#607 The Famous Mister Ed

Ed is an 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
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 607 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, I'll be speaking with Ed, who is an adult type one. He's also a parent, husband, and a number of other things that we get into. He said a lot of things as a lot of things. And he's a person like you like me just trying to get by. I'm just kidding. Ed's great. We're gonna have a good time. Please remember while you're listening, that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

Just now, I realized I could have named the episode Mr. Ed. I still could I guess. The amazing Mr. Ed. Is that how the horse is a horse? Of course, of course. The Baba, I can't think it is on Mr. Ed. Song. Unless the horse is the famous Mr. At the famous Mr. Ed, should I call it that? I don't know. We'll see.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. You can learn more about that wonderful little meter at contour next one.com. Forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one. And they're of course available to you for your viewing and reading and looking pleasure on Instagram, Facebook, and it touched by type one.org.

Ed 2:03
My name is Ed. I'm 48 years old. I've been a type one diabetic since 2000. So with that being said, Scott, now you have to figure out how old I was when I got it. Wait, I do. I was going to how you look. I know how you love doing math. Well,

Scott Benner 2:18
I went the easy way. And I was like you've had it for 21 years. It's easy that way. What did you say? How old were you when you're diagnosed?

Ed 2:28
I was just about to turn 28.

Scott Benner 2:32
You're 49?

Ed 2:33
I'm about to turn 49 September 1.

Scott Benner 2:37
All right. Okay. See? You gave it away. You were 2728

Ed 2:42
Yeah, it's 21 years.

Scott Benner 2:44
So you've been on it that long.

Ed 2:47
Yeah. And for the first 1718 years. It was okay. I'm not gonna say it was great. Wasn't a great diabetic, but I wasn't a bad diabetic. I tried to eat okay. But my problem was I never tested myself as much as I should have and and without a CGM that I have now not having any idea of what my blood sugar was in between meals, or through the night or anything like that. So it's been much better now for the last three years for sure.

Scott Benner 3:18
So let's put this into context. Because my no messing around, throws me off. So in 2000 year, how old

Ed 3:25
I am about to turn 28 I just started a new job had just started a new job yet, and moved back to New York from Texas where I was working in another job and I flew back to New York for another job.

Scott Benner 3:38
And your accent must have stuck out in Texas like a sore thumb, huh?

Ed 3:41
A little bit. Sure.

Scott Benner 3:46
Okay, so 2020 years old. The technology I mean, the testing technology exists then.

Ed 3:55
Yeah, I mean, we had a mere it was like the first meter I got it was, like 30 seconds to get the reading. Which is I mean, we just sitting there 30 seconds seems like a long time we just waiting for the you know, countdown 28.76 And then then the fight you find out your number.

Scott Benner 4:13
And you had I'm sorry, I mean to cut you off, but you probably had a you probably had homolog or something at that point, right?

Ed 4:19
Yes. I was on obviously MBI for the first six months or so using human log and Cuba when human Okay, which I think is just like a long acting one

Scott Benner 4:29
right. Now, you said you did this thing that that a lot of adults that have had type one for a while do it's super interesting. Me. You were like it was going okay. Like I don't know what that means.

Ed 4:41
Yeah. It was going okay. I don't know how else to say I mean, I wasn't I wasn't having many, many lows for sure. You know, but I was probably running higher than you'd want to. You'd want it to be, but especially if I was looking at my numbers now and back then I'd be like, What the hell was I doing?

Scott Benner 4:59
Well, So that's what I usually think of right is when they when when you guys say when you guys have now lumped together everyone has had diabetes for like 15 or 20 bucks. We're all just one group. Yeah, I don't mean it that way. But but the people, the people I've spoken to when they say that I feel like what they mean is, I didn't get dizzy and I didn't pass out. Right? Is that how you felt about it?

Ed 5:24
I yeah, I guess I mean, at the time, I wasn't, I didn't want to say I didn't take it seriously. But I wasn't taking it too seriously. I knew what I had to do. I took my shots when I had to, I tried to watch what I ate. And I just tried to live as normal as I could, I didn't really try to let it you know, hold me back from doing anything.

Scott Benner 5:44
Right. I that's the other thing that people love to say is like, diabetes doesn't hold me back. And I always think of, like, when you say that to me, if you said to me, Hey, Scott, I see that diabetes doesn't hold Arden back in my mind that paints a picture of somebody with really stable blood sugars, who doesn't get low when they're active, and can do things on a whim, you know, can stand up and say, I'm gonna go out now, and it's not a big deal. And I have had the feeling over the years to talking to adults who have had type one for a long time that when they say didn't hold me back, what they meant was, is I just did stuff. It didn't matter what my blood sugar was. Correct? Right.

Ed 6:24
I'd say that's a fair statement. Is

Scott Benner 6:26
it okay for you? And obviously, I'm not lumping everybody together. But for me, yeah,

Ed 6:29
yes. There was never a time. Where is it? Oh, wait, I can't do that. I gotta take a toll of something real quick. Never.

Scott Benner 6:36
But in context, it means if your blood sugar was 250, you would have just gone out to dinner anyway. Yep. And then your mind. diabetes wasn't holding you back.

Ed 6:45
Right? Yeah. And if I was a 250, and I was allowed to eat all right, let me just give myself a correction. Oh, at the time, and just go, and then probably wouldn't test myself again until hours after dinner or before bed.

Scott Benner 6:58
See, you're you're you're cementing my, my thought that diabetes doesn't hold me back means I'm just not going to pay attention. I

Ed 7:07
know. Well, I guess I guess, I guess I was never really that bad. Right? I mean, my, my agency has always fluctuated between mid to high sixes and a top out of being the highest 8.2.

Scott Benner 7:22
So for me, it's context, right? And I shouldn't joke around because I don't want anybody to take it the wrong way. But back then, or even 10 years or 20 years prior to that everybody's experience with diabetes is different based on the timeline. Like, sure, you really weren't being held back and you were doing the things that you were asked to do. But now in hindsight, the way you manage now, you can look back and think, oh, wow, like, that's not nearly what it could have been.

Ed 7:50
Exactly. And I wonder about did I cause myself any damage?

Scott Benner 7:53
I would imagine you think about that. Yeah. But you know, but I mean, I don't

Ed 7:57
I still have, you know, I saw all the feelings in my feet and stuff like that, you know, the doctors always try to test that. I don't have I don't I don't have any other ailments that I would think that would have been caused by any damage I might have done to myself, right.

Scott Benner 8:13
But even as I'm saying what I just said, like you recognize to like you were probably doing as well as you could have done with the technology that existed at that point.

Ed 8:21
Yes. I mean, I could probably test it a little bit more often. Okay. But but at the time, all I had was a meter. And at the time, my Medtronic pump,

Scott Benner 8:32
Was it really that much of a hassle to test?

Ed 8:36
I'm a lazy guy, Scott. When it comes to stuff like that, when it comes to stuff like that, I mean, you know, but

Scott Benner 8:43
in the moment, do you not connect testing more with living longer and being healthy? No, I say,

Ed 8:50
I just was just doing something. And then oh, I got to eat. Maybe I shouldn't. And then a next meeting, and I didn't even test myself.

Scott Benner 8:58
I gotcha. It because when I think about it with Arden prior to CGM, we tested frequently, I'd say. I'd say honestly, we might have tested Arden between 10 and 14 times a day before CGM, like I was trying to act like a CGM before I even knew what one was. Right?

Ed 9:15
Well, and good. That's being a good parent.

Scott Benner 9:18
Well, your well is I was definitely just scared. Oh, for sure.

Ed 9:22
And I'm sure you've said it a lot. And a lot of people, a lot of people we've interviewed said the same thing. I was glad I got it as an adult. It's my parents wouldn't have to take care of me.

Scott Benner 9:33
Yeah, I can see that. I've also heard people say that listening to the podcast as an adult with type one makes them wish that things were like this now. So their parents, I think they're now seeing how impactful it is on parents. And they wonder if their parents weren't impacted similarly, but didn't have the tools to do anything about it.

Ed 9:55
For sure, yeah. Why or was that we just said I believe the correct statement

Scott Benner 10:00
Sure, yeah. So your your, your parents don't know a thing about your diabetes property.

Ed 10:04
Uh, I mean, they, my mom has passed for the last 10 years. But she would always, not really ask me about him just didn't really want to say didn't care. She definitely cared. But it was never a topic of conversation. Really?

Scott Benner 10:20
No, there's like, so it's somewhere more impactful than Ed needs to take a multivitamin every day. But yes, yeah, they don't really understand the details

Ed 10:30
of it. Right. And I'm thinking about this even at that time. I didn't understand that either. I just said, you know, doctor said, take your take insulin, as you eat, and you'll be fine. Pretty much. I mean, that's the gist

Scott Benner 10:44
of it. What, what stands in the way of the understanding, is it that the internet didn't exist? The way it does now, like what? Like, I got

Ed 10:55
to be good. I didn't even look up on the internet about type one diabetes, or, or obviously, Facebook didn't even exist at the time. So it just I just kind of just would, if I did, I tested myself. I said, All right, I'm gonna have this this much food, and we put them out in the carbs. I'm gonna eat into my pump and let it go. And then not know about anything else until eight again and tested again. Yeah. So knowing what I know now, and how insulin works from listening to your podcast. Oh, maybe Pre-Bolus in 30 minutes before that, I'll probably help.

Scott Benner 11:33
What made you look for more information this late in the game?

Ed 11:38
I had went, I was always part of my, you know, generic type one diabetic group on Facebook. Nothing. You know, I was just looking at I was scrolled past it. But then I, about three years ago, I went to my doctor, I got my 8.2 A one C. And he said, Maybe you should go get maybe you should go get a CGM. So I went to the educator, we talked about it. And we switch my CGM and my pump at the same time. And since then, the fact that I could see my number and make little corrections at a time. It's been really, really, really good.

Scott Benner 12:18
So that seeing that data made you want to do a better job with it.

Ed 12:24
Absolutely. And at first, before I started listening to podcasts, I would just put the CGM on and not realizing why is jumping why spiking like that?

Scott Benner 12:35
How do you find the podcast?

Ed 12:38
It was okay. So when I got when I switched to the Dexcom and the Omnipod, I joined the group on Facebook, probably it was like Omnipod, Dexcom users or something like that, right? And somebody had mentioned your podcast. And I said, Okay, I'm not I was never a big podcast listener. But about the same maybe three months, four months later, I got a Fitbit. So I'm going for walk so I can see my see my steps and and then I started listening to podcasts on my walks.

Scott Benner 13:09
You know, it's funny, people get healthy listening to the podcast, I'm sitting here. Melton to this chair. Oh, I gotta get out. But, you know,

Ed 13:19
I also got a Fitbit at the time, because it was able to, I was able to see my CGM data. So it was and then it's always telling you, oh, we got to get 1000 more steps, you got to get 7000 more steps. So I go from all walks. And then I needed something to do while listening while I was walking. So I listen to podcast, right?

Scott Benner 13:38
So I can recall, this is interesting, because you're a person who I've been aware of for a really long time. And it's easier for me to keep track of men, because they're fewer, like mental math.

Ed 13:52
I'm you been aware of me? No, no,

Scott Benner 13:55
I hope that sounds right. A lot of knobs passed by my face. And so some of them stick for just it's because my brain works oddly, and my brain makes rhymes up about some people's names. But the men are easier to track. Because there's just fewer of them. It's not as common for guys to reach out to me. So I can almost picture myself sitting in my living room getting a message from you, probably through Facebook. Yep, the first time and you were excited. Like to you were excited to reach out and not that other people aren't usually but I remember thinking that at the time. Do you recall that?

Ed 14:38
I never said Do I just come back to the doctor's office after maybe for four or five months on the Omnipod and Dexcom. And I went from an 8.2 to a 5.2. And that was the lowest it's ever been. And what really aggravated me a little bit was the doctor was like there's no way you could do that. What else Without going into having lows. Now if I can just back up a little bit, this doctor I've had probably seen for six years never looked at my numbers ever. Just so my CGM, so my a onesie, right? So what kind of care is that really given me, you know, but to me though I would go, he tells me my agency, he will give me my prescriptions I go on my way.

Scott Benner 15:22
Are you in the city? No, I'm on young. Okay. I always get when in the city, it's rushed. But on Long Island, you should,

Ed 15:32
it's always rushed. You know, they try to book three appointments at the same time. You get 333 to five minutes. And then, you know, you know how it

Scott Benner 15:41
goes, Yeah, you're right out. I have to tell you that one of the best parts of my day is that people pretty consistently send me their, like lab stuff when they come out of their doctor's appointments. Right? And it's, it really feels good. I have to tell you, I get to feel good a lot. I might be one day this, this whole thing will end. And I'll be like, You know what, let me use a music example. You'll really get it, I'll be Lenny Dykstra, like, all the fans will be gone, nobody will be cheering and I'll just be running around like doing flow and gambled away all my money trying to find the excitement that I used to have with my diabetes.

Ed 16:19
But I just got I don't, it's, I think you got to keep this podcast going as long as you feel like doing it. Because there's always gonna be new parents that that have to have to you have to handle the kids with the newly diagnosed and you're gonna be there for that.

Scott Benner 16:35
I also think there's always going to be adults who've had type one for 15 or 20 years and have some sort of a reckoning moment and are running around trying to figure out what to do now. I have no, I have no plans on stopping the podcast. I really do love it. Well, what else you got to do right now? Bear with me? Just sitting here. Right? But But um, but I do. It's funny. I talked to my son about this all the time, like when athletes quit? How difficult it must be for them to no longer get adulation? And why? Why some of them? I think go bonkers. Sometimes, you know, later. And

Ed 17:07
it's funny you say that? You know, I probably I mentioned to at one point my both my sons. They're 11 and 12. They play baseball. And I take them to hitting trainer. And I in the trainer, I asked them. How much do you miss playing baseball right now? And he goes, I can't believe I'm not doing it anymore. Yeah, I just I just I don't have the ability to so great. It's like, what you keep doing something. You can't not think about not doing it anymore. Yeah, we that makes sense.

Scott Benner 17:39
No, yesterday, Colin, I went out to throw. And that's a fallacy he throws I catch the ball on a drop in the bucket. But there's somebody out there as well as an adult with their younger kids probably like freshman high school age, and the kids were running and he was timing them. I don't know why it doesn't matter. But as I was walking away, the guy said to my son, like you play baseball, and he goes, Yeah, and and guy asked him where Cole told him. And then they started talking. I could hear Cole as I was walking away, talking about how much he loves playing baseball. And he's kind of a quiet person. So in two seconds, he opened up to a complete stranger and was telling him how much he loved it.

Ed 18:20
That's easy. And you're hoping he gets a new playing as long as again, because you know,

Scott Benner 18:26
you got a knock on something there because either your talent gets in the way your age gets in the way or you break something or, or something the wrong way. So yeah, great.

Ed 18:35
I think you had mentioned at one time in the podcast, how how many people play baseball as kids? And how many stop playing when they go to high school? And then how many stopped playing when they get to college? And then how many stop after that? Yeah. And then number is this like astronomical? And the fact that somebody can make it to the major leagues?

Scott Benner 18:52
Yeah, no, no, how could they have to be I'm astonished by that constantly that the year my son started playing baseball, 4 million American kids started playing T ball. And in Little League, and when Cole went into college as a freshman, 9000 of those 4 million kids went to play college baseball. And I think after that, you know, to the pros, it's 3000 maybe less. You know, if fewer than that it's um it's an interesting way to keep competing. It's something I think it's good for you like psychologically I'm saying once you make it and people are screaming in your ear and you're like, I am amazing. Like is there I'll joke like sometimes privately by myself in my room or I'll wander past my wife or something like that. But you know, getting back to it when when a person you've never met before 3456 10 times a day, different people send notes going hey my A once he went from a two to five to thank you, the podcast, whatever the note says. It's important to me not to minimize that, like that interaction. So I don't I don't receive them. I go, Oh, here's another one. Like you don't I mean, I don't feel that way. And I and I, even if I felt that way, I gotta be honest with you. I wouldn't tell you, but I don't feel that because I think it would sound like I'm

Ed 20:12
sure it makes you feel good. It's it's exciting that you that you've helped at least one person. And but now you've helped 1000s of people probably.

Scott Benner 20:21
Yeah, I hope so. I hope it's I hope it's way more than I even know about.

Ed 20:25
And it was. It's just, it's the basic concepts that you've always said. It was the first podcast I listened to. So it's always sticks to me. And I don't remember which episode it wasn't anything like that. But it was you Basal has to be right. Timing, insulin, and the amount of insulin. And that's it.

Scott Benner 20:45
I've added now like, understanding the different impacts of foods and staying Oh, the bowl and but yeah, I joke sometimes people are like, Oh, the podcast is so popular. I was like I to be honest with you. The podcast can be six minutes long and one episode, you know, but I don't think any but but, but that but no one would take it seriously, then it would sound right. And it would sound like that can't be right. And plus, I think the other stuff, these conversations just with you and like you don't realize it right now. But you just said something in the last 20 minutes. That will make an adult with type one want to do better? It helps Oh 100% You're like I'd now now know how this works like I can I now understand how this works. And even I that's why I'm always amused when I'll stop recording with somebody in there. Like if you don't want to run that I'll understand. I'm like what? Like, well, I didn't say anything was like you don't even know what you just did? Like you share. You know,

Ed 21:45
that was my reservation over even coming on the podcast. I'm like, What do I have to say? It's not gonna be exciting.

Scott Benner 21:52
Listen, you're a person who you keep like you send me your A onesies? I would say consistently, right?

Ed 21:59
Pretty much. Yeah, cuz I said, I said I'll say it every time cuz you're the only person actually make me understood why what I was doing. No locker has ever said Pre-Bolus for 30 minutes before you eat. Maybe check yourself if the doctors ever said that.

Scott Benner 22:16
Why don't we just pay attention a little bit? Yeah. That's fascinating. Because can you look back retrospectively? Would you have if someone made it important to you? Do you think

Ed 22:30
I I might have, but somebody who said you should really take insulin for about 30 minutes or 20 minutes for you. That would have definitely stuck in me casted myself aboard the time. I don't know.

Scott Benner 22:46
You might not have done that. I have to tell you, Arden you know at this point. I mean, I remember before CGM. I must have tested Arden's blood sugar 10,000 times, you know, in a handful of years, like I mean, a lot. And now, her fingers have recovered. Because I mean, look not for nothing. I don't I said this probably once or twice, but make bear repeating. I wouldn't let anybody test my blood sugar when Arden was little, because I had a real genuine fear that if I knew what it felt like, and I thought it hurt, that I wouldn't be able to do it to her. And I was always doing it to her, so I wouldn't do it, right. And then that morphed as she got older, and suddenly, like testing your blood sugar. She didn't care at all anymore. Right? And so I tested mine, and I have to be honest with you like when that Lance goes in, it ain't fun.

Ed 23:43
So it's definitely not. I mean, but I just remember this one time, I was going to a family barbecue. And I was giving myself in my in my insulin, as I was in the car, and my cousin comes out and goes, I can't believe I can never get myself shots. I go, well, the alternate is. Is that all die? Yeah. Like, if I don't, so. I bet you. Yeah, probably. If you don't, you know? Or yeah, something would really, really be wrong with you by now,

Scott Benner 24:14
but maybe by our people who wouldn't, too. Well, I mean, or do it less frequently to avoid it and maybe that leads to higher blood sugars or stuff. Yes.

Ed 24:24
I mean, I'm sure there's the you know, I said I never was a horrible, I hate the hate. Horrible diabetic. I was never that bad. I just had a heart just I was just lazy about testing myself. I always give my insulin. I would always try to try to eat but then like the testing thing taught would get in the way of like whatever I was doing or

Scott Benner 24:43
were you married when you were diagnosed? I was

Ed 24:47
just married since then divorced and remarried.

Scott Benner 24:50
Okay, deal of this so much did it again.

Ed 24:55
I say this all the time. You making mistakes in your 20s you fix them in 30s and your 40s guy actually sought to live happily. Without me. What happier?

Scott Benner 25:06
Yeah. So you agree with me when you hear me say like, I think I've just started to turn into a person in the last five or so years?

Ed 25:12
Yes, yeah. Just a yes, yes.

Scott Benner 25:17
But my point is that you were busy. Right? So you didn't you didn't? Your kids aren't with your first wife. Is that right?

Ed 25:24
My, my daughters are older. Oh, I have two daughters that are older. And they are 28 and 22. Oh, so you have four kids, then? I have four kids.

Scott Benner 25:34
I see. I think of you as having. Hopefully your daughters will never listen to this, I think of you of having to because you mentioned the boys and baseball. Like that's why

Ed 25:43
well that. My daughters are older. So they're kind of living their own lives. I have. And I have a grandson now was six months old. Wow. Which is, which is I was as being only 4048 I was like, There's no way I could be a grandfather. I'm never gonna be called grandpa ever.

Scott Benner 26:02
They're gonna call you grandpa. Are you? Yeah, yes. And your smile, and that's gonna be the end of it. So yep. Oh, that's kind of that's kind of crazy. Is there any autoimmune stuff with your family line or with your children?

Ed 26:15
Nope. Nope. Not I know of not yet interest. And that's always been my fear that my daughters are gonna be my daughters or my sons are gonna get type one.

Scott Benner 26:24
Well, they would you look like would you do trial that for your boys? You wouldn't

Ed 26:29
know? No, I don't want I don't want to have the idea of, you know, the thought about them getting it and knowing they're gonna get it. I just, I'm just gonna have to happen.

Scott Benner 26:37
Okay, and then you'll just you'll you'll see it coming. And then

Ed 26:41
yes, obviously know the signs, you know, drinking 1000 gallons of water, peeing all the time losing weight.

Scott Benner 26:48
Guess what? You've got diabetes? Yep. Do your do your girls. Are they aware of it? Like, do you think they think about it?

Ed 26:58
No. I mean, they they think about the fact that I have it. And maybe some of the things I have to do take care of it. But they don't. I don't think they're worried about getting it at all.

Scott Benner 27:07
Interesting. Okay. No, makes sense. Oh, here's a non sequitur. When you hear me tell people that their bagels are terrible. You know you like not?

Ed 27:18
Yep. And pizza as well. The pizza. Yeah. And you don't understand that. They're really is in the next three to four months, probably probably even sooner than that. But by the time this gets listened to, I will be living in Tampa, Florida.

Scott Benner 27:32
Oh, are you moving for good for work? For work? Yep. Yeah. So there's a pizza place in Tampa that the last time I was there, they trucked the water down from New York.

Ed 27:44
So I hear that a lot. Are they really doing that? It was good.

Scott Benner 27:47
I thought I thought I was home when I was eating it.

Ed 27:51
Are they really? Are they really shipping in water? People say they say that all the time. But are they really doing that? That's what

Scott Benner 27:57
they said. That's what my buddies I don't know. You know?

Ed 28:01
Mom was like boxing up pictures of water. And

Scott Benner 28:04
imagine it's in a truck. But now that I'm thinking about it, the guy I went with is a is a lifelong New Yorker. And it was almost like going for a pizza with a mob. Don, the way you talk. They bring it down from the truck. So maybe

Ed 28:24
I will say that that's what they do.

Scott Benner 28:27
I have to say, I have to admit it. I'm gonna shout him out right here. I'll never hear this. But Charles is one of my favorite people that I don't see enough. But who introduced me to the phrase, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And the way and the way he says it's so much cooler than when I said,

Ed 28:43
Oh, yeah, I'm sure it is. I probably couldn't say cool, either. So I'm right. I'm right with

Scott Benner 28:49
you. That's crazy. So how do you manage now like, what do you have the pumps?

Ed 28:54
I have Omnipod and Dexcom 36 on the pod and I'm going to say if I didn't know about the other part of the time I was looking at pumps, I probably would have went with the T slim. Okay, but the pan and whatever it's called because of the integration with the pump. The public CGM.

Scott Benner 29:15
How long have you had how long you since you made that switch? A couple years?

Ed 29:19
Three years. Okay. So you probably probably six, six months after I first contacted you.

