#447 Spatchcock Josh

After an illness Josh developed three issues

Diabetes - Heart - Stroke

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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, everyone, and welcome to Episode 447 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today we're gonna talk to Josh, who's got quite a story of diagnosis is diagnoses, diagnosis, diagnosis, definitely diagnoses. He's got quite the story. A year ago, in March 2020, Josh got sick. And after that he was diagnosed with maybe I shouldn't even tell you. Well, three things happened to him, that Josh thinks might be from that illness. I'm definitely not going to give you all the details. Just trust me and settle in and listen to an interesting, interesting story. We're gonna dedicate the first bit of the show to Josh, just laying it all out for you. And then it turns into more of a back and forth and the conversation opens up. But wait, do you hear the crazy stuff that's happened to this man? Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. There's no ads on this one today, just a couple of announcements, then we get right into the conversation.

Okay, if you're looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes, they begin at Episode 210. And they're also available at diabetes pro tip.com. Perhaps you have a great diabetes practitioner, or you're looking for one one way or the other. If you've got one to share, or you're looking to find a new one, check out juice box docs.com. It's a great list. It's being built by listeners just like you just think of it as like that little Penny thing at the convenience store. Or like give a penny take a penny. I don't think they let us do that anymore. But you remember, give a doctor or take a doctor. And last thing, please consider supporting the good work being done by the T one D exchange. Your participation will take just a few moments. But the impact of your kindness will last forever. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents. They'd like you to participate in a quick survey that can be completed. I mean, we did it in seven minutes. And you can do it on your phone or your computer right there from your house. You don't have to go anywhere. I don't have to go to a doctor's office, and you're still helping with Type One Diabetes Research. After you finish their questions, you'll be contacted annually to update your information just in case anything's changed. And you may be asked further questions. This is 100% anonymous, it is completely HIPAA compliant. It never requires you to see a doctor and you can back out of it at any time if you'd like to. But your personal information will never be attached to the answers that you get. Now every time someone completes the process using my link, T one d exchange.org. forward slash Juicebox. Podcast will also benefit. So if you've been looking for a way to help type one research, or the podcast, or maybe both, nothing could be easier or more beneficial. The study is looking for up to 6000 participants, so there's plenty of space for you. The information that past participants have offered has helped to bring increased coverage for test trips Medicare coverage for CGM and changes to the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one seagulls super simple to do. You'll really be helping other people with type one diabetes. And it can be done again. At the T one D exchange T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox we're recording that way so don't say exactly but what part of the country on

Josh 3:55
Oh, I'm very close to you. I think I mean, I'm not sure if you're in North Jersey or southern jersey, but we're about to like the top of the Chesapeake Bay.

Scott Benner 4:02
Oh, no kidding. I'm just interested that you can be on your porch. Is it heated? Right?

Unknown Speaker 4:07
Well, it's uh, you know,

Unknown Speaker 4:08
yeah, he

Scott Benner 4:10
it used to be a concrete thing you know, that I glanced it in so it's, it's pretty well insulated. Nice. I just woke up this morning and I was like, it's please Why is it snowing again? Like Please stop.

I know people like it, but I don't.

Josh 4:25
Well, our family has a hardware store so I'm just happy to sell everybody ice powder.

Scott Benner 4:29
I was gonna say buckets of salt and scrapers and turning turn into a splash.

Josh 4:35
Last year. We didn't sell any of that stuff. No, it was it was just if it did snow it you know, turn to rain right away or whatever. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:41
When that happens, you just stick that stuff in the back and sit on it for a year.

Josh 4:45
Yeah, for the most part. I mean, you know, we have a inside place to store it. So I mean, it keeps pretty good but shovels keep better than the salt for sure.

Scott Benner 4:55
But I'm just thinking you're staring at something you already paid for that you can't sell for another year. That's got It'd be pretty.

Unknown Speaker 5:02
Got it. I'll come to the world of retail, right? Yeah, no

Unknown Speaker 5:04
kidding.

Josh 5:06
My name is Josh, I guess I'm just here to tell you my story.

Scott Benner 5:09
Yeah. You have a good one to Josh. So I don't even know, there are some people's stories that I think there's an obvious jumping in point. And for years, I don't believe there is. So I'm just going to start slow with, you know, how long have you had diabetes? What was it like being diagnosed? That kind of stuff?

Josh 5:29
Sure. Well, I'll give you my whirlwind story. I know you like to do the same thing I do, and kind of, you know, go on tangents and stuff. So I kind of hit you with the story, and then we can take it from there. So I'm about this time last year, my youngest daughter, I got I got two ones. 12 right. Now one's 14. My youngest got the flu, right? Everybody gets the flu, no big deal. I called the pediatrician, they were like, it's going around, you know, keep her hydrated. If it doesn't spike above this, you know, we don't need to see her kind of thing. You know. So, you know, my parents live right next door, she stayed, she stayed home with them for the day. And then, by the end of that day, you know, my mom was sick. My dad's like, I think you're out to watch her tomorrow. So I stayed home with her. And next thing, you know, I had the flu. So, you know, the three of us were all, you know, dying on the couch or whatever, for a week, no big deal. You know, the few couple days go by and weekend rolls around, I started feeling a little better go back to work. You know, I'm on the sales floor, doing whatever. And you still have that little bit of that. That lingering cough that was going around, you know, for the last couple years and can't quite shake. Yeah, the next thing you know that that next Thursday, I woke up in the morning, and my hand was tingling. And I'd broken that wrist in high school. And it didn't really think that it was, you know, something serious, I thought, you know, I don't know, slept on it wrong, or whatever, right? I'm in my 40s now. You know, I kind of dismissed it for a day. And then the next day, my face went kind of tingling down by my, my left hand side of my jaw, like I just had to surgery or something, I took that one a little more seriously, but still, like, typically stubborn guy didn't go to the doctor's or anything. So you know, the weekend rolls around, and I hear I kind of just take it easy. The kids are at work, you know, divorced kids are at their moms that weekend. So they lounge around the house to try to get ready for the next week. So I still felt you know, terrible at Sunday. So I said to my dad, I think I'm gonna, you know, go in to see the walk in clinic tomorrow. So I figured, you know, why see my regular doctor, you know, X ray my hand or something. So, he takes the kids to school, I, you know, I go into the clinic there and they're like, Hey, we think you're having a stroke.

Unknown Speaker 8:00
It's like, Whoa,

Josh 8:01
really, you know, so I get to that I get to the hospital. And, you know, they brought a bunch of tests and stuff. And sure enough, like, not like one of those little mini strokes, you know, I always do things like, you know, full bore, so I had a had an actual stroke, and my hand in my face were you know, being controlled by a part of the brain that just sensitivity so my hand kind of felt like it's permanently dipped in ice or something. It's been that way for the last year. But um, you know, they This is how I found out so I hear these different stories from your, your, your different podcasts, you know, they were like, so how long you been diabetic? You know, and I'm like, What are you talking about? And my agency was apparently 13 and I think I was like 12 or 1300 for my sugars at the time. But But it wasn't just that my all my organs were infected, right? Have something you know, some some unknown yet unknown undiagnosed virus that may or may not have been COVID I'll get to that in a minute. But so so every organ was infected, right? So so my heart fracture rate was like 40% you know, they couldn't figure out what what it calls that it didn't seem like it was a heart attack, you know, but it wouldn't beat right. And you know, my kidneys and my pancreas and all that stuff weren't right. So you know, a couple days go by, they get me like, you know, feel a little better they start showing me how to inject myself with a pen and scoot me out the door and off I go, right so I go to the pharmacy and I pick up a couple pins right in it. I've got it I got a bunch of doctors follow up visits with that, you know, and you know, go home, you know, so the pain still tingling face still numb, you know, whatever. And, you know, there I stare I sit trying to deal with all that. And the one thing I'll say which I think I keep hearing over and over from you is there must not be enough endocrinologist in the world. I mean, there really must not be because, you know, I left the hospital you know, and they had an appointment immediately for cardiologist and I had an appointment that day scheduled for endocrinologist. I didn't really look at Got it. But you know, turns out it was like three months down the road, you know. So another thing I'll say is I found out like, way after the fact that apparently, my health insurance provider actually provides, depending on your situation, they provide one call nurses that you can speak to, and I got, I wish I had known that, you know, then because I kind of struggled around, I had had some, you know, friends and family that have had either a kid with diabetes or had diabetes, or, you know, some level of understanding a little more than the average person, but, you know, I was kind of left with a, you know, here's a pen Have at it, you know, and it was that, you know, every time you eat, shoot, shoot, ate, you know, and, and watch and test yourself, test yourself, test yourself, right, here's a, here's a non Bluetooth meter, you know, from the insurance company that write all your stuff down. This seems, seems daunting, right? I'm a fairly smart guy. But, uh, so So, you know, my first kind of thing was to deal with the heart basically, and, and, and the diabetes. So, you know, my first set of appointments was to the cardiologist, right, I was like, I gotta try to find another doctor get in or something with the endocrinologist, but I'll, I'll put that off and go to the cardiologist, the cardiologist, you know, they do a stress test, they run a bunch of stuff in their life is normal. Now, I have to tell you that the, the week, before the flu was like Valentine's Day, so it's almost like a full full blown year. And then the next week, was the last week of February, last year. And then so I got into the hospital out of the hospital, like March 2 through the fifth. So, you know, now there's this part of the story. I'm like, the second week of March. So I go and have a fairly normal experience at the cardiologist, they give me a heart monitor put me on that to kind of try to figure out why my heart was doing the things it was doing. Nobody was talking about some massive pandemic viral infection going around, right. So, you know, so I leave with this heart monitor. And, and I have to tell you, that when I had it for two weeks, I went to turn it back in. And now now they have a box outside, and I've got to, I got to give it a like, go drop it off, like, you know, like some kind of spy, you know, and they're gonna hold it there for a couple days and spray it down, because they don't understand what COVID is, or how it works or anything like that. But, you know, when I dropped it off, we're talking like St. Patrick's Day, and that's when everybody and their mom had COVID. Right? It's just, it's just exploding, and nobody knows what to do. So So that's kind of how it all started, you know? And then what happened there was, as you may or may not know, I hope you guys didn't have a personal experiences with this. But quote, unquote, elective surgery just shut down for like, a year. Yeah, like, so it was just like, shut down. And that's

Scott Benner 13:03
and then that's more than people who like when people hear elective surgery, they think like, Oh, I can't get a nose job because of COVID. But there's other things that like knee replacements and things that really impact people's lives that they just weren't doing at that time.

Josh 13:16
Oh, yeah. So I have a, I have a friend of the family that he had a heart transplant, right before COVID. And then when when COVID started, he was a missed rehab. And then when rehab, you know, when the COVID started rehab shut down, and then the insurance company, and he gives you so many weeks of rehab. So you started rehab, you didn't do rehab, you can't sort of back up so you just got you know, screwed out of half of his rehab. That's just how that worked. You know, that some of these companies are making some, but you look at I mean, look at my problems, I feel like they're, they're so they're severe, but they're minor compared to some other testing. I mean, you know, people aren't getting biopsies during this time period, right? You know, they're pushing off cancer treatments, because they don't even know if they have cancer or not, I can't imagine how, because I was pretty stressed about this heart stuff. And, and, and so I'm talking to the doctor, most of us that virtual, you know, like we're doing now, you know, we're FaceTime or whatever, talking to the doctor about different stuff. And what he really wants to do is what they call catheterization, where they go up there and they look at the heart with a with a tube, and then usually while they're in there already, they decide if they need to put a stent in or something. So they want to do that really bad. They want to check out the heart they want to see what's going on because I can't quite figure it out. Now you know, I'll skip ahead to the end and maybe go back to the middle or something but so he so so he wants to do this catherization keeps putting it off and putting it off putting off we can't get in we can't do anything. So, so finally, him and I kind of mutually decided that we're going to do a CAT scan of the heart, you know, real they don't usually do that because you know yields the same effect. is just going in there and then fixing it at the same time. So do that CAT scan in June. And they're like, Oh, yeah, just like we thought, looks like looks like a mild blockage. You know, I don't know that that's what calls whatever happened. But you know, we go in there and clean it up, you know, in and out same day, you know, put a little stent in there, no big deal. No big deal. open heart surgery, no big deal. You know, so yeah, I'm, I'm in my 40s, I'm like, Alright, well, you know, I like bacon, you know, I'm sure, I'm sure I've got a little bit of clog going on in there. You know, whatever, that's good. It's just one artery, whatever, we'll go get it cleaned up, in and out. You know, so. So it's, uh, you know, now now we're talking into June or July, they scheduled this mid July, they scheduled the stent surgery, you know, it's a really is a relatively benign procedure, you know, things have loosened up a little bit with COVID, but not really.

Unknown Speaker 15:51
So,

Josh 15:54
you know, they go in there. I'm sorry, backup, the way it works, which, you know, I don't know if you've had any experience with any, any surgeries minor or otherwise, during this whole thing, but, you know, they say that I have to go get a COVID test before I go and do the surgery, right, you know, make sure I don't have it going into surgery. So, okay, so they say you need to do it within 72 hours. Now, you know, my grammar differs from theirs, because what they meant was 72 hours. So I was hoping to do it, like the day before or something, but I had to do it a couple days in advance. So I go in there to do it, you know, then they're like, hey, by the way, you can't go to work or anything, because I'm because it's because we're essential business, like I might have set out if it's on tape or not, but we have a hardware store, it's retail, we're open, we're considered essential in the state, you know, we're selling stuff and doing stuff like normal. So

Scott Benner 16:46
but you know, like, test and then they, they want you to go sit by yourself until it's time for the surgery. Because if you're negative, and then you go bump into somebody

Josh 16:57
you didn't know. So so my. So my kids went to their they were just happenstance, though, at the after the first week of a two week stay at their mom's house for you know, for her, like summer vacation time. So, you know, I kind of had purposely planned that surgery or on a Friday, you know, middle of their, their thing, but as it turns out, I'm, I'm now I'm home alone, you know, to my own devices for a couple days before the, for the little tiny minor surgery, right. So, you know, we live down by the water went out on the bay, messed around on the kayak for a couple hours a day, you know, no big deal. I had to, you know, I'm sort of getting this, this this diabetes thing, right, um, I got some I got, you know, I got my Apple watch on I got my, I got, you know, all my stuff to be safe, you know, messed around the kayak, you know, you know, I got a little you know, snack or something, if in case I get low, I've got that all handled. But, you know, after messing around kayak for a couple hours, go all in and come back inside, do that for a couple days. Go and have the surgery, you know, and then they they go in, they come out and they're like we didn't do the surgery. You know, you're in you need to find a bypass to try not to sweat it. We're going to do it on Tuesday. Just stay here in the hospital. And you're, you know, then you're just sitting there like it would have been way better if I just woke up with, you know, five bypasses, but, but I don't know if you heard me correctly. So that's five bypasses. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 18:30
it went from Hey, you're gonna get a stent. This is really no big deal to and so can you describe to people what a bypass is? Do you know? Or did you just close your eyes? Yeah. Hey, just do it. I'll be okay. I don't want to know.

Josh 18:45
Yeah, and then No, no, I would say anybody getting a bypass, maybe don't Google it and watch the YouTube videos on it or whatever. But you know, the down and dirty is the, you know, the the arteries going in and out of the heart, right, they just cut them loose and reattach some stuff looks like you're just like traffic, just like a bypass around a city or whatever. And they put new pieces in there. So they get those new pieces. You know, if it's one bypass, they get it from someplace up in your chest somewhere, I believe. And if it's like five, they take a big chunk out of your leg. So they just cut me down by the knee and down by the ankle and they just jerked out an artery and cut it into pieces and put it around my heart. You know, so I was fortunate enough to have the head of the the team work on me and that was fantastic. I don't know that I had any kind of special pool which just happened to be that way. But you know, that guy did a fantastic job. And you know, I was the youngest one in the ward I can say by far had a little rough time with needs a little blood, you know, right after something but after that I bounced up there was pretty much walking around on my own. I'm not a big advocate of opioids or anything right so the first thing to do is pop a bunch of oxy and yeah, and then you know, I'm like, I don't want that, you know, some toughing it out with Tylenol and stuff and fighting to go home because, you know, I had the surgery on my youngest daughter's birthday. So that was kind of nervy I told the doctor he's not allowed to kill me on my kid's birthday.

Unknown Speaker 20:14
That's exactly what I would have said, by the way.

Josh 20:15
Yeah. Yeah. So, so anyway, you know, I go home I'm home for like a week. My parents live right next door, I might have mentioned that. They, they wanted me to stay with them. You know, it's uh, you know, I love my parents. It's one of those things where I you know, moved out for reason when I was kid right? They drive each other a little nuts when we're in the house and mom smother me that kind of stuff. So a couple days, there was plenty, you know, went back to my house. So my good test

Scott Benner 20:43
for your heart right away.

Unknown Speaker 20:46
Yeah. So then,

Josh 20:49
like a week later, I had I we have a standing thing work buddy of mine from college that incidentally lives North though view, slightly. buddy of mine from college and a buddy of mine from the next state over, we all kind of convene, and we and we go, we go down to the Outer Banks every summer. So I had asked the doctors, I'm like, Can I can I go down and out of banks. And they were like, like, two weeks after the surgery, they were like, they were like, sure, you know, you can't drive you can't lift anything, you can't really carry anything up the stairs, you know, you really should stay out of the Sun can't get in the water, but have at it, you know, so So I was like, watch sounds fine. Because that's like my therapy for the for the year, right? You know, go down there and just do nothing. So, you know, the kids helped me pack which was fantastic. And then when my buddy from from New Jersey came down and met us, you know, just outside of town and my dad kind of carried my car over there. And then my buddy drove me all the way down there which was which was wonderful. That was I was really one of those vacations where you really appreciate the vacation. Just Yeah, then I came back for like a week or two, I'd say you know, I guess it was like three weeks I was going to start cardiac rehab but they couldn't start it because of COVID till like Labor Day. And I did that till Thanksgiving while I was working right three days and work and taking some time off and here we are. I guess so. I don't know if getting questions. I feel like you might have some questions. That's

Scott Benner 22:11
crazy Josh. Okay, so let's start slow You stay right on the water and in the Outer Banks because I've been there twice and we've gone to the four by four houses both times so you like drive onto the beach drive like three miles up to the beach to your house and you have to have a four wheel drive car to get to it that's very relaxing

Josh 22:32
yeah so you're so you're so you're what you're in the north end of the Outer Banks when you're doing that sort of up by where the

Scott Benner 22:38
where the wild horses are. So God what is it called? I haven't been there in a while. I can't think of it now.

Josh 22:44
Like doc or something

Scott Benner 22:46
yeah, I I've been to doc and maybe not quite that far up wants to

Josh 22:51
Yeah, so we so we go the other way. We've been for about a decade now. We've been going down to Buxton, which is Hatteras Island, which is we're right next to the Hatteras lighthouse and a little duplex was it like say my two other buddies families? You know it's kind of nice for the duplexes right on the right on the dune you know, whatever. So we you know, we typically go over to Boca croak, you know, take the ferry over there and you know, the good and bad of Buxton is there's literally nothing to do but you know what there is to do there this little, little putt putt and and you know sandwich shop grocery store all kind of in walking distance which was good because I couldn't drive my truck You know, my buddies are all super helpful you know for sure but you know you're trying to regain your independence a little bit but you know, you want to do some stuff is kind of hard to remember at this point in the story I can't lift 10 pounds you know, that's a milk jug right? Like you know you want to you want to get out there and do something you know, but you can't even carry carry sack of groceries up the stairs. But I was walking on my own I wouldn't use a walker or anything I mean I was bounced around you just got to it's got to be careful because apparently I guess this part left out of the story but the other thing they do besides cut that piece out of your leg to put in your heart is they just they have to get to your heart right so they they just Bonsall you know your breastplate and this rip it open like in some kind of you know, alien movie or something and and then they just wrapped some some some metal wire around it to hold it closed and they and they may superglue you shut joshy a few I gotta be a little careful.

Scott Benner 24:34
I don't know if you ever cook a chicken at home. You were spatchcock. You know that you know the phrase, right? Yes.

Unknown Speaker 24:41
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 24:44
strong likelihood. This episode is called spatchcock Josh but it's just that that's fascinating. So they just boom cuz they gotta get there. I didn't even think of that. I can tell you I freaked out when he's talking about pulling the the the pieces They needed out of your leg that actually the senate chill right up my spine into the base of my skull. And I almost passed out. I was like, Oh, I can't imagine having it done. But like you said, it's, I mean, two weeks later, even that battered you were able to just, like, go anywhere is pretty fascinating. And how long ago was this now? March, April. So.

Josh 25:24
So, you know, the stroke was in in March, but the open heart surgery was the the end of July.

Scott Benner 25:31
Okay. Now, okay, so we have to pick through this a little bit. So you had a stroke, major reconstruction of your heart and found out you had Type One Diabetes on this one thing and you were sick prior deep? Have you ever had an Did you ever get an antibody test? Or did they not exist at that point to see if you had COVID.

Josh 25:49
So so I don't know, I really say this part. But I have a friend that had that that has a sibling that that works for the government. So I was able to get one of the early ones, but that was still like about three months after. After it all happened, you know, it's like April or something. And so, so we took one of those and came back negative. And then several months after that, like, I don't know, the beginning of June or something, I was able to go to like lab core and get a blood, no more official blood blood tests. And both of those came back negative. So, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that I had COVID. But like, if I didn't have COVID it, I have all the stuff that they're saying COVID does. So one of my friends said, Hey, you know, you're probably the only person existing on earth that could get like some other, you know, super weird viral infection during a pandemic of another super weird virus. So, you know,

Scott Benner 26:51
I don't know, though, I mean, something. Well, first of all, I have to say, this is such a great jersey conversation, because you like, I know a guy that got me a thing. You know, like, my,

Josh 27:01
like, I say, we're in Maryland, but we're close enough.

Scott Benner 27:04
But still, like, it's got that vibe like you. You've been here before. And it's obvious. So No, but seriously, in east coast in general, it's just such a great feeling. You're just like, you know, you know, I got I got a friend, he took care of it. But so Okay, so something obviously happened, you had some sort of a viral problem, and it just attacked everything. But it didn't cause you to need five bypasses that was just bad genetics or hard living or something like that, right?

Josh 27:33
Well, well, I don't know that now. They're saying if you if you look it up, now they're saying that COVID causes, quote, unquote, rapid plaque buildup, because nobody can explain how I went from the chest X ray showing, you know, a little minor blockage to you know, everything blocked, like 100% Oh, yeah, like, I would have died if they didn't do it right away. So, so net. So, you know, they, they, they're all kind of like, but we don't have any evidence, but yeah, probably, you know, and, and, you know, nothing against the the cardiologists that, you know, did all this work to start with, but either he's really screwed up, you know, in looking at the chest x rays, you know, or there was a quick printer, I had some kind of rapid black.

Scott Benner 28:21
Yeah, see, I just assumed,

Josh 28:23
like, my great, I'm sorry. My grandfather's 97. Everybody seems healthy in our family. So I don't,

Scott Benner 28:29
yeah, I don't know. See, I just assume when you said it, that they misread the first test, and then got in there and was like, Oh, yeah, me too. We thought but I see what you're saying. And I have recently seen an article about that, about the rapid plaque through COVID. And, and

Josh 28:46
other saying COVID does the same thing that you know, a lot. I mean, a lot of the conversations are about the lungs. And I didn't really have much long issue other than I had this nasty, you know, like hoovering call for you know, the week after the flu, but um, you know, it's also doing stuff where it's kind of clotting, you know, is going through the heart or it's causing, you know, it's causing strokes, it's causing aneurysms. It's called different problems in different organs. And like I say, when it all started, I had all that I mean, my my Pete, my regular primary care doctor, she ran a bunch of tests. Now she's like, well, let's make sure it's not hepatitis, you know, I don't even know what there are like A, B, C, D, E, F, G, we're gonna check them all in like we're just gonna have to get like nine vials of blood that I had to draw here we're just going to run out what every test there is. And then you know, after that we did some more blood work like a month later and turns out every organ is working fine. Except for this whole pancreas thing. Right? You know, so I mean, I know we're, we're diabetic conversation but my my, so I didn't see a doctor about my diabetes again until like, the end of May. May, you know, going back from March and at that, from that time in between, I didn't know what kind of diabetic I was. And I seem to be responding like type one. But you know, I don't have type one type two, I didn't know what I was, nobody told me. So when I finally got to see somebody I, I asked, right, so then we did some blood work. And it seems like my pancreas is working a little bit, but, you know, damaged all the same. So, I guess that says that one a that we talked about a little bit. I think I'm officially diagnosed as a two. You know, so I don't know, you know, we're still in that. What do you call it that Cinderella period or whatever. Like, I've been doing great with the with the blood sugar's you know, went from 13 to 5.4 in the hospital, right, you know, and then, back in December, I was back up a little bit to like, 5.7. But, you know, I, I credit A lot of it to you, because, you know, I didn't get a lot of help till I finally got a chance to talk to the doctor. And then you know, I mean, she's, she's, she's just kind of like, here's this, here's this, and I'm like demanding, you know, continuous glucose monitor, I'm like, demanding a pump. So, I got the glucose monitor in, in May, and I and I, I got a G six, which I love. And then I and then I got the pump, which is Omni pod, and I got it in. While I was in the hospital, I was in the hospital for the surgery, and they were like, ooh, let's wait a week or two, to put that baby on. So after I got back from the beach, you know, we, we got I got the training for that put that on. So that was like mid August or something that I got that and that's where I really started to be able to control my sugars and stuff. Because before, you know, I'm taking a pen taking a long acting insulin, you know, at night. You know, they told me to take it at night. I don't sure why. Because, I mean, it seems like the way the cycles work and stuff that that brought me down more often than not, you know, in the middle of the night. You know, I think it probably should have been taking it during the morning or something. Right. But But, you know, I had had the two pins, and I, you know, I was taking the other one you're taking, you know, one to 10, you know, for whatever I was eating, trying to eat real good and trying to get it for, you know, 40 units or whatever for, for 40 carbs. You're doing all that doing all that basic math, but I'm shooting up and then I'm done. I'm eating the sandwich or something. Right. And, and you're seeing those big up and down spikes. And, you know, I cannot stress this enough. I know I keep I keep following your, your group on Facebook and stuff. And you keep hearing the same questions over and over again. But, you know, the PRI and and extended Bolus is like, you know, what does it you know, if you're not, if you're not, if you're just jamming yourself with a pen, you can't really can, you can't really do that. You can't do that without a pump, you know, but even if you have a pump you have to do that you can't just can't just eat and like watch it start to go up and then start to dose yourself and hope for the best. Right You have to you have to do more

Scott Benner 33:04
is that you got to find the right timing and use the insulin words need

Unknown Speaker 33:07
right? There's a science to it.

