#640 Defining Thyroid: Thyroiditis

Scott and Jenny Smith define thyroid terms.

In this Defining Thyroid episode, Scott and Jenny explain Thyroiditis.

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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 640 of the Juicebox Podcast.

In this the seventh installment of the defining thyroid series, Jenny Smith and I will define thyroiditis. So far in the defining thyroid series, we've tackled hypothyroidism, and Hashimotos thyroiditis. That's an episode 616. In Episode 619, we define pituitary and thyroid glands. In Episode 624, we defined P S H testing, and in Episode 628, we define T four and T three. In episode 632. We talked about auto immune episode 636 was goiter, and today in Episode 640 thyroiditis. 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 are becoming bold with insulin?

If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and are a US resident, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. And take the survey. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor, learn more and get started today@dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. It's at that very link that you'll be able to say hello to Dexcom. Let's define thyroiditis

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:09
I was checking off. So I remember which of these as well. I'm sure you probably

Scott Benner 2:13
Well, I I appreciate that we've known each other long enough that you're not 100% sure if I'm doing it so that you're handling it to which I really appreciate. Thyroid is is interesting because my wife has hypothyroidism my daughter's had it for years. My son has Hashimotos now and until I met Dr. BENITO nobody ever said the words thyroiditis to me ever. And she used it so much. While she was talking to us that I thought Well, this must be important because she has said it a number of times. Can you tell me what it is?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:48
It's the swelling, right? Just swelling of the thyroid gland. Correct? Yeah. And which can either cause high or low levels of the thyroid hormones kind of into the bloodstream or in circulation. That's my general idea of what thyroiditis and I mean, itis is really inflammation. So that's anything that ends in itis is an inflammatory type of condition. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:15
Interestingly enough around this because I don't think there's a ton to talk about around this. When when she was saying it, I I had no like I said, I had no context and I jumped a thyroid storm, in my mind in my head for some reason. But those are not the same thing. No, right. So I'm going to blend those two here together just because why not keep my confusion together. thyroid storm also referred to as a thyrotoxic crisis is an acute life threatening hypermetabolic state induced by excessive release of thyroid hormones, T H s in individuals with thyroid toxicity, Tyro Toxis store, thyroid storm may be the initial presentation of thyroid Toxis. I know I'm not saying that right. firerock thyroid talk. Holy God,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:12
is it there? Is it there a toxic Kosis Is there a sea of courses? Yes, yes. thyrotoxicosis.

Scott Benner 4:18
If I were gonna say that word, thyroids. I'll do it again, thyroid store and maybe the initial presentation of thyroid toxicosis in undiagnosed children. Okay. All right. So a thyroid storm, is I didn't realize this is much more serious than thyroiditis, thyroiditis is inflammation. thyroid storm is is a real like legitimate problem. That's interesting. So these are just words you may hear while you're talking about your thyroid issues in the doctor's office, and I didn't want people like I don't think they're like, I don't think thyroid thyroiditis and thyroid storm are things that you're going to need to know day to day while you're managing your thyroid issues. But I don't want you to be in the situation I was in where I was sitting there with a dumb look on my face gone. Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, thyroid is right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:12
Once every storm from what I know, is very, it's rare. Yeah. Right. That is not a it's not, you know,

Scott Benner 5:20
it's not likely something you're going to see. But I think it's I do think it's a phrase that people know. Because, yes, I know it. Then other people have to know because I'm not like, you know, I mean, prior to this, I wasn't digging around for words like that. And I remember when I said it the first time privately, Dr. BENITO was like, no, no, no, she put her hand up like it was COVID time. So we were talking through video, she put her hand up, she was that is not the same thing. And I was like, Oh, well, there goes me sounding like I know what I'm talking about. But I just wanted to have them here in the series, because, you know, I think you're going to hear them. And if you do, you should.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:00
Well, and I. Yeah, I was gonna say in in from what I remember about just the term thyroid storm, which again, I think it's a general enough term that some people may not know enough about it or may misunderstand, from what I know about it, just the general it's much more relative to treatment, that has not gone the right way for Graves disease. Okay. I believe, again, rare as it is, if you're treating hyperactive thyroid with what they it's like a, it's like a radioactive iodine that's used. It can result in thyroid storm. But that's again, it's rare to happen. So it's not something to be concerned if that's the therapy that they're going to use for your greatest disease. But it can occur I

Scott Benner 6:58
see. Yeah, because it's saying here that your heart rate your blood pressure, your body temperature can all soar to dangerously high levels during a thyroid storm. So this is not something that people who just have hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism are gonna see this this is yeah, very specifically very specific. Yeah, to you. Oh, wow. That's really crazy. While the symptoms are insane, fever, sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, delirium, severe weakness, seizures, irregular heartbeat, yellow skin, jaundice. Yeah, this is not I want to be clear, this is not something that most any of you are going to run into. If you have it, it's good to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:37
clear up what it is to be able to say, you know, definitively, you're very likely, you're more unlikely to have this ever happened to you. But this is what it is just in case somebody, you know, sort of strangely uses the term and you're like, I don't know, I don't know exactly what that is.

Scott Benner 7:55
I'll tell you the one thing that switching back to thyroiditis, when Dr. BENITO was talking to us about it privately, you know, Arden had a swing in her health at one point, and she kind of the doctor kind of couldn't figure out what it was a couple years. Okay. And she just said, Well, this just might be thyroiditis, and we're gonna have to wait for it to pass and calm and like she almost made it sound like you know, you can get a swelling of you know, and it can happen. It says the, the most common cause of thyroiditis. Some of the agents known to cause thyroiditis are antibodies. This is the most common cause drugs, radiation organisms like viruses or bacteria, conditions in which the body attacks itself, or autoimmune disease. thyroiditis can be an autoimmune disease while we know that, but the way she made it sound was like, well, maybe Arden just had a virus and it and her thyroids acting up because of it. And we'll we'll get on top of it with medication, retest her later and see if we can move we'll move the medication back when it's time. That could I guess that, you know, for most people, I mean, I really love bringing this up, because I'm a very strange person. I don't have a thyroid issue. And I am really enjoying talking about this. But but it's because you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:09
live, you live with enough thyroid issues. Right?

Scott Benner 9:13
I did I know how important it is to really understand it so that you can see what's happening around you and make adjustments. And moreover, because of my job, and the amount of people I see who have, you know, some sort of hyper hypothyroidism Graves disease who live in this in this bubble. I see how many people are not managing it well, don't understand it and are struggling very needlessly and correct. That's why I wanted to do this because it's just, it's just it's not it's this tiny little pill, you take it once a day. It's not that hard, you know, and it's a huge help for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:49
you. I think the hard thing is finding somebody who can manage that medication well for you and that the other hard part is paying close enough attention to your own body. You know, when something is not right anymore, that you can say, you know, my meds have been working really great. Everything's been in line, Hey, Doc, I'm getting this symptom back or I've got this like new and it's just sort of started and otherwise I feel okay, but this is not right. So it's always important to bring up anything that doesn't seem right once medications are well managed, because it could mean that something has changed. And you may need more or less.

Scott Benner 10:28
Jenny is doing a great job of getting us ready to talk about the next topic. Very good, Jenny, that's awesome. Look at you just segwaying away. Seriously, you should put this on your CV. Thinking

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:40
about doing that. It's just what was in my mind in terms of our context.

Scott Benner 10:45
But it works, because the next thing we're going to talk about is how to treat your thyroid. So you did Oh, all right. Awesome. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon. Yeah. Cool. I think you should put podcaster on your CV.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:57
I think, you know, I actually I probably should, I mean, I've done this enough with you. I mean, that I probably

Scott Benner 11:04
really good. I like to see it on your I want to see it on there. Let's get it in.

Before I tell you about the sponsor Dexcom. I'd like to thank you for listening to the defining thyroid series. It's not over yet. There are a few more episodes, but I'm getting a crazy amount of positive feedback from the listeners. And I appreciate it. This is a little bit of a departure from the diabetes stuff. But I thought it was really important. And I'm glad you're enjoying it. You can say hello to dexcom@dexcom.com forward slash juice box. I'm going to give you an example a real life example of something that's going on in our house right now. So my daughter has to be on a steroid pack for six days. And as you will know, if you've ever tried to take steroids, and you have type one diabetes, those steroids can make your blood sugar go up significantly. And with my daughter, they tried, but I knew I was going to combat it with a significant Basal increase. But that's a scary thing to do, isn't it? Right? As an example, my daughter's Basal is 1.1 An hour during the day, right now. And I didn't know how much I was going to have to increase it. So what do I do? Well, I use the data that was coming back from the Dexcom to make adjustments almost in real time to Ardens. Basal needs to know how much she ended up needing per hour to combat those steroids. four units an hour, I can tell you right now, that without seeing my daughter's blood sugar in real time, right in front of me on my phone, I would never have had the nerve to go from 1.1 to four. But that ends up being what she needed. And I was assisted by the data that came back from the Dexcom G six. That is just one example of how having that constant feedback of blood sugar data is valuable. I mean, just imagine the same situation, but a growth spurt. Or maybe some female hormones are in play. You can make adjustments and see their impacts in real time. You can see your blood sugar on the Dexcom receiver or on an iPhone or an Android phone. That was a big help to me today. Being able to see my daughter's blood sugar's when she wasn't with me when I sent her off to school with a Basal rate that was four times normal. That gave me a lot of pause. But I felt comfortable because a I knew it was working. It had been working for a number of hours at home and be I knew if something went crazy, I'd see it right on my phone. And I'd be able to do something about it right away. The Dexcom G six shows you what your blood sugar is. It shows you what direction it's moving if it's moving, and it tells you how quickly it's moving in that direction. This information is of key importance dexcom.com Ford slash juice box. These are my results. Yours may vary of course. But I'm going to tell you right now, the speed, direction and number of your blood sugar right there on your phone. There's nothing like it. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player, and links at juicebox podcast.com. For Dexcom. And all of the sponsors. When you click on the links, you're supporting the show, head over now and say hello to Dexcom dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. I'll be back very soon, with much much more

If you're wondering what signs and symptoms to look for in hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism, Graves' disease and Hashimotos I'm going to list them all for you right now. If you already know what they are. Well then thanks so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast, but if you're waiting for the signs and symptoms they're gonna happen like right now. symptoms of hypothyroidism Farey the Mayo Clinic list of possible symptoms as fatigue, increased sensitivity to cold constipation, dry skin weight gain, puffy face, hoarseness, muscle weakness, elevated blood cholesterol level, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, pain stiffness or swelling in your joints heavier than normal or irregular menstrual periods. thinning hair slow heart rate depression impaired memory enlarged thyroid gland, which could be known as a goiter. If you're looking for this in infants, you might also look for a large protruding tongue difficulty breathing, hoarse, crying, an umbilical hernia, or yellowing of the skin and whites of the eyes. As the disease progresses in infants, you may also notice constipation, poor muscle tone and excessive sleepiness. In teens, you may notice poor growth resulting in short stature, delayed development of permanent teeth, delayed puberty or poor mental development. Let's move on to hyperthyroidism. Still on the Mayo Clinic's website, they say of course, that hyperthyroidism can mimic other health problems. We've been talking about this through all these episodes, you know that unintentional weight loss even when your appetite and food intake stay the same or increase, rapid heartbeat, irregular heartbeat, pounding of your heart, increased appetite, nervousness, anxiety, and irritability. Tremors usually a fine trembling in your hands or fingers, sweating changes in menstrual patterns. increased sensitivity, heat, changes in bowel patterns, especially more frequent bowel movements, and enlarged thyroid gland of course called a goiter, which may appear a swelling at the base of your neck, fatigue, muscle weakness, difficulty sleeping, skin thinning, find embrittle hair. For Graves disease, you're looking for dry eyes, red or swollen eyes, excessive tearing or discomfort in one or both eyes, light sensitivity, blurred or double vision, inflammation or reduced eye movement, protruding eyeballs. Just quickly Hashimotos disease which as we know is an autoimmune version of hypothyroidism. Hashimotos disease progresses slowly over the years you may not notice signs or symptoms of the disease. Eventually the decline in thyroid hormone production can result in any the following. There gonna be a lot of duplicates here from hypothyroidism, fatigue and sluggishness, increased sensitivity to cold increase sleepiness, dry skin, constipation, muscle weakness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, joint pain and stiffness, irregular or excessive menstrual bleeding, depression, problems with memory or concentration, swelling of the thyroid, the goiter of puffy face, brittle nails, hair loss, enlargement of the tongue. I'd like to just finish by saying that if you have any of these, please see a doctor get a simple blood test and get yourself some answers. Don't forget a TSH over two is enough reason to be concerned. Treat your symptoms, not the lab values. Thanks again for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#639 Give Your Head A Shake

Nicole is an R.N. who was diagnosed during the pandemic.

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

---

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 639 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Nicole is on the show today to tell her story. She is a registered nurse who was diagnosed with type one diabetes. During the pandemic. She learned a lot about what hospitals and nurses know about diabetes, and a lot about what she thought she knew. Get ready to have fun with Nicole. She's really wonderful. 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 old with insulin. Are you a type one to like Nicole? Do you live in the United States? Are you the caregiver of a type one? Who is a US resident if you are, to my mind is that good news? Because that makes you eligible to take the survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. The survey is quick and simple and easy. And it helps people with type one diabetes T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod promise. Learn more today at Omni pod.com. Forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one. There are a diabetes organization out there doing good work for people with type one. And all they want is for you to check them out. They're are touched by type one.org. And they're on Instagram and Facebook. This is going to test my skills today. I'll tell you that much.

Nicole 2:08
Yeah, I bet it sounds like you've had an overwhelming last 24 hours. Yeah,

Scott Benner 2:13
yeah, I kinda have. Oh, my God. I am. Or you're a nurse, right? Yeah, I'm

Nicole 2:20
a registered nurse.

Scott Benner 2:21
Yeah. Have you ever worked in a hospital setting? Yeah, I

Nicole 2:24
did up until my diagnosis. So I had 15 years at our local hospital here.

Scott Benner 2:30
Wow. So we're not recording yet. But you know, I just, I mean, I just dropped my mom off at her at her apartment and watched her barely be able to get into bed and just kind of flopped down. But it was, you know, and I call you sent a message to my brothers. And I said, Listen, we have to talk because I don't think like if if things stay like this, like mom can take care of herself.

Nicole 2:57
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And even just the basic of bladder infections is takes so much out of the elderly. Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:06
No, yeah. It's fascinating. It really isn't. And, and she's, you know, she was getting by before, but now if she doesn't get hungry or doesn't remember to keep drinking, then she just lapses right back into into the same problem again. Exactly. So it's a it's really something and she didn't my mom never like, you know, my mom and dad didn't exactly save money and take good care of themselves. And now she doesn't have any money. So she's looking at basically going to a place, you know, whatever place will accept, you know, her Social Security check in exchange for living there, basically.

Nicole 3:43
Yeah, exactly. I was wondering how that works in the States, because of course, our medical systems are somewhat different here in Canada. But yeah, we do have government funded care homes here in Canada as well. And then otherwise, the ones you pay for are extremely expensive. They're they're minimum. $5,000 a month.

Scott Benner 4:07
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't know who's paying for that. So yeah, it's it's certainly not her, you know? Yeah. You're just like, wow, this is crazy. And not only that, but you start looking at her age, and you're doing the math, and you're like, Oh, this is it. This is the last few years of her life. Oh, you know, it just it just feels that way. And yeah. And I'm sure it's possible, she could just pop back up a week from now and be like, I feel better.

Nicole 4:32
But definitely, it's definitely possible.

Scott Benner 4:35
Yeah, at the moment, it's just, I don't know, but a side of her. It made me feel like, oh, hell. First of all, I've always seen life as like a group of people in a line standing at a cliff. And just, you know, like, one goes off like a lemming and you're like, I'm one person closer to having a cliff. You know, my mom was the last person in front of me So,

Nicole 5:00
yeah, totally. That's, that's an interesting way of looking at it. But yeah, I guess it's very true.

Scott Benner 5:06
Like, oh my god, I'm next. And I said to my wife this morning, I was like, so basically, your childhood is just bull. Like, you know, when you're by the time you get to a certain age, you don't even remember being a kid. It's almost meaningless. And like I said, that's like a proving ground situation. You find out if you're strong enough to stay alive, and you know, you're not going to cry all the time, or, you know, drop dead from appendicitis now, okay, I'm in my 20s. I said, You bet. Yeah, you basically have from like, 25 When your brain really solidifies to maybe 45 The first time you think, why does my knee hurt for no reason? Exactly. That's like your whole life right there. 25 To 40

Nicole 5:44
It is. Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting to that point. I just turned 38. And yeah, it's like, wow, I'm kind of achy. When it rains. That's, that's a new sensation.

Scott Benner 5:55
Yeah. So I'm, I'm my assumption. And by the way, now, I've realized I'm probably leaving all this in the podcast, but that's okay. But um, but now I've realized like, it's the cooking part in the beginning, the living part in the middle and the dying part at the end. You're basically there's 1/3 of your of your life is like really great.

Nicole 6:14
Yeah, and you better make the best of it. Right?

Scott Benner 6:16
Holy Hell, yeah. Yeah. I sit down. I was like, Kelly's, like, what do you think about all this? I said two things. A, we need to retire as soon as possible. Yeah, I was like, MB, we need a suicide pack in case one of us can't take care of ourselves. We've got to decide when it's time to go and, and really agree on it up front, because now I talked to my mom. And I'm like, it's not even like it's not, it's not all her anymore. You know, I mean, like she's older, she slower her body slower, but her mind slower to try to have too much of a deep conversation. You realize like she's just parroting back which what we're talking about sometimes? Yeah, it's

Nicole 6:56
fast. Yeah. It's it's difficult to see your parents hit that stage of life. Like I, you know, my parents are still quite young. But you see that in families of patients I take care of at the hospital. And it's it's a really difficult time. You don't ever want to see your parents like that. And and, and it will come one day.

