#210 Diabetes Pro Tip: Newly Diagnosed or Starting Over

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

I am thrilled to welcome Jenny Smith, CDE back to the show. Jenny will be joining us for an extended series of conversations that focus solely on the management ideas that we discuss on the podcast.

Jennifer holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Nutrition and Biology from the University of Wisconsin. She is a Registered (and Licensed) Dietitian, Certified Diabetes Educator, and Certified Trainer on most makes/models of insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring systems. You can reach Jenny at jennifer@integrateddiabetes.com.

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 -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

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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 0:06
Welcome to the juice box podcast. I'm your host, Scott Benner. I first interviewed Jenny Smith, the CDE from integrated diabetes back in season one on episode 37. At that point, Jenny and I were just talking about different management ideas. But it was then that I realized how much we agreed about type one diabetes, and the management of the disease. I brought Jenny back on in Episode 105. And we really drilled down about a one sees what they were and what they weren't. After that second interview with Jenny, I decided that one day I would have her back on to discuss all of the diabetes management ideas that come up on the show, I wanted to break them down into small categories, something that was easily digestible, where we'd stay focused on just one idea, I wanted to create something that you could come back to, hopefully learn from, and if you found useful share with others simply. And so with that in mind, I give you the first in this 10 part series, diabetes pro tip for the newly diagnosed for those wanting to start over with Jenny Smith CD.

Please remember that nothing you hear on the juice box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And always consult a physician before becoming bold with insulin or making any changes to your medical plan. If you're a newly diagnosed person with Type One Diabetes, or the parent of someone who's been newly diagnosed, what do you think the first things to understand our

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:49
first things to understand beyond the glucose values are? What does insulin do? How does it work? I think that's it's a huge one that is it's under, it's under emphasized, I guess is the best way to put it. Many people, especially adults who are diagnosed are kind of given a this is your insulin, this is the dose to take and kind of go experiment at home. I feel like that's kind of the way that it is. And I think insulin is a first most important thing to really understand. How does it work? what's what's the purpose of it? How is it supposed to kind of finish working? And what is the effect for you?

Scott Benner 2:37
Okay, and so what are some, like bare bones ways to come up with those understanding. So I think, obviously, if you have a CGM, it becomes different, right? If you have a CGM, you can get yourself at a stable spot where you haven't had insulin or food for a while, and just give yourself an amount of insulin, see how it moves you? Let's talk for a second about like old school, do you still teach people that they need to do bazel testing?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:02
in a general way? Yes, I think especially for pumping is helpful in the beginning, because it does in that bazel only time period, it does give you a general idea of how things are being kept with the rate that that play, I do think that bazel testing needs to be more explained, let's say, when we are talking about pumping insulin, though, because there are as you know, a lot of variables that could be at play in that Barrett bazel testing time period, especially like from from a woman's standpoint, it could very much be that it's not the right time of the month to be bazel testing. Right? Right. Right. So all of these variants, or, or a kid or a teen who is a kid or a teen who is really athletic. Right, and there is a consistent effect of activity level. And it may be different on different days, but there could be overlap from a day ago that you had for our practice or a tournament. So bazel testing, as a general idea, yeah, it can be a really good place to start, especially if you think things are really off in a certain place of the day. But is it the end all be all of knowing where your insulin should be? Not 100% of the time and so

Scott Benner 4:28
so what I end up telling people when I speak with them, is that you know, if you're having an issue and that issue could be anything like you're spiking at a meal, or you're you know, drifting high all the time, or you're incredibly high all the time, you know, any of those things. You have to first look at your basal insulin. It's it's absolutely falling away. The first thing I have to apologize to ardens texting me and I believe she's trying to tell me, it's lunch. Okay, so lunch question mark. So Arden has been sick the last couple of days and probably already kind of resistant like to, to her insulin a little bit. But we are ahead of it now. So she's 106 and stable now. But to give you an idea, she woke up at 110. By the time she was getting dressed, she was one to one. He then was this diagonal up, I bolused a unit and doubled her bazel for an hour. And 30 minutes later had to bolus two more units to get her back to this 106. Now, she never got over about 150. But she sees that rise every morning like that, that little bit of a rise. But this morning, I used I'm going to save three units more than I would normally use. Yeah, it's just because she's not feeling quite well.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:40
Again, another reason that bazel testing things like this is not it's not purposeful. In fact, I think, you know, a lot of people try to overcome that morning time rise with a bazel adjustment. But what happens then when you wake up at a different time of the day, right? Or you have a variable schedule, so a lot of times I actually tell people, you know what, let's look at what the rise is. Don't correct it. Let's, let's watch the rise. Let's figure out how much of a rise Are you consistently having, you know what, we can offset it with a with a dose of it of bolus. Sometimes that actually hits the mark better than trying to incrementally adjust a bazel behind the scene that could actually change day to day.

Scott Benner 6:26
Right, right. Okay, so now this is um, this is really interesting. Do the 10 way to like tell you what just happened. So this is kind of hilarious, but my wife is here. I'm gonna have to walk away for a second. Yeah, back. Arden's pump only has 10 units left at it. And no and and just and her lunchtime bolus is going to be 12 units. So I just had to do a smaller bolus as a pre bolus still. And I'm going to send my wife over to like swap.

Unknown Speaker 6:56
I'll be Oh no, let me go ahead.

Scott Benner 7:01
The dexcom g six CGM is now FDA permitted for zero finger sticks. That's right, the continuous glucose monitor that Arden has been using forever, does not require calibration from a blood glucose meter any longer. But do you know what it does do? It allows you to see your blood sugar, speed and direction. Are you rising at two points a minute falling at three points a minute, the dexcom CGM will let you know with customizable alerts. And if you're the caregiver or someone who loves someone with type one diabetes, and you'd like to be able to see their blood sugar when they're not with you, that's possible too. Because dexcom has a share and follow feature that is available for Apple and Android. My daughter's in school right now. We just gave her insulin for her lunch, and I can see her blood sugar, her blood sugar started to creep up on us a little bit. So I got an alert and we added some insulin stopping arise. The dexcom g six features an applicator that is virtually painless. My daughter says she can't feel it at all. And it's completely automatic. One button push and the sensor bed has been applied. You snap in the transmitter and you're on your way. You can see your blood sugar's on your Apple watch or other smartwatches on your iPhone on your Android phone. You can share it with anyone in the world anywhere. I can tell you without hesitation that the dexcom continuous glucose monitor is without a doubt one of the main reasons why we've been able to keep my daughter's a one c between 5.2 and 6.2 for five continuous years. To find out more go to dexcom comm forward slash juice box with links in your podcast player show notes or a juice box podcast calm. It's going to be the best decision that you ever made.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:48
So all is okay.

Scott Benner 8:49
Yes. My wife sits across the street. Yeah, my wife's gonna run over. She's working from home today. And it really does just go to show. I guess the fluidity that you have to keep around diabetes because Okay, I'm lucky my wife's here today. If she wasn't, I would have to tell you, Hey, I gotta go. But in the end, there's no panic here. Arden's blood sugar's 107. I wanted I wanted to do a temp basal increase of 50% for an hour and a half. And an extended 12 unit bolus for lunch. But she only has 10 units. So instead, I had her set the temp bazel still and do an eight unit extended bolus. So she's still going to have four units. Going when my wife gets there, they're gonna swap that pump real quick. And then she's gonna head off to lunch and be okay.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:35
Right. It'll be fine to get early lunch.

Scott Benner 9:37
Yeah, on every other day. It's at 1030 and then on the austerity

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:41
like what if you get up at five o'clock do breakfast?

Really that

Scott Benner 9:46
sheets 1030 every other day and the opposite day sheets at 1130 and she's out of school by two. Oh, wow. Okay, it's all kind of very quick. I don't know, learning anything but. So so I think Yeah, so anyway, what I wanted to say about bazel is that, I'm sure just like you, I meet people who are having trouble, right? They're either on the roller coaster and they're going to 400. And they're going to 60 and up and down, or, you know, somewhere in that problem, they're high constantly, they're always 180, you know, they can't really seem to do anything about it. And when they get to you, they have all of these theories about why their blood sugar is too high. Right? And I tell them, your blood sugar is too high, because you don't have enough insulin, and it's not timed correctly. And we're going to start with your basal. And they'll inevitably say, Well, what about my insulin to carb like, That doesn't matter. I'm like, you can have a perfect insulin to carb ratio. If your basal insulin is not right, none of this matters, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:44
That's right. That's why we call basal insulin, the foundation of your management, it really is we, we actually tell people, it's like the foundation of a house. If you have a sound structure that you're building on top of everything you put on top of it will work. Even if the influence of carbon, the correction factor and things are a little bit off. If the bezel is off, those are going to also look like they're not working well. And it becomes impossible to diagnose what's happening,

Scott Benner 11:14
right. And so what I end up saying is that you try to imagine we use round numbers for examples, but try to imagine your bazel is a unit an hour. That's what that's what it should be. But you have it at point five. And then you have you look at some food and you say, Oh, well that food is two units. So you and let's say you're right about that, let's say you're 100%, right, that the food takes two units, you put your two units in, all you've done is now replace the bazel that you needed, right you so you're resistant, you're high, now you're replacing your bazel it's possible those two units will only go towards impacting the problems your basal insulin has, right. And then your blood sugar shoots up and you go, I don't understand, I put in the right amount of insulin, I counted my carbs, right,

Unknown Speaker 12:01
I counted my carbs. I looked at the label and I did

Scott Benner 12:04
everything The doctor told me why didn't this work. And in the end, and you know, through this series that you and I are going to do together, I'm going to repeat a couple of things over and over that I've found to be incredibly helpful. But in the end, if your blood sugar is high or low, you've mis timed miscalculated, or a combination of those ideas. And that's pretty much it, you know that I find that to be the core of it. It's not the first step to me, not being afraid of insulin is the first step. But we're gonna talk about that in a different episode. But I think that it's it's timing and amount. And I think there's a million other things that can impact your life with diabetes. But that's the seed of the tree, right? And you could throw away all the leaves and all the branches and everything that comes off of that seed, if you have that seed timing and amount, you're well ahead of the game. Right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:53
Right. Absolutely. And I would say the that those two pieces actually go very well together as far as not fearing insulin, you know, and not being afraid of using it because I I certainly work with many people who that is a major problem it is I just want to eat 200 because I'm afraid to give the amount my pump is telling me to give or the amount that the doctor told me to give, you know, and I think understanding insulin is the base of that, understanding it and understanding the timing, and the action of the insulin and how it also individually works for you, helps to dissipate that fear,

Scott Benner 13:37
right? I think that I think that if you can keep your blood sugar stable at 200, then you can keep it stable at 180. And if you can do it, you can do it at 140. And believe it or not, if you can do it at 120, then you can do it at 75. And you know and so because the the tools that you use to to achieve that stability aren't different depending on what level your blood sugar is at. It's all the same. It's all the same stuff. Okay, so that's that is that's excellent. So we'll talk about fear in an upcoming episode as well.

I'm newly diagnosed, I go into my doctor's office. Now you are uniquely qualified to tell me this. What do people get told a diagnosis and why do they only get told what is shared with them?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:37
I think it there's a wide range of what people are told. I certainly think that the younger the diagnosis, especially for type one, the younger the diagnosis, the more education there is, the more information is provided. adults that are diagnosed I think unfortunately, get the least amount of education again And it differs system to system and provider to provider. But in the beginning, you know, they're taught how to use a glucometer. They're taught how to give an injection. And they're taught that you're going to be taught essentially, the basics of that insulin action. And you're going to be taught carb counting, that is pretty much the gist of what you're going to be taught. And anyone who's been listening to this podcast for any amount of time will know that I call that do not die advice. That's the that's the advice you get so that you don't die. It doesn't keep you healthy. It doesn't help you understand anything, it just keeps you from going home and falling over. Well, and I think another piece of that, too, is it's very, very soon in that beginning is how to avoid hypoglycemia, how to avoid a low blood sugar because insulin causes low blood sugar. And unfortunately, that's where the fear starts.

Scott Benner 15:57
Exactly. And so that's where it's that's where the fear starts, but try to understand it from the clinicians point of view, you are frazzled, I say this all the time being diagnosed with a disease that you cannot cure. It feels like someone just walked up to you with a shovel and smack you square in the face with it and then started yelling, basal insulin, bolus glucometer. This is a test strip and you're like, wait, wait, why? And so the doctor sees that on your face, and can't in I guess in their minds, they don't want to overload you. But the unintended problem is just what you said that you start with fear, then everything starts with fear. It would be a simple sentence, it would be it would be Listen, we're going to teach this to you slowly. I know that seems counterproductive, but it's not. But there's no reason to be afraid. And that's what we're going to learn. Now. The question is, do doctors not teach that because they don't have the time? Or they don't have the knowledge? Like what like, because there are everyone's gonna walk into a different endos office, you're gonna get an 80 year old guy who's been doing this, since people have been boiling their urine, right? And he's just gonna think that if you count your carbs, and inject and go to 300, and come back to 100, that's amazing. And that's that, right? Right. And then you're going to get a guy who's in his 50s, who's just starting to hear about like, other CGM stuff and and and you're gonna get different advice from them, you're gonna get different advice from a, you know, a woman who's been out of medical school for three years and has diabetes. How do you as the patient know what advice you're getting? When you don't know anything about diabetes?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:36
That's a very good question. Absolutely. And I think, you know, with today's technology, honestly, I, personally, as people have come to, to work with me, or to work with us at integrated, you know, it's people come, because very soon, they realize they're not getting what they need. It's not quite, they're not sure what they're missing. But they know from researching and looking and googling it, that the information that they've gotten is so just literally the tip of the iceberg, that they're missing so much more beyond and that, you know, that their doctor is saying, well, you have to be in good control for a year to be able to start on a pump. And most parents or even adults are saying, that's not the case,

Scott Benner 18:23
right? Doesn't mean

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:24
that that's not doesn't make sense. I want to know what I should be doing. I want to know, what is the best for my child or for myself? I want to know, and I think those are some of the things that as a as a newly diagnosed, asking more questions of your provider, even though you may not know exactly what you're asking, when you've googled it, and you've researched and done some of your own searching, and even asked, you know, some people I think more and more people are there kind of they have acquaintances or whatnot, who might have diabetes. And so they, they will ask them, they'll say, well, they're doing this, you know, maybe I should ask about this. And I tell all the people that I work with, you know, what, if your providers not able to meet you or can't answer, even those basic questions at the beginning, it's it's time unfortunately, to find a new provider. It really is.

Scott Benner 19:19
And based off of that idea, I want to say I want to say the same thing to two different segments. So if you're a clinician and you're listening to this, or if you're a person who has diabetes, or is trying to care for someone who does, there's a space that a lot of people get into, they're not given enough information up front. And they're, they're paying attention, right? They want to do well they're paying attention, and they see in consistencies with what's been taught to them in the doctor's office. But because you're the doctor, or because you're looking at a doctrine, you were raised to listen to a police officer, your teachers and a doctor, you're raised to believe that a person in a white coat is infinitely more intelligent than you are. There's no reason to question them. And so when they give you these concrete laws of diabetes, you go home, put these laws into practice, and they don't give you decent results. This is for the doctors, it puts people into such a psychological bad place. It just wrenches their gut, they feel like they're killing themselves or their children. And they don't understand why. And even when common sense things about their diabetes show up, they can't bring themselves to make the leap, because you've told them or not told them anything about that idea. And I will give you a great example. And it's a very simple example,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:36
or kind of before your example, you know, it's kind of a cut and dry too. As you know, kind of going with what the doctor said, The doctor said to do this, the doctor said I should take my, my insulin and eat right away. Well, if that's not working, and you don't, if you don't know that, and clinically, clinicians, I think, really do need more information about what really is the real life of diabetes, what's the real life use of insulin and mastering its action and all of that, because clinical book does not mean it meets what happens at home. And when your clients come to you and your patients with their people with diabetes come to you. And they say, this isn't working. I'm following all of your rules. It's not working. And instead of saying, well, you must be doing something wrong because that that happens often, whether as a clinician you want that expression to come out or not, it does you make them feel like they're not doing something right. And you don't give him a way to to help you don't explore with them and say, Okay, I hear what you're saying, I hear that you've tried everything I've thought would, excuse me would work, right? And it's not let's, let's see why it's not working, maybe something is variable for you.

Scott Benner 21:56
And let's have more of a conversation and explain what's happening. So that so the doctor can glean more from what's going on. I'm at the point now. And I'm sure you're there, too. I can look at a 24 hour graph, and make changes in five minutes that improve somebody's life and measurably in 24 hours. I don't know why a doctor can't do that.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:16
So I mean, I figured I can yes, some are, some are awesome, but some are not.