Scott Benner 29:24
Alright. And so you were looking at that because of back then? It was

Ed 29:30
I was it. What did they I was on a Medtronic. I was on Medtronic. Right. And it just I felt like it almost stopped working. I don't know if that's the right term. I think it was because I was only using my stomach over and over and over and over again, I say and the absorption just didn't seem like there was it was working.

Scott Benner 29:51
Yeah, that'll happen. You have to keep moving your sights around. Yes.

Ed 29:55
So good. With Omni pod. Obviously you can put it any way you want. So I've been on Omnipod and Dexcom 36 For three years

Scott Benner 30:06
for you. When when you were looking originally though, you said you were thinking about the tandem. And why did you go down if I,

Ed 30:11
if I had known about it, I went into my diabetic educator when my doctor said, Maybe you should go on a CGM. Okay. And she said, Well, here's that. Here's what the Medtronic looks like now. And here's what the Omnipod looks like. Those are the only two options like, you know, at the time, I, I'm sure there are others. But those are the options that were presented to me. So I had the fact that it was normally possible always tubeless got I don't have to get, I don't have to get stuck on a door handles. I'm running to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Scott Benner 30:41
Right. So I see. So you're saying that if you would have known about the integration with tandem that yes, that might have moved you over? Yes. But now it's

Ed 30:50
interesting at the time, at the time, I wasn't even like, I never really looked at all the pumps and or I tried to CGM once and I left the first time you referred to it as a hot tool needle.

Scott Benner 31:03
Because that Medtronic one was tough, huh?

Ed 31:06
Oh, it was I was like, There's no way I'm gonna insert this into me every time. So I did it twice, three times, maybe I maybe use it for a month, never see the match up with what my meter said and hurt like hell to put it into

Scott Benner 31:21
use abilities important. So this is an interesting thing, because had you gone tandem at first back then they just had Basal IQ Wait where it would have like to shut your Basal off to stop you from getting low. Now they have control, which is an algorithm and Omnipod is gonna come out. I mean, by the time this is out, I am very confident in saying that people are listening to this now on the pod five is available. So mine may listen, if I have to go back and edit that part out I'm gonna be praised that should definitely be out by then. But my point is different is that you didn't find an algorithm. So instead you found a podcast that you have an A one see right now that I don't know if an algorithm available retail could could meet

Listen, you're using insulin, you need a meter. You need a good meter. You need an accurate meter. You need a meter that's easy to carry. Easy to hold. Easy to see. Easy to use in the dark. You need a Contour. Next One blood glucose meter. Quick, top of your head. What kind of meter Do you have? Do you know the name of it? Have you looked into its accuracy? Have you found out if you're paying more for that meter, then you might be paying for a different one. A more accurate one? A Whoa. Yeah, haven't have you? Hmm. Oh, that's okay. I understand. Many people just take the meter that their doctor gives them. But you don't have to do that. You can use the meter that you want to use. Arden has been using the Contour Next One blood glucose meter for years now. And it is super accurate. completely reliable. The screen is easy to read. It's got a lightning fast like boom, like xinxing light, you know, I mean a light like for nighttime, nighttime viewing of the blood drop, I guess you are at nighttime viewing the blood drop. Anyway, the light is nice and bright. And it doesn't require a big blood drop. Almost cursed. Let me try again. I've made myself laugh Hold on. The meter just works. It's really great. It's easy to use and easy to carry. You should check it out contour next one.com forward slash juice box. It has Second Chance test strips. It's pretty great. Go find out what I mean the websites actually amazing too. And by amazing I mean it's a it's a website for a blood glucose meter. But it has a lot of great information. It's well designed and it's easy to get around. So you should check it out

Ed 34:13
my current doctor basically said the same thing. Because why you're doing it right now. I just want it so I can go to sleep and sleep through the night and not have to worry about alarm going off saying oh, your blood sugar's 68. Maybe you should get up and do something about

Scott Benner 34:27
it. Oh, it'll do that for sure. So what is and I haven't used on the pod five yet. This is interesting talking about the future when you're looking around. Arden does loop because loop lets you set targets lower. Arden has your a one C and she has all the stability. So what that says to me is that the retail available algorithms are able to accomplish that. I imagine if if the FDA if the companies would go back to the FDA and try to test again Lower tolerances, right. So you have to wonder if the companies are going to have the, the drive to do that or not. Because the the other side of it is that is that you throw on the pod five on most people, people who don't listen to this podcast, and you're going to take people with eight a one season 2681 CS, and they're not going to know how it happened. It's just going to be magic. And they're not going to get you know what I mean. And so, the ability to help vast swaths of people using insulin is right here, it exists. Now, you just got to get them on to people, will they? Will they want to make a super user version of it? I hope so. I really do. Or maybe it's manipulatable to the point where you can make some setting changes where you'll have lower outcomes, I don't know, because the only part five, from what I'm understanding is a learning system.

Ed 35:54
So it learns your habits is that it

Scott Benner 35:58
they say it makes different adjustments as time goes on. And so it's

Ed 36:03
not gonna have like all those gazillion settings. You got to do a loop now, or is it going to be I

Scott Benner 36:07
don't imagine that they're going to make, I mean, listen, the one thing to say about lupus, there are a lot of settings. And if you get them wrong, it doesn't work. So

Ed 36:16
yeah, that was I thought about when they first said, Oh, loop is available now for Omni pod and Dexcom. So I'm like, Oh, well, let me think about it. Yeah, but first, I didn't have an Apple computer. So that was pretty much out of out of out of the,

Scott Benner 36:30
I think, yeah, I think just being Do It Yourself would would move most people away from it. i It scares the hell out of me still.

Ed 36:37
I mean, I'm not like computer illiterate, but I'm not a programmer. So but I was able to build my own Nightscout Nightscout account, I was able to do that. So I can follow directions. But then then, as it went on people, oh, it would stop working. And you had to get you had to get this. You have to get this rilink from some guy, you know, wherever he's go something out of his garage. I mean, I don't I don't, but I hear it just seemed a little bit. Maybe. Maybe I'll just wait.

Scott Benner 37:10
Right, right. Oh, listen, had had

Ed 37:12
it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to sit on anybody who does this? No. I mean, I'm happy that they're doing it. Just for me. I don't I just I'll just wait.

Scott Benner 37:22
100% I think you're I felt exactly the same way. And

Ed 37:27
if people you have a great you have a great resource that you can call in anytime you

Scott Benner 37:30
want. Yeah, there's people who are willing to help me, which is nice. But maybe a month or so ago Arden's phone died. Finally she had, she doesn't replace them constantly. So her phone was pretty old. And it just she comes to me one day, I've been telling her for six months, we have to, you know, your phone is done. And she's like, No, but

Ed 37:47
it's great color. She's a teenager and doesn't want to get a new phone. Now she

Scott Benner 37:51
liked her phone, she didn't want a new phone. So one day, she goes, Hey, like real, begrudgingly, she comes to me, she goes, I think we better get rid of this phone. I was like, Oh, she must have seen something pretty sketchy happened. So we go to the store. And we say we're going to trade the phone in the train, the phone had value, and we were going to get money back for it. And so we go in, and we're like, look, we need to trade in the phone, we're gonna buy a new one. But you can't have the phone right now. We can bring it back in a few hours. And the guy's like, why don't like her pancreas is on this phone, basically. So we trade in the phone, I don't get the money. I go home, get the new phone set up, I have to make a build of the app for loop and put it on a new phone, then get the whole thing switched over get it running correctly. And once it was working right and everything was switched over. I was like, Okay, give me your other phone. I'll blank it out. And I'll take it and and get my money in which I did. But it was a lot of work. And it's more than what I think you would expect what most people would expect. I think that most people would want a retail version of this. Like I download an app from the App Store. I turn it on it pairs to the thing the thing works, or it comes with its own controller they and it's prepared or what like you don't mean like no one's looking to build an app in you know, some program and have to own an Apple computers that you can be an I'm an app developer, for God's sakes because my daughter's on loop, right? I had to buy an app. It's too much. I'm not gonna lie to you. It's too much. You know what I mean? But the damn thing works amazing.

Ed 39:28
Think about the people who I I'm astonished by the people who actually take the time to do that, and then let everybody else know about it too. Is that's incredible.

Scott Benner 39:39
Yeah, people are inherently good. At least some of them are and you wouldn't think sometimes you get you're on you're out on Long Island you think everybody's an ass but you said oh, you only have to drive there once to not like people anymore. That's for certain but

Ed 39:59
I I'd say like though I like most dogs, more than most people

Scott Benner 40:03
cold played baseball out, like hours deep on the island one time. And this will happen, maybe, but I hated the drive out there. And the drive home. Like, once you get like, you finally get off the island you come up to I'm not accustomed that spacers all those bridges, and it just looks like, it looks like somebody took a handful of spaghetti through to the wall, and then said, that's what the road should look like. And

Ed 40:29
just Yeah. It makes you feel any better. We feel the same way about driving to Jersey.

Scott Benner 40:34
So imagine you do. Like I've never been so happy to be on the New Jersey Turnpike in my life as I was coming back from there. Oh my God, finally, just a regular amount of insanity.

Ed 40:46
Yes, I'll agree with that. I'll give you that

Scott Benner 40:48
there are people all over the Midwest listening to this who could never like you guys would never understand what traffic is. It's just feeling like you're just, you've got a hold of the steering wheel. And you're like, every decision I make could be my last.

Ed 41:03
Yes. And just and just sometimes the the anger of just sitting on a light and then knowing you only got to go about three feet when the light turns green.

Scott Benner 41:12
Yeah. No, nobody should live here. You'll probably enjoy Tampa much more except for I hope so. Yeah. Anyway, so the algorithms right, like, they're the future, I'm confident. I am 100% confident they are, I am thrilled about on the pot five coming out, it's going to go into most people and be an amazing change for them. And I hope I hope that adults living with type one who are fighting through sevens and eights will have the, the the ability and the nerve. And the kind of you know, enthusiasm to try it because it's it's gonna be astounding. I'm sure control like us the same way. You know, like in different it gets there a different way. But I'm sure it will be a great improvement for people. So yeah,

Ed 41:59
the thing is with the algorithm, if my blood sugar starts going up, I don't want to let the algorithm just take care of it. I want him to take care of myself at that at that moment.

Scott Benner 42:12
So you don't want to slowly go after you want to be more aggressive about it.

Ed 42:15
Yes, yeah. So a lot of times, I'll just oh, I'm gonna go for like a 15 minute walk or something if I have the time, and that usually brings it back down, or starts getting it back down where I want it to be.

Scott Benner 42:26
Right? Yeah, we're making, you know, I don't know how Omnipod five is going to work yet, because I haven't seen it. But I assume it's going to work through Basal increases. And the version of loop that we use doesn't work through Basal increases, it works through boluses. Okay, so the the original version of loop that we had, if I'm getting this wrong, I apologize to the loopers. But I think that would be Pete's version makes adjustments by Basal. And it worked great, but it was too slow. Like it didn't stop spikes quickly enough. It didn't bring them down quickly enough. Like for me. I think I use Ivan's version now. And that one, when that one sees a rise, it makes a Bolus. Okay, see, that's pretty legit, the way that works,

Ed 43:13
and the fact you know, the fact that you that personal Do you have like I said, they they have somebody who's just making this stuff and giving it to you is great. But if I was to use it, I would think I would probably only use it at night. Because I think I'm very good at keeping my blood sugar where I want it without having to do anything else.

Scott Benner 43:32
So when we started, I would say to people, it's really valuable overnight, but during the day, I do a much better job than it does. But right and I really taught myself how to think about insulin within the loop system. And now I know how to use it and keep it open.

Ed 43:50
I guess I guess we have the user for a while. You will you're gonna understand that better and be able to use it the way you want it to work.

Scott Benner 43:58
Yeah. Yeah. And I I'm excited for on the podcast, actually. They just it's interesting. You brought it up, because I, you didn't have any notes for today. And I didn't know what the hell we were gonna talk about. But I just got an email like an hour ago. That was double checking on my NDA for Omnipod. Five, from insolate. Nice. So that must mean if I'm guessing that must mean that we're going to see it here pretty soon.

Ed 44:28
That's fantastic. Is there? I'm sure you'll have an episode about how it works.

Scott Benner 44:31
Well, as soon as the NDA lifts. Yeah. But I think it's possible. I'm going to get it to use it before other people. So I won't be able to talk about why I'm doing it but just so special. Well, I don't think it's titled like that's why I think I think it's I think it's slowly because I reach a lot of people and and I've been telling insulet for years as this has been developed. You know, that I thought there was value in me knowing how to use it. Before was on the, you know, before everybody was holding it in their hands, you know, because I said there are going to be a fair amount of people are going to turn to me and say, I don't know how to use this and you don't want me learning it at the same time they're learning it. I was like, so it might only end up being weeks. You know what I mean? That I have it, you know, ahead of other people. It's not like I'm gonna have it for six months before other people.

Ed 45:21
But definitely that people did you go on loop because people were pestering you to do an episode about it.

Scott Benner 45:27
There's a there's one woman specifically, I just, I just actually recorded with her recently. And she, you know, came on and talked about why she pestered me about it. And it was the same reason she's like, I need you to understand this so I can understand it better. So it was her she's like, I'll help you build it. I'll get you on it. Like you just please. Please, like, learn how to use this so you can talk about it.

Ed 45:50
I need you to learn it. So you could teach me about it.

Scott Benner 45:54
It's uh, it was it was a, it ended up being a really great thing are names Gina. She'll be on her episode. I'm sure by the time somebody hears yours will have been up for a while.

Ed 46:04
Well, I don't expect my episode about till probably this time next year.

Scott Benner 46:09
No, no, you'll be around Christmas or so. New York holiday treat. But what she did ends up being I mean, it was, it was amazing. Because the one thing I learned about algorithms are they let you sleep. And I've been sleeping really well for a couple of years now. And it's

Ed 46:33
I mean, that's, that's all I want.

Scott Benner 46:37
Your like, half a one see if I can sleep through the night.

Ed 46:41
But it's just you know, other times I'll just sleep because I'm just stare at the walls thinking about things I can't control. And, and then oh, then my blood sugar goes low. And now I'm up because of that.

Scott Benner 46:51
Yeah, you have that? Are you one of those people like you your brain starts talking to you when you try to go to sleep.

Ed 46:59
Doesn't that oh, that doesn't happen. Everybody.

Scott Benner 47:01
Oh, man. When it's time for me to go to sleep, I shut my eyes. I go to sleep. The world could be coming to an end. And I'm like, Well, I hope my wife,

Ed 47:07
my wife the same way. Yeah, we'll be laying in bed. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go brush my teeth. By atomic come back. She's asleep. And I'm just looking at us sleeping peacefully, and I'm just awake thinking about things I can't control.

Scott Benner 47:20
No kidding. Would you talk about that for a second? What is it? Like? What are some of the things that most like frequently popped into your head?

Ed 47:28
This you know, I got to make sure I got to make enough money to pay the bills. I got to make sure that the the oil in the car gets changed stupid stuff, things like that. It just I don't know why think about it. Just do

Scott Benner 47:42
so you're not worried about like a comet hitting the planet or something? No,

Ed 47:45
no, no, not now. Now I'm going to be thinking about that tonight. Probably.

Scott Benner 47:50
Car won't need oil and that situation,

Ed 47:52
right? I mean, I'm just using those stupid examples. I mean, this, you know, a lot of times, that now obviously would be about the move, I got all those anxieties about selling a house, getting a new house, packing the house up getting rid of all the stuff, we accumulated over 30 years that we haven't touched in 12 years.

Scott Benner 48:11
I think of tasks very simply. So I have a I have a to do list. In my mind. I have learned to write it down because I'm older now. And I will forget things. But what I've learned is that the things that have to get done get done. That just happens, right? The cream rises to the top is the It doesn't it doesn't. Yes, it all falls apart, something falls apart. So things make themselves obvious. Like suddenly you're like, Okay, this becomes so I'm very my to do list shifts. You could be the next thing on my to do list. And if the fifth thing becomes important, guess what? Everybody slides down, the fifth thing jumps to the top. So I'm never worried about getting things done. Because my assumption is that I'm going to adult during the course of the day, I'm going to work. I'm going to see my family, I'm going to make food. Some days I won't feel as well as I feel other days and the things that need to get done. I'll do first. And I guess that's why I don't worry about anything. But I don't know. I wish I could be like that. Yeah, I'm sorry for you. It sounds terrible. I watched my wife.

Ed 49:17
Like it's not like that every night. But there's you know this sometimes I'll just can't go to sleep and then I'm keeping myself up because I'm thinking about things that aren't that important.

Scott Benner 49:26
And if you're rest you can take care of.

Ed 49:29
Yes. I'm sure I'm not the only adult out there that does that. No,

Scott Benner 49:35
I don't believe you are not not nearly that's a level of anxiety. Right?

Ed 49:42
Uh, probably, I mean, I don't, I don't find myself during during the day being very anxious about anything. Okay. I just want I'm trying to go to sleep. That's all I'm finally quiet enough where I can think about things and then I start thinking about things I shouldn't be thinking about.

Scott Benner 49:57
Yeah, no kidding. I I was sitting with Kelly the other night, she's watching something on television. And I was like, I was like, Hey, I'm done. Now. I just turned over something on TV and it's loud. There's lights on, I was like, it's over for me, because you're going to sleep. I'm like, I'll likely be asleep before this conversation is over.

Ed 50:20
That is my wife 100%. And I'm just be looking at her as she's sleeping and, and snoring. And like, wow, I wish I could just do that.

Scott Benner 50:29
Well, I don't know why I can do it. I that I cancelled the podcast right now bottle, whatever that is and sell to you. Because I know it's a big deal for people. So you said you want to be able to sleep better with your blood sugar. So do you see lows overnight?

Ed 50:44
Not a lot. I mean, sometimes it'll drift into like the high 60s. But my alarm is set for 70. So I'm up just down that low. But it's not all it's not a lot. Yeah, it's, I don't get a lot of lows. I don't get a lot of highs. Although last night, I was at my son's game. And we did drop a little low with like, low than I expected. But we take care. Hello. Hi. So

Scott Benner 51:13
yeah, were you more active? Do you think or

Ed 51:16
yes, what I did was that we actually became a game practice because the other team didn't show up.

Scott Benner 51:21
Oh, so you came to watch a baseball game and suddenly you were a dad helping with practice?

Ed 51:26
Well, I'm one of the coaches on the team. So I'm always on the field. But But now Now we're running a practice and I was playing I was out playing left field and I was running around a little more than I anticipated.

Scott Benner 51:38
You also just named your episode. Okay, out in left field. I mean, I left fielder or out of left field I'll find

Ed 51:48
the thing I haven't thought about what it's gonna be called before I got on on the on this call with you. Organic, you know, organic we named itself

Scott Benner 51:57
Yeah. For most people listening to you. I could just call it a Oh, and they would understand but you don't hear the way they will. I don't hear your accent

Ed 52:05
the way they will. No, cuz you, you and I kind of the same. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 52:09
basically feel the way you're feeling right now. Oh, okay. So you get out there you start hustling around? No pre like you didn't say to yourself, that's interesting. Why didn't you say to yourself, I should probably eat something before I start doing this or to try to get ahead of this with a Temp Basal or something like that. Or did

Ed 52:27
you? Because I didn't think about it. I didn't. I was already. I was already there. I didn't bring any foodie because that's how I am. And I always have my I always have something with me if I need if I go low. So I'm never too worried about it. So once I started drifting down low, I just pop some glucose tablets and 510 minutes late. I was fine. Wow. Okay. But yeah, I don't. The Temp Basal is down. At that point. It's too low. It's definitely too late.

Scott Benner 52:59
Yeah. But so but I was really interested in I thought you would say what you said, but I wanted people to hear it. Like it just happened too quickly, like life happened. And yeah,

Ed 53:08
exactly. Exactly. It really, you know, I was fine. The whole practice and then it started. It started going down. 9892 8471 I got the alarm. 62. All right, time back. At that time practice was over. I popped in my glucose tablets. I was I got down to 45. But then I was by the time I was home, I was 105

Scott Benner 53:36
While it's drifting down. What's your thought process? Like, maybe it'll stop

Ed 53:42
a spec, this is gonna be over soon, they'll take care of it.

Scott Benner 53:45
Gotcha. Because a couple of tabs in the middle of that drift would have stopped the 45 You think

Ed 53:53
100% If we would do the last thing we were gonna do. And I said, All right, let me just get get through this. And then I'll be able to take care of it. And I'll be fine. I mean, don't get me wrong. I wasn't about to pass out or anything like that. I just I felt that coming on. No, no, I'm like, Yeah, this is gonna be over in 10 minutes, so I'll take care of that.

Scott Benner 54:13
Okay, now I just wanted people to hear like your thought process to orient because it obviously worked out fine for you.

Ed 54:19
Yeah, it just, you know, I just needed 10 minutes and I was fine.

Scott Benner 54:24
Okay, interesting. So you just sit around a little bit before you left, you just take them and make sure you're okay. And then roll out.

Ed 54:31
Uh, I was slowly taking my time getting out of the out of the park. And then it was a little bit of a walk to the the car so I took that a little slower. My wife drove home, and I sat in the front seat and talked to her. That was fine. My time. My time was only a 15 minute ride by Tom. We were home. I was already in the hundreds,

Scott Benner 54:52
right? Do you think anyone around you knew?

Ed 54:56
No? Absolutely not. Right? So this isn't like why Because I told her, and I'll say it, I'll be behind you in just a few minutes. Right? And but like, if I know what no one knew?

Scott Benner 55:07
Yeah, if I said to your kids, your dad was playing left field last night, his blood sugar was getting low. They would be surprised by that.

Ed 55:12
Yes, gotcha. Everybody, everybody, all the other parents, everybody would have been surprised to have any trouble. I mean, I, I'm sorry. I don't I don't actively promote that I have diabetes, but I don't actively say I don't have it. I it you know, if somebody asked me about it, I'll tell them. But I'm not going out telling everybody Oh, I have type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 55:33
Don't show up in every new situation. Oh, it's a new season to the baseball team. Let me first tell you about my pomp and you just kind of

Ed 55:39
live your life. I mean, I tell the other coaches and other coaches, obviously, we're actually good friends with them. But I would tell them about it just just in case, some odd chance something happens. They know what my situation is. Right? That makes sense. But I'm not I'm not telling everybody. And I usually wear my pod either on my leg or on my upper arm. So it's not really noticeable. I see.

Scott Benner 55:59
While the ball was flying, listen, I'm giving your kids a lot of credit while the ball was flying around. Maybe while you're watching kids strikeout I don't know what was happening. Exactly. But did you feel like you could react if the ball came to you?

Ed 56:11
Yes. I thought at the time. Yes, I was still fine. Yeah, just the variable of me moving around a little more than I anticipated, had an effect 20 minutes later when we were doing another drill, but I was in left field, right.

Scott Benner 56:23
So that's where an algorithm would be helpful. Because the one thing that people might not understand about them as the way they keep stability is like, it's the it's the future seeing part of it, right. So it you know, if your Basal is set at, like, let's say your Basal is 1.2 an hour, I don't know what yours is. But that was okay. So let's make it one just for fun because it's around. Yep. So your Basal is one an hour. And this Basal is holding you nice and stable at 590 for a couple of hours at a time. And then the algorithm in loop believes that you're going to get lower later, it'll cut the Basal back. And so you'll never notice that happen. But when you go back and look, even with great settings, you'll see Basal get dialed back throughout the day, over and over again. But when you're a person who's on a regular pump, your Basal is one no matter what, it's not looking into the future. And I'm not saying that it would know you were going to get active, I'm just saying it, it can tell like oh, this, this 90 that I'm holding on to is going to become 85 and my targets 90. So it'll, it'll I don't know, it'll make your one Basal point seven for a little while, or it might suddenly take it all away, and then bring it back, you know, may take it down to zero for five or so minutes, and then bring it up to point two, it's fascinating to watch at work.

