# 324 Gvoke Glucagon

Gvoke is a premixed, prefilled, premeasured liquid glucagon

Paul Edick is here to talk about his path to becoming the CEO of Xeris. Xeris makes Gvoke. The premixed, prefilled, premeasured liquid glucagon for treatment of very low blood sugar in adults and kids with type 1 diabetes ages two and above. 

Learn more about Gvoke here

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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
This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by GE Volk, the world's only liquid stable glucagon. g vocus. a prescription injection for the treatment of very low blood sugar in adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Do not use if you have a specific type of adrenal or pancreatic tumor, starvation, or chronic low blood sugar. Side effects may include nausea, hypoglycemia, vomiting, headache, hyperglycemia, and injection sites swelling, itching and stomach pain. Being prepared is always important, but right now it is at the forefront of all of our minds. Did you know stress in erratic schedules can increase the risk of scary lows. g Vogue prefilled syringe is the first liquid glucagon that is pre mixed prefilled m pre measured so it's ready to go. If you need g vote PFS and can't physically get to your doctor's office, there's still a way to get it. You can request a prescription online and pharmacist at pillpack by Amazon pharmacy will reach out to your doctor for a prescription. They will then ship your G vote PFS to your home at no additional cost, just the cost of your copay. Please note at this time, this option is available for people with commercial insurance only. You can learn more including a link to the important safety information about g vote pfs@www.ge Volk glucagon.com, forward slash ordering dash g Volk, it might be hard to remember. So I'll put a link in the show notes.

When I first suggested that Paul, come on the show, I didn't know anything about his history. So I started at the beginning, asking him how did you get involved in this kind of work? And the answer took us on our ride that I just did not expect. I really found it fascinating to pick through someone's life and see where they started and what they thought they were going to do and find out about some of their first jobs that have, you know, seemingly nothing to do with what they end up doing. So sit back and relax. And we're gonna find out how a young boy from New York ends up being the CEO of the company that brings the world's first liquid stable glucagon to market. A glucagon that is pre mixed, pre measured and ready to go. It's kind of fascinating. One last thing, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, and to always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Yeah, there was just like, there is like air behind you. And it's like, oh, god sounds like you were on the highway.

Paul Edick 2:51
Well, so where our building is located. We're surrounded by train tracks. Well, we're on the 16th floor. But you might hear some train noise in the background. Don't worry, a

Scott Benner 3:07
fighter jet will fly past Dexcom once in a while when I'm speaking with them. adds a little flavor.

Paul Edick 3:14
Well, we chose to put our office close to the train station. So everybody could have an easy commute. So it's a nice idea comes with its

Scott Benner 3:23
Can you take credit for that? Or Where was it? Not your idea? And you just take credit for it? Oh, no.

Paul Edick 3:29
I've done it in two companies now is very purposeful. Okay. very purposeful. Yeah, we promise everybody will be within four blocks of a train and train station or l stop.

Scott Benner 3:38
That's really excellent. That is and you guys are located in Chicago.

Paul Edick 3:42
Downtown. We were one block south of the river on the sale. Nice

Scott Benner 3:47
is that and by the way, we are recording already.

Paul Edick 3:56
I'm Paul edic. I'm the CEO of zeros pharmaceuticals.

Scott Benner 4:01
Obviously, we're just talking as we picked up the column, Paul didn't know we were recording but now that he knows we can just kind of keep going. It's funny now that you said that I want to go in a direction. And I guess I just Well, are you. Not a young man? Paul? Not right out of college, I'm guessing.

Paul Edick 4:18
No, I've been in the pharmaceutical business. This is my 41st year, but I just turned 64 in July. Okay. All right. I've been doing this a long time.

Scott Benner 4:28
So things that other people may not think about, like I'm gonna put a building up and we're gonna get a company rolling and it should be near transportations, so that hardworking people don't then have to schlep home and get you know, like and cause problems for them. That's the stuff you learn over time, I imagine.

Paul Edick 4:44
Yeah. You so if you a lot of companies they locate in office parks in the suburbs, and people are landlocked and there's no real energy. It's just in the building. We you know, I look in the suburbs, and there's all the normal land, you know, buildings. But when you come into the city you can locate in buildings where it's vibrant, there's a lot going on, there are people and movement and energy. And the commute is actually shorter by train for most people than driving two buildings in an office park in the suburb. So it, it helps with the energy of the company. But it also makes it easier for people and therefore you attract people better.

Scott Benner 5:31
I'm incredibly interested about how it gets set up. But I guess I have to, I have to go backwards before I can jump into forwards. So let's start slow. Where did you grow up?

Paul Edick 5:41
I grew up, excuse me in a small town in, in a dairy dairy country in upstate New York. So for for people who are in New York City, upstate New York is Poughkeepsie. I grew up about two hours north of Syracuse, just just a little bit before the St. Lawrence Seaway. very rural, very small. What did your parents do? When I was a little kid, my dad was worked in a Chicago pneumatic, which was a tooling company. My mom worked in a shoe factory.

Scott Benner 6:17
I asked because, you know, growing up in a small town that's, you know, pretty removed from what I would think of is big business. And coming from, you know, your parents doing what they did. And I think of myself, and I always used to say to people, like, it's hard to imagine something other than what you know, you know, what I mean? Like, I know, you know, like, I know, people who want to be professional athletes, but when you look at them, they grew up around a professional athlete. So it seemed like a reasonable thing when I was young, I wanted to write, but that didn't seem like a viable way to make a living because the people I lived around were, you know, kind of hard working blue collar people. And I don't think that writing something seemed like a, you know, a reasonable way to make a living. So I, so I'm fascinated about how you made it from there. To here. I wonder, did it happen in high school or not till college? Where did you start thinking about business? Are we just trying to get out of a small town or how are you feeling?

Paul Edick 7:10
Yeah, great question. I started as a little little kid in Central New York. And then we moved to this town called la ville, in upstate New York, after my dad, finally, he got a degree out of Syracuse University became a teacher. My mom was able to get out of the shoe factory, became a secretary. All I, I you know, in terms of aspirations, from a career perspective, I don't really recall having any I think my aspiration was to do better than my parents. I grew up in a second generation, Italian immigrant family. You know, my mom couldn't speak English. When she started grammar school, I was an athlete. And I had opportunities to go to college for free and a lot of places around the country because of athletics. And I was a pretty good student. But I ended up going to a small, private college called Hamilton College, Central New York. And coming out of Hamilton, it was time to get a job. And I, I interview on campus got a job with Procter and Gamble, my entry into the pharmaceutical businesses, accidental, to say the least

Scott Benner 8:23
yet see, it's interesting, because you're describing You know, I'm, I'm 48. So I'm not of your generation, but I'm probably not too far along, but my parents definitely had that vibe about them the idea that you were just trying to do a little better tomorrow than you did today. And and kind of get get through it. There was no grandiose ideas like this is the thing I'm going to be one day you're just like, I need to get up in the morning, go to school, learn something, go to college, learn something, get a job in that. It's funny how I don't think people now think like that as much like I think they have plans for themselves and ideas.

Paul Edick 8:58
Oh, no question. No question. Every every, every kid I talked to wherever young person I talked to, you know, how do I get to Xyz? And, you know, the first thing I say to say to people is keep your head down, do your job and the rest will take care of itself.

Scott Benner 9:15
Yeah, I'm always amused by my wife will tell this great story about she hired this person. And after 30 days, they came to her very earnestly and asked when they'd be getting a raise. And you don't even understand what the job is yet. You've only been here for 30 days. She said, I've never been late. and was like, well keep keep you keep that up. Okay, thanks. I get out of here. And she's like, I she came home and she's like, 26 year old person doesn't really even understand what our job is yet. Once a race once and I was like, Yeah, good luck. No, that is that's, that's really excellent. So yeah, so your parents weren't as much. They were immigrants more than that, like so I say. It's funny. I applied. by today's standards too, and I just assumed like, that's the job they had. But they were working their way up as well.

Paul Edick 10:05
Yeah, my grandparents came over, you know, on the proverbial boat from Italy, right, my mom was born in the States. But in those days, they lived in an Italian community in a small town. And they spoke Italian, interestingly enough. And we always tell these stories, but my parents, my grandparents refused to speak Italian around us kids, because they lived in a world where they were discriminated against. They didn't want us to speak that language or even have an accent. You know, fast forward to when we're teenagers and adults. And we're kicking ourselves that we don't have two languages.

Scott Benner 10:50
Right. I mean, that's is how things have changed. But there's there's a safety idea more than anything, like they probably saw it as an impediment to your success if people thought of you as an immigrant.

Paul Edick 11:01
Correct. And assimilation. Yeah, right. There was a, it was an absolute drive to become and to assimilate that. It was fascinating.

Scott Benner 11:09
That's excellent. It's really, it's fascinating, because I don't think that we, I just don't think we talk about this a lot anymore. And this is really what our conversation today is about is trying to figure out how you got to where you are now and what your what your focus was. So you're saying, and I don't think this is uncommon at all, but in college, what did you major in first,

Paul Edick 11:30
I would started my freshman year as a pre med student. I had done, you know, National Honor Society, the whole nine yards in high school. So I had great grades. I was also a two sport athlete in college was a little bit different than I my very first semester, I got a C in calculus. So I was done as a pre med student. And so I, I switched to psychology.

Scott Benner 11:57
Paul's smartest kid and his class up there in New York didn't didn't shake out as well.

Paul Edick 12:03
Well, it was it was interesting. The biggest reason I got a C in calculus was because I was still using a slide rule. And if you even know what that is, if people and most of the kids in class had moved on to calculators, the very first Texas Instruments calculator, my parents couldn't afford it. I was still using a slide rule, and I didn't finish most of the tests on time.

Scott Benner 12:34
Okay. That's Yeah,

Paul Edick 12:36
so it wasn't for lack of knowing information. That was I couldn't get it done. Yeah. the right tools.

Scott Benner 12:42
Right. Yeah. That's so interesting. How many letters home said I need a calculator? Or did did your Paul Yeah.

Paul Edick 12:48
No, that was one that was one conversation that didn't go very well.

Scott Benner 12:55
Paul, did you ask for a calculator? And then your mom told you about being born in America? First generation Italian? No, I got the Don't you have a job and can't you work more hours that interesting. You know, My son is a sophomore in college right now. And he goes to a similar type of school. Actually, Hamilton is one of the schools he tried to let you know, he reached to. And so he's in a similarly sized school. He likes a smaller school, he wanted liberal arts. He didn't quite know what he wanted to do yet. And when I asked him about helping out he says that his job is good grades in baseball. I'm now I mean, yeah, I could put him on the phone with your mother.

Paul Edick 13:34
was interesting, you know, to make not to belabor the point, but I had offers for four year full scholarships to three or four different big time universities for sports. I chose to go to Hamilton College, which is division three, and they couldn't, it was non scholarship. So I actually had to pay to go to college. Yeah. And that was a decision I made that don't from my parent's perspective. Okay, well, you got to pay for it. Right? Because they sure as heck couldn't. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:05
no kidding. I do think that my son Cole did the same thing. He that he had opportunities to go play baseball places that were, in all honesty, just schools where you would have played baseball, you come out with some sort of a degree, but I don't know how great it would have been. And he said, I'm too good of a student for that. I have to go somewhere and get a get like a real solid education. That's like Okay, great. Yeah, get over there. But the same thing, you know, there's not quite as much in the way of offering of money when you when you make that decision. Exactly. Okay, Paul, so you're in college, you're you're kind of jumping around finding your major and everything and finding your level really like looking for where you fit and where you're good. And did you find Did you fall into business at that point, or did you finish with a more of a mathematics track? How did you handle it?

Paul Edick 14:49
No, I actually, I moved to psychology. I was fascinated by learning and memory. I actually did you know, my sophomores sophomore in junior years. did research and learning and memory, so not behavioral psychology but more the learning aspect of psychology. I loved it. And my research was actually published. And I graduated with a liberal arts degree. You know, I took a bunch of other courses, took a lot of religion courses, political science, you know, you had to take statistics if you're a psychology major, so liberal arts degree, and then I started interviewing for jobs on campus. Interestingly, because of the research I was doing, I was getting extra credit. I finished in three and a half years, I was one of the few people that was available to be hired in the spring. Because I wasn't going to school anymore. And I got a job with Procter and Gamble as a sales rep in their case food division.

Scott Benner 15:44
So that's something you just use thin the herd by being available sooner.

Paul Edick 15:49
Yeah. And because I was doing independent study during the summers, got extra credit. And I was done.

Scott Benner 15:56
Okay, that's interesting. So should you head off to Procter and Gamble as a young man? What was your expectation that day where they hired you? And you were probably out of your mind excited? Did you even know why you were going there? what you were doing or were you just like, this is a job.

Paul Edick 16:11
You hit the nail on the head. It was a job I, you know, I didn't know who Procter and Gamble was. I learned who they were. It was, you know, great training and all that. But I, big company, and I had a sales job. And it was, you know, in upstate New York, Albany, actually, Saratoga Springs, what were you selling? I was calling on grocery store managers. Selling Duncan Hines cake mix, Crisco shortening, Pringles potato chips, the original Pringles potato chips, the red wooden in the can that basically tasted like cardboard. And, you know, in grocery store managers, you know, like I said, everybody, they come in two flavors. They're either 65 and about the pinnacle of their career since they were 21. Or they're 21. And they're going to be at the pinnacle of their career until they're 65. I mean, grocery store managers, that's a life. And they grocery stores work on such small margins. If you're making 3% margin as a grocery store, you're doing pretty well. So they're intense. Its intense. It was great training, you know, I learned how to sell

Scott Benner 17:24
and how to read people talk to them.