Scott Benner 33:09
Hey, I'm so so is it possible? It's such an interesting look, right? Because you're obviously very involved with your health. And probably you weren't probably a year ago, but still you're you're involved in it, you're paying attention to what's happening. And Isn't it crazy that nobody can really tell you exactly what happened? Like maybe you got a virus that puts you into like multiple, like system failures. And at the same time started diabetes. Is that possible? Like is there any any autoimmune in your family line? Two people have celiac hypothyroidism type one. Do you see that anywhere in your family? No,

Josh 33:48
no, not at all. I mean, I have my mom has a sister that passed away about a year before this conversation started. And she was she was a type two diabetic. You know, she had been heavy she had you know, she'd lost some weight. she she she loves sweet tea. Right? So I'm not sure that she managed it to the best of her ability. And she was doing that with you know, mainly with pills and then finally with it with some some insulin, I believe but you know, none of that, you know, I had a I had an uncle that had had a heart valve surgery. But that was a defect from you know, from birth or something, which is completely different than a bypass. So, you know, we're all relatively healthy. I mean, there's some skin cancer, there's some other stuff that's you know, that's popped up in the family but, but nothing nothing that explains this.

Scott Benner 34:39
Yeah. How about your girls? They were both sick at the same time too. Are they? Okay?

Josh 34:45
Just one which my oldest, you know, I mean, we're in the same house and my oldest was fine. You know, my dad was fine. You know, but, but my youngest. You know, she got this and, and, you know, I guess like you're hearing about most kids With with COVID and stuff, there is some there's some weird symptoms and stuff, but she basically just had the flu. You know, we didn't even it didn't even dawn on us that this could have been COVID till it started kind of, you know, just progressing and you start reading about some of the different symptoms and stuff. Like what we might have had COVID Yeah.

Scott Benner 35:18
It's that timing in that vert in those beginning months where nobody really First of all, it was here in January, and we weren't aware of it at all. I mean, when do you really feel like America became aware of it and the first

Josh 35:30
rate on St. Patrick's Day, right, right before me. I remember they shut they shut down Ireland for the bars St. Patrick's Day, right? Yeah, that's where I remember it was the week of St. Patrick's Day is when I kind of mark as the the timeframe that everything kind of shut down.

Scott Benner 35:46
We're March 13. I remember, Cole was in Florida playing baseball, and we rushed home, he actually got sick while we were down there. But he got something that we we don't think was viral because they gave him antibiotics. And it cleared it really quickly. But, you know, we rushed home from there. And God, that's 11. I mean, it's February 18. Now, so it's almost been a full year, I have to tell you to Joshua, you've been going through a thing. So you've been busy. But the last couple of days, I just sit in my house thinking like, oh, there's the wall in the living room again. It's still there. Like I just I'm, I'm really starting to, I want to go outside, and then it snowed. And I was like, oh God, like, I can't even wander around in my property anymore, you know, go to a park or something like it was just, I am almost at my wit's end, I think is what I'm saying. Like, if I snap and rob a bank or kill somebody, six months from now, you'll be able to use this recording, as this man was calling out for help. He's been he's been in his house too long. It's just,

Unknown Speaker 36:46
well, you. Yeah, you,

Josh 36:48
you, you, you brought up a point that I really, I can't, I can't really I can sympathize with but I've been really blessed, our business has been essential. It's been open, I've been I was home for a couple weeks dealing with this heart surgery thing. You know, but but I've had the added bonus of, you know, seeing 1000 customers a day and talking to people and things being sort of normal in my life. You know, and I've watched friends struggle that have you know, that are teachers or that or that own a restaurant or whatever the case may be and there and and, or work for any of those types of things. And and you know, of course, you're you're a stay at home dad, so you're a little more accustomed to it to start with, I imagine. But still, it's different. It's been a bad year, and it's been a bad year for people I imagine that have any type of mental health are prone to depression or something like that. I mean, it's just, it's just rough. And one thing to keep asking it with this with the, with the open heart surgery and stuff, I guess, I guess you're prone to depression for that. So they keep kind of you Okay, you feel all right. I'm like, I'm fine. You know, but also, like I say, I'm not home. The kids aren't home either. They, you know, they go to a private school. The private school was really cool. They did. They were they were virtual for a little bit, right last year. And then this year, they decided they were going to open up safely. So they moved all the classrooms around ripped out lockers, that all this weird stuff, but they gave us a choice. You know, your kids can go virtual, your kids can go full day, your kids can go what they call essential learner so so we opted for the essential learners. And that's basically eight to 1230 is the go in there. And they bang out all this core classes. And then they they skip lunch where everybody's a little more communal, and they skip gym, and they skip the stems program where they might be sharing a microscope or something and they just go home and they do their homework. So so even the kids have had a little bit of a sense of normalcy, you know, we're you know, you haven't, but, you know, but my kids played volleyball. You know, I was assistant coaching the year before this, I was kind of thankful, sort of that we didn't have volleyball this year, because I'm not sure I didn't ambition to assistant assistant coach this fall, but but, you know, I missed that. And I think the kids missed that. Yeah, it's good. It's it's a good physical activity getting them out. You know, but for us, it's a lot of running around because unlike, you know, public schools, you know, it's all the other sister schools that are, you know, an hour away sometimes. So, you know, it was a lot of it was a lot of run into two games and stuff last couple years, and this year, quieted a little bit for us, which was like something that I think I personally needed. But I'd like things to go back to normal, right? And I'm kind of sick of wearing these I kind of prefer the Gators over the mask because I'm in and out of my office all the time on the sales floor. But But everybody's sick of wearing those things. You know, it's hard for employee morale, it's hard for the customers, you know, nobody you know, everybody wants to be safe, but nobody wants to really, you know, just function with that stuff on all the time.

Scott Benner 39:44
I listen, I don't mind doing what whatever needs to be done. I'm happy to do I just because my life used to be. I'd get up in the morning and I you know, she wouldn't think of it this way. But I get my wife off to work. I get my daughter off to school. Come back. You know You clean up from the night before get the house in order. Do a little light cleaning. I've record a podcast, do some editing, have a little lunch, mess with the dogs a little bit. I go get Arden from school, we get that thing going they start making dinner like there was a pattern to it last night at 830. Arden, when can I have dinner and I went, I didn't give you dinner. And she has known like, Oh, sorry. Like, I just there's no rhyme or reason to anything like I can just, there's just nothing. There's no scheduling, it doesn't matter what time it is. It doesn't matter what day it is. I stood in the kitchen this morning. And I was like I was just here seven hours ago. I don't even like what do I do now? Like, you know what I mean? It's just ridiculous. I really need a schedule.

Josh 40:39
And your kids are a little older to a teenager, right?

Scott Benner 40:43
Yeah, yeah, she's 16 my son's still stuck here. He's going to be 21 in a couple of days. And,

Josh 40:48
yes, so So I mean, my two, like I said, they're 12 and 14, but I think about you know, had an aunt that was a teacher, it was a kindergarten teacher for like, 30 years. And, and, and I sit there and I think about these kids that are that are five, or eight, or something and you go, I mean, you know, they're kind of too young to leave at home. But the schools aren't like letting them go to school. And you know, sometimes, I got a buddy of mine that has kids in elementary school, middle school and high school, and our county, I think still, I don't know, at least to begin with, you know, they had kids going, you know, a couple days a week, but different different days for different age groups and stuff. And you're like, Oh my god, I can't, I can't imagine trying to try to schedule that in my own brain, ya know, like, I, I have, I have a calendar, I write stuff down. I can imagine the kids, this kid goes this day, and this kid goes this day. And this kid who's this day, the rest of days, they all stay home. Well, how do you run that?

Scott Benner 41:39
Yeah. Listen, I can't be certain. But I also think that everything we've done for the last year has probably saved a lot of people from going through what you went through. So that alone, hopefully, yeah, hopefully, like if it and if it did, then to me, it's worth it. Like, don't get me wrong, like six months from now. You know, if everything is is different, I'm not gonna like, think back on this. It's not, you know, it hasn't impacted me for the rest of my life in a way that I can't rebound from what I'm also lucky about because I did have that thought. Last night, I was cooking dinner. And I thought this is a bad day. I had a bad day today. I just did not there was nothing about being alive today. That was anything, but I'm lucky that mentally I'm, I guess I'm I'm built in a way that I can get through this and get to the next one. But there are plenty people that can either and I don't know, there's your

Josh 42:30
impression is real. Yeah. And, and like I was saying, in I tell a lot of people tell you know, summer employees and stuff. I mean, when this whole thing started to, you know, everybody's trying to decide, you know, leave the groceries out and spray them down, whatever the case may be, you know, like, all the stuff that was filthy before is filthy now, you know, like, like, a public bathroom is filthy, you know, like door handles to a restaurant or store, whatever, they're, they're filthy. You know, gas pumps are filthy, you know, I mean, keypads for, you know, the point of sales, you know, they're there. They're filthy. I mean, you know, wash your hands, right, you should be washing your hands. You know, if you're a parent, you got kids that are older now, but I mean, how many times did you spend your like your? You know, I don't know. I feel like my 30s were spent telling somebody to wash their hands, right? And friends that are nurses and stuff that wash your thumbs to write you wash your hand. Like don't put it in your mouth.

Scott Benner 43:29
I mean, obviously, there's it's shone a light on a lot of like, important stuff like that. Now we'll wait and see if if, if it if it sticks to people or you know, three months after you don't have to wear a mask anymore. Everybody's just licking their fingers and putting in their phone number at the grocery store again, and I can't I'm also Josh, I had a real job at one point in my life. And so

Josh 43:51
yeah, I read I read your book. I'm not gonna lie actually. I'm like, like three chapters in or whatever, but I got it off Amazon. Oh, and I started so so I heard about your real job.

Scott Benner 44:01
I had a real job and because of that my hands are I don't know how to describe this to people who have never worked with their hands like in a real vigorous way but I don't really have much in the way of like, grip on my hands. Like so things slip out of my hands sometimes I'm not I'm not having a stroke I don't think like you did but I can't grab

Unknown Speaker 44:20
this is a try having a stroke

Scott Benner 44:22
but opening those damn cellophane bags at the grocery store without like, I mean honestly without just touching your tongue to your finger a little bit like it's really hot it's so they're like trying to blow like warm air through my mask on my family. Can I get some humidity maybe will that help and my wife's like don't do that. I was like, how am I gonna get the bag open? I don't I can't get the bag open. So I don't know I just it's all very strange but and that it led to any of your health issues is that it possibly did is crazy. And you see are you going to get an antibody test to see if you have type one that can do that.

Josh 45:01
Yeah, I guess I mean, I don't know, like you said, I mean, there's so much going on and so much to kind of cross back and forth between different things that, you know, like, back around was the right around Christmas, I guess I was at the cardiologist and he goes, who's your? Who's your neurologist? And I don't have a neurologist, they're like, why not? You still have this stuff with your hand and stuff? And I'm like, I don't know, I haven't. I've haven't had time to deal with that, you know, I've been focused on you know, I mean, it took me forever to get an endocrinologist and get in there and see her a couple times and see the nutritionists and stuff. And the last time I was in there, I'm proud to report like I say, she said, She's, I have no advice for, you know, I don't even know why some of this stuff, some of the settings, you have work. But, you know, keep doing that. And I was complaining about, you know, my, my range or whatever, right? I'm like, I'm like, 20%. You know, you know, as far as my, my, you know, jump from from thing to thing, like, when I eat and stuff like it, you know, I was trying to get a little tighter trying to get my line a little flatter, but, you know, listening to you trying to do better. She's like, That's ridiculous. Like, you're, you know, when you're out arranger, you're like, you know, you hit like, 132. You know, I mean, you're not, it's not, you're not like 400 or something. So

Scott Benner 46:24
is that the Mendoza line? 400 400? everything's going great. And well, did you just tell her like, Look, there's a man's voice that comes out of my phone, and I'm just doing what he was saying. I don't

Josh 46:39
know, man. I mean, in all seriousness, I plugged the crap out of you. I think you're doing good work. I appreciate. You know, so. And I think I think that, you know, there's not really a lot of a lot of education for this. And I think that there's not really a lot of doctors that are doing this. And there's not a lot of doctors that are educated on this stuff. I've been reading, right, you know, there's I'm sure maybe, maybe I missed an episode or something. But there's a, there's a company that's working on insulin doesn't need to refrigerate is working on another pump. It's kind of like the Omni pod is coming out or something that

Scott Benner 47:08
seems pretty cool that yeah, that seems a little like vaporware to me. But it's, it's, it's a great, great idea. And if they can do it, that's amazing, what they're talking about doing is creating a more concentrated insulin. So the that also doesn't need to be refrigerated, which helps people around the world, but you wouldn't need as much of it, you know, if you're, if your carb ratio now is, you know, I don't know, three units, you know, for every 10 grams or something like that, it could end up being significantly less, which would mean the pump would need to hold less, and they could make a smaller pump. And you know, and it's going to work faster. But that's a lot of that's a lot of hoping and not a lot of you. I mean, none of that stuff exists right now. So they're working in the apple

Josh 47:49
and the Apple Watch is talking about, you know, there's gonna be some kind of magnetic reader, which seems like the holy grail for glucose monitors, you

Scott Benner 47:58
know, wrap my head around that either like, I don't know how you're gonna get some, but like, maybe it would like, Listen, if you if you tell me that the average person could wear an Apple Watch, and be told, Hey, your, your blood glucose is normal. Or maybe you ought to go to a doctor like that would be crazy. But I don't know how you'd make like specific decisions about insulin. If you had type one or type two without I don't understand how I just don't imagine that the technology took such a great leap, and none of us heard about it. Do you know what I mean? Like it Me neither. But I

Josh 48:30
have to tell you like our business. You know, we've been around since 1924. Right? So so we sold ice and cold and I have a hard time wrapping my head around delivering a cube of ice to somebody like second floor walk up or third floor walk up and put it in their icebox so that they can have refrigeration, you know, and I and I look at the I look at insulin the same way. I mean, man, holy cow. I mean, people were peeing on this on on strips and stuff to try to get you know, whatever. And then now you can prick your finger and check it and now now you can wear the Dexcom Now the Dexcom is getting smaller, you know,

Scott Benner 49:05
insulin that works. It's amazing insulin that works more quickly, that you might not need as much of That's amazing. I mean, that would just be a huge thing. There are other little things they need to work on to like canula technology like candles need to be, you know, an adhesive that doesn't you know, it's tough because, you know, if you make a million of something and 50,000 people break out from it, it's hard to ignore what's happening to 50,000 people it's also hard to ignore that the other million of them are not having trouble with it. It's so hard to like to innovate serve people as a customer service in the moment and cover everybody when when maybe most people aren't having the it's just in the internet makes it look worse. Like Yeah, he's a great example like the internet makes it looks crazy.

Josh 49:52
If I say anything to my my fellow Dexcom slash Omnipod. Where's like, I mean, it's right in the instructions. But you know, I think I think When I get on the different groups and stuff that I don't you don't you believe that? Like, I don't want to maybe start this Hi, but 90% of the problem is you didn't prep that area, right? Like you didn't, you know, like, I'm a little hairy. You know, I didn't, I didn't shave it. I didn't, I didn't. I didn't put a rubbing alcohol swab on there and make sure all the greases all my skin were off or whatever. And I just slapped that thing on there and didn't didn't stick who couldn't, you know,

Scott Benner 50:25
and you know, and here's the other side of it is we don't use alcohol, all the prep sites we use, we use whatever. We use warm water and a clean rag because at some point, Arden started having what looked like contact dermatitis. This is many, many years ago got it had to be. It's about nine years ago now. And at least you're cleaning it? Well. Yeah. Well, so I wrote a blog about it once because I remember looking at art and site thinking, God, what is this, like her on the pod is causing like a rash? And like the adhesive, and what am I gonna do without this pod? And I was standing literally standing, still thinking, and I found myself rubbing my fingers together thinking, and I realized how dry my hands were. And I thought, Oh, yeah, it's obvious why I'm so dry. I'm always touching alcohol. And then I went, Oh, wait a minute. And so I on my own, stopped cleaning her with alcohol. And the problem went away. Now this wouldn't be the answer for everybody, obviously. But for her it really was. And then I did a little research. And I found out that in Europe, if you go to your endocrinologist, they'll tell you explicitly not to clean with alcohol, where in America, they tell you explicitly to clean with alcohol. So right, like, wait a minute, and you know, so I started thinking like, Is this just a liability issue like this DNA mean like this in a more litigious place to somebody just not want to say don't, you know, kill, so we just, we cleaner really well. And we just don't use alcohol to dry your skin out. And that's it? Well, I

Josh 51:53
think cleaning cleaning, however we go about it, like that's a valid point. I mean, I don't really feel like I have sensitive skin. But I know my one daughter does. So and and going back to this technology, I have to say I can't imagine I know you've like literally grown up, you know, had her grow up with it. But I can't imagine having a kid with type one I know plenty of people that have and send them off to school, right and just kind of hoping for the best I mean, these dex coms, these continuous glucose monitors, you know, where you can control it, where you can see it, like, I don't micromanage my kids, but at the same time, like, I mean, I would want to know what their sugars are now. Like all day long, just like I want to know my own art. And I've learned a lot i'm sure I've already talked about it. But I've learned a lot from just spending like the last year looking at my mind, you know, looking at my every five minutes, I think comparing them from day to day, week to week looking at those reports, you know, I've got the sugar made, I've got the I've got the clarity app, and i and i and i look at all the different ways that that stuff matters. I've even compared it to my you know, the heart rate and stuff like that because because the heart stuff so I've looked at this become a data junkie on all this stuff. And and you know, I can tell what I've done wrong when I wouldn't my sugar's go up. I have to say though, I got a question for you. I got your quiet got you live. I I've been doing great except for this year. Uh, my, this new found neurologist put me on a drug to help deaden the nerve pain that I've got going. And it takes a couple weeks to ramp up in your system. So you know, it's actually been like about a month and a half, but my sugars go up and they stick you know, and I'm pretty damn sure that it's exactly that medicine that's doing it. I mean, I'm running higher. And I'm taking like, you know, two or three times what I should should have to take to bring my stuff down and I'm not really crashing but it's what's the drug? Well, it's it's Lyrica, Lyrica, which is a pretty common drug I guess for that and some other purposes. So I'm sure some other people are probably on it. Listen,

Scott Benner 54:03
pre gambling, nerve pain, medication, brand Lyrica. fibromyalgia, neurology, epilepsy, neuropathy, spinal stenosis. It's used for a lot of different things.

Josh 54:22
It's like, for me, I mean, but it's not working for me was supposed to do is kind of turn off the brain where it's over sensitive, over firing sensitivity. And, you know, like I say, my hand feels like it's an ice all the time. So I've just been taking more and more of it. And, and, and, you know, one of the side effects is makes you drowsy. So you know, guys, that guy, you get used to it. So I mean, I feel really blessed. I don't have all the side effects or anything. I just, I just feel tired. And now my sugars keep going up. You know, you eat a breakfast or something like that. And you do the PRI and extend it. The next thing you know, you're you're, you know, I'm blown over 200 And then I'll take 10 or something and it won't even budget, you know, and then it won't crash down. It'll just settle down. But you know, you'd like what happened to that 10 or 15 units that I just gave. That's a lot.

Scott Benner 55:10
Yeah. I am seeing, excuse me. I'm seeing a couple of like old forum conversations with people about you know, has anybody ever used Lyrica and lost control of their blood sugar's somebody said, Yes, I have. Didn't get a big, it wasn't a big conversation. But there were a couple people in there that said it did. There's an article another place, I've been on Lyrica started getting super high spikes every day. And then then yeah, some people say, I tried Lyrica, it didn't help me. I tried Lyrica. It did help me. Yeah, I don't know. It sounds like it's not out of the, out of the realm of possibility that, that it's making your blood sugar do that. But you're also saying it's not helping for what it was prescribed for?

Josh 55:57
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the way it works is with you know, a lot of those kind of drugs, I mean, they start you off with a low dose, you take this twice a day, this level, you know, let's do it for a week or two, let's, let's, let's double that, you know, let's, you know, let's, let's switch from the little pill to the big pill, you know, let's take more of the big pill, you know, so I've been, I've been gradually ramping it up. And I'd say I'm at a, at a medium high level for what most people would take whatever, but it's not.

Unknown Speaker 56:23
It's not, it's not

Josh 56:24
doing anything for me as far as the resolve. So, you know, I'm on I'm at, I'm at the point where I'm probably, you know, next up is like, you know, do I get a refill? Do I just tell him, I'm going to stop, you know, what happens next, you know, we try a different medicine or something, but like I say, in the interim, you know, that Dexcom very clearly tells me, you know, and then I've checked it, you know, with the with, with the regular strips and stuff, you know, it's not like it's the Dexcom is reading or something, but why it affects it

Scott Benner 56:53
is weird, I would say I would get up to full strength first to make sure it's not gonna because It'd be a shame to go through all this and not take it all the way and find out it would have helped. But I mean, once it doesn't help for a long enough time, you'd have to bail on it. Right? Like, described right?

Josh 57:07
Before this episode, fantastic. I'm sorry, describe what

Scott Benner 57:11
their hand thing can you describe it? Like it feels cold to you? Is it cold to the touch? What I think your hand was cold if I touched it?

Josh 57:18
No, you wouldn't. It's uh, so what I've been told is that there's a part of the brain, obviously, the control sensitivity and stuff, and then I've got a, you know, like a grain of rice size damage that they can see on a MRI, whatever. And what it feels like, if I could describe it, you know, my hand, which is a different sensation than my face, but my hand feels like, if you took your hand right now, you went outside, and you just dipped it in the snow and ice or whatever, right? You just stuck it in there and just left it in there. Right. So it feels like wow. And, and it and it kind of goes up, radiates up to you know, tapering off to the elbow. But what's really weird too, is it it's hypersensitive, so if, if the air conditioner kicks on, or you're outside in the breeze, you know, it's gonna be 100 degrees or whatever, you're outside in the breeze. And, and, you know, little hairs on my arm move. You know, it feels like, you know, like a hurricane went through, it just feels terrible. And when I type on the keyboard, you know, pushing down on the buttons and stuff. You know, it's like, I'm stabbing myself with little needles every time I do it. But oddly enough, like, I've been to hand therapy and stuff, and oddly enough, my hand strength is fine. You know, I have a little trouble picking up like a quarter or something, sometimes could have a little trouble feeling it. But but for the most part, I don't have any of that, you know, it's not it's not neuropathy. Right? It's different. Because that's kind of what I thought to begin with. And I was kind of reading about, you know, that kind of stuff, which is a diabetic issue. You know, they were talking to me about not burning my hand and whatever, but, but it's not, it's, it's, it's brain damage. Right. So, so then, the other thing is, which kind of might go along and explain some of the COVID stuff to other people, but there's a nerve that comes out of the brain and kind of rides the, the temple kind of comes down the round the, the eye socket, and down, down the cheek into the mouth and kind of the tip of my tongue, you know, this one nerve, and it's damaged too. And it kind of feels like some sinus pressure on my eye a little bit, and it feels like novocaine that hasn't worn off for a year, you know, in my mouth, so, but don't really have any trouble chewing really, or anything. I mean, it's not it's not that it's, it's a gnome, right? It's just kind of like you know, we go to the dentist and come back and quite worn off yet.

