Scott Benner 3/24/21 Scott Benner 3/24/21

#457 Jon Marks

Sports talk show host with type 1 diabetes

Jon Marks is an adult living with type 1 diabetes who is also the host of WIPs afternoon drive show that he co-hosts with Ike Reese.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 457 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's show, we'll be talking to john marks john is an adult living with Type One Diabetes. He was diagnosed in his 20s. Today's men talk about his early management things, he figured out where he is now and he's gonna tell us a little bit about his job. And that job is pretty cool. JOHN is a sports radio host in Philadelphia, he works on the station that I grew up listening to sports talk radio on, john, we're gonna talk about diabetes for a while, we're gonna add been to some sports, but then he's got a really important message on the back end, and I don't want you to miss. So if you get into the sports stuff, and you're like, oh, he stopped talking about diabetes. Hang on. Just one more second for me. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan for becoming bold with insulin. During this hour, I'm going to mention the diabetes pro tip episodes to john if you'd like to listen to them, they start back in Episode 210, where you can find them at diabetes pro tip.com. They're also available at Juicebox Podcast calm.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor get the CGM that my daughter and john Marks wears at dexcom.com/juicebox. And you can take the Omni pod for a test drive, go to my Omni pod comm Ford slash juicebox. Find out if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash. That's actually you using it for 30 days. Or you can ask for a free no obligation demo of the Omni pod. And if you get that they'll send you out a pod that you can wear and try on it doesn't work. But it will give you the feeling of what it will be like to wear the on the pod. So whether you're going to look for that free 30 day trial, the dash or just try to get that free, no obligation demo, everything you want is at myOmnipod.com/juicebox. Last thing before we start check out the T one D exchange at T1dexchange.org/juicebox. Are you in the studio right now? Like are you going to do this then work?

Jon Marks 2:35
Yes, I came in at about 1030 to get it like an hour's worth of work done. And then I'm going to do this with you. And then I'm going to bounce out and then finish up my prep and get ready to go on the air. Oh, that's

Scott Benner 2:46
very cool. So we're recording already. This is very, very laid back.

Jon Marks 2:51
I listened to a couple of a couple of recent podcasts over the last week or so to get a feel for what it was. So I got a pretty good idea. You do a good job with it.

Scott Benner 2:58
Thank you. I listened to your show yesterday. I thought so anyway, go ahead Introduce yourself.

Jon Marks 3:06
My name is john Marx. I work for 94 Wy pm I am a talk sports talk radio host. You can listen to me every Monday through Friday from two to six. If you get the radio.com app and Scott, thanks for having me on the show man what's going on?

Scott Benner 3:23
I Well, I'm gonna have to go back probably to when you started in Philly, and I I grew up in Bucks County. So we listened to sports talk constantly. I like my earliest memories are walking around like a baseball card shop and hearing like Glen Mac now talk about like sports. And I love the like what I think what you do is is incredibly difficult to make look easy, you know to have these like very short conversations that are cogent. And somehow they're there unto themselves but then they build along the hours that you're on the on the on the radio, I think it's it's a really cool skill to have. And so I love listening when I get a chance I love listening to people talk I don't put on as much music as I even want to because of that. And I felt like one day I heard you offhandedly say to your co host that you had diabetes and it never really came back up into my head again. And then what was it now maybe a month or so ago? I was listening to the radio and I could hear your Dexcom beeping and I thought How come I've never asked john to come on the podcast. So here you are.

Jon Marks 4:30
You know it's funny how many diabetics are out there listening and know what that Dexcom alarm sounds like because between the tweets your I guess you emailed me or I don't know if your direct message me on twitter but between the DMS and the emails and must have got a dozen people saying hey, I'm on the Dexcom two or

Unknown Speaker 4:47
Hey,

Jon Marks 4:48
my daughter's on the desktop so it was not something I expected when that when the damn alarm goes off because you know you can't silence it right away because it puts the volume all the way up. Yeah, so everybody can hear it but it is It's funny how it works out sometimes. Isn't

Scott Benner 5:02
it interesting that you get that money responses? I immediately thought, you know, so seriously, I dropped my daughter off at a salon. She was having her nails done. And I was waiting outside listening to your show. And I heard the beeping and my brain thought that's not right. Arden's not low. I know she isn't. And then I was like, wait a minute, it was muffled like that wouldn't have sounded like that. And then it occurred to me, I was like, I remember this guy saying he had diabetes a couple years ago, this is what this is. So that day, I i were you trying to you adjusted your diet? Right?

Jon Marks 5:37
I'm that particular day.

Scott Benner 5:38
Yes. That what was going on and you were trying to eat right? Or something like that? I heard you saying,

Jon Marks 5:42
Well, I mean, I have ever since the pandemic started. So we're going on a year now I really decided that I was going to take advantage of not being able to do anything and really start exercising and eating better. I would say my diet was was usually you know, pretty good for being a diabetic but I really kind of took charge of it. I don't remember exactly what it was that day. You know what it was it since it was about a month ago, Scott that you know, my basil rates were probably a little bit off because of the the temperature change. Yeah. And what it does to me, but I mean, honestly, like, it's not it's not unusual for me to get a little bit low during the show and because I have an Apple Watch, which is amazing because I can get the Dexcom reading right on my watch. It's like it's you know, it's a it's amazing for any diabetics out there. You see going down and I know that I'm in a commercial break so what am I doing I'm trying to eat a granola bar during the commercial break, but doesn't work right away. So sometimes something like that will happen and you know, that's not a common with me, Scott, I mean, you know, we all have our highs and we all have our lows and we're just trying to try to manage them as best we can.

Scott Benner 6:50
So you feel a little when the weather warms up you need a little less you know what it's it's

Jon Marks 6:55
yes, I do it's um it's weird because weather warms up for a couple days and I switch it and then you know the Northeast in in spring and late winter then it gets that's 30 degrees 20 degrees again, so then you know, sometimes it it backfires on you. So yeah, yeah, for me when it gets warm, I need less when it gets when it gets cold, I need more and I think it's like that with a lot of people kind of pumped to us. I have an omni pod. I don't have the I don't have the dash I inquired about it and my insurance was telling me that I'm not eligible for it. And I had to go through the appeals process which I guess I'm currently going through they said it could take about three months but I'm an omni pod insulin pump user

Scott Benner 7:39
three months April May June I'll tell you what, if you wait that long, I assume their algorithm is going to be out so they on the pod five will come out and then your Dexcom and your on the pod will talk to each other and it'll adjust your basal insulin and things like that automatically. So I should just wait you maybe you should that's presents pretty trust me that's pretty great technology. My daughter's using an algorithm right now and it's fascinating to watch it work amazing. Yeah. might stop some of those lows for you. I'm wondering when you're talking does it You said you get you can get lower while you're talking so I think of your show is like I think of you as the driver and as like is the like the color a little bit sometimes. And so you're so you're you're talking a little more than he is and your pace like your your quick talker like I am that does that actually burn carbs for you? Do you get low just from that do you have to eat during the show? I guess is my question.

Jon Marks 8:32
I do I have a routine at are actually we just changed our clocks. So our break schedules are a little bit different now but I used to before we would go we would have a commercial free segment that would go from about 440 until 520 save about 40 minutes so during that break, I'm starting to get hungry anyway because lunch had been you know three or four hours before so that's when I would typically eat one of my protein bars that I have. So now that it's a little bit different but yeah, I mean it does it does it is it Scott when I have when I feel like I have a good show. When I get done in off the air. I just like mentally I'm just exhausted. Like oh yeah, nanny now I have to drive 55 minutes home and have two little kids is running and screaming and try to eat dinner and then get them in bed and everything else. So it goes quick.

Scott Benner 9:23
Yeah, does I have to tell you I it's not too similarly if I if I do this for an hour for 90 minutes for there's a span of time afterwards, your brain is scrambled like from listening and talking and trying to say the right thing and not say the wrong thing. And you know and all the things that you want to get out and everything it is exhausting talking like this. I just didn't realize it would it would affect blood sugar. Like that's kind of interesting.

Unknown Speaker 9:49
I think you can

Jon Marks 9:50
for people out there that are listening that are familiar with sports radio, and I'll just say like the Northeast which is Philly, New York and Boston, people not only take their sport It's serious, but they take their sports radio serious. I mean, it really is. It's a way of life and now heated conversations talking about quarterbacks and things like that. Looking at your mentions on Twitter, and people wanting you fired or threatening you or things like that. It gets it gets very interesting. So I don't know if my my my mean mentions take away from my blood sugar, but I think a long show sometimes.

Scott Benner 10:23
It's amazing. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Unknown Speaker 10:27
So it was

Jon Marks 10:28
August 7 2002. So I would have been 24 turning 25 I was working. I was in between. I was in between jobs. I had left a an office job that I was working at and Center City, Philadelphia. I was working at a restaurant part time. And then I was working in another restaurant part time. So a two part time restaurant jobs. The one restaurant it was it opened like was a new restaurant, it opened and it did poorly from the start. So it turned into one part time job that I had. And I remember I was at my read, I was at my other job and I went across the street to a convenience store. And I bought two of the biggest jugs not like the 32 ounce jugs of Gatorade, but like the superduper big family size jugs of Gatorade because I was so thirsty. And I I couldn't quench my thirst. And I just remember chugging these two things of Gatorade. And the guy that I worked with looked at me and said, What the hell is wrong with you? Yeah, like, dude, you got to go to a doctor. And I'm like, I know I do. I think I have diabetes that was on. That was on August 6. The next day, I took a train went up because I didn't have a car I was living in the city took a train up to my parents house in suburban Philly, got her car and drove to the doctor. And that's where the that's where my my family doctor that I had since I was a baby was very upset because my blood sugar was 720. And he realized what what that I was diabetic at that point. That was August 7 2002. How did

Scott Benner 11:59
you know? Is it in the family? Are there any other endo issues in your family? No, I'm

Jon Marks 12:03
the first I don't even have anybody type two in my family. So I was the first it was just that, like the just not being able to quench my thirst. And I just got just what I thought it was, well, nothing else made sense. And probably two weeks before that I had a low. Again, it was on a train. And I remember calling my mom and saying I feel really sick. Can you come pick me up at the train station, I'm not going to be able to walk and she brought a Gatorade with me. And I drank the Gatorade and I felt much better. But what I didn't know was my sugar was probably 50 because I had ran to the train because I almost always missed the train. And I was hypoglycemic. So my sugar was low. So then it all kind of made sense at once. It was like if you watch the if you watch what's the what's the movie with with Kevin Costner where he's it? Anyway, he's, he's like limping and walking. Usual Suspects. Okay, you realize in the last scene in the movie, where Kevin Costner's character goes from doing this limp to where he's just walking space. And it's like, oh, my God, like, that's the guy. And like it was at that moment where I'm like, Oh, my God, I

Scott Benner 13:09
think I've diabetes just like that. You know, like, I'm Kaiser. So say, Kaiser shows. And I have diabetes.

Jon Marks 13:17
He's not very Yeah, I wasn't verbal. Kim. I was actually Yes. I'm just kind of. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:21
so that's so that really, without any background? Did you use the internet or just the thirst thing drove you to diabetes in your mind?

Jon Marks 13:28
I mean, this was 2002. So I didn't, I probably had a flip phone at the time, right? So I just like and I remember saying it to my mom, when I got up there. And she goes, you don't have diabetes stop. And I'm like, Well, what the hell's going on? And but she looked at me, she said, You look like a drug addict. You really shouldn't waste probably six or 700 for, you know, three, four or five days. Yeah. So you know, went to the doctor Bang 720 you got to go to the hospital.

Scott Benner 13:54
So you're about two years prior to my daughter who was diagnosed in August 2000 excuse me four years 2006 when she was two years old. So you were just slightly ahead of the curve of technology too. Right. So what did you start with to manage?

Jon Marks 14:10
So here's the here's the kicker when I said I had two part time jobs, and then I one part time job, I had no health insurance. So just going to the hospital and then putting me in intensive care, because they were worried that there was probably going to be problems with my organs because my blood sugar was so high. So I don't have insurance in there. And you know, that's like staring down the barrel of a shotgun where it's like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? And luckily, you know, my parents aren't wealthy by it by any stretch, but I grew up in a middle class neighborhood. I was living on my own and I had an apartment of my own, but I knew at least that they could give me some some support as I needed. I started off with a vibe with a vial of long lasting in a vial is short lasting in needles, and in a one and a one touch a little meter. A meter. Yeah. And that's how I and that's how I did it.

Scott Benner 15:00
I try to explain to the people who listen to the show I'm like you they gave me a vile and a handful of needles and this little meter that look like it came out of a bubblegum machine and like you're gonna take care of your kid. And you know compared to now it's it's barbaric. And compared to even 10 years prior to that, it was the most amazing thing that ever existed. So it's interesting how it leaps forward so much. So you find on the pod when

Jon Marks 15:25
I'm so been married six years, seven years ago, and and you know, what's it like? I don't, I don't know why. I didn't get on a pump. I had I lived in Hawaii for a couple of years. I had, you know, gave started my radio career and my diabetes was not managed. Well. I didn't test my sugar. Well, I didn't test it often. I I wasn't a big sweets eater. So it's not like that I was eating cakes and cookies and all that stuff right there. But if you're not testing your sugar multiple times a day, you're never going to be regulated properly. Right. So I had for a number of years. That's that's how I lived I had multiple times where I bottomed out and I woke up in the back of an ambulance. You know, I I just always felt like especially when you first get diabetes, you feel like because you're still in the honeymoon phase. You always feel like that you're going to be able to go to get something right like you feel low. I can I'll be able to go to get to the store and get an arm Vegas. Yeah. Until the first time where it doesn't happen. And then happened in Center City, Philadelphia, I was going to deposit my my check from my job, and boom, straight down, right. And I woke up in the back of an ambulance. And the first thing I remember him saying, I didn't know if you're gonna make it or not. Wow. Yeah, so it's scary. But I mean, that's how I look for a long time. So

Scott Benner 16:42
I don't want to put words in your mouth. But I've heard adults. So you're in a really interesting space. I've talked to so many people, like, diagnosed as an adult, but not a real adult, if you know what I mean. Like, you know, just right and, and just try to ignore it. Like, it'll be okay. But do you have? Do you have any idea how many people tell me in that age range, they meet someone where they it ends up being they take better care of themselves? Because of someone else? Or for someone else? Did you have that? Like, like, were you doing it for you? Or did you do it because you met a woman? Or do you know what I mean?

Unknown Speaker 17:14
Um,

Jon Marks 17:15
I think I just I realized that doing what I was going to do, what I was doing, how he was managing my diabetes wasn't going to work. And I think it was when I went back to this, this was when it was I went back to seeing seeing an endocrinologist on a regular basis, right? When a couple of years where I would go, and then I wouldn't go for a year. And then when I needed prescriptions refilled. And they're like, you can't get your prescriptions refilled, unless we see you in the office. And I would have to go again, I think it was when I finally started getting regular a one C and it and I saw what, how how I was managing my diabetes, which was, you know, Not good, not terrible. I was trying. But it's very difficult when you're just using a meter. And you're just using a bile and a needle. It's very difficult. So that's when the doctor because I hadn't been a regular, bad, anything good. I think on a doctor on a regular basis. They said, Well, what about the pump? And I said, Sure, let's do it. But it really was the Dexcom that saved me. I could take injections right now. The Dexcom is the lifesaver. I mean, this is what's totally changed my life is being able to see what my blood sugar is at any moment and see what food does to my blood sugar so I can learn from that.

Scott Benner 18:32
Right so that's been the game changer fine tuning issues, then you can do with it. So it's it's interesting. I was talking to somebody yesterday. And he said that pump used to be this thing where if you were just really not on top of things at all, they slap a pump on you thinking well at least you're getting basil and so on we can we can know that's happening. And maybe you'll push some buttons once in a while when you eat and we'll get lucky and you'll Bolus once in a while, which makes it all nice not to get poked and all that stuff's great. It's great to be able to adjust you know Temp Basal rates and extended bonuses and things like that. But you're right once you can see the data in real time, it's eye opening in a way that's it's impossible to describe if you've done it to somebody who's never seen it before.

Jon Marks 19:11
Yeah, and you can't without seeing that you don't really know you you can test your sugar after an hour and you know what it is but you don't know how long it took to get to there and that was another thing with me was the taking too much insulin too soon, eating something that has carbs but they're slow acting carbs and then not realizing that's not going to hit me for two and a half or three hours and then I'm low and then I'm eating to solve that low but then my sugars getting high so then I'm waking up with a 350 you know, so the Dexcom for anybody out there that doesn't have a Dexcom get a Dexcom or get something like a Dexcom because it is is a life changer.

Scott Benner 19:48
I would tell you that I'm absolutely Arden. Like we love Omnipod we really do. Arden's had it since she was four, maybe, but you're right. If you made me choose, I'd have to take Seeing the data over the ease of pumping. If you made me pick just one like that, you know, it's a false choice for us. But that would be the way to go. I have a question about prior to all that you're bouncing around a lot. So were you the kind of person who was low so much that it counterbalanced the highest so you're a once he looked like it was reasonably okay in the sevens or were you more of I'm trying my best. Like I'm more in like the mid eights.

I don't know if I can say it better than it's been said already today. But the Dexcom je six continuous glucose monitor is an absolute must in your life with insulin. If you have type one or type two diabetes, you need to see what your insulin is doing, what impact it's having on your blood sugar, and how is the food you're eating, impacting all of it. Think about that, think about being able to see food, go into your mouth, go to your blood sugar and cause a rise. But you can see it happen in real time. And allows you to make a decision for next time, right? I Pre-Bolus my meal this time I did 15 minutes. But I started to get a rise before the insulin really kicked in. Maybe if I just adjusted my Pre-Bolus a little bit. I could stop that rise. Maybe I just need a little more insulin a little less, a little sooner, a little later. How do you figure that out? You figure that out with the information that comes back from the Dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com forward slash juice box links in your show notes. Links at Juicebox Podcast comm Get yourself a Dexcom g six, find out what your blood sugar's doing. Do you ever go to sleep with a blood sugar of 95 and wake up with a blood sugar of 250? Can you imagine if you could see exactly what happened overnight? When does your blood sugar start to rise overnight? When does it stop? Imagine now that you just set some basil rates that impact those rises. So you go to sleep at your 95 blood sugar, the rise is going to happen at 2am. But you're ahead of it. And you've changed your basal rate at 1am to get ready for that rise it to the rise never happens. And you wake up with that same blood sugar that you went to sleep with. Would that be cool? You can do it dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. I'm not even bothering to tell you that you can share your data with up to 10 followers if you want. That means your wife, your sister, your school nurse, anybody could see what your blood sugar's doing, if you want them to. Alright, while you're on the internet looking for that Dexcom Don't forget to get yourself a demo of the Omni pod or a trial you can get a trial or a demo two different things. So you can get a free no obligation demo of a non working on the pod just so you can wear it to see what you think you'd like banging around the house with it. And so you know, John's gonna say later he wears it on his arm. You can see if that works for you. Or you can dive in a little farther and get yourself if you're eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omnipod dash use the dash for 30 days for the freeze. You could do that. If you're eligible. Go find out at my Omni pod comm forward slash juice box we're talking about insulin pumping. We're talking about having control over your basil, your Temp Basal, your boluses you can extend your boluses there's all sorts of things you can do and I haven't even told you yet that it's tubeless so you're not connected to a device means you can jump in the shower without taking you off your pump. I just literally five minutes ago saw a story online. Someone tried to figure out why getting into a tub made their blood sugar come up. And after all this consternation and talking you know what the answer was they took off their tube insulin pump to get into the water, taking away their insulin and allowing their blood sugar to rise. But then on the pod. You can jump in the water and keep on that on the potty. It is tubeless it is waterproof. And it is wonderful. My on the pod.com forward slash juice box dexcom.com forward slash juice box of course don't forget the T one D exchange T one d exchange.org Ford slash juice box. Check them out support the show hit the links. Thank you back to john.

Jon Marks 24:34
Definitely highs and lows highs and lows highs and lows. eights. Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:38
yeah, definitely. But you passed out. You passed out a number of times though.

Jon Marks 24:42
Christmas. Christmas morning. When I guess though this was back when I was I was definitely living in my parents house. So I lived on my own for a while and then when you know coming back from living in Hawaii, I was there for a year or two and then I moved out but I remember it was Christmas. This morning the insulin that I was using you would have to take a half hour before eating and I took the shot of what we were going to have for for Christmas morning and then I fell back asleep and I guess breakfast got delayed I came downstairs only thing I remember is waking up on the floor with with with an ambulance in my neighborhood on Christmas morning which made all of my neighbors and people that I know in the area wonder what happened. So yeah, that was one of my times.

Scott Benner 25:28
Wow. And now you said you have a couple of kids do you know about trial net? Have you wondered if they've got like antibodies that marker type one or do you not think about that too

Jon Marks 25:39
much? I honestly don't think I not that you don't think about it? Because I mean obviously you do and it's something you worry about. I have I have baby number three coming. God willing in in July. But thank you but but I haven't No, I haven't looked into it. And I'd be more interested in I'd be more interested in information.

Scott Benner 25:59
Yeah, there's a woman named Carla Greenbaum was on recently she runs trial net, they'll send you out a kit for free you do a little thing at home send it back to them they'll tell you if you have any the antibody markers. And actually there was a gentleman on just the other day, who's just about ready to have his company's about to have a drug come out of trials with the FDA and they're seeing that if you have the markers they give you this drug it's an infusion. I think you get it. Got I hope I'm remembering this right maybe like once a day for like 12 days in a row and then you're done and it can hold off the onset for years. Wow, really fascinating stuff. So yeah, it's called trial that when we're done, I'll send you the information so you can you can have it. Hey, do you know um, you know, Sam fold has type one.

Jon Marks 26:44
Yes, it is. Um, he's a he's a he's a coach for the or he's in the front office for the Phillies. Now

Scott Benner 26:51
he's I guess well, Dombroski is, is Dombrowski, not the GM? I think he

Jon Marks 26:57
is like he's I think he's like the president of baseball operations. And then they bring somebody else in who has the general manager title.

Scott Benner 27:05
And that's Sam. Right? Yeah, yeah, Sam's got that Sam's got the GM has actually been on the show a couple of times. He's really just a delightfully nice guy just then if you ever bump into him, he's got like this great camp he does for kids with type one every year, and he's just a really, genuinely decent person. So I just figured you might bump into him at some point or another. Okay, so I have to ask you, I'm a huge howard stern fan. I have been all my life. And I always imagine that Howard would make up fights with other disc jockeys just to make on air stuff, but fights with sports, radio disc jockeys is real, isn't it? Well, Scott,

Jon Marks 27:43
I like you grew up on howard stern from man from middle school when I knew I was shouldn't be listening to him because I wasn't old enough for that type of content, right? All the way up through. I don't have I don't subscribe to Sirius anymore. But whenever I get like, my wife just got a new car. So she's got the one year subscription. So I every time every time I need to go somewhere, I take her car so I can listen to the stern stuff. Um, I mean, so in Philly, there's two sports radio stations. Where I am a Wi Fi, which is the leader in in sports radio for forever. And then the other station, which is 97 five, the fanatic. That is where I started and where I worked up until, I guess it was 2017. I guess now Yeah. 2017. So I was very much the enemy or I considered Wi Fi enemy for a long time. And then I switched and I came over here for I mean, for the most part, we I get along with everybody. There. I still consider most of the people over there, my friends. Everybody's been great to me here. But I would say some of the older generation of sports talkers in this town, they have a that's kind of what's kind of what they grew up with, which was just hating everybody and each other the fighting. Yeah.

Scott Benner 29:01
Well, you know, it really is that idea that back then there was a finite amount of radio stations that were talking about the thing you did, and if somebody else was succeeding, you were failing. Now there's outlets for everything. You know, you can get your get your voice anywhere, almost amazing. And I think and I think stern kind of kind of set the bar for just a radio war, right?

Jon Marks 29:21
Like no matter who he was, who was trying to go up against them. It was first john dibella in Philly, who had the morning zoo, he had the top rated station or star top rated show here in the mornings. And when Howard got syndicated, the wy SP was like, Okay, he's the guy to beat. Yeah, we're gonna beat them and then that like that's just was was was what he was gonna do. He was gonna stop at nothing to beat whoever was in his way. You had man cow who was out in out in Chicago and you had some other people across the country across the country. But yeah, I mean, that was radio wars. That's what you did. And you saw a lot of people. Even up until recently, there was a there was a sports radio host here. Not too long ago that was applying to Howard Stern. And method of you know, radio war stop at nothing to win. And, you know, it's time to kind of change that stuff to do the Howard Stern stuff anymore

Scott Benner 30:07
doesn't work. Yeah, do you know I went to that dibella funeral, I must be much older than you. I just realized. We took the day off, and we went down and it's the down there. And I think it was on Market Street. And it was hilarious.