Scott Benner 7:16
Yeah, if you're lucky. That's the irony. Dammit. This is yeah, this is the best case scenario is you don't

Nicole 7:23
Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. How old is she again?

Scott Benner 7:28
She's 79. Yes, yes. Okay. So, anyway, introduce yourself, and we'll start talking.

Nicole 7:39
Yeah, so um, my name is Nicole, and I live in British Columbia, Canada and a city called Kelowna. And I'm a registered nurse.

Scott Benner 7:51
Oh, God, Nicole, right off the bat. I don't know where the hell you're at. Now, I gotta say British Columbia. That doesn't even sound like yeah, Google Maps that I'm doing it right now. Sure. Oh, you live in Washington State. Just say that.

Nicole 8:08
No, no, I it's it's Canada.

Scott Benner 8:12
I know. But I'm saying it's right there.

Nicole 8:15
Oh, yes. You're very close. Yes. Are you?

Scott Benner 8:18
Are you close to the US? Or are you up more north? More north? Because it to my eye. This corner of this British Columbia? You're almost in Alaska.

Nicole 8:31
I'm pretty far away from Alaska. Okay, so you're not that far up? God? No. All right.

Scott Benner 8:37
So you're like, Canadian, like, not like that upper part like the Yukon. And

Nicole 8:44
well, actually, now that you say that I was born and raised in the Yukon, really. So I did live there until I was 17. And that is very northern and we were an hour and a half away from Alaska. And then when I graduated high school, I got into the nursing program at the University of British Columbia in Kelowna. So then I moved here and I took my training and I never left.

Scott Benner 9:11
You know, when you said you were born in the Yukon, my first thought like the question that popped into my head is how did the lady's vaginas not freeze when they're having a baby? Literally the first thing I thought which is

Nicole 9:25
there is modern medicine. So they do go to the hospital for that but yes, it is very cold there.

Scott Benner 9:30
Yeah, I mean, that thought right there is either the reason why people like this podcast or the reason why people hate me. I don't know the difference but yeah, I think it's why we love you genuinely my first thought like the wooden they like, just like the laybys and like I had a whole like like, the cold air hits it and what's going on the kid is the kids I have a hard time getting out of bed if the ceiling fans on.

Nicole 9:54
Know where I live, it's in wine country and we this summer we had a heatwave of an average temperature of 46 degrees Celsius. You're gonna have to convert that into Fahrenheit for me, but it's very hot.

Scott Benner 10:07
Let's just say this. I have no idea how to convert that. So let me just keep going with my, it was 114 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. In Canada?

Nicole 10:19
Yes.

Scott Benner 10:20
Did this sled dogs all die? What happened?

Nicole 10:22
That's crazy in the Yukon. They probably did. Yeah. But yeah, it's it was quite intense. And I mean, the seriousness of it is that there were some fatalities because, you know, there are some older homes in Canada that don't have air conditioning. And, you know, there's elderly people that just can't they, they can't manage those temperatures. So yeah, it was it was pretty crazy.

Scott Benner 10:50
Interestingly enough, two things. Are you on wired headphones? Yes. Try not to touch the microphone or let it hit your hair. Okay, sounds good. And the other thing I was gonna say was with older, elderly people, sometimes they don't know they're warm when they're warm. Exactly. That's the biggest problem is they're basically just cooking and they don't realize it until it's too late. Really? Exactly. Yeah. Crazy. I have to say that in the Northeast here of the of the US. I mean, I don't know about the rest of the country because I'm I'm not keeping tabs. But it had to have been one of the wettest summers I've lived through in my memory this year. Like, wow,

Nicole 11:32
and ours was the driest. No kidding. I think. Isn't that interesting?

Scott Benner 11:37
It just rained and rained and rained and wouldn't stop. And it was inches of rain at a time not just like, wow, that's just a storm. Wow. Yeah, that was really that's really interesting. Okay, so yeah, you're born. They're up in the I mean, I'm guessing like the hinterlands is a way to say I don't know, what's your like? Do you live in a tree for the first part of your life? Or how does that work? Igloo? Igloo? Alright, hold on a second. You know, I'm just joking. I love how Canadian you are. You're like, Oh, don't take me seriously. I didn't live in a nuclear i. So oh, there's buildings. I see it with Google.

Nicole 12:15
Yeah, there's, there's a few buildings there for sure.

Scott Benner 12:18
Do you know that when I look down at the map, I learned there's a gulf of California. I was like, Wait,

Unknown Speaker 12:24
I don't think I do that either.

Scott Benner 12:26
Right. You didn't. I mean, nobody knows who there's no one listening. Who knows that everyone understands Gulf of Mexico. It's an obvious thing. But exactly. Apparently, below San Diego. Like California has like a I don't want to say a penis. I don't know what it is. Exactly. There's something sticking down off of California. It's probably another Hold on. I'm gonna Oh, it's Oh, Baja. I know nothing. Okay, so it looks like Baja goes all the way down almost like midway into Mexico. And then there's this Yeah. What are what you knew that?

Nicole 13:01
Well, is that where Cabo San Lucas says maybe

Scott Benner 13:04
braggart? How do you

Nicole 13:07
throw it only because they took a vacation there. Okay.

Scott Benner 13:12
Oh, Cabo site? Yes. It's at the tip of Baja California. Sorry.

Nicole 13:18
That's right. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:20
no kidding. I know nothing about that. I am fat. I swear to you. I am now looking at the map of the United States at the point where it intersects Mexico, and I feel like I've looked down at my foot and seen a six toe for the first time in my life.

Nicole 13:39
Well, I'm not the greatest with geography, too. But I just I just seemed to know where Cabo San Lucas was. So I lucked out there.

Scott Benner 13:46
Was it a good vacation?

Nicole 13:47
It was an awesome vacation.

Scott Benner 13:49
Well, I mean, you're from the Yukon anywhere with a son. We were probably just like, Oh, we're in heaven. Okay. Yeah. How old? were you when you were diagnosed?

Nicole 13:57
3737.

Scott Benner 13:59
Just last year?

Nicole 14:01
Yeah. So I was old for this diagnosis. For this, like,

Scott Benner 14:05
everyone who's listening who was like, 62, when you were diagnosed is like now. People are just happy. They figured out how to get their podcast player on one more time, right? Yeah. And no, no disrespect to you older people be you know what happens? They changed the operating system and you look at it, you're like, I don't know what this is. You know, why did they move everything? Yeah. So just just last year, so are you let me dig in a little bit. Not that this matters, but I like knowing married children single.

Nicole 14:34
So I have a boyfriend and he's also in health care. He's a respiratory therapist. So he was along for the ride for this whole diagnosis. And we live separately and we have no children. just focused on our careers right now. And yeah,

Scott Benner 14:55
well, that's interesting. So he How long have you been dating prior to the diagnosis?

Nicole 15:00
For about two years, okay,

Scott Benner 15:03
that's not a new relationship, not an old relationship.

Nicole 15:07
Yes, thankfully not new because it might have scared might have scared him away. Yeah,

Scott Benner 15:11
you haven't stopped having sex, but you're still doing it more than once a week. Am I right?

Nicole 15:15
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there you go. You know, go sleep,

Scott Benner 15:19
right? I got you. Two more years till you're down to hand stuff. And then you just start pretending you can't hear him.

Nicole 15:27
And then you schedule it in, right? Well, every three months.

Scott Benner 15:30
You pretend you didn't hear. I felt like he said, let's watch television.

Nicole 15:36
So I turned over and went to sleep. Yeah, that worked.

Scott Benner 15:39
I didn't notice. Oops, sorry. You've got a couple more years for that. Even. So, a lot of fun coming up. Yeah, yeah. Hand stuff. To descriptive term that really says nothing at the same time.

Nicole 15:53
But says a lot, because everybody knows what that means. Yeah,

Scott Benner 15:56
no, there's there's children listening right now that they're like, Oh, I think I know what that means. Yeah, exactly. And, and don't tell your parents about this, or you're not gonna be able to listen anymore. Just so you know. Yeah. Like, I can't stop now. So you were just diagnosed a year ago. So you like live in you're like, so out of the blue? Or was this something you've been waiting for?

Nicole 16:16
You know, it's really interesting, because the reason why I find this so fascinating. I only use that word now looking back, but September 15, will be my diversity, my first diversity. So coming up here. And, you know, I, I hadn't felt well for at least a couple of years. But I always like leading up to the diagnosis, but I always kind of chalked it up to doing shift work. 12 hour shifts aren't for the faint of heart. You really just kind of work, eat and sleep. And then I started losing my hair. And it was it was very slow. But it was continuous. And so I did go to my family physician, explaining that I was tired, I'm losing my hair. And he immediately assumed it was thyroid. So I did go for bloodwork. And my thyroid was actually fine, my iron was low, so he just chalked it up to that. Okay, I started on iron supplements, and basically called it a day. And I do have to say that I have the most insane needle phobia. So to just go for bloodwork is it's still not an easy thing, but it really was not an easy thing back then. So to do a bunch of follow up lab work, I wasn't really that interested in I thought, okay, my irons low, I'll just take the supplements and and I should be fine. But my energy never returned, my hair continued to be brittle, and, and, and thinning for sure. And so I just kind of left it at that I did get some blood work done in 2018. And it was more because I thought I'm getting a little bit older and I'm in health care, I know it's good to have a baseline of all of your, you know, lab values. So I did go and get bloodwork at that time. And my fasting glucose was 8.5. So that is I have a conversion graph up here for you. Thank you. That's 153.

Scott Benner 18:31
Okay, that's

Nicole 18:32
so it was elevated for sure. And when my family doctor called me to follow up on that I had said, Well, you know, my extreme stress for for lab work. And I also had popped a piece of gum before I went because I was fasting and my mouth was dry. So we kind of both agreed that it was because of that. And I never was followed up on and I think that the golden rule of the lab work that is out of the normal range is to repeat it. It really should have been repeated and and it wasn't and I didn't mind that because I I really don't like needles. So that brings me to the start of the pandemic. And of course, that was an extremely stressful time to be in health care and working at the hospital. And I worked on a small medical unit. And we were actually notified one day that our whole unit was just going to close. And we were going to be redeployed to work the COVID ward. So this is when nurses in Italy were dying from COVID because we actually didn't know what PPE required. We didn't know the severity of COVID So all we knew here in Canada was in Italy, nurses and healthcare professionals were dying from COVID I see. So the stress was just extreme.

Scott Benner 20:04
Did you go so every day thinking I'm gonna get I'm gonna die today, or I'm gonna

Nicole 20:09
I thought I was going to die of COVID. I just didn't know when. Okay, so yeah, it was really stressful. Of course, we never ever had any issues with PPE at our hospital. We did conserve our PPE, but we were never denied PPE. So I was very lucky that way. I know, it wasn't like that for everybody in health care at that time. And I six months leading up to September 15, of 2020. Working the COVID Ward, I started to rapidly lose weight. But it's really interesting because again, it's it's so fascinating for me as a registered nurse, how I didn't really pick up on all of these signs. And it was basically there were so many things that were an excuse for what was going on. So I and I and I am pretty healthy. But I decided to really, you know, cut out all fast food, I didn't want to be exposed to people handling my food, increase my water intake, I just I just started to be really healthy, making all of my own food, all of my own bread. But I was rapidly losing weight. And and I just thought it was because I was starting to eat really clean. And of course, I was thirsty, extremely thirsty. But that's because I was wearing a mask all day at work. And and every time you have to go out in public, you're wearing a mask and it makes you feel dry. So you know, and then you feel dry. So you're drinking extra water, and then you're peeing more. So I mean, you know, these are all the symptoms of diabetes, but I would have never, ever thought I had diabetes.

Scott Benner 22:00
You just kept coming up with reasons why it wasn't the parents so many

Nicole 22:03
reasons. Yeah. And, you know, if I wasn't working in a pandemic, with all this extra stress, I think it would have been a little bit more apparent to me. The other thing is being 37. I briefly thought maybe I have type two diabetes, even though I'm very petite. But I have grandpa who has type two diabetes, and I quickly just dismissed that. Like, there's no way I'm, you know, I am a healthy weight. I eat clean, like there's just no way. So over the next few months, I started to kind of write down my symptoms on my notepad in my iPhone and I sat I have to make a doctor's appointment because I am really thin. Like, you know, by the time I was diagnosed, I was down to 104 pounds and my baseline is 120. So anyway, I had all these things written down to talk to my doctor about and I went into work one day, and I couldn't stay awake. And I I was doing everything to stay awake. I was falling asleep during our nursing rounds. And I can't even tell you still to this day, what compelled me to ask my co worker to check my blood sugar, because I hate those finger pokes. So for me to even ask somebody to do that to me. You know, I think I think I knew but I was in denial and and I what I thought was type two diabetes. Because I was craving sugar at this point, I was drinking orange juice from the nursing patient fridge. I was baking and eating all of the baking. My boyfriend wouldn't even know that I was baking. But still losing weight. So I kind of thought it was it was awesome at the time. I could eat whatever I wanted all the sudden and I wasn't gaining weight.

Scott Benner 23:59
Yeah. I'm laughing for how many people I remember have said that to me.

Nicole 24:03
You know? Yeah. And I just still kicking myself. How did I not know? And so, yeah, September 15. Well, actually the 14th I called in sick for work, because I woke up in the morning to get ready for work. And my legs felt like they were literally 100 pounds each. I just couldn't get going. So I ended up calling in sick for that shift. The next day, I felt the same but I forced myself to go into work. And in the afternoon I got my coworker, coworker to check my blood sugar. And let me look at the graph here. It was 504

Scott Benner 24:41
You know, while you were talking I Googled I thought to myself, there's definitely a saying that doctors are the worst patients but I wasn't 100% Sure, saying so then I Googled doctors are it's the second return overrated as the first return which doctors are overrated doctors are the worst patient Doctors are heroes. Doctors aren't scientists. That's what comes up when you when you google doctors are. Because I just kept thinking like, people are listening and thinking, if you don't know Who the hell's gonna know.

Nicole 25:15
Yeah, well, and I'm a registered nurse. But I mean, at the same time, I should know as much about diabetes as a as a general practitioner.

Scott Benner 25:24
Is that really true, though? They don't teach you much about it in school, right?

Nicole 25:27
No, and that's what I wanted to talk about is just this whole process just blew me away as as each step started to take its place in this diagnosis for me, so she checked my blood sugar, and it was 504. And our rule of thumb is to wash your hands and check it again. Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:49
in case you got an entire CocaCola into that test.

Nicole 25:53
At this point, yeah. And I wouldn't have even known that at the time. So

Scott Benner 25:57
I just have to say, it really is you it's that moment. You're just like, Okay, well, obviously, I have diabetes, but let me just wash my hands.

Nicole 26:07
It was, yeah, it really was. And again, I'm thinking type two, type one never crossed my mind. Not even for one second. Because I was eating so much baking, I was making jugs of orange juice. I don't drink juice, I don't drink pop, normally. And so this craving for sugar was so strong. And, and you know, ultimately, that's why I thought, oh, geez, maybe I've pushed myself into type two diabetes. So we both laughed, she washed my hands, and she rechecked it again. And it was 513. So

Scott Benner 26:48
I'll just watch them 15 more times. Yeah, I really wanted to Oh, and you're in a dangerous situation, going after all those sweets, because eventually you're gonna end up fighting a bear for honey up there, and then you're gonna be too weak for the decay, there's no way you're gonna be able to do it.

Nicole 27:04
That's where I was, you know, when I didn't even know. So I kind of just took a deep breath. And I sat down at our nursing table, and my charge nurse came over and I said, and his name is Scott. And I said, Hey, so my blood sugar's 513. And he kind of said, what? And there was one of my favorite doctors sitting at the table, too. And that doctor looked at me, and he said, Hey, Nicole, do you have diabetes? I said, No. And I kind of laughed, and he looked at me, and he said, You do now?

Scott Benner 27:34
Yeah, I was gonna say, You should have said not for the next two seconds. I don't think but I think I'm going to and Jarrett is yeah, like he Yeah. Yeah. That's your diagnosis, not just the doctor sitting at a desk. That was

Nicole 27:46
it. Yeah. You have diabetes, making what he kind of thought was a joke. But but, I mean, there's no other explanation, really, I mean, except for rare illnesses that would cause your blood sugar to be that high. So my charge nurse said, you know, pack your stuff up, we'll head down to emergency and we'll, we'll get you in. And I said, No, no, no, like, I'll finish my shift. And this, I think this was around three in the afternoon, you know, I have four more hours to go, I'll finish my shift. And I'll just follow up with my family doctor. And he kind of looked at me and he said, you know, give your head a shake, like, something is seriously wrong. We need to go down stairs to emergency. So that's when it all started to kick in. And I lost it. I completely broke down. And my main concern was that I was going to have to get more needles to find out what was going on. Little did I know my whole life would be surrounded by needles very shortly.

Scott Benner 28:47
Yeah, no kidding. You just used an idiom that I've never heard before in my life. What's that? Give your head a shake?

Nicole 28:54
Oh, you've never heard that. Maybe it's a Canadian thing

Scott Benner 28:57
and imperative to reevaluate one's ideas, behaviors or actions or to begin acting or thinking sensibly primarily heard in Canada. Well, there you go. You said I, it's funny. I knew what you meant, right away. But it was one of those things that in my brain, I had to stop listening to you and go keep your head shake. What the hell is she? Oh, I get that. Okay, that I was and then then, then I'm googling because we're being recorded. And I'm gonna bring it up. So yeah, so your first thought, if you recognize, oh, hell, this is really what's happening wasn't about any of the impacts on your life beyond? More people are going to poke me.