Ed 57:46
That yeah, I remember listening to somebody on your on one of the episodes where it happens. It could change like five minutes and stop changing and it would change again. Yeah, something else is just like, and the fact that it could do that is incredible. I look forward to be able to finally use it, it teaches

Scott Benner 58:05
you to while you're watching it like That's why if I'm helping somebody who's not on an algorithm, like you can say something like, you know, we're gonna make your Basal like, I don't know, from from one unit. And now we're gonna make it three units an hour, but just for like, 15 minutes, then shut it off. And you know, like, or, like, we're gonna take it all away, but I only want to take it away for a few minutes. And it sounds crazy. But once your settings are super stable like that adjustments in the moment are more. I want to warn here, they're more reactionary, like whereas if you were one unit a day all day with your Basal and you wanted to do a Temp Basal for activity, you might have to do it like 90 minutes prior. Right? Yeah. But it once you're on the algorithm, and your settings are right, you can make those adjustments a little sooner to what you want to happen.

Ed 59:01
That's I've been saying it's easy to say, Oh, you just dial your Basal back an hour and a half before you exercise. I don't know what I don't even know if I'm gonna be exercising an hour from now. You know, so it's tough for me to draw. Anytime I exercise, I have to eat something before I go do it. Because it you know, a lot of times I go for a bike ride. And I'm not scheduling this time ahead of time. I'm just Alright, I'm gonna go for a bike ride now. Right? So let me eat something.

Scott Benner 59:26
Yeah. So if you were to say I'm going to go for a bike ride right now. Oh, you know what? Let me set a Temp Basal an hour from now. You might not have time to go for that bike ride anymore.

Ed 59:35
Right, exactly. What I just said. Yeah, it's not a lot of times. I'll do it in the morning and then alright, I'll get up in the morning. Sometimes I don't feel like doing it. So then I've I my whole blood pressure is often because all right, I already dialed the back. But now I'm not going to go because it's Oh, I decided it's raining outside or something. So I don't go. I know I had a slow Basal. I need to bring it back up. So I just for me personally as my, my choices, I'll just eat something before I exercise,

Scott Benner 1:00:06
right? I think that, I mean, obviously the tools are in the pro tip episodes. But I don't imagine that means that everybody can use them. I just think under even understanding their concepts might help you make a amalgam of that idea with your life and find something that would work for you.

Ed 1:00:27
Yes, it's that episode about exercise. It all revolved around the timing of everything. Yeah. Like I said, there's nothing I can't just say, Oh, it's an hour and a half. Now I'm gonna go do what I want to do. Because life happens and doesn't happen.

Scott Benner 1:00:45
Yeah, well, also, but and the reason it's set up that way is because if you're trying to lose weight with type one, you can't eat to exercise because then you're

Ed 1:00:54
I don't Yeah, I don't eat. Like, I can say I eat something I like a banana. Okay. Or yogurt or something like that. Do that. Yes. And it's not something that's gonna, I'm not eating. I'm not going to grab a meatball hero and have french fries on the side with it or anything.

Scott Benner 1:01:11
How often as a person with type one do you eat when you don't want to?

Ed 1:01:17
Uh, for me? Not Not much. Good. I mean, and I don't eat when I don't want to, or eat when I don't want to. It's never I mean, sometimes maybe I'll have to go get a little snack or something. But I'm not. It's never been like, Oh, I gotta go eat right now. Because my blood sugar is 82.

Scott Benner 1:01:39
Yeah, I just wanted to know, like, and was it always that way? Or is it since your controls been better over the last couple of years?

Ed 1:01:44
It's it's always been like that. i It's, I've never really, I can't I can't remember any time where so I gotta eat right now. There has been times like, we're sitting around the house. Maybe we should go get some lunch now because I'm not going to wait another hour and a half. When it's three o'clock when it's all you know, we should be at lunch now. But sometimes, because I'll know, maybe we should eat lunch now. Because my body's telling me if we should probably right, that's

Scott Benner 1:02:11
better. So when should you correct lows with glucose tabs mostly?

Ed 1:02:16
For the most depends, I if I'm out, that's what I have with me at all times. A lot of times while I'm home, I'll just drink a little bit of orange juice, right? See your your real guy just a little bit just just enough to get back up. Not not a glass of it, where it's gonna make me do under 50

Scott Benner 1:02:31
Right now, but you're like a classic guy though. Like, if you have to eat a banana to go for a bike ride. You're not begrudgingly the bad one. I don't want this damn, but I'm not gonna do this F diabetes, you just do it? Because that's what needs to be done.

Ed 1:02:41
Right. Exactly. And then yeah, yes. And I found a lot of challenges Lately though. Because about a month ago, I cut out bread and pasta and, and rice. So to do that, just because I just want I wanted to lose a little bit of weight. And I had to make those adjustments on what I was gonna eat. And now the whole protein and fat comes into effect. So I was able to actually, because of the pro tip episodes actually be able to do this. I was always worried about cutting out bread because I'm like, how am I gonna do this and take care of my Bolus is in my insulin needs without the carbs in there. Interesting. But I was I've been doing it for a month. And as I showed you my last couple graphs that the weekly report 99% And range and the low carb has made it like my blood sugar is fantastic.

Scott Benner 1:03:41
Yeah. What's your range set up on that clarity report?

Ed 1:03:45
It's 65 to 155. And always I set it at 155 is that's what 7.0 was. And that's what they always said. Like, that's the goal.

Scott Benner 1:03:55
I'm amused that people who listen this podcast feel it necessary to apologize for having their high alarm set at 150. No, I mean, that's, that's my range. Yes, my range, the range where you're reading it at okay, right.

Ed 1:04:09
My alarms go. My alarms go off at 730 at night and 120 during the day.

Scott Benner 1:04:16
Okay, and that's your 120 is your high

Ed 1:04:19
bar alarm. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:20
So then I misunderstood but then you were like, oh, no, no, I would never put my higher alarm at 150

Ed 1:04:25
No, because it's going to be five but you might actually get the 185

Scott Benner 1:04:29
and then you're then you're in the battle then.

Ed 1:04:32
Yes. And then I'm sitting there going to sit up all night thinking why is this happening and then something whole cycle repeats itself? No, I my alarms are set so I can take option.

Scott Benner 1:04:46
Yeah. Well, I am enjoying this. But I have to take our indoor dentist appointment soon. So I want to make sure that we talked about everything you wanted to except I don't think you wanted to talk about anything so we must be okay. Right

Ed 1:05:00
Yeah, I think we had this was a nice conversation.

Scott Benner 1:05:04
I appreciate it. I thought so too. I and for other people's, you know, Saturday, I didn't ask you. I have one question I'm gonna ask you outside outside, well, nobody don't care but me and you. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop the recording and ask in a second. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Ed 1:05:23
I appreciate having me on. Thank you so much.

Scott Benner 1:05:30
First, I'm going to thank Ed for being on the podcast. Thank you very much. And then I'm going to apologize to him because at your episode was going to be called out in left field right up until it hit me that your name was Ed and that that horse that talk had a TV show with a song and then I mean, who knows? I'm childish. So this is what happened. You're the famous Mr. Ed. Thanks also to the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, head over to contour next one.com forward slash juice box to learn more and get started today. The meter actually is really great. Like I'm not kidding, it rips, give it a try. Contour next one.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes. Links to Juicebox Podcast calm. I think I could have been an old timey radio announcer I just found a bunch of old radio ads online. I'm going to try one. Quaker Oats. That's a good one. Your best bet for a hot breakfast. Quaker Oats. Let me try again. Let me try again. Your best bet for hot breakfast is Quaker Oats. Quaker Oats. The giant of the cereal is Quaker Oats who wrote this? I like this next part ready? Delicious. Hold on. Let me get a drink delicious, nutritious. Makes you feel what was the rest of it? Hold on. I gotta find out. Me go back.

Hold on No kidding. Delicious, nutritious. Makes you feel ambitious. I'm getting this hold on

I don't get this part but I'll do it again. The giant of the cereal is Quaker Oats

Wait, is it saying if I eat quicker it's I'll be a sports star. Well the second must be what LeBron did. Yes, if you want to be a star that's how it stars

yes, if you want to be a star in sports in school activities, make your hot cereal Quaker Oats. That's a hell of a statement.

Oh, cuz Quaker Oats helps grow the stars of the future. I think I could have done this. This guy had to have been drunk off his ass. Am I wrong? Is I mean who talks like this? Wait, there's some for cigarettes. This has got to be hilarious to our so many four Chesterfields. My dad used to smoke Chesterfields, homes. What is it? Put a smile in your smoking it's as easy as ABC. I can't wait to see what the ABC stands for Hold on.

Because Chesterfields made with accuray are a always milder. Be better tasting. See cooler smoking. Yes, Chesterfield is always I can I could do this forever. I really feel like I've got a job here. All Time Radio ever comes back. Oh, God, I've been doing this for a while. I've wasted your time. I'm sorry. Come back soon for another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Oh, I did it again, the Juicebox Podcast. Anyway, just there'll be more episodes, please download them. Please. Thank you. Subscribe in a podcast. Thank you until a friend. Thank you. I mean, and leave a review if you like. But only if you really love the show. If you really love the show, wherever you're listening, leave a five star rating and a thoughtful well written and, you know, grammatically correct review that would be really wonderful. Do you want me to ask you with a deep voice again? Are you enjoying the Juicebox Podcast? Go leave a five star review wherever you listen. And you know what would accompany that review? Just nicely. That's right. A Chesterfield King. No, I'm just kidding. A well written review that people could read and see what you think of the podcast. Alright, I think I'm definitely done now. Goodbye.

If you're still here a I think you need more to do with your life like you have too much free time and be I think it's because you want one more ad from Old Time Radio read to you should we go with Should we go with Miracle Whip Cheerios What is this Contadina tomato paste

so much a DuPont chemistry yeah that's funny. Alright DuPont chemistry

Alright hold on a lot of boats there okay I think he says one of the one of the one of the one of the newest this guy's got a mouthful. Buffalo balls. What's he saying? One of the newest of the DuPont companies. Oh better living he's not even it's not the name of the company. He just goes one of the newest DuPont companies better things for Better Living Through Chemistry. That's what he does. He just rolls through it real quick is keel rubberized fabric. This improved in the middle. neoprene rubber. Wow. That's a lot of words to say we came up with a new fabric for your car seat. All right, that one wasn't fun. Find one more hold on Frigidaire Frigidaire, why not frigid. Gunsmoke the TV show? Huh? Frigidaire. While speaking there's nothing to remember about the new Frigidaire refrigerator. This is Wendell Niles speaking Here's something to remember about the new Frigidaire refrigerators made your kitchen made made to fit your kitchen made to fit your needs prior to that, did they make refrigerators that did not fit in your kitchen? Oh Ford Hold on a second

talking about the economy these days when the cost of everything is hilarious these days when the cost is everything is up it's it's great don't afford. afford. Yeah, that's what you need afford. Alright, listen, if you're still here. Seriously, seek professional help. I don't know why you haven't shot this off yet. I'm now wondering why I'm here.

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#606 After Dark: Childhood Trauma

Anonymous Adult Female talks about her childhood trauma and how she's responded. Significant trigger warning.

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

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 606 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When I began the after dark series, I thought these episodes would just be topics that don't normally get spoken about in the light of day. But were very important and things that happen to people all the time and should be heard. At some point in the process, I began to hear from people who had experienced their own, sometimes very traumatic situations, and wanted to come on and tell their story. I'm not great at articulating this. But I've heard it told to me so many times that I believe in it truly. So when someone reaches out with a particularly heavy story, I like that they want to come here and tell it on the Juicebox Podcast, I'm glad that they feel like this is a safe place. But you should know when these episodes are going to deal with difficult topics. And this one today is just extremely difficult. I'm going to tell you a little more about it after the music hold on tight.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo Penn, find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox. I'm going to tell you a little bit more. But I'm going to tell you a little more about this episode before it starts up. So today's guest will remain anonymous. She is an adult who lives with type one diabetes. And she grew up in a home where she was physically, emotionally and sexually assaulted as a child. Her story is incredible. She wanted to come here and tell it, I hope you listen to it. But if you think it's going to be upsetting to you, I just wanted you to know that these are the topics they're going to be covered today. Although by the time we get to the end, you'll hear how she's doing now. And it may feel more like a story of triumph to you. But you're gonna have to give it a shot and see what you think. I personally think that it was incredibly brave for her to come and do this. I hope you feel the same.

Anonymous Female Speaker 2:33
Hi, everyone. I am a 32 year old woman. I have survived childhood abuse. And I also have diabetes type one.

Scott Benner 2:43
And we're gonna keep you anonymous for this conversation. Is that correct? Okay. Yes, I can You can call me Scott. And I'm just going to talk to you like you don't have a name. So, if I sound rude at some point, you know what I mean? Oh, then to worry about it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's start. Let's start simple. I guess you are. How old were you when you were diagnosed with type one? I was 1919. Tell me again. You're 3432 32. Okay, well, that's like 13 years ago.

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:17
Yeah, I've been half of Well, almost. I'm almost in the half of my latter point.

Scott Benner 3:23
Yeah. What is that noise in the background?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:26
It's my dog that was just asleep. He was just asleep like a beautiful angel. And he woke himself up and he's, he should stop now. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 3:39
Sorry. But we might have to kick him out. Is it a big dog?

Anonymous Female Speaker 3:45
He is a pitbull, but the only thing is that because he's deaf. He doesn't necessarily know how obnoxious he is sometimes because he can't hear

Scott Benner 3:54
why I have to admit I don't think dogs are cognizant of how, like you're Have you ever thought that the dogs walked through the room and thought oh, I'm so sorry for the interruption.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:06
Like I'm sorry to interrupt sounds like you're in a meeting. I just have a quick eye lick.

Scott Benner 4:10
I felt like it was a bigger dog at least 50 pounds because it sounds like somebody who's just turning a side of beef over on the floor. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:18
Wow. Yeah, he touched to one of my absolute sup on the floor and he whipped it with his tail. But he left now I think he he knows he's like too good for us. So we should be.

Scott Benner 4:28
Even a deaf dog knows when he's interrupting a podcast recording. That's excellent. That's right.

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:33
That's how good your podcast is. Oh, he

Scott Benner 4:35
saw the look on your face. He's like this. This lady seems upset. So. Okay, so you were diagnosed at 19 years old? were you living at home or were you in college or where were you in your life?

Anonymous Female Speaker 4:47
I was in college and I had to. I was a full time college student and I had two part time jobs. So one job was in my hometown. One job was in the city where my college was so I would go back and forth. It's kind of like one definite spot. But I grew up in a very small town and I grew up in Brazil. So at least where I grew up, diabetes wasn't a thing at all. I had never heard of diabetes met somebody with diabetes. So I actually had to go to the ER three times until they tested my blood sugar.

Scott Benner 5:22
Wow, hey, listen. I'm sorry, we keep doing this is the dog walking around? Are you shuffling papers? You

Anonymous Female Speaker 5:27
know what? I got this. Okay, I'm just, I'm gonna throw them all out on the street to pay rent in just a sec. Right, so doors closed, dogs have been sent to the shelter. Just kidding.

Scott Benner 5:49
Yesterday, a woman had birds in her garage. Oh, no. Talking, we're talking a little bit and I said, Hey, what's with all the birds? And she goes, those birds aren't in this room. I was like, they are coming through crystal clear on your microphone. She's like, are you serious? They're in the garage. And I was like, Is there a door between you in the garage and stitched up as I could get close up, please? So yeah, it's just microphones are just, they're so good nowadays. You know what I mean? And we're all used to, we're actually all used to the ones that come on our cell phones that have that noise cancelling. And those are not great for this because you don't hear it on a phone call. But when you're recording it, the noise canceling. It stops everything. So you don't how do I put this hold on? How do we talk about microphones in a way that will be so Okay, so I'm speaking right now. And if I were to stop speaking, the background room that's behind me right now is the same when I'm speaking as when I stop. But when a noise cancelling headphones stops, it literally shuts off the transmission. So you get into this kind of like a it's almost like electronic silence, which is different than when the person speaking. And it's, I mean, it's nitpicking. I've lived through it. Okay, sometimes. But anyway, the point is, microphones are good. And they can hear birds near garage.

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:15
Yeah, I'm impressed. I didn't even hear my dog.

Scott Benner 7:18
No, no. And I could hear like their nails going across the floor the second time and like the body like turning over, and you can even hear collars like laying down on the floor and start it's fascinating what you can and I'm, you know, I want to hear your story. So

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:33
and this is not a podcast about dogs.

Scott Benner 7:37
You want 30 More seconds, and I might have to be okay, so you had you got type one, you're 19 you're away at school, you're busy person had a number of jobs in different towns? What are you going to school for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:52
Education?

Scott Benner 7:53
Okay, are you a teacher now?

Anonymous Female Speaker 7:55
I was I was a teacher of English as a second language. Okay. That's what I used to do before I moved to the US. Oh,

Scott Benner 8:03
okay. So you're not in Brazil on a log? No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:06
I moved here seven years ago. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 8:09
Now, I don't normally do this. But I don't like to ask ham fisted questions to get us into super serious stuff. So I'd prefer just to be honest about it and say that, you know, all kinds of people reach out to be on the show. And, you know, the reasons they want to be on are incredibly varied. But every once in a while, someone sends a note that like, stops me in my tracks. And yours was one of those. So I think I'm just gonna ask you upfront, why is it you wanted to come on the podcast?

Anonymous Female Speaker 8:42
Well, when I reached out at first, I didn't have that in mind. But after I overthought it for quite some time, to reply to my email, I realized that I think I think there's value in my story, not because it is rare, or different, or anything, I think what happened to me is quite common, but it's very rarely talked about, and I'm in a place in my life, after you know, of course, healing is forever in everybody's life. So I'm still in it. But I'm in a moment where I'm able to talk about it, I think in a easy, not so overwhelming way. So I think there's value in if there's a survivor that went through similar things still listens to you, and they feel a little less alone than he was already to work there.

Scott Benner 9:32
Okay, great. Well, I appreciate that. And for reasons, you know, that everyone will understand soon enough, I'm going to do my best. This isn't something I have any first hand knowledge of so I might be a little clunky around it, but I have good intentions and, you know, we're gonna we're gonna get through. Alright, great. So, I mean, where do you want to start? Where do you think the best place to start is

Anonymous Female Speaker 10:00
No, let's try it. Let's start from the beginning. Okay. So I survived sexual, physical and emotional abuse from my parents. There's a lot that I don't remember, there's some that I recovered in therapy after several years. So I try to not speak on what I'm not 100% Sure. But if you out there have gone through trauma, you know that it's not that simple. But what I do know for sure, is that my father was a pedophile, and he started grooming me and touching me inappropriately, since I was very, very little, I remember being maybe three, something like that, like, I'm still the age where you sit on your parents lap. Now remember, he would watch pornography and touch me or just have me sit in there. I have a memory of my mom holding me down when I was a little older, while he was doing similar things. And then, as I got older, it kind of escalated into other types of abuse. He was also an alcoholic. And my mom didn't want to have a kid with it. So I have an older brother who's two years older than me, and she didn't want to have another kid after him. And she used to say she didn't want to have a daughter. So she has said before that she wanted was she had aborted me or that she had had an abortion. So she wasn't very loving. So she was like, she just wasn't a mom that was present at all, even when I was very little very, like neglectful didn't take care of me at all. And then she was always annoyed at me. So I kind of had this dynamic going on. My mom didn't give me any attention at all and kind of was happier if I wasn't around if I was just in my room quiet. Otherwise, he would say all sorts of horrible stuff scream me. And then my dad kind of had the perfect opportunity. Because since I didn't trust my mom, and we weren't close, he could make up all sorts of stuff. You know, he's to say, they I was the one that he really loved and that my mom was jealous. That's why she was mean to me. So to not tell her that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 12:32
Do let me know Don't be sorry. I just have a couple of quick questions. Were they abusive to your brother at all?

Anonymous Female Speaker 12:41
You know, I always say that that's my brother's story to tell. If you ask him, he's going to say no, his childhood was wonderful when everything was perfect. But I do want to note that to this day, he lives he's married has a kid and still lives with my mom. So like, they don't have the most healthiest relationship overall. I remember, my dad was very physically abusive towards my brother used to call him. I don't want to use those slurs, but used to call him all sorts of things and say stuff like, if my mom, this is my brother, being a baby, of course, this is a story that I was told, but that my brother would be crying and he would scream at the baby and say that only gay babies cry like some nonsense like that. And so he was always very strict with my brother. I have some recollection of some abuse involving my brother, but I don't know for sure. I don't remember for sure.

Scott Benner 13:44
I understand. Yeah, I didn't want to talk about him too long. I just wanted to understand if it was specific to you or systematic, you know, throughout the family. Do your mean, I think this is an obvious question with a yes answer, but I'm looking for your opinion, or are your parents mentally unstable?

Anonymous Female Speaker 14:04
Yes, I think so. Okay, I mean, I'm, I know, doctor but

Scott Benner 14:12
but I do have some firsthand knowledge of the people. I don't see right now. Not you know what I mean? Like, I don't mean like, so. Like, I listen, what I know about this fits in a thimble. But there's, there's the idea of like, kind of criminal. thought, like, you know, a criminal way of being, you don't mean like, you know, it's like, I don't know what to take it out of this for a second. You couldn't. I mean, my life is not such that I would be forced into this, but even if it was, I don't think I could bring myself to burst into someone's home and take their things. Like I just I don't have whatever's in my head would not let me do that. I I'm certain I could not sexually assault a child. Right? Like, and so what? What allows a person to do that has got to be some sort of mental disconnect somewhere. Right, right. Like, I mean, do you spend much time thinking about the the nuts and bolts aspect of what let them treat you this way? Or do you talk about it more? In a, an emotional way? Like how do you? How do you get through something like this when you're doing it, I'm assuming talk therapy and probably some pretty deep psychotherapy too, I would imagine, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 15:36
So what I tried a couple of different therapies throughout my 20s, and nothing really worked. The main reason was because there was a lot I didn't remember. And that at the time, when I say that, I mean, a visual memory. Like when you're, most people think of memories, like we're watching a movie or a scene of a movie. And I found this therapy called EMDR, which is I'm going to butcher it, II I movement, something that the DEA,

Scott Benner 16:03
I gotta tell you, you're about the sixth person to bring that up on this podcast.

Anonymous Female Speaker 16:07
Oh, my God. And let me tell you that that is the most incredible thing I've ever done in my life, completely changed my life. But at the same time, I said this to a friend and kind of pressured her into doing it and she hated. So let's just keep that in mind. It's, I think it's for a certain type of person in the way that you process things. EMDR is a therapy. For those that don't know, it involves, it's kind of like a stick of lights and you're supposed to think of something, it could be just a smell or a sound, whatever it is the thing that triggers you and you keep looking at these lights as they change because you're trying to process both sides of your brain to actually process their memory because when you have a trauma kind of freezes on one side. And I couldn't do the I want thing. So I always use the buzzers under my legs. Yeah.

Scott Benner 16:57
Just for people's edification. It stands for eye movement. desensitization, desensitization, why can I talk? De Jesus? That was terrible. It was hard. It's D sensitive to zation. Geez, oh my God, I feel like an idiot. Alright, I emptied senses, I can't do it descent. On a second descent. I can do it. When I read it. D desensitization and reprocessing? How come when I roll over it, I can't find it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:29
So many syllables as well.

Scott Benner 17:33
There, you know, like there are some, you know, e m dr.com tells you that it's a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Wikipedia calls it a controversial form of psychotherapy. So, you know, yeah, Wikipedia, I guess is the thing where everybody can say whatever they want, right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 17:56
Right. And I mean, I'm sure some people dislike it, it's a very, it's a very uncomfortable type of therapy, because all you're doing is just sitting in a memory, I'll give an example without being too specific. I used to have just women's people would raise, start raising their volume when they're talking, I realized that I would get this, this weird feeling in my body, like, I don't know, it just felt so uncomfortable. So I started talking to the therapist about it. And I ended up describing as if I had hands touching more than two hands touching me. And I was trying to, like, shrink and disappear. And that's the, the sensation that I had. And so all you're going to do is just sit on that couch and feel that exact thing as you process it. And sometimes more memories will come up because you're kind of like organizing your brain. And sometimes you just cry, sometimes I would scream, whatever it is, you just take it out of your brain so that it's almost like when trauma happens, your room is all disorganized, it's a mess. And then as you process your memories through whatever therapy really, I just find that EMDR is very fast. You kind of make boxes for stuff and you put items there so I can pick something be like oh, this made me said This happened when I was little and involved my brother and I put it in that box. So it's not constantly affecting my everyday life.