Jon Marks 30:22
You and a lot of other people. It's, it's amazing. It's amazing. Like, obviously, I'm constantly looking at ratings and everything else with with with our show and other shows or whatever. But the ratings that howard stern did, you'd more or less have 25% of the city, listening to Howard Stern, you'll never see ratings like that, again, I was gonna make one in four cars. This

Scott Benner 30:43
is an amazing statistic. It really is. And do you feel that like, I look, I have a podcast, I'm not on the radio. And I feel it constantly, like, make this good. Make it better make it interesting. Don't let there be lols. You know, like, do you have all those feelings? Like you have that reserve voice in your head? That's like cut this call off?

Jon Marks 31:04
I had that I have anxiety every day when I wake up? Because it it is what am I going to talk about today? Right? When you do a radio show, if you if you're doing a lot of interviews, then you can do a lot of interviews. And that's kind of like the preponderance of what you're doing on a show. That's not what we do. We do mostly talk of interviews. But for the most part, it's, we're talking we're discussing, we're debating. So it's been I mean, honestly, it's even when we've had great writing success, like, hey, you're the number one show for the last six months in Philadelphia, it's difficult to enjoy because I have to, we have to answer the bell every morning of you know, like, or in the afternoon. But that's what I'm thinking about. When I wake up. The first thing I think about when I wake up is what the hell am I going to talk about today?

Scott Benner 31:50
I think if you put two average people in front of a microphone, they could maybe go for two and a half minutes and then they wouldn't be able to go anymore.

Jon Marks 31:59
Well, I mean, it's gone. I think it's just like I knew from a very young age, like you were talking about being a Howard Stern Show, I started off in I used to tape howard stern on a cassette and then I would listen to it when I got home I would tape the dude back then was the WP morning show with with with with Angelo and Tony Bruno and more Gani. I would tape radio because I would have to go to school and I wanted to listen to it. So for me, I think it's just one of those things where I just like, it's what I've always wanted to do. And kind of it's cool being on on here right now. Because I didn't get involved in radio, I didn't really get my act together in life. Until I became diabetic. And I had no insurance, I had a part time job. I was just kind of like, living right, like, what am I doing with my life? And it really, it kicked my butt into being like, you know, what, what are you doing, dude, go out there and do something with your life. And that's what I mean. And that's what I've done since then.

Scott Benner 32:57
No kidding. I'll tell you the amount of people who tell me and I see it with my daughter as well, that being a witness having to be aware of your health is gives you a lot of clarity, and that some of the healthiest people I meet have type one diabetes, because they're so in tune with what's going on with their with them, their self inside, it's it's a view that most people don't have of themselves. And it feels like you saw it, and it wasn't going right. And at some point, you're like, I gotta fix this. And then that led you to pulling everything else. That's incredibly interesting.

Jon Marks 33:30
Yeah, it was like I always say that, that people that people that are trying to manage their diabetes, right, you really have to want it. You have to want it you have to be diligent, it's it gets tiring to do it. You can't do it five days a week and then take the weekends off. It's seven days a week 24 hours a day. Whether it's with me myself Scott with with you have in your daughter, just the the burden that that must put on your mind because a turn right, like I couldn't imagine that I would much rather deal with it myself. Because I know that I can deal with it myself. But I have a I have a friend whose dad is he's not type one. He's type two. And he's he's in his 60s. And he, we were swimming. I was over somebody's house. He was there. We were swimming. And he's asking me about the Dexcom because I actually keep them on. I keep the pump and the Dexcom on my arm. Because that's the best best place for me is on the back of my arm, upper arm. Yeah. Otherwise they tear him off or whatever, right? So that's where I have them. So I'm swimming. He's asking me about him. And I'm asking him about his diabetes. And he's, you know, he never doesn't ever test his blood sugars and everything else. And I told him, I said, Listen, if you get the Dexcom, like, you will know what your blood sugars are at all times. And you can adjust it. If he didn't, I gave him the information. He never did anything with it because he's just like, Oh, I'm fine. Don't worry about it. Well, like you can't have that you can't feel like that. I'm fine. Everything's gonna be fine. So it kind of when it's done. For me in life, which is that like to be in radio and to have, you know, moderate success and to be doing this on a local level and, and having some success here in Philadelphia, like I've, I've been kicked. So many times I've been told I can't do this so many times I've really, really, really had to watch it and work for it. And it's the same thing with with with keeping your sugar's down. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 35:23
I mean, it is,

Scott Benner 35:25
well after you after you decide to do something like that you do recognize that other things are not as difficult as you think they are. Like, I find diabetes to be a major source of perspective for me, I there are things that prior to my daughter's diabetes, I would have thought were trouble or a problem or hard and now I don't look at those things the same way. It just I would I would be able to say to myself, I want to get something accomplished. I'll go do it. Nothing's as bad as my daughter's blood sugar being higher low to me. So I just

Jon Marks 35:54
felt like I heard you. I heard you say in a in a recent episode that that if your daughter's blood sugar's over 145 after you eat, you're like, inside, like, what did I do wrong? Did I not do this? Do not do that. And it's it's, um, I thought about it. And I said, well, man, like, if it's me, it's just like, Alright, well, I got to do better, but you wanted for your daughter. It's like you're, you're in charge. You're the one that it's trying to help her. It's,

Scott Benner 36:19
it does feel

Jon Marks 36:20
it really, it really puts life in perspective. And I'll tell you this, that that diabetic me is is a much more healthier person than non diabetic me.

Scott Benner 36:28
That's certainly something. Is your Does your wife have any involvement in your care? Or is that something you keep kind of separate?

Unknown Speaker 36:35
Um,

Unknown Speaker 36:37
I mean, No, she

Jon Marks 36:38
doesn't. She doesn't have it on her. She doesn't have it on her phone or anything like that. She She knows that I'm taking pretty, you know, pretty good care of myself now. But she's the one that pushed me before. She's the one that pushed me when I didn't have a pumper or a Dexcom. She pushed me saying like, well, how your sugars on my sugars are fine. Like how do you know? And she she was holding me accountable? Because they had it? I know if they were fine. I wasn't testing my sugar. Oh, no, they're fine. They're fine. Don't worry about it. I was just low, like, an hour ago, and I ate a granola bar. So I'm fine. Right? Yeah. So she was and she read before we got we got married to where it was like, I'd like to have this on before we get married. So like, so. We've been married almost seven years now. So that's

Scott Benner 37:21
how long it's been so fine to you was not passing out. Like I have a granola bar. I'm fine. Which meant I'm not gonna wake up in an ambulance.

Unknown Speaker 37:30
I yes. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 37:32
Yes, that's

Jon Marks 37:33
that was fine with me. were like, Alright, maybe I'm a little bit high. But whatever.

Unknown Speaker 37:36
I mean, it Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:37
yeah, you're right. But you're in a completely different space now.

Unknown Speaker 37:40
Oh, absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 37:41
Yeah, absolutely

Jon Marks 37:42
my biggest my biggest issue right now with my blood sugar, because so I get off the air at six o'clock. Depending on traffic, it could be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour getting home. So by the time I get out to the studio gets on my car, so I'm getting home, usually between seven and 715, we try to have the kids in bed by eight o'clock. So I am rushing home so I can eat and some stuffing my face eating trying to put the kids asleep. And I'm exhausted. So what I what now the biggest problem is because then I'm asleep by nine o'clock, my blood sugar's are still getting a little bit higher, whatever. So it's, it's, that's my biggest problem spot right now is I will I will wake up at like 11 o'clock to use the bathroom and my sugars will be higher than they should be.

Scott Benner 38:29
Okay. And you'll What will you do? Will you adjust basil rates for that? Or do you think your meal ratio in the evening is like, are you but like, how are we into this? Are you like do you do you know if I said to you, that if you have something with a lot of fat in it, that you'll see a rise from the fat a couple of hours later or that protein can make you you're into all that.

Unknown Speaker 38:50
Yeah, yeah, I

Jon Marks 38:50
mean, a lot of time. A lot of times it's it's just it's it's not properly doing extended Bolus. It's it's not taking enough because I worried like the classic me taking too much insulin because I don't want to be high and then I get low. And then I eat to make up for it. But it's two months at a meeting. So then the sugars back up. Well, let

Scott Benner 39:14
me pitch something to you go back to Episode 210 and start the diabetes pro tip series. It's with me and a friend of mine who also happens to have type one for she's coming up on 33 years now and she's a CD. And we talk through all of the management ideas. Like one one, there might be like 20 episodes of it at this point. And I'll tell you people listen to that and tell me boom they're a once he's come back in the fives in the low sixes no trouble. Yeah, just management ideas and just talk through simply so if you if Jesus, if you can get help from that, I think that would be amazing. Going back to earlier I have to tell you that I don't really say it on here very much. But that pressure about doing it every time I start talking to somebody and you know because You're doing it with me. I don't want anybody's notes. I don't like knowing what we're going to talk about. First, I tell people Introduce yourself, I'll ask you a question, we'll start talking. And for the first 20 minutes, I feel an incredible pressure to build a narrative that will be interesting and want you to, it will make you want to listen till the end. And once I hit those 20 minutes, I can hear a voice in my head, that's just like, don't, don't ask this up now. Like, now you did it like, now pull it through to the end, you know, like, make it work. And I don't I love doing this, I really do, I have to tell you, I am very much in the same area as you. I mean, we used to put 90 minute cassette tapes in like, and tape the stern show, and then run home 90 minutes later and put in another tape and do it again. And then you'd listen to the whole show later. And I think it's an amazing skill to be able to have conversations that are interactive, without you being with people and hold people's attention. I find it to be an incredible, kind of a magical thing to be able to do. So I got,

Jon Marks 41:04
yeah, it's cool. It's cool. I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Be honest.

Scott Benner 41:08
And I seriously like, so people come on, like there's all levels like people call in. And some people are terrific, right? They have a little bit of an agenda. They know how to get to it and everything. How do you stop yourself? When somebody kind of hymns at halls? They mean, how do you stop yourself from like, going to get to it? Like how do you?

Jon Marks 41:24
Well, it's actually it's a, it's a great question, because I don't, I listened to a lot of audio, just from around the country, I listened to some stations up in Boston, because I feel like it's a it's a similar market with a similar style of way that they're doing things. And there's one particular show where the guy literally will give you 10 seconds. And if you're not good after 10 seconds, bam, you're gone. And he comes off as a jerk, because that's kind of his personality. And, you know, especially when I started this show, which was back into the end of 2017. I was running phone callers a lot, a lot sooner than I do right now. That there's a there's a thought in the business that if you allow a color on for more than two minutes, you're going to have people tuning out. So I'd say that that two minutes is is kind of what you're shooting for. And if they're good, leave them on for a little bit longer. But I mean, you're right, if you knew what you were getting with every caller, then it'd be easy. But unfortunately, some callers are much better than others. So if you get the bad call, or that's kind of maybe had a little bit to drink that day, which we'll get from time to time, or somebody that's just not very good on the air. You got to try it you got to it's it's I feel like it's one thing that I can definitely be better at is command over your show and command over the calls to where someone stutters for a second, you don't want to come off as being a jerk. Right? You also can't let him just continue to sound bad

Scott Benner 42:55
because they that car radio and you're talking are you talking mostly to people in cars? Is that the vibe?

Jon Marks 43:00
Um, you know, it's crazy, because you and I started listening to Sports Radio when there wasn't cell phones. So people were actually calling from landline phones. Yeah. I'd say that, that you probably get about 60% of people that are that are in the car driving tour.

Scott Benner 43:15
I think it's the whole thing is amazing. When would you spend the last couple of minutes talking a little bit of sports with me? Sure. All right. I What? I don't understand. Carson Wentz wanted out? Is that what ended up being the truth.

Jon Marks 43:31
Yeah, yeah. So I guess after he was benched, he decided that Nope, I'm out. And from that point on, he was like, one of those things where like, you know, when you're done, and maybe other people don't realize, you know, where you're done, but whatever, for whatever reason, at that moment, he decided he wanted out. So

Scott Benner 43:51
that's so then a lot of what you hear then through the media is just people saving face or trying to set things up in their favor going forward. It's what you do paying attention to sports a occurred to me while I was thinking about yesterday, that it's so similar to political conversation, in that, like, there's the truth. For one side, there's the truth for the other side. And there's somebody trying to figure out what it is like, there's what the team says it's what the players say, it's what the business says. And then there's sports and then you got to have to sift through it. And what's actually true, right

Jon Marks 44:23
because, because it just because a sports team leaks information to a media member or an agent for a player leaks information to a media member, if they're not given a lie detector test before they give that information to the to the media. So you're right, you're doing a lot of I think you're you're you're looking at the available information, you're deciding, okay, why is that being put out there and then you're trying to figure out what's true and what's not. And I think it's pretty safe to say that that last year was a really crappy year for the Philadelphia Eagles and that Carson Wentz for whatever reason. It was better for him to play elsewhere. Right?

Scott Benner 45:02
So is your is the content of the day for your show? Is it driven by you trying to get to the bottom of something or you knowing what the listeners want to talk about what the callers want to bring up?

Unknown Speaker 45:15
Um, alright, so

Jon Marks 45:16
So today is a Today's a Tuesday and normally this time of year, we are in spring training, down in Clearwater, Florida. We were actually down there last year, right? When, like, everything kind of hit the fan. Yeah, where we were there. We were down there. And they're like, okay, you can't interview players anymore. So it's like, oh, well, okay. So we, we, we were able to like tape a couple interviews, but we had to be a certain amount of time away, or feet away. Nobody had masks or anything. I think that people just started using hand sanitizer. You know, like, and it was all sold out. So I couldn't get in these hand sanitizer to take down there. We actually had my partner bought a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and he was pouring rubbing alcohol in his hands to sanitize. But so like, that's what we're doing today. We're not going down to Florida. But we're almost pretending we're in Florida today. And we're having a bunch of Phillies guests that are on. So like, I have to decide and we have to decide is the show. What is the jumping off point? If you tune in at two o'clock? What can we say? What can we do that's going to say cool, or it's going to be like Wow, good opinion, or it's going to get your attention to continue to, to remain tuning in. So you're more or less throwing your fastball, you're throwing your best pitch to try to catch people you're deciding what is the most important topic of the day? What is most interesting. So we're going to do a Phillies topic today. And I think it's going to be is this play off for bus like did the Phillies, the fourth highest payroll in baseball? Do we expect them to make the playoffs? Because I don't think a lot of people do. Normally it could be an Eagles conversation. But really, it's kind of reading the room, which is your audience, which is sports fans and deciding what is most meaningful and interesting to them at two o'clock.

Unknown Speaker 47:02
And it's you know, it's

Jon Marks 47:03
different. I've got I've worked. I've worked mornings. I've worked mid days. I've worked afternoon drive. I've worked nights, and each different time slot or day part is different. When you come in on at six o'clock in the morning. You're starting the day for the station. Right by two o'clock. What a topic. They may have been hot at six o'clock could be picked over two o'clock. Yeah. So I mean, it's interesting, but I think I think you get what you're what you're trying to do. Right trying to well done. Interesting, but

Scott Benner 47:30
it's not. It's interesting. It's work. I would say it's problematic for you. Because if the morning eats up that that topic, but it's still a reverent a relevant topic of the day, but then you almost have to kind of gloss over it and find the next thing that's most interesting and make it interesting,

Jon Marks 47:47
right? No, you're right. And, and it's, I mean, honestly, afternoon drives my least favorite day parts that I've worked just because I'm not getting home to a little bit later. And I'm not like I'm not a sleeping guy. I'm up early, and I'm ready to go early in the morning. But like it can be picked over sometimes. But like you said, sometimes you can take an idea, refine it and make it better. Yeah. I mean, it just it depends every day is different.

Scott Benner 48:13
Do you think that what you do has impact on players and teams? Like do you think you're not that you have sway over them? But do you think that they listen and that they make decisions based off what they think of is as how people feel?

Jon Marks 48:29
Me personally? No, the radio station and the sports culture in general. Absolutely. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 48:35
absolutely. There

Jon Marks 48:36
was a Barrett Brooks, who was an Eagles player back in the 90s alignment offensive lineman offensive lineman now does a he does a radio show that's, that's it's on an am station and it's national on a national network. He he had told a story, I guess it's two weeks ago now where they used to talk about in the locker room that the my station Wi Fi, that the Eagles used to listen to Wi Fi. And they would make decisions based on what the hosts and what the callers were saying. So I mean, if nothing else, it puts pressure on the teams to do things and like if Wi Fi wasn't around, and if this city didn't have it as an outlet. I don't know if Carson Wentz is gone. I don't know if he feels the pressure and the stress and the heat that he otherwise probably wouldn't have felt in a different market

Scott Benner 49:26
because they have they don't have the ability to do what the rest of us in the world have to do. Like we live in our lives you don't like right now if my neighbor hates me, he's 60 feet away from me talking crap about me. I have no idea I would never know. There'd be no way for him to like for me to have any impact from that law. But when you can hear people talking 24 hours a day about the decisions you make. I bet you it does really weigh on you and it is different around here right like if you if you picked up and went and did that sports talk and you know in the middle of the country somewhere you wouldn't want to have The same vibe and then it wouldn't have the same impact on the players.

Jon Marks 50:03
Yeah, and you can't do it right, I'll listen to we have a we have a station out in San Diego, I'll listen to their their morning show that I can get driving in because of the time difference. And they're very funny. There. You're not doing the same kind of sports talk in San Diego or in Los Angeles or in St. Louis, or in Texas that you're doing in the northeast, because we're I mean, we're,

Unknown Speaker 50:25
we're crazy. Yeah.

Scott Benner 50:26
mahomes isn't worried that somebody is going to bad mouth him on the radio after he throws a ball on the ground. Now, there's

Jon Marks 50:31
not going to be a host that's going to decide that he's he's really not a good player, and we're all crazy, probably not.

Scott Benner 50:37
So just your opinion, was once a good quarterback. And the injury just shut him off.

Jon Marks 50:43
I think that he has he gets in his own head. And last year when the offensive line was was poor, that instead of looking down the field, he was constantly worried about the rush. And that was his biggest problem. He just wasn't seeing the field Well, next year with a with a different with a different team and a better team and a better offensive line. I think he's going to be good. But I also believe that at some point he will get back in his head again. And that's something that you're always going to be able to deal with, you're going to have to deal with if you of course and mentally, he can be weak sometimes

Scott Benner 51:15
I was amazed for a size how well he could escape and then when he lost that tool, then he just suddenly started looking like please don't hit me. Like Yeah, I don't want to get run over back here over and over which I can't blame him for but and so Okay, so let me ask you if someone asked you Philly's question I'll let you go because I know you've a big day. Would you draft up would you draft a quarterback this year? The Eagles Yes, I

Jon Marks 51:40
knew it was coming okay. I'm like it's it's a difficult difficult question to answer because we're not evaluating the quarterbacks right like I'm not a I'm a football fan. I'm not I'm not an expert right now. I'm afraid that the Eagles they're not experts either. That's been part of their problem. But if they see a quarterback and they say because here's what I think the Eagles think about the Eagles current quarterback Jalen hertz, I think they like them but they realize he has limitations. And Can he really be a good enough quarterback to win a Super Bowl? I don't know if he can. So if there's an obvious upgrade and you see a quarterback and you're like damn this guy's good then I think he dropped them

Scott Benner 52:16
is there one out there in your mind?

Jon Marks 52:18
I here's the here's the problem. The top four quarterbacks might go to top four in the draft so if the Eagles are drafting at six they may not get together you're now you're looking at the fifth best quarterback and there's a big drop off. So the odds are Unless Unless they're able to trade up and get a guy that there won't be a guy there that they like

Scott Benner 52:33
so then you take the tight end

Unknown Speaker 52:36
you could he might be gone

Jon Marks 52:40
in going fifth in the most recent mock draft Okay, so now you're looking at a wide receiver or an offensive lineman it's very fluid it'll be it's it's it'll be fascinating to see what happens when the draft actually so this

Scott Benner 52:51
is a rebuild for the Eagles then.

Jon Marks 52:54
You know what, Scott? I don't think it is no, I don't I don't I don't think that they view it as a rebuild. I think they're they're viewing it as we need to make sure we get a quarterback. And if it's not this year, then you're gonna find out how good Jalen hertz really is.

Scott Benner 53:07
I don't know. It seems like I don't I I'm so accustomed to the football that I grew up with, which was there were 11 men on defense who were going to try to kill you and the 11 men on offense, we're going to try to kick to field goals and we were going to win sex. Like that's changed a little bit since then I tried to explain to my son I was like, there was a game it was a Monday night game, the Oilers were playing the Eagles, and by halftime, the oiler stop sending receivers over the middle of the field because they were running out of them. House a pain gate was the main one West Hopkins broke a man's nose I think Ernest Givens knows. And I just said nobody, like football just doesn't occur that way anymore. And my son's 21 he like he doesn't he just thinks it's a lot of really rich guys at score like 50 points by having a catch so

Jon Marks 53:55
well. And back then you could hit people in the head. Right? You can hit them late. You're playing on concrete most of the time and with astroturf. Yeah. I mean, it's it's safer now, which is better, but it's man football was different. back then.

Scott Benner 54:08
One time Andre waters tackled Emmitt Smith by running at the line diving on the ground, sliding across the astroturf and hitting them in the ankles. It's ridiculous. Yeah, they're playing on a concrete slip and slide. Okay. So the Phillies, and I'm gonna let you go after that. I were huge baseball fans. My son plays in college like there's baseball's been going around by house forever and ever. Is it the pitching is it just is it just the kingery didn't come along right like because bombs find on the corner. You find yourself looking at Hoskins wishing you had the guy that they like go to the Indians instead. Like it's just I gregorious is is great, is great for his age and he might be great. Not for his age. like where's the disconnect?

Jon Marks 54:58
I think I think what you have With this team is you have you remember that before the Phillies got really good and Kyla came in and Howard and Rollins and chase Utley and victory know before that team came about you had a bunch of good teams that weren't good enough, right? Well, I want 86 games two years in a row the way teams and he was the GM. Yeah, good, but they weren't good enough. And I worry that this team is good, but not good enough. And they're spending a lot of money. So it's not like you say, well spend, spend, spend, spend spend. I just don't like I just don't think they have enough good young players up right now. Right. like boom is raised a real deal. I love both, but who else? I don't want that. What happened with Calgary?

Scott Benner 55:43
Yeah, right. No.

Jon Marks 55:44
And you're hearing you're hearing sports, right? You're hearing Sports Radio Phillies fan talking right now? Because it's so frustrating because they had an opportunity. I just don't think they have enough good young players to supplement the roster. You needed like out Aaron Nolan. We're actually going to have him on our show today. Aaron, Noah is really good. I don't think he's good enough to be an ace. Right? You're missing a starting pitcher. Can Spencer Howard be that guy was kind of disappointing last year, right? They just need better younger players,

Scott Benner 56:09
right? There's somebody that people have to pop at the right time. It can't just be one of them. It has to be more than one pour. I have to tell you like just being the father of a baseball player. I watched Kangri walk out of the batter's box the other day, and I would have hugged him if I was near him. Like he I just he's had a look on his face like I don't understand like why I don't see the ball. Like it just you're heartbroken because he Scott all you mean, these guys appear to have all the tools and and that really brings me to my last question, right? Which is, How hard is it to be critical of people who are the best 3000 people in the world at something? Does that never seem ridiculous to you? Like Scott kingery is one of the best baseball players on the planet. He's just not in the top half a percent. You know what I mean? Like that's a weird. I don't know does Does that ever occur to you? I don't want to mess you up. Maybe you'll be like, Yeah, why are we picking on?

Jon Marks 57:01
it? No, it No, it never occurs to me. What's crazy is and you said your your son plays college baseball. To make it to double A in baseball is such a huge accomplishment. Right? It's a double A, it's something you have to be so good at baseball, even to be a double A player not not to mention a major leaguer in Scott kingery was a second round draft pick. So but honestly, it doesn't ever occur to me, like I to do this job and to be successful in this job. At least in this city. You can't, you can't worry about criticizing somebody, right? Like, if Scott kingery can't play and I don't think he can play then I'm gonna have to say I don't think Scott kingery can play right like with Jalen hertz, the Eagles quarterback yesterday I'd said I just don't think he's going to be good enough to really count and the matter, right. And these, I think these players today, they're wired so differently. They don't listen to sports radio, and they'd be crazy. If they did. They're looking at social media. And that's where they're getting their information from. I've never even thought, here's here's, I've been doing a radio show with the Eagles defensive end, Brandon Graham on Monday nights for an hour since the Superbowl year, right. And he's the one guy that I won't criticize, because we have a personal relationship. And that's, that's really

Unknown Speaker 58:20
about it. You know,

Jon Marks 58:21
I try to keep my distance from people normally. So not to worry about things like that.