Scott Benner 59:40
What's the prognosis for all this? Is there any chance of it improving for you? Or is it just gonna stay where it's at? Will it get worse? Have they given you any or you haven't really seen a neurologist, I guess you might not even know. Right? I

Josh 59:51
saw the one guy he's, he was like, he was like, it's not nerve damage. A lot of times with nerve damage. You know, the nerve will regenerate over the course of a month to or something like that. He's like what you've got, you know, like a, you know, a fried circuit. You know, it's it's, it's You got it, it's damaged, you know, that's not he didn't he didn't really prognose it like it's gonna improve he's like he's like, I think maybe we can give you something to, you know, make it numb sort of, you know not not, not nothing like alcohol but numb, like, you're desensitized that that that firing of that snaps it's a little bit so so far the what he's tried didn't so we'll see what happens next. Wow,

Scott Benner 1:00:30
I listen, this is could just be Hocus Pocus and I have not read a lot about it. But very recently I did hear about this idea of retraining your brain about pain and and I don't know if that would be valuable to you or not and but the person was talking about you know, if you have a chronic pain and your finger hurts that it really is just signals that are telling you your finger finger hurts and that you can I don't know, like I as I was reading I was like, this seems like some hippie shit, but I wasn't straight

Josh 1:01:01
right? It's like the matrix right? Is that really chicken?

Scott Benner 1:01:04
Yeah, just pretend it's not chicken it'll turn into a daisy. So like I was just like, I wonder how much value there is to that idea. And the only reason I stuck to it a little bit is because I have in my life read and enjoyed john Sarno his books about back pain and and general about body pain. And just, you know, the idea that you can kind of overwhelm your mind sometimes, but I don't know that this is nearly the same thing.

Josh 1:01:29
Yeah, so on a completely different side tangent I have, I have scoliosis, right, I've had a pretty bad curve, it's in my lower back, I went to a guy that's a non surgical scoliosis guy who kind of a chiropractor did a lot of can lever weights and some isolated muscle group exercises, and then that really helped and stuff. But I would say that it's compared to the average person, you know, I've got a relatively high sense of pain, you know, I deal with that, you know, dealt with that all the time, you know, before this, and then I've had kidney stones before, and I've, you know, I've, I've, they're, they're supposedly I don't take anything away from any, any women, but women in my life have told me they're worse than childbirth in some way. So I feel like my, you know, when you're, when you're at the hospital, and you have an open heart surgery to get done, whatever, and they're like, How do you feel? And I'm like, I don't know, like, like a two, you know, and they're like, the pain levels are like it too. You know, you're like, well, I don't know about kidney stones. Right? That's like a 10. You know, so this is like less than that. So

Scott Benner 1:02:28
just this it's not physical pain, but I, I hear what you're saying, like, I grew up really broke, and things were fairly terrible. A lot of the times, you know what I mean? financially, you know, around the house, my dad left my mom, like, there was a lot of things. And so, you know, in a situation like today, where, you know, my daughter's got type one diabetes, she's got hypothyroidism. My wife has hypothyroidism. I don't know if I've said it on the podcast yet. But it looks like my son has hashimotos. And we're just literally figuring all that out right now. And it's terrible. And yet, I'm like, this is like a four, like, you don't need like, I'm, I think I'm spending more time of my life right now worrying about other people than I am about anything else. And I could see how this one, I can see how this would make someone crazy. But if you grew up in my life, you'd be like, Oh, well, at least this isn't happening. You start like going, like, at least this didn't happen. And somehow that makes it better. I don't even know how to describe the

Josh 1:03:25
same. I guess I'm an optimist. I don't know, I'm thinking more of a realist, but I, you know, I have a tendency just to trudge forward, right? I mean, won't even get into, or divorce or that relationship or whatever. But you know, yeah, I mean, trudging forward, but then you also, you know, you and I both I think we both agree, I mean, we live in the United States, right? Like, I mean, you know, I mean, really, you know, for the, you know, for all the drama that's been going on the last couple years, or whatever, it's, it's really one of the best countries to live in. And, you know, you get to these other, you know, third world places and stuff. And those people deal with a lot more stuff you're dealing with,

Scott Benner 1:04:00
like, I'm not, I'm not running from 1713 year old boys with machine guns through Central Africa. It does seem, I said to my son the other day, I was like, I know, this sucks, man. I was like, but I said, if you're thinking you're going to get through your life, with everything being perfect, I'm sorry that I let you think that and, you know, and this sucks, and it's it's really impeding him at the moment, but we think it's gonna be long term, it's gonna be fine. And I was like, man, there's so many more horrible things that somebody could have said to you today. And, and so you got to just sort of keep your perspective about that. I said, plus you're going through it in a house with health insurance and people who are helping you like imagine, imagine if some doctor would have just said this to you and you would have gone home by yourself and not understood any of it. I was like there's there's a lot here to be, you know, to feel positive about but I with you, like I think of myself, as incredibly hopeful. And at the same time, I think other people see me as very realistic In a way that could feel like Scott's like doom and gloom, I'm like, I'm not I see the things that I see for what they are. But I don't think that any of that means that we can't do better tomorrow or we have hope of better. I don't know how I got that balance because I probably by all rights, the way I grew up should be out of my mind.

Josh 1:05:18
In Yeah, and same, I'm pretty optimistic. But I'm also I think I'd call myself a pre worrier. I think I've let my youngest daughter inherit that or whatever. So we, you know, I, I plan everything out, like 100 times in my head, like different ways, you know, different different stuff that could go wrong with it with the x, right, you know, school things, whatever, whatever it is, you know, all this stuff with this heart surgery and stuff, like I run all the scenarios, just, you know, have them all in the back of my head is like, just keep walking forward anyway.

Scott Benner 1:05:48
I have to admit, I once had a conversation with my brother in law, we were talking about something. And I started saying like, well, I guess it could go this way, this way. And I started describing a myriad of ways that this situation could progress. And he goes, have you thought about all this? I was like, yeah, you haven't. And he's like, right. I'm like, dude, like, I

Josh 1:06:05
mean, if you're, if you're not planning for the zombie apocalypse or something, you're doing something wrong. Like you

Unknown Speaker 1:06:09
don't know.

Josh 1:06:10
I'm not a prepper. But yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:12
I'm like, you don't know which window to jump out of in case there's a fire and you can't get to the door. Like, you'd have to think about which window it is. I was like, I got the window. It's overtop of a bush on the way down the bush Hill, but you don't know that. And at the same time, I don't I don't prepare for anything. I just think like I I'm like, does everyone not know what they're gonna do if they find a genie in a bottle? Like you don't have that pre prepped in your mind? No. First wish. I want all my other wishes to come true. second wish no matter what, you can't say no to my third wish, third wish I need unlimited wishes. Boom, I'm done. Like, how does no one See that? Josh, I find that bottle one day, I do not want to go I need a Ferrari and a pretty girl. Like I do not want to like fall into that leg situation. But I just like,

Josh 1:07:00
where they all go wrong with the lottery too. Right? You you get all this stuff that you can't you can't maintain? You know, you got to think ahead.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:08
No, no, no,

Josh 1:07:09
you gotta pay for the gas. That Ferrari.

Scott Benner 1:07:10
Yeah, yeah, once one day, I realized that my 9000 square foot mansion isn't necessary, I need to be able to wish it away. Like I need. I mean, I just don't I, I tried to think things through even with my, you know, with my son's thing, he's having a, he's having an issue on the the hyperthyroidism. That's not, we're not certain yet, if it's a symptom of the hypothyroidism if it's something different. And while we're figuring that out, I can see about the four different ways that his health is going to go. And I already know what to do if it lands down any of those paths. And at the same time, you know, we're keeping Arden's blood sugar, the same as it always is. And I just don't know, like, maybe I'm not fun. Like, maybe I'm gonna die one day and realize I didn't get any of my free time over to anything valuable, like when you said about sitting on the beach is like, that is a good idea. And then I couldn't remember the last time I was on a beach. So I was like,

Josh 1:08:06
maybe I'd write well, you should do it more. I mean, we have these epic sunsets where I live in epic sunrises. And I think one of the best things I did in 2000 2021 is a couple my friends were like, you should start a Facebook group of, you know, some of these pictures, right? And I started, I started this little group, now it's a little over 1000. I mean, it's not not not anything, like what you've got, but, but there's no negative comments or anything, people were just posting pictures of pretty stuff that's in the county, you know, and it's fantastic. And as changed my feed, right, it's going from all this new stuff to like, you know, just some pretty sunsets and stuff. And, you know, and I and I kind of tell the kids, like, you know, like, we drive to school every day at a time that they see this what the sun come up over the, over the river, you know, and I'm like, look how pretty that like, you'd have to, like, take the headphone off for a second, right? And just appreciate where we live. You know, because it's a great view, it's a great sunsets, a great sunrise, you know, I get to see it almost every day. You know, and that's, you know, and and i don't i don't relax enough, either, right? I mean, you, you know, one of the things that this whole thing is taught me, the one doctor said I should have died twice. You know, it's like, it's like, Hey, is that little stuff? Maybe take a moment, that whole nonsense about smell the roses or whatever, but I mean, it's true.

Scott Benner 1:09:27
Yeah. Once you realize the everyone thinks in the back of their head, not made, it's not going to happen to me, I'm going to live on 105 I'll be playing golf when I'm 96 that's not what's going to happen to most of us and, and, but you get the hope about it. And therefore you get to ignore things because you think I have all the time in the world. And then once someone like actually shows you, Oh, actually, you know, you could give yourself too much insulin and pass out or did you notice your brain went haywire and your hands cold now and suddenly you're like, you know, I'm gonna take more time and and try to check so I'm trying to like I really hoped to come out of COVID with that idea at the front of my head, just really, I want to try to, you know, enjoy things a little more, I am going to be 50 in the summer. I mean, I, I had bacon for breakfast yesterday, I can't be here much longer, you know, I mean, so like, I need to, I need to just spend a little more time like that. I just always feel like there's something I'm a worker, like, I'm a worker bee, like, there's always something to do. And I want to do something and get something accomplished. I've Yeah,

Josh 1:10:29
I didn't even mention I'm one like, you know, like, I don't know, I don't even know, five, five different nonprofit boards, right. So I mean, besides, you know, the coaching with the volleyball and doing all of this good stuff, and, you know, actual work stuff, that I'm involved with this other stuff, too. You know, I just keep myself busy. Like I always have, you know, this was a real, this is a real, you know, like, halt hard stop, it was a hard stop is what it was.

Scott Benner 1:10:55
I, my wife is gonna need that soon, because she's been working on the safety side of a vaccine for COVID for about a year now. And she just gets up every morning, walks downstairs to the room that she took over in our house sits down and works for like 18 hours, and then gets up, walks upstairs, goes to the bathroom, brushing their teeth gets in bed,

Josh 1:11:18
and she just keeps doing right. God bless her.

Scott Benner 1:11:21
Yeah, well, so you're all gonna be well, because of this, she's gonna be dead. And we're trying to like tell her but she's just, she's a type A, and she comes from a blue collar family and there's work to be done. And that's what she sees. So you need people like that. Ah, but those people need people to tell them to, you know, walk outside and find a sunset. That's for certain You're making me think of a time we vacationed in Chincoteague is that where is that? Uh huh. And it's To this day, still the most amazing sunrise I've ever seen in my life. It was was it

Josh 1:11:57
the Porsches and stuff right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:58
that place like it's, it's just, it was the best it was the nicest sunrise I ever saw my It was so great that the following morning, I got up before the sun came up to go out and take pictures of it because I thought I'm never gonna see something like this again.

Josh 1:12:11
If the police we go in the Outer Banks, you know, I feel like a lot of Maryland is you have Ocean City and the Jersey Shore and all that stuff. But I mean, I feel like you know, there's a portion of us that go drive like nine hours to go down to the Outer Banks. And and you know, what I like about and i and i and to be honest with you, I'm about a mile walk from the water from my house, but I'm right I kind of at the top of the bay activity exactly where we are. But when you go down to the Outer Banks, it's kind of similar to what the rivers like here. I mean, there's nothing there. There's nothing you know, there's nothing to do really, and it's and it's somewhat it's somewhat therapeutic, you know, a couple years ago and it's like a memory I'll never I'll never forget in my my littlest you know, with my my get up at five o'clock kind of person, you know, even even on Saturday, whatever now she's a teen right? So she's not quite doing that but but we got up and you know, she's she's gonna carry I'm carrying her out to the beach or whatever, look, you know, that whatever. And we, we watched some baby turtles being born, right? It sets up good memory for her was cool memory for me. And, and there's not enough of that in a world, right? It's all it's all about. You know, like, I gotta do this, I gotta get milk today. I gotta remember to run to this. And I gotta remember to call that person back. And, you know, everything's tracked on your phone, and you're just running around, get up and look at your phone right away. It's not enough looking at maybe see turtles being born. I

Scott Benner 1:13:33
think my life was like that before the autoimmune stuff started in the family. Like I like you'll get to a part in the book where I just talked about going to the zoo and just sitting and watching the I think the Tigers eat with my son when he was little.

Josh 1:13:46
Yeah, you sound like you. I mean, not that you're not now but sound like you were amazing. You know, stay at home dad. Right. And, you know, I think that there's not enough credit given to stay at home moms or stay at home dads, you know, like, like to just sit around and do nothing, right. And some of them do, I suppose. But, but I mean, that's the job. That's a real job. You know, kudos to everybody that does it.

Scott Benner 1:14:06
If you do it, right. It's the best thing you'll ever do. But at some point, when stuff starts getting piled on you, and then you have to start prioritizing. You'd be surprised how quickly going to the zoo to watch the lions eat started falling on your list when you're like, instead, what if I figured out how not to kill art because, you know, in the beginning when she's just using a meter and we're injecting insulin, and there's no CGM and all that stuff, I always just felt like she was on the end of a giant yo yo. And I was throwing her towards like death and then yanking her back and then it was she was going back down and I just spent my whole day just yanking her back is what it felt like that to your earlier point that people who do this still without technology like this probably still feel like that most of the time and it's not a great yeah,

Josh 1:14:51
I know this. This whole thing is going to be interrupted like six or seven times with commercials which I say kudos to them, but I'm just gonna say again, you know, diabetic type one, two To get yourself a CGM and get yourself the G six, right because or the seven or whatever's next because, you know, I know some of the other ones are starting to do it now, but I can't imagine the point of sticking that thing on your arm and not have it actually read every five minutes automatically the ones that you have to like manually go and do it. That seems pointless to I mean, the G six, I can tell you, I've got it set up with with sugar mate, I don't think you talk about this too much. But I got set up with sugar mate. And and it's set up to call my dad, you know, in the evening time, yeah, hopefully overnight, and it said, I'm sorry, set up to call me it's up to text my dad. So you know, there's been a couple times where I've slept through the phone call, but nine times out of 10 the phone call wakes me up. And it gives me a warm warning that I'm starting to plummet. You know, and if I sleep through that, you know, you know, he he's like calling me trying to figure out why it's, you know, saying 45 or something, right? So, I think that that, you know, especially if you're especially if you're doing it on your own, like if you don't if you're if you're not the dad taking care of the kid or whatever. I mean, you know, those lows, particularly those midnight lows are are scary. And and, you know, how do you even know if you're picking yourself after every meal when you get up in the morning? If you're having one? Like how do you even know, I guess one day just fall over or something, right? I mean, I think and I was saying this, I bought a little bit of stock and Dexcom. And I'm hoping that, you know, it pays off dividends at some point when I have to get done saying this, but like, I listened to the CEO talk to you a couple times and stuff and I and I feel like they're pushing to get these things worn in hospitals. And I feel like they're just as valuable in a hospital if not more than like a heart monitor and stuff. I mean, you know, and it's easy, right? You know, they have that remote reporting. So why isn't everybody in the hospital just getting slapped with one whether it's laying there, you know, recovering or dying or whatever they're doing? Why don't they have a glucose monitor on all the time?

Scott Benner 1:16:54
I always think it's interesting that you know, you have a problem with your heart and you leave with a heart monitor you have a problem with your pancreas and they're like, we have a monitor for that. But that's it. And you know, it's just it's not required it's a pin stick yourself. Yeah. Hey, listen, if you feel dizzy try to eat something before you pass out. Good luck. Like I that's a weird Yeah, yeah, well, it's money. You know, I mean, it's it's insurance and all that stuff, but I feel Listen, I I've managed a child's diabetes without that stuff. And I've managed it with it and it's a lot easier with it. And I agree you can be more successful more frequently. I just I just opened up art and sugar meat while you're talking about because sugar made helped me with I know if you were around when I shared my blood sugar's for like two weeks I put my blood sugar's low.

Josh 1:17:39
Yeah, matter of fact, I Matter of fact, I just I think it was on your your group. I just told somebody that the link to it because they were asking about you know, like non diabetics and stuff. I go, Well, you did it. I thought it was fascinating. Now it's still up there live, but it has no feed because you're not hooked to it. I don't know if you knew that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:54
no, I still only pay Yeah, I gotta figure I'm gonna have to either just shut the page off for now, or, or get a CGM back on somebody. I really was hoping to put it on more people. But it ended up being a little more technically an issue than I thought it was going to be like, it's easy for me to do it. But

Josh 1:18:11
yeah, well, it's up, I would tell everybody to go and rewind it to what like December, December 10, or something to Christmas somewhere there's about because it's kind of because he's looking at it looks like there's nothing there. And then you've got all your notes and stuff. And you're way better at that than I am I I started off strong. I started off with I saw the ads for one drop, and I was gonna buy that and I looked at it and I noticed that it was actually owned by a different company and, and they make a couple of different meters that work with that one drop and one of them is a little little crappy Bluetooth meter from Amazon. And I bought a bunch of strips real cheap off Amazon, I bought like three of them. I took one to work to my car. And you know, I was I was writing everything down. I was document everything. And that was before I got the guts to CGM, but it you know, I think it's important to track that stuff. And I know my own limitations. Like I'm not gonna keep a journal and drag it around with me every place I go, you know, I need a I need it do it automatically for me. So I recommend some method of tracking your blood sugar for anybody that's that's even maybe pre diabetic, you know, writing it down and writing down what what happened around the time you took it? You know, did I just wake up? Was it you know, are they eating something and you got to have some kind of documentation?

Scott Benner 1:19:28
Yeah, it shows you I mean, honestly, I did it for that. But I mean with Arden I just sort of step back and clear my mind. Like I'm in a, you know, a sci fi movie and just, I don't know, I I've gotten to the point now where I don't need at all to make decisions like I can just see it. But you know, it's like it's like I've been fixing engines my whole life and you pull up and you're like my carburetor sound. I'm like, sure everyone be quiet. I can hear you start to feel and I think everybody gets to that point at some point where you don't need it. But in the beginning when you're figuring it all out or if you're trying To figure out something that's going on at the moment of documenting stuff is, is incredibly valuable because you can look back and go oh, yeah, like, it's like you said, like, Oh, my blood sugar seems to go up every time when this happens. And I wonder why. And when I start making money,

Josh 1:20:12
I think the doctors, you know, listen to what you saying, Listen to what the doctors say. I think I think another thing, which I don't necessarily buys me by right away is, but I mean, I think I think the doctors try to keep it high, right? Like, if you're, if you're up above 120, I know people are gonna say that's not high, if you're up above, living above 120, if you're like, 200, but not 200. You know, I mean, that's good. It's good. It's good for you Good diabetic, nice job, you know, right. But if you if you go down to 80, that's not that far from 70. And then you get into 70, and 50. and stuff, you start passing now, so we don't want that. So we're gonna keep you a little, little high. You know, they in the hospital, they wanted me to stay above like, they, they wouldn't treat it if it was if it was above 150. Or, sorry. 252 50. Okay, you know, so, so, the whole time in hospital, it's riding like 250. You know, they just don't treat it and they don't want it to go down low. They don't want to have to watch you. I guess that's my opinion. I you know, I don't know. But I think that you know, you know, there's all kinds of problems going high, there's all kinds of problems with going low, and the ride that thread that needle and ride that line is is difficult. And and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm that same type bag, right? I want to, I want I want, I want to close the Fitbit loops or whatever, right? I want to complete that task, you know, so So, you know, I think with the diabetes, it's the same thing. Like I look at it, and I go, I go, he talks about and I look at it, and I can make that line flatter. Right, you know, I can, you know, and and i and i didn't eat the most healthy to begin with, you know, and, and you know, I've tried to do a lot, I mean, I've had not touched you know, a regular sugary soda, you know, or some of that kind of stuff you know, since since all this started, obviously, but I've tried to introduce some more normal stuff back to my diet right like to have Coke Zero and Gatorade zero and some of that kind of stuff and but I'm trying to make make it as you know, regular as possible, but enough to tell you man I rocked out to send it to you I rocked Thanksgiving, I was really really proud of it. I you know, I pre Pre-Bolus and I and I extended you know, and, and I ate turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and you know, I portion control that a little bit. But I ate all this stuff. And I had a flatline flattens fantastic, you know, showed it to the doctor and she was like befuddled about it.

Scott Benner 1:22:50
Oh, that is very cool. I and I have to say too. It's doable, right? And at the same time, it doesn't always have to be perfect. And so once you but once you know how to do it, it just sort of works out in your favor more frequently because you're taking the right steps doing the right things at the right times. And it's leading to better outcomes I get not worried. But I I sometimes think that people can hear the podcast just for a minute and think oh my god, I can keep my you know, his kids a one season the mid five. So I can just keep my blood sugar like you know, at six constantly. And that's not how Arden's blood sugar is, you know,

Josh 1:23:27
hurts a lot of work. Yes, a lot of work. I can't iterate enough, like you actually have to give a crap about your diabetes to get the numbers that you're getting, you know, right, I guess in your case, I guess you you can kind of force her to do stuff like this. You're still the parent. Yeah. But I mean, you know,

Scott Benner 1:23:44
will definitely not force her, but I hear what you're saying. And you can say, look, it's time to do this now do it. And there are times like she she got a little lower last night. So we had this go, I think we opened the loop during a change for a pump. So we wanted the I wanted the basil to run consistently. And she started So then once we got her there, we closed it and she started drifting. I was like, Hey, you know, this is the time like, eat something now. Like you're at it's drifting down. I will I will I will I will I will earn your 50 I will, I will, I will you know, then she drinks something and doesn't move off of 55 for a while. I'm like, are you gonna eat something else? And she just couldn't. And I and there are those moments where I'm like, God, is this what's gonna happen when she's by herself? Is she just gonna be like, I don't feel like doing this.

Josh 1:24:30
And in the loop seems fantastic. I mean, that's a whole separate conversation. I mean, that's hours of your podcasts, you know, in the past anyway, but I mean, like, I'm excited about I figured since I'm close enough, I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna do the Reilly link or doing that stuff. I was gonna wait it out for this other thing that's pending. You know, so I'm hoping that yeah, I think Omni pod live

Scott Benner 1:24:49
will be here pretty soon. So you just right.

Josh 1:24:52
I'm hoping that it's coming out. It's, it's, it's, it's it's kind of like you know, it's kind of like that fishing pole. It's like string just just enough in the in the in the point of view that I can almost see it. But, um, yeah, and then and then there's two different versions of that, right there's, there's the, there's the horizon, and there's the one that's actually going to work with the tide pool. And yeah, and I'm leaning towards that one, because I have an iPhone, right? So you got to make all this technology mesh together,

Scott Benner 1:25:18
it's a very cool thing that Omnipod did is that they said, Look, we're gonna put out an algorithm, and we're gonna let our pump work with tide pools algorithm as well, like that is just, that's, that's cool. It's, it's just, it gives you more options. And it also

Josh 1:25:32
Dexcom seems the same way, right, like Dexcom, sharing everything,

Scott Benner 1:25:35
they have a lot of board for business agreements, yeah, because you could listen, you get on the pod five, when it comes out, which shouldn't be long. Now. I mean, there's, there's one that tandem makes, you know, Medtronic is going to put out a new one, I think that I think the goal here with algorithm based pumping is get it out, prove to the FDA how it works, and then start ratcheting down on, on blood sugar goals, because they're still gonna, like, some of these things are still gonna have blood sugar levels of like, 110. And so you're gonna need to, you know, if that's not okay with you, but you still want to use the algorithm, I'm hoping there's a way that you can sort of mess with the settings a little bit to get, you know, steady at a lower number. But once you show the app, once they can show the FDA, some real data from people using it, they can say, Alright, look like, you know, if we just make the, let them change the goal, lower, nothing's gonna change. And then you'll see a year or two from now, that'll happen, in my opinion, and then you know, then that's it, then we're off to the races, then people who want to be in the fives, and people who just want to be in the sixes can both wear these algorithms, because right now, just the way the algorithms are at the moment, you take most people with type one diabetes who are living with 789 10 1112, a one sees, and you slap this algorithm on them, they suddenly get immensely more healthy. And that's and to be able to impact the masses, like, that is a huge thing. It's just, it's terrific. So I'm like, Well, I

Josh 1:27:02
guess I haven't used the algorithm, but but I'd have to, I have to imagine that you can attest to this, that I mean, like, doing it, I'm doing it on my own and keeping it down is a lot of effort. If I could program it in there and kind of have it do it automated for me, that would be a lot easier. And I think a lot of people take the easiest path. And, and, and I'm gonna sit here and tell you that it's been a, you know, listening to you has been immensely helpful. You know, I mean, you know, I don't even know that the injured crowd has talked about pri and extended Bolus to any kind of, you know, depth. I've certainly talked to them about it. But But, uh, you know, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of work. And if people don't want to put the work in, you know, they're going to get the results that they get without putting to work. And that's, that's how that goes. It's just how it is. It was just like, almost everything else in life. And I've been trying to put the work in for this, you know, it's, it's a new thing for me. And I'd like gadgets, right? I mean, so that's kind of cool, I've got the watch. And I've got the things stabbing me in the arm, and I've got the pump, and, you know, like, it's gonna feel like a robot or something,

Scott Benner 1:28:04
dude, I'm glad you're in the Facebook group, because I want to be able to keep up with all the other stuff that's going on with you and try to try to see if we can't, like, I'm just really interested to see where this goes, like I can see you coming back on like two years from now and updating me on everything that happened, I think that would be kind of incredible, because you just got dropped into the middle of a ton of health issues in just the snap of your fingers. And you have a great attitude, which is, which is laudable because like you said, it can be very natural to have depression issues after heart surgeries. It can be it can be natural to have a problem after any number of your I mean, diagnosis and you're not. It's just the it's a it's a testament to how you're built, I think and I appreciate you coming on and explaining that to me.