Nicole 29:40
Exactly. And anybody who knew me, from the time that I formed memories, I have had a needle phobia. And you know, phobias can be trauma as a young child that you don't really have memories around but it creates these phobias for you. So that's, that's my whole life. I just Thought obviously something happened to me with immunizations as a baby. And, and it had, you know, a long lasting impact on me. But there wasn't, there wasn't ever a scenario where I remembered having a bad needle from something. Okay? I just always had this extreme needle phobia,

Scott Benner 30:17
no trouble giving them to people.

Nicole 30:20
In fact, I was one of the best. So it's very ironic because and and I think I'm more sensitive to the fact that needles aren't fun for anybody. And so I really honed in on that skill as a nurse and NDI. I perfected it for sure.

Scott Benner 30:36
See, working in in that setting. You're poking people in pretty much everywhere, right? Your cat? Yeah, I think people you're you're Yeah, you're starting IVs you're starting all kinds of like, I'm sure you've like I'm sure you've like, gone into someone's neck at some point. Right? Like,

Nicole 30:55
it's Yeah, I haven't gone into someone's neck because that's more critical care. But I mean, everything else. Okay. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 31:03
wanted the next story. Damn it. Yeah. Can we just

Nicole 31:07
I refused the neck IV when I went down to emergency.

Scott Benner 31:11
No, thank you. I'd rather die here. Thank you. Wow, so you get down there? Is it? Um What What am I wondering here? Is it weird for you? Because it's where you work? Like, do you think what's my better question when you're younger and you're in health care? Do you sit there and think oh, God, these things are gonna happen to me maybe one day or do you have this weird feeling like you're not above it but immune to it a little bit? Because you do it?

Nicole 31:42
You know you Yeah, I don't know why I thought I was invincible. But you do you know you eat healthy. You know, I didn't exercise a ton but I definitely didn't lead an unhealthy lifestyle and so I never ever thought I would be diagnosed with a chronic disease ever.

Scott Benner 32:03
How could you you're a nurse like that's the exact

Nicole 32:06
we're we're immune to that

Scott Benner 32:08
makes me think of this 1950s Like magazine ads where doctors are sitting on the corner of their desk in a long coat smoking a cigarette giving you advice you ever see. Yeah, exactly. What you need to do is get some exercise. Yeah. Chesterfield King. Yeah. It's it's very. It's an interesting situation. I really do always wonder that about, about health care workers, like I said to my wife in the past, like, that must be the worst job because you're just surrounded with like, by the Ghost of Christmas Future constantly. Yeah, like, how do you not watch people come in, you know, with different elements, elderly people watching them get older and just wonder, like, I wonder which one of these things is going to happen to me?

Nicole 32:55
Yeah, and I mean, definitely, as I got older, I started my nursing career when I was quite young, you know, starting to approach my late 30s. You You did, unfortunately, see people starting, you know, to have cancer diagnoses. You know, some pretty critical diagnosis happening in their life. And then it it did slowly start getting a little closer to home the older I was getting. But you still don't think it's gonna happen to you?

Scott Benner 33:29
Yeah. Let's be like being like a Formula One racecar driver, and somebody goes into a wall and explodes and you just think, wasn't me? Because I, because how can you not think it's not going to be you at some point?

Nicole 33:43
I know, I know. And I don't know why I ever thought that either. It's not like there's any health issues. Like there's health issues that exist in my family and in my genetics and but you still, you know, maybe it even has nothing to do with being a nurse. You're just that's how you grew up. You You don't ever think something's gonna happen to you. Unless I guess you're a pessimist all the time. But

Scott Benner 34:07
I just I just imagine it's one way or the other that you either sit there thinking like when is the one of these things gonna happen to me or you have that like invincible feeling of like, oh, yeah happened to me. I'm I'm a racecar driver. We don't crash Yeah, crash going to work. Not me. I know how to drive this thing. Yeah, exactly. But our our nurses inherently any healthier than anybody else that you know.

Nicole 34:30
No. So, you know, we're we're your average person. I mean, yeah, we it's, you know, they were not necessarily the healthiest of people just because we're in health care, especially doing shift work just just to know what that exposes you to for chronic diseases later on in your life. You know,

Scott Benner 34:52
your your ability to get type two diabetes pretty significantly. Yes. Yes, shift works better. had for you?

Nicole 35:00
Yes, it's it's extremely bad for you. It's definitely a risk factor for chronic diseases.

Scott Benner 35:07
Yeah, no kidding. So Alright, so now you're there and you're Was it weird being helped by people you like, coworkers?

Nicole 35:15
Yes, there's this the whole thing that I still have trouble. And I've been getting ongoing counseling for this to help process just the diagnosis and everything over the last year. But yeah, I mean, here I am, in my scrubs still laying in a bed as a patient in emergency being told that I've diabetes. And it's just, it's so surreal, I still have not been able to fully process that. Like, just what are the chances that I'm working as a nurse? One minute and the next minute, I'm a patient in a bed at the same hospital?

Scott Benner 35:55
That usually happens like on ER, or Grey's Anatomy. Yeah, like, after walking to your car or something like that, which I think has happened on every medical show I've ever seen in my life. Eventually, they get like, 810 seasons in there. Like we should have the medevac helicopter crash into one of the doctors like if

Nicole 36:14
that's why I can't even watch those shows.

Scott Benner 36:17
You don't think that's real? Everyone's like, wait a minute, hold on. Don't lie to me. Everyone's not having sex in every closet.

Nicole 36:25
No, it's really not happening. Maybe the odd couple of people. But

Scott Benner 36:29
yeah, disappointing as hell. I gotta be honest.

Nicole 36:31
Yes, sorry.

Scott Benner 36:34
Really, yes, it really is disappointing. Before we move forward, I just want to tell people, researchers have found that shift work is linked to an increased risk of heart attacks, ulcers, depression, obesity, high blood pressure, sleep disorders, type two diabetes. I mean, good luck. Your body wants to sleep when the sun's down is

Nicole 36:53
exactly. And plus, they say it shaves about 10 years off of your life as well.

Scott Benner 36:57
Just 10 years. That's great.

Nicole 37:04
We really are giving ourselves to take care of others.

Scott Benner 37:07
But I'm sure you're making like a 8% shift differential. So it's all fine. I mean, the extra $35 a day is probably making a huge difference for you and really changing your life. Definitely. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. So before we started recording, I don't know how we're gonna do this. But before we were started recording, I was saying to Nicole, in case it doesn't make it to the show. Today is a very strange day for me. Nicole and I are recording very late in the afternoon. We were supposed to do this hours ago, but my mom was in the hospital late last night. And I was with her in the emergency room, which is such a strange thing. Because my wife's like, don't have to record tomorrow. And I looked and I was like, oh my god, I do with a nurse who has type one. And I was like, I spent my whole night in a room with a nurse. I should ask her if she had type one. I mean, I probably could have just gotten this out of the way sooner. But um, Sitacles really nice. She has the day off and she she let this go. But it's in the forefront of my mind obviously, right now health care and, and that thought I had about nurses must be sad, like I had last night, like sitting there and talk to my wife about it this morning when I got up. But it's just a really, really weird timing, like for you know, as far as this goes, and anyway, I was saying to you at the beginning, I was like I was having this existential like crisis this morning speaking to my wife when I got out of bed, and I was like, this is all just bullshit. She's like, she's like, what is it? I'm like, the whole thing. I was like the first 2025 years, I didn't know what I was doing. And I can remember them. I said, my knees been hurting for the last five years, my back is stiff everything. I can't sleep on my stomach anymore, because it makes my lower back hurt. How the hell is that possible? Right? So you know, like, there's these things are happening. You start I don't know, Nicole, you're, you're a little far from it still. But there'll be a moment in your life where you get up, three, four o'clock in the morning to go to the bathroom, and you'll hit the floor and realize that your ankles not articulating the way that it's supposed to. And it takes a good three or four steps to get moving before that works. And I was like, so I said to my wife, and I was like, so your life is just 25 to 45 Like, if you're lucky. Those are the that's the sweet spot. I was like, You're right, like wanna rip off? I mean, really, I sit around like we got to right now like, we got to find a way to retire. I was like, we're done almost. So we're almost dead. What are we doing? She's like, What about the kids pay for college? Student loans, let them do what I did. Struggling Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Meanwhile, I mean, I don't really feel that way. A mean big picture but it is hard not to like you know, see your mom. You know at an age where you're thinking you're still going to be like living a jet setting lifestyle and she's like, because Can someone please bring the sofa closer to me? So I could sit down, you know, like that's a it's not, it doesn't feel you're full of good feelings. But right? Yes, I do want to know more about you being diagnosed. So this can all be about me being overly tired and my mom going into the hospital.

Nicole 40:18
Yeah, I know. That's okay.

Scott Benner 40:19
So what did you learn about what you don't know about diabetes being on the other side of it suddenly.

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Nicole 43:37
everything you know it's just it's it's so incredible. And you know what's even more ironic is that my shift leading up to sorry about the background noise there.

Scott Benner 43:51
The shipping thing was somebody killing a moose outside. Okay, perfect.

Nicole 43:54
No. They're rolling in the big metal garbage bins at my condo building. It always makes such a big noise

Scott Benner 44:02
Please don't ruin the illusion a call. Did you just say a penguin attacked your window or something

Nicole 44:07
like this? And my uglies melting

Scott Benner 44:10
now you look up at a polar bear was trying to break your window with a penguin like it was a Brock Could you say something? Oh, I love there say something fun? Would you please Jesus, but Oh man, that's so funny. The metal cans are coming up to my condo.

Nicole 44:25
It was the sled dog team outside sounds like

Scott Benner 44:27
you live in a completely lovely place. You're ruining the only thing I think about Canada. Alright. So go I'm sorry. Go ahead. You you you know, all of a sudden you're sitting in that bed and someone who by the way I'm imagining five seconds before this you thought of as a really great nurse is all of a sudden showing that she don't know much about what's happening to you.

Nicole 44:47
Yeah, and and you know, when I had the blood work done, and the it was actually a resident who came in to talk to me and said you know you have Diabetes, and you are in severe DKA. And leading up to going down to emergency, I had a young girl who I had just transferred out of ICU up to my medical ward, she was in ICU with DKA. Because she, you know, whatever social factors were going on in her life, she just gave up giving herself her her insulin. So, you know, here, I was questioning her on, on why she did that. And, you know, making sure that we were getting her blood glucose in range and making sure that she had all her insulin and you know, at home when she was ready to be discharged, and that she had everything organized. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it's me and DKA, within three hours of having that patient and it's just, I can't even tell you how crazy it is to be on the other side. So quick and, and still still in my nursing scrubs. So the resident comes in and says, I have diabetes. And, and then basically leaves and I'm just a basket case. And my boyfriend had just worked a night shift the night before. So he he was pretty tired. And obviously I phoned him and said you you need to come to the hospital right now. So it did take him a little bit of time to get there because he had to try to wake up and, you know, be safe to drive. And anyway, so the the ICU specialist doctor came in, we call them our intensivist and said, We're going to be transferring you to ICU and it's still every single thing they said to me was just like me, like, I'm going to ICU like normally it's one of my patients and never have being sick or in the hospital a day in my life. It just it was so much to take on. And I said okay, well when am I starting Metformin or glimepiride or, you know, which are medications to treat Type Two diabetes and their tablets, not needles. So he just he looked at me and he just said, you have type one diabetes? And I said, No, I don't. And he said, Nicole, and he knows me. And he said, You have type one diabetes. And it wasn't until the next day that I stopped asking when I could switch from my insulin infusion because they immediately put me on an insulin infusion. When I could switch from that to my Metformin. And the other intensivist just he he was very, very serious. And he said this is type one diabetes, you will be on insulin for the rest of your life. What were you gonna

Scott Benner 47:51
do looking back? Do you know what you were doing? Right then? Were you in shock? Disbelief.

Nicole 47:56
I was in total shock. Yeah, I just I couldn't even process it. I really, really couldn't. And and by the time I got to ICU, my blood sugar was 603. So you know, they, they all told me that if I had gone home that night, living alone, sleeping alone, I probably wouldn't have woken up the next morning, the way things were going

Scott Benner 48:24
and cutting you slack for being in decay. That should have been your first thought when you saw your blood sugar. Your first thought, what would you have done? If I came in there? You tested my blood sugar, and it was 514 I would have called the doctor stat. Yeah, cuz probably this guy here with type one diabetes. And he thinks he's gonna go home, work for more hours and then come back tomorrow.

Nicole 48:51
This is the state of shock, right? Like you're not? Yeah. Yeah, it's just I'm still pretty speechless. It. It's just the way it all happened. And you know, part of counseling was going over how crazy this all was being a nurse. And then like immediately on the flip side, being a patient and you know, the way that I look at it and the way that I've been kind of talking with my counselor with through it is that if I wasn't there that day, it wouldn't have probably worked out as well as it did. Meaning that I could have easily not woken up the next morning

Scott Benner 49:31
that for you were that bit poorly off at that point because that's not the is they want highest you know, blood sugar I've ever heard at diagnosis for certain

Nicole 49:40
definitely mean either. I mean, I've heard of people coming in in the high 40s Which on this graph is 720 or that's that's 40 is 720 Yeah, I've definitely heard of that. So, um, I was really lucky to have caught it when I did and not have gone a couple more days like that even if I was able to stay alert and awake, just the damage that it does, you know?

Scott Benner 50:08
How long were you in your hospital?

Nicole 50:10
So I spent three nights and four days at the hospital. And just one night in ICU, and then transferred

Scott Benner 50:20
to here my questions about that. Were their goals for you? What were their goals for you about your blood sugar? I'm sure they were trying to bring you down slowly to get you stabilized. But yes, but was that all done through IV? Or when did you begin using injections of your own.

Nicole 50:38
So that was all through the IV while I was in ICU, and our rule in Canada here is that you cannot be running IV insulin on a general medical ward because it's a critical medication, especially given through the intravenous. And so within 24 hours, I was transferred up to a medical ward and that infusion was stopped. And, you know, then then became my first dose of insulin. And it was a production I'm not gonna lie. And and that whole night leading up to that I had hourly lab work and hourly glucose testing finger pricks. I definitely reached my maximum level of coping by the next morning and started refusing lab work. Did you really the I did, the needles were so overwhelming to me. That basically was what I was focused on for the first 24 hours if you can, believe it or not, but that's how bad my phobia was. So to have these hourly blood work, was very taxing on my system. And I knew my numbers were coming down, and I knew that they were looking way better. And so I did refuse to two sets of lab work before the intensivist came in that morning. And I just basically told him like, I can't do this. When he told me I have to do this.

Scott Benner 52:13
Did you think when you said I can't do this, did you think I'm just gonna die? That's fine. Or did you think there was another way out of this? Were you bartering? But what was that?

Nicole 52:24
Yeah, you know, I think it was somewhat of a barter because we did come to the conclusion that okay, you know, he said to me, I agree, you're borderline, but your numbers are looking way better. We can probably call you stable. And why don't we do bloodwork every four hours? So I said, deal? Basically, I can handle that. Meanwhile, my boyfriend who works in ICU as a respiratory therapist all the time, it's kind of shaking his head, you know, like, telling me that I'm not the one calling the shots anymore?

Scott Benner 52:59
Yeah. Shut up and let them do it.

Unknown Speaker 53:02
Did you? Yeah, pretty much, you

Scott Benner 53:03
have that feeling like oh, I can still run the show here.

Nicole 53:07
I did feel that a little bit. Just with so many years of nursing, it just was so weird to relinquish control to the people that I worked with to take care of me.

Scott Benner 53:17
So I've said this out loud enough. I'm not scared to say it again. But I've gotten pushback, and I've gotten people to agree with me. I've said that of the great number of parents who are, who are parents of kids with type one that are nurses. Most of them end up being bad at it in the beginning. And I think there's something about the art that there is to giving insulin and that they want it to fall into very strict rules and guidelines. Like almost like I don't know, I can't figure it out completely, but it almost feels like to a nurse diabetes is check, write down the number, count these carbs, make the do the do the math, give the insulin that's diabetes, and then when they see it in their real life where they can actually watch it on a glucose monitor. And they realize it's not going the way they anticipated or that it's not just so I don't want to call it throw away but you know, I imagine if you have a cut and dry Yeah, very cut and dry. Like oh, what gave you your medication? You ate your food. I came back three hours later and your blood sugar was 350 Oh, well, I'll do another mathematical equation. I'll give you more insulin instead of it feeling like Oh god, I'm killing my kid. Or Oh, Jesus, I'm killing myself. Like right there's a there's a disconnect there. And it shines a light pretty brightly. Am I imagining in my thinking on how little emergency medical and I do say hospitals are still emergency right? You're only going to be there for a couple of days. Not long term care. knows about like the real back room of of diabetes and using insulin. I don't think anybody really understands that at all.

Nicole 55:00
No, and this, this is kind of the shock that I went through with for the next few days was and anger was, as a registered nurse how little I knew about type one diabetes. And, you know, I have to say over the last year, of course, I've done so much reflecting. One of the main reasons is because, in my opinion, I didn't take care of very many type one diabetics in my 15 years at the hospital. It was mostly type twos, because type one diabetics have a somewhat immediate effect of not taking care of their blood glucose. Type Two diabetics have a very delayed kind of effect, you know, of losing their limbs and their eyesight and type one diabetics, if, if you give too much insulin, you know, right away, if you don't give enough, you know, right away, type two is it just seems to be much different.

