Scott Benner 10/11/21 Scott Benner 10/11/21

#557 Pat & Scott's Excellent Conversation

Patrick is a young adult living with type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Hello, this is Episode 557 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode of the Juicebox Podcast, I'm speaking with Patrick, who is a young man that lives with Type One Diabetes. It also lives with him. He has diabetes, he's diabetic, say in any way you want. Patrick's here, he's got T one, and we're gonna have a really great conversation that you're going to adore. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. Don't forget to head over to the T one D exchange and fill out their survey. That's right. If you're a US resident who has type one, or a US resident who cares for someone with type one, in under 10 minutes, you can answer a few simple questions that will incredibly amazingly immaculately benefit people living with type one diabetes, and it'll support the podcast p one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box trying to get the 2000 surveys by the end of diabetes Awareness Month.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo cuyp open. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. The episode is also sponsored by touched by type one you can find out more about them at touched by type one.org. Touched by type one has just put tickets on sale for their annual dancing for diabetes show. It's on November 13. This year at the Walt Disney theater in Orlando, Florida. Go to touched by type one.org to get your tickets to dancing for diabetes. Dancing for diabetes is a powerful and exceptionally entertaining dance showcase. It features 300 nationally recognized and award winning dancers in one unforgettable evening. When I did that, I was like unforgettable. Look, you don't need me to do this. Touched by type one.org. Click on dancing for diabetes. You'll get all the information you need.

Pat 2:34
Yeah, are you doing?

Scott Benner 2:35
Ah I'm alright. It's a spring break here for my daughter so Oh, wow. It's a weird, weird time. My wife was like, why are you recording this week? I said I don't get spring break.

Pat 2:49
You're doing how many episodes? Are you into this now?

Scott Benner 2:53
Oh, 460 ish.

Pat 2:56
around. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Scott Benner 2:59
And you'll probably be my God. You'll probably be 500 520 when it comes out eventually. So

Pat 3:09
Oh, my goodness. Yes. You're working hard than I am.

Scott Benner 3:13
I just don't want to. I want to treat the podcast like it's a podcast, not like it's a thing. A diabetes thing? I don't know if that makes sense or not. But, but you know what I mean?

Pat 3:26
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. No, I like it. And are you on the East Coast or West Coast?

Scott Benner 3:32
I'm in New Jersey. You're out west jersey. Okay.

Pat 3:34
Yeah, I'm out west. I'm up bright and early. 6am.

Scott Benner 3:38
That's the thing that, um, I thought when I saw the when I saw the booking, I was like, I think that's really early for him. So thank you. I appreciate you doing that.

Pat 3:47
Oh, definitely. Yeah, you're busy, like booked up, too, which is amazing.

Scott Benner 3:53
It's hard to get on the show at this point. I did want on I had to do one for somebody that, you know, it's kind of like time sensitive. And they're like, Well, you know, when can we do it? I said, July. And she's like, No, we need it sooner. And I was like I could I there's one day a week that I edit and I don't record I guess I could do it that day. And you know, so I found myself doing that, but it's good. That's nothing to complain about.

Pat 4:22
Yeah. Wow. And so you just do this with just you know, any any diabetic who kind of wants to get on the show, or

Scott Benner 4:30
I turned some people down. But yeah, not, not many. I think that the there's something about the desire to do the show that brings out a certain kind of person.

Pat 4:40
Oh, I see. I like it. Yeah, there's a vetting process

Scott Benner 4:45
that happens without me being involved. And then the next part of the vetting process is that it takes so long after you put down a date to record. So basically I sit here five minutes before the recording time and if you're here, I assume you really want to do that.

Pat 5:01
Yes. Oh, that makes sense. I like

Scott Benner 5:05
to stay like that. Anyway, you sound terrific. It's your recording. Well, that's fantastic. What you just do is introduce yourself anyway you want to be known. Just meaning you don't need to use your last name or you know, if you end up bringing up a friend or a sibling or something, you don't have to say their name. You could say my brother, you know, that kind of stuff. But other than that, you introduce yourself and then we'll, we'll just get started.

Pat 5:29
Okay, and then we'll just go from there.

Scott Benner 5:33
I'll ask a question, you'll answer the question. And that'll happen over and over again till we're done.

Pat 5:37
Okay, I like it. All right, let me know when you're ready. at your leisure. Okay, well, Hello. My name is Patrick. I'm from Sacramento, California. And I have Type One Diabetes pattern. I never get to say that. I've ever started off like that. Never. You know, that's not my go to my go to like, Hey, this is who I am that I you know, I like to say it's a new new thing.

Scott Benner 6:10
That's interesting. I mean, it makes sense, right? You don't want to wander up to new people. And you're like, hey, I've got diabetes. Also, crazy booger came out of my left nostril.

Pat 6:20
You know? Yeah. So I never i i'd like to hear that for the first time for sure.

Scott Benner 6:27
Did you like saying it?

Pat 6:29
I think that it's something you know, interesting about who I am. And you know what I've had to deal with most of my life. So I do. I do like, you know, telling me I think a lot of people think that I'm, I could be embarrassed by it. So they don't really try to bring it up ever. But I like talking to people about it. So I do like saying,

Scott Benner 6:52
Hi, are you embarrassed by it? Or is it just something you think people around? You

Pat 6:57
know, yeah, I think some people like kinda, you know, tiptoe around it, or beat around the bush about it. So I'm not embarrassed about I love talking about it. So it's not bad.

Scott Benner 7:10
Nice. That's excellent. All right. So you were you're 20? Are you 24 now?

Pat 7:14
I am 25. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:18
that's something we were talking about before we started recording is that it takes a long time to get on the show you were 24 when you sent the email.

Pat 7:26
I didn't even realize I was taking a couple bloods for sure. And then I, I got a gala, you know, a little promotion. So then we had to move it back even further. But I'm glad I'm on here.

Scott Benner 7:38
No, yeah, I am, too. And I am realizing now that I'm only one clerical error away from putting this up while you're 26. So I just put up a show the other day, I had to write the person that was on it to apologize. And I had like a few files on my computer that got read, dated somehow. And I don't know if I opened them. And that changed the date on them. And then they moved around in this folder that I have of recorded material that needs to, you know, go through the editing process. And so they slid way up. So I put out an episode yesterday that I think I recorded like 18 months before that. And oh my goodness, and it was really good. And I enjoyed it. And so I you know, I definitely want to pull up and I wrote the personal like I am so sorry, this is not a judgment of what you did on the podcast. I just got messed up. And anyway, we're just, we're just we're just a couple of mistakes shy of you having two kids when this podcast?

Pat 8:35
Well, I can't wait for that you didn't even look forward to it a couple years ago. It's not bad.

Scott Benner 8:42
So how old were you when you were diagnosed?

Pat 8:45
I was 16. So right in the middle of high school, which is a is a crazy, I think it's a crazy time to get it. Just because you're, you know, in your youth that also kind of growing into that adulthood stage and your whole life kind of just changes in a in a weekend. So

Scott Benner 9:08
where were you in the in the progression of your maturity? And I mean that by saying that for parents who are listening, I think a lot of parents know that when your kids are that age. Your basic goal then is to stave off any of the things that you don't hope that they do for as long as possible, right. Like, I wonder how this kid from having sex and drinking or doing drugs like this is what I'm trying for, right? Yeah.

Pat 9:36
Yeah, and I was I actually was in the middle of a basketball season. And that's when the doctors think that I somehow got it. And since I was in my honeymoon stage, you know, I didn't really I couldn't tell when I was playing basketball. And right when it ended is when I just went straight, you know, losing 20 You're super sick all the time and peeing a lot and so I got it right after basketball season I remember it because I just I we were in the playoffs and I couldn't even play I was just so so sick so it was yes right then right when a dad Debbie Have you ever heard of like more for gala or anything like that where the girl asked the guy so I got it I got it a couple days before that after a girl had asked me with a buttload of olive enjoys I got I came back the you know two days later after she had asked me for with all my joys and everyone in school but she gave me diabetes

Scott Benner 10:47
that was the that was the vibe going around school

Pat 10:51
they didn't know how to diabetes I mean I didn't even know how diabetes work so that was kind of the whole funny story was that you know girl gave me diabetes by asking asking me the gala so

Scott Benner 11:03
tell you I think if I'm enjoying can give you diabetes in two days we don't know

Pat 11:08
yeah well I don't know I've heard no no likes all the joys I've heard that you know all you'd have all day long.

Scott Benner 11:17
Patrick I'm just saying my imagination tells me if that was true that at the end of every news broadcast on everything they'd they'd finished they'd be like in the Dow is down 35 points today and before we go Don't forget almond joys give you diabetes in two days. Be everywhere, you know,

Pat 11:33
please disregard all the joys from your daily life.

Scott Benner 11:37
He would turn on the TV and just see people picketing Washington like stop Almond Joy, like, you know,

Pat 11:44
they already do that.

Scott Benner 11:46
It's just interesting how kids minds work like and what sounds like an amusing story that becomes you know, you know what I mean? Because somebody said it and thought that's funny. So they told somebody else who thought that's funny and then the next thing you know it's everywhere.

Pat 11:59
But yeah, definitely. I mean the girl even thought she did. She was said on it. And I was like, No, okay, like, yeah, I gotta stop it.

Scott Benner 12:08
Do you still know her? Yeah, definitely

Pat 12:11
Okay, that we're still we're still good friends for sure. So

Scott Benner 12:15
beyond believing that candy gives you diabetes in two days.

Pat 12:20
She felt really bad. Like trust me it wasn't you.

Scott Benner 12:24
dance.

Pat 12:26
Yo course Yeah, I said yeah. Oh, of course.

Scott Benner 12:30
I find it's best when ever women are kind to you to just say thank you. That's yeah

Pat 12:36
100% I agree completely with all the enjoy you give them all enjoy with it.

Scott Benner 12:40
I have to be honest, if my wife approached me with candy, I'd think I would probably think I was sick and I didn't know it. And she was like, she felt bad. I'm not certain. But yeah, I guess in 16 it just seems nice. Well so to get back to my question at 16 Not that I didn't enjoy our little offshoot there but at 16 were you a party kid? Were you a pretty like were you more like you know still in mature were you not like that like what kind of like social person were you then?

Pat 13:10
Yeah, definitely. I was uh, I was just a basketball kid I was just in the sports you know, I was playing basketball year round and absolutely loved it and then I got diabetes and my whole world kind of changed so I my maturity changed with it. So I wasn't you know, I was in no way a mature kid or anything like that. And then getting that kind of getting diabetes right after kind of just put me into this world when trying to figure out who I was and what type of a you know, person I was. And so I quit basketball the next The following season, because I just could not figure out how to play basketball and have it work for me with diabetes, you know? I would I would get super sick on the court, you know, I'd get low and my my coach would have to take me out five minutes into the game and I just be sitting there like what why am I even here? You know, like, I don't understand what like why is this happening to me? So that threw me for a loop for sure. And that's when I started getting into partying because we're you know, 16 is kind of the age where the, you know, in high school, they just started partying a little bit so I started hanging up the kids who were going out and you know, drinking smoking, you know, all that stuff. So I started hanging out with them. And that's, that's where, yeah, I mean, I learned a lot from it for sure.

Scott Benner 14:49
Well, so you were really focused on it's interesting because this is I didn't know if you were gonna say this or not, but it was what I was wondering like you are at an inflection point in your life with Do you realize it or not? And if you could have kept playing basketball, do you think that that meant enough to you that you would have avoided sort of that other stuff for a longer time? Or do you think you were always headed towards it? Is it hard to look back? And no,

Pat 15:12
I think that I would have, I would have stepped with basketball, and it would have kind of, you know, deterred me from doing that stuff as often as I had done it. So I think basketball definitely, you know, just because you're there, you're practicing every day, you're, you're at games at night, so there, there's not a lot of time for you to go, you know, hang out at the river with your friends. So I think when I quit, I just had a lot of a lot more time on my hands where I was just like, hanging out, you know, always after school, just like, Hey, want you to go hang out the river. So I definitely think that basketball kind of would have helped me but I also do have that personality where I'm like, I want to experiment and you know, try these things as well. So So

Scott Benner 16:06
you were just you were really just kind of putting these other ideas on hold, because you because you like playing basketball so much.

Pat 16:13
Definitely. And I think at the time basketball was like kind of just my saving grace, where I didn't care about anything else, you know, when I was playing basketball, I loved it and didn't didn't really need anything more. And then when I quit basketball, I didn't have that saving grace, or didn't have anything like that to kind of help me out. And so that's when I went, you know, experimenting, the partying, and I remember my first time at drinking after I got diabetes. And I remember, I just was so I was so sick. I think I was drinking orange juice and vodka. And you know, I didn't know what I was doing. I was drinking a ton of sugary stuff and alcohol. And it was a it was a scary time for sure. Yeah, this because I just got completely, you know, sick and couldn't stop throwing up. And it was bad. But after I was just like, I'm glad that I'm learning how to do this at the same time. So there's a weird transition.

Scott Benner 17:22
Well, so in that scenario, you're hammered. And you're driving your blood sugar high.

Pat 17:27
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, getting out of the hospital, they're, they're teaching you stuff, but it didn't connect at all to me. So, you know, probably I think a week or two later is when I was drinking and, you know, I was chasing with orange juice or drinking with the orange juice or something like that. And yeah, so my blood sugar was spiking, and I just couldn't stop. Yeah, I just couldn't stop throwing up the whole night.

Scott Benner 17:54
I have more questions about that. But I'm imagining that this last little segment, anybody who's listening, who's in their teens right now is like, this is why my dad makes me practice the violin so much.

Pat 18:06
If you play the violin, I am jealous.

Scott Benner 18:10
But I'm just saying like, just stay in your room and do that thing and don't talk to you. Yeah. So, I want to go to your saying that you you went from not being a drinker, to getting diagnosed, and two weeks later, by the way, you drank like an old lady in the 40s it's funny you're having Reebok and

Pat 18:36
whatever you can get your hands to do 16

Scott Benner 18:39
when you were 17 did you move to a gimlet? or

Pat 18:43
hopefully I'm hoping I did.

Scott Benner 18:46
But so you don't know anything functionally about how to manage your diabetes? And are you rebelling? I mean, I don't think that it seems unlikely to me Patrick, I guess I should say that you were like oh, well now that basketball is gone I can move on to my secondary choice drinking by the river. So um, yeah, so I'm, I'm thinking that by the way, I'm fairly sure this episode is gonna be called drinking by the river unless you say something else. But, but like, do you think you were like drowning your sorrows? Do you think you were in a panic about the diabetes?

Pat 19:18
I think that it was it was I think it was a mold you know, multifactor situation where I mean, I had tried drinking before diabetes, but obviously, not worrying about the blood sugar is a little easier. And then when that happened, you know, I had to really switch up how it my thought process works, but I definitely think it was at the time obviously I didn't think I was drowning my you know, drowning. my sorrows are my anxieties about having this disease. But now looking back on it, I think it did have a bigger effect on us. On my life for sure, but I also love to have fun and I definitely love to try new things and I don't necessarily regret doing it just because I learned so much and I learned a lot about diabetes even though it was it was a harder time you know I've gone through you know the the most a dream being in all of that but I definitely learned a lot a lot through doing all that so I wouldn't even say I necessarily regretted it because I did have a lot of fun at the same time. But you definitely can say that I was kind of trying to not think about diabetes and rebel against what was happening with my body.

Scott Benner 20:50
Yeah, no, I am I'm not judging you. I just I'm trying to understand how you get from one place to another ay ay ay ay if you do listen to the podcast with any regularity

Pat 21:00
I listened to a couple episodes for sure not not a crazy amount but definitely a couple

Scott Benner 21:06
just because I don't you might know that I don't drink so I don't understand the but I don't have a judgement about it I just don't understand the like when you say have fun I think of having fun and being coherent like yes yeah, so I just I recognize that that's not how everybody thinks about it. But and I definitely understand that at that age and then with all that pressure did the pressure hit you in any other ways did your grades change? Did you start robbing banks? Is there anything else that

Pat 21:36
I mean, I think that there's a there's a pressure of being in high school when kids are starting to turn into that you know, like experimenting or partying phase where I wanted to keep up with my with my friends. And at the same time I really probably couldn't have as much as I tried just because of diabetes so I think there is there's there's always kind of pressures going on in high school where diabetes cannot hold you back. And I for sure was just fighting as much as I could not let that happen. But yeah, I I really think that like you said, Yeah, obviously having fun, sober is great too. But in high school, you just want to you want to you know, be with the crowd almost and keep, keep trying different things and having fun like that. So I think that the pressures of that kind of kind of threw me for a loop and then my grades did start dwindling to. I don't know if that's just because I did not like high school at all, or diabetes kind of put me in that but I definitely started drop my grades started dropping a little bit because basketball you had to keep a certain GPA. And then once I was out of that, there's nothing really to stop me from going too low. So

Scott Benner 23:05
you just kind of rolled with it that and just went wherever it went.

Pat 23:09
I just rolled with it. And my mom helped me out, you know, crazy amount. She is he is she's definitely one of the you know, I give her all the respect in the world for you know, I mean, I was going through diabetes that she was going through diabetes too. And so I give her all the respect in the world because he really, really pushed me to, you know, keep my grades up and get me into college. And so a shout out to her. Without her I would not be where I am today.

Scott Benner 23:45
Feeling like she threw a saddle on your back and rode you to college. She's like now go over this way and do this and jump over that and listen, not that children don't need that, you know, somebody guiding them along the way. I have to say I'm disappointed when I joked about you're robbing a bank at one day someone's gonna blurt something out on the podcast, but I'm just gonna be like, oh my god. Finally, you know, like you just I was just like, would imagine if you're like I did knock over a couple of convenience stores. And

Pat 24:10
I see diabetic Bonnie and Clyde is

Scott Benner 24:12
out of my mind. I would I would point my insulin pump at them through my coat. Do you use a pump? Or do you are you using di?

Pat 24:21
Yeah, I use the pump. And I'm loving. I'm using the Medtronic pump, but I've heard the other. I Dexcom I definitely want to try to get into that because I've read some great things about that.

Scott Benner 24:35
Yeah, it's very cool. It really is. But I'm just I'm happy you have something going. Were you How long have you been on the pump? Have you? Was it recent? Or have you been doing it for a long time?

Pat 24:45
Only couple I think probably a year now is how long I've been on the pump in high school. Like I said I was fighting as much as I could. They're trying to put me on the pump. I said no, I'm not going to do that. I stuck with the insulin pens and that probably didn't help my situation at times either just losing them and you know all that good stuff that comes with the insulin pens so I actually just started using it last year and I absolutely love it

Scott Benner 25:18
yeah I mean you're older now it's funny because for people who are I can't think of their names but there's these two guys that prank like local municipalities in California.

Pat 25:28
Oh, okay. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 25:29
know what I mean. That right and because of because I'm aware of that you're like you have an accent to like give it you have like a California accent so you like when you popped on at first I'm like, is this guy gonna prank me? Oh my goodness. guys are amazing. But I'm never gonna think of their name and I feel bad about that. But but so you're saying if I'm if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that you resisted a pump or anything that would make you look different through high school.

Pat 26:02
Uh, I don't think make me look different. I think just like, because going from pens to a pump, your your lifestyle changes up again. And I think I was fighting the lifestyle change. Just because that first time when I got diabetes and went to the pins, like that was a big enough lifestyle change for me to just be like, I'm good off anything else? Yeah. And so they're, you know, because you have to go through training and you kind of have to test it out. And so I did a test run like I think it was like a three day test run. And the part that I just was like, I am not gonna I think that it popped out when I when I was sleeping. And I was like, yeah, I'm just not going to try this change that quickly. You you'd be so good.

Scott Benner 26:51
How many people say that I was when I started recognizing that that was a real driver for people just the idea of like, I've already been through a new thing that I had to learn I don't want to learn another new thing.

Pat 27:03
Yeah, so I just I mean, like, when I was in school, I would I you know, I wouldn't care where I did my insulin, you know, I did in front of my friends. I'd let you know, I'd let my friends do it. If they're like, Oh, can I see what how this works? I'm like, sure, like, you know, give me a shot. But it's the it's exactly your rights, the change. It's just the big change. And, you know, I was trying to fight any of that I could for sure.

Scott Benner 27:28
No, I it's um, it's interesting to hear you say that because it's not my first inclination from the outside to think that it would be about the change I would always think it would be about the hiding but and so the problem with MDI for you wasn't that you minded? Anybody seeing you in jack, it was that you were literally losing the pens and stuff like that.

Pat 27:49
Yeah, and lose the pens or the needle, you know, break off or the the cartridge would get jammed? Stuff like,

Scott Benner 28:01
just just regular. Maybe if you were not handing them to everybody to jab you with they would. How many of your friends do you think ever got home? I was like, I'm an insulin pen in my bag. I wonder why this is?

Pat 28:12
Oh, man. I mean, I've had, like, you know, friends have a party and I accidentally leave my llantas my long lasting pen at their house where, and you know, they're not supposed to have anybody over or anything like that. And all of a sudden they're fighting and, you know, a needle in their in their couch. Like, what is

Scott Benner 28:33
this? There was no one here, I promise.

Pat 28:36
Yeah, exactly. It's hard to explain for sure.

Scott Benner 28:41
How did you um, did you go right to college right after high school?

Pat 28:45
Yeah, I went to Sac State right after high school. Okay. So I didn't even move out my first couple years, which was kind of kind of a nice transition. I wanted to go to SBCC, which is in Santa Barbara. And I am just so glad I didn't do that. Especially with diabetes. I think it's a lot of a lot of partying and probably not the best not the best idea for a diabetic.

Scott Benner 29:12
Patrick, you would not have trusted yourself in that scenario.

