Scott Benner 2/4/19 Scott Benner 2/4/19

#207 A Cool Bond

Ayla and her mother both have type 1 diabetes.….

14 year old Ayla shares her story about living with type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello and welcome to Episode 207 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by real good foods on the pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes. Before we get started, let me give you the particulars about our advertisers. To find out more about the Dexcom g six go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to try a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, you can go to Miami pod.com forward slash juice box. Would you like to save 10% on some real good food, go to real good foods calm and put in the offer code juice box at checkout. And don't forget to find out more about dancing for diabetes that's dancing the number four diabetes.com.

In this episode, my guest Ayla will be talking about her time with Type One Diabetes. She's an advocate. She's a child, 14 years old. Hello out speaking for people with diabetes. She's scuba diving, skiing,

Unknown Speaker 1:01
she does it all.

Scott Benner 1:02
Her mom even has type one. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician. Before becoming bold with insulin. We're making any changes to your health care plan. And I don't know what you're doing on February 23 2019. But I will be at the type one nation event at the desert Willow Conference Center in Arizona. I'm all over this event. So if you want to come out and see me speak, I think I'm in two different breakout sessions and we're doing the Juicebox Podcast live. To find out more you're gonna go to jdrf.org forward slash Arizona forward slash events forward slash type. I'm just kidding. Go to Juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom, click on the Events tab. They'd like it very much if you could RSVP so don't wait. And I don't usually do this, but I just received an email from Adam in Maryland. Adam, I wanted to let you know I got your email. I'm touched man. I'm glad you're doing

Ayla 2:07
it. My name is a Ayla now.

Scott Benner 2:09
Okay, so a list. The first thing you should know is that when I saw your last name, I didn't know if it was pronounced k now. Or k No. And I thought, I hope it's no because then I'm going to name the episode now you can know. But now I can't do that. But that's okay. It's not your fault.

Unknown Speaker 2:29
We'll think of another episode title.

Unknown Speaker 2:31
Alright, you're 14? Yes. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 2:34
How long have you had type one?

Ayla 2:36
I've had type one for over five years. Okay,

Scott Benner 2:41
so you are nine? Yes. Are you pretty impressed with my math? Yeah. I am usually more able to impress children around your age with my math. So I'm assuming you're in like, algebra or something like that. Yeah, yeah. See, you're way better at math than I am. Just don't hold that over my head as we're talking for the next hour. Okay. All right. So you reached out and you wanted to be on the podcast? And I was like, that's cool. Let's do that. How did you find it?

Unknown Speaker 3:12
I found your podcast through Instagram, I'm pretty sure.

Scott Benner 3:17
Nice. Excellent, very nice. I'm very old. So I don't know how to use all the social media that well. And anytime I know that it's working. I'm amazed my children see my likes on things and they make fun of me. So that's for everyone listening, you need to like my stuff more, or my kids mock me in my own. So it's, it's if you want to stick up for me, that's one way to do it. What are you doing on Instagram? Are you looking for other people with type one? Are we just trolling around or what we don't.

Ayla 3:47
I was just scrolling around. I think I saw something on like in bags, Instagram or something like that. Right. And I've also heard about your podcast or beyond type one. And it just seemed like a really cool platform that you've been put to putting together.

Scott Benner 4:06
And so and so you checked it out and you didn't find me too old or boring? No. What do you like about the podcast?

Ayla 4:16
I just enjoy all the different perspectives and stories that you share. And

Unknown Speaker 4:25
interesting.

Scott Benner 4:26
ala you're 14, you just said different perspectives. I was like, I asked my kid what she likes about something she'd like, I don't know. It's fine. She wouldn't say anything else. So that's really impressive. Okay, so you've been listening for a while. Don't please. You're very welcome. Have you been listening for a while?

Unknown Speaker 4:43
Um, maybe a few months. Yeah. Cool.

Scott Benner 4:46
What made you want to come on?

Ayla 4:48
I spoke at the gala this last fall as their keynote speaker to talk about variscan Meadows camp and camp de los ninos, the summer camps. They put on in California. And I enjoy public speaking and sharing my story with other diabetics. So I thought this would be another cool way to share my story.

Scott Benner 5:13
Every week I see more likes on the Instagram and Facebook accounts of dancing for diabetes, but not enough. I know how many people listen to this podcast get out there. Dancing for diabetes.com this is gonna be like a role reversal because you're way more mature than I am. Alright, well, that's fine. You'll be the adult halen. I will. I will act like I'm 14. How's that sound?

Unknown Speaker 5:38
Okay.

Unknown Speaker 5:40
What led you to? I'm sorry? What event? Did you speak at?

Ayla 5:45
Um, do you is gala diabetes, youth families diabetes foundation are nice and warm.

Scott Benner 5:51
And so could you speak to a big group of people? Was it nerve racking? Is it worse doing this? Or was it worse doing that? Or do you just like both?

Ayla 5:59
I think it was a lot more nerve wracking to do the gala.

Scott Benner 6:02
Did you can see the people?

Ayla 6:04
Yeah, I'm from Colorado, and he flew out to San Francisco for it. So it was a pretty big deal. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 6:09
How did they choose you for that?

Ayla 6:12
I'm not sure they just chose one camper to be the keynote speaker to represent this program for the last eight years. And I got an email and we made it happen.

Scott Benner 6:23
That's really cool. Congratulations. That's it's really interesting and fun to be recognized like that. Did it surprise you When they reached out?

Unknown Speaker 6:32
Yeah, for sure.

Unknown Speaker 6:33
You knew you wanted to do it.

Ayla 6:35
Yeah, I had no idea that you if even had a gala, and that this is a thing to, you know, be a keynote speaker at my age. But once I wrote my speech and actually made it happen, it was

Scott Benner 6:51
really amazing. It was super cool. That's amazing that they pay for like your plane and your hotel and all that stuff. Yeah. That's excellent. You do anything cool. While you're in California?

Ayla 7:03
No, we just flew out for like two or three days.

Scott Benner 7:07
Should your mom go with it?

Unknown Speaker 7:09
My dad actually excellent was

Scott Benner 7:11
who's most involved with your diabetes care at home, visit your mom, your dad or everybody.

Ayla 7:17
Everybody in my mom's also type one diabetic. So we have a cool bond that way and so she really understands. But my dad's also really supportive. He gets it. And even my sister, I just I feel like I have a very tight support system.

Scott Benner 7:32
It's amazing. How do you know how old your mom was when she was diagnosed?

Ayla 7:35
She was 35 I'm pretty sure she got gestational with me and my sister and then it came back as this normal type one.

Scott Benner 7:44
Okay, so we won't ask how was your mom is now because that's not okay. But she was 35 and she got it. So she was pregnant with one of you and you're 14 so she is she about 5045 45 look at you smart. She's 50 say 45. You did a good job. Do you guys share like management styles? Or do you do it differently than she does it? Or do you do it together? How

Unknown Speaker 8:15
does that work?

Ayla 8:18
On the Omni pod and the dex calm and I used to be on Omni pod and the dex calm and now I'm on the Medtronic 670 g

Scott Benner 8:26
o using the 670 g How are you finding it? I just talked to somebody the other day that said they hated it. And I talked to somebody else who said they loved it. One person told me that it's working great for them. And the other person told me that everything it tells them to do they have to ignore that. How's it been working for you?

Ayla 8:42
I like it when it works. When

Scott Benner 8:46
my wife, my wife would say that about me ala. But you like it when it works? Well, when does it not work?

Ayla 8:57
I'm actually on my fourth 670 it has broken a few times for me. And so when it's in auto mode and it's working, my numbers are pretty steady. But when it doesn't work it you have to you get a lot of alarm. Oh, there

Scott Benner 9:15
goes any opportunity I had for Medtronic ads later, huh? No, I'm just kidding.

Ayla 9:22
It's still a great pump. So I I really enjoy it. I'm really good for

Scott Benner 9:27
it's good for sports. It keeps you in line for sports. Yeah, right. Do you think that one day when the AMI pod comes out with their closed loop? Do you think you'd go back?

Ayla 9:36
Probably. I liked the dexcom sensor a lot more than I like the Guardian sensor but the Guardian sensor is still really nice sensor. It's nice and flat and comfortable. But I like that you could trick the Dexcom to wearing it longer.

Scott Benner 9:55
You know what I've now decided that all of my product review should be with like kids your age, because you're incredibly honest, it's perfect. Nobody, I don't have to worry about whether or not you're like, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or anything like that. Well, that that's really I'm glad you found something that's working for you. I wish it was a little more stable for you. But I'm glad that you found something. Did you have to switch? Were you having trouble with your management? Like, was it bouncing around on you? Or is it just something you want to try?

Ayla 10:22
I wanted to try the Medtronic. I've been back and forth between Medtronic and Omni pod for the last several years. And learning about a closed loop system I got on the pathway program. So I got it right when it came out. And I really enjoyed it.

Scott Benner 10:39
Well, that's excellent. I I'm very excited for all of the different closed loops that are coming, you know, and it looks like everybody's got their hand in trying to make one. So I think in the next year or so, we're gonna probably be inundated with them, which will be great, because everybody will have a lot of choices. And, and you know, you'll see how things work and you know, how they don't work, and you'd be able to make a good decision for yourself. That's really cool. And very proactive of you. You do a lot, right. Like you're incredibly involved in, like, sort of, like activism around type one.

Ayla 11:12
Yeah, I'd say so. I think having my mom also be type one diabetic, it's just like a good outlet to like, be confident about it. And not cover it up. So I mean, I go to diabetic summer camp every summer. And I, last year did my first ever jdrf bike race with her and I'm going to do another one this summer. Just having like little things that make you able to be confident about it, I think is really important.

Scott Benner 11:48
No, I agree, I really do in any way you can find that as is important. Also, I think it's I think it is undervalued by how empowering it can be to just show other people that you have it to, you know, be like, Hey, this is my pump, or like I remember just a couple weeks ago, we were in a pool. And I looked over and I thought for a split second like that I just see like the edge of Ardennes. But like what happened. And then I realized later she had pulled her suit down a little bit because somebody asked to see her her next calm. And she just she was like, Yo here, and then she, you know, kind of pulled aside and showed them. And we were somewhere not somewhere we were at a softball tournament a couple of weeks ago. And even though Arden didn't get to see the person or actually talked to them, a woman, you know, a grown woman in her 40s walked by walking her dog. And she had an omni pod on an index card. And I looked at I watched art and look over at her and you could just see that it. I don't want to say it made her happy. But she liked looking and seeing somebody else like her like that, you know? So that's so you're going out and being really open about it so other kids can see you. Is that the idea?

Ayla 13:00
Yeah, I live in a really small town in Colorado, and in the last year, there's been three new diabetics. So

Scott Benner 13:07
you're starting to trend ala.

Unknown Speaker 13:09
I guess.

Scott Benner 13:10
One more you got a basketball team, you know? Yeah.

Ayla 13:14
I feel like I just need to help pave the way.

Scott Benner 13:17
That's really kind of you. And that's excellent. So, so we're gonna dig in as much as I feel like, I don't want to push you too hard because you're 14 but you also seem really mature. So I'm going to ask you some questions that might be a little tough, right? Knowing what it feels like for instance, to be low or to be high. When you see your mom going through that. How does it make you feel?

Unknown Speaker 13:40
Um,

Ayla 13:43
I know what it feels like. So I feel like we have that connection. So when I'm low, she knows how I'm feeling and when she is low. I know how she's feeling so we just started we help each other out.

Scott Benner 13:55
Yeah, do you feel? I'm not I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. Do you feel any way you feel but does it make you feel like overly compassionate towards her? Does it make you feel like scared for sad for or not? And I'm going to tell you why I'm asking you in a second. So just answer however is honest. Real good foods is real food. You'll feel good about eating low carb, high protein, real ingredients. Friday night, I had the cauliflower pizza. What is that? It's a pizza. But the crust is made out of cauliflower. I don't know how they do it. It's amazing. It tastes like pizza, which throws you off because I mean you wouldn't think you know, but anyway, this is a pepperoni pizza that I really enjoyed. Toss it in the oven. Bada bing bada boom, next thing you know, I'm pizza. Now I almost went with the three cheese pizza with the chicken crust almost. I was this close but I wanted the pepperoni but next time I'm going to do it because the three cheese right large three cheese pizza with the chicken crust. 50 grams of protein, eight grams of carbs per pizza. They're absolutely grain and gluten free, all natural chicken breast crust, you can buy a case of them, get eight pizzas in the case. And don't forget at checkout to use the offer code juice box to save 10% on your entire order. Real good foods is also offering free two day shipping. So take advantage. Real good foods has variety packs, they have snacks, poppers, enchiladas chicken crust pizza that we talked about, and the cauliflower crust pizza that I just had Friday. Go over, take a look. See what you think real good foods calm. Don't forget to use the coupon code juice box at checkout to save 10% and let's be honest to support the podcast. Okay, we're gonna get back to ala she's gonna answer my question about how she feels sing her mom live with type one.

Ayla 16:00
I think it's just normal. I mean, there's lots of highs and lows when you're diabetic. So having two people in the family go through that it's just sort of like a new normal, and we help each other out.

Scott Benner 16:11
So So do you have any idea why I asked you that?

Ayla 16:14
Not really,

Scott Benner 16:15
I want the people who are listening to hear your perspective, which is this is just normal. And so for all the people who don't have type one who watch a loved one with it. And when they see them get high or low, they they're often hit with an incredible amount of guilt, and sadness. And I really wanted them to hear from you that it wasn't necessary for them to feel that way. So that's why I asked you that kind of leading question, but at the same time, I expected you to answer the way you asked. I appreciate you being honest. You

Unknown Speaker 16:49
really are good at

Unknown Speaker 16:52
Yeah, be very welcome.

Scott Benner 16:53
So Colorado. Are you for your 14 am I like you're old enough for me to joke is your whole town just like weed dispensaries or what? What's going on out there?

Ayla 17:01
No, not really. I live in telluride. Small ski town.

Unknown Speaker 17:05
Very nice. So

Scott Benner 17:06
are you guys do like how does that work? I mean, do you? Are you skiing constantly? is a big part of your life or do you never skate?

Ayla 17:15
Yeah, it's a very big part of my life. I've been skiing since I learned how to walk. And that goes the same for a lot of kids who live here. I mean, if you're a local here, everyone knows how to ski. So it's,

Scott Benner 17:29
it's more of an activity. It's not It's not like a destination thing like, oh, we're gonna get in a plane and fly somewhere and go skiing. It's, it's just something you do when you have free time.

Ayla 17:38
Yeah, for us. I mean, I ever since I think starting in kindergarten, and we we do this thing called CPE. So instead of PE during the winter, we go and ski twice a week, Thursday and Friday afternoons, with our class and our teachers. So it's just like a fun environment, you get better at skiing. And then we have a lot of ski racers. So I mean, skiing is a very big part of Telluride, community and environment.

Scott Benner 18:07
I've spent most of my life avoiding sharks, and skis, because I don't want to, I don't know if there's an afterlife alien, but I don't want to have to tell somebody I was either eaten by something, or that I hit a tree. And that's why I'm dead. And so I just think it would sound silly if that was my story going out. But I never it once in my life stood on skis, and my wife has been trying for as long as I've known her, she's like, go skiing. Come on, we'll go and I was like, I don't want to hit a tree. And so I have a big baby, Kayla, and I told you this was gonna shake out where you were gonna be the adult in the conversation. So I think it's really cool that you so are you like, do you ski? Like, I don't know. Like, like, like, are you like to go really fast? Are you like, tepid about it? How do you what would you say your level of like ski expertises

Ayla 19:03
Yeah, I ski really fast. I can ski anything on the mountain. Um, I really enjoy hiking and then skiing with friends where you go and put your skis on your back and you just take it and your ski boots and then you ski down. So that's really fun. It's

Scott Benner 19:22
that it sounds amazing. Like you're describing something that I think to myself I wish I wanted to try that. But then it's also coupled with one of the worst thing in the world in my opinion. Cold so I don't know I'm such a baby like oh god it's cold and their tree standing still while you're going fast. The whole thing sounds very dangerous. But but not to you. That's really great. How would your um does your management change much when you're skiing or when you're not? Like, manage your diabetes during the this game.