Scott Benner 56:07
So once one set of circumstances comes up on you quickly, and feels pretty dire. And the other one seems like a, like a tale of what might happen to you, because it happens to some people. But everybody gets to have the feeling you had, which isn't won't happen to me, so I'm okay. And then you get to ignore it. Because,

Nicole 56:26
exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So and just to even know, you know, my first few days when I was at home giving insulin, and then I would eat my supper, and then I would get up and clean the dishes and have a severe hypoglycemia. And it was just absolutely shocking to me how much I didn't know about type one diabetes and, and even my type two patients who I would give a large amount of insulin to fast acting insulin, and then they would leave the ward and go for a cigarette smoke outside the hospital or something. And, and for me to never, ever have been taught in my training that maybe they should hang around for a little bit, because they could have an immediate response to the amount of insulin I just gave them. But you just you don't you don't see that as a nurse, you don't know that as a nurse you. The hospital doesn't manage diabetes very well, either. You know, they're giving me cookies and crackers and things like that for snacks, fruit cups that are in sugary syrup. It just it really, really was astonishing to me, I'm not gonna lie. And I was on this big campaign of like, I'm going to revamp the nutrition system in the hospital. And I'm going to, you know, this is in my first few months of the diagnosis of course, now I realize I don't have time to, to battle that, but it's a much bigger political issue. But

Scott Benner 57:49
you're also at about what part of Canada you live in, because what kind of insulin did you get when you left?

Nicole 57:55
So I was started on Basal vlaar, which is Lantis for long acting, and then Novo rapid as part insulin for my fast acting, and I'm still on not

Scott Benner 58:06
there are places in Canada where they would give you regular an MPH.

Nicole 58:10
Yes, there is. And when I first started nursing, that's exactly what it was. And we were drawing them out of vials. And now the hospital's gone to pens.

Scott Benner 58:19
It's interesting. I mean, you're using a, there's a last generation of insulin being used still in parts of Canada and parts of America too, by the way, but yes, yes. That's, that's even fascinating. So yeah, tell me a little bit about well, actually, this is gonna sound really strange, Nicole, I have to call my mom. And then I'm going to ask you, yes. Okay, this doesn't normally happen in the middle of the podcast, but we're in our specific situation here. You're likely going to hear something that won't be in the show, but give me a second. She just tried to call me. Yes, ma'am.

Unknown Speaker 59:02
Okay, what are those things called?

Scott Benner 59:05
Well, wait, hold on one second. Did Bob get a hold of you? Yeah. Okay, so we did some we thought maybe it would be better for you to not have to go to the doctor tonight because of how tired you are. So we he cancelled the appointment and he has it set up for they're going to call. Let's see. He said they cancelled the appointment for tonight. The doctor is going to get a referral and call him back. So we're going to skip going to your general and just get the referral to the specialist.

Unknown Speaker 59:35
Okay. They say where this specialist is located or

Scott Benner 59:39
Bob's waiting for the phone call back to get the answer to that. Oh, okay. All right. So you should get ready for bed and get some the sleep okay.

Unknown Speaker 59:48
I can't, I can't get go in that bed. It's really constable and I was sleeping for about an hour. But then I woke up and had to go This bathroom, right? I got off but I couldn't get out there because it was the same as a couch is soft in the middle and you can't get out of it. Right. So you're

Scott Benner 1:00:10
gonna sit in your chair.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:12
I think that's what. Yeah, that's what I'm doing right now. sitting in the chair.

Scott Benner 1:00:17
All right, well, I just see I put yogurt and all kinds of food in there. I got you frozen meals. That will be easier. They have some carbs in them, but they're not bad. So I got like three dinners and a bunch of breakfast is bought more eggs though you didn't need them and I filled your refrigerator up with a lot of different stuff.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:36
Right? I saw it was filled. Okay, I didn't get a chance to see Oh, what was that?

Scott Benner 1:00:41
Did you look in the freezer as well? Yeah. Take a look in there. You think you could eat something? Probably. Yeah, I would try to eat something you have a drink with you.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:55
I have like a little bit of water. I have. I have a Gatorade. Sitting?

Scott Benner 1:01:00
Good. Let's let's pound that Gatorade down. Get it down. Okay. Okay. All right. What did you call that? What was your question?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:08
I want to know what the product was called that.

Scott Benner 1:01:12
Oh, I didn't that I didn't find so it's called eggs in a cup. If Bob's gonna run out for you tell him to text me and I'll tell them what it is. Okay, all right. All right. Get some deed I'm gonna call you in a little bit. Okay. Okay, honey. All right. Love you. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Nicole 1:01:32
She sounds adorable.

Scott Benner 1:01:33
I need to even tell her that she was on the podcast. I think legally, she's my mom. I don't have to worry about it. I mean, she's not gonna She sounds good. She's doing it. Listen, she's been asleep for like three hours in the last 36 hours. So she could be like, who knows? Just like he could be. I'm so sorry that I'd really that normally what happens when I'm making the podcast?

Nicole 1:01:56
But it just feels like a day at work? You know, it feels normal to me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:00
It's, it's, it was so nice to see the nurse who's probably about your age work with my mom last night. And she just caught me in the hallway. And she's like, this stuff happens to older people like it was so just like, it almost echoes what we're talking about. Because to her it was sort of like, Oh, don't worry, this happens. And to me, Ah, my mom's dying. You know what I mean? Like, he's totally right, give these two different perspectives. Not that a nurse? I mean, honestly, how could you be an effective clinician of any kind? If you were feeling everybody's tragedy on a personal level? Every 15? Yes, you can't do that. But so what happened? So in your opinion, the lack of knowledge from nurses and doctors, what is the what was the harm to you as a type A newly diagnosed type one? What was their lack of knowledge? How did their lack of knowledge harm you?

Nicole 1:02:56
You know, I? That's a really good question. How do I answer that? It, it really, basically left managing this disease with zero education. I'm walking out of the hospital with literally zero education. I did see a diabetic nurse, but there's one diabetic nurse for our whole hospital. And so she quickly came up and said, This is the insulin you're going to get started on and do you have benefits? Okay, perfect. You have extended benefits, so it should cover that and you'll have a follow up with us once you're discharged. And that was my diabetic consultation. So I immediately took charge. As soon as I was discharged home, I reached out to so many different resources. My sister is also she has her PhD in Clinical Psychology. And so and she's, she has one more year of internship and then and then she's ready to start working start to start her practice. So of course, she was very involved with a very close family and she immediately reached out to her resources and found this type one diabetic group for BC that for British Columbia that that supports mental health and it's basically like a peer support program. So I I immediately joined that. And my nursing friend who I actually went to nursing school with who is around the same age as me, she's been a type one since she was 16 years old. I immediately reached out to her and she actually became my you know what I joke as my personal diabetic nurse. I was able to message her call her at any time she put in my first libre glucose sensor because I was afraid to do that on my own. I sourced out all my own support and was able to get education through that, through those resources I find I found. But here I am being discharged when we give insulin in the hospital. It's a critical medication. And we have to do what's called a blind double check. So I dial up my insulin for what I think my patient needs based on their glucose, and I show my coworker what their glucose is, but I don't show them what I've dialed up the insulin to, and they're supposed to come to that same dosage that I came to, and then we both signed for the medication. So all of a sudden, I'm being discharged home having to give myself insulin and nobody's double checking it. Like it's just it's really, really unnerving. How many times you know how critical it is?

Scott Benner 1:05:49
How many times in a clinical setting? Did you dial up one thing? And the person you checked with disagreed with you? Oh,

Nicole 1:05:56
maybe twice in my career?

Scott Benner 1:05:58
Is that enough to make you scared personally? Yeah. was so silly, but I understand it. So. You have any just

Nicole 1:06:11
the exercise, just the movement? Scott? Nobody ever told me? Or did I ever read or ever know that after you give fast acting insulin. And I think this is fairly common amongst tight ones, the closer to giving that insulin that you move around, even just go for a simple walk, the more at risk you are for hypoglycemia. No one ever told me that. So here I am trying to do dishes, and I'm ending up on the floor sweating, thinking what's going on? And then I checked my blood sugar. And you know, you put two and two together. But I mean, really, carb counting, we don't carb count as nurses in the hospital. I know nothing about that. We just go by a scale on what that patient's blood sugar is and give their insulin according to that. So yeah, it really was shocking to me how much I didn't know.

Scott Benner 1:07:05
Well, what you said was that you created a group of people around you to help you. And yes, you had resources because of your nurse. But yes, but your resources still didn't help you that much, because you're sweating on the floor while you're doing dishes. And the bigger question to me is, what is everyone else supposed to do? Yes, it's you new people. Great

Nicole 1:07:26
question. What are you so this group that I that I joined? It's actually called the T one huddle group. For any listeners that are in British Columbia, it's run by Dr. Tricia Tang. And it's really such a wonderful group, we use whatsapp to message each other. And we just, there's an ongoing chat conversation, we can ask anything in the in the chat. And you've got a group of people here to support you from newly diagnosed to you know, going on 60 years with diabetes. And I was really lucky to have my friend who who had been type one for so long.

Scott Benner 1:08:06
Yeah. Have you ever seen the Facebook group that I put together for the podcast? The private? Yes, I

Nicole 1:08:11
think I think it did always it private.

Scott Benner 1:08:13
There's a private group, there's one that I just put up, like something's coming out, but there's a private one, that's exactly what you're talking about. Except it's, you know, whoa, at this point, like well over 14,000 people in there and like, like, like 11,000 of our active every day. It's,

Nicole 1:08:29
it's amazing, we really need this peer support. Because what I also found is that a lot of my clinicians, the diabetic nurses, my endocrinologist, the diabetic, nurse at the hospital, they don't have diabetes. So I mean, they have some level of education and understanding on it. But the lived experience is just night and day from being a clinician to actually having type one diabetes yourself.

Scott Benner 1:08:57
Yeah. Wow. That's really, I listen, I can't agree without enough. The idea of being able to talk to other people bounce ideas off them have a I mean, it takes a while to figure out who you can trust and who doesn't know what they're talking about. Yeah, but if you get a good if you get a good group, the people who don't know lay back a little bit, and they wait till they figure things out, like people don't say, I mean, at least in my group, you don't get a lot of people saying the like patently wrong thing. You know what I mean? Like, you don't hear like what color's the sky and they're like purple and they go wait a minute, you don't know. It's not it's not like that, like sometimes. Exactly, I think or I don't know, where in my experience, they use phrasing that helps you understand what their understanding is, which I think is also really valuable. But I've said it a million times here like I started this group because listeners asked me to, and not because I wanted to and to be perfectly honest, like being the moderator of a Facebook group is not exactly high on my to do list you No things I ever wanted to be involved in. But yes, it remains like, it's one of the things I'm proud of. It's really interesting

Nicole 1:10:09
to watch. Yeah, and you should be. Because just just the need and I mean, it's, it's no different in the States than it is in Canada, the need to have that peer support. I'm telling you this last year of my life, if I did not have that peer support would have been so much different. And the other thing is that I have a regular counselor, clinical counselor that I had seen over the years. But I quickly found out that there isn't actually a psychologist or a registered clinical counselor, that is a type one themselves in BC. So I actually, and I don't even know if I should say this, but I'm going to anyway, I actually through my sister found a clinical psychologist out of Toronto, Canada, who is a type one herself. So she specializes in type one, therapy, and and how important that was to actually do a zoom call and see her drinking an orange juice or an apple juice while I'm on while she's counseling me, I can't tell you the connection that that creates. You know, and I and I, you know, quickly, once it got over the hump, went back to my my regular counselor that I just see the odd time when I need to. And she still even apologizes that she doesn't know anything about type one diabetes, so she can try to understand, and she can try to relate as much as she can, but it's just not there.

Scott Benner 1:11:38
I've had a number of therapists on the show, who also have type one, and I find my conversations with them to be really enjoyable. And yeah, they have a it's obvious different insight they have they have real world training in talking to people about troubles. And at the same time, they have a deeper understanding of type one because they live with it. And I mean, the regular therapist can help you but I mean, I mean, I'd rather have an ex pro teach me how to pitch than a guy who's just theorizing, you know, like so. Great analogy. Yeah. I mean, somebody somebody really knows the the ins and outs and pitfalls and things that other people just would never know about. I mean, your whole story is a I mean, is an example of that. Right? Like, you know, you think you have people there who know what they're talking about. And they just they there's no way for them to and that leaves you with a lot of deficits, then. Yeah. It's not their fault. Like we talk and joke and mess around all the time about doctors not really understanding type one diabetes and everything. But it's like, how could they?

Nicole 1:12:44
Yeah, well, it's not in their training. And the nutrition that goes with it isn't either, because I reached out to one of my friends who was a doctor at the hospital that I worked at, and, you know, told her what my a one C was when I was diagnosed, which was 11, by the way, and I've gotten it down to 5.7. But, you know, I went for a walk with her one day. And I said, Well, I'm going to have Bolus for my lunch, and then I'll go for a walk with you. And she didn't even really understand that concept. And to think of how many years they spend in training, and she didn't even know that basic concept of type one diabetes, it just really fascinated me. It makes me angry at the same time, but it really fascinated me.

Scott Benner 1:13:29
Yeah, but I mean, how could she really know? Unless she would live with it?

Nicole 1:13:34
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I guess, type one diabetes is a specialty that goes to an endocrinologist and I know that family physicians, General, practitioners can't know everything about every disease. Right? So I do understand that part. But I think type one diabetes, from what I've heard over the last year, I think, may be coming. More and more people diagnosed with it. They're They're almost saying that they're seeing this post COVID in some individuals and people are getting diagnosed later in life, because I found that really fascinating about myself as well. Like, why me? Why it 37 Yeah, like, how did that happen? But and, and my personal opinion on that is that, obviously, it was born with a genetic predisposition to have type one diabetes, and the stress of working through a pandemic, ultimately, again, in my own opinion, is what brought out my disease. Because I had no viral infection I had I had no nothing like that happened leading up

Scott Benner 1:14:42
to it. Yeah, but you did say you were panicked about COVID.

Nicole 1:14:46
I have never felt that kind of stress in my life. And I think that was very taxing on my immune system.

Scott Benner 1:14:51
Yeah. You might have ended up being one of those ladies that gets it at 60 years old or something like that, at that.

Nicole 1:14:56
I could have very well could have thought I do believe that Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:15:00
it's interesting. It's I mean, I don't want to say fun, but it's, it's, it's interesting to muse about and wonder about out loud, like, you know what, what it is that, you know, kind of pushed you over the edge like that.

Nicole 1:15:13
I know, I wish there was a test for it, but you know, we'll never know. You can just kind of theorize.

Scott Benner 1:15:20
And yeah, type one in your family or other. How about like celiac thyroid? I don't know stuff like that in your family bipolar, anything like that in the line.

Nicole 1:15:32
So no type one. I have grandpa who is type two. I'm on my maternal side. And my father, and I think his mother have hypothyroid. So at the same time as getting type one, excuse me, I quickly realized my thyroid function was poor as well. So I do have hypothyroidism as well that it basically went hand in hand within that first week of diagnosis.

Scott Benner 1:16:02
I had been waiting to get back to that because the brittle hair thing, the brittle hair thing was not the diabetes, and it wasn't the low iron. Nope. Yeah, that was definitely the thyroid.

Nicole 1:16:12
But it wasn't showing up on my TSH yet, which is really fascinating. Like, I wish I could talk at length with my endocrinologist like what about this? What about that? How does this work? How does that work? Because I clearly was sick for a couple of years. I clearly was but nothing really obvious was showing up in my lab work. So somehow, you know, my body was compensating for as long as it could let me

Scott Benner 1:16:37
run something off the flagpole here and see if anybody salutes okay. They're gonna tell you that in range for TSH some doctors is how you we don't treat till eight or 10. Right. Like, oh, until but I'm going to tell you that over two, you have thyroid issue.

Nicole 1:16:53
Yeah. And that that is really interesting. So I mean, I was like 2.63, or something like that when when I was in the hospital and and then quickly went to four point something and felt awful. For cold My me my hair was coming out and handfuls.

Scott Benner 1:17:11
What did they give you medication at? When did they finally say you have hypothyroidism?

Nicole 1:17:16
At four 4.6?

Scott Benner 1:17:18
I would say that they scan your thyroid to see if you have Hashimotos?

Nicole 1:17:22
No. And you know, I've never brought that up with my endocrinologist. But obviously I've learned about that on your podcast. I learned so many things on your podcast. I haven't had a chance to say that yet. I mean, it's just, it's incredible. You really are. You really are a celebrity in the type one world and I can't thank you enough for having this podcast. It was one of the first things I was told to start listening to buy a pure, pure type one.

Scott Benner 1:17:46
You can butter my bread in a couple minutes when we say yeah, just hold on a second like before that. Before that. I'm going to tell you Dr. Scott would have been given you a hormone replacement back with the hair. And yeah, the 2.6 a 2.6. Based on only what I've learned on this podcast and through my personal goings ons, with my family members, I 2.6. I would have said, Your hype if you have hypothyroidism and we're going to start you on a low level of Synthroid. Like I would I don't know how to choose it. But I would have figured it out like the amount I'm sure it's something to do with weight. We could have figured it out with Google. Anyway. I'm saying I'm saying you would have been there and done. Like

Nicole 1:18:27
you exactly, especially based on symptoms. Like it doesn't always have to be about lab values when you treat something.

Scott Benner 1:18:33
Yeah, if for everyone listening, thyroid related, treat the symptoms, not the test. Yes, please don't treat the number treat your symptoms. If you have this Yes. And you're 2.5 or 2.8 or 3.1 you have a thyroid issue, and just do it.

Nicole 1:18:50
That yeah, and fight for it. Like you Your doctor may not agree. But honestly, I am the lived experience of that and and you know, like in my hair in the last year. It's amazing how much thicker my hair has gotten. And I can see this like, you know, my best friend is my hairdresser. And we just we joke about it. You can see this line of where my hair started to grow back in and I mean, yeah, clinically I was I had a normal TSH, but I was suffering.

Scott Benner 1:19:20
Insulin is a hormone. Thyroid makes hormones. Your body is not good at dealing with hormones.

Nicole 1:19:26
It's not Yeah, yeah, I just learned that.

Scott Benner 1:19:30
Okay, well, I'm going to ask if there's anything we didn't talk about that we should have?