Paul Edick 17:27
Well, you you very quickly have to understand their needs versus yours. You learn very quickly, if you if you're not really attuned to their needs, and how their store works and what they are trying to do. They won't even talk to you. Because they, they they are focused. It makes me want to ask you a personal question. Are you married? Y'all? Yes, yeah, for a long time. I'm on my second in both of them for a long time. My first marriage was 17 years and this marriage has been 18 years actually good for you. And I bet you, you stay out of trouble, largely in what

Scott Benner 18:06
I'm reading the signals and I know what to say now because I need you to buy some shortening from me. And

Paul Edick 18:11
yeah, yeah. Well, Crisco shortening. Yeah, it was. It was fascinating. It was interesting. I you know, but that's, that's how I, I accidentally ended up in the pharmaceutical business. I was in a grocery store, one of the first stores that actually had a pharmacy, it was an experimental store in upstate New York. And I was talking to the store manager about putting Pringles a big end to end tower of Pringles with beer next to it. And showing him how much profit he was going to make and how it was going to sell. And I was going to put a big sign up above it and all that. And there was a guy standing in the corner, watching me and it was a little disconcerting. So I didn't know you had a suit on and tie. And afterwards, he comes up to me says, you know, I'm from Johnson and Johnson, I'm from ortho pharmaceutical. We're looking for great salespeople. And he gave me his card and said, I'd like you to talk to my boss. And like, I don't know, three, four weeks later, I was working for j&j in the pharmaceutical business. Okay. You know,

Scott Benner 19:16
it's interesting. That's the that's the sales version of the somebody seeing you in the mall and going here. So pretty. Have you ever considered being a mom?

Paul Edick 19:24
Yeah. I don't, I didn't get that.

Scott Benner 19:29
I've just, it's interesting. And was that odd? In the moment? Even then, were you just like, wow, this is a strange situation.

Paul Edick 19:35
It was but it was. It was. It was an opportunity of a lifetime. It was Johnson and Johnson. Remember, I came from a little bitty town in upstate New York where, you know, in a county where there are more cows and there are people actually working working for Procter and Gamble. And now I'm going to go work for j&j. j&j was the most respected company in the world at that time. Right

Scott Benner 19:58
now you would open a medicine cabinet. I imagine they made almost everything and yeah and beyond.

Paul Edick 20:04
So it was it was the opportunity of a lifetime. It's excellent.

Scott Benner 20:07
I have to tell you that, you know, as you and I were getting ready to speak, it kept running through my head, how do you become a CEO? Because I kept thinking, that's not something a kid from high school says to himself, like, I'm gonna go to college and become a CEO. You know, I'm going to run a company, I'm going to make all of the decisions, everything is going to filter through me like that. I mean, if you were thinking that when you were 12, or 13, you probably had a mental illness, and they wouldn't filtered you out by that. Yeah. A little too great. Thoughts for a small child. And so there's no CEO track in college, there's no. And I thought, I wonder if this man's not going to tell me a story of, you know, finding something, doing it well, moving to something else, seeing something jumping around, it's so interesting. This is the way I look at my my wife sometimes. And I realized that where she is, was never once on purpose. You know, she just took a job because she needed a job. And she did her best and someone noticed, and it bothered. And it just kept going. And I wonder how many people actually have similar stories like that?

Paul Edick 21:04
Well, that's what I said earlier, I, you know, I just keep, as a younger person, I just kept my head down and did my job. And you might I was lucky, I work for people who they, you know, you do your job, they take care of you. So I never had to ask for a raise. I never had to ask for a promotion. I did my job and those opportunities presented themselves because I was in an environment where that's the culture, you take care of the people who are performing. I moved up in that company, and then, you know,

Scott Benner 21:42
you foster that. Now, when you're in charge. Is that is that a culture that you try to keep moving? Because I think some people would hear that as generational, but I don't think it is. I think it's, I think it's cultural. What a company.

Paul Edick 21:52
Yeah, it's very much cultural. And it's something that we foster a great deal. Over the years I've, I've taken from every company I've worked for, and every job I've had and different opportunities. It's funny, you say, I'm going to be a CEO, I'm gonna make the decisions that when you're CEO, he very seldom actually make decisions, if you're a good one, because you should have an organization that decisions are made at the level that they're that's appropriate. If If you end up if I end up in a situation where people are saying, well, we got to see what Paul thinks before we do that. It's like that's, we're about to fail. I find out about a lot of decisions. And because of the culture that we foster, and that I Foster, nine out of 10 decisions are usually pretty good ones. Yeah.

Scott Benner 22:40
Now it's it's funny you made me I'm from Philadelphia originally made me think of the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, where there's that great tape of the the quarterback running over to the head coach of the Eagles in a incredibly intense scoring possible situation. They just goes, you want to run this play. And the coach goes, Yeah, sure, go run that toy. And it was just like, it was just wow, he trusts him. He knows what he's thinking. It's amazing. You know, and, and I so I take your point?

Paul Edick 23:04
Well, trust is

I'm not a believer that trust is earned I, if I hire somebody that means I've, I believe that they're the right person, and I'm going to trust them. You can only lose trust in my world.

So I just think it's a different approach.

Scott Benner 23:27
g Volk is an easy to use pre mixed prefilled pre measured liquid glucagon, all you have to do is open the foil pouch, and inject it. Joke does not require refrigeration. It's available in two doses for kids and adults. And there's a simple two step process to administer it. I have seen a seizure from low blood sugar and take it from me, it is a harrowing moment. What you need in that situation more than anything is something reliable. That's easy to use. It doesn't require a ton of steps, because that is a you guys have heard me talk about on the podcast before but it is a crazy situation when someone is having a seizure and you feel like you're what stands between them and further harm. You want something that just works. And evoke is that thing, open the pouch, inject the glucagon, you did it. To learn more about g vote, go to G vote glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. But you get to that link, you can actually order g vote right now today through pillpack. Or you can take some time to understand what g Volk is. So the next time you go to your doctor, you can tell them I'd like to use this glucagon, it's premix. It's prefilled. I think it's going to be easier for me to use. I've read up on it. It's definitely what I want. You'll have some confidence when you go to the doctor, you'll know what you're talking about. So go to the link, check it out. Make yourself familiar with what Evoque is. Then you can decide if it's right for you. Arden I just made the switch at her last endocrinologist appointment. And I think if you take a look, you might want to do the same g vogue.com forward slash juice box with links in your show notes, or Juicebox podcast.com. To find out more about the world's first pre mixed prefilled, liquid stable glucagon. Let's get back to Paul, to find out about the rest of his crazy whirlwind life. I think it's opposite of what most people do. I think most people come in cynical and say, you know, you go ahead, show me. And if you're saying, look, I tried, you know, I saw you, I believe in what you'd said to me now go ahead and do it. That's, um, I think that's the way you build?

Paul Edick 25:48
Yeah, well, we have, like I said, I have taken from a lot of companies in this company, and to some degree in my previous company, but in this company more than any, we, we have one sheet of paper, it's got four boxes, and it's got a series of behaviors in each box. And what I've said is, if we can, if we can behave this way, we will build a great company we can be proud of. And if we do that, and serve our customer, well, in the process, we'll, we'll have a great company will be very successful. You know, we don't have goals that are about dollars, we have goals that are about the kind of company we're going to build the way in which we're going to serve the customer, and then all that other stuff will happen.

Scott Benner 26:38
Yeah. Now I talked to people a lot about management of diabetes and use of insulin. And everyone always wants to know, like, tell me what to do, like, Where do I how much do I use? When do I use it? How do I get my agency to come down? Like, it's always very point on it, and I tell them constantly, that's not what you want to be doing. You need to find the tools, the right tools, learn how to use them, and then all the things that you want will just happen. And you won't even have to, you know, wring your hands every three months. Like I hope my agency I hope isn't, you know, just it just sort of happens when you're using the right tools. It's so

Paul Edick 27:13
right. It's so fast about behavior. Yeah, the behaviors,

Scott Benner 27:17
the basics of most success in any kind of situation. They're all really very similar. Yeah, it's, that's really cool. So I see you're a J and J. You're young man, you've been plucked out of the grocery store. Probably smelling like pastrami and pretty happy this guy found you. And did you just go right into sales again at j&j?

Paul Edick 27:41
Yeah, I was a sales rep in the territory then, you know, sales trainer than a district manager in Chicago and a regional manager out in San Francisco. I was there for like 12 years, I left j&j. And went to Baxter, actually, was a good move.

Scott Benner 27:58
interesting how this happens, because I see this happen a lot to see you gain a lot of broad experience with a large company. And then suddenly, to a smaller company. You're You're like the hive mind. You've seen every little, little corner of the business and you kind of have experience in a lot of different places.

Paul Edick 28:16
Yeah, well, it was a I went to it was a Bachelor's of Medical Products Company fairly big years ago. It was a combination of Baxter and American Hospital supply once upon a time. But I was actually in a small division. So I didn't have any didn't really have the answers yet, because I went from selling pharmaceuticals detailing direct doctors about drugs to a division of axure that was called caremark at the time. caremark at that point in time was a home infusion therapy company, which means that you, instead of putting a patient in the hospital to get an IV, IV antibiotics, for example, okay, you send a nurse to the home and you do it in the home. But that business, you actually run it, you're running kind of like a hospital without walls. You take the assignment of benefits for a patient, you bill and collect on their behalf, you do the therapy, you do everything.

Scott Benner 29:13
You just don't have a structure that they come to

Paul Edick 29:15
correct. And in the learning, I learned how that health, I learned how the healthcare business actually work by by being in a service business, as opposed to just selling drugs. And then I took a detour from there, I met a gentleman who had an advertising agency in the pharmaceutical healthcare business. And he said, I got a lot of really good advertising people. I've got a lot of marketing people, but I don't know have anybody in my company that understands how pharmaceutical companies and medical products companies work. I actually went to work in that advertising agency for a few years, launching drugs all around the world and you coaching, and consulting with clients on how the healthcare business actually worked. In back then that was in the late 80s, early 90s. It was the advent of managed care, in what companies didn't realize is they weren't managing care, they were managing money. And it was, it was all about the, you know, the movement of money in health care. So if you understand what they're trying to do, you know, as a hospital from a financial perspective, then you understand how your services and or products fit into their world better.

Scott Benner 30:40
When you look today at healthcare, do you and you look at your job? Do you see that, you know, you talked earlier about when you're in sales, you have to understand what the needs are of the of the person buying? So now, I'm assuming you need to understand not only the needs of your customers, and what what they require from you, but you have to understand how to navigate the healthcare world? And do you? Do you find yourself just saying, I'm going to get in this canoe? And I know how to get through this these rapids? Or do you try to reshape the rapids at the same time? Like, how much of that? Do you see is your responsibility to move things? in the right direction for the future? And for versus, or maybe not versus but for the patients?

Paul Edick 31:26
Yeah, that's a great question over the last two decades, what I've come to believe, is that with intense focus on the patient, that's the only way you're going to truly navigate what's going on in healthcare. Because the controlling factors of health care delivery, to a larger and larger degree are all about money and less about care. And, you know, having been in you know, big pharma, and then in small companies, and, you know, started a couple of companies, I, my focus is on, if I'm going to do something, if I'm going to build a company, it's going to be around products that can change healthcare for the better products that can positively impact patients lives, potentially save lives, and reduce their overall cost of care. If I can't do those three things, I don't want to do it. Because it just the world of healthcare right now. It's just too difficult to do anything. Otherwise,

Scott Benner 32:33
I had no idea what you were gonna say, the conversation led itself there. And I realized, as you were speaking a moment ago, the only reason you're on the podcast, is because that's the vibe I got from the people you hired, who reached out to me originally. And, and I get, I get pinged a lot by a lot of people, and they're like, you know, they wouldn't be on the podcast or buy an ad and most of them I turned down. And that's because, to me, the podcast isn't about making money. The podcast is about serving the listeners so they can live, you know, healthier lives with Type One Diabetes. So I only really let people in who I have that experience with. And it's, um, it's just fascinating because you and I really haven't spoken before this, that my vibe of what was going on at your company is is really your goal. And so it's, it's completely obvious, you know, to Oh, absolutely. It's very, very interesting and satisfying for me actually, just a moment like when you were speaking I thought who I was right about this guy, thank god

Paul Edick 33:36
Well, that's good to hear. It's an important part of it. It's critical. I you know, I wouldn't be doing this if I couldn't do that. I, you know, I came out of retirement to do this. And it's about like I said, it's about building a great company that people can be proud of. And in that the word greatness comes from the ability to do everything I just said how

Scott Benner 33:58
did that how does that happen to your retired retired like sitting at home on the patio retired or just in between jobs and not in a hurry to get another one? How, what was the situation?