Ayla 19:55
When I see it different than other sports. I do. Because you're only seeing for a short little time, and then you're sitting on chairlift. So when I'm hiking and then skiing, my blood sugar generally does drop. But when I'm just leisurely skiing, my blood sugar tends to be pretty steady. I mean, it's not a very like, it's not a sport that takes a ton of endurance, unless you're doing like a really hard run. Yeah. So when I'm just having fun, they tend to just stay pretty steady. I mean, I'll have a few drops in a few rises. But other than that, it's an easier sport to manage than soccer or backpacking with my class at school or whatever. other sports, I end up doing.

Scott Benner 20:55
Cool. So I mean, and plus you, I'm assuming it's exciting to ski down the hill, right? So there's a little bit of adrenaline that probably helps with your blood sugar a little bit to keep it up a little bit while your activity pulls it down a little bit. It's probably a great. Yeah.

Ayla 21:10
I mean, I think the cold for sure has an effect on it. But I mean, if it's a really cool day, I'll put a hand warmer in my pocket with my pump, so it doesn't freeze. But yeah, the cold has like a small effect on it, but it's nothing very drastic.

Scott Benner 21:31
Did you see By any chance, have you ever been on my blog recently, I just put up a post from Chris Freeman, the Olympic skier and he was talking about a triathlon, he just did. And he he, he showed how he prepped for it and put all this information about his blood sugar's and all this stuff is really cool. Because that's a an amazing amount of, you know, endurance. And, and he knows how to do it really well, because he was, he was a cross country skier in the Olympics.

Unknown Speaker 21:59
Well check that out. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Scott Benner 22:02
Okay, so you sound like you're pretty, you're pretty knowledgeable about your own care. And so how long have you? Are you kind of on your own most days? Or do you co I almost said, co parent, but do you co parent your diabetes with your mama? Or are like, like, how does it work? Like you get up in the morning? Do you start making decisions right away? Or is she helping you? Or how does that go?

Ayla 22:28
I mean, I try to take as much responsibility, I can on myself for it. But my parents do play a big role in my diabetes. And I really appreciate that. So I go to a small experiential School, where we go on big trips with my Ark classmates, and focus on a certain topic. So for example, last spring, we went to Hawaii, and

Scott Benner 22:56
I'm just gonna tell you what I just told someone privately five minutes ago through a message, when you act quickly, as your blood sugar rises, you need to less insulin to stop a spike. When you use less insulin, the likelihood of a low later becomes lesser as well. So you stop the spike. And avoid a low later. That's how you keep your blood sugar in a range that you're looking for. But what you really want to know is how do I know when to do that. But when I do it with my daughter, I look at her Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, I check out that line. And when that line starts to bend up, I can kind of tell now this is this is a rise that's coming. And then I just bump and nudge, a little bit of insulin and get that up rise to level back out and come back. So now it took a tiny little bit of insulin to stop her blood sugar from going say over 120 instead of waiting till she's one at 202 50 or the next time I test to find out that we have a high blood sugar. And when that happens, you're putting on a whole bunch of insulin, which eventually will become unbalanced with the impact of the carbs you've eaten or your body function. Everything gets unbalanced again and you crash low, but none of that has to happen. And if you have the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, you can make decisions just like that. Your results may vary. These are my findings. But my oh my are they my findings you hear me talk about all the time Arden say one see between five two and six, two for five years. Why? On the pod Dexcom dexcom.com, forward slash juicebox to get started today. I grew up in an apartment complex across the street from my school. And I just walked back and forth to it over and over again day after day, year after year while somebody was like these are numbers, these are letters. And that was my whole schooling situation. And how did you? Where did you? This is very confusing to me. Hold on, we have to stop for a second. Why do you get to go to Hawaii? What is your school? Is it? Is it like? I don't even understand. I don't even have a question because I don't understand. But it's very normal to you. When you say it's an experiential school. What do you mean by that?

Ayla 25:19
What I mean is that you really take education out of the classroom. So your classes are really small. There's about six people in my grade. So super small, you get to really know everybody, and you take the education out of the classroom and do more hands on learning, and really just experience whatever you're learning in a completely different way.

Scott Benner 25:43
It's amazing. What did you learn in Hawaii besides Hawaii is beautiful.

Ayla 25:48
We were there during the eruption of Colombia, which is really exciting. So we focused on volcanoes and oceanography, marine biology, and geography.

Scott Benner 26:04
This wasn't just your your teacher wanted to go to Hawaii, right? Yeah. There's an old actor who you don't know probably named Michael. He's a British guy. Now. I can't remember his name. All right. Well, that part will come to me. He was Alford in some of the old Batman movies, which are even too old for you to know, probably. But I saw this interview with him once and somebody asked him how he picked his roles. And he said, in the cold months, I pick a movie that's filmed somewhere warm. And in the warm months, I pick a movie that's filmed somewhere cold. And I thought, Wow, that's a pretty basic concept, but it seems to be serving him pretty well. And so I just thought maybe your teacher was like, Hey, what are we gonna get off this mountain? Where should we go? Hawaii? Sounds good. That's really beautiful. Like that's like, what do you want to do? And you I hate to this is such a very lame question to ask a kid. But what do you have any idea what you want to do when you get older?

Unknown Speaker 27:00
I want to do something in the medical field.

Scott Benner 27:04
Do you think the type one has any impact on you wanting to do that?

Ayla 27:08
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:10
See, do you like helping other people? Or do you appreciate the feeling that people helping you so much that you want to do it for somebody else?

Ayla 27:21
Well, so in my school there in the last year, there's one other diabetic, you got diagnosed, and she's going to fourth grade. And so my dad works at my school. He's my art teacher. And her mom works at our school also, and she is going to be my history teacher. So I mean, it's a very small community. And since eg go on these experiential trips, and you're diabetic, my parents have always come with me. And in the long run, I appreciate it. But before the trips, it's, it's a different experience, because none of my friends or classmates, have a parent come with them. Okay. But in the long run, I'm grateful for my parents and that they do love me so much and support me that they do come on these trips. Even though I want that freedom. It's just because I'm growing up. But

Scott Benner 28:16
it's a difficult line to walk to because just this last school year, Arden's Arden's class, you know, school trip went to it was like it was a theme park around here, we would rollercoasters and that kind of thing. And, you know, I didn't want to be a chaperone one because I really just didn't want to ride all the way. It's somewhere on a bus with a bunch of kids making a lot of noise. And if you're a chaperone, you have to go on the bus. But still, I felt like I needed to go to help artists art and kind of have like a free and easy day without thinking about her diabetes too much. So I contacted the school and I was like, Okay, I'm going to come but I'm going to drive up on my own. And you know, I'm just gonna be there. So the minute I got there, I ended up chaperoning her group anyway. And because it was such a big group, that the person who was chaperoning, it was like, if we just split these kids in half, they'll be able to do more and go on rides quick, you know, more quickly. So I did that I had a great time. But the entire time I thought about like, how do I stay away from her? Like, how do I how can I be here without really being like, you know, upper button making her feel like I'm watching her all the time because I wasn't. And I didn't want her to feel that way. So I just sort of hung back as much as I could and, and interjected you know, in the times when it you know, it called for it. But about halfway through the day. One of our friends was like, you know, you should come on the rides with us. And I said, I know you guys are like no come so then like the last half of the day I went on rollercoasters with everybody. And so I waited for them to and it wasn't like I didn't look sad I had things to do. I was busy and things like that kept myself busy. I didn't stand around moping that I was bored. And I found that like when they were ready. They were happy to have somebody Along with them, they just didn't want to feel like it had to happen. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. But yeah,

Ayla 30:05
I did. Part of growing up with diabetes is that your parents are going to be looking out for you. So, like it or not, that's what they're gonna do, because they want to help you and make sure that you're in the best hands possible.

Scott Benner 30:22
And how did the trip go for you with your type on pretty easy?

Ayla 30:26
Yeah, I mean, it was a lot of snorkeling and swimming. So that was a little bit of a challenge, because you had to disconnect and everything. So that's why the Omni pod

Scott Benner 30:37
is where they would have been better,

Ayla 30:40
different story for that trip. But the pump works really well on the trip. And my dad came and it was actually a really great experience and time with him. And so I've really enjoyed after all, that he did come and I hope that one day I can go on a trip myself, and just get that experience that all my friends get. So maybe this year,

Scott Benner 31:06
what do you imagine that is soon? Yeah, I mean, where How? So listen here, we'll start with this. We're halfway through talking already. It's worth going. It's doing really great. And so you, you listen to the podcast, right? You've had diabetes for five years, but your mom's had diabetes for much longer. So I imagine that when you were diagnosed, your mom kind of already had a plan. Like she knew how to do things from from herself.

Ayla 31:29
Yeah, she, she was the one who diagnosed. She checked my blood sugar one night, and yeah.

Scott Benner 31:38
I guess my thought was, prior to the podcast, you weren't struggling with your like, how was your I shouldn't put words in your mouth. But how was your management? Like? Was your blood sugar reasonably stable? You're not scared of things that you're looking for more community when you found the podcast? Not not management ideas, right?

Ayla 31:57
No, I mean, it's just the highs, the lows that are about it. Highs, some lows, and some in between.

Scott Benner 32:06
So do you in the course of a day, you know, like, for instance, where does your CGM tell you your high and low?

Ayla 32:14
I put mine since I'm in auto mode on like a really tight one. So my low is that like 80, and my highs at 150.

Scott Benner 32:26
So and so when you hear when you go above 150? Do you say Oh, the pump will take care of it? Or do you ever have to intervene?

Ayla 32:35
Um, sometimes you can't correct because it's working for you. So if you if I look at my graph right now, I've been in range most of the day so far and last night, and it has all these little purple dots at the top of the graph saying where it's done the work for me,

Scott Benner 32:57
okay. So there's some times when you say I'm eating, and this is how much insulin I want to do you tell it like I have a, like I'm having a big meal or a small meal, or how does it work? When you're eating?

Ayla 33:08
When I'm eating, I still need to do the bullet things. So all it does is it gives me more insulin when I'm approaching high. So I don't get high. I mean, I still go to 300 every once in a while. Um, and then it slowly turns my influence and bazel off as I'm going low, so I don't get to that really low, low. Okay,

Scott Benner 33:32
did it confuse it when you took it off to go snorkeling?

Ayla 33:36
The sensor went out of range. So it just took a few minutes to get back in range, but one time snorkeling. I was probably a good half mile out at a race and started feeling low. And I had to swim myself back in because I didn't have my sensor on to see what I was. And I didn't have any snacks on me. So that was a good lesson to put up taco shop blocks or something and my bathing suit or something that I can just quickly eat if I am out there.

Scott Benner 34:05
Yeah. Was it scary? Did you ever feel panicky? Or just say, Oh, I gotta get back.

Ayla 34:12
It was a little scary at the end I had a friend swim in so it was it was scary for sure. Because you're just out there in the middle of the ocean and you're starting to feel low. And it's like that low panicky feeling. So

Scott Benner 34:26
plus, you don't want to be eaten by a shark eventually.

Unknown Speaker 34:29
Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:30
right. Or ski into a tree. It's well, that's amazing. It sounds like you handled it really well. And I think that that's a, you know, a good thing for people to hear is that, you know, especially when when, when parents see kids who are younger, who are more newly diagnosed every blood sugar that looks you know, a little low panics people and it doesn't need to most of the time, you know, and even when you're in a situation that's really panicky where you're getting really low You still need to hold yourself together like that's when you have to make good decisions and you know and not freak out because it's important not to freak out this point like I'm Arden is. I mean, you'd probably be mortified because you seem like a very active child. But Ardennes is a sleeping in the summer kind of person. She stays up really late. Okay, and she sleeps in the summer. So she's still asleep right now. And her blood sugar 72 it's nice and stable. And I can actually see it on my screen right now while we're talking. But I it's fine. If she was to go to 65 I wouldn't. Like I wouldn't go oh my god, I have to go ala have to because Arden's blood sugar, you know, I just would be like, Okay, well, we'll have to do something about that, you know, like, it's, it's, it's good to stay composed. And I don't think that there's any better training for staying composed and having some flippers on a half a mile from the shore, when you realize that you feel a little dizzy. What do you know what your blood sugar was? While you were out there? Did you ever figure it out? Or did you just come back in and do something about it?

Ayla 35:58
I came back in I ate a lot of food. And it was like one of those lows where I ate and then I checked because I felt so low. And after I had like a Clif Bar and a shop block I was I see something. So I was probably low 50s when I was out there or high 40s is that

Scott Benner 36:19
always that number? What is that number about when you feel like that to begin with? Usually?

Ayla 36:25
Yeah, I start feeling my lows around 65 sometimes, but other times I never I don't feel my lows at all. It just

Scott Benner 36:33
goes and it's it's normal I got the other night I was asleep. And Artem was sitting up, I'm assuming watching something on Netflix. And she appears to love that Netflix in a very unhealthy way. But But I got I got a text from her. And it just said I feel a little dizzy. And so you know, sure enough, she was and we just did some bazel adjustments and she ate a little bit. I think she drank something. And she went right back to I went right back to sleep and she went right back to what she was doing. It's it's really it's cool that you're that you're so calm and collected about that. So when you listen to the podcast, Is there ever things that are talked about that you think, Oh, I do that? Or do you ever think I've never heard of that before? What's your experience? Mainly, when you hear people talking about management, that's something popped up that's really been valuable to you.

Ayla 37:26
You only listen to a few of your podcasts. I'm excited to listen to more. But I think everyone's story is different and alike in the same way. And everyone has like a moral of their story. So I guess the moral of my story is like even when you are diabetic, you can still go out and do these epic adventures and you know, go snorkeling or go backpacking and do these crazy things that some people would be like, Oh, yeah, you're diabetic, there's no way you could do that. Like, there's a way to do everything, even if you're going to be a little high or a little low.

Scott Benner 38:00
So there we were. Last week, in the afternoon after school trying to get every last unit of insulin at Arden's pump, it was about to expire, we knew it had been on for the full three days. But there was like eight units left. And I said, Let's keep it on the whole way. Let's try to get everything out of it. So I rushed off to the post office to mail a couple of things. And while I'm out ardan text me, hey, my pod just ran out of insulin. So I said, Okay, change it. I'm on my way home, but just get started. I was, I don't know, five, seven minutes away from my house. And when I got home, I thought okay, let me go in and see if I can help her. And I came through the door and I said, Hey, I'm here. Let me let me give you a hand. She said, I'm done. It's finished already. Can you change your insulin pump in a couple of minutes? Is the process of changing your insulin pump so easy. you'd let a child do it while they were home by themselves. If you had an iPod, you would, because my goodness, is it easy to do? Self inserting no tubes, you don't have to prime all the way through a tube. It's just it's so simple. The person who made the Omni pod must have sat down and thought how do I make this a perfect experience for people living with Type One Diabetes, so that when they go skiing, or scuba diving, they don't have to take their insulin pump off. So that when it's time to change their pump, it doesn't take a half an hour, and isn't an incredible headache. But you don't have to believe me, you can try it for yourself. Go to my on the pod.com forward slash juice box there you can get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod. And after you try it on and wear it for a while. If you decide you want one, just contact the back and let them know that gets the ball rolling. It's that easy. What's the key to doing those things you think? Is it preparation or is it is it like prepping before is it being ready during Do you think it's a mix of those two?

Ayla 39:56
I think it's all of it. I mean, you can be wondering One second and then all the sudden be dropping and be at five. So, I mean, just have being prepared and having something in your pocket and, you know, really understanding how you feel and your body and your symptoms for being high and low are really important but to go do any kind of adventure, you know, you're even if you're not diabetic, you're gonna run into like a little conflict

Scott Benner 40:26
course. Hey, so using the snorkeling experience as a as a jumping off point for this idea, when you were getting ready to snorkel out, in that, that time where you got low, and you had to come back before you left the shore, did you think I'm snorkeling away without any kind of sugar with me? Did it occur to you? Or did it? Were you just excited to go and you just went? Did you check your blood sugar before you went? Like what was the leading up to that?

Ayla 40:53
Yeah, so it was my first time struggling on that trip. And I was I think, like 210 beforehand, and I had been told by some people, and I mean, everybody's body is different. So you do whatever you have to do, but because you have to disconnect from the Medtronic, I was told that it's good to do like, I don't know, point three of a correction to say you don't spike. So me and my dad talked about that. And pretty sure that's what we did. And so I was like, yeah, to 10. I'm fine. And then probably 45 minutes in I just started to feel pretty low and

Scott Benner 41:34
start swimming back. That kicking is a lot of effort. And for anybody who's never snorkeled you just constantly kicking your legs. It's it you know, it pretty much doesn't stop how it was the story. I've only ever snorkeled in the Caribbean. How was it in Hawaii was pretty amazing.