Scott Benner 58:24
Brandon's got an old school vibe about him. I used to tell my son that I thought that if he wanted to Reggie white could have gotten to the quarterback on every play, but he knew when he didn't have to. And right Brandon knows when to when it has to happen. And does it like come hell or high water? It's um, it's really fascinating even as he gets older, like, it's, you know, it's not every game but my God, like when you need that guy to to disrupt what's happening. He's doing it. It's, it's like he I always felt like he understood the game on a different level.

Jon Marks 58:55
And with him, because like, me being a dad and having two young kids he has, he has two young children as well. On a personal level. That's where it that's where it gets me I mean, I see people online on social media that are listeners and the people that that I connect the most with our young parents like me. So when it's on a personal level, Scott it's difficult not to feel the personal

Scott Benner 59:20
relation so you can't get to know these guys because it'll just it'll mess you up.

Unknown Speaker 59:24
Yeah, I

Jon Marks 59:25
mean, if you're doing a different type of show, like like in Philly, you have the precedent Steve show, which is in the mornings, which is the closest thing to Howard that Howard that they've had since howard stern as far as kind of like a ratings juggernaut. Like they're on a rock radio station so they that they want the personal relationships with the players right like that's they want that those people come in and it's difficult to do in my position. Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:46
no kidding. That's a very it's a it's amazing. I think of it as a as a real art form. Honestly, it's a it's fascinating to see somebody take a two minute conversation, like I said, make it cogent. Make it interesting. Move into Something else. And somehow when you get to the end of the hour, you feel like the hour was about the thing. And it wasn't these small and then you guys just very effortlessly go off into, you know, some conversation of your own and bringing in your own opinions, you do a terrific job. So if anybody's local I, and like you said radio.com that people get to listen anywhere, right?

Jon Marks 1:00:19
Anywhere. Yes, the radio.com app, it's Wi Fi in Philadelphia, but you can listen to so many stations from not just entercom stations, but also some other stations as well. So you can listen to whatever you want, wherever you want. I use it to listen to people all over the country as well. So that's really amazing.

Scott Benner 1:00:35
Listen, when I was growing up people you didn't like teams that weren't within 50 miles of your house. So I i I'm even fascinated by that. That there are people in Texas listen to the Eagles talk radios, as

Jon Marks 1:00:46
I let you know when I I love to listen to after the Cowboys have a a bad loss. I love to listen to the cowboy station The next morning, to hear them melt down in anger. It's amazing. It just makes you happy. So as a guy that grew

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
up in Philly, though, I would imagine

Unknown Speaker 1:01:04
getting this guy if I can mention one of the things

Jon Marks 1:01:06
before we wrap this up. And since we talked a lot a lot about me being on the radio. I recently so we're we're our studio is we're looking out on the school river in downtown Philadelphia, right by 30th Street station where you can you know, it's like kind of the hub of getting the New York or going down to DC in the on the transit line and track and whatever else. And probably a couple months ago now, we had somebody that jumped off the bridge here down into the school committed suicide. Wow. And it there had been another one a week or so before that. And I knew at that time because I I had been feeling some anxiety of kind of being bottled up with the pandemic and not being able to go anywhere. And very innocently, I had said on the air. I said, Listen, you know, I'm feeling it, too. I'm feeling the depression. I know that it's difficult out there right now with losing jobs and everything else. So please, before you do something like that, email me, direct messaged me on on on Instagram and Twitter, like reach out to a family member called the suicide hotline like, don't do that. I understand. Like, I've dealt with depression before. And Scott, you wouldn't believe how many people reached out to me just to say thank you. You talk about impact. And it's what made me think about it. And it gets me emotional. Yeah. But the the impact that I had, just by saying that a couple of people reached out to me that were in really, really bad, bad places. One was homeless, living out of his car, listening to the station. But like that, to me, that meant more to me than anything I've ever said about sports on the air and the almost 20 years that I've been doing this. So the little things you don't realize the impact that you can make, just by letting people know like, Hey, listen, I'm there to, we're all there. And it's okay. Right.

Scott Benner 1:03:03
Now, I appreciate that. I've, I've had similar experiences with the podcast, and you really can't, you can't undervalue how much just knowing someone else is feeling the same is it can can, can bolster someone, and then giving them the opportunity just to have some sort of a connection is is a huge difference maker. Good for you. That's really something is that something you think you might get more involved in?

Jon Marks 1:03:28
Um, you know, it's there's so many different things that I want to get involved with. And it's like, with my show, right now, we really need to like I would like to have kind of a cause that we raise money for every year. And I had a I had a friend that that committed suicide, right before the Eagles won the Super Bowl, so 2017, because I remember his girlfriend and some friends went to his grave and put his Eagles jersey on the grave. And it's one of those things where you're like, I should like not that you blame yourself. But in hindsight, you're like, I can see that he was really, he was a really, you know, like, emotional and upset person.

Scott Benner 1:04:09
Yeah, you don't realize it in the moment or you don't stop the look, I guess is the bigger point like it, it feels like, especially now whenever, I mean, I've had these feelings where I work out of my house, and my family's here and everything. And there are times I'm just like, oh my god, I'm just staring at a wall. Like I there's like there's nothing else to do. I've done everything I'm supposed to do today. And there's still five hours left. You don't mean like it's a very strange feeling. Now, man, that's really That's lovely. Obviously, I hopefully you guys can can lean into that because it sounds like you had a big a big impact. Just saying it one time.

Jon Marks 1:04:43
Yep. Now, yes, absolutely. So my way it would be it'd be a good cause to kind of get behind because I think everybody can relate and people so many people have been touched or have went through whether it's they've dealt with somebody in their family with suicide or just, we don't talk enough about mental illness. No, we don't. We don't We should we should talk more about it. Absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:05:01
JOHN, thank you so much for doing this.

Huge thanks to john. Don't forget to check him out on that radio.com app or at 94 WIP if you're in the Philadelphia area. Thanks also to Dexcom and Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of the Juicebox Podcast. Find out more about that Dexcom G6 continuous glucose monitor at dexcom.com/juicebox and check out those trials and those demos of the Omnipod at myOmnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a 30 day free trial of the Omni pod dash. And of course, adding your information to the T one D exchange helps everyone living with Type One Diabetes. If you or someone you love has type one diabetes, and you're a US citizen head to T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. JOHN caught me by surprise there at the end, but I want to add the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to this episode. Help is available call 1-800-273-8255 or go to suicide preventionlifeline.org

#456 So Many Issues

This is a story of resilience

Caitlin's daughter has type 1 diabetes and much more.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:10
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 456 of the Juicebox Podcast. Yes, that's right. Episode 456 is here for your pleasure. Today we speak with Caitlin. I don't want to tell you too much about this because the notes I made for this show just said, Let me find it for you real quick. Like I make a little note for myself after I do the Edit, it said Caitlin. edited, meaning I'm done with it. So many issues. Please remember while you're listening to those issues 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 show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn Find out more at Gvokeglucagon.com/juicebox. This episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. And you can find out more about that meter and much much more at ContourNextone.com/juicebox. And please don't forget to check out the T one D exchange T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. I use the word more. I almost said more. I use the word more and more than I wanted to while I was talking about the Contour Next One, but it's a really great meter. So don't let my horrible alliteration stop you from going to Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox.

Caitlin 2:14
My name is Cate. And I'm the mother of three kids. My oldest of whom is type one diabetic, amongst other things, but I don't really know what else to say I'm you know, typical busy mom in this super crazy time trying to, you know, figure out how to keep everyone healthy and alive.

Scott Benner 2:35
That seems like all of our lives pretty much.

Unknown Speaker 2:37
Yeah, pretty much. Hi, I'm

Scott Benner 2:38
Caitlin. And I'm just like all of you.

Caitlin 2:41
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I don't really know, I listened to the podcast, and I wasn't. I kind of felt like intrigued and I wanted to talk to you because I mean, everyone's story is a little bit different. And I know in our case, it was it obviously flipped our world upside down. But it wasn't as much as I've heard from other parents because I guess we'd already had moments where our world was completely flipped upside down before. And I thought that's what was interesting to me. Okay. And I kind of wanted to share.

Scott Benner 3:16
Do you have any autoimmune issues or your your? Is it your husband or sperm donor? I don't know who that guy is. Is he? You know, are you married? I guess?

Caitlin 3:25
Yes. I'm married. Okay, gotcha. Almost, almost 12 years, or 13. I've lost track at this point after 10. It's like what?

Scott Benner 3:33
I got you a card for our anniversary. Wait, why?

Caitlin 3:37
I don't even think honestly, last last time. Last anniversary. It was like Happy anniversary. I made I made a cake.

Unknown Speaker 3:43
Did you That was nice.

Caitlin 3:45
And that was it? Because we were just both too tired to do anything.

Scott Benner 3:50
That's totally not romantic. My last anniversary was Hold on a second. I think 24 years. It was, by the way, it was two months ago. And I'm not I'm not 100 I guess definitely 24 years. Let's just say it was definitely 24 years. And my anniversary gift from my wife was I came downstairs and she said she goes hey, I'm like yeah, she goes. I really did want to get you a card. I said what's that just, I just didn't have time. I was like, Oh, can I actually found that to be sweet? I was like, Oh, she was considering getting a card out my sister. So the cake will disappear soon too. But But my point is, is that any Is there any autoimmune at all in the history of your family line? either side that you're aware of?

Caitlin 4:42
Um, I guess the only thing I know of is my sister who has a thyroid issues. Okay. And other than that, there was nothing.

Scott Benner 4:51
That's a yes. So was your sister. Do you know much about it? Was she hyper thyroid? hypo?

Caitlin 4:57
Yeah, and she was diagnosed in her Mid 20s,

Unknown Speaker 5:01
gotcha.

Scott Benner 5:03
any real issues managing it? Like, is she in a puddle on the floor somewhere? Are she

Caitlin 5:08
functioning? Well, she's functional. You know, she has two kids of her own. And I know that time was rough because your thyroid is just very different when you're pregnant. But other than that, I think, you know, a few adjustments here and there, but everything usually works. Okay.

Scott Benner 5:23
Well, she had two kids. So she really one of those kids, where she's incredibly careful, one of the other but

Caitlin 5:30
she wanted those kids she definitely did. She worked sounds like she worked for them. Like to I like to say that. You know, if I pushed her a bit, maybe,

Scott Benner 5:39
would you do you had a kid? And she's like, Oh, I didn't know we were in a race.

Caitlin 5:44
Well, you know, a little sibling rivalry. I like to joke about that. But no, I mean, I'm the younger one. Now by two and a half years, and I had all three of my kids before she had one. Oh, so maybe there was a little pressure, but I don't think it was that. I mean, you know, her husband was in school, and he wanted to finish school before starting a family. And I was just like, why would I wait?

Scott Benner 6:06
Well, you don't have to wait for her to go first. Do you

Caitlin 6:08
know exactly. Why would I wait, like I couldn't go to school and be pregnant? What are you talking about?

Unknown Speaker 6:13
Well, you did it. Congratulations.

Caitlin 6:16
But why? That's the question. Yeah.

Scott Benner 6:18
I mean, what did you really win? Honestly, you won this story. So here we go. So what was your daughter? Right? Yeah. And how old is she now?

Caitlin 6:31
She is 11. Almost 12.

Scott Benner 6:33
Okay. Real quick. Before we start, you have the thing Jenny has sometimes when you're making a point, you're tapping something, which is cool for you, but don't do it for me. Okay. I'm not tapping. You're not having anything you're not doing like though. No, no. Okay. All right. Well, then I'm having a stroke. Call 911. This is my address.

Caitlin 6:52
It might be my microphone. I tested it yesterday, but I don't think there's any noise on it.

Scott Benner 6:56
Or you're super clear. I'm sorry. It just felt like you were tapping something. But okay, but Jenny's gonna stay more still. I

Caitlin 7:01
was picking my fingernail. I'd have it.

Scott Benner 7:04
Wouldn't it be amazing if that was it? I cracked my knuckles the other day. And then when I went back to edit, it was there. It was just like, click like, like, give us a call. Geez, I'm gonna stop doing that.

Caitlin 7:14
range was sounds that the microphone picks up?

Unknown Speaker 7:16
Yeah, Yeah, no kidding. I'm sorry. There it was, again, you're not moving or anything's happening?

Unknown Speaker 7:22
No. All right.

Scott Benner 7:23
Okay. Don't worry about it. I'll stop thinking about it. We'll keep going. Because your kids got 8 million issues, and we need to get through all of them. We don't have enough time for me to be dilly dallying about other stuff. So what was the first thing to come up? And how old was she?

Caitlin 7:37
Well, the first thing was at four months old.

Scott Benner 7:41
Holy crap. You didn't choose your first one.

Caitlin 7:45
Yeah, I just waste any time on that one. I mean, they everyone likes to say I didn't waste any time, you know, getting married and having kids either. But no, I was feeding her her cereal. The first time I fed her the cereal that you know, just add water and you mix it and it's got whatever. And she was doing what any baby would do dribbling it mostly over her chin. But some of it got in her mouth, I assume. And after I fed her, I was cleaning her up because they make a total mess. And I was noticing like something was weird. And she was looking kind of read. And she wasn't happy. And like something in the back of my head said there's something wrong here. And you should maybe take her to the doctor. And I was like, No, no, I don't have to do that. There's nothing wrong. It's like it's just cereal. And like maybe five minutes later, she was getting cranky. And I'm like, No, what, you know, I'm going to be the Paranoid parent. First kid, I'm going to go to the ER, yeah. And I put her in the car and I drove to the ER. And that was like, maybe 10 minutes away from my house. And I picked her up by park the car, picked her up in my arms and walked into the emergency room. And as I walked in, she was what she was screaming at that point. And as I walked in, she went gray, pale and lost consciousness. Oh, kidding. And I went up to the nurse. I'm like, I know, I'm supposed to take a number but like there's something wrong. And she's like, what happened? I'm like, I fed her cereal. And now she's like, there's just like, that's not normal coming here and they call the code. Wow. And they rushed her into the back and stuck her with a ton of needles and put an IV in and I was like in total shock. And so that was my first like, brush with death moment with her.

Scott Benner 9:31
Your first one. Yeah, there gonna be more. Oh, there's more because that almost killed me. I just

Caitlin 9:38
Well, honestly, I thought like I was super paranoid. It ended up that she has an antibiotic allergy to dairy. Okay, and because the cereal had milk powder in it, that she had a reaction to it. And it was really bad. So I was given an epi pen for my four month old baby and told that here's a console for an allergist Don't give her anything with dairy in it, and you can go home.

Scott Benner 10:04
Wow. Okay, listen, let's take a short pause here because I don't do this often but let me just get a piece of clean paper on my notepad and put this off to the side where I can get to it because I have a feeling I'm gonna lose track. So hold on a second. Dairy for months. First almost died. Got it. All right now. You, you call your husband from the hospital or how does that go?

Caitlin 10:31
Well, he was there when I was feeding her. So he knew I was going

Scott Benner 10:35
Oh, did but did he come to the hospital?

Caitlin 10:37
No, he wasn't there that time. He is he watching sports going to work? Or? I'm not sure. Anyway, I called him I think he came right afterwards. Because you know, even when I left I'm like, I'm probably just being paranoid, but I'm gonna go take it just to be just to be sure. And I'm glad that I left at that moment. Because had that happened when I was in the car. I don't know if I would have arrived to the hospital with a baby that was alive in time. That's because her blood pressure went just it bottomed out. Wow, her her heart, like almost stopped basically. And, I mean, they brought her back really quickly. And it seemed like okay, that wasn't so bad. You know, she's fine now. I mean, I left like, that night from the hospital. They watched us for the whole day and put her on monitors and everything. And then once everything was finally sent her home, so it was like okay, no, I have an epi pen. I know how to use it. I used to teach first aid and CPR. So I know how to do this. I got this like no dairy. What's you know how hard to find?

Scott Benner 11:35
Yeah, by the way, I would have never had another baby If I was you. Like that would have been it. Um, but

Caitlin 11:40
actually, that did come into the conversation. Yeah, when we found another one. But the other one happens so fast.

Scott Benner 11:47
So you know what I'm really, you'll never know for sure. But I think after you left for the hospital, your husband immediately called his mother and said, Mom, I don't know what to do. I think Caitlin's crazy. She took the baby to the hospital because she gives the baby cereal. The Baby got a little red. And now she's gone. And yeah, he'll never admit that to you. If he ever had that thought in between the time you left for the hospital and when he found out what happened. But but that's well listen. Good for you. I mean, a lot of this podcast is talking about trusting your instincts. Right? So Exactly. You really did save her life. Do you hold that overhead? Now she's she's getting older.

Caitlin 12:27
Oh, I have a lot more to hold over her head. So that that's like the minor thing though.

Scott Benner 12:31
Okay, so seriously, so then you go home, you just avoid dairy. Does that go well? Or did you? I mean, did you run into more problems?

Caitlin 12:37
I mean, it's so hard at first because you don't realize like everything that has dairy in it. And it's not just like everyone's like, Oh, you know, you can't eat lactose? No, but it's the protein and dairy. And it's an everything like all those whey protein powder shakes, that's dairy powder, that's dairy protein. They put whey powder in hotdogs to increase the protein content. They put it as a preservative in some meats, like it's everywhere. So it was kind of like, wow, I have to go back to relearning how to read labels and calling companies and figuring out what's in their food. And did it come in contact with something because like it, it was so nerve racking. It's to begin with, and I had to find the what we'd like to call the hippie store that has all the green organic everything. Yeah, because the cereal that the baby cereal that I used for her could only be bought at those stores. No regular grocery store had it.

Unknown Speaker 13:34
Oh my god. And so our learning curve, how old you are at that moment.

Caitlin 13:39
I was I guess 23

Scott Benner 13:42
Oh, holy. I didn't expect to curse. But that's crazy. 23

Caitlin 13:49
Yeah. Yeah. I said why wait? Yeah, but you have a little background. My husband's 13 years older than me. So there was a son of like,

Scott Benner 14:01
a second. Caitlin. How do you work this out? What's going on? How long did you date? Alright, hold on a second. Everybody.

Unknown Speaker 14:06
Going back.

Unknown Speaker 14:09
We get to come up.

Unknown Speaker 14:10
I knew it would come up. You

Scott Benner 14:11
brought it up. Caitlin. By the way, Caitlin said in one of her emails to me, I'm craving adult interaction. I thought oh, she's gonna be great on the podcast. So you're good spill. How did this happen?

Caitlin 14:22
And I'm craving adult interaction so much, so much more since COVID. Exactly. To specify. Well, I met I met him at a friend's birthday party. And, you know, at that time, I was like, 21 and he was 34. So I

Scott Benner 14:41
just thought it'd be fun.

Caitlin 14:44
As matures women, I don't know if you've noticed that. Oh, we kind of hit it off.

Scott Benner 14:48
You let me take another sideline with you for a second standing in my yard. The other day, I see my neighbor who's like 63 and we're talking and out of I don't know where the conversation went. But I said it was like, you know, I really think I'm turning into a person. He goes, what I said, long, I just turned 49. I said, I feel like I'm, I'm starting to mature, like I really do. I think in the last five years, I'm really pulling it together. And I wasn't kidding. I really meant that, like, I think I'm finally forming into a human being. So I take your point, so you had to reach up into the 30s to find somebody who could talk to you like they were 21.

Caitlin 15:23
Yeah, pretty much. But also, I mean, I had a lot of life experience at that point, probably more than most.

Unknown Speaker 15:29
So what does that mean?

Caitlin 15:32
I was in the system for a bit before I turned 18. And then, you know, I'd gone to foster homes and such, and I'd had jobs and I got into a car accident that kind of made me realize that I had to do something important with my life and kind of grow up. And I'd actually met him like four months after my car accident. It wasn't a huge car accident. But still, it made me think

Scott Benner 15:57
this episode is gonna be two hours long. So my car basically, in the system, you met the foster system?

Unknown Speaker 16:04
Yeah. Did you? Well,

Unknown Speaker 16:06
I mentioned your parents,

Caitlin 16:07
Dad near the end of it, but was followed by a social worker for like three years.

Scott Benner 16:13
Because something someone did to you or because something you did to something else. Do you end up with

Caitlin 16:20
a hard time describing it really, I don't know. I just, I didn't get along with my mother who I lived with. And so we had some issues with running away because she just didn't get me. And then I ended up like, my dad wasn't sure he could take me. So I ended up in a group home, doing a little bit of time in juvie, but mostly because they just didn't know what to do with me. Yeah. And every time they put me somewhere, I would do something bad and get kicked out. So they're like, well, you're going in there because they can keep you locked up in there.

Scott Benner 16:51
Well, part of the country.

Caitlin 16:53
I'm in Canada.

Scott Benner 16:55
Oh, my goodness, this is so wrong. Canadians are supposed to be nice. Let me write that. Well, wait, I'm just saying that those people were nice. But you're apparently you and your mom didn't get along? Well, I thought if there was a fight in Canada, that it just devolved into. Eating maple syrup with a spoon and everybody laughing. That's not what happens.

Caitlin 17:14
No. And I didn't take out my dueling glove either.

Scott Benner 17:18
I've never seen a Mountie

Caitlin 17:20
our personality is kind of never dived. And I I don't know, I don't I don't really want to go to No, I'm not asked don't go

Scott Benner 17:28
any farther than you want to. But I hear you had problems with your mom, you ended up in that situation. You wrecked the car, I'm assuming under some sort of influence. Am I right? No, no

Caitlin 17:38
actually just drove it. I was just driving a little bit too fast on an exit ramp and my tire blew out. And I wrapped it around a pole at 70 kilometers an hour. And luckily, it was the passenger side that hit first because the passenger side was in my lap.

Unknown Speaker 17:54
Oh my god.

Caitlin 17:55
So if I'd hit the other way, it probably would have been a lot worse. I didn't break anything. But looking at it afterwards. And, you know, I was like, Okay, wait, like, I need to figure something out and find a plan for my life. Because just going to work and going home. And that's just not enough for me, I need to do something worthwhile.

Scott Benner 18:14
Wow. So that was your moment where you're just like, Alright, I'm going to, I'm going to be a productive part of this world. And for myself, maybe and if not for everybody else.

Caitlin 18:23
Yeah, and not reproductive. That wasn't the original plan. I gotta say, just because, you know, if you like you had a car accident, then you met a guy and you had a baby. It didn't quite go exactly like that. Well, let's

Scott Benner 18:34
get back to this party, Where, where, you know, the superstar hits you up, and you're getting along and everything and how you're married in a couple of years.

Caitlin 18:47
Yeah, it was actually really fast. I don't know, we just had a pretty good connection right away. We conversation was really easy. We both had different, like very different life experiences. But we were both kind of in the system for a bit and had trouble with our parents. And, you know, he was in the military before. So he had a lot of Army stories and stuff, which was cool. And we realized when we were chatting that, you know, we lived pretty close together. And we have similar goals in life. And we just didn't start off with the intention of dating. It was just chatting, and then we went to dating and then I don't know, it took like two months for me to move into his house. Because I mean, at the time, I was just living in my dad's basement. So I mean, I was happy to get out of there. And then then, a few months, I guess into it, he proposed maybe nine months after we started seeing each other.

Unknown Speaker 19:49
Wow, Caitlin,

Caitlin 19:50
and then, you know, a few months after he proposed I got pregnant. And then we're like, okay, so our plan to get married the year later just got pushed up a year, right. And then We planned we planned a wedding in like two months.

Scott Benner 20:02
Wow. And then some handful of months later, you really are a very mature person standing in a hospital with a baby who's unconscious?

Caitlin 20:13
Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 20:15
Probably maturity another 10 years. That moment. Hmm.

Caitlin 20:18
Wow. Yeah.

Scott Benner 20:19
Do you know what I mean by that? Like, I feel like that sometimes like there's sometimes things that happen, they just level you up, I guess for you know, I don't know how to say it otherwise, but you just go from one level of understanding maturity, whatever to another one in a split second. And I would think an unconscious baby would would do that for you. You probably went from 23 to 30. In that afternoon,

Caitlin 20:41
I feel like it like I'm 35 now but I feel much older.

Unknown Speaker 20:45
Yeah, yeah,

Caitlin 20:46
I have that feeling. You know, I've been through so much. No, one thing that though, like, especially big allergy like dairy. One thing it does is it teaches you that you have to start from scratch and I never really was a big person that cooked. I liked the pre prepared things that I could just toss in a pot and mix the sauce in with the pasta or ordering in we used to eat out or order in a lot. And all of a sudden all of that was gone. Yeah. So I had to learn to cook. I had to learn to bake because I was like, Well, my kids first birthday. They're going to need a cake. And I can't buy a cake from a bakery. I can't buy a cake from a grocery store because they're all made with like dairy. I need to find something. So I learned to bake. I couldn't use one of those boxes, the cake boxes. Okay. And yeah, so all of a sudden, it was just like, I had to grow up really fast. So

Scott Benner 21:37
you're pretty clean eating household then right? But you you you know everything that's in your food.