Paul Edick 34:08
No, two years retired, I was retired, retired, I had been approached about numerous companies and CEO positions and I wasn't terribly interested. Two of my former one of my former investors and another investor that I knew well from the world of healthcare investing, called me, and then they reached out to me through a third party to say please just come talk to us come look at this company. This is little bitty group of people. They've got this cool technology, and it needs a reboot and you know,

Scott Benner 34:43
so as a favor, I I spent some time evaluating what Cirrus was at that time. And so you just sort of came in and consulted a little bit saw the the landscape and we're thinking maybe you'd help them in a certain direction or give him some pointers, but then You ended up staying?

Paul Edick 35:02
Well, no, not not consulting, I just was, I was doing diligence. I was looking at it, you know, to say, Okay, what is the substance of the technology? What can it do? But is it well protected from an intellectual property perspective? Can Can you really build drugs around it. And what I found was, was fascinating, you know, very simple, yet elegant technology in terms of formulating taking old drugs that are not stable in solution, and formulating them into liquid stable products that are way more useful for patients. In many different therapeutic areas. The very first area we're in is the world of diabetes, and, you know, hypoglycemia, but the technology can go in a lot of places. And I saw the opportunity to build a company. There were a lot of people in the Chicagoland area that were, I thought would enjoy coming back together and working together again. So I said in truth be told, I spent about a month as demo three or four months evaluating and then I spent one month building a new plan for the company. And I presented it to the board of directors and said, you know, here's the plan. And here's how much money that's going to take if you're on board with the plan, and you're willing to either put in or allow me to go raise the money necessary. Here's the company we're going to build. And they said, Absolutely. In fact, funny story, I kept saying, well, but we'd need this and we need that we need that. And they kept saying yes, so at a certain point, I couldn't say no.

Unknown Speaker 36:42
Maybe, maybe I can, maybe I could talk them out.

Paul Edick 36:46
If I throw enough stuff in front of them, they slowly fade out. I launched a drug once upon a time called Celebrex. Are you familiar with

Scott Benner 36:54
ever heard of that? Of course.

Paul Edick 36:56
So Celebrex before to bring that drug to market, I think was somewhere on the order of $1.2 billion

Scott Benner 37:05
just to get it out the door

Paul Edick 37:07
before the first capsule was ever sold.

Scott Benner 37:11
So what do you do? You just put it next to beer so that people say

Unknown Speaker 37:18
I wish it was that easy.

Unknown Speaker 37:20
If you Paul's got a brilliant sales plan, if you need glucagon, that's a liquid stable. It'll be at the beer store right next to the Miller.

Scott Benner 37:29
Well, I'm sure you've I'm sure you'll adapt your thoughts. But that's Yeah. Can I ask you What about? Because let me be, like blunt for a second. You guys are making a really boring drug. It's just it's the inside of the diabetes world. It's not something you hear people clamoring about, right? Like it's not. I don't know what I mean. It's not sexy. Like, oh, it's a CGM that tells me which way my budget is moving or great insulin that does. You're talking about something that I think most people think of as that red box, it sits in my drawer, I never use it goes bad. And I throw it away or donate it to my kids school so they can learn how to mix the powder with the liquid like, yeah, and and having heard your life experience. I'm interested in what you saw that in those few months, when you were there looking that made you think this is something that people need, and this will be successful?

Paul Edick 38:22
Yeah, that's a great question. Because most people would look at it and say it's boring. First and foremost. There are five and a half million people in the United States taking insulin every day. The vast majority of them at some point, sometime somehow, sooner or later, are going to have a serious hypoglycemia that requires rescue. I look at that. And I say, Oh my god, the current form factor is almost impossible to use. Only about 20% of those people actually have glucagon when almost all of them should have it. Then you look at it and say over 27,000 people die of severe hyperglycemia every year in this country. totally unnecessary, totally unnecessary. Over 250,000 emergency room hospitalizations for severe hypoglycemia every year. totally unnecessary. And the cost associated with all of that. totally unnecessary. When if you could build a better glucagon, one that is liquid, stable, ready to use, you know, you can keep it in your nightstand, you can keep it you know, in your backpack. It's like if you look at allergies, you know, severe allergies, a fraction of like maybe five to 7000 deaths a year

Scott Benner 39:52
because of epi pens

Paul Edick 39:54
because of the advent of a useful product Right, an epinephrine product that's easy to use, easy to administer, stable at room temperature, etc, you're saving lives. You are reducing costs, you're making it a lot more convenient for people. Why wouldn't you do that? And the thing that's even more interesting, if you look at the diabetes community, the general consensus, the education that's happened, where physicians are saying, well, you should you know, you shouldn't use glucagon to your pass out, which is totally wrong. You should use glucagon before you pass out. You know, people always say, Well, you know, why can't you just use juice boxes and glucose tabs? It's like, yeah, okay, absolutely do all that. When those don't work. When you are at the point of I don't know what's going to happen next. a two step convenient. take the cap off, give yourself a shot to glue gun is a life saving experience. Yep.

Scott Benner 40:55
Paul, I have to tell you from, from my perspective, what you're saying resonates because, you know, I can give you some examples. So my daughter's 15. Now she's had type one diabetes, since she was two, when she was first diagnosed, we got into a situation where we just gave her too much insulin, we didn't know what we were doing yet. She had a full on seizure. She was, you know, incoherent and grunting and, you know, couldn't see and talk and everything. And I and I am, I've told this story a number of times before, it was one of the reasons why it was comfortable having you on because I knew when I told it to you, that people who listened would know that I wasn't just saying this, because you were here, we're laying on the floor, you know, sitting on the floor of my daughter's on the floor, my wife is working on glucose gel trying to get it open, and I'm holding glucagon. And in that moment, I could not for the life of me remember what anyone told me about reconstituting it. I didn't know. And I and I couldn't do it. And we brought her out of the seizure another way because we just couldn't, I couldn't figure it out. And when it was all over, and I had time to reflect on it. What I remembered most is that when someone handed it to me initially, they said, Oh, this is glucagon. It's in case you get incredibly low. It's like a life saving thing. You'll never need it. And as soon as they said that, I guess my brain just went, Oh, we'll never need this. And I just think so much was going on in our life, I did not really have the bandwidth to start learning things I didn't need, you know, and so I just didn't it. It's funny, even when you go to explain it to somebody, you're like, hey, well, you know, you take this. So there's this powder in this vial here. And then there's this liquid in the syringe, you want to take the liquid chute. And as you're doing it, you're like, Oh my God, if this ever happens, this babysitter is not gonna figure this out. And moreover, and probably most importantly, we don't carry it with us. It's not, it's not Yeah, doesn't lend itself to something you keep with you. And and I'm excited for something that does it and and that's, that's what you saw when you went down there that days, you saw you saw the the future of what this could all be.

Paul Edick 43:02
Yeah, and I did quite a bit of research. And I went out, I actually went out and talked to doctors, I went out and talked to patients who were you know, diabetics and said, you know, how do you do this. And I remember my grandmother was a diabetic and I remember my mother giving her shots. And but I, you know, I don't even think I don't even know if there was such an glucagon even existed at that time. But the, I just tried to I went out and listened, and said, Oh, my god, there's a, in my mind at the time, there's a critical need here, there. And, and the, the community doesn't understand that there they could be, there could be something better. For me, it was back to what I said before, an opportunity to change the way medicine is practiced, and opportunity to save lives. And in doing so, the net net is going to be less cost to the system.

Scott Benner 43:57
He said the company's been in existence for how long?

Paul Edick 44:01
Because the company was started by the Chief Scientist as almost, you know, like skunkworks in his back, you know, his, his workshop years ago, like 10 years ago. The company, as it's constituted today, you know, really starting to do serious research and putting products into development, probably about five or six years.

Scott Benner 44:30
The initial scientist, you know what led him or her to work on this.

Paul Edick 44:36
He's our chief scientist today, Steve Petroski. He, he was in a company where he was a formulation chemist, formulation scientist working on different kinds of things. And he you know, one of his areas of interest was products that are not stable in solution or not soluble and he developed Have a an approach chemistry where he can put liquids which are not water based into a formulation, get the water out. And in so doing, you create a much more stable product it can, it can, it's fine at room temperature for like two years. And there's a lot of products that require reconstitution, that, that mixing piece that you're talking about, where you've got a powder, and you've got a liquid and you mix it up, and then you've got the drug that you're going to administer. When that's a water based solution. It usually is not stable when it's in solution. So it degrades very quickly. So, you know, if you could take that kit that you describe and mix it up, and have it in the syringe and carry it around for a couple years. I think you'd find that, you know, a lot more of those five and a half million diabetics would actually have glucagon on hand. I think so too, and and I wouldn't have to be buying them over and over again, as they expired. Right. And, you know, it's interesting, people say, Well, you know, I don't know if I'll use it. And I said, Well, I'll tell you, when people will have severe allergies, my grandson, you know, six epipens. When they when they're expired, they go by six more.

Scott Benner 46:23
Because it's not, it's not the, the constant, you're not going to use it all the time. But it's that one time that you better be prepared for I had somebody the other night, a physician, who said, Well, you know, I've I've only had to use glucagon place in my life. And I was done. I said, so glucagon saved your life twice? Why wouldn't you get one of these better devices? So you have it on your person? It's interesting, fair, interesting, the way they think about it, I completely agree with you. I think it's like, you know, it's like car insurance, almost like you're not planning on hitting somebody. But, you know, the day it happens, you know, for whatever reason, and I talked about it in diabetes that way, as well, as, you know, the idea of, if you could plan for when something was going to go wrong, then it would never go wrong. You know, like if you know,

Paul Edick 47:14
yeah, what you went through as a parent, parents, parents should never have to go through?

Scott Benner 47:21
Well, I have to tell you, it's one of the worst moments of my life like hands down, it really, it's up there in my top 10. I wish these this didn't happen to me, it's experienced that I could have gone my whole existence without having. And I'm even liking the idea that Arden could keep one on her. In the other setup, it doesn't really lend itself like anybody can figure out how to just, you know, push the plunger, but the rest of it is off putting. And then you you also have to keep in mind that that process needs to be simplified, because it's possible that while you a you know, as a bystander, or a friend or a parent is trying to figure this out, there's a person who you know, or love having a seizure, that that could be the situation that that makes thinking a lot harder I can tell you from from experience, you know, you're not you think you're like all comical. I remember afterwards, I said to my wife, like, I think I handled that pretty well. And she's like, oh, you're out of your mind, you don't even know. And I was like, She's like, yeah, you weren't doing well, at all, in case you're wondering, I thought I was you know,

Paul Edick 48:24
it, it is a rare individual. It's a rare individual that is calm in a crisis. I mean, you know, there are very few people that in a crisis, they go to a place that is very calm, very deliberate.

That's not your normal, that's not your average human being. I like

Scott Benner 48:42
the idea of anything that takes away steps or need to think or, you know, possibility of dropping something or that any of all that is better. And I'll tell you why. Not that this isn't incredibly exciting. But as you were speaking, what I really heard was this process that your lead scientists came up with has other applications.

Paul Edick 49:03
Oh, absolutely. We were building better drugs in two or three other therapeutic areas as we speak.

Scott Benner 49:11
It's excellent. That's very cool. Well, I have a ton of questions for you, that are more nuts and bolts, but I think we're out of time, honestly. So either I'm going to get you to come back at some point, or I'm going to have whoever you think is the best person to talk to about the real, you know, the real use strategies behind it. And, and there's part of me that really wants to ask you about closed loop systems, but I'm assuming you're a publicly traded company, you're gonna like shoo away my question. So I'm not asking you about that. Unless you unless you want to talk about it, Paul.

Paul Edick 49:42
We will have the only liquid stable glucagon. So if there's a system that works, we've we've now what you now have not to take too much time but what you now have is the real innovation here is a liquid stable glucagon. You can use it in all kinds of ways. Not just Rescue. So if somebody can perfect a two hormone pump system, it needs glucagon and insulin. Now you finally have the only liquid stable glucagon. So we'll see how the, we'll see how it all evolves. If you're building

Scott Benner 50:17
one of those systems, head over to Chicago, look for the building that says Pringles on it. And that's, that's a little B, can I ask you? And if you can't say I understand, but I'm assuming right now that your FDA clearance for an emergency situation? Are you planning on trying for a therapeutic? Like, you know, instead of injecting the entirety of the dose, if say, I was just in a situation where I had the flu, and my blood sugar was stuck at 50. And it just kind of wouldn't move? And I want to put in a tiny bit of the product, would it? Is there? Are you thinking about that over there?

Paul Edick 50:54
We're testing it in all of those applications. So if you're if you want to exercise, you have to go through an incredible process to not have your glucose go too low. We're in clinical studies on using glucagon our glucagon in small doses before. Exercise. We're studying our glucagon in continuous infusion for people who don't recognize their hypoglycemia symptoms, that you know, that's the classic person who is one minute just fine the next minute in a car accident. You can reboot with continuous infusion of glucagon for about a month, we believe you can reboot the system we're studying in non these are not diabetic, post bariatric surgery, people get severe hyperglycemia after certain kinds of meals. We believe by using a little bit of glucagon after that meal, you can prevent severe hypoglycemia. So we've got a research project going on there. Like I said, with liquid stable glucagon, you can address a multitude of other conditions. And like you said, you know, what is mini dosing? How does that work? Can you? Can you give yourself a little bit of good gun for different things? We're studying it. We have four clinical programs ongoing right now. That's,

Scott Benner 52:21
that's very encouraging. That's excellent. Yeah. You know what the one thing I didn't ask you, it's so funny, who named the company and how do you guys say it

Paul Edick 52:30
different people in the company say different ways. Some people say seris, and some say Cirrus, the original name was by the Chief Scientist using a similar rationale to Xerox, which was dry printing is not really dry can still a liquid, but it's without water. So his, he said, you know, serious is for dry drugs like xeriscaping, etc. So that's where he came. That's where he came up with it.