Josh 1:28:48
I've told a couple people like, you know, I just got it, you know, like it might my youngest is 12 right, you know, I got I got another eight years or you got a she's got her six years got to make it till she's 18. Right. That's, you know, like, that's, that's, that's like a micro goal. Like I got it's got to go that far. You know, like she you know, she we've got some some issues with Mom, you know, we've I've gotta be I gotta be the adult till she's an adult for sure. So that's, that's like my micro goal. So you know, whatever the doctors say, make sure the hearts run, right, whatever, I'm going to do that. You know, make sure everything everything's good. But you know, you got to sit there it's kind of like little goals and like kind of achievable goals, you know, right. We're going to figure out how this Dexcom works or figure out is Omnipod works we're gonna make this stuff Don't you know, and and, you know, you could fight all this stuff, but what's the point? Yeah, so like I said, I can't tell everybody who's listening enough. Like I feel like I don't want I don't want anybody to think that you're just plug in these two companies that are doing the spots for you. I mean, I commend them for for for paying you for this, which is fantastic. But I mean, you know, I think you generally believe that it's helped your daughter and I think it has and I and I feel the same way and I can't imagine doing this without the Dexcom like Dexcom. Number one, I mean, you can have different pumps, there's different arguments for the different pumps, you know, the different technologies built into the pump. Yeah, looping, non looping. But if you don't know what the hell is going on, right, like, if you don't know what, what your sugar is, and it's not enough to look at it, like every once in a while, two hours after he

Scott Benner 1:30:22
left. So I appreciate that. I mean, the way it worked out, I'm really grateful for because the podcast starts, it's just the podcast, right? It's not until it hits certain numbers and certain downloads that you realize that it becomes, it becomes a business really, like it's now now your goal is how do you keep what you had before? and nurtured along in this in this new way? Like meaning? How do you not take this valuable thing and turn it into some like money, gin, because that's not what I want. Like, I think it's popular because of what it is. I want to keep it as what it is, but it becomes a time suck that is just immense. And so you're like, Okay, I can't just do this for fun anymore. Like it needs to have some financial support, and it gets enough downloads to get that financial support. Now, do I want to do a commercial for a company that I've been using forever? And I believe in and I can speak about, honestly, where do I want to take, you know, a frozen pizza ad because that's what's being offered. And so, you know, I just feel grateful that companies that I actually can get behind Are you interested in advertising, because if they weren't, you'd be turning on the podcast. And I'd be you know, talking about erectile dysfunction medication or something like that. Or I can't even tell you the number of emails I get from, like, we'd love to do this with the podcast, we want to do this. We want to set up a there's just one company out, we want to set up a teaching program. And I'm like, Yeah, that sounds like something you want me to charge people for? Like, I don't I don't want to charge people. That's no, so I delete that. You know, and then, you know, our company sells this. Our company sells that art. I mean, I'm close to downloads where I could give you a Casper mattress ad. And I just don't write

Josh 1:32:06
I don't want to do or my pillow or

Scott Benner 1:32:08
just Well, I'm saying is that the podcast is very close to hitting a download number where anyone would be willing to advertise on it. So it doesn't wouldn't have to be diabetes related. But I also don't know why that's valuable. Like I just, you know, I'm I can't stand behind, you know, you know, Jerry's doorknobs I don't have one of Jerry's doorknobs, and I don't care. Like Like, I just, you know, I don't want to be that person who just like, out here like shucking and jiving to get you to buy a lamp, I just, I just want to be able to tell you look, this is how this pump works.

Josh 1:32:40
And there's podcasts and stuff out there that talk about, you know, particular products and things like that, too. And that's interesting and useful. And hey, look, I know, you talk about some of the stuff and I know you can't talk about some of the stuff that you're actually, you know, helping beta test sometimes or whatever, but, but I agree with you, I think I think relevancy is the key to me. I mean, I, I don't know if I think I left this part out of the story out, but like, that first four days that I was in the hospital with a stroke, you know, you're like, should I guess I'm diabetic, I'm gonna have to figure this out right now, like, so let me see what I can find on the internet flip, flip, flip, you know, oh, here's this podcast I can listen to. And you know, hey, you know, this, there's two or three others out there that are interesting, sort of, you know, right. I like yours. You know, I feel like I feel like we could grab a beer and have a conversation like this for hours. Like I know, I've rambled on for, you know, over over the, the podcast hours, I know what you're gonna do about editing, but

Scott Benner 1:33:36
I enjoyed this. My advice, I'm not editing. I also don't know about any other podcasts I and meaning I'm aware they exist, but I don't, I've never, never listened to them. There's one that somebody I've a business relationship once asked me to listen to a snippet of, to get my opinion about something. And other than I have never heard one of them. And, and I when I used to write a blog every day, I never read anyone else's blog either. And I still don't want to do I don't want to be interesting. People or think like, I just, you know, this, this is working for me, I don't. And I get my and I get my outside information from people I talked to. And so if you don't want to, yes, I don't talk about tandem, you know, pumps on here very often, but I've also never used the tandem pump. But when someone comes on as a tandem pump, I don't tell them not to talk about it. They talk about it. Like I just, you know, I can speak from my perspective. That's, you know,

Josh 1:34:32
and I think that's what that's what makes it relevant doesn't make it relevant to me. Like I'm like, Why? Well, you know, he's making that work with his daughter. And that seems like a good thing to try. And I like, you know, hey, I tell you the AMI pods great. I mean, I'm not I'm not, I'm not gonna tell you that I'm like, super athletic person or whatever. Right. But I mean, like we, you know, we recreate around the water, you know, we have a pool. You know, like I said, we went down to the beach. You know, to me, it seems like and I know people will say that the IQ and Some of the different stuff, but to me, it seems like, you know, having this thing you just stick on and it puts the canula and all by itself and stuff, and you wear it for three days, and you throw it away, versus having to worry about breaking a pump that you only get insurance to pay for every, every four years or something. It just seems better, you know, in so many different ways. I mean, I've had a couple of these guys go bad, I'm not going to tell you that they're perfect. But I will say that, you know, you call up Omnipod and you're like, you know, had one didn't, didn't fire up, right? I had one that, you know, whatever happened to it, you know, and they're like, Okay,

Scott Benner 1:35:34
look, my daughter's not wearing an omni pod because they buy ads. They buy ads, because my daughter has been wearing an omni pod for a really long time. And, you know, I'm a proponent of it. So it's just, I mean, that's obvious, right? And that, to me, the tubeless nature of the Omni pod to me is a game changer. And if if my daughter needs to, you know, live an extra six months without control IQ Ben tandems got it. But tandems got it on the tube pump on the pod will have it it's gonna be here soon. And we just live in such a consumer world where everybody just wants everything to be like so immediate, and I understand that desire. But I have a long game here. Like I'm not giving up to bliss to get another year of something that I'm gonna have anyway, like it just, it didn't make a big enough difference to me. Now you might have a situation where that's not true for you, or you might put it on the pot on and freaking hate it. I don't care if you do get a different pump. Like I mean, Omni pod wouldn't even care if there was someone from Omnipod on here right now. And I said, Hey, when somebody uses your pump, they don't like it. Should they just keep using it? They'd say, No, there are other pumps, they should try a different one. Like, it's just it's not No, no, you know what I mean?

Josh 1:36:44
And you've said this before, before, but like, Hey, you know what you call Omni pod day, they'll send you a free sample, you stick it on your body, see how you like it. I mean, it doesn't have the doesn't have the needle in it, whatever. But I mean, you can wear it, you know, and and i think i think i i did that I got some I got some information. I went to the endocrinologist, like educated, like, I want this thing. Can you make me? Can you give me this thing? I know, I need a script for this thing. But I think this thing would be what would help me. Right? You know, and you have to be your own advocate for this kind of stuff. You really do. I mean, you know, your daughter's lucky to have have you and your wife to be advocates, you know and and know about this technology and stay up on it because because there's a lot of different stuff and and and in the last what decade or something right? There's a lot of different stuff coming on the market. I mean, like you said you were doing all this stuff. You know, when she was little and and a tubeless pump wasn't even the thing. You know, I mean, you guys have had that what the most of the her most of the time is being hired full time. I

Scott Benner 1:37:38
don't know if it's the entire time it's been developed. But I can tell you that the day I have to go in a minute, Josh, I'm sorry. But the day that we went around to her hospital to look at a pump, like there was a pump day where you could go down and check them all out. I've told this before but I'll tell you in 30 seconds, they absolutely honest to God's truth. There's conference tables around the perimeter of the room. In the middle of the room, all the pumps are set up like on display. And in the back of a fairly large room in this like kind of like misshapen corner, there was a small table and someone had flung the Omni pod on to it like like it was like they walked to the table to put it there but got five feet away from the table. It's just like a screw it and toss it against the wall bounce on the table. They did not even put it out with the other pumps. So that's the Animus ping and whatever else was available back then all like you know, with heavenly light shone on it. So you could pick through

Josh 1:38:29
Yeah, it's very boring looking. Right?

Scott Benner 1:38:32
Well, so I'm walking around the room and I get a nurse practitioner. I said, Hey, what's this one? She goes, You don't want that? And I was like, why? And she goes, Well, your daughter's too lean for it. And I was like, What do you mean? She says to lean canula to lean, you know, just try this one. And I was like, well, this one? Like, am I right to understand like, this is the whole pump like there's no tubes. And she goes, Yeah, you don't want that she pushed me so hard. And I said, Well listen, I went back to my wife and I said, this looks right. To me. I said, this looks futuristic, and I kind of used it this time. If they make updates to it. It's not like they're gonna make 7000 versions of this pump. Like they're gonna keep updating, you're gonna keep getting the new one. Like, I this makes sense to me. There's no tubing, like, look at this. So we tried it. It was great for us. It was great for art. And two years later, the endocrinologist pulls me aside after an appointment to apologize. I know we pushed you away from the on the pod. We wanted to explain that back then we didn't have any experience with it. We didn't want you using a pump. We didn't know how to support. So it wasn't about my daughter. I didn't lean. That was just bullshit. Oh, great. So, you know, so she then she said, I want you to know we are now prescribing on the pods out of this practice because of our success with it. And it's a big hospital on the east coast. And so it just takes somebody you know, that's how long I've been with it. I've been with it since Omnipod was trashed to a nurse practitioner because they didn't understand it. And I just took a leap because it made sense to me. And it still makes the same sense to me today. And I've said this openly to the people that I work with it on the pod, if somebody comes out with something better than this, I can't tell you, I won't try it. Like, like, so keep innovating, keep doing good things. Because, you know, I want I want Omnipod to succeed, I want my daughter to succeed. If someone else comes along and does something else, then I mean, I'm foolish if I don't look, so you got to keep being, you know, gotta stay with this, you know, and keep and keep working on it. And they are they're a little behind right now. On on algorithm, but they're about to catch right up real quick. So

Josh 1:40:42
yeah, and I had to say, I'm not a big fan of carrying around this other thing, right, like Dexcom, Scott Dexcom got an app that you can function, the Dexcom with, right? You don't really need to carry around their thing. And then Omni pod, you know, there's no controls on it, which is fantastic. But then you got to carry around this thing. And I can't tell you, I've got it to a tile, you know, thing and but I've left it at work before, right? And I'm like, I'm like a 40 minute drive from from work and you get about halfway home, you're like crap, I need that for dinner.

Scott Benner 1:41:12
Well, I would think that this, probably the only thing standing between you and not having to worry about that is the FDA About Phone control. And I understand Yeah, on the pods, a CEO has talked about the desire to get the phone control. So hopefully that comes to because I don't think they want to be making PDMS either. I don't think that's the business they want to be in. So

Josh 1:41:34
if you can tell it's an old phone, right? You know what they're doing with it, they're just doing their best to just make something work.

Scott Benner 1:41:39
They took they took, basically like Android phones that are blanked out that have nothing on them, and they've made them, you know, into the PDMS. And that's not the that's not the business they're trying to be on. So I would assume that the minute phone control is reasonable and is going to get through the FDA, you're gonna say it. And I think the sooner you get to these algorithm loops, the sooner that the FDA is going to see the value in that. So, you know,

Josh 1:42:01
it's got I know, you said you had to go and I feel like we could talk like I said, I feel like we could talk for hours about this kind of stuff. I'm happy to come back on and, you know, talk to you again, or something that sometime I don't know, I don't know what the next chapter of that story is. I don't know how it ends.

Scott Benner 1:42:14
I know I can't wait to find out. I hope it's not your daughter calling me going. Hey, listen, both of his hands are cold now he can't pick up the phone. So right. Hey, but you're just how old are you again?

Josh 1:42:26
Um, so So when this all started I was 44. And then my birthday is in June right? So just you know a little bit after my my 45th birthday. I'm having open heart surgery. So that's always exciting.

Scott Benner 1:42:36
That's crazy. And and yet, man, no lie. If this happens to you, even 20 years ago, this probably kills you. Like the medicine right? Oh, amazing. Right now. It's just It's fantastic. There's nothing but but hope for people. And that's a that's a good thing. So I really appreciate you doing this. I genuinely do. I'm sorry that I have to run. But I mean, we went like 45 minutes longer than I thought we would. So

Unknown Speaker 1:43:00
no worries. It's a pleasure.

Scott Benner 1:43:07
Huge thanks to Josh for coming on and sharing all this. It's an amazing and crazy story. And I'm really thrilled that he was willing to share it with you. I'd also like to remind you to check out the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. spend a couple of minutes make a difference. Help out the show. Looking for those diabetes pro tip episodes there at diabetes pro tip.com. We're right there in your podcast player beginning in Episode 210. If you've got a doctor that you think is terrific and you wish other people knew about, you can share that doctor with everyone listening to this show by going to juice box docs.com and sending me that information. And if you need a doctor, there's quite a list there.

Whenever I mentioned links, don't forget that right there in your podcast player. There are show notes and the links are there. If you can't find them there or you're listening online, they're also available at Juicebox podcast.com. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with others, please subscribe in a podcast app. I will see you soon.

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#446 I Lost and Found Carrie

Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 44

This is Carrie!

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Recently, I learned that some people who listened to the show refer to themselves as juice boxers, which was not something that I knew. But I did like the idea. Anyway, I'm gonna mention that again in a second. And then tell you about today's show.

I have to apologize to today's guests. Because, well, you know, sometimes you get an email, and it falls down your inbox. And like six months later, you're like, Oh, my God, I remember that. And I can't believe I lost track of it. And you don't know what to do or how to email back because it's awkward. Well, you can list this episode under that heading, because somehow this episode slipped down in the folder that I have it and I must have opened it which redated it and then it slid down. It doesn't matter. But whatever. Whatever the case, this should have come out a while ago. And so I apologize to today's guest. And of course, if things timeline wise don't seem to make sense. That could be why. 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, or becoming bold with insulin.

I didn't mention it at the beginning. But did you notice that's the old opening to the show. Like that's how long ago I recorded this episode, the file, right to the files, you want a little back room, I have a template and the template has the music in it, then I record on other tracks. So this template was built so long ago. It's the old theme music. And I just left it in there to make the point that I screwed this up. Before I start with Carrie, I want to remind you about the T one D exchange. The T one D exchange is looking for type one adults and type one caregivers who are us residents to participate in a quick survey that can be completed in just a few minutes from your phone or your computer. After you're finished the questions which are simple. They're not in depth probing questions. I did it in about seven minutes. You will be contacted annually to update your information. But you know, it might just be you get contacted. You're like no, there's no update. That's it. At that time, they may ask you further questions. But this thing is completely anonymous. So your name is not attached to it at all. He is 1,000,000% HIPAA compliant, and it will never require you to see a doctor or go to a remote site. This is a way for you to help with Type One Diabetes data research without leaving your house or having to be in a study. Every time someone completes the process using my link, T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. You will be benefiting Type One Diabetes Research and the podcast. So thank you. Past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test strips Medicare coverage for CGM and have provided changes in the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. That's one of those things that doesn't sound like a big deal. But it really is. The T one D exchange helped motivate the ADA to lower agency goals, that information goes out to doctors, then it reaches you, then you get different marching orders from your doctor, not just you, but the whole world to strive for lower a one sees better time and range, that kind of stuff. So it's incredibly easy and exciting to imagine what your participation might lead to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. There's links in your show notes. Please give it a chance, at least head over to the link and see what you think. It's a genuinely good use of your time. Go ahead and introduce yourself. You seem jacked up, we can get going.

Unknown Speaker 4:09
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 4:10
so

Carrie 4:12
I'm Carrie, and I'm 45 and I am a mom of two. I have a seven or no 16 and 13 year old and I was diagnosed with type one last year at 44.

Scott Benner 4:31
Get by surprise. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 4:33
you could say that. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:35
44 Have you been Have you been sick through your life? Or was this your first never

Carrie 4:40
nothing. I'm very very healthy. I've never had an issue in my life. I literally I literally just say I have type one at 44 because I'm a kid at heart. So

Scott Benner 4:55
well not that you can't get it at any age. People have gotten it in their 60s, even But my thing is, it's more like, and maybe you didn't have this feeling, but I've always segmented my life up, like, you know, if I can just make it to 18 I can just make it 25 you know what I mean? Like, and

Carrie 5:12
I've heard you say that.

Scott Benner 5:13
Yeah, but in your 40s you think if I'm getting sick in my 40s I'm getting cancer, right? Like, that's, that's exactly

Carrie 5:20
what I thought. Right? But, but I mean, I literally, so I guess last? Well, it wasn't last was last August. And I thought I was killing the over 40 metabolism game when I lost 20 pounds. So I was like, I mean, I got like, three different you know, once I had three different people say, Oh my gosh, you've lost so much weight and I wasn't trying, I was eating like a teenage boy. And, and still losing weight. And I was like,

Unknown Speaker 5:51
What are you talking about? This

Carrie 5:52
is great. I've worn pants that my that I wore before my son was born. And you know, still haven't lost the baby weight. And so I was like, I mean, of course the

Scott Benner 6:04
it's gonna just be me and Holly Berry and a couple of other like, really fit skinny 50 year olds in the world.

Unknown Speaker 6:10
Yes.

Carrie 6:11
I was like, This is great. I'm happy. I'm not going to the doctor. This is great.

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Are you married?

Carrie 6:16
I'm not sure I've been divorced for almost 10 years. Because if

Scott Benner 6:20
you were married, you'd be like, I'm gonna have to get rid of this guy and start over. Yeah, I didn't know I was gonna look this good in the last third.

Carrie 6:27
I know but like so and then of course I had the other normal symptoms the the weight of in the world, the weight loss, and then this severe thirsty, peeing constantly. I actually what, what else? Oh, I had, I was my fingertips and my toes were going numb. So when I went, I find that my mom traveled to the doctor with me to make sure that I went because I'm just not that like, overly hypochondriac. You know, I don't overreact. So I went, and they were like, I don't think you're diabetic. I was, well, I actually when I went, I said, I either have diabetes, a thyroid issue, or I have a tapeworm. And I don't know which one they're like, well, I'm sure it's not a tapeworm, and you don't fit the profile for a diabetic. And so we'll just test everything. And so they did. And come to find out when I went back the next week after my labs were in. My sugar was a 356. And my a one C was 16. Oh, how

Unknown Speaker 7:35
did you feel? I felt fine. No kidding. Yeah. And that's what is that's

Unknown Speaker 7:40
why I was like, I'm

Unknown Speaker 7:41
fine. I'm

Carrie 7:42
just, you know, whatever, I'm fine. I don't feel a high at all. And so then, so they, they were like here, here's a pen of basketball or just give your shot self a shot at the end of every day. And you know, just if you're going to eat pasta, just eat a little bit, make an aside. And I'm like, okay, so they showed me how to give myself a shot. And off I went two weeks later, I was Oh, and I lost my sight.

Scott Benner 8:10
Okay, hold on a second. Wait, we got to slow down, right. Like you need to take a breath. I'm thinking all right, we gotta we gotta do one of the things. Are you on a Mac or a PC?

Unknown Speaker 8:18
I'm on an HP

Scott Benner 8:19
and hp. Okay. I was just hoping to silence your reminder somehow, but I don't know how to do that. Oh, that's my phone. Is it? Can you put it on? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 8:29
Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Scott Benner 8:30
Okay. So let's slow down. Your your agency is 16. Yes. You and they tell you to just give yourself a shot of insulin at the end of the day.

Unknown Speaker 8:41
Yeah, like a long, long, long acting because

Scott Benner 8:43
they think you have type two diabetes. Right? Okay.

Carrie 8:47
That's my that's my general practitioner.

Scott Benner 8:49
Right. And if you have pasta, do what?

Carrie 8:52
Just use like, if you're going to eat it, just, you know, portion it much smaller than you would don't make it the meal. Make it the size. If you're going

Scott Benner 9:00
to drink hemlock. Just have a sip. I gotcha. Right.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
Just on the weekends, and then Off you go. Off I

Carrie 9:09
go. Two weeks later, it was a little bit after Christmas. And I so I ride the train to work. I work in DC. And can I say something? I know you

Scott Benner 9:21
live in DC, or my next or my next question would have been? Where do you live that they gave you this kind of advice at your doctor's off?

Carrie 9:33
I live near Annapolis, Maryland.

Scott Benner 9:36
Yeah, you're by the way your email addresses what made me think you live in that area. Oh, okay. Good.

Carrie 9:41
I'm saying Yeah, okay. All right. Well, so, so actually, I should take a step back my doctor did when she had me get my labs work my labs done. She also ordered me an MRI of my pancreas because she said that pancreatic cancer does show up. Sometimes. As diabetic symptoms

Scott Benner 10:01
Oh, do you think she thought you had cancer and she was just like, give yourself some insulin and then we'll really yeah, I see. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 10:09
so,

Carrie 10:10
yeah, so like, I'm like, holy crap, what am I gonna tell my kids? Like, I don't even know what to do. So then finally, my, my,

Scott Benner 10:19
what am I gonna tell my kids? Remember that bad stuff I told you about that it's not true. You're going to live with him. Forget all that stuff. Mommy said when she was whining 10 years ago, and I don't mean like whining like talking. I mean, like, you know, with a bottle of wine. And

Carrie 10:34
yeah, so I'm like, oh my gosh. So I totally was panicking, panicking until the results came back, which were fine. So that's good. But then, like I said, a few weeks after Christmas, I'm at work. And I'm like, I can't even I just had my eyes tested. And I'm like, how in the world is my eyesight, so bad, I couldn't see close up at all. And, um, and it was like a busy time of year for us an election year. And so was just very busy. So I couldn't read barcodes on different pieces of inventory or equipment that I was supposed to be able to do. And I was, like, useless pretty much. And so I just like kind of broke down and was like, I don't know what's going on. Well, then, I checked my sugar. And it was like, literally 600 Mm hmm. And so I'm like something, something else has to be done. Like, I can't live like this. This is this is frustrating. So I did make I made an appointment with an endocrinologist. And I saw her for the first time, last February. And ever since then, I've been on the straight narrow, totally good. And so I'm on. Well, I first started with multiple inject multiple, multiple daily injections, she switched me, she's like, oh, and I was taking the Metformin that the doctor prescribed when I was when she thought I was type two. So she's like, definitely stop taking that that does nothing for you. And she said, I can just tell by your numbers that you're type one. I mean, I did end up having the test with for the antibodies done, which confirmed type one. But I did the multiple injections from February till about May. And then I went on pump and CGM.

Scott Benner 12:25
How long was it from the time you saw the GP till February when you went to the end? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 12:30
December to February.

Scott Benner 12:32
I think it's possible that you're describing the absolutely haphazard diagnosis that a lot of type twos get

Unknown Speaker 12:41
I do to that yeah,

Scott Benner 12:42
that probably in hindsight makes you pretty sad to look back on not just for yourself, I would imagine it's just it's a strange thing. You know, here you have diabetes. I'm not really gonna tell you too much about it. Don't eat pasta. And but I mean, you know, if you do just don't have a ton, and in right, here's your insulin and a meter and check it once in a while. You'll be anyway Good luck. It was Yeah, that's really crazy.