Scott Benner 22:21
well enough now to know that, you know, I'm not the brightest person in the world. And I can look at it and go Okay, this is this like this. My example of how powerful the doctors suggestion or non suggestion can be to people is that I was speaking with a woman in her 40s, who had had diabetes for 25 years. I looked at her graph, she was distraught. And I said, you just need more insulin? And she said, Well, no, no, because like I said, all these reasons why it that wasn't the case. And I said No, that doesn't make sense. And in a brief 32nd explanation, over a telephone call, I could literally hear the light bulb turned on in her head and she went, Oh, my God, I just need more insulin. And I was like, right, that's it? I mean, can we go an hour, you know, but But think about, think about that. A well intended, intelligent, educated person who goes to her doctor's visits, and in 20 years, can't figure out why their blood sugars are the way they are, and no one's ever helped her. So what I'm saying to people who are newly diagnosed, or people who have gotten to that point and want to start over, you have to sort of think different, you have to, you know, if you're, if you're in a situation where you're newly diagnosed, and you've gotten some real, like what I call like old timey information, you need to think differently. And if you've had diabetes for a long time, or have been caring for someone forever, and it's not going the way you want, that's the first thing you have to do you have to say to yourself, I must not be thinking like flip it upside down, look at it all the time, I have a friend who every decision they make is wrong. And I once said to them, how come when you have a reaction to something, you just don't wonder what's completely opposite of that, and then just do that. I was like, I was like, right, you're right, you're always wrong, you know, so like, right and, and that's what happens every day you get up, you do this thing with this insulin and this pump and all this stuff, and it always goes wrong, but yet there you are the next day,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:19
doing it over and over and over again, which is another reason that I you know, working especially with the women through pregnancy that I work with, that's a piece of the variability that I try to encourage them to sort of work on prior to pregnancy. Okay, you know, because if you can figure out it's why many people with diabetes, eat some of the same things over and over and over again, they have a standard breakfast. I know that it works. I know that I need this much insulin, I knew we need to use a temporary bazel for this much or for you know, whatever extended bolus and it works for me, it's that's the reason because once you figure it out, you're like great. I had Like little magic is magic piece right here and I'm not gonna screw

Scott Benner 25:05
it up. Now I should have this half a piece of wheat toast two eggs over easy and two tablespoons of avocado for the rest of my life. Right? Exactly. Every morning, if that's happening to you, if you're listening, and that's happening to you, I say this proudly, the there are some low carb people who will get upset and I want to tell them right now you can eat low carb your whole life, I don't care. I'm just saying that if you ended up there because you couldn't figure out insulin. You know, if you're if you're eating something you don't want to be eating, there might be a way to manage this. But I tell people very proudly, that at this point, my daughter is 14 years old when I'm recording this. She has had Type One Diabetes since she was two. And for the last five years, her eight one C has been between five two and six, two, with absolutely no diet restrictions whatsoever. Anything you can think of Arden eats and eats frequently.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:58
And I bet her more important within that I think we talked about this in the a one c discussion and podcasts. But more important than even the a one C is for standard deviation, the variability, which I would estimate without even seeing her information, I would estimate that her standard deviation is very nice, meaning she's got these little gentle rolls through the course of the day, rather than this major roller coaster because you could have anyone see a 5.4 Yes, but you could have a major, you know, standard deviation. And we will

Scott Benner 26:29
talk about that in coming episodes. You can't run around with your six a one c but be at 300 half the day and 50 the other half of the day that you've just trick the one c test

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:39
right? On the doctor. Yeah, because again, that goes back to clinician. A one CS is certainly it's a starting place. It is not the end all be all there is more in depth that needs to be looked at with that a one seat. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:52
we try very hard. Well, you know it. As you go on and listen to these episodes, you'll realize I'm not trying that hard anymore. I figured it out to the point where it doesn't really take that much involvement from us. But Arden's low alarm on her Dexcom is set at 70. On my follow app, it's 120 for the high alarm on hers, it's 130. And so we'll talk about like bumping and nudging later on, but that's my concept is that smaller amounts of insulin as you try to leave a tight range, get you back into that range more quickly. And cause far fewer lows later. Yeah. Give me one second here, we'll take a pause. Okay, um, I'm gonna text Arden, she's now wearing a new pump. I need to know how much insulin delivered from the last Bolus. And then because it's a new pump, and she's literally going to walk right into lunch. Excuse me, I'm going to double her bazel for I was only going to do 50%. Now I'm just going to double it for an hour and a half. And that way, if there's any slow start with that site absorbing and having action I'm just going to do, I'm going to do something that at some point during these, you'll hear me talk about what I call it over bolusing like I just I imagine not just what her needs are now, but the momentum and higher number that I know is coming. In 2008 we made the decision to get my then four year old daughter and insulin pump. It's a decision that I wish we would have made years sooner. After seeing everything that was available. We easily settled on the Omni pod that was back again in 2008. Today Arden is about to turn 15 years old and she has been wearing an ami pod every day since then, every day. And as I mentioned in the other ad Arden's a one she has been between 5.2 and 6.2 for five solid years. How do we do that? Well, we start by seeing an insulin pump is more than just a way to not have to take shots. The Omni pod gives you the ability to do temporary basal rates, that's increases or decreases in your background insulin, extended boluses which will help you spread out your insulin over the life of a meal, and so much more. The Omni pod has no tubing at all. The pod is self contained, you wear it on your body, and you control it with a wireless controller. So there's no tubes running through your clothing and no pump that you have to jam in your bra down your pants or wherever people have to put their palms that just doesn't exist with the Omni pod. What does exist is the ability to swim while you're getting your insulin bathed while you're getting your insulin and live life untethered. The Omni pod even features self insertion, just push a button. Now I want you to go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. And when you get there, you'll get a free no obligation demonstrator. pods sent directly to your house. Check it out and see what you think for yourself. I'm going to do something that at some point during these, you'll hear me talk about where I call it over bolusing. Like I, I imagine not just what her needs are now. But the momentum and higher number that I know is coming.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:20
Yep. So that's hot change was one thing that I

Unknown Speaker 30:26
was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:28
always in in. In the beginning, I was very thankful that I had noticed a difference with my Animas on change that I needed that site to just be like, just saturated with insulin to get absorption sooner. So and I was glad because when I started Omni pod in 2006, I started doing the same thing that I did with my other pump sites, you know, just Temp Basal going up by almost 100%. For about it was usually about an hour to two hours depending on kind of where I was at that point. And if it was, I was having to change that pod, especially if it was before a meal. And I was going to need insulin for that meal with the new pod. I actually, instead of doing it through the pod, I gave an injection, because I just found that a bolus with that new pod site, it never went well. Whereas if I did a Temp Basal increase, I took a bolus via injection for that food that I was going to eat and let the pod get settled in. I didn't have any blood sugar issues.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's everybody's strategy is different,

Scott Benner 31:39
right. But I'll tell you what it what it what that tells me is, and again, this is going to be another sentence you hear over and over again, you have to trust that what you know is going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. So if you make a pod change and your blood sugar's 90, you still need to do that. Right? Right. It's okay, hold on, at 5.6 units. So I'm gonna do a Temp Basal increase 95% for an hour, and Bolus seven units. All now go eat as soon as possible. So she's got 5.6 units in from 20 minutes ago or so she's still 102. And so I'm not scared of those seven units. She's going to be eating in five minutes. And look, the 5.6 units didn't do anything over the last 20 minutes. So I'm good. My goal here on this bolus is 75. Diagonal down while she's about halfway through her meal. Anyway, that's again, stuff we'll talk about later. Yeah. Okay. So,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:43
um, comfort level with what you know, will happen.

Scott Benner 32:47
Yeah. And because, and by the way, and just these, you have to, you have to have these experiences, like, I'm going to leave this in this episode, so that you know, that things have to happen that you don't expect, because it's data, right? It's, it's I did this and this happened next time, I'd like this to happen. So I'm going to do sooner or later, more or less, whatever it is, I'm going to do, but you can't know that unless something goes wrong. Right, right. And so and so here's a great tip for somebody starting over or who is newly diagnosed. There are no mistakes. There are only experiences that build on for next time. That's it when I see something happen. Instead, you can't get dramatic. You can't get upset, you can't cry, you can't go oh my god, I'm killing her. You can't do it. Right. You say to yourself, okay, bare bones, what just happened here, I put insulin in here. It went up to there. And then it came down and crashed. I bet you If I would have put that much insulin in sooner and spread it out a little bit like I could have created the resistance that that blood sugar needed. Right, right, right. But if you're busy running around, wringing your hands, and just you gave away an amazing opportunity, and I and I will use this as an example. This past weekend, I was helping a mother with a five year old four or five year old boy. And while I was talking to her, this kid's blood sugar went to 300 off of some Cheerios. And we talked for 20 years, that breakfast cereal. Oh my gosh, we're talking about 20 minutes or so. This poor kids blood sugar's at 300 it's not moving. And we're getting ready to get off the phone. She's like, he's hungry. I don't know what to do. And I was like, are you would you like to do something that's gonna sound insane. I'll help you. And she goes, I think I'm desperate enough to try something insane. I was like, great. How much insulin Do you think it'll take to bring a 302 90 and she says a unit? And I said How much do you think the lunch is gonna take? And she said a unit and a half. I was like cool. Bolus two and a half units right now. And she said, She's like, what's gonna happen? We're going to put him His blood sugar into a freefall. And then we're going to add the lunch at exactly the right time. And then with a little bit of fast acting carbs if we need to, we'll bring it in for a landing. I said, I'll never leave you will will text the whole time we'll talk again we have to, so she does it. We get diagonal down to 90 to 75 to 52 errors down to 50. She's texting. Oh my god. I'm like, No, no, perfect. Like, Oh, hold on. I actually texted her a picture of the guys from Star Wars. We're trying to blow up the Death Star, right? stay on target. Like just don't don't flinch. Like don't flinch to 52 down to 42 3200. I said, Okay. Now's the time to start getting the lunch together. And she laughs She goes, Oh, it's already it's just here on a plate. I was like I said when we get the one at given the food. So 182 down kid gets the food 10 minutes later. Now isn't this interesting? we're dropping 10 points every five minutes on the CGM. Then he eats. Then all of a sudden the dropping stops. The arrows are still there. But now it takes longer to get the 170 took even longer to get the 160 and she gets the watch this happen. 150 still two down 140 still two down. I said okay. It's not gonna catch the arrows. Do me a favor, give them a few ounces of juice. She says we don't have juice in the house. And I thought to myself, Oh, I just killed a kid over the phone. Goodbye, wrong number. So she said she says we treat Lowe's with jelly beans because they hit him so hard. I said, that's great. But do you have any liquid in the house that has carbs in it? That's not soda. And she said, we have lemonade. I said that's great. I want you to give him four ounces. Eliminate. So she gives them I said and don't go crazy measuring it. Just give them a little bit of lemonade, right? So she gives him the lemonade boom, goes to one arrow goes to diagonal down the cake comes in I swear to you 75 nice and stable. It's foods been in for a half an hour. And when it was over, she's like, wow, that was nerve racking. I said, Okay, I know that. Clear your head, and then go back and look at the boluses. Look at the time you put the food in and look at the CGM and figure out how that insulin works in him. Because you just had a Master's class how insulin impacts blood sugar and how food impacts insulin.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:26
Absolutely, absolutely. And that's, that's the place that as you know, clinicians, they don't have the time to do that. And it's unfortunate is it's unfortunate in the stance that with somebody something like diabetes, type one diabetes, specifically, if you need that hand holding in an instance like that, you need the ability to be with somebody who can say, You're okay, write it out, you're okay, he's gonna be fine. You've got jelly beans, you've got juice, you've got honey, you've got something in the house, you've got a mini glucagon that you could use if you need to, you're going to he's going to be okay, she's going to be you're going to be okay. It's, it'll be fine. But you do you have to use those learning pieces. I think it kind of goes along with a really good friend of mine. Who has had diabetes a bit longer than me, which is 30 plus years. And her her doctor actually gave her kind of a good little hint for numbers, you know, we we start to view numbers in diabetes as good and bad, right? And that comes with that feeling of frustration then, and oh my gosh, I'm like killing myself or I'm doing something bad or whatever. And he said, you know, the numbers are information to just like you said, it is okay, I'm here. Why am I here? You know, what can I learn from this? What can I do better next time? And maybe you analyze it, you know, three hours from now, maybe not in the instant, but it's information. And so he told her, you know, when the number is going to come up on the glucometer you put this test strip in you put your blood on the strip and you tell yourself, I am awesome. And here comes a number, right?

Scott Benner 39:11
Yeah, because they told me what to do next. It can't be a judgment. You can't feel judged by it. You can't let you can't you know, you can't look at it and say bad low you can say not what I wanted, not what I'm shooting for. Right? What makes me what gets me to what I'm shooting for. And you know, it's funny as you and I are pretty much wrapping up this first thought right? Um, I have so many people asking me when they're first diagnosed, what are the things I need to know? And I find around diabetes in general everyone's looking for an amount or a number from you just want to tell me how many minutes I should Pre-Bolus Please tell me how many units I should do if his budget is like this. And I tell them all the time. I don't know figure it out for yourself. And you will write like you have to but I can't give you no one can tell you that a 10 minute Pre-Bolus is going to be what's right for you, in any given situation, let alone all the time. I think it's insane that we think that just because we've set a basal rate of, you know, one and a half units at 2am, that we think that that's what our body is going to need every day at 2am. It's, it's insanity to think that it's just the best we have with the technology we have at the moment. Exactly. And so if you listen to this thinking, someone's going to tell me the rules about what I need to do. And I'm starting with diabetes, we did, we told you what to do, it just isn't what you expected. Right? Right. And so I get that, I understand that it's, it's not a pill disease, it's not take three of these a day, and you have to have food with them. Like, it's not that easy.

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#209 Leah Is Good

Leah and her son both have type 1 diabetes.….

Leah is a mother, a wife and a nurse who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 16. Her son Mason has recently joined the club. 

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 -  Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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 friends and welcome to Episode 209 of the Juicebox Podcast Today's episode is called Lia is good and it is sponsored by real good foods on the pod dex calm and dancing for diabetes, you should go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor when you're real good foods comm use the offer code juice box to save 20% on your entire order. You heard me right 20% you can visit dancing for diabetes.com or check them out on Facebook and Instagram to see what they're doing. And of course, if you'd like a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod sent directly to your door, go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. And now on to the show.

Leah 0:56
It's so weird to talk to you I have to say I've been listening to your voice for like six months. So very exciting.

Scott Benner 1:03
I appreciate you being excited to be excited. to this episode of the podcast we're going to be speaking with Leah who has had Type One Diabetes for a very long time and she also has a child with type one. I want to remind you that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise and to always consult a physician before making changes to your medical plan. programming note beginning next week, I'll be running a series of conversations with Jenny Smith. She's the CD who's been on a couple of times you guys love her. I love her. And we are going to be talking about being bold with insulin soup to nuts. What's that mean? From MDI, Temp Basal, and everything in between. You're gonna get all the concepts that are spoken about spread out over all these episodes in Super targeted, shorter, consumable, shareable revisit episodes of the podcast. You're gonna love it.

Leah 2:02
My name is Leah. I am a wife, a mom of two. I am a nurse. And I have type one diabetes. And my son Mason also has type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 2:15
We are How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Leah 2:18
I was 16 years old. The summer before my senior year and that was in 1991.

Scott Benner 2:25
I say 2017

Leah 2:29
oh 1991. It was a 2007.

Unknown Speaker 2:35
But it's fine.

Scott Benner 2:37
I don't know if you saw what I did. There. I went 91 to 2001. Right away. I

Leah 2:40
put 10 Oh, I see you were doing math.

Scott Benner 2:42
Yeah, put 10 years right in the bank. And then I counted from one to 18 I got 17. And then I added the 10 in the 17 together. And then I was about to come up with 27. But that's a very long time to have to have diabetes.

Leah 2:56
Yeah, it's been in most of my life is does it feel?

Scott Benner 3:01
Does it genuinely feel like that?

Leah 3:04
It does. Yes. It's it's, it's hard to remember a time before. I mean, I do remember it because I was 16. But most of my life, I feel like I've had diabetes.

Scott Benner 3:16
Well, great fun. Um, was there any indication that you might get diabetes, people in your family no thing like that.

Leah 3:24
At the time, it was a big surprise. I had never known anyone with type one. I knew what it was. But I I didn't have anyone in my family. I thought it was just a fluke that I just got lucky and but then it turns out that there is some autoimmune history in my family. A lot of my aunts have hypothyroid and then later on, some other people were diagnosed with other autoimmune diseases.

Scott Benner 3:55
When you think about it, other autoimmune diseases in your family history. Just on the female side are male and female. Just a brief reminder that at some point today, you should visit dancing for diabetes, calm dancing, the number four diabetes calm. Both. Okay. So yeah, they were getting around to diabetes. It was coming, right?

Leah 4:16
Yes. Yes. later on. My cousin's child was also diagnosed, diagnosed with type one. And you know, then my son was diagnosed last year.

Scott Benner 4:27
Okay. How's your thyroid holding up?

Leah 4:29
I have hypothyroid. Yeah, I've had it for about 20 years. Okay. All right. So

Scott Benner 4:35
all right. I think we understand where we're at. Yeah. So 16 years old at almost 30 years ago. You were just needles and Amida?

Leah 4:48
Yes, yes. I had a big meter with big drops of blood. It was a one touch and I had a big kit and I did needles with regular insulin and mph and you can bind them in to the syringe and gave yourself an injection that way. Were they disposable syringes then? Yes, they

Unknown Speaker 5:12
were okay.

Unknown Speaker 5:14
Well,

Scott Benner 5:15
hold on a second Arden's blood sugar is trying to creep up on me. She is in her first couple of weeks of high school and isn't trying to move. She's in her first couple weeks of high school. She started off off strong the first day. She's like, I'm gonna buy lunch this year. And I was like,

Unknown Speaker 5:33
oh, huh.

Scott Benner 5:34
And she came home the first day and she goes, I'm not buying lunch anymore. That was after I put like $50 in her account. So I'm like,

Unknown Speaker 5:39
Yeah, okay.

Scott Benner 5:42
I've been figuring out her time of day, she's been getting a little. Her blood sugar is trying to go up in the in the early morning, which it didn't do last year. So we've been bolusing a little bit. I did a really a fun bolus today, because she was 96. Right before about 810 minutes before lunch. And so I did a 12 and a half unit Bolus, but I did it extended and I did zero percent up front and the the entire balance over a half an hour. And so I got a little more of a dip it held analysis at 121. And it says it's stable, but the Dexcom lines giving me the indication that maybe it wants to go up.

Unknown Speaker 6:24
Yeah, I'm creeping up.

Unknown Speaker 6:25
It's

Scott Benner 6:26
I think it's trying but I'm gonna give it five more minutes before Bolus again, so and it's been about an hour since we did the extended so the whole boss has been in for about a half an hour Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm just going to be keeping half an eye on that as we go. No, I

Leah 6:39
do the same thing all the day with my son.

Scott Benner 6:41
Well, how did that? So well. So wait. So first of all, we have to get you up to the present day. So you started you started with your needles and your mph yet regular that went on for how long do you think?

Leah 6:54
Well, I was until the pen came out. And then lantis came out about 2001 I think and I switched Atlantis and humalog. And I did pens until my son's diagnosis. I never had a pump. I never had a pump.

Scott Benner 7:10
Wow. Okay, so you were 10 years regular an MPH. And then you went the next 16 years. My math is on point today. The next 16 years still MDI and how was that going for you as far as your day to day? Like were you? Did you have it down? Did you know what you'd like? Yeah,

Leah 7:27
yeah. So I pretty quickly when I got diabetes, I was in the hospital for a week, and I hated it. It was not not fun at all. And I'd never wanted to be there again. And I quickly figured out what I needed to do to take care of my body. And I quickly figured out how to do it by feeling and not really going by a carb ratio. And I go to the endo, and they say, what's your carb ratio? And I just kind of guess what I thought it was. But I was like, Okay, I know what a sandwich would be. I know what, you know, an apple would be I just

Scott Benner 8:06
knew myself this would be would would cover this food. Yes. And was was was your knowing based on how you felt after you ate? Are you testing after you ate?

Leah 8:16
I tested a lot. But I also felt it in any time. I'm over, like 140 I feel I feel it. And if I'm under 60, I feel it. So I just went along, took care of myself, everything was going good. Every time I went to my appointments, they say oh, your numbers are great, keep doing what you're doing. So that's what I did. And you know, as soon as I became a nurse, I would go to the doctors and they would just kind of assume that I knew everything. But at the time, there wasn't a lot of changes going on. And so I wasn't seeking out information. I just was doing what worked. And you know, I was offered a pump, but all they would say is Hey, do you want a pump? And I would say no, I don't want one. I'm good. And everything's going well. I'm good how I am.

Scott Benner 9:12
And not Can I ask you Did you not want to pump because just things were going so well. You didn't feel like you needed to change?

Leah 9:19
No, I the sounds kind of silly, but I did not want to pump because I didn't think it was sexy.

Scott Benner 9:26
Ah, gotcha. I do everything based on how sexy I feel. That's not even true.

Leah 9:32
I don't know I just I I don't feel the same way now at all. But

Scott Benner 9:40
back then you just

Leah 9:42
couldn't figure out what what I would do with this tubing and you know, like a pager looking thing hanging out of me. I just didn't know how that would would work on me.

Scott Benner 9:54
You know what's funny is You and I are talking in September of 2018 I recognize that this probably won't go up for like three months, I can picture myself now humming, bringing sexy back as I insert that on the pod right here. Arden's been using it on the pod every day for almost 11 years. And just this morning, I was thinking about the first time that I saw it on the pod, it was at a pump training class at our local Children's Hospital, I made the decision that day, based on very little information, I'm not gonna lie to you, I saw that it was tubeless, I saw that it seemed innovative. It was thinking different than the other pumps in the room. A lot of which, by the way, are out of business now. But I remember I feel proud about this looking at the Omni pod thinking, when they change this pump, when they improve it, when they upgraded, I'm just going to get the improvements because it's self contained. I was excited that my daughter wouldn't have to have something attached to her by tubing. I mean, that was probably my first thought. But then just the idea of innovation, and being able to move forward quickly being agile as a company as a product. that excited me. And 11 years later, I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I made the absolute correct choice that day. And if you check out the Omni pod and decide you like it, today will be that day for you. The great news is it's simple. All you have to do is go to my on the pod.com forward slash juice box and request a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod that gets you started. Then if you'd like it, to reach back out and tell them I want to move forward. I want to be untethered, I want to wear it on the pod like garden. It's that easy. My Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox.