Caitlin 21:42
Yeah, knowing it and caring about it are two different things, though. I gotta say. How do you mean? Well, I know what's in the food. And just as a little background, it's not only dairy that she's allergic to, we found out through multiple other reactions. She has a few other allergies. And we found them out usually all in the same way. involving you know, epi pens and emergency room visits and stuff. But we like she has a lot of food allergies.

Scott Benner 22:11
What other things is she allergic to? Or would it be easier to list the things she's not allergic to?

Caitlin 22:16
Well, they're just, they're just major things. I mean, she's allergic to eggs.

Unknown Speaker 22:19
Okay.

Caitlin 22:20
Also, she's allergic to Sesame. She's allergic to peanuts. And she's allergic to beef blood,

Scott Benner 22:30
if that makes sense. Beef blood so she can eat well cooked beef.

Caitlin 22:34
Yes. But sometimes it gives her stomach issues. But nonetheless, she can eat beef in theory like a spaghetti sauce. It's fine. We're so good. Because I've learned to cook with horse meat. And I really didn't like horse meat.

Scott Benner 22:47
Hold on a second. Write that down. is me so? Beef blood, because there's a protein that gets cooked out.

Caitlin 22:55
Exactly. Okay. It gets transformed when it heats to a certain temperature.

Scott Benner 23:00
What What about eggs? Do you know what her interaction her bad interaction is with all these things? Like you said protein for there's a protein in the dairy one and the beef is there. Like what about eggs, sesame and peanuts?

Caitlin 23:12
Well, it's the the sesame oil yet again, it's all a protein. So there's a protein in the sesame oil that she's allergic to. For the eggs. She's allergic to it. The the yolk the white end when it's cooked, because some people can tolerate cooked egg but we tried that and it didn't work. Okay. We tried it at the hospital. Just clarification the allergist did a test about it and she failed the test.

Scott Benner 23:35
Well, this is my this. You knew what I was gonna ask you because I'm like, how do you test and you test every food? Like is is like the first five years of our life just like okay, touch this. Get in the car. Oh, wait, you're okay. Get back out of the car. Like how do you test the food like that?

Caitlin 23:54
Well, it was a nerve racking for the first I mean, the dairy was one thing. And then at nine months, she was nine months old when we introduced the egg. And she had the reaction to that. And after that I got like, almost like PTSD. And I don't like overusing the term but I woke up in night sweats, wondering if she was alive. So I'm gonna call it PTSD because it took me a few months to get over it. But I was always worried every time I introduced a new food that the reaction would wouldn't appear instantly because it can take like eight hours. And I was worried that she wouldn't be alive when I went and got her in the morning because she would have had a reaction overnight. And she's just a baby. She can't even get out of her crib.

Scott Benner 24:34
So every time you feed or something new that happens again and again and again over and over and over and it looks like five times. You came true. Did you end up in the hospital each of those five times eggs? sesame excetera

Unknown Speaker 24:50
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 24:51
Same experience was

Caitlin 24:52
she out? Um, it wasn't exactly the same. It strangely the the egg one was like Just projectile vomiting. I can't really say it any worse. And she was red and swollen everywhere, but she didn't like pass out or lose consciousness. But we had the epi pen at that point which made it better. Okay. And I mean, giving an epi pen to a baby isn't. It doesn't feel right. But it worked. And the first after the first time I did it, it was like, Okay, I can do this epi pen, Call an ambulance go to the hospital. Wow, I'm

Unknown Speaker 25:25
sorry.

Caitlin 25:26
That's so that was I mean, that was her childhood.

Unknown Speaker 25:30
Really? Kind of yours too.

Caitlin 25:35
I was I was I lost my childhood long before that, at that point. Well, then whatever sounds sad, but actually, I don't mind. I don't look back and say oh, what if? Because, you know, it is?

Scott Benner 25:45
It is what it is. So I don't want to dig too far into this. But do you enjoy being the kind of parent you wish you would have had?

Caitlin 25:54
Yes. Okay. I guess I do. And sometimes I feel like, I'm not doing the best job that I could or I'll notice myself saying things that I promised I would never say to my own kids when I before I had them. But I think we all do that. Like oh my gosh, I sound like my mother. Yeah, I think at some point, yeah, I've

Scott Benner 26:13
done a few things that I think my dad did. And but Kelly's good at calling me and being like, Yo, what are you doing? Man, you know, and stopping me pretty quickly, which is very helpful. Because in the moment, sometimes those things feel like they feel right, because they're kind of all you know. Okay, so Hold on. Let me clear my head for a second because my I just had three questions. They take us in three different directions. Um, does she have anything else besides food allergies?

Caitlin 26:45
Well, she has diabetes.

Scott Benner 26:46
Yeah. When did what came next? I guess after the food allergies should be the question.

Caitlin 26:51
What we figured out all the food allergies. And then in grade one, we figured out she had ADHD, like really badly, and I had my suspicions. How do

Unknown Speaker 27:01
you figure that out?

Caitlin 27:03
The teacher said she couldn't sit down for more than 30 seconds at a time. And she flew off the handle very quickly when anything was like went not to plan. She also had like tactile issues, like she doesn't tolerate certain fabrics of clothing. Or like seams in her socks. She doesn't like those things. Unfortunately, she also doesn't like the feeling of a medicalert bracelet or any of those medical IDs. And we've tried lots, but she won't wear them.

Scott Benner 27:38
Is ADHD considered autoimmune or is is our

Caitlin 27:42
separate. So that wasn't really autoimmune. It just kind of made everything a little trickier. Like for the food allergies, she had to know not to touch anyone else's food. Because she always had her own food. Yeah. But when you don't have like great self control, and you don't think through your actions.

Scott Benner 28:05
It's hard not to want to throw a medium rare steak at your siblings. I hear what you're saying. Yeah.

Caitlin 28:10
Well, I mean, we did have a case where she grabbed the milk cup from her sister when she was younger. And we she knew that she wasn't allowed to, but she just picked up the wrong one, even though it was a different color glass. And she drank out of it. And that was another ER visit.

Scott Benner 28:26
I tried to imagine the military like, scenario that happens, like she grabs the milk and everybody just gets up going to the hospital and then everybody just goes to their positions. And is it just like a very orderly situation? Get that you get the epi pen, I'll get the car running. I mean, you know, one of these got to clear the caribou out of the driveway so you can get moving and stuff like that. And so

Caitlin 28:52
all the 10 feet of snow out of the driveway.

Scott Benner 28:54
Yeah, I mean, gotta call a Mountie. There's a lot to do.

Caitlin 28:59
Yeah, and the Mountie has to saddle his horse.

Scott Benner 29:02
Listen, you're making my point for me. A lot of problems really, you got to wait till the third periods over. What if it goes into overtime?

Caitlin 29:11
We can stream on our cell phones up here. You know, we can't leave

Scott Benner 29:15
now. Pawel bored, he's got a hattrick Alright, so the ADHD can lead to issues like that. Is there something to do for the ADHD?

Caitlin 29:28
She has she's on medication for it, which helps her a lot during the day to concentrate there are side effects to it, which are not ideal, but we have to deal with them. Because the alternative is that she doesn't go to a regular school. It was at the point where the school was like she you have to get this under control or we were going to have to send her somewhere else because we cannot handle her.

Scott Benner 29:50
Okay. So the medications so that she can stay in school but you see side effects that you don't like what are those

Caitlin 29:58
mood changes as She's like her behavior is better, but she's not as happy. Okay, she's in, she's still very oppositional that doesn't really help with the opposition. And it cuts her appetite. Very like a lot during the day. You should

Scott Benner 30:16
put her in a car and drive it into a pole.

Caitlin 30:19
I don't think it works at that age, though.

Scott Benner 30:21
Okay. Well keep it in mind as a backup plan. Stranger as right. Alright, well

just keep in your head. You know, it's not it's not advice, but it's a it's an idea. Okay, so

that's unpleasant, and I'm sorry about that. What comes after the ADHD?

Caitlin 30:44
Then it would be the type one,

Unknown Speaker 30:46
then you get diabetes? Yep. How old when that happened?

Caitlin 30:50
Um, that was two years ago, actually. Almost exactly. So September 2018.

Scott Benner 30:57
When that happened? Did you just think yeah, of course she had IV. Or, or what? Were were you in the in the ability to accept things as they come?

Caitlin 31:09
I think actually, that's, that's funny, because that's what seemed to surprise the doctors so much. Like, because just the way we accepted it. I mean, not to say we were happy about it. And we weren't like, Oh, well, of course, something else is going to go wrong. We were We were upset. But at that point, we were like, okay, but this is our life, and we have to deal with it. Just like everything else that's changed in our life. It's just a little more. So you know, what's it? I mean, it is a big deal, but at the same time, like, I'm not gonna trade my kid in because they have medical issues, right? Which is the funniest thing like, Oh, well, how do you do it? I get that all the time. How do you manage? Well, what's the alternative? You know, it makes me feel like like, what's the alternative to managing my kid dies? Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:52
right. I'm not gonna do I can't not do it. But it makes me feel like, you know, those old war movies where the young guys are huddled in the, you know, huddled with their clutching their gun and crying. And there's some Western guy who's just wandering through while people are shooting and shelling, like, just like, whatever. This is how it goes. People shoot at us, and doesn't seem to flinch. It sounds like you're just you're hardened at this point. You just, you can deal.

Caitlin 32:19
Yeah, I think that's it. Like, really. I mean, we had our suspicions that were weird things that were going on. At first, I thought it was the ADHD medication she was on. Like, she had times where she was just like writhing on the floor and screaming that she wanted something, which was super out of character. I mean, even for an eight year old.

Unknown Speaker 32:43
When water,

Caitlin 32:45
like water or just that, like, I don't know what to do, I need to run but I don't want to run I need to run but I don't want to run. And just like I don't want to go outside. But I want to go outside and just this total, like need to move

Scott Benner 32:57
was the most was the that's interesting. Do you think it's possible that the effects of the high blood sugar was fighting with the ADHD?

Caitlin 33:07
I'm thinking so actually, like looking back on it, I thought it was just that she was going through a hard time with like adapting to a schedule change or whatever, right. But looking back, I'm thinking like at those times, her blood sugar was probably really high. And we just had no idea. So she felt terrible,

Scott Benner 33:23
couldn't move. But our brains telling her we can't sit still.

Caitlin 33:28
Yeah, because it needs to burn off energy. Because she had like the excess of sugar. Like I think that's what it was, but and it only happened occasionally for maybe like two weeks. And then we went on vacation. And we went camping. So for two weeks, she was running around all the time. And we were outside at the beach in the water and like snacking constantly, but at the same time like burning off stuff.

Scott Benner 33:54
But you're in Canada, how do you go to the beach? Is it just like icebergs and like some sand and with rocks?

Caitlin 33:59
You know, Nova Scotia is really close to Maine. Oh, I

Scott Benner 34:03
see. You're not Antarctica. I don't I gotta get a map, I think really take a hard look. I can actually

Caitlin 34:12
if the border were open, I'd be able to drive to the US in less than two hours.

Scott Benner 34:16
Oh, yeah, your kid could run there. 90 minutes. Just so you know,

Caitlin 34:20
is a lot faster than me. And I'm not proud of that.

Scott Benner 34:24
somebody tried to get my son to go to Maine to go to college. And he took a call with with a coach and he got off and he's like, the guy was trying to sell me on the idea of they go hunting. He's like, I don't want to shoot anything. I don't want to have to hunt just to play baseball. And I was like, I don't think you do and he goes to really good school. And I said yeah, I'm like, I think it's in Canada, though.

Caitlin 34:50
but not quite.

Scott Benner 34:52
Yeah. So he's like, I don't I I'm not it's too cold. I was like, No, I hear you. So anyway, I know where Maine is. I just didn't know that. I didn't know you live near there.

Caitlin 35:02
I'm sorry. I'm in Quebec. Not far from Montreal.

Scott Benner 35:05
Okay. All right. reference point. Yeah. Well, then you even laughed. I made a bird a reference. He was Vancouver. And you still know Canadians, you know everything about hockey. Seriously,

Caitlin 35:18
I was being polite.

Unknown Speaker 35:19
You don't, don't don't

Caitlin 35:20
really follow hockey. To me, like, the only hockey player I'd love to hear about is Max Domi. And that's because he's the guy. And he's, he's type one. And he plays for the Montreal Canadiens.

Scott Benner 35:34
So if I y'all skate the ice, you won't immediately I'll shoot the puck afterwards. Nothing like that. Okay.

Caitlin 35:40
No, I don't skate either.

Scott Benner 35:43
I don't either, like

Caitlin 35:44
winter, and I don't like maple syrup.

Scott Benner 35:45
You kind of get the hell out of Canada. I seriously, I'm looking I want to retire. Somewhere where it doesn't snow when it's not humid. Other than that, I don't care what the place is. Do you think that place exists?

Unknown Speaker 36:00
No,

Scott Benner 36:01
yeah, I don't either. But that's what I want.

Caitlin 36:04
Unless you want to go to like Saudi Arabia.

Scott Benner 36:09
Doesn't snow not humid. I also don't want to be in prison for no real reason. So I

Caitlin 36:16
thought the only country that came to mind really quickly, I'm not very good at geography. I have to

Scott Benner 36:20
admit, I don't know anything about the political setup of Saudi Arabia. But I have to imagine that I would do something to get myself thrown in prison pretty quickly. So I'm gonna have to take a hard pass on that. But I seriously I, I either that or I need like, 5 million more people to listen to the podcast every month so that I can own a house somewhere. I I'd like to have a summer house and a winter house maybe. But I don't think that's in the cards. Anyway, well, we'll work on it. That's my dream is summer house winter house, I really want to avoid humidity and snow. That's all I have. And you know what will happen? I'll finally get to that I'll send to this place where I can have a summer house and a winter house. And then I'll get old and I won't be able to travel. And then I'll just be pained by the fact that there's a house somewhere that's not humid in the summer, and I can't get away.

Caitlin 37:09
That's really depressing thought.

Scott Benner 37:11
Yeah, that's what's gonna happen. Anyway. Okay. So tell me about how you manage type one with the other stuff. Does the other stuff impact the type one management?

Caitlin 37:22
It definitely does? I mean, I'm sure everyone goes through it at the beginning. In our case, when we went to the ER, her blood sugar was and I didn't bring my calculator I promised I wait,

Scott Benner 37:36
wait, hold on a second. If you just go to computer Juicebox Podcast calm right at the top, click on a one cm blood glucose calculator, you will be taken to a handy dandy little device. So you tell me a number. I'll click on m m o l, you say a number and then I'll I'll translate it for you.

Caitlin 37:58
42.6 42.6

Scott Benner 38:02
was an A Oh my goodness. was a 767 blood sugar, which translates to a 28.4 a one say?

Caitlin 38:11
Yeah, that was her number when we went into the ER

Scott Benner 38:26
de veau hypo pan has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar and adults and kids with diabetes ages two and above. Not only is chivo hypo pen simple to administer, but it's simple to learn more about. All you have to do is go to G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. g Vogue shouldn't be used in patients with insulin, Noma or pheochromocytoma. Visit je Vogue glucagon.com slash risk. You know not all devices are created equal. For instance, there are a lot and I mean a lot of blood glucose meters available for you to purchase. But sometimes we don't think of it that way because the doctor just writes a prescription and they usually write the prescription for the blood glucose meter that I don't know they normally write prescriptions for doesn't make it the best one doesn't make it the most accurate doesn't make it right for you just makes it the one they are accustomed to talking about. Well, I'm here to talk about the Contour. Next One blood glucose meter. It's simple. This meter is incredibly accurate. It is small and easy to carry, but not so small that you'll drop it. There's a bright light for nighttime viewing. The screen is easy to read. And if you want to pair it with their Bluetooth app on your Android or iPhone, you can and if you don't want to, you don't have to. Can I tell you a secret? We don't use the app. I just love the meter and so does Arden. If it's in her purse, if it's in my pocket, the test strips are incredibly, incredibly accurate and allow for second chance testing meaning should you swoop in there hit a little bit of blood but not enough, you have time to go back and get more without impacting the accuracy of the test. We're wasting the strip. That's all you need to know in my opinion, Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. Go there check it out. There's actually a ton more on the site. But today, I'm just want to make sure you remember that meter rocks. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. Last thing, please consider visiting T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box and putting your information into the system. Okay, what am I saying? T one D exchange is gonna ask you to take a short survey. I believe it took me about seven minutes, you're going to need to be a US resident with type one or a US resident who is the caregiver of someone with type one, you answer super simple questions about diabetes. That will in no way make you feel uncomfortable. I was like these are easy. I can answer these. Now when you do this, it's completely anonymous. No one's gonna know it was you. And it is 100% HIPAA compliant. T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. Why do you want to do this? Well, in my opinion, it's because past participants like you have helped to bring increased coverage for test trips, Medicare coverage for CGM, and changes in the ADA guidelines for pediatric a one c goals. And I personally am excited to imagine what your participation and mine will eventually lead to, isn't that cool? You answer some questions, they dad it up, and then they go do good stuff in the world, you can be part of that without ever leaving your house, you can do it from your phone, your tablet, your laptop, you cannot do it by smokes. But maybe if you give them enough data, they'll figure out how to do that. I don't think that's going to be true. You know, I'm gonna take that last part back no matter how much type one data you put into the T one D exchange, we're not going to figure out how to connect smoke signals to computers. And just real quick data for those of you who prefer data over data back to the show.

Caitlin, you're a bit of a neophyte on this. What you should have said after that was What's the address of that? calculator? That's amazing. And I would have said it to Juicebox Podcast comm forward slash conversion. And then you would have told the story about the rest of it. Go ahead. got

Caitlin 42:34
very sorry. No, no, no,

Scott Benner 42:35
no, it's it's your Canadian. You have no way to know. Go ahead.

Caitlin 42:38
Well, I do listen to it. So I should have known.

Scott Benner 42:42
I didn't know I was gonna pimp in there for a second. You were like, oh, it will just keep telling the story. Trying to tell people about the calculator. Caitlin, come on. I was thrilled you're from Canada.

Caitlin 42:53
No, so that was what her blood sugar was. When we went to the hospital. She's and that was that was that wasn't right after a meal. That was like five hours fasting.

Scott Benner 43:05
Oh, my goodness. She's She's got diabetes. Yeah.

Caitlin 43:08
So it was bad. And they basically brought us into the back and checked and she wasn't MDK apparently we she was really close, but not quite. So they gave her an injection. And they watched us for a few hours. And they sent us home

Scott Benner 43:22
to have a private room at the ER. That one was Yes. No. I mean, like one with like your name on.

Caitlin 43:29
At that point. I know some by name.

Unknown Speaker 43:32
Yes. Hey, you want to get Kaitlyn Oh, whoa.

Caitlin 43:37
No, I try to avoid it at all costs, but that her file is definitely thick. Every time I go there.

Scott Benner 43:43
The computer slows down. You can hear the hard drive clicking. It's like trying to bring the information up. Or do you have computers in Canada? Right?

Unknown Speaker 43:54
Yes, yeah, I'm on one now. Oh, fancy. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:59
But honestly, there are 15 raccoons running on a wheel outside to make your own electricity, though, right.

Caitlin 44:06
Raccoons are a little above my budget. What are you using? mice?

Scott Benner 44:10
Oh, well, that's that. I mean, they're easier to feed. Exactly. Yeah, that's fine.

Caitlin 44:15
So you steal the neighbor's bird feed.

Scott Benner 44:18
Why isn't your neighbor like 10 miles away? Don't you have to get on an ATV to get your mail or something like that?

Caitlin 44:23
Well, mice run fast. Oh,

Scott Benner 44:25
well, you ride the mice. Now we're doing now we're getting somewhere.

Caitlin 44:30
I'm trying to play along here but it's not working.

Scott Benner 44:32
I have no idea why your mom didn't like you. I'm just kidding. Sorry. I wasn't even funny.

Unknown Speaker 44:37
And yet I'm laughing with the alcohol but Okay,

Unknown Speaker 44:40
we're gonna Oh, okay. I got you. I said, Well, yeah,

Caitlin 44:44
so the note so they gave her the injection of I guess fast acting and then they gave her a small snack. Which they actually had me go through their cupboard of food and I picked out a little baby food pouch of applesauce. Cheerios, because that was all that they had that she could eat. And she had that. And then they tested her blood sugar, like three hours later said, Okay, we're good. It went down enough. Now you're going to come back first thing in the morning, and you're going to go here, and you're going to talk to your doctor. And this was Labor Day weekend. So like we went in Friday night, she got back from school. And then we were there Saturday morning, first thing in the morning, and we met her endocrinologist. And we started the whole like, crazy. Everything.

Scott Benner 45:31
That's so yeah, that really sucks. Labor days. The only weekend I feel comfortable taking three days off in a row.

Caitlin 45:38
Yeah, it's this weekend, and I'm so happy. Yeah. Except it's kind of like a bittersweet thing, because it's now the diversity weekend. So

Scott Benner 45:45
yeah, no kidding. ruins picnicking and everything. Well, I have a question that's got little to do with what you just said, but it popped into my head. I think I'm gonna lose it if I don't. How much food do you travel with when you leave your house?

Caitlin 45:59
Well, a lot. Yeah, like we went camping. I took the kids camping this summer, my husband was still working because he couldn't get time off. It was a new job. So I took them camping out by Lake Huron. And we drove all the way. And my van was packed with food. Because I never know what I can get when I'm somewhere else. So like, she has like special chocolate. I have to buy specific brands of certain things. And I never know what's available. So I'm always packing everything.

Scott Benner 46:34
You're a hoarder, I would imagine. And

Unknown Speaker 46:36
I have to be Yeah, right. I

Scott Benner 46:38
on purpose. He did the other two kids have anything going on?

Caitlin 46:42
Um, luckily, no, my second one is allergic to peanuts. But at that point, they're like she's allergic to peanuts. I'm like, Oh, good. They're like, Oh, good. I'm like, like, I'm like only peanuts. I'm really not worried about that.

Scott Benner 46:54
Did you like smack her and say, Listen, you got to try harder.

Caitlin 46:59
I was super relieved. And then like my, my youngest, my son, he's not allergic to anything. So I was like, Okay, I guess Third time's a charm, they say and that worked that time. So

Scott Benner 47:09
what's the what's the age difference between the three kids?

Caitlin 47:14
Get again, you're gonna be like, what? 15 months between the first two? I understand. 18 months between the second two.

Unknown Speaker 47:20
You really don't like the cold?

Caitlin 47:21
No, my body doesn't like birth control. Oh, oh,

Scott Benner 47:26
you like your husband? I see what you're saying.

Caitlin 47:28
Yeah, it's, uh, let's just say it didn't work for me.

Scott Benner 47:31
You want to try putting him in a colder room? Because you might you might just avoid him.

Caitlin 47:35
I'm fixed. I can't have any more kids. I don't. That's why do you want it? You're so young. I'm like, I have three. I have nothing. I have nothing against adoption, if I want one later on. But I do not want to have more.

Scott Benner 47:47
He would he said Why do you want one? You should have touched milk on your oldest and been like, here, watch this.

Unknown Speaker 47:55
I don't want any more kids.

Caitlin 48:06
They don't like to do the surgery before you're like 30 or 35? Because they figure you might change your mind? And I'm like, No,

Scott Benner 48:12
yeah, I hear I said I see their side of it. But you can mean three kids is three kids. Yes, a lot of kids.

Caitlin 48:20
I do have six weeks a year where they follow an age. So my son is turning nine in October. And so for six weeks, I'll be able to say my kids are 1110 at nine years old. which always makes people kind of like jaw drop.

Scott Benner 48:38
Yeah. Or judge you quietly in their mind probably

Caitlin 48:40
always judge me. Or they get the impression that they're all from different parents, like all have different fathers.

Unknown Speaker 48:48
Oh, because they think at least one of you should have been saying

Caitlin 48:52
I'm young, you know? Yeah. I don't know. Like, no, it's I've been married. They're all the same father and I'm still married. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:59
no, I mean, you're one of those. It's interesting. It sounds like you're gonna be married forever. And listen, I I'll be honest, like I've said on here before, like, the way my wife and I got married. The fact that I told you earlier that we have been married for 24 years, I think is is fairly astonishing and uncommon, to be perfectly honest. And, you know, we were very Yeah, we were super young. And, and she said to me the other day, she's like, what were we doing? I was like, I was a huge mistake. We really, we're always telling our kids like 30s a good age to start thinking about getting married. You know, you have kids when you're 55 That's it. That's how you handle it. I don't know if the kids are offended when we tell them that.