Unknown Speaker 13:05
I mean, literally,

Carrie 13:06
they literally gave me a booklet that looked like it was from 1970 with Andre the Giant on the front. Stop it.

Scott Benner 13:15
That's oh my gosh, you know, I don't usually like the title of the episode is to come out this early but Andre the Giant is the title of your episode. Carrie, so you're gonna have to say something way better the next morning. Get away from that. Oh, no, I

Carrie 13:30
got it. I got a really, really game

Scott Benner 13:32
start winging one liners all over the place. No, but that's, that's so what did the pants What did Andre tell you?

Carrie 13:40
Andre told me to eat less carbs and no sugar. And, you know, you know, his his wife? I'm not even sure red hair. older lady. They were walking in a park and just you know, I don't know. I kind of just browse through it and throw it away. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:03
he's not the picture of hell.

Carrie 14:07
I mean, if it wasn't him, it was his definite doppelganger.

Scott Benner 14:11
I have a question. Was he in the unit hard in this or dress like a regular?

Unknown Speaker 14:17
whatever it's called. Well, at one

Scott Benner 14:18
point in his career, he has the one the one that went over the one shoulder you remember? And then when he really stopped caring what people thought of him, he just went right to the bikini pants.

Unknown Speaker 14:29
He really didn't care. Oh

Scott Benner 14:30
my gosh. I'm gonna get him here fighting Andre the Giant or Andre the Giant fighting Hulk Hogan and it's hilarious image.

Unknown Speaker 14:39
That was the Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 14:42
I got I listen. I wish you would throw that pamphlet out because I would have asked you to mail it to me.

Carrie 14:48
You know what? I can get another? You Really? Why not? You are handing them out.

Scott Benner 14:54
I guess it was just a year ago. Right?

Unknown Speaker 14:57
Yeah. All right. Give

Unknown Speaker 14:58
me another one. The

Unknown Speaker 14:58
next time you're getting it. So getting it.

Scott Benner 15:02
Okay, so Andre, the giant didn't help you that much. You document it out much. You found it. And oh, that did help you.

Carrie 15:07
She is amazing. I love her like BFFs and my clinical manager that helps me with my pump settings and everything. We're BFFs also, and they have been the reason why I'm doing so well.

Scott Benner 15:25
Well, that's wonderful. I have to tell you that I was scared that you were going to tell me that that was just the level of what was going on there. Because I just last week had to turn down speaking at the jdrf event in DC. He has my date, the date didn't work for me. I was already traveling that day. Oh,

Carrie 15:44
yeah. So next month, February 29. I'm going to the type one summit in Las Vegas. Oh, why does

Scott Benner 15:51
nobody invite me to that kind of stuff?

Carrie 15:54
I invited myself Oh,

Scott Benner 15:55
well. Yeah, but that's different. I don't want to pay. I just want to go talk. Oh, yeah, but yeah. Vegas, really the flight and hotel is probably like $85. Right. Right, exactly. But um, I did break my heart just to go on from that aside for a second, because they have a huge chapter. She was talking about maybe 1000 people have signed up already. And I just, I really, I love that part of the country a lot. I love it a little more of the spring than I do in the winter. But I was excited. And then they dropped the data on me and I'm traveling, I'm going to see my son play baseball in Florida. So I couldn't do it. And I was like, Oh, you have to invite me next year. And she goes, Well, it'll be the same time next year. I was like, well, you have to have it a week earlier next year. Invite me next year. So

Unknown Speaker 16:42
yeah, I did.

Carrie 16:44
I did the jdrf walk in DC this past year. And on my own non non team, just myself. I raised over $1,000 we could you Congratulations.

Scott Benner 16:57
We're just we're just a walk us through

Carrie 17:00
last year went last year. It went through by the monument down to the Lincoln Memorial.

Scott Benner 17:09
So that's a good jdrf walk.

Carrie 17:11
Yeah. And it was it was really good. It was really nice. Now I just got a call like last night and wanted to they wanted to know if I was coming again. And this year or this coming year, it'll be closer on the Mall. So a time of year is that usually it may it's at the end of May.

Unknown Speaker 17:29
Really? Yeah. Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 17:33
Aha pencil you in?

Scott Benner 17:35
I don't know. I think I'm speaking in Orlando. But listen, we should do a thing. have everybody walk into a room and we'll talk afterwards about using their insulin.

Unknown Speaker 17:45
I love it.

Scott Benner 17:46
I just want to see the monuments again. I haven't been down in a while. Oh, yeah. Anyway, all right. So pumps. Yeah, there's what do you got going?

Unknown Speaker 17:55
I got going. I'm on Medtronic, and the

Unknown Speaker 17:59
G six. CGM

Unknown Speaker 18:03
X. How did you uh,

Carrie 18:05
well, it just, this is the guardian. It came with the pump together. And I, I didn't really ask and I just was, like, she, my doctor was like, you know, here's the Medtronic. Wrap. And here's and so I didn't have any I didn't really

Scott Benner 18:25
I'm not. By the way. I'm not saying you shouldn't cut the Madonna pump. You don't usually see people with a Medtronic pump and a Dexcom. CGM. It's a it's an interesting.

Carrie 18:33
I have I have the guardian. You have the guardian. Guardian. Six. Yeah. The Guardian sex.

Scott Benner 18:37
Not that Jesus.

Unknown Speaker 18:38
Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 18:39
How's it working for you?

Carrie 18:41
It's so awesome. It's like I literally,

Unknown Speaker 18:44
I

Carrie 18:45
I never go low. I mean, I if anything, I will go high. But it's because I'm still, I'm still kind of learning. I mean, I'm, I've been on the pump since I since May. And like auto mode since like a month after that. And my agency is 6.6.

Scott Benner 19:07
Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, boy. Good for you.

Carrie 19:10
Yeah. And that was in less than six months. So I thought that was a pretty a pretty good jump from 16.

Scott Benner 19:18
Yeah, no, pretty good. Please. Are you kidding? Yeah, she's

Carrie 19:22
back. Everything's my visions back. My I did have a bunch of hair loss. But that's also getting better. But I had a lot to lose. So it's okay. And I did develop hashimotos. So I do just take Synthroid once a day for that.

Unknown Speaker 19:43
When were you diagnosed with that?

Carrie 19:45
Um, that was in like, March of this year.

Scott Benner 19:50
So after the type one diagnosis, yep. Do you think you had it prior or No,

Carrie 19:54
definitely not because my thyroid was checked in December before that. When I was when I was diagnosis type two. Gotcha. And it was not it was on the normal scale.

Scott Benner 20:05
How's your energy with it? Like with with having hashimotos? Is your juice, okay? Do you sleep things like that, or how's it affecting.

Carrie 20:14
So I'm definitely more tired. And my energy level is not it is not where it used to be. But it's it's definitely getting better. Some days, I'm just exhausted some days I'm not. But I think that's just diabetes. And I used to be a runner, I'm still trying to figure out my pump and exercise. Because I go, I will go extremely low with any cardio, anything like that. So I mean, I know I can suspend delivery, but I hate doing that. And I just feel like I'm like, I'm not going to catch up if I don't. If I do do that.

Scott Benner 20:56
Well, do you have the option? I wouldn't say to suspend delivery completely. But you have an option to scale back the power of the insulin prior to the exercise.

Unknown Speaker 21:05
Yes,

Carrie 21:05
yes, you can do that. And I was just nervous. Yeah, I know. It took me a long time to actually just go running and see where I was with doing nothing. So I'm running with like, a phone in one hand and my pump in the other hand with constant eyes on my pump. But um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely one of my goals is to get back into that, because I really do miss it.

Scott Benner 21:32
Well, yeah. So there's, I'm going to try to find it for you. There's an episode of the podcast that talks about exercise. It's one of the prototypes. Have you heard? Have you found the pro tips?

Unknown Speaker 21:43
Yeah, okay. Sure. Well, so

Scott Benner 21:45
this one is, I'm going to click on it, it doesn't start playing. So just be strange. Episode 256 is called diabetes pro tip exercise. It's me and Jenny Smith, and we're talking about how Yeah, you can stop yourself from getting low in that situation.

Carrie 22:00
So yeah, because I certainly don't want to end up looking like Andre the Giant.

Scott Benner 22:03
Well, you know, I would also think you don't want to be you know, on the Mall, laying on your face, hoping somebody comes by and doesn't think you're drunk. It helps you.

Unknown Speaker 22:12
And you know, I

Carrie 22:12
that's that was my route that I used to run on my lunch breaks every day, every day, I would run from the Capitol, to the around the monument and back and that was about three miles all the way to the Lincoln Memorial. And back was five, a little, maybe a little more, say almost six. And that I would do that during my lunch break every day.

Scott Benner 22:32
You see, I try to get I keep telling my wife like, why do we not go to Washington with a cherry blossoms are blooming? Like I want to do that?

Carrie 22:39
Because you want to sneeze all

Unknown Speaker 22:40
day? One time to see it. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:43
guess yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 22:44
don't know.

Carrie 22:45
I don't think I don't think I've actually done that.

Scott Benner 22:47
Or you just, you just made everyone realize that everything they want to go do somewhere else probably sucks. And you have to ask the person who lives there. Like, for instance, you know, I've never until very, very recently ever laid eyes on the Liberty Bell. I

Unknown Speaker 23:03
don't think I have either, but I've

Scott Benner 23:04
driven past year 1000 times in my life, you know, and so, I've I've quite literally been on the road, you know, you can look over and go there's the building where the Liberty Bell is I could park here and go and whatever. Right, you know,

Carrie 23:18
it's true. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 23:19
I

Carrie 23:19
I think the first time I went to the White House was in like 1998 when I started working at the Senate.

Scott Benner 23:26
What do you do? Can you say what you do?

Carrie 23:28
Yeah, I I work for the sergeant at arms, which is support for all of the Senate and committee offices in IT support services. And so we track all of your all of the office equipment, the computers all that stuff. TVs copiers all that stuff. I worked in the Senate for 19 years for a member and then he retired and now I'm finishing out my years there at the Sergeant at Arms where no election depends on my, my job.

Scott Benner 24:02
So a lot of pressure around election time.

Carrie 24:04
Yes, it's very busy for us. We're taking in all of the equipment we have to you know, wipe all the hard drives and and you know, recent re submitted to the new member and yeah, it's it's it's pretty intense. And so that's what I was going I was going through all of these symptoms when we were doing all of that during the election

Scott Benner 24:26
season. What was I just I just had a thought in my head do disappear, or can I find it? Huh? Hold on. Let's find out. This is totally where an ad is gonna go. So let me just I was just thinking, Oh, my gosh. All right. I'm going back over now My head

Unknown Speaker 24:44
is it hard action actions.

Unknown Speaker 24:49
Damn it.

Scott Benner 24:52
I'm so so disappointed in myself right now. Listen to the old add music didn't, didn't didn't. Anyway, I'm just reminding you again about the T one D exchange. That's it T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. One brief last time, the T one D exchange is looking for T one D adults, NT one D caregivers who are us residents to participate in their quick survey. That's it. I'll get you right back to the episode. T one d exchange.org. Ford slash juicebox. Just do it. That simple. Just type in your thing and you go do the thing. And then like 10 minutes later, you're like, I did a good thing. thing, thing, thing and smiles. Who doesn't want good things and smiles? Do you not want good things and smiles? Are you one of those people who doesn't want good things and smiles? I don't think you are. One the exchange.org forward slash juicebox make good things and smiles.

even know what happened. I just lost my thread for a second. Oh, it's gone. It'll come back to me. That's okay. So Oh, I found it. Oh, yes. 19 years ago, it used to It's been more than that now. But how do you? How do you initially get a job like that?

Carrie 26:17
So definitely back then it was you know, someone, I, my, my grandparents godson was working in this office as a legislative fellow, which is they're on loan from their specific department, like Department of Energy or Department of Health and Human Services. They are borrowed from the Senate, but they're still paid or to the Senate. But they're still paid by their agency. So they're just we just like use them for their expertise in a certain area. So he was he was working there. And they needed somebody to answer phones and, you know, constituent services. So I applied and they needed somebody right away. And so it was my first big girl job that turned into my career. And so what I did then was I answered phones, I had flags flown over the Capitol for constituents that request I did tours of the Capitol. Things like that. Just you know,

Unknown Speaker 27:19
a lot of

Scott Benner 27:21
phone calls was was the member you worked for local? You weren't child, were you? Did you have to travel in and out of DC? Or did you stay in work just there?

Carrie 27:30
I didn't until so I didn't do that in the full capacity of the 19 years I moved into, I became the correspondence manager. And I dealt with all of the incoming correspondence that we received from constituents or whatever.

Scott Benner 27:50
So like, the day I wrote a letter that said, Yeah, dear Congressman, I didn't vote for you. I'm not in your party. But I did come to your office a couple of times and talk to you about type one diabetes. I'd really love to go to the Obama og inauguration. Give me tickets, you would have gotten that note?

Carrie 28:07
I did. I gotcha. Okay. Yes. And

Unknown Speaker 28:12
so, yeah, I

Carrie 28:13
did that. And then, as he announced his retirement, I was in charge of archiving his 30 plus years of service center. So yeah, it was the best I will tell you, it was the best part of my, my job for the last like 22 months of closing his office. So at that capacity is when I ended up having to travel to Las Vegas, and close his Las Vegas office, and go through tons of awards and memorabilia, over 800 pieces, and catalog and, you know, send all of that stuff out to the repository where he's, you know, is keeping all of his archivable material,

Scott Benner 28:58
feel free not to answer this, but when you're doing that kind of work. Does it matter if your politics match with the person you're working for?

Carrie 29:08
I think, I think it would, if you were in the legislative portion of the office, I was in the administrative portion. That's what I'm saying. You know, I, I think that not everyone is going to align perfectly, but you know, I think it helps if you do have a little bit of, you know, common interest.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
You know what I mean? So

Scott Benner 29:34
it isn't, it's an office job, but at the same time, I mean, how often in most people's lives in their office job, do they hear their boss say something that could sway the you know, sway policy in the country and, and then you have time to think like, I mean, you can get mad at your boss or like, you know, we're gonna start doing this like this. Now, you think I think we should do that. But that's different than, you know, I'm gonna go you know, I'm gonna go vote for this amendment. And you're thinking Please, don't Oh my gosh, don't do that. Please don't like you know, and then you start feeling like, I would imagine that you start feeling like you're furthering a thing that you don't want to see further. But it would be interesting. That's all.

Unknown Speaker 30:13
Yeah. You know,

Carrie 30:14
I mean, just to give you kind of a reality check, I sat at the front desk and answered phones during the Clinton impeachment trial. So I was called, I have very thick skin these days, because of that, because I was called every name in the book, you know, and, and, you know, so you get that you and you get mostly complaints. And you know, not many people take the time to

Unknown Speaker 30:40
call in a compliment. It's like the internet.

Scott Benner 30:44
No one goes online to be like, you know, what's great, my toaster always works. Always perfect. I just want everyone to know, you know, no one ever says that, like, but how happy are you when your toast comes out? Nice and even right? Never thought to yourself, tell someone I gotta go. I mean, someone should know about this toaster, you know? No, I hear you. That's, that's definitely. And so when that when that person calls, they want to make sure that you know, they're happy, sad, mad, whatever it is, right. And so it they give you the full, the full throat of how they feel, not feeling not realizing like, Yo, I'm really just, I'm just answering the phone. Right. You know, like, I mean, they must feel like you would turn around, then go to your senator and say, Hey, listen, he just said, Yeah, you must want my input on this. And here's what the people are saying on the phone. Yeah. Not how that works.

Carrie 31:37
No. I mean, they're, they're interested in you know, definitely, like tallied, like, you know, against or for sure. But, of course, not the whole, you know,

Scott Benner 31:49
they want to know which way the winds blowing.

Unknown Speaker 31:51
Right. Yeah. Right.

Scott Benner 31:52
Right. That was Yeah, that's exactly what's going on in the impeachment now, like, when? Because we're, we're recording this as, right as, as the republicans are probably two thirds of the way through their initial folly. And, and and when this started, you heard Well, there's not going to be any witnesses. There's not going to be we're not going to bring documents into this. And then as I went to bed last night, there was a republican on television going, you know, I do think we need to hear from this Bolton character. And I thought, Oh, yeah. So he felt the wind change, and he did not want to be downwind of a stink. So he ran around the other way. And I was like, Oh, that's that's exactly what's going on here. Yeah, I

Carrie 32:34
think Jake Tapper is the one that called it not the elephant in the room, the white mustache in the room. He's like, I mean,

Scott Benner 32:41
he should have made a Lorax reference with that mustache. Maybe this taffer guy is not a comedian. But no, but it really is politics aside of it, it's it's interesting to see like, you know, I'm okay. As long as the majority of the people who are voting for me agree with what I'm doing in the minute that looks wrong. I'm gonna run to the other side of the boat before we capsize. And, yeah, very interesting. You must have seen a lot of crazy stuff.

Carrie 33:08
I have seen a lot for sure. centuries. I mean, yeah, I mean, there. I definitely have. I mean, I, I can't say it's all been good since I was there when the Capitol Police officers were shot. And, you know, that was very scary, of course, but, you know, a lot of good too. So, but, and I, I, you know, I've had my kids while I was there, I was married and divorced. While I was there. I feel like I've, you know, lived your life that really lived my life there. And I, when I retire, whenever that may be, I want to go back to school and I want to do radiology, diagnostics. monography. Okay.

Scott Benner 33:47
I thought you're gonna say, I was 100% Sure. You're gonna say I want to teach history. He took me by surprise on that one.

Unknown Speaker 33:53
No, I

Carrie 33:53
I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I think I've finally figured it out. And I think that that's a good way to make, you know, an income and be able to live anywhere I want. Let me

Scott Benner 34:07
ask you this, without asking any political leanings? Do you see it being more true that this is all just bs? And they're gonna do whatever they want? Like the people who feel like that about politics? Or do you see sort of the pageantry and the beauty of it and the, and the history of like, which side of it

Carrie 34:26
is like, you know, beauty in this? No beauty. It's, to me, it's, it's an awful thing. And I hope that though, I hope that

Unknown Speaker 34:39
the other side will

Carrie 34:42
come to their senses and have a fair trial.

Scott Benner 34:44
Okay. And then in an aside of the impeachment, like the entirety of it, like, like the political world in general, do you like how do I put this? Have you ever seen the American president? I don't think so. It's a movie where it's you know, it's They sort of speak romantically about politics. And and like, and when you talk about, like, you know, they when they people who talk about the framers, they hold these, like, ideas really close to their heart, like, is it less like that and more business? Or are there some people walking around? Or just like, golly, this is the way this is supposed to be? I want to do the right thing here, or is there not a ton of that?

Carrie 35:22
I don't think there is. Um, you know, I've been fortunate enough to see from an, you know, a senate office side, and then they also the outside. So it's definitely, it's definitely a different picture. You mean, you have I think there's politics and everything, no matter no matter what, or where you work.

Unknown Speaker 35:45
So

Carrie 35:47
I, I do feel that some people are some, some members are strictly with their party. Okay. And, and both sides. Yeah. I agree.

Scott Benner 36:03
Yeah. And, and, and so it would matter, they could see or hear something. And I think any reasonable person would be like, oh, gosh, well, we can't do that. And they'd be like, No, no, if we do that, I get to build airplanes. So we're totally doing

Carrie 36:15
fortunately, unfortunately. That's it. And that's what's so sad.

Scott Benner 36:19
Yeah, it's interesting. It really is that it's alright. Well, you answered my question. You answered my question the way I imagined you were gonna answer and I was just, I was really, there was just part of me that was hoping you were gonna be like, No, you know, it's not I see a lot of people down here who care deeply. You know, they're still talking about George Washington, and they want the right. You were like, you were like,

Carrie 36:39
those people were like, Who?

Scott Benner 36:40
Yeah, everybody's trying to get there. This is what you're telling me? Yeah. Gotcha.

Carrie 36:44
Oh, yeah. And, and, and to be very honest, the hill staffers mostly use the hill experience for resume builder, to go off and work in the private sector, because they can make so much more money. Half of them are lawyers, right, they can make way more money.

Scott Benner 36:59
So not a bunch of bright eyed college kids, thinking I could I could change the world. They're thinking I can get a resume.

Carrie 37:06
There's definitely that too. Right. I mean, there's definitely that too. Gotcha. But, um, but a lot of it is, you know, just

Scott Benner 37:15
a stepping stone you it's a ladder.

Unknown Speaker 37:17
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well,

Scott Benner 37:19
I don't know that it's ever been different than that. Or, you know,

Unknown Speaker 37:22
right. Yeah, I don't think

Scott Benner 37:25
I it weirds me out, when people are like, things have changed so much. I'm like, and they haven't. Nothing's changed. There's just more of us now. And you have social media, so you can see it happening faster. You're, you're more aware of things. But somebody, somebody's always been career building and stepping on somebody else's throat to get to something else. That's not a new, it's not a new path in life. But you know, it's funny, what's new is when you know, what's not new, but what's sad is when you do meet somebody who just wants to go do a good job, you know, be treated fairly, you know, maybe move up once or twice isn't looking to, you know, light the world on fire and be at the top and everything. Yeah, and that that person just gets treated like they get manipulated by the people who are trying to climb it. So

Carrie 38:10
I think that you've kind of described me, but I was fortunate enough not to be stepped on. I hung in there. And, you know, I, I was the longest serving staffer in my senate office. And yeah, and I, I think I did pretty good, even though I wasn't in the legislative part, because those are the ones that really come and go the administrative portion is, is, you know, there most of the time, they're there for the long haul.

Scott Benner 38:38
Well, I think it's really wonderful. I think it's something to be proud of. So thank you. Absolutely. Okay. All right. I gotta bring this back to diabetes somehow.

Unknown Speaker 38:47
Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:49
Okay. You're not gonna have any information? Maybe you will, if you don't just say I don't. But do you see the the other side of the fight about insulin pricing? I do have thoughts on it that you're willing to share?

Carrie 39:05
So I feel so Gosh, I feel so lucky that I have awesome insurance. And I feel terrible for those that are struggling. And I've seen where a couple different states have, you know, kept insulin prices to people

Scott Benner 39:27
or people in Medicare right. Or some orange state?

Carrie 39:29
Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. I want to say it was Michigan or something, but I can't be positive.

Scott Benner 39:36
I find that article funny because the headline makes you feel like no one's ever gonna pay more than $100 a month for insulin and then you read three more sentences. You go out. No, not everyone. Yeah,

Carrie 39:46
I mean, I literally get five vials of Nova log for $25. And so I feel spoiled, because that's just what it costs me. It doesn't cost me anything. penny more. And, um, and that, of course, I mean, I'm not on a ton of insulin. I mean, I know there's some people that are, you know, I think I have like 85 units for three days. Oh, okay. Yeah. So if that's not a lot,

Scott Benner 40:16
no Arden uses up every bit of 200 units every three days.

Carrie 40:21
That's crazy. And like, that's, I mean, it's not crazy. It's reality. But it's, there's people that use a lot more like that need cheaper prices, because they have to have so much. And it's a life saving.

Scott Benner 40:38
It's, you know, it's interesting, as you were saying that I just realized, Arden's had diabetes for a really long time now, and I don't know how much insulin isn't a vial of insulin. It's, it's never been a problem for me, because we had insurance too. I just write us a vial of insulin. When I'm done. I throw it away, and I get another vial of insulin. That's just how it goes, you know? Something, it made me feel bad, good job. Not that I, I was very compassionate to begin with. But I just

Carrie 41:07
like, I feel like oh, my gosh, I'm getting this for such a cheap price. Why are other people struggling? And so if? Well, I,

Scott Benner 41:14
because you're also probably paying, if I'm guessing you have a couple of kids, you're probably paying six or $7,000 a year out of your income to have private health care insurance, then you probably have a $2,000 deductible on top of that. So it's not cheap. It was the eight grand a year.

Carrie 41:34
Well, I mean, amongst other other stuff. Oh, yeah. But um, yeah, I just I really hope that because so many are affected by diabetes, I really hope that there can be some type of mandated cost.

Scott Benner 41:52
Yeah, I mean, listen, there's, um, you know, a very happy liberal who lives inside of me who would like to see things like that be free and conservative guy sitting next to him going, we can make things free, you know, that's not how this is gonna work. affordable, affordable, would be a hell of a step up.

Unknown Speaker 42:09
Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:10
or, or the other thing that I never missed, I never understand in any walk of life. Just identify the people who can afford it and give it to them and make the rest of us pay for it. And it isn't going to be fair, and you know, what everyone will have to get over the fact that it's not fair. And some people are gonna gain the system and get free and so on who don't deserve it, because they have the money to pay for it. And you know what, that's gonna have to be the cost of doing business. And let's just get it done. Let's let's not let anyone suffer rash, die. It because they can't afford it and then work forward from there to make it more reasonable for everybody if you can.

Carrie 42:51
Yeah, I firmly believe that I just want everybody to be okay.

Unknown Speaker 42:57
Right. You know,

Scott Benner 43:00
I like the way you think. Hold on. One second here, Harry. I'm actually going to be doing insulin with somebody who's not Arden. One second.