All we are going to Bolus Arden and then we're going to get back to your to your to your feelings Hold on one second. Sounds good 121 to 127. And so I am going to assume that it's going to try to keep climbing, I'm going to say hey, she's probably going to say hi Oh, she did. And I'm going to say one unit. And I got the K back the team answer to everything on text. First of all, I want to say that I think that that's a completely reasonable thought like just to say, this really isn't sexy. Like I don't want you trying to feel feminine, and we're just like a person and you don't want something slapped you. I will tell you right away. That the first time someone indicated to us that pumps were a thing. I thought I don't want something stuck to my daughter. Like, you know, I didn't think she wasn't gonna look sexy because she was four. But But she but she I definitely just thought this is going to alter reality in a way that is it can't be good as what I thought like I thought this just can't be good. But you get to this point, or at least I did, where you realize you can't judge everything based on before, before diabetes, right? Right. Like you have type one diabetes, now everything needs to be judged in that lens. You can't You can't hold up the idea, but I don't want this in my life. Because honestly, you don't get to make decisions like that. And and we all we all get caught up in that sort of like false feeling that things are going the way we want them to and if they don't we change them. And most things are like that, right? You know, if you don't like the paint in your living room, you might change the color. But your descent or ride to the end of your life is going to go about the way it's going to go some people get type one diabetes, and they're 16. Some people get type two diabetes when they're 60. And all other ages, some people get, you know, some people fall off a ladder cleaning out their gutters. As that person's falling. My gut is they think, Oh crap, and I can't believe this is how I'm gonna die. You know, like, because no one thinks they're gonna fall off a ladder. And no one thinks they're getting diabetes. But it doesn't stop us from judging. It doesn't stop us from judging what's happening to us now against what we wanted to happen. It's just very human, I guess. So I think you had a very reasonable reaction and you stuck to it. You stuck to your gut. I did. Even through like my two pregnancies. They

Leah 14:22
Lantus wasn't approved when I was pregnant to use. So I had to go back to mph and I did it around the clock. I had to do NPH injections every six hours on top of the human log I was taking so I did it like for two years because I had my kids back there 15 months apart.

Unknown Speaker 14:43
So yeah, one of those Irish twins.

Leah 14:46
Not quite a year. The year make some Irish twins. Gotcha. You know, and the thing is, I was open to having a pump. If I couldn't manage it the way I was. I wasn't like you were Yeah. Yeah, it was going well, and I just

Unknown Speaker 15:03
was when I

Scott Benner 15:04
was gonna say what was considered a good agency back then what was the ADA saying back then? Was it still? Was it seven and a half at that point?

Leah 15:11
Do you need to know because mine was always in the low sixes. Oh,

Scott Benner 15:14
so you just were like, I'm killing this and it doesn't.

Leah 15:17
I just was like, you know, I didn't, I did what I needed to do. I didn't think about it. I just, you know, I, I took care of myself, but I didn't think about diabetes all that much. And I didn't know anyone with diabetes, so I just kind of did it without thinking about it.

Scott Benner 15:38
You were just like an island unto yourself, like just by yourself and handling it and a low a one C, eating a fairly regular what people normal diet.

Leah 15:48
Oh, yeah, I just figured out like if I was going to eat a high carb that I had to take a boatload of insulin. Yeah. And that's, I still do that. I, I, I eat low carb now. Because we, both my kids have celiac disease too. So we don't have a lot of you know, it's okay.

Scott Benner 16:10
You want to go cry for a minute and come back?

Unknown Speaker 16:14
actually good. And we'll see you again. Yeah, a great example. Right?

Scott Benner 16:18
Because look what you've said in the first couple of minutes. I got type one diabetes, when I'm 16. My kid got it last year, my you know, my, my niece or I'm sorry, Your niece or nephew has it there's I have hypothyroidism my kids are feeling. And I'm good.

Leah 16:34
Like, you know, it's a perspective. And it's an it's the way you view things because, you know, I am a nurse, and I work in a cancer center. And I see a lot of really rare things and terminal patients. And so I have a different perspective, I think, than most people that. To me, it doesn't feel that bad. Diabetes does not feel that bad. And I've always felt that way. And I've said that, and I don't know what to say. It's just, maybe I feel like I'm lucky that I've been able to control it as I have. And I don't know why.

Scott Benner 17:16
What also you've it occurs to me as you're talking that you don't have a preconceived notion of what good means. Just I think being alive is good. Right? And having a family living your life?

Unknown Speaker 17:27
Yeah, that's the Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Benner 17:30
I hear you. I really do. I think it's perspective is, is everything to be perfectly honest, you know, like, even down to the things that, you know, I don't know how, how much people would believe or not believe that most of the correspondence I get back is, Hey, I heard what you're saying on the podcast about stuff. And it's great. But every once in a while I hear from somebody who is just really, they don't get it, like it didn't click with them, or it didn't work with them or whatever. And then that that not clicking for some people turns directly to anger to you know, I did what I did what I heard people saying, and it didn't work, and angry, like, and I and I always think well, you know, let's try again, or why did it get any better? Or like, Did you see any improvement at anything about this, like, but no, right away, too. And I think that's their perspective, too. And I don't know that you can, you know, I'm gonna use an example from somebody who I know will never hear this. But Arden just started on a new softball team not too long ago. And there's one girl on the team who just seems pissed all the time. There's no other real way to put it. She just seems angry constantly. And then one day, her one of her parents shows up and her parent is disabled to the point where they're riding a scooter around the game. And I tried to strike up a conversation with the parent and she was three times as angry as the kid. And I thought what chance does this little girl have of not being angry? Her mom is obviously upset about something she doesn't try to hide it. And this girl's taking on that, that that kind of like she's taking on the mantle of the family like this is what we do. We're mad. And and maybe it's completely reasonable that they're angry. I don't know the rest of their story. But I also know that I've met people, like you said in far worse situations who are not like that. And yeah, and so there is to some degree, you have to say in there, there was a moment when someone decided this is too much for me, I can't handle this, or I just don't want to or this wasn't the Rose Garden I was promised. And so because of that, I'm I'm gonna be pissed. I don't know that I completely. Well, not completely. I wouldn't judge anybody for that happening to them. Like I think we all have a tipping point, you know, and just some people's might be a little more. Their resolve might be a little stronger than other people for a number of reasons. But I love your attitude. And I think That was amazing as a long way of saying I loved your answer when you said No, I'm good. If you've been searching for low carb, high protein snacks that are made from real ingredients, look no further. And bonus if you're the kind of person who likes saving 20% now I've got a deal for you. You need to go to real good foods calm and when you check out use the offer code juice box to save that 20% there's also free shipping but that's not the best part. The best part comes when you open your oven and smell those amazing snacks. Just the other night I had the jalapeno and white cheddar poppers. They also have artichoke and cheese and pepperoni mozzarella. But let me tell you a little more about the poppers their chicken poppers delicious chicken filled with natural ingredients. My wife, she leans towards the enchiladas. That's pretty much our favorite thing it real good foods. Kelly loves the chicken enchiladas the beef enchiladas and she's getting ready to try the pork. Arden says cheese are her favorite. Now my mom loves the cauliflower crust pizza. You can get cauliflower vegetable, pepperoni, Margarita, or just cheese. So satisfy your low carb desires. And your high level taste all in the same place. Real good foods calm. And don't forget that when you finish your shopping, before you place your order to use the offer code juicebox to save 20% off the entire order. And

Unknown Speaker 21:26
real good foods we'll

Scott Benner 21:27
even throw in free shipping. And I have to tell you something. Their shipping is crazy. Amazing. It was the one thing I was concerned about about ordering food and having it delivered to my house like that food is supposed to be frozen. I just had this concern it would show up and like you know, be warm. But just the opposite. The person who devised the shipping plan is a genius. smartest the guy who made the poppers pure didn't have a pump for all that time, like what made you get a pump.

Leah 21:56
As soon as my son was diagnosed that night at the hospital. It just clicked in my head. I was like he's getting a pump. He's getting the Omni pod. And I am to and we're doing it right away. And I don't know why that just was very clear. That thought was very firmly in my brain that I had seen the Omni pod at. We had teaching it at work. And I had seen it and I was like oh, that's really cool. I've never seen a tubeless pump before and and so we didn't go to the class. I just went to the first endo appointment and said we want the Omni pod. And I messaged my endocrinologist and said, I want to get one. And so like within a month we got a Omni pod and the Dexcom

Scott Benner 22:47
right at the same time.

Leah 22:49
Yeah, we both did within a week. I got mine first. And he was super bummed. And then, you know, we went in a week later. And they were like, well, we got to do the sailing trial. And I was like, No, we're gonna we're going for it.

Scott Benner 23:00
Yeah, it'd be nice for most of existence. I think I get out. You know, it's so funny. Is that your answer about why did I finally after all those years go to a pump? it mirrors almost exactly every parent I've ever had on who has type one whose kids are later diagnosed. Going back to just last week, if anybody heard Laurie last week in Episode 189, right? It's not it's love. Like it really becomes parental love at some point it, it's I want to do. I was okay. I don't know what the standard of care is. Right? Like Whatever you say, whatever in your mind, the gold standard is. But if I didn't think as a person living with type one, if I didn't think I was right up to that standard. It was okay, because it was me. And then the minute I bring my child into it, I need to push up against that ceiling and further because I need better for them. It is it's incredibly interesting. I hope people hear that story enough to realize that even if you don't have a kid with Type One Diabetes, if you have type one, and you're an adult, like you should, like what the what the gold standard, whatever that is, I'm not telling you. I'm just saying want that for yourself. Because I haven't said this in a long time. So it bears repeating now that we're up to almost 200 episodes. You don't want to be the person 10 years from now, who looks at what everyone else is doing and says Oh, I didn't realize that the entire landscape of diabetes management has shifted and I did not go along with it. Like it like if you stop and think right? Would you today be in such a good place? If you were still on regular an MPH and didn't have a pump and didn't have a CGM? No, no. And so and so when things improving I'm not saying just change because they change like don't if you love if you love your pump and somebody else comes out with a pump and has a funky color, I'm not saying change because hey, that one's cool. But I mean when when things make a leap. You sort of have to leap along with it or you'll get left behind and that means you're leaving your health behind

Leah 24:57
I think absolutely That's how I handled. It was a huge, it was a huge learning curve to transition though, because, again, they were like, Mom has type one diabetes, and you're a nurse. So here's your pump, and I initially treated it like I did injections by just bolusing. And not using it to get the most out of it. And once I learned from you how to do extended boluses and 10 phases, it was just, it changed things for both of us so much, and made us so much more stable and in control of things. It's been amazing. Very happy for you that that sounds good. Yeah, no, absolutely.

Scott Benner 25:47
It's just it's you just don't want to be you know, it's a bazooka, you don't kill a fly with a bazooka, it does all this great stuff. If you just want to kill the flight. It's gonna fly swatter. And so it's fine. Like you have a pump. It's not just a way to not inject so many times, like, which I think is how doctors sell it to people. Yeah, and for whatever reason, but maybe because they don't understand. And maybe because they're just trying to tease you into, you know, keep doing it. But it's such a shortchanging, it's just like to think of a pump is just a way to get less injections, is as insulting as it is to say that a dex comes in alarm to keep you from dying. It's just such a minimal concept. Like there's so much more to it than that. And easy to understand. If someone can just explain it to you once it gets it doesn't take a lifetime to figure out. It's pretty simple. And so it's so cool that you did that. Um, it's very nice that you had kind of like Mason situation to kind of propel you that way. Can you tell me a little bit about about his diagnosis.

Leah 27:06
It wasn't on my radar that one of my children might get type one. I never, ever considered it at all. And then I, within like a week, I noticed he was going to the bathroom at night and drinking a lot. It was really hot summer. And so I kind of mentioned it to my husband. And he was like, Oh, yeah, and then I smelled his breath, and I smelled that metallic smell. And and then I one night, I just decided to go test him where he was sleeping. And I just knew, and it was off my meter. His number. And I I just knew it just Can I have known them? Yeah.

Scott Benner 27:48
Can I ask you how it struck you? Did

Unknown Speaker 27:49
you?

Scott Benner 27:50
Were you upset? Did you cry? Did you get just resolved? Like how did it hit you initially

Leah 27:57
that I was right, that I knew. I'm

Scott Benner 28:00
like dammit, I figured this out.

Leah 28:02
Excellent. I just it just was like, oh, all this stuff. And you know, I look back on the previous month. And the other things that had been going on little things here and there that it all made sense. And I mean, people have asked me if I was devastated. And it really wasn't, it was like, I was grateful that I was able to share it with him. I knew what it was and that we could do this. It would have been different probably if it was anything else. And honestly like the celiac diagnosis kind of threw me more for a loop because that what I didn't even wasn't aware of that at all. I had never been tested for it. So I was kind of like what, but but you know, it was a hard time initially with with his diagnosis. And we were we went to the hospital right away that night. And then we were discharged in the morning and had the education for a few hours on no sleep and got home. And I had that paper where they tell you what to give. And I was like, I need to follow this. You know, even though I knew everything. It's funny, I wanted a guide. I just I was in it.

Unknown Speaker 29:21
Interesting.

Leah 29:22
Yeah. So it took me like a few months. And I knew things like they were just out of control. And he was up and down. And I was like I know this can be better. I can see my lines here. I know how to do this. So I just have to figure it out for him. And it It took me for a little while but boy has has it changed a lot and the the Dexcom and the Omnipod are just like the things that did it really it's pretty cool.

Scott Benner 29:51
So I've a couple of questions.

Unknown Speaker 29:53
Yeah. When you

Scott Benner 29:54
when a board game Are you one of those people who gets up and yells like I like when you're like it's the maid in the pantry with a candlestick It's right to stand up and like I knew it a few like being right, because that's such a great that's such a first of all your response says, One, you've had diabetes for so long that you're like, well, I can do this. Like, that's not a big deal. The diabetes part's not a big deal from from your love that you were like, I won. I bet

Unknown Speaker 30:18
I figured

Scott Benner 30:18
this out by myself. You're like Sherlock Holmes in that moment. Yeah, just exploding to the whole room on the on the Orient Express why how you figured out the whole thing. I've blended nine different metaphors together there. And so but that's really funny. And then, and then so you, you know, into the hospital and right back out again, you fall into this really interesting category that's come up a couple of times in the podcast, too, when there are medical people on which is other medical people don't explain things to you, because they just Oh, yeah. Did you understand them already?

Leah 30:52
Completely.

Scott Benner 30:53
Is that frustrating?

Leah 30:56
Well, I find now that I do know a lot more in this area with regards to diabetes, but yeah, no, it is because I have to kind of take over and figure it out myself. And so

Scott Benner 31:14
that's what you did when you saw him going up and down and up and down, especially when you were staying stable. Right? Like you're you had stability, right? And he didn't,

Leah 31:20
right, right. Mm hmm. So I knew it was possible.

Scott Benner 31:24
Yeah. Oh, please. You're the, you know, everybody has their own m&m story, which, which I've talked about here before somebody explained to me that they, you know, it was a it was a nurse practitioner who told me they had a patient who used the dexcom to figure out how to eat m&ms without a spike. Yeah. And when I heard that, I think she was telling me a story about look, you can eat candy. And what I was hearing was a story about there's a way to balance insulin and timing so that your body doesn't move. And that to me was like that was it now some people will tell me, like, there's a blog post on my on my website about eating like French toast or Chinese food. People speak to me about that, I think to myself, Oh, that's their m&m story. That's the moment they realized.

Unknown Speaker 32:08
This is possible.

Scott Benner 32:10
Right? And so you actually had your own experience that you were able to say, Look, I know this is possible, because I do this for myself.

Unknown Speaker 32:17
Yes, Mm hmm.

Scott Benner 32:18
What did you what were the steps you took? Like, how did you kind of hammer your way through it with your son?

Leah 32:23
I was seeking out how to do this. And I was my endocrinol, or his endocrinologist was saying, Oh, no, you're doing great. And I was like, No, this can be better for me. I know that this can be better. And so and I would talk to like the school nurse, and she'd say, Oh, yeah, this is normal. And I was still like, no, no. So I mean, thank goodness, I found your podcast, I started listening, I started taking into practice some of the ideas that you were talking about, and started figuring it out it how insulin, reacted in his body to different foods and different times in different situations, and then started texting with him and gave him some freedom to be away from me and be able to do things on his own with my help. And, and that's how very quickly like within six months is a one c went from 6.7 to 5.4. Wow, you were already doing well.

Unknown Speaker 33:21
And then yeah,

Scott Benner 33:23
yeah, that's, by the way, you're one of the people who listen, I don't want to dissuade anybody, but I'm doing my best to keep up with all the messages and and I love talking to everybody. But Leah, you're one of the people that like, as I've gotten your messages through the months, I can see your momentum building, like like you do you know what I mean by that, like you kind of like I see you hit a little thing, then you kind of go past it now. And it's so like, heartwarming to look at. From my perspective. Please, no one think that if I answer you back in a short way that I'm not just like, oh my god, this is amazing. But you're not the only one sending a message. But at the same time, I love I love seeing it because yours was to your just to your point. Very quick. I thought, like you really like ascended that hill quickly. It was really cool to say it was just genuinely. I don't know, like it, it reinforced for me. What I was doing. You were helping me you didn't probably realize that at the time, but you gave me confidence about what I was doing when I was seeing what was happening for you. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it really is. It's it's, it's I mean, I said heartwarming already but it's beyond that. It's it's just sometimes I need the confidence to because, you know, it doesn't work for everybody. There are some listen this podcast and they leave too early or they don't it doesn't strike them the right way or so. Some people tell me I wish you would. You know, I wish that the episodes were more directional, and I don't know how to explain to them that like my brain does. really worked that way, like the best I can offer? You know? Yeah.

I feel like I let people down sometimes. But it was really nice to see what happened to you and your son.

Leah 35:09
Yeah. And it's not to say that it's not a struggle to do this. It's it's very challenging. I don't sleep, I mean, between his beeping and my beeping, it's, there's a lot of interrupted nights. But I really tried to take it on with with no fear. And I lived my life with no fear. Nobody ever taught me fear around diabetes when I was diagnosed. And so I didn't hold that. And I see a lot of comments and posts on social media now about fear and challenges. And I. And I think everyone's experience is different, but I've found a lot of value in having confidence in my ability to manage myself, and my son is

Scott Benner 36:04
good for you. Because there's something that happens in social media. To that point, so some people are just afraid. And yeah, right on, there's plenty to be afraid of. Right. So I get that. But I think there's also plenty of people trying to build presences on social media, and they do it sometimes by attracting people in with the, with the fear of like, you know, leading leading statements, like, you know, like, when you're when your kid falls, you don't say, Oh, my God, you're hurt, come here, you, you don't do that. Because then you put them in the mindset that they're hurt, like, you know, like, you don't act shocked when they fall over because it shocks them. And reaction, and you don't ask them a leading question, Where does it hurt? because then they'll be like, Well, you know, what, come to think of it. And you know, like, you can lead people to that direction. And I think on social media in the sometimes, sometimes people will, will sort of do that they'll they'll kind of pluck it heartstrings to get people to follow and like and things like that. And I I'm just much, I'm much more in the idea of put out positive stuff that you know, works. And when people find it and come to it as they will you, there's no reason to try to force somebody into it. You can't do that. And you shouldn't try to do that because they're not ready. I have a number of emails that start off with your podcast is unrealistic. And this doesn't work and blah, blah, blah, and you know, they're they're this close to being like go to hell. And then three months later, it's like, I kept listening and you know, sorry for the first email and just like, right, right on whatever. Yeah, but it's understandable because they just weren't in the right space when the information hit them the first time.