Caitlin 49:44
Oh, my husband seems to be on the on that hole. Well, you can date when you're 30 thing.

Scott Benner 49:49
Well, he he thinks so. Cuz he's lucky. He reached back 10 years to get a girl. Exactly. Yeah, he's like, I think he can wait till you're 14. Grab

Caitlin 49:57
yourself a nice 29 year old Usually you marry up for money, but I made a mistake there. You just went for the bank the bank statements.

Scott Benner 50:05
You just went for a good conversation. Gotcha cheap. I'm just saying, Hi, I know you're gonna hold out. Well, we didn't get to one thing that I don't want to skip over it. But from your email, eczema, she has eczema as well. Yes, she does. Now that's autoimmune, right? Yes, it is interesting.

Caitlin 50:27
Which means like, at this point where I actually forgot, but yeah, when she was a baby, it was really bad. Funny, I guess a funny semi related story was that we had a dog when she was born. And the dog loved the baby, and was so protective of the baby. But her eczema was so bad. And it was like, we'd be like, it was read. And it was just like dripping.

Scott Benner 50:57
Yeah, like, fluid, right?

Caitlin 50:59
Yeah, baby scratch, and we couldn't keep her hands off of it. And so we thought she was allergic to the dog. And so we actually found a better another home for the dog, which broke my heart. But we didn't like just dropped them at the pound or anything. We rehome him through a rescue. And we kept them until he went to his new family. And his new family sent me pictures. And so I knew he was in a good place. So I felt better about it. And we found out after the fact, when she had a reaction to egg, that it was actually the dog food she was allergic to wait a minute, every time the dog would touch her. He had traces of the food on his mouth or on his nose, or on his fur. And it was actually that she was reacting to the egg and his food.

Scott Benner 51:46
Oh my god, your life is crazy. By the way, this story would have been better if you said wolf dog. But that's neither here nor there. So keep going.

Caitlin 51:56
So she was a really big dog. So she

Scott Benner 51:57
wasn't allergic to the dog as so much as alerted to what he was constantly touching and being and that was enough. Yeah, could you in hindsight, would there have been a dog food you could have gotten that would have stopped that?

Unknown Speaker 52:12
Yes. Oh,

Scott Benner 52:14
you're sad about that. Right?

Caitlin 52:16
Yeah, but I mean, at this point, my dog like the dog is definitely dead.

Unknown Speaker 52:21
The episode, the dog is definitely dead. I think it's the name of this episode, Kate.

Caitlin 52:28
I mean, he was in Newfoundland and newfoundlands live like maximum like nine to 12 years, but 12 years is the max

Scott Benner 52:35
just timewise he

Caitlin 52:36
my daughter's like 12 and are almost 12. Yeah. So he would have been like 1415 by now. Well, that said,

Scott Benner 52:43
I just realized, as you were telling the story, I'm like, Oh, I bet you there was food that would have allowed them to keep the dog.

Caitlin 52:50
But I mean, looking back, it probably wasn't the worst thing in the world anyways, because it gave me more time to spend with my kids. I was gonna say and not have to worry about the dog and the dog for because newfoundlands talking about like 160 pound dog with long fur that draws a lot. But like, the sweetest dogs, they're like, many dogs. Yeah, they love kids, and they're super tolerant. But it's a lot of work to take care of a dog that size too.

Scott Benner 53:14
I agree as a person who was outside five minutes before I recorded with you going oh my god, Basal just go to the bathroom and get in the house. I gotta go upstairs. In the same time, I'm like, Am I pressuring this dog to do his business? I wouldn't like if someone was outside of the bathroom door going like, come on, Scott. Hey, Scott. Come on. I was doing it to the dog. Like we gotta go, man.

Caitlin 53:38
As an aside, we live in an apartment. We only have one bathroom. So five people one bathroom. I know how that feels. Oh, my gosh.

Scott Benner 53:44
How did the caribou get out of the parking lot? They must get all stuck because of the cars. Have you ever seen a caribou? Just Yes or no? Caitlin? Oh, yes. Oh, do you call them reindeer? No, I would. For no real reason. I would just be like Santos nearby. Okay, so food allergies, eczema, ADHD, type one diabetes. I missed asthma, right?

Caitlin 54:17
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 54:18
Ah, how does that

Unknown Speaker 54:21
manifest like I

Caitlin 54:25
we just noticed one doctor's appointment that there was a little bit of like, her lungs didn't sound clear. And that she was coughing a little bit and they said, Well, she probably has asthma. Do you ever notice that she's short of breath? I'm like, Well, sometimes. And so they prescribed her inhalers. It's never been anything that's led us to go to the ER, or anything like that. It's really just when she's doing intense physical exercise, or when she has a cold.

Scott Benner 54:53
It's interesting that your Mendoza line for illnesses. It's never sent us to VR, so it's not really a problem. That's that that was it. Just make a statement.

Caitlin 55:01
It's a strange baseline, but it's what we know. Yeah.

Scott Benner 55:05
So how does all of this I mean, let's talk about her like a person now, instead of a case study, like, how does all of this impact her?

Caitlin 55:16
Well, I mean, personality wise, she has a, she's not the most outgoing kid. And she doesn't like being different, because she's always been different. I mean, in daycare, when she was doing daycare, she, she had a packed lunch from home and everyone else had the food that they were serving at the daycare. And at school and kindergarten, she had to sit apart from everyone else in the lunchroom to make sure that there was no chance that she comes into contact with anyone else's food and kids throw food. So she's always felt different. So she doesn't like talking about these things at all. Okay, she doesn't like, just come out and say, you know, I have diabetes. And this is what diabetes is. And sometimes I have snacks. And sometimes I have to give myself insulin. And it's just the way I am when she's not comfortable doing that. So she likes to keep it all inside, which is really hard for her. And I'm hoping at some point that she becomes more confident to just, like, tell people about it. But I can't push it. I tried to actually, I think her teacher the first year that she was diagnosed, because it was the first year, the first week of school, that it happened, we didn't have a plan beforehand. Like she had been in school three days. And that's when she was diagnosed. So we kind of went in, she didn't miss any school. After the long weekend, she was right back at school. And it was kind of like, Okay, this is what we're dealing with. And the teacher got a little bit too proactive and tried to explain to the class, what she has, like what diabetes is, and it embarrassed her so much, because she didn't even understand what was going on at that point. Like it was new to her and she didn't want to talk about it. And there was a teacher telling everyone about her medical condition. Yeah, I think that actually just made it that much worse for her.

Scott Benner 57:12
Jenny and I just did an episode about talking about diabetes to people outside of your, you know, circle who don't listen to that. Yeah. And you just made me think of when I think I think I said in the episode, like the difference between what people need and what you think they need is sometimes, you know, a pretty big difference. And you don't know what other people want. And sometimes you try to help and you make it worse. So,

Caitlin 57:37
yeah, I know the teacher meant well, yeah, of course. And I mean, I've explained to her it's it's probably easier for you to explain at the beginning of the year to your classmates. why sometimes in class, your phone is beeping or why you're taking out rockets and eating rockets are those are Skittles or Smarties. Sorry, those are Smarties. You guys rockets are Smarties.

Scott Benner 58:01
Why don't I change the name just because a different country

Caitlin 58:03
because Smarties are actually like m&ms here. Well, yeah, it's a different brand of m&ms. Smarties is m&ms rockets are smart chocolates. So

Scott Benner 58:15
all right. I mean, jeez, who came first?

Caitlin 58:18
I think the Smarties like the chocolate thing with the candy over it came before which is why when your Smarties came here, they called them rockets.

Scott Benner 58:25
So we ripped you off.

Caitlin 58:27
I have no idea sounds like that's what's going on. I could probably Google it. No, don't if this is gonna be like a who got it. First thing I don't I don't want to get that far.

Scott Benner 58:35
Because I could get I could get absolutely enraptured by it. And just you know, we can talk about

Caitlin 58:40
like, the history of candy. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:42
candy naming more specifically, not even the candy. I'll be like, Mars bar. Next, Caitlin. Where's that from? The podcast will be 19 hours long. And I'll be like, oh my god. Do you guys remember $100,000 bar? Why'd they change it to 100? grand? Which to you is probably m&ms but God Who knows? You don't I mean? Well, that's, I mean, that's really not great, obviously. And it's so she's trying to keep it private. Is that does that how does the ADHD conflict with the needs of diabetes? Or does it?

Caitlin 59:27
I don't know if it necessarily does, it's, it's harder to say because I can't expect my 11 year old to be on top of everything all the time. Sure, but she's very forgetful. So she'll forget her PDM and I have to just as opposed to nagging her. Okay, make sure you have all your stuff packed. I have to go and check it to make sure that she did because she's forgetful. The medication that cuts her appetite during the day is definitely a problem because that impacts her energy levels and also changes the way that we dose Insulin,

Scott Benner 1:00:00
because you can't get her to eat if you're in a panic situation.

Caitlin 1:00:04
Exactly. Like she's, I've had to threaten her with glucagon before. Like, I don't care if you're hungry, you're gonna eat it. Or like you've been dosed for it. You said you were gonna eat it, you cannot change your mind now. Okay, which actually, we don't Pre-Bolus anymore. I know. It's terrible, but we can't put that

Scott Benner 1:00:21
medication. It stops her from having any hunger at all.

Caitlin 1:00:26
Yeah, or it sometimes makes she says it makes her feel queasy to even think about eating. I'm sorry, which we're trying to figure it out with the doctor to see if maybe there's another one that won't impacted as much. But that's, there's a lot of different medications for ADHD. And they all work a little bit differently. So it's a trial and error, unfortunately, on that sense,

Scott Benner 1:00:46
yeah. Well, how does her? How does our agency usually run? And are you? Are you at least able to keep things kind of stable, or what happens?

Caitlin 1:00:58
Um, it's not as low as I'd like. But on the other hand, since starting her pump, we haven't had an official agency done. Because COVID

Unknown Speaker 1:01:07
yay. Okay.

Caitlin 1:01:08
So now all of her appointments that we do, they look at the, the numbers on the PDM that we upload, they look at the Dexcom. And they say, Okay, well, you know, do you notice this trend? And I'm like, Yeah, I've already fixed it. Do you notice that? Oh, yeah, no, we've adjusted the basil. So we're good. What doesn't really have anything to add? Really?

Scott Benner 1:01:27
Do you use clarity? Like, what's the estimated a one see through clarity?

Caitlin 1:01:31
It's never been right. Okay. I think I was always worried about that. I think the first time that we went in the a one c estimation that they had was like, 9.8. And it was actually 7.40. Wow. So I never really look at the number because I know that for us, it's really it's always been off. And I don't know why I know. A lot of people say it's right on for them. But maybe it's just because for, for my daughter, it just fluctuates so much. Yeah, I think her blood sugar sometimes goes up really fast, and then down really fast. And like, it's really hard to keep her on a steady line.

Scott Benner 1:02:13
You know, the next time I have somebody from Dexcom, on who understands that, I'm going to ask that question, because we have the similar, you know, I see things to people talking. And for us, it's always pretty close. You don't I mean, like within a not even just a percentage point. Like, you know, last point for something like that. That thing's usually pretty spot on for us. And yet I hear other people say the same thing like, oh, the estimation I get is is never what my one see is an off to find out why that is? That you know how that happens. That'd be interesting to know.

Caitlin 1:02:48
Yeah, I think our endocrinologist said, it. It seems to be about the amount of insulin on board that she might be quite high for me, like in 16, which I'm sure you can use your wonderful calculator. 11.7 a one c 288. blood sugar. Yeah, it can go up pretty high like that, but then it'll go down very soon afterwards. And that might just throw off the numbers in the a one C.

Scott Benner 1:03:15
Okay. So you can go from like 288 to, you can go kind of from like an 11 to a seven or even farther down.

Caitlin 1:03:23
even farther down. Okay. Really fast. Wow. Which makes the management a little bit tricky.

Scott Benner 1:03:29
Yeah, well, but you're not Pre-Bolus thing. So that's kind of to be expected. To be honest, you're shooting up because of the food and then crashing down because of the big Bolus afterwards, I imagine.

Caitlin 1:03:38
Yeah. And also activities a big thing too, because with a kid that's hyperactive, like if she's gonna eat breakfast, usually her breakfast is pretty, it's pretty much the same thing every day, so we can count on her eating it. She hasn't had her medication yet, so it hasn't cut her appetite. So we'll Pre-Bolus breakfast. But she could have that breakfast. And if she's gonna go down and play video games, because it's pouring rain outside, then she's gonna spike and she's gonna stay high. And if she's going outside to ride her bike with her friends, then she's gonna drop low on the exact same dose, the exact same carbs.

Scott Benner 1:04:17
Wow, that doesn't seem

Caitlin 1:04:19
like what works one day doesn't work the next day for her right. And so ratios are all over the place. Because of what she's doing. And we, I mean, we've tried adding extra snacks or, you know, doing temporary increase in the basil to compensate when she does video games and it works more or less. But there are those days where she's planning to do something and then hope she changes her mind and then goes through something else and it throws us off completely. Because her mind is like a ping pong ball.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:50
Yeah. Wow.

Caitlin 1:04:53
She's never doing the same thing two days in a row. So it's really hard to get that baseline to see what works for her. So we have to accept a little bit more. You know, I understand as much perfection, I'd love to see her in the sixes. We're in the sevens, but we're below eight. So I'm okay with that for now. Okay. And we're heading into puberty.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:12
Yeah, it's gonna get worse.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:14
Terrible. She, I

Scott Benner 1:05:15
need more. Did you think about using? Like Omnipod? Five when it comes out? Let's try and an algorithm doesn't

Caitlin 1:05:23
have the dash here yet. Oh, Canada cheese. I

Unknown Speaker 1:05:26
forgot. I don't

Caitlin 1:05:28
even have the dash here. Alright, so still on the old one.

Scott Benner 1:05:31
Are you interested in an algorithm when it's available to you?

Caitlin 1:05:34
I'm actually considering looping. So

Scott Benner 1:05:37
I'm just wondering if if something that would if I don't know like, I don't know if your scenario would be helped by that or not, but interested to find out.

Caitlin 1:05:47
I was I looked into looping. I haven't officially like gone through all the papers and stuff for it yet. But because it would help when she's out. Or when she's at school, at least it can make those little changes. So I don't have to constantly text message her saying you need to do this.

Scott Benner 1:06:03
Are you like limiting basil a lot and like doing Temp Basal.

Caitlin 1:06:08
I don't really usually do Temp Basal. I'll just be like, give yourself an extra point two, five.

Scott Benner 1:06:14
So you're kind of bumping at the at the number. Okay.

Caitlin 1:06:17
Yeah, exactly. So I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:06:19
trying to push down usually. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:23
Are you okay?

Scott Benner 1:06:25
I'm gonna I just want to know if you're okay.

Caitlin 1:06:27
I'm good.

Scott Benner 1:06:28
You are. You just you're like you're not like secretly, like a heroin addict. Or, like, in the middle of the night, you don't leave to do high risk cooking or something like that just to do to escape. There's nothing crazy happening to you like, how are you coping? I guess is my question.

Caitlin 1:06:46
Well, I mean, it. Diabetes in itself is very stressful. It's probably the most stressful of everything. Because for allergies, I control what comes into the house, I make the food. And in general, if something's going to go bad, it's going to go bad right away. And I'll see it right away. But diabetes, I know, there's such long term impacts of everything. So I sometimes I'll fall asleep, and then she'll go high, because she had more protein at dinner. And I won't wake up to adjust it because my alarm goes off, but I ignored it. And then in the morning, I'll feel terribly guilty. But yet again, I need to sleep sometimes. And it's, it's hard. There's always parent guilt that you have about everything. And every decision you make when you're a parent, even if your kid is like perfectly healthy without any problems. It just adds an extra layer to it. So I guess it's just extra guilt. Finding time for things that I used to do. Before all of this, it's harder. like finding a babysitter isn't as obvious anymore. There's like one parent, one person that I can leave my kids with. And that's Grandma, and right now is COVID. I can't leave them with grandma. Yeah, no, cuz they're going to school.

Scott Benner 1:08:09
Oh, yeah. Well, Canada. Yeah, they sent him right out there like you go get him. How is How is COVID? there? Are you guys? Everything's coming back to normal or not yet?

Caitlin 1:08:22
Well, it the numbers were really high for a bit. And then they dropped back down. And they're starting to increase again, I guess because people are getting tired of staying home. They did reopen businesses. And so people are more in contact with each other. So I mean, nothing compared to what you guys are going through at all. But in the province of Quebec, we're getting like 100 and something new cases a day. It's 100. At one point, it was over 1000. Yeah. So it's definitely better than it was. But it's still enough to make me wonder that, you know, maybe we shouldn't be leaving the kids who are in school with 400 other students with grandma who has COPD. I just

Scott Benner 1:09:02
put an episode up yesterday. That's with a teacher. It was recorded right now. And by the way, I guess for context, it's September 3, but Kayla and I are talking right now. And we were talking about, you know, going back and I said I don't see how this is going to go well at all, but I guess Okay, let's, let's see. But you know, Arden's not going back to school. She's doing it remotely. And my son, my son's doing college remotely. He's like, quite literally down the hall right now getting an econ degree in his bedroom. So

Caitlin 1:09:31
no, what if it was an option? And maybe if I didn't work full time,

Scott Benner 1:09:36
Yeah, I know. I understand that. I understand the you know, the limitations for most people. I mean, I I do this so I can do this here. And that kind of opens up our options for keeping the kids with us. Oh, my gosh, dude. Alright, but you you just you just I'd like how are you hating on you said I'm okay. I'm good. That's I either you're lying to me or you're good. I don't know which one it is. But either way, I'm I don't. I'm not judging you. I'm just like, it's it's a lot. You know, it's also interesting to hear you say that the diabetes is, though, is the worst part of all this?

Caitlin 1:10:15
Yeah, it's the hardest to manage. It's not that it's like worst was the bad words won't kill her instantly. And if she has peanut butter, it would kill her within like minutes. But it's easier to avoid peanuts than it is to avoid eating.

Scott Benner 1:10:32
Well, it's true.

Caitlin 1:10:34
And we had, like, I think around the time that I sent you the email being like, I wanted to chat about this, like we were having huge power struggles with food. Okay, that was one of the biggest things that we were having. And one of the times we decided that that's when we we couldn't Pre-Bolus anymore. Is that one of the only things like she, in her, I guess her personality, she likes to control anything that she can, because she has so little control in so many aspects of her life. And that started like with the food allergies, because she couldn't control what she ate. So she wanted to control when she ate and how she ate. Now with the diabetes, it adds it added the extra well. Now what you eat is important, but also when you eat and how you eat it. So everything about it is important. Yeah. So we have to have the control. And she resented that for the longest time. And so what would happen is we'd sit down and she'd be like, Oh, yeah, for sure. I love this. I'm going to eat it. And then we dose her for it. And then she'd say, No, I'm not hungry. Now I want toast. Because she loves bread. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:47
just to make the change, like

Caitlin 1:11:49
chicken and vegetables. That's what everyone's having for dinner, you're gonna have that. She's like, No, I'm not. You already gave me my insulin make me toast. And I was like, What?

Unknown Speaker 1:12:02
Caitlin? I'm gonna send you a link.

Caitlin 1:12:04
And so we got to this point where? Yeah, we got to this point where it was like, okay, the we have to come up with some way to work this because I can't sit there and threaten you with a glucagon injection. Or pour corn syrup down your throat, which we've done a few times. Because she just so demand she hated corn syrup. That was the only thing that we could get into her for carbs that were quick, when she was already been given the insulin and she was going down, but she suddenly refused to eat, because she wanted us to make something different. And I was like, No, okay, it's either this or I'm giving you a quarter cup of corn syrup.

Scott Benner 1:12:47
Oh, my God, that sounds terrible.

Caitlin 1:12:50
Okay, maybe not a quarter cup. That's a lot. Maybe like an eighth of a cup? Yes, it's a lot of sugar. And it's

Scott Benner 1:12:54
not your fault. Use a different system of measurement. So

Caitlin 1:12:57
I never understood ounces. Nope, totally strange. But so you're Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:13:03
mean, that's really stressful. What you just said like, I felt stressed when you were saying it. So I don't know about like doing it must be. And I think everyone listening knows that pressure, who's had at least a smaller child or somebody who just refused. Like you're standing there at someone's, you know, literally crashing down with all this insulin going and you're just you're just like, you have to eat you have to you have to you have to and it's just such a panicky feeling. You definitely are not at your best in those moments. And and I think I've been there for certain. And, and your thing is compound that like 15 times over. I was going to say, if I send you a link, and you please have her get on the schedule for six years from now to record the podcast, because when she's 18 I really want to talk to your daughter.

Caitlin 1:13:50
Much Did your mom actually miss you? Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:13:53
Hey, siddhis Kaitlyn lady, right?

Caitlin 1:13:57
This whole thing that she did, like, how did that work for you? Are you even still alive?

Scott Benner 1:14:01
No, I just want I mean, her perspective on all this stuff. One day is gonna be fast. I don't imagine she'd be somebody who'd want to come on the podcast, but this is really interesting. And her perspective would be would be incredible, actually, because you're just doing the best you can. And you have obviously a lot of roadblocks and listen, she's she's in school, like you kept her in school. That's amazing. Right? She's her a one sees lower. She's, you know, as healthy as you can as you can accomplish right now. That's amazing. There's a lot here. I mean, you guys are doing you're just doing more than than I think anybody could expect. So it's really great. I you should be congratulated. I'm sure nobody's I don't know if anybody's ever taken the time to say to you like well done, but this is, this is well done. You are, You are the ringmaster of quite a show and you're and I can I can

Caitlin 1:14:59
It's not a show is a circus.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:02
I was gonna say you get the whole thing, right. You're all three rings. circuses don't even exist anymore.

Caitlin 1:15:09
No, not really. I don't know. They have like this horse thing. It's not as though Cirque du Soleil is still around, though they went bankrupt. I don't know how that's gonna work after COVID

Unknown Speaker 1:15:20
Yeah, it's not.

Caitlin 1:15:23
Not at all. Yeah. So, no. And it's it's interesting, too, because I think we've started on this. And then I got sidetracked because I do that very easily. Do you have ADHD? After the you know, when they take you in and they start doing all those the lessons after diagnosis? Yeah. And they're teaching and they have all these handouts pre prepared, and the nurse sits down with you. And in our case that we weren't in the hospital, so they didn't do it in the hospital. We went in, like two days or two mornings every week for like, a month. And they did the trainings and little bits. And they're like, Okay, well, here's some great idea for carb free snacks. And here's some good things like protein things. And I was, I would look at these sheets. And I would say, okay, nope, nope, nope, nope. Okay, cucumbers are okay. Nope, nope. And we just went through the list. Like, I can't, like I had to reinvent the whole thing. Yeah. Because that they're like, Okay, well, you know that. Some when you're maintaining blood sugar after a low, and it's going to be more than an hour, you give like some crackers and peanut butter or cake? No, we can't do that. Yeah. You know, or we can try this. No, we can't give yogurt. And this yogurt that's made with soy. It spikes her too fast. And it doesn't maintain for quite as long. So it doesn't act in the same way. So there's not always like a direct replacement for all of these things. So we had to kind of reinvent the diabetes wheel.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:53
Because for her, yeah.

Caitlin 1:16:56
And like, I'm on a few forums, and I keep seeing these things pop up, like oh, what are suggestions for this? And I have so few it's like, okay, you can have pepperoni sticks, or jerky? other CARB free snacks, vegetables.

Scott Benner 1:17:13
Yeah. Like, by the way, a lot of vegetables have carbs in them. And we tend not to think of it. So yeah,

Caitlin 1:17:19
but negligible. Like they're not the carrots of the world, but more like the cucumbers. And that's all she eats. Yeah. She doesn't like carrots. She likes red peppers, but they're too curvy.

Scott Benner 1:17:30
Is there even a way to quantify her diet? Or there's not right, like you just it's a bastardized diet that just fits for her.

Caitlin 1:17:38
Exactly. Okay. I mean, sometimes, like when I'm looking up recipes, I'll go like vegan, I'll type in vegan because it doesn't have the dairy or the eggs, for sure. Right? A lot of them have nuts and peanuts, because they want the extra protein. Or they have those fancy flowers that we can't use because they most of them are contained or may contain sesame's and others like traces of that. So I kind of melt together different recipes and like, Okay, I'm going to try it without this, or I'm going to add this instead. And you learn to adapt regular recipes, to not have that, like most any baking recipe that has milk, you can put soy milk instead, or almondmilk. But it's like the eggs. Not always the same. There's not they have egg replacement powder, but it doesn't work the same way as eggs do. Gotcha. So you have to find out different ways to do things. And it's just being creative, I guess. And a lot of trial and error. I was

Scott Benner 1:18:37
gonna say, how many meals Have you made where you're just like, Oh, god, this is not edible. Don't touch this.