Pat 29:16
I don't think so. I think I mean, even coming out of high school, you know, I wasn't I wasn't mature at all. I still still was like, you know, I want to go to a party school and I want to have fun. And again, my mom was like, let's get into it. Let's get you into Sac State instead. And I think that really, really saved me for sure. Because, you know, I I was staying at home I was saving money, which was amazing to like now that you know, I'm out of college and appreciate that. A lot more money saved. I can just like so grateful for that. And then But yeah, I mean, Santa Barbara would have just been a madhouse, for sure. So

Scott Benner 29:57
yeah, and nobody does the math on a four year have college divided by monthly payments for you know the foreseeable rest of your life future nice not to Oh people that money that's for certain Yes Do you think your mom was a little Do you think your mom knew that staying home was the right thing for you?

Pat 30:16
I think that I don't know if it was staying home but I think it was just going to a community college in a place known for partying like you know it's it probably wasn't the best for me and where I was at in life and again I was still not even doing my pump yet so I was still doing my my insulin shots so that you know that also didn't help and I didn't even realize it to last year when I got my pump like how amazing it is to know your blood sugar as often as you do that yeah I just it's crazy that I didn't do that

Scott Benner 31:00
in the years prior to that how was your care like wherever your a onesies falling

Pat 31:06
they were falling between six and seven they were pretty good but I think it also was from me getting you know super high and then taking a lot of insulin to get super low yeah and so it's kind of just the highs and lows that bounced it out so yeah they're not sure if that you

Scott Benner 31:29
know that's cheating Patrick that doesn't count yeah

Pat 31:31
dude the median right now

Scott Benner 31:35
it's like it's like if on the weekend like during the week you were a murder for hire but on the weekends you volunteered at a homeless shelter that doesn't mean I was doing good things on the weekends Yeah, that does not equal like a decent life so what happens is it just throws the math off so the test you know you've got these crazy highs which of course are not good for your body at these crazy lows which are dangerous and not good for your body. But it still throws off the test and it's like oh look and then you end up in the doctor's office he's gone Oh you're between a six and a seven you're doing terrific. And yeah, I know exactly. And not enough of how do we get how did we get to this and they don't talk enough about limiting that variability and how important that is for for overall health I think that's a it can't be said enough it's a very common misconception that if the numbers Okay, you know quote unquote Okay, then you must be doing everything as well as possible. Yeah, so having I'm assuming you're wearing like the 670 maybe the metro Yes, yes, I'm

Pat 32:40
wearing the 670 right now so

Scott Benner 32:42
you have the Guardian CGM. I do yeah. And so now you get to see what happens that that change the way you were living or using insulin.

Pat 32:52
I think that I mean the funny part was when I first started I was knocking I was well I didn't realize how many doorways that I hit when I walked around the house because I beat I was hitting doorways and my big my sensor was popping off but every you know every two days I was having to change it so I'm glad I'm not you know I'm not a question anymore and hidden so many things but I definitely as it definitely has just made me more aware of my health in my body and just like how to how how seriously I do need to take diabetes and I mean it sucks that it takes so long but at the same time you know I don't think I would have ever been able to my mindset wouldn't have changed at all. I think it was just kind of growing in maturity and seeing how you know seeing how diabetes really is to where the punches made me like so grateful that I was like okay you know yeah, I need to start focusing on this and making sure that it's that I'm you know, doing stuff that are healthy for my body because my eggs especially with friends like you know friends will go out and will eat or do all that and they don't have a care in the world and I'm like I need to you know, sit down and really, really make sure my help is on point. So later on in life, I can still do these things.

Scott Benner 34:18
Yeah, no kidding. It's so interesting to hear. Patrick Please don't take this the wrong way. But no, it's so interesting to hear someone who sounds like they're in bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure have a really thoughtful life idea

Pat 34:34
you know, it's maybe it's no one in California I'm from Sacramento so we're not a beach town at all right? And so no one in California would ever say I sound like a Californian no 100%

Scott Benner 34:44
and I'm trust me you know I'm mispronouncing 1000 words in your eyes and everything and I get that but it's just for me it's it's fascinating. It's It's It's like, I don't know it's sort of like The Big Lebowski like you're like there's a guy on a couch like You know, with a drink in his hand has been high all day saying something profound about life and you're like, it's interesting.

Pat 35:09
You know, I'll take the Big Lebowski.

Scott Benner 35:13
So, it just because because what you said, I found to be moving, honestly, and really thoughtful. And I'm glad you came to it in your mid 20s for certain, and I'm and it makes me worried about people who don't come to it as quickly or never do. But still. It's excellent. Do you credit? I think I heard you credit just being more mature. Like through there. So it wasn't like so you're like, were you in that situation where like, you knew you got high and you knew you got low, but the ANC was fine. So you're like, I'm alright. And then you get a little older and realize maybe I need to be more careful about this.

Pat 35:51
Yeah, well, I mean, I think when I was younger, I I didn't feel my body, you know, going through such like stress of high blood sugar or low blood sugar. I didn't like now, you know, when I have a high blood sugar, my, you know, my heart is beating super fast. And I'm getting all these all the symptoms. And I don't think I I really don't think that I focused on that when I was younger. And so it didn't seem like a big deal at the time, if that made sense does. So it didn't seem like you know, it didn't seem like my body was going through anything. It just felt like, Oh, I need to go, I need to get lower. So let's just put some insulin in, and let's do whatever I need to do. But now it's like, okay, let's make sure I don't get high. And let's check my blood, you know, as much as I can to make sure that it's good. So

Scott Benner 36:51
it feels like the difference between heading out to sea in a boat with a hole in it. And then just spending all your time bailing it out versus fixing the hole before you leave? Yeah. 100% a little bit of pre planning. I, Patrick, I want to get your input on this real quick. I'll give you a producer credit on this one. Do you like better? Patrick and Scott's Excellent Adventure or Scott and Patrick's Excellent Adventure for a title? I think your name first right?

Pat 37:16
I don't know, Scott, that's excellent event adventures. That's pretty amazing.

Scott Benner 37:22
Maybe that's what we do.

Pat 37:24
You keep up with the day, you gotta you gotta get your day back.

Scott Benner 37:28
Trust me, my name gets set enough, that's fine. People are gonna be like, I know he's putting his name in the titles and ask Yeah,

Pat 37:38
he's all over the place.

Scott Benner 37:39
I have to say, You're an interesting person to tell us do. So once in a while I'll just because you've listened, but not a whole lot. I want some, I'll get noticed. And I'll be like, you talk way more than the guests. And I put out a transcript of the show now. So like, if you go to the website, you can find a written transcript of the show. And it tells me how much I to speak versus how much the other person speaks. And I don't talk that much more than the guest by the way.

Pat 38:09
You made sure that you had to put some stats to prove it.

Scott Benner 38:14
I've been dying to be able to say this in an episode somewhere because I told my wife I was like, you know, it turns out it's 6040. And that makes sense because I'm asking the questions, right? So it's not like I get these notes like I'm when I read them. I'm like, What am I What am I talking like, 85% of the time or something, but it's not that I just haven't just remember the evidence for it too. Damn right. I'm gonna start publishing it everything. Can you imagine if every week on like social media, you just send me I just send out a percentage episode for 8560 6161 30.

Unknown Speaker 38:56
Gotta do it.

Scott Benner 38:59
Well, yeah. Isn't it funny too, when you say 6139 you're like, see talks too much. But if I would have said 5941 you'd be like, oh, it feels pretty balanced.

Pat 39:09
Exactly. Your brain was good. Yeah, I was gonna save our 55th Yes, please. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm kidding. Let

Scott Benner 39:15
me be honest, it's never 5050 but although that's not true, there are somewhere actually I'm on the low side. And, and the other person speaks way more than I do. But that's not the point. My point is stop sending me mean emails. The podcast. podcast is free. Shut up. Free Yeah, you mean

Pat 39:37
you got to send him a juice box if they said to me an email Dude,

Scott Benner 39:39
I get complaints sometimes would make you think somebody paid like 10 grand for this. Like, what's up? Like, you're not making payments like relax?

Pat 39:50
Yeah, I didn't even know you can get complaints for me. Come on.

Scott Benner 39:54
You would think right anyway. So okay, so what did you go to like you don't have to tell them exactly what you do. But like what kind of work do you do once you go to college for

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Pat 41:12
I went to college in communications because I really didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went, went to college for that, and started working in government and absolutely loved it. So I worked in you know, the governor's office and city hall. And then worked on a campaign right after college. And thought, you know, this is a pretty, pretty nice career that I I'm starting to kind of create for myself. And then the pandemic hit. And I did a presidential campaign and they ended when the pandemic kit. And then I was kind of just jobless for a little bit working at a bar in Sacramento, and then switched it up and said, You know what, I'm moving to San Francisco, and starting a job in tech sales. So that's where I'm at now is actually I moved to San Francisco a couple months ago. And now I'm in tech sales.

Scott Benner 42:13
Amazing that you could have gone that you went from working towards getting a person elected for president to a bar. That's, it's fascinating. Like when you said that you just made every parent in the world scared for their child. They were like, Yeah, right. Wait, what happened? Say it again. But that's cool. So you just kind of reframed yourself took your skills and put them somewhere else.

Pat 42:36
Yeah, well, I mean, also I shouldn't say that I had I worked at the bar previously, too. It was a it wasn't just because of the pandemic but yes, it is. It's a it was a crazy switch from you know, working 80 hours a week to working at the bar.

Scott Benner 42:52
Be honest with you after the first 15 minutes of the show. You didn't shock me when you said you worked at a bar. Yeah, it wasn't like oh my gosh, I didn't see that coming.

Unknown Speaker 43:01
I do I do. Love

Pat 43:04
super fun. I've talked about complaints though.

Scott Benner 43:09
Well, I hear from people who work at restaurants that it's just a big orgy between the the people that work there just hopped from person to person apparently that's why we closed the restaurants down during COVID Yeah, because

Pat 43:24
a lot of spreading of it

Scott Benner 43:27
you didn't realize when they closed your restaurant it wasn't because of the transmission it was because they couldn't count on the employees to stay away from each other. Anyway that might not be true or a lot of people who work at restaurants right now are nodding along going oh yeah, that's definitely yeah it's a weird schedule. And then at the end of the night you're all just sort of alone in the rest of the world doesn't exist and so that's your that's your pool of people then.

Pat 43:52
Oh, yeah, I mean working. I worked at a beer house so we actually close that, you know, 10 or 11 at latest. So I mean, I can't imagine what the bar is opening or closing at 2am was like, you know, Sprague like that because that's that's a whole nother story right there

Scott Benner 44:12
find yourself at the end of the night going home with a lady much older than you

Pat 44:18
No, no never never good.

Scott Benner 44:21
Because it would be awkward if somebody like in the middle of something was like Patrick I think I know your mom. Yeah, no you don't I gotta go

Pat 44:31
that's that that was the age range of the bar for sure. Weren't you weren't too far off?

Scott Benner 44:38
That's what I was leaving from what you were saying. That's a That's amazing. I don't know what the hell we've been talking about for the last 40 minutes but I'm having a good time. So it's a good sign. What about a one sees now with the pump instability? Do you Where do you have the same highs and lows? And if not, how are you managing that?

Pat 44:56
Yes. So I am managing it a little better I do I still, I mean, like my first month or two, I mean, maybe even, you know, half a year and wearing the pump, I would still get pretty, pretty bad highs and lows, just because I was trying to figure out how the whole thing work. And so after, like, I don't know, after one time, I was just so pissed off with how the Sif, you have Medtronic worked. I called up one of the Medtronic reps and I was like, Hey, can I get a Can I get a you know, training on this, maybe I'm doing something wrong. So she took me through, you know, I think like an hour and a half training of it. And it really helped me just he just to the minute details that kind of, kind of help you with your blood sugar and everything like that. So it really helped me and now now I'm getting better at you know, I think I barely get over 250 if I get high, which is amazing. And then don't get low too much. But I do I work out like six days a week. So I do loads do happen to me quite a bit just because I am you know, doing a lot of work out. But I always have, you know, I always have all enjoys next to me.

Scott Benner 46:19
Well, since you found out you're safe, it's fine. Hey, can I can I propose something to you that this you had no idea that I was gonna say this and sort of, it's not something you're interested in, please just tell me to shut up. But there's a series within the podcast. And there. It's called diabetes pro tip. So I think there's about 20 or so episodes. And if I told you I think if you listen to them, you might never see a 250 blood sugar again in your life or get low while you're working out. Could I interest you in listening to them?

Pat 46:50
Of course. Of course I'm looking it up right now I got it on my Google right away.

Scott Benner 46:56
Could you look at how the young kids use the inner way right? So if you you go to Juicebox Podcast comm and click on diabetes pro tip at the top or actually diabetes pro tip comm will take you to it as well. So now these episodes are available in your podcast player, but you can see them here online and some people even choose to listen to them online, although just know if you're doing that you're probably old. And but there's nothing wrong with being old. I'm old. So so it starts at Episode 210. And they're not concurrent. So like it'll be like 210 11 to 12 and it'll jump to 217 but it'll take you through the ideas that that management wise get talked about on the podcast, it's not just me it's a friend of mine Jenny, she has a G she's coming up on her 33rd anniversary of type one, she's a CD she's a nutritionist, she's a runner, and she talks to people about management for a living. So I I will tell you that I think if you listen through those episodes, you achieve an A one C in the low sixes that will eventually get into the fives and you'll cut down on your highs and your lows.

Pat 48:10
I love it. Yeah, definitely listen to that.

Scott Benner 48:12
I mean, you know No, don't Don't thank me. I I'm interested like Don't thank me because then I want you to contact me back and tell me how. So? Yeah, because it because you seem like you're in the right place. So, Pat, you don't know this, you know, but I talked to a lot of people not just on the podcast, but separately and you can start to see that people fall into lanes. And you're right there. Like you're right there ready to like take a big leap with your diabetes like so I'll tell you that with my with my daughter's blood sugar's when you said like, you know, if I ever go over 250 that never happens. And that's amazing. And I agree with you coming from where you are. But I will tell you that when my daughter's blood sugar gets over about 160 that constitutes a pretty big mistake.

Pat 49:02
Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, if I'm if I'm going up like 180 Yeah, I'm already kind of getting nervous, but

Scott Benner 49:09
nobody we're being honest with saying 250 which I really appreciate because those are the real numbers. People like people need to hear that, you know, they need to understand that they're not the only one whose blood sugar does that and I'm not saying my daughter's never gets that high. Like we sometimes we you know, completely boot the pooch and stuff happens. So I'm just saying that if you listen through this, I think you're gonna find some easy to follow things that stop that from happening.

Unknown Speaker 49:34
I love it. Yeah.

Pat 49:37
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I was gonna say I joined when I moved to San Francisco, there's a diabetic, like a J. I don't think it's jdrf actually, but it's a diabetic group that meets on zoo. You know, every couple, like I think once a month, and we have a we have a Slack channel where people can ride And talk about you know what, what's been going on with their blood sugar's and if anyone has tips so I joined that and I do want to get more into it I think that I'm kind of on the outskirts of kind of, you know, reading more about it and everything like that so I definitely think stuff like this will for sure help.

Scott Benner 50:22
It's um it just it can't be undervalued that first of all talking to people is a huge thing because you don't feel alone first of all secondly you start hearing things that you don't you never heard before, you know, somebody will say something I think that's what the podcast I was like somebody says something, and it makes people think, Oh, I didn't realize that was possible, and you try it and then it works and you build off of it. And I think that's terrific that you found those people.

Pat 50:47
Yeah, and I mean, like, before I I went went into this group. I didn't I knew a couple of diabetics, but I didn't know a lot of them. And so seeing how serious some of these diabetics are in the group and like how much they you know, care for their health and well being like it really put put things into perspective as well because I didn't I you know, I wasn't talking to any diabetics who were like, you know, super on top of their stuff and, you know, talking about fats and proteins and ways to you know, like, if you're gonna eat this one day, how do you how can you help counteract it, stuff like that, where I've never really heard about that. So it was cool to kind of get a new, like a whole new perspective on how, how serious people take it and kind of put me into the mindset of like, Okay, I need to, I need to step my game up a little bit.

Scott Benner 51:44
Yeah, no, I, I think I can take for granted sometimes, because I'm so steeped in it, that, that this is something that everyone thinks about. But then I realize, you know, from listening to people, getting communications from people like this is exactly what you said, like most times, those things are never considered. And it it makes a huge difference just to understand how to stretch out a Bolus for a meal that has fat in it. Like I have an episode going up, that's just all about fat pretty soon. And I don't think that stuff that people talk about enough. And I don't know why I don't know if it's because overall, it's not well understood, or if it's, it seems confusing to people. So they don't want to just put it out there in a blanket way. And I think that like podcasts or even like what you're talking about, like social media connections, allow for longer, deeper conversations so that you can kind of get into the cracks. And, you know, hear the minutiae and and, you know, it's not just, it's not a paragraph of information in a pamphlet, like you can't, you can't explain any of this in a paragraph. So we need the conversation. Also, I just tried to connect with you on LinkedIn, because for some reason, I want to know how your life goes so

Pat 53:01
well, I hope we stay in touch too, because this is this is to fun. expected at six in the morning, I swear

Scott Benner 53:07
to God that you got up early. And this is amazing, because I am. But that is one of the indications to me that you see you're interesting in that somebody just said to me the other day, that they imagine that every person who's on the podcast is like kind of a super fan of the podcast. And I was like, No, that's that's not the case, but they couldn't believe me. And I want to ask you a little bit about that, as we're kind of finishing up here like so the podcast is not like a staple in your life. What made you want to come on in and share the conversation?

Pat 53:42
I mean, I was I kind of was getting into podcasts, you know, a year or two ago. And I was like, I wonder, I wonder if there are, you know, diabetic podcast. People really talk about it. And so I actually kind of just looked up diabetes on Spotify. And you know, the Juicebox Podcast popped up and I listened to a couple episodes and I was like, Oh, this is amazing. And I didn't even know that you like would let someone like me on do it. I had no I didn't know how it worked or anything. So I just kind of like oh maybe I'll just hit him up and see if he's interested. I you know, I didn't expect anything out of it, honestly. So it's pretty, pretty cool how it worked out.

Scott Benner 54:28
It's like a date some of the emails are they feel like as close as I'm ever going to get to being on a dating site, because it feels like a four sentence pitch about like why you would want to pick me and I'm always amused by that but what did you mean when you said somebody like me? Like when you listen to other people did you think they were like special super diabetics?

Pat 54:49
Yeah, I special super diabetics. They all every diabetic is a special super diabetic, but I probably I just They were kind of involved in the community and involved in you know, speaking about diabetes and I, because I, I've never been on the inside of the diabetic community life. I did intern for jdrf one year and that was pretty, pretty fun to do. But other than that, I you know, kind of just like, oh, maybe I'll just shoot my shot and see if I can talk about diabetes a little. Let me

Scott Benner 55:25
let me give you our I will pull the curtain back a tiny bit here. Hopefully other people doing the same thing will not know it doesn't matter. But what I was gonna say is that I think there are people like who are in that center of that community that are that are amazing people. Like I'm definitely not saying that. But what I think is that when it becomes their whole life, they become a little practice. And it's so I don't ever talk to any of those people. Because like you did you listen, you were involved in politics, like I don't want somebody popping on here hearing three key words and giving me a canned answer. Yeah, right. Because then that's not interesting and nobody gets anything out of it. And I think more comes from listening to people's struggles and understanding their path then would come from somebody just telling you like I'm super good at this and here's how I'm so good at it and then it turns out they never really have any details I don't mean like they never like you don't mean like you're somebody who's like oh I do great in the market but they never say buy this stock this stock and this stock they just they do great in the market you know or or you'll see people who are diabetes influencers will never mention what their a one c is.

Pat 56:43
Oh interesting. Looking into that

Scott Benner 56:46
notice so I saw some that you know, when I share my daughter's a one c it's not for bragging reasons, it's so that you can be reasonably comfortable that anything I said might be true. You know what I mean? Cuz if I was like, here's what I think you should do. You need to Pre-Bolus your meals, I go through a little thing. And then you say, Oh, that's that. That all sounds great. Scott what's Arden's Awan saying? Oh my god, it's 9.8 you might go. Well, wait a minute. Why am I listening to you again? Like so long? Yeah, like, I think you have to show the show your work, I guess. And at the same time, I think that that can be aspirational for people like I don't understand. A person who says, Hey, listen, if you're just running around yelling my a one cs 5.5, the rest of you can go to hell, that's bad. Okay, but if you're if you're saying, hey, look, I'm 5.5 here's how I got to it. I think you can get to it, too, even though you're not there right now. I find that to be hopeful. You don't mean like when? I don't know. Yeah, something I looked at somebody who knows how to do it.

Pat 57:50
Yeah. And I think even like me five years ago, seeing an influencer saying, hey, my agency's flat five, but not saying anything of how to do it. It kind of probably would have just made me be like, Okay, well, like, I don't care anymore. I want to go, you know, I'm gonna keep fighting this. Like, if I don't, if I don't understand how you're doing it, then I don't want to understand it myself.

Scott Benner 58:17
Just to look up and go, Oh, great. So you're gonna be healthy. And I don't get to be like, yeah, that's the vibe. Right? And so I you know, I'm all I think you'll see, like, if you try those protip episodes, I'd be surprised if you didn't really like them just based on this conversation. So no,

Pat 58:34
I definitely will. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:35
I'm interested. I'm interested in what you do is you listen to them. You don't have to report back to me. It's not like school, and an A one C from now. Reach out and tell me if you're moving in a different direction.

Pat 58:48
Okay, I definitely will. That's fine. Yeah. Wait,

Scott Benner 58:51
I'm seriously I'm in. I'm interested. Don't let me down on this path. Just Sunday. Don't treat me like this old woman at the bar. Okay. Yeah. I know what you were doing.