Nicole 1:19:36
No, I don't think so. I just my whole point for this podcast is just that if there are healthcare professionals listening I don't even know how to say it. But just I mean, I had a fasting glucose of 8.5 that definitely should have been followed up on but when you're in health care you you somehow like we were talking about at the beginning you feel invincible you feel like nothing is wrong with you. Um, but I think you need to be more open minded because I think we can be very narrow minded thinking nothing will happen to us. And and look where I ended up, right, I had the symptoms screaming in my face. So I think listening to what your body is trying to tell you is so important.

Scott Benner 1:20:25
When that doctor like, saw that number and let you go, do you think that was professional courtesy? Do you think if it wasn't you, the doctor would have pushed harder.

Nicole 1:20:35
He knew my level of phobia for needles. And you know, I don't think that it was right that he didn't push for it because he knew I was bothered by needles, I think he should have left it up to me and said, this needs to be followed up on whether you go or not as up to you, but I will write the order for a lab requisition that we need to repeat these labs, I think is what should have happened. His

Scott Benner 1:21:00
response was more like you don't like needles. Okay, forget it. Which just makes it dismissive and makes you feel like well, it must not be that big of a deal if he doesn't care.

Nicole 1:21:09
Exactly. Because even as a nurse, you still rely on your doctor to take care of you

Scott Benner 1:21:14
can tell you're Canadian, because if you were American, you'd be suing that guy. Yeah, no. I'm just teasing. Everyone stop being so litigious. It Okay, all right, that makes sense. Now, it's the part where you say great stuff about me. Where did

Nicole 1:21:31
ya know it? Honestly, it was.

Scott Benner 1:21:34
I feel stupid saying it. But I what I really meant was like, how did you find the podcast? And and if it's been valuable for you, can you tell me in what way?

Nicole 1:21:44
Yeah, so how I found the podcast was as soon as they joined our T one huddle group is what it's called. This, this gal who lives about four hours away from me, I kind of connected with her and she she was a year into her diagnosis just as I was diagnosed. So she just kind of she wrote me this really lovely email. And she basically just, you know, step one, you need to do this, which is, you know, apply for the disability tax credit. Step two, you need to contact your vehicle insurer, because they need to do a medical exam stuff like basically, these are all the things you need to do and in her list was, you know, the Juicebox Podcast is a really great resource. So while I was on medical AI, trying to sort out my insulin dosages and just learn my new life, I would go for walks every day, which is incredible at managing your blood sugar by the way, and and I would listen to your podcast and the bold with insulin, of course, I think this is a common thing. People love that series. I really became less and less afraid of insulin listening to your podcast, and definitely more motivated to have my blood sugar's low. Like in the beginning, you know, you're okay with having that. I closed my tablet here at 10 What would that be? That would be at 180. That's not good. So I think your podcasts and and you know, my my clinicians, they would say, Oh, that's great, like anything over 180 should be addressed. But you know, 180 is fine. Well, it's not fine. And being a registered nurse now I know that so I think your your podcast, it just it really helped to just better understand things.

Scott Benner 1:23:41
Yeah, yeah. So entertaining that your walks must have just whisked right by they did. Do you find me irritating, but the information so good, you just deal with it. I got an A review like that the other day, which by the way, if you're trying to hurt my feelings. I've been married for 25 years. You can't touch me. But it's, it's I love those are my feet actually being serious? I don't need a bunch of them. So please don't do this. But yeah, to hear that someone doesn't really like me, but listens to the podcast, because it's so valuable. warms my heart a little bit. Like it makes sure it makes me feel like wow, the information here is so good. They have to put up with me to get to Yeah. Yeah, by the way, other people seem to like my personality, but that not that everybody needs to or that I would expect everybody to, I would expect the exact opposite. But I'm just I honestly mean like without any sarcasm. If you found a podcast where you're like, Oh, I really don't like this host, but the content is so good. I'm going to listen to it anyway. That makes me feel really good about the content. It really does. Yeah, and it should yeah, I can't be for everybody. But no, exactly. That's not how the world works. I like it when I get like a bad review. And it's still a good review. When you read it like you read it. You're like well, yeah, oceans mad. They're like, but they still like it. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And well, no,

Nicole 1:25:02
I think you put a good spin on it. And I think that, that a lot of listeners would agree with that. And you you kind of normalize it and, and you have your experience with Arden and, um, you know, your your sense of humor does put a certain spin on this, I mean, it would be extremely dry if you weren't the holes. In my own opinion,

Scott Benner 1:25:20
let me tell you two things. First of all, I'm way funnier than this, I'm holding it back, because it's okay, if we just drilled down into the mania, that is my sense of humor, first of all, a lot of you would be put off. And secondly, you'd be like, I don't know what he's talking about, because my mind would just explode into weird directions. And I'd start piling on top. Basically, when you think I'm being amusing, I have a cap on myself trying to hold about 80% of my personality. And but I do also believe what you're saying that one of the reasons this all works is because it's not dry, and it's not boring. And it is conversational. And you know, for the people out there who like to say that I talk too much to you, I say, shut up. Because I don't mean it like that, because somebody has to drive the conversation. And chew, you don't realize, like, you know, once in a while I'll hear a critique from people and so that they know, I actually pay attention when I do the transcripts for the show. The transcripts tell me what percentage of the time I'm speaking versus what percentage of the time the other person, okay. And I speak usually about, it's usually about 6040. And if I stay right around 6040, I feel very good. If I get more 5050, then I'm like in a Dexcom thing where people are just spewing out information. And if I go much over 63%, even when I listen back, I think who I spoke a little too much today, like I can, I can feel that. But yeah, but you guys don't know that sometimes I interview people who, who, whose who still have something valuable to say, but it's not their inclination to speak and pontificate and go on. And if I don't keep prodding them with silliness, or questions, or etc, they'll just stop talking. Mm hmm. Oh, there

Nicole 1:27:10
was one podcast that I'm thinking of when you when you explain that. And I wish I could remember the title of it, but it was a young girl who was living the vegan life. Right? She was on a vegan diet. And she seemed very, very shy, although very sweet, very shy. And and I could see you trying to draw this information out of her. Right. So yeah, if you're, if you're not like that, that that podcast wouldn't have, you wouldn't have been able to post it really?

Scott Benner 1:27:42
No, it would just be silence. And then yeah, do so. And there's another, you know, and the other aspect of it is, is the is the entertainment value, like people are like, Oh, it's entertaining? Well, it's entertaining, because I say, you know, because I actually have ridiculous thoughts in the middle of people serious conversations. And then I say them out loud. And then people go, Oh, my God, why did he think of that? Like, what do you mean that this, the Gulf of California didn't know it existed? Of course, I'm looking at it. I'm 50 years old, I was like, I've never seen that before. So like, that kind of stuff makes it, it makes it real. And if somebody just does somebody made a dry conversation about type one diabetes, you wouldn't listen to 10 of them, and you'd be done. It's true, you know. So I appreciate people who I also think this, I think that I think that it could rub some adult type ones a little wrong, that I don't have diabetes. And let's just say I completely understand that. But sometimes when I hear from people, there's too much of the host, meaning like I'm giving my opinion too much. I think it would be important if I could meet those people, I would say to them, Listen, you know, if you've listened to the Pro Tip series are the defining diabetes episodes or any of that stuff. That's all that is, is that conglomeration of all of my knowledge about type one diabetes, so that while we're in a conversation, you and I, and you have type one, I don't, if I can still relate some experience I've had that's good for you like that would be valuable for you. I mean, I have to do that I can't just sit back and not relate to the person having a conversation. And if I have something that I think is valuable, interject, I hope people would have enough trust in me to know that I'm building. I mean, I'm building a podcast that is fairly popular. Like I'm not just talking to talk, I recognize sort of what needs to be said in that moment. But I do think that I do understand why it would maybe if I was a type one, and I was an adult, and I was listening to a conversation where somebody with type one and somebody without type one. Were speaking, I'd want to hear from the type one more myself. I understand why they might feel that way. But um, yeah,

Nicole 1:29:55
I do a little bit but you know, I don't know in your defense, um, How old was Arden when she was diagnosed to two? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she doesn't know what's going on. You are still the lived experience of type one diabetes you you were managing 100% of her of her type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:30:18
And I've been specifically paying attention in a way that you have to admit is uncommon,

Nicole 1:30:23
so very uncommon, like when I started listening to your podcast and how you treat Arden's diabetes, she is so extremely lucky to have you had a father like you to be that involved. You know, I can see the benefit for for her, you know, delaying or possibly not having any chronic, like comorbidities from diabetes, because you were on it from the get go. That's the whole she's incredibly lucky. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:30:59
please. I was gonna call this episode hand stuff with Nicole, but which I feel like I'm gonna do but but now I might just call it Arden is lucky in that way. She might actually listen to this one day when she gets Yeah, she might well listen, it being serious. And in my own defense. I did an interview yesterday with a doctor who you know, you're gonna love his name's Dr. Addy Salviati. And when you when you hear it, he's brilliant about diabetes, like he really is. And yet, while he was talking, I thought he these are the things I've been saying for seven years on this podcast. Like he agrees with me. Like I didn't. I didn't say here's what I think. Do you agree with me? I let him say what he thought. And then I was thinking like, wow, that's exactly what I've said about that over and over again on this show, and made me feel good. Like, I was like, okay, my stuff is pretty solid. You know? It's yeah, you know, so if somebody hears me talking too much, I get it. Maybe I'm irritating to you, or whatever you want to hear from the person with type one, but I'm not just talking to talk. Although, listen, I record a lot of these. You got to cut me a break if once or twice, you know, a month I just like, start babbling away. Like you should try making 600 of these podcasts. Exactly. I mean, just say that it's free. Nicole, just say thank you like That's right. Every review should just say thank you stop critiquing me. I don't need this.

Nicole 1:32:23
Right? Yeah, there's always gonna be someone.

Scott Benner 1:32:26
I'm teasing. They're fine. I people's thoughts are really valuable. Like I yeah, I appreciate having them. But if I don't make fun of them again, we don't have a podcast, but I just Yeah, exactly. Thank you for your honest feedback. Wow. That's interesting. I gotta make it into something. We're talking here. Alright, let's Yeah, gotta get out of this. You you have been to delightful. You've taken up all my day. I am on a no sleep. Hi. That is I'm gonna crash very, very soon. I'm pretty sure. And and we might have heard from my mom if I decide not to edit it out. So big day. Yeah. Big day.

Nicole 1:33:02
Yes, well get some rest. I appreciate your time. With everything going on. And I and I really hope that things go well with your mom, you were

Scott Benner 1:33:10
really kind to put this off all day for me and, and help me out. I did a lot of very not fun things in the time between when we were supposed to record and when we got the start. So

Nicole 1:33:20
I can only imagine and I probably have a good idea of what that included. I'm assuming

Scott Benner 1:33:24
you were watching Netflix. But Canadian. Netflix is just like Big Comfy Couch and stuff like that. Right? Hey, real quick is big, comfy couch a Canadian thing? Well,

Nicole 1:33:36
it was a show that my sister watched when we were growing up. I don't know if I might have been a little old for it when it came out. But yeah, definitely. I definitely remember that show.

Scott Benner 1:33:48
So his Big Comfy Couch. And there's a reason I'm asking this. So if you're still listening, hang on for one second. It premiered on March 2 1992. In Canada and on January 9 1995. Us This is a Canadian TV show The Big Comfy Couch. There you go. Why did I ask you that? What was the idiom you used earlier, reshape

Nicole 1:34:11
it give my head a shake give

Scott Benner 1:34:13
my head a shake which by the way you realize is actually going to be the name of the episode right? Yeah, perfect. And when you google give my head a shake the first video return that comes back is a song called Give your head a shake on the Big Comfy Couch. And I saw that a couple hours ago while we were talking and that's what made me say that so Oh, I love that. Yeah, so give it by the way your Wi Fi Are you guys don't know it is you guys don't live that far from here. Why are you so different?

Nicole 1:34:43
That that seems like slang. Aren't you being

Scott Benner 1:34:47
ruled by a monarch or something like that or do I not understand?

Nicole 1:34:51
I think we are but I don't really understand that either.

Scott Benner 1:34:58
Oh, it would be so easy to take over the world nobody pays attention to me

first, I'd like to thank Nicole for coming on the show and sharing her story. Then I'm gonna thank touched by type one. Don't forget you can find them at Instagram, Facebook, or it touched by type one.org They really are doing amazing stuff. You should go check them out. Another thank you to Omni pod for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Find out more about that free 30 day trial the Omni pod dash at Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. And if you'd like to let on the pod know that you're interested in that on the pod five, it's Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Five

thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with someone who you think might also enjoy it.

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#638 Chile Cahcho

Fernanda has type 1 diabetes and she has an intersting story and a cat.

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 638 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on the Juicebox Podcast we speak with Fernanda, she is an adult living with type one diabetes, who's been through some stuff. She has an interesting story, it's well worth hearing. She also has a cat that has very little to do with this. 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. Are you an adult with type one diabetes, or an adult who is the caregiver of someone with type one? If you are one of those things, and the US citizen, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox do me the favor of filling out the T one D exchange survey. It should only take you a few moments and you can do it right on your phone. I would really appreciate it. So with the T one D exchange and it would benefit a lot of people living with type one if you would. Thank you. Music for

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Contour Next One blood glucose meter Learn more at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox Are you looking for the diabetes pro tip episodes they started episode 210 and can be also found and can be also found is not English, but let's just get past that and can also be found at Juicebox Podcast calm and it diabetes pro tip.com.

Fernanda 1:59
I'm Fernanda I'm diabetic type one scenes 1998. I've been through a lot. I just started with some implant Omnipod actually a year ago, and before that I was using the Medtronic g 670. I started with that one in 2017. And before that I was MDI

Scott Benner 2:26
for a long time.

Fernanda 2:30
Yeah, it's just because as I told you before, I'm not American. I come from Chile. And in chiller, insulin pumps were not covered by MediCal insurances. So if you wanted a pump, you have to pay it out of pocket. And very expensive, especially for our economy. So I mean, it's a long story. My dad didn't want it to buy an insulin pump for me. He thought I didn't deserve one. Because my control was not on point. And whatever. I moved to the United States, and as soon as I could, I got one. Cool. So you've had a one C one from 10 to seven in three months.

Scott Benner 3:13
Okay. You've had diabetes like 22 years.

Fernanda 3:20
There's 98. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 3:21
Okay. How old are you now?

Fernanda 3:25
I'm 35.

Scott Benner 3:26
Okay. It's okay to be 35. So you were online? Yeah, you were what? 13 ish when you got diagnosed?

Fernanda 3:38
Yeah.

Scott Benner 3:40
Your dad's

Fernanda 3:41
just starting my teenage years. Horrible, horrible age to be diagnosed. Oh, my God.

Scott Benner 3:47
When did you move here?

Fernanda 3:50
To the US, September 2016 2016.

Scott Benner 3:54
What made you come?

Fernanda 3:58
Work. I'm a physical therapist. So back in Chela, there are a lot of physical therapists, our salaries are not the best. We're not recognized as as well as we are in the United States. So I took advantage that I know English from school. And I started looking for a job in here and here I am. Wow, that's really cool. It was not easy. I

Scott Benner 4:25
can't imagine it was easy. Yeah. Are you were you Did you come by yourself? Or did you come with other people?

Fernanda 4:32
No, I came by myself. I brought my cat with me.

Scott Benner 4:36
That's a Chilean cat I saw walked by a minute ago

Fernanda 4:39
and said Chilean cat. Yes, absolutely. And believe it or not, he is able to figure out when my blood sugar is low. So he wakes me up at night if that happens,

Scott Benner 4:49
are you serious? Yes, you have a diabetic.

Fernanda 4:55
Yes, he learned by himself. So long story short in the 23 years as a diabetic, I've had a six hyperglycemic, comas. Oh my gosh. And well, and eventually, I, I don't feel those anymore until I'm very low. I feel them when I'm in the 30s. And for some reason he figures it out and every time I'm I'm going low at night, he wakes me up.

Scott Benner 5:24
Do you think he's trying to wake you up? Or do you think he's trying to test to see if you're dead so we can eat you? I don't know. I think there's little cats are looking at people. Like if I was bigger, I was definitely them.

Fernanda 5:39
Yeah, you know that there's a joke when the when COVID started, and everybody was doing quarantined, and there's a dog, and a cat. And the dog is like, good. My Masters is staying at home with me. And there's the cat bed says, and you're gonna get fired?

Scott Benner 5:56
That makes exact sense. Did the cat have any trouble with the language change? I'm just kidding.

Fernanda 6:03
I don't think so. Yeah, that's very well,

Scott Benner 6:07
what what made you want to come on the podcast?

Fernanda 6:12
So from all the all the episodes that I've been listening from you, I remember when you started with these, after our, what's the name of it after dark? After Dark podcasts. Thank you. And you have these girl coming in talking about diabetes and sex. I'm like, Okay, this is this interesting, let's talk that's lovely. And listen to it. And the thing that made me like, go and talk to you was well, you know, she was diagnosed as an adult, she was just changing from being shy of showing her gadgets talking about the Dexcom, or whatever you use, and the and the, the pump, and how she didn't want to show them and how she was interfering with, with her sexual relationships and whatever. And I said, you know, maybe you need another point of view about it. Like somebody that was diagnosed as young as me, or well, just for you to know, before I live in Miami right now, before here used to live in New York. And in New York, I have a big group of type one diabetic friends, and I love them. And two other girls were diagnosed pretty much at the same age that I was, and we met three, four years ago. And we were all talking about the same, like, how different is when you're diagnosed as a as a young woman, girl, and you're growing up as an adult, and how you deal with all your diabetic stuff. And how you don't care anymore. If your God just show up how you don't care if your partner sees them or not. What do you do with your pump when you're in the middle of sex, and you just throw it to one side, and then you throw it to the other one, and then you just take it away? And stuff like that, that make you grow up as a diabetic? You know, like, at least for me, if my partner doesn't like my diabetic gadgets, it's a no, no.