Scott Benner 19:26
Now I mean, listen, whatever works is amazing. You know what I mean? That that something helped you was this absolutely fabulous. It did. I'm gonna do my best to pick through this without like, like you said, like without going unnecessarily deep into it. But did. Would you say that the verbal abuse the sexual abuse or the physical abuse was most frequent or did it all just happen in a hodgepodge?

Anonymous Female Speaker 19:57
It all happen to All, it's always all mixed. Like you couldn't, sometimes my dad would be angry at me. Pretend like I did something wrong when I didn't, and then punish me by abusing me sexually. So it's hard to put hard to separate. It's almost, but maybe the verbal abuse just because how much easier it is to verbally abuse your child. If that makes sense. That's probably the most common, but it's hard to try to say.

Scott Benner 20:33
So. Anything was an excuse. Were there days where you weren't abused? Probably okay. But that would be hard to imagine. Like, like you. You never thought like, wow, May was great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 20:51
right, right. Right. And so it must be the summertime. Oh,

Scott Benner 20:54
my gosh, everybody's just, you know, you know, people love the summer. Wow, you're a different life, right? So this starts when you're very, very young. How long does it go for?

Anonymous Female Speaker 21:06
I don't remember exactly when it stopped. But I know for sure. It was before I turned 12. Or around that age only because it's it's in this has always been like that, when I was in sixth grade is when I start being able to access normal. I shouldn't say normal, regular memories, like I remember going to school or remember silly stuff that happened in school stuff that embarrassed me. And before that, I was probably so dissociated all the time just to survive all the different types of violence that I don't you know, if you're not present in the moment, you don't pay attention. It's like when you're driving somewhere, you go all the time you just dissociate, because you know, the way top up logic. So I don't know for sure, but probably around 12.

Scott Benner 21:56
Was that purposeful? Or was it just like the disassociation? Like did you ever think, well, here it comes, I'm just gonna try to do my best to go away in my head, or does it just what happens?

Anonymous Female Speaker 22:13
I want to say it was, it was purposeful, but I don't think it was a logical decision, because I was little, you don't have knowledge of different scales to be like, Oh, I think I'm going to do this. I think he was just what I navigated towards, I used to have the citizens, I used to have this anime that used to play on TV. And when I was like, around eight, or nine, and I used, I started pretending like I was going to go join the Air, they were going to come and get me and I would join the enemy. So I started creating this entire, like series of me as a character in my old say, and what I would do, and I would think about every detail. And I just did that all day, just so you know, because he was better to think about that. And you're so little, you don't necessarily know the difference between reality and fiction. So I did, Scott. So I packed a little bag. And for some reason, I decided that that's when they were going to come and get me. And I just laid in bed and waited for them to come and get me. I was so confident that that was going to happen. And he did not I woke up the next day, I was still in the house. I was so sad. I guess I just remember. Yeah. That's interesting. And so kind of our premise like that. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So either do that you fantasize or you just I don't think the reason why I don't think it's purposeful is because I don't think people usually associate purposefully, it's not a thing that you manually go in. It's kind of just a thing, you you do an audit because your brain is like if we don't go somewhere right now. We are going to lose our mind and you know, survival skills kick in so

Scott Benner 23:56
yeah, and you can't fight back. You're too small. And I mean, people your mom's holding you at times and yes, so you just I guess you have to just give up

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:06
right even but even when I if I scream they would just hurt me more or they would hold me down or they would then hit me in a different way. I tried. I learned that a fighting he was only going to make it way worse. So it was better to just think feel think I was that and that sounds so horrible. But that's what it was just be dead. Okay, because everything else I tried was just worse.

Scott Benner 24:35
I understand. Was there no physical damage? Like why did a doctor never notice or like a loved one outside of the family? How how to how do they keep that invisible?

Anonymous Female Speaker 24:50
That is a great question. So where I grew up, things are very much what happens in your house stays in your house. type of deal. So it wasn't like growing, being going to school in the 90s, where I went, it wasn't very much like modern us now where you talk about good touch, bad touch, and teachers are so involved. We don't even stay in school for that long and we don't have sex education in school. At least we didn't. Well, that was there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:24
it did. Did it ever occur to you to tell someone

Anonymous Female Speaker 25:29
I think I'm, I feel like I tried once, because I remember my dad being so angry at me. And like, he hurt me so bad. He, he just, he just hurt me so bad. And they always hurt me in places. Like, it's not like they would pardon my language, it's not like they would punch me in the face, you know, like, my mom would hit me with a belt, for example. And I would get these horrible marks. I have some marks to this day from the belt on my butt. And so it's not like anybody will see my book. And my mom would never let me go to anybody's house, like my classmates houses, I could never go anywhere. I couldn't even play outside. Like I was very much kept in the house. And then we didn't have people around the law. And my parents were very much the stereotype of successful like, we were in a white community, and they were white religious communities. So they were white. They were Roman Catholic, and they were like, upper middle class. So it's not like anybody looked at us. And

Scott Benner 26:36
yeah, no, I, but they didn't want to let you. I would imagine get somewhere where you might get the nerve to say to somebody, hey, they, they hurt me helped me. You know what I mean? So they want to kind of, so did you feel like a person? Or did you feel like I don't I've been, by the way for 10 minutes trying to think about how to ask you this question. I can't come up with a better phrase. But you know, Are you a person to them? Or a sex toy?

Anonymous Female Speaker 27:03
I think I was a thing, not a not a sex toy? Because while there was all the sexual abuse, it wasn't, I mean, I don't know, I guess we would have to ask them. But I feel like I felt like I was a nuisance, and just this ugly, horrible thing, not a person. That's not a person, because that's not Yeah, that's how you treat people?

Scott Benner 27:30
No, of course, like you would have to. I mean, I'm trying my best. It's, it's a difficult. It's hard for you to, it's hard for me. I mean, I can't speak for anybody else to put myself in the position of either of your parents. Right? Like I don't, I'm trying to imagine what they were doing. Were thinking, but I can't like I can't find it in my head. You don't mean like, so you like, are they? Do they? I don't know. hate you for being, you know, a reflection of themselves. Like how deeply into this. Like, there's just there's so many possibilities for why they could be this messed up. It's not even worth guessing. Right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 28:12
Well, I do have a theory because of course, it's I've been for especially during my 20s I was consumed with just understanding what happened. But let me just say something first, so that the other thing makes sense. So that's how they were until about when I was like 12, whatever. And then I don't know what happened, something happened. And then my parents started fighting all the time, and sell the dynamic in my house changed in my mom, the distinct that now my therapist calls it, of course, I can't remember again, dissociative identity disorder, I think it is, which is like you kind of create your own little world. And so my mom, my dad was always present. He was kind of out of the picture. And then my mom started telling me that we were always like best friends. And we used to do this together. And we used to do that together. And I used to tell her everything and what's wrong with me? Why am I mad and being so ungrateful. So then it kind of like, messed? I think that was the worst part to be honest. It just messed up with my head. So then, everything I said wasn't truly never happened. That was crazy. Or she tried to get me diagnosed with stuff.

Scott Benner 29:24
She was trying to rewire you so as you got older, you wouldn't out her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 29:29
Yes. Which works, right worked because what it did is that it made me question everything. And it was only my 20s that I started being sir. And you start talking to people about it, right? Because the reason I think later I wouldn't share it with anybody I never took I didn't tell people until I was 22. I told her one friend and she took me to the police station, but that's a different story. And so you're so I was afraid of telling people hey, I think this happened to me, but I'm not sure Maybe I imagined that because you don't want people to think you're crazy,

Scott Benner 30:04
right? Did you feel crazy? Sorry? Did you feel crazy? Yes. All the time. Okay, all the time. And by that I just mean like unsure of anything.

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:14
Yes, you don't you don't know anything. Like, did you end it impacts me to this day? I'll say something. And I'm like, did I say that? I don't know, if I said that. If I'm having an argument with somebody, I get very worked. I could get worked up and then I can't I have no idea what happened to be like, No, but you said this. So it's very runs deep for sure.

Scott Benner 30:35
Okay. Have we covered this enough for your liking?

Anonymous Female Speaker 30:40
Ah, I think I actually answered, I didn't think I answered your question about why I thought my parents are the way they are. So I think that it's a combination of things. So my mom has this. So my parents are children of immigrants. They migrated from Italy to Brazil. And it is in their culture that like mental health is not a real thing. You're just like depression is being lazy. And if you're crazy, you go to the crazy home and you just die. They're like that traumatic, old school veal. And so they grew up without any awareness of them or any addressing, I think my mom was always weird, because when, when she was little, they sent my mom a weight to stay in other people's houses for a year at a time and, like, help them clean the house and work for them kind of an exchange of a go to school. They only did it to her and she had like, I don't know, 1011 siblings. And so I think my mom went through her own share of trauma. And it kind of broke her to the point that she developed this di D to kind of cope with her life. And the only way she can do it is by making this stuff up. Because she does it to this day, from time to time. She's kind of like, a little different. She will talk about the past different. And if you tell her it doesn't happen, she'll just ignore you like she goes blank. Her eyes just get weird. She doesn't say anything.

Scott Benner 32:13
So do you think they were abused as children?

Anonymous Female Speaker 32:17
I think my mom was for sure. And I think my dad was too because my grandpa, his dad was a horrible man. horrible man. And all his all my dad's brothers are weird. Like they all sexualized me when I was little, it was just very normal in my culture. Like, there's no such thing as a little girl. There are boys. And then there's women, you know. So like, they will talk about my body as I was growing older and what looked like wow, and what grew and what didn't girl and if I looked like this or that I looked sexy, it was just the strangest thing, but because they are all living in this bubble. It was normal. I was the weird one. You know, for them. It's all normal.

Scott Benner 33:02
Wow, that's insane. How do you are you you're married? Yes. Do you have children? No, no. Do you? Would you be afraid to have children? Yes. Okay. Do you think that's a real concern? Or do you just think that's an abundance of caution, just in case you? Like a switch? Like, are you worried that a switch is gonna flip in your head? You're gonna be your parents?

Anonymous Female Speaker 33:28
Yeah. Well, not to the extent that they worry, but I, I can sometimes I get mad at my dogs who I love deeply. Don't get me wrong. I rub their bellies several times a day. But I can see myself getting annoyed or I might make a comment. And to me, I sound like my mom. So I'm like, if I can't handle it, like a dog, I'm not gonna put a child in this world. And I can that's just how I became though I'm not going to do it. Unless I'm sure I can do a good job. Yeah. And we as we've always had so much going on. i We didn't want it that to plus I have diabetes. So then I was worried about being pregnant. My diabetes was always out of control. So then be I couldn't, it was just a mixture of things. But in the root, the root of it. I think I'm just scared.

Scott Benner 34:20
Yeah, no, I listened. There's a, there's an avenue where you could talk about this and say that you're making the same decision in a long line of people making insane decisions. So you got to break the cycle. And if you can't be certain that you can, exactly then staying out of the cycles, the best thing you could probably I mean, it's sad for you, in in 34 minutes of sad things that have happened to you. This is one of them. But still, it may be it's the kindest thing you could do. If you're can't be sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 34:52
Yeah. And I mean, the thing to some people might think it's selfish. I think it's a beautiful thing to say I did not get to have a normal childhood. I was working through my teenage years, and I was struggling with so much PTSD and just life stress and all the consequences of my undealt trauma during my 20s. Now we are finally in a place where we can enjoy life. And so like my husband taught me how to play something, I hadn't played video games before, it's just something were stupid. He taught me how to play video games. So like will game some nights, or I don't know, I just before I have a kid, I want to give the kid that lives inside of me the time that she deserves. And then maybe who knows? In five years, I might feel different. But you know, I don't want to just keep, like you said, cop making the same mistakes other people

Scott Benner 35:46
do. How do you bring this up with a with us? A spouse or a potential spouse? Like, at what point do you say to your husband? Like, this is my past? And I want you to understand it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 35:59
I usually wouldn't bring up with people. Well, I usually wouldn't date before too long. On purpose, but with my husband, we were going out and then we slept together. And I have I have some scars on my intimate parts. So he, you know, he asked the next day, what the scar? Well, one of these scars was about. And so I told him because that's how I am if you asked me a question, don't ask what to do. I don't know. So I just said, all my parents were really bad people, I think is what I said. And then he had certainly talked to my mom, he was a little confused about that. So he asked me questions. And I was never, I never went to too much detail. Because I don't see a benefit in it. But you know, he, if he is with me, he's my partner he needs. It's important for him to know me and to support me. So throughout my therapy, I would come home and be like, Oh my god, I remembered this that involved this, and it's making me feel like this. And he would just listen and tell me he loves me. And he Okay, and hug me and stuff like that. So he has been there for a big part of my journey and recovery memories. How?

Scott Benner 37:15
How is it being intimate as an adult? Like, are you able to? I don't know what my question is like, it seems like this would be ruined for you. But is it not?

Anonymous Female Speaker 37:29
It is not? I think, Well, I went the other route. The survivors usually go. I was always hypersexual. Since I was a teenager, just always, I couldn't. And he was it's the mean that if you were to unpack this alone is so much because I didn't know this might sound weird to people. I didn't know. I could say no. So if somebody would come and hit on me, then I would, I would just be like, oh, and just have sex with them. Because that's just what I'm supposed to do. And if I liked people, I really wanted to have sex with them. Because that's according to my therapist. That's how I learned to connect with people. So I didn't I never had and I had plenty of complex potassic Like, seeing stuff, feeling stuff, all the end, but it never happened during sex.

Scott Benner 38:22
Okay. What about did you say? Are your parents alive? Yes. Okay. Do you have any contact with them?

Anonymous Female Speaker 38:29
I stopped talking to my dad about 10 years ago when i Something happened. And I could be for sure. I was like, deaf, he for sure that this to me, because of course they deny everything. And I stopped talking to him. And then I went to the police and I did a police report. Of course, he went nowhere. But the point of me doing that was to show them that I remember it and that wasn't the frame anymore. Okay. And then I spent several years not talking to my mom. They are the reason why I moved. I came to the West because I got a scholarship for a master's degree. And the reason why I kept trying scholarships far away was because I wanted to be as far away from them as I could. It was the only way otherwise I was going crazy. My mom just got my mom is so strict in every way was so it just couldn't get away from her. She would like I would move to different towns. Sometimes I would move from city to city twice a year and she would just find out where I was and go there, whatever. So I, my mom and I talk now mostly on a text basis. If you ask her she'll tell you we were best friends and we call each other every night but we just text sometimes.

Scott Benner 39:42
Okay. Do you was my question. Hold on, I might need a second. I'm sorry. Okay, I'll have some tea. Got it. Have something give me a second here. Hold on. Oh, Okay. All right. I'm just gonna switch gears because I'm overwhelmed. And if I'm overwhelmed, and the people listening might be overwhelmed too. Oh, I'm sorry. You feel like oh, no, no, not overwhelmed. Like, no, you don't, you're taking me wrong. Like I, I'm pleased that you're so willing to talk about this. It's just it feels like that there's a million ways to go with this conversation. And I don't I don't know how valuable they all are, or I don't want them to be just, you know, just for the sake of talking. So, I'm just going to go back to my my original I understand how you handled sexuality as a as a young person, that all makes complete sense. How how do you trust somebody enough to get married? Is my question I guess, like how did you make that leap?

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It's my question, I guess like like, how did you make that leap? Did you didn't mean like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 42:03
yes. Well, okay, let's do the true story. Yeah. How about we do that one, okay. Instead of the version that I usually tell people when they ask like how we got married? Well, so the thing with my husband was I before him, I I was always alone and prefer being alone, I would go out, you know, meet people have sex, but I didn't want to see them again. Like I was always like that I never wanted to get married. I thought marriage was a waste of time, blah, blah, blah. When I met my husband, I don't know what it was about him the moment I saw him, and we met online. The moment I saw him, I just felt like I knew him. Already. Like I when we saw each other, we hug as if like we had missed each other. So I just, we will something about the combination of things that he is. And now of course, I understand. You just made me feel so safe. So it was just that that was that. And we started dating and we were like, living together. We were set. We didn't talk about marriage specifically though, but we were together. Now. That doesn't mean I trusted him. Of course, I had several years of shame, some Sorry, I had to deal with because I, of course didn't trust him at all. And I would do the thing I would check where he was check his phone, check his computer, everything about everything all the time. And well, he was always understanding and patient about things. So he and he was I think secret. The key with my husband was that he was only so cool and chill about it. So if I were like, Babe, I'm sorry, I'm crying. It's just that when you said this, I thought you meant that. And I think you're going to live now. So I started packing a bag. And all he would say would be it's all good babe, I love you. I'm not I'm not leaving. But if you want to pack a bag, if it's gonna help your brain, we can pack a bag, you know. So that was the key with him. So he always made me feel very comfortable to just share the craziest stuff, whatever I was thinking and very understanding of it.

Scott Benner 44:10
Does he have a past trauma or some experience with this? Like, why does he understand what to do?

Anonymous Female Speaker 44:20
No, he's just the sweetest little thing is just a very sweet man. He, I have a lot of rage, right, a lot of anger that I've worked on and will forever carry a little and he has a tuber for something different. He was adopted when he was a baby. And it was kind of tough on him on that. And he didn't experience abuse in any way. But he understood my anger, I think so he didn't judge whatever way I was reacting but that's how he is just an example Scott. Yesterday we had a ridiculous argument because I got mad at him because he said I saw a spider. And he just put the spider outside of the house and I'm afraid of spiders. And he just said he doesn't want to kill the spider. It doesn't make him feel good. So he's not gonna kill the spider. So that's just how he is. He's just if anybody came to him with anything, he's just like all love and understanding.

Scott Benner 45:20
No, that's amazing. Well, I'm very happy you found somebody like that. That's how long have you guys been together?

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:28
Six years married five years? Well,

Scott Benner 45:30
good for you. Alright. Can I ask a last question about your parents? I don't mind God. Do? Do other people see them as normal? Or do you think that the people in their social circles are like those people are cracked up? And they just kind of like don't mean like, how do they come off to the world as my question.

Anonymous Female Speaker 45:50
I used to think that they came off as very normal people. And I think they did within the very small circle of people they saw, like, my mom and my dad had their own business. And we only hang out with our uncles and aunts, we didn't have people outside the family. And we barely had people over and they barely left, my dad would leave because he would go out to my mom, stuff like that. Just spent a bunch of money. That wasn't his but my mom was always home working. So it's not like they were out there constantly exposed to people that were different. But later in life, when I started out being open to people about what happened to me, more than once, I had just random kids that I was either a classmate with or friends with, or neighbors. And they told me, you know, your parents were always so weird. I knew there was something wrong because they were so weird. And one of them even told me that the reason why she stopped wanting to play with me and come to the house, chicken once and she didn't ever want to like hang out again was because when she went in the house, she felt like my parents were looking at her funny like, we were 12 or 13. Like objectifying her. Yeah. And you made her so uncomfortable that she remembers it to this day, so probably not. It's fake did not come out as normal.

Scott Benner 47:16
Okay, God that's frightening to think that they might have been like, assessing whether or not she was a good candidate for their insanity. You know what I mean? I know

Anonymous Female Speaker 47:25
because who knows in the problem is because they will not admit to anything, because of course, why would they? Who wants to go to prison? So they it's it's impossible to understand the motive the motives behind some weird thing because they will they will never be like, Oh, well, I was thinking was if I do this, than I do that. Like you mentioned doctors before. I rarely went to the doctor when I was little I can't we only go to the doctor if it's like an ambulance. Like an ER emergency because my mom believes she was a Reiki healer.

Scott Benner 48:04
Okay, I'm sorry, to me the left

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:07
that go ahead. But that was what she did. Now. She's something else okay. But at the time, that's what she was. So then she would just if I was in pain, she would lay me down and frickin do Reiki on me and place them goddamn nature music in the back. Or like they would make I don't know what they're called here. But they're like these little homeopathic drops. And she would just go to this woman and she would make me these drops. And she would just give me these drops. And that was fine. And and you don't complain about pain? Because cuz that's you don't complain. So

Scott Benner 48:42
I might have been like, hey, instead of the drops could just stop helping me. That'd be great. Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 48:47
what's your mind?

Scott Benner 48:48
Could you just like, let's, let's put this in order of importance, shall we? Yeah. Well, okay, so we're pretty far into this. And I don't understand why this is a podcast about diabetes, I guess is what I should say. So what's the what's the intersecting? Do you really mean? Like, why me? Why did you reach to me?

Anonymous Female Speaker 49:14
So because so I my entire life, my should say, my 12 years of diabetes. Whenever I reached out to I had a doctor. And I mentioned that I had a trauma or whatever, that it was never important. It was never talked about it was never addressed. And I don't mean that as like a therapeutical approach to what I'm saying. He was just that that wasn't important. Oh, and nowadays, I can tell you how my diabetes switched from zero to 100 by making some changes that if a doctor had told me years before, I wouldn't have maybe lost years of life later on You know what I mean? Cuz so like what I came to learn. And now again, we should definitely have a doctor explain this. But like when you go through trauma, and in particular, so when people talk about cortisol, right, cortisol increases your blood sugar, because you're stressed out people usually think about, you have a test, you have a job interview, you're mad, whatever. But with complex PTSD, it's, I could be having the greatest day of my life, and you're looking at my Dexcom. And it's shooting up for absolutely no reason. Because there is a part of my brain that is just reliving the, what happened? And I don't even know because it's all the way in the back of my head.

Scott Benner 50:44
Yeah. Like you're like in a constant state of fight or flight? Almost.

Anonymous Female Speaker 50:47
Yes, yes, exactly. So just as an example, I used to have horrible, high blood. Sugar's during the night, even if it was perfect. I would go to sleep the minute I fall asleep, it would start going up. And doctors are always like, Oh, no, will you does that it was always they would try different things. And because he was different every night at different times different quantities, then at some point, they would just be frustrated and just be like, well just do your best. Yeah. But then when I would go for my a one C, they would act like as if I didn't care for pleasure. Even like, so let's say one day, it starts going up at 2am. It goes all the way up to 400. I wake up for no reason at five, and I do correction bowls. And I go back to sleep, and it's still going to be 400. When I wake up, it was like as if insulin didn't make a difference. And so eventually, this year, I reached out to a naturopathic doctor. And she said, Have you ever experienced trauma? And I said, Yeah, why do you ask she was like, well, because usually people who experience severe trauma might have while developing usually have something up with their adrenal glands. So let's test your thyroid. Make sure that's not what it is first. So I got all those tests. And by the way, you can get those online from actual labs. So even if you have a doctor that doesn't believe in anything, then you could you know, if you can, if you have access to that, of course you can, you can do it on your own. And then so my thyroid was perfect. It wasn't that. Then I started taking what's called cortisol regulators. It's just the pill you take at night, and it's like a natural medicine. And Scott, you don't understand, like, I saved the graphs from my ex come forever. I used to have i Hold on, I'm gonna flip. Here. Alright, so like, I saved it. And I sent it to my endocrinologist and she never even replied, but whatever. I'm not remembering that. I'm not holding.

Scott Benner 53:03
She, she doesn't want what rage I assume is inside of you, and that you could let out at any point, appointed her?