Ayla 41:51
At that beach, we went to is called six nine beach. So we went to the Big Island. That reef was pretty much dead. So we were looking at dead coral and just what has been affecting that. And then we went to Captain Cook, which is another snorkeling area where you hike about a mile in. And that was very beautiful is like the most pristine Blue Water you've seen. And the coral was all different colors. And there were so many different colors, fish, and it was beautiful.

Unknown Speaker 42:29
So I never saw something like that.

Ayla 42:32
No, no, it's not like that. I've we went to a lot of dead reefs, just to like, see that global warming is affecting that and to make observations. And then when we went to this alive reef, it was like, This is what it actually looks like. Like this is gorgeous,

Scott Benner 42:53
so crazy, right? It's just it's just one of the more beautiful things that I've ever seen my excuse me, my son and I were snorkeling off of a small Bay and St. JOHN A number of years ago. And this, it got a little overcast. So, you know, under the water, it gets darker. And we're together and we're looking around and we look up and this giant mass is coming at us. So I all I can see as something that is round. And I'm not kidding you like 2025 feet across. And it did strike me for a second I thought oh, oh, well, at least we'll die together. You know, because it was this thing looked like this big solid thing coming at us and and there was nowhere to go. There was nothing to do. And as I got closer and closer and closer, it ended up being a school of puffer fish.

Unknown Speaker 43:43
Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 43:44
It is it remains one of the just most wonderful things I think I've ever seen with my own eyes. But really something else after the Panic of certain death went away. I was really able to appreciate after that. And as they came up, though, as they separated. And so you were sort of in and around it. And it was really spectacular. Like I'm really, I think it's really cool that you got to see that especially with school. Because Because my daughter saw Hershey Park this year, which does not sound as cool. If I'm being honest. Hmm, how long have you been you and your sister? Right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 44:24
told your sister

Ayla 44:27
is going to be a loving in a few weeks.

Scott Benner 44:29
Do you find her to be irritating? Or do you like her?

Unknown Speaker 44:32
I like her a lot.

Unknown Speaker 44:33
Nice Look

Scott Benner 44:34
at you. You guys are a really great family. It seems like either that or you're been taught very well how to lie about things and I don't think that's the case anyway. And so yeah,

Unknown Speaker 44:44
our family is very tight. Yeah, no kidding. It

Scott Benner 44:47
really comes across that way. So your dad's a teacher. Your mom is

Ayla 44:52
my mom is working in telluride to make all of pyrite carbon neutral.

Unknown Speaker 44:58
Of course she got it.

Unknown Speaker 45:00
He's also a life coach.

Scott Benner 45:03
No kidding, to make Telluride, carbon neutral. And so and you want to do something in the medical field, like when you get or do you want to be a doctor or a nurse, do you want to be some other kind of practitioner? Have you thought about that?

Unknown Speaker 45:17
Yeah, I want to be a surgeon. But we'll see how that goes.

Scott Benner 45:21
Well, that's First of all, that's really cool. And let me tell you something that I think you'll find helpful. My neighbor, literally next door to my house, when I moved in, when I my family, and I moved in here, my son was two. Arden wasn't born. And my neighbor had these sets of twins, two sets of twins, which I think might be unlucky. I'm not sure what how people think about that. But he had an older set. And the younger set, obviously, in the younger set, the board, there was a boy and a girl and the boy was, I don't know how old they must have been like 10 when I moved in, or something like that. And I saw him the other day. And he is on his way to, I think Penn down in Philadelphia. He's the orthopedic like, I don't know, like he got the one orthopedic surgery spot in Penn coming out of medical school. Wow. And so he was just some like, dopey kid running around in my backyard for a long time. And and now he's a surgeon. So it's very doable, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like if anybody could figure out how it would be you. Me take a drink here, but you're very welcome. How do you think this is going so far, by the way? Oh, that's good. Yeah, I do, too. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you're like? I wish we were talking about it?

Unknown Speaker 46:40
Um, no, I

Scott Benner 46:44
don't know. Right. I'm pretty good at this ale. I've been doing this for a while now. Thank you. So what kind of insulin do you use?

Unknown Speaker 46:51
I use no blog. No blog works. Okay

Scott Benner 46:53
for you.

Ayla 46:55
Yeah, you see the Piedra? Nice. No blog. I think they work the same. But

Scott Benner 46:59
you having a similar experience with them? Yeah, that's excellent. Arden has a much better experience with the pager than she'd have no blog. But it's good. It just it highlights that it's good to try things and try to figure out what works best for you. So let's see. You have a lot of kids in a small community that have type one. Sex,

Ayla 47:22
there are no there's me and then now to be senior announced to be ninth grader, and a now to be fourth grader.

Scott Benner 47:34
She right out in age pretty well.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
Yeah.

Ayla 47:40
Yeah. Me and fourth grader go to the same small school and then the other two go to the public school, which is like, five minutes away.

Scott Benner 47:47
Okay. You guys all know each other, though. Yes. Do you talk about diabetes? Or do you do you like when you get together is do not. And just get together just means Snapchat? What does it mean when you're smoking? Exactly.

Ayla 48:02
Um, me and the fourth grader. Her name is Belle. And I would say we are the closest because we go to the same school and she has been diabetic for a little over a year. She got diagnosed, like a week after my diagnosis, but four years later, and she now has an omni pod. She now goes to the summer camp I go to in California run by di F. So I think because we go to a such a small school, we're really looking out for each other and all the teachers are looking out for us. And it's just a really good community where you feel very welcome and safe. So I think I'm closest with her. I don't know the senior that well. And I know the other ninth grader. Sorta she doesn't go to my school. I did track with her for a year, like for like a season. But I'd say the other girl that goes to my school, I'm for sure closest.

Scott Benner 49:11
Do you guys talk about your diabetes ever?

Unknown Speaker 49:15
Um, yeah.

Scott Benner 49:19
Is it more of a like a, hey, what would you do about this as you're more of just sort of a support thing, like a private kind of this is how I feel.

Ayla 49:29
I'd say a little bit of both going to such a small school that there's now two diabetics and both of us have a parent who works at the school and it everyone really looks out for you like everyone is starting to know the symptoms of highs and low blood sugar. Everyone's just really looking out for you. So I mean, I'm always carrying an extra low snack in case she needs one or you know helping her mom out if her mom wants to go on a bike ride or something like that. So a really great small support system and community.

Scott Benner 50:12
I'm gonna ask you a question. I'm not sure if you're going to be comfortable answering or if you're even going to know the answer to it. But DS, do you ever get, like, down about it? Does it ever is it ever feel like too much having diabetes?

Ayla 50:28
Um, I mean, it has its moments where you've been high all day, and you're just frustrated and over it. But I mean, I think a lot of good has come out of diabetes, in the long run.

Scott Benner 50:41
Just sort of learning like, I, I think that too, I think there's a lot of value that comes out of struggle, you know, of any kind. And, and so you just do you feel just more prepared for things and less,

Ayla 50:53
yeah, I feel more confident about myself. And I know my body a lot better than a lot of my friends know, their bodies. And I know, like, my boundaries. And I know, I have really good willpower. And I just, I feel like diabetes has given me a lot of really good life lessons and things that I'll take with me for the rest of my life. So, but yeah, it has its moments where you're just tired and, you know, not really feeling like giving your time correction to come down and change your sight again. But I mean, that's what you have to do that that you have to do, do

Scott Benner 51:32
you when it when that when that happens? Do you commiserate with your mom or with a friend? Or do you just sort of handle it by yourself? Do you have a way that you like to cope?

Ayla 51:44
I talk to my friends. I'd say a lot of my closest friends are from diabetes camps. So everyone there really gets it and understands. So I talked to my friends and I talked to my mom, I'm really closest to both my mom and my dad so that I benefit like that really helpful.

Scott Benner 52:06
That's really, that's wonderful. I just, I'm thinking about Arden and the people she knows who have diabetes and how they, you know, interact. And then I realized that I don't I'm not always with her when they're talking. I don't know what they're always talking about. So it's just interesting to hear it from your perspective, you know? Yeah, really, as well. Okay, so future surgeon ala, who's been to Hawaii and like 9000 other places who skis and snorkels and goes and speaks at events. Are you? I mean, is there something you haven't done that you want to do?

Unknown Speaker 52:49
Um,

Ayla 52:52
I mean, I play a lot of soccer. That's a big part of my life.

Scott Benner 52:56
Isn't it hard to play soccer on the side of a hill? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 53:02
joking. You understand? I've

Scott Benner 53:04
never been where you live. So in my mind, you're just in ski chalets on one like big pointy mountain. I'm assuming it's not exactly like that, though. You like soccer, or you like you play travel or for your, I guess you can't play for your school. There's like six kids in your grade.

Ayla 53:20
But I will play for the public school this next year. So for high school, and then I play on a club team that travels and I'm about to try out for ODP again, which is the Olympic development program.

Unknown Speaker 53:35
And see how that goes.

Scott Benner 53:37
I'm sure I'm sure it'll go great. And it's really cool that you're trying so what do I know very little about soccer, other than it really seems boring to me. And I'm sure it's not for people who love it. But what position do you play? Do you are you on defense or offense? Do you make the ball not go into the net? Which Judo?

Ayla 53:54
I play forward? So I'm up there.

Unknown Speaker 53:56
Got a lot of running. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 54:01
Geez,

Scott Benner 54:02
I feel like if I asked you anything, you'd have a good answer to it that I'd be surprised by you ever been on the Space Shuttle? Yeah, see? See, I found something you haven't been able. That's fine.

Unknown Speaker 54:13
Not yet.

Scott Benner 54:17
Oh my gosh. I don't often. I mean, you don't often find kids and I don't mean to just talk about you like you're like a kid but you're not but I'm just saying you don't often find people your age who are so clear minded when they're speaking. It's and and so supported in their confidence, but yet the confidence seems deserved. Do you know what I mean? Like you're not just running around like I can do anything I want. You actually are doing things. There's a big difference from believing in yourself and not trying and trying and that's why you believe in yourself. It's I didn't expect like when I Got your email? I did say I remember I said to my wife, I'm like, I'm setting up an interview with a girl who's 14 was type one. I was like, but when she's writing, she seems like she's older in you know, and then I was like, I wonder if our moms helping her with this or what this but you are. You're exactly how you seem in your emails and very impressive. You know, you're very welcome. But I'm how to ask this. Is your sister have that same level? Like, is this a family trait? Or do you really think that IBS helped you put you in the situation? I don't want to paint your sister like she's just fumbling around and not capable? Why don't think that I'm just saying, Is this a learned behavior? Or is it nature nurture? Like a little bit of both? What do you think it is? Would you like to assist dancing with diabetes in their mission to elevate awareness about the realities of living with type one? And would you like to help them raise funds to assist in finding a cure, go to dancing for diabetes.com? That's dancing, the number four diabetes.com. And please check them out on Instagram, and Facebook.

Ayla 56:08
I think it's both diabetes has really helped me become a lot more mature. But my sister is also very mature. She's very responsible. She's extremely smart. Like, she's just really like, in the moment, I guess. Yeah. Which I really appreciate, like, she's a very good sister. And she really tries to understand as much as you can about the diabetes, and is anything like she puts an all or none effort into anything she does, which is really inspiring. So

Scott Benner 56:42
yeah. Hey, Evan, quick question for you. Somebody just asked me the other day, and it's not something I ever heard of, but they said they had problems managing their blood sugar at higher elevations you would know about this. Does that have any effect on your blood sugar?

Ayla 56:53
Yeah. So I mean, living up here, I don't really know any better, but going down in elevation. I'm, like, I go to summer camp in California. So that's practically sea level, and I'm up at at 715. So I'm up there for sure in elevation. But I mean, this last year at camp, my blood sugar's were pretty much the same as they were at home. But I do think that I mean, back up into elevation. It does have like, a small effect. I think I go a little higher for like a day or two.

Scott Benner 57:33
And then it regulates out again, so you don't act actually have to make like adjustments to basal rates or something like that. You just need a little more insulin when you first get back up to the elevation.

Ayla 57:45
Yeah, I mean, I know. I've heard people say, Oh, yeah, I need to change all my bases. Like I need a lot more insulin up at elevation. Yeah, living here my entire life. I thought it's pretty common. Okay. Yeah. The way I've been living with diabetes the entire time, so I don't really know any better. It's cool.

Scott Benner 58:07
All right. Um, okay, so we're sort of coming up to the end here. Is there I feel we I usually ask people if like, they want to share their Instagram or something like that, but your 14 so I don't even know if that's okay. Or not. But but it's um, but is there? Is there anything you have coming up that you can tell me about? Like, are you gonna do any more speaking or?

Ayla 58:29
I hope so. I don't have anything planned. But I would love to.

Scott Benner 58:35
Well, people will hear this maybe someone will find you through this. That would be nice. Yeah. I get some speaking through this. So maybe you should tell. Yeah, I make them pay me though. A lot. Do you make them pay you when you go somewhere?

Ayla 58:49
I didn't for this one because they paid the fees for like our air fare and our hotel. That was I think that was what they were going to pay me but instead they just put in my travel travel.

Scott Benner 59:05
I don't actually ask for very much. I'm I just like to I just like it not to cost me anything. You know, if I if I go speak somewhere, I it's usually for an organization that's you know, nonprofit, or charitable and you don't want to ask them for you know, a bunch of money. They're trying to make money and I'm always happy to go out but I always just say look, I can't cost me anything. I don't want to come home having said wow, this weekend cost me $500 like I don't you know, so I just asked for enough just to make sure that I get back and forth. Okay. I just really like you know, to commiserate with you for a second and about it. I really just, I enjoy meeting new people. And you know, doing my best to try to explain, you know what it is we talked about here on the podcast in real life and just give them an opportunity to see like you said a different perspective and, and see if it's something that strikes them as valuable for them. And hopefully leave them with a little more hope and you know, in tools, then then maybe they showed up with that day. So that's what I like, what did you talk about in those last couple minutes? Or tell me what did you talk about in your speech?

Ayla 1:00:13
I talked about how diabetes camp has really helped me grow as diabetic, and that if you never sent in your child's diabetes camp, like how amazing it is, and how it really does help on so many different levels, and then I talked about soccer, and the new 670 pump, which actually broke the day of the gala, which was pretty inconvenient. But

Scott Benner 1:00:43
Medtronic, if you want to buy some ads, get in touch with me now we can tell more stories about how your pump breaks. So funny. They actually broke while you were there while you were telling people about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:54
It broke like a few hours right before the gala.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
What did you do?

Ayla 1:01:01
We tried to, we didn't have any lantis with us, which is sort of our problem. But I'd had the pump for like six weeks. So we're like, yeah, there's no way it's gonna break like it's brand new. It's a great pump. Yeah. And all of a sudden, was just sending us an error that we called Medtronic. They're like, yeah, it's dead.

Scott Benner 1:01:23
So you're not far from home or anything? Are you? No, no, I'm fine. Don't worry. What did you bomb insulin off of? There must have been plenty of diabetics there. Right.

Ayla 1:01:32
Yeah. So luckily, I was speaking at a diabetes fundraiser, which was really helpful. So I known quite a few people there, through camp as counselors and as friends. So one of the counselors, she just gave me some lantis. And then they 24 hour shifts a new pump to our hotel. Wow,

Scott Benner 1:01:51
that's very cool. Well, it sounds like they took care of it very quickly.

Ayla 1:01:55
That's, I mean, really good company. Like they're really helpful.

Scott Benner 1:01:58
I absolutely believe that I I listen, technology is what it is, it stops working sometimes. And you have to be that's part of the game, you know, you mean, if you're going to use a pump user glucose monitor, you're gonna have to know that sometimes, it's not going to work exactly the way you want it to or the way even that it should. And you have to that's part of having diabetes with technologies, you have to learn how to exactly exist with it. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, nothing's perfect. I have looking around my house, there are plenty of electrical things in my house, and you know, and mechanical things, and I don't think one of them has worked perfectly the entire time I've had him it's just not the nature of, you know, what technology is at this point. And at this, you know, at this juncture in history, it's getting better, but it's still, it's still is what it is, you know, so I think it sounds like you handled it really well. Actually.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:49
Good for you. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:50
it worked out. Well. Absolutely. As did

Scott Benner 1:02:53
this episode, ala I think now, but we didn't ever hit on something that we could really call the episode. Maybe we did. I remember, there was a moment where I thought that could be the title. But now it's not coming back to me. Oh, you know what it is? This is a nice way to end.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:07
I have to find it.