Caitlin 1:18:44
That's usually like the day before I do groceries. And I'm like, I don't have much in the fridge. I'm just gonna toss a lot of this into this into the pan and stir fry it and serve it with rice. How about that?

Scott Benner 1:18:54
Wow, do do you do two meals? Or does the family pretty much all eat the same?

Caitlin 1:19:02
It depends. I usually like to cook one meal, because it's easiest that way. Yeah. But because of her allergies. My other two kids don't have those allergies. Sometimes they want things that she can't eat. And I'm not going to say like I always said from the beginning. I'm not going to take her allergens out of the house, because then nobody could eat anything. So I have milk in the house. We have eggs, I have peanut butter. We have lunch that we don't really have anything with sesame because sesame seeds get everywhere. But pretty much everything else we have in the house. And so sometimes I'll put a lasagna in the oven, and I'll make her like a submarine sandwich for dinner. Because she loves submarine sandwiches. It has her favorite ingredient bread.

Scott Benner 1:19:50
I love bread every listen. It's hard not to love bread. I have to be honest.

Caitlin 1:19:54
Yeah, that's it. She doesn't like pasta. Okay, so anything that's pasta, if you have Do you want anything pasta? like then? You know she'll have to have something else but she's gotten used to it. You know, we occasionally order pizza. I'm so lucky we don't have to deal with the pizza problem that I keep hearing about. Because we never have to dose for for pizza.

Scott Benner 1:20:15
Well, wait out Why? Because kids can eat cheese. She can't eat cheese, so she just doesn't touch the pizza at all.

Caitlin 1:20:22
Yeah. Okay, so have something else. All right,

Scott Benner 1:20:24
you'll never have to be involved in in the pizza Bolus.

Caitlin 1:20:28
Exactly. We got this, uh, this other pizza that was made without dairy. It has like, actually the same cheese replacement that she uses that she likes for her sandwiches and everything. But she did not like the pizza. So that's better.

Scott Benner 1:20:45
Wow. So is there any? Does any of this? Obviously the doop doop, I guess I'm gonna ask a stupid question. Because I don't know the answer to people grow out of allergies. That doesn't happen, right?

Caitlin 1:21:00
It does.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:01
It does. Yeah, it

Caitlin 1:21:02
does happen. The dairy, especially the egg, it can happen. Peanut isn't so common. But she's been tested for it. They said at the levels that at the severity of her allergies, chances are that she would never outgrow them. And actually, we had an allergist appointment a few months ago when they test her for everything. And she's still allergic to everything. So it looks like it's there forever. She's not one of those lucky kids that's eventually going to be able to eat it. And she doesn't qualify for all of those, those therapies that desensitize you. Because of the severity of her allergies with

Scott Benner 1:21:42
treatment, it wouldn't make it go away. It would just maybe lessen it a little. And if you just stay away from it, it's not a problem.

Caitlin 1:21:48
Exactly. It's easier to stay away from it. Because, I mean, I've looked at the protocols for them and gone through it, but they treat with steroids and steroids are gonna make our blood sugar terrible. So we just said you know what it is? It's just gonna be there for a while. And if when she's an adult, she wants to do it. That's fine. But we don't have time right now. Well, I don't think it's worth the risk. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:22:10
I that sounds reasonable to me. How about the ADHD is the hope they're just a different medication that doesn't impact their mood, the same way.

Caitlin 1:22:19
Ah, I'm hoping that she learns to deal with it. I know that, that sounds really awful. But as much as medication helps, the ultimate goal is to be able to understand the way that your own brain works. And to learn to adapt the way you do things so that you can do things in a very similar way and be as effective as anyone else. tool to help that. But it's not like the crutch.

Scott Benner 1:22:49
So the hope here is the time and maturity and understanding kind of come together and, and help a little bit with that.

Caitlin 1:22:56
Yeah, and then maybe she won't need maybe as strong of a medication. Or maybe she'll go on to a different one. She's also tiny. I have to say you always said that art and like I listened to the podcast from the beginning. Thank you. I have to say I skipped a little bit in the middle. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa,

Scott Benner 1:23:10
whoa, slow down a second. First of all, for people listening, it's not okay to skip. You start at the beginning of every episode. That's the deal. Okay. I watched your season. I listened to I watched the entire season on Netflix. That was not good. And I and I did it. Anyway, there were five seasons of a show. When I got to season three. I was like, This is terrible. But I soldiered through and I expect the same from all of you. But okay.

Caitlin 1:23:35
I skipped a few in the middle. But I did read like the headlines and a lot of the ones I skipped were like the the update to dex columns and all of those. Oh, they were just older. That's fine.

Scott Benner 1:23:44
You know those things? I didn't mean to jump down your throat. I'm sorry. That's fine.

Caitlin 1:23:47
I just to put it into context. I didn't mean like they weren't interesting. Although they were terrific to be like, I just wanted to be more

Scott Benner 1:23:54
up to date. You just didn't need to hear the announcement about the g4. Yeah, gotcha. I had I've never used right and it's not available anymore. I don't think so. Alright, that is acceptable halen. Okay. So and I guess too, so maybe there's a little hope with an algorithm based pump. Pick there is there is incremental gains to be made for you in here. Some of its time some of its technology some of its hoping, I guess. maturity Yeah. Wow. Oh my God, if one more thing goes wrong, is that the end? Are you just gonna like put some stuff in a bag and be like, Okay, well, goodbye.

Caitlin 1:24:37
Oh, man. I mean, it's always on your mind, right? Because you always have this thing in the back of your mind like okay, my other two kids, they don't have anything else. What if you know my oldest got diabetes, but my son is in the same grade as my oldest was when she when she got diabetes? Is he gonna get it two. And a few weeks ago, he was like, I'm so thirsty and he was drinking a ton of water. And you're not I chased him around the house. For 20 minutes with the meter until I wrestled him to the ground, and I got a blood sugar test. Because I was just so paranoid that Oh my God, he's gonna get diabetes too.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:09
Yeah. Now you mentioned you was really

Unknown Speaker 1:25:12
thirsty. He was just thirsty.

Caitlin 1:25:15
Like, I guess he hadn't had any water all day. And then all of a sudden, he went to the bathroom, and he's like, six glasses of water just down to them. And I'm like, how can an eight year old drink that much water?

Scott Benner 1:25:24
Now I can understand you being concerned? How about the like you said the worry about Michigan when she was younger? Is that gone? For the most part, you don't wake up in a sweat anymore? Do you?

Caitlin 1:25:36
know not so much? I think sometimes. There is that some of those days where I wake up and the first thing is like, wow, I slept really well. And then the second thought that goes into my head is Oh, crap. I have to check the Dexcom Did I miss anything? Yeah, so it's like, it's always the next thing in my head. Like if I slept? Well, it means that maybe I missed an alarm.

Scott Benner 1:25:56
I hear it. I've had that thought. Yeah, I've listened before all the technology, you wake up and realize you slept soundly through the night? And I think I go God is Arden. Okay, that would be like the first thing I felt like that I sleep through something. Now it's to be perfectly honest, like she wakes up at the same blood sugar every morning. But quite honestly, I you know, but there's a lot of years of, of practice in. Yeah,

Caitlin 1:26:27
actually, her blood sugar's great overnight recently, but I'm not. I'm because everything in her life has been kind of like a little experiment. The doctor was always there. The endocrinologist was always saying, Wow, you're so you're so quick to learn this stuff. You're so good at making your own adjustments. I'm like, Well, that's because I've had to adjust everything else in our lives. Yeah, that's what you do going like, Okay, I'm not sure. Like, maybe I think I need to increase the basil between this time and this time, and I would just do it.

Scott Benner 1:26:56
Yeah, you have time for something. I'll

Caitlin 1:26:57
go back to it.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:59
Exactly.

Caitlin 1:27:01
Well, I if she goes low, the Dexcom is gonna beep and I'm gonna know and I'll treat it and then I'll know like, okay, that wasn't the right thing to do. It's one

Scott Benner 1:27:09
of the most amazing aspects of diabetes that I've, I've, I've never really understood, which was that idea of like, well, we'll just wait three months until someone tells us something else. And I get the fear. But I never I, you know what, I guess I kind of misspoke there. Like, I had it too when I was, you know, first add it. But since then, since I've kind of gotten away from it. It's the thing that never ceases to amaze me. Like, it's the one thing that I think, Wow, how do people get caught in that? How did I get caught? Not even. But it's because it seems so obvious. blood sugar's high, use more insulin, right? blood sugar's low, use less insulin, you know, like, like that. That's sort of an idea. And it's fascinating that it continues to happen over and over and over again, day after day after day, and nobody can change. I'm helping a person right now. And I've explained this thing to them three days in a row, and every day they understand it. And then the next day, they don't do it. It just keeps happening. It's fascinating, you know, and they'll get to it eventually. But it's just like, You understand, right? Like this happened because of this. So you still need to do this. Yes, Yes, I understand. Next day. Did you do that? No, I just didn't have the nerve over and over again. So good for you that you just were like, I don't have time to. I gotta just do this, you know?

Caitlin 1:28:36
Yeah. I mean, they say like, the, I think one thing that the hospital was really great at at the beginning, when we went through all the trainings was teaching us to adjust it on our own. It wasn't just like, this is how you're supposed to feed them. And this is how much insulin you have to give. But they said, okay, but if you notice what I have to call for one sec. I know you're gonna edit that out. So we're good.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:01
You have a lot of hope for me, God.

Caitlin 1:29:02
So I know that. Like when I see a trend for three days of her going higher or lower at a certain time that that means there's an adjustment that needs to be made. And they showed us how to do that. And they gave us suggestions on it. And when we did the class for the pump, they did the same thing. They said, Okay, this is what, like, this is how you change it. And this like if you see a high here, this is where you want to adjust it. Because remember, there's a four hour action. So if the kid is going low at 2pm every day, maybe you want to adjust the basil that's before it.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:35
That's encouraging,

Caitlin 1:29:36
you know, instead of the one that's like at two because that's too late, the insulin is just going in, then it's not the one that's changing it.

Scott Benner 1:29:42
Yeah, that's good to hear. It really.

Caitlin 1:29:44
They taught us like really well, I was really confident in that. But obviously there's I know that there's people that go through the same trainings as us that won't be as competent in it. And that's just a personality thing. I think I mean, my husband's military or former military, so He wants to like he's like, okay, let's just do it. They told us we can do it. Let's do it. Let's try it. Well, not everybody, and that'll be like, okay, you know, I think like, I think I want to try this. I, I don't know if it's gonna be good. We'll see. But you know, make sure you can hear the alarm tonight because if I'm sleeping too much, I want to make sure you like wake up.

Scott Benner 1:30:18
Yeah. Listen, not everyone has your life experiences either. Caitlin, those those you? We went through a training ground for this stuff. You're You're as ready to do these things as anybody you know.

Caitlin 1:30:27
Oh, yeah, I did the boot camp.

Scott Benner 1:30:29
You certainly did. Look

Unknown Speaker 1:30:30
at the boot camp. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:30:31
how old were you the first time you ran away?

Caitlin 1:30:35
I'm 14. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:30:37
that's ballsy. You know what I mean? Like, seriously, it really is like, Look, I better off somewhere other than here. I'm going. That's not that's not a not something a 14 year old I think. Does lightly

Caitlin 1:30:51
plan the runaway very well. I didn't really know where I was going. I just left.

Scott Benner 1:30:57
I'll just walk in this direction. Did you bring food?

Caitlin 1:31:00
Yeah, I brought some stuff with me. Nice change of clothes. New socks. You know

Scott Benner 1:31:04
why? Yeah. You don't want your feet to get

Caitlin 1:31:06
my bank card.

Scott Benner 1:31:07
They say your bank card or your 14? Yeah, you do

Caitlin 1:31:12
not like a credit card. Just like interact debit.

Scott Benner 1:31:15
Yeah, but you had some money in the bank?

Caitlin 1:31:17
Yeah. Get out of here. Oh, I had I had like a I walked. I used to walk a dog for an old blind guy. I walked a seeing eye dog cuz he was getting too old. And the dog was getting stopstopstop 20 bucks a week. I

Unknown Speaker 1:31:35
don't know why that struck me. You. It's a seeing eye dog. Its whole job is to walk. It needs to be watched for. Other than that to

Caitlin 1:31:43
while he was getting fat because the guy was like 90. Like he left the house like once a day to do groceries?

Unknown Speaker 1:31:50
Did you have to let the dog

Caitlin 1:31:53
and the The company said like weren't You're too old. We're not going to give you another scene I dog when this one goes. So he wanted someone to walk it to help keep the dog healthier for longer so that he'd have them?

Scott Benner 1:32:05
I say, did you have to let the dog lead you while you were walking so that it could kind of do what it was supposed to do?

Caitlin 1:32:11
No, as soon as they're like, as soon as the dog isn't on a harness. They're like a regular dog. Oh, when you put on the special harness, then they're working and they know they're working. But when I would walk them, I'd walk them on a regular leash. And he was like, just, I'd take them to the park and we play fetch. And

Unknown Speaker 1:32:25
that's fascinating.

Caitlin 1:32:27
Like, it's completely different. Like he's very well trained. And he would come when I call them and everything but he was like a regular dog when he wasn't when he wasn't on the hardest,

Scott Benner 1:32:35
like how to work in play mode.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:37
Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:32:37
that's that I find that I'm so glad we found. That's really great. I'm gonna end on that, because I don't think we're gonna learn anything more interesting than then service dogs have, like, different years. That's, that's really cool. Did we not go over anything that you want to talk about?

Caitlin 1:32:55
I don't know, oh, there was something I don't even know if it's like relevant or related or anything? Let's find out. But there's this like one thing when I'm on these groups, and I think it carries through to like all these type one groups. Okay, but I'm on and you have to understand them on groups for, you know, differently wired kids also, and I want groups for allergies. So I have all these different Facebook groups. And I don't read everything because there's so much stuff. But there's just one thing that just it blows my mind when I see it. And I understand. But people just generally get so up in arms about people making jokes about diabetes. Like this comedian is terrible person because they made a joke about diabetes. And we're going to boycott it, because it's horrible what he said. And like, you would never joke about someone else's disability or whatever it is. They all follow kind of the same line of thinking like, you wouldn't joke about that. Why is diabetes so funny, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:58
And this bothers you.

Caitlin 1:34:00
Yeah, it bothers me because, and I don't know if it bothers me, but I like to try to explain it and I gotten kind of tired of trying to explain it that you like we as people who live with people that have type one diabetes, or we're caregivers for people with type one. Or maybe we do have type one ourselves, we live that so when someone says something that's hurtful, or a joke, that's like a joke, this just out of off color for us. And it, it hits the wrong way or it rubs us the wrong way. We only noticed it because that's what we live. Right. But there's plenty of people in my other forums for allergies where this guy was joking about, you know, kid couldn't eat ice cream, because they had an allergy. And that's so stupid and it exists everywhere. If and these comedians are making fun of everybody. Yeah. But if you don't live it, you don't notice it.

Scott Benner 1:34:57
Right. That's a very rare sponsible way to think of it a very mature way to think here's what I think about humor, okay? It's very simple to me. Everything has to be able to be funny. Because of the exact point you said, like I noticed a comedian that I like, and for years, he would make fun of adopted people. And the first time I remember it hitting me right in the center of the chest. I was like, Oh, I'm adopted. That's not funny. And then I thought, Oh, no, wait a minute. If I wasn't adopted, what I've laughed at that. I would, so it is fine. And I just have a sensitivity to it. And so I just at that moment, said to myself, if you're going to appreciate humor, then funny is funny. The if it's funny, it's funny. And if it's not, it's not. But there's no in between. It's either funny, or it's not funny. And you can't pick and choose, you can't say, well, that's funny, right? But that's not it's not funny to be adopted. But it's super funny. To have a seeing eye dog need to take a walk, you know, like that, because that just doesn't work that way. And if you're trying to make it work that way, you maybe shouldn't avoid humor all together, because it's not. I mean, I get the like, my disease isn't your punch line kind of feeling. And the people who it's striking, are having such a hard time probably at that moment that it's hard to hear. But I have to say that if you put me in charge of the world, I think I would have agreed with what you said. I think you just have to let let comedians be comedians, and sometimes they're gonna say stuff that's offensive to you. And you know, what's the option? They don't ever say anything offensive to anyone. And then comedies gone just like that, you know,

Caitlin 1:36:43
you can turn it off, you can opt to not watch the show again, you can do whatever. But writing them letters about how you're a poor kid isn't the shouldn't be the butt of your joke. It's a little over the top. Because something needs

Scott Benner 1:36:59
to be the butt of the joke, or there won't be a joke.

Caitlin 1:37:01
Exactly. Like we're always laughing at something. Yeah, everything. Nothing's important. I've laughed at everything in my life. I've had to at some times, because it's a way to de stress. And you know what, sometimes I hear these jokes about diabetes. And I laugh at them. I mean, yeah, it hits me on a little more personal level, or the kid that has an allergy. And you know, well, maybe the kids shouldn't be alive or Darwinism or whatever. I laugh at it. Because, you know, I got to admit, in the back of my head, I'm a very like cynical and kind of dark person. I have a dark sense of humor. And it's funny. I mean, of course, it's my kid. It's different. But I can see how it's funny.

Scott Benner 1:37:41
Yeah. Well, it's the somebody's saying

Caitlin 1:37:44
you should go out and do that. He's a comedian. Yeah. It's a way of venting. It's a way of just expressing yourself. And you might not agree with it. And you might not just like anything, politics, you don't agree with it, or like, it's you. It doesn't mean the other person's wrong. Everybody has they don't agree with you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:38:02
well, people are multifaceted. They have different experiences, their context is different. And so they're going to find some stuff one way and some stuff another way. It just gets weird when you start telling people what they can say. Because it bothers you.

Caitlin 1:38:17
And it's a slippery, very slippery,

Scott Benner 1:38:19
I will admit, by the way, some comedians are just not as good as others. And so you can have someone tell a joke, and it comes off really poorly. And another person can craft a similar joke where it feels more well thought out and constructed and told, and they do hit differently. Like some of it's just, you know, and people were just being mean to be mean. That's probably hard to take. But there are some comedians who just go with mean, and there's, you know, some people like that, too. So just Yeah, like you said, like a avoided if you don't want to hear it, but also to hunt it down, just to be upset about it. As you know, if I didn't hear it, but you put it on Facebook, and I'm like, oh, man, I'm outraged. Like, you're outraged, like you didn't even know.

Caitlin 1:39:05
Yeah, we have or had a comedy festival in Montreal. That happens every year. That's a

Scott Benner 1:39:10
that's one of the best comedy festivals in the world.

Caitlin 1:39:13
Exactly. And there's a show called the nasty show. And the comedians go there. And from what I understand everything is very just very nasty. And it can be funny, but occasionally, we'll get like a news thing afterwards, like, Oh, this joke offended me because of this. And I'm like, it was the nasty show. You can't like pay for tickets to go to a show called the nasty show, and then complain that the joke was nasty

Scott Benner 1:39:37
come out of the me like this was very, very nasty.

Caitlin 1:39:40
Like, you have to expect it. We put it right in the title.

Scott Benner 1:39:45
Put it we put in the title. It's not a ticket. Well, I will say this about online discourse is that it's very cyclical. And if you're not around it for a long time, like I have been, you don't see it. It seems like there's this world war. Something's happening for the first time. But it's happening for the 9,000,000th time. And it's going to happen again, when you're gone. And someone new is going to come in and have this experience over again, there's only a certain amount of experiences to be had in the world. And you're watching people have them for the first time, over and over and over again, it happens in politics, every, every generation in politics. This happens, like you'll watch a TV show from the 80s to the 90s, that, you know, was a dramatization of politics. And you'll think, Oh, my God, that's amazing. The topics they're covering are the same exact topics that we're worried about today. And I'm like, yeah, cuz there's only so many topics. It's not being it's, it's not, you don't I mean, it's not magical, that they were talking about school integration in the 90s. And you're still worried about school integration. Now. Life is glacial, like, our, our existence is a blip. And, you know, the way you get to real change is over massive amounts of time, that far exceed a lifespan. And so, as every new generation comes in, they experience the same problems, they go about them slightly differently, because their context is different. And the older people look back and go, Ah, we were dealing with that in the 60s, like, yeah, and you still are, except you gave up on it now, because you have a vacation home. So this guy is going to talk about it. And it's just going to keep happening and happening and happening. And that slowly drags progress forward at a speed that none of us can actually say. And that's why people repeat themselves, in my opinion, although I'm a guy with a podcast, and I could be 100% wrong. So but that's what I say. So that's it. So I duly noted, Caitlyn would like all of you in the Facebook groups to calm down.

Caitlin 1:41:50
Keep calm and carry on.

Scott Benner 1:41:52
Here's the funny thing, Caitlin, those people who you see who are upset will one day mature into people who look back and go Hmm. I remember when I got upset about that. But turns out comedy is comedy. So everybody's just learning, you know?

Unknown Speaker 1:42:07
Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:42:08
This was good. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much.

Caitlin 1:42:12
Thanks for talking to me. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:42:14
mean, even though you were Canadian. I did it.

Caitlin 1:42:16
I mean, I've heard you talk to other Canadians too. And those caribou jokes that was kind of waiting for them. Well,

Scott Benner 1:42:21
it's the only Canadian reference. I have Mounties. caribou jokes and hockey. I don't know anything about Canada. I mean, what do you know about America?

Unknown Speaker 1:42:31
Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:42:32
nothing. See.

Caitlin 1:42:35
I was gonna go into it. But no. I mean, honestly, most of our news is American anyways, because we just kind of like, you know, this nice thing happened in this community. Look what's happening down there.

Scott Benner 1:42:48
Why are there so many knife attacks in Canada? kaylynn.

Caitlin 1:42:51
Because we don't have guns.

Scott Benner 1:42:52
That is that that's why people stab each other because they don't have guns. Right?

Caitlin 1:42:55
Well, no, we shoot each other too. But we're just not as angry people. You know, they probably started off being like, would you like a slice of cake? stab, stab, because they were. Yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 1:43:05
telling you that the it's that I brought this up before but there's this amazing Twitter feed. It's about this one section. I don't even know where it's at. But they they cover the crime in this one section of Canada and just people stab each other at an alarming rate. That's the only crime. It's always just like, you know, man's naked in the kitchen thinks he's a bird. And then it's you know, stabbing. And then if somebody gets down like that, it's fascinating. But anyway,

Caitlin 1:43:32
I'm not gonna very strange part of Canada. Man naked in kitchen thinks he's a bird. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:43:39
I saw that one time or I'm making it up. It's hard to know. But anyway, there are a lot of weird things. It's just very, I don't know. And then I have this feeling that that's what Canada is. Which of course it's not.

Caitlin 1:43:51
It's probably just the focus of our news. It works a little bit differently. You guys like the big sensational headlines?

Scott Benner 1:43:57
You guys want

Caitlin 1:43:59
a little bit of everything?

Scott Benner 1:44:00
Yeah. Kid found an old big wheel still works. wishes that was a Green Machine. Like that kind of thing. You're like, Oh my God, that's amazing. I remember Green Machine. But we call them rockets. Alright, kailyn get off of here. You must have something to do.

Caitlin 1:44:20
I'm supposed to be working. But it's okay. Well, thank

Scott Benner 1:44:23
you. I really do appreciate doing this. I sincerely

Caitlin 1:44:26
thanks for thanks for your time, of course.

Scott Benner 1:44:38
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. gvoke glucagon. Find out more about Gvoke Hypopen at Gvokeglucagon.com/juicebox. you spell that? Je VOKEGLUC AG o n.com. forward slash juicebox Don't forget you can find the T one D exchange at T one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box. And of course, that Contour Next One blood glucose meter is waiting for you right now at ContourNextone.com/juicebox. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back soon with more. Who is will w e apostrophe Ll it implies more than one person. I am the only person here I'll be back soon with more. I should have just said I will I will sound better like the show is an entity but it's not an entity. I'm literally the entirety of it. Where is it? If you collect me in the show together is that will. Again not will like will Robinson or I died and left well, but well, like will w e apostrophe. Oh.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:55
Let's try it again. Both

Scott Benner 1:45:55
ways the wood works better. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back soon with more Juicebox Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back soon with more episodes of the Juicebox Podcast doesn't matter. Is it just in my head? I don't think it matters.

#454 Touched By Type 1

With founder Elizabeth Forrest

Elizabeth Forrest has type 1 diabetes and is the founder of my favorite type 1 charitable organization, Touched By Type 1!

