#962 Baby Catcher

Jill has type 1 diabetes and she catches babies.

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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, welcome to episode 962 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on the podcast I'll be speaking with Jill she is a person living with type one diabetes. She's here to tell us her story. Her sister has type one. There's a lot going on here. I think you're going to love Jill. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Would you like to receive something for free? Well, how about a year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order at drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. You want to get something for 40% off sheets towels. This beautiful sweatshirt I'm wearing and much more at cozy earth.com use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% Don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes and the public Facebook page Juicebox Podcast if you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med us med.com forward slash juicebox. US med is the place where Arden gets her Omni pod and Dexcom supplies from and you can get that and much more US med.com forward slash juice box to get your free benefits check or you can call 888-721-1514. Did you know that the Juicebox Podcast has a type two diabetes Pro Tip series? Oh, you didn't? Well, now you do. So if you know someone with type two or pre diabetes that you think would be interested in learning more about what's going on with them and possible ways to make things better. Send them over to juicebox podcast.com and tell them to click on type two diabetes up in the menu.

Jill 2:24
My name is Gil. I am a type one diabetic. I've been a type one diabetic. Actually, my diet Versary was yesterday on National diabetes Day or World diabetes Day. So really? Yep. It's 15 years.

Scott Benner 2:37
November 14 was 15 years for you. Correct you Did you get anything special? Buy yourself something nice

Jill 2:44
to do you know, I forgot all about it until my sister lock texted me who is also type one diabetic. She texted me at like 8pm last night and said Happy diabetic. Sorry. And I said oh yeah, that's today.

Scott Benner 2:56
We guys had a club or something. Your your husband's sister has type one.

Jill 3:01
Well, that was funny because on our first date, I sat down to eat with my husband. We were out to lunch and I pulled out my kit. I was doing MDI at that time and I pulled out my kit, and I pulled out and it's open. He goes, Oh, you're diabetic. My sister's a diabetic. And that was it. I married him after that. Because you know, when one type one diabetic means somebody who already knows how it works and knows all that goes into it. That's just it's done. So

Scott Benner 3:25
I'm sick. So I'm not laughing because if I laugh, I'll start coughing. But your bar is very low. You know what this insulin pen is? Good enough.

Jill 3:38
That's it. That's all it takes. Listen, it's pretty annoying to have to explain it every time you go on a date with somebody like oh gosh, here we go again. You know, I'm like, it's just exhausting.

Scott Benner 3:47
I'm picturing you laying across the abdomen like don't need heavy because you're getting sex and everything today. I don't want to lose you. They want to set up you know what my insulin fan is? Tell me honestly, how long you've been married?

Jill 4:01
A lot. We we've been together. 11 years we've been married? Seven. Okay.

Scott Benner 4:07
Tell me seriously, if you can remember. What's that feeling? Like? When is it acceptance? Is it comfort? Like what happens there?

Jill 4:14
With my husband in general with the whole diabetes thing?

Scott Benner 4:16
Oh, just with him going? I know what that is. My sister has this. Like,

Jill 4:19
oh, it was just relief. Just it's exhausting. I'm joking. But I'm not joking. When I say it's exhausting, you know, to have to explain everything. And then you feel weird. You feel awkward because people like Oh, I'm so sorry. And you know, I like answering questions about diabetes. I like educating people, but not necessarily on a date. You know, and I don't want them to be like the focus of you know about me. And so the fact that I didn't have to do that, and I didn't have to explain everything he already knew he already understood. That was just releasing it was really being

Scott Benner 4:50
what would you have done if he didn't like him? How long would you have put up with it for the fact that like,

Jill 4:55
I mean, every other guy I've dated before him, didn't know anything about it. So we're Long.

Scott Benner 5:02
Just I just like I like to imagine like three weeks into you're talking to a girlfriend. She's like, how's this guy going? Like, I don't like him personalities terrible, but let me say something also without his shirt on. It's frightening, but I'm just he really understands the diabetes piece and I'm just gonna hang in my gosh, that's a well, that's amazing. Good for you how many? Oh my god, I almost asked you a question. It didn't mean the way it was gonna sound.

Jill 5:30
I like those questions.

Scott Benner 5:32
How many guys do you have to go through to find them? But that's not what I meant.

Jill 5:36
This is turning into a diabetes after dark. Really quick,

Scott Benner 5:39
so sorry. I had you been? Were you an adult at that point. Had you been dating? Did you date through high school with diabetes? I guess? Yeah. How old? Were you?

Jill 5:48
I guess. So I was diagnosed at 19. So,

Scott Benner 5:52
okay, you had been on a couple of days before you had type one.

Jill 5:56
Correct? Yes. And then I had a couple after so. And you met him about what age? It's a great question. I think 21 or 22. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, that

Scott Benner 6:05
makes sense. I'll tell you, it makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, forget diabetes. If I made a table, and I say something about myself that most people are like, what's this now? Or? Oh, I'm so sorry. And they don't have that reaction. I'd be like, Alright, cool. This is good. I guess my bar is low, right along with your show, I think just like you like, and you're not gonna ask me a bunch of dumb questions. Perfect. Like, let's

Jill 6:28
go to understand me. Yeah, really,

Scott Benner 6:30
is something. Okay, so diagnosed at 19. You were in college already.

Jill 6:35
I was. But so this is kind of a funny story. My brother has type one diabetic and he's been diabetic since he was 23 months old. So he was diagnosed in the 1988. And so I had grown up with type one diabetes my entire life. And my brother and I were both tested for the antibodies when we were younger, we both tested negative joke's on us. And then in college, I had started having symptoms a year prior of hypoglycemia. And I kind of assumed that that's what was happening because I had heard my brother explain what it felt like to be low so many times, and I called my dad and I said, you know, I think I'm going low. And he said, You know, it's your freshman year of college, you're eating different, your activity levels different. Maybe you're just having some dips, you know, next time you're home, grab one of Pat's kits and bring it to school with you. Well, I forgot to do that. And then so the following year, I had transferred home. And I was for some reason decided to roll crew and do a sport for the first time in my entire life. And so for that whole fall semester, I was very active. And I think it was a masking the the onset for a while because the week after we stopped rowing for the season is when I started having superduper symptoms I was you know, super hungry, super thirsty, peeing all the time. And I started tracking how often I was peeing, because we're kind of a medical family. And so I knew something was kind of off. But it wasn't until I was sitting in the back of my classroom one week, and I couldn't see the board and I at the time, I had perfect vision. And I was like, something's wrong here. And I think I had called my dad and I think we kind of both knew what it was, but we didn't want to say it out loud. But he said, you know, come home, we'll test on one of Pat's kits, and it was like, it was 600 something.

Scott Benner 8:19
So you're here to say that rowing crew keeps type one diabetes, or at least for a little while. Did you mention another brother with type one?

Jill 8:27
No, I have two brothers one has type one, but one does not. Okay. And he makes fun of us constantly.

Scott Benner 8:35
Lovely, Anna, and a sister in law with type one. Let's stick with your family for a second. So that's a two out of three with type one. Is there other autoimmune stuff in your family line?

Jill 8:46
Oh, lots.

Scott Benner 8:49
Sure. I think I could start guessing your mom has hypothyroidism.

Jill 8:54
So my mom actually passed. Oh, I'm

Scott Benner 8:56
sorry. That's okay. I could have said your dad. That was literally just guessing.

Jill 9:00
That was just unlucky guess.

Scott Benner 9:04
Did she passed away last week? How far did I put my foot in my mouth?

Jill 9:09
No, it was awhile ago. So who knows? By now maybe she would have had a she wants to know but I will tell you she would have had celiac because everyone on her side of the family all has celiac. Okay. Okay. And I I've been tested 1000 times because I have lots of other stomach issues. And every time they tested me, I'm negative. They've done the genetic testing and I met I forget what it is. But the genetic testing came back. You're gonna get it at some point. And so I'm just riding that train as long as I can. But on my dad's side is all thyroid.

Scott Benner 9:37
Oh, look at how bright I would have been if I would have flipped the coin the other way. You were so close. Hey, by the way, have you heard Arden's episode about the digestive enzymes that she used to clear up her stomach issues?

Jill 9:48
I did. I have not tried those yet, but I just started Oh, basketball four days ago because of you.

Scott Benner 9:55
Oh, hey of basketball. Are you listening? Yeah, perhaps not a spa. They're not yet, Joe. But I mean, maybe we're closer now? No. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Obviously, everyone's tummy hurting isn't this but we actually we, sometimes I get confused. I do this almost completely by myself. I'm like, we're about to like I'm an organization. I'm about to put up an episode this week with Jenny. And I think it's called over useless pancreas where we describe that a pancreas isn't just to make insulin with and why you may have, if you have type one diabetes, you may experience digestion issues. So you know, it's a

Jill 10:37
funny, I cannot tell you how excited I am for that episode. Because I'm an RN, I always thought that in another life that maybe I would go like the research route, and look into that myself and kind of research the difference between the exocrine and endocrine functions of the pancreas and how one likely would affect the other. Yeah, because of exactly what you're saying.

Scott Benner 10:58
I hope it helps people. And I said to Johnny, while we were making the episode, I'm like, I feel bad. I said, you know, because of I tell people all the time, like, don't just see diabetes, like if you sneeze, don't see diabetes, right? Like people sneeze. But there's a moment where you go, Okay, I have an autoimmune issue. I may have more, you start looking and have all of the things and I mean, the myriad of things that we checked into for Arden over the last two years, and there were so many, I don't know how we skipped over, hey, maybe her digestion is this messed up because their pancreas, you know, it's funky. And, and if I felt bad, and then when I put it up online, and I saw so many people react to it. I started feeling badly for you know, don't get me wrong, Joe. I'm not mentally unstable. I shook it pretty quickly. But I mean, I felt like I felt worse about Oregon, because we dragged her through so many things to find out something that I picked up at a health food store. That was upsetting. But I just imagined all those people who eat their stomach hurts, and they just think that's the way it is. And you know, and it changed my life, too. I started taking them, and seriously helping me in ways that are just almost immeasurable. So I'm glad you found that that's terrific. You know, you said you were a nurse, there's so many letters behind your name. I looked them up. So I first I thought, Oh, I thought Jill's an operative for the Republican National Committee. But that's not your so you're an RN, C m n n, which is the Maternal Newborn nurse,

Jill 12:29
right? So I'm a certified so you can be just an RN, or you can go out and have a you can take an additional board to get a specialty certification in a particular field. So I am a certified registered nurse for Maternal Newborn Nursing.

Scott Benner 12:41
You're telling me that I'm going to nurses that aren't certified? You can speak in a little bar, so that'd be a little.

Jill 12:49
No, no, no. That's an additional qualification after you go to nursing school and you do all that training and all that that schooling, you can then seek out additional credentialing and specialization. That's not something that you have to do plenty of nurses and amazing nurses don't do that. But lots of hospitals prefer to have, you know, certified nurses, it gets easier, like a little boost on your resume. And I'm also an ibclc, which is an international births Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Scott Benner 13:18
What's that? See worth another 20? Grand? I'm just using your I wish Oh, it's not? Yeah, it should be. And your light gray. So So what's the we're a little all over the place, but I think it's because I like you. I can't tell. Oh, what do you do? Like day to day you'd catch some babies or in a hospital? Or how do you do?

Jill 13:37
Yeah. So I've done a little bit of everything. So currently, I'm just just a plain old, boring postpartum bedside nurse. For the past year, I was practicing as a lactation consultant for postpartum unit in Miami. And then I was postpartum nursing. Before that. I did spend a year catching babies as you put it, that is what we call them, the baby catcher. They attend the deliveries and literally catch the babies either in a C section or a vaginal delivery. And I loved that. But I had done night shift for that. And I wasn't able to do night shift anymore because of my husband's schedule and our son so I had to go back to day shift.

Scott Benner 14:12
How do they test you for the catching? Do they throw things at you when you're not looking when you're walking down the hall and the people who don't drop them get to catch the babies

just the other day I received an email from us Med and it said, Hey, your diabetes supplies are ready to be refilled. Do you want to do that? And I clicked yes, right in the email. And then a number of days later Arden's Dexcom G sevens just showed up at the house. Arden also gets her on the pods from us Med and US med has t slim they have let's see Dexcom freestyle you get the libre to libre three the Dexcom six Dexcom seven Omni pod dash Omni pod five. This place is The best, the reordering process at US med. It's just so smooth and easy. It fits right into your day. And honestly, with stuff like this with pomson, other supplies, I mean they have diabetes testing supplies, they carry some insulins, I mean, with all this stuff, what you want is easy, especially once you're into a repetition. Like if you're newly diagnosed right now you're like, oh, this all sounds like a lot. But trust me, days turn into weeks turn into months, and you need new supplies. And you want that to just happen. You don't want to be constantly, you know, in a battle to get the things you need sent to the house, U S med.com. Forward slash juicebox. You go to that link to get your free benefits check, you make sure that US med takes your insurance. And by the way, they take over 800 private insurances, and they accept Medicare nationwide. So good chance, they're going to take your insurance, and then you just get started. Now if you want to talk to a person and you don't love the internet, you can call this special number just for Juicebox Podcast listeners 888-721-1514. US met always provides 90 days worth of supplies, and they have fast and free shipping, you're gonna get better service and better care at us met. links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. Or you can dial the number or type the URL right into a browser us med.com forward slash juice box.

Jill 16:30
Oh man, they are slippery. I will tell you

Scott Benner 16:31
I saw a couple of them slippery was definitely the word that came to my mind when you say are incredibly slippery. I would think though if you were the person giving birth to it slippery is what you're looking for.

Jill 16:41
I you know what? I don't know if I should say this. But somebody literally just asked me this the other day, they have to lubricate a woman in preparation to give birth. And I my my literal answer was it's a pretty self lubricating process

Scott Benner 16:55
itself loops. When you look at that person, they'll never hear this. How far down on your expectations list for what you're going to get out of them as a friend that they slide for you like, oh, it's actually my husband's best friend. But seriously, he dropped the level right? You're like, I didn't realize, okay, I got it. Now.

Jill 17:12
He doesn't have any kids. He doesn't know how it works.

Scott Benner 17:15
It's also doesn't sound like a great boyfriend, if I'm being honest from that question.

Jill 17:21
Wow, this is a diabetes after,

Scott Benner 17:23
don't you want to know how you should know how the whole thing operates? It's not. I mean, it's not. It's not that hard to figure

Jill 17:31
out? Well, I can see thought to, you know, to help ease the baby out even more.

Scott Benner 17:37
That's making me laugh. Did you? Did you laugh at him? Or were you able to hold it together?

Jill 17:41
Well, it was via text message. So I was able to compose myself. But I did laugh. So you did

Scott Benner 17:45
walk across the room, hold this in your front of your husband's face and go, who do you consort with when I'm not around?

Jill 17:51
He was he was in on the group chat. He's aware.

Scott Benner 17:55
That's great. Lactation Consultant. I just had a thought the other day. Just if you're on social media, at this point, you are going to see a woman breastfeeding a baby, but you can't you can't avoid it. And I remember the first time that someone did it. And I was like, Huh, that's interesting. They're pushing a line. But now all these years later, my thought yesterday was I'm glad people did this. Because it because it seems so freakin normal to me now that I don't pause when I say it. It doesn't make me go oh, that lady doesn't ever talk on her. I saw her nipple or I don't know if I should see this, you know, tender moment between the child and I just I was like, wow, this is just they they normalized for me breastfeeding through social media. I was pretty impressed with it actually

Jill 18:42
didn't ever consider that. But that's I'm very happy to hear you say that. That makes me want to post more. I love that. I never considered that. But that is a problem that I'm glad that you've you've come that way. But a lot of people haven't. And that's a real problem that mother's face is the the shame of breastfeeding in public. And, and really we have we have billboards all over, you know, plastered everywhere, your women in lingerie and their boobs out that way. And, you know, breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world, every mammal in the world does it. But we've sexualized breasts in such a way that it becomes shameful. And that's, you know, it shouldn't be that way. And so I'm glad that social media has, you know, had that unexpected effect on it.

Scott Benner 19:21
Well, I'll tell you something to expand on your point. It's also ruining boobs for me, not the not the location part. Put that aside the breasts, like the bouncy thing, like, Listen, I don't want to offend anybody. But there are a lot of people now that believe it is a job opportunity to stand in front of their phone and bounce it their knees, and they're ruining boobs, because now I see boobs bouncing jello, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, I don't care anymore. I cared so much that they like so the thing they did for breastfeeding, which was delightful. I think it's having the wrong effect on the fun part.

Jill 19:54
Oh, no, you're being desexualized whatever will we do?

Scott Benner 19:57
Oh, well, I mean, listen, it's given me a lot more free time but It's perfect. So I'm just like,

Jill 20:02
my take it Kelly did not breastfeed then she did

Scott Benner 20:05
she did with coal, but it didn't go well. And then she stopped. And then she didn't work hard. But I don't know she did not she, she wishes it would have gone better. It was not like one of those things where she's like, this didn't work. She really wanted it to go better. But it just wasn't working. And we were pretty young. Yeah, and a lactation consultant I don't think was something that existed outside of like the back room of a granola you know, healthcare store at that time, like, you know, that your your, your your hospital was not offering it to you. Right. And then Kelly's also a very large breasted, so they would like like porthole was, he was trapped. You know what I mean? Like it?

Jill 20:42
Oh, yeah. That's an issue. I was gonna make a horrible joke about, well, that's why Arden has diabetes.

Scott Benner 20:49
Breasts. Oh, good. Let my wife hear that. That's lovely.

Jill 20:53
That was a joke. It's totally a joke.

Scott Benner 20:55
No, I mean, it's funny, because that's a hard thing to say out loud. Because there are some people they'll go, oh, well, then this is what happened. But you know, I can also go pull this together people with diabetes who were breastfed so

Jill 21:04
well, and I'll tell you, I am I always tell this to my clients and my patients. I said, I am the lactation consultant who almost exclusively formula fed my own son did. I did I wasn't able to produce I had, I have a lot of other issues I had I had breast reduction and other things, but the type one diabetes plays a huge role in it. It can be very difficult for type one diabetics to and other diabetics to produce a full milk supply. So there's a bunch of factors.

Scott Benner 21:30
I didn't really I didn't even realize the reduction gets in the way as well.

Jill 21:33
Oh, yeah. Cuz you're removing all that milk making tissue when you have a reduction. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 21:37
Okay. Yeah, I didn't know Oh, your husband's friend must have hated that.

Jill 21:42
He wasn't in the picture. Yeah. MASM wasn't either.

Scott Benner 21:45
Being serious for a second. How many people? I'm assuming guys came up to you before that and went, please don't do that. Did you get a lot of that?

Jill 21:52
I did. I really did. I worked at a restaurant at the time. And they had I think they had a death to Jill's boobs party.

Scott Benner 22:03
I just I don't know. Like, it's what I don't even know why I would care or not care what somebody did you know me like I as I'm talking. I don't care. But I did imagine that everybody would just come through and go please. No, it's the highlight of my day your boobs.