Leah 37:51
Yeah. Well, I was I've been in that space. And it's funny. When I first found your podcast, I went to my husband and I told him, oh, you should listen to this podcast with me. He's saying this and this. And he's like, honey, I've been telling you this for three months. Now. You didn't hear me? I'm like, I'm so sorry.

Scott Benner 38:08
Sorry. He was just probably used to not being listened to it Really? Yeah. Didn't know a way to fight through it.

Leah 38:14
It was just being ready to take the information in being ready. Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:19
I looked at my family the other day in my private life, and I said, forwards, forwards and they're looking right at me. And I'm like, No one listens to me. And then they just turned around and walked away. I was like, see, see, you're not listening. Now. I make sense. Sometimes. You know, that. I'm like, babbling. We're outside in the parking. I'm like, there are people online who listen to me. And my wife's like, they don't know you. And I'm like, Yeah, well, that's not the point. Anyway, your own home, no one listens to you. And Ben, but yeah, but you're 100%. Right. He's, it's such a great example to your he's standing there telling you something that just three months later, you're going to be like, hey, you're Rica. And while he's going, I've been saying this for 90 days in a row. And you just weren't ready to hear it. Like it's just that's very common, you know? Yeah. But the point is, the point has to be to everyone listening is that this diabetes thing. It's got its own life cycle. Right. And, and you right now, whether you're listening to the podcast, or following some Facebook group, or you're on Instagram, or wherever you're at trying to find your community. Right now that place feels like the whole world. It's got names and avatars that you recognize. And what you need to understand is that six months from now, on average, you won't be there anymore, and either will those people. It's a very few that stay behind and do this sort of thing. This podcast and some really great blogs and stuff like that. Most people go through this process, and then they leave and that is the best part. I've set it up. million times I'll say it again right here. When your name disappears out of my messages, when your face no longer strikes a chord with me when I see it in an avatar, that means you're off living your life somewhere. And then everything I tried to do, if you were if you were listening to me, and you got anything out of it, like that's a success, it's hard for you to imagine now because we do correspond that that wait one day, you just won't think to ever talk to me again. And and that'll be a great day for you. It really will be.

Leah 40:31
Yes, I am still in the process of figuring things out. I feel like of course,

Scott Benner 40:35
I'll take

Unknown Speaker 40:36
it takes forever. Like Like,

Scott Benner 40:38
like the big pieces for you fell into place, like you said pretty quickly over a number of months. But still, now that you're using kind of bigger ideas, the experience, the ability to have those experiences are going to be fewer and farther between. And so it's going to take you longer for this thing to come up this time. And that time and this time. I screwed up today, when I saw the bend in Arden's next con line. I should have Bolus then. And I didn't because I didn't her blood sugar's 140. It's going to go back down again on that Bolus that you heard me give her. But I could have stopped the 140 with less insulin a half an hour before. And I just think, Well, you know what was going on my dogs were not behaving and I was trying to start the podcast, there was a lot of stuff going on. But in that moment, right then in there had I put a half of unit in just a half a unit, then she would have leveled off I'm thinking more like 110. And instead now 140. And you think well, that's not bad. I don't think it's bad. I really want to be clear about that. I don't think my daughter's blood sugar being 140 90 minutes after I bowls for lunch while she was at school, by the way, with a banana grapes, a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a grab bag of Cheetos, a juice bag that does have some sugar in it. Something something else. Oh, let me see if I say this to you. If you know what I'm talking about. My daughter did this to me the other day. Arden told me one of those cookies. When I say one of those cookies does anything popped into your head,

Leah 42:07
I guess an Oreo.

Scott Benner 42:09
Okay, so, in apparently around here, when the kids say one of those cookies do each other, they mean those cookies that are about four inches around and have this big swath of icing on top of them. You usually buy them at a place like Costco, they vaguely taste like cookies. They're always served at birthday parties. You're all nodding along at home. Now, if you've ever seen them before, my daughter says when she says to somebody, hey, I'm gonna have one of those cookies. They actually know what everyone's talking about.

Unknown Speaker 42:34
Oh my goodness, they're not food.

Scott Benner 42:37
I think they have like 36 grams of carbs in them. Like for one. It's gotta be poisoned. I'm not 100% Sure. So think about it a banana of varying size. I don't remember how big it was a half of a sandwich with jelly and peanut butter and a piece of bread. One of those cookies, a grab bag of Cheetos, a handful of grapes. I don't know how many a juice box that I think has eight carbs in it. And something else. And I didn't count the carbs. I just gave her this insulin and had I had I reacted when I knew to react, everything would have went perfectly and still. A complete Nutter failure is 140 blood sugar that's stable. Honestly, this is the perfect time to talk about the Dexcom gs six continuous glucose monitor. You just heard that story about ardens meal, all this foods not even having to count carbs, just putting in the insulin following the trends taking care of business. That is all possible because of the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor the edge stop here. I'm just telling you just go get it dexcom.com forward slash juice box and the music go do it. But I know you might need some more convincing somebody to tell you a story. I met someone recently who has had diabetes for 21 years. And even though they had a dexcom they weren't thinking about the data correctly. So their blood sugar's were jumping all over the place. And they could see it it was driving them crazy 60 460 400 all day long. This person and I spoke for about a half an hour, I showed them how to interpret the data coming back from their glucose monitor. And the very next day, my hand to God the very next day, this person sent me back a 24 hour graph that was so flat and beautiful. Without spikes or lows. It just warmed my heart in a way that you can't imagine. Maybe you can't imagine. I was so thrilled for her. How did she make those decisions with the information coming back to her with her Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. And you can do that too, by going to dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Those links are also available at Juicebox podcast.com. And in the show notes of your podcast player. Get yourself a G six Get yourself a flat graph. These are my results, Yours may vary. Once you have your Dexcom, you'll have all this extra free time you won't be spending paying attention to your blood sugar. You know what you do with that time you go to dancing for diabetes, calm dancing, the number four diabetes.com. Then you check them out on Facebook, and on Instagram, and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. And we could all use some more warm and fuzzy.

Leah 45:24
That's not a bad failure. Right? But amazing. I know. I know. Yeah, I could hear all that and know how much insulin I would take for that meal. But I'm still figuring it out what it would take for Mason's meal for that and, and it is like a little science experiment where I see what I'm doing, and then trying it again next time differently. And, and some and it's great. When it works. And then I learned when it doesn't,

Scott Benner 45:52
yeah, you just did. That's it just again, they're not mistakes, they're experiences. And you just learn. I call them the mistake this time because I from past experiences, saw what was gonna happen and just, I didn't have the bandwidth to handle it at that moment. And so something gave and that's what gave, but still, that's a miss and a miss. I know I hear people sometimes, because I will share art and say one, two, I wouldn't say once here right now it's five, four.

Unknown Speaker 46:19
And I think fantastic. And

Scott Benner 46:20
I think people think that means her blood sugar's 85 constantly. They don't realize if Arden's blood sugar was 85 constantly, Herbert Bayh once he would be like four, six, or something like that, and so it's not, you know, just because she went up to 140 for it, what's gonna end up being an hour is not a big deal. If I ate something with a lot of carbs in it, my blood sugar would probably go up to 140 for an hour, you know, so it's not the end of the world, right? It doesn't stay there go higher and comes back. It's perfection is not the goal. I've never once had a goal of perfection. My my goal is easy life, not think about diabetes very often stay fluid, you know, address insulin, what needs to be addressed? And other than that? Yeah, I don't really think about it very often. I'm thinking about it now, because you and I are talking about it, right? Even if we weren't, I would just think, okay, I bolused. This extra unit, this is the amount of time plus we don't know, this is the last day ever pump. it expires in a couple of hours. She's got a little bit of a, excuse me, she has a little bit of a head cold. There's a lot going on, you know, and by the way, as you're trying to figure Mason out as they grow. I don't know if anyone you probably know this yet because you're a nurse, but they get bigger and they get taller all happens all the time. Yeah. And and every time it happens, they need more insulin.

Leah 47:40
Now he gained 15 pounds this year.

Scott Benner 47:43
Yeah. Right. But like doesn't go off on their head or something. So you know, like, like male in the background that goes Ding, ding ding and go, Oh, we have to move up our insulin by 30%. Like, it's just, you just have to. I always like when I find myself looking at her thinking she looks bigger. I don't then the next thing I think is Have I been seeing blood sugars that are acting the way I expect them to? Because if not, she's probably needs more insulin now. It's um, it's really quite a ride. At least you don't have periods. That'll be a good thing. You

Leah 48:13
know, I didn't even know that was the thing

Scott Benner 48:16
that didn't never impact your life.

Leah 48:19
No, not that I I just didn't even no one ever said that. And like, the information I was getting was little I got little information. And we didn't have social media. I wasn't reading on diabetes blogs or Instagram at that time. So I just didn't know these things. And there was a lot of things like I had never heard of, and that was one of them. I never noticed that. And I didn't know that was the thing.

Scott Benner 48:45
So here's why that's amazing. I'm glad that came up. Here you are, again, like an island unto yourself. You're not really touching anybody else that has diabetes. And you're living a life where you're fluid with your insulin, you're giving yourself insulin, when you need insulin, you're you're you have an excitation of a blood sugar, and you're trying to keep yourself within it, right? Yeah. And so that when your needs increase, you just increase your insulin, you don't stop but you don't stop and think oh, this is the thing. I heard that guy talk about one time that happens. Like you don't do that you just know. And that goes right to what I say on the podcast, right? Like when your blood sugar is high. stop wondering what's happening and give yourself more insulin. Because it doesn't sort of in the moment matter what's happening. What matters is your blood sugar is trying to go higher and why is your blood sugar high? Because you don't have enough insulin. The same reason was why is your blood sugar low you have too much insulin you've missed timed it. There's not enough combination of those two ideas that that's the same for high or low. And so you were just doing that and not thinking about the other. Yes, that's such a good lesson for everyone.

Unknown Speaker 49:53
Is everyone listening is

Scott Benner 49:56
that's that's amazing. That's what that's that's got to be your takeaway from This episode doesn't mean don't listen the last 15 minutes. But that has to be a takeaway from this episode, which is, which is that look what it was. It was working for Leah the whole time. And she didn't even really know she was doing it. It was just, it was just I guess you didn't want to go back to the hospital since you were 16. Right.

Leah 50:16
You know, I just Yeah, oh, that was a big thing. But I figured out how to do it. And I didn't. I didn't rely on my doctor to figure it out for me. I if I needed to stack I stack. If they told me not to. I just said okay, and walked out and did my thing. And it was working. So they didn't question me. I'd go in, they say, Oh, looks good. Keep doing what you're doing. And I did all my appointments. I did all my labs. I had my eyes checked my feet check, you know, when I was supposed to, and Yep, it worked. So that was that I am

Scott Benner 50:54
getting to the point now with Arden's endo appointments, where I hate to say this, and I don't vote. I don't vocalize it to her or anywhere else, but I'm starting to feel like they're a waste of our time. Mostly.

Leah 51:05
Do you go every three months?

Scott Benner 51:06
I do. And I'm starting

Leah 51:08
I was gonna ask my Yeah, I was gonna ask my son's endocrinologist if we could switch to every six months at some point, because I mean, we're getting we're doing our a one sees there, but I'm making the changes on his pump, you know, they look at it is isn't within range, his deviation is great. So if he keeps going, I don't see why we would. I mean, at some point, I'm, I made a question them about it.

Scott Benner 51:42
It can't be ever just four months and just go three times a year, like because, yeah, the last couple times, and I'm sitting there, and they're like, hey, she looks good. Orange, like thanks. And you know, like, she's bored last time, our friends whether it was like a roomful of girls, and if you saw that, and so they're dorable. She's just like, come on, come with me. And so they all were there. But five minutes into it once Hey, your agency's back. It's five, four, yea, even at that I'm like, Okay, well, I mean, I already have the clarity, I kind of knew what it was going to be to begin with. And, you know, and and, and I'm like, all right, and then she starts asking me questions about stuff. Have you heard about this pump thing? And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm paying you like, like, are you gonna give me $40? Then because I'd give you 40 to come in here and write. And then you know, there's a bill later. And I'm like, I mean, I'm spending, you know, even it's minimal. We have really good insurance, I'm not gonna lie to you. But I mean, I still spend five or $600 a year just to go to those appointments. And apparently, what comes from them is the doctor asks me questions about diabetes.

Leah 52:46
So yeah, I had a similar situation at work. Last week, I was meeting with the diabetes educators at the hospital to do an in service in my unit, and I asked them about the app because it wasn't in our medication administration charting. And, and they said, What is that? I was like, Well, you know, I'm learning all this stuff from a podcast and you know, and on Instagram, so

Unknown Speaker 53:15
you know, leave me alone and get on Instagram

Scott Benner 53:17
maybe

Leah 53:20
step it up a little bit, but it's moving fast. And I don't know it seems like it's moving very fast.

Scott Benner 53:27
This is gonna be I think, a break neck time because yeah, t slim just came out with their What do they call that basal iQ? Which is, I guess, yeah, basically low glucose suspend, right? And, and Dexcom stuff is hammering along. And they just got I just saw one of their financial reports, they finally making money, so I can't wait to see what they do in r&d now that they have more money to spend. And, you know, and and that's moving along. I may or may not know what the pot is doing. But they're hammering along very quickly with what they're trying to accomplish with their artificial pancreas and the horizon system that's coming out, you know, as soon as they can get it out.

Leah 54:07
It's so exciting. And I love how you say it's like the baby stages of it all. That's barely started.

Unknown Speaker 54:14
Yeah, it really has,

Scott Benner 54:15
you can't even count. You can't even count regular and mph and your meter that took a half a gallon of blood to give you a reasonably inaccurate accounting of your blood sugar. You know, like that time was that was before the sun came up. Like don't even worry about that,

Unknown Speaker 54:31
right? We're talking about, we're talking about in the

Scott Benner 54:34
last, I don't know seven ish years when Dexcom first started to release their products and and then that next one that came out that the accuracy picked up and then the accuracy leaked. It leaked again and that were right there like something's about to happen, you know, and I'm, I'm heartened for me. Like, I'm not one of those people. It's like they're gonna cure it. I don't think they're gonna cure not My kid's lifetime. The part I'm excited about is, is automation before she goes to college, like that really is my like horizon goal. Like, yeah, for me and I mean that figuratively like i that is my often horizon thought. And it is my hope for the horizon system when went on the pod releases that I want. Because I just watched my son go to college for the first time last month. Oh my god, you know, as a freshman, and he is incredibly fit incredibly athletic, bright. On the baseball team at his college doesn't drink. Like his like he's a he's a fairly together person. And some people might be laughing right now going, Oh, that's funny man thinks this kid's not drinking at college, my son. My son called me two weeks in the college to tell me that guys on this team pulled him aside privately and said how impressive they thought it was that he doesn't turn Oh, and like and so wonderfully, even in that Thank you. Even in that he got a head cold, a pretty bad head cold and his second week. And it almost killed him. Because he wouldn't give up on classes. He wasn't gonna give up on baseball, but he lost like eight pounds in a week. He was just around, you know, he was he come up on, you know, FaceTime. And I'd be I send my wife was like, he doesn't look good. And I was like, No, I've been talking to him, I shipped them medicine, like, and I sent him to the Wellness Center. And if he was managing diabetes by himself, really by himself for the first time in his life, and all happened at once. I can't even imagine, like, you know, when you say Something's got to give, you know, it's a diabetes that gives you no, you know, you say to yourself, Well, I'm gonna let my blood sugar be a little higher, because I'm overwhelmed now. And I just think if that automation exists, and it can it can buoy Arden in college, I just think well imagine what it's going to do for younger people and older people who are not in as stressful the situation every day, like, I think it's gonna be amazing.

Leah 57:03
I'm excited, I'm excited. And my kids, they're eight, nine. So they got a while to go before college, but it's exciting.

Scott Benner 57:12
But still, if you're using Omnipod and Dexcom. Now, and I don't know, I'm lines, I'm, I really don't. But say less than two years from now, you're on the pods talking to your Dexcom. And you're telling a little thing on your phone, Hey, I just had a big meal, or you know, or it figures out at three o'clock in the morning that you're going to be low 1020 3040 minutes from now. But just imagine what a what an incredible leap that is. And then and then that's not the exciting part. The exciting part is you went from Dexcom g seven, you know, seven plus the not GS seven plus almost seven, eight years ago to this less than a decade later. Like, imagine five years after that. Like we can't I can't even imagine what's going to come five years after that. That's going to be the that's going to be the spot where, you know, you're gonna get disco ball lights and all the extra like bells and whistles are gonna come. It's gonna be really something.

Leah 58:05
Yeah, I'm hoping I can get some sleep.

Scott Benner 58:09
It's a reasonable goal. Yeah. And I think you should Yeah. Yes. So

Leah 58:13
I just, I hope, I hope that the technology does it as well, as

Scott Benner 58:21
I would do it, I guess. That's the only thing it's my it's my selling point right there too. Is it as long as I think the Medtronic is in that boat right? Now what get has a target goal of like, 120? I don't, I don't want automation that targets at 120. And so I understand if it has to, you know if it will, because it's so new. I don't I don't not understand why Medtronic might have made that decision. But that's not as that's not as good as what we're experiencing. So I needed to do that from all accounts. And I genuinely don't know anything, but I know that on the pot is shooting for a user defined

Unknown Speaker 58:57
around Yeah, blood

Scott Benner 58:58
sugar. And I don't know if please, I don't know if that's gonna happen or not. I just know that's their goal. So hopefully that that ends up working out that way. Because that's, that's amazing. I want to dial I want to dial that goal to 90 and you know, and see. See how that works.

Unknown Speaker 59:15
That that can't wait.

Scott Benner 59:17
Yeah, even if it came close to that it would be amazing. Yeah. So tell me something we have like five minutes left. See if we can fix something for you. Right? Why are you not sleeping? Besides you have two people diabetes near one of them?

Leah 59:31
Yeah, it's just the alarms going off. Sometimes Sometimes, so I'll I'll keep his his dexcom set at 75 during school hours, and then I won't switch it back and then at nighttime, you know, if he's going under 75. It'll start beeping and then it's good because then I can like turn them off for half hour. But then I'm kind of awake just to make sure that it's going the way I want it to go. Last night, I was running high, my pod needed to get changed. And I was just too tired to do it. So I just kept like trying to bolus myself and then enter the I just yeah, I needed to change it. So I did that early this morning.

Scott Benner 1:00:22
I hear you. It's, it's, the answer is you've two people in your life have diabetes. And one of them yeah, and one of them's the person you love.