Scott Benner 53:03
I'm never in favor of letting the really smart people do the creative stuff, but I hear what you're saying.

Paul Edick 53:09
You never let a scientist name the company, but it was already done.

Scott Benner 53:13
You know, it's and what's the name of the G, Volk, g Volk,

Paul Edick 53:18
glucagon evoke, it evokes your

Scott Benner 53:21
your glucagon from your liver. Now see, now we had a marketing person involved. I see. There we go. I would ask you more about it. But it's it's fascinating. I don't think people understand either that the FDA has really strict rules on it. But you can even name drugs and drug names go through a lot of so they can't be confused with something else. And like there's a lot that goes on that I think nobody really hears. Paul, I really genuinely appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. In a few months, we're gonna have someone back on to talk a little more about evoke more of the nuts and bolts about how it works, the science of it and the use. But for now, I just thought it was interesting to hear from Paul and find out how the leadership of a company that brought you the world's first liquid stable glue gun thought and how they got to that thinking. And moreover, I think Paul was just an interesting guest. We don't often get to talk. Those people like this right really break down who they are and where they came from. Ge voke is a prescription medicine used to treat very low blood sugar in kids and adults with diabetes ah two years and above. g voke. is the first ever liquid glucagon it is premix prefilled. Pre measured and ready to use, no refrigeration is needed. g voke has been approved in two formats, a prefilled syringe and an auto injector visit Jeeva glucagon.com forward slash juicebox to learn more

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#323 Tristan's Mom Has Got It Going On

Chelsea is Tristan's Mom. A conversation about 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 -  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 0:00
Hello, everybody, welcome to Episode 323 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is with Chelsea, who is here to talk about her son Tristan and his type one diabetes. This is a good old fashioned conversational episode with no should we say how should I say this current events involved. This was recorded a while ago. It's just a nice talk about life with type one, you know, get your mind off other things. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one, and you can reach them at touched by type one.org. It is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, what you're going to want to do is go to Contour Next one.com. To learn more about the meter, the app that you can use with it, that by the way, is free. And to see if you're eligible for a free meter itself, there's a button at the top of the page, you can click on to find out, you can always find out more about the sponsors at Juicebox podcast.com. Or use the links right there in the show notes of your podcast player to click on and go right to the pages you're interested in.

I knew I like Chelsea a long time before she came on the podcast. She sent me an email to tell me that my use of the word lady time to describe a period she found to be and I quote classy. That's what I knew I loved her.

Chelsea's on the show today to talk about her son Kristen's diagnosis, the guilt she felt around it and where they've gotten to since then. It's a nice conversation to lead us into the weekend. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin.

Chelsea 2:41
I'm Chelsea. I have two boys, Kristin who is four and a half. And he's the type one. And Lucas who is three.

Scott Benner 2:53
Two and a half and three, two and a half and three years is that

Chelsea 2:58
I met four and a half, maybe

Scott Benner 3:00
a half and I didn't hear it correctly. I was that lady can make babies every six months.

Chelsea 3:05
But I'm a teacher and it's the very last your workshop day. before we're off for the summer.

Unknown Speaker 3:13
A little discombobulated.

Scott Benner 3:14
Feel free in your mind. Okay, so let's go Yeah, so your son who has type one's name is

Chelsea 3:19
Tristan, Tristan,

Scott Benner 3:20
and he is four and a half so you can begin school next year. And then just Justin's brother is Lucas

Chelsea 3:30
three so three he was born with club feet and we thought that was going to be our challenge but I you just do like club feet.

Scott Benner 3:37
Haha, that's nothing.

Chelsea 3:39
Right.

Scott Benner 3:42
What do you do for the the feet like orthopedic type shoes that help bring it back and some fun? Oh,

Chelsea 3:47
yeah. A week after he was born he had to be and shaping cast every week, so we had to get those changed every week. And then after about nine casts, they had to cut his kilise tendon and then recast they would grow together again longer. And then now he's been in a night brace and he has to wear the brace until he's five.

Scott Benner 4:12
Well, that sounds scary cutting his Achilles tendon must have frightened Yeah, to no end. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess it'll

Unknown Speaker 4:20
grow back. I can

Scott Benner 4:22
even see you know you thinking like, hey, look, you know, we just wanted to have some kids and get a dog maybe a fire pit. I wasn't looking for a lot here. I don't want to I don't want to deal with all this. Can the kid learn to walk in His hands? His hands look nice and straight. I'm sure there were many things with your head. He could have been a circus performer if he could have walked on his hands, but now that's ruined. Right? Isn't that something? And so when did you learn that in relationship to Kristen's diabetes? What came first the diabetes of the club feet

Chelsea 4:53
a club feet. So because we know he was gonna have club feet before he was even born. Okay. To get

Scott Benner 5:00
imaging is amazing. Okay. And so how long is Tristan had type one?

Chelsea 5:05
Then September? Hold

Scott Benner 5:07
on I'll count like November, December, January, February, March, April. That's like nine months ago. Yeah. See? Okay. Yeah. So, um, any endo issues in the family that now you look back and go, that makes sense because I have this or my aunt has that or is it right? Oh yeah.

Chelsea 5:26
Oh yeah, my

mom has celiac. And then just about everyone on my husband's side has Crohn's disease or colitis?

Scott Benner 5:38
I bet you didn't bring that up on the first day.

Chelsea 5:41
I was like, you know where this come from? I think.

Scott Benner 5:45
So tell me something about yourself. Chelsea. I have trouble holding my food in. Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't cover windows, by the way. not to get too far off the beaten path. Right. But how far into a relationship for before someone tells you. I have Crohn's disease.

Chelsea 6:01
Well, he doesn't actually have it. Oh, it's just all over the fam.

Oh, yeah. His mom does and his uncle does.

Scott Benner 6:08
He just thought he was the lucky one they got away with not having something.

Chelsea 6:11
Right. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:13
That's okay. Life has a way of paying you back for being too hopeful. Okay, so I used to diagnose nine months ago, that's not a particularly long time ago. Where would you say you're at? In your adjustment at nine months?

Chelsea 6:31
I feel like we're doing really good. Like, we got it, we go to the appointments. And usually the doctor says I was gonna tell you to do this, that and the other thing, but I can tell you've already done it. So

Scott Benner 6:44
keep doing it, I guess. Yeah. So the doctor has maybe a plan that they don't share with you every time. Like they think the next time they come in here based on what I've seen this time, maybe I'll move them up to, I don't know, be something else and other step process and you get there and you've already put the step into play.

Chelsea 7:02
Right? Yeah, cuz she looks at the data while we're sitting there in the room because he has his Dexcom they're looking at that. He says, Well, I was gonna tell you to adjust this, but it looks like you did that like two days ago. So.

Scott Benner 7:15
Okay, so she's looking at your graph and and just doing what and you're so how did you figure out how to do it on your own? Is it just a leap you made? Did you just look at it one day and think, you know, it's going up? So I'm going to use more insulin or did you? I don't know find guidance somewhere. I'm now sound like,

Chelsea 7:32
yeah, I

Scott Benner 7:34
for you to tell me that you like the podcast, but that's not what I was gonna say.

Chelsea 7:40
But that's where I like, yeah, I figured it out. Like I started listening, not long after diagnosis. And then I was joined all the groups force and I was like, What are these people keep saying GS six index. And so I googled it. And then I found out and I had never heard of Omnipod or Dexcom. I didn't know we were on MDI till I heard you say MDI on the podcast, and like, Oh, that's what we're doing.

Scott Benner 8:07
Isn't it? What did you call it at home? Just injections or shots? Or

Chelsea 8:11
Yeah, just shot? Yeah.

Scott Benner 8:12
That's what I call it by the way, just I just I am the I because that's the the right way to say it. But yeah, when Arden was doing it, she just got shots. And even people call you I think the proper way to refer to the, you know, what you use to give a shot is a syringe, right, but I just call them needles, because I mean, yeah, I'm not fancy. So the Pen Pen. Yeah, I never got a pen didn't even get that far. Oh, geez, I have to tell you. Last night, Arden was jumping in the shower, and we were stretching her pump out to like the last second using up every drop of insulin. It was working great. There was no reason to take it off. So she's like, I have to get in the shower now. Like, I need to get the bed soon. But her pump was like dropped out of insulin. Like I'm like, Can we make it through how much is in there? And she comes back. She's like, it's done, you know, I'm done. So we went downstairs. And I gave her an injection of insulin, just to you know, carry her through the shower. And we took the pump off and you know, just the activated the pot and just injected some insulin and sent it up there. And when I was injecting it into her, I realized this, these syringes still have the half unit markings on them. These are the original syringes that we were given to us. I mean, the last time we got a prescription of syringes, Arden must have been like three and a half or four. And she's she's gonna be 15 this summer. And still when I reach for a syringe, it's from that order 10 years ago. Well, not crazy. And they work perfectly By the way, nothing wrong. But yeah, I just that's how long it's been since you know since I bought a syringe. But anyway, that's so Okay, so you go out into the world like you you go online. That's really smart. By the way, just, it's interesting what you just said, you're like I saw people saying Dexcom over and over again or this over and over again. I thought, let me find out what that is my wife grocery shops like that. Wherever. Yeah, whatever food is gone. She makes the assumption people like it. And then she tries it. Yeah. If the grocery store was smart, they just wouldn't fully stocked the shelves and whatever three things were left my wife would buy. She'd be like, people must love these. Yeah, but but that worked out pretty well for you. So you go online, just figure out what the stuff is. And then what you do go to the doctor and say, hey, what?

Chelsea 10:32
I said I want a duck. That sounds like a great idea. Do that.

Scott Benner 10:36
And we how long into the process until you got Did you get CGM first or Yeah,

Chelsea 10:41
CGM first. And then we had to get signed up for all the pump classes.

Scott Benner 10:47
Is that funny? There's pump classes, but there's not yam classes.

Chelsea 10:50
It's interest. Yeah, I was like, they just let me stick this thing on my kid. And it's gonna stay there for 10 days. But the pump like

Scott Benner 10:57
you had to go take a class learn how to counter verb. Yeah, yeah. Somebody say something incredibly boring for a number of hours and in a fluorescent lit room. And then you walk out knowing not much more than you knew before you walked in, and then they let you have it because you passed the test.

Chelsea 11:12
Right? I had already earned what I wanted to read it all online. And apparently, I felt like the only person in the class, but I was getting there.

Scott Benner 11:21
Okay, do you think a lot of other people just came in cold and didn't find out? So like? Yeah, I guess that's makes sense, right? That maybe most people wouldn't think they go out in the world and dig into this like you did? Maybe? Yeah. Okay, so how long after his diagnosis? Did you get the CGM about? About a month after very close? Okay, so do you have any honeymooning at all?

Chelsea 11:43
Not that I can. I don't think so.

Scott Benner 11:46
Okay. What's the first thing you noticed when you put the CGM on?

Unknown Speaker 11:52
Um,

Chelsea 11:55
I don't know.

Scott Benner 11:56
Like when you first by seeing the data?

Chelsea 11:59
Oh, I, I was just fascinated. I was checking constantly. And it really annoyed my husband, because he wasn't convinced that we needed any of it because he would pick finger pokes. You know, every time he fed a meal and what they'd be like, I'm doing a great job. Look at this. going on in between.

Scott Benner 12:19
Yeah, yeah, that's okay. Right. What what is happening that you can't see. Because I hear some people say like, the kind of the, like, you know, I like exactly what your husband said, like, look how great I'm doing. Every time I check when they tell me to check, my blood sugar's around where I want it to be. Then they put the Dexcom on and they see the moments in between and think, Wow, that is not what I thought was happening. Like, how do I go from 114 to 95? And then the three hours in between? Well, I was 300. For you know, right,

Chelsea 12:45
90 minutes.

Scott Benner 12:46
Very, very, it's very enlightening, I guess when you when you say it, finally, yeah, you get to CGM and a pump comes reasonably soon after that. I mean, is that how you guys have been doing it?

Chelsea 12:59
Yes. Because I have the past, pushing to get into all of the classes before the end of the year, so that my insurance would cover it, because we just had, but our out of pocket ambulance ride and hospital stays. So I wanted to get all I could for free.

Scott Benner 13:17
Right? Hey, and people really, if you're not thinking about that, always be thinking about that, you know, as soon as you're, you know, as soon as you meet your deductible, that's when it's time to be like I need stuff. It's Yeah, you know, I mean, listen, you're gonna pay the money one way or the other, but once it's paid, you know, you know like key Imagine if you know, the calendar year rolls over and you missed by two weeks and now you're putting out your your money again, right away and ticket. Oh, yeah. So that's March, you get that going? And you just think so everything's just going well, like you just, it's good.

Chelsea 13:50
Ah, no.