Pat 59:02
I'll send you a beer. While you're at it. You're waiting? Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:08
This is probably how you make friends. You just send a beer down the bar, right? And everybody's Yeah. So what are your um, I'm going to finish up here for you. I don't want to keep you too long. I imagine you have work. But what are your What are your long term goals here around diabetes? like where are you trying to? Like, what what do you imagine? Is uh, I guess my question would be, what do you imagine yourself to be when you're 30 years old? When you're thinking about maybe having a family like what Where do you want to be with your diabetes at that point?

Pat 59:43
Oh, I definitely just want to I want to be as healthy as possible, I think. I think that's kind of just my my main goal is to keep my body as healthy as possible to just keep me going as long as I can. I remember, you know, growing, you know, growing through this, like, you hear about diabetics going blind or, you know, toes getting cut off and all that. And so that that always kind of scared me a little bit. And so I'm like, I want to be as healthy as possible and be, you know, put, I hope to be playing basketball with my grandkids and my great grandkids one day. So that's kind of where I want to be. And that's, that's why I'm doing all this to make sure that it will, it will happen.

Scott Benner 1:00:33
That's excellent. Hey, can I ask you do? Did you experience any? Did women treat you differently? Because you're diabetes? Did that ever get in the way of your dating or anything?

Pat 1:00:44
No, I mean, I think that women were intrigued by it, if anything, so I don't think you'd ever it ever. I mean, obviously there, you know, there were problems with having low blood sugars that inopportune times, but I think a lot of women were intrigued by it. So it never, never was too big of a deal, but I can definitely see how it can. For other diabetics, it can definitely be kind of challenging. So I kind of catered it towards, you know, like, Hey, this is kind of interesting. And like, hey, yeah, have you ever seen someone get shot with a needle? It's pretty cool. You know, that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 1:01:24
That's like a seven year old with a Tonka truck. He's like, Look, I have this and you can play with it to suck people into your world. Well, you also sounds like you bumped into too good people who weren't judging you just like that.

Pat 1:01:36
Yes, definitely. I was very lucky. And for the people who did you know, I just kind of brushed it off, not a not a big deal to me. So I was definitely lucky with the people that that are in my life right now. And probably how they helped me as well.

Scott Benner 1:01:52
That's amazing. Good for you. Hey, listen. You sound like you're doing really well. Do you think of yourself as doing well?

Pat 1:01:59
Yeah, definitely. I think I think once I got the pump, and I think that I kind of just propelled me into a way better state for sure. So cool. Yeah. But the older I get the, you know, the more knowledge I'm getting, I I you know, just love it even more in love, love how I'm dealing with it, for sure. Listen, I

Scott Benner 1:02:19
it sounds to me, like you are on the upswing of a much bigger upswing. And you seriously like it feels like you in a fairly short amount of time, got through that period, figured it out that it's something you want to leave behind, you're on an incredible path. And you're, you're thoughtful about it, and you're interested in learning more. And I will tell you that everyone I've ever spoken to, I think the main ingredient that helps with this is just the desire to do it. That really ends up being one of the most important aspects because you need to find the tools needed to understand how to use them, but the desire to do it. And a good attitude is a is a lot of it. I just think that from my personal experience talking to so many people, so I think you've got that.

Pat 1:03:02
Oh, I love to hear it. Yeah, I mean, I think I think you're absolutely right. And I remember coming back from I studied abroad in Italy and I must have gained 20 pounds over there, you know, eating pasta, drinking wine all day, you know, so I gained 20 pounds, and I came back and I I just kind of got myself up off the couch. And I was like I need to work out every day I needed to do it. And so I started working out and that's kind of propelled me into the like, Okay, I need to do it. You know, like, I need to learn more about diabetes, I need to get healthier. And so that kind of sent me on the track of like, getting getting to where I'm at, for sure. It's

Scott Benner 1:03:45
amazing. Is there anything that I didn't say or ask that you were hoping to talk about?

Pat 1:03:51
No, I did. I really didn't know what we were going to be talking about. I just can't I was like, let's do it.

Scott Benner 1:03:59
Do it didn't feel like it went okay for you. Yeah. 100% Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:03
I loved it.

Scott Benner 1:04:03
I'm not I'm just kidding. But yeah, no, I appreciate it. I had a really good time talking to you. I somehow find myself hoping that my son's as together as you are when he's 26. So

Pat 1:04:16
and there'll be more together for sure.

Scott Benner 1:04:19
If I can keep him off the wine and pasta, maybe it'll be Yeah.

Pat 1:04:24
It'll be

Scott Benner 1:04:31
a huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, GE Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo cuyp open at GE Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juice box. Thanks also to Patrick for sharing his story and two touched by type one for supporting this episode of the Juicebox Podcast, head on over right now to touch by type one.org. Find out more about touched by type one, and think about getting some tickets to the dancing for diabetes show.

Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

#555 A Couple of Regular Dads

Michael is the father of a young type 1.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, friends. Damn. I don't know what just happened. Hello friends. Hello friends and welcome to Episode 555 of the Juicebox Podcast, I might leave that in

one day a man named Michael sent me a message, I get a lot of messages. So there's nothing inherently new or different about that. But there was something about Michael's tone, even in writing that made me worried for him a little bit. So I did my best to help him I pointed him towards some episodes that I thought would help. And this is a conversation with that person who I've really grown to enjoy. And I think you're gonna like him too. 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 healthcare plan. or becoming bold with insulin.

I saw last night like you're apprehensive or nervous. And I I was just really, I'm so excited to talk to you that I was. I was weirded out that you were nervous. Like, oh god, what do I do to make this guy feel uneasy about this? But are you okay? Oh, yeah. Oh, gum. Good. Good. Good. Now I'm super excited to talk to you for reasons that won't will, we'll get into as we're talking.

Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. Absolutely. The best blood glucose meter I've ever held, touched or used, the honest, the whatever I'm raising my hand, the whatever you raise your hand to when you're swearing, Contour. Next One, calm forward slash juicebox. I love that meter, check it out. And today, we have a new advertiser. Drumroll, please. We don't have any drum roll sound effects. Trial net, Data, Data, Data, Data data, either you just imagine holding thing. Trial net is a sponsor trial net, you know, trial that they offer free Risk Screening. Oh, risk for what's got type one diabetes, free type one diabetes, Risk Screening, you can do it right from your home if you want to. I'm gonna tell you all about it later. But for now, just know this trial net.org forward slash juice box. Free type one diabetes, Risk Screening. There's some criteria for who's eligible, but it's a lot of people. And I'm gonna fill you in in the center I made even at the end, I'm like, overall through it, I haven't decided it's a lot of information. I don't want to like gum up the works. I might tell you a little more in the middle. While now I'm doing it here anyway. Anyway, you're gonna find out more in a little bit. Welcome. trialnet. I think you if you're listening from trial net, you just heard that you're super comfortable with where you've spent your ad dollars because that was clear as mud trial. that.org. forward slash juice box. I promise I'll make it clear later.

Michael 3:15
I'm Micah and I'm just a regular regular dad and my daughter. She's the one day warrior. She's 10 years old, and

Scott Benner 3:27
it's about how long ago was she diagnosed?

Unknown Speaker 3:32
January of 2020.

Scott Benner 3:34
Wow. Over a year. Yep. Yeah. When did you first speak about do you know?

Unknown Speaker 3:42
I want to say it was March of 2020.

Scott Benner 3:46
Okay, Jennifer, so about three months into her diagnosis. So not my brain is very simple, Mike. So things stick out to me for reasons like so we're not going to say your last name, but your name is different enough that it sticks out to me. Yeah, there are some people that send me notes and I'm just I don't know who they are. But you I'm always aware of who you are. And is it fair to say that by the time you thought to reach to me, you were in a panic?

Unknown Speaker 4:19
Oh, I was clueless. Okay. There's no other way about it. It's like, you know, they said they sent us home to take care of our daughter with a piece of paper and say, Oh, well, everything just changed. But here's this piece of paper you got to live by now. And that piece of paper wasn't working

Scott Benner 4:36
one very helpful. Not it's difficult sometimes to feel people through writing. But you felt like you were vibrating. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then and then you're not. So then then I How do I explain this. So I want to help when I hear from you. Right away. And then there's, there's this interesting thing that happens too, because men don't reach out nearly as much as women do. But the men that reached out are usually very, like caregiver oriented dads. Like I don't get, I don't get a lot of guys who were, you know, I get up in the morning before the sun, I go to work, I come home, I eat, I grew up, I go to bed, like I don't meet those men, you know what I mean? So I know you're gonna, you're gonna be a person who's really been involved in your kid's life, and, and has a lot that, you know, a lot going on at the moment. And I but I'm so much better at talking to women like so like i. So I. So I'm just like, Oh, I wonder how this will go. And I feel like, in present day, you guys are doing pretty well. Is that a fair assumption?

Unknown Speaker 5:55
Work? Yeah. Day Wednesday, we got our a one c two about a 6.1 as of right now. And we haven't been over 6.5 that this whole thing?

Scott Benner 6:05
Okay. What? What was the origin of the nervousness in the beginning? Like, what had you upset?

Unknown Speaker 6:15
Well, the only thing I knew about diabetes was there was an old man on a commercial that used to say, diabeetus. And that was the only thing I knew about diabetes, I had no clue. You know, I thought diabetes was just something that all people get. And, well, all of a sudden, that just got thrown out the window. And then it's just something about having to give your child a shot, when the most you know about any type of medical thing is rub some dirt in it. And you're gonna be alright. It was it was just life changing, total life changing? Yeah. I don't like change too much. And when that happened overnight,

Scott Benner 7:01
you got to do it. And you can't say no to it, or say, Well, let me give him give me a minute to think about it. It's, it's just here it is, and go do it. And that's it. How did you? How did how did you find me? Like, how did we end up talking?

Unknown Speaker 7:15
It went from, I'm going to, I'm going to Facebook group for auto blast, because that's what I do for a living. And I met a guy on there, who he's type one, and so was his daughter. And, you know, everybody's the same age, like I'm almost the same age as him, his daughter, same age as my daughter. And he was like, dude, you need therapy. He just flat out said you need therapy. You are stressing way too much about this. And I'm like, Well, I don't I don't do that. So I started finding like support groups on Facebook. Okay. And then the podcast got brought up a few times. I was like, I don't listen to podcasts. And we'll try this. And I think the first episode I actually listened to, was the one that I think was called a when you decided to share or something like that, right? It was like one of the first episodes Yeah. And I was like, Man, this dude gets it. And I just keep listening, man. And I learned so much from that.

Scott Benner 8:15
That's really cool. Because, you know, I think there's a lot to learn here for people because I would think that if you take diabetes out of the mix, you and I don't appear to have anything in common where we would, we would meet like, in a way where you were in a spot where somebody was telling you, hey, you might need therapy and you're like, no, I found a guy named Scott it's gonna be fine. Like I don't know. I just can't imagine that would happen and without this common denominator for us, and not because we come from different walks of life, but just because guys don't really this is not how we generally do things. Like Yeah, you know,

Unknown Speaker 8:56
it's like, you know, as a dad, you're like, Okay, well I can fix this you know, you can fix anything right? You know, you gotta you got a water pipe, busted, you fix it, you got his car broke down, you fix it, and you got problems at school, you go fix it. Well, then you get diabetes thrown into the mix. You can't fix that.

Scott Benner 9:14
And it'll make you crazy.

Unknown Speaker 9:16
Yes, but what I've learned is maybe I can't fix it. But I can manage it. And I could do the best I can to manage it. And that's relieving to know that I can manage it.

Scott Benner 9:31
I agree. Would you say that as a parent? This is the first thing that's come up that didn't have a finite answer. Something that yes, yeah. That's a horrible first thing to be in that situation with. Can I ask this is gonna sound disconnected for a second? Has there been much death in your life or did most of the people you know, are they still alive?

Unknown Speaker 9:52
No, there's been 2019 I went through like five different funerals. Oh, my You know, my dad died 10 years ago. Okay, so yeah. So when I hear diabetes the instant thing Oh, but she, she got this, we got long enough time to panic

Scott Benner 10:16
feels like panic. Yeah, I asked because until, until like the last couple of years of my life I just didn't know many people who had died it was the that's the most finite thing I can think of that you have to deal with because there's no, you know, there's no way you don't get the wish your way out of it, right? So diabetes is is like that in that it, you know, it's just not going to be 100% fixable. And then you have to make your peace with that. What do you think would have happened to you if you didn't make peace with it?

Unknown Speaker 10:47
Oh, well, I didn't sleep for I don't know, five months I was sleep 30 minutes at a time. And then up until recently, I started setting alarm clocks for over two hours. And then I just realized that I was standing up from in between and just watching the Dexcom numbers and that wasn't healthy. And I think I would have probably had a heart attack. At the rate I was going,

Scott Benner 11:13
Yeah, I know that feeling. I really do. I've said those words to my wife, I said, I have to figure something else out, or I'm gonna have a heart attack. There's a weird line, once the sleep is like once you get past tired, and you're just existing in like that zombie state. Everything like your chest feels tight, and your head feels light. And it's a it's a bad way to be half asleep. I you know, it's funny when I when I speak in public, you know, so when I'm, I'm kind of speaking in a in a set amount of time. It's so management oriented. But at the very end, I throw in these two things. I tell people, if your doctor says no, you should ask why. And you have to get sleep. And then those two little things might seem like they don't go in any way with the bigger conversation. But that's how important I think they are that if I have the opportunity to save anybody, I will I always will. Because I know what happens, may you you get on the wrong side of exhaustion, and it's too bad deal. Well, like I have to tell you, your notes are I was talking about this with my wife last night, I was telling her I was gonna do this with you today. And I said, this is gonna be super interesting. I said, because in the beginning, I couldn't read you in the beginning, you know, and because you're very direct, but then I realized that you're just you're just a guy communicating like if there's no like fluff to what you write. But in the but in the very beginning, I read it as in the first note or so I read it as demanding. And then I realized it wasn't and I just demanding meaning like, Hey, I have a question. You're now going to answer my question. But then I realized that's not I realized I was like, that's not what this is. It's just he's just, he's a guy. He's just he's, you know, he's not gonna there's no, there's no pretty words to go around this. Here's the question, what's the answer? Let's get out of this. Thank you. But I've come to really appreciate our correspondence now. Because it's, it's quick, and I like it that way.

Unknown Speaker 13:13
And it's like, I try not to bother you. It's like, I actually actually communicate with you more than I do. Our, our team of doctors. And, and they're good is because the Our team of doctors, they're awesome. They're amazing. I could not ask for anything better. Yeah. But they're, they're all women. And it's just weird to just ask for help. If you know what I mean. And with you, it's like for a while you're just like a faceless entity. So I don't really you know, I don't see you. I don't have to come in contact with you later. I could just ask you a question. And it's kind of like the man pride thing, you know, right? Nobody knows where I'm getting these answers from. I just got the answer. Like you're making any sense at

Scott Benner 14:01
all. Not only is it making sense, but you're making me think that if I developed a speaker, like a like a Amazon Echo Siri type speaker, that you can only ask diabetes questions I could I could be rich selling them. No, but I do understand and and I hope that people understand listening to because you're from, you're from the south, right? You're from Louisiana.

Unknown Speaker 14:27
No, I'm from Alabama. I'm in South Carolina, South Carolina.

Scott Benner 14:31
I'm sorry. You're not gonna get that bad weather today, are you?

Unknown Speaker 14:35
Uh, no, it's coming tomorrow, I think

Scott Benner 14:38
No, no kidding. It's just the tornadoes everywhere today. There's like tornado warnings everywhere. But anyway, but I think that that's, you know, I think that's a geographic idea. And probably generational too. How old are you?

Unknown Speaker 14:56
I am 3535. So

Scott Benner 14:59
you think it's more geographic the idea of like, it's hard to ask for help like you're saying it's hard to ask women for help for things is that right?

Unknown Speaker 15:08
Yeah, well, it's even hard to ask like, like, you know, I go to church all the time. I mean, I'm in search a lot now I find myself in searching more since diabetes then before that, okay? But it's even hard to ask some of my close friends that are males for help. It's like you know, I'm a man I can do this by myself. Okay.

Scott Benner 15:31
So it doesn't have as much to do with who you're asking just in fact that you have to ask it all

Unknown Speaker 15:36
that right. Yeah. I just learning learning that all the time. You can't be Superman is the biggest lesson diabetes has taught me

Scott Benner 15:46
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's funny, you're talking about if a pipe breaks, break a pipe, or a fixed a pipe, you know, how many people buy a house and then open a wall and go, the guy that fixed this did not know what he was doing? It's, it really is it's, I don't think it's appreciated by by my wife and maybe some other women either, but you do have that feeling as a guy, you're like, I'll just fix this anyway, I can figure out how to do it. And it's often not right and it just, it's not applicable with diabetes. You can't, like you can't MacGyver diabetes, you know what I mean? Like, you just you gotta have the right tools. And then once you have the right tools, I mean, it's easier you also are interesting, because you, you describe yourself like you're very quick to describe yourself as like a simple person, but you're type A personality, aren't you?

Unknown Speaker 16:37
I don't, I don't really know.

Scott Benner 16:39
You don't know. You're a perfectionist. Mike, you don't know that about yourself. Is it just that Oh, yeah, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 16:44
I am a perfectionist. Okay.

Scott Benner 16:46
All right, because I hear from two different kinds of people most frequently. And I want to I want to say before I before I say this, I got a note from a lady yesterday and I was answering her back and then I apologize that I'm sorry I dictated this there's a lot of spelling mistakes in here I'm driving and she's like oh, I I did not mean to bother you while you were driving and I said to her it's not a bother I would not have answered you if it was a bother like that's like you know like if you're hearing back from me I mean to like you're not pressuring me into into getting back to you is my point so but you're but so there's two kinds of people that we talk to either people are super lost they need help right? Or they get to a point where they're showing you graphs that look like like concrete sidewalks with one little dip and they're like, what do you think this problem is and I'm like whew, you might be the problem at this point. Because this because this is amazing and you're still worried about it and you've you've come a long way but you would send me stuff and I'd be like Wow, I can't believe he's this worried about this graph this graph looks pretty good. And so can you talk about the the desire to make it perfect

Unknown Speaker 18:01
it's like I seen this thing that was somebody sent me a picture about you know, how what high blood pressure high blood sugar does over a course of time. And you know, she's 10 she's got a long life ahead. So the flatter I could keep this line now. You know, the, the bigger my chances of you know, normal life stuff like having grandkids by her and and you know, walking her down the aisle. That's that. That's my that's my endgame. Did I want to see your be successful? As an adult?

Scott Benner 18:40
Okay, you feel like you're buying time. Exactly. Okay, so now you are, and at the same time, you aren't, and Jenny reminds me of this when I talked to her sometimes. And I'm glad she does, that you could manage your daughter's blood sugar perfectly for a decade. And if she goes off at 20 years old, and doesn't match that management, if it gets lesser, the damage that will come from that time will not be bolstered by the good job you did the first 10 years. So a big part of your job, all of our jobs really as parents is going to be to figure it out and then figure out how to explain it in a way that makes it doable for them not just doable, functionally, but in a way that makes it so that they want to do it so that it's easy enough to do that. It doesn't feel burdensome, which is I think maybe the bigger challenge

Unknown Speaker 19:34
Yeah, and most of my micromanaging that, uh, because I understand I micromanage it too. Extreme, we'll put it that way. But most of my micromanaging She doesn't even know what's taking place because you know, with with the Omnipod and the Dexcom. I can just look at her numbers and take her PDM and make any adjustment I need to do real quick and she'll even know what I'm doing. All right. And she's just now starting to be carb conscious. Like a friend of mine, he loves those Monster Energy drinks. And she grabbed his cat and looked at the carbs and like look how many carbs in this and actually went on a whole tirade about that. Which was awesome because at least he that was the first time that I've seen her actually look at a label. Okay, oh, she's picking up. She's just picking up really slowly.

Scott Benner 20:31
Yeah, it takes time. I just last night. Arden came to me kinda late. And she's like, I'm thinking about a snack. And I was like, Alright, I said, well, what's Bolus now and, and she was like, 120. So we're at the end of a pump. So she's like, a little, little higher than I wanted to be. So we're trying to get through the end of the pump. I said, Well, let's Bolus now he's gonna take a little longer. And then she went to get food. And I said, I'm gonna put 45 carbs in here, you know, cuz she was talking about grapes and something else. And, but then she waited a little long. And thought, well, since I'm lower than I mean, to be now I'm going to grab chocolate milk instead. And so the carb count was the same, but the impact was different. And I didn't, like I wasn't with her. And she didn't think to say to me, Hey, I took this instead of that. And I do think that that's a disconnect for her. Like, I don't think she, she, I don't think she was considering the, like, the glycemic load of the food. And, you know, I guess I don't really want to wander around worrying about that all the time. But it would have been nice last night, because then it created a situation where we had to Bolus again and they got out of, you know, got out of where we wanted it to be and turn into a little fight that lasted like, you know, 45 minutes, fight with the insulin and the food, I mean, but it just, it made me feel like it's gonna take time. So all I did this morning, was when I saw her, I said, Hey, last night, when you swap this out for that, that put us in a situation where we actually needed more insulin. You know, this hits you harder than these though. And she was like, okay, and I left like I didn't, I didn't make an issue of it or anything like that, because it's a long fight. You know, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 22:12
that's right. And I know I kind of sounded a little sexist in the beginning of this. But I do want to say that, you know, my wife, she is an absolute Rockstar at this. Like, I could not do what she does. Like I handled most of the technology end of it, and I handle the doctor's appointments. And I come up with a coach I coached literally football for a while coaching my son still as he's in high school, even though I'm not on the field with him, I'm still coaching him as far as weight training and all this good stuff. So I come up with a game plan, and she executes it and she executes it perfectly. She does all the meal prep, she does the dosing and all this good stuff. But I handle you know, the I do the research, I do. I do the technology change and outside Do you know all the emergency Oh, well, we got a we got a low blood sugar. What do we do here? And, and my wife is a rock star at

Scott Benner 23:19
this. Yeah, no, I you know, it's funny. two things. First, I didn't think if it sounded sexist, I felt like you sounded a little like, traditional is is just kind of how it felt to me, like my father would have had trouble asking a woman for help. But he just would have. And I don't know why. And I'm not saying it's right. But he would have a it didn't come off as sexist to me just felt like it might have been your truth. So are you saying with your wife, like you have the worry, and she does the work? Is that good? Right? That's the division.