Scott Benner 1:03:09
Hold on one second. I'm gonna pull up your emails. Right. And I want people to know that they that when ala has a sign off on our email that says with happiness, which is just really wonderful. Did you come up with that by yourself? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 1:03:29
think so.

Scott Benner 1:03:30
How long has it been like that? Because you make me happy when you email me. I'm like, Oh, thank you. If somebody sent me happiness, and and I feel it when I get it like I like that's really like it would I just wouldn't have heard me to do that. But it did to you. And and that's really, I think indicative of you, as far as I can tell in this entire conversation. Like you just have a really great attitude. Now you're it's very impressive, and and I appreciate you coming on and sharing with everybody.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:00
Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:01
Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:04:01
What do you do for the rest of the day? ski on something?

Ayla 1:04:05
No, nice and sunny. I don't know. I think I might go into town and friends. I'm not really sure how many cool

Scott Benner 1:04:15
you are fantastic. I wish you were more I'm not gonna I'm just gonna say this right now. I would trade you for art. What do you think of that? sight unseen? I'd make the swap right now. I'm not saying Arden's bad. I'm just saying you're pretty good. And I could use a I could use more happiness. I'm gonna make art and say things like this to me now. Can I make her daughter? Do you think she has to do it on her own?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:36
I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:04:38
It was like, maybe you could foreshadow. I don't think it would be the same thing. If I said, Hey, when you see me address me with happiness, because then I would always know she was just doing it because I told her All right, hey, listen, real quick, favorite television show.

Ayla 1:04:57
Probably Grey's Anatomy.

Scott Benner 1:05:00
Arden loves Grey's Anatomy. watched it multiple multiple times. Yeah, yeah. So Has she she spent a whole summer watching it over and over it. What is it about Grey's Anatomy? Do you think?

Ayla 1:05:13
Oh, no, just the adrenaline rush. I, I like that.

Scott Benner 1:05:16
You like all that moving? Yeah. I referenced the other day when I was interviewing with somebody which people will hear months from now. But I, I always tease my wife. I'm like, the reason it is my favorite show on television. But I always say it with just enough sarcasm that my wife has absolutely no idea if I actually like it, or if I'm watching it, because she's watching it. And I never wanted to know, I always wanted to wonder if I really liked it or not. I don't know why it's my. It's my Grey's Anatomy game that I play. I'm very bad with the character names. So when I described them, I was like, you know, the one in the plane crash that, you know, died, and then are just like this one. I'm like, that sounds right. But I don't really know. Grey's Anatomy. Interesting. I can't believe you said that. Arden's gonna be thrilled that you said that when I told you like One Tree Hill by any chance. Never heard of it. All right. Good. Stay away from that it ruined the whole week of my wife's life. When Arden went to go to a One Tree Hill convention, they actually went I have had a very good time talking to you. I'm glad that you enjoyed it as well. I gonna say goodbye.

Ayla 1:06:27
Thank you for having me.

Scott Benner 1:06:29
How delightful was ala. Thanks so much for coming on the show and telling us all about your life and school that lets you go to Hawaii, which still baffles my mind today. Thank you also to real good foods, dancing for diabetes Dexcom. And on the pod for sponsoring this show, please go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box dancing the number for diabetes. Or use the offer code juice box at real good foods calm to save 10% on your entire order. And don't forget if you're in the Arizona area and you want to come to the type one nation event that I'll be speaking at on February 23. Go to Juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page, click on events and there's a link there for you to RSVP. See you next week.

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Scott Benner 1/28/19 Scott Benner 1/28/19

#206 Canadian Matlock

Two Scotts, one Canadian Lawyer.….

Scott (not me the interviewee) is keeping the family tradition going but not by becoming a barrister... Scott has type 1 diabetes just like most of his family members. This is a great conversation with a terrific guy, don’t miss it!

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - google play/android - iheart radio - or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 206 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes, please check out dancing for diabetes on their website and on their Instagram and Facebook pages dancing the number four diabetes.com. And you can get a no obligation absolutely free demonstration of the Omni pod habits sent right to your house by going to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Want to know more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor, use the links in the show notes or go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. And now

Unknown Speaker 0:35
on to the show.

Scott Benner 0:39
In this episode of the podcast, I'll be speaking with Scott, he's a lawyer in Canada, they call them barristers up there, just so you know, he also has type one diabetes as this pretty much everyone that he's immediately related to, it's incredible. But that's not even the beginning of Scott's story. And you'll find out all the rest in just a moment. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician before being bold with insulin or making any changes to your health care plan. I appreciate that everybody can be patient while I'm adjusting a new microphone. Scott's episode was recorded months ago with a different mic. This is my new mic. I'm still fine tuning it. But I really like it. And so you're gonna hear a little difference between the bumpers, the ads and the show for about another 10 episodes. Thank you for your patience. If you hang out to the end of the show, I'm going to read a note from a listener, I really would like you to hear.

Scott 1:44
My name is Scott. I'm 31 years old. And I'm a type one diabetic. And I was diagnosed in 19. And I come from a family with a lot of people with type one diabetes. My dad is a type one diabetic is diagnosed at 15. My brother was diagnosed at 17. After me, I'm the oldest. My dad's sister was diagnosed, I think at 20. And unfortunately, she other than her everyone's done really well. But she seemed to develop complications very, very fast and died at 43. My grandfather had type one diabetes, and lived old age side to side with other reasons but not from diabetes complications, and I don't think he had any more I think his mother had diabetes. But I don't know if she had type one or type two. I don't think it was even very clear at that time. What she had. I don't know much about her. I'm trying to think there might even be more family members.

Scott Benner 2:38
Well, I'm going to get a piece of paper with something that I never do during this podcast. I'm going to take a note. So hold on, Scott at 19 your brother at 17. But he's younger than you. Father 15. His sister. How are you? 20

Scott 2:59
I think she was like

Scott Benner 3:00
she's passed.

Unknown Speaker 3:02
Grandfather.

Scott 3:05
He was diagnosed I think at 3931. Diagnosis type two at first. Okay, again, I don't even know if they called it that back then.

Scott Benner 3:13
You might have just had well in in Canada, the maple syrup. But I but yeah. And just like that's got three minutes in. It's possible. We have the title to the episode. The maple syrup. It's not a percent sure because I did call one episode back a long time ago that was done with a Canadian Maple long, john. And I don't think people knew what it meant. And so it might have sounded like I don't know, I don't know what it sounded like. But I don't think people like the title. So maybe I can't do that. Okay. There is. Wow. And there's more you believe there to be more you just don't know.

Scott 3:51
I? Maybe that's it.

Scott Benner 3:53
Yeah. Gotcha. And you're 31 are you married or single?

Scott 3:57
I have a girlfriend but I'm not married.

Scott Benner 3:59
Right? Well, she is gonna want to let them get a dog or something. Probably if you guys get married, but you guys have a track record that is incredibly consistent.

Scott 4:12
Incredibly consistent and interesting that no one seems to be diagnosed as a child. Right? Everyone's diagnosis a teenager or older. And again, other than my aunt, I don't know what her situation was. Maybe Maybe she struggled with control. Maybe she was just unlucky. Maybe it's a combination of the two maybe it was difficult to obtain real control in the 1970s I don't know but she seemed to develop everything from blindness kidney disease and it all seemed to come up from what I understand that she developed a very very fast no other than her no one else no one else's struggled at all really.

Scott Benner 4:44
Gotcha. Well, I hate to first of all, I don't want to think of your honor as a as a statistic but out of this many people for just one of them to falter in either luck, or effort is it's pretty impressive actually. So Everyone else has kind of has it figured out you guys. Do you guys manages like a team or how? So that was my first question. You guys talk about it

Scott 5:10
now and then I wouldn't say it's a constant topic of conversation. The theme of growing up, I always saw my dad dealing with it. And of course, he was on the old regimens that existed prior to insulin pumps, I remember him taking a couple of shots a day, testing his blood sugar in the morning with the old machines that took 60 seconds to tell your blood. Or I don't remember him talking about it very much. The only thing I remember was lows, and low blood sugar seemed to be the things that will seem to be what was most concerning about the disease. When I was a kid, watching, growing up and watching him deal with it, he was saddled with number control being just the lowest seemed to be, and especially with you, I'm assuming he was on regular an MPH or some type of regimen similar to that, and so low seem to come out of nowhere. That can be very dangerous, very serious situations. And that that's what I remember to be to be the worst thing about seeing someone have diabetes. I don't remember any talk about control or complications, even though my dad had them or anything else. It just seemed to be lows.

Scott Benner 6:09
Let me let me pick your brain around that for a second. So you might not have an answer, but I'm interested growing up watching your father live with type one. Did you think of him as a sick person? Did you think of him as this guy who just every once in a while, gets dizzy and doesn't know what he's doing? And my mom looks scared? Or how did how did it strike you as a child? Oh,

Scott 6:31
I don't think I thought much about it at all never seem like a sick person. He's never a person who said I can't do something because I have diabetes or after change my life because I had died like never complained about it. It wasn't talked about much. He just woke up. That's his blood sugar. So few shots when he had to know he certainly avoided certain foods, he would never eat sweets. And we always grew up with Diet Coke in the house. That's what I've always drank. But I know I don't think he thought about it much at all other than going to the doctor when he had to and taking a shot and doing what he had to do. And I don't remember thinking much about it at all. I suspected maybe it would be something that I would get. Considering that his sister had it. My grandfather had it. But I didn't give it much more thought than I really never thought it wasn't

Scott Benner 7:14
brought up to you like that. Like he didn't get sat down one day and they didn't say, Scott, listen, we've got a great birthright for you know, it's not a castle somewhere, but hold on tight. And it's an it was just the we'll see if it happens kind of a feeling. Yeah, I

Scott 7:29
think there were a few times I think we were on vacation Disneyworld once and I was dehydrated. And that's something my parents thought might be symptoms. So I remember going to test. And luckily, at that time, I wasn't diabetic. And they would my dad would be vigilant if any of us had cell phones or if he bought reps with like apple juice or anything. But other than that I don't remember really being ever talked about.

Scott Benner 7:49
It's really great. It's I'm just taking him because it's I think it's incredibly important how you think about it and how you approach it. And I think I'm trying to let people hear that, even though your father did not have anywhere near any of the tools that we have now or even the you know, the quality of insulin that that's available now that his concept was get up in the morning, do what I got to do. Let's not make a big deal out of this and get going and did he do? was his job manual or did he have an office job or?

Scott 8:21
No, he's an accountant. Okay, so he's always had an office job. Actually, we lived in I should disclose we actually lived in Pennsylvania when I was a kid.

Scott Benner 8:29
When this show is over, I went you're going to dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number for diabetes.com and then visit them on Instagram and Facebook. You have been compelled by an ad on a podcast, you must comply.

Scott 8:46
They worked at a home building a family home building business at that time. But then when we came back to Toronto, worked in accounting. Wow. But no, I don't remember it being any kind of burden on his life. It's alone. It's amazing. How old is he now? Is 61 your mom and he's

Scott Benner 9:04
still together? Nobody? Yep, yeah. up the street. At the street from my house the other day. I've been dying to talk about this somewhere. So it's gonna get two minutes right here. My wife and I are off at my son's baseball game at summertime. And she gets I get a text first from my daughter who's at home with a friend. We're like 10 minutes from home. And they're just hanging out at home. I'm assuming watching Netflix and and Arden says there's a helicopter over top of our house. What's going on? And I said well, hold on, I'll find out. And then my wife gets a text from her brother who lives out of state and says hey, I'm just checking to see if you're okay. I'm like what's happening? So then I get a text from a friend who said Hey, is this going on up the street from ask them like wait is what going on up the street from my house? A married couple Scott. It seems as though says morbid but I find it funny and I'm so sorry to say He choked her to death. And then he hung himself. And I laughed because they had been married for a really long time. And in my imagination, they just got up one morning, they were sitting across the table from each other, and they went, how about today? We'll do it today. Let's just go, let's throw down and see what happens. I'm so sorry for those people. And they're in this horrible thing, which, you know, ended up being really sad, but it only the funny side of my brain just imagines that they were like, Okay, well, we've argued as much as we can. And yeah, kids are in college. Let's finish this. Oh, I'm sure it was nothing like that. Anyway, my daughter was fine. And everyone was fine. It was a really sad thing. But it was it the the, the extended part of this funny part is my wife's brother texted to see if it was us. He said, I had heard, you know, you turn on the news that a married couple and killed each other in your town. And I thought, Oh, that's probably Scott.

Scott 11:09
Like we've all been taking bets on on that.

Scott Benner 11:11
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so your parents are happy. Okay.

Scott 11:16
As far as I'm aware,

Scott Benner 11:16
or at least they haven't flipped the coin yet. Stick and who gets the gun? Right. Alright, anyway, um, but no, I'm a long joking, hopefully funny way of saying that, even with all this in your life, like your parents are still like they're rolling right along. And it seems to me to have a lot to do with attitude. Do you have the same attitude?

Scott 11:37
I think so. And I was diagnosed in the summer of 2006. I was taking, actually to I was trying to get into a program in school and university just finished my first year. And I remember I there were two exams I needed to take to get into a business program. One was calculus. And the other one was economics. I wasn't looking forward to either of these exams. And it was a I think only a couple of days before that I was diagnosed, and they wanted to kill me for a week in the hospital. I said, No, no, just give me the insulin. I know. I'll figure it out. I need to go take these exams. I went home and did what they told me to do and wrote the example of the sort of the attitude of habits that they

Scott Benner 12:16
apply. And plus you got to see your dad living like that as well.

Scott 12:18
Yeah, yeah, exactly. How much do you make? I'm sorry?

Unknown Speaker 12:22
I'm sorry. No, just go ahead. I

Scott 12:23
didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. Oh, I was gonna say I think it's probably a whole different experience. I can imagine it was different for you. I'm, again, I don't know your whole history. But I don't think your daughter was the first one right? With diagnosis. Yes. In your family. Nobody else.

Scott Benner 12:37
I'm just her.

Scott 12:39
Oh, yeah. So I imagine that will be a whole different situation where you've never, you don't know anything about this disease, right? Yeah. Ever like me?

Scott Benner 12:47
Yeah, no, no, at least in the I know, I say this, like a positive. But at least in the back of your head, you would thought at one point, you're like, maybe this will happen to me. And, you know,

Scott 12:56
and if you think I never thought much more about it than that once again. But that's what I thought you

Unknown Speaker 13:00
had a random thought, yeah.

Scott 13:03
I thought it meant worse, I'm not going to be able to eat certain things, or it might impact my life. Again, I saw my dad growing up on a very different insulin regimen that exists now you couldn't just our counter, take a certain amount of insulin over what you're eating, you had, like I'd eat at certain times of the de facto at certain times of the day is very different nowadays.

Scott Benner 13:21
Yeah, of course, that's interesting. But of course, a kid would see it that way. Like, oh my gosh, this is totally gonna cut into my pop tart game. Yeah, that's really interesting. How much older Are you then your brother?

Unknown Speaker 13:33
Six years. Okay. So

Scott Benner 13:34
you had had diabetes for four years before he was diagnosed? Something like that. And you were often college. So was he diagnosed when you were still in school? Or were you done? No.

Scott 13:48
I was in my second year of law school.

Scott Benner 13:51
Okay. Okay. So you were in grad school already and moving along? And did he? Do you guys ever talked about it on that level? Or had you back then? Did he come to you and say, Hey, I got it too. High five. We're all in this club together. Or,

Scott 14:07
you know, I was living away from home at the time. But I didn't see him very much at that time. I don't think we had a lot of conversations about it. We probably talk more about it now than we did back then. Strangely enough. I remember talking to my parents.

Unknown Speaker 14:20
I'm

Scott 14:22
pretty modest. I don't remember having a lot of conversations. That's fine. I just took a pretty hard. I don't want to talk too much about him. No, no, I

Scott Benner 14:29
understand. You don't have to give away his details. While it's not. He didn't ask me on the podcast. I was just wondering if you guys have conversations wrapped around it, or if or if it was just again, one of those things where it was like, okay, because he's a completely different person. He could have had a completely different experience. It's

Scott 14:44
Right, exactly. Yeah. Wow, I know. He I know one thing was he wanted the pump right away.