Anonymous Female Speaker 53:10
No idea. She, she doesn't understand. It's, it's forever. I might not remember what happened to me. But I now keep track of everything on a spreadsheet. So okay, so this is the thing I sent a sir. So a random night, and this was right before I got my period, which, which you would be usually just out of control blood, you can increase my Basal to 2.5 Doesn't matter, it will always be in out of control. So then he started going up at 12am. He went all the way up to 250. So when I woke up, I was like, Oh, I'm going to get my period. Let me change my Basal profile. So then I did the one that had more, you know, higher insulin. Then that night at 4am. He went all the way up to 400 and then just stayed up there. So it was like, Oh, wow, that's horrible. So then the next morning, I went on my settings and it changed my Basal from 1.4 to 1.9. And then a 2am bed night he went up to 380. So like he barely Yeah, the difference in We tried everything. Trust me, the doctors we tried it. Then that night I took the next time I took a cortisol regulator and my blood sugar was 150 all night straight like straight line. And he eventually got low so then I adjusted it the next day, and eventually after I just did it. I was using only 1.3 units an hour during the night and my blood sugar was about 100 Dean tire night. Like just the perfect line.

Scott Benner 54:50
How long again figure this out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 54:55
To adjust or to try the

Scott Benner 54:56
cortisol the the cortisol idea how long ago did you figure that out?

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:00
This was a couple months back, maybe Wow. Okay. Three, four months back. I haven't done it once. Yeah, I have an appointment in a month. And I can't wait to show it to her.

Scott Benner 55:12
And I imagined two very. I mean, just easier, right? Like, life's just easier.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:18
Oh my god. I mean, it changed. Everything changed my mood, my motivation levels, just how well I rest at night. Because it would be just my life. I wake up in the morning, and it's Hi. So I always start the day with a huge correction.

Scott Benner 55:36
This boot Did you just appear? Hello? No, no, I'm sorry. I thought you. You said he was crashing. I got so quiet as he's gone.

Anonymous Female Speaker 55:43
I did a dramatic pause. Oh.

Scott Benner 55:47
So weird place to get tired of me saying I've had enough of this Goodbye. What was your a one sees prior to this? I know you don't have a new one since you figured it out. But what were they prior?

Anonymous Female Speaker 56:01
So that he was the last one was 8.1. The one before that was like 7.6. And then I had periods in my life where I was very poor, or I didn't have access to health insurance at all. So I used to do insulin only enough to not go to the ER. And I was working because I had to, you know. So because I was as an immigrant, you know, there's a lot you can do. I had a long period of time I couldn't I wasn't allowed to work because I was on a student visa. So it's not like I can just go work and make money and buy insulin. And so I would go to Walmart buy the cheap insulin they had at the time. And so I would say the highest Scott that my blood my I'm sorry, my ANC has ever been highest ever was 15 point something.

Scott Benner 56:56
So you were really fighting with it just to keep it down in the eights and the sevens. Yeah, you've been a lot of effort into it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 57:03
Yes, when I got a seven, I cried, because I just felt for the first time. And mind you I'm not saying like, I was doing everything right, my diabetes. You know, I was making terrible decisions. I was exhausted. I just wasn't in a mindset that I could take care of my diabetes, the more I process, what happened to me come to terms with it, let go of emotions, it's easier for me to be in the moment and then stop eating when I'm full. Remember to Pre-Bolus into you know, that type of stuff.

Scott Benner 57:36
I think you're it's incredibly mild. The word is I'm looking for, but I'm amazed at how well you continue to take care of yourself. Like, has there ever been any self medicating? Do you drink or do drugs? Or like? How do you know you just woke up every day knew just right? Yeah, do something bad? Did you ever feel depressed? Do you ever think you were clinically depressed?

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:04
Yes, I was. Well, duh. So the reason why I never did drugs, honestly, looking back now was I think it was because nobody offered them to me, I wasn't in a place where

Scott Benner 58:15
I was I was the only thing

Anonymous Female Speaker 58:18
that I had times in my life. Where I was, I'll give an example. I started having these. I don't know what to call them. I'll call them visions just because I can't remember the proper term, where you see people when they're not there. And I would see a men's figure and it was all black. And I would see him everywhere. And I would be working and it would be in the corner of my eye and then that would blink and you would be right in my face. And sometimes I could hear talking in my ear. That was the worst for my for my PTSD. That's when I started going to EMDR. And it completely went away. 100%. But if somebody one of those days, that time I had two jobs, two jobs. My husband was struggling with addiction. So I was just so sick of everything. If somebody had been like, hey, Matthew, let you sleep at night. Do you want to try it? I've been like, sure. Yeah. So I drugs was easy. It was just luck. And then alcohol. My dad was an alcoholic. So I don't like drinking. I would drink socially, but I'm not a big drinker because I don't want to be like he is

Scott Benner 59:27
a kid. Anything that seems similar to him is a no.

Anonymous Female Speaker 59:31
Yes. So what I did was I smoked cigarettes, I would smoke like a pack a pack and a half a day. And it was literally what kept me going and sometimes when I would be really depressed and I would get suicidal, then I would I would call like a 100 Suicide Hotline and just talk to somebody from Ireland calm.

Scott Benner 59:54
You know, I think that one of the things that I liked most about this conversation and the fact that you came on is that while your example of trauma is obviously, you know, I mean, if there's a scale of one to 10, you're obviously at 10. You know what I mean? But still, that everybody suffers through something. Yeah. Right. And to see and, and, you know, yes, it's not to this degree maybe, or maybe it is for some people, but but, you know, you still can see the impact the cause and effect of a problem or stress or anxiety or, you know, and how it can come back and affect your, the rest of your life. The management of your type one, your mindset, even, you know, that allows you to either, you know, put effort or not put effort into your health, because maybe you just don't have any bandwidth left to to make any decisions with. So while your example is, I mean, just, it's over the top, obviously, it's still, I think everybody can take from this, you know, some sort of a connection. And, yeah, I'm just, I'm really pleased that you did this. I'm not done with you. I'm just, I'm just,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:01:12
I still have left of hassles my cup of tea. So yeah,

Scott Benner 1:01:16
we got tea, we're still going. I you know, at one point, I pulled up one point, while you were talking, I had this thought, like, if I went to the mall, and there were 1000s of people at the mall, how many of those seemingly normal people are sexually abusing their children? Like, I just thought that because I can't imagine that that exists. And obviously it does. You're telling me they exist. And and I pulled up some statistics. And there's they're really staggering. You know, I, you know, victims of crime.org says that one in five girls and one in 20. Boys is a victim of child sexual abuse. self report, studies show that 20% of adult females and five to 10% of adult males recall childhood sexual assault or incident. It just, I don't know, like, I guess it's one of those things that if you don't know about you, just imagine it's a one off problem. You know what I mean? Like, it's some random thing that happens to a random person, but

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:02:21
pick a bug. And I understand that to Scott, because it's so heartbreaking to think about that. And then nobody wants to live in a world where that happens so often. So I don't think even people do it on purpose to ignore, I would say, this type of violence, it's just because it's just it's too much. And then he opens up. Like, we were talking about having kids, right. I the thing, you just wondered how many people in the small sexually abused their children. That's, I think about that all the time. I meet a nice man, my dad was very charismatic. Everybody loved him. He was like the life of the party. And when I meet an adult man, a father who's very, has a similar personality, I think I wonder if his sociopath I hope he doesn't abuse? You know,

Scott Benner 1:03:10
yeah, no, I can't see how you don't look at everybody. And just think like, which one of these people is a? is a murderous robot? Yeah, I mean, like, Jesus, I don't know. I, I, what you've accomplished, from where, from where these people put you to where you are now, I think is nothing less than stunning, like, the fortitude that you showed to get to this point, is just on common. And I mean, I, at some point, like, while you were talking is like, When is she going to talk about her heroin addiction? Or, you know what I mean? Like, like her like, like, because I would have, I mean, that that would have made complete sense to me.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:03:51
Right? And if somebody is out there listening to this, and you are a heroin addict, hey, do what you got to do, you know? Well, no, sometimes. Yeah, I got to just survive until the next i for a long time. All I do is just survive until the next moment, and then figure out the next moment. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:04:09
So there's no ability to like, you can't sit down roots or plan for your life until you find some way to deal with this, I guess, deal with it's appropriate. He can't just you can't ignore it. Because it's not going to stop and you can't just eject it right? You can't just give it away. Like you have to do something. I think high level to work through it in a way where it can't be impactful to you day after day. Is that right?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:04:39
Yeah, that was my experience. I think people process things different. I am the type of person that I when I'm doing something I like to go in depth. So even if I'm searching, do can cows to bubblegum, I'm going to like go into this deep rabbit hole, purple gums and how they're made. And so that's how I approached my trauma. too, I have a just as an example, I have a friend, she was sexually abused as a child by her stepfather. And she has a very different way to approach it, she thrives the most by, she talked to her mom about it, she did what she had to do. Of course, her story is very different. So in her context, she, she just wants to move on. She wants to like, let go and move on. That's how she does it. And it works really well for her. But if I tried to do that, I would start triggering all sorts of stuff, I had to first go inside of me and figure out who I was, despite of the trauma, so I could slowly like peel off. I used to think I was always so nervous. And that wasn't me. That was just my response to trauma. And just keep understanding and processing and putting stuff away. Because I tried to ignore it for as long as I could. I think I would have done it forever. Really, because who wants to remember? Because when you remember a repressed memory, you remember the sound? You remember the feel the smell? It's a lot? I don't think anybody does it just for funsies. But to me, I had to do it was the only way because it was important for me to know for sure.

Scott Benner 1:06:16
Yeah, that this actually happened to you so that you could then process it and try to move past it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:22
Yes, because of all the gaslighting they did in my context. He made sense.

Scott Benner 1:06:28
Right, using some young people hip terms, we got to make sure everybody understands gaslighting. You know, did you know yes, the older people aren't gonna know what you're saying when you

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:06:39
you're sliding is when it could be very minimal, like I fall and hurt my knee. And to me, I feel a lot of pain and you'll go like, That's not that bad. It's not It's barely scratched. That's a PG 13 example. But so gaslighting is when you coerce a person to believe what they went through is less than what they went through. It's very common in domestic violence when you have an abusive partner as well. Parents do it a lot. It's like kind of a manipulation to you tell people your wasn't as bad as they remember or something like that.

Scott Benner 1:07:16
Gotcha. Yeah, it's a it's just a it's a young hip term.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:20
What's the old hip term? Oh, no. Line line

Scott Benner 1:07:25
lying. Yeah, be what you just described as someone lying to you and saying that something had that happened to you didn't happen to you. But now it's got like, I make this assertion all the time. The internet has, has made it so that we have to name everything. So because you can't talk about it. And it's not searchable, like if it doesn't have a name. So everything gets a name now, which is kind of nice, because this is a very like, like Wikipedia says gaslighting is a colloquialism loosely defined as making someone question their own reality.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:07:59
Yes, yeah. That's it. That's it.

Scott Benner 1:08:02
So you now this word is in place of the explanation that, you know, I had a had an experience with somebody, and they tried to tell me it didn't happen. And instead, why

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:12
didn't they tell you? It wasn't as bad as you remember?

Scott Benner 1:08:16
I listen, I don't know how you play off. What happened to you? Like, how could someone tell you that's not as bad as you remember? You know what I mean? Like,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:08:25
I'll give you an example. My mom will say, I'm like, Mom, you beat me with a belt. What do you mean, you were always loving? You know, I mean, in my head, so I can say I just say things like that now. But I used to scream at my mom and throw things against the wall. Like, don't be mistaken. Wherever point you are in your journey. That's okay. We've all gonna be there. It's just a spiral of different moments, you know? And so she would be like, What are you talking about? I've only slumped you and I'll say, Mom, what are you talking about? You hit me with a belt. Right? It's that love. And she'll be like, I only did that if you were misbehaving. And that was nothing compared to all the times that I made sure you had a roof over your head and you had food at least I never let you starve. That's also gaslighting.

Scott Benner 1:09:12
Yeah, right. Well, sure. I held you down. But wasn't there dinner afterwards? Like, right? Yeah, yes. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah, that that. Wow, that is a disconnect of reality. That is fascinating.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:09:29
I know. And then it makes sense. If you understand that about her, it's easy to see how she could be so okay with her kids being abused. Yeah. Because you're not if you're not there in your body and you never address your own trauma as a child. If when you were a child, you negated your childhood so you can survive. You can't see it in your kids either. Right? Because if I ignore if she acknowledged my abuse, who knows what's gonna trigger and then she's gonna have to acknowledge her own abuse,

Scott Benner 1:09:57
right? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think It's an astonishing Act of Valor that you don't spray paint the word rapist across the front of their house every three days. I just really like, I'm not kidding. Like, I don't know how you like, I think it's amazing that you're beyond needing to. I don't know, like, like, make sure everyone knows, you don't I mean, like, I know, that would be valueless to you like, don't get me wrong, but that it's not at the tip of your brain is such an accomplishment. You know what I mean? Like, it's really wonderful. Honestly,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:10:34
I had to just give up cuz I that was my five for a long time I needed them, both of them to admit, not everything that something happened admit that anything happened, and they just wouldn't. And I realized at some point, that I don't need them to tell me happened for me to know that it happened. i They don't I was giving them all this power. You know. So then I kind of switched gears for me when I realized that you don't want to admit then screw you, whatever. I know it happened. But you of course, it was a long way to get to that point. A lot of screaming in that way too.

Scott Benner 1:11:11
Right? Well, I just I can't You can't imagine how many people who have been through traumatic things who have just been ruined by it and can't find their way out of it. You know, and how even understandable that is?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:11:24
Yes, I think I had some privilege because I was able to go to college. So it allowed me to leave my hometown, and meet different people, people that were very loving and caring, just good friends. And I always had, you know, I never I didn't experience poverty as well, when I was a kid. So that would have been another layer of trauma. So I think, you know, it was just I had while I went through all this, I also had privilege that I know some survivors don't get to have. So it was just some random combination of things.

Scott Benner 1:12:02
Oddly lucky. Yes. Yeah. I guess that's not a word you use very often. Yeah. I mean, I thought earlier, when you talked about the scholarship, I thought, Oh, well, that's the anime crew coming for, you know, like, somebody got you out of

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:15
there. Oh, it was the sweetest thing to say. How

Scott Benner 1:12:19
it occurred to me when you were saying I was like, Oh, they got together finally and sent her a scholarship.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:26
gonna smile all day thinking about that.

Scott Benner 1:12:30
It was the happiest thing you said this whole hour? wasn't hard to find, you know?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:37
Well, you know, so many good things happen to is just that the episode is about that. So

Scott Benner 1:12:42
yeah. Can you can you? Can you tell people a little bit about that? Like, what do you like day to day now? How do you see your life? Sure.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:12:52
Um, so um, I like where I am right now I've come to I used to think I was like, into no discipline and expense being spontaneous. And I always wanted a job. Like I wanted to be a un Peacekeeper, I wanted to just travel around the world doing crazy stuff. And the more I did therapy, I learned that that's actually the opposite of what I want. What really brings me joy is peace and safety and routine. And that really helps my diabetes to so I really like where I am right now we bought a house to it's going to be two years ago. And we moved with moved states. So we move closer to some people who care about us because my husband is also very alone in terms of family support. And so he's adopted, he has two sets of parents, right. So I get to have one of his parents pretend they're my parents, and he has the other set of parents. So we have what I understand this family, we rescue these dogs that we love so much. And I've had you know, I've had a career for for a while now. And so I mean, I mean a good spot. For sure. And I mean in this didn't start now but I just I'm able to really feel things what made me start going to decided to face all of this and I was just I wanted to feel good things and I realized you can just shut down the bad things, you shut down all things so for me to feel the good, I had to feel the bad. That's how I saw it. So you know, I've done wonderful things, guys, I mean, I move to a different country. I've traveled around and I have great friends, very dark humoured individuals, and I feel really safe I got with this cortisol regulator and I have the ice you have an Omnipod but I have the I'm the worst I bike I can't remember my pumps name at the moment the one with the control a que tanto sorry tandem I just got

Scott Benner 1:15:02
finally someone brings us up. And it's in an episode about childhood sexual abuse. And she can't remember the name of the pump.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:12
I'm sorry, don't revoke my warranty on the system, please.

Scott Benner 1:15:18
funny idea to call you later. And they'd be like, hello. I know you didn't give your name. But we know it's you.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:24
We've searched through that system, and you're the only one with this and that and that. And my pump just goes off and like never turns back on. I

Scott Benner 1:15:32
don't know why shut it off remotely. They're like, nope. Yeah, well,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:36
they're definitely not hiring me to be a sponsor that we know for sure. Now,

Scott Benner 1:15:40
I think it'd be a terrific sponsor. Well, well, tell me again, the name of like the, are you still taking the medication for the cortisol? Or is it something that you have to take every day? What's it called?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:53
Let me go get it one sec. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:15:55
really do want to know, sir.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:15:59
Alright, so this one is called integrative therapeutics. And it is a cortisol manager. Now, I know that there are different types of cortisol stabilizers, I would have to be a doctor to tell you, which one would be a good fit, if it even is a good thing. For the first days that are so you only take it one at night. You take it when you go to sleep.

Scott Benner 1:16:30
This is an over the counter thing. It's not a it's not prescribed.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:35
It's not prescribed, because she bought it. The doctor got one for me to try as a present. And then

Scott Benner 1:16:42
I think, is there a yellow stripe across the label? Yes, it's

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:16:46
on Amazon.

Scott Benner 1:16:47
I found it. I know the Google look at how it works. And find a bill online. So this is just something your hippie doctor gave you. And it's all things that

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:02
really changed my life. Help, it completely changed my life. I fall asleep faster. I had a very hard time falling asleep. I stay asleep. Of course, it's not heavy prescription drugs. So it's like I'm taking Xanax, I wouldn't know. I've never taken it. But it's a little more natural. And I am a little more comfortable. Taking something that's more natural, because with diabetes, you never know what's gonna mess with Well,

Scott Benner 1:17:30
listen, if it helped you like this, I wouldn't. I wouldn't care if you had to buy it anally. That's amazing. Yeah, actually, you brought up something earlier that I was really thought was terrific. And I had no idea about that. I could just somebody could do a thyroid stimulating hormone test online.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:17:47
Yeah, it means it's legit from the actual lab.

Scott Benner 1:17:51
Yeah, maybe Google it like places like quest and LabCorp. Like quest is cheaper. If I'm looking online, I'm understanding it correctly. But it's such an amazing thing. When people have endocrinologist, excuse me to get a drink, that are will say things like, oh, it's not your thyroid, and you were like, well, I have a lot of thyroid symptoms, you know, and then a lot of times, they don't want to help you with it for some reason. I mean, this here is saying 28 bucks, at, you know, at LabCorp or 40 or 20 bucks at Quest $49 at LabCorp. This sounds like something that without insurance is reasonably affordable. If you think you're having thyroid symptoms, and your doctor won't help you. But that's pretty cool. You know what I mean? Just be careful hiring. Yeah, be careful that you don't fall into the your within range answer. I always like to say that because, you know, if you're, you know, I think in range is something like up to eight or 10 for TSH. But you're gonna see symptoms over like to like to point one if you if you if you really have a thyroid issue. So with thyroid, I'm not a doctor either, but treat the symptoms, not the test number is how I think about it.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:19:06
Yes, I completely agree. And you could do, you could do the detailed thyroid or the simple one, or you could do cortisol you could do which is hormones overall. And the way I did mine was he came to my house. I checked with the doctor first because I was I couldn't believe it. I could just do it on my own. So she was like, No, this is a legit lab laboratory. Go ahead. So I got the detailed thorough one it came through on the mail, and you have to poke your finger which for us was like you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly. So you just poke it and you kind of like hold your finger up straight in the air and you let the drops. Some drugs fall inside this little file and you seal it up and you send it back and I think mine took about two, three weeks to come back. So it's not if you are like me, and you experience some social anxiety, you could do it in your house and not even less stress about having to go anywhere.

Scott Benner 1:20:07
Everyone can do it. i We had my children's gut biome tested recently, and they had to basically poop in a box, so you can figure it out.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:20:16
Can I ask you a question? Oh, please? Did you then send it over the mail? Or do you drop it off somewhere?

Scott Benner 1:20:21
Interesting question. And I had these very same thoughts. So you mail it? No. So the next time you're, you know, the next time you want to be upset at your FedEx guy, just remember their jobs not as great as you think it is. And I mean, how great did you think their job was to begin with? So? Right? Yeah, no, there, it's so you, there's a collection tray that you put in the toilet. And like, you're not literally just like, although I think with one of them, they just did it that this was a thing in my house, like, we got the collection kits. And the kids were like, we're not doing this. Like, they sat around on the on a shelf for a while. And finally, my wife and I were like, look, we really want to, you know, we want to do this to see if you know if any of your issues, maybe you're coming from this. And so after you put the sample on something dry, then you have to take a spoon, not a spoon from your house, a spoon that comes with it, and get pieces of the sample from different sections of the how do I want to say this? Alright, so why not imagine a log of human feces? You would you want to take this little spoon and go around to different spots on it. Take Okay, and then fill up this little tube that has some liquid in it up to a line and then you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, seal it up. It goes inside of a bag that goes inside of a bag, like by the time you don't I mean, like it's in 1000 bags and boxes. By the time it goes into the FedEx thing, but and then you ship it off. Yeah. And then they send a detailed report of your gut biome.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:03
Oh, that's wonderful. Maybe I'll do that. Now. If you don't mind me asking everything. Did you get good? Good news from bad?

Scott Benner 1:22:09
Is it good? They both needed something of an adjustment. Ardennes was more out of whack than coals was. Okay, but little for you. Trying it. I'm gonna do it too. Just because I said to them, I'll do it if you do it. And then I was like, Huh? Yeah. I'll try it. Like, I need the comp. It's a little expensive. So maybe the company will hear this and be like, Sure, Scott, we will send it to you and you can try it.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:37
Tell them to send me one two

Scott Benner 1:22:39
is super interesting. I'm willing to spend the money on my kids. And then when it comes to me, I'm like, that's fine.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:22:46
I'll do it. If it's free. I'll be alright. You know, my body the thing that keeps me going alive and able to do things we ended

Scott Benner 1:22:53
up having to give Arden like these three different kinds of supplements that they're not you know, nothing met. It's a I don't know why I can't think of the word all the sudden. Like, why do people tell you the yogurt? Because it has like live cultures and a culture in it or something? I can't I can't believe I can't think of a really good I just got so upset.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:19
Because cuz I'm the foreign so I have a good excuse to not remember.

Scott Benner 1:23:22
Yeah, I'm gonna figure it out. And then we're all gonna be really embarrassed that I couldn't for me that I couldn't think of it. Oh, probiotics. Yeah, Jesus.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:23:36
I did not Google it. I totally know,

Scott Benner 1:23:38
like, different different probiotic pills that they're taking one of them. One of the kids, I think it's Arden is taking one that is somehow like the culture of like, I don't know how to explain it. But I can tell you that when you open the bottle, there are tablets inside of it. And the tablets, when they're all together in the bottle smell like crap. Like Like literally and when you section one of the mountain take it away from the bottle. It just smells like bad cheese. I don't know what's worse. Arden goes I can swallow this. It only smells like bedsheets. And I was like, Okay, so anyway, you take it for like a month or two to just try to help rebalance things, you know, get good, good gut bacteria. At the level of belongs at bad back bad, bad gut bacteria. Remove that kind of stuff. So who knows if it helps them It helps them and it was worth a try.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:24:33
Oh, cool for you for doing that for them. That's really cool. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:24:36
I'm a real I'm a real you are. You get the badge. I have to thank actually Dr. BENITO who came on and did my thyroid episode and and to not joke around, she's my hippie doctor. So you know, and Arden has another issue and we're going to go to another integrative medicine person because sometimes you just have to look outside of the mainstream when you need different answers. Yeah, absolutely recording that, I think.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:25:03
Yeah, and I think that's the thing, big thing with just medical practitioners, I understand they go to school. And I mean, I mean, doctors are wonderful and amazing. First of all, I don't mean anything that would contradict that. But they go to school and focus on this one thing for such a long period of time. But sometimes, it makes sense. Like, if I broke my wrist, you only need to look at my wrist, of course. But when it's a part of your body that is connected to so many other things like your nervous system, your darkened system, like whatever system it is, it's, it's in the now there's so much research on trauma, for example, and the impact on your health and development and all of that, I just wish, I think he would improve their practice if they could incorporate at least the lenses of understanding, not becoming a naturopathic doctor or nothing like that. But just understanding that there's more to it and that he might be worth exploring, just asking a question taking, suggesting a test, telling people to Google like just any guidance, because Kelly's I always was very, I'm sorry, dependence on my doctor, it took me years to become confident that I could just do a Google search and figure something out on my own, I would always wait for my appointment to ask them, and they never knew,

Scott Benner 1:26:25
well, well, not different than diabetes, your situation is just uncommon, right? Like the human body is meant to endure what it's meant to endure. And, you know, yours got way more physical and mental abuse than I think a person is, is expected to be able to, you know, shoulder, and that can have actual physical impacts on you. Right? It could change you. Yes, on a cellular level, obviously. I mean, I don't know what mental illness is to you. But you know, at some point, someone took a perfectly healthy little baby and did what it what they did to you that changed your mind. It changed your your physical responses to things, you know, your, your social and psychological responses, things. They changed you they beat you into a different shape.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:12
Yeah, yeah. So I was developing to so when you go through things as children, they impact you in a deeper level, sometimes than when you're an adult, but even a traumatic, sorry,

Scott Benner 1:27:25
I didn't mean to step on you. I'm sorry. Good. No,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:27
no, you go first.