Scott Benner 8:21
Right? So are you telling me that you think that because you had diabetes longer, and you didn't get to experience sexuality before diabetes, that you kind of have the same relationship with around sex that we describe as you know, people, like my daughter's had diabetes, and she's too and she doesn't think about it the same way as people who were diagnosed when they were older. So like, kind of that vibe, but around sexuality, it kind of sticks and is similar.

Fernanda 8:51
I I'm so used to my, to my diabetes. I'm so used to my alarms. I'm so used to all of these. That for me being diabetic and having sex, it's like, they it's not a problem. It's like, um, I don't know. I'm so used to it. It's part of my life.

Scott Benner 9:15
Yeah, you ever CGM. And yes, I have a Dexcom. So maybe when it beeps, you just tell the person like oh, that means you're not doing a good job. Try harder.

Fernanda 9:27
Let's just finish this

Scott Benner 9:31
three times. You've got two minutes, buddy.

Fernanda 9:36
Hey, finish faster.

Scott Benner 9:37
I'll get you as far as I can, but I gotta eat.

Fernanda 9:40
Yeah. If you want me to stay here longer, we have to do something about it.

Scott Benner 9:47
Is it Is there any difference between a more casual relationship and a more long term relationship where you don't see a difference?

Fernanda 9:56
So one of the reasons that I moved from New York was because I broke up with my ex boyfriend. We were together for nine years. And he knew me with him doing MDI. And then he knew me with Medtronic. And then he knew me with the Omnipod. I mean, he went on the process with me. And he didn't care. He actually didn't care a lot. And I don't know if it's because he didn't care or because I didn't care that he cared. So after we broke up, and I moved to Miami, where I am right now been dating other people. And I think they don't care neither. Okay. It's just I'm very open about it. They go and they're like, Oh, is that first stop smoking is like now for my blood glucose, you know, like, right. And then I have to start explaining, and because I work in the medical field, for people, it's even easier to understand. Like, oh, this is my insulin pump. This is my glucose monitor, or if you hear beeping, don't worry, I'll take care of

Scott Benner 11:06
it. Right. Did you think that that boyfriend from New York, were you with him so long? Because you thought he didn't care? And that was special about him? No, no, no, nothing like that. Okay, like you weren't, like stuck with? Like, at least he's not bugging me about this. Okay.

Fernanda 11:23
All right. No, not at all. I usually do the same example. I make the same example. Sorry, like, I'm injecting insulin is like brushing your teeth. It's something that you have to do every day.

Scott Benner 11:35
So would you say that regardless

Fernanda 11:36
of what the people around, you say, like, you have to brush your teeth,

Scott Benner 11:40
right? Maybe it's your attitude about it that doesn't allow them to even you know, me, or maybe you pick certain people like maybe there's something about you, that leads to what kind of people surround you? That would make sense to me?

Fernanda 12:00
Maybe so it happens that for my friends, my type one difference in New York, I have one friend that also diabetic for 20 plus years, and she's always hiding her Dexcom she's hiding her Omnipod. And she's, we have a WhatsApp group that we talk a lot between us and we do all these nerdy messages that we only understand. And she was telling she texted once and she said the only time that I feel free to wear my gadgets out in the open is when I'm with Fernanda like, well, girl, there you go.

Scott Benner 12:34
Well, then, yeah, maybe my points valid. Maybe there's something about you that just lets people feel comfortable. I feel comfortable. Maybe. Thank you. I listen, I hear it from people a lot, too. They say Oh, you're very easy to talk to. Or I said something during our conversation. I never expected to say, You made me feel comfortable. And I'm like, I didn't make you feel comfortable. Like I didn't like sit down and thoughtfully be like, Oh, I'll make this person feel comfortable. There might just be something easy about you. And you have a nice like pleasant smile. And you don't even like yeah, like, that's it. You just attract good boys. Maybe some people just attract the people who are no. You're away.

Fernanda 13:23
I'm a magnet, your magnet? Yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 13:28
No, I mean, sounds like you're not it sounds like you attract like reasonable people who don't judge people based on their, at the very least on their diabetes technology. So yeah,

Fernanda 13:37
I don't judge people at all. I'm usually very open to to everybody. And I don't know, it's I think it goes with my profession. That I'm like, you know, physical therapists have a lot of psychological component into it. We we have to spend an hour with every patient. So we we need to talk about something. Right. And you meet a lot. I tried to write Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I have.

Scott Benner 14:10
And it's intimate. Like, right off the bat. I mean, you know, I mean, if I have a thigh injury, it's more intimate than, you know, if you work Oh, yeah.

Fernanda 14:23
It's the same thing as the Okay, let's go back is the same thing as having a pump. You know, like, I don't make any difference if your injuries in your thigh or is in your low back or eating your shoulder from it's your bodies, your body and I respect it totally from your last toe, from your your your toes to your last piece of hair. Like I don't make any difference from it. Do you think usually if it's more intimate parts, I will say hey, you know what, I'm really sorry. But I I have to I have to touch it. Right? And they're like, yeah, no, no worries. But you don't make faces. You don't make jokes. You respect every part of it.

Scott Benner 14:59
Yeah, but I'm saying that's a that's an aspect of your life that you're accustomed to. And so absolutely, yeah, even that makes sense. Really? You? Is it? Alright, I'm going to ask you a question here. Is it easier to have sex with the Omni pod than it was with the Medtronic?

Fernanda 15:16
Absolutely. That Medtronic sometimes was just hanging somewhere. And I had, and I remember my ex telling me okay, what are we going to do about it? I'm gonna take it off. You know, when you take that the pump from the insertion site, there's a cup that goes over it like to close it. And it happens that if you don't put the cap like the edges of the insertion side are very sharp. So he usually had like five or six cuts in his and I think he's night table and it was like, there's a cup. Okay, I took it off.

Scott Benner 15:52
So he would actually keep the little caps the put on the site.

Fernanda 15:56
Yes. What are we gonna do about this? It's all over the place. I was like, I'm taking off. Okay, here's a cup. Okay. Thank you.

Scott Benner 16:03
Thanks. It's silly. When you hear people say I Oh, we stopped to put on a condom and it broke the mood. You're like, I had to take my insulin pump off. So yeah.

Fernanda 16:12
Oh, we heard yesterday. You know, like, we really didn't care.

Scott Benner 16:17
Do you think Omnipod should change their tagline to easier to with? In their ads? Do you think they

Fernanda 16:25
should be a good line? Like, yeah, um, it doesn't mess around with your nightlife.

Scott Benner 16:31
Say you were you were nicer. I know. I can beat myself out. So I didn't I didn't think about it that way.

Fernanda 16:38
It can put it in comfortable places that you don't have to deal with. Yeah,

Scott Benner 16:41
it's interesting. I mean, when we chose it for Arden, so long ago, she was four. And it was one of the first things that struck me I was like, This just seems more adaptable, like just not being I mean, it just seemed like common sense, like not being tethered to something seemed better than being tethered to something. I know people get used to other pumps. But there's still aspects of it that nobody talks about. So

Fernanda 17:09
that is yes. So from from going from a two pump to a Tablas pump. Originally, I didn't choose them at 2670. Yes, I chose it. But it was my doctor's preference. I had an amazing endo in New York. And so when I moved to New York, looking for a doctor and everything, it was hard in the beginning, I didn't know how to do it. And all I wanted was a pump. And she said, Well, you know, what, what if you wait for a second, because Medtronic is coming with the next pump in July 2017. And it's going to be a closed loop. And this is how it's gonna work. Like, I barely know how a pump works. But if you told me it's the best that it's going to come with i I can wait. I don't mind. I don't even know what a loop is. But sure if you say so I'm going with it. And I weighed it came, I learned how to use it. I was with it like for two years until I met my diabetic peeps. And they were all of them in loop. I didn't know what loop was and the look. The look you know what the loop? Yeah. And not the Medtronic loop the other loop. And they were saying these is really good. This is fabulous. My agency is here my agencies there I have so much control over my blood sugar's I was like, Okay, I'm, I'm willing to about because I'm so not technological. I was afraid because I didn't know how, how to manage it. I mean, I barely know how to turn on and off my computer and leave it there. And they were like, No, you will be able, don't worry, we will help you. And I was like, Okay, after like six months, insisting I said, Okay, I'm gonna try it. And one of my friends gave me a box of Omnipod and he's peed on her PDM and she's not here you are trying, like, Ah, okay. How do I manage this? And she said, Give me your numbers. Give me your ratio, your factor everything. We're going to do it together. Here you are, you're ready, go. And I tried the Omni pod like for two weeks. And I said, Okay, I love this. How I was thinking last week, it was love at first sight as it

Scott Benner 19:30
ever made before.

Fernanda 19:34
I love at first sight. And then I said okay, I'm going for the loop. And one friend said I have an extra rilink So I'm gonna give it to you use it if you like it, you buy yours and then you give it back. And that is how I went into loop just like my friends sharing their stuff with me. And I really liked it and eventually I bought my rilink I got my army part even though I was not out of The motronic yet, but because they fall under different categories inside of medical insurance, I didn't have any problem. And that is how it changed. And I'm very happy with it. Wow, he's so you know, a lot of for the first time in a long time I had my lowest I even see that it has been 6.6.

Scott Benner 20:17
That's amazing. That's very good.

Fernanda 20:19
I was Yeah, I was diagnosed with 17.4.

Scott Benner 20:24
Well, I wanted to go backwards a little bit. I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. But you said your dad said, Your dad said he that you didn't deserve a pump. Like where do you think that thought came from?

Fernanda 20:37
So I have a hard relationship with my dad, he was not the easiest dad to deal with. Raised in America in a very military family. That was his way of raising us. And when I was diagnosed, he his his way of thinking very squared thinking he was like, this is the insulin you need, this is the carbs you have to eat. And this is how your life is going to go. By that time using NPH, which I don't know how we survived that insulin, but whatever. Um, he was very rigid with the numbers. This is the amount of insulin, this is the amount of carbs, this is the amount of insulin, this is the amount of carbs and don't get out of there. And if you have a low, why do you have a low? And if you have a high what what did you eat? Like there was always a judgment out of it. And eventually, we changed to I don't remember the the long acting insulin but it was for 12 hours. So I have to put it out morning at night. And then with him a log. And it was a it was a hard change for him to understand that numbers were not the same anymore. And that he could have more flexibility with timings that I didn't have to have breakfast every day at 7am. And I didn't have to have lunch every day at 12:30pm that I could be more flexible that I if I wanted to have lunch at three I could. And if I didn't want to eat everything I could. So it, it was all a big mess. At the same time I gained a lot of weight gain almost 70 pounds in two years. Because of this amount of carbs that I was putting in and this amount of insulin that people just thought it was the good thing to have. And it was you couldn't adjust it. Okay, so Hema came in, I tried, and I remember, he always used to tell me the same thing, and he got so angry about it. Please stop playing with insulin. And this is what you call now being bold with insulin. My dad call it playing with insulin. And he was so afraid of it, that every time that I started playing with it, he would just punish me and you are not going out with your friends. You're not going out partying. I used to do a lot of sports until today I was playing field hockey by that time. I was going into the national tournament and everything. And his way of punishing me was you're not going to your field hockey match this weekend. That's just because I wanted to get more adjusted with insulin. It sucked actually did my a one C never went down from nine or 10. He was very frustrated about it every time on a once he came in. It was another punishment because it was not an seven. He wanted to manage my insulin as much as he could, even though it was a team. And when I started asking for an insulin pump, he was like, You know what, number one is expensive. And number two, you don't deserve it because you're not showing good numbers. I was like, okay, whatever. And that is how my life went on.

Scott Benner 23:59
Yeah. Let me ask you. Did you have any idea in that management style right there? Did you have any idea how to make your agency lower?

Fernanda 24:10
Ah, not really.

Scott Benner 24:13
Yeah, I mean, so he's saying, really, you're wrong for not doing for not accomplishing this. But yet you? He doesn't know how to do it. Neither do It's just frustrating. Really?

Fernanda 24:24
It's just that I have I have one. One little issue. I love picking food. I'm really I'm not a big eater. I don't have like big plates of food. But I love having little snacks all day. And you can't be having snacks all day when you were an MPH.

Scott Benner 24:46
Yeah, but you can now right now it's not as an issue

Fernanda 24:49
now. Now I do all the time. Yeah, um, other thing it's like, um, I have a really sweet tooth. So I love cereals. I love chocolate. And every time I had like a piece of chocolate here or a bowl of cereal there, my blood sugar was all over the place. And I didn't know how to manage it, even though I tried. And I don't know, I think maybe my first hypo coma was a big mistake was because I confused insulins instead of putting 30 units of this low, I put 30 units of human like, Yeah, but the second one was, maybe because I was trying to manage while I was pouring out with my friends, and the mix of alcohol dancing food, and insulin was not in a good line. And I went home and I woke up in ICU the next morning,

Scott Benner 25:53
okay. How long ago was that?

Fernanda 25:57
The last coma was 10 years ago, I believe 10 years ago. And after that one, the doctor told me like one more and I don't know if I'm going to be able to wake you up.

Scott Benner 26:08
So yeah, so that pumps the unnecessary all of a sudden, huh? Like, not just a nice thing to have.

Fernanda 26:17
I think that when I decided to come to the United States, God in one way or the other tried to help me bringing a cat emoji sex.

Scott Benner 26:31
Listen, you can't keep saying delightful things because you already chose the episode title. It's called Love at first sight. It's just too good. I mean, you're gonna have to say something pretty amazing. from here forward to get that to get that one knocked off. Yeah, I mean, listen, sometimes things just come into your life and, and you definitely need them. And I listen, I'm not gonna defend. And after

Fernanda 26:52
two years in New York, I met all these diabetic people that they are amazing. How did you meet them? Like with capital letters? Amazing. How

Scott Benner 27:03
do you meet people like, like that have diabetes? Did you go to a meeting or online? Or how did you do that?

Fernanda 27:10
I'm kind of

Scott Benner 27:22
managing insulin is difficult enough, when you have good data. But it gets harder when the numbers you're getting aren't accurate. With that in mind, I asked you, is your blood glucose meter? Accurate? You don't know, do you? Of course you don't. Because someone just gave it to you. You didn't look into it, or ask any questions. And I understand why I didn't either. The first time somebody gave me a meter, I just took the one that doctor gave me. But now I know better. Now I know about the Contour. Next One blood glucose meter. And you can know about it as well. It's not a secret. And you have the internet I imagine. So head over to contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. At that website, you can learn everything you need to know about the Contour. Next One blood glucose meter. I'm going to tell you my favorite parts. It's easy to hold and easy to transport. It has a bright light for use at night. And the screen is gorgeous. Interesting. I'm saying the numbers are big, and they're well lit. And I can see them me and my old eyes. I know what they are. The test strips are fantabulous, they offer Second Chance testing. So if you touch a little bit of blood, but don't get quite enough, you can go back and get the rest without ruining the accuracy of your blood sugar test. And accuracy is what this is all about. Contour next one.com forward slash juice box. You can make your decisions a little less burdensome by having accurate measurements. Right? You don't want to be guessing about what your blood sugar is. You don't want to be thinking like well, I hope this meter is like close. Where did I get this meter from? The guy pulled out of a drawer. The salesperson Oh God, I don't remember. Why do we have this meter. I'd like you to not be walking around with a blood glucose meter that you can't remember how you got make a decision. Check out the Contour Next One blood glucose meter contour next one.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes and links at juicebox podcast.com. Support the sponsors support the show. Oh sorry. That's a no data from Arden stacks calm. She's on an airplane right now. on airplanes that does not have Wi Fi. I didn't mean to interrupt us. We just put this back down. Now, by the way, Dexcom is a sponsor too. They didn't sponsor this episode, but dexcom.com forward slash juice box. Let's get back to Fernanda.

Fernanda 30:21
So it happens that once I started in the pump, and my agency started getting better, I started running. And as I said before, I've always been an athlete. But running is another monster, you have to deal with your blood sugar's for a long time while you're exercising. And while I was an MBI, I was able to run like maybe one to three miles. And then I was crashing down. I couldn't hold it. But with a pump, I figured out that I would do three miles four miles 578. And I could manage I was like, Okay, let me see how other people manage their sugars while they are running to see if they are doing better or worse or whatever. Just I needed ideas of what to bring in. So I started talking with one of my patients like, hey, I need to find a group of type one diabetics that run. And I'm googling and I can't find one. And I'm sure there has to be one because there's way too many out there. And I'm not the only one that runs for sure. I know, I'm not the only one. And she said, Well, you know, ah, Billie Jean King was a diabetic. I was like, Yeah, to 801. And he was like, Okay, we'll find one. Okay, we'll find one and eventually Googling, I found beyond type one. And beyond Taiwan. It's amazing community to you, they have these type one run community. And when you go to Facebook, and you look for them, and they suggest different type one run communities, there's the metro area of New York. And like, Okay, I'm going to join these one, let's see what the people do in this city. And shortly after I went through there, they said, Hey, we're gonna meet, we want to see each other faces. So let's come together these day, this place this time. Like, okay, let's go, you know, I don't have any issues, socializing. And that is how we met. Wow. And it's incredible. The other day, we were talking like, if we were just on our own in a bar, we have never come together. Like how we are now because we just share that we're diabetics.

Scott Benner 32:31
Yeah, how would you know who's who really are? You know? That's a really, that's excellent. Really cool.

Fernanda 32:37
Hey, we're like 20.

Scott Benner 32:38
Does it turn into a social? Guide? I'm sorry. Yeah, it does it turn into a social circle. Besides running? Absolutely. Yeah. What's it? Absolutely. I have to ask you what it's like to be young, in New York with diabetes. It's just, I mean,

Fernanda 33:02
thank you for the young part. I love it.