Jill 22:16
It was it was about two or three months before I was diagnosed. It was all the same year. So I'm

Scott Benner 22:21
kidding. Oh, you did it when you were young. Were they? Yeah, it's 19. July. I'm sorry. I know. This isn't why you came on. Eventually. We'll get to why you came on. But I did no way around this how they were pretty big. Yes. Can you just give me a letter? Triple D? Oh, how tall are you? I'm sorry. I

Jill 22:39
was just about to say I'm pretty short statute. I'm 520.

Scott Benner 22:41
My goodness, did you must have literally like been like the butt of like, every like 1970s joke like, like, Are they pulling you over? Like that kind of thing. You just

Jill 22:52
keep you just can't wear anything without having a grotesque amount of cleavage when you have breasts that size. And some women are down for that. And they liked that. And they enjoy that I did not enjoy the attention. And I had a lot of back and shoulder issues as a result of it. And so I said, you know, let's just hack these bad boys off. And

Scott Benner 23:09
did that work for your like your back shoulder stuff? For a time? Yeah, first time did they come? They didn't come back did that because I've heard about that. Oh, they

Jill 23:16
have that not so big not as the data before but you know, as you you age and you grow and you try to breastfeed and you get fat. They come back.

Scott Benner 23:25
Jo's boobs fought back might be the episode title. No. No, you know why I wouldn't do it. I don't like the apostrophe the title. Oh, Joseph. Yeah, I don't know. Like, by the way, have you noticed that moving in society, like people are not using apostrophe s anymore. And they're then they forced it into it being normalized. I don't care by the way, but like if it's Jill's car, and people are like, don't use that. Have you not seen that happening on the online?

Jill 23:56
And what drives me crazy, I'm ugly. I'm a grammar police kind of person. So

Scott Benner 23:59
you're seeing isn't what I'm saying? Yeah, people are literally trying to force the apostrophe up. I don't have time to fight that battle. But you know who could fight it? Apparently, your breasts because they're resilient. Oh, hold on a second. 2040. For the first time, they said a curse. It was under my breath. But anyway. Alright. Joe, in fairness to you, and for the people who are listening right now going I can't listen to any more talk about breast. What the hell did you come on this podcast? Sorry.

Jill 24:31
Well, I didn't I was trying to find my original email or whatever I sent to you. But I basically I think I said to you, I'm just like a potpourri of stuff. Just because and I think you kind of mentioned I'm kind of all over the place but I just had a lot of interesting things. So having so many I feel like a lot of people are isolated when they have type one diabetes. They don't know a lot of people have type one diabetes. I have two type one diabetics in my family. So I have a lot of support. We are our own little club and it's so it's really nice. that our families are educated, we have each other to lean on, you know, then I'm a nurse that I was diagnosed late. I also, you know, it was funny because I went into the hospital and kind of self diagnosed. I mean, I just walked up to the ER desk and said, Well, I'm I'm a type one diabetic, and they said, Oh, well, how long have you been type one. And I said, Oh, I need you to tell me that I am officially today, because I just tested myself at home. But because we caught it relatively early, because we kind of knew what the signs were and the symptoms. You know, I wasn't in DKA. So I didn't get admitted. They sent me right home from the ER with the promise that I would be an endocrinologist office the next morning, because my brother already had an endocrinologist. So they just got me in. We have an interesting

Scott Benner 25:43
thought for a second thought was it. The same thing happened to Dr. Desk? Hi, we're here. Our daughter has type one diabetes for how long? And we're like, oh, no, no, we just figured it out. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, oh, and then today. Yeah. Right. Like, just now I'm telling you. And they look at you a little like, Well, maybe you don't know. But they took it very seriously. In Western right back. I'm sorry. I, I was in art school and getting that thought in. But oh,

Jill 26:07
no, that's fine. No, it's it was funny, because the doctor who comes in, and he sits down and he just like kicks his feet up on the bed. He goes, Well, I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. You have diabetes.

Scott Benner 26:17
Thanks. I knew on the way over. You said a lot of people around you more than your sister and on your brother or I mean, not that that's not a lot. But are there others?

Jill 26:27
Now just those two, but I feel like most people, at least the ones I hear about, they don't have siblings or other people in their families that have oh,

Scott Benner 26:34
oh, yeah. Overwhelmingly, a lot of adults say that what they like about the podcast is listening. This is the only chance they get to even hear from other people who have diabetes. And right. It's weird, because I mean, the podcast has been going on for so long. I think people feel like, like, if I'm going to ask to come on, I'd better have like some crazy story, which is not true, by the way. But I think you might hear more people on the show with multiple people in their lives than actually exist in the real world.

Jill 26:58
Right? Yeah. And my brother and I constantly argue about who has it worse, you know, I say I had it worse because I lived 19 Completely normal leaders and then had to, you know, change my life overnight. Whereas He, you know, he was diagnosed before he was two years old. He never knew what it was like to not be diabetic. So

Scott Benner 27:16
is there a consensus? Has anyone won this argument? Oh, I went every time. Would he say that he wins every time. If I talked to him? That's irrelevant. But it's an interesting question, isn't it? Like, you know, him. So in my mind, if you're talking just about health, I give it to him, because he's held for shadow longer, right. So he could run into more problems just for, you know, turn, determine service. So but as far as making the adjustment, intellectually, and mentally, I think it's you, because of your age. So,

Jill 27:50
and I did go through a pretty gnarly diabetes rebellion phase. Shortly after I was diagnosed, I think I kind of gave it some effort for the first year or so. Then I just, you know, and we talked about on the podcast all the time, but there's just a lack of education. And it's just, it's staggering. And as a nurse, I know, firsthand how little education just general nurses get and how uneducated, they are about type one diabetes. And so I didn't know what the heck I was doing. Even though I had a brother. He wasn't, he wasn't poorly managed. But he wasn't, you know, super tightly managed at the time. I just let it slide for about five years. And it was pretty bad, and didn't actually get my act together until I met my husband. And then his sister was on a pump. And that was I had always said, I didn't want to pump. I didn't want to pump because I didn't want to be, you know, tethered to something. And then I met her and saw the pump. And it made me think, well, maybe I do want a pump. And then I got a pump. And then my brother looked at me and said, well, she's got a pump, maybe I'll get a pump. And then he got a pump. And by then he was in his 20s. And he was still doing MDI and had been since he was two.

Scott Benner 28:58
I'll tell you, what a common story from people. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Really interesting. When you say things were a mess. What do you mean, what was your one? See? What was your day to day to day management? Like,

Jill 29:11
I think my a one C's were probably in the nines. I think they were like, low nines. I just didn't know what the heck I was doing. I was taking my long acting. I'm sure it wasn't enough for meal boluses. I was all over the place. I would sometimes Bolus sometimes wouldn't would either way over Bolus or under Bolus. I didn't know what my carb count was, you know, I was just kind of like looking at something and saying, Oh, that looks like two units. And I know you do that. And you do that effectively, but I was not.

Scott Benner 29:40
Well, listen, in fairness, I make those guesses along with settings that are really good. So like you're saying, I'm not sure if I had enough basil. I don't know what my ratios are. Like when I say I think that's two units. I have a lot of comfort that the other things are working the way that I expect them to. Right I was completely shooting in the dark. Yeah, this is interesting. So Oh, what happened? You get it at 19 Your parents are so dead inside from diabetes or your mom, I don't know. I didn't ask you when your mom passed. I'm sorry. Did she pass earlier in life? Yeah, no, she I was 11. So sorry. I'm so sorry. So. Oh, so it's your dad. Does that have like, you got like a stepmom? I do. Yeah. So you should add your stepmom. And they've been at this for so long with your brother, that and you look like an adult to them. So they were probably like, Hey, you have diabetes like that now here? And is that the idea? Did you just not get any, like support in the beginning that would have helped you learn these things? Were you just on your own?

Jill 30:38
No, I think that so my dad is incredibly supportive. He's very involved, very educated. I was also a sophomore in college. At the time, I wasn't living at home, I was living on campus. So he wasn't there for the day to day. And I'm a pretty independent person. So from pretty young, I had just kind of, you know, said like, Oh, I'm gonna do my things. And you know, my dad didn't manage things like that. So I was making my own doctor's appointments and dealing with the insurance myself and getting all my supplies. And so I think he just kind of was letting me do my own thing. And, and he would ask, you know, he would ask, how's my agency and how's my management and I did have a diabetes, diabetes education class when I was first diagnosed, but it was, you know, woefully

Scott Benner 31:21
inaccurate, inadequate, inadequate. Yeah. When he asked you, how's it going? How do you answer?

Jill 31:26
I honestly don't remember, it was so long ago.

Scott Benner 31:29
Do you remember? Let me see if I can just pull a feeling out of you. Do you remember being having a feeling that you were being dishonest? Oh, yeah,

Jill 31:37
no, I was definitely hiding it. And I was I was ashamed. But I also kind of was just, I don't give a f, you know, kind of attitude about it. Because I was in my early 20s. And I just wanted to, you know, be a young, I didn't want to have diabetes, you know. So I just kind of said, eff it. It wasn't until that I met my husband, and I wanted to commit to being healthier. And I just was tired of being on this roller coaster of being crazy low and then being crazy high and it doesn't feel good. You know, it doesn't feel good to be that high all the time. But you kind of get used to it. And that's your normal, you know,

Scott Benner 32:12
did you have a feeling like I'm trading later in life for this decision, but how much understanding you have of the consequences of what you're doing?

Jill 32:19
I don't think I did. I don't think I did at all. I think maybe I had just just an inkling of that. But I did not have the I wasn't in nursing school, then at that point, I didn't understand the gravity of the the choices that I made at that time, you know, affecting my later control.

Scott Benner 32:38
Okay. So when you're talking about being like embarrassed almost, when you're talking to your father, it's more about, he's asking you something, you know, it's not what he expects to hear back. And now you're kind of fibbing. And that part is embarrassing, right? And just

Jill 32:52
knowing that I should be doing better, you know, I know I should be taking care of better care of myself.

Scott Benner 32:57
I gotcha. And I wasn't Alright, so you meet your husband, you decide to move things along. Pump seems like it was the first step that got you moving.

Jill 33:05
I think I did. Dexcom first, but it's hard to remember that far back. But I remember when I was diagnosed, the first thing I wanted, I had heard of this magical device called a continuous glucose monitor. I wanted one and I think there was an insurance battle. It's just so hard to remember. But I think at one point, I did do the Dexcom, either just before or concurrently with starting the pump therapy.

Scott Benner 33:27
Okay. Did you have a reaction when you started using the CGM? Like, oh, my god, is this what's happening? Like was what's happening was what you saw happening on the monitor commensurate to what you thought was happening?

Jill 33:40
Yes. But I also at the time, I didn't know what good management really looked like. So I just it didn't have that impact on me, because I just thought, well, this is, you know, it is what it is. It's interesting.

Scott Benner 33:52
It's just it's very interesting, because I mean, of your now your professional background, which means you have the capacity to understand it, obviously. And so it's all context. Like, if people don't have the right context, there's no way for them to make any decisions, even if you give them the technology,

Jill 34:08
right. If I were to look back on my management and my numbers with through the lens of what I know now and how I manage my diabetes on a day to day now, I would be absolutely horrified. But at the time, I didn't have any of that understanding. So I just, you know, kind of looked at it and was like, Well, I'm high a lot, I guess, you know,

Scott Benner 34:27
and that's it. And you did you're not even when did you realize my question should be that being high and bouncing around made you feel poorly? Was it after you control it? Or was it while it was happening?

Jill 34:37
I think a little bit of both. I think I thought you know, I'm tired of feeling so all the time. And then once I started managing myself, it was the full impact of wow, I was really feeling lousy before I didn't even realize

Scott Benner 34:49
Yeah, no, I I think that's so important. And I want to remember to say it more often because newer people listen, and I think I don't think they know I think that it becomes like a numbers game. It gives me a few of context now like I shouldn't be 200 You know what I mean? If you know that your mind or my kids shouldn't be 250 after a meal, you don't know that. There's no way for you to know that they're not feeling well. And then they start getting accustomed to the feeling. And there's no way to know that that that acclamation is bad for you. Like just right when you start feeling okay at 250 Your body's making.

Jill 35:25
You've been you're you're Zero has been reset. You've been tired at a not a good level. And this

Scott Benner 35:30
is not Yeah, and this is not sustainable. Even though today, it seems okay. Today, you're like, Oh, I feel fine at 250 Yeah, that's bad news. Because one day, things are gonna start short circuiting. Do you have any problems or do you feel like you're doing well?

Jill 35:45
So now I'm it's I'm it's night and day, I'm a completely different person from from then before I found your podcast, I had started to kind of do a little bit of the juice box method my own way. I don't know why it never occurred to me to search for podcasts or for you know, communities online, but I was controlling my diabetes a lot better with pump and CGM therapy. I did Medtronic for a while. Gosh, I hated those sensors. So I got off that I did while at Dexcom with Medtronic for a while, then I went to Omni pod for a while. I love Omni pod, but I cannot use them because I have a terrible issues with tunneling and leaking and I believe it has to do with the 45 degree insertion angle. Okay. So I did Omnipod for a while, went back to Medtronic. Then I was about probably like the maybe at the highest seven a one C but usually like the high sixes then I discovered your podcast. I don't remember how. But this was many years ago now. And I think at one point, you just kind of offhandedly mentioned, looping. And that was before you ever tried to loop with Arden. And I forget the context in which you were just talking about was like, wait a minute, is this a thing, this this algorithm this, you know, this DIY pump. And so I went on a Google search and went down the rabbit hole and finally found out about looping. I just I couldn't I can't tell you how excited I was I went to my husband's like, this is a thing like you can actually do this. I buy all the things. I didn't have a Mac at the time. So I had to build the the virtual desktop on a PC and it took some time and some effort but then I was looping and I looped with the Omni pod for a while but then the same issues came creeping back with the tunneling and the losing of the insulin and so I had to stop. I tried to get a Tronic loopable Medtronic pump and it broke after I bought it off some guy.

Scott Benner 37:42
She's healthy. There's a world right I found a guy on line is gonna sell me a used insulin pump. Everything's listen.

Jill 37:47
I never knew that there was a black market for used loopable pumps, but boy. And then so I went back I actually then I went to the TCM and that's what I'm on now is I'm on the good for

Scott Benner 38:00
you. Yeah, yeah. Listen, Arden, Saab three, two days away from finishing her first semester of college. And so she's taking tests and finishing projects and going to class and she's sick. And I still saw her eat a big meal this morning. She didn't do a great job. It seems like she didn't Pre-Bolus And she had like a 190 blood sugar that she the on her own. Got back again in like 90 minutes. And I do not think that that would be her situation without algorithms. You know, and it's funny this happened the other night I need to talk about somewhere so it's fresh in my head. But her Dexcom was supposed to be supposed to die the following day. Oh,

Jill 38:45
is this what you post about about the transmitter? Yeah.

Scott Benner 38:47
And like around seven o'clock at night, she says, hey, my Dexcom is like really flaky, and the transmitter is done. So she's like my sensors done tomorrow. The transmitters not good for a restart. I'm just gonna do it tonight to get it. You know, and I was really proud of her for being proactive and not fighting with like a fluky transmitter, like for hours overnight. Everything is like, Oh, look at her, like being proactive. This is really good. So she does the whole thing sends me a text. She's like, I never done it before. But it all is perfect and went great. And it's warming up. And I'm like, that's great. I mean, she's been, I mean, we've obviously changed transmitters, you know, forever on G six for years. And she's there and she helps and everything but the first time she was doing it by herself. And two hours later, it just says transmitter failed. And she's now it's like 930 And I was like, well, that's weird. I said, Well, you know, monitor, get your old make sure your old transmitters way far away from you. And just, you know, do it again, like maybe it's confused. Maybe the two of them are too close. I don't know. Like, I'm not there. I don't know what she did you know? So she does it again. And it won't connect. And then it becomes a problem. And now it is not working. And so she's testing she's like oh my blood sugar's okay, it's 100 by 105 or something like that. I'm like Good, good. We'll test again and an hour So we tried it again and it didn't work. We ended up taking that transmitter off and going to the next one. Now she goes that I'm holding the last transmitter I have right now. She's like, you sent me two, which was more than more than she needed. And now we're on to the second one. And I'm like, Okay, well, you know, what do I do if this doesn't work? And I'm like, he's like, 800 miles from me, Jill, I'm like, I'm like, my brains gone. I don't know what you're gonna do. If this doesn't work, like, finger sticks. Yeah. Let's just hope this doesn't this works, right. So anyway, sets it up, goes through the thing, it won't connect. And so now I'm like, this is just a Bluetooth thing. But let me go online and get I want to download everybody's thoughts. And I'll read through them real quick and see if I'm missing something. Right. And we weren't. And finally, it just I don't know what I ended up telling her to do. That worked. We I think we rebooted the phone and like crap, you know, like, deleted the app and start over. So I'm like, something's weird. And like Bluetooth connections. Weird. I'm just gonna make it start over again. I did so many things. I rebooted the phone, blah, blah, blah. And it comes online, boom, hey, it's connecting. This is great. At that point, Jill, it was 130 in the morning. She's looking at me over FaceTime. Like, can I go to sleep now? Please? You know, she's like, I have a final in the morning. And like, I'm like, I'm like, no, no, no, yeah. So I'm like, alright, well, what do I do? And now my brains frozen. Because here's the other thing, two and a half hours into this, she tests no lie. She went from 100 to 400. Stop. And it was probably like a it's this terrible food from the college it probably had like a fat rise. It hit her on the other side. And now the algorithms not right wasn't there to catch her. Right? What how amazing is that? Because even if she wouldn't have done anything about a fat rise, the algorithm would stop her by 200. Right. But without that algorithm, and just eating the regular food that they gave her a college, not looking at her blood sugar for two and a half hours, from 100 to 440. That's incredible. So now we're making this giant Bolus without a CGM. And she while she's going to sleep, she needs to go to sleep. And I'm just like, oh, okay, that's this. This is what this day is gonna be like, that's fine. I said, Yeah. I said, here's what we're gonna do. I said, make a heat. I said, open up your health app, put in your blood sugar so that the loop can see the number, right. Like, I don't, I wanted to leave the loop open. But I thought no, when the CGM comes back online, I want the loop operating because we're all gonna probably be asleep. Right? So I'm like, so bolt, make this big Bolus, close the loop, go to bed. And she, she does all that. And then I use the next four hours to catch up on Shameless, which I'm power watching. Because I'm like, I'm not going to sleep. I don't know why I can't see your blood sugar. And I just, you know what I mean? Like, I just, I

Jill 42:51
just Yeah, but you, you want it to be awake for when it did come back online for

Scott Benner 42:55
the life of me. I'm like, I should just go to sleep. She's either going to die or not. I'm not there. I don't know. I can't see like, you know, but anyway, I sat up. And then two hours into it. I see a little Bolus and Nightscout. But we forgot the flip the switch in the loop app that says after you change the transmitter, that it's okay to send the data again. So I am not looking at I have no Dexcom data.