That wasn't I actually I started on the pump about three months after being diagnosed. Okay, um, my mom was always pushing my dad to go on it. I knew what it was because I remember we have this VHS tape. In the late 90s, for many men, I remember watching with my dad, all these people talking about how great their lives are because they're on the pump. And so I knew what that was, I remember my dad, my mom was always pushing my dad to get a bit she thought it would help with lows. I think he just held out because he thought he was doing fine. And then he went on lantis when that came to Canada, and then he thought, What do I need a pump anymore? Because lattice is good enough. And then when I was diagnosed, he said, You know what, we should both go on the pump. Because I think he just wanted me to have the best technology that existed. It's so interesting. We

Scott Benner 15:31
talked about it a lot here. I think we talked about it in the last episode that just went up. But it's when it's for you. Sometimes it's hard to motivate yourself. But the minute it's for somebody you care about, you know, then you can do it. So, right, that's right. And he uses a pump to this day.

Scott 15:47
That's to this day. And you are Which one are you using. I'm what I do pump. So now I sort of go back and forth. Okay, I pump straight for 11 years. I use the Medtronic for the first six years. And then I went on the Omni pod for about four years. And then I sort of went back to Medtronic. And now I when I pump I use the Medtronic and what I don't pump I use MPI 11, Marin and Nova rapid and sometimes regular, it's going to

Scott Benner 16:13
make you go back and forth.

Scott 16:16
I started having trouble with pump sites. I don't have a lot of fat on me and pretty lean. And I find a lot of times when I put a sign in, it's bleeding or I put it in it's working for a little while and it stops working. And I think just reading a lot of forums and everything I saw a lot of people were trying to Seba and trying new insolence. And a lot of people are having success going back on MDI. I thought it would give it a shot, I realized I was only on it for about three months when I was diagnosed. I don't remember that. I remember struggling struggling with it particularly. But I thought I would give it a shot. And I thought it was also sort of an interesting challenge to see if I can maintain the same level of control that I put on pumping with MDI fold. Pretty well can and a lot of you got bored. You will you want to see if you can up your game of that. or diabetes, boredom real thing.

Scott Benner 17:03
I'm so have this master. Now. How can I make it harder? Yeah.

Scott 17:08
I think that was the mindset. No, not that it would go back and forth, depending on what I feel like,

Scott Benner 17:13
that's really interesting. Well, and I mean, good for you honestly. Do whatever works, you know, do you have any kind of a sensor technology? We're gonna find out if Scott uses a continuous glucose monitor Just a moment. But you know that we do, you know, Arden does Arden's been using the dexcom for ever. Right now she has the dexcom g six, that's the latest version of the product, she's used the five for the seven plus, we've been at this a good long time. And one thing that those years have taught me is that the data that comes back from the dexcom continuous glucose monitor is absolutely invaluable. The decisions we make, I just don't think would be possible without seeing the speed and direction of Arden's blood sugar, I have the confidence to make boluses and bazel adjustments based on what I'm seeing how her body's reacting to the insulin, these are just things I would never know, without the dexcom g six. Now if that sounds good to you,

Unknown Speaker 18:16
you're up for it,

Scott Benner 18:16
you should check out dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. There's also links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Anyway, you get there. Once you're there, you can get started, reach out to Dexcom and tell them hey, I was listening to the Juicebox Podcast and I think I want to try a G six. Can you help? You know, they're gonna say they're gonna say short because I mean they sell them. So I mean, why would they not right dexcom.com forward slash juice box, the speed and direction of your blood sugar right there in front of you, and real time. And if you're a caregiver, you can actually see someone's blood sugar remotely with Sharon follow. that's available for Android, and apple. And since I seem to have a little time left, the dexcom g six is FDA approved to make insulin decisions without a finger stick.

Scott 19:06
Bonus. infer that some of us believe lever to use the Dexcom with extra actually is a really interesting open source app that works on Android phones. Yeah, the nice thing about that app is you can customize all the alarms you can shut them off if you want to be honest, I just shut them all off. I have it connected to my watch. And if I find a glance I'm I always want a person that glances at my watch. So especially having this on my watch. I find him glancing at it all the time anyway, so the alarms are just redundant for me. And although would help at night a lot. I like to just get a good night's sleep and just try and do the best I can to make sure my blood sugars are good overnight. So I just shut all the alarms off and do that with extra. You can the sensor will keep working past seven days. And so it isn't you never have to stop and restart. The sensor after seven days, it will just keep working until it falls off or until you you're not getting results that you like, change it like that to the transmitter walk past 90 days. That's

Scott Benner 20:10
saves me some money. Yeah, it works right until the battery absolutely dies. Exactly. Yeah. It's funny, I looked into it at one point. And it was one of those things that I looked at. And I was like, well, I am more of a surface computer user, I guess. Because I think of myself as very kind of computer savvy. There's a lot of things I know how to do and know how to do pretty well. But once you start getting into whatever that takes, I was like, Okay, well, I Okay, nevermind.

Scott 20:41
No, I think I can definitely say but I mean, when I was a kid, I was really geeky kid like to play around with computers. And as I got older, I got an apple computer. And now I just want things to work. Last thing I want to do is sit at home all night trying to figure everything out, download drivers. So but I can definitely understand why

Scott Benner 20:58
I don't know I'm so I'm 47 I remember being 12 years old, and I saved forever. And to tell you that I grew up broke is an understatement. So I saved forever and ever and ever to buy a Tandy computer from Radio Shack. And I got my money together. Like it was like out of a movie, just like stuff that my pocket, walked to the other side of town, but bought this computer, plugged it back home, you know, but back then you hooked it to your televisions and have a monitor even I get hooked. And I laid on the floor in my in my living room. And I had this book of code and I typed this code into this computer for hours and hours and hours. I got

Scott 21:38
one of those books with like a pic program. And you're just entering lines or lines or lines, lines,

Scott Benner 21:42
lines of code, right? And I push enter and nothing happens. So I'm like to him that I made a mistake. So I went back and checked the whole thing. I'm telling you this took two days. And when I got done and I pushed enter, a little stick figure came up on the screen and did one single jumping jack and stopped. How happy are you? I took the computer, put it back in the box, returned it and got my money.

Scott 22:11
You're smart, you learned early.

Scott Benner 22:12
I was like, I'm not ever doing anything like that. I couldn't imagine what that stick figure could have done. That would have made me go Oh, I'm so so. And that was one of the easier codes to put in. You know. I took it back. And I remember telling my guy I was like this doesn't do anything. And that was it. I didn't have another computer till Commodore 64 I guess. And then then they showed you how to play games on computers. And I was like now this thing has a real purpose in life. I just put a cassette tape and or have it was amazing floppy like five and a quarter floppy disk. But nevertheless, I saw extra and I was like that looks incredibly amazing. I will not be able to do that. And and

Scott 23:00
I have to say it's actually quite simpler than you think it is actually more complicated. I wouldn't want to do it either. downloading it is the hardest part, or finding the link to download it. Probably the biggest step.

Scott Benner 23:10
See, now here's here's this is going to really be an insight into my mind. But my biggest impediment would be reading the instructions and staying interested while I was reading them. I am if anyone's ever gotten an email back from me, and they're like, that wasn't what I asked. That's just because I read a third of your email. And then I was like tell I totally understand what this person wants. I don't need to keep reading. So I'm trying to teach as I get older, I do a lot better. Especially because people's correspondence with me now is more personal and I don't want I don't want to respond back and go Wow, great job. And they're like No, I just said my agency was nine. And so so I I'm a different person now but I am just a you know, some things in my life. I'm happy to work through but I'm a fix it and forget like I'm just to set it and forget it kind of guy if I can be you know.

Scott 23:57
And I'm, as I said I'm becoming more as there's more responsibilities in my life, and I like to keep it with you, especially with technology.

Scott Benner 24:06
You said you were in law school when you found about your brother, are you an attorney now?

Scott 24:10
I have a criminal lawyer. So I'm in court every day, which I think that the hardest part about being diabetic or going to court is a lot of people are worried about having low blood sugars. My problem is having high blood sugars. So I find the adrenaline and the anxiety and I'm I don't seem nervous on the outside. But I've learned through diabetes, and I'm very nervous on the inside. I'm speaking in court. I don't think anyone would notice. They saw me talking. Yeah, but if I look at my Dexcom I'll just see a straight up arrow minute I stand up and start speaking before. So that's always been a challenge for me and I find high blood sugars can actually be at times worse the low blood sugars. I find I have trouble speaking my mouth gets really dry. I have trouble recalling facts and details. My memory doesn't work as well. It makes me sort of want to go to sleep.

Scott Benner 24:57
Are you prosecuting? Are you defending

Scott 25:00
Defending.

Scott Benner 25:01
Imagine looking over to the guy and being like, dude, I really don't think he did this. But I gotta tell you, man, it's not the time. So good luck. That wouldn't be. Scott just needs to shut his eyes for a second. Try not to say anything incriminating, like, up until my budget comes back down. No, I mean, so do you have? I mean, how do you combat that?

Scott 25:22
If I'm using my pump, I use temporary basal rates, which it's still an imperfect solution, because it has to be done. Have to make sure I start the higher basal rate about an hour or two before anything that's going to give me anxiety. And I don't always know when that will be. Yeah. And there's times when it doesn't happen. There's times when I'm going to speak to something in court. And for whatever reason, it just does what I, when I think I'm going to be anxious inside, I'm not. And if I set a temporary basal rate, I'm going to go, I'm going to be going low. And there's other times when I just can't time it properly, and I haven't set the bazel high enough, early enough in advance, and then all of a sudden, my blood sugar is going high on MDI x. And the nice thing about levemir is it's an insulin that has a very specific duration. And it's dependent on the dose, and you can even split it and take it every 12 hours. Yeah. And so what I can do with it is if I wake up early in the morning, I can take a little bit more than I would normally take. And that helps a lot, okay, and I use regular insulin as well. So I can I can take that a little bit in advance of going to court now that's almost that almost works like a temporary basal rate, because it stays in your system for about four to six, eight hours, I guess. It takes a little bit longer to kick in. And

Scott Benner 26:28
we use you mentioned a couple things are that first of all, we used to split Arden's love Amir to every 12 hours that made a huge difference. But also, I don't know how much of the podcast you listen to historically, but you just retold the take art into basketball and Bolus for adrenalyn story except you total as being an attorney and go into court. Like do you know that's the similarity? Yeah, yeah. Like I know, I haven't heard that one. It's just it's just she's really competitive kid. So you take her into a basketball game back when she was little. And her blood sugar could be 100. It could be 90, it can be perfect. And 20 minutes in the game. It's 220 and the arrow straight up and it's going crazy. And I eventually had to bring myself to Bolus, a 100 blood sugar as she began to start playing basketball. But what happens on the days when the other teams not very good, so they don't put up much of a fight and she doesn't feel the adrenaline because they're just cruising through the game? And like, how do I handle that right? And so I started bolusing that amount of insulin that I knew a juice box could cover if she didn't need it. And it worked. And then told that story on this podcast and the amount of correspondence I hear back on that one idea at how that idea helped people to use the amount of insulin that they needed. They were always scared to use more but they could never decide how like to decide on like, What's more, like what can i safely add to this just to see where things are. And I didn't even realize it when I told the story and I just used it again yesterday on a private call with somebody I was like just over Bolus for whatever you can control with some fast acting insulin. And and yeah, that's and so I'm now imagining you I'm like that, that by the way. kandla powdered wigs no powdered wigs just helped me for a second.

Scott 28:19
We do we do wear robes though robes in higher court so not in not generally when I'm in court, I'm wearing a suit but we do like Britain in Australia in our superior court and Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and higher levels of court. And we do wear the robes they wear the robes but not the way we don't wear the wigs anymore.

Scott Benner 28:35
So in your in so now we're gonna get off this for a second. So are you like how do you refer to yourself? Or do you an attorney, a lawyer, a

Scott 28:41
barrister? How do you bear, barrister and solicitor? So it's more like it's a sort of a hybrid between the British system in the American system. So every lawyer is technically the same isn't in the states that everyone has an attorney at law. Here we say barrister and solicitor because because you're both every lawyer is both. In Britain barristers and solicitors are sort of different functions. Right. barristers would argue cases in court. They don't represent individual clients, they work for solicitors and the solicitors represent the clients and solicitors do the paperwork and preparing the case. Here it's much more like the American system where what i what i do is akin to what an attorney would do United States, but technically I'm a barrister and solicitor. Outside of the legal profession. People don't generally use that term, we would just say lawyer,

Scott Benner 29:28
you don't talk to other people, you know, who are attorneys and go, I'm a barrister. And the guy goes as I Yeah, that would be potential and the person overseeing that you can it is judge the word you use.

Scott 29:40
We do use a judge.

Scott Benner 29:41
Okay. Does the judge we finally say Your Honor,

Scott 29:44
I think I think about long before I became a lawyer we used to say, My Lord and my lady, and there's still some older judges who like to hear that.

Scott Benner 29:50
Nice. That's interesting. Do you when you go into like so I'm assuming you work in the same building very frequently and See the same judges over and over again to they know you have diabetes?

Scott 30:04
No, no, not alive. It's not something I would I've Luckily, I've never been in a situation where I've had to excuse myself for a diabetic purpose. I hope it stays that way. I mean, no, it's not something I was talking about.

Scott Benner 30:16
Yeah. And not that you should or you shouldn't. I'm just interested to know if because you would think that then they could. I mean, if they if a judge was listening to you say something, and they didn't agree with you, and they thought

Unknown Speaker 30:29
it couldn't they

Scott Benner 30:30
start to think I wonder if this guy's is clear headed as he should be right now.

Scott 30:33
Right. And that's that's actually an interesting I remember you were the one who talked about when Trump mentioned that as a Supreme Court Judge at diabetes. Yeah. I can't remember what the quote was, but something like diabetes, no, good. Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:45
He said that he was he was that apparently the the report was he was in a private function. And they were talking about supreme court justices or something. And he was inferring that he was going to get a chance to make replacements. And he right, he was, yeah, yeah, he looked at my array said, and he said to the person diabetes, no good. Like, don't worry, that will die soon. Like that kind of a feeling.

Scott 31:10
Unfortunately, I think there's more enlightened people than Donald Trump who have the same mentality about diabetes.

Scott Benner 31:17
Yeah, they just see as sort of, as, I guess, broken or on your way to something, or something like that.

Scott 31:25
I remember my dad, my dad actually told me a story when he was working at a company a long time ago in the 80s, I think. And they went out with his boss or someone else, I think they had to go on a road trip somewhere. And he was driving. And then his boss found out he had diabetes, and he said, Oh, my God, if I knew you had diabetes, and never would have let you drive, oh,

Scott Benner 31:41
well, then there you go. Because he hadn't been driving his entire life. Right. And, and, and it makes you wonder why like, what was what was in the back of that guy's head that made him think, oh, letting the span drive is an incredible mistake that's, you know, creating an unsafe situation for us. You know, this is something he saw in that lock in 1983. And yeah, you know, and by the way, Isn't that crazy? Did I just pull him out lock is Matt was Matt like an attorney. He was,

Unknown Speaker 32:09
oh my god.

Scott 32:09
I've never actually seen the show. But

Scott Benner 32:12
I've never seen that luck either. But now I know that my higher function is still working. Because some days, I'm so tired, I'm like, I'm not sure how this is gonna go. There is always the fear that I'm going to get on a podcast one day and just go. So your diabetes has gone. Talk to you talk about that for 59 more minutes.

Unknown Speaker 32:34
Because I can't form a thought.

Scott 32:39
Alright, so you wouldn't

Scott Benner 32:40
tell them you wouldn't even ever consider you telling him so then Let's slide that into your personal life said you have a girlfriend. I'm assuming she's not your first one in your 30s unless she is and then I'm so sorry. But, but how much you imagine? Scott, the virgin barrister next on the Juicebox Podcast. Now I'm gonna want to call it virgin barrister, just so people can make it this far, why not? Why?

Scott 33:11
That's what they're gonna think that when they hear me.