Scott Benner 33:05
Listen, you've been there for a while, right? So obviously, go back in your memory. Really? No, no, but But seriously, like, that's a single even Miami's a bit of a I mean, Miami, sort of like New York, but, you know, closer to Cuba, basically, you know, like, so. It's a it's a very, I mean, I there's similar kind of aspects to the social lives. So, I mean, how much do you think about it? Having diabetes while you're being social? I'm not a match. No, you don't. Because you were had it when you were young, actually for saying

Fernanda 33:46
I don't care at all. It's like part of my life. Um, the easier thing about loop is that you can control how much insulin you put in or suspend or whatever with your cell phone. So nobody knows if you're putting insulin or sending a text message.

Scott Benner 34:05
It's excellent. It's very cool.

Fernanda 34:07
Because I'm because I'm very there because I'm very obvious with my with my Omnipod. I sometimes we're both in the same arm, or I wear my G six, seven on my chest, the six g six on my chest all the time. So people seed and they're like, Oh, the same as I said before, it's just smoking. I was like, nope. And I have to start telling me no, I'm diabetic. But I'm, I'm cool. So let's go porting

Scott Benner 34:34
Hey, listen, I'm gonna You're a little noisy. I'm gonna stop your video. Just to see if that helps us, sir.

Fernanda 34:41
I can stop it. Yeah, thank

Scott Benner 34:42
you. Hopefully, it'll just give us a little more bandwidth. But I want to go back for a second so people understand you were your G six on your chest. Do you mean? Is it on your breast or is it up on your like, up on higher on your chest?

Fernanda 34:56
aids like, two three fingers under my clavicle?

Scott Benner 35:00
Okay, that's a perfect guy, but I

Fernanda 35:03
use it everywhere. I mean, last week I had it on my, on my, on my lower leg.

Scott Benner 35:09
On your calf.

Fernanda 35:11
On my calf. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:12
yeah. I've seen people do use it everywhere. Yeah. Do you find it works better in one place than the other?

Fernanda 35:20
Oh, the chest for sure. That is my gold standard place.

Scott Benner 35:23
Okay. Interesting. Arden loves it on her hips.

Fernanda 35:27
It does. It doesn't bother. I so right now I have it on my hip. The only problem is that every time I want to go to the bathroom, and I put my pants down, I feel I'm gonna take it away.

Scott Benner 35:40
I I've heard her say that before. Yeah, I the biggest. I would say if Arden has any issue with her hip. It's that if she side sleeps, sometimes it could give her a compression low. Oh,

Fernanda 35:56
for sure. So the Omnipod right now I have it in the inner part of my thigh. Four days ago, I have it on the outer part of my thigh and I'm a side sleeper. And I couldn't sleep to that side. Because I feel it like digging into my tie.

Scott Benner 36:11
Yeah. Hey, the inner how far? Or how far on the inner part of your thigh? Like, what if we talked about the top of your thighs? Like the crown? Is it all the way? By 90 degree? No,

Fernanda 36:23
no, it's not the way it's not the way in. Because my legs are a little chunky. And I don't want to walk with it between my legs. But it's like, let's say two fingers in the upper part of your thigh. Like, it's, if you put your legs together, it won't go in the middle.

Scott Benner 36:46
That's how I understand. Okay, pod bra. Yeah, you don't want that. Right?

Fernanda 36:51
No, not at all. Well, you figure it out with time. I used to put it on the lower back. Before and it's very comfortable when you're standing up. And when you're sitting down. You want to kill yourself. Okay.

Scott Benner 37:03
Oh, I see. Yeah. I can imagine because it's always gonna hit a chair, especially anything with like lumbar support. And it would probably be

Fernanda 37:12
Yeah, I used to put the Dexcom like in this role that I have, like, on my, my mid back, like we're the the bra goes on the back. There's a I have a little roll of fat roll in there. I used to put my my Dexcom in there. It used to be very comfortable until I decided to take off one of my T shirts. And he came out with it. I was like, Ah, forget it.

Scott Benner 37:39
You're very adaptable about everything really? Why do you think that is?

Fernanda 37:45
I try. Um, you know, it took me 15 years to recognize my condition. I neglected it for a long time. I was very frustrated about my numbers. My first depression episode or diagnosis, I don't know how you want to call it was because of diabetes. And I think that when I moved to the US and I was able to take care of my life for myself for the first time. And I had the chance and the money and the opportunity to have a better control life. I just wanted to enjoy it as much as I could. So I don't feel ashamed of it. I'm very proud of managing it as best as I can. And the long road that I have been going with it. And I tried to just be flexible with everything because I don't want it to to be like a like a I don't know, like stop point in my life.

Scott Benner 39:08
I have a question. Should was, was your father right to be worried? Or was the way he was? Did his the way he acted? What put you into that feeling that you just described?

Fernanda 39:25
No, I think he was just extra worried. And my mom was to both of them where it's just that my dad was more militant about it. How would you? Yeah, he was really good at punishing and screaming and shouting and this very terrifying image of it. Actually, I stopped talking with my dad like five years ago and start talking to him again. Two months ago. I took me time To forgive him for all of what he did. Yeah, and yeah, right now I'm good. I think I, I, I went a long process with my psychologist and my psychiatrist to stand up again and say, Do you know what this is who I am? And here I am. Here's what I come with. And let's go.

Scott Benner 40:25
What would Excuse me? Sorry. From your perspective, what? What parenting tactic would have been valuable to you? What do you mean? What could your dad have done that would have helped your health back then, and given you a more healthy outlook as an adult? Like if you were done punish

Fernanda 40:50
me because my blood sugar was high? Yeah. Don't punish me because I was gaining weight. Don't tell me like that. I look like a cow. Because I'm 170 pounds. Don't promise me gifts, if I lose 30 pounds? That is not the way of doing it. You know? Like, if I'm low, you don't punish me. Yeah. Okay, here you go corrected. Let's see what happened. The next time you put one unit lies. If you want to eat the whole lasagna thing. Go and eat it. I just want you to finish with 100 of blood glucose, you know, let's see how to do it. Yeah, man. No, he'd never had that psychologist, I that psychology? I think that when you love somebody so much, sometimes it's it's bad. Because you don't let them grow.

Scott Benner 41:48
Yeah, and he did. He obviously didn't know how to help. I mean, you know, it's a tough, he didn't Yeah, I mean, you're using regular mph. And it would have been difficult for anybody. But the rest of it doesn't make sense. Like listening to it. I don't know how he goes from, Hey, eat all this. Because you're supposed to eat all these carbs to you're gaining weight. That's your fault to like, don't gain weight. Exactly. Yeah, eat all this food, don't gain weight. Okay, you know, like, exactly. What am I supposed to do here? And you're young. So

Fernanda 42:20
I was a teenager, hey, I got my first period when I was 15 years old. And let's just try another roller coaster. You know, I didn't get it. But he never. He never assume any part of it. He just said, I'm doing what I have to do. But she's not collaborating. So that's why the numbers are so messed up.

Scott Benner 42:44
Yeah, like it's your fault. Because he probably couldn't imagine anything else. He didn't know what was going on. So I guess if you're if

Fernanda 42:54
I already I already forgive him about it. Yeah, um, the last episode that I listened from you was this guy. Mike, Max, he had all these complications because of being diabetic and having his high a onesies for so long. And it's like, it made me kind of worried a little bit. Because my avsc was up in the tents for more than 15 years.

Like, I hope, I hope that I'm not gonna have any of these. I hope.

Scott Benner 43:28
How are you so far?

Fernanda 43:32
So far? I'm really good. All my numbers are coming out fine. My eyes are working beautiful. My crediting levels are on point. It's just that complications come without advice. So

Scott Benner 43:49
yeah, no, when they show up there,

Fernanda 43:50
I hope I'm standing up when that happens.

Scott Benner 43:55
Hey, he said, you're speaking to your father again. Did you? Did you tell him? Yes. Like that? Was that part of the process? Did you tell him how you felt back then?

Fernanda 44:05
No, because I know his answer. And I don't want to deal with it.

Scott Benner 44:07
I gotcha. So you just moved on. You just kind of Yeah, yeah. New life start over.

Fernanda 44:13
Yes, yes. Absolutely. He's gonna blame it on me.

Scott Benner 44:16
Gotcha. If you go back and tell him how you feel. It's all gonna start over again. I hear you.

Fernanda 44:21
Okay. Yes, he will. He will say I did everything that I had to do. You didn't do your part. Okay, he's very narcissist. Alright, so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go into that. into that part of my life again. It's not worth it.

Scott Benner 44:37
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's, I also think it's healthy not to hold on to resentment about things. So it's good for you. You know, they mean to Yeah, let it go.

Fernanda 44:47
I'm already made. I'm already in charge of my own things. And I'm happy about it.

Scott Benner 44:55
Yeah. Cool. That's excellent. Do you think you want to do You think you want to have kids?

Fernanda 45:03
I would love to, I would love to have kids. But I'm already because of all this complication things that we were talking. I'm in the position that if they come, I'm very happy to have them. And if they don't, they just don't.

Scott Benner 45:21
You know, you're not actively, you know, chasing a boy around trying to make it happen. You just live in your life. Yes, yeah. Gotcha.

Fernanda 45:30
Yes, yes, yes, I come from a very conservative family. I, if I have kids, I would like to have you know, I'm not gonna say a husband, but at least a partner to have a father image to my kid, you know?

Scott Benner 45:45
I say, yeah, it makes sense to me. Are you do you? Do you date? With that in mind? We're like, how do how does a single person I've never printed a Listen, I've never been single really? Like you don't I mean? Like, I was pretty young and, and things like that. So how does a single person like yourself? Like, how do you even find people? And when you find them, like, does it become obvious very quickly, who wants to get married? And who just wants to date? And how does that all work?

Fernanda 46:21
Well, I think there's a difference between dating when you're 20. And when you're 30. When you're 20. You're just dating and having fun. And whatever it happens, it happens when when you're 30 year old, really very straightforward. You meet somebody you have fun or just talking and then the question just pops up, like, Hey, are you planning to marry one day have kids or you want to be single for the rest of your days? That is a question that I do right away. I am not shy about it at all.

Scott Benner 46:57
And you don't care what their answer is. You just want to know.

Fernanda 47:01
Yeah, I don't care about their answer. I just want to know exactly. Like, it doesn't have to be with me. I'm just asking in general, like, what is your plan for the rest of your days? You know? It's just to be wiser with whom you're spending your time when it comes to date with? Are you already it was nine years of my life, that I was with the same guy that originally he told me no, I don't want to get married. I don't want kids. I don't want anything. And I had this idea, of course, as every women saying, Ah, you will change his mind. Of course you never did. And after eight years, we were fighting a lot. So when things were already bad, we've refinished and he decided that he wanted to married now. And he wanted to have kids and he kneeled actually, he gave me a ring. And I said, I'm so sorry. It's too late.

Scott Benner 47:59
You're that feeling kind of left you? Like what was? Yeah, was there a time when you would have married him?

Fernanda 48:07
Absolutely. If he asked me maybe two years earlier, or three years earlier, when I just came to New York, a booth I was I was in love. I was sealing in love. But after, you know, some disappointments on enough i It was no

Scott Benner 48:29
did the fighting did the fighting sour it.

Fernanda 48:35
Like, more than the fighting, you know, um, he started showing personality issues that were very, very similar to my dad's. Okay. And when I saw them coming, like the shouting in the undermining, um, all these bad words coming out and everything I said, you know, and I know, this is a very, very red flag. I need to get out of here. Now.

Scott Benner 49:08
I've done this once. I'm good. I don't need to do it again. Thank you. It took me

Fernanda 49:11
time to figure it out. It took me like seven years to figure out real because I was in love. So I didn't I didn't see the bad things. But well, I saw the red flag, it was like almost on my nose. And I said, Okay, I'm out of here. And I've met like very nice guys on the way. So I'm very thankful that I was able to realize it on time.

Scott Benner 49:35
Do you think about guy's backgrounds when you're dating or do you not care? Where They're From

Fernanda 49:46
what do you mean like country profession family?

Scott Benner 49:49
I think maybe I mean, all of it. And I'd be happy to pick through it like so let's start with you know, do you look at their prospects their, their professional prospects? How long until them Yes, I

Fernanda 50:00
do. Yeah. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I'm a very competitive person when it comes to talking knowledge. I like to talk about politics. I, I like to talk about the Nils. I like to talk about a lot of stuff. And I want a man by my side that can tell me hey, yeah, absolutely. Or no, I don't think this is the right thing.

Scott Benner 50:31
Do you want them to be able to make a certain amount of money?

Fernanda 50:35
Huh? No money. So donation, you know, money comes and goes, Okay, today, you can be a millionaire today. Tomorrow, you can have nothing.

Scott Benner 50:43
How about just like, cultural backgrounds does dues? Do you? Are you looking for similarities to your own? Or does that not matter?

Fernanda 50:53
No, not really. You know, I've had a lot of boyfriends. I mean, not a lot. I'm gonna say. I got like seven boyfriends in my life since I started dating, but they all have different backgrounds. And that is funny. Okay. I I dated a Brazilian I dated a guy from Holland or Netherland. I dated a guy from Dominican Republic. That was my ex. I was with a guy from England. Yeah, I really don't mind about their background.

Scott Benner 51:27
Gotcha. Religiously doesn't matter to you.

Fernanda 51:31
Not really, I'm Catholic, but I don't remember the last time I went to church.

Scott Benner 51:35
Gotcha. Yeah, I mean,

Fernanda 51:39
I believe in God and the Virgin Mary.

Scott Benner 51:42
But if I, let's say you and I meet, and I don't believe in any of that, um, I just come right down. I tell you, I'm an atheist. Can you date me?

Fernanda 51:50
Absolutely. It's a thing of respect. If you respect that I believe in God and the Virgin Mary. And I respect that you don't believe in anything that we're fine. Now, if you're going to start judging me, because I decided to start going to church on Sunday, then we're going to be in a problem,

Scott Benner 52:03
right? No, no, I would expect that. Yeah, I just didn't know if they had to be similar. Of all those guys with different backgrounds. Was that the cat?

Fernanda 52:15
No, no, that was me saying no. Oh, I

Scott Benner 52:17
was like, you were like, I speak I spoke over. So listen, for people to understand, like, my voice has pumped up in my ears a little bit. So sometimes, like, it's hard for me to. It's always like, it was me hour and No, and I just didn't know which way I wasn't certain. And then let me thing. Okay. And I thought that I was disappointed because the cat didn't have an accent. So I was like, Ah, that's a letdown. Oh, have the boys that you mentioned from all the different backgrounds? Did any of them. What's the one I want to ask you? Were was there any background that's more passionate? Less? Like they did they around in different ways?

Fernanda 53:05
I'm gonna say that the guy that I was dating from the Netherlands, he was the most romantic for sure. in kind of a kind. He learned how to cook. He learned how to cook Chilean food. He would just get me out on dates out of the blue. He was very nice. Maybe wasn't because we were both in our early 20s. I don't know. But I have really good really good memories from him.

Scott Benner 53:27
Right? He was trying hard.

Fernanda 53:31
Oh my god. Yes. He was so cute.

Scott Benner 53:34
But you guys were too young. That wasn't gonna work out. Right.

Fernanda 53:37
Super. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:40
Which, if you could go to one of those backgrounds now to start over with which one would you choose?

Fernanda 53:48
Um, maybe him because I we have really good memories together.

Scott Benner 53:52
Yeah, it's not so much. To me.

Fernanda 53:54
I I don't mind a lot about backgrounds. I I just enjoy good company.

Scott Benner 54:01
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Right.

Fernanda 54:03
It doesn't matter. Okay. It actually doesn't matter at all.

Scott Benner 54:08
I feel the same. I just was interested to see if, you know, there was just one thing that that stuck with you all this time. And if if you felt you felt if you felt like it was cultural or not, that's all.

Fernanda 54:22
No, not at all. I don't know if you want to know a freak thing. These guys that I was dating from Brazil. We were together like for six months, maybe seven. And he never told me that he was diabetic until I saw one human like planning his table night. I was like on the table. And like, what is this about? You're like, Oh, that is mine. No, for sure. It's yours. It's not mine. Wait, why didn't you tell me that you were diabetic? And he was like, I don't tell anybody.

Scott Benner 54:51
Did he know you were Yes. That's That's weird. Right? Yeah. I didn't like that. Oh, am I gonna write down where I said? No, I said again.

Fernanda 55:07
That is one of the free things that have happened to me dating.

Scott Benner 55:11
Give that's insane. Did that like, did that change the relationship?

Fernanda 55:17
Ah. And I'm not going to face a red flag, but it is for sure a yellow.

Scott Benner 55:27
We could say yellow.

Fernanda 55:29
Like something. So something that is going to be with you for the rest of your life. Why don't you share it? You know?

Scott Benner 55:37
I wonder if that's just that he is like, I wonder if I wonder if that's an indication of how long you thought he was going to be with you? Or if he really didn't? Do you just didn't tell people.

Fernanda 55:48
And sometimes I stayed with my patients a lot. They don't like sharing their medical background because they don't like to be judged. And I use my diabetes as my I don't know how to say it in English like my Troy horse. Your church? Yes, that they are like, Hi. Well, I can do exercise right now because I'm diabetic. Oh, my god, me too. Let's go.

Scott Benner 56:15
Ah, that's your way. Yeah, yeah. I guess. I mean, obviously, I have a podcast where I talk a lot, but I don't think about that stuff ever. Like, I would never think to hide something about myself if I was having a conversation. Like, it just all seems everything seems pertinent to me.

Fernanda 56:34
A lot of people hide their stuff, if they are HIV positive. They don't make them people to know if they have cancer. If they have Ms. I don't know, a lot of people are afraid of being judged. And I think that my way of being so obvious about my diabetes is a way for them to tell them. Look, you're not alone. You know, we're a lot of chronic. There are a lot of people with chronic illnesses out there. Yeah, it's not just you, I try

Scott Benner 57:04
to say that there's way more than you think, you know, like it, it feels so limit, it can feel so limiting. And singular, because I think partly because other people don't share or light, you know. And so

Fernanda 57:18
I'm so lonely. And there's something that we all share. I'm not saying it's diabetics, but as a chronic ill people, we all share the burnout. We all share these being tired, and whatever it comes with it. Like we are not the only ones that we stopped putting insulin when we are done with our we don't want to be diabetics anymore. There are people with cancer that they stop doing chemo because they're done with it. There are people with HIV that they stopped taking their medication because they're done with it. There are a lot of people that with chronic illnesses that they stop taking their medications and their treatments, because they're done. And then we feel so bad that we're all coming back and say please give me my insulin back. Yeah, but we all go through that process because it happens we get tired.