Well, it was like thinking back diagnostic for sent home early from his first day of preschool because he was sick. And then the very next day was when we brought him to the hospital. But then looking back, we can see signs of him having been sick for months, like the whole summer long.

Scott Benner 14:17
What were some of the signs that you did didn't cause you to go to a doctor?

Chelsea 14:21
Well, like a, he started losing weight. And everyone's like, well, he's just thinning out. You know, he's that age. I'm wetting the bed at night, which he had always done. He had never been night potty trained. So we didn't think anything of that. And drinking tons and tons of water, which it was summer.

Scott Benner 14:41
So that makes that makes sense. Yeah.

Chelsea 14:44
And you find me and moody and would say he was tired and refuse to do things but he had been that way since birth.

Scott Benner 14:52
Like this kid's always been a jerk. This is not

Chelsea 14:56
refused. Now. Looking back at

Please sing away.

Scott Benner 15:01
Yeah, no, I have a photo of Arden. I don't think I've ever shared online. I don't ever think I would. But she's in a diaper. And she looks like a you know, like, she looks like somebody I don't know, Mick Jagger would have dated in the 70s. And you know, like, she just she, she's like heroin thin. And yeah, and no one thought anything of it for some reason, just, you know, at me, she was already little. I mean, keep in mind the difference between art and looking incredibly thin. And how she looked healthily was like, you know, a pound and a half. But okay, it was a big deal on her. You know what I mean? From 19, down to 17 pounds was a huge difference. Yeah, see your ribs and, and just I don't know, I guess it happens slowly. And you don't notice it?

Chelsea 15:44
Yeah. And he was just constantly snacking. I remember getting annoyed with him. I was like, just pick one thing and eat the whole thing. But he would pick one thing and be like, that's not satisfying me. I want something else. And

Scott Benner 15:54
because nothing was gonna satisfy him, right? Because he had a primal hunger going on because of what was happening in his bodies. Right? Crazy. Oh, so so I'm trying to I'm trying to paint a picture in my head of him like opening something, taking two bites of it and being like, not good enough. And then moving on to the next thing and you're running around being like, I cannot afford to buy all this food different. I can eat it. That's great. Okay, so I guess you know, when you wrote me eat a really specific ask when you wrote and you just said that. You hear people's diagnosis stories. And they all seem one way and yours felt so different, that you are the one to talk about a little bit. So what was what was it about yours that made you feel that way?

Chelsea 16:43
I guess when I started listening, the diagnosis stories I heard were parents who noticed one off thing about their child and they would think, oh, maybe it's this, Google and bring it to the doctor. And then they were diagnosed and on their way in a matter of like a week. And I felt like I did, or month like march through September that my child was up writing it off. And we didn't bring him until he started doing that cool, small breathing, which I had no idea what it was right. I brought him to the doctor thinking he had pneumonia. And she took one look at him and said, You're going downstairs to the emergency room.

Scott Benner 17:24
She'd see the diabetes right away at that point.

Chelsea 17:28
She didn't know but she know. He was like, way sicker. She's like he's too young to be being this way. She's like, I don't know what's wrong with him. But you're going to do

Scott Benner 17:38
I don't need this kid to go downstairs right now. Because there's a lot going on here. Don't need your kid dying upstairs here with us. And so yeah, and like hoisted him down. So what were the first steps the emergency room took?

Chelsea 17:52
They got him set up on IVs. And we were there. urgency room like not even within five minutes. I just remember the emergency room doctor looking at him. Like, he's like they said pneumonia? And I'm like, Yeah, he doesn't have pneumonia. I think he's diabetic. I was just like, What?

Scott Benner 18:09
Are you sure he doesn't have pneumonia? Because we were hoping for that.

Unknown Speaker 18:12
I know. I was like,

Scott Benner 18:13
check his feet. Make sure his feet like, way the wrong way. Yeah. It could be anything else. So did that. How did that how did that strike you like diabetes? Did it just seemed like it wasn't something that fit a child or, like when you hear when you heard it initially? What would you How did you react?

Chelsea 18:31
I was just like, well, what? Like, what kind of diabetes? Like, what did we do? Like I I didn't know, I didn't know anything? I knew there were two types. And that's all I knew. And one was the type you sort of gave yourself when you were older and the other one born with

Scott Benner 18:48
Oh, and that's that's just how you saw it like you give us one you give yourself when you're old. And when you get and then but the one you get not supposed to be like, wait, what's going on? And how did they describe it to you when you asked which it was? Do you remember?

Chelsea 19:04
Um, I didn't get the difference explained to me until like the second day in the hospital when I was like, Hey, I don't know the difference

between type one and type two.

And so yeah, then they explained about

Scott Benner 19:21
well, they have lots of videos, give us an iPad and told us to watch all the videos that explain how the pancreas works and unlocks the cells and all that stuff. The hospital discharge, you're watching YouTube. That's what it sounds like to me. You paid $25,000 to watch some YouTube videos. They were like, we can explain this to her. But

Unknown Speaker 19:38
yeah, I'd be

Scott Benner 19:39
so much easier just to give her this iPad full of videos but doctors are getting lazy.

Chelsea 19:43
Okay, I actually really liked the videos. Like that's my body.

Scott Benner 19:48
No kidding. Oh, that's cool. So winning animated. Yes, little cartoon. I like a cartoon just like everybody else does. Except for the missing link movie that came out this summer. That was terrible. I'm sorry, I've digressed. But there's this great little there's this great little movie company that makes these stop motion movies. So like kubu in the two strings, or like paranorman, Coraline, like these kind of different moves are made out of this stop motion animation. Oh, yeah. So they came out with a new one this year. And even though I watched the trailer and thought that movie appears to suck, I still win because I was with the company. If the company's listening, I went on your you had a great track record. And I'll tell you, that missing link movie made you made you upset that you were the movies just like oh, this is terrible. Like, really, really bad. Anyway, but your son likes a little animated movie about the inside body. he digs it. How much of it? Do you think he understands today? Nine months later?

Chelsea 20:47
Um, I don't know. I feel like more than the average kid. He would he went home and he's kept watching videos. And we get read in the book. Yes, over and over again. He goes up to people and says, I'm interested. I have diabetes is my Dexcom. Like,

Scott Benner 21:06
does he really? Yeah, I like that. I like that. He's so open about it. And he's an bastard. What's the question here? How do people react? Does it freak people out? Or do they give them the the classic? Oh my God, you're so adorable. Like that kind of thing? Or have you ever seen it like turn take a person and put them in a position where they didn't know what to say?

Chelsea 21:28
They kind of like look surprised. And they look at me. And they're like, they know. And so I'm like, Yeah, I guess

Unknown Speaker 21:35
that's really nice.

Scott Benner 21:38
Okay, so hospital. And so I guess the jumping off point from the idea that about your diagnosis was did? Did you feel guilty? For not seeing it sooner?

Chelsea 21:52
Oh, of course. Yeah.

Scott Benner 21:54
And how did so? What's the logic that you use to feel that guilt with? Because it's one of those things that when you look at it in reality, you think, wow, there's no way I could have known any of this. But you don't. You don't give yourself that pass? Like so? I don't. Can you explain a little bit about that guilt?

Chelsea 22:12
I guess. Yeah. Like,

put all these together and figured something out. But there were other explanations for the being in the water and personality. personality, even though my husband, he's fractious. There's gotta be something wrong with him.

And like, he's always been that way.

Scott Benner 22:36
Be honest, when he was obnoxious. Were you like he's taking after you. Did you tell your husband? This is how you did? Well,

Chelsea 22:42
we had a joke that he kind of captured my sister because she was always very dramatic.

Scott Benner 22:47
That's nice. I didn't realize we were throwing your sister under the bus in the podcast, but that's delightful.

Unknown Speaker 22:51
You would agree. What she really that she's about? Yes. No kidding. Yeah.

Scott Benner 22:57
I've been called nauseous. I get that. I see. But sometimes you have to own it. So your sister Can we say your sister's name or no? Harley, Carly? Harley, Harley. Alright, Carly. Well, I'm sorry that you're obnoxious. But I like that you that you've owned it. That's just very funny. Okay, so So there you go. Like so you've got this guilt, like for just now you see these things over and over again? And they don't, you know, they don't cause you to go find out about something I would tell you that, you know, the same thing happened to us. Arden was you know, in DK when we figured it out. She was down the panting like, you know, like a dog outside.

Chelsea 23:34
Yeah, that's what he was doing.

Scott Benner 23:36
Right. So we made it all the way to the end to I don't think it's you know, is it guilt you still carrier if you've been able to sort of leave it behind? touched by type ones mission is to elevate awareness of type one diabetes, raise funds to find a cure, and to inspire those with diabetes to thrive. They have amazing programs and services for people with type one. I'd like you to find out a little more about them. How can you find out about their annual conference, their awareness campaign, dancing for diabetes, or the extensive, amazing professional dance program that they have for kids with type one. It's really easy to find out more about it. not difficult at all. You go to touched by type one.org. And right there at the top of the page says programs you can click through them and see what's going on. no better way to spend a couple of minutes touched by type one.org. Okay, we're all inside right now. I don't want to say stuck inside, right. We're lucky to have homes. But we're starting to feel a little Well, I can speak for myself. I'm bored and it's hard to Just motivate myself to do the things that I should be doing right now. There are some simple things you can be doing to help yourself in major, major ways. And one of them is something I don't think we think about too often get a little comfortable, right with the blood glucose meter we have. And we stopped believing that there's any reason to pay attention to what else is out there. Except, I know that the Contour Next One blood glucose meter is world's better, very likely than the meter you're using every day. They've got all this other great technology, your blood glucose meter should be right up there at the top of the list. Just like your CGM and your pump, all this cool stuff that you have that you're counting on. Right when you have to rely on a meter, you want it to be accurate and easy to use. And you don't want to waste test strips. And the Contour Next One blood glucose meter fills all of those orders. Check it out, right go to Contour Next one.com. At the top of the page, there's actually a little yellow thing you can click on to find out if you're eligible for a free meter you may be may not be I don't know, I don't know you. And I mean, but it's worth finding out. And even if you're not eligible for the free meter, it's not an expensive thing to switch blood glucose meters. And this is the one you want to be looking at. Check out the meter, check out the strip's take a hard look at the contour diabetes app that you can use for your phone. It's absolutely free will help you make better sense of the data coming back from that meter. This is without a doubt, no exaggeration, the most accurate, easy to use blood glucose meter Arden has ever had. And it is well worth a couple of minutes of your time to check it out. I mean, honestly, what wall are you staring at right now? You know what I mean? We're not busy. Make an improvement for yourself. This will feel like a small improvement. But we'll have amazing ripples into your health. Just having good information. Contour Next one.com. There are links in your show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. For all of the sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. Click on those links. support the show. Hey, if you're still listening to this ad, first of all, thank you. Secondly, don't forget about the free no obligation demo you can get from Omni pod at Miami podge.com forward slash juice box. And of course, the information that you could learn about the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor@dexcom.com forward slash juice box is it guilt you stole carrier if you've been able to sort of leave it behind?

Chelsea 27:50
I think I've been able to find like at the hospital. They were really good. They did make me feel guilty. Oh, they're like in great sleep. Because they're unconscious. So Oh, yeah, that's the

Scott Benner 28:03
that's the line they use when you made it almost to the worst part. And then they're like, You got him here before this. So good job. We were told the same thing. We see a lot of kids come in here and they're, they're unconscious. They go into comas, some of them don't come out. Yeah, like what I realized. Now in hindsight, they were saying, well, you guys did screw up a lot, but not all the way. So just take some comfort in that if you want. And it's funny because during the diagnosis, everything is so scattered, you know that you don't really you're not processing things the way you normally do. You know, you're not really you're not really feeling the moment the way you wouldn't in a different situation. Like I felt in that missing link movie, which was terrible. Like I sat there every minute of that movie. And okay, so Alright, so now you said you found the podcast early on? again. Did you find that through? Like, like support groups?

Chelsea 28:55
Oh, yeah. And Facebook. So

Scott Benner 28:59
and people just talking about? So So what? So this is interesting to me. Because if I'm trying to decide like, In what world would I see somebody who's basically a stranger on Facebook, and saying, if you need, you know, information about your lifelong disease, I'd go to this podcast and you think, Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Because I asked, I asked listeners all the time, like please share the show, because there's no good way for it to grow if you don't tell people, etc. But I always wonder like, what do they end up telling people like what, what can you say to a to a virtual stranger that causes them to think All right, I'll check out a podcast about something like this. Like what do you remember what was said that moved you or was it just a lot of voices? or How did it How did it get you over here?

Chelsea 29:48
I think I was asking for recommendations. Like is there a book or something I can read and some of the other list of books and one was Oh, you should listen to this podcast. Like what I Have a car and I drive to work, I can do that.

Scott Benner 30:02
I'll tell you what, it's way better than buying a book. Book. Your books are very well, let's just be honest that they're hard to read when you're adults, because there's not a lot of time. But okay, so you just like, Alright, I'll give it a roll. Like that was your kind of your feeling like, Look, if it's no good. It's no good, but I'll try it. And it'll be easy enough. All right. So you jump into the podcast, what were you looking for when you got there? So like, I guess, like, let's go back into that moment and and answer the question. What was it you were searching for? Like, what was happening in that moment with your care that you thought this can't stay this way?

