a little bit, like, would it be a seven? And could he still be learning, you know what I mean? Like, and so that's more how I think about it. And then I probably trend a little bit to the other side where, where I take a little more on, like, there's, you know, last night Arden's blood sugar last night, was like 135. And it got real sticky. Like overnight at 135, about four in the morning, like it went up, I bolused, it didn't come back down, it needed more bazel. And I stayed up for about 45 minutes or an hour to make sure I got it back to where I wanted it to be. And a lot of people might hear that and go look at my kids blood sugar was 145 instead of overnight, I'd be sleeping. And I get that. And there are nights, by the way that I'm so exhausted, I don't do it. But if I can, I will do anything, just try to steal some agency points where you can just kind of feel that. So I think you're doing great. I mean, listen, you have a lot going on, like you genuinely genuinely do and and for how much you have going on. The one thing you're not giving yourself credit for is you're aware of it. Like you're aware of how you feel, and you're aware of what how you want to feel, and you're aware of what your goals are. That's probably most of the battle, you'd be surprised at how many people are in your situation, who just think everything is going great. They just ignore stuff and think nothing of it, like you're aware of it. And I think that's most of it, I think you'll find your way through the rest of it. But because you're aware of what your what your goal is, I don't know if you feel that way or not. But I think you should for literally nobody and I shouldn't be even saying that to you. But it seems to me like you. It's just a big difference. Like, you know, there's a difference between being overwhelmed and being crazy, right? Crazy. People think they're crazy. They're just like, I'm fine. Everybody else is wrong. You know, but if you're just a little overwhelmed, you go Look, I understand that how I feel right now it's not. It's not It's not my goal. Like I do want to feel honored to take care of my family. You know, like the good, but at the moment, I don't but at least it's visible you can get to it.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:33
Yeah, it seems to me,

Unknown Speaker 1:03:34
oh, what's going on? Some

Scott Benner 1:03:37
alarms on my phone going off that I genuinely don't know what they're for. But we've been talking for 59 minutes, so maybe we'll just call it the end of the podcast alarm. And that'll be that'll be the end of it. Did we not cover anything that you were hoping to talk about?

Christina 1:03:51
No, no, you know, I didn't really come into it with me, like map or anything like that. I was more concerned about what I was going to be able to say.

Scott Benner 1:04:00
That's excellent, because I think that they go much better when nobody pre planned So

Unknown Speaker 1:04:04
yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:04:04
thought this was great. And thank you very much. I really appreciate you coming on. If you would give me a second to stop the recording. I'd love to say thank you in person. Wow, thank you so much Christina for being so incredibly open and honest. This was a real gift for people who get to listen Thank you also to Dexcom and to Omni pod for sponsoring the show. It goes without saying but without the ads. I can't bring you the show without the show. You don't hear Christina etc etc Circle of Life kind of stuff. Thank you very much for your support. You can go to my on the pod.com Ford slash juice box or dex calm calm Ford slash juice box to find out more.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:45
Oh, one last thing.

Scott Benner 1:04:46
I really appreciate you listening. I'll see you next week.

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