Unknown Speaker 43:09
So

Carrie 43:10
you're giving insulin right now? No, I'm

Scott Benner 43:12
agreeing with a person's idea. So you're gonna hear on the show, pretty soon. It'll probably it'll be probably months before people hear this. But my daughter's friend. Jani is type one. So the way they met was Jani used to read my blog. And she liked it. And she was, you know, the same age as my daughter. And so one day she was on Instagram and thought, like, I'm going to try to find Arden and she found her and she messaged her, that she wanted to connect on Instagram because Arden's private, and Arden mostly, you know, I think deletes we know that those kind of requests, but if someone has diabetes, you know, Arden's always like, yes. And has diabetes, like, you know them, you know, that's usually what she she asked me, I'm like, I don't recognize that kid. And she's like, all right, I was like, What are you gonna do? She's like, I don't know. And she walked away. And then it turns out that she, you know, said yes to the friend request. So Jani and Arden have never met each other in person. They are 100% best friends. Oh, Arden is the only other person besides her grandmother that Jani knows who has diabetes. And I don't believe that Arden knows a lot of people who have type one either. Any of them she knows are mostly probably from online. And so Johnny's blood sugars are to be to be polite. an unholy mess,

Unknown Speaker 44:42
a train wreck, just

Scott Benner 44:43
really bad. And so, uh, for years of their friendship, I wasn't aware of that. I, you know, I don't run around asking people what their budget is. Okay, listen, I do this a lot. But you know,

Unknown Speaker 44:57
I kind of do that.

Scott Benner 44:57
I'm not going that far. And so it Do you and so, you know, so one day Arden comes to me and she's like, I think Jani needs help. And I was like, why? And she's like her blood sugar's like all over the place that like, I don't think she's figuring it out. And so I said, All right, well, you know, if she wants to talk to me how to talk to me, and I sort of let it go, and then they sort of never came in asked, it was always like, you know, was implied like, oh, her mom would say something like, I'm going to put on a plane, she can come live with you for a week. And I'd be like, yeah, I'll send her over. Like, you know, what, we'll straighten it out. And nothing ever came of it. And then finally, one day, a couple of months ago, Arden said it to me again, and she really seemed concern, so I proactively reached out. And last Saturday, so on to three, like four days ago. I talked to Jani on the FaceTime for a little bit. And her agency, I think it's like 870 point seven. But more importantly, she's over 400 a couple of times a day for Oh, my god blocks of time, you know. And so my plan was I was going to have Jani on the podcast. And we were going to I was going to talk her through the stuff we were going to do. And I just did not have the heart to even wait until we could record. And so I just said like, we're gonna do it right now. And then you'll come on later, and we'll talk about what we did. And she's like, okay, I really I in my heart. I was wanted to do it as we were doing it, like, you know, like 20 minute interviews, like every couple of days for a couple of weeks, though, so you could listen to her go through it more in real time. But I just couldn't let her wait that long. And yeah, that's awful. Yeah. So she's doing terrific right now.

Carrie 46:36
That's awesome. And she's still living at home or whatever.

Scott Benner 46:39
She's 15. Yeah, but but her her last 24 hours. I don't think she's been under 70 or over 140. And we're working on getting her her Basal hammered out. But I would say that since I'm looking at the last 12 hours from midnight to now. So for like the last 11 or 12 hours, because she's in a different time zone, my brain figure out which way I should I should be adding or subtracting. But she's been right at like 90 and 100. So

Carrie 47:10
that's so awesome. She's gonna feel so much better

Scott Benner 47:12
told me already. She's like, I was doing my homework the other day, and I can focus and it's really cool. Wow, she's a really nice kid. And, you know, it was a pleasure to help her. But what it taught me is something that I already knew and just made me sadder about it like this kids four or five years with this, maybe longer. I'm thinking about it. And you know, she's just going along, doing her best doing what she's told, thinking she's doing okay, knowing it's not okay, but not thinking there's another way. And then I was just like, hey, let's turn this here. Turn that here. Let's Pre-Bolus a little more. Yeah, no, I think you're counting your cars a little light and boom, like that. That's,

Carrie 47:51
I mean, that's how I learned by listening to the podcast. I I never. I mean,

Unknown Speaker 47:57
I,

Carrie 47:57
I thought about Pre-Bolus thing. And then I was like, Oh, I'm just too scared. And then I did it. And I stayed in normal range. I didn't even get it. You know, I didn't even get an arrow up. And I'm like, holy crap, this is amazing. I think I'm perfect. And like, when I when I got the, like straight line, and on my diagram or my graph, like for the whole day, I was like, either I'm dead or perfect dead on. Because it was just a straight line with no rise. No, you know,

Scott Benner 48:28
it's exciting when you come to it.

Carrie 48:30
And it is. So it's, I feel like I've just won the Stanley Cup.

Scott Benner 48:35
But this hindsight make you feel like, by the way, it's funny, I was thinking of a hockey reference to use in my talk in Dallas next in two weeks.

Unknown Speaker 48:43
With any hockey reference,

Unknown Speaker 48:44
you could,

Unknown Speaker 48:45
I'm a huge hockey fan. Okay,

Scott Benner 48:47
hold on, we'll talk about two things. So first thing I was gonna say was that, as exciting as it is when you get it, I would think for people who have diabetes for longer, you're in a different situation. But for people who've had it longer, they start looking back and thinking like, Oh my gosh, like that was it. You know, a guy on the podcast said a couple things and now my blood sugar stable and going on for years. That's how

Unknown Speaker 49:11
I feel. I

Carrie 49:11
feel myself like, you know, I have I belong to a couple different Facebook groups for like, for my pump and for type one. And, you know, I feel like I am able to offer advice for what worked for me. Obviously, everybody's diabetes is different. But you know, if you have a suggestion, I know everybody that has diabetes is willing to hear it because at some point you'll try anything. And um, what's that? I

Scott Benner 49:36
was just gonna say Carrie like i i would say i don't find everyone's diabetes to be that different. Like there's there's a lot of differences among people, people people but I think at the core like the you don't mean like those couple of ideas are very similar for everybody about how to use the internet. Everything else is a

Carrie 49:55
well yeah, yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, some foods affect me differently, and I Like my coffee, my coffee, I have to put in like 25 carbs because, you know, I don't even have sugar in it. So but isn't that cool? You

Scott Benner 50:11
figured that out? You just looked at her like this shouldn't be, but it is so so what

Carrie 50:15
works? Yep, exactly. That's, that's where it's gotten me into trouble with like different foods though because I have a food thing. And it's like my pump says, Oh, well, I can just give carbs for that. And it doesn't erase the food that you ate. It just gives you insulin to to absorb that food. So, I mean, I feel like in 1.0 my one shoulder it says, Oh, yeah, go ahead meet six bagels. Yeah, yeah. And so that's where I have to learn to, you know, that's where you have to watch what you eat. Because

Scott Benner 50:51
it really is that you, you get so focused on whether or not you can cover something with cars. You don't think about whether or not you should be eating that thing.

Carrie 50:58
Right. Nailed it. That's exactly how I feel a lot of the times

Scott Benner 51:02
not thinking about yourself as having diabetes for a second and just think of yourself as a person. Would I eat six bagels? No, I don't think I would you know, but now you're eating Bolus for your like, watch. This is amazing.

Carrie 51:14
Yes. Look at this. I can stay average blood sugar. Too easy.

Scott Benner 51:19
Watch this again. Do it again. keep giving me the bagels. I'll

Carrie 51:22
work the whole thing out. Right. And yeah, I'm like, and some people like, Oh my gosh, can you eat that? I'm like, hell yeah. I can just watch this. I press these buttons, and I'm good to go. Then

Scott Benner 51:31
three days later, they're like, human carry was skinny. Yeah, apparently that insulin doesn't take the calories away just the car.

Carrie 51:41
That's what I'm fighting with. It's an internal struggle.

Scott Benner 51:45
But it's very, I think it's common. I also think it's common to not consider the sugar using to treat lows. And people are always like, Oh, I'm struggling with my weight. Insulin is making me heavy. I'm like, Is it the insulin? Or is your budget low? And you're drinking juice all the time? Because I'm

Carrie 52:02
very lucky that I don't. I don't go low a lot at all. I mean, it's only maybe if I overcorrected. A little bit, but um, or, you know, on calibration days, I, you know, I sometimes it's mostly the reading. I don't feel low a lot is I guess what I'm saying. It's not it's not a true reading.

Scott Benner 52:23
Yeah. Jenny, when Jenny talks about your pump, she's like the people it works for it works for people. It really doesn't. And right. That's interesting.

Carrie 52:33
Yeah. And I see a lot of that in the the Facebook groups. Yes. They people complain, complain, complain, I hate this pump. I hate this pump. And, you know, I think I think a lot of it has to do with maybe settings and things like that, because I had, like I said, I had a wonderful clinical manager, and she was so knowledgeable. And I could call her anytime and I'm thinking and I even said, I think I need to set my, my high alert, lower. Because I don't want to go that high. And I don't ever want to go that high. And she's like, okay, you know, like, that's fine. I, she's like, I was just giving you some wiggle room for the beginning. You know, when you started on like, nope, she's like, you are on this. And like, my, my endocrinologist. They're like, I wish all of my patients were like you, you're gonna you're go, you're

Scott Benner 53:29
all in? Yeah, you figured it out. And it's working. And so, like, why accept the higher blood sugar if that's not necessary, right. And it's interesting, too. I wish all my patients were like you. What does that mean, though? figured it out. You wish they all figured it out? Like, why don't you help them figure it out? You know,

Carrie 53:47
I, I think more so. My attitude towards it all. Like, I, I just, I don't realize that I'm doing anything different than anybody else. But I

Unknown Speaker 53:57
you know,

Scott Benner 53:58
doing it the way I asked you to do? What's that you're doing it the way it occurs to you to do it.

Carrie 54:03
Yeah. And, you know, I'm following their advice, and I'm doing what they're telling me to do. Not everybody is a is a, quote, good diabetic. And, you know, I think that if you put if you follow what your doctor your doctor says, and you know, what your clinical manager suggests, and it works for you, you should keep doing it. And I mean, she's like, you're doing so well with everything and you know, whatever. So I'm, I'm just like, I guess I was, you know, all gung ho and you know, whatever you want me to do,

Scott Benner 54:38
I'll do it. You think you can keep it going?

Carrie 54:41
But you know, I don't feel any burnout yet at all. Even though I went all in right at the beginning. even have my type one tattoo on my wrist instead of a medical alert bracelet. And, and I I'm just I I think it is what it is and you Deal with it. It's a daily, it's something you deal with every day and you just take it day by day. You know, I mean, if I think if you think about, you know, whatever comes next week, you kind of get overwhelmed. Yeah. Oh, like,

Unknown Speaker 55:15
Oh my gosh, what am I gonna?

Carrie 55:16
Do I have a wedding, the pump is gonna show or what I'm like, No, I'm 45 I did not give him

Scott Benner 55:23
any so interesting. You just brought up your age, because I was just gonna bring up your age. And, and I was gonna go back to what you said a second ago. So I have, you know, I've recorded like, 350 of these things, right. And the amount of times that an adult with Type One Diabetes has used the phrase, I'm not a good diabetic, or, you know, I'm a bad diabetic. And I always think, Wow, that's a phrase that would not resonate once with a parent of a child, right? They'd be insulted by that, that they write the possibility of it. But adults don't seem to be. They don't seem to think of it the same way. Think when adult says it, they're saying, I'm, there's a thing I know, I'm supposed to be doing. Right. And I don't do it. Bad dialogue like that. Like, like, like that feeling, right? It's not a it's not a I don't it's not a condemnation of somebody or themselves. It's just the idea of Look, I know, there's the thing I'm supposed to be doing, and I don't do it, etc. And what you're saying is, you know, there's the thing you're supposed to be doing, and you're doing it. And I wonder how much of that comes from being? Like, like, where you were diagnosed, right in your 40s mature been through divorce? work, right? working, you know, in a high pressure situation, like you're more of like, this is what needs to be done. Do this thing. person, right? I'm guessing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're You're a task person. You're like, Okay, give me a few. I

Unknown Speaker 56:49
will do it.

Scott Benner 56:50
And that's even shows when you said because, you know, once the senator retired, I, you know, basically catalogued his life. I bet you there were a lot of and you liked it, I bet you there were a lot of people that heard that and thought, Oh, well, that sounds like the most terrible thing I could possibly write. But you're a test person, you do a task, you do the task. That's excellent. That's insightful. It really isn't. I was afraid when you said, when you made the like the bad diabetic reference, I thought about that people are gonna just be like, Oh, no, but there's more to it than that. You really have to dig through it a little bit. You know, you can't just hear the word band and go oh,

Carrie 57:28
yeah, and I, I think, I think it's just about how you embrace it yourself.

Scott Benner 57:36
Oh, attitudes got to be a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Like, you've got to go with like, I can get this done. Even when it's not going right. You have to be you have to keep up that idea of I can get this done. You know, I can spoil this for you. Because again, this will come out much later, but I asked Jani, my daughter's friend. And I hope to get her on the recording saying this when when I record with her later this week. How hard was it only having one friend Really? Who had type one diabetes and them having a completely different experience with their blood sugars? Like how did that make you feel? And I really was wondering, like, is she gonna say, like, I was a little jealous or like, what? And she said, it just made me feel like, you know, I want that. And but not like, she shouldn't have it, and I should like it. And it was like, Oh, this is nice. She's younger, they're friends. Like, she doesn't have that feeling of like, you know, you know, I, you know, adversarial right away. And, and I hear people sometimes say like, I don't think people should share their, like their successful graphs online. I 100% disagree with that. I think that I think you should be able to like, imagine you're a person struggling with something and it becomes the norm. And you might say to yourself, Well, this is just diabetes. I can't do anything about this. But how great is it to be able to look up and go, that can't be right, because look at that person's blood sugar looks way better than mine. And so, instead of being mad at them wonder, what is that person doing that? I don't know about? Right? And I want to know, best steal from them. You know what I mean? Like, don't try to reinvent the wheel, go find out what works and do it is how I feel about it. Yeah,

Carrie 59:12
like one time. My son and I were sitting there watching, I don't know, probably a hockey game. And he said, Are my pump beat to calibrate? And he he goes, Oh my gosh, Mom, I'm so proud of you. And I said what I said why? And? And he's like, you don't ever complain. You You made me forget that you even have diabetes. And I was like, Yes score, because why would I want to put that burden on my kids? Hey, that

Scott Benner 59:43
didn't happen on his birthday or a holiday did it? It wasn't he was not fishing for it.

Unknown Speaker 59:49
No, he comes

Carrie 59:50
up with some of those one liners pretty often.

Scott Benner 59:53
That's lovely. No, and Yeah, me too because and I talked about it here a lot too. Like you have to You can't just, you can't get enveloped in drama. And there's plenty of opportunities every eight minutes to be dramatic about diabetes, there really just is, you know, Arden had a muffin at school this morning. And she Bolus really hard for it. And while you and I were talking, she hit like 81. And she started going down. And she's not going to get a message about that. I'm just sitting here talking to you. And I have, I can see her blood sugar off in the corner of my eye because I don't want to get lost in this and and not see it. I don't I don't stare at it the rest of the day. I actually only have it visible to me constantly when I'm recording. Alright, because I kind of get lost in conversations a little bit. So I just texted her while you are talking a long time ago. It's like, hey, there's like four candies in your bag, just eat them. And she did that. But, you know, I could have been like, Oh, she's gonna get low. She's at school, like, you know, like, it could have been a lot. A lot of times you get to decide how you react to things, you know? So you brought something up now that reminded me of that. I said, I was going to talk about two things. And I talked about one thing, and then we talked for 15 minutes. So the thing I was trying the thing I was considering, for my talks, I'm giving two talks this month in Dallas and in Atlanta. And

Unknown Speaker 1:01:13
when is Dallas?

Scott Benner 1:01:15
like two weeks like February 16, maybe a Sunday?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:19
I'm not shut out of here. I think so. Are you gonna be there too?

Scott Benner 1:01:22
Are you really gonna be in Dallas, then for hockey? Oh, to see the other Oh,

Carrie 1:01:27
my son is playing your son plays hockey? Yes,

Scott Benner 1:01:30
he does know I will be in I will be there if you want to come so funny. Lovely to meet you. But it sounds like you're busy. But but so anyway. So this will mean a lot to you is that I was trying to decide how popular professional hockey was there. Because if I, if I don't feel like it's very popular, I won't use an example that I use, I'll find a different one. And so I, I think a lot about is a very famous story that at this point. Now I think every person who's tried to encourage people has brought up at some point, but I've been aware of this story for forever. Wayne Gretzky, a young Wayne Gretzky in his backyard learning to play hockey, you know, back when his father would take boards and make a frame in the backyard, right on the grass, fill the frame with water and let it freeze. So he actually had a surface to practice on in his backyard, which I guess is one of the one of the things you can do when you live in Canada, right? And so he said that the kid was having trouble keeping up with the game, right? Gretzky wasn't really he was chasing, which is a very hockey term chasing. And it's a term that I use about diabetes. And the first time I thought about it about diabetes, I didn't connect it in my head to hockey, I just thought, oh, we're chasing these blood sugars all the time. And then I remembered what Wayne Gretzky's Dad told him to help him Stop chasing, he said, and you probably are aware this, he said, you know, you got to skate to where the puck is going not to where it is. Yep, yeah. Right. And so, once you gave Wayne the vision to see where the play was headed, or where the puck was headed, he, he moved himself to where the puck was going. And so now he's in real time with the play, not always behind it. And that's how I talk about bolusing about, you know, I'll tell people, there's a million different ways to say it, but lately I've been saying, you know, it's like a time travel movie, nothing you're doing right now is affecting right now. It's for later, and so anything that's happening to you now was set in motion in the past, so when you're using insulin now, it's really for later Yep. Right. That kind of an idea. And, and then I would usually say something about Wayne Gretzky, but it's very possible that I was thinking like, maybe the people in Atlanta I'll be like, hockey. What? I might do something else.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:50
In Atlanta. Yeah. You think so? Probably not,

Scott Benner 1:03:53
but the stars are still in Dallas, right? Oh, yes. Okay. But is the are the Thrashers in Atlanta? Maybe my gosh,

Carrie 1:04:00
I don't think they still are.

Scott Benner 1:04:03
Now keep up with hockey. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:06
I'm just a caps fan. You know,

Scott Benner 1:04:08
and, and your son plays your older son.

Carrie 1:04:11
Yes, he's 16.

Scott Benner 1:04:12
What's the goal here? Did you want to play in college? Are you being assaulted? Do you need to call

Carrie 1:04:19
Mike? Oh, shoot my dog. Oh my gosh, Brody. He probably Oh, he's workers outside. 100%

Scott Benner 1:04:26
sounded like he said what when you said Brody.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
Oh, Mike, I

Scott Benner 1:04:32
was waiting for you to go, buddy. I'm recording the podcast. Can you be quiet? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
Hey, keep it down in there.

Scott Benner 1:04:40
We're so close to being done. Don't worry about it. It's fine. I was just gonna ask you if your son's trying to play in college, but I don't

Carrie 1:04:48
know. I don't think so. Because he's just I mean, he just he's played since he was like four years old. And and he plays for his high school team now and he plays for a club. And he's just enjoying it. You know, while he while he's still in school,

Scott Benner 1:05:06
well, you're a bomb to fly to Dallas. So you can play hockey because there's got to be an ice rink in Washington somewhere.

Carrie 1:05:11
There's plenty. But yeah, this is a tournament and unfortunately, he plays travel. So, yeah, we've been up and down the East Coast for sure. If

Scott Benner 1:05:24
I would, if I had one thing I could say to every person who's in charge of travel organizations for any sport, it would be stop making people fly all over the country to play youth sports. Not enough.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
Ah, yeah. Thank you. I

Unknown Speaker 1:05:36
agree. Not necessary. Yes.

Scott Benner 1:05:39
I probably said it here before, but my son's always chosen, where he plays baseball with very basic rules. Is it affordable? Will he play? Is it close to our house? Those are pretty much the rules we would followed for a very long time.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:55
Absolutely. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:05:57
Yeah. I mean, and listen, and if you were one of those people who was you know, gonna get drafted by the capitals? You wouldn't, you wouldn't have to go show them they'd find you. It'd be okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:05
Right. Right. Exactly. There's,

Scott Benner 1:06:07
there's no six, seven kids skating around in Washington right now playing it a semi pro level that the NHL is not aware of,

Carrie 1:06:14
I can guarantee you there's all of the moms and dads that think that their kids are going pro or not in this area. And I can tell you that right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
Do you make little people in your area?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:27
Oh, God,

Carrie 1:06:29
we have, you know, we have a ton of different a ton of different leagues and teams throughout the area, but they're just not at the caliber of the Northeast.

Scott Benner 1:06:44
It's a random thing to be a professional athlete. I am Yeah, by the way, being a hockey mom is like extra,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:52
extra, so

Scott Benner 1:06:53
you have to wear like actual, like outdoor clothing to hockey practice and stuff like that right to stay warm inside?

Carrie 1:06:59
Well, I mean, no, it's um, it's Jesus. It is. You know, they have a warming room and then but inside the rig, it's pretty chilly. So you, you know, hats, gloves, hand heater, hand warmers, seat warmers, things like that. But the new nice new rinks have all like have those heaters hanging from the ceiling. So you can? Well that's where your money's

Scott Benner 1:07:25
going, by the way there. There you go. Yeah, you're down to go to Dallas and buying heaters with the money. cheap. Yeah, I have to say there was a time as I'm being a bit of a hypocrite my son's done a couple of travel things. But we really did limit I think he only traveled twice, maybe far away. But what once was in Atlanta in the summer. And the second game of a doubleheader, I had resolved myself to the fact that he was probably going to die from the heat from the heat. And I was standing next to a telephone pole, like sucking in my gut shipping, shimmying around the pole as the sun moved around the Earth trying to stay in the little bit of shade that this telephone pole was making, because I thought at least one of us should live through this. It was so incredibly hot. It's I can't even imagine it was terrible, really, really terrible. When the game was over. We went you know, we had rented a car. And in the back of the car was a cooler full of, you know what it started out as ice at the beginning of the day, but it was just at the end. And it was freezing cold water still in the cooler. And my son walks over. And he used to be a modest, more modest person at that age, he came over to the back of the car just started taking off with clothing in the driveway. He didn't care. Like you know, he's like, I have to take this off. I have to like it was like a bad movie, like gonna die gonna die. And he says, and he says, Can I take this water and I was like, sure. And I thought I thought for sure he's gonna reach his hands into it to try to cool his body off and he grabbed it, lifted it over his head and dumped head. And when as the water cascaded down his filthy, sweaty body and splashed all over me. But one thing that I remember was that the water splashing on me it was hot. This freezing cold water went over his body and it warmed it up as it went, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:04
you are kidding. And I

Scott Benner 1:09:06
actually said I was a Hey, let's um, let's get you back to the hotel. I think people who live around here are accustomed to a different heat. So

Unknown Speaker 1:09:18
yeah, and not only that, but it's humid. It's terrible

Scott Benner 1:09:20
was one of the worst days of my life. It was really bad. Anyway, you were terrific. I realized as we were talking, I don't know if we talked about anything that you wanted to talk about. But

Carrie 1:09:30
no, we're good. Like, I got plenty.

Scott Benner 1:09:34
Excellent. I'm so glad. Or sometimes I'm just like, ah, she was chatty. And there was nice things to talk about. You have interesting life and stuff. And I thought let's just find out about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:43
You're good at what you do. You're very kind.

Scott Benner 1:09:46
Well, thank you so much. I'm gonna say

Unknown Speaker 1:09:49
thank you.

Scott Benner 1:09:50
Thank you. Well, first off, I'm very sorry Carrie for losing your episode, but at least they found it felt really excited when I found it, then I felt bad about it. And then excited again. So you know, I just kind of bounced back and forth. Anyway, here's some new music. It's better, right? Hey, and I want to remind you to go to the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Fill out that survey, go do a good thing. That helps everyone living with Type One Diabetes. And hey, something else I mentioned at the beginning juice boxers, right. So it turns out, it's more of a thing than I knew it was. And we're approaching 3 million downloads of the podcast, which I'm super excited about. And I didn't want to do a giveaway, which I mentioned in an episode or so ago. Because I don't know, giveaway seems so 1991. So I made a juice boxer shirt, and I put it on sale on the merchants page. For as absolutely cheap as I can make it, the price will go up when we get to 3 million. That's my point is, that sounded weird, as I was saying, like, hey, when we get to $3 million, the price is gonna go up, what I should have said is until we hit 3 million downloads, the price is going to be $5 off as absolutely cheap as I can make it. So it's a really cool little black t shirt says juice box or in a circle. And then bold in the middle. Somebody said it kind of reminded them of Iron Man's thing, but you'll have to go check it out. Is it Juicebox podcast.com. And then up at the top, there's links and you just want to click on merge. You'll see it right at the top of the merge page. I got myself one. That's how much I liked it. I didn't know you guys called yourself, juice boxers. But I think that's cool. And I appreciate that you're so excited about the show. And I really appreciate how much you share it with everyone else because that's where the growth comes from. I certainly don't have a budget for marketing. And that we went from 1 million to 2 million so quickly. And then from 2 million to 3 million even more quickly than that is crazy. I mentioned it recently. I think we hit 4 million inside of this calendar year still. So things are just really exploding. It's because you guys are so kind. I'm sorry even have to charge you for the shirt, but it's just covering my cost and shipping. So I hope you like it. And if you don't like it, don't buy one. I mean for God's sakes don't buy a shirt you don't want not that I have to tell you that But anyway, I bought one. I paid full price by the way. It's really the only option. I would have given it to myself for free, but I just don't have that ability. So I paid for. This is really into the weeds found the T shirt thing. Anyway, thanks so much for supporting the podcast for listening. One more time. I'm really sorry Carrie, I lost your episode for so long. We'll be back next week with more episodes of the Juicebox Podcast.