Leah 1:00:30
Yeah. And I and I always used to wake up at least once a night to chest test my blood sugar before my Dexcom. So it's, that's not new, but it's the once the dex calm came and just trying to keep things in really great control overnight. And sometimes, you know, he just starts going up. And so I'm staying up to Bolus him until I get him where I want him to be overnight.

Scott Benner 1:00:57
I have to say, ours are like in in like, spits and like fits and Spencer fits in what is that free testing? I don't know, this thing fits and spurts. Maybe I don't have the internet in front of me right now. But anyway, it's like so last night, blood sugar great all night. Yeah, been like that for three days. At some point last week, there were three days where I was like, ah, like, she wanted to be low all the time. And, you know, and there was there's been times this month where she wanted to be higher. And yeah, it's just it's, you know, I sleep through some of them. And, you know, like, the Obviously, these real steady nights are easy to sleep through the low nights I don't have, I'm not as good as just ignoring them and going back to sleep. The high nights, I'm okay with bolusing going back to sleep and waking up again. And so, you know, it's just, again, it's diabetes, like you can't expect it to always be it's not always an 85 blood sugar doesn't matter how good dairy once is. Absolutely. And some people might say, Well, I'm comfortable with a budget of higher than that overnight. And I even make that decision. At some point. I was sick a couple weeks ago. And our sugar was sitting at 140. And I thought to myself, I got it, I have to go to sleep like I can't. I can't do this right now. So I just let her blood sugar be 140. Overnight, I did my best for it not to be and I went to sleep no more you have to take care yourself to at some point.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:25
Leah? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:02:26
thank you. How did this go for you? Got

Leah 1:02:30
it. It was great. I was a little nervous. But it was exciting to and you know, it's nice to be able to talk about diabetes. And that, you know, I just I talked about it a lot now, and I never did before. So it's pretty great. It's made things better?

Scott Benner 1:02:46
Well, I think you guys are very lucky to have each other, obviously, I think he's he's helped you a lot in ways that you're still probably figuring out and you're obviously, you know, helping him in immense ways. And your husband's telling you all the stuff that He just won't listen to him.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:05
I tried to which by

Scott Benner 1:03:06
the way, I assume my wife would say you were right to do continue to ignore that man. have your best interests at heart Even though he probably does and it's just fun to think he doesn't for some reason. I don't know why you women hate us. That's a blanket statement. But if it had there's least once a day and I think to myself, if that woman wants to kill me, why doesn't she just smother me with a pillow?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:32
Yeah, like, Why

Scott Benner 1:03:32
is it taking so long? You know what I mean? Like, why is she just picking away at me super, super slow, like, why not just do it. I'm going to tell a funny story. And I'm gonna let you go. People I don't really know very well from the town I live in. It's to say that over the years, our kids have played similar sports and we've been next to each other in horrible situations and gymnasiums and baseball fields once or twice. And this person tells me what I still consider to be one of the funniest stories. I'm going to tell you over bazel snoring in the background right now. She said that one night she woke up and her husband was standing next to the bed holding a pillow. And now keep in mind he just needed an extra pillow. He went to a rocking chair in the corner to get an extra pillow but she opened her eyes. Her husband was standing there with a pillow and she said her first thought was and I can't curse in the podcast. Her first thought was f i was going to kill him. She said there was a split second where she thought he got to it first. He got to it first and she said that was exactly the tea. She thought you know the F word. I was gonna kill him. And then she was giving up in that moment. She thought Oh, well. beat me to it fair's fair and

Unknown Speaker 1:04:51
long time. You can tell

Scott Benner 1:04:55
I don't know what I would do if my first thought when I saw my wife moving through the room. Was Oh god, she's gonna kill me. But I know that's not a good sign. I don't think it's a great sign at all. But it's a funny, funny story. So just try to imagine it with the cursing. It's really hilarious. Anyway, that's the big secret. I tell anybody. If you ever speak to me in private, the first thing you're going to realize is that my ability not to curse on this podcast is a monumental, a monumental experience on my end, because I love to curse. And so yeah, I don't do it in this hour, a number of times a week, sometimes. It's hard to believe Actually, I was on a, I was at a call the other day with one of the companies who buys ads on the podcast, and my wife was working from home. And she goes, well done. You only curse twice and a half an hour on a business called like they know to expect it, it's fine. Anyway, please say hello to your son, for me and your whole family. And thank you well,

Leah 1:05:57
and thank you, Scott, thank you so much. I've just, I really appreciate everything you do. And you're doing amazing work. And it's definitely has affected us and helped us. So we appreciate it. And thank you, those sentiments

Scott Benner 1:06:11
mean a lot to me. So I very much appreciate your sharing. And thank

Unknown Speaker 1:06:15
you very much.

Scott Benner 1:06:19
Huge thanks to Leah for coming on the show sharing her life with type one as well as her sons. And if you're enjoying the program, I mean, if you like the podcast, please keep in mind, it's here, because of the sponsors. And then you check them out, you click on the links in the show notes and you look at them, you say, hey, maybe Scott's onto something here. And that helps everything you know what I mean by helps. I mean, the podcast is free because of the ads, you got to visit the sponsors. My omnipod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box, you go to real good foods. com use the offer code juice box and you save 20% on your order. And then once you've got your insulin pump, and your CGM and you're all happy, and you've seen the pictures of the little kids with diabetes dancing at dancing for diabetes.com, you make yourself some cauliflower crust pizza, and some chicken poppers. And you sit back and relax. And you say to yourself, this has been a good day. And just a quick note about the episodes that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the ones that are going to be with Jenny Smith, the certified diabetes educator who's been on the program a number of times before those episodes are going to come out in blocks. Sometimes there'll be two or three at a time. So when you see one check back to make sure you got them all. Now they're not going to be as long as the other episodes in the podcast, the interview style episodes, they're going to be more, some of them will be 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, whatever it takes for Jenny and I to go over specific management ideas in very complete ways. Jenny and I have been having a terrific time recording these episodes. I cannot wait to get them onto your podcast player and in deer ears. I think you're gonna love them.

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#208 Hannah Hates (Almost) Everything

A terrific conversation with a type 1 who gets it.….

Hannah is 25 years old and has had type 1 for over a decade. This is just a terrific conversation with a type 1 who gets it. And plot twist... her 51 year old mom was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. 

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.

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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 208 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can find out more at my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box or dancing the number four diabetes.com. There'll be more about the sponsors during the show. And you can always find links to all of the sponsors that anything spoken about today on the podcast in your show notes.

Today, I'm speaking with Hannah, she's 25 years old and has had Type One Diabetes for over a decade. And just recently her 51 year old mother was diagnosed. This is just a really good, comfortable conversation goes in a couple of different directions. It's funny, it's light hearted, had to share some things that she doesn't like. Actually, there's some things I think she hates, which is why this episode is called Hannah hates everything. 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 or being bold with it.

So Arden's in high school now, right? And they're on these block days, by the way, we're recording,

Unknown Speaker 1:32
okay, great.

Scott Benner 1:34
They're on these block days now. And the schedule changes like every day. And sometimes she has to block like classes that split in the middle and you leave for lunch, and she's still trying to figure the whole thing. Right. So a few minutes ago, I get hay lunches in like seven minutes. And I said, Okay, do 10 and a half minutes, extend that let's do 20% now do the rest over an hour. And I was like and look for another tax maybe during lunch because we might need a little more insulin.

Unknown Speaker 2:02
And that was all I heard. Okay, 510 minutes later, I

Scott Benner 2:05
get this text. Which by the way, I can't say the podcast saw that out. Dad, I'm wrong. Lunch isn't soon. I got my times mixed.

Unknown Speaker 2:14
Oh no and cheery bolus.

Scott Benner 2:16
Well, but we didn't extendable. So she put in 20% of 10 and a half units. So I'm gonna say two units who Yeah, and her blood sugar is 125. Right now, two units too much for 120. Hi. So I was like, cancel the extended bolus for like a half an hour. So it lets Temp Basal off for half an hour. I this might catch it. It probably isn't going to and she might need juice before lunch break. But I was just laughs because of the Oh, you know?

Hannah 2:46
Yeah, that is actually really funny. The panic sets in and you're like, I have no idea what to do

Scott Benner 2:51
well, and she's having such a tough time. Not a tough time. But it's such a it's such a different thing for her life has just changed, right High School, because the other day. She had a little low in the morning. And by a little law. I mean, she was like 74. And she was sort of like just sitting there. Right? And I thought this is fine. Like we'll live with us. And I lost track of when lunch was so she goes from 74 a diagonal up to 80 to 85 of like, Oh, so I started thinking Ma'am, I might have to bolus before lunch. Then all of a sudden it's 90 and 95. And I'm like, I'm texting. I'm like Arden, Arden Arden. She's not answering not answering. 15 minutes goes by she's 110. She's 115. And I say I finally like send like a like a loud tone. I'm like, Oh my God, is she in lunch? And I'm like, hey, and I get this text and she goes, Oh, I forgot the Bolus.

Unknown Speaker 3:46
Oh my goodness. And

Unknown Speaker 3:47
I'm like, What do you mean?

Scott Benner 3:48
I'm like, when's lunch? Lunch is over.

Hannah 3:52
So she completely ate everything and just never

Scott Benner 3:55
Yes, the very first time in her I swear to you in her life.

Unknown Speaker 4:00
We've all done it. Oh, absolutely.

Scott Benner 4:03
sat down and she notched away and it was our and so I did this um, I over bolused I added the Temp Basal but here was the the irritating, not the irritating part, but the part that made it worse. As this was all happening. I was sitting down in the dentist's chair for two and a half hours.

Unknown Speaker 4:22
Oh my god,

Scott Benner 4:23
I'm now like loading her up with insulin. She's walking back to class. And I was saying to my dentist Listen, I'm you're gonna see me raise my wrist up every once in a while. And I hope you don't mind I might have to text her. And it worked out great. Actually, during that. I mean, try to imagine she had a full meal and people who listened right art it was eaten sandwiches and chips and cookies and fruit and like all kinds of carbs. And so her blood sugar went from that 74 to 285. Wow. And I actually got it to come back and lay down at 130 and Less than two hours.

Unknown Speaker 5:01
That's impressive.

Scott Benner 5:02
Thank you very much. And here was the really great takeaway from it. Don't worry, this won't take away from your your interview.

Unknown Speaker 5:09
I don't care.

Scott Benner 5:12
What was really great about it was, I know sounds crazy, but I got to see how her blood sugar acted with the meal without the insulin, right. And so I really looked hard at that graph. And I was like, oh, it helped me understand how to extend boluses out better and where the insulin needed to go in to sort of match when the blood sugar tried is really great. Yeah, I was actually happy it happened.

Hannah 5:38
Interesting. Most of us don't say that after

Scott Benner 5:41
perspective, you really aren't, you know, if you've listened at all, like, and I know you do. You can't think of these things as mistakes. And you have to, you have to think of them as data. So I just thought, okay, I handled it now. What can I learn from this? Right? I think it's a reverse engineered. Look at what I tried to explain to people, which is you have to look at the data to decide what to do next. And you can't, so I had a mistake. Obviously, we it was a pretty, you know, it's a pretty egregious one in the world of diabetes, like not taking insulin for food. And it's still just offered so much back if you can kind of control your emotions and not, like devolve into, like a puddle on the floor going I'm, you know, you know,

Unknown Speaker 6:25
right. Now,

Scott Benner 6:26
we screwed up my summary freaked out. And that's the way six minutes in, go ahead and introduce yourself. Dancing for diabetes mission is to spread awareness through the art of dance to better educate the community, raise funds to find a cure, and inspire those with diabetes to live healthy and active lives. You can find them on Facebook, Instagram, at dancing for diabetes.com. That's dancing the number for diabetes.com

Hannah 6:56
I'm Hannah, I am 25 years old, and I've been a type one diabetic since I was 11. Okay, almost half my life now. Well, over half my life.

Scott Benner 7:08
I like how you were like 11 like, I think I was 11 I'm pretty sure

Hannah 7:11
I was like right before my 12th birthday. So I say I was 11 that's kind of cheating.

Scott Benner 7:18
So okay, hold on. I'll do the math for myself. 13 years. And, and you have more than that like going on. So like, we'll get to everything. But tell me a little bit first about, by the way, at this point. Now, when people come on if you don't have like multiple stories around diabetes,

Hannah 7:35
boring, super boring. I think I am boring. But I mean, new things happen all the time. And I've done a lot of different things. So my struggle with diabetes has been different. Just because I've gone from obviously, I was in sixth grade when I was diagnosed middle school, high school, I did four years of college. I came home for six months. Then I did 18 months of masters working on my master's degree. And now I'm entering my second year of working in the workforce.

Unknown Speaker 8:06
You like a real person, you did a whole bunch.

Unknown Speaker 8:09
Then all over the place. Okay.

Scott Benner 8:11
He said masters, and I was like, Oh, she's

Unknown Speaker 8:12
a pro golfer.

Hannah 8:14
Now I wish that would be cooler. I think

Scott Benner 8:18
I knew nothing about golf. I've never watched a golf. Would you clearly been a match in my life? And yet we had masters as I called the green jackets.

Hannah 8:27
That one no different I do work at a golf course. Now I was in the event side. Yeah. So I do like the events at a country club. But I am not a good golfer. Can you imagine?

Scott Benner 8:38
randomness of this podcast? I did not know that about you. And I still to this moment. Don't know why the word masters made me think of God. Oh, no, I

Hannah 8:46
it was meant to be apparently.

Scott Benner 8:49
Do you know what I just learned here? I'm so good at this. And even when I don't know what I still know what I'm doing. It's fine. Yeah, I agree. I wonder how many people won't hear the sarcasm in my statement. Later, I will get a review. It's like this guy is so full of himself. He thought,

Unknown Speaker 9:03
whatever.

Scott Benner 9:05
So okay, so let's we'll unpack a little bit. Right. So 1112 years old diagnosed? I find that to be an interesting time, because I'm assuming you're just about to get your period for the first time had if you hadn't already just gotten it in that

Hannah 9:20
tie. Yeah, I hadn't gotten it. I got it about a year later when I was in seventh grade. So it was hit. I got type one diabetes as puberty was sort of beginning. I don't know how that differs from people who aren't in puberty. But it was an interesting time. I feel like I look back and I feel lucky because I had my full parents support. It wasn't the worst time because I've now lived longer with it that I have without so I feel like I've been able to cope. And because I know no different right now. So I mean, I see the positive.

Scott Benner 9:57
Well, I was just wondering because I think Everyone had is that what happened? We all right. There was. Yeah, there was a loud noise on your.

Hannah 10:05
Oh, sorry. I don't know. I have new I just got the new iPhone so I'm, I don't actually know what I'm doing.

Scott Benner 10:12
Are you using Skype with your iPhone and like just a headphones? Yeah. Are they wired or air pods?

Unknown Speaker 10:19
They're wired sounds great.

Unknown Speaker 10:20
Oh good.

Scott Benner 10:21
This is for everybody who's listening. Sometimes though, the wired headphone though can like hit your clothing and make a noise like that's

Unknown Speaker 10:29
Oh, got it,

Scott Benner 10:30
probably what it was, anyway. I, first of all, I think it's incredibly interesting. Because you're probably honeymooning as you're diagnosed. And then puberty begins. And it changes things, but you didn't really know it change things because it's right when you started. So there was no difference for you where as people who have little kids who, you know, I always find it interesting when someone's like, like, oh, here's my kids. graphes eight. Look how easy this is. And I think it is but well done and all but like, it's going to get harder, you know more, there's going to be more like moving pieces at some point. It's just you didn't get to see it with the watch. Didn't get the training wheels version of diabetes, you got the like I met plus I wanted to prove that I could say period without being uncomfortable. Because I probably do. I got feedback from someone I and she was like I apparently I say lady time a lot. Because I find that amusing. But apparently everyone doesn't find that amusing. So I got this note the other day, I used the word period in a podcast. And I get this like, two sentence note from a person who's just like, hey, well done using the word period today in the podcast instead of Lady time. And I was like, I didn't know that bothered people. So I'm very sorry.

Unknown Speaker 11:45
I didn't know.

Scott Benner 11:50
Like, I was like,

Unknown Speaker 11:51
I can't I can't really trying.

Hannah 11:54
Well, we did it. You use that. And we moved on feeling pretty good about it.

Scott Benner 11:57
Yeah. But so Okay, so you start out 13 years ago? That's right on the edge. Did you have early CGM technology? or How did you start?

Hannah 12:06
Nope. I started with needles in the hospital. And I actually did that for about two years, just solely finger picking and needles.

Unknown Speaker 12:19
How did that go?

Hannah 12:21
Um, I don't have like, horrid memory memories of it. Like it was okay. I didn't know any better. I didn't know there were other things to offer. I didn't get a great education in the hospital. But like I said, what they taught me was all we know, we knew. So my dad had to overcome his fear of needles pretty quickly. So that was probably the biggest turtle and like the one that actually remember. But after that, my parents only did my shots for a couple months. And then I kind of just took over and they would help with like the math, but I just started kind of doing everything myself yourself the inside. Was that do you

Scott Benner 12:58
feel like that was your decision? Or was it them trying to be like, hey, you really need to do this? Do you remember? No,

Hannah 13:03
it was it was definitely not them pushing it off on me. It was definitely more of like, I can do this. I'm going to do this. At a very sheltered upbringing. I still am very sheltered on that on that end, but they definitely did not forced me to do that. It was definitely my decision. Tell me how

Scott Benner 13:21
you were sheltered. If you if you can, like, give me one great example. I'll give let me give you one i believe i believe my wife was sheltered growing up. When I when I met her and we were you know, older. I one day, this very nice day. I said to her, I'm like, let's go to the park. And she said, okay, and I picked her up at her house, and I drove to this park that was in the town we grew up in and she's like, I didn't know this was here. It was like a mile from What do you mean? She's like, our parents don't let us drive this direction. I'm like, What does that even mean? Like, like, we lived in a very small place. There was only a couple of directions. You could go, how were you sheltered.

Hannah 13:55
And I think this story is funny. So after I was diagnosed, I still played soccer. I did all of that. And at one practice, my blood sugar was just really high. So my parents were like, sit out. Let's try to like drink water and try to get it down. So sitting out, one of my soccer friends came over and said, Why are you sitting out? Are you okay? And I was like, Oh, I'm so high have to sit out and she started laughing and I was like, why is this so funny? And she was like, Oh, I thought you were talking about like, pot like you would smoke too much pot and I don't even know what pot is. Like, what are you talking about? I'm just Hi. And I kept saying it. My parents had to be like, no, like she's thinks that something else. It just, it never clicked for me because I had no idea what that was saying. Okay,

Scott Benner 14:35
well, I think that's a good kind of sheltered.

Hannah 14:38
Just one. Yeah, no, that's a good one. But just in general, I'm the oldest of three girls. So everything was new to my parents with me and now I see my 18 year old sister and I'm like, Oh, I never would have done that or no not or any of that so

Scott Benner 14:52
common for like a family that's spread out over a few kids like right yeah, the first one you're like, don't touch that. Don't do that like by the your second kid. You know, you're dropping the pacifier on the ground and there's like stuff stuck to it. You're like wiping it on your shirt and

Unknown Speaker 15:05
yeah, you know,

Unknown Speaker 15:07
like, completely clean.

Unknown Speaker 15:09
Yep, very true here.

Scott Benner 15:11
That's so cool. So okay, so you have two younger sisters, two younger sisters. Is there any other endocrine issues in your family?