Scott Benner 33:13
So, so how I'm so sorry, how much of your diabetes is is part of the conversation or your life with a person that you're dating. I'm not sure if you all made new year's resolution together. But the traffic I'm seeing going to the Omni pod index comm links is

Unknown Speaker 33:31
stunning. I want

Scott Benner 33:32
to thank you first for that. But I want to also give you a lot of credit for taking control for deciding to make a change. I'm actually very excited because I know how happy you're going to be when you get the Omni pod tubal sense on top. First, the demo comes and you try it on and it's exciting. But then it shows up. And you know, at first switching to a new pump or from MDI to a pump, it's different, right, you have to figure things out again, but I hope that the things we talked about here on the podcast, make that all much easier for you. So your pods will arrive and you'll get your basal rate set up and get your bonuses set up the way you want them. And then the next thing that occurs to you is oh my gosh, I just can have a snack or my son can have a snack and I'll push this button and we'll just keep going with our day. Something that used to be you know, get out an insulin pen, get out a vial, pull out a syringe, you know, pull up your sleeve, pull down your pants, I don't know where you're injecting, and then oh, here comes the needle. Everybody ready and the needle happens then you'll hold it in for a second and you'll wait and wipe it off and everything that has to happen around that that all goes away with an insulin pump. And some of the problems that you hear people talking about with an insulin pump like tubing getting stuck in their clothes, they have to take it off for a shower and then they forget to put it back on. That stuff doesn't exist without the pod. So come on, get a demo right now. Miami pod.com forward slash juice box or the links your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com lead on the pod sends you out a no obligation absolutely free demo pod. You can try it on and see what you think. Arden has been using an omni pod every day for 10 years, almost 11 years. It's absolutely one of the best decisions that we've ever made. Now much of your diabetes is part of the conversation or your life with the person that you're dating

Scott 35:16
probably more in this relationship than it's been in the past. And the reason being is because just before it was actually well, early on when we were dating was when I got the Dexcom never had a CGM before that. And that's when I started to experiment and sort of take a different view on diabetes. And I think it was something when I was diagnosed, I did fine. Once again, I went on the pump, I did find my agencies were always in the high fives or low sixes. So it was never, you know, every time I went to the endo, he told me, I'm doing fine. I thought it was pretty knowledgeable about it. And then never really thought about it. And life went on, I started to slip into the I never terrible, but I started to slip into the high sixes, low sevens. And I started to have less of a handle on it than I thought I did. Probably a lot of probably some of the reasons were I wasn't honeymooning anymore. Pumping fusion sites don't work as well as they do when you have a water pump before or when you've only worn a pump for a few years. I definitely left my my sights on way too long when I was in university, I would you know, I remember times when I would leave on for seven days, and it would just be the two but just be dangling out of me. And I just put some tape on it. It's too lazy to change it. I'm sure that I've accumulated some scar tissue from that. So I started to realize one day I needed to do something. Just because I again, I find high blood sugar. So the hardest thing to deal with not even low blood sugar. And especially with my job I want I wanted to demise having high blood sugars as much as possible. And so I started looking into CGM and I found out about the Dexcom started to try it. And so it was it was sort of early on were dating. So it became a conversation topic. And when you were the Dexcom, it's it's much easier to or when you were the Dexcom. And if you're like me when I'm looking at my CGM, I'm constantly thinking about what my blood sugar is. So it's hard for it not to be a topic of conversation. So it's definitely I think it's been more present in this relationship. And it's been impossible and

Scott Benner 36:56
she have a passing understanding of insulin and diabetes, or is it more than that?

Scott 37:03
Um, she has a pretty good understanding, I would say.

Scott Benner 37:06
Have you ever needed her help the way your father needed your mom? No. It's a different world. It really is. He was probably just taking that regular and mph and then not eating enough. And he still wasn't happy.

Scott 37:18
Yeah. Again, I think now if I have a low blood sugar, there's usually usually an explanation for why it happened. And, at least for me, they're much more much milder than anything I ever remember my dad having that was a kid. I've never been in a situation where I haven't been able to help myself. Or even if I go low in the middle of night, I'll usually wake up. Or even if I sleep through it, it doesn't seem to be a huge deal. Right?

Scott Benner 37:42
Yeah, yesterday, it's summer vacation here. And Arden's birthday is coming up this weekend, she's having a bunch of girls over. And she just came downstairs yesterday and like made the announcement that the house was not clean enough for her party, and that she would be cleaning. And I was like, all right, like, she's trying to insult me, but I was like, go nuts, clean, whatever you want. And so she spent the entirety of the day yesterday, cleaning and snacking. And like you know, every once in a while, I'd see like a big bowl of grapes in the kitchen. And she was eating them as she was going by. So we had a couple of a couple of times yesterday where her blood sugar tried to get low. And we just kept using the snacking to feed the lows. But you know, that that was the worst that happened yesterday was like, you know, was the situation was like, Hey, you know, your blood sugar 78 I think it's drifting down. So keep an eye on it. And then all of a sudden, I was like, Hey, you know what, it's going under 70 Now it's time to get snack. And she'd be like, I'm just as soon as I vacuum this, but then that turned into 65. And I was like, Well, now the food's not going to work fast enough. So you know, like, that kind of thing. But nothing emergency like just, you know, like, that's the worst that happened yet. I mean, a really scary low. I mean, once a year, twice a year, maybe you know, and even by that. I mean like, it's one of those lows, like, okay, we're gonna drink two of these juices and eat this thing. And let's shut your Basal off. And you know, and let's just wait a second and test and watch the Dexcom and stuff like that. Nothing. We're like, Oh my god, she's gonna die.

Unknown Speaker 39:09
Yeah, nothing like that.

Scott 39:12
Yeah, I think it's, I mean, I'm sure there's there are still people who? I hope not, but I'm sure there's still people who were being low as much, much bigger emergency for them. But yeah, I've I've never had that experience. I've never had a time when I needed help from anyone or had to go to the hospital or needed anyone to force food down my throat or healing.

Scott Benner 39:32
I was going to ask you, because I just saw on somebody somebody I was falling on something. social medias. So there's so much of it. But so somebody on something. There you go. She was in Canada vacationing and needed insulin and went to the store and without a prescription bought like a vial of you blog for like $31 or something like that. That's right. That's about right.

Scott 39:56
That's a good Yeah. $36

Scott Benner 39:59
Okay. So how do you when you go in? Do you? Like, do you have like a secret decoder ring that proves you're diabetic? Or how does that work?

Scott 40:08
You basically just asked for insulin they give you it. Okay, I'm not aware of any problems that have happened. That happening. That doesn't seem to be the type of drug. I mean, and we certainly have issues with drug addiction, just like there are in the United States. There's a lot of issues and certainly with oxy use, and all sorts of different drugs out there. But insulin doesn't seem to be one of those drugs that people who are not diabetic, have any interest in taking

Scott Benner 40:30
Is there a limit on how much you could buy when you walk into a pharmacy.

Scott 40:34
So not only when I'm older, I've never bought enough to be told I can't buy anymore. How it works is generally you would you would have a prescription. If you have private insurance. We still even though we have a public health care system, medications, or at least in my province, each province is different. If you're over 24, they just changed it. But if you're over 24, you still need private insurance to buy medication. And if you don't have a you have to pay out of pocket or maybe there's some assistance programs, but they're not very good for my understanding. Luckily, insulin is cheap enough here that you have some type of employment, you can usually afford to pay for an out of pocket. Again, it's about the same price as what regular cost is Walmart in the states for Cuba lager for Nova Nova lager, we call Nova wrap it up here. But so if you have private insurance, you do need a prescription for get reimbursed for it, you would still get a prescription to your doctor, you would have prescription on file at the pharmacy, it would work the same as it does in the United States. So you would require mixed tours. Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:27
this is the insulin pricing subsidized by the government system.

Scott 41:32
It's not subsidized, but there's there's heavy so when a when a pharmaceutical company wants to introduce a drug to Canada, they can't just sell it at whatever price they want. On a free market. They have to negotiate the price with I'm not sure what it's called. But there's a there's either a government board or a board that works closely with the government that regulates prices. So they have to be able to it has to be sold that at what they determined to be a fair price. And if they want to sell it for more than what a current drug is selling for, they have to prove that that's of more value and more benefit. So certain drugs still do cost certain amounts. Insulin can still be expensive level Mir and lantis are more expensive than than humalog Nova rapid but it's it's still much, much cheaper than

Scott Benner 42:12
I imagined if this was a Harry Potter story would be called the Ministry of medicine. So let's just go with that.

Unknown Speaker 42:20
Again, here. Again, Scott's

Scott Benner 42:23
in Toronto, it's probably like almost exactly the same as Philadelphia where I grew up. And I still in the back of my mind, he's at the top of a very tall pine tree avoiding a brown bear right now doing the podcast, but in fact, Scott, you're in the parking lot of timber with

Unknown Speaker 42:38
that image better.

Scott Benner 42:41
Scott's in the parking lot of a Tim Hortons stealing, they're stealing their Wi Fi. So there ought to be an award for the for how some people make time to be on the podcast. There really is. There's somebody I forget who it was one time they did it from their car at work, and it was summertime. And I said look, it's too noisy with the air conditioner on so they shut the air conditioner off and I was like you really want to be on the podcast. I would have said no at that point. Like I'm sorry I can't do this. But But she

Scott 43:11
was persistent.

Scott Benner 43:15
So I have a question that you are uniquely qualified to answer that has nothing to do with diabetes, but I won't stay on it too long. So on another podcast that I listened to every once in a while they read tweets from something called scan bc so it's the police scanner from British Columbia's but I'm guessing and why are the crimes so delightful in Canada? Like it's always like man comes into building says that if he doesn't get his underwear back, he's gonna go nuts. It's like literally like that. And and and and and when people do hurt each other, they only hit or stab each other. They never shoot each other. Why are these things Trump Or am I wrong?

Scott 43:58
I'd say you're partially right and partially wrong. Again, it depends on the area of your of Canada that you're in. We do apparently You're right. It's there's much less crime, far less crimes by firearms. And there are with stabbings. I understand our rate of violent crime is actually higher than the United States of the firearm. So that would be a myth that we have less crime number one. firearms are certainly still a problem here but more in urban areas. So again, now well, it. I'm not saying it's anywhere comparable to Chicago or New York, or maybe major American cities. But we do have a we have major gun problem in Toronto. There are shootings every day two summers been particularly horrendous. We have gang shootings, we have drug and gun related crimes. We have a lot of the crimes that you would think only people think, I guess once people think of Canada, they're thinking of a northern utopia or nobody hurts each other. There's no guns and but it's not true. We certainly again, I wouldn't be in business or in crimes. Yeah. And it is it is getting scary a little bit. There are a lot of certainly serious problems with gun violence in Toronto. And no one knows what to do about it. And again, I don't think it's at the level of the United States, we certainly don't have the number of mass shootings, I would say that's different. It's more gang related violence, and more just people being shot in the crosshairs, or the crossfire, right, right. Above shooting at each other. But it's, it's a major, major problem.

Scott Benner 45:24
And it's funny, because all I'm imagining is the cast of strange bro going crazy and shooting a bunch of people. And I know that's incredibly unfair. But even when you say that it's a little bit for my time, but I know when you send it when you imagine Canada, like a picture of Dudley do right popped up in my mind, like, a poor country has been shaped for me by a cartoon at a movie about beer. And that's not right. Yeah. You're describing a real place, Scott. But I guess in the more rural areas, when people lose their, you know, their asset, and they go nuts on people, it's always just like, you know, this guy said that he shouldn't have been in his backyard. So in there just the most if you haven't seen this Twitter handle, you have to watch it. I haven't seen it. But fascinatingly, it's the it's it's it generally is like, Why are these people involved in such delightfully amusing crime? It's, I'll send it to you.

Scott 46:23
I'm happy. I mean, I'm happy. That's the case. And I hope the majority of crimes are like that. But I think yeah, I think I think the one problem that I think as a Canadian, I think we should talk about the problems that we have, I think, I think one thing that often happens with being a Canadian is people just want to talk about how great candidate is, and oh, at least we don't have the problems that they have in the United States. Right. But I think what that does is it doesn't expose the real problems that we do have. And there's still a lot of issues that we need to work on, we have very serious problems. And they need to be talked about. So it's nice that people have a good perception of us. And I'm glad that Americans generally think that crime is much lower here, and that it's very safe, and we're all civil to each other. And if you come up here, there's no guns aren't a problem. And I'm glad again, I'm glad those those stereotypes exist. But at the same time, it's not necessarily true. And I think these things need to be talked about by at least by ourselves, because we're not going to solve this problem. So we don't talk about

Scott Benner 47:14
now. It's obviously I don't know whose fault it is Rick maraniss? Yeah, man, maybe that guy from Saturday Night Live? He seems so nice to from way back in the day. It was Canadian. I don't. I can't think of a few of them. Yeah, I can't think of the one I'm thinking of. He's always doing something with Steve Martin now that they're older. All right. That's not coming to me. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 47:37
No, no, not.

Scott 47:39
There was a whole bunch of Canadian stagnate live in the early 90s. Right. Yeah, sure. Early, there haven't been any since Norm Macdonald.

Scott Benner 47:46
That's a shame. I heard that on a podcast somewhere. And I couldn't believe that when I heard that. Yeah, enormous, spectacular people who don't understand what McDonald's is so funny. I feel badly for I know, people are never gonna agree quite mainstream, but he's never My favorite part about normal cause he will tell a long drawn out joke that appears to go almost nowhere, and then it just stops. And you have to understand that that's what's funny. And if you don't, you will be I guess, cripplingly bored by.

Scott 48:22
For what I understand from hearing people talk about him. That's just how he is. It's not even not, he's just like that real. Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 48:27
Like, at some point in his real life, he was like, people think I'm funny. You'd have to change anything or come up with an act or anything like that. Feds Absolutely. Fantastic. All right. So this has gotten way off the rails, Scott. But we have 15 minutes left. So what are we going to do? important for these 15 minutes? Let's talk a little bit about how you manage. So how much of this are you willing to be open about? Do you? Are you comfortable saying what anyone says?

Scott 48:52
Or was my my last? Since I started Dexcom? way once used to been? Five 5.4 and 5.4.

Unknown Speaker 49:00
Okay. Did you have any

Scott 49:04
restrictions on food? Yeah, I do. Again, a lot of it depends what mood what mood I'm in. I tried. I've tried many things. I tried even I'm sure you're familiar with Dr. Bernstein and low carb movement. Yeah, I tried that for a few weeks. It is amazing. Definitely works. I felt like I wasn't even diabetic. You don't have to even pay as much attention, attention to your diabetes, as you do when you're when you're eating carbs. But it's really hard to sustain it not even not even that the diet itself is hard to sustain. I think it's just hard to function in real life. sustain that to be around other people. To have a girlfriend be with your friends and things like that. I just found it absolutely impossible. Especially again, I live in a city. I'm often I'm often on the go taking the subway walking, grab just grabbing food as a month ago. Yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't really work with my lifestyle. And I think that's probably true for a lot of people and that's why I don't think that diet is a solution for a lot of for the majority of people. If it works for people, fantastic.

Scott Benner 50:00
Your girlfriend ever looks at you and you're walking down the street and says, Let's stop at the meat store and get some meat. Things that don't have carbs, no, like life is not set up in a

Scott 50:13
flow. If you want to have a perfect day Wednesday and flatlines all the time, then that is a sign for you. I think for people who are really struggling with control and struggling with lows or highs, or it's really crippling them, I think they should try something more, maybe more towards that. But it's very hard to sustain. So now what I do is I it's sort of a hybrid, I mean, and I sort of judge it by how my day is going. So if I'm in court again, I talked about the anxiety that I have a bloke or one on the court, definitely. So if I'm in the middle of a trial, I wouldn't go for the subway for lunch. Because I know when I come back, I'm going to spike, what I find is when i when i Bolus or take an injection, when I'm anxious. Insulin just absorbs like water. It's completely it's almost completely useless. That take very large amounts of it for it to have any effect. You bet you're a drummer, so I tried. Right? So maybe maybe I won't eat lunch? Or maybe I'll just eat chicken salad or something with not a lot of carbs. On the weekend. It's it's an entirely different story, you know? And it also depends on activity level, if I'm hiking or if I'm, if I'm running around a lot on the weekend under something, and then there might be lots of carbs because they're just going to be it's not gonna it's not gonna spike.