Jill 43:21
Yeah, I had to just the Dexcom follow. She

Scott Benner 43:24
didn't like she put the new transmitter on. And there's I don't know what happened to share didn't start working right away. So we just don't have anything, right. I don't, I'm just like, Okay, what do I do now? It's five, like, it's like five in the morning now. And I think, Oh, I'm still Nightscout is showing me the Bolus. So I'm like, if it bolused, he must be high, she needs insulin. And then I realized there's a little like pill where you can see what it what it thinks your what your blood sugar just was. And so now I'm like, Oh, I can see your blood sugar in this little like, little screen. So that's what I used to I sent her a text I said, when you wake up in the morning, we need to flip a switch in your loop app, you know, probably open and close the Dexcom app and get the share going. And she gets up in the morning, does not look at my text goes right? The school takes her test. And I'm like, and I was like, Fine, like she's fine. Like I'm still kind of able to monitor this way. But I'm not getting alarms. I'm not like, you know, nothing's happening like that. But I'm like, she's fine. She's She can do it. And she did. She went took her test. She said she got a 90 on her final. And then later in the afternoon, I texted her and I said, Hey, just FaceTime me real quick. I'll show you what, what switch to flip. And she did that real quick. And everything came back on. And that was it. So Wow. There's two stories in there. One of them is you can do it without technology. And the other one is the technology is really great. And you should probably use it if you could afford. I mean because I mean just look at what it's doing for like post meal. Right? That's crazy, you know, so anyway, I'm glad it's working for you. What are your outcomes like now like you went from nines to low sevens, high sixes to what?

Jill 45:04
So now I am right now my most recent was 6.1, which is actually a little bit high. For me, I prefer to be in the high fives. Yeah, but I've had a lot of life things going on. And so typically what I do is I will run a clarity report every week or every other week in and look back at the previous week's data and make changes. I know, you say, you know why watch it for a week, if you if you see a pattern after you know, one day change it, but I just don't have the time. Of course, I have a four year old and I'm a nurse, and you know, so I just, you know, I just choose to that's my level of attention. My attention has slipped, I haven't been running reports for a while because of just life being crazy. But so I do want to get it down a little bit. I actually have an appointment with a new endocrinologist, we just moved to Orlando, Florida. That's where we live now. And so I finally found an endocrinologist who's going to be on board, Dr. Metric who I learned from the type one beyond type one conference. I actually I met you at the top the conference back in September. And so I heard about Dr. Metrics spoke at that conference. And I said, Hey, do you take this insurance? And he said it? Yep. And I said, Okay, I'll see you in a couple of

Scott Benner 46:13
wait, you met me at touched by type one? tech spec type one. There

Jill 46:16
it is. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. I

Scott Benner 46:18
was like I was at a conference. I don't know about. That could have happened. But I know I'm usually more aware of myself in that. And so you in that great that you found a good doctor that's on board. That's local, everything. That's

Jill 46:31
right. Um, he's, he's over an hour away, but I'm willing to drive, you know, to finally have an endocrinologist who will be on board with my method, my my style of management, because I'm just constantly fighting endocrinologist, I have never been able to find anybody who is fully on board with, you know, being more aggressive about management. And to finally find somebody who is you know, I'm gonna be as gung ho as you are than I am. I'm, I'm willing to make that drive for that kind of man.

Scott Benner 47:01
was a delightful when you met me? Or was I not?

Jill 47:03
You were being your company. People were coming at you from all different angles. But I just heard you speak behind me. And I looked around I went Scott.

Scott Benner 47:11
I tried to go from the the table in the beginning where they greet people in the morning, I tried to get to the food. I was like, That's

Jill 47:17
exactly where it was. And you that's why I say you're getting you're getting it from all different angles.

Scott Benner 47:21
I was like, I just need, I don't want a lot. Like I just give you a piece of toast real quick. And I get a text on there for like a half an hour and I get a text from somebody that says, I thought you're gonna meet us for food. I'm like, I'm halfway there. She goes, What are you talking about? She's like, it's 100 foot walk. I'm like, Well, I'm halfway there. I'm Drew. I'm doing my best. And it's lovely. Like, it's really nice to meet everybody. But I see why. In a setting. Like it's a weird thing. I said to somebody when I was there. Somebody somebody said to me like why you're famous. And I said just here. I was like, If you could pick me up and take me 50 feet outside of the hotel, no one would know me. I was like,

Jill 48:00
if you just silently walked and didn't speak, then probably nobody would have

Scott Benner 48:05
gotten away with it. If I didn't talk. Yeah. But once I talk, then it's just then there's lines, which is, by the way, really nice and weird for me. Because I look up and I'm like, I don't understand this at all. Like I can just feel my children yelling at me and my wife mocking me and I'm like, I they would not my family would not wait to talk to me. So

Jill 48:26
what was really funny because at your, at your when he caught slot, it was so funny, because you're like, does anybody you're not listening to the nobody raised their hand like, well, everybody knows the stuff.

Scott Benner 48:38
That messed me up because I do a great little talk that kind of brings you up to speed and then I bring you into the stuff. And it was the first time it ever happened to me. I looked up at this roomful of people and I thought, Oh, no. He might not. Oh, let me ask, you know, like, Does anyone not listen to the pocket and nothing and I was like, oh, hell, I said to my wife later, she goes, how was it? I said, it's, it was different than ever before. I was like, those people were there to see me. And that's never happened to me before.

Jill 49:11
So now you need to prepare a people normally people don't know me presentation. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:17
yeah. So now I have to do I have to do something different. I have to have to because it I mean, I think I did. Alright, I switched up on the fly. Oh, yeah.

Jill 49:25
No, you did but and my husband was there and he doesn't listen. So that was it was beneficial for him.

Scott Benner 49:29
Good. Good. I mean, you have to give them some context. They also just because they listened doesn't mean they get even you said something earlier. Like you know about making adjustments. And you know, you said I know you say after one day but that's just something you heard me say one time that stuck with you. Like I don't like always adjust after one day like it's just it's the podcast is weird because once I say something, it feels like it's a rule. You mean and that's hard to from my position like you have to sweat you have to be able to speak in a way way that guides people without, you know, having them walk away because you never know what people are going to focus on. You have to meet and take away from so anyway, but I'm glad it was good. And you had a nice time. I also

Jill 50:11
got to meet Jenny Smith and went to her talk on managing pregnancy and diabetes. And that was a that was amazing. Yeah, she's

Scott Benner 50:18
something else. Actually, Jenny just sent me a note. haven't responded to her yet. Like literally in the mail, she sent me a note, along with a photo we took after that day. So after that day ended, Jenny was on her way to dinner with a family that she helps who was they're really lovely people who I don't imagine what their name said. So I won't. But this was like that afternoon was my last time to say goodbye to Jenny. So I said, Hey, let's meet somewhere real quick. We'll say goodbye. Because as much as Jenny and I speak, we've only been in each other's presence twice, ever. So I came downstairs and I said, you know, I was like, hey, just want to, you know, say hi, and bye before you left and everything, and the family came up and said, You should come with us, we're going to dinner. And I was like, this is lovely. And then I heard my son's voice in my head. And he always says, one of these people is gonna kill you. You're gonna get murdered. It's gonna be by somebody listens to the podcast. I don't know when it's gonna happen. But it's definitely said I was like, alright, well, I do want dinner. And it sounds like fun. And this is better. I was gonna go up to my room and sit there. And so I was like, Yeah, great. So we went along, and Jen just sent me a photo that we took from there. And it sent me a nice note about the event. But I've only met Jenny twice. So you've met Jenny one time less than I have? Yeah. Wow, that's so special. She's I know her. I wish, am I sending a message directly to people who have me come out and speak right now. Maybe I wish that they would not have put Jenny in Iowa at the same time.

Jill 51:44
Do you know I, I, oh, my gosh, I got so upset. Because you your like second part talk was at the same time as Jenny. And there was a third talk that was at the same time as Jenny. That was I forget what it was, I think it was for like it was technology like new technologies and developments and future developments. And all three of those at the same time. And that conference, as much as I enjoyed it was very geared towards children and teens and had a lot of those sessions. And so for like the first two slots, there wasn't really anything for me to go to and all the the sessions that I wanted to attend as an adult. Were all at the same time.

Scott Benner 52:22
Yes. So I listened not just in that one touch by type one, by the way, it's the best conference I've ever been to, but But I tell everybody, like when they contact me, it's not as much speaking anymore. COVID kind of killed it. But like I say to them, Look, this is going to sound pompous, but you really shouldn't put me up against anything else you care about. Because I'm gonna cannibalize it. And some people are like, Oh, sure. Haha, you know, and I'm like, No, seriously, and then Jenny, and I basically cannibalized each other. So like, I think the mass of people were either with her or me, like, I felt bad for whoever else was speaking at that time. Because

Jill 52:58
yeah, there was nobody with Jenny. It was it was me. And I think to other women, that was that.

Scott Benner 53:04
That's a shame. Yeah, she should be with she should have her own slice. She's really good.

Jill 53:09
That was nice. So I appreciate that. Because we got like, one on one attention and time was fantastic.

Scott Benner 53:15
I wanted her to speak with me, too. I said, just like you ever come out with me and you don't want to mine? Um, because she and I've done that before. We did it in Georgia. And it went really well. Just like, like the podcast was kind of live. You know what I mean, right for episodes that she's in. But no, I mean, just a great conference. Absolutely. Beautiful hotel. The setup. Oh, wonderful. You know, gorgeous. Yeah, so good stuff. Well, I'm glad I wasn't bad. I mean, no, I don't fantastic. I don't really prepare that much. You don't I mean, so.

Jill 53:43
It was really funny because you were like, hype man, you weren't you. You took the mic, and you went outside. And you were corralling people.

Scott Benner 53:51
I've been I've been a JDRF events, where I'm standing a door and people are walking by and I have the microphone in my hand. And I'm speaking to them through the speakers. And I'm like, where are you going? We're gonna really shouldn't do that. You should come back in here. Like I don't. July, I just got a call from somebody, they want me to do this event. I can't do it. It's so far across the country. It's like 17 airplanes to like a puddle jumper you don't like I'm like, I'm sorry. That sounds like I can't do that. They were like, Oh, well, you don't have to spend a lot. Just come out, give your talk and go on. I'm like, You want me to fly all that way, and then just talk for an hour. I was like, I'm definitely not doing that. Like, if I come use me, you know what I mean? Like, I'll talk all the time, if I can, you know, or actually, I did something with touch by type one. This time that went I thought really long. I know. They enjoyed it. But I just went and talked to the kids. There was like 50 kids in a room, their parents were in there, some of them. And we just talked about what it was like for them to have diabetes, you know, and then just tried to give them the overall idea. Like the big picture stuff so that if their parents came to my talk, and went home, they wouldn't be met with resistance by the kids. Like, they'd be like, Oh, I heard this too. Like you don't mean so maybe it would make it easier for them. Right. All right. Anyway, I had a question about your job. It's a very active job, right? Like you're moving around constantly. Is that right? How do you? Does the control IQ hold up with that? Well,

Jill 55:12
yes, I've been surprised. I think it also, when I used to work a night shift, I used to have a lot of issues with with lows have to run either Temp Basal, or, you know, with that control IQ, you can't do that, which drives me nuts, by the way, unless you go out of the algorithm, but you I would put on the activity setting, and that sometimes would or would not be enough. Okay. But during day, it manages me fine. I hardly ever go low. If I do it's very occasional.

Scott Benner 55:38
Well, that's excellent. I mean, that's, that's what you're looking for much better and much better than what you had previously. Yes, yeah, that's right. I can't say enough about. And I think these algorithms just get better and better as time goes on. But it's a new world, that's for sure. And they all have now too. So it's terrific. If you want to use a Medtronic pump, you can do that. If you're using, you know, tandem on the pod. They're just, you know, do it yourself options. There's so many, you know, so many options that I love that about it. So they don't like it, I'm sure the companies

Jill 56:12
but I'm gonna try it certainly doesn't like it. It's funny because I got my brother to, you know, I don't know if he would say I got him to pump but you know, got him more interested in that. And now he's a pediatric endocrinologist now. So he can teach you along that path. And he's always been wonderful with kids. And, you know, he has a unique experience of having diabetes since he was a baby. So now he's a pediatric endocrinologist in New Jersey.

Scott Benner 56:39
So Oh, that's amazing. Was he was he always I on being a doctor? Yes. Oh, okay. Yes. He didn't go from like, working at GameStop. And he's like, You know what, I should do less?

Jill 56:51
No, no, no, he always wanted to be a doctor. He considered doing pediatric neurology for a while, but I've me and everybody else in our field was like, Pat, you gotta go on Endocrinol. So he loves it. He loves He works out of Rutgers. And he's just having he's having a great time.

Scott Benner 57:08
Oh, no kidding. I drove past Rutgers recently. Yeah. And I thought to myself, I hate driving here. Terrible traffic. Do you think people who like live in the US live somewhere around here with Rachel?

Jill 57:21
I live in Orlando. Okay. Yeah.

Scott Benner 57:23
I mean, East Coast. I don't even think of the whole coast is the same place. But

Jill 57:27
well, all my family's in New Jersey. It's just, I'm the only one who's just not there

Scott Benner 57:31
currently. I just wonder when you say traffic to people who are like, you know, like, there's somebody in South Dakota here that and like, what, what vision pops into their head when they hear traffic? You know, cattle? I don't know. I mean, the number of cars I mean, I know, you know, that you're in four lanes, like you're on your own, like, you've been like 287 There's like, oh, yeah, five lanes of traffic, everyone's driving 95 miles an hour,

Jill 57:55
just from the Washington DC area. I know traffic terrible. I'm about

Scott Benner 57:59
to drive through DC in two days. That's actually part of the drive where you think, Alright, it'll be a good shot from here to here. And I'm gonna hit Washington. And that's gonna take forever. And then you know, like, you know, it's it's such a game, you just don't know if you don't know.

Jill 58:15
Yeah, you got to plan your, your time that you're leaving around whenever you're going to hit the beltway.

Scott Benner 58:21
My sister in law came for the first time from Wisconsin. And I picked her up at Newark, and we were in the parking lot. And there's like a hotel in the parking lot. I don't know if that's maybe 15 storeys high or something. We go out to the car, and she goes, that's the tallest building I've ever seen in my life. Oh, wow. I was like, well, you're about to be knocked on your ass because so we you know, we leave the parking lot at the airport. And you look across the there's bad Manhattan and like the, the Budweiser facilities there and everything. Like if you leave the airport, and she's like, Oh, my God, and then she looks at the road. And she goes so many cars.

Jill 59:00
Road is so wide. Yeah, she

Scott Benner 59:01
was just like, I didn't I didn't see this many cars last week, like in total. And I was like, well, here they are. And we're gonna dive in with them like salmon swimming upstream and try not to die. So let's go. And I don't know how it works. Both those.

Jill 59:15
Somebody smarter than me has figured out how to make roads, somewhat safe.

Scott Benner 59:20
Fascinating. Isn't it fascinating that we are not constantly just running into each other? Yeah, so it really is something. All right. What have we not talked about that we should have talked about?

Jill 59:30
There's a couple of things I want to talk about. So I have some kind of thyroid disease as of yet undetermined. So I had my son in 2018. And I was able to manage myself very well throughout pregnancy. Just kind of on my own. I didn't really have a lot of guidance. I didn't have a great endocrinologist at the time and my OB was fine, but they just they weren't good at managing diabetes and my MFM did not do any kind of management of my diabetes. So I was kind of just on my own, but I did agree A job I was between like a 5.1 5.41 C three pregnancy. And then afterward about a few months, up to a year afterward, it just started losing weight like crazy. And I'm like, wow, this is awesome. I guess this is postpartum chasing a one year old heck and losing all this way. And you looking back at it now like, I'm an idiot, I had all of these classic die, symptoms of hyperthyroidism. And I was just like, this new motherhood, you know, and

Scott Benner 1:00:31
he's back by the world for bringing a baby into it. It's gonna make me make me like I was when I was 15

Jill 1:00:37
is amazing. And I was like, I look great. Doesn't matter that my hands are shaking all the time. That's fine. I have this like horrific heat intolerance. That's fine, too. And so finally I went, I had an I finally got a new endocrinologist and she was like, when was the last time I checked your thyroid. And like I said, I've got tons of thyroid on my, my dad's side. My aunt and my grandmother. They both had our Hashimotos. And then my other aunt has Graves disease, and she actually had thyroid storm two years ago and almost died. Oh, wow. So I she was like, I actually don't know when the last time I checked my thyroid. She was like, well, they must have checked it while you're pregnant. And then we looked back and somehow, neither my endocrinologist, my OB, nobody ever wants checked my thyroid levels throughout my entire pregnancy as a type one diabetic. That's not good. Not good. So we checked my levels, and they were like, my thyroid stimulating hormones like almost unreadable. It was so low. So I started on the, at the PTU. The other one that's gonna let them as well.

Scott Benner 1:01:42
And that's all. I don't know that one.

Jill 1:01:45
Yeah, so methimazole and PTU, I guess are the drugs of choice for treating hyperthyroidism. Okay. And so I did that for a few months. And she at the time, she, you know, checked all the antibodies. And I came back positive for both Hashimotos and for graves antibodies. And so I did them at the muzzle for a few months, my levels, Mike came back into range. And then she kind of said, you know, it could be grazing, you're now in remission, or you are, you know, this could be started Hashimotos. And it's, you know, thyrotoxicosis from, you know, the thyroid gland being damaged. Yeah, you're

Scott Benner 1:02:27
just not sure yet. Right. And so

Jill 1:02:29
this has been, I mean, it's been four years, and we still don't know, a lot of medication. Now, so my levels have been stable. But after listening to your episode with Dr. Starts with the s, Dr. Benito, Dr. Benito. Yeah, my levels are quote, quote, quote, unquote, in range, but they're high for me, right? Because I have a lot of hypo symptoms. They've done ultrasounds and I have goiter, but they've looked at the ultrasound, they said that everything looks okay. So I'm not really sure what's going on there.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
So you have symptoms, though? I think so.

Jill 1:03:05
Not, not markedly so. But sometimes I'll have cold intolerance, I had a lot of weight gain, which also can be from the methimazole. But I've been off of that for years now. Dry skin, you know, so some of the things that I see, you know, you could say our hypothyroid symptoms, I've thought about once I go to this new doctor, like I said, he's kind of more hip to how we do things. I'm saying like maybe just trial, a low dose of Synthroid and see

Scott Benner 1:03:34
Yeah, I mean, there's no harm in it. I mean, to get your I mean, Dr. BENITO tries very hard for two, right Oh, two level, I think art is a little lower Cole's like a little higher. But they're right at two. And Kelly's I don't remember what Kelly's last one was, I have to tell you what you said stuck with me so hard. After Arden was born. I don't know how many months it was after Arden was born. But I remember looking at Kelly thinking, if getting her pregnant makes her look like this. We should probably keep doing it. Like she was like, You know what he means? Like, he was like, I was like, You look amazing. And she's like, I know. Like, just, I mean, it was it was it was incredible. I thought she was pretty before and I was like, wow, like, you look like you're gonna be in a bit of magazine soon. And really what it was was, you know, thyroid issue. And then and then of course, we didn't notice it as that. And then by the time she started having more of the like symptoms, and then her weight swung the other way. And then she went to a doctor and the doctor was like, hey, lose weight. That's your problem. And she's like, I don't think so because I don't eat like, I just don't think my eating and exercise is commensurate to what's happening to me. And they would just tell her just lose weight or you're depressed. That was the other stuff. You're depressed, lose weight, blah, blah, blah. No one ever and then we, you know, the only reason we figured out Kelly's thyroid issue, Ardennes first Nurse Practitioner. I think her first one just said offhandedly, one day. Yeah, you know, a lot of times you see autoimmune diseases through families. And I went, really? And she was because I didn't know like, how would you know? And I was like, really? Because yeah, it's pretty common. I see the Kelly. Hey, guess what she said today. And then we started looking at our symptoms differently. We figured out that Kelly's thyroid was a problem. And then it still took a number of years to talk a doctor into giving her anything. And by then it really, it just really beat her up. Right. So terrible. Anyway, that's, I think, why I'm so the way I am about it. I don't want to I don't want to see anybody go through that. If they don't have to. I know what it looks like. It's terrible. So yeah, I think you should, I think you should use medicine, as well as you can to keep yourself where you want to be.