Hannah 15:19
No, there's none on either side or within my immediate family. Well, well, there is now when I was diagnosed, there was nothing. Okay. It was very random.

Scott Benner 15:30
But someone since?

Hannah 15:32
Yeah. So, two, almost two years ago, my mom was diagnosed with Type One Diabetes at 51. See, see

Scott Benner 15:40
people you gotta come hard. You want to be on the podcast. And so you're out. So your Mom, did she get a straight diagnosis? Or was it a confusing time? I don't want to do too much of her story.

Hannah 15:53
No, yeah, I don't want to Well, I can tell her story because it's, as I understand it, but she got really sick and started losing like a ton of weight. Or everybody was like, Oh, my God, he looks so good. It looks so good. And like she had been exercising and stuff to give her credit. But she became like super lethargic with, which obviously wasn't like her. She was drinking a bunch of like, normal water liquid. And she's not like a water drinker. And my dad and I never saw the signs, which is so weird to say. But I think it was so long ago that I was diagnosed, we weren't really looking for him. And so she got like, really sick and my dad took her to the urgent care, and then they sent her straight to the ER. And it was kind of confusing, because we all kind of assumed it would be type two, um, just because she is a little older. She's a little bit overweight, and she's had like those signs, but it's full blown type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 16:41
And so we'll get back to mom in a little bit. So yeah, sure. Yeah. So so you're taking care of yourself back when you're 13. I'm like Pulp Fiction is today. Like what? john travolta is dead and he's alive. I'm going back and forth. But that's okay. I'm feeling it. My daughter Arden is about to turn 15 years old, and she's been using the AMI pod insulin management system since she was four years old. If you have diabetes, and your body requires insulin, you need to know about the Omni pod. It can make your diabetes a smaller and more manageable part of your life. People with type one or insulin dependent type two diabetes, along with caregivers of both children and adults are choosing pod therapy as a simple, smart and discreet way to control their insulin and manage their diabetes. With the Omni pod, you have a proven reliable insulin management system that can provide up to 72 hours of continuous insulin delivery. And it all starts with a tubeless wearable pod that is waterproof, and discreet. controlled by Omni pods personal diabetes manager, you can accomplish everyday tasks like carb counting bolusing bazel, increases and decreases and much more. The best part is you don't have to take my word for it. You can go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box or click on the links in your show notes. And when you do on the pod, we'll send you a free no obligation demonstration pod. You'll be able to try it on where it and see what you think. Then you'll be able to decide if that guy on the podcast told me the truth or not. I did By the way, but it's better if you get to see it for yourself. My omnipod.com forward slash juice box. Try it today, you will not be sorry. Arden has been using the Omni pod for 11 years is an incredible tool. And at the core of how we manage her health and happiness, plus the demos free and there's no obligation. So what do you have to lose? You're in middle school, getting ready to go into high school with diabetes. Did you have a comfortable time in school? Or was it an issue? or How did it go? Well, I

Hannah 18:52
was in public school through eighth grade. So they had like the public school nurse that would come around once in a while. And every day, I was supposed to go to the nurses lounge to test and then I was supposed to write my number in this book. And then I would do whatever I needed to there and I'd go back to lunch. But I learned really quickly nobody really cares or would check up on it. So I would go like every Friday and just write in random numbers for the week and, and kind of do everything myself at the lunch table. So very little supervision on that. And I didn't have a phone. So it's not like I would call my parents and say how much insulin should I take? Or, you know, I wasn't asking those questions. So it really was up to me to see what I was going to eat and then give myself some insulin shots.

Scott Benner 19:36
How are your outcomes?

Hannah 19:37
They weren't awful, but they weren't great either. Like my agency probably sat around the 7.58. Most of my like through probably through high school.

Scott Benner 19:50
That was normal for me. It's incredibly successful for a person a kid, by the way.

Unknown Speaker 19:55
Yeah, it

Scott Benner 19:55
was in a meter, don't you think?

Hannah 19:57
Yeah. It wasn't awful. I mean, I hear like you And other people on the podcast talk about, like 681 sees. And I'm like, That's crazy. I never would have been able to do that when I was that age, but it's, I look back and I'm also like, wow, I literally had a vial of insulin needle and a blood sugar. I can't really what's called a meter a meter. And there you go. I use it. So infrequently. Now, I don't even know what it is. But yeah, very, very different times.

Scott Benner 20:27
You're you were a low tech diabetes person for a long time. Just

Hannah 20:30
very, very low tech,

Scott Benner 20:32
just even just carrying your pen. You're just like,

Unknown Speaker 20:35
Nope, that's how

Scott Benner 20:36
Arden did it. We carried a vial of insulin with us a needle. Wow, that was that was what we did. And we had this little tiny meter. That looking back on it. Now look, I mean, it looks like it came out of like a diabetes bubble gum. Like I put two quarters, and I was like, click click, click Oh, look what we got a little meter. It was It couldn't have been

Unknown Speaker 20:56
really interesting.

Unknown Speaker 21:00
But, but

Scott Benner 21:01
that's really I think that's amazing. And I'll tell you why. Because you you sort of took it over early on, you're like, Look, I can do this. Let me do it. And your parents let it happen. You're on your health was reasonable to Gemini crazy lows.

Hannah 21:16
I mean, I would go low, but it would was normally like swim practice or soccer practice. That's what I remember most.

Unknown Speaker 21:22
Did you see that as

Scott Benner 21:24
just the cost of doing business? Like, like, I get low at swim. That's what happens.

Hannah 21:29
Yeah, hundred percent.

Scott Benner 21:31
Okay. You didn't consider like, wow, I bet you there's something we could be and I'm not judging you. I don't think you should have been able to, but you didn't know. Yeah, I get that, you know, nothing like that. And so that's the lack of? I mean, I would think that's the lack of data, right? Like, for sure. Yeah. Like, how do you make decisions like that if you can't see anything?

Hannah 21:49
I don't know, I look back and I'm like, I don't think myself or my parents 100% knew exactly what we were doing or how serious. Everything I was doing was because we were kind of just flying by the seat of our pants. But that was normal. So I didn't know it was. That makes sense.

Scott Benner 22:07
No, it absolutely does. I think it's um, even though it's not that long ago. It's very common. It's incredibly common. Even in the, in the more rapid acting insulin age. It just, it's you're blind, right? You just count these carbs. And I'll put this insulin in and we'll see what happens. And, you know, oh, that's Hannah. She gets her blood sugar gets over swimming. She'll, she'll eat something and be back in 15 minutes.

Hannah 22:31
Like, that's exactly what it was. Yeah, the coach knew, I knew I kind of liked it. Because that I got to get out of practice and like, chill and sit and have a snack. And like, I enjoyed that. So I don't think I would have even wanted to fix it. I mean, I'm sure my parents would have but like, to me, that's just what happened every day. And I would go do that.

Scott Benner 22:49
Diabetes was like a break from swimming. You're like, I just can't exactly. You know,

Hannah 22:54
I hated it. I hated it. I hated competitive swimming. So to me, it was like a reward.

Scott Benner 22:59
So tell me about that a little bit. You did this, but you didn't like it. Why was it something you had always done? Were your parents like you're good at it. Keep going. Like what was the

Hannah 23:06
No, I wasn't particularly good at it. My mom. My mom and her sisters grew up, competitively swimming. So she put us all in it. So we did it. And I did it through like my sophomore year of high school, but I was also competitively playing soccer, which was which were much more serious. So I would never go to some practice. Did you know like, I have regrets. I wish I didn't play soccer that competitively. But it was fine. And I did it. I have a lot of weird feelings about the whole, like, how competitive youth sports are. If you want my thoughts on that.

Unknown Speaker 23:44
I do. And let me

Scott Benner 23:46
tell you why. Right. So my son started playing baseball when he was three. Okay, and now today he's a freshman in college and he plays baseball at his college. It's great and Arden started and he he it's such a part of who he is. It's It's It's part of the fabric of who he is. Right. And Arden started playing softball when she was I don't know five and was and is markedly good at it. Like I think I think it wouldn't be a problem for Arden to play softball in college at some point in her in her future. her but she's at this point now where she's 14 and she starts saying I don't think I want to do this anymore. And I was like, Okay, well no, we're not gonna you know make you do something like it's it's not a big deal. What we have said is you need to be active in something great like your life can't be your life can't be school and Netflix like we're not going to be okay with it unless you're gonna run in place while you're watching the Netflix that'll

Unknown Speaker 24:51
okay. And so, you're

Scott Benner 24:54
standing just a treadmill with a

Unknown Speaker 24:56
laptop and

Scott Benner 24:58
that would make my life so much easier, but But she but so, you know, I just sit around, like whenever you can think of something else that you'd like to replace softball with, so that you're moving, and you're active and you're social, and you, you know, like, just tell me what that thing is, and I'd be happy for you to do and it doesn't matter to me, I'll, I'll take you to the gym if you want to go to the gym, you know, like, like, it doesn't matter, right? And then she's like, I'll just play softball, but you know, like, and that happens like year upon year. And then, you know, when she was 12, Kerner Teamer I think two wins away from going to the Little League World Series, like they were, Wow, good, you know, and then you keep playing and, and then you move on to different teams, and you're, and you're doing all this stuff. And recently, again, she was like,

Unknown Speaker 25:43
I don't, she's like, I

Scott Benner 25:44
don't want to play softball. And I was like, well, don't I said, well, then don't play softball. Just tell me something else you're gonna do, I'm like, you have type one diabetes, like you have to understand that activity needs to be a part of your daily routine, or your weekly schedule. Like it can't just can't be an afterthought. And besides that, Hannah, and you might as a young girl know this better than anybody. There's a lot of there's a lot more sexuality around young girls than I expected growing up, and then I didn't see because I had a son the first time and I don't mean my daughter, but I mean, the people tangentially related to her, and some of the people she knows are way more active. And it's, it's, it's concerning as a parent, like so part of me wants her busy doing things, right. And I'm much happier to think that she's busy doing them with a bunch of other girls. And, and instead of like, the opposite of like, you know, some aggro boy who's 14 is like, Hey, come here. Do you want to kiss me? I would rather and by the way, if one of the girls tries to kiss her again, that seems better to me. But but but, but the point is, is that I just wanted to stay active. Right. Right. And, and then I watch her play, and unlike you and swimming, and I'm sorry, Arden's really good at softball, right. And so I have this weird parenting feeling where I think, at what point is it incumbent upon me to just tell her Okay, quit and find something else? If, if this is how, if this is how you think of it, and at what point is it not responsible of me to let her walk away from something that she is so good at, that could really propel her in different directions, before she knows exactly how she feels about it, because and hold on one second, because now I have to do the launch balls. Now. She says,

Unknown Speaker 27:38
okay,

Scott Benner 27:40
so she must have got two units, so Bolus 8.5 extend the two units has gotta be in already, because she's went from 121 to 114. So let's do zero percent now. And the rest over an hour. That way, this whole eight and a half will go in over the next 30 minutes. The twos got the twos got to be in there being a Pre-Bolus already. Hope Basal back on this is gonna be a mess. And if I can get this pretty impressed with myself, um, so, so so that, so that's the other side of it, right? Like is, you know, like, if you were incredibly good at math, and you told your mom and like your junior year of high school, like, I don't like math, I might be like, Well, too bad, Hannah, keep taking math, because it's a really great skill and you excel at it. And you might then later come back to me in your mid 20s. And go Thank God, you kept me in math, because, you know, as I mature, etc. So like, I'm stuck in that space. And I start talking to other parents with girls at this age. And I tell them this kind of story in a way that makes me think like, I'm gonna be the only one saying it and I have not yet met one person who hasn't told me Oh, my daughter complains about softball constantly.

Unknown Speaker 29:05
Yeah, and I'm like, wait.

Scott Benner 29:07
So they're all complaining about Wait a minute, the

Hannah 29:11
teenage thing? Well, that's what a preteen right? Like,

Scott Benner 29:13
is this just a where she is in her life situation? And so do I have to like so I'm just sticking with the look, you keep doing this until you can find something else to replace it with?

Hannah 29:24
I think that's great. Yeah, I do. Because if she really doesn't like it, she's gonna find something else. But it doesn't seem like there's a big rush. So she obviously enjoys it to some extent.

Scott Benner 29:35
I see that I'm like, you're smiling and laughing and doing Yeah, she goes, No, I'm not.

Unknown Speaker 29:38
I'm like, Why are you being difficult?

Hannah 29:41
I don't I think that's just a girl. preteen teen thing.

Unknown Speaker 29:46
I hope so the

Scott Benner 29:46
other night? Yeah, she's talking to me yesterday about something and being really harsh to me. And I said, Listen, I'm already married to your mom. I don't need you doing this to you know like I have enough people policing my thoughts. And actions like maybe you leave me alone.

Hannah 30:03
You better get used to it because it's just starting.

Scott Benner 30:05
I told her like get over find a boy and ruin his life but leave.

Hannah 30:10
Find someone else. My dad did it three times. I don't know how he did it.

Scott Benner 30:15
He's probably probably either just checked out or a very strong guy one or the other. Do you ever staring through you all like, I don't really hear you?

Hannah 30:24
He doesn't hear us actually. He's really good at tuning my mom out. And it's a big where I was like, you don't listen. You don't listen. He's like, I'm sorry. But it's his coping mechanism. For sure know it for sure. Isn't I I realized that now but when I was growing up, like you're not listening to me, but it was

Scott Benner 30:41
you were going I'm keeping my family together and the way I'm doing it.

Hannah 30:47
Now he's very patient. That's that's what got him so far.

Scott Benner 30:51
So okay, so you so you have real she told me a little more like you played soccer, but you didn't enjoy it.

Hannah 30:58
But I never I knew I didn't wasn't enjoying it. But it was never a question. Nobody was like, Hey, you still like it. You want to do it this season. It was like, I played competitively. The team was good. And I just stayed with the same team from think I was like nine until I was 17. So it was never like a question of Oh, you're going to leave the team? It was always like, we do the same thing year after year.

Scott Benner 31:20
Did you feel like if you left those other girls would not treat you? Well?

Hannah 31:26
No, I wasn't even really so worried about that. I never even never even left my mind that I would not play, if that makes sense. Like, yeah, I don't know. It's a weird thing that it looks back on.

Unknown Speaker 31:37
So when you look back, though you like if the you you are today was back then you'd be telling that girl? Hey, you got to get out of this. Oh, yeah, I wouldn't have survived that long. I'm a very different person. And a lot more vocal, just,

Hannah 31:51
I mean, obviously, different than I was at 15. But whenever it comes up, or my parents and I are in the car, and we drive by like a little soccer game, I was like, Oh my god, those days, and they kind of do the same thing. They're like, Oh, man, what a time like, they see it because my dad was so wrapped up in it. He was part of the club, like it was just who we were, it was so part of my identity, it never would have left.

Scott Benner 32:13
I don't have that going on. I'm the guy who's slightly off to the side complaint. Like, just like, this is how it starts. We pull up in a field. The first thing I say is, Oh, where are we now? What hellhole are we found ourselves in this time? Last time, by the way, two weeks ago, it was a field next to where they parked the trash trucks for this town that we were all great was like you kidding me? And like, you know, and then they're playing. And I say I always have the opposite of I feel like this is meaningless. Like, who cares if they win, or if they lose, like I care about? Like, for me, sports is repetition. When you're learning it, like you just need to write, it doesn't matter if you win or you lose, or what happens. I don't care about any of that. I just think you need to play. And, and at the same time, I don't want to drive more than 20 minutes to do it. Once I'm outside of a 20 minute window. I'm like, what are we doing? Where are we go? If I have to get up early on a Saturday, I'm just like, what did what is wrong with the people who scheduled this? Like, do they have no life? Do they not like sleeping? I would like to sleep.

Unknown Speaker 33:14
You know, very,

Unknown Speaker 33:16
all of the above. I

Scott Benner 33:16
complain so much. I'm so good at the complaining part of it.

Hannah 33:20
And it's so funny how, like, parents do go along with it. Like you'll complain, but we'll still wake up at 5am and be in Temecula for a tournament like it. It was just something we did.

Scott Benner 33:32
Oh, yeah, we're all insane.

Unknown Speaker 33:33
Everyone's Yeah. Personally, it's completely

Scott Benner 33:35
ridiculous and silly. And so what I ended up telling artists like I said, Look, you have to see how this works. So for my son, it elevated his the college he went into like my, my son's have a very good student. But he's not an amazing student. And he doesn't love school. He's not like that kid who's like, look at my perfect grades. I'm so happy. Like, he gets very good grades, but he wants to be playing baseball. Right? And so baseball got him into i have to say i think he could have been accepted to most of the schools that were recruiting him but he was being recruited by schools, he didn't have a chance of getting into academically, okay. Baseball propelled him into that, like it made up that last little bit of distance for him. He was close, but not right there.

Unknown Speaker 34:19
Right, which is the goal, I think of every parent putting

Scott Benner 34:23
their kid through that makes sense for Alabama, and I would easily marry you if my wife like you were a very sensible person. But most people are like, there's glory. And this is gonna happen in money. And I'm like, that's not what's gonna happen. Like, no, yeah, you called yourself the other little bit. But so I say to Arden the same thing. I'm like, look, I think you're in a similar space where this could help you get over a hump when you're going into college. I sent her like, once you get in I don't care if you quit the softball team 20 minutes like no one should hear because then she will never get recruited if she tries right but, but like, you know, if you don't like it, you don't like it. You don't have to do it for four years.

Hannah 35:00
I also think, yeah, I think it's a good thing, even if she gets there. And she does want to do it for four years, like, the structure gives the help with academics like the team bonding, I went to college with no team, and it sucked. I hated college. So I mean, I think there's a lot of positives and having that going into college. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:19
I have to say that. I've seen that with my son already. In the first like, five. He just showed up where people were already on his side. Yeah. And there was somebody there, there was a lot of value to it. And I believe there still is but okay. All right. So let's figure this out. So you go to college you didn't like she didn't like suck, Hannah. The episode title is very close to hand. It doesn't like anything.

Hannah 35:42
But I know for sure. I kind of am like that. And I'm not a negative person. But I don't like a lot of things. I don't know. You're all

Scott Benner 35:51
I'll admit to something. I don't like food that much.

Hannah 35:54
Oh, no, I'm not on the same page.

Scott Benner 35:57
So I don't die. But at the beginning of the Jetsons where they cut, they cut that pill in half. I'm like, oh, why can't someone invent that would be amazing. If I forced myself to eat breakfast this morning. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna do it because I know I have to. And then I just took

Unknown Speaker 36:13
oh my gosh, I wish I was that way scrambled eggs and I put them in a wrap and I

Scott Benner 36:18
ate them like they were like a beef jerky Snickers it's like this in so I don't. Anyway, so Okay, so you didn't like swimming and you weren't good at it? You didn't like soccer. But you were good at it. I'm assuming you didn't like diabetes, but you were pretty good at that. You went to college you didn't like college? Why didn't you like college?

Hannah 36:39
I'm just like I said I was very sheltered and I went to college six hours away from my house. I'd never been away from any family any parents. I had no support system built in. In college. I kind of got dropped off. We all cried. My parents left it's very traumatic in my head and I would call home like every night crying. Like Come on. Let me come home and my again my dad very patient and be like I can't do anything for you. This is good for you. It'll get better and it never really got better. It was hard every single year going back. But I

Unknown Speaker 37:16
in the back of your dorm room door like the top

Hannah 37:18
of lay nice scared my freshman year roommate. I think she thought I had like a mental imbalance. It was like Do you need help? Do you want help? Like what? It was just yeah, it was traumatic. You want

Unknown Speaker 37:28
a new roommate?