Chelsea 30:35
I just want to know, like, Oh, I could be the best at taking care of it. I guess. I wanted to know everything I could about it. And how to, like, get an A in diabetes. Like,

Scott Benner 30:50
is this part of your personality? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 30:51
yeah. Diabetes? Yes. Okay.

Scott Benner 30:55
So, so you don't want to do anything halfway. You don't want. You don't want someone to look up at you and be like, ooh, she could have done better here. So even even the guilt you felt about not getting him to the hospital as soon as you wanted to. Is that more about the idea that there was a better way to get into the hospital sooner? And because you didn't do it sooner? You didn't do it? Well?

Chelsea 31:19
Well, I just feel bad that I didn't. summer long. I was just telling them you're not tired. Just get up and walk. And you don't need any water. Come on. You just want my attention. If I thought he was just been clinging, because I was going back to work.

Scott Benner 31:35
Okay, no, it's interesting, because, because we all do that, right. Like we all take how we feel about something or what we suppose about a situation and we we put it on other people. Yeah, it's like it's, you know, as if, like, I mean, how old was he at that point?

Chelsea 31:50
was diagnosed a month for his fourth birthday, right. And we had also just moved into a new house. So

Scott Benner 31:57
okay, so so if you stop and really think about it, like the absurdity of thinking that a four year old feels the the the entire weight of the idea that his mom's going back to work enough that he would like, change his personality, like didn't mean like, it's, yeah, kids don't really care. Like, I'm going back towards the like, whatever. If it's not happening right now. I don't know it's happening. You know, he wasn't. He wasn't sitting up at night. It wasn't sitting up at night going. I can't believe this Mom's going back to work. I don't know what the day is a plan to get her really involved here with me, it's probably gonna involve me paying on something and eating a lot of cookies, but only half of the bag. I think this is gonna really get her attention. But it's it's how you felt because that's what you were probably feeling bad about. You were probably feeling bad about I'm going back to work.

Chelsea 32:41
Yeah, yes. Yeah. How many days to go back to work? This kid,

Scott Benner 32:45
let's count, keeping count of every, you know, trying to make you feel bad. Let me tell you something. I mean, this. I mean, this genuinely. When Cole was born, I quit my job. That was in 2000. around January, I have not gotten up and gone to a job since then, which as you can tell by the calendar is some 19 years. And some months later, if you told me, I had to go to a job next week. I'd probably chained myself to the refrigerator and start Yeah, yeah, I would just be like, No, you can't make me go. I don't want to please don't make me I haven't shaved every day in a very long time. And I don't want to do that anymore. I just I couldn't. I couldn't fathom the idea when my wife leaves for work. Every morning, I look at her and I think Oh my God, thank god, she's doing that. Because, I mean, it would kill me. I'm sure it's killing her too. But you know, in a race of who dies First, I want it to be me. Yeah, that's what I tell her. But in my mind, I want it to be hard, because I'd like to live. So she's out doing this for me. I'm like, I really appreciate this. Thank you. I just for all you people who work it seems horrible. And not that this podcast doesn't take up an incredible amount of my time. And, you know, it does and you know, don't get me wrong, like, you know, I fly somewhere to talk. And it's a lot of days in a row and things like that. But, but it's not every day. It's not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, so I think the kid did he save you from this? Did you go back to work? Or did the diabetes caused you to change your job?

Chelsea 34:14
plans? Oh, no, I went back to work. Like I took the days off. I left early when I my mom was watching him and she was like, you should bring him to the doctor. So I think and then, you know, I took several days off work and I'm back to work. Okay.

Scott Benner 34:31
Yeah. Okay, so you're working full time. Oh, you do? Oh, that's excellent. Yeah. So your job is flexible about if you need to do something for your kids. Yeah, no, that's very nice. A lot of places aren't so that's really great. And you're working now still? Yes, yeah. Okay, so you took off enough time to make the second baby and then you were right back in the game again, like how when did you stop working when you're pregnant with your second one.

Chelsea 35:01
Uh, well, after I had my turn to tea leaves, and then back to teaching so

Scott Benner 35:06
so you worked right up until like, go time are very close to

Chelsea 35:10
Yes, actually after because my second one was a week late. So

Scott Benner 35:14
I see you made it past the due date.

Unknown Speaker 35:16
Yes.

Scott Benner 35:18
See? See, again, there's a good look into my mind. I'm like, how much time? Could I get off for being pregnant? If I was? Right, and

Chelsea 35:26
I could, I didn't have a lot of paid days, like take off, right?

Scott Benner 35:29
Yeah, I mean, that all make sense. I'm just saying, You're seeing where my brain jumps right away. I'm like, pregnant, I get off for that, right. But you don't get off for anything. And I know that because I watched my wife. I watched my wife go to go into Manhattan when she was pregnant with call. Yeah. And because at the end, she couldn't move as quickly she couldn't get back on the train as fast as everybody else. So when she'd get on, there were no seats left. Oh, and no one would give her a seat. So she said there were days where she felt so nauseous that she'd sit on the floor of the train and ride the train home on the floor,

Chelsea 36:02
oh, my God, but would look at her.

Scott Benner 36:04
I don't want everyone else to judge the Northeast by this because sometimes people let her sit down, but people would look at her see how frightened she was. And just be like, Hmm, I should have got here sooner and got one of these seats. There's something delightful about living around here that I think that people who don't live here can't really appreciate. But it's also kind of horrible. Sometimes that would be a good example of that. Like she'd get off the train. She's like, I sat on the floor for an hour on the train. And she just felt terrible. But she kept going the whole way to really you. Let's be honest. Women are amazing. And you've heard it said a million times. But if men had to carry babies, there'd be six people on the planet and we'd be close to extinction. So yeah, I would not do that. You definitely guys are definitely wired right for for that. For that little bit of keeping us all here. I don't feel like I have to thank you for it. But you know, you did bring two good kids and one of them's gonna run really fast with a super tight Achilles tendons one day. Yeah. It'd be a track star. Okay, so you go out in the world, you find out Hey, I'm gonna find out some books. I'm gonna check out this podcast, you start listening the podcast. How does the podcast strike you initially? Like, are you just like, wow, nobody said it to me like this? Or did it bring ideas together for you that you were having, but you kind of couldn't pull full circle like, like, how did it work for you?

Chelsea 37:24
Yeah, it was like, Well, why didn't they explain all of this to us at the hospital? And you were using words I'd never heard before. Like, dex Omni pod and like, what are these things? If I had to go look them up? Yeah, yeah. And then it made a lot of sense while you were explaining everything and then even before he went to the next follow up appointment, that's when they finally explained to us well, you can cover food in between, you know, the correct thing and that's fine. Like, Oh, well, that makes perfect sense.

Scott Benner 37:53
There's so many different versions of what to do spread out all over the country in the world. I just spoke to a mom yesterday. I can't use her name, but she's somewhere in the south where they put her kid on regular and NPH and put him on a feeding schedule is still the you know, you eat these many carbs at this time of day. And I just thought Oh, my god that's antiquated. Like who does that but I think it happens to more people than I think you know, and and they're also gave her humor allowed for mealtimes. So the poor kids getting low a lot. And they're basically like they're they're feeding the insulin they're you know, they've put this regular and mph and it's dragging them down, dragging them down, dragging them down and it gets to a certain time of day and he needs to eat if he doesn't need to get slow and I'm like that's just and it's it strips any kind of freedom out of your life you don't even and you're using an insulin from decades ago at this point, like how is that how you would handle somebody who was diagnosed this year? I don't know that doesn't that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't know how that still happens. Right? But it seems sad You know, and they put her in the poor kids got a dex calm right? Yeah, but and so they could see but I mean, luckily they can see how the kid's blood sugar's falling but imagine even that like you put it on your watch his you know his blood sugar's like plummeting down and going back up and and all they're done, they're stuck like watching it go I guess this is what diabetes is. So So you take these people they're diagnosed, they don't know anything about it. You give them really poor direction and medications about how to take care of things and then you show them this is what's going wrong and then don't give them any answers about it. And that's just it seems cruel. You don't mean like it's almost like a horror movie where they I don't know where they let you see they you know, they kill the guy in the room next year, but you get the watch. So you know what's happened to you next, like at least have the courtesy to keep the window closed, so I don't see what's going on. It's just very, very interesting how they give them that technology. What am I trying to say? Like, I'm amazed that there's a doctor's office somewhere who's like Dexcom, g six, yo, you definitely need this. This is cutting edge. And here's insulin from 1986.

Chelsea 40:16
Yeah, very striking. I found out about funny. But other things.

Scott Benner 40:21
Yeah, how can they understand half of it and the other half, like, I get that, right. That's the part that just it threw me off when I was talking. So I, you know, I, you know, I'm sharing it without names, but I just told her, I'm like, Look, I'd go back to the doctor's office and say, I, you know, I need a, I need a slow acting insulin and a fast acting insulin and I maybe a pump, you know, and that's it. I'm switching from this, and if you don't like it off to go somewhere else, but you know, it's not 1989 and I'm not doing this this way. Right. You know, anyway, um, so Okay, so you you get on, you get on the show, you're hearing things you hadn't heard before you go find out about them, you get them started? Are you like, do you bump and nudge? And, and? And do those things? Is that how you manage your days?

Chelsea 41:06
Yeah, I was trying to do that with a pen. Get a pump yet. Meantime, I bought an in pen. Because I wanted more data and information. And to keep track of all of that, okay, then facing my poor son around the house trying to give them that's all the time. He finally got the pump. And so I tried to do the bump and nudge and all of that.

Scott Benner 41:30
It is that working for him?

Chelsea 41:32
Yeah, it is. Most of the time, I rearrange everything. And it's funny. Like, my husband didn't understand why I wanted all this technology. Or he's like we you know, if it's cheaper to do it with the finger pokes needles, why don't we just do it that way. And I had made all these parts of what it would actually cost with needles, and then with the different pumps, I was like, Look, it's just like a $500 difference. worth it to me to do the pump.

Scott Benner 42:01
Right. And it's so not about I mean, now that you're doing it that way, like it's so not about right, that right? Yeah. But is that do you have to budget things? Are you the person you're asked to like budget things out all the time? Or were you just trying to make a case for it? And you didn't know how to make the medical case for it. So you thought well, at least I'll make a financial case.

Chelsea 42:21
Well, we had just happened to also be diagnosed during my employers open enrollment periods.

Funny, so

yeah, that's what I was doing. I hear Yeah, I

Scott Benner 42:36
by the way, is it being an adult? Terrible? Yeah. Anyone? Seriously, anyone listening? Who has never had to like, it's the weekend and there's all these things I want to do. But instead, we're gonna sit down and read about the different insurance plans that my employer offers, and try to figure out which one's best And trust me,

Chelsea 42:54
it'll get me the most free thing. They're written figured out. Oh,

Scott Benner 42:58
my god, they're written Chelsea in a way where you're just like it. They both seem equal to me. I don't even understand why these two exists. They don't they don't appear to be any different. It's just like, I don't know. It's like, it's like anything else. Like, you know how every once in a while you get in your head, you're like, I'm gonna find a new cell phone carrier? Because then you can't they're not cheap anywhere. It's all price fixed. It's not gonna work. Yeah. And so you spend your whole Saturday? And then would you do you just went with the plan that you had before?

Chelsea 43:25
Um, no, actually, we switched.

Unknown Speaker 43:27
Okay, what what, what kind of little faith did you get?

Chelsea 43:32
Ah, well, the one I switched, it's a little more expensive, monthly, but in the end, that has a lower out of pocket deductible, we end up getting more supplies for free, okay. Even though it's not really free, but

Scott Benner 43:47
nothing's free.

Chelsea 43:50
I'm paying $800 a month.

Scott Benner 43:52
But isn't that funny? Isn't it funny that you pay me just $800 a month? What's that? You know, it's $8,000 a year or something like that. And you're like, Look, if we just here then $400. And it's free. After that free you paid 8000 hours? No. I try not to think about that part of it. Because then when you get your copay for something you think, but I've already spent so much money just to get the injections. Like how is it possible? You want more from me? I went to the I had to go into the hospital recently just in and out. And I'm fine, but they must have billed for like, I don't know. $15,000 and still sent me a bill for 1500. Yeah, how is that possible? Like I'm, I'm past my copay already. Like, I'm good. Like, we've paid up that I haven't kid with diabetes. And it's June. I've been good for a while. You know what I mean? Like we're paid in. And I'm gonna eventually I'll just call the hospital and be like, Look, are you out of your mind? Like I'm not giving you 1500 dollars like for what you know, for the three tests that I stood up in the room and said, Please don't give me those. I don't need those. That's not why I'm here. And they're like, No, we have to and now you want to charge me for it. And by the way, all the tests are clear, and I didn't need them, like, you know? I don't know, do you think I'll have any luck arguing my way out of that probably should be

Chelsea 45:05
like I passed the test. I don't have to pay, right. That's how it works.

Unknown Speaker 45:10
I'll give that a try.