Jill 1:05:52
Yeah, so that's something I'm going to look into right. Also, do you know who Dr. T Berry Brazelton is?

Scott Benner 1:05:59
Is that the like, the baby doctor from the book? Uh huh. I didn't know it's kind of

Jill 1:06:05
Yes. So this is a much longer story. But I'll just give you the little the little bit. But so he used to have a show a TV show, in the 80s. And 90s, called what every baby knows, my brother had a, I actually don't remember how, how we met him how we got in touch with him. But he had a show. And because my brother was, you know, so young, when he was diagnosed with diabetes. I guess they had gotten in touch with his production company for that show at the time. And he found out that my mom was pregnant with me at the time. And so I was born on his TV show. We really, yep, I was the first episode of the season, where they featured a whole segment on Parents with a special needs child special needs being type one diabetes, and having a second child. And so her labor and birth was on the first episode of the TV show. And then my brother, you know, them sitting down with me and my brother and talking about type one diabetes was featured throughout that season.

Scott Benner 1:07:06
That's amazing. Do you know how long he lived?

Jill 1:07:09
Out? Yeah. Well, you kept in contact with him for a long time. His picture was on our fridge going up. Oh my God. He was 100 when he died. He was an amazing, amazing guy.

Scott Benner 1:07:18
He missed 100 by two months. Oh, isn't that crazy?

Jill 1:07:22
Yeah, no, I remember reaching out to my dad when he when he passed. I was like, Oh, Dr. Brazel.

Scott Benner 1:07:27
That's it. That's an incredible story. I'm looking at a little bit of his particulars here. What I think is very interesting. Two things. One of them most interesting is he only had one kid. He got one he's like, you know, this enough.

Jill 1:07:42
I'm surrounded by kids all the time. Yeah. One of the homes good.

Scott Benner 1:07:47
And Yep. Did he he married late? That's interesting. What for Holland. He's born in God. This guy was born in 1918. in Waco, before waco meant what, what makes you think now, so 2838 48. He's 31 When he gets married. And what's super interesting is that they list the end of his marriage as when he was like, 96. But I am finding myself hoping that she passed away. Not that they got divorced, that they're dying late. Oh, God. So now I'm gonna look. I'm just hoping, alright, she died in 2015. Okay, so I don't know, it's for some reason. I was like, I would prefer that that lady died. Then they got divorced in their 90s for some reason. As far as me taking in, you know, information goes.

Jill 1:08:35
Well, that went to their house a couple of times to you know, have barbecues with the production crew and the other families that were featured on the season.

Scott Benner 1:08:43
That's really something how long did it do you know how long it ran for? The TV series ran for 12 years? That's really crazy. Yeah,

Jill 1:08:53
so that's my always my icebreaker when I was like oh icebreaker to this. So it's a fun fact, about yourself. You were

Scott Benner 1:08:59
born on a television show. That's what I say. That's for TV.

Jill 1:09:03
And do you know Dr. Peter Chase? That one? I don't know. So he wrote The Pink Panther book series for kids. Oh, oh, yeah. type one diabetes. Yeah. And that was my brother's endocrinologist when we lived in Colorado. Interesting. Yeah. And we also do you know, doctor, not doctor, just Barbara Davis, the dark Barbara Davis family and foundation.

Scott Benner 1:09:29
I mean, I know the Barbara Davis Center. So yeah, I assumed it was named after a real person.

Jill 1:09:33
Yep. So that's where Dr. Peter Chase was. But before that, we lived in LA. I was military if you couldn't tell already by now. We lived in LA and his Endocrinologist, Dr. Frank Kaufman in LA, put them in touch with the Barbara Davis Foundation, and family and my brother was invited to be one of the kids at the carousel of hope in the 90s. And so they all that's when they had their celebrity asked works for the diabetes ball, I guess you would say. And then Sylvester Stallone was my brother's escort for the night.

Scott Benner 1:10:06
No kidding. Barbara Davis, by the way, 93 years old and still moving. Wow, she pops some kids out 12345 think she had lubrication?

Jill 1:10:18
Let's all help. So

Scott Benner 1:10:21
we've waited an hour to do that call back

Jill 1:10:23
way to bring that full circle.

Scott Benner 1:10:26
But sitting on it. Not. I shouldn't have been sitting right. I've been. I've been holding. I've been holding it for just this occasion, hoping that we would talk about a 93 year old lady's children.

Jill 1:10:40
Right? Yeah. You never know when that comes up.

Scott Benner 1:10:45
You just never know. Sorry, I don't know why that made me laugh. So I had the COVID It turned into bronchitis. Oh, around week four. My wife was like, We need medical attention. I said, Yeah, I think we went to I have to tell you, I have insurance. It's pretty good insurance. I live near doctors, they're good doctors. I still prefer to go to urgent care for a lot of things. Really, I love the urgent cares, really good. So I guess maybe that's part of it. Like maybe if I walked in there and it was more like a crack house, I'd be like, I don't want to be here. It's really. So you know, I don't need an appointment. I go when it works for my schedule. I walk in, I say this is what's wrong with me. Bang, here's a chest X ray, here's this, here's that it took a little blood. Boom, boom, lady comes back in the room, she goes, gave you a story pack, I'm gonna give you Z pack of some kind, you're gonna feel better in a couple of days. You've got bronchitis to rebound bronchitis from COVID is very common. We're seeing with a lot of people. And I'm like, Thank you. First of all, I wish you could take the steroid packs forever, because you never Oh my god. So no lie. It's just it's just like a you know, I don't know, like a little pill. My back has hurt. My back is hurt since I was 20 years old. My lower back again, just it's a part of my life. And I take this stuff, boom, back is perfect. I was there I get twist around like a spring. Right? If I had any I noticed the last time I was wanting even digestive issues before I found the digestive enzyme and all that stuff that kind of to actually put things right. Even my digestive issues went away on steroids. And I'm like I have I obviously have inflammation, you know, and the first day and a half on the steroid IP, like you like you shot a bazooka through a camel. And so

Jill 1:12:46
it makes me concern for your prostate,

Scott Benner 1:12:48
does it? Right, yeah, right. But inflammation again, right. Right. Exactly. I should be taking the steroids forever. Is that what you're saying that maybe I was so sick that when I sat down the doctors, like let's see if we can help you. I said, I want to be clear. If you think cocaine or heroin will help me. I am up for it at this point, because I'm so sick. And I talk every day. So I sit down now to do the podcast with a giant like, you know, carafe of like hot tea. I'm like dumping it down my throat when I'm talking trying to keep going, you know, and this meds hit me. And in 24 hours. My chest doesn't hurt anymore. I feel better. I obviously have too much energy because I talked about boobs for 15 minutes this morning. So I'm feeling better. And it's just it's fast thing. I will again, you know,

Jill 1:13:39
that makes me disappointed because I had the exact same thing happened after I had COVID. And I couldn't have steroids because I'm a diabetic. Because I had I had COVID twice because I had the I took pecs over because I'm a diabetic. And then I had the rebound COVID week or so later after the COVID had subsided. And then immediately after that I had the flu. And what I'm now convinced it was the rebound bronchitis because I was so sick and I had to go to the emergency room get a chest x rayed. It was a whole big thing. But I didn't get no steroids.

Scott Benner 1:14:15
Oh, I'm sorry. That what was that packs? What's that med? Pack? SLOVAN. My wife got it. That and that drug is the reason? Listen, I don't know anything. All right. But my wife takes that drug in five or six days after getting COVID Like she was laid up. She was like laying in bed going. Like, you know, and I'm like, let's call the doctor. So we call the doctor said Oh, take this. I don't know if it's three or four days later. She's like, I feel like a million bucks. And I'm like, great. And then we you know, tested she was negative couple times we even stuck. We left her in the room a couple extra days because my son and I were like, you know, yeah, she looks sad in there but we're not sick. So let's leave her in there. I tested negative a couple times were like, Alright, we're gonna allow you to come out. She comes out. And two days later, she's sick again. Yeah. And she got us sick. And I was like, unbelievable. So now she's back upstairs. I slept in orange room for like 10 days this month, like because I was just trying to stay away from her. And oh my god, like, I know people are like, I know that COVID started out by being like, it's killing everybody. So if you don't die, it just feels like a win. But I mean, there were six or seven nights in a row. I couldn't sleep. I was exhausted all day. But when it was time to sleep, I had no feelings of going to sleep. And I would lay overnight for seven hours, getting hot, and then cold and that hot. And just it was, it was insane. That I'd sleep from like 6am to 9am Get up and make the podcast. As a matter of fact, if you guys go back to Episode 789, it's an episode I did with G voc about the hypo pan and Jenny. I'm listening to that literally today. Oh, well, this is perfect. Then how do I sound are that good? Right?

Jill 1:16:06
I just started it. So I don't think I'd noticed yet. Sweating like

Scott Benner 1:16:09
I was kicking heroin while I made that. Okay, like I came into the room. It was very embarrassing. Because it's an episode. First of all, it's an app, it was my idea. I've been like pursuing G voc. I'm like making an episode with me about this. You know what I mean? And they were very kind and they wanted to do it. And they you know, it's great. It's good for them. It's good. For me, it's good for the people listening because I think people don't know how to use their glucagon very well. And so we sit down to do it. The reason I tell you that it's it was, first of all, I have nothing to hide. But there were four people from the company on the call, like you and I are talking now no one hears us. But Jenny and I were talking. And there were four other people listening in. And I come in the room now my cameras on so Jenny can see me. I come in the room in sweatpants holding a blanket. And I sit down, and I put the blanket down next to me and I look over this piece and I go listen, I don't know if I got RSV or COVID. I haven't decided yet. I'm really sick. You're not going to notice while I'm making the podcast, I go, I'm a professional, this will be fine. I said but if you ever see if you see me pick up the blanket wrap around myself, I don't want you to worry. Because I feel like I'm about to be freezing. And then I start talking and I can see Jenny looking at me like Are you alright? And I didn't even realize that I just started like sweating and sheets. And through the whole thing. I was on fire. And then I got done. My son comes in he goes, Are you alright man? And I'm like, What do you is your shirts wet? And he's like, I don't mean like a couple of spots because you're, you're wet. And I said I gotta go lay down. And when I got done, I sent a text to my guy at the PR company. And I'm like, What's that? Okay. And he goes, it was amazing. And I was like, really? Because I'm not okay, like, and he goes, he didn't look good. So, anyway, be very impressed when you listen to that one because I was on death's door when I made that episode. And I don't think you can tell. So I have

Jill 1:18:05
I'm gonna go listen to that. You know, that's so funny. I just started listening. And

Scott Benner 1:18:09
then it just hung on for weeks. Like you'd get up tired all the time. Always sick. always feeling like blowing your nose, your chest feels heavy, you can't breathe. You know, I had to go outside and do yard work because like their leaves are falling. And if I don't get into the street, I'm gonna be stuck with them all year. I thought I was gonna die doing that. And then finally, Kelly's like, we got to go to a doctor again. I said, Yeah, I don't know what we're doing. I think it's you just don't you never feel your age. Like I just remember back to when I was younger, like this wouldn't have stopped me, you know? And now I'm like, I'm not kicking this. And then boom, magic pills and all good. Yeah, I'm sorry. You got to twice you said.

Jill 1:18:52
Yeah. Did Kelly had the horrible Peck? Slow? Bad

Scott Benner 1:18:55
mouth? Yes. Oh, yeah. Like a bad taste in her mouth. Right? Oh, yeah. Horrible. said that, too. So anyway, after all that the doctor says the doctor that gave her the Pax Lovitt not the urgent care. We get back on the phone with him. At some point. He goes out. We shouldn't give him that too. Oh, that was like, I was like, Oh my god. Okay. He's Yeah, we're seeing this with that. I wouldn't prescribe that. I was like, one of the guys in your office did he goes you should you talk to each other? Like you don't even like, right. So anyway, I don't know. I don't know why. And we, by the way, I've been vaccinated and boosted. So it was Kelly. And so it was call. So I don't know. I mean, maybe this was lesser than it would have been. I have no idea. You know, right.

Jill 1:19:42
That's what I kept saying to my husband. We I was pretty sick. He got a very very mild case. He was sick for like one day. I said, but can you imagine if we hadn't had these vaccines? That's why this disease was so scary when it first came out because we didn't have any treatments. We didn't have any disease. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:19:56
no, of course. Well, I never get sick for long so when everybody said Gotta get it and I was like, I am going to be the SuperHero this scenario because like two days from now I'm going to be okay and and it just like that's how I get sick like you can. Like there's maybe twice a year I'll look at Kelly and go getting sick. Gotta go lay down. And I'll sleep all night long wake up in the morning and it's over. And that's just how it usually works for me. This did not go that way. So anyway, kicked our asses is what it did. Oh, okay. Well, you were delightful. joins us you get did you enjoy this? Oh, yeah, this

Jill 1:20:30
was something else. This is so fun. Oh, good. Good. I'm

Scott Benner 1:20:32
glad. That's excellent.

Jill 1:20:33
What am I talking shop?

Scott Benner 1:20:35
Shop is a euphemism for your boobs? Or what are we talking about? Your existing term? My favorite part of the episode, everyone go back if you didn't hear it was We're like two minutes into it. And I said, So do you like lean across the table and say eat like because we're gonna have sex later. And Joe went she went, is this how this is gonna go?

Jill 1:20:59
Oh, man, I was gonna tell my dad and listen to this

Scott Benner 1:21:03
install. Listen, it's fine. Your dad knows. He's figured it out. And if he didn't know, back then he's figured it out at this point, don't you think?

Jill 1:21:10
Oh, yeah. No, he was he was right there at the doctor with me. He knows.

Scott Benner 1:21:14
Oh, you started saying he was right there. And I'm like, oh, what kind of a sinister story is this gonna be? But you meant at the birth of your child?

Jill 1:21:25
No, that's not what I meant. I'm at the doctor with the plastic surgeon.

Scott Benner 1:21:28
Oh, for the oh, oh, I guess you were pretty young. Right? Yeah, no. So you had to go to your father and say I'm thinking about getting the girls taken down.

Jill 1:21:38
Listen, when your mom dies when you're 11. Yeah. And you only have a dad, you get really close to your dad. I mean, you understand you have the same relationship with Arden. Sure. You know, he he knows all about my periods. He knew every time I had my period that I was going to be laid up. I had to go to him and say listen, I don't like my boobs. They're too big. Let's go to a doctor. You know,

Scott Benner 1:21:58
he's all for it. Look at him. Oh, that's really progressive. That's excellent. Yeah, no,

Jill 1:22:02
that's it's a silver lining. You know, you know, you have this relationship with Arden and I had this relationship with my dad that you're able to be a lot more comfortable and freer with one another.

Scott Benner 1:22:12
Starts out because you have to be but by necessity, right, then you realize exactly. Yeah. No, I agree with that. For sure. Okay, well, that's excellent. I'll ask you one more time. Is there anything we missed? Oh, thanks. So excellent. Thank you for doing this with me.

Jill 1:22:27
Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Hold

Scott Benner 1:22:29
on one second. Okay.

I'm gonna start off by thanking Jill and then I'm gonna thank us med us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888721151 for us med always provides 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. You can get your supplies just the way we do at US med. Don't forget if you know somebody with type two diabetes or prediabetes, and you'd think they would enjoy some content especially for them. Go to juicebox podcast.com. Click on type two diabetes, you're gonna get the type two Pro Tip series, as well as some episodes called type two stories. And these people have type two diabetes. And if listen to the podcast, you get to hear the results. Turns out there's a lot in this little podcasting that helps people share it with somebody who could use that help. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

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#961 Omnipod 5 Trial Experience

Lauren's daughter has type 1 diabetes and participated in the Omnipod 5 trial.

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 961 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'll be speaking with Lauren, her sister, brother, and now daughter have type one diabetes. Lauren's daughter did the Omni pod five trial. And she's here to talk all about that and much more. While you're listening today, please, 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. Were becoming bold with insulin. Get five free travel packs and a year's supply of vitamin D when you start using ag one with my link, drink ag one.com forward slash juicebox save 40% off your entire purchase of cozy Earth products at cozy earth.com. I'm talking about bedding, towels and clothes all 40% off with the offer code juice box at checkout. Save 10% off of your first month of therapy at BetterHelp. And all you have to do to get that is sign up through my link better help.com forward slash juice box

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter, you can find the next gen at all the contour meters at contour next.com forward slash juicebox. Your test strips may cost less on that website than you're paying right now through your insurance. Can you imagine that? Go check it out contour next.com forward slash juicebox. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org. That's where you want to go to learn all about this great organization. Their goal is to elevate awareness for type one diabetes, raise funds to find a cure and inspire those with diabetes to thrive. They have a an event coming up. I'm sorry, I'm talking and clicking at the same time they have their big event coming up the annual conferences on the 16th of September. In the Rosen Shingle Creek conference center in Orlando, Florida. Go to touched by type one.org. To learn more. I will be speaking at that event. I hope to see you there. If you're enjoying the show, please share it with someone else you think might also enjoy the Juicebox Podcast. And if you're listening online, consider finding a podcast app. They're free and a terrific way to listen. Apple podcast, Spotify, Amazon music and more. Subscribe and follow today.

Lauren 2:57
Hi, my name is Lauren. And I have a wonderful husband Jason and I have two children. So Vivian is my oldest. She is 14 years old and is a type one. She was diagnosed when she was 10 years old. And I have a younger son who is 11 years old.

Scott Benner 3:20
So Vivian's the type one. Yep. Does the younger son have any autoimmune stuff? No, he

Lauren 3:26
just has like, a little bit of skin issues. But that's it. And I did get the trial net for him, which was one of the scariest things ever. And he does not currently have the antibody

Scott Benner 3:39
he has like eczema or something like that. Yeah, he

Lauren 3:43
has. What's it called? starts with an S. My brain is in a fog. Don't worry, we'll figure that part of that. I'll think of it like halfway through.

Scott Benner 3:52
Does he have seasonal allergies bad?

Lauren 3:54
No, they're not

Scott Benner 3:56
good for him. I hope he's okay. Yeah, I

Lauren 3:58
know. Right.

Scott Benner 3:59
But did the diagnosed four years ago? Yeah, this came out of the blue for you or do you have other people in your extended family of type one?