Unknown Speaker 37:29
Could you please?

Hannah 37:31
Probably no, we're still friends. I think she got over that. But yeah, I don't know. It's a it's a very weird time in someone's life.

Scott Benner 37:40
I thought when when Cole laughs I said to somebody, I was talking to my brother last night. And I said to my brother, I'm like, it dawned on me pretty quickly. That everything in his life, absolutely everything in his life changed in us in a split second, there was nothing the same. When we got there that you know, from the day before, he basically started being a person over again. It was

Hannah 38:02
Yeah, crazy. It is your you have to rebuild yourself. I came, there was one girl from my high school which I went to a tiny Catholic all girls school. So I was also coming from that environment thrown into sort of the college environment where there's like a boy living next door to me. And I have a communal bathroom. And my dinner is in the middle of campus and I have to walk there to get it. Like it was just everything was different.

Scott Benner 38:25
No, I see that. I also see on top of that, like my son is working so hard. They have a scrimmage coming up this weekend. And his whole life is being a star during that scrimmage. He's like if during that scrimmage, then that's how they think of me for the spring and like you could see all this like and and it's and he's a really compassionate kid who sees like, I feel bad for the kids who I don't think have any shot. Like I was like, Oh my god, there's so much going on. You know, like I really just have a podcast and I do the dishes and then I go grocery shopping. Life is actually much easier. But okay, so you're off to college, what were you studying?

Hannah 39:02
I went in a some sort of science major. I don't even know what I thought I wanted. I thought I want to be a doctor like everybody does. And I quickly failed out of chemistry. I do want to draw so that kind of if I couldn't get through that. I couldn't get through a science major. So I was undecided for like a year and a half and then I ended up being a kinesiology major. Is it fair to SPORT SCIENCE?

Scott Benner 39:26
Is it fair to say you didn't like chemistry? Yeah, that's just like That's it? I wish Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 39:31
added to the list. I actually should make a list.

Scott Benner 39:34
But But okay, so how was well at that point? Hmm, five years into your diabetes, were you still you weren't still with your needles in your vitals or were you

Hannah 39:44
know, so when I was in eighth grade, I got the Medtronic pump, which was very quickly life changing. And I learned that I was on the tronic for eight years and then I recently just switched over to teach the TCM with tandem. So bid on a pump,

Scott Benner 40:01
the little flat one the T slim.

Hannah 40:03
Yeah, it has like a screen, a fancy screen and all of that.

Scott Benner 40:07
And so you had a pump you're using were you using the Medtronic CGM?

Hannah 40:13
No, no, I wasn't my dad tried to get me on the Dexcom. Right when it first came out, like the needle was so long it would have freaked anybody out. And when it went in, it was most painful thing ever. And I said, I'm never doing that again. So he really tried. But I said, I'm never doing that again. That is the worst thing. So I think that's why it also took me so long to get on the next Dexcom because I just started using it like two years ago.

Scott Benner 40:39
Okay, so we started the G five. I started the G five. Okay, you still with the 590 of the sex. So my daughter's in high school now. And with high school comes different privileges. Like being able to wander out of a class in the morning, go to the cafeteria and buy yourself some breakfast. And so what young girl wouldn't want to go down and get a big old chocolate chip muffin in the morning. So she sent me a text and said, Dad, I want to go get something to eat. I was like right on go. We made a little bolus based on what her dexcom CGM said her blood sugar was just to get a Pre-Bolus going. And then she got to the cafeteria. She says, I'm gonna get this chocolate chip muffin. How big is it? I asked her? I don't know. It's pretty big. How big? I don't know big. How many carbs does it have? I don't know. It doesn't have a package. So based on historical knowledge that I have my daughter, we bolus amount of insulin that we thought was going to be right for this muffin. But we weren't correct not completely. And soon she needed more insulin. But how did I know that? Because the data coming back from her dexcom CGM showed me a rise in her blood sugar, we were able to cut that rise off and put it to an end, bringing her blood sugar back down to where we wanted it. We did that remotely while she was at school, and I was at home. Because the Dexcom has a share and follow feature that's available for Android and iPhone. It's amazing, right? My daughter got to try a completely new food on her own, she did not have to limit herself. And it didn't drive her blood sugar through the roof. Because we were able to see what direction her blood sugar was moving, and how fast it was going. With the Dexcom g six, I want you to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box or click on the links in your show notes to get started today with the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. Your results may vary, but in my opinion, there's nothing better

Unknown Speaker 42:40
than a six. Okay, so

Scott Benner 42:42
you have a good perspective. So from that first Dexcom that you harpooned yourself with those years ago, and you were like, I hate this. And

Unknown Speaker 42:52
so bad, right?

Scott Benner 42:54
And to Now, can you describe to people the difference between the JSX and what you started with, like all those years ago?

Hannah 43:01
I really can't because it was such an awful experience. I only did it once. And I said I'll never do that again. Which I didn't I never let him try to put it off me again. But then I think I started listening to your podcast and like online stuff about how far Dexcom had actually come. So when I got the G five, and I still had my dad helped me put it on. It was like, Oh, that was it. Oh, okay, cool. And then, as you know, you see all these numbers. And it's like, a, it's life changing.

Scott Benner 43:31
And then the six is for you. Do you find it? It's crazy.

Hannah 43:36
Yeah, I can do it myself. So my, I still live at home. So my dad was putting the G five on me every single time I had to do it because I it freaked me out that clicking noise. I couldn't get over it. I can do everything else. But I couldn't get over the sensor, but I really wanted it. So he would do that for me. And now I do it myself which 25 and that's all really proud of it.

Scott Benner 43:56
Well, you should first of all you should and I think that that's amazing that he helped you. And then I think it also proves something that I say here a lot which is something just can't be rushed. Right like, right like I every once in a while. I can feel the internet stares at me, right? Of the marble. You're involved in your daughter's maintenance, like you know, like you hear her moment to moment decisions. What How is she ever going to learn it? And I'm like, what she's gone the same way she learns everything else, like over time. Like, I always think of the kids have this great way at the beginning of the school year, they come home in the first couple of weeks. They're like this math class sucks. I'm not learning anything that teachers bad. And I'm like, Okay, and then at the end of the year, they understand everything that they need to understand for that year. And I always, always ask them, I always stop and point out so remember the beginning of the year you couldn't do this. Yes. I said you can do it now. Right? Do you remember the moment when you learn to do it? And they don't know. I said it took the whole year. It took little moments and little experiences and you know failures. And successes to build up this this new idea in their head. I think diabetes is the same way. I think that I trust that one day Arden's going to just sort of like you did with the needles go, Hey, you know what, I really do know how to do this. Like, it's okay. Like, go ahead, you know, she'll release me, you know, it'll be it'll just be like, go ahead and run around the field till you die, which will probably be like a week and a half, like, there's no way I'll make it much longer, you know, but it's, I think that's the idea that one day, she'll be like, Hey, I really do get this the way you get it now. And let's be done. And, and I and I don't know why there has to be a rush to that. Like, why does it? Why do people say, well, they're 15 they have to know, they're 16 they have to know, like, what's the big deal that you were 23? And you're like, Alright, that I'm gonna pull my pants down now and counting on me because I can't do it yet. And, and look at you like it was the, probably some time and some comfort. But then the technology moved on to a place where you thought okay, well, I can do this myself.

Unknown Speaker 46:00
Yeah, you know, totally can. And I

Scott Benner 46:03
don't see that that's a problem. Like you joked about it, like, Oh, I'm 25. And I'm, I think that's great. I think it's fine. I think if your dad was willing to do it, then he's a great person. And you are too for understanding you needed some help?

Hannah 46:15
Well, yeah, I mean, it worked for me, like at where I am in my life. Like I said, Dexcom is moving on and all of that, and I can move with it. And I actually feel really lucky that he wanted to do that and was like, okay with doing it, because like I said, he has this awful fear of needles. And he never wants to like, oh, man, I don't think I can do it. Like every time he came over work. I'm like, please help me. And he was always there to do it. And I think he's happy to because I don't include him in a lot of diabetes management anymore. So it's like, a little thing we had.

Scott Benner 46:46
Your dad is willing to do anything for you except listen to you and pay you off from college when you're crying on the phone. Yeah, other than that, he's right there.

Hannah 46:53
You'll answer the phone, which he continued to answer the phone. He just wouldn't come get me.

Scott Benner 47:01
Do you think they hung up the phone afterwards? They're like, Oh, this girl. Oh my god. I hope the other two aren't like this.

Hannah 47:07
Well, yes, I'm sure they said that to themselves. But no, my mom was a mess, too. So he was the only like, sane one that could kind of talk us down.

Scott Benner 47:16
I'll tell you right now. It's impressive. Because the other side of it is I we were driving coal to college like I was okay. Like it was a stoic kind of drive like people were. You got there, and you you know, you're making his bed and getting his stuff together and doing all the things he needs to do. And the schools kicking you out a couple of hours, not letting it roll. And we're leaving, and I'm thinking, you know, like, don't be upset, like don't, he doesn't need to feel upset as we're leaving, you know, like, that kind of thing. But still, when I hugged him, I was like, I started off with like, okay, like, we'll be back in a couple weeks for family weekend. And I ended with like, I love you. And we're driving home and I'm doing okay, for like the first 45 minutes. And I'm driving along and then suddenly, an amount of tears that is hard to put into words started. I wasn't crying, but my they were flowing out of my eyes down my cheeks. My, my shirt was wet, like I just want and I wasn't crying. It was just I couldn't stop it. I thought, okay, like, I'm going to stop this, like, I'm going to take a deep breath, and I'm going to stop it. And I went to take a deep breath, and I couldn't even draw an air. And when I try, I started crying. And then I cried for like 20 minutes while I was driving the car, not like not like, Oh, woe is me forehead hand, like, you know, like down south Southern belle crying, but I was just like, like, the whole way. And all I could think was why did I leave in there? Again felt like such a like, I'm like, I knew it was a great situation for him. I know, it was what he was supposed to be doing. But I couldn't get over the feeling that I shouldn't have done it. And then I had two incredibly weird thoughts. The One was that I hadn't done enough for him. Like that I had missed opportunities to make him more prepared for the world couldn't shake that feeling.

Unknown Speaker 49:03
Okay. And then

Scott Benner 49:05
my father who left us when I was 13, I was 13 My brother was eight. My other brother was three, my dad just bailed on us, as well. And all I could think was I don't know how he did that. Like forget the bigger like existential question. I'm like, how did he bring himself to leave? And I thought he must have really not liked us. Because

Unknown Speaker 49:25
that's really bad. I shouldn't have left.

Scott Benner 49:28
Because like, because I couldn't I couldn't fathom how he could have done that. Like no, like, I could barely leave my son in the what is probably the best situation in the world for him where he's completely safe, completely comforted doing things that he loves. And, and yet I felt like I was abandoning him. And I just felt like my dad must have had I'm adopted by the way. I'm proud to say, I'm not I'm not attached to this feeling like through blood, but I thought He must have or lack my father must have had or lacked something in his brain that let him feel that that stopped him because I don't know how he could have done that. It was it was astonishing. But I, my wife's like, do you want me to drive home? Fine. We get home and everybody's all weepy and weird and sort of feels like he died for some reason. Like, it's, you know, it's very strange. And then my wife finally goes, Kelly goes to bed and goes to bed. And I just go in my son's room and sit on the floor and cry for like, an hour. And I've been a stay at home dad for like, 18 years. To be fair, I'm pretty much a lady and a mom. So I'm just like, all broken up and everything. And, and now it's better. It's like five or six weeks later, and I don't cry anymore, and it's fine.

Hannah 50:49
Yeah, no time gives it perspective.

Scott Benner 50:51
But your debt, what I'm saying is your father must have had, that's a ton of resolve. Because if my son started calling me and begging me to come home, I'd be like, see,

Hannah 50:59
I know we made a mistake. Really, he really thought it was like the right thing for me. Like he thought I had made the right decision. He believed it was he thought it wasn't a bad place. Like nothing bad was happening to me. I just felt like I didn't fit in. It was just a lot of things. So I didn't eat. I couldn't eat for like three weeks. It was just yeah, it was traumatic

Scott Benner 51:22
was was any of the I don't fit in feelings stemming from diabetes? Or was it just No,

Hannah 51:27
none more? I've never really had that. Like, problem with diabetes, where I feel like I'm different or outside like, it just kind of is who I am and what college it wasn't a big deal until I wasn't eating and then I was low all the time. And I don't think that helps with like hormones and being in a new place. I think it was just like everything factoring in

Scott Benner 51:47
and did it at any point get I don't want to say better. But did you get accustomed to it? Was it?

Hannah 51:52
Yeah, I definitely adjusted it didn't mean I like wanted to be there what it's made the choice to be there if I if I didn't feel like the pressure to be there. Okay,

Scott Benner 52:02
my own self and kinesiology. So you build connects? Is that what you do?

Unknown Speaker 52:08
kind of similar? That's Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 52:10
Can you explain what that is? It's, it's essentially,

Hannah 52:13
sports science. I did more of like the business side. So it was a business major with an emphasis on sports. So I did the same thing for my masters. And I loved my major, I felt lucky. I like fell into it. And that's kind of when I started finding people with similar interest who likes sport, and it could kind of branch out from there. So it did get better, like a soft fork mid sophomore year. But yeah, it's just interesting.

Scott Benner 52:40
You work in a golf course, I'm assuming telling men why their elbows hurt and things like

Unknown Speaker 52:44
that, or no, I

Hannah 52:45
have nothing to do with golf. I just work on the event side. So we have a pretty nice facility. So I work on like, selling that side of it. And events happening.

Unknown Speaker 52:55
Excellent.

Scott Benner 52:55
That's it's such an interesting path. Right? Like very, like it's it's a it's such a great it's a great example for people like you were like, maybe I'll be a doctor. Yeah, not that well. And you and I would imagine that you felt supported to kind of go on that journey. And

Hannah 53:14
yeah, definitely.

Scott Benner 53:16
I think it's incredibly important, like we let our son is my son is incredibly strong at math. But I just said I'm like you don't have to pick going in just going undecided. Take some basic math classes, take some other stuff and figure out what it is you want to you know where you want to land. I'm like, Listen, don't buy your sophomore year if you don't know him.

Hannah 53:37
I hate that though. Like, why should he at 18 have to figure out where he's gonna land? Like, that's awful.

Scott Benner 53:44
And I'll tell you right now that the recruiting process for sports makes it worse because yeah, 18 it's unreasonable to ask somebody what they want to do for the rest of life. By the way, I think it's unreasonable to ask me what I want to do for the rest of my life. But that's a decision. But when you're recruiting, you start recruiting when you're 16. And coaches will look to you and they go What do you think you want to do at school? And he's like, what? Like, like it was there an answer passed hit a baseball for you because I thought about that and, and we always tried to be very, like, I would always say that to him was like, Look, you don't need to know if these guys ask you just tell them what you're strong at. Like, just don't you don't know. And sometimes those coaches just some of them aren't the most communicative people like they're good at this stuff. They're good. When they spread out to like, Hey, tell me about academics. It's sort of the conversation goes away a little bit. But he was lucky to find a place where, where that's not the case, he found a really good spot to land. So we're proud to talk to coaches, and they're real people and they have like all their thoughts. And there were some places where I was just like, I can't leave my son with you. Like, that's how I felt while I was talking. I was like, do you want him or how much money you're gonna give him. I don't feel comfortable leaving my childhood. Have you?

Unknown Speaker 55:01
Scary? Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 55:02
not the kids thing. Okay? Like, seriously, you're 25? Can I give you some great advice?

Unknown Speaker 55:08
Sure. Don't have kids. I

Scott Benner 55:09
think I've heard this. Don't get married till at least you're 30 because you have no idea who you are and you don't know anything about yourself. And the kids thing is like dogs. They seem like a great idea. But then when they're peeing on the floor, or you realize that you can't even ignore them for like, a day because it's against the law. Like, like, you know, like, when it gets a little cumbersome, anyone can, you know, some point some boy one day is gonna say something to you, and you're gonna be like, Oh, my God, we're gonna have a baby. That's when it's time to run away. But I don't want to adjust your life you do? What do I say live with your parents forever. They're probably thrilled you they're honestly the best. So diabetes, how's it going? Now? Like you're not I mean, now you have CGM, right, you said, You see, I see the data.

Unknown Speaker 55:53
What did you see? And

Scott Benner 55:54
what did you learn from that data for the last two years?

Hannah 55:57
I've learned it's scary to sleep at night and not have anybody check on you. It's actually really scary to think about that. I went so long without it at night. And it's not like I was setting alarm for myself. I didn't have my parents in college. And I was. It's just it's very scary how many times I go low at night. And I wonder how often that happened in the past, and I didn't catch it. Well, with this CGM, now it kind of catches it early. So as soon as it starts, like screeching at me, I wake up in, you know, drink juice or something. But if I go anywhere below, like, 65, that's low for me, and I can feel it. And it's scary. And when I wake up, I'm like, Oh, I know something's wrong. But in the past, I've just slipped through that.

Scott Benner 56:44
So let me get let me flip this around and give you a different perspective on what you just said. So first of all, I completely agree with what you said, it's very scary to look up and go, Oh, my gosh, this is what's been happening. And I had no idea. But here's the silver lining of that. yet. Here you are.

Hannah 57:02
Right, I questioned it. Sometimes. I'm like, how did I? How did I get here? I mean, it's great. Obviously, it's the best part. I'm here. But I, I just wonder what's been happening since 10 years without anything, but no, I

Scott Benner 57:15
absolutely. hear you. But But my point is that sometimes. I have a dual point. I disagree. And I agree with my point, right. So I don't think you should be letting your blood sugar get low overnight. If you can help it. I don't think any

Unknown Speaker 57:29
right.

Scott Benner 57:30
But the fact that it's happened in the past, and you're healthy and alive, also has to bring comfort, it can't just bring fear. Yeah, like it has to bring some comfort. I'm not saying that when your blood sugar goes to 50. You should just be like, hmm, I'm not doing anything about that. Because that probably used to happen all the time. And I'm still fine. Like, that's not the way I'm paying. But it's true. You're right. I've

Hannah 57:49
thought about that. And like, I wonder, like, what is my body fighting it? Like, do I only have so much fight that I use it all up? Like, my fight? worries me,

Scott Benner 57:58
I'm like, Oh, my God. Now I'm weak, because I depend so much on a sensor. So if I lose the signal, like I think about these things, but you should, but that's where the conference should come from. Like, that's where I would tell you that in a couple of, you know, years with more experience. Like the one thing I hear people talk, I'll use this as an example people talk about, like the Dexcom has a two hour warmup period. And people say I'm so lost during that period. It's very scary. And I don't know, I'm like, What did you do before you had it? You lived your whole life without but you didn't know. And now. So now you know what might happen. But the more time you spend with the sensor, the more comfortable you're going to be that you can kind of imagine what is happening. Yeah. And so to kind of dovetail back around to what we talked about the beginning. Before, right before you came on. And we started recording about five or seven minutes before art and told me it was lunchtime, and we gave her an extended bowl was 10 and a half units extended 20% up front, which means about two units went in right away. And we're gonna stretch the rest out of the app over the hour. A few minutes later, as we know, she says, Oh my gosh, I'm completely wrong about when lunchtime is we cancel the extended bolus. I shut her bazel off for like 20 minutes just to sort of, you know, horse trade a little insulin for with those two units that we put in already. She comes back around and everybody heard we bolus that eight or so units instead. And you know what Arden's blood sugar is right now. It's 1055. Right now she has an early lunch today. So she's been in lunch for 25 minutes. Do you have any idea what her blood sugar is?