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Hello, and welcome to Episode 454 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today we're going to be speaking with Elizabeth, who has had Type One Diabetes since she was a child has just become a new mother herself, and is the founder of touched by type one. Today Elizabeth and I are gonna chat about how we met her Foundation, and living with Type One Diabetes. I think you're gonna like it. Please remember, as you're listening 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. were becoming bold with insulin. If at any point today, you become interested in learning more about touched by type one, you can go to touched by type one.org. They also have a Facebook page. They're on Instagram. And generally speaking, there wonderfulness is available everywhere that they are touched by type one.org that's touched by type the number one.org.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo Penn Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode is also sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You can learn more about the meter, and so much more at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox links to all the sponsors and today's guests are in the show notes of your podcast player and at Juicebox podcast.com.

Elizabeth Forrest 2:07
I am Elizabeth forest. I have Type One Diabetes was diagnosed in 1999. This is year 22. For me, I am a chief operating officer of a law firm in Central Florida and for fun have run a nonprofit for many years called touched by type one.

Scott Benner 2:26
Because that's what people do when they have the very low impact job like they look for. They look for other things to do in their spare time. How in the heck did we meet? Do you remember? I don't think I do.

Elizabeth Forrest 2:41
Yes, I do. So through the nonprofit through touched by type one, we had a committee meeting for the first ever conference we were going to put on. And one of our committee members who has also been on the podcast, Samantha Arsenault, who was incredible. She said, Oh, you've got to listen to this podcast. And so we're listening. And she said that we need Scott to speak at this first event. And so we reached out and you came to Florida and you spoke at the first event. And here we are,

Scott Benner 3:16
I will tell you that the Sam is somebody I still keep in touch with. And she was on the podcast so long ago that I think her episode only has like two numbers and it's in it she was in the 50s or something like that. And it's still it's still an episode that people use all the time it as a matter of fact, somebody referred me back to it the other day, like I was talking on the private Facebook group to somebody about an insurance problem. And someone jumped into it. Oh, yeah, you have to go to this episode with Samantha, because she has an uncanny grasp of how health insurance works for people. It's it's fascinating how she understands that it feels to me that she just sat down one day and taught it to herself.

Unknown Speaker 3:59
Yes, absolutely. That's what it seems like.

Scott Benner 4:01
Yeah, she's just like, I'm gonna understand this now. She really does. And I still to this day will, like privately, like tag her in something. And I feel bad every time I do it, but I'm just like, I bet you Sam could help.

Unknown Speaker 4:17
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 4:18
I do the same thing. I we send people to her.

Scott Benner 4:20
And then she just takes care of it. And then I hear back from somebody a month or so later is like, Oh, we got the insulin pump. It's all good. Now, Sam, she fixed it. Yeah. So I have to thank her. My recollection, I have like a couple of like spotty recollections. But one of them was that I chose to rent a car for the first time I was there, because you guys were like getting an Uber and I was like, I don't do that. So by the way, I still don't do that. I'm still the only pain in the ass who shows up at your event and is like, I will get in a cab and you will reimburse me but I am not like I'm not doing this. But I decided to rent a car and I think I put it on myself. I didn't and I took care of it. So because of that I made it like as cheap as possible, and I just remember regretting that the entire time.

Unknown Speaker 5:06
Yeah, absolutely. That would definitely happen.

Scott Benner 5:08
Yeah, the entire time, I thought I really should have just gotten it and

Unknown Speaker 5:13
make it so much easier. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:15
But your your event grew. And I have to thank you like, let me let me stop for a second and say thank you. And you know, by extension to Sam, I, you were the first people who were like, come to our thing and talk. Yeah. And so that's a risk on your part. And I remember having that conversation back then where I was like, Look, I can do a really good job of this. But here's the thing. I've never done it before. So

Elizabeth Forrest 5:40
Well, what's what's really neat about kind of anything, and everything we've always done is if we don't believe in what we're talking about, or we don't believe, and have tried and tested what we're bringing to the table, you know, what are we doing? And I remember having had type one diabetes, for as long as I had at that point, I can't remember how many years ago that was. But when I first listened to the podcast, and was kind of reading more on the blog, and really understanding what was your concept? I was like, This makes so much sense. Why has no one told me that as hell have I not figured this out yet. And then I told Samantha, we absolutely have to have him at our events, more people need to understand this. And it's, I mean, it's been a game changer. For me. I remember, I think I texted you after my next endocrinology appointment, after I had started kind of being bold with insulin, right. And it was a dramatic change. And, I mean, we'll talk about it, but it played a major part in having a very healthy, very successful pregnancy. And I my agency is still continues to go lower and lower every time and it's the lowest it's ever been in almost 22 years. That's really

Scott Benner 6:57
good. That's excellent. I love that. I remember, I can picture where I was standing in my kitchen. When I got a text from you which and to be fair to everybody unite, don't have some like super close personal relationship. Yeah, we know how to text each other. Because once a year, I come to Florida and I talk, which by the way, your thing has grown and grown the last time I did it in person. I mean, my goodness, it was in a giant place.

Elizabeth Forrest 7:24
It was a wonderful hotel, we had hundreds of people there the my opinion, the best speakers, we could we could have gathered in one setting. And it was such a fun but informative and impactful event. So I can't wait till we can do those again.

Scott Benner 7:39
Do you think I realize you're not you don't have a crystal ball? But do you think it's 2021 or 2022? Before stuff? Like that happens again?

Elizabeth Forrest 7:47
I think for I know for us for touched by type one. It'll be 2022 at the earliest?

Scott Benner 7:53
Yeah, yeah, I don't see trying to squeeze something in this year. Because even if suddenly like if magically, everything was just okay. Which obviously, that's not how things work. Even even if that happened, I don't know how you would put something like that together so quickly. Yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 8:06
you know, and we're all such in the high risk category. Our lives are impacted by so much already. There's no need to add stress and things we don't even know about. I mean, we're all everyone in this world is learning about COVID-19 more and more every day. So there's no In my opinion, there's no pressure to rush something when our lives are at stake.

Scott Benner 8:27
At this point, after putting this much effort into helping people with type one, you don't want to your your long lasting feeling to be that Elizabeth was the one that figured out if you bring 300 people to type one together, they all get COVID and dropped it right.

Unknown Speaker 8:39
I don't want to be that person.

Scott Benner 8:41
That's that won't look good on your tombstone at all. No, definitely not. So I appreciate being you know, being patient with it. I and I tell you 100% whenever you start it back up, I'd be thrilled to be there. Awesome. Yeah, absolutely. One of the not one of the it's the best event I've ever been to. So thank you. No, it's terrific. Anyway, so you are how old when you were diagnosed?

Elizabeth Forrest 9:05
I was 11 years old. Hmm,

Scott Benner 9:07
you're definitely not 11 anymore. You said 20 years. So you're 33

Elizabeth Forrest 9:12
I turned 33 this year later in November. Yep.

Scott Benner 9:15
Is anyone impressed that I was able to put the 22 above the 11. And in my head, add to it one and two and one that quick? I'm not

Elizabeth Forrest 9:21
a math person myself. So yes.

Scott Benner 9:23
Like I said, I'm always like joking. And then people are like, I am kind of impressed. It's just plus one do it again. But so 33 give it a long time. Tell people a little bit. I know you probably tell the story more than you. At this point. You can probably tell it your sleep. But how did you start helping people with type one like what was the first thing you did?

Elizabeth Forrest 9:43
The first thing I did, I was a very, very, very, very and can't emphasize how much shy child but through the diagnosis of type one and having to be more comfortable speaking around adults and talking about Type One Diabetes for mild Safety. I got comfortable talking more. And I was in a dance program at a local Magnet School in Sanford, Florida. And we had put on a dance production through that school already. And so when that happened through the class curriculum, I thought, why don't we do this again, and invite our friends and family to the school theater, charge a few dollars, and whatever we collect, we'll give it to a diabetes organization. And we have fun in the process. That was the first thing we did. And I know it was a rather large idea at the time, but I was very lucky to have people around me that bought into it. I thought, Yeah, that's a great idea. Let's do it. I mean, I was a kid when I came up with it. But that spun into a huge event, dancing for diabetes is the name. And this past year in 2020, we celebrated our 20th annual show. With COVID precautions in place, it was a virtual shows very different than we've ever done. But it started really tiny all those years ago and grew into this huge production and later, a much larger, more comprehensive nonprofit organization that reaches a lot of people. So the first thing was dancing for diabetes, you did

Scott Benner 11:22
something? That's I mean, literally, from a small child's idea, by the way, anything else you ever tell your parents, they should diversify their 401k? No, I think we need to protect ourselves a little more. I'd like to get you a will data separate one. It is a big I mean, it's a huge idea. Like it's easy to say stuff out loud, I guess is my point like, Yeah, but then to make it happen, is, is a different level of focus and drive.

Elizabeth Forrest 11:52
Absolutely. But again, I mean, I have to give credit to there's so many people involved, and, and the fact that my school principal said yes. I mean, if he could have said no, most people would say no. But he said yes. And here we are. So it's it was definitely a little luck as well.

Scott Benner 12:08
Yeah. And you have to run into the right people on the way. This has nothing to do with that. But when I was in high school, a friend of mine, who was maybe a year or two older than me, told his English teacher one day that he wanted to start a landscaping company. And then he needed 20 $500 to buy a truck and a mower and a trailer to get started. And the English teacher gave him the money. And a number of years later, he had to buy the English teacher out of the business for $25,000. And to this day, the man runs one of the largest landscaping companies in the northeast.

Elizabeth Forrest 12:44
Are you hearing these sounds? No. What's wrong? Okay. Okay, my computer just made a sound. I'm sorry. I wanted to make sure you weren't hearing it in the background. No,

Scott Benner 12:54
I'll bet you If I hear noise, don't worry. Okay. But I just think that I think about that, like, he didn't come like he just be. I mean, he was like an 11th grade, you know what I mean? And he found a partner and bought a truck and turned it into a massive Corporation.

Elizabeth Forrest 13:09
I think that's awesome. It's so impressive. And there's so many stories like that. And it's pretty inspiring to hear those sorts of things. Because then people get ideas if Oh, I can do that, too. And maybe, maybe it's different, because something completely different. But it gives people the idea of you know, what is what is what am I good at? What can I bring to the table? And what can I create for good.

Scott Benner 13:30
And it's so different than, like, now I hate to say nowadays that, that I gotta find a better word than that. But like, you see somebody like, I'm gonna do a thing, like, what are you doing? Like, I got an Instagram account, and I'm gonna change the world. I'm like, Huh, I don't think you're going to. But that's not how all that works. You have to, I wish people would never understand probably the level of detail that goes into to something like that. So tell me a little bit about like when you set up, you know, when you know, how soon before I show up in Florida? Do you guys start thinking about it? for that year? Oh,

Elizabeth Forrest 14:03
gosh. We started a year in advance on on our conference on the show. In and those are things well, the show we've done it 20 times so far. So it's something that's relatively turnkey for us other than COVID throwing a wrench in but even when we have done a good job of creating a pretty good template, we still start a year in advance of thinking and brainstorming and what more can we do? How can we make it better? How can we reach more people? So minimum a year in advance?

Scott Benner 14:35
You do constantly have that feeling? Like Like, the way I describe it for me personally is excuse me what once you once you see that you have a thing, whatever it is that idea or a thought or something you can hold in your hand that make someone's life better. The next thought is how do I reach more people? Yeah, right right away. it's it's a it's a it's a burning feeling inside isn't it?

Elizabeth Forrest 14:58
It is Yeah. Because I know that there's, there has been so much productive positivity through through what we do. And it's like, you know, there's so many people that don't have access to, to really great resources or information, let alone the programs that we can help them with or the people we can connect them to at the very least. So it's we're constantly thinking, how can we reach more people? And how do we do it?

Scott Benner 15:23
Yeah, it's, um, it's a driving force behind me. Like, I always just think as long as the feedback is coming back from the podcast, the way it is, it's it's incumbent upon me to find more people to at least give the opportunity to hear it like I don't exactly I'm not trying to force it on anybody. Right. But they should know, like, because you said something earlier, like, why would know, like, Why is no one ever told this to me? Which is, is is insane. Because, you know, a couple of years ago, I don't know how your health was prior to the podcast, but it sounds like it got a lot better.

Elizabeth Forrest 15:59
Yeah, I mean, it was I would say I was average, and for being in this world so long, it shouldn't be average. It should be better. You should learn more along the way, but it was there wasn't getting any new information or any new help. I was also looking for it and so that I think that kind of comes with diabetes burnout at some point, you know, you get kind of in a point of being settled and Okay, and I'm getting by, but I was approaching a point in my life where I was thinking, Okay, how, how do I get better? How do I make this better? I talked to people every day, all day about type one diabetes, I need to be on the top of my game. So it was timing for me.

Scott Benner 16:54
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If I gave you a simple choice between having an accurate blood glucose meter, and one that wasn't as accurate which one would you choose? Well, I think you're right I couldn't hear you. But I think you're saying Scott I would take the more accurate blood glucose meter this seems like an easy question. And it is also easy could be getting that Contour Next One blood glucose meter head to Contour Next One comm forward slash juice box when you get there, you're gonna see big words that say, What do your test strips really cost you? Maybe too much. Insurance may not be the best way to buy test strips. Find out if contour next test strips over the counter might be cheaper. Can you imagine cheaper? How much money can you save? Go find out at Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. While you're there, you can look into the possibility of getting a free Contour Next One meter by clicking on the meters and strips savings link where you will also find out about their test strip choice card. That's right, the contour choice card. There's a lot to find out here at this website. I would like it if you go take a look. When you go use my link in the show notes. Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox. This meter is going to be easy to carry. Easy to hold in your hand. It's going to have a bright light. When you're using it the dark. It's going to have an easy to read screen. There's an app that you can connect to your phone to use it to give it even more features or you don't need to use it with the app. That's your choice. It's the bomb diggity, the bestest meter that Arden has ever used. It's also the most accurate one that we've ever had. Contour Next One comm forward slash juicebox g Volk glucagon comm forward slash juice box and of course, even though we didn't talk about it right here, because we're talking about an all episode long, let me just throw in touched by type one.org go find out what Elizabeth built, but first, finish listening to how Elizabeth built it.

I feel like I should be telling you something here. top of my head. I like submarine movies. I don't know if you do or not but I really do. My favorite modern one is Crimson Tide. I think

is the idea of talking about management directly? I'm not saying that I've, I'm genuinely not trying to say like, I came up with something, but I'm, it's uncommon, like I've found it in the space to be uncommon. I think that i think that that's part of the reason why the podcast excelled, is because I felt like one of the places that people were lacking was they would always tell you like, Oh, yeah, I know, it's hard to have diabetes, or you know, I have burned out, you have burned out, like, it was always a lot of that, like, here's what's wrong. And let's all commiserate a little bit. So we feel like we're not alone, which I genuinely feel like is a is a massive value for people. But I always thought that the people who were doing well, like who really had it, like kind of dialed in. I never, I never saw people like that. But I couldn't imagine that they didn't exist. So how come they weren't out in this? If there's a space? Like, why not be in the middle of it and ring a bell and tell somebody? So I just don't know, that doesn't happen more?

Elizabeth Forrest 21:12
Yeah, I don't know, either. And, you know, one of the bigger things for me with being bold with insulin is, I think it really opened my eyes to the fact that I could be in charge of my type one diabetes, and I could think outside the box, and I could be ever evolving. And I shouldn't be settling for what I've was told 1015 years ago, and still trying those same things and seeing the same results. And I think it was kind of like an eye opener, a light bulb went off of Oh, I can do this differently. And up until that point, no one or nothing out there led me to think that i think that that's a huge part of everything you do is just opening your eyes that you can think outside the box.

Scott Benner 22:01
Yeah, I've just I don't know another way to say it. Like it wasn't on purpose. Meaning like, I, I always did look at the space and think, I don't know why more people aren't just saying what works like I was I started seeing and I'm like, I'm gonna say it. But I think it's more. It's something that I can for myself, trace back in my whole life. Like if you were to come up to me when I was eight years old, and say, you know, Scott, this is my friend, Jim. And my dad was introducing me to someone and then Jim ended up being an idiot, or an ass or something like that. I would not curtsy to Jim because he was older than me. And then my dad would pull me aside later and say something like, you know, you got to be respectful. He's older than you. And I always thought to myself, like, why does that matter? Right? Like, why? Why? Because he's older than me. Do we have to pretend he's not a dumb ass? Like, like, I don't I don't get that part of it. Right. And so I've just never really felt like, I don't think that I live in a space in my head where you telling me this is as good as it gets? And I just go okay. Yeah, you know, that's great. Yeah, I just feel like what's fight back against it and see how far we can beat this thing back. And around diabetes. You know, I really do kind of believe and I hope, I mean, I guess I should knock on some wood. I hope I never find out. But I don't know if I would have gotten type one. If I would have come to any of these ideas. Or if I would just be another person kind of lost in the sea of average I'm getting by this is okay. Hopefully, like that would have been good luck. You know, I think I think it was because it was for Arden. And I just was like I can't let her live like this, you know? Right.

Unknown Speaker 23:37
Right. Well,

Scott Benner 23:38
anyway, I appreciate you having me down there. That was a really big deal for me. Because, you know, someone said, Look, we have a thing and this guy saying something reasonable. And it was it wasn't easy, right? Like, let's be honest. Like I stand up in front of a group of people. And I say a lot of things to them that they've never heard before. Yeah. So you I can't imagine there wasn't a little bit of hand wringing on your side real like, somebody stand in the back of the room. Make sure he doesn't say something.

Elizabeth Forrest 24:06
Well, I definitely set upfront for your session, because like, I need to hear it. I need to know what's going on. And I loved every minute of it. Great. That first one? Yep.

Scott Benner 24:15
But honestly, had I gone wrong? Was there like a hook on a long pole that was gonna yank me off?

Elizabeth Forrest 24:20
No, I had a lot of faith in you. There was no backup plan.

Scott Benner 24:25
So I get a text one day from you. And it's, I think you're telling me that you're in the parking lot of your endocrinologist office, and you're telling me about your a one c? I'm never going to forget that. Because after we kind of went back and forth real quickly, I'm not good at those conversations. I don't think cuz I'm always like, like, there's a little voice inside of my head that goes Yeah, well, you've just probably Pre-Bolus to get your basil right. And it's not that big of a deal is a good job, you know? And so I feel like I'm bad at those conversations, but it made me smile. I thought it was really terrific. And then you know, When the text conversation feels like it's going to end, but you get one more, and I got this one that said something like, if you remember, you'll tell me, but it was sort of like, never tell my husband that I told you this before.

Elizabeth Forrest 25:11
Yeah, I think so. Because normally I'll leave and I'll tell him and yeah, I told you first, you're the first to hear it

Scott Benner 25:17
really stuck in my head. And first of all, it was it was, it was heartwarming, like, I was like, wow, like, I did, like, here's how it feels like, if you're going on, like I did said, or something, something that led to a person who I know, you know, professionally, to reach out to me personally and say, Hey, I just want to let you know how this is going.

Elizabeth Forrest 25:37
And well, I mean, you know, this is someone with type one, it's just, it's so impactful to have finally found something that makes sense, right. And it wasn't overly complicated and wasn't very involved. But it just it took some a new a new approach to thinking about it. And it made a huge difference in my health, which, obviously, our health affects so many things. But it was just like, I don't even know how to describe it. But the feeling of having had Type One Diabetes for so long at that point, and something new coming in and fixing it. There was just, it was great. And I just was so appreciative that the podcast is out there. The blog is out there. The information is out there. You're out there doing all this and trying to reach as many people because I'm healthier today because of it. I'm healthier today because of our Dan essentially. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:32
I I try to tell her sometimes, but she's still not old enough to. She's still 16. So she's like, Yeah, tell those people they're welcome. And oh my god. I like when people are like you should bring her to an event. I'm like, Yeah, I don't think so. Like, that's what you're looking for. But really try to imagine my sarcastic like wit inside of a 16 year old girl who's not alive. Yeah, who didn't raise a girl with Type One Diabetes, so she doesn't have any of those soft feelings that I have. So funny. It's um, I'm forever gonna wonder. And I'm going to try to help her as long as I can, obviously, but she grew up in a world where, like, she just doesn't have in her mind. She doesn't have any of the things holding her back that other people who grew up with like, I'm not kidding you. Yesterday Arden's I say the words Arden's period too much on this podcast. But artists definitely premenstrual right now. And she got on her online schooling, she comes downstairs, and she says, I'm not hungry. And I'm like, okay, but I'm very hungry. And I was like, okay, but nothing in the house seems right. And I was like, Oh, god, it's gonna be one of these, like, you know, and I was like, so we're going through everything. And she finally says, here's what I want to do. And I'm like, okay, she goes, I want grapes. a banana. And chicken is like, yeah, and she goes, Yeah, and I'm gonna have chips with it. And I was like, Okay, now, health issues aside, like with this food choices. I never thought, well, she can't eat that. And more importantly, to me, she never thought I can't eat. I can't do that. It never occurred to her. And I guarantee you, she's had diabetes since she was two. If she was 16, and we didn't figure out the things we figured out, she would have those thoughts, and then swallow them. Oh, absolutely. Like, absolutely, yeah, I'm gonna have a banana and grapes and chips and chicken. And then she thinks, no, I have diabetes, I can't do that. And I think that's where the, where some real problems come in, like, Oh, yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 28:42
I mean, I, I think that I understand it now. And I look at it differently. But for the majority of my life, food was medicine. It was a, it was a tool that I had to use at different times for different reasons. And that leads to a whole other set of issues and topics to or could, I should say, but But yeah, I mean, you know, it's, we talked about this amongst ourselves that touched by type one, that, you know, it's a blessing and a curse to be diagnosed so young, because, you know, with the, with the right family and the right resources and information, by the time you're more aware of what's going on around you, it's kind of second nature, but at the same time, you know, you don't want your kid you don't want yourself to have had Type One Diabetes for that long, or to have it period. So, you know, I can I can remember times without type one, but unfortunately, most of my life is, is with type one.

Scott Benner 29:41
Yeah, I the only time I can feel myself, I'm gonna use the word frustrated, but I don't mean it that way. When feeling frustrated with an interaction between Arden and diabetes and food, is when I see her go, Oh, nevermind. I can't have that right now. I feel like I let her down that she thinks that and we don't like it. We are very obviously not limiting with one sheets. Also, I think I should be clear Arden doesn't have potato chips and bananas and chicken. Like for lunch usually, but it just, you know when those those hormones hit people, and when I say people I think I mean women. It's fascinating. Like she's like, you know, it sounds good and like, that doesn't set okay. Yeah. But But if I see her say like, oh my blood sugar's you know 150 I can't have that. And then I'm like, are no, no, you can just here's what we have to do if she goes no, forget it. That makes me feel sad. And I think it comes out as frustration because I'll stop. And I'll say, look, we can do this. Like, I don't know, like, Alright, your blood sugar got to one. I know that sounds crazy to some people, but like are your blood sugar got the 140. And it's not where we want it to be. But we're gonna make a big Bolus right now, I'm going to crush that 140. And I'm going to use it as a Pre-Bolus. And we're going to go right into the food. And you can do this, like you can be eating this food in 10 minutes. And most of the time, she'll go for it, but it's when she says no, I don't want to wait. That I'll say, well, then don't wait. Let's just do it, then. Like I like I would rather her blood sugar be higher than for her to have that thought.

Elizabeth Forrest 31:10
Sure. Yeah. That's, that's the best way to approach it.

Scott Benner 31:14
It just makes sense to me. I can't believe that. I even have common sense. But around this I actually, actually. So what are you trying to do with touch by type one? Like, what's its goal? Because when I do like, Listen, I know it's no secret anybody's listening. You buy ads on the podcast, I think after I was down there, the first or second time, you reached out to me and said, I want to find out if I can get an ad on the podcast. And I was excited. I tell people all the time, I genuinely mean it. There are a number of advertisers on the podcast, I feel 1,000,000% comfortable standing behind every one of them, whether they're a device and what they do, or if they're, you know, a medication and how they work or an organization and what it does. But I have a hard time telling people what because I'm always just like, just go check it out, you'll see like, they're helping people find out. But what would you you know, what's the longer idea of what touched by type one is,

Elizabeth Forrest 32:12
so it really is connecting with people that need us. And that's what it comes down to at its core. We've all found through our different experiences, that different programs or services or resources weren't available at different times or for specific people. And so we just want to eliminate all that all that and, and get the information out to those that need it or that wanted, I should say. And if if we can connect with one more child or one more adult that was just diagnosed with diabetes, and give them the tools and resources so they can independently thrive with diabetes we did. We did everything we could have ever imagined. And so it's really just connecting with people so they can have a good experience. So they don't have to think their Type One Diabetes diagnosis is going to limit them from anything. And I it's how I've lived my life is I don't let Type One Diabetes get in the way. It's it's a huge part of who I am. And it's led me to a lot of interesting experiences and people, but it does not stop me from anything. And I want that for everyone. I want everyone to go after whatever it is they want. I like

Scott Benner 33:22
it. It's not when you talk about it, it doesn't feel like a corporate pamphlet. I don't know, I don't know. Just like we're gonna do good things for people who have type one diabetes.