Scott Benner 51:19
Yes. Yeah. Do you ever find yourself in that situation? You're at work, you know, you can't go out and have something with a roll or something like that? Do you ever? Do you ever sit down? And are you ever angry about if you ever think that's not what this is? Not what I want for lunch. But I'm going to eat it because it's the right thing to do. Or do you have a more? I guess what I'll call an adult reaction to it. We're just this is how it is. And this is what I need to do.

Scott 51:46
Yeah, I don't I don't, I don't think I've ever been angry or never. I mean, there's certain times when again, when I've been in court, I'm anxious and I'm really hungry and I just like the the subway sob or something or slice of pizza or something like that. And I just wish I could eat something like that. You know, I? I guess I get upset about it. But it's not something I think about too much. I'd rather I'd rather feel good.

Scott Benner 52:05
You want to feel good? Do what I just did. I went to the dancing for diabetes Instagram page and what pops up photos from this weekend where they were raising money to find a cure for type one. That's right. They don't just help kids living with type one through dance. They're also raising money for a cure. Dancing for diabetes.com check them out. Yeah, that's more important. No, and your overall health is good. You don't struggle with your weight or anything like that. Or

Scott 52:32
the struggles with my weight. No other health problems and luckily that I'm aware of. So I mean, I mean, there's certainly certain times certain things I don't need again, I only drink Diet Coke. I would never drink I would never dream of drinking regular coke. I don't care. I've I've grown up with it. So I'm used to it. Caught I love coffee and a coffee with cream doesn't have any effect on my blood sugar. That's a great one. Rice I know I find rice is a bad one eat. It was Victor Garber, someone you had on? talked about? He doesn't eat rice anymore. Yeah. I find the same thing. I try and avoid it very

Scott Benner 53:04
early diabetes podcast. By the way, Scott, I'm real. I

Scott 53:08
didn't even realize when I said that. I just I just remember him saying that.

Scott Benner 53:13
Yeah, like figure out rice or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 53:16
Yeah, I

Scott 53:17
do remember that. I find I find it's also easier if you stick with one carb. So if I'm going to go out for a burger, if I eat a burger and fries, it's going to be a lot more difficult to manage just managing the burger. Maybe I'll get a burger and salad. Again, I think that's healthier anyway. And that's the sort of the way I tried to eat before I was diagnosed. But I don't think it has that much of an impact on my life. And there's times when you know what I just say, I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna get a burger fries because it's what I feel like. And I'll just try and take as much input as possible and deal with the consequences.

Scott Benner 53:45
Okay, so So that's my I have two questions. I cut you off bro. You said you're a one sees five for now, but prior to and you were you gonna say prior to Dexcom

Scott 53:54
prior to Dexcom it was I think my one before that was either 6.9 or 7.2

Scott Benner 53:59
or something around there was a great improvement and so and not that 6.9 or seven two is a bad agency but this is a big leap You know? So okay, so

Scott 54:09
I'm just gonna say it's nothing my doc my doctor ever pushed my doctor was always told me that was great. That was a great number right? You know people there the goal of course is always to be under seven. So if you're around 70 I always thought that was fine. I just found that you know, that number can be masked also even if even if it sounds like an okay number. That could be as a result of lots of highs and lows. And I think my standard deviation was was much much higher before.

Scott Benner 54:30
Now you know, you have more stability, more balance. Yeah,

Scott 54:34
absolutely.

Scott Benner 54:35
So you go out so how do you handle things like right now? Arden just finished. I don't know what the word is we're going to use but are just finished up her lady time. And so she was it was harder for the last couple of days like being aggressive was like I had to be really aggressive with blood sugars and Temp Basal and all that stuff and did an okay job but this was her first. She's only 14 just started. To up with this part of our life, you know, a handful or more months ago, this may have been the first. I don't know how to put it. I'm not a girl. But the first couple may have been like training wheel periods, this might have been the first real one, I guess that's what we're saying. Okay. And so I'm learning, I'm going to do a better job next month that I did this month, because I now see that I need to increase basal rates across the board for days. And so I'm figuring it out. But on her Dexcom line about 12 hours ago, you can genuinely see it just stop. And now we're right back to where we were, like her blood sugar's 88, right? It's 88. It's almost 11 o'clock in the morning. And if I look very quickly, at a 12 hour long, she's been between 88 and 70 for the last 12 hours. But if I go the 12 hours before that it was blood sugar, trying to go to 150 blood sugar, trying to go to 200 Bolus saying like all this, you know, it was I just didn't do a good job with the first time but I did need to see it once so that I can kind of imagine what to do next. Right now that you've seen things on your Dexcom, you've had it for a while, when you decide to just throw caution to the wind at lunch, like how do you handle dessert with a Pre-Bolus? And you're you're injecting? So if you How do you handle all that?

Scott 56:21
It's not the best that Pre-Bolus actually, one thing I found is one, it's much more important when you're on the pump, at least for me, I find the absorption is much better when you want when taking an injection. So I don't find this as important. I've tried to fiasco in the past, and it worked great at first and then I found the more I used it, I started to have some issues with it, I find just honestly just injecting Nova rapid. If I'm not stressed, or from getting a moderate level of activity, or it's just a it's just an average day, it works pretty fast. Find after I injected it'll start working in about 10 minutes or so. Which is fast enough that I don't find any to Pre-Bolus too much. Obviously, with certain foods is more important. I was eating a bagel, it's more important. I was eating all kinds of things you can name it's more important. But I just try and take, like I think what's interesting is I remember you saying forget carb counting, you know, you just you just sort of you sort of go with your gut at the end of the day, right now. And you're not even diabetic, you're doing it for on behalf of someone else, which is amazing. And you're just sort of I bet you're doing an implicit calculation that you don't even think about based on where the blood sugar's been the activity level at where you expect it to be all all sorts of even unquantifiable things. Yeah, just the way I approach it, too. Yeah, I think it's I think, if you're going to stick with a carb ratio, inject us two hours later, you're always gonna have a terrible, it's never gonna, it's never going to be the same. So I just have to sort of go on my, with my intuition. Go with what I've eaten this meal before. How did I end up how much insulin that I need? I tried to remember, not that I'm recording everything, by just try and go off go off my memory. Right. And sometimes it works great. And sometimes it doesn't. But the truth is, that's just how diabetes is. And there's, there's too many variables. And it's, even if I wrote everything down and tried to log everything, and, you know, tried to quantify every single, every single variable that exists, I still think it would be different every time,

Scott Benner 58:13
right? Yeah, all I can do is try that that would give away most of your life to that and not have them a better outcome.

Scott 58:18
Exactly. So if I'm eating a burger and fries, you know, maybe I'll, I'm just giving an example. But maybe I'll think, Okay, I'm going to inject six units start with, and then I'm going to, if I'm not on my pump, I'll use regular I'll take some regular insulin to for the fat and protein digestion. So maybe I'll take three units of regular insulin. And often that's not even enough. And I'll you know, I'll keep watching my Dexcom, just glancing at it. And if I see if I see, I sort of have to go by the arrows to I sort of know after eating a meal, it should take about 40 minutes to an hour, right, and I'll get a slanted arrow. If I get a straight up arrow or two straight up arrows. That means I didn't take nearly enough, you just put, that never happens to me. So I'll take more. Yeah, that's, again, it's not perfect. influent is not does not work as fast as where we needed to be. Even with all these advancements, even What's to be asked if what I find is if I'm if I haven't bolus directly and I'm spiking, a lot of times it's I can stop it, but it's still going to take too long. So it's not a perfect system, but it's certainly having Dexcom or CGM certainly makes it easier.

Scott Benner 59:13
Yeah, no, I definitely do. I mean, the other day, I did it with we had, you know, like I said, period plus Arden's got up in the morning, she's like, I'm gonna have a bowl of cereal and I was like, okay, her blood sugar was at as if that's no problem. And I right away, I was like, this is how much insulin I know how much insulin to do. So we put it, put it all in, she ate the cereal, everything's going along, great. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, then all of a sudden, diagonal up, like 120 and I'm like, this isn't right. Like I gave her enough insulin for this not to happen. And then I waited five more minutes to see one more reading but in Honestly, I could have tested them or just trusted myself. Because then the arrow went straight up. 135 and then I was just like more insulin. She's like, how much more I'm like, I don't know. Just push the button. Get more going like well figured out a second. Just more. And so. And so we put in a couple more units. And it stopped at around 150 and brought it back again. And it just you know, so she basically needed about, I don't know, 20% more insulin than she was going to need. I had a fair Pre-Bolus going. And she was starting with a, you know, an 80 blood sugar. So I felt good about it. And in the past, I've handled that no problem. Then I go back and look again, and realize, maybe it was this the bowl she picked up was bigger than the bowl. I thought she picked up. And we don't measure it or anything like that. So exactly, no. And it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like granola cereal, like straight from nature. It was Apple Jacks. She's like, She's like, here, this is just bad for me how much of this can fit in this bowl?

Scott 1:00:49
And interestingly, I find sometimes those cereals are easier to eat. And then there's granola cereal.

Scott Benner 1:00:54
Yeah. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. Cuz they're not as dense with stuff hangs out in your system forever and ever. Right? Yeah, at least it's a big spike from the sugar and then the fructose

Scott 1:01:04
over fat? Yeah, that's a good example. You still kept their numbers very reasonable. She never went up to 300 or anything like that. I can't obviously if

Scott Benner 1:01:13
I'm sorry, I was gonna say I can't tell you that. If I eat Apple Jacks, my butcher wouldn't go to 150. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. it very well. I

Scott 1:01:20
don't think there's enough data. I've always wondered what what it would look like for people who are diabetic,

Scott Benner 1:01:25
I think there's some stuff you can find online. There's a lot of it. I have an old g five here. Maybe I should slap it on for a week. And then

Unknown Speaker 1:01:33
there you go.

Scott Benner 1:01:33
I'll be 10 pounds heavier by the weeks over, but I'll be like, let me tell you what I learned about rice and Apple Jackson pop tarts. Oh, my gosh, you were delightful. I don't actually know what we talked about. But it's almost over. And I had a really good time. So did you plan? Did you have anything you want to talk about that we didn't talk about? I can't imagine that you've? I'm not sure?

Scott 1:01:55
Did you have a plan? I didn't really have a plan. I thought about some stuff, I think we covered will actually covered a lot of the things I thought about cool. I think it's just that this technology is I think something to keep in mind is all of this technology is amazing. But at the same time, it's still not where we want it to be. And it's a lot of care at the end of the day, you know, obviously, you know they're coming out with pumps that are that are going to be better and better. And they're going to have closed loop technology, and new pumps that have dual chamber pumps and on better cgms and everything. But at the end of the day, this is very expensive. It's a lot of these things exist, but it's not to care about the same thing. And there are plenty people I think that's something everyone has to keep in mind. You know, it's we're not there yet. And none of all of this technology has faults. And some sometimes even going simpler. That's why sometimes I just prefer MDI is is just simpler. And often not to take away from the great things. These technologies offer people I know they've made a big difference in many people's lives. But it can be frustrating sometimes

Scott Benner 1:02:56
to strip it down and gold. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:02:59
yeah. Right now that's

Scott Benner 1:03:01
cool. Now I can buy Listen, I completely agree with you, I can see 100% all sides of what you just said. And I think there's value in it for everybody. It also made me think that to some degree, there's a class system in diabetes, too, right? There's people, there's people who either have the cash or have the insurance and there's people who don't. And,

Scott 1:03:23
and there's that and there's there's the education and time. I mean, the amount again, the amount of time I I live my life, I don't let diabetes take away from my life. But I do devote a significant amount of mental energy and energy just managing it. I don't I don't think everyone has time to do that. Especially it's amazing how much time you're able to dedicate to your daughter. And I think that's amazing.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
Yeah, I've said that. It's just my life is just it'll lend itself to me being able to give time as if you were, if you were the guy that built the courthouse and not the barrister inside of it, Scott, then you might not have as much free time energy, you know, money to devote to the even just the thinking about your diabetes. And that is really important to remember that you know, people don't people, will you hear people say I ignored this.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:08
I don't know, like, did

Scott Benner 1:04:09
you ignore it? Or did you get up at six o'clock in the morning to go to a job where you didn't make very much money and all day you thought about the bills you couldn't pay? And when you got home, you had to go to a second job. Like there's, you know, there's circumstances that allow you more time, you know, or latter

Scott 1:04:23
and then not only not only that, but then when you're more stressed in life, your blood sugar is going to be worse,

Scott Benner 1:04:28
right? Yeah. And if you and if you're in a financial crunch, that's a constant stress that you may not even be aware of. I mean, look at you. You said it without a CGM. You know, you wouldn't even realize that when you stand up and feel completely composed at work, you're not you know, or maybe you are composed. It's just everything inside you. It's just like who Here we go, you know, like this is it because I'm imagining and I'm gonna keep you a little extra but I'm imagining when you're defending someone who you believe is innocent. You feel pressure to make sure that they don't serve a penalty. They don't deserve Yeah, it's got to be an incredible, like burden, I would imagine.

Scott 1:05:06
It is a burden and even even, you know, not to get too off topic, but even if I think they're guilty, sometimes with the case, I still want to do the best job I can you still have a responsibility, it's still an adversarial system. At the end of the day, I don't make a decision about whether they're guilty or innocent. That's up to the judge jury. But I still have to, I'm the defense lawyer, I'm the only I'm the only voice they have. And if they tell me they're innocent, I have to believe because no one else is gonna argue their innocence. So it can often be a nerve wracking experience.

Scott Benner 1:05:32
It's really cool. It's just an interesting, interesting way to have to live your life because it's, I love the idea that you're dedicated to the rule of law, and that it is your job to argue for this person, because you're their voice. That's amazing. And at the same time, I think about you on a personal level, like what do you do? When you get somebody off? That, you know, did something like does that? Do you feel good about that? Do you feel bad about it? Like, you know, how does that impact you personally and your blood sugar and everything else?

Scott 1:06:02
I think it depends on the situation. I'm Fortunately, I haven't represent any anyone to reprehensible. So I may have represented people who I thought we're probably guilty, who probably were guilty, may have done something bad, but not not something to the level where I'm going to lose any sleep because they're out on the streets. And they put it that way. And most people don't go to jail forever anyway. You know, unless you've committed a pretty horrible crime. Most people don't spend that much time in jail. And it usually, honestly, at the end of the day, it often makes things worse than better. So I think that this could be a whole podcast on it, though.

Scott Benner 1:06:36
Yeah, no, I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:06:37
saying that it would be very rare. I'd

Scott 1:06:38
lose sleep ability. Okay, gotcha.

Scott Benner 1:06:40
That's why I was just wondering, like, if it's, you know, I mean, cuz in the end, they did what they did, and whatever they'll do in the future is on them to you didn't just serve in the system, that's really something. No, well, thank God, you were able to get through school and do this, because it sounds like you're really good at it. And, you know, now I've spoken to a barrister.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:59
So

Scott Benner 1:07:00
somehow, you've elevated me somehow to Scott. I'm gonna, I'm gonna say goodbye and pushed off and then just say goodbye to you personally, and then I'll let you get back to you.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:11
Okay, thanks, God. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:07:14
Thank you so much, Scott, for coming on and sharing your story about living with Type One Diabetes, thank you. Dexcom on the bottom, on the

Unknown Speaker 1:07:21
BOD on the behind.