Scott Benner 45:13
Okay, so so you should that's smart though. Like, I mean, honestly, joking around, it sucks to, you know, to have to spend time as an adult, like looking into stuff like that. But everybody really should sit down and read through those plans and see what they do. Because they're very well might be one where you could like, you know, he said, $500, maybe it's 1000, you might save a little bit of money at the end of the year. And it's a big deal, you know? Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 45:35
Cool. Yeah. So okay,

Scott Benner 45:38
you bump in nudge a little bit? Where are we at? We are Do you mind saying, like, you know, how's your let's, let's ask some kind of management idea questions. So like, Where's your low and high range set to on your Dexcom? Where do you try to stay?

Chelsea 45:51
At to 150?

Scott Benner 45:54
Sorry, about that. I got actually an 80 to 150. And that do you have? What am I want to call it luck with? Like, do you basically get to stay in that range? Do you leave it very frequently?

Chelsea 46:07
Yeah, basically, do, um, doesn't get low very often. That for like, today has been all day. But usually it's high.

Scott Benner 46:18
And by high, how far over 150? When you're when you have that thought, like, oh, gosh, I'm

Chelsea 46:24
under it said again? In the 200 200?

Scott Benner 46:29
Do you ride it out? Do you try to get it down? Like Have you figured out why he gets to 200? And doesn't and and you get stuck in it? How often does it happen?

Chelsea 46:38
Well, it's sort of like my husband and I have different strategies for tackling. He likes to write it out. Great of him going low. And I like to tackle it, because it's like, he's never gonna say no to m&ms or fruit snacks.

Scott Benner 46:51
So So why don't we get this down? And then we'll catch it with a snack if we Yeah. So let's say you and your husband have different strategies. If you were weren't trying to stay married, what would you say? Would you say that you're doing it right? And he's not?

Chelsea 47:05
I'm doing it better? Doing It Wrong.

Scott Benner 47:10
So if is your husband not around it as much as you are?

Chelsea 47:16
Oh, actually, he takes care of them. Morning and most of the day, and then he drops them off to me at work. So

I'm sort of in charge the rest of the day and the night.

Scott Benner 47:29
Huh? and so on. So I'm trying to, I'm trying to like figure something out. Right. Like, it's usually I think this would, I guess I'm gonna say this is what I'm getting at. I think it would surprise the people who are listening to know that in the private conversations I have with families. It is more often. The man the the male part of the mom dad relationship, who is scared. And I I can't ever put my finger on why that is because guys basically Don't think about anything like you. I don't know how long you've been married. But by now you must have noticed, like I said on a podcast the other day that will end up being six months ago. Like I'm not even like I'm basically just a rock with a pulse. Like I'm a guy you're gonna mean like I think through so few things before I do them. I'm always like, go go, go do knock it over. We'll pick it up later. You know, just I don't care kill it. Like that kind of stuff. Like just guy stuff. Yeah. But when it comes to this, it's never like that. very infrequently. The guys are, you know, most most often the guys I hear from are always the ones who are just Well, let's just be careful. And I don't know why I wish I could get a guy on to be honest and talk about it. I don't know if they I you know, there is this interesting thing when you have a baby, right? When you get married Chelsea, it's like, oh, it's me. And this guy that I love for me and this girl that I love her this girl and that whoever you are, you have this pairing of people. And you realize that you're the to each other. You're like the most important thing in the world. Then you have a baby. And you recognize, ah, I used to think she was the most important thing in the world. But now I realize that's just a girl I met at a movie theater one time. That's my son. Like, right? Like if one of us has to get thrown off a boat, because there's only two seats. I'm tossing her over, not him. You know what I never would have done that six months ago. And so you have this, like you have this different connection to your children than you do to your spouse. And I think sometimes you realize it hit me one time. But you know, when I became a stay at home dad and I'm raising coal, I was like, Oh my God, if something happens to this kid, like she's not gonna forgive me. Like whether it's you don't mean like whether it's a purpose or not like that'll be something that will happen that I don't know that somebody could ever get over. And so I wonder if guys like I wonder if that's something because men kick. Men want to keep their women, women once they're married or sort of like Alright, well You know, we've got the house and the kids all look the same. So I don't know that I really need you anymore. It's interesting how some Yeah, women's like focus changes as they've had children that the children become incredibly important, and everything else sort of takes a backseat. And I don't know if I'm making all this up or not. But I do wonder like, why it is that overwhelmingly, I see men who just would rather have their kids blood sugar high. Do they not understand that that's detrimental? Or are they so scared, they can't care?

Chelsea 50:29
I don't feel like at first, my husband didn't understand why I wanted all this stuff. And I was worried about his blood sugar being high all the time. And unfortunately, it took because I would try to long term health sciences blah, blah, blah. And he's like, Yeah, whatever. We're doing fine. But then my mom passed away suddenly. And then

Scott Benner 50:49
finally, all of a sudden got it. Like into the on top of it. Interesting. Give me one second. I have something making noise in the background. I have to stop. I'll be back in one second. Yep.

So I'm sorry. So So somebodies mortality reared its head. And then your husband thought, oh, wow, people do die. Not that he didn't know that. But it the reality of it hit him. I have to say that. That's not crazy. Because a lot of us make it through life not paying attention to those sorts of things. Like you know, ignorance is bliss kind of a situation is definitely a way to get through some things and it happens for people. So, so who pet so tell me who passed away again, my mom Of what?

Chelsea 51:38
It was really unexpected. It ended up some sort of heart problem like pericarditis like gut lining around their heart. Blame, did she? Yeah, like that? And how old is she? Everything went downhill very fast.

Scott Benner 51:56
He was 61. Very sorry. That's so young. And obviously not, uh, not not funny at all. No. And, and it's just tough because we went right into your mom dying from like, all the joking around about Yeah, it's such a weird shift. But,

Unknown Speaker 52:10
but get it? So

Scott Benner 52:12
do you think that part of your mom's death being so out of the blue? Do you think that helped, like jolt your husband a little bit like, wow, look, this didn't look like it was gonna happen. Now all of a sudden, she's not here anymore. And maybe I'm looking at these blood sugars and thinking it's gonna be fine. And maybe it won't be.

Chelsea 52:30
Yeah, I feel like that's what happened.

Scott Benner 52:33
Oh, your mom did a very nice thing with her last night. She did? Seriously? Yeah, like it? She'll never, you know, maybe she didn't do it on purpose. But if it helps your husband think about it differently, then I think it is a it's a it's a really kind of a kind thing, you know? Yeah, because high blood sugars are easy to ignore, because of the lack of physical. I don't know, feedback that tells you this is bad. I need to do something. Right. And if the kids jerky, you can just say, Oh, he's a little kid. But meanwhile, when his blood sugar is lower, is he more well behaved?

Chelsea 53:11
Oh, absolutely. It's a total jerk. wanna push sugar is high. But he's the nicest kid ever, like blood sugars are even and even has preschool teacher would recognize just like we had a difficult day, but I think that was his blood sugar.

Scott Benner 53:26
No. And that's interesting, though, because you know, it's 100% true. And people don't. People don't give it enough weight. When they're thinking about it. It's the lesson the truth? Is it controlling blood sugar with bad tools or bad information? It feels impossible and might well be. And then you get good tools and good information, you realize, Oh, this is not as difficult as I thought. And now now it's easier to hold yourself more accountable because you feel like you feel like you actually have the tools to be accountable, like but you know, but holding yourself accountable to something that you don't know how to do that just that hurts. You know, that's not a that's not a feeling that someone should have to live with. So does your husband listen to the show? Or do you just pass stuff to him that you hear?

Chelsea 54:11
No, he doesn't listen, and I

not because he doesn't want to but he just doesn't do podcasts or shows or books or things. I just

Scott Benner 54:22
like the information to him.

Unknown Speaker 54:24
Yeah, I try to do

Scott Benner 54:27
I have to apologize to all of the men in the world who I'm pretty sure at some point in the day get told the guy on the podcast said blah, blah, blah. Because I'm now meeting them. I had this most this really like a wonderful interaction when I was in Orlando recently. And a person came up to me who's gonna hear this and she was so excited to meet me, which baffles me. I hope you understand that. I'm not. Of course she's excited. Come on over it. No, I'm like really me. Are you sure and She's just jumping out of her skin excited. She wants to tell me what the podcast means to her, which was really wonderful. But right behind her is her poor husband who's like looking on, like, what is happening? And and I thought, well, this poor guy, and she's like, she talks about you a lot. But he wasn't saying it like a very upbeat way. And I, I apologized to him. I was like, Look, I'm very sorry. I said, I think there's like a couple of shows, if you listen to she might get off your back, like, there's these couple of episodes, I would try. And then you could relate a little more she think you were listening, and you wouldn't have to do it anymore. Yeah. And you wouldn't have to, you know, wouldn't have to hear about this, but I really did feel it was awkward. And then I called my wife when I got up to my hotel room. And she's like, I can't believe anyone wants to talk to you. And

Unknown Speaker 55:44
I was like, What?

Scott Benner 55:47
But, but so seriously, like, if you could get him to listen to maybe just a couple of the pro tips episodes. Do you think that would help you? Because at some point, y'all seriously, like, at some point. You can't have it so that when your son's with you his blood sugar's 120. And when he's with his dad, it's 220. Right? Right, like, cuz that's just not fair to him, you know, to your son. And so Something's got to give where he, you know, he takes on a little more, but you guys are also so arguing myself, you guys are also so you're also so new to it that you would think that some more time might help him feel at ease. What do you think would help him? Is there a way to help him feel like let me shoot for 150 instead?

Unknown Speaker 56:33
Um,

Chelsea 56:36
you know, he's getting better. It's just like, when he's with the boys, he's busy. And he just, I try to set them up good. So he's ready for the, for the day, I leave and everyone's still asleep in the house. So if his blood his person's blood sugar is, is even before I leave work, and we're pretty good. And, okay, it doesn't do that bad a job of managing he's just afraid of having dropped below below. And then him having being too busy to address it, I guess,

Scott Benner 57:02
does he work from home?

Chelsea 57:05
No, he is self employed. So he goes around and buys things from thrift stores and garage sales. And he sells them online.

Scott Benner 57:13
Okay. And so he's like, he's out of the house sometimes.

Chelsea 57:16
Yeah. And he takes the boys with him to the stores. And so

Scott Benner 57:20
but he gets, but he's afraid he could be Oh, I see. He's afraid he could get busy doing what he needs to do.

Unknown Speaker 57:25
Right and miss

Scott Benner 57:26
this thing? And yes, and cause a real issue.

Unknown Speaker 57:30
Hmm.

Scott Benner 57:31
Well, that's a fear, I understand. And at the same time, I think with the Dexcom is a little not real. Like, do you mean like he could he could set his alarms? Because I'm assuming he's falling on his own. Right? Yeah, he could set his alarms where he was, he'd be comfortable knowing.

Chelsea 57:49
Alright, I have your alarms and bring the thing and then do a turn off the bazel for a little bit, which once I told him, he could do that, he thought that was brilliant. So

Scott Benner 57:57
good. Well, listen, that's my challenge to him is to just is to just push down his expectations, like make his you know, lower his high blood sugar expectations. And yeah, you know, I mean, like, and I think that's, by the way, not just your husband and I, I'm so sorry to him for feeling like I'm picking on him. I'm not trying to make a greater point. But if you do that, anyone listening, if you haven't said this in a while, but you know, it occurred to me at one point when my daughter was younger, I used to have her high alarm set at 200. Yeah, and she was very infrequently over 200. And I just realized one day, I was like, well, I seem to be good at keeping her under 200. So I moved her to 180. And then I was good at keeping her under 180. And then so I just kept pushing it down. I was like, Oh, I get what I expect. You know what I mean? Like, but yeah, I'm working towards this. So that's what I end up getting. And I think your husband could easily do that. Even if he just even if he just went to 180 and then got that feeling like Oh, look, he doesn't get low. Let me try 170 Let me try 161 50 until you get them and really

Chelsea 58:55
it's nothing the Pre-Bolus that gets them up because we don't honestly Pre-Bolus with enough time.

Scott Benner 59:03
And is that just because does your son get like impatient?

Chelsea 59:08
Yeah. And he's unpredictable with what he wants to eat. So he'll say he wants to do one thing. And then it'll be like, No, I don't want that. You're crazy. I want this.

Unknown Speaker 59:18
Well, so

Scott Benner 59:21
are you finding because what I would say to you, if you came to me and said, This is my problem, you know, I don't know how to Pre-Bolus because my kid changes his mind all the time, what I would say is just Pre-Bolus a minimal a minimum that just pick a number like 10 carbs, you know, 10 that it's always my Pre-Bolus is always 10 carbs because he's always going to eat at least that much no matter what food he switches from, and give yourself like at least that going in because once you get the momentum of the insulin moving in your direction, then you can come through and go Okay, well now I realize it's going to be you know, meal a when I thought it was going to be meal B but now that I've got those 10 carbs in he's still moving in the right direction. Starting to eat I could put the rest of the insulin and now and not find myself behind in terms of a spike. Yeah, yeah. Do you do it? I mean, I know it's hard. Like, don't get me wrong. Yeah, yeah, for everybody listening, I know how hard Pre-Bolus thing is like, it's, it's a weird thing to think about eating before you're eating. Right. You don't mean like, I mean, of course, you know what I mean. But it's it is, it's a strange thing. Like you don't, you don't plan at nine o'clock, you know, in the morning, to eat at 10 o'clock in the morning, that doesn't, it's doesn't take you an hour to make your breakfast, you don't even start thinking about it for 20 minutes before you're going to eat. I was gonna use an analogy about watching television, but I think it's completely gone now. You know? Like, I don't think that people think anymore. Like I have to be at home at eight o'clock to watch this TV show. Like, people don't really think about that. But there was a time in the world where if you wanted to watch something on television, you had to be there. And that meant you had to think ahead about it. Like maybe the Oh my God, this alarms going off one more time. I'm coming back, hold on.