Lauren 4:07
Okay, well, good thing that we have a long time to chat. So my brother and sister both have type one. I do not. So my sister is the oldest and she was diagnosed when she was eight years old. And I am admitting that she is 51 now, and my brother is the middle child and he was diagnosed when he was 11. So it's so funny because when they were younger, of course it was called juvenile diabetes. And so I always was waiting till my 18th birthday because I was like, I'm you know, once I turn 18 I'm not gonna get diabetes, but you know, now I know that that's

Scott Benner 4:46
that's you thinking that like, I just have to make it a thing. Oh my

Lauren 4:50
god. Absolutely. 100% So I grew up with a brother and sister and it was it's so interesting because the way A that we control diabetes now is so extremely different than it was controlled. Then, when I was younger we had no sugar in my house. Nothing. We didn't have any candy. No Halloween candy. It was a no fun house. So my mom used to take she used to buy Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios. And when she would come home, she would mix them right away because it was too much sugar in the honey nut cheerios. And I would say, you know, because I was the youngest. Well, can I have the honey nut cheerios? You say, Nope, no one can have the honey nut cheerios.

Scott Benner 5:42
Got a big metal bowl out and dumped a box of Cheerios and a box of honey nut cheerios, then mixed it up with their hands and put it back in the boxes. Wow.

Lauren 5:50
Yep, that was my childhood, we had nothing, there was a box of cookies that were stashed at the very, very top of one cabinet that I soon figured out that she hid for herself. And I used to go and steal a cookie every once in a while because it wasn't allowed. And the thing that's so interesting, and you know, I talked to my sister for this, of course, because we have a really great relationship. She used to talk about how she was always allowed to eat a ton of fruit, but no artificial sugar. And we used to always start our meals off with some sort of fruit, we would start off with like a grape fruit, or honey do, or cantaloupe. And that's how we would start our dinner. So even though it was a no sugar house, it was still a very healthy house, which actually has helped me in my adulthood. And, you know, when I had to leave the house, you know, for college, so I learned how to be a healthy person, but it was extremely restrictive.

Scott Benner 6:52
Okay. It's interesting. Do you have any idea? Why was she projecting health by starting a meal with fruit? Or was it something about the diabetes that she thought she was doing? Do you know,

Lauren 7:03
I'm sure she was just projecting health because I think I have a feeling that when she grew up, they always started off with like a grapefruit or something, you know, we had those special little spoons that would cut the grapefruit up into the little slices. So I think that was something that she did when she was younger, and that she just continued on. I imagine

Scott Benner 7:24
your mom for some reason in the backyard behind the shed where you keep the mower with a cigarette and that box of cookies. Just like no cigarettes. Just like I love cookies, these three kids got diabetes.

Lauren 7:42
It was the Milanos two was the Milanos. And I remember just like savoring my one cookie, and hoping nobody would see me eating it.

Scott Benner 7:50
Have you ever asked her if she knew you were taking them?

Lauren 7:53
No, I never did. So my mom's actually not alive anymore. And that's also one thing that I think diabetes was also very hard to manage, because she actually had breast cancer throughout my childhood. And so she got it when I was six. So think about having to juggle having breast cancer and having two kids with type one all at the same time. So I think in many ways, type one became a backburner. And because she had to, you know, really focus on staying alive. So well. So my sister is, you know, just extremely mature, super smart. And I think she was just like, Julie, you can handle this. And, you know, I'm gonna worry about me. And of course, like, she was an amazing, wonderful person. But my sister had to take on a lot. You know, it was it was a lot as a child and her what she started with as a young child, she really didn't see any differences in like using technology until she herself was like, I need to change because this isn't good for my body. So it was it was a lot.

Scott Benner 9:12
When you said your mom passed, was that a long time ago or did she? So the breast cancer and

Lauren 9:18
so she got breast cancer when I was six years old, and then it came back twice. It had metastasized to her liver, so she ended up dying when I was 17. Wow. So yeah, that's a long time ago that

Scott Benner 9:31
um, so it

Lauren 9:32
was a long time ago. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot to deal with with two kids with type one and then having, you know, a struggle. That was really difficult for herself.

Scott Benner 9:44
So were your parents married? Yeah, yeah. So okay, so Geez. All right. I'm sorry.

Lauren 9:55
My brain sorry, told me I'm supposed to make this fun and funny. So Uh,

Scott Benner 10:01
yeah, we'll start hard with breast cancer and then we'll just, we'll go into the fun stuff after that. Well, so your brother and sister have type one. But does that mean when you had kids? Did you think, Oh, my kids might have type one or Jude never think of it that way?

Lauren 10:16
No, I never thought of it that way. And so when Vivian was diagnosed, I was so surprised we were skiing up in New Hampshire, and that she had to go to the bathroom. And I was like, alright, well just click out of our boots, because we were at the base, and she couldn't hold it in. And she was in the fourth grade. And I was like, That's so weird. Like, that's just not normal. And the drive down to Massachusetts, where we live outside of Boston, it's only two hours and 15 minutes. And so she had to stop three times. So I called my sister the next day. And I was like, This is so weird. And she's like, I know. And I was like, maybe it's just, you know, yeast infection or something like that. And we went to the doctor's the next day, and I was just shocked. But I have to say, like, seeing my brother and sister grow up with type one, I was like, you know, what, they have lived healthy lives. They both have children, you know, my sister was able to have children. And they both went to top universities. So and are extremely successful people. My sister as a PhD, my brother is, you know, very successful in his field. So

Scott Benner 11:24
Mister has a PhD, my brother is not having.

Lauren 11:29
But there, and the thing that my sister says is like, she was probably high for her entire childhood, through high school, and she still was able to be a successful person. And that's what I think is so important to think about. We have this amazing technology that makes our lives so much easier. And so I think about, of course, I can handle this and, you know, because look at what they had to go through. And we didn't have any of that back then. No CGM. I mean, I can't even imagine what their levels were on a daily basis. And they're, you know, they're doing great.

Scott Benner 12:08
Well, I just just now while you were talking, Arden is the college and Fridays her sleeping day. So they she doesn't have classes on Friday. And I I'm assuming she's still sleeping because she was up late last night working on homework and everything. And her Dexcom numbers just disappeared. So I'm pretty sure that her CGM has lapsed, right like it. She needs a new one. And I texted her, I was like, Hey, is your Dexcom done? And she didn't answer me at all. She's still asleep. So I just texted my wife. And I was like, Hey, you got to reach out and try to find out what's going on because I think her CGM shot. But anyway, it is interesting, because up until then, you know, I don't think I've looked at Arden's blood sugar, maybe twice today. But when I looked at it, I looked at it, I watched them. I'm seeing the algorithm working, keeping your blood sugar stable, and all this stuff. And I'm like, Oh, that's great. Everything's good. She's sleeping in. And this is wonderful. And now I'm, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna wake her up and tell her to swap that CGM. Anyway, well, that's what I appreciate you telling me about the background, that's truly something actually, your sister doesn't have any complications. She

Lauren 13:19
was one of the first people to start a pump, which she was very lucky with. And so the problem now that she's having is, she has a lot of spots that she can't use. And so when she started on the pump, they're like, you can only put it in your stomach. And so she has a lot of problems absorbing insulin. So she's currently taking a pump break. And I told her that, you know, she should try to get the Omnipod five, but her insurance is not covering it. But that's the problem is the Dexcom slips off, and she was on the T slim, and it's just not connecting properly. So she has to, she's just gonna go through this right now and see how it goes. And maybe she could get onto the Omnipod. Five and find some new spots to use. But that's, that's the problem that she's having right now. And so it's, it's hard. It's really hard.

Scott Benner 14:14
Well, she said diabetes for? I mean, how long? 40 years? Maybe? Yeah, yeah. so and so. Do you think she was using the same sites over and over again? Or has she just exhausted all four possibilities?

Lauren 14:27
She's definitely used her stomach a ton, and she has spots that are hard. She even tries to use her arm and she's got very muscular legs. And so it's very hard to use those as well. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:41
yeah. stuff. You don't think about that? For sure. Okay. So Vivian. Boom, has diabetes. Four years ago. You start with what technology four years ago?

Lauren 14:53
Well, so we are so lucky that we are part of the Joplin and Boston and they are just there. So amazing. She was diagnosed in December and we were lucky enough, they said to find it within one month, pretty much. And I can literally pinpoint the weekend when she said, I just, I just don't feel right. One month later, we were at Children's in Boston. And then right after that, we switched to the Joplin because we knew we wanted to be there. And our first first appointment A week later, they're like, do you want to Dexcom? We're like, sure. Well, let's go on a desk calm. And then three months later, we started on the pod. And we have been on it ever since? Yeah, it's been great. And then we were asked by our amazing nurse if we wanted to be in the trial. So it was started off as the horizon. And we did that for if I think January, I know the beginning of 2020 was when we started it. So she will literally be on Omnipod. Five for three years now. Wow.

Scott Benner 15:59
Okay. And that's obviously why you're here today. Yes. So let's talk about that. Don't forget to head to touched by type one.org To learn about the organization, and get signed up for the big event on September 16. Now, let's thank contour for making fantastic meters and tell you a little bit about them. Contour next.com, forward slash juicebox. I'm on the website right now. That's how fast it loads. It's lightning fast. Click the internet, just like that. I'm sorry. Can we start over contour next.com forward slash juicebox. Check out the contour next blood glucose meter, and all the great meters that carry the contour name. It's a proud family. And they all boast Second Chance test strips. Now, why do I care about that. So you get a little drop of blood on your finger and you come in there, you start to touch the blood with a test strip. But then I don't know. You get distracted, you pull it away, you drop the meter on the bed. I don't know what happens to you. But you don't have enough yet. You're not done, you're going back. Usually with your meter, you're gonna throw away that test strip, but not with contour meters. That's why we love these Second Chance test strips. Contour next.com forward slash juicebox incredibly accurate meters that are easy to hold, easy to use, easy to understand that if you want will pair with an app on your phone to help you keep track of your data. But if you don't want to use the app, you don't have to the light is bright at night. It is a perfect meter. It's my opinion. We've only been using it for you know, like four years. So why Listen to me. Oh my god, there's a bug on my wall. I'll be right back. Okay, I've dealt with the bug and I'm back. Don't worry, I didn't hurt it. I released it into the wild contour next one.com forward slash juicebox you need you want and you deserve an accurate blood glucose meter. That is easy to use. I know CGM 's are amazing, but you still need a meter. And it should be accurate. contoured x.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening in right now. And links at juicebox podcast.com. To contour to touched by type one and all the sponsors. When you click on my links, you're supporting the show when you share the show with someone else. You're supporting the show. That's it. Don't get back to Lauren. Alright, let's do it. Bye bye, buggy. I'd like to understand what the trial was like. But moreover, I want to talk about using it every day for so long. So how long did the trial last?

Lauren 18:49
Almost two years because there were some glitches in the beginning. So we had to go off it I think for like a month or two months. I can't remember exactly. And it was very, very difficult to go back off and go back on the dash because we were sleeping through the night. I mean, it was really amazing. You know, we didn't have to do a lot of correcting, because the Omnipod would just do it for us. So yeah, but she was on it for that long. And insolate was pretty awesome about giving us all the supplies that we needed. So it was it was fantastic. And we we did different things like we did a diet challenge. We did an exercise challenge. And we had tons of phone conversations where they would just look at her information, all her graphing and say all right, well, I think we need to tweak this and we need to tweak this and see how this goes. So it was it was a wonderful experience. Wonderful

Scott Benner 19:49
is the system as it is now retail the same as it was during the trial.

Lauren 19:53
So when they had the glitch, I think that it was just producing too much insulin they did not gave me a ton of details. And that's why they had to fix it. And COVID had just really started. So we couldn't come into the office for the diet challenge and the exercise challenge. So we had to do everything in our house and just give them all that information.

Scott Benner 20:19
But yeah, okay, so you think the algorithm got off it felt to you like the algorithm got a fine tuning in the beginning?

Lauren 20:25
Definitely, it definitely did. And so

Scott Benner 20:27
basically, being on the on the trial just means what reporting back data telling them what she ate, what time she ate it showing them graph stuff like that. Was that was that it? Or was there more to it?

Lauren 20:39
No, I didn't even have to do that. I just had to, she just had to be on the specific pods. And we would have a phone conversation monthly. Or I would come into the office, but because of COVID. It was mostly just phone, and they would look at her numbers, and they would do any type of tweaks and go from there

Scott Benner 21:02
when they were tweaking. Were you aware of what they were doing? Or do you not even know what they did?

Lauren 21:07
Yes, because I had to change it in the PDM. Okay,

Scott Benner 21:11
so they were making settings changes, even though you were an auto Yes. And that made a difference. But now you're a longtime user, this changing settings impact auto?

Lauren 21:21
No, because they would no, no, they would maybe change like the carb ratio, or something like that. So I would just have to change something in it. Or they would say, you know, make sure that you're, you know, giving this much time before you eat and we Viviane went to sleepaway camp in between, so we had to change the settings because of that.

Scott Benner 21:44
Okay, so there's just very small tweaks to like day to day to day life. They're collecting did they have access to our CGM data? Anything like that? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So they clarity. Yeah. So they're seeing all that they get enough data to submit to the FDA, I guess. And then do you isn't there a moment where the study is over and you don't get it anymore?

Lauren 22:05
They were so amazing. So they, they kept saying it's gonna be FDA approved, it's going to be FDA approved, and it took so long. So they just continued to let us use it. And then, when they knew that they were going to stop the trial, they made sure that I had all of the updated the PDM that I had all of the updated pods so that I never had to transition back to the dash, that I had everything in place for her. It was fantastic. It was amazing. And they kept saying to me every time, we just want to thank you so much for doing this trial. And I said, No, no, thank you.

Scott Benner 22:52
I'm sleeping. Yeah.

Lauren 22:55
It was amazing. It was fantastic.

Scott Benner 22:57
So how would you describe Vivian's outcomes prior to Omni pod five? Like, where was everyone see, what did her variability look like those things?

Lauren 23:06
So she was probably at like a 7.0 or 6.8. And so now it is, it's she's at like a 6.3. Now, you Yeah, I'm very happy with that, you know, she's 14. And she hates to give herself insulin within the allotted time. So we really need to prep her about that. But she doesn't like take out her PDM at school. She doesn't like to prepare as much as maybe I would like her to so and Hannah, her nurse says, you know, Vivian, your everything is so beautiful in our settings. Like you just have to give yourself time before you eat. And that's the tricky part. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:49
She does she do you think she forgets? Or do you think it's willful? Or like,

Lauren 23:54
how do you look like she just forgets? Yeah. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:57
I think I think that's what happened. Yeah.

Lauren 24:00
Focusing can be a little tricky. So yeah,

Scott Benner 24:03
I don't think anyone thinks I should. Pre-Bolus right now, but I'll do it later. Especially like, it's funny. You keep saying PDM? Because you've used you've used I know, I know, I know. I'm not changing very much want you to call it a controller. But I I know, I know.

Lauren 24:19
I know. That's a big deal.

Scott Benner 24:22
But not the point. The point is that, I mean, I don't imagine your daughter's holding the controller and thinking I should be Pre-Bolus thing now, but I'm just not going to it just doesn't occur to her like she's busy and they get lost in what they're doing. I think that happens to everybody, not just kids. But

Lauren 24:36
yes. And also when we were in the trial, the Dexcom. The controller needed to be near her because the Dexcom was also connected in there. Okay, but now she has the phone that's connected with the ducks calm, so she would have to have to have her phone near her, not necessarily the controller.

Scott Benner 24:56
I listen, I sent on a text last night that said are you and affects this blood sugar. And that's just like what I'm doing. I'm doing my homework is was our first response and I went, That's fine Bolus and continue to do your homework. And she's like, okay, and it felt like I just snapped her out of what she was concentrating on. Yeah. You know, because the things beeping in her ear to she's not not, you know,

Lauren 25:21
well, one a tip that one of I think it was just a nutritionist at the Joslin told us to use an emoji, so that you don't have to say, you need insulin, you need insulin, because it's not a badger. So we just use a unicorn, as we always think of like unicorn diabetes. So I sent her three unicorns, and that's a reminder to take insulin. And I just if they say it's like a little less pushy. They see the unicorn. Oh, wait, I have to check my number. And then Vivian takes insulin.

Scott Benner 25:58
Yeah, I sometimes I don't always remember to bring it up. But you can look at your texts and read them a completely different way. Like you might just mean like, Hey, your blood sugar is high, do something about it. And it could get read on the other end, like, Hey, your blood sugar is high. Why are you doing something about it? Like that kind of thing? So and you're trying to live your life and just quickly dash off a text message to somebody? Yeah, that's a great idea. I like the unicorn idea. That's excellent. So

Lauren 26:26
good. And she said, she said, you know, you decide what emoji you want to use together. And so we looked at that. And we said, this one looks great. And so we know that that's, that's our code.

Scott Benner 26:37
Nice. It's excellent. Yeah. Very cool. So she's coming. You think she's, I mean, I have to tell you, somebody who just sent a kid off to college, it's a weird proposition. Like they leave and you're just like, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what they know. I can't see what they're eating. You know, like, it took us a couple of weeks to figure out how just terrible the food in the cafeteria must have been. Because she suddenly needed more insulin for meals were like, what's happening here? And then she finally told me one day, she's like that. I don't think any of this food is good. I was like, okay, she's like, she's like, it all looks great. And there's plenty of variety and everything. But she's like, I just, I'm basically just in a bad restaurant right now. And I'm like, okay, so she actually, we had to send her insulin. I sent her to school, with more than enough insulin to get her through the first 10 week period, she's in quarters. And she sent me a text like three weeks ago, and she's like, I'm gonna run out of insulin before I come home. So I was like, okay, so I contacted the doctor and had the doctor sent her a script and all this stuff. But it's, it's solely because of the foods that she has access to.

Lauren 27:48
Yeah, and that's the thing, actually. So Vivian has celiac as well. So she was diagnosed with that a year after, which was super surprising, because she didn't have as far as we saw, she didn't have any stomach problems, anything like that. But what I've noticed is that everyone that seems to get celiac with type one is asymptomatic. So you don't actually know that you have celiac unless you have a blood test. That what happened with that? Yeah, yeah. So So Vivian has to eat gluten free, and we've changed our kitchen. So that's also a concern when she goes off to college and a couple of years. Yeah. And that, of course, is totally different. Yeah, it's totally different with carbs and, you know, the type of flowers and starches that you use, because they're just a lot heavier.