Unknown Speaker 23:48
That's right.

Scott Benner 23:49
Did you do that? Because that's where you fit naturally? Or were you protecting your wife,

Unknown Speaker 23:56
protecting my wife from having to deal with any other stress?

Scott Benner 23:59
Yeah. Now I feel that I feel like that a lot here too. Like, I don't want this to fall to anybody else. They were very similar, Mike, in a in a number of ways. You have that feeling that you just like, well, I'll just, I'll do it. All right, I get like, let the bad stuff fall on my shoulders. And then I'll filter it and give it to them.

Unknown Speaker 24:21
That's right. Yeah,

Scott Benner 24:23
I hear you. You feel like you're gonna be dead sooner, because I do sometimes.

Unknown Speaker 24:27
Sometimes I think about that. But I just recently I started actually going back to the gym and finding time to take care of myself.

Scott Benner 24:35
Good. It's incredibly important because that now you've become and you will, as time goes, I mean, your daughter's only 10 you have a lot of heat a lot of time in this even before she even talks about moving out or going to college or something like that. So you're going to be a repository of information in the next decade. She can't lose you now. Like you just became you're gonna you're just gonna become valuable. You know what I mean? You're gonna be like a set of encyclopedia. As for but how do you but but you're so early in it I think about it more now but like how do you set up a situation where she'll feel comfortable asking you 21 years old sitting in a dorm room somewhere wondering about a Bolus, like, like, how do you make it so it's so comfortable that she just sends you a text and says, Hey, I'm about to have this I don't know how to Bolus for you know, do you have any idea? And, and it'd be that easy. Just a couple seconds. And on your way again, like I get texts from my son while he's at school, about things he doesn't understand all the time. You know, they're just not about health.

Unknown Speaker 25:40
I got a two part answer. One, you know, when I've been so open with all of my kids, about every aspect of my life, and there was some pretty dark years before kid and I've been so open with it. And we don't we don't try to. I've never sugar coated anything. Anything to it. I just use it. You see the word? I just want to the point. Yeah. And that's the way I've always talked to almost, you know, this is this because of this and there's there's no way around it. Or the two I'm learning with her. If I make it a joke, if I if I make her laugh during a question to come ask me another one.

Scott Benner 26:31
Because the interactions pleasant for Yep, yeah, that's smart. That's really smart. Didn't didn't imagine diabetes is gonna make you a better father digit.

Unknown Speaker 26:41
I had no clue, man, I thought I thought it was gonna make me a neurotic mess for a long time.

Scott Benner 26:46
I gotta tell you, six, eight months ago, I would have put $50 on you fall apart. It's It's interesting, though, because you had you had the one thing that that people need. It was desire. Like, really, you had the desire and the focus to figure it out. And I find that that to be very important. When I'm speaking to people, there are some people who are as lost as lost could be, but you can tell. It doesn't matter. They're not giving up.

Unknown Speaker 27:21
And it's like part, part of the reason why that i i was just, I'm so determined to get diabetes, right? Or right as I possibly can, was the year before my daughter got diagnosed, my sister donated a kidney to a random stranger. And he ended up with kidney problems because of the lack of taking care of his diabetes. And so this is fresh in my mind that this just happened. And then my daughter gets diagnosed. And, you know, just the father side of me says I can not let that happen.

Scott Benner 28:07
That's how I feel about it. So I'm with you. And the younger, you know, it's funny, there's this trade off, like you say, like, oh, Scott's daughter was diagnosed when she was two, it's great. She doesn't know another way. But, you know, the other side of it is when Arden was diagnosed, back when she was two, which is now going to be I mean, we're coming up on Jesus, 15 years ago, maybe she was two, and she's gonna be 17 this summer. So we're coming up on that, right. And, you know, back then one of the things a doctor said to me to comfort me was, don't worry, complications from diabetes, don't start for 30 years. And I thought, So when she's 32.

Unknown Speaker 28:49
Like, that's exactly what I thought.

Scott Benner 28:53
That doesn't feel like a upbeat thing to say to me right now. But that was the that was the vibe that I was left with, which was, Hey, don't worry, your daughter's not gonna have real health problems till she's 32. And I thought to myself, I didn't even know which way was up until I was 29. You know, like, she got to get three good years, you're telling me it was like, I was like, wait, what's going on here? And that was part of what pushed me to try to figure it out more. But I think too, that's an interesting conversation with you. Because I think too, that putting myself in the position of being the one who was who, even if it's not true, even if my wife was working just as hard and worried just as much as I was, which I believe she was. I still told myself This was on me. And so I almost had to figure it out because I didn't think I'd be able to hold it forever.

Unknown Speaker 29:48
And see I took a lot of weight of this for a long time for a good five months. It was my fault. No But he could tell me different because, you know, we ended up in ICU with her and DK. The night before that, you know, she's laying on the couch, and she just started, you know, her her cycle. So, you know, I think that's what's wrong with it. And then they, they had just started putting out a Valentine's Day candy on the shelves. So I'm at the store at the end, we'll get to some chocolate she'll feel better. That's one thing I did learn from my wife chocolate makes everything but but uh, so I gave a child who I don't know at this point is in decay a box of chocolate. And the next day when when we had to go to the hospital, and we found out it was diabetes, just the guilt of that dollar box of chocolate was almost enough to push me over the edge

Scott Benner 31:01
in that moment, right, because without any context, you um, you'd feel every ounce of that as being the worst thing you could have possibly done.

Unknown Speaker 31:10
Yep, yeah, it took a while to swallow that. They really did.

Scott Benner 31:15
Meanwhile, like how many stories have you heard on the podcast? Or people are like, I was on my way to the hospital. I was like one more go. Or there was a lady recently. It hasn't been on yet. She said that. She's a younger girl. Actually. She called a friend who had diabetes and her friend was like, get a big soda on the way. It's the last one you ever gonna have?

Unknown Speaker 31:33
Yeah, I heard I heard one word where somebody took their kid to a ballgame and then went out to dinner. I was like, okay, maybe that's not as bad as Okay, maybe I'm good.

Scott Benner 31:42
Maybe you did. All right, right? Well, no, isn't it interesting? Like you didn't do it on purpose, but other people who see it coming. They're literally like, I just want one more day. Without this being an issue, which is listen, academically foolish and emotionally I understand it. So yeah, but it just uh, yeah, I mean, you didn't do anything now you know your past that you but I'll tell you the guilts hard to let go of for a lot. I don't know if you heard that episode a number of weeks ago. With Francisco Leone, he was on talking about to please a mob. And I always just thought like, you know, Arden had hand foot mouth. coxsackievirus prior to getting diagnosed, which he talked about, is like he believes he actually said he believes that coming up with a vaccine for coxsackievirus will go a long way towards getting rid of type one diabetes. And that nothing I could have done would have stopped her from getting coxsackie because there was a long time in there. I just felt like I told him like, Did I not wash my hands one time before I made dinner? Was I taking her to the wrong place? You know, I mean, like, I had that whole feeling like we were very, like we take our kids places, like when they're little like, you know, you know, I think we had the whole colon a movie theater. He was you know, breastfeeding. It was a couple weeks old. And you know, I've take Arden to the zoo, and she was six months old and Walker like should I have not have done that? Like, that's always how it feels. And he just he absolved me. I felt like I was in confession. And he was like, it's okay.

People I don't know how many different ways I can say this to you. But you need and you deserve an accurate blood glucose meter. That's it. I know when the age of CGM is right you got a Dexcom You think I don't need a meter like you? Do you still need a meter? And if you're gonna have one anyway, and we know you're going to have one why would you not have a good one. And I don't just mean like a good one like not middle of the road. Gets yourself a great blood glucose meter, it's not that hard, and they're not that expensive. The Contour Next One blood glucose meter is that glucose meter for me, Arden uses it, we love it. It is super simple to hold and handle. It has Second Chance test strips, a bright light for nighttime testing. You know, sometimes you need to need you know, you need to bide last my word, you know, sometimes you need to test your blood sugar in the dark. We're not bad. So we're gonna need a light right on the front of the meter being like, nice and bright lights up the whole area. Also the screen, easy to read. Also, I find I like the like when the screen lights up. I use it for some ambient lighting at night when I'm testing the big word ambient. Probably you're probably pretty impressed right now. But don't worry about me and my great grasp of the language. That's not what you should be excited about. You should be excited about having a great meter. A meter that by the way, may be cheaper in cash than you're paying right now through your insurance. Or you can just run it through your insurance so it really doesn't matter but you have options and those options are awesome. thought out at Contour Next one.com, forward slash juicebox. But all that rigmarole aside, I want you to have a good accurate meter that's easy to use and easy to carry. And that's why I'm glad happy, actually thrilled that the Contour Next One blood glucose meter is a sponsor of the podcast. So for those of you who don't know what trial net is, again, it is a free, I want to stress free because there are other options out there that cost money. But trial net is free is a free type one diabetes risk screening. Now at the very end of the episode, I'm going to go through probably a solid minute of information. So you can really understand the nuts and bolts here. But here it is. brass tacks trialnet.org, forward slash juicebox. That's it go there to answer the questions. And if you're eligible, boom, Here comes your free Risk Screening, you can do it in your house, I mean, you could go do it a lab if you wanted to. But you can actually do it here. It's just it's super simple. And if you want to know, if you have the genetic markers for type one diabetes, or if some loved one of yours has them, this is the way to find out. And there's a ton of good reasons to want to know, I'm going to tell you about them at the end, as well as the steps you can take. So for the show for the podcast, just asking for the kit doesn't give me credit, okay, so all of you out there that want to help me, please don't just do that, okay, don't just order the kit and not do anything with it. You have to follow through, you actually have to send it back in. And that's when the podcast gets credit for you using the kit. So I just want to mention that because I know you guys love me, and I know you want to help, but just don't order them because you think you're helping Scott, okay, only order them if you can complete them and send them back in. I do want to add here that when you use my link, there's going to be a drop down box to ask you where you heard about it. If you don't choose Juicebox Podcast, they're not going to know you came through me even though you came through my link. So use the podcast trialnet.org forward slash juice box. But then when they asked you where you heard about it, please choose Juicebox Podcast, I'm going to give you all the other details at the end of the episode.

You didn't It's not your fault. And it was a big deal for me, even 15 years later, I still wondered if I didn't just take her to the wrong place at the wrong time or do something that you know, even indirectly that could have impacted this, but I think Arden was getting diabetes one way or the other eventually.

Unknown Speaker 37:45
I think it all happens for a reason. And that's that's, you know, you knew how stressed out I was about coming on to this podcast. And that's that's one of the reasons why I was like, You know what, I just gotta get over it, we got to do it. Because you know, I don't know if there's some other 35 year old redneck, sitting in his pickup truck somewhere, you know, beating the steering wheel trying to figure out how to deal with this and if something I say can inspire him to you know, stay in the game a little longer. You know, I think that's the you know that that's why my daughter got this disease you know,

Scott Benner 38:25
well not only will your conversation help somebody and it might be a person like you, but I know it's going to help people who have not one thing in common with you too because you're going to have a perspective that they just never jumped up before and and that's going to be interesting I mean, listen right now I would imagine there's a female doctor listening to this who never once thought I bet you guys might have trouble asking me for help. I wonder how I wonder how that impacts what I do? Because it's all true like you can sit around and be judgey about it like Mike Mike shouldn't feel weird about asking women or nobody should have good okay perfect world 100% but that doesn't mean that's not how that works you know some guys have trouble listening to authority at all so to some women there's been plenty of stubborn women on here you know who are like I don't listen to people all right, you know okay yeah got nothing I could do about it but maybe you should maybe you'll hear something that might be valuable for you. No, I like this a lot. I really do i'm not just because your messages just now they cracked me up because it not because you're funny but because I remember thinking like What's up with this guy and now I don't feel like that anymore. So now when I get a message from you, I'm like, Oh, it's Mike. But uh, but so what did you figure out? That's been most valuable for your daughter so far. Through all this like me. You went through all this consternation, your hand wringing and upset and guilt ridden, but what came out of it

Unknown Speaker 39:57
that if I Don't stress about the small stuff. The big stuff don't seem so big. And if I'm okay, if I'm calm, she's gonna be all right. And the time it is, you know, with stress, you know, we, you can't hide from the stress, the stress is going to be there. So I might, I might go take a shower and cry in the shower, come back out. She never knows that anything's wrong. And as long as you don't feel like nothing's wrong, she's fine.

Scott Benner 40:35
That's where I used to like to cry like that was my spot. Hey, it's 530 I need to shower Kelly's like weird time take a shower. I'm like, Dad just need a shower, just but yeah, it was just it basically what it was, is I had been up all night, and then, you know, six, seven o'clock in the morning with a with a two year old who had diabetes. And I had made it about as far as I could, without screaming, throwing something or crying and I just thought, you know, crying is probably better than punching a wall. So I'll go do that now. And, and I agree, like you've have to find a place to, to reset your emotions where you can't see I mean, listen, I you know, there's plenty of people who have cried in a hospital room at a diagnosis and stuff like that. That's not the same thing. Like that's a that's in that moment. It's upsetting. But you're saying a year later, five years later, if you know you're upset. It all it does is show the other person that you don't understand this. You know, it's not comforting for a 10 year old that she best, right? Yeah, she's got a number more years where she gets to believe that you're Superman, you know?

Unknown Speaker 41:48
That's right. That's right. And you know, keep it a smile on your face while you're dealing with a blood sugar over 200 is a hard thing to do. And if you got to do it, you got to do it. Because you know, once once these things, you lose your emotions. her emotions, just gonna make the blood sugar go higher anyway.

Scott Benner 42:12
I fail at that more often than I'd like to think I do. And I think it's possible. I was just honest about it here. So that one day if I had never listened back to this whole thing, she'll know, I know. But yeah, there are times where sometimes it's not even, like, it's not even anxiety. It's like you kind of go into your head to figure it out. And I know for me, like, I lose all the tone in my face, and my face looks upset. While I'm thinking like, well, the food went here and the insulin went there. And it's day two of the palm like and you're kind of like doing all that math in your head. And, you know, and you're disappointed like sometimes and it's not ever in the blood sugar. Really. I'm always just disappointed in either myself or, you know, a decision I made earlier that messed me up now that that kind of stuff and, and I should even say it's not disappointment. Like I'm not beating myself up about it. It's just momentary. You know what?

Unknown Speaker 43:12
No, you know, you could have done that better. You did?

Scott Benner 43:15
Yeah, you being honest with yourself for a second. Like I'm not I'm not self flagellating. It's not i'm not you know, I'm not gonna spend the next 20 minutes beating myself up about it, but in that moment, you're just like, Oh, I shouldn't have done that. And you know, I don't know if anybody's ever played baseball and you get caught off a bass and as you're diving back and you know, you're gonna get picked off like there's a there's a lifetime worth of regret while your hands reaching for the back can just like I screwed this up. And and then it's over, you stand up and it's over, you know, but when

Unknown Speaker 43:52
we hit like a battle with ketones, our first one and it ended up being something wrong with the pump and we, we got over that, but ever since then, I go into my notepad and my phone. If she has to get insulin if you eat something I write down every detail and, or why it worked or why it didn't work. Because the kids love tacos. tacos, I think were made by the devil, because they hit so crazy. But we almost got it to where it ain't going over 180 accuracy tacos, like three hours later.

Scott Benner 44:32
And that feels like a hell of a win, doesn't it? Yes, it does. You don't want to forget how you did it.

Unknown Speaker 44:38
That's right, because it's just so not all carbs are created equal. And, you know, coming from a bodybuilding type atmosphere to you know, all I need to know with the protein content to Well, now all these carbs and others the day, it fruit, carbs. The bakery car. I mean, they all hit different.

Scott Benner 45:05
Yeah, there's a, I guess it's a Mexican like chain restaurant around here called Moe's. And oh yeah, like, oh, and it's one thing like I've asked, and I was like, please don't eat the nachos from Moe's like, if you could just like so she'll, if she gets something from there, she'll bring them home and parent with like a storebought chip that is, I know how to handle. But the most chips are just, I can't. I mean, they're there feels like there's not enough insulin to get it right. And there's still times where I'm like, you know, go ahead and grab them if you want. But she's even like, not sorry, I won't, like she knows. And I'm hoping that that's a lesson for her down the line that there are some things it's just better to, you know, you don't need those most chips to live, you know what I mean? Like, I'm hoping she gets that in her head too, there are going to be a couple things she's going to avoid, because it's just going to make more trouble than it's worth.

Unknown Speaker 46:01
That's right. And like in in the beginning, you know, they sent us out of the hospital, we got this piece of paper, and it also kept carbs and divided and that's how much insulin you get. Well, then I read the side effects than the possible complications from insulin. And I was like, Okay, well, this is an easy fix. We're not going to eat any carbs. And I almost died two weeks and because of lack of carbs, I could not physically go another day. So we started with like, 30 carbs. And he just not happy not even that many carbs when you're used to eating pretty much whatever you want it to. We don't, we're not carb crazy. We don't. And if people are, that's fine, but we don't work for us. Right? And I don't really say hey, you can't eat that. You can't do this. You can't do that. But I limit what she can have. But like stuff like cereal, cereal is just impossible. I have not figured out theory yet.

Scott Benner 47:11
It's uh, took me a long time to get that right. Like it's significantly long time and in the end, the answer ended up being it's just for Arden, it was just way more insulin than I could have imagined that ended up just being the whole thing for her. It's you know, she needs a Pre-Bolus Don't get me wrong, you need starting with a lower numbers incredibly helpful, but it's just way more than you think. So and it might be different for other people. And it took me a long time to figure that out because of something that you mentioned earlier is because at some point, there's an amount of insulin insulin really like well, if I mess this up the wrong way. This is a lot of insulin. And you know I don't want to make that mistake going the other way. So I just did it incrementally just had a bowl cereal went wrong corrected it, move the correction into the Bolus just kept going until all the insulin was there when it needed to be and ended up working and but but having said that, Arden's older now and you know she might have a bowl of cereal like a month you know, not like she was back then just day after day, you know when she was little and oh my god, I messed it up so many times.

Unknown Speaker 48:23
It's like I think you you actually talked me through it was her birthday. And you actually talked me through the biggest carb meals he had ever ate. And it went perfectly.

Scott Benner 48:34
That's cool. I'm glad 100 carbs

Unknown Speaker 48:37
and I was had a heart attack given her the shot because I wasn't we was on just the insulin pins. Yeah. scariest day of my life. It was I just knew something bad was gonna happen but nothing did.

Scott Benner 48:52
It all worked out. I Well, I'm sorry. It was a scary day for you. I have to tell you like you got right to like you figured me out because I was like little girl's birthday. All right. I'll help like some little girl lavish birthday because I wouldn't I go ahead and text with her dad for a couple of minutes. I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, you knew how to get me Mike. That was easy. Was was in then. I'm so happy that it went well for you. And in the end, it was just put the insulin in the right place and use enough of it.

Unknown Speaker 49:25
That's right. And wait, wait. Wait, we were we were originally told to give insulin after she ate. Oh, because I don't know why. But that's just what they told us to do. And I would notice her sugar would be like 200 before it even started to come down.

Unknown Speaker 49:50
And then I kept hearing this word Bolus. I didn't know what a Bolus was.

Unknown Speaker 49:56
And then Pre-Bolus got added to what is a Pre-Bolus. So I started Google is my friend. So I look all this up. And I'm like, oh, and I think it came. I ended up seeing something about 15 minutes before or something like that. And we started doing that. And that has worked amazing.

Scott Benner 50:19
Yep, getting the insulin in the right places is incredibly important. I tell you, I say it all the time, right? It's still kind of fascinates me every time. But doing those defining diabetes episodes or shorter episodes, we just take one term and talk them through. I, you know, I didn't realize how valuable those would be. It was it really I say it over and over again. But it wasn't till somebody told me I didn't know I used MDI until someone told me I did. And I thought, wow, people need to understand the terms because they're trying to employ these tools. They don't even know what they are. Like, it's I mean, how much easier would it be if somebody just laid out for you like, hey, guess what, this is what hypoglycemia is, let's not assume that people understand anything. And, you know, let's, let's just define everything and not turn it into some classroom lesson. That's boring, and nobody wants to listen to like, people don't understand you can put information in the world. But if it's not accessible and accessible, doesn't just mean that I can find it. But if it's not accessible intellectually, or emotionally, people don't bother with it. Like they have to want to listen to it, then they have to actually listen to it. And it has to be in a way that it sticks with you when it's over. And then you have to realize that you put something into the world. And it's red hot, because it's new. And six months later, there's someone new doesn't know what it's what it is, I just last night, someone asked me online, they're like, I wish I understood why my kids blood sugar goes up in the morning. And my first thought, as I guess, as a content creator, is I went over this, like, like, it's in the thing, go find it, right? But I can't expect that. So I'm just like, okay, hey, well, I would try this episode. In this episode, there's two defining diabetes episodes about, you know, one of them's called feet on the floor. And one of them's called, you know, this and go listen to those. And then you hear back from the person that was great. That's exactly what was happening to me. So you have to also, you have to also realize that if you're going to be putting this information out, that you're going to be doing it over and over again. And you can't feel like oh, I've already said this, because it's um, helping people with diabetes is a lot like being a parent, in my mind, in that you have to say the same thing over and over again, a million times, and never say at once, like you're irritated or bothered by it. And if you can do that, then you can help a lot of people. But if you get all like I already said this, then, you know, you put a nice thing out into the world that nobody can find anymore.