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#445 Supporting Caregivers

The Psychology of Type 1

Erica is a licensed marriage and family therapist who herself has had Type 1 diabetes for over 30 years and who specializes in working with people with diabetes and their families and caregivers—from those newly diagnosed to those experiencing it for decades. Today, Erika and Scott discuss supporting caregivers.. http://erikaforsyth.com

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or their favorite podcast app.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, you're listening to Episode 445 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Hey, guess who's back on the show everyone? It's Erica forsyte. You might remember Erika from back in November on episode 407, where she and I spoke about burnout, emotions surrounding diagnosis and dealing with diabetes distress and constructive ways to prevent it from impairing function. Today, Erica is back. And we're gonna focus a little more on supporting the people who are supporting people with type one diabetes. I just loved her the first time she was on, and we decided there were some more topics that we could dig into. While you're listening, please remember 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, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, please go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to find out more about the Omni pod and to see if you can get a free no obligation demo sent directly to you. Spoiler alert, you can just go to the site, Miami pod.com Ford slash juicebox. Get that demo out to you today. The show is also sponsored by the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor. You can get started with that Dexcom G six@dexcom.com. forward slash juicebox. There's links in the show notes of your podcast player links at Juicebox Podcast COMM And you can just type the words into our browser. If you can remember them. My on the pot, you could do it. Here's Erica, I really enjoyed when you're on the first time and I thought oh, this would be great. And then you had you know, we were like, well, maybe we can do these other ideas. Oh, this is terrific. And then you kind of like disappeared but it felt very anti your personality sounds like something happened to that person. And then so you had surgery. Do you mind people knowing this?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:38
Oh, no. Well, I it's a another long strike. By the way. I'm using a different headset is our sound okay? You sound good?

Scott Benner 2:48
Yeah, you sound fine to me. Can you hear me?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:50
Okay? Okay. Yeah, I can't. Yes, well, it's, you know, life still happens even when you have diabetes, as you know. And so I've had some knee chronic knee issues, multiple surgeries, and I re injured it. I think shortly after we had our last podcast, and so had to deal with I haven't had surgery yet, but it is coming.

Scott Benner 3:17
I hope it goes well for you.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:20
A full full knee replacement is in my future that just got to figure out the right timing with

Unknown Speaker 3:27
my life.

Scott Benner 3:30
Wow, that's a I've seen some people go through it from a distance recently. And, you know, I think the it's just the way you would expect as far as I know, like the you know, the earlier in life you do it, probably the easier it's gonna go. The beginning is not quite as much fun as the end is. And then when it's over, they're like, Huh, I can't believe how well this works. So

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:50
yes, yes, that is that is the hope for the you know, the end game.

Scott Benner 3:55
I like how you said, even though you have diabetes, other stuff goes wrong, it really does feel sometimes when you're like something else happened to like, don't we like isn't there a limit to how much you get? And there's not

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:06
you know, it's, it's so true. But yesterday, I was talking with my husband and kind of talking and preparing it for this Ark next conversation and I got a paper cut. It's like, come on, you know, sometimes there's just there's you there's there's the diabetes, and then there's still other issues that could happen to your body physically, emotionally, and then you can get a paper cut and it could like set you over the edge. I mean, thankfully it did it for me yesterday, but I know it has in the past. Yeah. And that's totally normal.

Scott Benner 4:36
I just it's there's that, you know, just when other things happen. You're just like, I feel like everyone should get a certain amount of stuff and I've got my Yes, you know,

Unknown Speaker 4:46
I've got my fair share.

Scott Benner 4:47
If you hit us it's almost like looking at the waiter when they come around with water and you're like, No, no, you just you just got us. Thanks. We're good.

Unknown Speaker 4:55
We're full.

Scott Benner 4:56
Can you keep your problems over there, please. We have our own

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 5:01
My name is Erica forsyte. I am a type one diabetic, we'll be almost 31 years living with diabetes this summer, I was 12 when I was diagnosed. And I also have a younger brother with type one, but nobody else in my family has been diagnosed with it. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I work as a school counselor, but also have a private practice specializing in supporting people of all ages and their caregivers. living with diabetes from diagnosis. Onward, as we know, it doesn't just end or start or end at the point of diagnosis.

Scott Benner 5:52
Let me ask you a question about because this comes up a lot recently, and I don't know the answer. People find therapy online now more than ever, I guess. Yes, it is the the therapist you find need to be in the same state that you live in for insurance reasons.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:08
Yes, you know, and I have had some people reach out from other states as a result of our first podcast, and I'm so grateful for that. I am, I'm in California, and I'm licensed in California, and I'm insured in California. And but now that we're all doing telehealth, it would feel like that would be a really easy and convenient way to meet people people's needs nationwide. But I have I am trying to figure out if there's a way that I can be insured nationwide and or licensed that I don't think that exists quite yet. But that sure would be lovely. Or will California

Scott Benner 6:44
still a pretty big place. So if you're hearing it is today, and you want to reach out to her and you live in California for the moment, how do they get ahold of you?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:53
I have a website. Thank you for asking. It's Erica forsyth.com erkfrsyth.com.

Scott Benner 7:05
Thank you. Listen, I don't think it's any, it won't come to any surprise to people that heard you the first time, I felt like we had a really nice, easy back and forth. You know, as the person who gets to make the judgments on the on the people who come onto the show, I just felt really, you know, we vibe well together. And you really felt like you had a very kind of calm grasp of what you were talking about. And you had a couple of other topics you wanted to hit up. So you're back to do more. Can we start with supporting caregivers who have people?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 7:36
Yes, I was thinking that we could do that first. Because as I you know, meet with different clients, families, you know, caregivers are often reaching out to me for either support for themselves, but usually, you know how to support their children living with it, but often I find that, you know, caregivers need their own individual support, as well. And I think there's the larger group of, you know, being a caregiver of someone with type one. But then I think there's even smaller subgroups within that category of parents who have who have children are diagnosed in infancy, or in elementary age years. And then there's the parents who have children who are diagnosed in their teen years, which we can talk about, because that's a whole kind of beast in and of itself. And then kind of the aging out right, from Teen to early adulthood. So yes, I mean, I think we definitely could start with you know, how to think about living as a caregiver. With with this diagnosis,

Scott Benner 8:43
I've been corresponding with somebody who's obviously information, I'll keep private for like a year now. And they're the parent of a teen. And things were, you know, the, the team wasn't taking it all that seriously, at least not as seriously as the parent was taking it. And that parent told me that eventually, they had to seek out like therapy for themselves. And then it came to a head and, and this person, just one time one, I just eventually just couldn't take it anymore and said to the kid, like, you know, diabetes is gonna kill me before it kills you. And I wonder how, how common that feeling is because it felt like I could understand what she was saying in the email. So what is the difference between being dying having your child diagnosed at a younger age versus other ages?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 9:39
Well, I think the the first kind of the answer would be well, in terms of how much control and authority you have over your child and just developmentally, where your child is, are they able to, are they completely dependent on you, as you know, as obviously an infant your younger child that they are unable to eat? They're manage their diabetes care from you know, whether you're doing finger pricks or CGM management, wearing a pump or not. If your child is younger, I would say, you know, this is rough guesstimate around maybe eight, or younger, or maybe even seven or eight or younger than you are probably managing it as the primary caregiver completely. From whether that includes, you know, reordering the supplies and changing out the sights, as well as the day to day, you know, management. And then as you're getting into maybe early as Elementary, or older, I guess, like nine, I would say to 12, eight or nine to 12, maybe they're taking on more or showing some levels of interest and wanting to be independent in some areas, whether it's checking their own blood sugar, or having a discussion with you around carbs. And then obviously, into, you know, preteen and teen where just naturally they are wanting to be more autonomous, more independent. And if you take remove diabetes, from the equation, they're, you know, just teenage years, they're wanting to make their own choices, feel that sense of independence. And then there's that pushback, right with teenage years of if they are showing signs of wanting to rebel, then that often translates into I don't want to take care of my diabetes, or I want to fit in, you know, in preteen teenage years, children are wanting to fit in with their peers be like their peers do with their peers can do. And as we know, you can do that to a certain extent, with diabetes. But oftentimes, it might look like ignoring like, I'm going to have this baggage check chips or this candy bar at the movies with my friends. I don't want to have to either leave to inject or take my blood sugar or pull out my pump, it's going to make all these lights or look at my CGM. So I'm just going to ignore that because I want to fit in. So this is kind of just as a summary, I'd say of what it might look like, as the child with diabetes, but then also, how do you how do you manage that, as the caregiver is challenging on different levels? And

Scott Benner 12:16
how does it impact you to as the as a person, just, you know, I say all the time, and nobody. It's interesting, isn't it? Like, if you look at the world as a whole, the likelihood of you being born living and dying without having some sort of a medical issue is almost completely uncommon like it, you know, and that happens to very few people. But no one makes a baby and thinks, hey, I bet you when you know, let's do this baby thing, and I bet you when it's three, its pancreas will stop working. And then we'll just take care of that or when it's 12, or I bet you when it's 20, its thyroid won't work anymore, or you like you, you have no preparation for that whatsoever. And we see it as uncommon and burdensome, when maybe we really should think of it is expected to some level, you know, some something happening should be expected, but it's not how you feel. So is that different? When a child's younger? Do you get that feeling of like you didn't get what you were promised?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:16
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I, I from I mean, I think from just speaking from also my parents perspective, having two children, you know, diagnosed when they were older, but then from from clients that I work with, there's that I think that immediate sense of loss, right? Because maybe when it's if you're a slightly older, say eight or 10, you have some of those like prime years of, of, quote, enjoyment, right without having to think about this extra layer of management. And so I would say, yeah, that's definitely, gosh, we're out of the gates that my child's one or two, and he's barely talking or walking, and now we have to deal with this extra layer. And so I'd say probably even a stronger, maybe shock, grief loss. And, you know, all the all of the emotions of grief. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:12
on top of that, I expect that the you start prognosticating that there's going to be some sort of a loss for the child in the future. You know, the funny thing is, too, if you understand how to manage your diabetes reasonably, I don't think there's that much of a loss. You know, you mean like you're a person who has diabetes, there's things you have to do, it's obviously sucks. And it's but if you could take a long look at it, and I guess I'm in a unique perspective, where I've spoken to so many people at every age, you know, right into their 60s. That what I would tell you is that overall that yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's a coin flip or not like if you're just the kind of person who does well with you know, stuff that comes up or you're not but most people deal okay with it when they don't do well. It's because It generally ends up being because they've been given very bad tools or bad support, or something like that. But the people who, you know, learned how to use their insulin or figured out how to eat that worked for their lifestyle, had somebody helping them along the way, those people generally live full lives, you know, like, we don't, we're not in that part of diabetes anymore, where people just die when they're 40. Because they have type one in less, you know, something significantly lacking in their in their care, or, you know, I mean, let's just say like they're some people just hit the genetic, you know, dumpster fire lottery, and then that obviously can happen. So if I'm a parent, I come into you and I say, hey, I've got my little one year old, two year old 567 year old has diabetes, they're completely dependent on me. And I can't take it. Like, how do you how do you help a parent in that situation?

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Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 19:57
Well, first of all, I think it's if we were pulled back A little bit like when you diabetes diagnosed, this inserts itself into, you know, quote, pre existing conditions. And I know we think about that like as a medical term, but you as a family unit or if you're a single parent, single caregiver, you there are already issues going on in your life, right. There might be marital stressors, there might be job or financial stressors, it might you might be diagnosed in the middle of a pandemic, there might be other concerns with if you have other children, the sibling dynamics, you might have either really successful solid, healthy family communication patterns or or not. And so, upon diagnosis, all of those things that have been with you either individually as a person in your own health journey, as well as your family, are still there, right upon a diagnosis. And so sometimes we would like to think that, that Oh, my gosh, my child is diagnosed. And now all of my other, you know, challenges or concerns are gonna fall to the wayside, but they don't, and they creep back in, immediately upon diagnosis, maybe all of the focus is on there, and you're surviving out of adrenalin and shock. And you're pouring all of your resources and time and energy into that into your child. But slowly, all of those other, you know, quote, pre existing conditions or challenges that you have been dealing with kind of reemerge. And I think that, you know, as a caregiver, your child does look to you, and how to respond to this diagnosis. And, and it's okay, if you're struggling, right, because your child may take it all in stride, I mean, it particularly mean a one or two year old, the child doesn't really know essentially, what's happening, and that's going to that child is that's going to be normal as the child grows up, right. For an older child, they might not think it's anything different. They might have seen other friends with CGM on their arms, or you know that the stigma around all of that is definitely thankfully going down. And the hardest part might be coming to terms with your own feelings about it as a caregiver, about, you know, thinking, gosh, what does this mean for my child is my child going to not be able to do all of the things that I had envisioned? for them? I think I shared you know, thankfully, things have changed dramatically in 30 years. But when I was diagnosed, the doctors told my parents like, she might not be able to play sports, and I ended up playing collegiate volleyball, she might not be able to have children. And so there, I think there was a time when there was that sense of loss and despair for your child that you were grieving for them. And for yourself as the parent, thankfully, the messaging and the data has shifted. I have had two healthy children. And I was able to do those things. And because of now all of the new, you know, the new science and the new products on the market, you can even live a healthier life than I did 30 years ago, as a child, and preteen and teen. So anyway, go back to your question, parent comes in there one or two year old has been diagnosed, I would first allow them the space to grieve like what, what are they they probably are having that sense of loss, I had expectations of having a healthy child that might not live in it and Wiggins as we know, you can be healthy with type one. But without living with a chronic illness, they might have to deal with and have questions about what are some myths that they've heard? Right? Is my child going to be blind? Are they going to lose a limb are they not going to be able to do X, Y, or Z. So dispelling some myths might be something that we would do. And so just give first, initially, just giving them some space to grieve.

Scott Benner 24:07
I see, I see online when people just want to see an athlete, a professional athlete who has type one diabetes, because that seems like the gold standard of moving around, and they're doing it so good. That's a great feeling. I if that person could do it, then somebody else could do it. It does seem to be a lot of fact finding and, you know, backing up your fears with stuff that makes that alleviates them or tries to support problems you're having. But what happens if you're if you're the adult, and you're a person who just doesn't have any more bandwidth, or their coping skills, aren't, you know, gonna gonna lend to this situation? Do you just pick something in your life and, and eliminate it like do you or do you just go okay, I used to, I don't know, I used to sew purses in my spare time, but I don't do that anymore. You know, like Do you like what happens when the cap when you're full all the way to the cap? And then something like this comes in? I mean, what what do people do to find that space? They need to wrap their heads around this because it takes a long time to figure out diabetes?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 25:15
It does. Yeah, I think that that's an excellent point two, is that it it acknowledging that I might not understand how to how to manage my child's diabetes initially. And so you're dealing with your own personal grief, if that's, you know, the case about what it means for your child to have diabetes. And then you're probably feeling isolated. Because as as we know, it's, you know, it's, it's very rare. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, type one, community is so tight knit, and probably most chronic illness communities are very tight knit, because you don't really understand it unless you're either living with the type one or you're caregiving for someone. And so I think, acknowledging that, I'm feeling isolated, I'm feeling distressed, I'm feeling anxious about what this means. Obviously, reaching out for support, whether it's one on one, therapy, listening to, you know, your podcast, finding support groups in your community. And if they aren't, they're asking your your child's doctor for that you creating your own, I think being in a support group, as a caregiver is really important. If you are struggling, and feeling like Gosh, I have no more bandwidth, I've reached my limit in terms of providing care for my child. That is signaling that you are in distress. Yep. Whether it's your own personal distress, including dealing with the diabetes distress. And it's exhausting. And so I think reaching out and finding the support, one on one, listening to other podcasts, and finding support groups for you, not just for your child is really, really important.

Scott Benner 27:16
Yeah, it gets you to that spot where I don't know what psychologically it does for you to accept something. But it stops so much inner turmoil. That just I'm not saying giving yourself over to it, maybe is the wrong way to say it. But just the idea of Nikki's, you'll see people forever, like, well, there must be a cure for this. And they'll they'll, they'll just drive themselves crazy looking for it as if there was a cure for type one diabetes. And the 1.8 million people living with it are unaware of it. But the newly diagnosed person, it's like, no, obviously it exists. It's just that feeling of like putting off the inevitable, which is accepting that this is happening. But there's such a calm that comes after the acceptance.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 27:56
Yes, yes. And and I think it's hard to know what comes first. Like, if you are feeling confident and competent in managing your child's diabetes, then maybe the acceptance comes after that. Or maybe the acceptance comes, okay, this is this is what we have in our life, we are not going to let this stop us from doing the achieving the goals we want for our family and for our child. We are going to accept this and we're going to put our head down and we're going to figure this out together. And then that calmness and acceptance that may then lead to the finding finding what you need to get your diabetes, your child's diabetes management, and you know, getting into stride with it, I guess. Yeah. And I don't know if one has to come before the other. But I think I totally agree that the acceptance piece is pivotal. And it you might be you might accept it right in it as the get go. You might just be someone who could handle kind of this this trauma. I know we talked about that in our other our first episode. That kind of the Trump traumatic experience that a diagnosis brings, but and then you might accept it and you might be working well with your child and your child's care team. And then you there might be another transition like such as puberty or the child's sick. And you might hit a bump in the road and you might experience some Distress and that's okay. It's not like okay, we're, we've accepted it, we're good, we're managing it. We know how to deal with this, and we're good to go. So to be gracious to yourself and your child that there will there will be a will and you'll ebb and flow in terms of your acceptance in you know, in your relationship with diabetes.

Scott Benner 29:49
It's fascinating as your kids get older. It's like you're an employer and you have to hire the right person for a job. And you know, like you said in the beginning the kids are It's all on you, right? So the kids aren't involved and they hit those years, but they're like, well, I might want to help a little bit, then you look at them, you're like, why would I hire a 12 year old to take care of my son, you know, like, I know you are you but but you're not the right person to be making these decisions, then people have that fight where they don't want to hand it off, I have to admit that I don't, you know, I'm happy to give over pardons, you know, management to her slowly. But I was never in a position where I thought, I'm happy to trade her five, five, a one C for an eight a one c while she's figuring this out for the next two years. So that that wasn't a trade I was willing to make. But it's just tough because you look down and you're like, well, this isn't the person who should be in charge of this, the kids 14 doesn't know anything, he can barely remember which ways up he just wants to play PlayStation, like that kind of stuff, which then translates into when they're teens. And it's even worse, because now they actually they think they know something they don't even doubt themselves anymore, which is fascinating, you know. And then there you are in that situation, where some people run into where their kids don't doubt themselves don't understand how to manage their blood sugar's quite as well. And now they're creating what could potentially be dangerous situations, either for themselves short term or long term, and you as the parent are set back and going, I can't let this happen. It's such a stressful, a stressful thing to see a thing that you can fix that's impacting your child, the thing you probably love most in the whole world. And then you can't impact it because they're the blockade to you impacting it. It's a weird dynamic, where they are both the person the the, the focus of your love and concern, and the end the problem. At the same time, like the reason you can't get to that love and concern. I don't I didn't mean problem, but they're almost like the roadblock and the destination, if that makes sense.

Unknown Speaker 31:51
Mm hmm.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 31:51
Okay. Yes. And I think there's a reason why I often I'd say the majority of families that I work with are the kind of the newly diagnosed families within, you know, one month two, you know, six to 12 months. And, and then parents and with teens, because those are probably the more challenging seasons. And, yes, I mean, I think it's going to happen, right teens are going to want to rebel to a certain extent or fine, as we said that autonomy or independence, and yet, you know, we research has shown that positive, there are positive results from parents continue to be involved somehow in your child's diabetes management during the adolescent years. Yeah, and one of my mentors used to say, like, gosh, wouldn't it be great if you could just saran wrap the diabetes, part of their lives as teams with within their relationship with their parents, just to protect that, like, let them go do whatever else they've had to do as a teenager, but can we just somehow protect that aspect of their lives, because it does happen where teens either want to deny it, or don't want to manage it, or want to manage it themselves. And then there's consistent, you know, 300 words, and they think they're doing a good job, or they don't want to show the numbers. And I lived that for a period of time, myself. And the ultimate, I mean, I feel like if you are a parent with a teenager at this point, and you're experiencing this friction, and this conflict of a teenager saying, I don't want you to deal with this, I'm going to do this by myself. I mean, I think I know you, you have set up a different relationship with your daughter. And I think it would be wonderful. I know you just had a gallon I just listened to who was was a teenager. And now I think she's 18 who took it on herself and is managing just great and has been very independent and wanting to maintain those healthy habits. I would say sitting down with your with your teen and say okay, in this this category of your life, your diabetes, we are still going to whether I mean it's also different right with the with the CGM where you could look at on your app to see what your child's numbers are. If they aren't if they refuse to wear CGM, and that happens, then it's finding out okay, we are going to look at your meter once a week or once you know, at the end of the day, but you get to have control and agency in your life in these categories. And finding out what it what does that mean for them daily, they're going to want to have sleepovers. They're gonna want to do after school sports. I mean, a lot of this stuff isn't relevant at the moment given the pandemic but that obviously, hopefully that'll normal like normalcy will return there. I want to go to birthday parties or parties and general parties and finding out how can we protect this aspect of their life and come to some sort of agreements, but also giving them the opportunity to feel like they have control and agency in their life in other aspects that you both agree on that, you know, there's a compromise there,

Scott Benner 35:21
I think you have to understand that in every interpersonal relationship, there is a line that you cannot push the other person over. Because if you do, there's just no coming back from it for some reason where it's difficult to get back from it. So. So I'm constantly thinking with my children, like I'm balancing, doing what's right for them with teaching them how to manage for themselves without pushing them away, which I guess would be a nice old fashioned way of saying what I just said, because once they're away, that's the whatever they leave with that day. And you don't want them to leave in an adversarial thing. Like, I want my kids to walk out the door with a bag over their shoulder thinking, I can't believe I'm moving out, like, that's what I'm looking for. Right? Not like, hey, go to hell, I'm out of here. And so you know, and so when that happens when you when you split that day, however it happens, you've taken them about as far as you get to take them. And then and so if they're gone too soon, then they're a bird falling out of a nest that can't fly yet. And, and that doesn't stop them from leaving, you know. So I just think that there's a way to move slowly towards that stuff. And you have to be able to look up on some law, see that your kids like rubbing up against something. And without letting them feel like they're in control, you know what I mean? Like there's a power struggle to with parenting, to kind of let go of all of it, you know, without letting them feel like they're pushing you around, you have to almost quietly back off in your mind, like, I have something else to say, This is not the time to say it. I'll wait for another opportunity. I just, um, I believe in that. And hopefully, it's going to help me my son's 20. And it looks like he has hashimotos out of nowhere, all of a sudden in the last couple

Unknown Speaker 37:05
months.