Scott Benner 28:41
Yeah. And do you find that celiac friendly foods are often more carb heavy? Dairy? Yes. Definitely a bit about how they make them. Look, not to scare you. But Arden's not like, you know, some backroom college you don't I mean, like, she's, she's in a nice place. And I remember walking through there on the tour thinking, Oh, god, look how nice this restaurant is that they have set up for the freshmen, especially because my son went to a very old school. So, you know, a small, like, school has been around for hundreds of years kind of thing. And as soon as he got there, he's like, hey, the food here is terrible. Like really, like really bad. And I was like, Oh, come on, like, You must be kidding. And then they started sending us pictures of chicken that was pink and stuff. And he's like, how am I supposed to eat this? So he ended up supplementing his food all over the place, which was terrible, because you're paying, like, I don't want to shock people. But when you send your kids to college, the food and like dorm cost is usually around $14,000 a year, and no and you're like, and now he's like, I need money for food. I can't eat this food. Oh, and he didn't. You know, so you're like, okay, whatever. I mean, I guess this is what it is. And but then, you know, when we got to her school, and it was so nice and all the food looks so great. It was exciting. Eating. And then I, you know, in the end, it's just you're basically just at a restaurant. That's really what it is. And I don't know if they sprinkle like sugar, right on the food, you know, or what they're doing. But everything hits are harder. So I yeah, I'd be interested in know how somebody handles a gluten free diet to college would be interesting to hear about actually. So, anyway,

Lauren 30:21
yeah, I don't know. You're gonna find

Scott Benner 30:23
out. Okay, so on the pod five day to day for you. How do you just like if I, if I was just a friend, and we sat down for coffee, and I said, like, tell me why I want this. What would you what would be the first thing that popped in your head? Well,

Lauren 30:39
it's, you know, I have, Vivian hasn't been on the dash and so long, so you forget how difficult it was to be on there. So I can look at her number, and she will just progressively come back to her 110. So it's just it's so amazing. And sometimes I do need to give it a little kick in the butt at night. If she let's say we don't dose enough for dinner. But it always goes back to that one number. And she just started swim team. Okay, so and the activity mode is just, it is so amazing. So swimming is just it's tough. Tough work. Yeah. So we actually set it on the activity mode two hours before she starts swimming. And it can usually keep her above 70 For the one hour that she swims. Wow. Yeah. So and then oh, sorry, go on.

Scott Benner 31:38
No, just you, you said something earlier, I don't want people to get confused. But when you said like, we were using dash and it was so much harder. It just it's more intensive. Like it's like, it's like anything else. There's nothing automated, your your Basal runs constantly, like you have to make more adjustments. You're more involved. Is that? Yeah, that's what you mean. Right? Okay.

Lauren 31:57
So involved. Yeah, right. And, you know, I try my parenting style is we try and be relaxed, parents not too relaxed, you know, but to the point that we're not rigid, we're not on her case, if she is high, we we look at it, we decide what we want to do, if it's best to take action, and give a little bump of insulin or let it drop on its own. So we, you know, we want to be relaxed if we can. So it doesn't, it doesn't usually for us. So we don't have to, you know, push it. And sometimes we do push it too much. And then she goes low. And we learned from that. But I have to say after listening, I don't remember which one which podcast, it was from you that talked about not being scared to be low. Because my husband, he's so involved as well. But he would always get very, very worried about loads very, very worried, like, take a tab, take two tabs, you know, and then she would shoot up. And I said, I'm like, you just you have to take it easy, you have to watch it because it cuts the insulin off, you have to remember, if it's at 69, it's going to cut it off. And then you're going to give her a tab and she's going to shoot way up. So he's finally realizing it's okay, it'd be a little low. And let's go, we're gonna take a breath, and see where it goes from that. And that's again, one of the great things about the device is that it looks at the number and decide what to do.

Scott Benner 33:34
It's been really interesting for me to watch you all online learn about algorithms together. And, and I keep hearing people say over and over again, I've noticed that I don't need as many carbs to treat a low on on the pod five as I did previously with the way I was doing it. And it's it's interesting that that's the way people think about it, I guess that that's why they would think about it that way. But the truth is, is that, you know, if you're in a regular pump, you're getting your Basal every hour, just it's happening constantly. And if you end up low at three o'clock in the afternoon, on a you know, a pump that's not automated, and you or you end up low at three o'clock in the afternoon on an automated pump, how you got to that low are two completely different things. So when you're on an automated pump, that thing is seeing the low coming in the future. And it's just taking away insulin, like taking it away. So for an hour, an hour and a half prior, you might have no Basal going or something like that. And then a tiny bit of sugar, just boom, shoot you right up again. Whereas on a regular pump, even, you know you end up at that low but for the two hours prior to that you'd still whatever your Basal rate is every hour you were would be getting it unless you manually stepped in and took it away yourself, which is, you know, what I was doing before Arden was you know, using an algorithm and it's very intensive because when you watch the algorithm work you can see how frequently is making decisions is that God? Was I doing stuff that often before? You know? Like, it's crazy to think about? I hope everybody who can afford it finds it like algorithm farming in general. It's a really big Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.

Lauren 35:14
Yeah. It's, it's amazing that I mean, I just I feel so lucky to be, you know, on the to have the van on the five. And for sure. It, it's just it's, it makes her life a little more normal. Right. It's great.

Scott Benner 35:29
It's interesting that you're like, you're the more in the low situation. You're the ones like just wait, and your husband was the one that like, usually it's flip flopped.

Lauren 35:38
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But that'll happen at night. And she'll be at like, 69. And I'm, and I just say to him that it's around, like, like nine o'clock at night. And I'm like, Just wait, just wait, let's, let's see where it goes. And it'll go to like, 67. And I'm like, Just wait again, just read it again. So, and then it usually goes up. And then and then we're set for the night. We don't have to wake her up. And it's really fantastic.

Scott Benner 36:02
See, you'll hear me talk in other situations where I'm like, you know, the way you treat a low blood sugar has a lot to do with what kind of low it is. Is it like a drifting low? Is it like just sitting low? Or is it falling fast, you know, with a bunch of insulin behind it. And it's it's so if you if she was falling fast, you would do something at 69

Lauren 36:21
ABS? Yeah, if she was falling fast. And the other thing that is we use sugar meat. And so I actually set it up in my room as a nightlight. And so I turn my turn my phone sideways, and I set it up so that I can see her number. And the other night, she dropped 20 points. And we looked at that, and we said 20 points, because it'll actually say the number and it'll say minus 20, or what the drop is or what the how much is going up. And my husband was the one that said, I don't think that she would have dropped that much in so quickly. And so I just pushed her over. And it was just a compression low. And I didn't do anything. We waited till you know that we saw the next number and realized that it was and so if we had treated it, she probably would have shot up like crazy. But we just, you know, it's all about the process. Right? You have to just be able to stop and think and not pounce.

Scott Benner 37:22
Yes, no. I mean, the first time you see a compression low on a CGM, it scared the hell out of you, that's for sure. But after you've seen it a couple of times I call it that feeling from your husband. I completely understand like the you start going over in your head, like there's no act of insulin right now, like doesn't make sense that she would drop that fast, like from this, like, maybe she's just laying on the center. And by the way, maybe when the g7 comes out, maybe compression lows won't be as frequent for people so so Yes, that'd be exciting. Well, that's

Lauren 37:49
very exciting. We're definitely what we weren't allowed in that study at the Joslin, we did it in a week, you weren't allowed. No, I wasn't asked to be in that one. So

Scott Benner 37:59
if you just show up on the other one, that would have been great.

Lauren 38:03
But I also have to say they're also doing another study right now. It's called Die buddies. And it's so exciting because it's just you can choose a peer or someone that else has died, that someone else that has diabetes, and you just create, it becomes a friendship or mentoring situations. So we're doing Matt now with a VN. So we're just trying to make her a healthy, healthy person physically and mentally. And I just hope that other people are doing this as well just to create a community and I know that you're creating a community. And so it's nice. It's really, it's so important to think about their health, physically. And also mentally, you're actually

Scott Benner 38:41
doing a study where they partner you up with another type one to see if it benefits your health. Yeah, that's really cool. That's a great, yeah, I'm actually I've done that study already, right here. It's called this podcast, but I give you the data. When people talk to each other, it goes way better. There's a whole I was gonna say underground, but that makes it sound seemingly, but that I didn't, I didn't realize at first that people were meeting each other in the Facebook group, and then creating their own relationships that I don't see in the Facebook group. But that apparently happens frequently. So I think great. Yeah, it's a similar idea. But that's a really great thing that they're doing that as a study. I can't Yeah, I'd be interested to hear what what comes of that. How long did they do that for?

Lauren 39:24
Well, we were just interviewed this past week. So we're waiting for our match, but it's going to be a six month study, six month

Scott Benner 39:30
study. Okay? They're setting it up like a dating app. They want to make sure you're gonna get along. Yeah,

Lauren 39:35
that's really cool. Yep. So she wants to meet someone that is her age. She, you know, she could have chosen someone younger, to be a mentor, and they wouldn't have had anyone older than I think like 17 with her, but she wants to be with someone that's 14 or 13.

Scott Benner 39:53
So she's 14 Does she I hate to say I'm so sorry to ask you, but she gets her period.

Lauren 39:57
Yeah. Oh, and that's the other thing. So I remember so she was on. She was in the trial when she got her period. And I remember emailing the nurse, because my sister had said, once Vivian gets her period, you know, you're gonna have to have a whole different setting set up in the controller. And I emailed the nurse, and I was like, Vivian just got her period, we need to talk because we have to change all of her settings for it. And she's like, Nope, no, you don't, you're not touching it, because it will do it for you.

Scott Benner 40:27
And that's your binding. It's working. Yeah,

Lauren 40:30
we don't change anything.

Scott Benner 40:32
That's really terrific, really is. Yeah.

Lauren 40:35
Well, and even when she's sick, too, to I mean, we just add in a little extra insulin if needed. And, you know, we just follow protocol.

Scott Benner 40:45
Just let me slip this in right here learn Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. If you're interested in learning more about the Omni pod. I need the clicks. Yeah, I got it. Alert. It's a it's a real thing. The you might not realize it. But if you don't have advertising, you can't keep a podcast going. So you guys are like, Oh, I'm gonna definitely get that just get it with my link, please. Doesn't make me rich or anything like that. It just keeps them buying ads. You know what I mean? Like, I don't get paid every time one of you buys an omni VOD. But it definitely makes it easier. Forget Omnipod any of the advertisers This is, by the way, it's this time of year for me. So it's so at the top of my head right now, this is the time of year where you go back to your advertisers and say, Hi, here's what we did this year together. You know, here's how the podcast has grown. Are you interested in doing this some more? Because it's such a scary thing? Because if they go, no, no, we're done. Thank you, then you don't get the podcast anymore. And I by the way, I have to go get a job. And so which I don't know what I'm qualified to do anymore. And I don't think I've looked on LinkedIn and podcaster doesn't pop up very frequently. So but but it's a it's a very weird, like anybody who has their own business? Or does I mean, this is basically sales in a weird way or does sales for themselves? You know, that feeling of like, what happens when they say no, you know, like, what happens when they're done. And I think if I'm not mistaken, everybody's back in for 2023, which is completely to do with the fact that you guys listening, use the links, either to look at the stuff or to look at it and buy it. And it's what keeps the podcast coming. So I appreciate it.

Lauren 42:26
That's great. I want to look into that G vo hypo pen,

Scott Benner 42:29
G voc hypo dope. Thank you. You're welcome. That there, I would definitely get yelled at. So, you know, we just did a whole episode about that. It's not out yet. Jenny and I did it together in conjunction with the VOC actually, because I said to them, I just don't think people know how to use their, their glucagon. I don't think they know, I oftentimes I don't think they know why it's important. Oftentimes, I don't think they carry it with them. You know, or they think they know and then you know, the hits the fan. And it turns out, nobody was paying attention, like that kind of stuff. So we did this did this episode together to really like walk through what the pen is how it's built, how you use it, you know, and I'm, I'm proud of it. I can't wait for it to come out because I interviewed a woman recently who needed a rescue device. And her husband was not all that helpful when she needed him to be like he got through it. But he it was became clear afterwards that he he kind of didn't understand the bigger picture. So anyway, I love very scary. Yeah, no, it's terrible. I genuinely, I mean, I went after G voc for ads when it came out because I saw the form factor. And I thought, oh, I can actually send this with Arden. Like she'll carry this. This will really be helpful, like her friends could handle this. That's how it made me feel. So

Lauren 43:53
that's great. Yeah, we practice on the expired ones. The lily hit the red box. Yeah, we practice on the expired. We use the expired ones,

Scott Benner 44:02
they are gonna stop masking. They're gonna stop making them in a month. Really? Yeah, there's a date in December 2022. I think that's the date. And that's it. They're not making them anymore. Wow. So pick a new glucagon. Yeah, okay. And that, I mean, that makes sense to me. When you look at how that works, you know, you pull out that set big syringe, and then that's the liquids in the thing. And you have to think Don't you have to twist it on and then you have to put the liquid into the powder. And then you have to mix it up and you have to draw the liquid back out. Then you've got to like jam it like the muscle and your button. It's like a lot, you know, and now I actually have a trainer pen in front of me from G voc and he just you like it's a red cap. You pull it off, you go to the skin where you're supposed to do it, you press the yellow thing, do your thing. And that's it. It's over. You know, like, that's amazing. Yeah, that's a long way from mixing liquids. I mean, can you imagine if you and your if your daughter was out with her friends, there's a bunch of four 18 year old girls. I mean, what are they gonna do? You? Don't I mean, 14 year old boys 1414 year old kids like, I don't know, I didn't know what's the first time Arden needed it. So I don't know what kids are gonna do. But anyway, it's

Lauren 45:12
very scary. Very scary.

Scott Benner 45:14
Okay, so tell me why you wanted to come on? Like, am I covering it? Or have I not gotten?

Lauren 45:20
No, I just think that I just wanted to talk about my experience. And I just want people to realize how lucky we are to have the technology and the resources that we do now. And the communities that we have, because it wasn't like this, when I was growing up, you know, they, they didn't have the resources, they didn't have the technology. And my brother and sister are doing great. I mean, there's they, from what they had from my sister going on one shot a day, you know, using cows, pigs insulin at that time. She's doing really wonderful. So I think we just have to thank our lucky stars for what we have now. And realize that it can, it can be okay

Scott Benner 46:08
to build on it too. Right? Like, because I mean, as well as your brother and sister are doing, they must wonder, like, what if I was diagnosed now with algorithms and, you know, they mean, like, you're never going to know, but your daughter's going to know me it's going to be, it's going to be 40 years from now, one day. And, you know, your daughter is going to be sitting around telling stories about you. And, you know, her diabetes, and hopefully her kids won't have it, but they might write like, you know, who knows what they'll, what they'll manage with at that point?

Lauren 46:43
I know. Yeah. So. And we just, you know, the thing that I also have realized is, when Vivian was diagnosed, that it's always it's always okay to be upset, and you know, to have a little cry, but I feel like, everybody's got something. And that's what I think everybody needs to realize. And even though you might not physically see things that people have, they may have things happening emotionally and mentally, and everybody's got something and so you can feel sorry for yourself, but you just have to push through and know that everybody at some point is going to go through something, and we just have to be appreciative of the things that we have. And you know, just try and be our best selves.

Scott Benner 47:31
Do you think you learned that from your mom, from her situation?

Lauren 47:35
I do, because she was always an extremely positive person. And I mean, she was going through cancer treatments and still working every day, as you know, an elementary school teacher because she, she wanted to be with the kids and she didn't want to be sitting at home. So I saw how she pushed through and never ever got upset. She just always had a plan. She always had goals. And so I just think it's important to never sulk. It's okay. I mean, it's always okay to like have a little cry. But even leaving, you know, children's, after Vivian was diagnosed with diabetes, and then celiac, you look around and you say, You know what, we can handle this, like, we can do this as a team together and look at all the positive things that we have in our life, and we're gonna push forward. So I just always try and think about the positives. And, you know, try and not be that Negative Nelly, because it's not, it doesn't help anyone. It doesn't help anyone to be a negative person. Just try and push forward. Think about the positives and lean on people. Yeah,

Scott Benner 48:43
I have so many people on that have problems well beyond diabetes, and to hear their attitude. I'm always like, Wow, that's amazing. You know, I there's an episode that will be up probably before this comes out. But I don't know, with a with a woman who's a quadriplegic as much as as a younger woman, and it's from a medical mistake on top of all that, and then she gets type one, like a year or so. I mean, crazy. Good. You know, when

Lauren 49:13
I saw her, I saw her on the web on Yeah, yeah. Well, we

Scott Benner 49:17
were we've recorded together. And I mean, when when you talk to a person who is a clod who is still out, like, on like, rides, like out riding bicycles, and you know that they're obviously modified for her, but then she tells you that she has to, you know, herself, manually put something in her. So she can defecate, like, you know, like, you're like, wow, what am I arguing about? Like, what is it I'm complaining about today? Exactly. And she's not complaining. You don't I mean, like, she's not telling the story. Like hear you want to hear something terrible. And I'm busy, like, you know, I'm like, I got COVID I'm coughing a lot. Pitching every day about it. Like I I went into a, my wife who was sicker than I am was like, I don't care Shut up. But I'm like, why do people even need to be sick? And she's like, What are you talking about? She's like, if you want to philosophize about this, go on your freakin podcast and talk to people about it. She's like, Stop telling me that I'm like, like, why do we even get sick? Like, why does that happen? And she goes, Well, Scott, you know why? And I'm like, I know. But like, like, big picture, like, this is an argument against the Creator, by the way. So like, like, Why do I like why does your mom get breast cancer? Why does you know, why does your daughter get type one and celiac? Like, why does my daughter have type one and have trouble digesting food and have to take a thing to help her like, like, all that stuff is just, it's horrible. I don't know right up until you hear a girl tell you about her suppository, and then you go, Alright, I guess I maybe I should shut my mouth. You know what I mean. And I used to have that feeling. You brought up the Children's Hospital. When Arden was first diagnosed, there were no satellite offices for her children's hospital, there are now in gratefully we don't need to go all the way into the city anymore. I'd walk in there. And I was in charge of all that, like, I would take art and offer appointments. And sometimes I would tell my wife and like, that place is so freakin depressing. You know, there are so many sick kids in there. And it's not just diabetes, it's like so many other things, and so many other floors. And then I just I learned not to think of it that way anymore. Like, I stopped thinking of it as like, Oh, God, they're sick people here and I started thinking about it more like, these people are still all living their lives, you know, and they're doing things right. You know, I see it that way now. And

Lauren 51:32
these amazing hospitals are there to help them get well, as well as they can. And that's, that's what I think we have to think about, like how we can push above and, and make ourselves better. And that's, that's what I'm trying to do for Vivian. And I'm trying to make her a strong person who advocates for herself. And you know, and I said to her, I said, you know, childhood can be tough, but this is going to make you a stronger person, it's going to make you a stronger adults. And that's what we have to think about how can I advocate for myself? How can I be better? And and that can be tough. But we have to use the tools that we have to to do that.

Scott Benner 52:10
No, it's a great message. I really I appreciate you coming on and sharing it with me. Am I missing anything else? I want to make sure we're not. I'm not missing anything for you. I know. We

Lauren 52:19
know. I mean, I wasn't as funny as I was told to be. Well, not funny at all. But my friend Sarah was just too so excited. She wanted to be the person that was chosen.

Scott Benner 52:30
Wow, did I I did set up a number of different on the pod five conversations. So I've been recording them over the last couple of weeks. And now I'm going to try to like put a gap in between but I mean, you are just a slam dunk because Vivian has been using it for so long already. Like if there was it mean, the fact that you are not in any way tied to Omni pod. And and she has been using it for three years. And I tried 1000 different ways to ask you questions it could have led you to say like, I hate that thing. Right? Does this wrong? Yeah. You feel anything? Yeah. No, it's amazing.