Unknown Speaker 52:58
Like, I've gotten comfortable enough now to go on some of these Facebook groups. And when somebody has a question I paid I'm comfortable enough now, to put my two cents into it. And always make sure to tell them you know, they're doing great, no matter what the situation is, I tell them they're doing great. And that's what I'm learning. People will listen to you a little bit more. You know, when you're not scolding and wagging your finger at them, we know.

Scott Benner 53:26
Yeah, you listen when you're looking down at a 20 foot hole, and there's a person in the bottom of it that fell into it leading with how did you not see that? It's probably not a good way to make them feel good. That's right. I can't believe you fell down there. That was asinine. I mean, it's a big hole there's a sign NZ design. Thanks. No, I didn't I'm in the hole. So now you just yeah, you need to because I, I do my best online to just say Good job that people I mean, it's it's becoming, you know, it's a self perpetuating problem. The more populated, the more popular the podcast gets, the more people that are artists a good job to, which is delightful. But it's hard to keep up with. And, and sometimes I think, Oh, I hope I know, I missed people. And I hope they understand that I just thought I don't see everything, you know, but every time Great Job well done. This is amazing, because it is and somebody should say so especially.

Unknown Speaker 54:22
especially seeing so many parents trying. They're trying and that's all it does. This is all diabetes takes is the effort. You're willing to put the effort in, you're going to get good results.

Scott Benner 54:35
Yeah, as long as you know which way to put the effort. I mean, because there's nothing there's nothing worse right than putting in all that effort. Doing It Wrong. You still put the effort out and you get nothing in return. You still have the same problem when it's over. It's it's like trying to dig a hole with a keyboard. You just you know you're killing yourself and you're not getting anywhere so I just like to make sure they're holding a shovel when they're digging a hole. That's all that's right. You know It's a it seems simple hate your job has become, if I'm understanding what your job is, I'm fascinated by your job because I am a person who things seem to hit my windshield every when you're selling. But it's turned into like a real home job. Like it used to have to go to a guy and take it to a place and drop it off. And now like somebody just rolls up to your house, and an hour later is like, Can I get a check? And they leave. It's amazing. It's

Unknown Speaker 55:25
Yeah, I still do everything in shop. I'm still very old school. Just because I can control the climate. But there's, there's 1000s of guys out there now doing it, and you're doing it. And you know, there's some really great technicians that still do it on the road like that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:43
I've got a guy. I've got a guy that's so good at it. But he's one of those people. It's funny when you talk about how how people seem to other people. He's a guy that if I pulled him out of the world and said, Here, talk to this man for 10 minutes, would you let him replace the windshield in your car? I don't think so. But he's so good at it. Like it's just that it's

Unknown Speaker 56:03
every single autoglass technician, I promise you, we're all the same.

Scott Benner 56:06
Okay? I didn't. I didn't find that one guy he's awkward to text with is it's funny now that I'm talking about it. He's his age. I like talking to him in person. I hate talking to him on the phone. And he does an amazing job.

Unknown Speaker 56:22
I could promise you he hates talking on the phone as much as you do.

Scott Benner 56:25
So I'm just reading his desire to get the hell out of this phone call. That's hilarious. Yeah, but you got to have a guy that does a good job with that because something is gonna smack your windshield eventually. And then you know where I'll tell you. I've never felt so good about my life is that my auto policy has that $100 glass thing? Like no matter what piece of glass I break, you cost me $100 to get it fixed. And it is worth it to keep it up. I

Unknown Speaker 56:55
promise you.

Scott Benner 56:55
I'll tell you I'll trust me. I know. I know over and over and we've we once broke that we had a glass on the top of our car and we broke that. And I was like, oh god, this is gonna be expensive. Nope. $100 I was like, Yeah, fine. What There you go. Things go my way might

Unknown Speaker 57:12
say we're in South Carolina. You don't have to pay nothing.

Scott Benner 57:15
Really? Yep.

Unknown Speaker 57:19
Yeah, they know the road here so bad. You can't drive what I'm getting something broke.

Scott Benner 57:25
I once got a windshield broken at a spot on a highway. And five years later at what felt like the exact same spot on the highway, a windshield in a different car got broken. Oh, wow. And I thought, is that a coincidence? Or is there something about the pitch of this road like, like it's the whole world breaking windshields right here? Like, I don't know, I happened so long ago. I can't let go of it. Every time I drive through there, I'm liking your comms.

Unknown Speaker 57:51
You're watching your windshield.

Scott Benner 57:54
Just this close to rolling the window down and waving my hand in front of the car while I'm just checking in. And anyway, that's hilarious. So is there anything that we didn't talk about that you were hoping to? Or were you just hoping not to?

Unknown Speaker 58:10
I was hoping not to sound like a moron this whole time.

Scott Benner 58:13
He's hit small goals, but he didn't sound like a moron. So that's, that's, that's it? Yeah, mission accomplished. You're all set. Your daughter now is using an insulin pump.

Unknown Speaker 58:25
That's right, she's using Omnipod

Scott Benner 58:28
and the CGM Dexcom. That's right. And are you thinking of going to on the pod five? When the algorithm comes out?

Unknown Speaker 58:36
The horizon thing? Yeah, they

Scott Benner 58:38
changed the name of it. So yeah, horizon a really? Yeah, they call it they're calling it on the pod five now. But is that on your? Is that on your? Should I say is that on the horizon for you? Cuz that seems, but are you thinking about that?

Unknown Speaker 58:54
I am. But, you know, with any new technology, there's going to be some kinks in it. So I'm going to be kind of slow get into it. Because I'm comfortable with this Omnipod I understand how to use it. I understand all the little different things I could do with it. So I'm gonna wait and just read what people say about the new arm because when it comes up,

Scott Benner 59:17
okay, well, I think we're going to try it. So I should be able to tell you how it goes. Just trying to get a hold of it right now. So

Unknown Speaker 59:25
I was in one year, one of your episodes he said you don't you don't want to be the person that looks up one day and realizes that nobody treats diabetes this way. anymore. Yeah. And you know, so I really try to keep an eye out on what's what's coming down.

Scott Benner 59:40
Yeah, I just think don't jump for the sake of jumping. But don't get into a position where you're like, wait, no one doesn't like this. You know, like, you don't want to, you don't want to get so comfortable. Like in my opinion, like, you know, you don't want to be in your mid 30s saying, Hey, I got a 6.7 a one c it's great. Sure that kid over there has a five three But this is good, because, you know, it's situational for your, it's situational for the part of time when you come up because for that 35 year old person, you know, that you use the goal used to be eight. And they're 6.7. They're like, wow, I'm killing this. And I don't have to learn anything else to do this. But if there's not saying that one day that you know, you're gonna have an A one, everyone's gonna want a one C and the fours, but, I mean, maybe they will, like maybe the technology will get so good that that'll actually be possible. I have no idea. But would that be cool. And if that's happening, you know, you don't want to be the person who's like, ah, I just don't want to do it. Now. That feeling for me, comes from my buddy Mike. So but he came up in a regular and mph world. And he stayed with that for so much longer than he should have. And then once he tried to go to a faster acting insulin with Anna Basal, he was just like, he was just, he had been doing it for so long, he couldn't figure it out. And, you know, it just he waited too long. And I and I realized that coming from regular and mph going to novolog is not going to be the same as having a six, seven on a pump and being able to get a five with an algorithm. But you know, I mean, it's still, the idea is still there. It's just maybe not as harsh as my example. But I don't know that's, that's colored how I think of it.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:29
Yes, slow, slow, and steady change is better than a big jump, right? Yeah, yeah, you let me and that's what I'm learning. Diabetes was definitely a good teacher on that.

Scott Benner 1:01:42
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let somebody like me do that. And let Jenny figure that out, and then tell you which way is up and you can decide what you want to do for yourself. But yeah, everybody shouldn't be jumping. Like that. That freaks me out when people are like, I got a T slim. Now I have a Medtronic. I'm gonna get it on the pod. I thought I'm like, just like, wow, get a puppy. He needs some to do. Some board. I don't know. I have a friend who replaces televisions before they're done. And I'm like, why this one still works. He's like, that one's better. I'm like, but the one you have is still fine. Like, just use it a little longer sell it or do something like I don't know, I just added the jumping around too much. I get it like technology can feel like that. But it's when it's your health. It's a little weird. But I mean, I guess the issue is own What do I really care if you want to jump around in some pumps doesn't matter to me. So Mike, do you have any questions like it? I mean, you have plenty of questions when we're not on the podcast. Do you have any now?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:40
Oh, actually, not? Not? Not right now? Because I think I think I actually got a good handle on it now. Yeah, that's excellent. As I say that something is bound to happen in the next couple of days where I'm like, Oh, well, I got to pick Scott.

Scott Benner 1:02:55
you text me anything in the next couple of days. It's going in the end of this episode, but uh, read it. Read it into it at the end, when, uh, when I go to do editing on this? Well, I mean, listen, man, I, I really appreciate you doing this. I really do. Like you've our relationship has been very unique. And I just thought it would be strange not to document it like this at the end here. Because you are going to, you are going to ride off into the sunset, like you have that very, you have that feeling about you. Like you're, you're you're there and you know, you're fine tuning now. And it's been very interesting to watch, you figure the whole thing out. And, you know, I know you said you try to tell people, they're doing a good job. But if no one's told you let me be the let me be the first one to say it to you, because you started about as confused as I've ever seen anybody. And the person you are now just a year later, is um, it's fairly, it's impressive, what you what you've accomplished and the things you've kind of gotten through and climbed over to get to to the place you are now so great job.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:05
I appreciate that. I just want to say thank you for letting me come on here and and ramble on for a little while. And what you do is an amazing, amazing thing. I don't I don't know if you fully grasped how much you actually help people or not. But it's, it definitely is life changing what you do.

Scott Benner 1:04:25
That's very nice. I appreciate it. Listen, I tried to grasp it. But by the time I get downstairs and I mentioned it to anyone else, they beat it right back out of me again. So don't you worry. Hey, they must have a sensor. I don't know if it's an air sensor or if it's something on me, but that everyone must get a signal on their phones like oh, we starting to feel good. Let's get him back down to level Hold on a second. I I I interviewed three girls last night at the same time. My 13 year old girl a 15 year old girl and a 17 year old girl They all live on Grand Cayman Island together, which is apparently a place it's only about 29 miles across and only 60,000 people live on these three girls have type one diabetes and found each other. And it just was such an interesting thing to talk to them and, and to learn about them and see how they just, you know, they created this little, this little group that they they exist. And I mean, how many 17 year olds you know, are very good friends with a 13 year old. You don't I mean, and and these three girls are just they're just far enough in age that they don't kind of belong together. But then you talk to them, and they fit perfectly. And I'm having this conversation with them. It was really delightful. I loved it, and get done. My wife's like, how was it? And I started telling her she goes, Cole said, so Cole walks past it or heard me say something, and I don't know what I said, but he goes down to my wife and he goes, why do people listen to him? And he goes, I don't think he's like, he said this. And then he laughs I don't know why people listen to this. And my wife's like, it's, you know, a lot of people do, and he's like, I don't understand it. And so that's what I like, I'm going to hear from you that I helped a lot of people, and then I'm gonna walk out that door, and people are gonna be like, Oh, it's him. It's, I imagine it's the same as everyone else's home to between them and their children, etc. But I really appreciate your sentiment. And if it makes you happy to know, I am aware of what the podcast does, and trying very hard to not let it cloud how I do it. So I'm just trying to keep going and do it the way that I know that it works. I don't want to, I don't want to get to the end of this one day and look back and see that I've lost my mind at some point, because it's a heady thing for one person to tell you, hey, you did a thing that helped me this much, and it's health related. And when that turns into 10 people, it feels nice, but it's 100 people it's overwhelming when it becomes 1000s of people, it's you have to work to keep perspective about it. And I feel like I've done that I try I sat and answered emails last night and each one of them was really amazing and felt very important to me but if I told you that I probably had 20 emails that read exactly like that from last month from 20 different people like I'm not lying and so it's um it's an interesting exercise to answer everybody as a unique person and not feel like you're recycling your feelings. So I'm learning a lot about myself to doing this so I appreciate the opportunity from all you guys.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:46
seriously awesome.

Scott Benner 1:07:47
Yeah, listen, I appreciate you calling yourself a redneck to while you're on like I thought that was just the most delightful part of it. I don't think colloquially I'm allowed to put it in the title but it was very interesting to hear somebody just very casually be like, you know, it is what it is. I'll tell you what I've just say goodbye then I'm gonna tell you something I said on a recording recently that I'm struggling just to whether or not I can keep in so thank you very much. Hold on one second.

First, and First I'd like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, and remind you to go to Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. Also, there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox Podcast Comm. I also want to thank the new sponsor trial net trial net.org, forward slash juicebox. When you get there, and you're signing up for your free Type One Diabetes Risk Screening kit, don't forget to tell them when it asks you where'd you hear about this, you say Juicebox Podcast as a drop down box you choose Juicebox Podcast, you'll see it'll be right there. I'm gonna give you all the details after the music. But first I want to thank Michael for coming on the show. I really like I said enjoy Michael and I was thrilled to talk with him.

Okay, I'm looking at my email here with all of the pertinent information, expertly written by my friend at trial net. But first I want to give you a summary of trauma. It is available at no cost to relatives of people with type one diabetes. Trial net Risk Screening identifies T one D in its earliest stages, often years before symptoms appear. Early detection allows you to take steps to try to change the course of the disease. Trial net offers prevention studies, testing and ways to slow or stop the disease progression. For people who take part in clinical trials. The risk of diabetic ketoacidosis a serious and potential life threatening condition drops from 30% to less than 3%. And also when you're hearing all those stories People were diagnosed and DK you know, being in these trials from 30% to 3%. Okay, so here it is step one eligibility trialnet.org forward slash juicebox. immediate family members under the age of 45.

And second degree family members under the age of 20, you will qualify for Risk Screening if you are between the ages of two and a half and 45 years old and have a parent, brother, sister, or child with Type One Diabetes, you will qualify if you are between the ages of two and a half and 20 years old and have a non uncle, cousin, grandparent niece nephew or half brother or sister who has type one diabetes, you will also be eligible if you have tested positive for auto antibodies outside of trialnet. Okay, that's step one. That's eligibility. The signing up part is next visit trial net.org forward slash juicebox. answer a few quick questions to see if you're eligible. And then join 1000s of T one D families on the pathway to prevention. Don't forget when they ask you where you're heard about this, say Juicebox Podcast, or they will not know you came from me. So that's the part where you'll be able to help the podcast. And remember, it's not just asking for it that helps the podcast it's asking for it saying you heard from it through me completing the kit and returning it. That's a complete cycle without a complete cycle. It doesn't matter if you came through my link. Now after you do all that a kit is going to get delivered right to your door in home testing kit. Right? This free kit provides everything you need to collect a fingerstick blood sample from the safety of your own home. You can ship it back free using FedEx contactless at home pickup, right? Or you can ask for a lab test kit. And then you can take the free screening kit to any quest diagnostics, or lab core lab for a blood draw. That's it. Oh wait, that's not it. There's actually oh my goodness, look at this trial net locations near you. So you might even be able to do that. Alright, so let's go over that again. In Home test kit, where you collect it yourself, send it back free through FedEx, a lab test kit that you take the quest diagnostics or lab core, or you might be able to find a trial net location near you is pretty handy. Now step four are the results you will receive your screening results in four to six weeks. If your results show that you are in early stages of T one D trial net will schedule a follow up visit to see if you're eligible for a prevention study. Not cool. Now why would you want to do this? Here's some quick facts. t 1d family members are at a 15 times greater risk to develop Type One Diabetes than the general population. T one D Risk Screening will detect if you are in the early stages of type one. If you are identified as at risk trial net is then there for you. They have prevention trials. If your screening results show you are in early stages of type one, you may be eligible to join a prevention study and help test ways to slow or stop the disease progression. They also have ongoing monitoring by top Type One Diabetes researchers. And if you develop type one being monitored in a clinical research study like Tron that decreases your chances of decay again from 30% to 3%. And if that's not enough, you can help the greater good a future without Type One Diabetes could start with you. research can only advance with participants. The more participants who are involved in clinical research, the faster we will get answers, you're in a unique position to identify treatments that will slow or stop T one D from happening. In the last 20 years. Trial net has been the leading network in Type One Diabetes Prevention Research. In addition to being able to accurately predict who is going to develop Type One Diabetes trauma has now found a way to delay it by leading that to please a mob prevention trial to please them out is the first drug to delay T one D for a median of two years. This is an incredible advancement that gets us all one step closer to our ultimate goal. A future without type one. Trial net.org forward slash juicebox tellem, you came through me, get your kit. Get it back to them. Find out what's up. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast.

#554 Kate the Great

An adult type 1, a mom and so much more.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends Hello, this is Episode 554 of the Juicebox Podcast. And I am here to welcome you to it.

I hope you guys know me well enough by now, to know that I would not bring you crap. You understand what I'm saying? It's a great conversation with Katie. And I want to give you a little teaser about it. But if I'm being completely honest, I'm rushing to get these episodes together. Mom's having a little bit of a health issue, and I need to get these up on the internet for you. So they arrive when you expect them to. But I don't have a ton of time. So Katie's cool. She has type one diabetes. She's had it for a long time. She's gonna talk to you about a bunch of stuff. If I'm remembering correctly, she was pregnant during this and yes, indeed, I have a follow up email from her to let you know how it's going or how it went. And I mean, listen, trust me is a great conversation. You're going to spend the next hour absolutely enjoying yourself with your headphones on. 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 healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. And if you want to keep somebody in your thoughts today, my mom's name is Beth. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries g vo hypo pan, Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. This episode of the podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one, they just want you to head over and check them out. Touched by type one.org. They're also on Facebook, and Instagram. And by the way, the dancing for diabetes extravaganza. You know about it. If you don't head over to touch by type one.org to find out but if you do know about it, and you want to get tickets, they're available right now. The big event is on Saturday, November 13 at 7pm. It's in the Walt Disney theater at the Dr. Phillips center in Orlando, Florida touched by type one.org Tickets are on sale now. They are not expensive dance fans head over. If you're not a dance fan, you just want to support a super great organization helping the people with diabetes. Do it super great. Not a real word. I'm sorry. I'm rushing links in the show notes links at Juicebox podcast.com.

Kate 2:39
Alright, well Hi, my name is Kate. I am 38 years old. And should I just go through a little brief synopsis of my

Scott Benner 2:52
I I you know, I think it's time for me to complain. I love screwing with people and just being like, go Introduce yourself because I'm so interested to see who will like some people are very worried about the content. Some people are worried about saying too little too much. I'm all fascinated by you have to say just keep going. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

Unknown Speaker 3:10
I was 18 that was 20 years ago. Right? It was? Yeah. carry the one. Yeah, I found out right before our prom my senior year in high school, huh?

Scott Benner 3:25
That's not fun. And it

Unknown Speaker 3:27
was typical standard signs losing weight really thirsty vision issues when I when I had always had perfect vision. In fact, my friends thought that I was believing because I was still eating so much but losing so much weight so that there was an intervention regarding being bulimic and I you know, of course ended up not being that my stepfather at the time was a emergency room physician and swore because I played a lot of sports outside tennis and softball and and we were living in Georgia at the time, which of course is hot weather and he saw that I was dehydrated. So he hooked me up to an IV in my room because of course being a physician have all of those materials at the house and my mom was a are still as a labor and delivery nurse. So she also for having two clinicians at home had a urine sample cup and so they had me do that. And she brought that into work that evening. And then we got the call that I was you know on the verge of going into a diabetic coma and I should get in right away and something else my stepdad at the time had given me with some sort of like, relaxer Um, so driving to the hospital I was just in this days of like, I don't know, trying to see like some sort of a triangle And so I vaguely remember being in the hospital even though I was 18. I kind of just remember it's so weird. I've had so many endocrinologists over the time over the years, and I don't remember a whole lot of names, but I do remember his, um, and he's Canadian, too. He had a, you know, different accent, of course, very different than most of the people in Georgia. And he had held my hand and said, You know, this was an opportunity for me to become an endocrinologist and to develop a cure. And that would be very, you know, critical to that development. I always think back to that conversation at one point, I had thought about going to medical school, and then you know, going into the specialty, but then the thought of being in school for that long deterred me.

Scott Benner 5:53
The empowerment of one Canadian well, meaning man did not overwhelm you that much.

Unknown Speaker 5:59
No, yeah. So I, you know, I and I always go back and ask my mom, like, do you think that that was relevant? And I think, looking back now, I would have said it was relevant. But of course, as an 18 year old who is like, slightly drunk. I really think I can do it

Scott Benner 6:16
as an 18 year old on tranquilizers in DK. Yeah, exactly. He didn't feel like Career Day to you. Right? I can see I can see the, the desire from him. You know, like your pet your family's in medicine. He's probably trying to make you feel like, you know, here's, you know, an empowering moment and everything like that. He didn't know that. Your dad had whacked you out of your head. And you didn't know. You know, it's funny, as you're telling that story. A friend of my daughter's has two nurses, for parents. And I remember one time on a FaceTime call when she was sick, she had the flu or something looking at her, and she was on an IV in her bedroom. And I remember thinking, like, what the heck, and my daughter's like, Oh, yeah, her parents are nurses. And I was like, No, I didn't know that meant you could take it home with you. But yeah, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 7:07
And this was, you know, however many years ago, so maybe not possible anymore. But you

Scott Benner 7:15
think your dad just walked out with it just slung over his shoulder? Like, I'm just leaving with this stuff? And they're like, exactly. It's the 90s you can do whatever you want. Yeah, I don't know. Well, okay. That sucks. But how did you make out afterwards? Did you? Did you bounce back? Or was it a rocky ride?