Scott Benner 1:27:28
I was just gonna say like to go to a normal doctor and be like, hey, help me. That's not something they're trained for.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:27:34
Exactly. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. But maybe they could be like, Well, I have heard before the sometimes trauma can impact your bottom line, maybe we should just check that. Because if my doctor had, and my doctor refused, if my doctor had prescribed me, the cortisol tests, he would have gone through my insurance, he would have been a lot cheaper. So just even to speak, being open

Scott Benner 1:28:00
and able to afford it, you know, yes. Being able to afford it's not lost on me that poop in the box thing wasn't cheap. So you, you would think it wouldn't cost much to put your own poop in a box. But it was pricey. So you're wrong.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:28:12
Yeah. So it's great that there is this option now that makes us especially if you like, I live in a small town, I don't have a lot of Doctor options. I do have a much better doctor than I had before. But if you're in a situation like me, where you don't really have options, and you cannot afford to take time off from work, and just drive two hours to go see a doctor, and then come back, then at least if you have access to you're able to afford these things online, I did two tests. One is as a birthday present for my husband, because I couldn't afford it. And then the other one, I saved money and then I bought but I understand it's you know, some people just cannot Well, yeah, but that's okay. Still prior

Scott Benner 1:28:57
you prioritized yourself and you saved and you made it happen and that's pretty amazing, too. So you're you're a wonder you really are. I wish I can I'm only sorry. I can't like I'm only sorry, I can't use your name to tell you how amazing I think you are because I feel empty because I'm just talking around who you are. But I think it's really quite unique and special what you have accomplished.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:29:22
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, and you know, just think that who knows how many people you meet that you would never took people talk to me you would have no way because I enjoy I love life i because of all the things I was denied and all the pain I endured I really value the good things so if I if it's a nice day out and I buy an ice cream I'm gonna enjoy it maybe more than somebody that just has that since forever. Yeah. So it's you know, I love life and there's so much about life that I'm in love with and love experiencing and and stuff. So sometimes you might meet people like that you would never tell that they went through stuff but so we should always say Think approach people with like, what's it called a trauma informed approach to just right? You never know what people have been through. So let's just be loving to each other. And just in case, yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:30:09
don't want people to leave this thinking, like, how many people do I know are freaking creepy? Like, I want them, I want them to leave. Like, you know, if you asked me what the connection between your story and diabetes is, to me, your story highlights that there are people who are going through things that you'll never see. And that sometimes, if you get a little lucky, and you get the right support, and you work hard at it, and you don't give up, you can get through things that you don't think you could possibly get through that an onlooker would look at, and just think, but I don't know how you didn't just jump out a window, you know what I mean? And instead, instead, look where you are. And my thought is, if you could do that wrapped around all this, well, then that should be encouraging to someone who just thinks they can't figure out how to get their Basal, right, or to Pre-Bolus pizza or something like this, like you don't mean like there are, I'm not saying that one difficult thing to gates, another difficult thing, I'm saying, Look at what people are capable of. And right everyone listening is capable of something like this to have overcome, overcome, you know,

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:31:22
so we so are and just remember, if you've experienced trauma, and I will give an example, I used to my old Renata insulin, and I would just forget to change my sight, like I would just have no insulin for hours sometimes. And it wasn't like I was doing it on purpose, I would look and be like, Oh, I have to change it. But I also overwhelmed all the time, I couldn't, I just would get distracted and forget it. And just be kind to yourself, if you if you're having a hard day and diabetes is not working, just know that some things are not a direct result of you doing something wrong, you are doing the best that you can. And that's going to look different in different ways. But don't like people. And I say that because I experienced that a lot. Don't let people shame you. If you don't have the diabetes results that they wanted to have, and I'm not saying don't do the best you can, of course, take care of your health, but just know, if you've experienced things like that. Remember to love yourself first, you know, be kind to yourself, you're doing your best.

Scott Benner 1:32:23
And the answers that you need are out there somewhere. And yeah, you know, don't give up looking for them. Don't accept people's assertions that maybe this is as good as it gets. You know, it's not always going to present itself immediately. In, you know, I think that this podcast has a lot to do with that idea of really the idea that this isn't how mainstream talks about diabetes, really. But here it is. And if you want it, it's here, it might be difficult to pick through. I mean, I hear people say like, there's so many episodes, I'm like, You're welcome. You know, like I hear, they give it to me. And I'm like, You're welcome. Now you do the hard work of picking through it and getting what you need out of it. Like, I can't come to your house. And and you know, to me, yes, shuffle you along to success. And I Oh, no. My point is, is that if the woman you're listening to right now can do the things that she's done. I can't imagine what everybody can't do you know what I mean? Like there's there should be no end to your there should be no end to what you think you can accomplish. You know, you should just try and don't give up.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:33:38
Yes. And if you're trying it doesn't work, it took me 12 years to figure out how to not wake up with a tie on my Little Reader, you know, just don't it takes time. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:33:50
Yes. How did you? I'm sorry, it seems so terrible to ask this. After the whole thing. I really I I just want to make sure that the connection is obvious to people like how did you find this podcast? And has it been valuable to you? And how?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:34:07
Let me tell you, so I was can you remember I was I do yoga, yoga helps me a lot. I also do intermittent fasting. So I was doing yoga and I realize I love yoga. Why don't I look for a podcast about yoga? And I was looking at wellness podcasts and stuff. And I was like, Wow, I've never thought about the possibility that maybe they're popular podcasts about diabetes out there. So then I picked one I put diabetes, whatever it was a different one was from a guy from I don't know, maybe I think New Zealand or Australia. And he I swear I swear to you, Scott, he said, If you want your blood, if you want to lose weight, your blood sugar's to get lower. Stop being lazy fat. I swear that's what he said on the episode that I hope so. I was like, oh, maybe this isn't for me. And so I was bummed out for a couple of days. And then I was like, Oh, let me try again. And then I found yours. And I saw he had all these categories. So what really, I think in your podcast has improved my life so much, because I started listening only to the after dark episodes. Because whenever people gave me diabetes advice, I never took it into consideration. Because I always felt like, well, but that doesn't apply to me because I have this other stuff going on that you don't know about whatever. And I learned, it was really the thing that made my brain make the connection that most people that have diabetes have something else, like I listened. And I listened to an episode of a girl that was allergic to insulin, and it blew my mind away. I was like, if this girl can do diabetes, I'm going to start spending time and just learning. So then I just started listening to a lot of episodes, and just I've been learning so much. But what made me lower my guard, my defensiveness was just listening to all the after dark episodes in a row.

Scott Benner 1:36:11
No, it's funny, I think I originally thought of the after dark episodes as bringing people into a world that they didn't know about. And over time and years, I've heard from enough people with, you know, you know, uncommon stories like yours, that he did say that the after dark episodes to them are the core of the podcast. It's easy, because it's so uncommon, again, to find these stories, these stories just don't get told very often. I mean, you've done something. Now that I mean, if you would have told me five years ago, that a person with your life experiences would come on here and share them on the podcast, I'd be like, that's never gonna happen. You know what I mean? But it all started with me saying, like, it's so it's so strange. I get started with me saying on the podcast one day, hey, do you drink a lot and have diabetes? Because if you do, I want to talk to you. And then these two people heard that and went to their friend and said, Hey, I think that guy on that podcast is looking for you. And she's like, I don't know how to feel about this. But I am like a pro level drinker. And I have type one. And so she came on, and shared, and I thought there should be more of this. And then I went to a guy that smokes weed. And then before I knew what I was talking to people with bipolar disorder, you know, people, I mean, at this point, now, you're the third person of some sort of sexual assault that's come on. And, and so much more divorced families, an adult of someone who grew up in a, you know, a divorced family. These are the stories that people like you who are more plentiful than we want to think need, like they need to hear themselves reflected weekly, we always talk about, like, reflecting people and, and, you know, I can't think of the word again, because I'm not young. But representation, right? Like, we always talk about representation about like, you have to have more black voices, you have to have more gay voices, you have to have more trans voices you have, nobody ever says we have to have more sexual assault survivor voices, you know, we have to like because it's difficult and uncomfortable to talk about, and I don't think it should be. So that's why it's here. Because that's what I think, the best way the best for doing that Jesus took an hour and 40 minutes for you to say something I was the best. Like, I don't know.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:43
You should have started with that question. And then we could just talk about that. And when if you want, we could stop this restart and just do an episode about that. I'm teasing.

Scott Benner 1:38:51
I don't need you to tell me now. Let's let those dogs back in before they run away.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:38:58
They're sleeping in the other. They're just fine. But my husband works from home and so they they live their best life.

Scott Benner 1:39:04
It's 2021 We all work from home. I wish I worked from home do not it's days. I like it. And there's days where I'm like, I gotta get out of here. You know? Yesterday here, we'll finish with something completely frivolous. Love it. Yesterday, I walked downstairs. My wife's working in what we used to be our dining room, but now I think is an office. I'm pretty sure she's gonna get rid of our dining room table. I guess we'll eat in the kitchen. And my daughter's at the countertop in the kitchen. She's doing homework, my wife's working and, and I walked downstairs the middle of the afternoon. I was like, I'm gonna go out. And everyone's like, where are you going? Because that I'm not that guy. Like, I'm like a I'm not like I'm going out guy. And I was like, I'm gonna go get a manicure and a pedicure. And they were like, Why? Because that is not something I do. And I said yeah, As I said, about a week or so ago, I realized that my toe was sore. And it was my nail. And I just have been growing my nails out with the idea that I would reshape them in a way where my toe wouldn't be sore, which seems like a reasonable decision. And I said, now I'm looking at my nails. And I realized I do not possess the qualifications to handle this. And they were like, Why don't like I don't think I know how to cut my nails right? Or this wouldn't have happened to begin with. I'm 50 years old. I'm going to go let somebody else do it. Then I'm going to look at what they did and try to mimic it next time. And so like 10 minutes later, I had my feet in a bath and a gentleman was rubbing my calves while woman was cutting my fingernails. And I have it was lovely.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:43
I've done it too. It's the best thing. Oh my God, it is so warm. And then when they scrub your like your ankles off the best,

Scott Benner 1:40:50
I'm not even embarrassed. It was a it was a half an hour that I enjoyed. And you shouldn't be embarrassed

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:40:56
just to be proud of yourself for taking care of yourself trying different things good for you.

Scott Benner 1:41:00
Yeah, I just am. I gotta tell you, too. I'm always embarrassed to my fingernails. And today, I'm not them on top of that desk. Like you know, when you take a picture and you're holding something. I turned my hands so you can't see my nails usually. Ah, I didn't realize that. And then I saw them yesterday. I was like, why is this lady so much better at this than I am?

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:22
So did you figure it out? Do you think you can do an accent?

Scott Benner 1:41:25
I don't know. I better just make more money and let her do it. But yeah, they look really good. She, by the way, no clear coat or anything. I just was like, you know, I'm like, I don't need a coating. I just cut them for me, please. They're really, I can't believe I'm saying this. They're really so if for people keeping track. Now, if you're still listening to this afterwards, after the person who we spoken to today, has told you all of the sad things. If you're still here an hour and 40 minutes later, and you're keeping track, I'm now getting my eyebrows threaded with my daughter and I got a manicure. So they say I'm on my way. I'm gonna look good. Soon. That's great.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:41:59
It's better posts, you should do an omni pod sponsored thing on your page and take pictures, holding things you don't make up for the last time

Scott Benner 1:42:09
you pick up my hand model now. i Yeah. My hands are huge. And my family constantly makes fun of how big my fingers are. So I don't think I'm a hand model. But

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:19
be proud of your hands. Don't let them hand shame you.

Scott Benner 1:42:24
If that becomes a thing, I'm gonna say that you're going to have caused it. Because I can't imagine anyone who said that before.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:31
Just stop oppressing your hands. He can't control the size of them. They need to love them the way they are.

Scott Benner 1:42:36
Next time someone mentions how big my fingers are. I'm gonna say stop oppressing my fingers.

Anonymous Female Speaker 1:42:42
Yes, yes. And be assertive about it. People need to learn to boundaries, right?

Scott Benner 1:42:45
Damn, well. Well, thank you.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL. You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. And I want to thank today's guest for coming on the show and so bravely telling us her story. Thank you so much. I'm sorry that I can't thank you by name. And I'm really glad that you were here. Thanks so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. You can find more after dark episodes in your podcast app. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm topics like drinking weed smoking, trauma and addiction. Having sex with type one diabetes, depression and self harm, diabetes and co parenting bulimia. Bipolar Disorder, heroin addiction, psychedelic drug use divorce from the perspective of an adult child diabetes complications, other eating disorders. They're all available in your podcast player. Just search Juicebox Podcast after dark. We're at Juicebox Podcast comm you can just scroll down and find them right there on the website.

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#605 Raising NFL Star Mark Andrews

Martha Andrews is the mother of an adult type 1.

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to season eight of the Juicebox Podcast. This is episode 605.

Welcome again to season eight of the Juicebox Podcast the Juicebox Podcast began in January of 2015. And here we are in January of 2022. Happy New Year to everyone. And thank you for listening to the show. On today's episode, we start the year off with Martha Andrews. Martha is the mother of four grown children, one of whom was diagnosed with type one diabetes when they were nine years old. He's all grown up now, and he's got a pretty cool job. You're going to enjoy this episode, it's going to go in a bunch of different directions. So whether or not you're a sports fan, the parent of a child with type one or an adult living with type one, this one's gonna have something for each and every one of you. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, please head over to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to learn more and get started today. The podcast is also sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash, you can find out more and again get started at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There are links in the show notes to these and all of the sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. You can even find those links at juicebox podcast.com.

Martha Andrews 2:12
Hi, Martha Andrews, parent of a type one diabetic and live in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Scott Benner 2:18
Hi, Martha. Thank you for doing this. Sure. I really appreciate it. Let's see. Where do we start? Do you how many children do you have?

Martha Andrews 2:26
I have four four.

Scott Benner 2:28
Are they reasonably spaced together?

Martha Andrews 2:31
They're each about two years or less. Between but two grades between each other?

Scott Benner 2:36
That seems reasonable to me enough time to catch your breath. Right?

Martha Andrews 2:40
Yes, but not didn't seem reasonable at the time. But yes, now that I've gotten past all of the hard stuff, it seems reasonable.

Scott Benner 2:48
Did you feel like you're just doing the same thing over and over again, as they were growing up and and getting worse

Martha Andrews 2:52
and worse at it?

Scott Benner 2:54
You were getting? Were you getting worse at it? Or did you just care a little less as it went on?

Martha Andrews 3:00
Well, it's just you know, it's each one had their own individual issues that you have to deal with and, and getting them all through them at the same time and dealing with it. It just became a lot of work. It was fun. It was a lot of fun. But you know, I have three times like, I don't know if I can keep doing it like, Okay,

Scott Benner 3:21
well, of the four children. You have one with type one. Do any of the other kids have other autoimmune issues or type one?

Martha Andrews 3:29
None? Nope. Just mark. Just mark Okay,

Scott Benner 3:33
where does he fall in the line of the four kids?

Martha Andrews 3:36
He's my youngest. He's the baby.

Scott Benner 3:39
How old the oldest?

Martha Andrews 3:41
He just turned 32. Okay,

Scott Benner 3:44
and marks 26. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Are all the kids athletic?

Martha Andrews 3:51
Every one of them. They, they all are very, very competitive. Whether it's getting to bed first brushing their teeth first finishing their plate first. scoring the first goal. It was always a competition.

Scott Benner 4:07
Walking through a doorframe just just absolutely. So did you spend most of your life going to children's sporting events?

Martha Andrews 4:17
All of my life once I started having kids. It was every night, every weekend traveling? It was pretty intense. Actually.

Scott Benner 4:29
Yeah. No, I found it to be more than I expected. I sometimes my son just plays college baseball. And just I Yeah, well, that's impressive. It is but I find myself telling people listen, unless your kids are just like love, love, love it. Just do it for fun inside of the season. There's no reason to travel or, you know, go to another state to play. You just try to enjoy it because there were times where it felt like a job for me. I don't I don't think for him ever but

Martha Andrews 5:00
I think people would say, you know, they're gonna get a scholarship and you're like, some money we've spent on their sports, we could pay for full college tuition.

Scott Benner 5:10
I think I may be broke even. And Mike's son gets a fair amount of money. And he's like, I'm saving you all this money. He's like, Are you forgetting all the sandwiches, we bought it delis and the gasoline in the hotel. So you could learn to be slightly better at this than the next person, you know?

Martha Andrews 5:30
Well, it's a lot of fun to watch him do what they love.

Scott Benner 5:33
Yeah, I have to say that Cole's a senior this year. So the spring coming up is, you know, his last of his undergrad year, because of COVID. He's going to have some NCAA ability to keep playing, you know, Brian gave him back some of their eligibility. So I'm kind of hoping he'll he'll maybe go to grad school or something and play a little more or, or I don't even know what I just I

Martha Andrews 5:58
have plans to maybe go professional. He Well,

Scott Benner 6:01
it's his whole, I'm gonna tell you that. I don't know, I could have gotten him into college if he wasn't playing baseball. And he's a very good student taking a fairly difficult my son's getting a quantitative econ degree. Oh, my gosh, and I still tell you, I'm not sure you would have went to college if you couldn't play baseball. So it is what he thinks about. You know, that's awesome. Yeah. So we'll see. I know, he's gonna try until he fails or his body blows up. I I've come to the conclusion that there's no amount of anything that's going to get him to stop. So we'll see what happens. But he's not what

Martha Andrews 6:36
it takes. You have to be driven for sure. He's got that part.

Scott Benner 6:39
That's for sure. He didn't grow quite like your son. Did though. Did the boy come out that size? Or?

Martha Andrews 6:45
Yes. He was a nice size when he was born. But from shortly after he was standing, it was obvious that he was pretty much taller than everybody else

Scott Benner 6:59
bigger than your husband. Yes. Okay. And you're not a particularly tall person.

Martha Andrews 7:03
I'm 510. I'm the shortest my daughter's six foot. I have a son that six to one at six, four and then mark that six, six.

Scott Benner 7:12
Well, you are tall, then. I mean, I don't you know, 510 Relatively speaking,

Martha Andrews 7:17
I am Yes, I was tall till I got in this family.

Scott Benner 7:21
I always I always kind of I don't laugh, Martha. But sometimes you see the parents, and they have a tiny little kid. And, you know, and the husband's five, six, and the wife's five, two, and they're like he's gonna play in college. And I'm like, no, no, it's not. Something crazy is about to happen. But yeah, so when did he start growing? Like, when did you think wow, this is? I guess we I guess if you had older children, you already knew your kids were kind of bigger to begin with.

Martha Andrews 7:47
They all were tall. And so he in our family, he you know, he stayed he was he was shorter than a sister. And then, I think probably around end of elementary or middle school, he got taller than she was. Um, and and then he just kept going and he was really skinny.

Scott Benner 8:09
Okay, in high school. Yeah. Do you fill out in high school because he went through a legitimate football college too. So?

Martha Andrews 8:17
Yes. You he was pretty thin. I mean, he at six, six, he was probably 200 pounds. Maybe. When he went off to college?

Scott Benner 8:28
No, no kidding. Well, and then that's big for a high schooler and small in high

Martha Andrews 8:33
school. He was definitely tall. And I think he worked out so much that meaning running and doing things like that it was hard for him to keep weight on.

Scott Benner 8:44
Okay. My son talks about that all the time. He said they drag us into a gym to put on weight, and then they take us outside and run it right. I just found it. He's like, it's like the one hands not talking to the other one. So, um, Listen, did he play football, like peewee was it better? No, no,

Martha Andrews 9:02
no, no, no. He was He loved soccer, baseball. Basketball. You didn't start football until ninth grade?

Scott Benner 9:11
No kidding. So as he was kind of going into high school, yes. Sorry. While you were watching him, like when does it first occur to you like when do you and your husband like you're married? Right? I'm sorry. Yes, yeah. When do your husband lean into each other and go? He's gonna do this in college?

Martha Andrews 9:28
Ah, not until like the coaches started calling. Really? Okay. Yeah. You know, we've always been hearing all of our children were talented, they were all great athletes, they could have gone and played a sport in college if they'd wanted to. And you know, that you have to love what you do to be able to get to that point and we just hear about that funnel. And so we just really pushed school and it probably wasn't going to be a reality of getting to play sports in college. Like we didn't even like to talk about

Scott Benner 10:06
it. Okay? So it wasn't something that you've just looked at him and thought this is beta complete this has to happen. He just looks like a perfect because like, for know, when my son started high school, he came home one day and he goes, Yo, there's a kid on our football team. And this high school was not some like, you know, I mean, it's a northeast school. It's not a powerhouse for football or anything like that. And he goes, there's a kid on our high school team. He's like, he's gonna easily play in college. And I was like, really goes, he's an offensive lineman, like you should see him. And before I could even get a chance to see him some private schools scooped him up and took him right away. Oh, really? I believe he started for Penn State. So, you know, you could just like my son could say it, like everybody could see it. But Mark wasn't that person. Right? Well,

Martha Andrews 10:48
I mean, when he started playing football, and he could have played basketball in college. Yeah, he quit soccer just because he was so much bigger than everybody else. He got picked on a lot. He couldn't. He couldn't pick back because he was the biggest person on the field. It was a really frustrating experience for him.

Scott Benner 11:07
And are you saying that they get chippy with him, but he couldn't chip back.

Martha Andrews 11:11
He couldn't get snippy with them, right. And he's like, I'm done. You know, even from when he was little, they'd say, he drove here. He's like, he's 12. He did not drive here.

Scott Benner 11:24
That kid. That kid back that guy's kids are watching the game from the stance. Trust me, we've all made that joke if we'd been involved in youth sports,

Martha Andrews 11:32
absolutely. And so that was frustrating to him. But he had started to compete at basketball at a really high level. And when he started playing football at the same time, he had a coach that he worked with a lot. He was a volunteer football coach, he played for Nebraska. And he said, Mark, how many people are on a football team? And how many people are on a basketball team? And he said, How many people on a basketball team are six, six or are taller? How many on a on a football team? How many how many receivers Do you see that are six, six. And he kind of just got him thinking, you know, if you want to play sports in college, let's start thinking of where you have the best opportunity. And so that kind of was a mind shift. He loved basketball. He loved playing it for this his high school, he loved his coach. But he he just stopped the club version of that and focused on football from that point on. And his very first game was the very first time someone came up to us and said, I mean, he just we were in shock. Our mouth was open, we had no idea he could do what he did and and the other coach from the other side said we're gonna see him on Sunday

Scott Benner 13:06
I think people might imagine it's just the size but there's a fluidity and and athleticism and you know, speed like it. Where it becomes really uncommon is to be all of those things at that size, and have the drive to do it and everything else that comes with it. It's saying it's an uncommon mix. Are your other children magically good at other things? Are you a witch? Like what is it we all know? About? You know, do you sometimes look up and think it's crazy? Word or is it normal to you now? I mean, you and I to have

Martha Andrews 13:41
mark or a to have all all my kids are incredibly successful. Yeah. And I've been very fortunate. I've kind of it's almost not embarrassing, but you know, people ask what do your children do? And I'm like, you know, I kind of played off but I really want to say I mean my kids are amazing. It's really bad say like that, but they are they've made something of each one has just become the best at what they do. And I it it is really heartwarming as a parent to know that they're doing what they love, and they're so good at it.