Lauren 53:05
And I see that some people put online, they're like, I hate the five. And I'm just like, I love the five like it is amazing. It is. I can't say any anything more positive about it. I just I love it so much. I mean, I will hope you know, hopefully there will be something better and you know, a couple of years. But this is this is so fantastic for us. And it's our normal it's, it's great.

Scott Benner 53:32
Aside from Omnipod five, just technology in general or even using insulin there. I mean, I just answered a, I just answered a post online. And the it's a 24 hour graph that just goes from like, it goes from like 50 to 400 over and over again. And the person is just like I said, I give up. And I look and I think yeah, your settings are wrong. You're not posting right from meals, I couldn't count. I don't know anything about you. And I can see that much here. But they don't like that's not how it hits you when it goes wrong. Like when you can't get your CGM to connect or when you like have a problem with technology or whatever you don't think like I'm probably not doing this right. Or maybe there's a variable at play that I'm not aware of. Or maybe I'm not hydrated, and that's why my CGM doesn't work. Nobody thinks that they just look at the thing and they go this thing sucks, doesn't work. And it's just, you know, like, I'm not saying that there aren't some people who have those problems that might, you know, legitimately have that outcome. But for the grand, you know, for most people, I hate to say this, he you just you're doing something wrong. You know, and you got to figure out what that thing is. And I know that's easier said than done. But that's I think is the truth.

Lauren 54:41
Well, and when we first started in the trial, they're like, just let it work. You're not going to touch anything. We couldn't make any adjustments. We could not give any extra insulin they're like you have to let it learn your body. How so that

Scott Benner 54:55
that time was for Vivian the learning

Lauren 54:58
at least a month I think I mean, it was so long it was so long ago, during the whole trial, they said you cannot touch it. Unless I remember in the very beginning, we were sitting in a car ride, and she was just going so high. And so I called the doctor and I said, I don't know what to do, because you told me that I couldn't touch it. And she's like, okay, you know, we're just gonna give it a little bump, a little wake up call. And so sometimes we were able to do that, we would just kind of give like a little bit of insulin like a unit, just to be like, Hello, are you here? And and it would work?

Scott Benner 55:31
Yeah, we'll see you were in the trial. So you had different like marching orders, but the people who use it now when they're training it, the commonplace, right? If your blood sugar goes up, you give more insulin, so that the algorithm learns like, wow, I need my total daily insulin is more than what I expect here. Right, which is, that whole algorithm is based off of total daily insulin. Like that, right? That's kind of the measurement it, it's thinking about when it's making decisions. So that's amazing. Do you think if I asked Vivian about it, she'd say anything? Where do you think she just be like, it's fine?

Lauren 56:06
I think I think she really, she realizes how great it is also on the fact that like, at one point, she didn't want to do the diet trial. She didn't want to do or, you know, though, there were some sessions that we had to do with exercise. And they said, Oh, that's fine. You know, we don't have to do this. Let's just go back to the dash. And she's like, Oh, okay. Well,

Scott Benner 56:28
well, then in that case, so she knows. Yeah, I've, there's always little moments with Arden where you'll you know, more recently, I saw it with this. She's taking a digestive enzyme when she's eating, which is really helping her. It was, I don't know, a few weeks into me being like, you have to take this everyday. Just do it. Because we're seeing how it works, you know, and then one day, I think I've said this already, but Kelly and her were going out to they were gonna go shopping and look for stuff for college. And they were gonna get lunch, and they left the house. And then like, two minutes later, Arden came running back and she was like, I forgot the enzyme. And nobody reminder about it. She was she she knew this is important. And I'm seeing I'm seeing the benefit from it. That's when you can tell they know. Yeah, kids are just like, you know, they're blase. Like you're all excited about it. She's probably like, I was sleeping fine. No matter what. That lady and her husband were up all the time.

Lauren 57:23
Yeah. But now that she's 14, we talked about how she's really has to start being more accountable for herself.

Scott Benner 57:30
Yeah, no Arden's taking care of herself at school, overnight and everything. And it was interesting. Like, as she lived here, before college, she'd be like, I don't hear it. Like that kind of thing. Like, I don't know, you have to help me. And then the minute she got there, she's like, I heard it. You know, like it, there's still some nights she gets. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, like I pay attention to it for you know, I texted her last night. I said, I woke her up and I was like, You're high. You need insulin. I've, you know, I've texted her and said, Hey, I think you're gonna get low and she doesn't answer my call, and I wake her up. But it's only happened a handful of times. And there have been times that she's woken me up and said, Hey, I just drank a juice. I wanted you to know I'm okay. So I'm like, Oh, that's great. That's really cool. So,

Lauren 58:14
yeah. And when Vivian was is at sleepaway camp, she has to really take care of herself with the help of the counselors, but she can hear those alarms. I can hear them when she's in her bedroom upstairs. Is

Scott Benner 58:27
that a diabetes camp or just a regular camp? Just a regular camp?

Lauren 58:31
So she tried to diabetes camp, but it just wasn't for her.

Scott Benner 58:35
How long should I wait camp when she goes?

Lauren 58:39
Four weeks? Nice. Yeah. And my sister went to diabetes camp. You know, 1000 years ago in New Jersey, she went into Jetta. So she still talks about how that was a wonderful experience for her.

Scott Benner 58:50
Yeah, every every person who's 3040 50 years old, who has had diabetes for a long time, who comes on and talks about camp, they're like, they still know people from there. And it was their that was their whole diabetes circle. At that point. People you met for weeks at a camp and said it's a great idea. I mean, it very similarly is the is the the trial that Vivian's in right now, where you get a buddy, you know, so it's same. Right?

Lauren 59:13
Right. Well, Vivian also had two other boys in her grade at school that had diabetes. And it was wonderful because she came in back from the hospital in the fourth grade, and one of her classmates is a type one. So all the kids already knew about diabetes, because the mom came in and she did a whole lesson for the kids when they were younger about him, and diabetes. And so then when she moved into the middle school, there was another boy and he had type one. So she's like, Hey, I got a crowd. I have, you know, it's three of us.

Scott Benner 59:50
We're almost up to a basketball team. They get shaky at halftime.

Lauren 59:54
I know. But both boys left they went to private school. So now she's the only one Wow,

Scott Benner 1:00:00
that sounds I'm sure she'll meet more people not that sounds like I'm like, Oh, don't worry. People get type one and your daughter will meet. Add to this crowd. Oh, that's wonderful. All right. Well, I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much.

Lauren 1:00:13
Thanks for having me on. I hope it was helpful. It was helpful. It really was. Did

Scott Benner 1:00:17
you? Do you? So I know you said you thought you had to be funny. And you don't think you were but yeah, I think you're funny in your regular life.

Lauren 1:00:24
I do. I do. My husband's super funny. So I think I'm a little clever. My son is super clever. And he gets it from my husband's side. But I like to be funny. I like to have fun. You want to tell? Again, it adds just, it just adds, you know, more positivity and helpfulness. Yeah, my son gave me a joke, but it wasn't funny at all. But you know, what he did is because he, he went on to my Facebook, and he would find pictures of himself and go on to my account. And he right, my favorite with a heart of his, you know, with his picture. And so I was like, oh, you know, that's funny, haha. And I would make like a comments in the bottom. And my mother in law, her friends and her sister were like, I can't believe Lauren. Like, she's so rude. Like, poor Vivian. Like, how can? How can she post all of these photos of you know, her son and how he's her favorite? And I was like, Are you serious? Do I really need to post something that says, It was him? It wasn't, you know, me. And a lot of people even some friends texted me. And they're like, I really thought that you were posting those photos, Jonathan. And saying that he was your favorite. And I'm like, really? And there was like misspellings and everything.

Scott Benner 1:01:49
You can't tell us as a child. What you think of me? Yeah,

Lauren 1:01:53
but my thoughts our family roles. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:01:56
My friend Mike, who I've talked about on the podcast number of times when we were young and growing up, he had an uncle named Frank. And Frank had a way of telling, like, big, long, bad jokes. And the jokes weren't funny. But he was incredibly funny. Like he would I could tell I'm not gonna bother you with it. But there's a joke about a three legged pig that he would tell. That is, it's not funny, but so entertaining to watch him tell it. And I remember as a kid, we would try to like retell the joke to people. Because if you could get people interested, or actually make them laugh, and they weren't laughing at you, you were doing something because the joke itself was just not good. He used to tell this. It's so dirty. I can't tell you it's about a piano player. But there's no way for me to say it here. Like it's just so full of vulgar words. But again, not a funny joke. And long and boring. And it like, it's there were times where you're like, is this gonna end? Like the joke but not him telling it him telling it you could have listened to for an hour? So anyway? Alright, well, anyway, I thought you were terrific. I don't know why anybody told you. You needed to be funny. I thought you were. I appreciate Can you hold on one second for me? Yeah.

An out of work piano player walks into a bar. Now I can't tell you that joke. I just can't, I could tell it. First of all, I wouldn't do Frank any justice. And secondly, the whole thing would just be beeps for like eight minutes, take me longer to beep it out than it would to tell it. Let's thank contour. And remind you to go to contour next.com forward slash juice box to check out all the contour meters. I want to thank touched by type one for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. And of course, I want to thank Lauren for coming on the show and telling us that terrific story. Thank you so much for listening. When I have more to say, I'll wait till after the music

I just wanted to tell you about the private Facebook group, which has 40,000 members in it and remind you that you need some community around your diabetes. And my Facebook group is the place Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. Now that's the name of the private group Juicebox Podcast, it's actually a little colon then type one diabetes. Now even though the word type one diabetes in there, there's type twos there. There's lots of others, actually. ton of people kind of 5050 between caregivers and adults. Beautiful group. It really is. It's it's a great place. I hope you check that out. Then there's a page Juicebox Podcast the page is the public thing. That's something anybody can see the group you have to answer a couple of questions to become a member of so that you know we can prove that you're a real person. But follow the public page. Join the group. This is a good way to keep up with the podcast. All right, and Don't forget to subscribe and follow in an audio app, Amazon music, Apple podcasts, Spotify, stuff like that. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're interested, I left the few minutes that Lauren and I spoke before we started recording, mainly you're gonna hear about my COVID and some stuff like that each other most of the time anyway. So both of us trying not to pass our illnesses back and forth to each other. Yeah,

Lauren 1:05:29
I heard that's, it stinks. It just actually Vivian had. We had COVID, a couple of years ago, and she actually had was in hospitalized, hospitalized six weeks after she had COVID Because she got mi FC, which is multi inflammatory, this condition. And so what it does is it affects the heart and lungs. And so we were up in New Hampshire, because my, my son is on a race team. And so we were up there and she had a fever and the doctors like just give her Tylenol, Advil, she didn't get better. And she had this horrible fever, we rushed her down to the ER. And so it affects the heart and it affects the lungs, but she's fine now because we got her there, you know, in enough time, but it was

Scott Benner 1:06:20
really, I woke up this morning, and my wife was propped up in bed. And I was like, did you sleep? And she's like, not really. And she's had it for like, like three or more weeks. Like she got it. They gave her some drug that knocked it down. And like six days into it. She's like, Oh my god, I'm better. She was testing negative. She's like, This is crazy. Yeah. And then we let her back into the house, which was our mistake. Because then like a day and a half later, she's like, I don't feel good again. And then by then my son and I were like, oh, like so then we started feeling weird, like for a week off and on, like having those moments where I'm like, am I getting sick? And then as it got no, I'm not. I'm good. And then he felt the same way. And then we both got sick on the same day, like two weeks ago tomorrow.

Lauren 1:07:06
I think sometimes those medications, they extend it because then you can get like, you know, it can come back.

Scott Benner 1:07:12
Yeah, she she she researched it more now and said I wish I wouldn't have taken that. So, right. But my son and I have gone through it. We're still like start coughing out of nowhere, your throat gets really dry for no reason for like, 10 minutes, that's gone. You're like, what, what the hell was that? You know, like that kind of stuff. I recorded an episode three days into COVID that I had to record. It was like a business thing. And I mean, I was on a call with six people. And I looked like I was kicking heroin while I was doing it. Like I was just like, like, it was like pouring, like, like sweat was just pouring off of me the entire time I did it. And other than that I was okay. Like, you know what I mean? It was just the strangest thing wasn't coughing. I wasn't sneezing. My head wasn't congested. I was just I was sweating. Like I was in an oven. And the people I know must have been looking at me like, Oh, my I tried to stay a little stressed. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, I'm sick. And they're like, Okay, you're sure? Sure you just haven't been away from the needle too long, buddy. Because it was really something. Anyway, thank you introduce yourself anyway, you want to be known. Okay. And then we'll start talking and then it'll be over.

Lauren 1:08:20
So I don't have anything else that I need to add or talk to you about before we start.

Scott Benner 1:08:25
No, we'll find out while we're recording. So people learn it together. Okay, all right. Sounds sorry. Okay. So don't need to use your last name. Don't feel pressure about that. But just Yeah,

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#960 Dew Drop Diaries

Both of Rick's daughters have type 1 diabetes. Rick is the creator of the new Netflix series, "Dew Drop Diaries" - available today on NETFLIX.

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

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 960 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's episode I'll be speaking with Rick Now Rick is the father of two children with type one diabetes. And he has a really incredible job Rick has created, written and produced some really awesome children's television. His brand new showed do drop diaries is available right now on Netflix. 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you'd like very comfortable sheets, clothing and towels, go to cozy earth.com and use the offer code juicebox at checkout when use that offer code at checkout, you will save 40% off of your entire order. If you're looking for community around you diabetes, check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes there are 40,000 people in their caregivers people with type one people with type two, all kinds of interesting conversations. You never know who you'll bump into actually Rick's a member go tell him how much you enjoyed, do drop diaries

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod five. head right now to my link Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. There you can learn all about the Omni pod five or the Omni pod dash, you can get started, check into your coverage or even requested demo. There's no reason to wait head over now Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. And before you start with the Omni pod five, check out my three part series about getting ready for Omni pod five. It's at juicebox podcast.com, forward slash Omni pod five. I start every day by drinking ag one. Ag one is a foundational nutrition product. And it gets me going I feel hydrated, ready. I know all those vitamins and nutrients are in there. I'm supporting my gut health. And that's how ag one helps me to get through my days. It doesn't matter if you're going in an office out for a run or making a podcast drink ag one. So if you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with ag one try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Do that at my link, drink ag one.com forward slash juice box.

Rick Suvalle 2:47
My name is Rick Savelle. And I'm the father of two t one D daughters. I'm also a television writer and producer. I was the head writer on Amazon's animated series, the stinky and dirty show. And I created the new Thomas and Friends reboot that came out last year. And I'm currently the executive producer and creator of a new preschool animated series called The dewdrop diaries that will be coming out probably right whenever this airs on Netflix. And this show is very special to me. Because it was inspired by my two T one D daughters.

Scott Benner 3:21
Wow. Alright, we're gonna get into all of that. But first I have to understand how do you how do you get into this kind of work? What's the path?

Rick Suvalle 3:30
Um, you know, I got I started at with a with one of those pity favorite meetings. Were when I first came out to Los Angeles, my grandmother said she had a her best friend's kid was a producer and writer in law and order and I should go meet with him. And I went out to the universal lot and had lunch with him. And I'm sitting there in a jacket and tie. And he's the first thing he says is I hope you didn't wear that for me because you know, you're creative. You're supposed to be in your jeans and your T shirt and I was like oh, and so this guy ended up we hit it, we really hit it off. We were both like lactose intolerant and played you know, clarinet in the sixth grade. And so he took a shine to me and kind of mentored me and got me my my first gig writing and that kind of snowballed into writing. I've written movies for Sci Fi Channel and Hallmark Channel and, and then I kind of got into animation just because I had met enough writers over time. And they they gave me a shot and I kind of just worked my way up the ladder there.

Scott Benner 4:35
So all this is because you can't tolerate milk and you played the clarinet.

Rick Suvalle 4:39
Is that what I'm here actly exactly the key to everyone's success in this business.

Scott Benner 4:46
So what did you do in high school and did you go to college?

Rick Suvalle 4:49
I in high school. I was one of the dramas. You know, I really liked the theater program at my high school and but I'd love to write I always love to write at that point and So I went to college at Hofstra University in New York. And my wife and I met there, and we drove out to Los Angeles together. And we've been together for a long, long time. Wow. That's

Scott Benner 5:14
crazy. So you just you wanted to write it first. That was just your first

Rick Suvalle 5:17
I did, I wanted to, I think I wanted to, I mean, I studied in college, you know, writing and film. And I had this kind of idea of being that indie writer, director. And then once I met my mentor, his name is Morgan, Dell might as well give them a shout out. When I met my mentor, I kind of saw how TV worked. And I saw that it was a lot more fast paced, you know, it can take years for movie. And if you're just a writer on a on a film, you're often a low person on the totem pole, the director is kind of the star of the production. And then, but I learned in TV, you know, the producer, the writer, producers are the people in control. And the directors end up being kind of somewhat blue collar, and they're for hire on TV shows. So I mean, obviously some rise to being executive producers as well and great shows, but for the most part, it that's more of a journeyman type job. And so I just like that, that, seeing that that power that they had, I mean, not that it's like, you know, crazy power, but I just I liked that they had the creative control of the show.

Scott Benner 6:22
It's interesting that I did you grow up around anybody who was creative in your sphere, even a story like, like that. The reason I asked is because I wanted to write my whole life growing up. And I was a terrible student. And I didn't know anybody. And I lived in a very blue collar family. And I always had the feeling that if I said to my mom or dad, you know what I'm thinking? What if I wrote my feelings down about this, I think they would have been like, oh, you should shut up and go get a job is was always kind of my fear. So I didn't do it. The podcast happened after I wrote a book. But the book came from a blog. And, and I enjoyed the process so much, but then it was, it was unfulfilled, like the process was fulfilling. At the end of it, I found myself realizing like, I don't even care if anybody, like, reads this, like, I just want to, like, I would like to make more. And it was because books are, I mean, they're tough. If you're not famous, it's hard to get somebody to read your book, you know?

Rick Suvalle 7:24
Yeah, it's it's such a different discipline for me, like I've thought about writing a book, but that's really as far as it's gone. Because, you know, it's writing screenplays and writing, you know, teleplays very different process, and you don't, in a novel, you can talk about how people think, and you can talk about your thought process. And, you know, in, you know, in a screenplay, you're really kind of cutting it down to be like a blueprint of what we're going to see. I mean, sure, there's creativity in there, for sure. And the best screenplays have style and, and a voice, but at the same time, you're cutting the quick. And so I don't really have the discipline, I'd like to write a play too. But at some point, I have an idea. But for me, it's like, two hours of people just talking, whereas I'm so used to like, we got to get to the next scene, no entrances, no exit said it's always fast paced and what moves things forward. Whereas, you know, in the play, you just kind of ruminate. And so, but yeah, I actually, I had a blog for awhile, too, because I was a, you know, being a writer, you're not always working. So I was a stay at home dad. Like yourself. Yeah. You know, and, you know, so I started blogging about my adventures of being a stay at home dad, and then it kind of, some of that kind of got picked up as somehow I became like, a parent expert for a little while, you know,

Scott Benner 8:50
around 2012 2013, because that's about when that happened to me.