Unknown Speaker 7:32
Um, it was, I mean, I think probably similar to a lot of people's stories at you know, I didn't. At that time, of course, there was no loop. There was no Dexcom it was manual injections. And I think the hardest part for me was just the timing of it. At the end of my senior year in high school, and I was getting ready to leave for college, and you know, just a few short months. And so I think that was really hard for my mom. And you know, leaving me at the dorms with this newly diagnosed disease. I don't know that I handled it the best that I could in college between beers and pizza and hamburgers and french fries. And then, I'm surprised that worst things didn't happen before that, you know, they they did. And I had a seizure. I think my first seizure when I was in, after a long night of partying in Spain when I was studying abroad there. Um, I think that was my sophomore year of college after my sophomore year of college, and then that was kind of like my wake up call, like, I need to get a little bit more serious about this.

Scott Benner 8:47
Hey, studying abroad is code for drinking in another country, right?

Unknown Speaker 8:51
Yes. And, let's see, then, the fast forwarding a little bit, let's see I you know, I started to clean up my act. I after college actually moved abroad to Peru. So I studied finance in Spanish in college and really the amount of Spanish that I learned while in Spain was minimal. And so I decided that I needed to go on my own somewhere and that I had a teacher in college who we used to be the former director of the an English Institute in Trujillo, Peru. So I've moved there. And then my best girlfriend shortly followed after and then I was on the time I was on the I think Medtronic 512 pump and which they said at the time that it was waterproof. I can't remember what else but I ended up on a trip and like a remote beach in northern Peru and the pump broke and of course, I'm What was I 21 traveling by I mean literally like one of those jansport backpacks so I didn't have the pharmacy with me so I had no I had no insulin I did have a syringe I think was what I had with me and then we would plug that into the vial from the pump or what I was using to refill the pump is maybe what it was I can't remember now it's been so long but and then every like hour and a half giving myself insulin until we got it was an eight hour bus ride back to Trujillo because there was only one doctor in this town and he knew nothing about diabetes. I remember calling my stepdad on the phone just in tears because I'm like, what did people do here in Peru? Do they die? And I think they do at that time I think they did die from diabetes like you know back in the early 1900s so I thought that my trip was ending short and I was coming back to the US and after discussing with a private clinic in Trujillo what I needed they found what is it called like an NPH insulin

Scott Benner 11:14
like regular and mph you were probably never on that though.

Unknown Speaker 11:17
No I was never on and that's the one we're like has a peak 30 minutes after you take it Yeah, yes so they gave me that and it was like a used vial that they had already had and it was in the refrigerator I mean it's so weird but they like showed it to me like is this what you need?

Scott Benner 11:32
And so

Unknown Speaker 11:34
yeah, so I started taking that of course they didn't explain it to me about the 30 minutes I had no idea there you know I ended up having a seizure in Peru which is I don't recommend to anybody and go into a public hospital my best friend who you know found me in the kitchen was terrified

Scott Benner 11:52
I'm waiting for clarity you do not recommend having a seizure in Peru is that right? Yeah, so what was happening is you were taking that insulin the way you were taking your previous insulin but it didn't work anywhere near the same way.

Unknown Speaker 12:07
Exactly. Okay. And because I had no guidance I mean from them they didn't know I'm

Scott Benner 12:13
the doctor that gave you an open vial of insulin was no help Ah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:19
It was better than having to get on the next flight back to the US but

Scott Benner 12:23
yeah, cuz that was Your other option was to get on a plane and go into DK in the sky and just hope somebody comes and scoops you up at the airport right?

Unknown Speaker 12:30
What am I yeah guess I could have you know I could have made the I think it was I think is eight hour bus ride to Lima I could have done that and maybe there would have been a private clinic there that would have been more advanced

Scott Benner 12:42
Yeah, okay. But

Unknown Speaker 12:44
yes, it was quite the quite the experience well I opted to not well I couldn't go back on the pump at that point and then when I did come back to the US I there was a boat trip and for the week like a memorial day weekend trip and I think that was like right as Medtronic release oh you we said this was waterproof but it's not and I said okay, I'm not doing the pump thing anymore. I hated the the cords the cables the wires and trying to figure out where to best wear it. It may I hate figuring out what to wear every day and that just made it extra challenging. Gotcha. So at that time, I went off the pump and I stayed off the pump until I after having my second kiddo

Scott Benner 13:32
after the second one. I love how some of you diabetes old head say the pump By the way, just in case you're wondering. I love the pod. I know not even that just like a pump. It's like the pump. It's a weird I love it. It's absolutely hearing but you don't realize that it's other pumps? Well, I just that younger people don't seem to say it the same way they speak. And I think it's because at some point in history, there was a pump, which made it the pump. You know what I mean? Like you go on the pump. It's not like there were 10 of them. And you're like, Oh, we didn't have choices. Yeah, there were no choices. I just I think that's the right one. I mean old had in the nicest way. Like you've had that. Yes for a while. Yeah. Which to me is a is a absolute Badge of Courage. So I think of it as a great thing, but I just have always please it always just delights me to know and so you so how long is it from leaving the pump? until you've had your second kid?

Unknown Speaker 14:28
Oh gosh. Huh. That was around 21 until my second kiddo now is two and a half.

Scott Benner 14:40
I can't believe you sat still long enough to have children because it sounds like you were on a med terror as a young girl. Yes,

Unknown Speaker 14:47
I mean, I traveled all over the world like my work travels brought me all over the world. I enjoyed myself for quite some time and didn't really find my person until much Later in life so

Scott Benner 15:01
I just feel like at any point in my life if you would have said to me Do you want to go to Peru I would have gone No. And that would have been

Unknown Speaker 15:11
I have loved to travel and I have never let diabetes hold me back. In fact, I love listening to some of the especially the one about the daughter who I think it was went to Mount Everest maybe that was really interesting to me because right before we found out I was pregnant with the first I actually had my trip booked to do the Annapurna circuit in Nepal. And the this scariest part I guess from my partner, my now husband, but partner at the time was that I wanted to go by myself I'd had the trip planned before him and I met and him knowing I was diabetic and you know, some of the things that could come up in high altitude etc. He insisted on going and so it was last minute, we decided, Okay, fine, you can come with me. And then I think it was like that weekend he got the approval for work, you know, from his work to be gone. And we're about to book it when we found out I think it was literally like that Tuesday we were going to book his trip on Wednesday. So I ended up not being able to go do the Annapurna circuit in Nepal, but maybe one day but that that podcast was really helpful because of you know, high altitude challenges and what equipment to bring extra equipment and all of that it's

Scott Benner 16:35
interesting that I've that the girl's mom has been on and told that whole story, but I can't seem to get her to come on. Oh, really? Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 16:42
heard the mom episode. Yeah, I've

Scott Benner 16:43
given up on trying. I just I don't I think it's just something she doesn't want to talk about. I'm not certain back then she was writing articles about it. She was everywhere. And I couldn't get her to come on the podcast. So I was like, Oh, I think the

Unknown Speaker 16:54
mom Isn't she a journalist? She is Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe it's she doesn't like her voice. Um,

Scott Benner 17:01
I don't know. I would love to hear that story from her from her mouth. A couple of people. I can't get that. I'm baffled by Mike. Wait, you won't do this. Right. Okay. We'll figure it out one day. How so you haven't been married that long?

Unknown Speaker 17:18
have not been married that long. You're living my dream life.

Scott Benner 17:21
Minus the proof.

Unknown Speaker 17:24
We have crunched so much into the time that we've been together. It's ridiculous. I mean, since 2000, or seem, we have built a house together had two kids together. And now pregnant with our third.

Scott Benner 17:45
It turns out when you're older, have good jobs and a little money saved. Life's not that difficult. Yeah, we need a house. We'll just make one here. You want to have a baby? It's got to be easier than that time my insulin pump stopped working on a beach in Peru. Sure. Why not? You have a much different perspective. It's that's a really nice story. You are what I point my children towards. I'm like 30 years old at minimum before you're really serious with anybody. And yeah, I think they look at my wife and I and they're like, yeah, don't worry. We see you guys have been together for freaking ever and somehow aren't that old. That's I think that's really cool. So yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:28
but I am going into this third pregnancy and I, you know, have a few gray hairs now. And I'm like, I'm just really tired. I can't believe that I'm going to have like an infant almost going into my 40. So that's a little scary.

Scott Benner 18:43
Oh, no, after doing a lot of things, right. You screwed this last bit up, but I didn't want to was fine. Kate, what were you doing? No, no. I my wife said to me a number of years ago, she's like, what if we just had another baby right now? And I said they'd probably kill me. There's just the staying up at night is a lot of what it was like, I don't know that I can like there's part of me that thinks I figured out diabetes so I could sleep.

Unknown Speaker 19:09
Yeah, and that I can't imagine being a parent. I always you know, now that I have kids, of course, I'm really emotional. Whenever I hear kid stories and thinking about folks that have to go through their, you know, two year olds and even younger being diabetic. I'm like, I would never sleep

Scott Benner 19:27
never. There was a lot of writing

Unknown Speaker 19:32
it in fact, it wasn't until our our second kiddo who he never slept through the night until he was like 13 months old, and I was a walking zombie. And there were times where people were like, Do you need help, I'm going to come stay the night and I'll get up with them. And even then, because I was just still on my injections, but I was wearing a Dexcom and the alarms would be going off all night. So even though they were helping me I still couldn't even sleep because I was postpartum my numbers. Were still Like I'm losing weight, but I've also breastfeeding so my, you know, my, I'm burning calories that was just like a weird I always struggled a little bit postpartum with my blood sugars and figuring out, you know how to keep it. I mean, it's like a daily adjustment and then on top of the baby not sleeping through the night for 13 months, that is when actually I found your podcast. I don't even know how I found it honestly. But that is when I decided to get on the Omni pod and then eventually go to the loop. There were some logistical challenges and getting on to the loop. And also wanting to be on the on a pump again, I just always refer to myself as like this diabetic robot and I didn't want to have to wear another device and, um, and wanting to wear a bikini and not have all these things on me. But of course my like my bikini days are over and worrying about that. So less of a concern and it was really only about fleet at that point.

Scott Benner 21:02
I thought you were a humble bragging there for a second. I thought you were like, yeah, I had two kids in my 30s I'm pregnant again. And I do get into a bikini still. That's where you were quietly going with that like everyone just just you know, feel jealous now okay.

Guys, I'm gonna go over it one more time. The 2021 dancing for diabetes show his back on a live stage in front of you. Looking to get back out there in the world and see some entertainment. Start here. Saturday, November 13. At 7pm in the Walt Disney theater at the Dr. Philip center in Orlando, Florida. Tickets start at $15 just $15 Can you imagine a night out for 15 touched by type one.org go support a great organization. See some wonderful dancing. You guys might remember from years ago touched by type one used to be called dancing for diabetes, but they realized one day they're like we do so much more than dancing. We need a new name. Anyway that's not the point you know they're touched by type one now but dancing for diabetes. Etymology just wanted to let you know blah blah blah go see the thing stop messing with me. Don't make me say this over and over again. Touched by type one.org etymology entomology What is it when the history doesn't matter? No. g vo hypo pan has no visible needle, and it's the first pre mixed autoinjector of glucagon for very low blood sugar in 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 g Vogue glucagon.com slash risk I too cannot wear a bikini Well okay, I have questions where my questions there about so when you had someone come over to watch a kid for a night what you really needed was for them to also pump for you and take care of your blood sugar so you could do at two minutes or three different things going on.

Unknown Speaker 23:23
Yeah, and in fact, the kiddo was probably like the least of it because at least I couldn't feed them and go back to sleep but you know the blood sugar thing wasn't just high or low I mean it was like a roller coaster all the time. I just um yeah, I had challenges and luckily my undergrad my endocrinologist at the time. In fact I think I found him I had like a real nasty and archeologists I I live in Nashville, Tennessee and when I first moved here in 2014 I just found one that seemed like was a good one and she ended up not being one and then you know I kept trying to find the right one so it was kind of like this revolving door. I mean, I wish that for all diabetic especially type one diabetics that there was like the the pediatrician interviews like when you find your pediatrician, you can go out and schedule these like 1520 minute interviews to see if it's the right pediatrician and I really feel like you should be able to do that for endocrinologist too. Because it was it was really challenging to find the right one and event there you know, I believe in signs and things happen for a reason and I was at a friend of mines birthday party and back when you had those things, and she there was another girl there and I noticed that she had an omni pod device on her arm. And so I started talking to her about diabetes under her knology or and finding the right endocrinologist. She Manjit oh and she also used to be an omni pop rep so she knew all the endocrinologist in the area and she mentioned the doctor that I see now and he's just been great like he's the one that said okay you know why don't you just wear you know the all your ads about just do the Omnipod trial so I was I was like okay this isn't you know so bad and then listening to the the loop conversations on the on your podcast I'm like that is what I need like I don't I need to figure out how to make this work so that I can sleep again and it was like light years change for me just to sleeping through the night and not having the Dexcom going off all the time.

Scott Benner 25:43
No kidding well it's so it's interesting too because you've had a long history with diabetes where you didn't have any of that technology where you could visually see it and then you bring the Dexcom in but you're still doing shots so the Dexcom to you in the beginning probably just felt like oh good a visual representation of how poorly I do with this is that how

Unknown Speaker 26:03
or no I wasn't doing so poorly I mean actually, I got on well I'm gonna say that and you're like well that sounds pretty poor but I was traveling so much for work this was in my late 20s I was traveling a lot for work like all up and down this was just nationally all up and down the East Coast and assassin for hire the actually people used you know would say make jokes about that just because I was flying you know diamond level or whatever Delta now and now of course because there's been no trouble for a year I'm just a peasant and coach but the stories of for my travels were one time I had them pick me up in the limo at I think it was a limo It was a car I mean still it was nice they like literally before everyone started you planing a guy in a suit appeared and he said are you you know Are you okay? And he took me down to this private car so I went down like where they bring up the luggage and they took me to my next gate well it only happened once but I mean at one point I was um

Scott Benner 27:15
you were you were going good there for a while now

Unknown Speaker 27:19
Now I don't want to travel because I'm just you know in like the middle seat in the back

Scott Benner 27:25
it's easier when someone else is paying for it That's for sure.

Unknown Speaker 27:27
Yeah, so well so anyways that you know I I was having I was going through this really rough time I mean not even looking back I wish that my endocrinologist at the time was like well let's look at your whole because I was on that I was on an injection so but it still they could have changed my basals and they could have adjusted maybe when I took the and you know split them up or something but I was having seizures my blood sugar was getting too low at like three in the morning and I was dead asleep so I'd wake up in this fog like even walk to the refrigerator to get something to eat and end up having a seizure in the kitchen. One time I hit my head in the bathroom and so I didn't want that to happen while I was traveling. Um there was a time I remember going from my hotel room not having a snack with me that was bad you know bad preparation which of course would not happen now. Um but I had to walk to the vending machine on like a different floor I'm in my pajamas in a hotel at like two in the morning I mean so I ended up getting on the Dexcom because of that and so that stops me from having you know at that time Gosh, I was having like had like 10 seizures and they actually thought that maybe I was epileptic so they did a sleep study and it was just bad basil control Yeah, that's really what it was and

Scott Benner 28:53
we go way too much Basal insulin without you using way too much basil and so on like what are the deck Yeah, I'm showing you

Unknown Speaker 29:01
I think that's what it was I honestly don't remember um, but with the Dexcom I mean that was also what years I remember that was like I was probably in my anyone sees then at that time was like 6.2 6.3

Scott Benner 29:21
you were low a lot though. Right?

Unknown Speaker 29:24
And I was low a lot in the middle of the night. Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:27
that's how you kind of you had cheated that they once a little bit the test.

Unknown Speaker 29:32
And then I got on the Dexcom and then I went from like a 6.2 to like a 5.8

Scott Benner 29:38
and you don't pass out anymore?

Unknown Speaker 29:41
I don't I don't think I've had a seizure since

Scott Benner 29:44
should we knock on something just yeah, I'll knock on wood somewhere. Want to be the one who's like, you know, like the sports announcers like that guy hasn't given up a touchdown and oh, touchdown like it I don't want to be the one to jinx you. Yeah. But but that's amazing. Just to have That well I bet you feel differently about being a robot now.

Unknown Speaker 30:03
Yes. Oh I when the technology isn't working like I've been having some Dexcom challenges this week and I've been on the phone with their support people with for a few days this week. I mean, I I'm so like, this is so critical to my well being and I think I was like a sob story on with their support. But I'm like, you know, I woke up with a blood sugar of 303 this a couple of few nights back because the Dexcom sensor, you know, the message that you get when the sensor is nearing expiration, um, like, you know, connecting, what is it set center morning, connecting in three hours, or whatever it is,

Scott Benner 30:46
and when it's over?

Unknown Speaker 30:48
Yeah, and it didn't connect all night. So my blood sugar, I had had a low before going to sleep. And then I ate some ice cream, which was also a poor choice. Knowing that I don't always get that exactly right. Yeah. Um, but you know, I had a dinner with a little bit of fat in it. And so that's what caused my blood sugar to go low, because of the timing of it, which is what I what I'm struggling with a little bit in this pregnancy right now is the timing of the insulin. And so I on top of the dinner, and then the ice cream, of course, my blood sugar Shut up. But anyways, I was on the phone with them. And I'm like, I can't be pregnant and have my blood sugar at 303. Like, this isn't gonna work. They were convinced that it wasn't a transmitter problem. And I was telling him it was a transmitter problem. So I ended up changing the transmitter and then everything was fine. I called them the next day. I'm like, Look, this needs to be fixed your if your transmitters aren't going to run for three months, don't have them at a three month term, so that my insurance only pays that have to be a two and a half months. Did they replace it? They did. They're sending me a transmitter and a sensor. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 31:55
found. What do we have something recently one of them got stuck. And they send us to, they're like, here, here's an extra one for the trouble. And I was like, Oh, yeah. And I was like, thank you very much. I've also had that where I took a sensor off one time. And I called in and I said, Look, I'm I know how to use these things. And this one doesn't work, you know, so we switched it. And I said, I'd like you to replace it. And he goes, Well, if you would have called in, I would have told you it was working. And I was like well, that would have run counterintuitive to the fact that I didn't have any numbers here. And I would have told you no. And he just like, like he pushed back. He was doing his job. You know what I mean? And I stopped him and I said, Listen to me, I am not on the phone trying to scam you out of a sensor. Is that what this is about? like is that what this line of questioning is about? I'm like, I know how to do this. I never call about replacements. We overall my daughter's Dexcom last 10 days constantly, which must infuriate people don't have the same experience. But we make it to 10 days all the time. We're really good at you know, sometimes it is user like, not error. But a little bit of anything gets bumped or something you just don't know like what you're doing. Sometimes you don't know how to like work things out. Like for instance, while you and I are recording. Arden is down to her last unit and a half and our pump. And like so we're getting every minute every ounce out of that pump. And you'll hear people say, Oh, my pumps don't last very long. Like, you know, like, you kind of get it after a while. So I just made the point that I'm like, Look, I'm like, just send me another one. And then he was like, okay, and you just realize like, it's his job to make sure you're not shaking them down.

Unknown Speaker 33:33
Yeah, like they see the medicine questions. Where do you have it? And like I have it in the same place. I always have it.

Scott Benner 33:39
Some of that's for the FDA. Yeah, those questions the FDA makes them ask some of them's for their own collection of data. And some of it's just to make sure because when you're when you're an honest person, you don't recognize how many people aren't, or how many people might be in a situation where they can't afford it. So they're just trying to get an extra one somewhere. Right, that that goes on constantly. Anyway, right? I'm glad they sent you on.

Unknown Speaker 34:01
Yep. I mean, I think that they're really great. And I want them to do as well as possible, obviously, because of you know, it is so critical to my well being and when I am with like in that the two hour window when it's warming up. I mean, I feel like I'm naked.

Scott Benner 34:16
Yeah. And that's something How long have you had it?

Unknown Speaker 34:20
The Dexcom or

Scott Benner 34:21
Yeah, CGM.

Unknown Speaker 34:22
So that was when I would have Yeah, late 20s. So it would be we have probably about 10 years now.

Scott Benner 34:32
10 years you've had it. Wow. So you had like the first Jeff Dexcom? Four or seven plus? Which? Where did Where did

Unknown Speaker 34:40
I Where did I start? I don't remember where I started. I'm on the six now. Yeah. Wow, that's

Scott Benner 34:45
crazy. I I listen, I have to agree. It's the single most important thing that we have. Yeah, and I want nothing but success for that company.

Unknown Speaker 34:55
I know. I know. And when I forget how I forget his name right now, let's just work. But the I think it was the CEO that you had on and he was shocked yes Kevin how I'm having folks in the hospital where I think it was you know around COVID and all that and how how great would that be for those folks that are in there to be on a Dexcom rather than getting finger pricks would be incredible and connecting that into which is my line of business into the electronic medical record in the hospital so that the you know nursing and staff are just getting alerts in the same EMR that there yeah, that they are getting alarms for everything else and so that they see those trends would be incredible like you know, BM for people on steroids that does such a you know has such an impact on your blood sugar's and I'm just getting a spot check every once in a while we know that that's not effective I

Scott Benner 35:55
always think through that that that exact scenario is such a great backdoor way of training medical people about how insulin works and what it looks like for real to have type one diabetes or diabetes of any kind to be able to really see blood sugars you know how valuable that would be to a nurse they how much they learn from watching your blood sugar's then what they can apply to the next person that they met. Exactly Yeah, it would be such a big deal I oh

Unknown Speaker 36:18
my gosh, I remember I cannot remember which kiddo it was but

Scott Benner 36:23
you've passed out 10 times in your life

Unknown Speaker 36:26
so there was one after we're having one of the kiddos they had me Oh I know it was the first one because that one I actually you know went through a long labor and all that but they hooked me up with what you know whatever glucose to give me to keep my blood sugar from going low because it was an eating all that and after having the kiddo and then after you know eating and getting that on they never turned it off. So then of course I spiked um it's like come on, come on people.