Sorry. But but maybe, maybe how easy, I want to say easy, but how kind of automated Our lives have become, has taken away people's ability to pre plan for things as well. Right? Right. Because you sort of don't need to even even if I decide I could decide tonight to watch a movie at eight o'clock. And with like two clicks have every movie ever made at my disposal to choose from pretty much. But you know, when I was a kid, if I wanted to see a movie, I had to figure out which one I was going to see. And I had to go buy tickets and you had to drive to the thing and like there was you had to plan. So I know that planning sucks now, but if it's if you can make one adjustment to your life with diabetes, it's planning to Pre-Bolus It's such a big deal. I think it's a point off your I think it's a point off your agency if you just Pre-Bolus. So our goal? Yeah, right. Yeah, please. And by the way, good point, you're coming up on the summer, you start getting into a rhythm. And then you know what, it'll carry itself over? Because it'll become your expectation. So it'll be part of your it'll be part of what you do by then.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:11
Yeah, very cool. Nice.

Scott Benner 1:02:15
It has been almost an hour. I don't know what we talked about, which is usually the indication that it was good. And did we miss anything that you want to talk about that we didn't bring up?

Chelsea 1:02:26
Ah, no. I don't think so. Yeah, I think part of the guilts like, also felt really bad because he would have nightmares after we came home from the hospital. like he'd be tossing and turning at night saying out folk. Really, oh my god, those terrible nurses. Done

Scott Benner 1:02:45
less than any good parent and by good parent. I mean, it's totally bad parenting, but you always tell someone else. You tell your kids that with someone else. You just pick up pick a faceless person in the distance, you're gonna see you're gonna be like, Oh my god, that lady did that to you. What a horrible woman. Yeah. Without making him scared of nurses. But But. So he really so he was having, like nightmares where you could hear him talking about the process of being in the hospital.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:11
Yeah. I wonder

Scott Benner 1:03:12
if that's happened to anybody else. Because that's, I've never heard that before. That's really interesting. That's I was wondering.

Chelsea 1:03:18
As another thing.

Scott Benner 1:03:19
Yeah. I wonder I I'd like to listen to if that's happened. Anybody else? Let me know. That's, that would be crazy. Um, how long did they go on for?

Chelsea 1:03:27
About a month? I feel like, okay, sort of really got in the swing of things. And I was more under control. And yeah, so now he just thinks anytime someone goes to the hospital, they come home with diabetes. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:03:43
my gosh, I hope he I can't wait for him to get old enough to realize that's not true.

Chelsea 1:03:47
I know. At first he thought the new house gave him diabetes. I thought it was the doctors But

Unknown Speaker 1:03:53
yeah, I can

Chelsea 1:03:54
get a new pod. And he thought that that made the diabetes go away. wasn't getting shot anymore.

Scott Benner 1:04:00
Yeah. No, that Arden thought when she was really little that the jdrf walks because they were a walk for a cure. She thought like, she thought she wouldn't have diabetes. At a certain point. We didn't realize she'd luckily Oh, my sister in law, so we could talk to her. But when she was like, Oh my gosh, when she was like six years old or something like that. She thought like, it was going away soon. And we had to tell her No. It was it was a I'm gonna mark it as one of the saddest moments in my life, but having to tell her that but it was interesting how she made the leap. You know what I mean? Like, she was just like, yeah, to walk for a cure. So I mean, it's common, right? Like, when's this

Chelsea 1:04:41
exam? You walk in, you're cured. That's, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:43
I go for a walk to make my diabetes go away. And so she thought that for a little while. And yeah, so Oh, I see that. By the way. I dropped my iPad yesterday and I jumped about it all night. Yeah. Imagine if somebody diagnosed me with a horrible I mean really, I'm so fragile that I Like dropped my iPad and I had a nightmare about it. son must have been like, he must have saw dragons and needles and all kinds of stuff going on there. Oh my gosh. Well, Chelsea, I really appreciate you coming on and doing this and being interested in being on the show and sharing your experiences and letting us pick on your husband, which I'm sorry, for.

Chelsea 1:05:21
He doesn't listen, he'll be okay. calling your sister

Scott Benner 1:05:22
names. Really? This one's fantastic. And I'm leaning heavily towards Kristen's a jerk as the title because you said that at one point, but I probably won't. But But seriously, I appreciate you taking the time and doing this. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:36
Thank you. Yep. Can you hold on a second? Yeah, fun. Yeah. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:05:41
excellent. You're so Midwestern. It's hard to tell. So before I pause it like you're in Minnesota, right? Yes. Like there is just such an evenness about you that I can't like I have trouble reading you. Like, but I figured it out in the first couple of minutes. But at first I was like, I don't know if she's sad or happy. Or you just you seem like just, I don't know, you reminded me of trains, planes and automobiles for some reason. And I don't know why. Even now, when I'm saying it to your soul, kind of calm, and even like, like you when you're talking about your husband, like, he doesn't like to do that. So it's okay. I wish I could hear my way. I'm never gonna let her come on the show. because she'll, you know, but maybe one day, but nevertheless, if you said to my wife, Hey, your husband's too busy for you would even get that out of your mouth. And she'd be like, I don't care. He needs to do it. And that would be the end of it. You're just so nice. I'm moving to the Midwest. If I ever need a new wife. That's what I just Well,

Chelsea 1:06:36
my husband would say, not this way. But I try. It's like when kids are well behaved at school, and then they're terrible at home.

Scott Benner 1:06:46
So you're maybe not quite as kind and forgiving at home as you are when you're talking to other people.

Chelsea 1:06:49
Oh, that's when I'm tired. It all comes out.

Scott Benner 1:06:54
Maybe your blood sugar's just high.

Chelsea 1:06:55
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 1:07:00
Huge thanks to Chelsea for coming on the show and sharing her experience with Type One Diabetes being Kristen's mother. And thank you as always to Dexcom and Omni pod for sponsoring the show. But today, especially the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, go to Contour Next one.com to find out more. And of course to my favorite type one diabetes organization touched by type one, please go check them out at touched by type one.org. Before I go, let me tell you that the meetups we're doing I know I wasn't going to mention the Coronavirus during this one. But we've been doing these meetups on Thursdays, virtually through zoom, they're going great and they're growing. The next one will be this Thursday night at 7pm. That will be April 16 at 7pm. Eastern time, you can find links through the Facebook page. And Instagram later next week. Come hang out with a bunch of people left type one, there's a great mix of adults with type one and parents of kids. conversation is free flowing. It's not structured, but it's also not crazy. People aren't talking over each other. It's not a mess. But I'm not like here's topic one. Now we're going to talk about this that bowl. I don't I would never do that. So very cool, free flowing. Nice conversation. I actually think it went like two hours the other night it was only supposed to be 90 minutes. People are just having a good time. And if you're not looking for that kind of community during this lockdown time.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:32
All good with me.

Scott Benner 1:08:34
It's just there if you need it. Okay, I'm gonna post this and then support it on social media and then I just, you know, just 48 hours later the weekend will be over. Maybe I'll watch a movie or you guys been watching By the way, man check it out Ozark enjoying that. A couple movies. I want to get to that onward movie from Pixar. I got a little teary eyed there one point I don't know what else to say. There's the days are so long. Just feel like they're never ending. house is so clean. You can eat off the door jams. I mean, there's just nothing else to do. The laundry is done. tell you I wish I knew how to cut my own hair. getting out of hand. You know what I mean? Anyway, I hope you're all safe. Wash your hands. Oh, look, it's gonna rain. My app just told me.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:32
That sounds exciting.

Scott Benner 1:09:35
Oh, you know what? You could leave an explosively thoughtful, fairly positive review of the podcast right there in your podcast app, especially that Apple App. It's super easy to leave a review. You know, make it you know, don't just be like great podcast, although that's all you can muster. I'm not gonna stop you. I'm just saying you know Something thoughtful, something that would make someone else think I should try this out. That would be lovely if you could do that. Otherwise, share the show. Please, please, please. I do not have money for advertising. Share the show help it grow. Blah, blah, blah. To tell you a joke. What a joke. My favorite joke. I've never told the same way twice. You're never gonna look at me the same if I tell this joke. Okay, all right. I'll do it. I think I can do it. I haven't done in a while. My friend Mike had an uncle. And this man could tell jokes. They were so dry and not funny traditionally. But they were so much fun to watch him tell them I think that was actually what was good about it. It was the way he told them. So I have strived throughout my life. Or strove have I strived or strobed hold on a second is Trove to word I just made up in my head

Unknown Speaker 1:11:01
No, wait.

Scott Benner 1:11:04
Did I mean strived? Alright Google apparently I meant strive strove just not a word. Although strove is Alright ready to exert yourself vigorously. Try hard he strove to make himself understood. But strobed ed is not a word. It's strived. So, and then by you can go deeper into this isn't striven or shirt or strived. I didn't even think I strive and I thought strobed have striven is plural effect tense, whereas stroeve is past tense.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:40
blooper. perfect tense.

Scott Benner 1:11:43
Oh, we've gotten past my eighth grade English education. The actual forms are to strive strive, striving strove Ooh. And striven when strived is used instead of an authentic form of the word, it's sometimes replaces the simple past drove and other times it replaces the past participle striven. Anyway, I've tried really hard to mimic this man's ability to tell a story. I used to watch him in large groups of people. And he could hold their attention telling the seemingly dumbest jokes. And I realized now it was it was watching him tell it that was interesting, was animated, had all this life in his face. And I was always very impressed by his ability to do that. So let me see if I can remember one joke that he used to tell. His name was Frank, by the way, and I knew him as Uncle Frank. He was my friend Mike's uncle. Okay, so there's a farmer on. There's a farmer at his farm, and he's outside working. And the fuller brush salesman pulls up in his car to try to sell brushes to the farmer. And the man gets out of his car and he straightens his jacket and tightens his tie and fixes his hat and grabs a suitcase and walks very steadfastly to the farmer, who's often a field working, feeding the pigs. Man makes his way over to me says Good afternoon, sir. How are you? I'm here to speak to the lady of the house. I have these quality toilet brushes for sale. And I'd like to show them to you and your family. Please let me inside I will clean your toilets to show you how well they work. And perhaps you will buy them. And the farmers like yeah, you know, we could use new brushes. So I guess we could do that. And you know, I mean, I'd love to have you clean the toilet? So seems like a win for me. Even if I don't want the brush right guys? Like absolutely, sir. There's no obligation to buy the brushes. I'll just come in and demonstrate them for you. So the farmer is like, Alright, cool. Let's do it. And the brush salesman then catches a look at the pigs in the, in the pen, and notices that one of the pigs has only three legs. And he says to the farmer. I see here, sir, that one of your pigs only has three legs. And the farmer says Oh, that pig is amazing. Can I tell you a story about this most amazing pig. And the brush salesman's like short, no problem. So they lean on the fence. And the farmer says one time years ago, my house caught fire in the middle of the night. And none of us woke up we didn't notice and the smoke was overwhelming. And we were certain to die. Well this pig sees the house on fire. He leaps over this fence runs across the property makes his way to the house is locked out. picks the lock picks the lock with the sticky finds on the ground comes inside wakes my children, gets them out of the house. wakes my wife can't wake me, picks me up and carries me to safety. As if that's not enough, the pig then went and fashioned a hose to the trough and put the fire out himself. All the brush salesman's like, Oh my God, that's amazing. And the farmers sir that is, but the beginning of the story of this three legged pick. So the the brush salesman said, Well, we know what else is there guy says I'm out one day I'm plowing the fields. My tractor breaks down. I get underneath of it to see if I can fix it. And the tractor collapses on top of me the weight of it pinning my leg to the ground, I was certain to die. calling for help. No one could hear me except this pig, who again, leaps over the fence, makes his way a mile out to our fields. gets there assesses the situation, fashions a fulcrum and a lever,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:01
lifts,

Scott Benner 1:16:02
lifts the tractor from my leg pulls me to safety. And then and I can't believe this happen. But I saw it with my own eyes. The pig set my fracture. Well, the brush salesman is just beside himself. He can't believe it. And he begins to gesture towards the farmer. And before he can even say anything. The farmer says I know what you're gonna say. But it's absolutely true. As a matter of fact, that pig delivered my second daughter Petunia. It does the dishes at night. And it keeps track of our planting schedule. has quite the mind for numbers. Well, the brush salesman's like I, I believe you it's it's astonishing. But that doesn't explain why the pig only has three legs. Well, the farmer goes Sir, I don't know where you're from, but around these parts. You don't need a pig like that all at once.

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#322 Justin is Recovering from Coronavirus

COVID-19 with Type 1 Diabetes

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Juicebox Podcast conversation with Justin Wilhite. Justin had Covid-19, has Type 1 Diabetes and he's on the show to share his experiences.

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.

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Please support the sponsors

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

Donate