Scott Benner 58:11
No, makes sense. I have a question from earlier. It's kind of a question for me, not for you. But you said that you recently listened to the the after dark episode with Mike about his complications. And that it made you concern for yourself? Yes. Put yourself in my shoes for a second. What was making that episode the right thing for me to do? Absolutely. Okay. All right. So absolutely. So even though it made you worried, it was still it was still important for you to to hear?

Fernanda 58:47
Well, I think we all know where where we are hearing if we don't take care. And I think the reason why I have so many hyperglycemic comas was because my dad was very afraid that I was going to lose my kidneys if I was high all the time. So he rather had me low. It's just that he didn't know that every time I had a Hypo coma part of my brain was shutting down until one of the doctors told him Look, you are killing her brain like this. So after that, he realized and he said, Oh, okay, so capably semi comas is a short term issue. Well, DK A's are a long term issue. I never had a DKA I was not diagnosed by DKA. The first DKA I had it two years ago, and I really, really felt like I'm sorry for the word but I felt really bad. But because of that, I think that long term problems have been solved. behind my head because my dad always repeated to me, you have to have your blood sugar low because if not, you're gonna lose your kidneys, you're gonna go blind, you're gonna lose your feet, I'm gonna blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff. And working in a hospital as a physical therapist, believe me, I have at least once a day, a patient with diabetic complication, open ulcers in their feet, an amputation. necrotizing Charles, or whatever that is. So I have I have to remind them, they're reminder all the time. But didn't say Oh, those are type two. They don't care. There's 200 pounds, whatever. But when I I, like you start in the back of your mind. But when I heard Mike, I was like, I don't want to please God help me.

Scott Benner 1:00:52
Were you glad you heard it? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah, I just, I mean, you can try to imagine that. You know, I'm trying to build a narrative with a podcast. It's pretty wide sweeping. And I feel like that that was important to do. But it's odd, because I don't have type one. So I'm the one Oh, but I'm the one making the decision to put that out there. And it's, you know,

Fernanda 1:01:17
but remember that out there. Mike is not the only one. Yeah, he was the one that decided to talk. But a lot of people are dealing with complications. So is the same thing as I'm doing right now telling everybody, everybody that I'm diabetic. He's telling everyone, everybody sorry, that they are not the only ones having complications,

Scott Benner 1:01:33
right? No, I listen, I obviously thought it was the right thing to do. I was just interested in how you felt about it. You're the first adult that I've spoken to. Who's heard it since it's been up. So like, Oh, okay. On the podcast, you know, I mean, I've spoken to people privately but being recorded. Yeah, I think it was, um, I mean, I took my cues from him. He felt like it was incredibly important to do. And I thought he was a good arbiter of that decision. So

Fernanda 1:02:00
yeah, when he said, Well, now that I hit my a one to five, and I'm not getting out from there, I was like, I'm gonna aim for that. Number two, just give me time to

Scott Benner 1:02:10
keep trying. Right.

Fernanda 1:02:12
Right, ma'am. And 6.6. And I feel like I'm wanting, I don't know, like a gold medal, but I can get even higher.

Scott Benner 1:02:18
Now you could definitely get a gold might give you a gold medal for 6.6. That's amazing. Especially from where, you know, yeah. I mean, from where you came from, and everything you've been through like that. You even found the courage to try it is a big deal.

Fernanda 1:02:32
Yeah, for sure. But I'm gonna tell you in the in the back of my mind, I'm very afraid that one day, another hypokalemia is gonna come. Yeah, I was gonna that that one gets me that one gets me. Yeah. I was wondering. It's not funny to wake up one morning in an ICU, like not knowing what happened. And yeah, I have my cat. But he can wake me up. But um my mom tells me every time that I had a Hypo coma, I was having seizures. And I was not waking up. So for sure, if I'm having seizures, My God is not going to wake me up.

Scott Benner 1:03:10
Do you have glucagon now? And because, yeah, I

Fernanda 1:03:13
have glucagon. But what's the point? If I can put it?

Scott Benner 1:03:16
Yeah, if it comes on too quickly, right.

Fernanda 1:03:19
You know, like, all the times that I needed a glucagon My mom put it in. And but yeah, I tried to share my Dexcom my Dexcom numbers with my brother. Oh, my family's in Chile. I try to share them with my brother in Chile. And I couldn't for one, I don't know what's the reason but Dexcom doesn't allow you to share numbers outside of the US territory

Scott Benner 1:03:41
internationally. I just figured that out recently, when I offered to help somebody with their child and they were Canadian. And I had them send me their thing and I couldn't do it. I didn't realize

Fernanda 1:03:53
no you can't. You can tell right now I'm trying to find a peep here in Miami that I can have the confidence to say. Do you want to hear my alarms at 2am?

Scott Benner 1:04:05
How would you like to be irritated by me even when I'm not with you?

Fernanda 1:04:12
I'm still trying to look for that. BFF Yeah, that wants to share the burden with me.

Scott Benner 1:04:18
Do you think it would take another type one to want to do that? Or?

Fernanda 1:04:26
I don't know. So I found the father of type one here. Let me play beach volleyball together. And I asked him if he was willing to do have my numbers in his cell phone you know and he said sure, yeah, sure them to me, whatever. But the last time I saw him was like a month ago so I was like, forget it. This is not gonna work right now.

Scott Benner 1:04:49
It definitely it's a strange ask because now suddenly, like if you asked me to do it, I think well, now I feel responsible to make sure you're okay. And that's

Fernanda 1:04:59
it. No, right? Because it's weird. That's why I'm saying I'm finding like a BFF. They don't know they don't have to come, they just have to call 911.

Scott Benner 1:05:07
That's all. I don't even want you to like, leave it bother calling me just send an ambulance to wherever I Yeah,

Fernanda 1:05:12
exactly, exactly. If you call me and I don't answer the call 911 You don't even have to get up from your bed.

Scott Benner 1:05:18
Is that more of a? Is that more of a fear based on your past history or your current situation?

Fernanda 1:05:26
I think if you're based on my past history, absolutely.

Scott Benner 1:05:28
Especially because if you're looping, then I mean, not that it's foolproof. But you have you noticed on loop that it's pretty hard for your blood sugar to get under 50. If things are set up pretty well, like that loop does a pretty good job of, of stopping, like, super low lows. Do you agree? Yes,

Fernanda 1:05:47
I had one incident with Luke three months ago that killed me. I don't know how it happened. But it bothers to 15 units or two in the morning. And that when I don't know how it happened, I woke up at 3am with so you know the Dexcom when you're going down it first gives you a very, like a normal sound alarm like a beep, beep beep and you're okay, I'm low. But because I don't feel the lows. Sometimes I could just look at it turn around and continue slipping. And then the second bit comes and it's a little bit lower. A little bit higher. Sorry. And if you don't turn that one off, the third one is going to wake up the whole building.

Scott Benner 1:06:33
Yeah, that panic. Well, and the one yes, like I don't know how to like it's like, it's like, if you can almost hear it yelling at you get up, get up pay attention. Like that.

Fernanda 1:06:45
Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a very loud alarm. And then when I woke up, I was like, Okay, what's going on in here? And I was in 32. Like, okay, I'll go, I need something. And I went to the kitchen, I got like a glass of sugar, water, whatever. And I started drinking. I was like, how on earth did I get to 32. And I started looking at the look numbers I need. I don't know if it had a glitch. And it sent me a Bolus of 15 units.

Scott Benner 1:07:12
It should be able to limit how much it can Bolus. I'm not sure if that's for sure. But it has.

Fernanda 1:07:23
So you have a max delivery for your Basal and you have a max delivery for boluses. Yeah. My Max delivery for Basal is a top of five units. But the max deliver for ballers. I have it on 15. And for one reason, I don't know which one it is. It gave me 15 units at once. And it was scary as hell

Scott Benner 1:07:45
yeah. No kidding. Did you have um Is there any chance you woke up and gave yourself insulin? Like or did it in your sleep? I'm not I'm just trying to figure out how that could happen.

Fernanda 1:07:59
I don't know. Um, you know, to get into the loop up, get into the insulin part, press 15 Getting my face recognized by my cell phone and actually put it in

Scott Benner 1:08:13
would really be something and there are a lot of steps to kind of slow you down. No, that sucks. But no, I mean,

Fernanda 1:08:21
the first one last time it happened never again.

Scott Benner 1:08:23
Okay. All right. Cool. I, I you know, I don't think anything's perfect. But I mean, for No, not

Fernanda 1:08:33
at all, but I'm very I'm very grateful for a loop for sure. Yeah. Very, very grateful. accident happens all the time. Every everybody commits accidents. Like I don't know, you crash your car or whatever it is. Nobody does it on purpose. But loop has helped me so so much.

Scott Benner 1:08:55
Yeah, no, I agree. I it's been a big deal for us too. I mean, we're, I think the biggest deal for for algorithms in general like forget loop like for all of them. It's just the idea that you're going to get to sleep more it's such a big deal. You know, like like MMA.

Fernanda 1:09:10
No, you won't you don't think so? Yeah, I still wake up at two or three in the morning. Different issues or is that high or it's a low or it's my cat or it's I don't know.

Scott Benner 1:09:23
Well, the cat the loop can help with the cat.

Fernanda 1:09:28
So before when I was in MBI don't know how this happened. But I was having constant lows when I was using a it was the long acting Basal the 12 hour long acting by that time that was very long acting. With the human log. I don't remember the name of the insulin as soon as I can. I will let you know that insulin was supposed not to have pigs at all. It was a Basal 12 hours beautiful lantai no Lantus is 24 hours just before lunch is

Scott Benner 1:10:00
not Atlantis lent Tae

Fernanda 1:10:04
unlimted Yeah, exactly. There you go. That's not it. Okay. It was a 12 Yes, that is it. It was a 24. It was a 12 our Basal beautiful, no peaks, you can just use it with him along and you were fine all day. Somehow that insulin, yes, it had a peak. But the peak was like, three, four hours after you indicated. And during the day you don't figure it out because you're just eating and snacking and whatever and the life life is happening and you don't see it. But at night, I was having these lows a two three in the morning down to 30. Then then they just bounce back up to 180 out of the blue. And I will wake up in 121 30 I didn't have a CGM by that time. But I remember that I woke up one night 30 I woke up the second night 30 The third night 30 I was like, Okay, this is weird. Then I would just sleep the whole night. And if I didn't wake up, it would go down to 30 and then up to one a by its own I didn't even have to treat it. And eventually the doctor is something that something she needs. She divided like okay, you're going to put two thirds in the morning and 1/3 at night and whatever and then it just stopped happening. But yeah, loads at night have been my thing.

Scott Benner 1:11:28
What insulin do you use now? Chemo okay.

Fernanda 1:11:34
But I'm very eager to try a freezer, because I hate the highs and I have such a hard time bringing them down.

Scott Benner 1:11:43
Okay, she's gonna try the V inhalable insulin. Yes, yeah.

Fernanda 1:11:49
I want that to 30 to be one in 100 in five minutes

Scott Benner 1:11:54
that somebody is able to

Fernanda 1:11:56
do that. Hey, I'm gonna pay for

Scott Benner 1:11:58
you to give it a try. Yeah, I people asked me to have someone on about it. And I always just think like, I don't know, it seems like such a leap for me about the inhaling it. And I know people say it's been around for a number of years now. But you know, I don't know it feels. I feel a responsibility not to say something out loud. Unless I can be pretty certain about it. I so hard hard for me. I have

Fernanda 1:12:22
one of I have one of my diabetic peeps in New York. He's, uh, he's been using a friend for a while. Yeah, I can say once he's like in 5.1. I don't know Kyle. He is my go to. I want to be like him. Okay. Yeah. 5.1 just on a frozen. I'm so impressed on that.

Scott Benner 1:12:41
Does he use those like a Basal insulin as well?

Fernanda 1:12:46
I think so. I think he's into Ziva. Okay. You will have to call him and ask him. No, he's incredible.

Scott Benner 1:12:53
Is there anything that we haven't spoken about that you wanted to talk about?

Fernanda 1:13:00
No, not really. I just wanted to clarify that, uh, you know, like, having having sex and being diabetic is not a bad thing.

Scott Benner 1:13:13
Well, I think that I think your point, it's interesting, because if I look back at your, you know, about your intake about what you want to come on in the show and talk about, like, we didn't really talk about it very much. But I think you just made the point very clearly, like, you know, I understand how an adult who's been diagnosed as an adult might feel super, you know, you know, awkward about their technology, but I don't feel that way. And I mean, even if you're not diagnosed as an adult, or as a kid, like people feel differently about it. So I'm glad you gave a different perspective.

Fernanda 1:13:44
Yeah, these are my gadgets, they come with me and they will be with me the rest of my life. So I'm fine with it. Actually, if you want to know a funny story, I had one of my patients in New York, he was part of the comedy of JD RF dirty. Yeah, that's the name of it, right? Human on diabetes Research Foundation. And he saw my G six on my arm. And he said, You know what? Like, we're working for and then the next five years, the Dexcom is half its size. And I was like, Oh, really? Cool. Well, let me tell you something. I hope that in five years, I don't have to use nothing at all because we want to be diabetic anymore.

Scott Benner 1:14:32
Like, I've got bigger goals here, buddy.

Fernanda 1:14:35
And he just he couldn't answer back and I was like, hey, well, just for you to understand a little bit what we want. We're fine with the technology, but we need a cure for this.

Scott Benner 1:14:47
Yeah, keep moving in all the I think they I mean, I think that it's all important, right, like making making your CGM work better making it smaller making insulin work better. Like all that's important. You No and and yeah, you should also be looking at the other stuff too. I just interviewed somebody the other day, who's in a trial for encapsulation, you know, where they put the cells inside the pack and everything. And that was really interesting to hear about. I'll get that up as soon as I can. But um, yeah, I think I would like it if everybody was working on everything. You know what I mean? Like, work on a cure work on a stop gap. You know, the, maybe it's cells inside of a pouch, make make this stuff work better make it better, like do an oral kind

Fernanda 1:15:30
of super fast, fast, fast insulin that will bring my 200 to 100 in two minutes and not

Scott Benner 1:15:36
make me low an hour later, please. Yeah, get on exactly. Everybody get going. Take care of it right now. Yes. Well, you were really terrific. I appreciate you doing this very much. I never asked your cat's name.

Fernanda 1:15:54
Gotcha. Okay, now it's complicated. Yeah. P AC H O kachel.

Scott Benner 1:16:01
ca ch Oh, okay.

Fernanda 1:16:06
It's a Chilean Islam.

Scott Benner 1:16:07
I'm just gonna I'm looking at that right now. Hold on. It's a dice game, bro.

Fernanda 1:16:12
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So it's a dice game. Yes. It's like it's a dice game. But his name is not because of that. I gotcha. So I catch you in Chile is like something that you have. And but it has like a sentimental value. So you don't want to throw it away?

Scott Benner 1:16:33
I gotcha. Oh,

Fernanda 1:16:35
yeah. I don't know. It's something that you have, but you don't know what to do with it. And that becomes a catch all. And that happens because my character rescue my brother rescue him from like, from the garbage I'm gonna say when he was pouring out with his friends. And he just brought him home. And here we are.

Scott Benner 1:16:59
It has different meanings in different I'm looking online here in different languages to a little bit.

Fernanda 1:17:08
Yeah, you can have like the horns of the bowl. Their goal catches too. You have the game. You have like the tip of a mountain. It could be a catcher. It means a lot of things.

Scott Benner 1:17:21
That's cool. That's very nice. All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate you doing this. Did you have a good time?

Fernanda 1:17:27
Yes, I did. Thank you for for the conversation. It was a very cool conversation.

Scott Benner 1:17:33
I had a great time I right before we started recording you said you like sometimes you will have trouble finding words like in English did. Did you feel okay, while you were talking?

Fernanda 1:17:47
Yes, I felt really cool. Sometimes. i The verbs that I use are not in the in the correct. Time. But I figured out right away and I tried to correct myself.

Scott Benner 1:18:02
If it makes you feel any better. I'm not 1,000% sure what a verb is, so don't even worry about it.

Fernanda 1:18:09
Yeah, you're fine. I think people understand the idea of what I'm talking about.

Scott Benner 1:18:14
No, I thought you were terrific. I really did. That's why I was like, thank you so much. I was I was I was a little confused that you were even worried. Because I thought it went. I thought it went really well. Alright, well,

Fernanda 1:18:26
let me because I see it every day. Yeah. Well,

Scott Benner 1:18:28
if I ever have a physical therapy question, I'm gonna ask you,

Fernanda 1:18:32
please. Yeah, no. Absolutely invited to us wherever you want.

Scott Benner 1:18:46
First, I'd like to thank Fernanda for coming on the show and telling her story. Thank you very much. I also want to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter, and remind you to go to contour next one.com, forward slash juicebox. Don't forget to also, in addition, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. take you less than 10 minutes to take that survey. And just imagine when you're done, you see two things in your head. One. People living with type one diabetes who have been helped by your generosity, and to me smiling. Those are the two things you should see at the end. They don't actually show you those things when you finish the survey, but if they did, I would have this smile on my face. You can't say it but I'm smile. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're looking for something else to do today, you should check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook page Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes now with over 22,000 members just like you will you might meet a friend or learn something or I don't know. Maybe just look through people's conversations and never say anything. Maybe you're creepy like that. I don't judge you

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