Scott Benner 36:57
Now they don't they it's hard to get them to understand I just interviewed somebody yesterday who is a fairly newly minted CDE who says they work at a really great institution and still the level of what people don't understand is shocking. So hey, um, is there any chance you heard the pro tip that I just put up with Jenny about postpartum no not yeah I'm just thinking as I'm as we're talking I'm like I never do this but I should have sent Kate an email last week and said hey, can you listen to this ahead of time but

Unknown Speaker 37:28
yes oh I will I'll that'll be my priority today at some point to listen to that because that is just where I struggle.

Scott Benner 37:35
Well you have so you've had this is your third right and first pregnancy MDI?

Unknown Speaker 37:42
Uh huh exactly Yep. And then and it was and here's the reason I you know, I stayed on that throughout even the next pregnancy was because I think my agency was like 5.2 at the end of the pregnancy and so my good my maternal fetal medicine my high risk ob I mean she was like if this is this is working let's not change it I'm not gonna afford to you know ask you to go on the pumper change anything if you're doing so well in fact my husband was like, we need to just keep you pregnant. So yeah,

Scott Benner 38:16
he was kidding

Unknown Speaker 38:18
yes and no thank you like the getting their pregnant the trying to

Scott Benner 38:23
get pregnant tell him we can do that without me having to carry baby for night? Or honestly, is he not allowed to do that unless you're making it No,

Unknown Speaker 38:31
no, no, but um yeah, who knows who the listen to this of parents or you know whatever will listen to this but he's kidding

Scott Benner 38:41
when I say that you're saying personal people in your life you don't want to think you're not putting out is that what this is a very 90s way of thinking about it you know, the kids don't think about things it's much more fluid now. It's it's not your job to give anything away. It's his job to earn it from you. What do you think for a while, and that's not how it works. Anyway, if your parents are listening Hi, what's up?

Unknown Speaker 39:09
Yeah, so yeah, and talking about parents it's funny because you know, my first pregnancy I told my mom You know, my mom is a labor and delivery nurse and so she sees pregnancies that don't go well or deliveries really that don't go well. People that take care of themselves and people that don't and how things can go south and I think my mom is still or was anyway still in like Steel Magnolias days and that you're, you're gonna have a baby and you're gonna die. So the first pregnancy was went so well. I mean, it really became like a second. A second job full time job, though, and managing my blood sugar's to keep to be at that 5.2 um, a lot. I mean, at the end of the pregnancy, it's just so many physician appointments. I'm staying on top of the blood pressure. And all of that and then of course the postpartum challenges which I'll listen to that episode with Jenny. And she's great. And I've learned a lot of things or at least that like validate some of the challenges I have so I don't feel so alone and you know some of these things

Scott Benner 40:16
yeah, I can't tell you how often I hear that. That was another thing about the podcast I didn't expect like I expected to tell people things that they didn't know. And that happens but I never expected that just saying something that somebody would go Yeah, that's been my finding to how valuable that feeling is. I didn't I didn't recognize that at all. And Jenny is terrific. But yeah, so so the first pregnancy goes well you're on MDI you've got a nice low a one c so it goes well on paper but Did it go well otherwise fetal birth weight was where you wanted it stuff like that.

Unknown Speaker 40:49
Yeah, everything was really great I mean I did have a like a 13 hour labor and which you know I even got to the point I was having contractions I think like every two or three minutes but baby's heart rate kept falling down and so when that happened like the third time were dropped substantially the whole team came in and said okay, we're moving into an emergency c section and so that was it and then um, but baby was healthy I was healthy I just I just had some challenges with like the roller coaster after baby and that and that baby was also sleeping through the night at 11 weeks so that was perfect to and that is extremely helpful in getting better and like being more stable when you're up every like two to three hours it's hard to to know which way is up or down.

Scott Benner 41:42
You find your intern insulin needs change almost immediately after you deliver the placenta

Unknown Speaker 41:47
yes and so they want to say they drop it by half almost I mean almost really to back to where you were pre pregnancy

Scott Benner 41:56
that's exactly what Jenny said when we when we did that episode, but there

Unknown Speaker 41:59
is still so much fine tuning because of course you're like burning those calories not sleeping but you still have you know one of the other surprises for me was like I thought when you delivered baby that your weight was going to go back to normal and that doesn't happen right away which seems so naive now but yeah, it was still like I had a baby in there so there was still a lot of weight to be lost and I was very committed and motivated to lose that weight so I wasn't I mean by the end of my maternity leave I mean I was back down to my normal weight and then eventually even because of the breastfeeding was down below it so they're worse I mean when I lose a couple pounds like I need to be adjusting my insulin right? And that was so hard to see postpartum exactly what those weight losses were on a daily basis and so I struggled there.

Scott Benner 42:47
Let me stop you make sure I understood what you said. You mean normally when you're not pregnant if you're losing weight, that means your blood sugar's are a little high.

Unknown Speaker 42:55
When I'm losing weight, well I guess depending on which way you look, if I'm gaining weight Yes, if I gained a few pounds, it does have a big impact on my my blood sugar's and same with the losing although these days I'm not really losing as much.

Scott Benner 43:13
How are you right now?

Unknown Speaker 43:15
Well, just in general, I'm not losing much but let's just

Scott Benner 43:18
I'm the third pregnancy Kate, how pregnant are you right now?

Unknown Speaker 43:22
nine weeks Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 43:23
you can't lose weight now you're making a baby.

Unknown Speaker 43:26
Yeah, you're not I'm not trying to lose weight. But

Scott Benner 43:29
I was wondering if you were saying that high blood sugars were putting you in like a ketone situation and that's why Oh,

Unknown Speaker 43:36
no, I'm not that high. Okay. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, high for me is you know, I don't I don't want to be going above 160 Yeah. So first pregnancy went so well, we decided to get pregnant at when our first kiddo was eight months. So we found out we were pregnant with our second when we you know, had an eight month old so they're kind of 18 months apart.

Scott Benner 44:01
Let me do a little detective work here. So and we're not going to say your last name, but your last name makes me feel like your husband is Catholic. Am I right?

Unknown Speaker 44:09
Um, I do not have my husband's last name. Okay. But yes, I was raised Catholic, but my husband was raised I believe Protestant.

Scott Benner 44:18
Okay, so it wasn't just that like we need to Pisco, paleo and I mean, okay, so you're not just trying to make babies because that's how things are done. Well,

Unknown Speaker 44:25
oh my gosh, but the very Catholic part of my family. I have a one she's a second cousin and they have 11 children. Oh, my, my mom is the oldest of seven. Yeah, there's a lot of mother kiddos and baby

Scott Benner 44:39
making a lot of tired uteruses. I would imagine. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 44:42
I mean, how do they do that? I have no idea but

Scott Benner 44:45
basketball I would imagine. just silly putty. So okay, so you You're joking, but it went so well. You made another one. But are you not joking? Is it a bit of your age, you're like, Okay, this worked and are older so nothing

Unknown Speaker 45:01
yes there was that component to it and also just liking the idea of having kiddos closer in age to

Scott Benner 45:09
yeah it's love having kids that was that if I could go back to that spot in my life and not have all the like tired and indecision like if I if I could now somehow be younger with what's in my head now I would love to raise a baby again like I know like I really feel like I know what to do now and I would really know how to absorb like the great parts of it you know and not be so like worried all the time about stuff and you know

Unknown Speaker 45:37
worrying about sleep deprivation I mean it is a big deal a big challenge

Scott Benner 45:42
yeah I even like I look at them and immediately I'm like oh my god I gotta pay for college they don't even care and you're like how are you gonna pay for college? Like I start thinking about that right away but now I really did love it but okay so your second baby comes similar experience or no

Unknown Speaker 46:00
second baby was a little bit different like the pregnancy was similar It was not you know my a Wednesday at the end of it was not 5.2 it was closer to six and that could be also because I had like another baby at home so I didn't have as much time to devote to that second full time job of managing blood sugars so and it was a scheduled c section for that one because of the risk of like a uterine rupture having been so soon after the first c section

Scott Benner 46:36
was that just timing was that your age or was that diabetes? Was it a combination what was that concern from just

Unknown Speaker 46:44
because of like the first c section scar not are not scarred but the first c section not has I mean they say to wait like 18 to 18 months to two years to get pregnant again after a cesarean section and we waited eight months

Scott Benner 47:02
why was the first one c section

Unknown Speaker 47:04
because his heart rate kept dropping and so they they were like because my contractions were you know every two to three minutes they actually had to slow him down at one point because of the heart rate challenge but there was no point I was ever going to get my water at already broke and my there was no point I was going to be able to get to the point of even pushing because of the heart rate

Scott Benner 47:24
I'm sorry I know you said that I just ate it slipped out of my head for a second I want to make sure

Unknown Speaker 47:28
yeah that's okay i mean for me it's like it's so it's like a matter of fact so maybe I didn't say you know all the details but yeah that's why that that's why that happened so you know I'll never have that normal delivery but at the at the end of the day it's just important that you know baby's healthy and I'm healthy and all of that so um second pregnancy not as controlled baby was a little bit bigger so our first was like seven pounds whatever else is normal and then second kiddo and I think that that did have a large part because of my control was eight pounds I want to say something like nine ounces or something like that

Scott Benner 48:16
yeah there's the component to your blood sugar and the birth weight of the baby yeah okay

Unknown Speaker 48:21
interesting when they are tracking it because you know they do all the sizing a lot of sizing every like almost every other week or every week and the at the end of the third trimester and they had they were tracking me at like seven pounds so they didn't foresee that but of course that's they're doing the measurements via the ultrasound so they don't really know for sure but yeah, he was a little bit bigger Okay. Um, the interesting thing that happened with that postpartum Of course I had the same I had similar challenges as before but I was a little bit more aware of them so I think I was handling them a little bit better but what happened next was just totally off the wall and not expected so and you know, similar to any mom postpartum, I was extremely exhausted and tired. And after getting baby down for the night, I wanted to go to sleep so it's like 7pm because that would be my longest stretch of sleep so maybe for like, five hours or something like that. And I started getting ready for bed and I just started to feel like really lethargic and tired like so tired that I was holding on to the wall to get to the bed like I couldn't really hold myself up anymore. And then I got into bed and my hands were tingling a little bit and sometimes that happens if like if I My hands are cold, I'll lay on them a little bit to warm them up. And so I was like maybe I was laying on them funny. And then my feet were tingling and I'm like okay this is really weird I just don't feel right I look at my blood sugar and like okay it's not low yet but it was kind of on its way there like maybe in the 70s like maybe I should just have a couple cookies and then I'll I'll start to feel better so I had those I was in bed for like 45 minutes and I just couldn't fall asleep so I my husband came up and he was actually packing and getting ready to go on a trip and we both traveled a lot for work at that at that time. And my sister luckily was there who had just moved back from the Peace Corps in Liberia and so she was staying with us I think for three weeks and he came up and was talking to me and he was like oh my god I'm gonna go get you some more orange juice and cookies and so he brings up orange juice and cookies oh this point this will sudden my blood sugar you know skyrocketing but I'm doing it because something isn't right. Yeah, and then I you know, I'm talking to him, but he can't understand me. So he goes to get my sister and she comes up and she's like, this isn't right. So they immediately call my stepdad and he's like, if this isn't her blood sugar This is neurological and she you need to call 911 and get her into the hospital so at this point, like I am coherent so of course if your blood sugar is so low that you're you know you're incoherent you don't remember any of that. I am remembering everything very clearly. I hear myself talking and it's like coming out slowly and the thought process is slow I can't hold my arms up I can't get out of bed. I know something is really wrong and the first thing I think of is like am I having a stroke like this is what I've heard of all the signs and Is this what this is Yeah, so they call 911 the ambulance comes they do these did they do the test I don't know if they did the test in the in my in my bedroom at that point um but they were convinced that I was not having a stroke that it was just a low bloodwork because at this point my number was low even though I'd had and that was the weirdest thing it took my blood sugar forever to come up it wasn't even until after I was in the emergency room after some time that my blood sugar finally came up and so they were convinced even then that it was a low blood sugar but the two you know coincided for whatever reason. Um, but yeah, I remember Gosh, even like when my husband was they were there the EMTs were like, what do you want to cuz I'm in my nursing pajamas. They're like, what do you want to get something to wear to the hospital and my you know, my husband goes to kidney clothes and he actually gets my clothes or his clothes for me. And

Scott Benner 52:59
boy, so I am most useless most of the time.

Unknown Speaker 53:02
Yes. So in my so I'm saying this out loud. Like I had a more at home, like get me my clothes, but no one can understand what I'm saying. No kidding. Um, it was so frustrating. And I remember like trying to signal like what I wanted to say and I couldn't so he ended up just giving me my bathroom. So I'm wearing my PJs and bathroom to the hospital.

Scott Benner 53:24
But he has a blazer and a change of pants. So that's it.

Unknown Speaker 53:29
So luckily, my sister was there she stayed with our first kiddo and the ER Well yeah, because we ended up bringing baby because I was just two weeks postpartum so that I could breastfeed so baby goes with us to the hospital. And in the emergency room, they give me like, I don't know what it's called. It's like dextrose like 8000 or something. Like you actually like feel it go through your body. Yeah, and I was like, Why don't people want this like before like a softball game or like a tennis match? This is incredible. Um, but yeah, then I was my blood sugar was high for like, the next 48 hours because of all that stuff that they you know, that I had had already and that they had given me and then that's when they brought in the neurologist and started doing all the tests for having a potential stroke. And, you know, I they found out that I had a Tia. So a trans ischemic attack, like a mini stroke. And what they do for that is they give you if you're within the three to four hour window of having it, then you can take what's called a TPA, and it's a risky drug and that if you do have any sort of bleeding anywhere that you know could kill you. So we had to have like a quick group family grouping in the hospital like Should we do this or not? And you know, they had done a CAT scan and didn't see anything. So we opted to do it and then had to stay in ICU for a few days for observation and and you know, everything ended up being okay. So of course they tried to find out, you know, why did this happen? And they did an invasive Echo, I think, and which they gave me the, whatever the drug that Michael Jackson was taking. Yes, in order to go under for that and I'm like, Oh my god, this is the best nap I've had in a long time.

Scott Benner 55:36
Excuse me. No, wait, that's a beta blocker.

Unknown Speaker 55:39
That's not what was the first one you said?

Scott Benner 55:42
Oh, hold on. Let me just type in Michael Jackson juice and see what comes up. Yeah, proof propofol, PR Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 55:51
that sounds great. Okay, so they checked for that and that all looked good. They did a bajillion MRIs and didn't see anything so every you know, I was leaving there knowing that there wasn't there wasn't any damage from it which was great but also not knowing why it happened and so the last thing that they were going to test what they're gonna do a blood clotting disorder panel but they couldn't do it so soon after having the baby because it could come back with like a false positive and so I had to wait I think another four weeks or it was like at four weeks I went and did that and they come to find out I do have a blood clotting disorder called pro thumb and vector two and so of course pregnancies and surgeries both of which I had had are super high risk and also along with long trips in planes and in cars which I had done often I mean I was on like a monthly 10 hour flight to Chile for like the last two years at that point Um, so luckily that didn't happen on the plane where you know people would have thought that that was just kind of like how I talked or you know, that was normal for me What's that

Scott Benner 57:17
the clotting disorder called

Unknown Speaker 57:19
pro thrombin factor two

Scott Benner 57:23
is that better news then I might have a stroke later in my life

Unknown Speaker 57:30
well what that means now is that and I think you can have that I mean, you could actually have that your entire life and not know it. Um, what it means now is that I have to take a baby aspirin every day um and now and also what it means during pregnancy which I you know, I have a you know, I had to talk with my high risk ob prior to trying to get pregnant to make sure that it would be okay that I got pregnant so not only am I type one, but now I have this other condition and then 38 and she was like, Oh yeah, we'll get you on blood thinner shots and you'd mean you'd maintain those blood thinner shots throughout the pregnancy and as well I think through six weeks postpartum and I have plenty of patients that are profound in factor too so if she was not worried and she's like the best of the best Um, so yeah, so I've started taking Lovenox shots once or twice a day one in the morning one at night. And I mean, I don't I'm not worried. Of course my mom who was still on Steel Magnolias

Scott Benner 58:39
days dead 10 years ago so I mean, she

Unknown Speaker 58:43
was begging me to never get pregnant again and actually it was like well what why would you even do that and of course I don't want to die so you know I've been very diligent and researching and going through and doing all of the right things and really trying to manage the blood sugar hence my call to death or my calls to Dexcom about the the needing for the things to work because you know I don't need any more challenges here Um, so yeah, so that is that's that

Scott Benner 59:14
that's amazing. That's it really is like a whirlwind like your life feels like if it goes 100 miles an hour since you were like 18 years old.

Unknown Speaker 59:27
Do you have Oh, you only have one life well

Scott Benner 59:30
you're getting your you're getting your mileage out of this thing Okay, so right now you're in this third pregnancy all this has been true the nine weeks is the first trimester Is this the part where it's not too tough yet blood sugar wise?

Unknown Speaker 59:47
Well it should be it's interesting I you know, I it's crazy because you know, our kids are only three and two still so it's not like it was that long ago but I think you probably know after having kids that your memory just goes,

Scott Benner 1:00:01
we wait last night, I was working out in the basement and Arden was walking on the treadmill. And she said, Have you noticed mom's getting a little old as she points to her head? And I'm like what she does, you probably don't notice because you're married to her and your lover, but she's slowing down a little bit. And I'm like, wait, what's going on? She goes, You are too but not as bad as what is happening here. She's not as sharp as you used to be. And I was like, but I know more now. And she goes, it's unfair, isn't it? I said, Well, yeah, it is. But But she notices it. And I do too. There are sometimes I reach for words, and they're not there. And they are words I know. And I commonly use, and I'm a person who talks like a million miles an hour, so you might not notice it. But in any hour of this podcast, I have to choose a different word three times because I can't find the one I want.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:49
Right? And then you didn't tell her it's all because of her.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
Yeah, Oh, don't worry, I immediately blamed her. Are you kidding? I immediately, I was like, given the idea how rested I would be without the two of you.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
I think I mean, it'd be interesting to know the poll on folks that haven't had kids like, do they get gray hairs later in life than those that do have kids because I honestly think that that's the main cause.

Scott Benner 1:01:15
The first time you get a white hair inside your nose is come to Jesus moment. I'm not very young. And my vision is now I had perfect vision my whole life. And a couple of years ago, I suddenly needed reading glasses. And last night, my son says, I need to throw a little bit like can we go outside? No, I'm like, Yeah, sure. So keep in mind, I'm going to be 50 in a couple of months. And he plays baseball in college. And so I got my glasses. Oh my god, I look up at him. He's blurry, right? He's 50 feet away from me. I can't focus on him. The balls coming in, like a meteorite strike, I can't see the roundness of it anymore. And I'm catching it in front of my face over and over again. I walked inside afterwards. And I said to Kelly, I'm like, I gotta get glasses. Just have a catch with him. Yeah, I was like, because he's gonna kill me with that ball. Like he's just tossing it to me, that kick can throw a ball over 90 miles an hour, like I'm gonna eat it at some point. And I can barely keep up. Now. It's either

Unknown Speaker 1:02:15
get glasses or get like the full catcher's here.

Scott Benner 1:02:20
But I'll make another person catch with him. Like, I'm gonna hire a person because there is going to be a moment. I already can't throw to me at full speed. Like, that's just we stopped doing that a number of years ago. I just like you can't do that anymore. I can't react that quickly. But it's the it's the telling your son that. That's disappointing.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:41
Yeah, that I'm almost 50 and sorry, you have to be a little bit more delicate.

Scott Benner 1:02:46
Be gentle with me. Yeah, no, and he doesn't see anything special about people listening to understand know that he throws a lot harder than most living people. But the point is, is that he doesn't think of it that way. Yeah, he thinks of it as I am at this level. And this old guy can't keep up with me. And apparently, the witty banter that my wife and I are feeding to Arden is not quick enough anymore.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:10
To pick it up or not.

Scott Benner 1:03:11
Well, and how am I going to do that? I'm exhausted. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, yeah, I really want to keep in touch with you because I feel like when that kids 20 you're going to have like abandon the minister By the way, you're gonna have just like, left them somewhere by mistake. You know what I mean? Like, oh, mommy didn't leave you at the Strawbridge and clothier on purpose. But I needed a break. Cuz I'm 50 because you're gonna be 55 when this kids what like know what will I be? I'll be 13 they'll be in their teens. How old Will you be when the last one graduates from high school?

Unknown Speaker 1:03:47
I don't know Scott. Don't make me do that.

Scott Benner 1:03:50
I just want you to cry once while we're doing the pocket.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:54
Please now Yeah, too old too. And I think about you know, because I'm fairly certain This is going to be a boy and we have two boys already and that in itself, you know is called the gray hairs it's I love the boys. But they are a lot of work especially when they're younger. Yeah. Um, girls

Scott Benner 1:04:17
don't become trouble until they're teenagers right and you're gonna trouble it's just it's, it's that's where their hard part comes in. And boys are just like, they're like rockets that are untethered, and they just keep going off all day long.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:32
Yeah, so right now I'm like a jungle gym. I mean, they're like punching me climbing on me hitting me screaming running around like there's no calm moments. I feel like that our friends have little girls are like playing with their dolls and it's all quiet and peaceful. Like we don't have that.