Scott Benner 1:07:25
If you knew how long I've been editing this, you would just be like, thanks. So I'm dizzy. I've been up here for hours. Thanks very much to Scott for sharing his story. And thanks again to Dexcom on the pod and dancing for diabetes for sponsoring the show you love the show, they brought it to you check them out, dancing for diabetes.com. That's dancing the number for diabetes.com. They're also on Instagram and Facebook. My omnipod.com forward slash juice boxes where you can get a free no obligation demo and get started today with tubeless insulin pumping in dexcom.com forward slash juice box to get a G six continuous glucose monitor these things are the staples of my days with Type One Diabetes. And I think they could become yours as well. There are links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. Before I go, I want to tell you that now for five straight days, the Juicebox Podcast has been charting in its category on iTunes, which might not mean a lot to you guys. But it means a ton to me. And what it tells me is this, you guys are sharing the podcasts with other people. That is incredible, absolutely incredible to make that list is is pretty difficult. At this point that Juicebox Podcast has downloaded more than about 87% of every podcast that's active on iTunes. And that crazy, and I don't have a budget for marketing, it's done by you. Something here helps you and you tell someone else about it. And it continues to grow. And the more it grows, the more people it helps if you need an example of why that's true. I just got back from Ohio at the jdrf summit. I spoke to 600 people who otherwise would not have heard this podcast. In a few months, I'll be going out to Arizona to do the very same thing, another five 600 people who don't know about this podcast who will after that, thank you so much for sharing. And I want to I want to really I get so many of these, but I'm going to share this with you. So for everyone out there who's sharing the podcast, it gets to somebody and you know, you don't know who and you don't know how it's going to help them who they're going to tell. Here's the message I just got, quote. Hi, I will try to keep this short. I've been diabetic for almost 21 years, I've struggled finding a method to gain the control I wanted to until I stumbled upon your podcast, late August, I was on a Medtronic pump. A one C was 8.8 August 24. I moved to the Omni pod in the Dexcom g six. I started to be bold with insulin. And in November my a once he was 5.4 my endo even told me she didn't think it would drop that significantly. She knew based on my clarity report it was going to be lower but was floored with how much I've never felt better in my life. I am no longer in a it's me against diabetes mode. There is this amazing community of support that I had no idea existed. Please keep doing great work. It changed my life.

Scott 1:10:13
Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:10:14
I assert to you that you guys did that. You heard something that was valuable, and you told someone else about it. I just said this, if no one's listening, if no one's sharing, it doesn't matter. Thank you so much. thanking you for this person. I'm thanking you for me, and I'm thanking you for every person who's gonna find this podcast in the future. I hope you have a great day and I'll see you next week.

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Scott Benner 1/28/19 Scott Benner 1/28/19

#205 How to buy Dexcom G6 at Costco Pharmacy

Pro Tip: Dexcom G6 at Costco.….

The Dexcom G6 is available at a discount to Costco members who are uninsured or underinsured. This quick interview with Costco’s Assistant Vice President of Pharmacy will walk you through the simple process.

Welcome Costco members! If you or someone you love is living with type 1 diabetes I hope you’ll subscribe to the show and check out some other episodes. Fan favorites include: #11 Bold With insulin, #29 Fear of insulin...., #37, Jenny Smith, #44 Diabetes Rollercoaster, #62 Unfounded Fear, #100 Revisiting Bold, #105 All About A1c, #121 Insulin, Insulin, Insulin

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Episode 205 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is short and sweet, under 20 minutes, and I think you're going to love it. It's with Chris Pierce from Costco, I asked Chris to come on the show today to talk about the Dexcom g six purchase program that Costco is now running. Wait till you hear the prices for people who are uninsured or underinsured. They're insane, absolutely crazy. Also, you might be hearing this longtime listeners might think, hey, Scott sounds extra super smooth. That's because I have a brand new microphone, which is amazing. But that also means that for a little while you might be hearing interviews that sound like they're from one mic. While the ads and the bumpers on either side of the show are gonna sound like this. Trust me, it's only going to be for about a dozen episodes, and then it'll be all gone. I want to thank our sponsors on the pod dex calm dancing for diabetes and real good foods. about midway in the show, I'm going to do all of the ads at once in a two minute chunk. It's a lot of quick talking, I hope I can do it.

Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before making changes to your medical plan. I've seen a ton of confusion in the diabetes community about this kasco program. So I'm gonna put a link in the show notes of this episode. So if you see people talking about it, and they seem confused, just share that link. And it'll take them right back to Juicebox podcast.com, where they'll be able to listen to this brief interview with Chris Pierce, from Costco. Speaking of which, listen to a little more music. And then we'll get to Chris

Chris Pierce 1:54
Zach Chris Pierce, the senior executive. In charge of addition, the Costco we call Costco Health Solutions in that division that includes a program that we call a Costco member prescription program. And in that we concentrate our efforts on on improving the affordability of medication.

Unknown Speaker 2:15
Costco

Chris Pierce 2:15
is a nationwide chain, or is it just the Americas where you guys that he have operations in a dozen different countries. This particular program and the interest around this, this offering is specific to the United States. This is for the United States only. Okay, that's important to get out of the way early.

Scott Benner 2:37
There are people who use Dexcom CGM is all over the world. But they're not they're not, um, they're not unaccustomed to being to being second in these in these endeavors.

Chris Pierce 2:50
But we, we would like to fix it for them too. And as we learn a little bit more about the program, hopefully, it'll it'll be easier for everybody to understand. But at the moment, just just limited to the US.

Scott Benner 3:00
Okay. And the program we're talking about, of course, is the ability to buy a dexcom. And it's just the G six, is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 3:06
That's correct. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:07
the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor is available at Costco. And I know that's been sort of, you might have been seeing it on Facebook or, you know, Instagram or something like that. But it's always seems a little confusing to everyone. So I thought I would have Chris on, he could explain quickly and succinctly what it's about. So can you just first kind of give me an overview of the program?

Chris Pierce 3:28
The concept of the program is we know there are a large number of individuals who are either uninsured or under insured. And so the goal of this program is to bring some of the negotiation power that's typically held with insurance companies directly to members. And so in this particular case, we're working hard with a number of manufacturers, one including Dexcom, to bring their discounting, again, directly back to the patient. So it results in some pretty substantial reductions in price.

Scott Benner 4:04
Okay, so not to not to cut my listenership. But if you've got insurance, this isn't for you. Is that correct?

Chris Pierce 4:11
That's correct. The requirement would be unless your insurance doesn't cover this item. We do know, about 40 to 50% of CGM, this are not necessarily available to individuals who have insurance, either because there's other requirements to get access to the product, or just not available through a particular PBM or an insurance company. And so I understand there would be a large number of your listeners who, who might appreciate the value.

Scott Benner 4:46
Is that the definition of underinsured or are we talking about three segments? uninsured, I understand is underinsured. The idea that you have insurance but it doesn't cover Dexcom

Chris Pierce 4:58
correct. Okay. And learning. So there are lots of reasons why you would potentially be under insured. Okay, but for this particular program and for this particular product, it is as easily defined as you don't have coverage for that item as you think about other items, products, like Viagra or something, those are routinely not covered by insurance programs. And we have savings on those types of products. Wow.

Scott Benner 5:26
So I can keep my blood sugar stable in my relationship and check all at Costco you're saying if I'm underinsured or uninsured, I hear what you're getting at. Okay, can I get a cheap hotdog?

Chris Pierce 5:35
Yes, we've been able to hold a hot dog a fairly good value for an extended period of time. Hopefully

Scott Benner 5:40
you've had a chance to try actually have. Okay, so that that's the, the, the kind of high level overview of what we're talking about. Now, I want to give people just a real, like nuts and bolts idea of what it is they need to do to make this happen. I obviously I'm gonna say obviously, but I need a prescription. That's the first thing

Unknown Speaker 6:04
right now.

Scott Benner 6:06
Are you the type of pharmacy? I've never done my pharmacy business with Costco before, can I have my doctor send the prescription to you and you fill it? Or do I have to walk in with it and paper does not matter?

Chris Pierce 6:18
Doesn't matter you can have if you have a paper prescription, you can bring it in. Most of our prescriptions are received electronically today. Doctors can beam them across if you will. Or if you are already shopping at Costco and just learning about this particular opportunity and you think it's a good fit, then our pharmacists can reach out to physicians and obtain a prescription if so desired as well.

Scott Benner 6:46
Okay, so I'm in Costco, I'm getting 15 pounds of potatoes. And I think to myself, I heard about this on the podcast about Dexcom. I didn't get it straight. If I walk over to the pharmacy counter just say, look, this is my doctor's information, this is my information, can you please get the script here, they can actually handle it from the pharmacy. Right? That's excellent. Okay. Now, I want to veer away for just a second to understand the kind of larger overview because in my, in my view, this is a really important first step in healthcare for people. Because basically what you guys are, if I'm wrong, you'll you'll stop me, I guess what happens is, is that people make medical devices or medication, and then they have to get it to you somehow. And there's a in between man, you know, a Pharmacy Benefits manager in between. But that's not is that not in play here with the relationship you have with Dexcom? Is it just you and Dexcom in the picture?

Chris Pierce 7:40
Yeah, we streamline that, that middleman. There's a lot of inefficiency in those arrangements. And so in a true form Costco model, we look to go direct. And by doing so, you don't incur those other expenses that happened in those other way many of those other parties involved.

Scott Benner 8:03
And that's leading us to a fairly significant savings with Dexcom. So I kind of want to go over the pricing. Real good foods is real food, you can feel good about eating they have poppers now with more filling and more flavor. They are so very tender cauliflower crust pizza that my mom absolutely loves. How about that, oh, gee, chicken crust pizza, four grams of carbs, 25 grams of protein, you know you love it. Here's the best part when you go to real good foods calm and use the promo code juice box, you will save 10% on your entire order. And how about real good foods has free two day shipping. Once that food arrives, you're going to need to give yourself some insulin and for that, you're going to want to Omni pod tubeless insulin pump go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box there, you will be able to get a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod do it today that's free and it has no obligation. Really, it's not going to get much better than that. Unless, of course, you can see your blood sugar before you make decisions about those boluses and basal rates. And you know how you're going to do that with the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Not only does the Dexcom show you where your blood sugar is, what direction it's going and how fast it's going. But others can see it too with their Dexcom following share features for Android and Apple. Once you're all done, you sit down in your house, your belly is full, your blood sugar is stable, you're pleased with yourself and you think I want to do something good in the world. So you go to dancing for diabetes.com and you'll learn about the good works that they're doing with children who live with Type One Diabetes. And they do it all through dance. And I did this in less than two minutes. You can go to Juicebox podcast.com where the links in your show notes to get links to everything I've just spoken about here today. The things you want are within reach and you deserve them. Go get them

the transmitter for everybody who you know Where's it or is thinking of wearing it is the device that you there's two things you wear in your body, there's a sensor that goes on your body, and then the transmitter clips into the sensor. But the transmitter is the thing I think of as being one of the big expenses. So how much are the transmitters through your program?

Chris Pierce 10:17
transmitters are $26 and 90 cents.

Scott Benner 10:21
There's a lot of quiet over here, because I passed out Hold on a second. Okay, so I'm sorry, one more time. $26 in one and 90 cents, $26 and 90 cents for a transmitter. I'm excited. Everyone knows you can use an AI an android or an iPhone to use your Dexcom g sex. But if you don't, you might need a receiver and the receiver cost

Chris Pierce 10:40
$35 and 97 cents. I should have my

Scott Benner 10:44
calculator out here because I don't think we're to 100 bucks yet. Okay. And then the sensors,

Chris Pierce 10:48
how many in a pack? We sell them in a three pack for our $318 and 29 732. So a three pack is

Scott Benner 10:58
a month. So okay, so I'm sorry, give me that last number again for the sensors. Three 318 29 1829. Okay, so basically, if I'm if I'm underinsured, uninsured, out of pocket, I gotta, you know, I got to hit my transmitters, which last three months. So I need a transmitter every three months. And I need, you know, sensors at 318 a month. That seems? Well, I'll tell you what, it seems very reasonable to me. And it's a it's a vast improvement for a lot of people. I have insurance. To me, that sounds like a lot. I know what I pay every month. And it's it's not close to that. But if I didn't have it, the cash price, do you have an idea of how much people are saving by not buying directly? From Dexcom?

Chris Pierce 11:42
Yeah, we surveyed the market a little bit to get some sense of the pricing that's out there. Obviously everybody's arrangement is different. But there are hundreds of dollars of savings on an on an item basis, individual item basis, we think are quite substantial. And we would hope that the individuals want to use it would see it the same way. As compared to what they're paying today,

Scott Benner 12:06
you would think and so let me ask you this question. And maybe you don't have the answer, because I'm asking you to put your mind yourself in the minds of the other people. But you know, the businesses that you do business with? If I'm them, you're you're important in this piece, because you have distribution, right? Because you have a pharmacy set up already, because you're your brick and mortar, you're out there. So it's worth them to sell a little less because they expand their reach and their ability to sell things cheaper is that? Am I understanding that correctly? Like I'm trying to I'm wondering, for people who are hearing that and thinking well, why can't I just buy it for Dexcom at that price? Like there's, there's got to be a reason.

Chris Pierce 12:41
Yeah, you know, it difficult to comment on exactly why other people run different business models and have different pricing. But I can tell you that what we do at Costco, whether it's with a Dexcom product or $1 50, odd dog like joked about earlier, or any other items we sell, we just do the same thing, right, we look to find the value in, in the process, right up to take some of the efficiencies out and, and provide the best value that we can for our members. So you do have to be a member of Costco to to receive this discount and participate in this program. But you know, we think with the value that's provided here, it's another great example of a way to get good value out of your membership. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:25
I listen, by the Can I tell you something? Let me say something nice here for a second, I am a Costco member. It's funny the things you don't think about, I go into Costco and I buy a giant thing of paper towels. And they are as nice as any brand name paper towel that I've kind of ever used or seen. And there's a significant savings. Now there are some things in there, I look at them that you know, that doesn't save me enough, or I don't want 15 pounds of potatoes just to save money. But there's a ton of stuff in there that weekly we go in and buy. So if I could be a member already save money on other things, and have this benefit from Dexcom. And whatever else you guys doing that that is the last thing that I wanted to ask you about before I let you go and you may or may not know this, but is this the beginning of something like are we gonna see more of this from you guys? And is there any plans that you can speak about? Am I gonna be able to get my insulin pump supplies from you or tested or anything like that?

Chris Pierce 14:18
Yeah, you know, we we continue to work with manufacturers in a number of different categories. And so if you were to go on to costco.com, and look for the MPP that the name of the program, you'd see a collection of products, we joke a little bit about Viagra, but there are pretty broad collection of different manufacturers who see the value in in the efficiency of what we're trying to do here. And so we're optimistic that we'll be able to continue to do this and a number of additional areas and if you or your listeners have some particular area for which you'd like us to try to go take a look at, we'd be happy to do so. Okay.

Scott Benner 14:56
I appreciate so they can reach out to you through the website. If they've had have an idea.

Unknown Speaker 15:02
Sure. Yeah,

Scott Benner 15:03
there you go. So if you want Cosco to carry something, bug them about it. Chris, Chris was looking forward to your emails. You're not busy at all right, Chris, he would just love to hear from everybody.

Chris Pierce 15:16
You know, that's, that's what we do here, right? We listen to our members or we try to enjoy our members, we don't always get it right. But you know, we do work hard at it. And we take the responsibility seriously. So if there is an area that you're think really needs some attention to the modem, what we could do here with Dexcom, then we'd love to be able to go and talk to some of those manufacturers about other supplies or tools or devices or something.

Scott Benner 15:40
That's excellent. I told you, I wouldn't keep you long. And I think I'm gonna reach my promise by being just under 15 minutes. I genuinely appreciate you doing this, to create clarity in the diabetes community where I think there's been a lot of confusion for people. And so just to go over it one more time, uninsured or underinsured, which means my insurance doesn't cover Dexcom. I can have my prescription set electronically, I can bring it in by paper, I can go into a Costco and ask the pharmacist to get the prescription from my doctor for me. And then I can get Dexcom receivers, transmitters and sensors at a discounted price. Did I get that right, Chris?

Chris Pierce 16:19
Yes, well said,

Scott Benner 16:21
look at a Huh, look at me, I could work there for us. I'm not looking for a job. They don't try to poach me. So I can hear in your voice. You're not looking for me to work at Costco, I want to thank the sponsors on the pod Dexcom real good foods and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my on the pod.com Ford slash juice box, you can go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. When you go to real good foods calm and make your purchase using coupon code juicebox. You'll save 10% on your order. And of course, dancing for diabetes is the organization that helps children living with Type One Diabetes, through dance, you can check out all the sponsors and me on Facebook and Instagram, or use the links that you know have been provided for you now verbally. But if you can't remember them, it's okay. They're in the shownotes. And they're Juicebox podcast.com. I want to thank Costco for sending Chris on the show and helping to explain the new Dexcom g six program. I hope you found the information very useful. If you do, please share it with a friend or someone who you think can benefit. And I actually took Chris's advice and I went to costco.com and check out their pharmacy offerings. They have a wide array of things that you may want or need, including medications for your pets. So if you're looking for a lower cost stuff, if you don't have insurance, and you're hoping to find better prices, if you just want to get your prescriptions filled at Costco, I check it out. It's costco.com

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