Scott Benner 14:19
Is it hard to want to talk about the other three? Because, you know, eventually you're gonna have to say in marks at tight end?

Martha Andrews 14:24
I know. It is. Yeah, I say but you know, his brother's a doctor, his sister's a dentist, his other brothers are really successful business in real estate. You know, I want to, I want to tell them that, but they don't really care.

Scott Benner 14:36
Yeah, well, that's what I started wondering. Like, if that's what you meant, that just doesn't matter. Like you could be like, this one's a physicist and an astronaut on the weekends. And they'd be like, could you just tell me about the guy that catches the football players? Exactly.

Martha Andrews 14:49
Yeah. Yeah, that's, well, they're they're really proud of him to oh,

Scott Benner 14:53
I would imagine that's really cool. Do you get to see him play much in person anymore?

Martha Andrews 14:58
Um, you know since COVID, Did we kind of definitely pulled back and him watching on TV is so much nicer than being? Well, first of all, I vowed never to go to an opposing teams, you know, watch him as a visitor. I don't like that. It's, it's uncomfortable. It's not the friendliest place to be. I do like going and watching and in Baltimore and being able to see him and we didn't go this year. I mean, we're still a little COVID leery. We don't want to put him at risk from traveling or anything else like that. So we think his brother's been, and I think both brothers have been this year.

Scott Benner 15:40
Are you saying that it's hard to cheer for him in front of people who are cursing at them? Yes. Is it? Is it just hard for you to hear it?

Martha Andrews 15:48
No, not? Well, maybe a little bit. But as my husband always tell me, don't tell them who your son is. I'm like I have to because I don't want them to be mean about him around me. I kind of just gently tell the people around me Okay, be nice to number 89 I miss mom, I'll be quiet.

Scott Benner 16:07
I promise not sure if you promise not to curse and use his name at the same.

Martha Andrews 16:12
And then for not, you know, when he does something great to not really be able to cheer and scream and the way you know, you got to be a little subtle about it. I don't like that at all. So

Scott Benner 16:20
you screaming yell at home, though, while you're watching? Oh, gosh. Yes. So I want to ask you, I'm gonna ask you one more football thing. And then I want to ask you a bunch of diabetes stuff. So okay, you and I spoke a few days ago to get to know each other to get this all set up. And then like the next day, I think or maybe two days later, I found myself standing in front of a room. It was like we were in a bar having dinner. Every time I say that. I want to remind people

Martha Andrews 16:45
i know i just want listen to a podcast, you were at another bar had dinner with my

Scott Benner 16:48
family. And we're sitting around and there and the Ravens game is on. And I'm watching it go back and forth. And I said to my wife, I said, you know, that lady I talked to on the phone. I said, that's her son right there. And I said this situation is getting down to where I think they're going to go to him to try to win the game. So let's pay attention for a second. And then it happens. And it doesn't go the way you expect. Or hope, I guess. And I found myself sitting there only knowing you for about a 15 minute phone call. I felt terrible for you. Not even for him, by the way. Like like for you. I was like how much she feel right now. And I just I've been, I just want to know, like, if he catches that ball and they win the game, he doesn't catch the ball and they don't win the game, whatever. How does it feel for you? Like is it fleeting? Does it stick with you all day? Are you happy all week after that saddle week? Like how much impact does it have on your life? Well,

Martha Andrews 17:42
I mean, the most important thing, I'm sad for Mark, because I know he's gonna take it hard, right? That, you know, if he makes that play, he's like a hero and everything's fabulous. And I'm always looking. I don't really care if we win or lose. I want him to be healthy. I want him to play well. And I want it to be over. Yeah, right. That's the most important thing for me as a mom, I'm sad for him. I love him. It's not a big deal. It is a football game. It's not, didn't make or break. how good he is how you know, his success or not. I just I'm sad. I know he's not gonna talk to me the next day is gonna avoid discussing it. But you know, so there's just a game. Yeah.

Scott Benner 18:32
But there's no like, here's an example. My son's out recruiting for colleges one day, and I'm standing talking to a coach who kind of came to find me and was chatting about coal and coals out in the outfield. And as he came back, he's running back along the fence line runs past us. And I said, Oh, hey, Cole, this is so and so from blah, blah, college, he was just telling me how bad you are. And, and we just laughed, and my son said hello. And then he kept running by we have a very loose, like, relationship like that, because the man was not standing there telling telling me that.

Martha Andrews 19:03
You know, I mean, he knows his dad has always joked Yes, yes, he's aware

Scott Benner 19:06
of that. Like, I just was like trying to put myself in your position. I was like, I wonder if I would have been like, just stay quiet or so it's interesting to hear your your response to that. And I also think it's interesting because I talked to a number of Steelers fans after the game. And every one of them just because I kind of steadfastly was like, oh, you know, the rusher kind of threw off the quarterback and he's like, I don't think it was that gay. Like it could have been caught maybe but like, it was funny how like they wanted they were on his side, even like, Oh, that's nice. It's very interesting. And then that made me think there's a guy in a grocery store all over this country having a conversation about your kid. Think of it that way. How weird that is.

Martha Andrews 19:52
It is weird. And it's it's kind of funny, like, you know, my husband says I like to tell everybody that marks my son and you know plays and that's not true, but it is amazing. Like I'll go out with other people and I was sitting at I don't know, that place where they cut up your your food Benihana and the chef was there cutting and the people I was sitting with said, you know, this is Marc Andreessen. He goes the mark Andrews, you know, like, this is some random guy, oh my gosh, and then went on and on and on and on and how he's followed his career, blah, blah, blah. And it's, you know, if you take that kind of stuff, if you listen to it and makes you happy, then you got to take the other stuff like he should have caught that ball. He you know, so you have to be careful if you if you want to revel in all the goodness, you got to be able to take the, the not so good as well.

Scott Benner 20:47
Yeah, I definitely. i There is nothing worse than my son is an exceptional outfielder. And, you know, 100 times out of 100 He's gonna catch the ball doesn't matter where it is, you know, there are moments when like the right fielder catches the ball and my son standing behind him waiting for the ball to hit the ground. Like you can catch it. It's your position, you might as well and then the one time something happens and he stumbles or trips or the sun gets in his eyes and everyone looks at you like you as the parent. Like what happened? I'm like, oh, nine out there, man. I was like, you know, but I said if he asked me it looks hard to do and, and but it's amazing that they forget the other 99 times.

Martha Andrews 21:30
Oh, yeah, you just can't go on the internet at all. After your something like that game.

Scott Benner 21:34
I'm like, What about the other ones? Where are you? Alright, nevermind.

Martha Andrews 21:39
Let's see. And that's that's not your tea, Wendy. So like, if Mark drops a catch anything is should he go test you know, there's something is something going on. If he drops to I'm almost on the phone to the trainer he needs to.

Scott Benner 21:54
I don't like the way it looks. Yeah. So he's nine years old when he's diagnosed is that right?

Today I'm gonna start off by telling you about the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, you can know what your blood sugar is without finger sticks with a Dexcom. That's right without finger sticks or calibrations. The Dexcom G six lets you see your glucose numbers. With a quick glance at your smart device or receiver. You can get alerted when your glucose levels are heading high or low and share your data with up to 10 followers. The Dexcom G six is covered by most insurance plans. And you can learn more about it right now@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. With Dexcom, you can set customizable alerts and alarms to let you know when you're leaving the range that you want. My daughter is set at 70 and 120. But you could choose any numbers that you want 80 and 139, D and 150. It doesn't matter. It's completely up to you. And then when your blood sugar is heading in that direction, getting ready to leave that range, it'll tell you and you can make a decision about insulin or carbohydrates that will benefit your health well being and keep your day steady and balanced. And in range dexcom.com forward slash juicebox my daughter's been wearing a Dexcom for many, many years. So check out the CGM that she prefers. And the one that Mark Andrews uses@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox.

Now if you'd like to check out the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing, since she is Ooh, and she was how old four? I think so four years old as long time ago, she's like 17. If you want to check out the insulin pump that my daughter has been using for a very long time, you're going to want to check out the Omni pod at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There you can read all about Omni pod the Omni pod dash and find out if tubeless insulin pumping is right for you or your loved one. It is for my daughter and it may well be for you as well. Now if you find yourself thinking oh Scott, I do want an omni pod but I'm waiting for the next big thing from Omni pod so I'm not going to get started right now. Well, the good news is there's no need to do that. Because of the Omni pod promise. And the Omni pod promise is simple. There is no need to wait for the next big thing with the Omni pod promise you can upgrade to Omni pods latest technologies for no additional cost as soon as they're available to you and covered by your insurance terms and conditions apply. But you'll find out more at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox Stop dragging your feet and get started today use the insulin pump that my daughter's been using since she was four years old. The one that is tubeless that allows you to swim And bave that doesn't make you take it off for activities like sports, and, you know, fun adult activities as well. You can just keep getting your insulin the way you're meant to with the Omni pod. If you need links to Omnipod Dexcom, or any of the sponsors, they're right there in the shownotes of your podcast player. We're at juicebox podcast.com. But you can always just type them into a browser on the pod.com forward slash juice box. dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Alright, let's get back to Martha. Some of my favorite parts of this interview have not even happened yet.

Martha Andrews 25:39
Yes, okay. So

Scott Benner 25:40
that's Robert said he was like this, like 17 years ago. Does that sound right? 2004 ish. Yeah. Okay. But you're pretty impressed with how I did that real quick.

Martha Andrews 25:49
I was just like your bow. That was good. He did it ahead of time.

Scott Benner 25:53
I didn't. Didn't so there must have been a lot of numbers that just worked with the way my brain works, because that all went way too smoothly. So he's nine years old. How does it present?

Martha Andrews 26:04
Okay, and I'm just full disclosure. I may not, but I may I always cry when I tell the story. And I'm gonna start again.

Scott Benner 26:10
If you cry, I'm gonna cry. Martha. Just so you know.

Martha Andrews 26:12
I think it's the hardest thing in the world. I can't believe I do this every friggin time. If it brings it back.

Scott Benner 26:21
Yeah. We'll take your time. And or you don't have to tell me

Martha Andrews 26:25
I'll be fine. I do. I don't. I've done it on national TV. I need to learn, not cry every single time I talk about it. But okay. So it presented itself. He was doing baseball and soccer at the same time. And he was playing a baseball game and his grandparents had taken him. You know, he's a fourth child. Every every one of us is at a different sporting event with one of the children. And she said, my, my mother in law said he had to go to the bathroom a couple times. I said, Oh, okay, fine. Thanks. No, she goes. And then we took him to a soccer game right afterwards. And he left and ran to go to the bathroom at halftime. He has never done that. And my mother in law says, I think he has diabetes. And we look at her like she had grown horns and was so crazy how to like get that that was a stupidest thing anybody could ever say.

Scott Benner 27:18
Yeah. What does she know? Something that that? Does she have any? Like, why would that pop into our head?

Martha Andrews 27:24
I don't know. I mean, we were shocked. And we said absolutely not. You know, he's, he's, he had big circles under his eyes. And he I don't think he may have even maybe wet the bed. I don't know. But it's still just wasn't coming together. We're getting ready to go on a ski trip for spring break. And he came home from school on Monday, and he didn't feel good. And he didn't look good. So the next morning, my my husband said, we better just get him checked, make sure nothing's wrong, before we head out of town. And so we went and did some blood work and took him back to school. And my husband calls me sorry,

Scott Benner 28:14
no, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd get upset or I might not have asked.

Martha Andrews 28:18
It's okay. I'm not. I mean, I talk about it all the time. And he said, Mark has diabetes, you need to go get him protected. I didn't know even I had no idea what it meant. I am one of those people that kind of goes through the world. And if it's bad stuff, I don't really look into it. Um, if someone needs to tell me something, they'll tell me and I kind of go through with rose colored glasses. pretty optimistic about everything. So we go to the doctor's office, I still don't so don't know exactly what it means.

Scott Benner 29:03
Your husband just tells you that it's important. He's, something's wrong. And you hear a word you think of as not being like, healthy. Yeah, yeah. And you're on your way. Yeah.

Martha Andrews 29:12
Yeah. And obviously, he knows exactly what it is. But so the doctor was also a neighbor of ours. And she she tells us and Mark is pretty stoic. We don't have to go the hospital. We go over to an endocrinologist and they start educating us immediately. And I think he was more upset that we didn't go skiing because of it. You know, that that? He just, you know, what do I have to do? Just give me the tools I need. And let's get get over this. Yeah, no.

Scott Benner 29:51
Well, you know, it's funny. My biggest concern would have been that my wife Mother was right about something. And then like, I wouldn't Never heard the end of that. We were pretty shocked. Actually. I just figured when your husband's like we better take him to the to the doctor. He's like, my mom has been bugging me about this. And she said something. But I'm fascinated that that your that your mother in law, just like from being a couple times, just like that's diabetes like wow, Jesus. Yeah, she

Martha Andrews 30:19
was a smart lady. She read a lot. And the fact that she she called it that was pretty impressive. And we really, I mean, my husband's a urologist. He knows about peeing, he knows what it means, you know. But you don't go there. I was listening to one of your podcasts and And the woman said, you know, don't look for zebra, if it's a horse, it's a horse. You don't have to look for the zebra or whatever she said. And that's so true. Yeah, you know,

Scott Benner 30:47
except if you have diabetes, and you don't know it, when now it's a zebra all the sudden, because, yes, because she's, you know, a kid piece a couple of times. For most people, that just means they drank a lot or maybe ate like a fewer carbs and maybe a little more high protein that day. And but yeah, that's really something so he just, he's not DKA, which is great.

Martha Andrews 31:09
No, I think the amount of exercise the sports that he he did, and he was always no, the strongest player, typically on the team. And so you know, he worked he played the whole game of whatever he was doing and then going on to the next one and running up and down the field. So I'm sure that had a lot to do

Scott Benner 31:28
with it kind of kept his blood sugar down. So yeah, 17 years ago, is he did he get fast acting insulin? Was he using Basal on?

Martha Andrews 31:37
He did the human he had Humalog and the the long acting like Lantis

Scott Benner 31:44
or something mantis. Yeah. And you got a meter I imagine, but

Martha Andrews 31:48
was not not for. Yeah, we got a meter for sure. Right? Yes, but we had meters everywhere in the house everywhere. I have probably maybe 15 meters

Scott Benner 31:59
all over the house and probably throw some of them away. Now, Martha if you want to.

Martha Andrews 32:02
I know I need to keep opening another meter.

Scott Benner 32:05
Was he just injecting

Martha Andrews 32:08
he was that his endocrinologist did not want him to look at a pump or a CGM, or maybe a CGM. We didn't discuss it but a pump until he was he had mastered first of all that until he had shown a sign that he needed it. And that he understood if he was controlling it with shots that he was going to stay that way. We even though we kept asking.

Scott Benner 32:34
Okay, I'm trying to think of when Dexcom all they were founded in 99. Did they have a product right away then? I wonder when the first CGM was

Martha Andrews 32:43
Mark was pretty he caught it in high school. He didn't like it. Okay. When he first got it, the CGM and he stopped wearing it for a while.

Scott Benner 32:52
Does he wear one now? Oh, yes. Yeah. The first couple iterations were like they were groundbreaking, but they're not nearly the way they are now. That's no,

Martha Andrews 33:01
and then the needle itself that I mean, that's the insertion portion of the process

Scott Benner 33:09
was awful. Which one was he using? In the beginning? Was it the Medtronic? One Medtronic, oh, yeah, they call that one? The harpoon? Yes. I'm sure Medtronic, they don't call it that. But outside.

Martha Andrews 33:22
But the pump? I mean, that was an amazing. That was an amazing game changer for us.

Scott Benner 33:27
Yeah. Tell me why what did it change for him?

Martha Andrews 33:31
Well, just, he didn't have to carry. I mean, he always had his D bag, as we call it. You know, it's one of those Nike shoe bags that you could wear as a backpack. And he always had his stuff in there, but, but he didn't have to pull out go through all the process of dosing for himself if he could just do it. By pressing a couple of buttons. It gave him a lot of freedom. Wow, wherever he was the people he was with. And I think it helped control. Taking the insulin. You know, I think a teenage kid sometimes. You know, they say they took it and they didn't, or they miss a dose because they said they're gonna do it. And then they forget. Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:17
just the easier to have a pump on what he wears. I don't know what pump he wears. Now, I guess, to slim, if he slim? Is he doing control like you? Or is he? Um,

Martha Andrews 34:26
I think yeah, he is. Well,

Scott Benner 34:28
that's pretty cool. That's great technology.

Martha Andrews 34:31
Yeah, that his problem is he does take his pump off for hours at a time when he's at practice. So he switches up. He doesn't get his he didn't do his he has to take long acting in addition. Okay,

Scott Benner 34:47
so because to his pump, yeah, his his life is pretty specific. So he doesn't I guess that's not that he doesn't want to wear it. I guess he can't. He can't carry that fuselage. He can't carry that around. Yeah, I would imagine by the rules of the game. He's not allowed to if nothing Yeah, I

Martha Andrews 35:01
don't I don't think we've ever tested that there's just no way he's gonna go around with a Yeah. You know that on him?

Scott Benner 35:07
Well, well, you know, it's funny because if you've never met like a professional football player in real life, you don't have because they're also big on television. It's deceiving. Like, like how large they are, and how gigantic and how fast they're running into each other. You might as well just take that T slim out and like, throw it on the ground, hit it with a hammer before trying to take it to a football game. But yeah, they just they're launching themselves at each other in at amazing speeds. And it's just, you just have to meet one guy and stand next to him for five seconds before you think like I'm not even a human being compared to this guy. Like, I'm not a man compared to this. I I've had those moments around baseball players, where I stand there and I'm like, I feel like a little kid, you know?

Martha Andrews 35:53
And imagine taking him up to college for the first time at a pretty big, big time college and seeing the people that were going to try and kill him obviously. It's like as a mother, I'm like, we're turning around and going home.

Scott Benner 36:05
Well, yeah, cuz finally they're all as big as him right? Oh, well,

Martha Andrews 36:09
and they were so mean. They had huge beards. I mean, these were men. These were not like 18 year old Mark. Yeah. Did he play biceps as big as his thighs?

Scott Benner 36:21
Did he redshirted? Did he play right away? He redshirted? Yeah, yeah. They're trying to probably get weighed on him at first, right? Did he play? Did he play for years? Or did he get drafted before

Martha Andrews 36:29
he played he had redshirted one year and was played for three years. So he was there for four years. Gotcha. What is his degree in? Business?

Scott Benner 36:41
Well, hopefully he'll be able to use that when he's done playing a lot. That's the plan. Yeah. Excellent. That's really something like I mean, in Oklahoma, did you get to see him play there? Much?

Martha Andrews 36:50
We went a lot. Yeah, we tried to go as often as we could. You know, they don't let you see him except for after the game like in and professional, you can go out to dinner with them the night before the game, or the only time we could see Mark was after the game. You know, if we had a little time, we could go to dinner. At least sit with him at his house or do whatever, but we didn't see him as often.

Scott Benner 37:16
A lot of people might not know about that. You go to your kids college games and you don't like the last thing in the world you want is a coach to see you talking to or making eye contact with your child like you just just keep it all very just I don't know why you feel i That's the that's when I feel like a little kid the most.

Martha Andrews 37:33
Yeah. You don't let the coach see you want

Scott Benner 37:37
to break a rule? You know, it's ridiculous. We should just all walk up the fence or whatever, and be like, Hey, how are you like a human being and then walk away. But instead everybody's just got their head down. And

Martha Andrews 37:47
you have to remember that they have their their game, you know, rituals? Yeah. And you can't mess with that either.

Scott Benner 37:54
Yeah, no, I know. Trust me. I'm aware. I just, it just feels silly. While you're doing it, and you're an adult and you're paying for that school. You don't I mean, that's. Oh my gosh. So at what point did you not look at him and think he's smaller? Did he get to that point in college?

Martha Andrews 38:14
Um, yeah, I mean, he, he definitely was one of the taller players once he actually started playing on the football field after his first year. I mean, he had put on weight. He was strong. He was definitely was one. You know, one of his good buddies is Orlando Brown, who plays for Kansas City right now. And he was six, eight, you know, he's really the only one that made Mark look small. But other than that, I mean, Mark was, you know, towering in that in that huddle?

Scott Benner 38:50
Yeah, well, that's what makes him special, honestly, is that he's that big and he moves well, you know what immunity he can run? Yeah. Yeah. You know, guys that sighs I mean, for the most part and blocking usually get you know, and being more a lineman or he's just, you know, he moves like, he's not that big. So I

Martha Andrews 39:08
think that soccer and basketball Yeah, yeah. From playing man. I think it's made a big difference in his foot. Foot skills and and his speed.

Scott Benner 39:16
Yeah, that's really interesting, because they try to tell you all the time not to just put your kid in one sport and mostly no one listens. Yeah, but he gets it into their head that they can turn this kid into a thing and but I'll tell you right now, like, I don't think he can I think you just, you know, you can get better and you can work hard and all that stuff. But you got to start with. Gonna start with the right pieces. You can't just put it together from out like, I could not suddenly become a bodybuilder. You know what I mean? Like, I could work as hard as I want. It's just it's never gonna come together for me. And that's not necessarily true, Martha, I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's true. I

Martha Andrews 39:50
mean, you take all the right supplements, you get a good trainer. You work really hard.

Scott Benner 39:54
Who's gonna make you might be able to make this podcast while I'm busy doing all that. Oh my gosh. All right. I'm Sorry, so he gets diabetes. Nine years old. Who how's the management work, then? Is he doing it himself? Are you supplementing him? Or How's it go?

Martha Andrews 40:09
Well, I mean, the whole family steps up, we're all involved in the education portion, including his grandparents who who lived up just down the street from us. We all learned what needed to be done. But bottom line, it was Mark that did it. And he started from the very first shot giving it to himself. Occasionally, he, he needed help, maybe inserting money on a pump. But for the most part, he did it. And and I would say, the details like the numbers, the different things we had to remember that was that was really my responsibility. Just you know, but we always had someone with them. He went from being the fourth child, we dropped off at places that some being the fourth child that always had a brother, sister, mother or father with him. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:03
no one. Did anyone resent that? Do you think? Or was everybody kind of on board?

Martha Andrews 41:07
Oh, no. Everybody was on board. Good. That's

Scott Benner 41:09
amazing. So he goes, I mean, is his diabetes, a focal point of his life through through high school? Or is it in the background?

Martha Andrews 41:20
I'd have to say it in the background. It was it a focal point of my life with him in high school, probably. But, you know, it was it was something that Mark did and it really had nothing to do with. He tried not to let it affect, you know, schoolwork, or, or sporting things or being with friends. He took good care of it for the most part. I mean, he wasn't. It's a hard. It's a hard disease to be really perfect that because it throws curveballs on a daily basis, but it wasn't, you know, I don't I would say half this. I'd say 90% of the school didn't even know he had diabetes. And it's certainly not something he hid.

Scott Benner 42:04
Right? Yeah, just just something it just didn't come out a lot. No, yeah, I get that. How about was there? Well, I guess I should ask you first because it's before CGM and everything else. Did you sleep much? Or were you know what

Martha Andrews 42:19
I'm at? I'm a terrible mom, I have to tell you. I don't think I woke up one time in the middle of night to test his blood sugar. Unless he was sick. Yeah, but he was okay. So yeah, he was always okay. And I kind of I talked to you I do this coffee with another woman whose son is older and, and we work with JDRF. And have once a month we have a coffee. Mostly it's it's moms with newly diagnosed or younger children with diabetes, and it's for just the moms and you know, they're up several times a night, they've got the the numbers on their phone. And they're constantly doing that I, I probably should have. And I actually feel really guilty, but I guess I just didn't know to do that.