Elizabeth Forrest 33:33
Yeah. And we're we're, we evolve every day. I mean, it's, we have such a great group of people that are connected and, and part of different committees and on our board. And we always talk about Okay, what more can we do? Like I said before, but what's what's not happening in our community? Or who are we not connecting with? And how do we do that? And what information is missing? And we're constantly listening to people in our communities to find those answers out. And all of our programs are because of that, because we were listening to what other people needed, right? Because we all have our own experiences and have different needs. But that doesn't mean those are the same for everyone else, either. So we are constantly evolving and changing to make sure that we're providing what people want. Because if they don't need what we're offering, or what are we doing?

Scott Benner 34:26
Yeah. And if and if I don't offer the thing that they want, I hope they can find it somewhere else. I have to say I've, I've taken that. So I started a Facebook page at the behest of people listening. So I always had like a public page where I'd just be like, there's an episode out or you know, that kind of stuff. But I'm not very social media focused. To me, the podcast is is the thing. And so enough people asked for a private group so that they could find other listeners to talk to and I just thought like, okay, like, What do I care, you know, like I was like I'm making for you. So I built this private group and You know, a builder takes 20 minutes, and you put it together. And I think it's been up, and not for a year even. And there's like, almost 10,000 people in it. And they're just all helping each other. And at first, it made me uncomfortable at first I was like, Oh, no, like, am I? Like, I'm not really sponsoring this. But like, what if somebody says something in here, I don't think is right. But so many people who listen to the show came into it, that it just, it's fascinating how quickly they come to a consensus together, they don't fight. It's it. And I never imagined how valuable it was going to be. And some days I watch it, do things that I know, I don't accomplish with the podcast. And that just made me feel like, wow, like, Look, the podcast made this thing, we've brought these people together, and these people are solving problems for each other. I could not I'm only one person, like I could never have done all this. It's very cool to watch it. Grow. I that's there's a better world,

Elizabeth Forrest 36:03
you you created a community. And and that's what people need. And that's what people want, when they want to kind of take charge and see a better outcome. And one of our board members is always talking about how you know if I could change my daughter's diagnosis to never happening? Sure, absolutely, I would. But look at this great community that we've been a part of, because because of it, it's kind of the silver lining. And so I see see that Facebook page as your silver lining as well. And one of many, but creating a community is so impactful on so many people one that they want. Yeah,

Scott Benner 36:41
yeah, it's so difficult when you're driving the bus to see everything that's going on in the bus like and saying, I can look over my shoulder sometimes and think like, that's really good. But I don't have enough time to, like really dissect it and look at it. I just think it's running well. And that's great. And let it go. I have to be honest, it's something about bringing enough like minded people together on a subject is why it runs smoothly. Because, you know, sometimes there's stuff that flares up in the world that's political or social or something. And you can see for a split second, these people don't have a lot else in common besides this diabetes thing. But look at how they get together on the diabetes thing. Very cool.

Unknown Speaker 37:27
Yeah. Yeah, it is.

Scott Benner 37:29
Yeah, I just I love it. And you're doing it in a it's funny that, you know, I used to think when I very first started, like doing an ad, I always thought like, well, I'm doing an ad for an organization. It's a local organization in Florida. And then the last time we were together, you told me like, I'm starting to, like you started to hear from people outside of your area. And

Elizabeth Forrest 37:52
oh, yeah, we have with with some of our programs, we reach people beyond Central Florida. And so we have people that are connected to us now and have been for a while all across the country. And we connect with people more so in the past year, mostly because of COVID. internationally. Now, I mean, I don't, I don't want to dive, unless there's time to dive too much into some of our programs. But the one I will say is our D box program is a free kit to those recently diagnosed, has a ton of information has material samples, products and programs that we believe in wholeheartedly, that are productive and living with Type One Diabetes, but we offer this program for free to anyone that wants one and and we've been able to reach so many people that way and get them this information that they might not have been able to get without this program. And last year 2020 we distributed about 2000 boxes across the country and had so many requests internationally. But you know, we're a we're a relatively small nonprofit organization and to provide something for free right now. We can't do it internationally as well. But we're we're working on something that we'll be able to reach across the globe Pretty soon, which is pretty exciting. So excellent.

Scott Benner 39:14
No, I it's just really, to me, it's it's a it's uplifting, and I will never forget the first time I was at your thing, and there were kids dancing in another room. I'm like I slipped in there for a second. So like I go in, and I realized that I have no connection to dance. I can't dance. First of all, I'm and my children don't dance. I've never been around it. And I walked in. It's a completely new experience for me. And these kids were just they were joyous. Like they had so much life in their face and they were having such a good time and the people who were directing them and helping them. Were having such a great time. And then I really looked at I was like, man, all these kids have diabetes. Like this is really cool. You know? It just really felt great. So I know there are tons of people who love dance. And so I'm like when they you guys have to see their program like I would imagine if you're a dance person, this is just the craziest thing that I started seeing video over the years. I was like, this thing's amazing, like, I

Unknown Speaker 40:15
think so.

Scott Benner 40:16
Like Elizabeth pull this all together from like her house when she was like nine or something like

Elizabeth Forrest 40:22
it has evolved that is for sure. It is not the first show. Our most recent show is far from the first show that was in my parents driveway.

Scott Benner 40:31
It's come a long way. You know, it's funny, as you told the story, I was like, she's not getting to the part where it happened in their driveway.

Elizabeth Forrest 40:38
I always forget to mention it. I don't know why. But I guess I imagine I relate the first show with being in the theater. And so even the first show that was in the theater is drastically different than what it is today. But But yeah, I mean, this show literally did start on my driveway, my my dance class came over to my house, we warmed up, surrounding my swimming pool in the backyard. And when all of the family and friends that were in the front yard lined along our very long driveway with like a grill going face painters, it was this very interesting little event we put together. But my I remember my dance class, warming up by the pool, and then walking from the backyard to the front. And we performed two or three dances on the driveway for everyone that was there is like entertainment. And and that is what led to the idea, along with having produced to show through the school of let's call it dancing for diabetes and put on a show. But yeah, it started on my driveway. It's so crazy to think back to that time.

Unknown Speaker 41:46
You remember how much money you raised that day?

Elizabeth Forrest 41:49
I think we raised like, maybe $1,000 maybe we had we had things like you had to guess how many jelly beans were in a jar. I mean, it was it was so different than everything we do now. But it's really cool that it started that way.

Scott Benner 42:04
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, like last time, we were all together. I thought like this is like this is like walking through Disney World. There were a lot of like, there's just a lot of people there. And there were people coming from distances. And yeah, I have to say like I do a fair amount of speaking things. And that's the thing that like always shocks me is that when somebody says they traveled a distance to get there, I just think wow, like that's how desirous they are of like camaraderie community help, whatever it is they're looking for. It's so valuable, and at the same time unavailable to them that they that they can make a day travel a distance, you know, spend the night in a hotel, sometimes I've seen people do

Elizabeth Forrest 42:45
yeah, I mean, not not 2020. But in 2019, we learned of a family that had traveled from Connecticut, to come to Florida, in Orlando, to to attend our show downtown Orlando in a theater. And I want to say they heard it on the podcast. And maybe I'm just connecting the Northeast with class, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure the connection was there. And that was that like blew my mind that they traveled that far. And then in 2020, when we basically when I made the decision to still ensure dancing for diabetes would continue but do it safely. Through a virtual show, we had people able to tune in again for free from anywhere in the world. And we had people viewing from 22 different countries and until we reached more people and watching our show production than we ever have. And that was really cool. And you know, it's another positive that came out of 2020. But it was incredible to me that so many people got to see the show, which is a baby of mine to an extent, and that we reach so many more people than we ever have. And that was just really cool.

Scott Benner 44:02
It's just the greatest thing. I did an online thing last year for like a small group is like 30 people. But they were all in Japan. And I was just like, I'm like, how is this happening? Like, I don't know that people would understand completely but I didn't start a podcast and go you know, what I'll do is I'll start a podcast about my ideas around type one diabetes, and soon it'll just be listened to all over the world. Like you don't think that's going to happen, you know, and I interviewed a woman recently he is living in Israel. Oh geez, I just didn't I just interviewed a woman from Iran recently. Australia, New Zealand like those like the obvious places like, I can't believe how big the podcast is in England, and stuff like that. And when that happens to me, like there's a moment where you're just like, Oh, it's working and that like the the business part of it feels good. But then you really stop and think that these people like who are living a life similar to yours. My daughter's there everywhere. And you know, you're still only reaching the ones that can be reached like there are plenty of places in the world that people have Type One Diabetes right now. And they don't have internet access, or they don't have a cell phone to listen to this with or the time or again, how would they even find out about, you know, about touched by type one? Or about a podcast or something like that, right? I just Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 45:22
no, I am,

Unknown Speaker 45:23
I

Elizabeth Forrest 45:24
can tell you with 100% certainty that when I was a middle school student, I never imagined having that show, whether it was on my driveway or the school, that it would ever evolve to anything near as close to what we have today. And I always tell people, if you have an idea, you know, as little as it might seem, because that seems really small to me at the time. Do it, try it? If it works, it works. If it doesn't, you tried, and you never know where it's gonna go. But yeah, I definitely understand your thought of never imagining how big it would grow. I can definitely relate.

Scott Benner 46:01
What is it like, personally for a second, like taking the organization out of it and everything? Does it feed you in a certain way?

Elizabeth Forrest 46:09
Oh, absolutely. It is. It's kind of, it's a hobby for me at this point. It's fun, it inspires me because I get to see whether it's daily or on a monthly basis how productive and impactful it is. And it just it really just brings me so much joy, to know that we're doing something so good, despite something so awful. So yeah, it touches me personally, all the time, when I take a step back and reflect on everything.

Scott Benner 46:39
Yeah, I can't imagine it wouldn't. I mean, I can tell you that at the beginning of the episode, where you said that you felt like what you learned on the podcast, like led to a healthy pregnancy? I don't that that makes me feel like I always like it makes me uncomfortable. And then so I joke about it. And I'll be like, you should have named your baby after me. But that's really just to deflect from the fact that I have a lot of emotions around it. And I I don't even know how to respond to something like that. You know, but what what do you end up having a little boy, right?

Elizabeth Forrest 47:09
Yes, we have a little boy, he is just about five months old now. So it's been quite an experience and journey so far, a wonderful one. But when I could have never really fully prepared for

Scott Benner 47:22
what would my name have had to have been for me to get a baby named after me? Because my name is things. That's the problem, right? Like, no, it's

Elizabeth Forrest 47:31
not a bad name at all. And I mean, this is going to sound like an excuse. But we did name our son after my husband, his father, who's also named after his father. So he's a third. So we were kind of keeping it in the family that makes you feel bad. I

Unknown Speaker 47:47
mean,

Scott Benner 47:48
you know, maybe I got a note from somebody recently that said, we're not going to name our baby after you. But I think they're going to name their pet after like, my last name, but I was like, I'm totally taking that.

Elizabeth Forrest 48:01
That's nice. I mean, pets are part of the family. So that's a big deal, at least to me,

Scott Benner 48:05
I honestly was thrilled. I was like, this is a major accomplishment for me. Someone's dog is named with my last name. I was like, I've winning, dammit. But now it's just so it described to people a little bit like you've had diabetes for a good long time you had it? Where are you? Like you said, you were doing just Okay, you've had it where you were doing better? And you've had it where you're doing better, and you're pregnant? What's it like to go from? Like those? those segments? I guess? Like, what's it like living at? Okay, first of all, what's the downside?

Elizabeth Forrest 48:38
You know, it's, it's kind of, for me, it was I felt like I was in a rut. And I felt like, I couldn't see the light to get out of just being okay. And in every other aspect of my life, I'm not someone that just settles for. Okay, so that was really frustrating for me. But I will say that, getting out of it and finding resources and a way to make myself better. I feel like that was almost like a reset button, and kind of a new chapter in my diabetes life. And one, there was a point years ago, someone asked me the question, does diabetes get easier with time? And I said, No. And I said that, throughout my life, like everyone's life, we were constantly evolving and changing and growing. But there are things that happen in our lives that force us to change and to grow for, for better or for worse. And, you know, when you're a teenager, and you have to learn how to drive a car, and then you go off to college, you're dating, you're interviewing for jobs, I mean, diabetes has a play and all that. And so learning those things are new and challenging, but then throw diabetes into it. And that's a whole other layer of a new challenge. And so diabetes Constantly part of the mix. And so that's why I say no, it doesn't get easier. You might learn some things along the way. But then there's more to learn in life itself.

Scott Benner 50:10
I found for me that it didn't, it doesn't get easier, but I got so much better at it, that there are times when it can feel easy. And I'll take Yeah, you know,

Elizabeth Forrest 50:20
definitely I agree with that,

Scott Benner 50:21
I'll take that as a win. Like, I it's always gonna be a grind, right? Like, it's always gonna be the same stuff over and over again. And there are definitely days where you're just like, oh my god, like, How could my infusion set have gone bad? Like right here? Like, like, right, you know, like, I'm looking at art. And I'm like, now like, not now like, Oh, my God, all right, like, but you don't say those things out loud anymore. And eventually you don't feel them. You just see the you know, oh, the pods out of insulin, let's change it. And you do it. And you're right back to it again, and you just go back to life. It doesn't, it doesn't take a big chunk out. But I'll tell you, the IRS prior like a long time ago, just something like a you know, a pump change, or something like that. You're just it felt dreadful, like ah, and I and I don't feel like that anymore. And I don't think Arden does either. And it's not because she got accustomed to it. I think it's because we chose to think about it differently.

Elizabeth Forrest 51:18
Definitely, you know, and I was just going to say, I don't know if it's the same for you. But my kind of thought process on it all has been that, you know, diabetes throws curveballs. And you can do the same thing one day, and it's different than next. But those moments where I have to wake up in the middle of the night and change my sight because something's not working. Or today, my salad spiked my blood sugar to this amount, those sort of moments where you have to rethink the next move. Even though everything up to that point has worked. I feel like I've been able to apply those sort of lessons and thoughts in my non diabetes life, if one exists, if one could exist. But whether it's work or back when I was in school, it's it kind of teaches you an interesting life skill of adapting. And I always try to find those sorts of tools and lessons when I'm especially working with the kids with diabetes in our dance program is, you know, this is awful. This is horrible. I wish I didn't have diabetes. I wish you didn't either. But we have it. So what can we do in a positive approach to live better with it? And, and part of that is your mentality and thinking, Okay, this bad thing just happened? Well, how can I make it better? And I just I think it's been an interesting approach for me coupled with that your tools of living better?

Scott Benner 52:39
I have to say that, at one point, I'm always kind of evolving how I think about it. And at one point, if you said to me, like, Scott, I only have a couple of seconds. Like, what's the secret here? I would tell you got to get your basil, right? You have to learn your Pre-Bolus time, you have to understand the impacts of different foods. And I used to stop at that. And now there's a fourth thing, and I think it's that you have to remain flexible. Yes, absolutely. It's it. There's an agility that's mental, that you You just have to embrace. And it has to be that dammit, a salad has never made my blood sugar go up before but this time it did. So stop thinking about the salad. Now start thinking about the number How do I fix it without causing a low do that thing? Move forward? Exactly right. Just like that not not stand around for three hours going? This doesn't make any sense. My blood sugar shouldn't be high. This has never happened with salad before. Oh my God, is this going to be a thing that happens with salad now? Like you can't like you can't fall down that rabbit hole. Because the truth is the next salad you eat, it's probably not going to happen that way.

Unknown Speaker 53:43
And so exactly,

Scott Benner 53:45
right. Right. And and if Listen, if you want to try to dig into why one salad in six months, major blood sugar pop up, I'm sure you could figure it out eventually. But in the moment that is not valuable for you it is it is absolutely the opposite of valuable. it's maddening. And so you know, stay flexible. It's get your basil, right? figure out, you know, the lead time your insulin needs to work, and it's going to be different from one meal to the next, you know, to the next. And then you know, learn the difference between 10 carbs of rice and 10 carbs of watermelon and etc, etc. And then stay flexible. Because when we started really talking about variables, like when, so when I made the pro tip series, I started up I got Jenny side privately and I was like, Jenny, listen, like I want to take these ideas I talked about on the podcast, I was like I make them a little less scattershot. The way I talk through them. Like I think they should live somewhere in the road episodes. Could you come on and like, like be my equilibrium a little bit so I don't get carried away talking? And she's like, sure. And then she started getting involved. And I was like, Oh my god, she's like, brilliant at this. Like this is fantastic. And so at one point, I was like, Is there anything I'm not talking about that you think I should and she's like Well, I'm glad you asked and Gina and she gave me a couple of ideas. So some of the pro tip episodes are our journey building on to the pro tips as well. And the one thing she said is like, we have to talk about variables for people. Because some people will, you know, you see it online, sometimes they'll make this list of things that you know how people like to be like, like, Oh, my diabetes is just easy, I count my carbs. And I do this except if this happens, and then they make this long list of things. And the inference is that there are so many variables, I couldn't possibly know them all. And that's true. But I think like, what's the next part of that sentence? And I think is, so you don't really need to know them all. You need to know what to do when they pop up. Exactly. Right. And you need to know like this, like, quick, you don't want to have to sit around for an hour rain, you know, figuring it out.

Unknown Speaker 55:48
Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 55:50
you said something earlier that I wanted to loop back to for a second if I can, you are a go getter, like you are not a sit still person. And you know, I think that, you know, you said earlier, you're an attorney and you run a nonprofit, like, this is obviously not a person who's, you know, who's just happy to like, sit around for a whole Saturday afternoon watching the sun. So I really want to ask, like when your blood sugar wasn't doing what you wanted it to do? Like, how does that impact you personally, when that's your personality?

Elizabeth Forrest 56:22
Well, let me say this first. I'm not an attorney, I am the Chief Operating Officer, I run the firm. I've been at this company almost 10 years. So I manage attorneys, but I'm not one. And a lot of people think I am because of my position. So I just want to clarify that. But to go back to the question. So. And the question is just because I lost my train of thought on

Scott Benner 56:44
when you're a person who does what you do, right? So and you're a person who is very driven inside? And and and you still have results and things like that when

Unknown Speaker 56:55
you're

Scott Benner 56:56
putting that kind of effort into diabetes and not getting those results back. How does that impact you psychologically? I

Elizabeth Forrest 57:01
guess? Yeah. So I would say how it affects me now is definitely different than how it affected me 678 years ago, so 100% it's frustrating, because I am absolutely someone that goes after something gets it done, I have goals, we're going to reach it. Whatever needs to happen, we're going to find a way to get to that. So when you use that same thought process for diabetes, which will do whatever it feels like doing, I remember one one comment my endo asked me years and years ago, I have a great relationship with Him been seeing him a long time. But he asked me one time, you know why your blood sugar is so high. And my immediate response without thinking was I have diabetes of type one diabetes. That's why they're so high and it does whatever it feels like. And he laughed. But my, my thought process and now is that I just keep trying something else. So I'm frustrated. But if my blood sugar's high, then I'm going to give myself another little bit of insulin, I'm going to go grab a water, I'm going to set a timer to look and see in 510 20 minutes, has it come down at all? Or I'm going to look at my site. Is that okay? Did I eat something weird today? I mean, these thoughts are constantly going through my mind of what can I do next, if this doesn't work? And and so I find myself being less and less frustrated, because I kind of have the tools in my toolbox now that I never did before. of, Okay, this didn't work, well, maybe this will and eventually it works. And if it doesn't, the next day comes along. And it's a whole whole other set of challenges with diabetes. But I think that I just I looked at my toolbox a lot. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:51
I that's terrific. It really is I use you just were talking about like setting a timer and looking back in 10 minutes or so. There's so much of I did this I made a Bolus here. I know what I want to happen and what I expect to happen. If that doesn't happen. It's not happening. So I have to do it again.

Unknown Speaker 59:10
Right. You know, I

Scott Benner 59:11
have to I have to re address it. I know people be like, Oh, well you're stacking insulin. And I always say like, you know, it's not stacking if you need it. That's bolusing you know, like there's a difference. There's a difference. It's a theoretical, like you have to really kind of pick through it like you can't just keep giving yourself insulin over and over again because it will jump on you at one point yeah,

Elizabeth Forrest 59:30
of course do the wrong well one thing that I think scares a lot of people a definitely scared me and something I quickly got over and listening to your podcast is if if you can fix it with a juice box or Gatorade in my case or a fruit snack, do it. What's the worst that's gonna happen? It's gonna drop really low, but I'm monitoring it. I'm not ignoring the fact that I've diabetes. So if I can fix it with something nearby, I'm going to keep giving myself a little bit more insulin with certain amount of time in between, because because I can't and so that when I understood that concept, I definitely saw a little bit more results to have of not being scared of below. I was always terrified of lows I still am, I don't want to get low in the middle the night and not realize it. But knowing that you don't have to be all the time is really empowering. And then I will just say because I know that a lot of times even listening to the podcast and listening to other speakers, sometimes it could sound like the other person knows exactly what they're doing. I right now my blood sugar is is high. I'm 171 Today has been so challenging. I couldn't tell you why. But I have right now my agency is about 5.7 when I was in a few weeks ago, so not every day is perfect. But most of the time, I'm in a certain range. And so I think that's really important for other people to hear. Because when people are doing well, they don't necessarily talk about what's not working or what's bad or that because people want to see the good, but it's really important to know that you don't have to be perfect to be better at diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:01:13
I try to tell people all the time that at least twice a day Arden's blood sugar will make it to 160 sometimes 180 or something like that. And her a one C is still in the mid fives consistently. Yeah, the difference is the little pieces like you've been talking about for you know, throughout the whole hour. It's it's not like just going Oh, my blood sugar's 180. And then not thinking about it again. It's Oh, it's 180 I'll bring it back down. You know, not that I wonder blood sugar, it'll be 180. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if it should happen, you can't just go Okay, well, diabetes, and then walk away and leave it there,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
you got to do something, you have to do

Scott Benner 1:01:46
something about it. It's just it's a it's not a difficult concept. But there's something about the way standardized diabetes education is has been built over the years. That makes it feel like oh, it went up, it'll come back eventually. And I used to think, well, maybe it's different now. Because, you know, glucose sensing technology, like, you know, Dexcom, and stuff like that. But now I wonder more if it wasn't the just in the past, because that stuff didn't exist. And the idea was, well, if he's has too much, you're gonna burn yourself out. So don't test too much. Just test. Count your carbs, give yourself in some wait three hours check again, correct that if it's high, you know, if that whole thing didn't just come from the idea of, you can't, the concept of Well, you can't really control it anyway. So you might as well not burden yourself with it. You know what I mean? And if somehow that doesn't end up morphing into the direction that people get current day, that really isn't as valuable anymore. So I don't know. Like, I just think that at every one of these events, you know, I go to I eventually will meet one family whose kids blood sugar is just insane. It's like over 400 most of the day, and you talk to the parent, and they just they don't they don't understand why. And I don't see how, as long as that exists in the world, anywhere. I don't see how you and me and anybody else who has a voice that's valuable. wouldn't try as hard as they can to reach a bunch of people. Absolutely.

Elizabeth Forrest 1:03:22
That's exactly what we're all doing. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:03:25
So So watch this, you're gonna be very impressed. It's not written down anywhere. Watch this. If you'd like to do something great for people living with Type One Diabetes, you should check out touched by type one.org and find them on Instagram, and Facebook. I was that it's not bad. Awesome. I can do that in my sleep. Elizabeth. Just

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
that's so cool. I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly wakes me up one day and goes oh my god, fine. I'll go to touch by type on.org Leave me alone.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:54
Fantastic. I

Scott Benner 1:03:54
really appreciate you doing this. How can you have listened for the past hour and not love Elizabeth the way I do? It's not possible. So now follow through good at touched by type one.org and figure out what's going on over there. See if you can get involved. If you can get help. Or if you can help touched by type one.org. And thanks so much to you guys for listening, for sharing the show for leaving the great reviews for helping out so much in the private Facebook group for all the things you do to support the podcast. You have my sincere thanks. We'll be back very soon with another episode. If you wait until after these ads, I'll tell you who the guest is going to be.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors g Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo hypo Penn at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash Use box, you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com forward slash juice box. Go find out about the blood glucose meter that Arden's using that I find to be the most accurate that we've ever seen. Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. Don't forget to look into the test strip savings program. Find out if you're eligible for a free meter. do all the things that that website offers. It's going to be good for you. Okay, thank you for listening to the two ads. Next episode Jenny's back, Jenny's back, back from space. Yeah, she's

Unknown Speaker 1:05:50
back. Back again. Jenny's back journeys back journeys back journeys back