Hannah 59:29
Probably right around 200, I

Scott Benner 59:31
would guess at six. Oh, that's great at six and it's stable at one point we were 99 diagonal down while you and I were talking. And and and the point is, is that I've seen these things happen so many times. That I can tell you that this is where I expected her blood sugar to be even with all of the mess that was made and all the adjustments in the insulin on and off and all the stuff that we did. This was about my expectation. And there'll be a moment where you in your life, and I think for everybody listening who has you know CGM technology, where you'll have seen it so many times that you can kind of know where your blood sugar is without looking.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:12
And that

Scott Benner 1:00:12
skill should then become comfort while your warmup period is happening. Or if you're 65, when you wake up, and you can think it through for I know, it's got to be tough to wake up and then make decisions about your health. Like, can you tell me a little bit about that before I go on? Like, what's it like to be zapped out of sleep and then suddenly having to make good decisions about that stuff? Here's a great decision that you will not regret dancing for diabetes.com dancing the number for diabetes.com find them online, find him on Facebook, check him out on Instagram.

Hannah 1:00:54
I mean, I would say I don't always make great decisions. At that point. I usually just my hand springs out, I grabbed the juice box I down it and I'm not good at this. I probably shouldn't. But I sometimes don't even wait up to see if it's like going up. I mean, I drink the juice box. So I know it will. But usually then I'm just back to sleep if I can. So for me, it's very quick. I just, that's literally all I do.

Scott Benner 1:01:17
And I would imagine that's what most people do. That it's you're trying to like it's it's parents who have that different perspective. It's somebody right and care of somebody else who has a different perspective. Like you're like, Okay, well, now I'm awake, I'm aware of might have what might happen. So I'll just answer my emails or like, listen to some music or something, I'll stay up for 20 minutes to check. And that becomes problematic, because most of the times you stay up and then what you expect to happen happens and you realize, well, I could have gone back to sleep. Right? And instead now you're wide awake. And it's three o'clock in the morning. You're like, Oh my god, what's going on? But I was just thinking Moreover, like, to me it's like the idea of like, if I walked up to you, punched you in the side of the head and then asked you like an algebra problem.

Hannah 1:02:05
Yeah, that's, that's fair. But it's also because we've done it so many times. I think you kind of lose the shock. Except for the sound that my phone makes this awful, awful sound for low blood sugar and I cannot. I can change it but nothing else will wake me up. But I spring out of bed like my head hits the ceiling. It's so scary. And it's it's good because literally any other ringtone will not wake me up. So for me beep slow alarm, though. Ah, yeah, I think it is that one where it's like screeching

Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
give it Dad Dad, Dad Dad like that one.

Hannah 1:02:43
More than four though. Words like six.

Scott Benner 1:02:47
Okay. Okay.

Hannah 1:02:48
Is that one we're trending down with the arrow?

Scott Benner 1:02:51
I don't know the one. That's the one that's basically you can hear in the tone. Oh my god, you're going to die. Please do. Wow.

Hannah 1:02:57
Yes. And it's awful. But it's the only thing that gets me up. So I'm awake. And I know I am and I've also slept I have slept through that. Which is like a it freaks me out. But I can. Yeah, my mom was petting my dog. Like I know. Okay, I'm like, leave me alone.

Scott Benner 1:03:13
Just want to sleep. Hey, wait, Is this it?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:15
Yeah, but

Hannah 1:03:17
yeah, that's it, but I swear there's like extra beats at the end. But it can just mean like, going off or

Scott Benner 1:03:24
does your mom's beep to?

Hannah 1:03:26
No, God? No, I don't share any data with any of them. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:03:29
I was gonna say like, is it echoing from like, other parts of that house? I just by the way, I just you, you can make this do this. So I just pushed the button.

Hannah 1:03:36
Yeah, I figured.

Scott Benner 1:03:38
Yeah, um, Lady sex. But, but so you don't share your data, your data?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:43
I don't? How come?

Hannah 1:03:45
I don't share it with anybody. I don't. I don't want to depend on them. And I also like, I don't want them to know what my blood sugar is. Because I'm like, mean, or something. I was like, your blood sugar's high. And I'm like, leave me alone. Like you don't know my life. But she's usually right. So I just don't want to like give her that satisfaction that she's right.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:02
If that makes sense. Not only does it make sense, but you don't

Scott Benner 1:04:05
know my life just jumped ahead. hates everything.

Hannah 1:04:12
That's that's my life. But I don't. I guess for me, it's weird. It would be weird for them to have that data on their phone. Like it. It doesn't feel like a bad idea. But to me, that's not

Unknown Speaker 1:04:24
going to be helpful to me and your relationship though. We die. Right?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:27
True. Right?

Scott Benner 1:04:28
They've always just sort of been in the background being like a you can do it.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
And yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 1:04:34
That Do you think if you got into a situation Do you think you could reach out to them if it happened, like say you were out going away for business for a couple of nights? And you were like, Look, Mom, I'm gonna be by myself in a hotel room. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you share my data. But please, I just want to hear from you. If I get below this.

Hannah 1:04:54
I guess I could. I've never really haven't thought about it like that. My parents are gone a lot like they travel and they go My sister's in college and stuff like that. So I am home alone often, which does give me a little anxiety because I've never lived alone. There's always been. I've had roommates, and then I moved home. So I've, there's always been somebody around. So I mean, I actually really liked that idea I've never really thought about is more short term as opposed to long term sharing. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:21
that's interesting. I mean, I, I've said a number of times here like the, you know, everything we talk about is, you know, with the caveat that I'm helping our dinner that I'm around, or I'm watching and for, for adults who do live by themselves, that adds a level, I would think of anxiety that I can't in any way understand like it. Yeah, must be, it must borderline on crippling at times.

Hannah 1:05:45
Yeah, it's not something that I'm interested in, obviously, like approaching right now. And it does give me anxiety to even think about it. Where do you try to keep your blood sugar?

Scott Benner 1:05:53
What's your goal?

Hannah 1:05:55
I would say like, 8085 is like my long term goal. But I've found I mean, each like I said, each chapter of my life has brought different struggles with blood sugar. And I've also had different ideas of where I want that blood sugar to stay. And right now where I am with work, for me, it's hard because I have a lot of client visits. So like, mid client visit, if I'm feeling low, or friend, no, I'm spiking, like, it's not like you can just be like, Hey, sorry, like, I have a low blood sugar. I'm gonna go, like drink some juice, you know, like I have to, I'm still figuring out how that looks, right? Yeah, it's just a weird thing, where I'm not always at my desk, or I'm not always on my phone, which is where my blood sugar where my Dexcom is

Scott Benner 1:06:40
due. So do you live in a world where you're standing around an event table or something and trying to sell somebody on coming in and using the guy's space or something like that's just what I'm assuming you're talking about? You got like a little vibration on a watch on a phone and you you look down and saw that your blood sugar was heading up? Do you think if you could bolus through your phone, and know why you would do that, then

Hannah 1:07:04
100% i've i've actually like, I don't think about it often. But more than once I've thought about it that it'd be so much easier to act like I'm texting somebody and like, be texting my phone, or not text my phone, texting my pump as to what to do as opposed I wear my pump. And so it's connected by tube. And I wear it in my bra like right between the middle like that's where it stays every day. That's like where my comfort places. So to pull it out, it's a little bit awkward, because I'm like, reaching into my shirt to pull my pump out. Yes, I see. So for me, that's all also awkward. So it's not like I would do that in front of a client, like pull that out. Correct. And then like shove it back in. So

Scott Benner 1:07:45
when I'm doing the army, my dad's and sometimes I'm like, you don't have to stuff it in your bra or like your you write your cargo when

Hannah 1:07:51
I thought about it, and I just got a new pump in January. So I had the team for four years, and I had to make my decision about where I was going next. And like I was considering all options, because I'm super open. I'm not like sold on one way or the other. And I'd heard all about your Omni pod. But for me it just like the Dexcom is enough to get questions about. I feel like nothing, I have to hide it but it's much easier to like conceal my pump and my pump site. And I just that Omni pod is so big. So that's just my hesitation. I don't want that on my arm. And then I get all these questions, which isn't a big deal, but I think I'm over it.

Scott Benner 1:08:30
Yeah. There's like in her on her stomach or her leg? I can't remember the last time she put it on her arm actually, okay, years and years. But I hear I hear what you're saying. Like, like, there's only so much bandwidth you have for explaining what something is to somebody.

Hannah 1:08:44
Yeah. And I like to explain like, I think it's great to educate somebody on on what this is what this disease is. But it's just not something I want in my everyday life.

Scott Benner 1:08:54
Yeah, Oh, absolutely. Hear that, I think to the AMI pod just is about to release, the controller that now will die. I heard that word fun. And I think that's a big deal. Because I didn't I don't always you can't think of everybody's perspective. And like you just gave me one that's different than mine. You know. And so I'm like, Wow, that's so interesting. And I and now I'm thinking that thing that looks more like a phone that is more valuable for someone like you and then what happens when all your data is together and on that little thing is right, next commit information and your ability to Bolus and I'm like, Oh, the future is is going to fix so many issues for so many different people. Right? Like I just it's exciting that it's it's coming faster.

Hannah 1:09:34
It is actually it's a really exciting it was so I felt so stuck in the past like in high school and college like, this is what I'm resigned to this is how it's going to be and then with the Dexcom it's just brought so much light to managing the disease that I'm excited for what comes next.

Scott Benner 1:09:51
I think it's important to stay open minded to advancements because you just don't definitely don't want to be the person who looks up in a decade. Like, Oh, I didn't know anybody was doing this, you know, which,

Hannah 1:10:03
yeah, to bring this back round. So my mom was recently diagnosed and she is 100% against anything with technology. She doesn't want to hear it. So she does 10 soli, I've like tried to talk her into letting me put a dexcom honor. I've tried to like educate her more on the pump, because I've always managed my diabetes with the pump. So she's not super educated on it. But I've like, I've tried to talk to her about the stuff and she is so against it. Let me be sad for her. But she's also 53 now and like she has to make her own decisions about handling this disease. And it's different, but it's very frustrating. Do you think you could get her to listen to Ryan's episode and then his mom's episode? Probably? Yeah, I think she would be open to it.

Scott Benner 1:10:50
I can see how that would change her. How our help how soon How long since she's been diagnosed?

Hannah 1:10:58
Two years ago in November,

Scott Benner 1:10:59
so she's pretty far into it.

Hannah 1:11:01
Yeah, she's not It wasn't like it was last month or anything like, now, she's got it down to actually doing really well with the pens and just the meter. But I just feel like, I know there's so much more for her that would help her manage the disease. So for me, it's just frustrating that she's not 100% open to it.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:22
I'm telling you right now,

Scott Benner 1:11:22
you don't even like your mom's reaction to her diabetes.

Hannah 1:11:25
I know. Right? Can you believe it?

Scott Benner 1:11:27
You and I would be together. I know. It's creepy, cuz I'm like 20. But we would just sit around and complain about things all day, and we'd be so happy.

Hannah 1:11:35
No, it's really who I am, though. It's my truth tellers.

Scott Benner 1:11:40
I'm so I'm so thrilled that because you let me say we're way past an hour, but I used up a bunch of time in the beginning. So I don't care. But. But it's interesting, because if people really listened to you, you're like, I don't really like this. I don't like this. But you're very upbeat, happy person. Yeah, just have definite opinions about some things.

Hannah 1:11:58
Again, very, very opinionated.

Scott Benner 1:12:01
It's amazing, too. I like that a lot. I take back wanting I like I take back wanting to be coupled with you. Because I know eventually, you would have opinions about me. And I'd be like, Oh, God,

Hannah 1:12:11
I know. That's kind of scary. That's true. Do you are you are you dating? Um, no, not currently. Mm hmm. Yeah, I say I mean, to me, I, I feel like this disease also brings a next layer for that, where and I see it online. Like, it's also amazing what Instagram can do with like, what people post about their lives. And I followed moms of type one diabetics, I follow people who are the same age as me. And I see that and I see some of them who are married, or have that boyfriend and it's kind of like, they understand it. Yeah. Like, I've seen him get up with them in the middle of the night and that sort of thing. So for me, like, it just adds a whole nother layer to dating.

Scott Benner 1:12:52
And have you dated people where it hasn't gone? Well?

Hannah 1:12:55
No, it's never been no, it's never been like a bad thing. But I've also it's more felt like, Oh, they don't fully understand it.

Scott Benner 1:13:02
And then do you not want to bring them into the understanding? Are you doing they don't want to come in or what you're finding then?

Hannah 1:13:08
I don't know. I I am kind of that person where I'm like, I can do it myself. So I'm not gonna bring you in. But I've tried to make that extra effort to bring them in. I don't know. wrong person. No, I

Scott Benner 1:13:24
I Can I see it? Like I can't imagine like, I always tell people when you find somebody like there's good people on before who like help their spouses.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:32
Yeah, like, those

Scott Benner 1:13:33
are special people. Like, that's amazing. I know. I've also talk to people like I listen, my wife's not involved in this. This is my thing. I have it. My husband's not involved with it. Everyone has their own feelings about it, which are all incredibly valid. But I was just wondering for you, like does it actually make, so you don't like think about dating and then think, oh, I don't want to get involved in this because of my diabetes. Is

Unknown Speaker 1:13:55
that No,

Hannah 1:13:56
no, that I've never had that.

Scott Benner 1:13:58
Yeah. Okay. Well, you're not gonna meet a lot of young guys at a golf course. That's a

Unknown Speaker 1:14:03
zero. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:14:04
you'd be like, you're gonna come home tonight. Like, oh, guys, Montana, my friend. He's 16.

Hannah 1:14:11
You don't even know how accurate that honestly is. I was like, find a cute boy. I'm like, You don't understand. None of them are under the age of like, 50. And they don't work. And like it's just really funny.

Scott Benner 1:14:27
To answer your mom with everything, when she says find a cute boy, you should go get a C jam. That'd be a good one go back and forth about this for quite some time. But at the same time, I'm about to have, you know, we have people on a lot who use, you know, injections don't have technology, and are doing are doing very well too. But I think you your perspective is like mine where you got a CGM, and then you were like, oh, gosh, here's all the things that were happening. I didn't know were happening. I wonder what else was happening that I didn't know what was happening then you must meet your mom. thing I wonder what's happening to her that we don't know

Hannah 1:15:02
I do. I really do wonder sometimes, um, but like, I totally make guesses. And I also don't want to interfere on her handling it but like, she never could fully understand what a low blood sugar was like when I was growing up, and I'd be like, disoriented and shaking all that and she just could never, like, totally figure it out. So when with her experiencing it, it was like, a whole new light. And now she's like, and I'm like, see, now you know how I feel. And I just like it's so nice to not nice, because obviously, I would never wish that on her on anybody. But for her to realize those high blood sugars Yeah, and being short, but it's also I can't help it like I'm no, the best they can

Scott Benner 1:15:42
change is the makeup of how your brain works when your blood sugar. So sure, yeah. And there's only so much I was novo had these glasses that I think they gave to doctors offices that kind of mimic a low blood sugar. And I got to put them on in a room with some people who had diabetes, some people like yeah, it gets doing a good job of mimicking it. But still, it doesn't give you the it doesn't give you the actual physiological right, like issues. I like that you said it was nice that she knows now because I completely understand what you mean. Like it is It'd be great if if everyone with diabetes could snap their fingers and give their loved ones or their family like a real perspective.

Hannah 1:16:22
For like a second of healing a low blood sugar because it's Yeah, it's just such a unique experience.

Scott Benner 1:16:27
Yeah, no, I just there's times when you see it happening to someone and and I've seen that happen to Arden where I like it's all you can do to like stop yourself from just being overwhelmed by sadness that you feel for them. Because Yeah, it's it's such a I don't know. It's it's just such a helpless thing to watch somebody else go through.

Hannah 1:16:48
Yeah, and I can Well, I can because I see my mom now but not so much helpless. But like looking from the outside in it must be so weird to see somebody, like overtaken by that. I don't know it's so weird, are overtaken by it.

Scott Benner 1:17:04
What is success look like moving forward with for you with Ivy's like what do you? What are you hoping to accomplish in the coming weeks and months? Where are you going with all this?

Hannah 1:17:14
I mean, short term, my goal is always to keep my blood sugar more and like I said that 85 range. But long term for me is just moving along with the technology. I'm so thankful for what I have now. But like I said, a little while ago, I I just can't wait to see where it goes. And sometimes I get antsy. And I'm like, why can't it just happen now, but like the G six and things like that help make it easier to keep a positive, positive outlook on it.

Scott Benner 1:17:41
Yeah, if it helps you at all, I and I just said this to somebody recently, but it won't be on the podcast for a long time. The sorry, everybody I recorded ahead. I'm not apologizing for that. I that the frequency in which things are getting better, is so incredibly sped up over how it was even five or six years ago, definitely over a decade ago, it used to be Oh, someone came out with a new meter, this is very exciting. And then nothing would happen for a year and a half. And then somebody Oh, we have a new meter too. And I'm like, and, and like this is it like that was how technology grew. And all of a sudden, and I do I do credit Dexcom with it, because I think Dexcom came into the space. And they were like, we're gonna keep advancing this stuff quickly. Yeah, it pushed everyone else to do it along with them. And now you're getting, hey, you know, from all these companies, like we have, you know, low bazel suspend we have, you know, or low IQ, whatever the tandem calls that thing. And then we're trying to get this thing on the pots coming out with a horizon and the dash is coming and you know, it's stuffs happening really quickly. And some of its incredibly valuable. So I think you're going to get your wish, I think in the next couple of years, things are going to be I know people with diabetes are used to hearing this is going to get cured in five years. I'm not talking, right. Nobody's caring nothing, as far as I can tell. But right. But what I do think is that these advancements are coming. And they're they're not just little advancements anymore. They're dying. They're giant leaps. So it's very exciting time you got you got diabetes at just the right time.

Hannah 1:19:19
before and the after.

Scott Benner 1:19:20
Yeah, yeah, because you're before it's not terrible. And you're gonna be amazed at least you're not like, I used to have to pee on the thing and set it on fire and then we shoot to the moon and when it comes back, you had your budget, because you know that, but at the same time, you're gonna have a really good perspective. You don't need a number of years. So Well, thank you very much for coming on.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:44
Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:19:47
I want to thank Hannah for not hating the Juicebox Podcast hates everything else but she loves the show. I appreciate her coming on and sharing her story and having this long and fantastic chat with me. I also appreciate the patronage Dancing for diabetes.com on the pod and Dexcom can go to my on the pod.com forward slash juicebox dexcom.com forward slash juicebox dancing the number for diabetes.com. Or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com. And all the links are right there. You know where else the links are, in your show notes, your podcast player, I had planned on sharing some exciting news about something that's coming up really soon on the podcast with you right here. But this episode was already much longer than you're normally used to. So you're probably have other things to go get ready for. I'll just tell you next week, it's not a big deal. You'll find out then how do you keep a podcast listener in suspense?

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