Scott Benner 43:10
I'm gonna say that before the technology exists that where you could see the blood sugar in real time. That's not what they told you. Right? Like, they probably was what go to bed a little high. You test in the morning. If you're not low, it went okay. And don't think about now you see the CGM and you realize how it can fluctuate. And

Martha Andrews 43:26
it goes so high go so low. I mean, you know, you just hope that that their bodies can feel something when it's really not good and that you always had sugar there, whatever. And I was attentive to him. He took care of himself. But that was now there were mornings it would he would wake up. And we Tet, I'd asked him his numbers. And I remember what number it was really high, and he couldn't even walk, right. I mean, his legs crumbled underneath me threw up. I mean, that was probably a night, I should have woken him up in the middle of the night, see what his numbers were?

Scott Benner 43:57
Yeah, but how would you know if that's how it was done that I'll tell you that for those people who you're talking about who are newly diagnosed, or you know, have the technology and can see it, the key to me, and if you keep listening to the podcast, Martha, you're going to hear it like, to me the key is to just really understand how the insulin works to have a rock solid Basal program Pre-Bolus Your meals to stay away from spikes, you know, don't stare at high blood sugars, kind of, you know, correct them. Understand the different impacts of different foods be flexible, like when you do that, you can start to find stability that actually will will, you know, pay you back overnight, and that's suddenly you're not up all the time. And yeah, top of that these algorithms are insane. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.

Martha Andrews 44:40
Do you did you get up at night?

Scott Benner 44:42
Oh, before the CGM? Yeah, like I was. But my daughter was diagnosed when she was too. Yeah, you had to Yeah. So there was just like, you know, it took me in the beginning. I just thought I was great at it. Like I was, you know, I had this plan. I would get her to like 190. And she'd wake up at like 90 And I thought I was amazing. And then then one night, I just, I found myself wondering like what is happening while she's asleep. And then CGM, like Dexcom became available, and I got the doctor to do this, you know, back then they would give you one blinded for a week to see if your insurance would pay for it used to be like that, you'd have to wear it for a week, then the report would come back. And if you were having Lowe's, and your insurance company would pay for it. So the report comes back, I was putting Arden to bed at 190, she was dropping into the 50s. I'm assuming eventually her liver would kick in and like, give off some glucose. And then she'd drift back up to 90. And when I saw that, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, like, not only am I not good at this, like how was like, I'm lucky, she's okay. You know, and that, that then made me start paying attention to it, but I was not good at it back then. The way I am now, it took me a while to figure out how to create real stability. And to keep blood sugar's at a lower number stable without a risk of like, you know, a quick fall all the time and how to manage karbi or stuff, you know, I'm sure your son must eat like a horse I'm imagining, right, like so like, how do you Bolus for all that stuff, especially as they're growing? Stop a spike without there being a, you know, allow, like, there's, there's episodes of this podcast that are all about just management stuff. And I find that they're not just valuable for me, but for the people listening to.

Martha Andrews 46:31
So I mean, so your daughter doesn't have a lot of highs and lows, she just kind of maintains pretty level.

Scott Benner 46:38
Yeah, the way I draw Yeah, the way we think about it is, I don't want her to be under 70. So we would stop that from happening if it was trying to happen, but it does not try to happen very, very often, probably a time or two a month, you'll get to that 55 or something just goes wonky. You don't know what happened. But on the other side of it. After a meal, I'm okay with like 140 ish 160 I think of as a higher blood sugar, and I think of 180 as a spike. And then when you kind of get yourself in that mindset, and you've got good solid settings, you'd be surprised how infrequently you spike and how infrequently you get low, because it's so much about putting the insulin in at the right times. And that's sort of it. It's, uh, took me a long time to figure all that out and took me even longer to lay it out here in the podcast so people could hear it. Yeah, but it still happens. I mean, I'm not going to tell you that there aren't days where, you know, she's ovulating. And her you know, I can't get her blood sugar to move off to Swanee. And I'm sure you saw growth hormones when Mark was in high school, you probably just didn't even you didn't record it was so

Martha Andrews 47:46
fluctuating. I mean, it's still I mean, he's a meal, it goes up to 300. And you know, then it falls back down to normal number. I just can't, I just can't worry about the highs. Yeah, I can barely worry about the lows. But

Scott Benner 48:04
so you're an interesting position because you came out of a different generation of this, where what you're saying makes complete sense for them. And I I totally understand it, but you tell Mark, if he wants to spend like four days after the season's over, I'll teach him how to Bolus and he won't have highs like that anymore. Okay, it's super time. Yeah, it was how like, you just listen to the podcast if you wanted to. Good luck. Not a podcast guy you don't think? I don't know? You don't know? Is it is that um, is it hard that he still has diabetes, but he's an adult? For you, you worry about him? Do you want to say things? Do you want to ask questions that you don't because you're like, how does that whole relationship work?

Martha Andrews 48:48
Um, well, you know, I knew he was gonna have diabetes as an adult. I mean, I never even thought it was going to be an option. Right? Yeah. So diabetes is the one thing I don't ever hesitate. I'm embarrassing myself. or contacting him when I'm not supposed to. It's It's my job. Even if, you know, I know, he disconnects me sometimes. But I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. I'm gonna you know, I'm always gonna step up if I think you need you know, to treat more or you know, I'll keep calling if he's asleep and his numbers are low and he's not answering. I'll keep calling up keep calling. I'll call a neighbor call, you know, do things he probably is cringing, but um, you know, I have no problem. doing whatever it takes for me to make sure he's healthy and safe. With his diabetes.

Scott Benner 49:55
That's amazing. Also, I think it's hilarious that he does that he takes you off from seeing

Martha Andrews 50:00
Just one time I said, You need to turn me on. I'm like, Oh my God, that didn't sound right.

But yeah, he his brother and I keep keep his numbers. Okay, so he says you call him I said, No, you call? No, you call.

Scott Benner 50:17
I'm imagining a times he's gotten a Texas says, Hey, mom's worried about your blood sugar, you gotta do something. I'm tired. Oh, absolutely.

Martha Andrews 50:22
100% Mom's on my case, will you please take some sugar?

Scott Benner 50:28
It's just kind of like, it's interesting to hear. I mean, listen, we haven't said it directly the entire time we're talking. But the reason I wanted to have you on is because the your relationship and your life. And his accomplishment is, it's so tied to what people worry about when their young children are diagnosed, right? Am I you know, am I or is this disease going to slow my kid down, keep them from accomplishing something. And, you know, people love to hear, I think, from athletes from type one, because it's that it's that thing, we all kind of just, you know, universally agree. Like, you know, it's amazing, like, I listen, I don't know, I love football, but off the top my head on whether they're 30 teams ish in the NFL 3232, they each carry probably one starting tight end, your son is one of the 32 best tight ends in the world, you know what I mean? And I think you could have an argument, he's probably a lot closer than to the top than he is to the bottom. So like that he did that with diabetes, and in a time when they didn't have glucose sensing technology, nearly the way is, is it is today, like, I know, people are gonna hear this and feel good like that maybe my kid has a real shot or I there's things I could be doing that I'm not giving myself credit for being able to do. You know, it's lovely of you to come on and talk about it, because I think it's that important to everybody.

Martha Andrews 52:03
Well, I mean, it is it's important to mark and more importantly, right. So, you know, on his cleats, he said for that my cause my cleats, he he always puts on his cleats, diabetes is a part of me, but I will never let it define me or my dreams. And that's the message he wants to give to people is that I mean, you know, kids, certain kids have a lot of other complications other than just diabetes, it could be a celiac, they could have other autoimmune things going on. So, you know, it's not just as simple as that. And sometimes it's not a sporting thing they want to do it, it's that they want to go and be a fireman, or they want to go to the army. And you think, you know, how do you achieve that? When you're dependent on insulin? I mean, can you know, are you going to be able to do that? Or what if what if you're having a low and you're, you're out in the middle of nowhere? I mean, there's all sorts of things but but it doesn't mean it's impossible. It just means you got to figure out how to make it work. And, and not and you know, you may get a lot of nose. But then there's gonna be someone that might give you that chance. And I think, you know, with Mark, yeah, I personally, this is just coming from me. I thought mark should have been drafted in on the first day, and a higher draft pick in the first round. Yeah, but I think it, it was maybe a little intimidating that he had type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 53:34
Martha. So I'll let me tell you that I had a boy on about six months ago, Patrick wetlander, a pitcher, and he went a lot lower. He was diagnosed as the draft was coming up. And the conversations that people were having with him prior to diabetes, were not the same as they started having after he was diagnosed, he definitely dropped in the draft because of it.

Martha Andrews 53:57
I firmly believe that that is the case. But it only takes one person to believe in you, right? Or to take a risk or whatever it is. You just keep trying and trying until you find that solution. You know, the Raven said it wasn't a factor. So I applaud them. They should have taken him first. But you know, it is what it is. And I think Mark will probably he had probably a pretty good chip on his shoulder because of it. But you know, he just has to go out and do what he needs to do and he needs to take care of himself while he's doing it. I mean, what a diabetic goes through on a daily basis whether you're working in a in a business job, or you're, you're playing baseball or you're as a fireman or a ballerina or a fashion designer. It is so complex for them to get through every single day when everybody else just you know takes it for granted.

Scott Benner 54:58
Yeah, no It's, it's important that you don't give up because you will meet somebody along the way. Right. And you never know who your efforts gonna touch. You know, Sam folds been on here a number of times it Sam played for the Oakland A's and a number of different pro teams for he was in the league for like eight years. It's actually the general manager of the Phillies right now. But because he played baseball, he, you know, he played for a guy who managed him who now knows, you know, it's not a big deal to have a type one on the team. And then that guy goes off and he's a manager somewhere else, then the next kid comes along, and you got to think that in his head, he thinks, Well, you know, Sam did it. Like, right, maybe that's not maybe the next time the draft rolls around. I mean, maybe there are 31 other teams that are like, geez, we skipped this kid because he had diabetes, and we all should have taken him. Right, because by the third, he was taken to the third round, right, third round. Yeah. So I take your point, I would agree with you too. And that means they all passed on him multiple times. Maybe even right, you know, before somebody took him and now they're all I mean, he is legit. I mean, I think you know, that, like your, your kid can really play so good. Let them all let them all I feel bad about the crow. Yeah, no kidding. And, and other things to not just diabetes, like, you know, I mean, I don't know how you look up at him and think this is gonna be a problem. I mean, he played at Oklahoma for, you know, for all three years. Like, he obviously knows how to do it. It's

Martha Andrews 56:27
yeah. And he was he was a Mackey award winner. Was he? For tight ends. No kidding. He was all American, unanimous All American. And you wonder, you know, what do you think in that, that, that it was fake what he did? So I could go on forever about that. I just want to

Scott Benner 56:45
I don't want to get in trouble here. But was it palpable, palpable, palpable, palpable in the house, on when it didn't happen on the first day? Were you like, did anybody did your husband and you go into a closet and be like, this is the diabetes or like, you don't? I mean,

Martha Andrews 57:01
it was uncomfortable on the second day. Okay. After you know, okay, so we didn't go first round their second round. And then that was when it got a little tougher,

Scott Benner 57:12
huh. I imagine when you see other people going at your position that you think skills wise, you're like, oh, yeah, well, yeah. What's happening? Do you have a be honest? Is there a list of tight ends no longer in the league that we're taking ahead of your son hanging in your house anywhere? No, my, my daughter played softball very competitively. When she was younger, she had a she had a list of kids. So my daughter was small, but very, very athletic with an amazing arm. And she was just a really great third baseman. And she had a small list of all the girls, they tried to put in front of her third base that she knocked off a third base over and over again. And that's awesome. Yeah, part of me thought it wasn't healthy. But the other part of me is I really lit a fire for sighs like, she's like, Yeah, come back from practice you'd like now they're trying to put this one there. And I was like, Okay. I got beat her to I was like, All right.

Martha Andrews 58:07
Yeah, whatever they need to do to get through the day.

Scott Benner 58:10
No, no, it's Listen, no one's gonna know how hard it is. Unless they do it. My son puts so much effort and time into sports. It's, you know, it happens in the middle of winter when nobody else would think it's happening. It happens in the dead of summer when he's the only one standing outside. And 105 degree heat trying to get better at something and yeah, it is so true. It is not easy at all.

Martha Andrews 58:34
No. And they don't come home. They're not home for holidays there. Yeah.

Scott Benner 58:39
Oh, God. Spring break is baseball tournament. Yeah,

Martha Andrews 58:42
I Oh, absolutely.

Scott Benner 58:43
I haven't been on a vacation at the time. Most people go on vacation. And I can't even I don't even know when the last time was that go to his games? Yes, much. Yeah, I make almost all of them. That's impressive. Yeah, he's they have a lot of games. Yeah. But he's within driving distance of us. And that's good. I don't make the ones during the week. They make the weekend games usually. And it just it to me. Like this is a conversation probably every parent of a kid who goes off to college to play something has. He's been playing baseball since he's four. And he finally made it like I forget how old he was eight or nine years old when he said to me, like, I'm gonna play baseball in college. I don't even think he knew what college was when he said, you know, and I'm like, Alright, man, like, you know, when they say like, okay, you know, and, and there's still little kids and there's kids on this team at that time that look like they're better than him. And that happens every year. Every year. Somebody looks like they're better than you but they don't work as hard or whatever. And I just said to my buddy, I was like, he's been playing since he's four he made it to college. I'm like, What am I gonna stop going now? Right? Like this is like this is the this is it? Like he probably doesn't go farther than this. I've got four years left to watch him play baseball. And awesome, you know, so yeah, we make as many as we can. Is there anything about all of this but I didn't think to ask you about.

Martha Andrews 1:00:03
Um, yeah, it's pretty much been pretty open. You know, I've been interviewed quite a few times about Mark and, and one of the things that I do know, that is so important is the family is critical, the friends are critical. Making sure that, you know, you're not a T, one D. And nobody else knows about it, that it really does take a village and caring for them. And I know Mark understands that as much as maybe it drives him crazy. He knows that he needs all of us to be on board to support him. And, you know, I'm so thankful that we we've been lucky enough where he went to college, and I walked down the aisle had a meeting with the doctors and the coaches, when we first got there, they probably thought it was crazy. But I told him, I had to meet with them and said, You know, I don't want my son to die here. So we have to have a game plan, and everybody needs to be on board. Yeah. And, and you know, they all stepped up, it was very impressive. And it's been pretty similar. In Baltimore, when I've needed them, they've been there. And his brothers and sister are always there to take care of things they need to take care of. And they look out for him. They go out when he's here, you know, with his buddies, you know, going out enjoying themselves. They like to go with him. Not because you know, they're they're babysitting or anything, they just, you know, it's the right thing to do. And

Scott Benner 1:01:47
you So do you ever wonder or worry about like, if he, if he's dating, I'm not asking you if he's dating. But like that idea of like, you start meeting a partner who understands type one as well. Do you think? Do you ever think about that? Because a lot of parents come on here and talk about that, like, they're worried that their kids are going to end up with somebody who won't support them or understand things like that. I haven't

Martha Andrews 1:02:09
worried about that. I mean, he doesn't he's not dating you by now. He has dated someone, you know, people in the past. And they they have been supportive. I mean, I don't know, if they've been supportive, or I've made them support. It's like this, you will do this. It's not a choice. I do it with his friends, too. I mean, this is this is who he is. This is how we take care of it. And if you're going to be a part of his life, you have to be on board.

Scott Benner 1:02:36
Do you think that people would like, you think that his size makes people think of him as older than he is? Has that always happened through his life?

Martha Andrews 1:02:44
Yes, yeah. Always. Always. And he's a pretty mature kid. I mean, I think diabetes makes you very mature at an early age. Yeah. And I think and he, you know, being the youngest of four, being as tall as he is, I mean, he, he comes across much older than any Yes,

Scott Benner 1:03:02
yeah, it was just as I'm just thinking, like, you know, as he's walking out the door, and you're grabbing one of his friends and you're like, Listen, do you know how the glucagon works? And

Martha Andrews 1:03:11
it but isn't that the truth? No, call me you know, they, his college roommate called when he couldn't get them to wake up his his high school buddies. Bring him home immediately. When he's not acting right. You know, either they test they try and get sugar in it. If they still can't take care of it. They brought him home. Yeah, you know, something's wrong with Mark,

Scott Benner 1:03:29
you need a group of people around you. It makes it much, much easier. Yeah, I percent. Listen, I didn't know if he was dating. But I gotta be honest, if I was his age, and in the shape he was in and just signed the contract he did. I wouldn't be dating anybody either.

Martha Andrews 1:03:42
First of all, he doesn't have time. And he like, likes to meet as many people as possible.

Scott Benner 1:03:49
That's the route I would go to. I think he's handled it just perfectly. Anyway. Well, I just, I can't thank you enough for doing this. It really was. It's lovely speaking with you. Maybe we need to do this again. Actually, I was just thinking you said you have a coffee thing is that like an in person thing you do local. We

Martha Andrews 1:04:10
were doing it in person. And it was great. We once a month we'd have coffee over the other hosts or my house and JDRF would you know they're sponsoring it and people would come and we I mean, we all cried. Sometimes we'd have grandparents there. Sometimes it'd be the dad, sometimes it'd be the mom. And we just you know, we'd have different topics. We have different guest speakers. We went to zoom. I think their numbers increase because it's a little bit easier to be you know, someone that works, can can listen in. And it's it's just been a for me, I need to I need to I don't know represent. I'm someone who was scared to death to send a child to college and I You know, I survived it, I'm scared to death, let him drive, he's driving, you know, all the things that I was scared to death to do. But he did. And we survived it. And he's excelling. So, you know, I feel like it's my duty to help these, these moms who are just in the weeds, when that first diagnosis comes through. And, you know, whatever we can do to support that, and let them know that we we understand what they're going through. And it doesn't it it, it never goes away. But it's just not so intense. Once you understand it a little bit better.

Scott Benner 1:05:40
Yeah, I usually tell people that diabetes doesn't get easier. But at some point, you'll get so good at it that it might feel easy once in a while. Right, you know, and just the idea that it alleviates a little bit once you get your footing, and you really know what you're doing. And you've had some experiences that have led to more knowledge, and all of a sudden you start putting it together. And before you know it, you're like, Oh, we're not bad at this.

Martha Andrews 1:06:02
Right? Yeah. And you know, people need to know, what do you take for sugar? What do you take for? What do you do? How do you travel? How do you do this? How do you do that? I mean, there's so many questions. You can't just sit and call your doctor all the time. And, you know, so I think it's great when we're not moms can talk or they got it one of those diabetes dogs. Yeah. What does that look like? And it's not what you think, you know, it's hard work. And

Scott Benner 1:06:27
just the dog just doesn't sit in the corner, like a superhero. And every time it needs something, yeah,

Martha Andrews 1:06:32
that it is the network kind of thing. It's just going to solve all your problems, but it doesn't, you know, and, and so learning about that is so helpful on it if we can, if we can alleviate some of the questions and concerns or, or give them tools to help it make it easier, then I'm all for that.

Scott Benner 1:06:50
Excellent. Me too. And you are going to reach a lot of people doing this. So you've done that today as well. I really appreciate your time.

Martha Andrews 1:06:57
Well, it's always my pleasure, and you make us You make me feel very comfortable talking to you. So I appreciate that. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:07:04
I It's my goal for you to feel comfortable. Plus, how are you going to say that you think your kids should have gone higher? If you're nervous? I need

Martha Andrews 1:07:13
am I going to get in trouble for that? I don't know

Scott Benner 1:07:15
you're going to but the whole time I was sitting here I was thinking like, like, Mark, I'll just bleep this out later. But like through the entire thing. I'm like, how did that kid go in the third round? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. And and then you said it, I thought, Well, how did I not think of that? Because I just interviewed a kid who said the same thing happened to him? Just it's just I don't know, I think it's because your son's built like a, like a giant that I don't think of anything. Being serious. Like, I don't think of anything being able to touch him. But like, look how easily this happened. You know, and I mean, listen, it's, you know, I feel like it probably all worked out really well for him in the end. But, you know, it's also a tough game like he could, you know, I mean, he could have snapped his head off nine games into it never, never made any money. And you know, you could be sitting here, it'd be a different story.

Martha Andrews 1:08:06
So I will tell you when he was chosen for the Pro Bowl, which, you know, was a huge, huge, huge, huge accomplishment. Yeah. It was the first time he felt validated in his professional career. And I think he'd always kind of felt like that. Being picked, so many people, so many Titans being chosen before him. Then he wins the starting spot at the ravens and he wasn't the first tied in, and he wins, you know, and then he gets in the Pro Bowl. And for him, it was some validation. And he was actually it's the first time he was able to talk about it with us about his feelings through that process. So I thought that was, you know, that was a, that was a really special moment for all of us.

Scott Benner 1:09:04
I would imagine it feels some I mean, not that it could feel much better. But, you know, he definitely knows nobody handed it to him. Right. And that's absolutely that's got to feel really great. You know, just because you come out of a pedigree College, especially, I mean, if I'm, Listen, I'm not an aficionado, but Oklahoma makes tight ends, right.

Martha Andrews 1:09:25
I have no idea. I don't know football. But they make they make winning football. Yeah, they win football game. I mean, that's for sure. And that's why he went there, you know, and he could have gotten a lot. He could have gone anywhere you wanted. But you know, he went

Scott Benner 1:09:40
there purposely and you Yeah. And I just listen, I listen, I have a different perspective than maybe some people would because I have a child who plays a sport and I know what goes into it. And I also imagine that it could sound silly to somebody else, right? Like, oh, you weren't drafted in the first round draft. Like who cares boohoo It's like big work. Yeah. But you don't you might not know. You know what I mean? Like, there are things that, you know, while the rest of you are sitting around, you know, and you're watching television or doing whatever you're doing, like, I can hear my son in the basement when he's home from school, lifting weights and putting them back down and write him off and putting them down and, and he's the one who goes out and stands on a baseball field and throws a ball over and over and over again. So that the one time in a game that it happens, and it happens at full speed. He makes that throw the way he means to and you know, he'll he'll, for every amazing thing I've ever seen my son do in a baseball game. I saw him do it 1000 times on a practice

Martha Andrews 1:10:39
field. Exactly. So well put, yeah, so well put,

Scott Benner 1:10:43
it really isn't as simple as you know, you could say it's just a game if you want, but you put your whole life into anything. It's not just anything. You know, it's it's what you've been putting your focus into. So, yeah, yeah. And it's so worth it. I'll never forget the first time I saw a kid put a ball into a gap, you know, in the right center field and the largest offense and the kid on the first thought he was gonna make it the third and my son stands up like Superman and puts that ball in the third base. And it is hard not to stand up and go yo, did you all just see what my kid did? That was my son. And I imagine you know how that feels. It's very hard to hold that inside. Just stand up and you're very politely clap at a baseball. Oh, good job. Nice. Throw it inside. You're thinking my son's much better than yours. And there you go. And I'm not trying to get you to say that I just, I really, it is just it's a it's a it's an overwhelming wash of pride. Because you know how much effort he put into it. And not that the other don't put that kind of effort into it. But when it pans out, it's it's just kind of special, you know, and you deserve. You deserve what you deserve after that, so. Alright, well, Martha, I'm glad you had a good time. I did. I will say goodbye to you now. Thank you so much course Hold on one second for me.

I am not afraid to set the bar high by coming out of the gate strong in 2022 with Mark Andrews mom about that right. And NFL football players mommy was on the show. How cool is that? I want to thank Dexcom for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and remind you to go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to get started today. But the best darn CGM that I've ever seen, held, touched or looked at through the internet. And don't forget about that on the pod promise Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. If you've been wanting to switch to a pump, or get rid of your tubing, there's no better time than right now to make that decision and get started.

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