Scott Benner 37:06
And it's impacting him. And we're trying to get all of his levels together and help him out. And one of the things we've done is we've gotten his his vitamin D level up, and his iron level up. And so the other night, I said, Hey, did you remember your vitamins, which has been great about so far, and he's just frustrated, because some of the side effects of this haven't gone away yet. And he's like, they don't they don't help anything. And I was like, no, it took us two and a half months to get your vitamin D and your iron off. They help. And he got he broke the little bit. And what I was gonna say next was Yo man, you know, if you do one setup today, that doesn't give you a six pack. And six months from now, when you have a six pack. It's because you did the sit ups every day on the way to it. And now that you have it, if you want to keep it, you need to keep doing it. This is what I was gonna say to him. And instead I just went Yeah, that's cool. We'll talk about it later. And because I just was like, This is it, if I push him here, I'm going to lose him on this topic. And I and I can't afford to lose him on this topic. So yes, yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 38:05
yes. So knowing, knowing your the kind of the boundaries of when to push, and how far. And I and I think you also touched on, you know, as a teen, it's you there's instant gratification that they want and need. And it's so challenging to think about the long term complications implications of poor management. And so every day, it's, you know, yeah, I want this candy bar with my friends, and I don't feel like bolusing or injecting for it. And you're not, they're not sitting there thinking, Well, you know, if I keep doing this every day, for the next two years, I might have complications. And and I think just as you clearly exemplified, sometimes reminding them of that isn't necessarily, it's not the right way

Scott Benner 38:55
to go. No. Yeah. And we, when they're little with, you know, to bring it back to diabetes, when they're little and you mess up a Bolus, their blood sugar goes up. Well, you work really hard to get it down, you hug them you do all the things you do, you know, when they're eight, nine, or you know, when they get into that 1213. And you do it again now, like, oh, they're sitting on the bench, they can't play because they're dizzy. All these things hit you as failure as the parent, like, you're like, Oh, I messed this up, I'm gonna kill them. I'm the reason they're not going to enjoy soccer, you know, like, whatever it ends up being. And then all of a sudden, when they're older. It's interesting, because it, they're, it's the first time that they can turn it back on you. It's like when they realize you're not perfect. You don't mean which happens in every parental relationship. The One day, the guy wakes up and goes, Oh, this guy doesn't know everything, does he? You know, and then God forbid you're wrong, or you get into your late 40s. And you have like a moment where you can't think of a word. They're just It's like watching a lion go after a gazelle with a broken leg. I see my kids look at me like like, Oh, he's not perfect. Now's our chance. Yeah, right. Right. But all of a sudden, you're trying to do the right thing. And maybe, and for a lot of people, you don't know what the right thing is, you don't know what the tools are, you don't know how to manage your insulin, right, you're just trying your best. And over and over again, it's, it's not going well, and your kids start to think she doesn't understand this diabetes at all. And I don't understand it. So we're screwed. And that's and then that can you can get to that spot. And that's why I'm just such a huge proponent of understanding how insulin works. Because it gives you It gives you a chance in all these things. And again, it gives you a chance to have some free time where blood sugar's aren't always bouncing around and you might actually be able to think about paying your electric bill or going for a walk or doing one of the things that's gonna keep you sane or balanced.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:47
Yes, yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Not not responding. You're not responding to the roller coaster. You just know, okay, where we are as stable as possible. I'm doing the best I can. And now I can go take care of myself.

Unknown Speaker 40:58
100% Yes. Have you

Scott Benner 41:00
ever seen the movie? 1917?

Unknown Speaker 41:02
No, no. Okay. So

Scott Benner 41:03
in a nutshell, it kind of doesn't matter. I think it's like World War One. And, and there's like, there's like a, you know, it's a road movie. But in a war guys got to get from one place on foot to another place. It's just adrenaline the whole time. And sometimes that's what being a parent of somebody who has a chronic illness feels like to me, like, somebody just came into my life, one day, I was just there doing my thing. And they were like, hey, you're on a foot race now to the end. And you have to run constantly. Because if you stop, something's going to kill you. Like, you just have to keep going. And there is going every time the scene changes, something different is going to be there that feels like it's trying to get you and you have to run around it jump over or kill it and keep going. And that just is how diabetes feels to me like I remember having the conscious thought that my job is to get my daughter to the longest healthiest life possible. And I never thought about having kids that way prior to the day she had diabetes. Hmm. You know, and,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 42:04
and that is an exhausting narrative to live with, particularly if you are not feeling like you're you have a sense of, you know, competency around it, or competence, you know, and how to manage it. Yes, right.

Scott Benner 42:18
Right. And so at some point, I worked out the things I worked out, which then lessen that feeling. And it's, it's become less and less and less over time, to where I still feel like that's my goal. But I no longer feel like I'm running through 1917, Germany for my life anymore. And, and, and I really do, I really do believe that partly, that's community that did that. For me. I think it's part it's a big part, just understanding how insulin works, because then you start getting what you expect. And there's not that like, theoretical stress, like you almost like put insulin and then start wondering if you did it wrong. And then, and when that happens three times a day, you're 24 hours a day believing you've messed something up, and you're always living in that anger, you know, and then if you're married, one of the parents likely has a firmer grasp on diabetes and the other which can help, which makes you resent the other person for not helping you. And, you know, oh, it's just there's so much going on. But you're what you're saying is, is that if you're a parent of a child with type one, at any age, you really need a place to go no matter where it is, to feel normal to hear some other people who are doing, okay, who may be a little ahead of you on the journey, a place where you can rant and rave and scream if you need to, and then kind of come back out and reset, and give yourself What did you call it? Grace?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 43:42
Yeah, Grace and grace and space to, you know, do what you need to do. And if you are the primary caregiver, and I know that that works for a lot of families. Because there's not that confusion that I think you shared recently on a podcast that, you know, you went to the store, and you just assumed that that someone else would be watching or managing or helping blood sugars. But I think there that assumption is also exhausting. And so I think if you're the primary caregiver, and you are feeling all of those things that we've talked about the burnout, the isolation, the guilt, or shame around, I don't know what I'm doing or if I made a mistake, to realize that you're not alone. And to get reach out if you if you don't have if you don't know anybody in your circle. I think that's to reach out to your to your child's doctor to say, Are there other parents, you know, with children around my age, my children, my children's age, that we can connect with because they know they have the data. Because the isolation piece I think is big, and then you isolation can make you feel like Not only that, you're alone, or that if then that, then your thoughts can like I'm doing it wrong, and I'm a bad parent. And that just kind of can, you can dig a hole really quickly with them when you're feeling alone. And that could happen to your

Scott Benner 45:12
kids too. And that one of the Yes, it's funny when people come on the show, and they've heard the show. And it's not everybody, but it's, I used to think it was really heavily like, towards the people were like, Oh, my God, I learned how to use insulin that's been so valuable for me, because I see that as the most valuable piece of the podcast, yes, but it's not true. What I hear most from people is, I never knew another person with diabetes, this show gives me a sense of community, all those things, you just said, it ends up being so much more important to the person who lives with the diabetes, then you might understand like, like, when a parent looks for community, they might look for support, advice, you know, that kind of stuff, pat on the back kind of stuff. But when a person with type one looks for community, the community they want is similar but not the same. It's what they need is to just not feel isolated, just like you said, and it's such a bigger piece then apparent not feeling isolated. I don't know why I think that I don't think I have that thought completely fleshed out yet. But community means different things, depending on what side of the syringe you're on, I guess.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 46:26
And I think that, yeah, the community piece, yes, for the, the person with the diabetes to know they're not alone. They're not this, you know, strange person and to hear tips and tricks, but then again, in the caregiving piece, to also feel either encouraged or acknowledged and to decrease that isolation. But also just a place. I mean, there, if you can't find a caregiver group, specifically for type one, there are just general caregiver support groups out there that might bring together a variety of people cannot caregiving for their spouse with cancer, or whatever the chronic illness might be, just to have that sense of community to know you're not alone in a lot of those similar emotions and triggers that you might be feeling as the caregiver. So my

Scott Benner 47:15
last question I have, yeah, one last question on this is, that's, that's all great for people who are willing to do that. Yeah. You know, like, when I talk about how people eat on the show, I always say, like, Look, it's probably easier to have diabetes and eat very low carb, but most people aren't going to do that. So let's teach them how to use their insulin so they can live the life that they want to live. And similarly, I think therapy is a great idea. But a lot of people don't do it. A lot of people drink instead, or walk out back and cut down the tree with a chainsaw and cut it up a little tiny pieces, then kick it around, or what what do people do who aren't going to seek out community that aren't going to go for therapy? Or I mean, I have to be honest, that little breathing thing on the apple on the iPhone is like deep breathing really is relaxing. But what what can people do so they don't slip off and, and become a caricature of a of a sad person?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:10
Yes, well, I think, oftentimes, you might not even realize it as a caregiver that you are experiencing burnout. Oftentimes, I hear someone who might come in to my office, and they'll say, Well, you know, what, my spouse noticed that I was talking about how tired I was, or how I wasn't, I wasn't doing the things I used to do that I really enjoyed, or I am feeling helpless. And I'm talking about that. Or maybe Yeah, maybe I'm drinking more coffee or drinking more wine or I'm not. I'm withdrawing from my friends and family, and I didn't And oftentimes, you might not even realize that that has happened. And so it sometimes takes someone on the outside to kind of reflect back in the caring, loving way. Maybe it's time for you to get help. But if you aren't, if you aren't at the point of being able to reach out because that does happen. Yes, obviously deep breathing, to do the things try and reflect back on. Okay, what was one thing that I used to do that I enjoyed before my child was diagnosed, whether that was I used to go on walks every morning, or I used to do the certain activity. So I think reflecting if you're at that point where you feel like your hands are in the air, you are exhausted, and you don't even have the energy or desire to to go to a support group or to meet with a therapist, to think back. Hey, what did I used to do, pre diagnosis that I enjoyed, and slowly maybe integrating that asking for a break for an afternoon or once a day or yet once a day or once a week from being the primary caregiver and doing that thing, whether it's exercise or deep breathing or meditation Or meeting up with a friend?

Scott Benner 50:03
Can I share two things?

Unknown Speaker 50:04
That's where I would start? Yeah, please.

Scott Benner 50:06
So one of these is embarrassing. I'm gonna start with one. That's not embarrassing. How's that sound? So during the pandemic, I've taught myself to make barbecue, to make pizza from like the dough to the scratch to How To Cook it like a real like Neapolitan. Because I just have this time, I don't know what to do it. And then at Christmas, Kelly gave me a drone. It's this little thing. It's a very small one. It's not, it's not very expensive at all. But I found that, first of all, I was scared of it. Like my I was scared to use it. It's something I've talked about for years, like I want to try to fly a drone one day, that's all I said. But it turns out that my spatial awareness is what I was scared of, I was afraid that what would happen when I was pointing one way, and the drone was going another way that I wouldn't have the coordination to deal with that. And so I practice in an open field, you know, and what I've learned over the last couple of weeks is that once the drones up in the air, and it's moving, it's the only thing I'm able to think about where the drone will crash on the ground. And there's an I never been a person to stop thinking about other things. And so just one thing that was not life or death to anyone, right, has really changed. And I will find myself running outside in the middle of the afternoon when I have an hour just to put that thing in the air for five minutes. Just because I come away with some sort of a relaxed feeling when it's over.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:35
Well, and it's something that you are completely in control of that.

Scott Benner 51:42
Well, well Also, it also gave me this idea, like if it cuz it can go up in the air. And your first thing is like, what if I What if it crashes, and you actually have to let go of that to do it. It's almost like not being afraid of insulin anymore. Like, you know, like, Oh, I Bolus and it goes up. And I know I should use more. But I'm afraid until you just go hell, I'm going to use the amount of needs, until you say to yourself, if this thing falls out of the sky. That's the price of doing business if I want to fly a drone, and so once you let go of it, it's completely free. Now my other thing, and I don't know how many people will take me up on this. But when I'm completely alone, which I used to find myself a lot, and I don't much anymore, I guess we most of us don't feel it anymore. When I have a problem, I talk it out in my head. But there are times that I feel I don't realize it and I'm thinking of something in my head. And then all of a sudden I'm alone in my house and I'm talking about it out loud. And I've come to realize that it's nothing different than sitting down in front of a microphone to make a podcast where there's no guest. And I just I find it easier to talk through things if I can hear it almost like at the end of when I after I wrote my book, it was supposed to be turned in on a certain day. And I remember sending the publisher, a note and saying just get like, Can I have it for one extra day? Before I give it to you. And the last thing I did was read it out loud to myself. Because for some reason. hearing it in my head and hearing it out loud were two different things. And I don't know if that's valuable or not, or if I'm crazy, but those two things helped me like focusing on something it's not my life for a little while giving yourself over to that and sometimes I talk to myself when I'm but not to myself. Um, I don't know how to put it. I'm not talking

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:27
about your verbally processing out loud.

Scott Benner 53:29
Yes, I'm not going Hey, Scott, and Scott's not answering in a slightly different voice. Not happening like that. It's almost like I'm explaining something to someone who's not there.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:39
Yes, and hearing yourself, say it out loud. Probably achieves a lot of things. But it could be common you're releasing or getting an out of your brain and out saying I made a similar exercise would be you know, writing it down journaling to get whatever that is out onto paper, then you can see it. And maybe for some like sounds like for yourself, it's helpful to for you to say it out loud. And then to hear it.

Scott Benner 54:06
Yeah. Do you know how often this happens to me in the middle of it? I think, gosh, I was wrong about that. Like you can actually you just think something you held like so dear. And then you're like, I'm not right about that. Dammit. And I don't know, it just that's what works for me. But I just want people to do something for themselves. Because your kid getting diabetes can't just be the start of your life or death run across World War One. And then when you get to the end, somebody pat you on the gas and goes, Wow, good job, and then you drop over dead because you just use the last 60 years doing it. I just you know, it can't be like that.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 54:40
And yes, and I would add you know, and I'm so grateful that you shared what those two things that worked for you. I think oftentimes caregivers might feel like if they take a break from caregiving, something's going to happen to their child. And that this this fear of like responsibility and guilts around, what if what if I leave the house for 30 minutes? Is my child going to have a seizure or he's going to go really high and the chances are probably not. But even so that I think they're going to be okay for that short amount of time. And it doesn't have to be a long break. I think finding those windows of time like for you, you had an hour to run out and do the drone, it could be 10 minutes to say, you know what, I'm gonna go do my 10 minute walk around the block. But finding those moments to take care of yourself to step away from the diabetes is really, really crucial. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:35
I want to say that take it from me, I was the person who used to think I didn't like sleeps not as important for me, I thought after Arden got diabetes, it all of this will catch up to you at some point, if you don't take care of it, it won't, we're not going to escape through like, don't be the person who's like smoking, that doesn't give me lung cancer, it gives everybody lung cancer eventually. So you're like, you know, you're not the special one who doesn't need to sleep eight hours or, you know, can can operate a nine pots of coffee for the rest of their life. It just doesn't work that way. You have to find the balance, you know, do you agree?

Unknown Speaker 56:10
Absolutely. Yes, you might feel sorry, go ahead.

Scott Benner 56:15
I know, I'm sorry. You finished now. So I was gonna say,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 56:18
oh, say I agree. Because it but the initial stages, there is that fear of I can't I can't leave my child. And and maybe that feels like in in the first couple months? That might feel true and is true. But to realize that yeah, that is not sustainable. And to involve other people as needed.

Scott Benner 56:40
No, no, yeah. In the beginning of the Apocalypse, we're all running and screaming. But it's Yeah, point you got to find a building to hide into and let the zombies walk around outside while you chill out. That's all. It's very simple. Now, here's the bigger problem, you came on to talk about two things in the hour that we booked. And now 15 minutes later, we're on to the second. So what do we do?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:00
You know, we we while we were I tried to integrate a little bit, you know, we were also talking about just, you know, teenage years. And I feel like we integrated that a little bit into our conversation. But if we want to dive deeper, perhaps we can do that another time. Or if there are questions that come up from your audience, specifically and other topics, we could do that too.

Scott Benner 57:22
Well, I am all for having you back on. So if you're up for it, I'm up for it. It's just you. You're like my, you're like my emotional Jenny. Like to me.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 57:37
Well, thank you, I that's a nice compliment. Yeah, I enjoy being here and chatting with you. And hopefully, you know, helping those who are out there listening, and I'd love to be back. Seriously, I want to

Scott Benner 57:48
wish you a ton of success with your knee surgery. I know you don't know when you're doing it yet. But if you ever want to do a podcast on painkillers, you let me know. Okay. Because I wouldn't be like,

Unknown Speaker 58:00
oh, that would be interesting.

Unknown Speaker 58:03
What should a family do? They should shut up?

Unknown Speaker 58:08
No,

Scott Benner 58:08
not even under drugs? Would you say that? Give me your web address again.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 58:15
Erica foresight.com.

Scott Benner 58:18
And for now you need to be in California if you want to talk with Erica. But yes, through this pandemic, I've just spoken to too many people who are struggling in ways that a lot of us can imagine. And that for each one of them speaking to somebody has been what's helped them so far. You know, there's just no shaman. I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't break your arm and go I'm not gonna go to a doctor this will probably heal on its own. You know, like if you if you have a problem that you can't deal with on your own, go to a person who can help you deal with it, because it's just, it just when it goes wrong for somebody like psycho when psychological issues go wrong for somebody, they go, they can go really you can just get lost. And like a spiral. Yeah, what I there's a couple of people I'm thinking of that I've spoken to I don't even know how they got back again. It's it's a triumph to get back again. And the truth is they all did it with support of one or multiple people that helped them along.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 59:21
Yes, yeah. I mean, that's and that's really the goal of therapy for you know, from my perspective is restoring that hope, you know, and and, and healing and growth that can occur in an individual and family system, otherwise I wouldn't be doing what I do.

Scott Benner 59:38
Yeah. Well, I appreciate that you that you're doing this one day, you know, a year from now, I'll actually talk to you about your diabetes like you're just like, like you don't know anything about this other stuff. I just said it the Jenny the other day. I said one day we should like interview you like you're a person and not like Jenny a CD and she's like, I am a person and I was like yeah, what can I do that one day and she's like, okay, so um,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:00
Yeah, happy happy to do that too. Because Yeah, I'm also i'm also live in Buckhead, and I understand very much all the challenges. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:00:10
Before I let you go, yes. Is it important for someone? Or not important? What's the How do I want to ask this? Is it? Is it extra value that value added for my therapist to have type one? If I'm in there talking about type one? Or do you think that a therapist that doesn't have it can do it justice? Well,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:00:29
you know, I think and there they are, there's trainings, you know, the a DA and APA did trainings for therapists who are specializing and working with, with families with type one. So I think they can provide certainly, you know, expert advice and professional and psychological support. I know that particularly with, with teens, it brings I can validate what they are going through, and they can they understand that I really get it. And so I think that's an extra value add for me just personally working with particularly the teenage population, which was different from maybe someone to say, like, gosh, I really, you know, I don't get what you're going through, but I know it's hard. Yeah. But I think, yes, I certainly there are therapists out there who are excellent, who are trained well, who can provide the support you need who do not have type one, but it can it can help with certain populations. And for people who

Scott Benner 1:01:27
do try therapy, and like my son, they're like, why don't you take the vitamin D every day or every other day? or whatever? Like, how much time do you give it before it builds up some efficacy for you? Like, you can't just go into one session and be like, that's it, I should feel differently, right? And how long until you know, if this therapist that you chose isn't right for you, like, What's that, that soaking in period? Like in the beginning?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:01:52
That's a great question. And I often tell my clients, you know, it, it has to be a great fit for both parties. And usually, I often suggest or encourage them to give it a go at least two times, two sessions, and to see how, because when Usually, the first session has maybe a lot of nerves and just kind of general overview of what their B looks like and feels like. So it's a by two or two, if not, by three sessions, you aren't feeling like your therapist is either meeting our needs are understanding your goals, then it's okay to to move on. And in terms of experiencing efficacy, or some change, or hope that there's going to be change, I often suggest 10, roughly, you know, 10 sessions three months to not only work on building the rapport and trust and identify and then identifying the goals, where do we want to go? What's our hope? And then at the kind of approximate three to four month mark, to take a pause and evaluate, Okay, are we are we going in the right direction? Are you feeling like your needs are being met? These are questions I'd be asking my client. And then by then by the three to 10, six, six month mark, I would hope that my client is is experiencing some change. Oftentimes, you might hear a therapist say it might feel worse before it gets better. Which that that often happens if you're doing a lot of trauma work. And if you're processing maybe the grief around the diagnosis that you have never done, that could feel maybe painful at first. But then the hope is that you would transition slowly into receiving and experiencing healing around that and moving into maybe more acceptance and hope. So that's kind of a general guideline. timeframe. But you know, every every client is different. But I'd say on average, that's, that's what happened. I appreciate that. I

Scott Benner 1:03:51
just wouldn't want somebody to just do it and then leave and go on. Not

Unknown Speaker 1:03:55
all I don't

Scott Benner 1:03:55
feel perfect. Like this didn't work. And I can imagine everything you said and all the different possibilities being true for somebody. So I want just like a general guideline for them to think yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 1:04:05
Yeah, it does. It does take time to undo, you know, your thinking or your and move to healing. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:14
right. Now listen, it's all just our parents fault. I'm just kidding.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:19
Sometimes, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:21
Well, I really appreciate you doing this again. And I will talk to you soon.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:26
Okay.

Scott Benner 1:04:30
First things first, let's thank Dexcom and that g six continuous glucose monitor and remind you to go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Are you looking for a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump, or perhaps a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash Hello 30 days. That's one 12th of the Year by omnipod.com Ford slash juicebox. Go find out what you can get. Head over there. It's like One of those crane machines and somebody already dropped the quarter and all you got to do is move the joystick around and see what you get my Omnipod comm forward slash juicebox. Don't forget T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. And of course, thank you so much to Erica for coming on the show. There are links in the show notes, all the sponsors, and a link to Erica, if you're in California, and you'd like to check her out. Thanks so much for listening for the great reviews you've been leaving on your podcast players. And of course, for sharing the show with other people. I really appreciate it when you do that. And when you hit subscribe in your podcast app, I think I just decided how to celebrate 3 million downloads to let me take a look here just real quickly, I won't keep you much longer. You're fine. This one was only an hour, you can do it again. When are we going to hit 3 million. Rough math is about a month from now, about a month from now the show is going to hit 3 million lifetime downloads, which is very, very, very cool and extremely exciting. And I think I know what I'm going to do to celebrate it. I think I'm going to make I don't want to say yet, but I'm going to do something and we'll see if you like it. I always do giveaways and I have to be honest. And only one person gets something and that doesn't seem very celebratory. So I'm going to try to find a way where everybody can have the same thing. We'll see. I'm trying to figure it out. Give me a second. Okay. I'll be back soon. 3 million. It's a big deal. By the way. It's a podcast about type one diabetes, 3 million downloads. Are you kidding me? Gonna have 4 million probably. And I think we definitely hit 4 million this year. Easy. It's just It's crazy. I never imagined first month 2015 January 1000, like 200 downloads or something like that. In a month. I don't even I can't even tell you how many downloads I get in a month now trade secret, but it's a lot. And I wonder if I can find? Hmm, hold on a second. Can I find out exactly how many downloads the podcast had in the first month? I can. I just have to change this to January. If you're still with me, I love you guys. Thanks so much. It's actually March. I started this show in January. But I didn't start it on a service where I could track downloads. I was I did not know what I was doing. Let's just be fair and say that. So maybe March 24 is the first trackable download. So why don't we do April? Even though the show started in January, I just didn't know what I was doing in January. Yeah, I can do this. Hold on a second. I know you're like I already Hold on a second Scott. What the hell but give me a second. Make it how many days are April's that 31 or 30? June to December Maple moon and just I don't even know that Brian. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, what are you gonna do? April 1 to may 1.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:24
Monthly totals.

Scott Benner 1:08:27
Wow, this is crazy. There were days when the show only got 100 downloads a day. Some of these that had like 43 That's so weird. Look at this April. You care about this? April 1 20 1533 downloads. The second nine the third four on the fourth that had 18 all right now just imagine I go forward a day every time I say number 610 34 what even made me keep doing this 109 130 340-617-1627 90 102 152 43

I'm like halfway through April not 2626 Wow. 5724 that's how the whole month goes just like that for for a perspective. Here for perspective, since I started talking about how many downloads there were in April until now. The show has been downloaded 203 times while we were just talking about it. That's crazy, isn't it? It still freaks me out.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:01
Anyway,

Scott Benner 1:10:01
I feeling very celebratory about it. And I've learned I want I want se me there. I was like count Dracula's like I want to tell you about the thing I want to celebrate somehow. So I think I have an idea. People online helped me with what they want me to put it together, I should be able to announce it very, very soon. It's not that exciting, but I think you'll like it. And that's it. All right. We excited? Good. I want to do the thing. I turned into Dracula from a 50s movie there for a second. Anyway, wasn't Erica great. While we're still chatting. I love her. She's coming back again. I'm gonna make her come back. I can't actually make her. That's not how the world works. But I asked her and she said yes already. So she's coming back. Oh, one last thing. I was supposed to put this the front of the show. I'll do that next time. Each episode has transcripts now at Juicebox podcast.com. So many people ask me for transcripts, and it was a ton of work and not fun. But they're there. They're there. hate it when I say that. But they're on Juicebox podcast.com. Now so you go to this specific episode, link for the episode you're listening to you scroll down a little bit. Christ let me look. I didn't mean to curse. Hold on. Juicebox Podcast calm scroll down. Like here's the last episode, falling forward. Number 444. I click on it. The episode page comes up. Scroll down, tells you a little bit about the episode shows you some places you can listen on different apps, you can actually listen right there, there's a player. Then it says click for episode transcript. This is above the sponsor. So if you get to the sponsors Dexcom touch by type one on the pod T one D exchange de vocht. glucagon and the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You've scrolled down too far, scroll back up to where it says click for episode transcript. When you click on that, it opens up words everywhere. There's a tiny disclaimer at the top. And I'll tell you why. Because the transcripts of the transcripts are being done with artificial intelligence. They're not perfect. So just as this text is the output of an AI based transcribing from an audio recording, although the transcript is largely accurate, in some cases, it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcript errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes medical advice, blah, blah, blah. And then it's a transcript. Scott Benner Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 440. For me, talkie talkie all of a sudden Jeff comes up. My name is Jeff. I'm 34 years old. I've been typing. Every episode has this. There's a couple that have it that don't have it still. If you find one that doesn't please email me and let me know. But otherwise, to all the people out there that asked for transcripts. They're there. Go get them. I hope they make your life better. I sincerely do. That's definitely a no no. I'm going bye

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