Scott Benner 1:04:49
Run around the house in full costume. Sometimes he would be mortified if he knew I said that. But he had a spider man costume that he would just wear when he was like three years old.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:00
Little our oldest has like a superhero everything so he'll have different superheroes on and his underwear and socks on his shirt. He has a cape that he wears around the line he's really in the superheroes too as

Scott Benner 1:05:15
well but I know the part like my wife has said to me She's like, you know, I probably have been hit in the face by the kids a half a dozen times. So I like like heart and they don't do it on purpose. Like they're swinging their hands around or something and you're just like, you'll walk into it or something like that. Exactly. Yeah, it's really something but is it great? Like if I can get away from the the tone of the conversation and ask you a question. You waited until you were a little older? You had a full life when you were younger you were more prepared like probably emotionally and financially I'm guessing everything Did you do it the right way for your money? Do you feel good about it?

Unknown Speaker 1:05:49
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think as a diabetic you always just have to think about like how I think maybe how well your body can recuperate after having kiddos so late and that's my only you know and Adam and I set a name when my husband and I got together we you know we said oh we want five kids so you know that Catholic background in him I only having one sister and they're 10 years apart It was like he was an only child and he loves going home and being with my family and it's a huge family and it's a lot of fun and so he wanted a big family so that I but because of the timing it just wasn't gonna happen there's no way I could have two more kids and we could adopt and we've we've talked about that but I just think because of age it's just not it's probably not going to happen and of course I've always wanted that little girl but I don't think that's going to happen either. I think I'm destined to just be a boy mom but don't fall

Scott Benner 1:06:43
into that trap like don't fall into the like we'll just give it one more shot you'll end up with four years yeah, we're three boys and one girl who just looks like a deer in headlights for 10 years.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:54
Yeah, exactly. So who knows? Yeah we'll see it could be all no I think next week for sure.

Scott Benner 1:07:03
Looking like a boy is it like an ultrasound?

Unknown Speaker 1:07:07
Oh no next week I get the lab work that'll tell me for

Scott Benner 1:07:10
sure. Okay, but did you but a minute ago you said like you think it's going to blue is it just because you think you're just gonna have a boy is for some reason

Unknown Speaker 1:07:17
well there is this test you can take and right now I'm forgetting the name of it, but it's you can take it at home which of course is like a finger prick for us diabetics that's no big deal. And it just you know you have to have a clean area because what it detects is male DNA and if it detects male DNA then it's a male if there's no male Why did chromosome found in it then it's a female you're supposed to do it at you can do it as soon as eight weeks that's when that Y chromosome can be detected and we had a strange week in Nashville we actually had snow and our kids were home and we were able to go sledding that happens like every five years here and I had ordered the test in advance so that I was ready to go right at the eight week mark and I just lost I ordered it and had it there and I did it a week early I just lost track of time and thought this is the Saturday I do it. And I realized that after I did it and packaged it up I was like oh my gosh, I wasn't supposed to do this for another week. So I really did it at seven weeks. So I wrote them and I said hey, you know I accidentally sent this in early I don't know if that's going to be like legit still valid and Should I get another one? And they're like well you know you'll most likely get so they responded to the same day or at least I saw the response the same day I got the results and they're like most likely you are going to get a girl result because it doesn't detect the male chromosome or Yeah, the male DNA until eight weeks or that's at least when it can be guaranteed. And if you did get a male result then it could be what was it could have been compromised are the word I'm looking for. I'm drawing a blank on right now but it could have been

Scott Benner 1:09:19
like whatever, like your husband touched you or something

Unknown Speaker 1:09:22
like that. Yeah, like in that was why it was so specific. Especially because we have even now even our dog is a boy. So they're and they said that, you know, even pets can you know be part of that male DNA. And if they detect that then it will show that it is a male. Um, and you know, the only thing that I did that could have potentially contaminated that's what I was looking for. Is I you know, I washed my hands numerous times, but I dried my hands on the towel that we all dry our hands on.

Scott Benner 1:09:56
So the test came back that you're having a Schnauzer, is that right?

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00
A golden doodle

Scott Benner 1:10:03
I wouldn't have said that out loud but I hear you

Unknown Speaker 1:10:08
My husband is convinced I mean it's my He is my favorite guy in the whole household He is my easiest easiest person to deal with in this house. Although not really a person but here's here's my favorite it's gonna say so yeah so if you know but even then I drive my hands on that towel but then I use an alcohol swab for where I was pulling the blood from on that finger

Scott Benner 1:10:33
so you would say okay so what does it did it come back and tell you what

Unknown Speaker 1:10:37
boy came back and told me boy Yeah, you're just

Scott Benner 1:10:41
trying to hold out hope I hear what you're saying. It's the dish towel hope Yeah, I am I'm gonna start betting I know which way I'm gonna put my money down so I'm good yeah maybe you guys just make boys

Unknown Speaker 1:10:53
that and that's exactly what our doctor said that you know some people you know the males they just have male chromosomes I guess is you know that's what they contribute and that's that's it so I think that that's Adams

Scott Benner 1:11:07
oh just have seven more and one of them will be like please don't yeah like I just I could you afford to like keep making babies or like At what point would you just say to yourself like financially I can't do this like

Unknown Speaker 1:11:18
I have not done that financial analysis but I wonder that like you have to make a lot of money to do all of that Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:11:27
yeah the the the range for college right now is Community College three to $5,000 a year up to what is this Hold on a second this isn't supposed to happen? Give me one second

that phone is not supposed to run through it can be from like three to $5,000 per Community College up to there are some private colleges that cost $75,000 and I'm not saying you need to go to one of those I'm just saying that if that's the range

Unknown Speaker 1:12:07
well that's well that's when you have to bank on your kids getting financial scholar or academic scholarships are

Scott Benner 1:12:14
but there's a certain amount of money that you make and if you make that amount of money then that's not going to happen either and it's just it's a maddening world to be in and then to have your kid come home from college and go oh, that semester was a waste of time and you're like Wait, why?

Unknown Speaker 1:12:30
Yeah, what about the X amount of money I just spent on whoa whoa, no,

Scott Benner 1:12:33
no, no, no, go back and learn something. Yeah, it's a it's an that was I can remember when we had kids your kids age which is so weird because I'm not that much older than you but the amount of money we thought was going to send them both through college ended up being the amount of money it took to get one of them through college. And now Arden has let different designs on college which might end up being cheaper and helpful very much but if they both went to the same type of institution we wouldn't have we wouldn't have had nearly enough set aside and still you know you're taking out loans and it's just a disaster. Anyway Good luck.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:19
We started with college fun for both of them hopefully that'll get us through right

Scott Benner 1:13:23
now it'll be it'll be the money you throw at them and good luck we had good intentions Good luck with this. Did you enjoy soccer when you were seven then shut up?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:36
Yeah, right now we're in swim lessons and it's just yeah, I'm not looking forward to all the the carting around to all of the activities

Scott Benner 1:13:43
you sometimes you fall into a thing he just kind of become the people that do the thing like baseball, and softball ended up being what happened around here. But you know, it could end up being anything maybe you just have like maybe the kid will just be like I would like to sit in the house and play chess. I hope not know what if they do what if they're anti Kate? I don't know what if you're like we're going to prove and one of your kids is like, No, we're not.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:10
I also I also wouldn't mean knowing that that's what I did. I also wouldn't want my kiddo to be like I'm going to Peru it's just scary and the things that happened to me there too. I didn't even get into that but um, yeah, that is scary too. And like the letting go of you know, being the parent. And them growing up is got to be really challenging, but we've got some time before there.

Scott Benner 1:14:34
Yeah, find finding the balance between what you were okay with for yourself and what you're okay with for them is tough. Yeah, but you have to try to remember that the things you did probably turned you into the person you are and if you stop them from doing stuff like that, then they'll just become some homogenized version of themselves. Right, you know, but how do you not worry about them? Like do you know I think I've said this in the podcast once. Maybe I've been a day driver of an automobile since I was 13 years old. Because I grew up in a house with a mom and didn't drive and my dad left. And we

Unknown Speaker 1:15:08
Yeah, I think I do remember listening to that. If

Scott Benner 1:15:11
that were true of my kids, I would be out of my mind.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:15
Mm hmm. Right? Gosh, I can't even I am not looking forward to the day that we they are going to be driving a car. I've also been in some really serious car accident. It because of other people on the road, never my own fault. And that is also terrifying.

Scott Benner 1:15:32
They drive away the first time and you think oh, so I put 17 years into this, and now it's gonna die. That's exactly how it feels when they drive. Yeah, that's terrible.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:42
I mean, I think but at the time, my kids are driving, we might all have like self regulated, you know, hovering cars. And you know, the statistics of how many people have died in car accidents is going to be a distant. Yeah, it'll be back where they're like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe that many people died from car accident. They'll just be something

Scott Benner 1:15:58
new to worry about. Yeah. Do you know how many days of my senior year of high school I did not go to school? No, yes. How many? 3052. I just went to work and said like we were broke, and I needed the money. So I'm just getting up in the morning and go to work. Wow. And the place I worked was like, Are you allowed to be here? And I'd be like, Yeah, sure. It's good. Don't worry. Just Yeah, that was it. And that was in the 80s. Whenever they were like, Alright, me if he's gonna work, I ain't gonna say anything. And, and that was sort of the end of it. But if my children missed a couple of days of school every year, I'd be like, Hey, we got to really rethink what's going on here. So yeah, you know, it'll be something it'll be something else like, you know, I agree with you like cars are probably going to be self driving, and there'll be algorithms that keep us from bumping into each other and then it'll just I don't know, who knows,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:53
but who knows what it will be them I can tell you this.

Scott Benner 1:16:57
After living this year in my house, all of those possibilities are preferable to not Yeah, I would rather I would rather live a life of risk and reward then a life of no risk and staring at this wall.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:13
Oh, my gosh, I I remember listening to a podcast I don't remember which one it was that where you were talking about like how you had to go in and pick up your food but you forgot your mask. Maybe it was like Arden had a low blood sugar or something and and you needed to get the food and there was a lady in there that your people that were looking at you like you're a Martian from outer space because he didn't have the mass which of course is normal anywhere now, and I'm guilty of it too. And especially now because I'm pregnant. Um, but yeah, it's just so weird. I cannot wait for it all to be over and where this is like a distant horrible nightmare memory. Yeah, my expectation

Scott Benner 1:17:53
here is that vaccines rolled out farther and farther. The weather changes and that pretty much changes people's focus. And then I don't think personally again, like I'm all for doing whatever is valuable for people like I really am but i don't i don't know i can't imagine what would have to happen to talk people back into their homes for an extended period of time again,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:22
yeah, or to wearing masks forever.

Scott Benner 1:18:25
Yeah, it's funny like there's part of me that's like I can't wait to not need to do that anymore. And there's part of me that's like you know, I didn't get sick at all this year. Yeah, I have kids either as incredible Yeah, like maybe I would put a mask on at the grocery store still if I didn't need to or something like I don't know what I'm going to end up doing like once this part is passed,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:45
but or maybe more antibacterial whenever you go out I don't know

Scott Benner 1:18:49
like I don't do the hand sanitizer as much as I did in the beginning I just cover my face in public and I have not been I haven't even had like a cold in a year.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:01
I know I know. And with a three and a two year old and then being at school I mean we were going through cycles of colds like all the time well even like one time our oldest got him foot mouth This was when he was like I think a year or nine months or something like that and my husband got really bad like blisters all over his feet and hands and throat and um but yeah, whatever the end like the stomach virus when that goes through the house. So yeah, this year was pretty incredible. Not being sick, but then like who cared. We were all at home in our sweatpants anyway.

Scott Benner 1:19:36
Yeah, I might rather have the flu.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:39
sustain that for another year

Scott Benner 1:19:41
hand foot mouth is what proceeded Arden's type one diagnosis.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:45
And so do they think that that can or they you know, is there

Scott Benner 1:19:47
nobody guesses but I mean, it threw her auto immune system into overdrive and it didn't get rid of the hand foot mouth. So yeah, you know it. She had an autoimmune immune response and if I look back now it I mean, that's probably what happened hand foot mouth, autoimmune response. And then like a month later, she had the hand foot mouth again and my doctors, like you're not supposed to get this twice. That doesn't make any sense. So it's possible that it never handled it the first time.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:14
Yeah, it's interesting. And you know, for the record, I was never sick before. Like there was never any sort of major diagnosis for me that

Scott Benner 1:20:23
stress or anything like that even. There was some stress

Unknown Speaker 1:20:28
to be there. Were there actually, some major stresses?

Scott Benner 1:20:33
Yes, I found it. You don't have to tell me what it is. But that's probably what happened.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:37
Yeah, like familial. Yeah. So could that be it? Maybe?

Scott Benner 1:20:43
Yeah, we think we think that a school stress might have flipped my son's thyroid around recently.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:50
Stress is such a bad I mean, obviously, you know, that's like the what that does to blood sugars. Yeah, I see that firsthand. But a lot of people don't know, like, what stress is actually doing to your body? Yeah, but at least we see that.

Scott Benner 1:21:04
No, I, I completely agree. Like it's one of those valuable spots where if somebody with type one can say knowing what's happening inside of your body is actually valuable in a lot of different ways. And most people don't get any view into that at all.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:17
That's it. That's for me, that is it for me, as well as like Chinese food. I just like I'm like, I can't eat it. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't know what's in it. It's hard for me to manage it because of the unknown. And yeah, I'm sure you know, if I wanted to spend some time and really like work on that I could, but it's not worth me. So I don't

Scott Benner 1:21:41
I wear a CGM one time. And it definitely pointed out a couple foods. I'm like, Yeah, I don't want to I just won't eat those anymore. Because my body doesn't do well with it. Yeah, exactly. And you learn that from watching Arden eat all the time, like what impacts you so harshly that, you know, I'm not worth it. Mountain of insulin doesn't help it, you know, you gotta make some choices. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:22:03
well, and speaking about also with COVID, i, this might be interesting for the pregnant community. It's interesting. And, you know, the differing opinions on it, but you know, it's like my, my ob told me to go ahead and because I had a scheduled for a vaccine at the end of February, and I reached out to my ob, like, in the case I can get scheduled Should I go ahead and do it. And they of course, sent me all this literature from like a cog and all the other ob resources that said, Yes, go ahead and get it. Um, and then when I spoke to my maternal fetal medicine physician, who is like world renown, smart lady, she said, I had an appointment scheduled for the next morning, I was like, Hey, I think you're gonna say okay, but I just want to double check, like, should I go ahead and get the vaccine tomorrow? And she said, No, I'd wait until your second trimester. I know someone else that just is like nine weeks, just like I am. And she got the moderna vaccine, like they were pregnant, but didn't know they were pregnant yet. And it was like, so few weeks back, and she ended up in the hospital for a couple days. I don't I don't know the specifics of it. So I mean, it could be unrelated. Who knows? But I don't know that it is either way. I'm like, I don't know that. I want to be the first

Scott Benner 1:23:25
we'll find out. Yeah, that's where that data is gonna come from is that just these anecdotal things that end up getting reported? Because the, you know, the vaccines are out in an emergency, you faster authorization. So they haven't been as extensively tested as you would have to to have an FDA clearance. And so you're going to wait and see, and then it's going to take time for them to collect data and have better answers. Yeah, I don't.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:51
And I think just because there's so much development in that first trimester is, you know why I'm guessing she said that, and,

Scott Benner 1:23:56
yeah, she doesn't know either. I'm sure she's just like, Look, right, this is probably the safe thing to do here safer. It's all mitigation of risk risks. You know, you're just you're just making decisions about like, is this a better decision than that one, then we'll do that one. There for the same reason that I'll end up getting a vaccine because, you know, I, I think I'm okay, I think I'd be one of those people who would just get it like a like a normal, but I don't know if I'm going to be one of those persons who is going to need a five way bypass afterwards. So I'll take a vaccine, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:24:30
right. That's all Yes. So So now I'm going to get one of the end of March but I mean, she's had many patients end up in the ICU. So she's very much pro vaccine, but I think it was just the timing of it and not knowing like I actually had a friend from high school that just had a baby and she is a physician. So she got it in I think December the vaccine, or either that or early January, and so she got it in her third trimester and she just had the baby a few weeks back and baby's fine mom I'm fine. And so there are those anecdotal stories, but there's no one that would have had the vaccine in the first trimester and already have delivered a baby. So I'm like, I don't know that I want to be one of those. Like, let's wait and see.

Scott Benner 1:25:12
Right? Yeah. And you won't, you know, and those babies haven't grown up yet. And nobody's tracked them. And there's, there's a lot of Listen, there's a lot of valuable reasons to do either. To be perfectly Yeah, you know. And so if you can stay in your house and keep your mouth covered and wait a little longer than why not if that's something you're able to do.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:32
Yeah, it's just three more weeks at this point.

Scott Benner 1:25:35
You find out you're having a little boy and you can get vaccinated.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:38
Yep, exactly. Then I'm a free woman.

Scott Benner 1:25:40
I'm telling you right now, I if you have if you're if you find out, it's a girl, I want to know immediately. Please don't even tell you

Unknown Speaker 1:25:46
how I will be screaming it from the mountaintops, you'll hear you'll hear it.

Scott Benner 1:25:50
That's excellent. Kate, I am having a very good time talking to you, which is how I can say we've been talking for almost an hour and a half and probably don't realize it. But I want to thank you for doing this and ask if there's anything we didn't talk about that, that we might have missed?

Unknown Speaker 1:26:06
Yeah, I don't think so. I think we covered and let unless you can think of something that I should share that you think would be helpful to you know, for everybody. I'm always happy to do that. But I'm, you know, always available. If someone wants to contact me, you have my email. You are welcome to send them my way.

Scott Benner 1:26:23
Okay. Well, if somebody reaches out, I will definitely send it to you then. Okay, yeah, that's amazing. I really appreciate this. there's part of me that wants to stop the recording and ask you about all the bad things that happened to you in Peru. But anyway, I do have one question for you feel Hold on just one second. Give me one. Sure. Thanks. All right, everybody, we're back for a second to ask Kate, one more question. Are you or have you put your kids through trial net?

Unknown Speaker 1:26:48
Yeah, so I can't remember at what point they can join it I want to say it's like two years or two and a half years where you can go and get that initial bloodwork. And so our youngest is actually at the point where he could do it now but because of COVID I'm like we'll just wait until we're all in a safer you know that we're all vaccinated basically, I mean, I'm not them but the larger community and I'll take him to do it I did take the first you could go I think the location here I think the only location here in Nashville was in at Vanderbilt and I will say that it was really really hard to bring a two and a half year old there, you know, to get blood from their veins. He was screaming at the top of his lungs and then was slightly frightened because I called it the doctor to ever go to the doctor again. But it is hands down worth it. I totally believe in everything that they're doing and they can you know, of course, I'm worried about our kiddos could be type one diabetic and that of course could come at any point but if we could get in sooner than later just to delay that or and also help you know, provide data for research to find a cure for type one diabetes? Well, you know, we'll do it I'll deal with that our have really tough time getting blood, you know, from a two and a half year old.

Scott Benner 1:28:15
Did he have any bodies?

Unknown Speaker 1:28:17
He did not have the antibodies? Good. Yeah, so you know, I'm sure at any point that can be developed. And I actually learned that as part of my pro thumb and vector to work is because not only did they find that I was positive for that, but they also found antibodies that were present that made that a little bit more severe to some extent. So they did another follow up in which they found out that the antibodies then went down. Um, anyway, so I know that that is relevant to some extent, because of that.

Scott Benner 1:28:50
That's interesting. Well, I'm glad that we chatted for a second and brought that up because I I think it's a great thing. I'm actually interviewing someone tomorrow who makes that drug that they give you now when they find out that you've just been diagnosed or that when you have the you know, that drug that they say kind of stretches out the time that it takes you to get diagnosed with type one.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:11
I'm yeah, I just listened to that podcast that you had that you I'm looking at my phone right now. Number 443. That was the one I was listening to

Scott Benner 1:29:20
laugh with the person from trauma. I'm actually going to talk to somebody who works at the company that developed the drug tomorrow to find out more about what the drug does.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:28
That's awesome. I will be listening to that.

Scott Benner 1:29:31
Alright, thank you. Alright, now I'm gonna let you go for Thank you. Okay, thanks. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. g Vogue glucagon. Find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n COMM forward slash juice box, hey, one more time, touched by type one.org. It's an organization doing incredible things for people living with Type One Diabetes. And they put on a really spectacular dance show. That harkens back to the beginning of this organization. If you haven't heard that episode with Elizabeth forest, find it. It's in there somewhere in the catalog. She tells you how she started this whole thing for now touched by type one.org. And a huge thanks to Kate for coming on the show. And I promised you an update. An update on Kate, a Kate date, a cup, a cup date, a cup date? Oh, no, a cake date. I'm sorry. I'm rushing like I told you earlier. And I apologize. My thoughts are not forming correctly. Kate sent a note that said this. It's a boy, three boys for an under please send help. I have come to terms with the fact that it will be pure chaos around here for the next few years. Congratulations, Kate and family. That's really amazing. Kate said that since we talk she thought of things she wish she would have brought up during the podcast that happens to everybody. Don't worry about that. She said that she's had a slight increase in her insulin needs at the very start of the first trimester. But then it plateaued and even dropped a bit again. And there's some other private stuff here. She told me it's not for you guys, but that's fair enough. Right. Kate, thanks for reaching out. I mean, I'm assuming we recorded this so long ago. Your son's probably in college by now. Mazel Tov. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of the Juicebox Podcast. And by the way, if you're enjoying the Juicebox Podcast, please leave a beautiful glowing, well written and thoughtful review. Wherever you listen. And don't forget to attach as many stars to it as your app allows. Like if your app has like a five star thing like the apple podcast app, give it five stars, they put a real thoughtful review down that might make someone else interested in listening to the show. I love you guys. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.