Rick Suvalle 8:54
Yeah, it was, it was probably around that it was probably around that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 8:57
for sure. Yeah. blogs were really strong then. And a lot of producers were reaching into the internet to find people, and I would find myself in the oddest situations. The podcast actually partly exists because of that. Because a producer for Katie Couric, I think needed a stay at home dad in the New York area. And she just googled it and found my website it was like this guy's a stay at home dad he's written a book. And then the suddenly I was on television being interviewed about like being a stay at home dad. And while these other three guys, they were so earnest, and I just remember one of them had only been a stay at home data for like a year and he was being so earnest. I started I was laughing at him, which I don't think is protocol. And, and it swung back to me. And then I just did this thing where I had done it done an interview prior to that. I did something honestly for Katie Couric sub web show first, and I thought this was going to be my only chance ever. And they took me up to New York and I was in I think CBS where they do the CBS Evening News obviously in that studio and they were using it during the die. So people were working in cubicles everywhere behind behind the director, and behind the cameras. And a guy went before me. And he was good. Like, he answered the questions and he was thoughtful. And I thought, that's nice. But I was standing in the wings, and I thought it's completely forgettable. Like, like, what do I care if this is good, I'm never doing this again. You know what I mean? And like, 10 minutes later, I'm telling Katie Couric about the time my wife and I had sex in a field with a train went by very slow. And we're, I'm telling you, all these kind of bombastic stories that I'm just like, no one's gonna use this, and I don't give a fuck. I was like, I was like, I'm going for it, you know. And she's laughing. I looked up, the people in the cubicles are laughing, everyone's having a good time. And like a week later, I get this note from her assistant, and it says, hey, the raw footage from your interview is like, going around the office, and people are having such a great time. The actual thing we're going to use is like 90 seconds long, because you didn't say anything we can actually use. And I was like, I was like, I don't care. But then two weeks later, come on the TV show. And when I was walking off again, I kind of thought this was it. And she grabbed me. And she goes, You're so good at talking to people. And I said, Oh, thank you. And then I didn't know what else to make of that. But like a year later, as blogging waned away, I thought, Oh, I'll make a podcast. Because Katie Couric said, I was good at talking to people. And that was my, the entire basis I had for even trying this, which was amazing. It's awesome. It's just dumb luck. Honestly, it's not lactose intolerance and clarinets. But it's pretty good. So you and I intersect each other originally, right? Because you were you have two kids with type one, but one of your kids is named Arden.

Rick Suvalle 11:43
Correct? Yeah. I when I was Googling around, like I was struggling for like, what? What's out there? What resources are there? And I was like, and then I saw, I'm like, Wait, there's another T one D dad that has a, you know, has has has a kid named Martin. And I was just like, wow, so I think we exchanged some messages a long time ago, a long time

Scott Benner 12:03
ago. I said it to my daughter and she goes get out of here. Are you serious? And I was like, Yeah, I was like, that's crazy, right? Because there's only I don't know how far you looked into it when you were naming your children. But we looked at the time that we picked Arden as a name. I think there was fewer than 10,000 people in America named Arden and more than 50% of them are men. It's like an older man's name. Yeah, like, so. I don't know. That just seems very random. You know? Yeah. And

Rick Suvalle 12:31
we really, and we love the name because it was so rare. You know, we're like, oh, this is great. It's not quite Apple, you know, you know, but we felt like it was, you know, original and yet not, you know, so crazy. Yeah,

Scott Benner 12:44
that's terrific. It really is. It's wonderful. I'm sure will go on long enough. We'll start an army of children named Martin and have diabetes are probably not probably will ever happen again. So how you have two kids? How old are they?

Rick Suvalle 12:57
Right now? They're 14 and 1714. Arden? 17. Martin

Scott Benner 13:01

17. Wow, look, they're so close in age two. That's crazy. Who gets type one first?

Rick Suvalle 13:08
Arden did. She was about eight years old just to turn to eight. Okay. And then Alex, we found out. We did try on that. And so we were like, catch it. So no hospital for the second kid. We caught it. But that was about a year and a half later when Alex was maybe two years later when Alex was six.

Scott Benner 13:29
Okay, so they've 10 year about 10 and eight years they've had it? Yeah. Is there any autoimmune in your family line or your wife's?

Rick Suvalle 13:39
Yeah, we have to kind of research that. My mother in law has rheumatoid arthritis. And so I know that is an autoimmune disease. And then we did find out like much later that my grandfather's sister probably had type one. Okay, so it'd be my great aunt. But I had never met her so she died before was born. So I think that she was, you know, she's lucky to live as old as she did, you know, with the with the old insulin regimen that she had,

Scott Benner 14:10
ya know, some that that really is a toss of the dice back then I had somebody recently tell me that. Similarly, like a greater great, maybe a grandmother, a great grandmother, they thought had type one and she asked her father and the father said, All I know is she really had to watch it. That was like the extent of the information they got, you know, from it. So, okay, so there's no real I mean, Ras auto immune, your wife already has bad luck, She plucked the guy out of Hofstra and he was a stay at home dad. So she, she's not. She's not on a great roll until this whole thing starts working out for you. But for sure. Yeah. So when what's the first diagnosis look like? The second one obviously, you knew what to look for. But the first one how did it go?

Rick Suvalle 14:51
Yeah, the first one was, you know, my wife, you know, she's a WebMD Sleuth. So she was just my daughter. I was kind of a pudgy kid. And then when she was about eight, she was in the elementary school play. And she got the flu, which we realized that was the trigger for the gene because suddenly she was losing weight. And I'm like, my wife, so worried she's losing weight. I'm like, she's looking great. And my wife is like, but she's going to the bathroom a lot. And you know, she's eating eating a ton and losing weight, but something has to be wrong with her. And I was like, there's nothing wrong with her. And so my wife eventually said, you know, I think she could have type one diabetes? No, I don't. I didn't know anything about that. So we were scheduled in July, you know, like a month after my daughter's birthday to go in for her physical and I said, Let's just wait till then. And we'll go in. And I'll ask them, ask the doctor about that. So my wife agreed to kind of wait for that. Meanwhile, my daughter goes to summer camp, and for some strange reasons she was passing out from time to time. But we took her in and I remember I said the doctor Oh, my wife, you know, as if it was like Colombo, one last thing. You know, I was like, can you see when you do bloodwork that if she has type one diabetes, my wife thinks, and the doctor says, oh, let's do a urine test right now. And she said, Oh, my gosh, she her blood sugar is 711 You need to go to the hospital right now. And I was like, oh, but they're like, since we're already at the hospital where the doctor is, you know, just kind of hanging out with her for a bit. And we'll make sure we can get her set up there. So you don't have to walk right into the emergency room. So I knew nothing about type one diabetes, and I thought my daughter would never have sweets again. So I took her to the, to the commissary at Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles and said, he had all the sweets you want right now, kiddo have have that sugar doughnut? And because I had no idea. And so she's just mowing that down. And then they come in into the hospital. Like, that's probably not the best idea, but we'll get it under control.

Scott Benner 16:57
Rick, you got crazy dad logic, I love it. Also, what's the bigger concern in the moment that your daughter has type one or that you're gonna have to tell your wife that she was right, and you were ignoring?

Rick Suvalle 17:09
Well, it's always worse if I have to tell my wife. She's right. And she always is she always is. But yeah, so it was it was fine. I mean, we had that, you know, that I think two nights stay in the hospital, and where they kind of gave us that whirlwind training where that you will forget every single thing they say, and you're looking at this paperwork afterwards. But yeah, so I mean, that was, that was it was very weird and surreal. And, you know, having to give needles and dealing with schools immediately afterwards. And you know, there's not enough nurses and in Los Angeles for the schools, they share them. So like, they have to schedule the nurse to come by to make sure she has her shot. And I do remember right away, my daughter went back to school, and the nurse, you know, was, you know, really hurt her with the shot, you know, they were not trained well, so my daughter and eight goes, I'm giving myself shots. And so she instantly was giving yourself shots, which was great. And, yeah, so it was it was a difficult transition.

Scott Benner 18:11
For sure. I would imagine what did she spend much time in the hospital?

Rick Suvalle 18:15
Just the just the two nights, but she was never technically one. DKA so she was kind of just in it, you know, I think that vine had just come out, you know, that, that that six second video, you know, social media thing. So she's making vine in the hospital, the nurses and she, you know, like, she was just having a blast in the hospital like, hey, people are waiting on me hand and foot, you know,

Scott Benner 18:39
those people must be pissed about tick tock, the vine, people for sure. I bet they wake up every morning and they're like, dammit, we were ahead of our time. But it happens sometimes. Sometimes you have a good idea before everybody else is ready to, to believe in it. Okay, so does she use while she's on MDI for how long? Because I'm hearing when we were talking before we got on like, she's pumping now. Right?

Rick Suvalle 19:03
Yeah. She was on MDI. For the first six months. I guess that was protocol. Didn't know you could find it and do things earlier. But they said we want six months, basically. So you understand how to do MDI. So. So we were about six months before we got the approval for her to go on the Animus ping at the time.

Scott Benner 19:19
Yeah. Wow. No CGM. At the time.

Rick Suvalle 19:23
There was. So we did get one about that same time. We did get the CGM

Scott Benner 19:27
Bouchy, was that g4?

Rick Suvalle 19:28
Yeah, it was the g4. No Cher, as you know, at that time, so I did that I did that hack, the Nightscout hack where I had the the uploader phone which would go in her purse at school and you know, wire to the CGM and send me the data so I would have that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:46
I put a Oh, my God, I don't think I've ever said this on here. It used to be able to buy like, back then I think it was like three. I don't know if it was GS or 3g, but it was like a cell phone repeater that you plugged in And I bought one of those and like, artfully put it in the middle of Arden's classrooms that she was in. And like I was getting data from her that way. And that Oh, nice. Yeah, that was before the school had Wi Fi. They were like, What are we doing? I'm like, I'm just plugging this in right here. You won't even know it's here. I'll be back at the end of the year to get it from you. Don't worry plugin, they went forward. So awesome. As was actually hairy back then you had to like, there was a lot to do. You had to I had to talk to the I had to talk to sell company to let me put it somewhere that wasn't my address. And like, there was a ton that went on with it. And in the end, like it felt like six months later, Dexcom was like, Hey, here's the share. I was like,

Rick Suvalle 20:40
yeah, yeah, that was that was a nice change. For sure. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 20:43
So what do you think about the impact on your life? Because you're in a unique situation? Were you still a stay at home dad at that point?

Rick Suvalle 20:53
I was, I mean, on and off, because, you know, the freelance life, the TV life, I'm in between jobs all the time. And so yeah, and I to this day, I'm still the the primary care provider for all t one D stuff. For both my kids. I'm the one getting up at night, you know, still and my wife could

Scott Benner 21:14
set your punishment. Is that your punishment for not listening when she told you?

Rick Suvalle 21:17
Yeah, or it's the fact that my wife could could, you know, sleep through an earthquake here, a nuclear holocaust? So, but yeah, I'm up with that up for the highs and lows? And

Scott Benner 21:31
how will it change you like what was the did have an impact on your personality and your outlook? And I'm interested?

Rick Suvalle 21:38
It did. I mean, I think it did, I mean, really got involved, I really felt like, what can I do, because he I think we all feel so helpless when our kids are diagnosed. And so I, you know, was doing my research and I started doing JDRF events, we did a walk that first year, because we're like, maybe we can raise me because we've all heard, like, the cure is only five years away. And so and you believe that, you know, in that, that beginning stages, because you have to and so I was like, let's raise money for it. And we raised a lot. And so as a result that JDRF reached out to me saying, Hey, would you want to be on the board of directors for the Los Angeles chapter, and I just felt like I was doing something proactive, and I would be able to get, you know, I would hear about the research early, I would, you know, be able to kind of, you know, help, you know, raise money for for more research. So I was really into the JDRF, I still love the JDRF I'm not part of it now. But I still, you know, I'm associated with them. Part of it was I was mentoring newly dos family and newly diagnosed families, you know, in the area, they would often assign me that and they became a big part of our family. My Arden was, you know, their spokesperson for the for the walks on the news and stuff like that. So she, she was just cute and great personality. So they would use her picture, and she would do go around and do talks when she was eight and nine years old.

Scott Benner 23:01
I think my Arden did, they went we went down to I think the ABC Studios to film a commercial for the local walk, and she just sitting there, like smiling and waving and I asked her about it recently. And she's like, I don't remember that. It's a great, good use of our afternoon. So, but, but I take your point, too, about this stuff, like we jumped in with JDRF very quickly. Honestly, the blog started because I didn't raise very much money the first year. And I was like, like how I put all this effort into it. And I raised like a couple $1,000 And I was like, I'm gonna use the internet. Everybody's talking about the internet. But how many? How many of you that seriously, that's how long ago it was, I was like, I'm gonna make a thing. And, and I got on, I had an Apple computer, and it had this program on it called iWeb. And I used iWeb for sure the promise of iWeb is you can put your thoughts on the internet. And I was like, Get out of here seriously. So I use that. And I started writing a blog before honestly, I don't even think I knew what a blog was getting, you know, when I was doing it. But I take your point, like, you know, in the beginning, you have that feeling of like we really, like I want to help. And I don't know how, you know, so it's a it is it's a it's kind of a terrible feeling if you can't fulfill it, because it just feels like you're not doing anything.

Rick Suvalle 24:21
Yeah, I mean, that's why I you know, the minute I heard about loop, I, I went out and found those old Medtronic pumps and started looping with both my daughters, you know, I immediately was doing loop I was doing anything I could, to kind of make things better for them. You know, we we've tried, you know, all the different pumps we've tried, you know, MBI my old my younger daughter is in an Frezza study now. I mean, we're, I'll do anything to try and kind of make their lives better if I can.

Scott Benner 24:48
Yeah. How does she like that? That's in the inhaled insulin. How she like yeah, it's

Rick Suvalle 24:51
great. I mean, it is so fast. And I mean, it's it's that ultra rapid so if she's, you know, we We can't take it before eating and we often can't take it before she starts to go up because it's that fast. So the minute she starts see the rise, she can take it but like if she was 300, and she took the Frezza within I mean, you look at that Dex, those Dexcom numbers between the high number and the next number, it's already going down. So she was she's, she can drop, you know, in minutes back to normal. It's

Scott Benner 25:26
because that's interesting. And that's just a meal insulin, is that correct?

Rick Suvalle 25:29
No, we're I mean, part of the study that she's doing is that all our corrections and meal everything she but she still has to take

Scott Benner 25:35
a you know, a Basal insulin, okay, she shooting to SIBO or something like that.

Rick Suvalle 25:40
We just started to receive it because we were using like, the generic Lantis, which doesn't have doesn't last as long she would start to rise. But for SIBO I think it's 42 hours. So

Scott Benner 25:50
it tells itself a little bit. And yeah, it's nice. You don't have a drop off like you do with Lantis and love Amir. And does she like that? Or is she just doing it to do it? Like as she indicated to you? Well, she

Rick Suvalle 26:02
definitely likes the little bit of money she gets every time she shows up, but she's 14 But she like but she actually really likes it because she was very shy about giving her she she switched to NDI. You know, some were around six to nine months ago, she was getting, we were getting a lot of scar tissue on her stomach where she likes to put her pumps sights. So she was not getting good absorption at all. So we switched to, to MDI, and it was much better. And she was liking that a lot. She really likes MTI because she's very active too. And, you know, pump wires get in the way. And she she likes that. And so when it came up to try the Frezza, she's like, Sure, I'll try that. And she loves it because she would wait in class to you know, like, she likes to put in her legs, she doesn't want to pull down her pants in class, she doesn't want to go to the bathroom, she's too embarrassed. So she will. But in class, you can take out her little thing and pretend she's vaping to make all the other middle schoolers go what's going on? And so she does that, and she loves it. And so she's just much more on top of it.

Scott Benner 27:10
Let's go. How long does the trial go for? One year? Okay, how long have you been at it? One month? Oh, wow. That's the very beginning. Now, Arden only ever did one thing. When I think Omnipod made a change to the PDM. And the FDA required them to basically put it in users hands and make sure they could operate it. So they needed people to come to this office and do it. We drove it was down in Philly. Then we drove down and art and just sat at a table and took direction from people and did everything and they filmed her. And when it was over, they gave her $500. And she was like, Yes, we have now found it. Like she's like, What am I going to do with all of this money? And I was like, I don't know, what do you think? And I believe she bought clothing with it. So. But yeah, it's interesting when when that stuff goes, well, I'd love to hear about it at the end. And yeah, let's see how it goes. Was there any, like was Arden like, Hey, I'd like to do this too, or was this something you need?

Rick Suvalle 28:05
Well, she couldn't because it's only for kids that are an MDI. So in this particular study that they're doing, because they you know, they want people that are already on the Basal insulin, so they can swap out shots for that. Okay, so an Arden is about to hit 18. Next in a month and a half. So the they want under it's an under 18 study. Yeah. Is she going to college? She has she just got accepted to UC San Diego. Oh, lovely. And that's where she's going to head

Scott Benner 28:37
is that far from home?

Rick Suvalle 28:39
It's about two hour drive. Or she can hop on a train that actually goes right into our town in Burbank, California. So that's kind of nice that we don't have to drive down and pick her up that kind of stuff. Ya

Scott Benner 28:50
know, Arden is about a 14 hour drive from us. Oh, wow. Where she's where she at? She's at SCAD in in Savannah. Okay, great. Yeah, she wants to do fashion design. So she's going there for that. But I, prior to a year ago, I had been to Atlanta once in my entire life, or the Georgia in Georgia at all. And in the last year, I think I've been there six times. So my, my daughter starts going to college there. My son graduates from college. He's like, I got a job and I'm like, Great wherever he goes, Atlanta and I'm like, Are you kidding? I was like, what do we live in Georgia now? So anyway, I've been there quite quite a little bit. Well, I wish her a ton of luck. I hope that's successful. Is she nervous about leaving with diabetes? Are you nervous about it?

Rick Suvalle 29:37
I think so. I mean, I think she's, I mean, she's doing well. A lot of pressure this time of year, you know, trying to get into college and finals and AP exams and prom, all that fun stuff about being you know, a 17 year old. So I think she is a little she was a little nervous. She was waffling between two colleges, but when we went down, we actually went down there last weekend. To check it out for the first time And she just felt at home. It turns out one of my diabetes parent friends as a kid who's gonna be in the same dorm as her next year, who's a type one diabetic? And so I think she's, she's handling it pretty well. I mean, she has a tough time managing her diabetes, she, I mean, she's one of these kids who she's worried about lows. So she lets herself go high in stressful situations, like a test, or I'm doing the choir show and just unplugged. And then suddenly, you're like, why am I 400? Why do I feel like crap? And so I am, I'm a little nervous for her, like, what's new stressors? Will they be in college? And will you be able to handle it in terms of, I'm sure she will, but I just want to make sure she's on top of it. And, you know, my wife is prepared to like, turn off the Dexcom when my daughter goes to college, because she just doesn't want to know,

Scott Benner 30:52
I, I'll tell you that the My biggest, like, speed bumps so far has been that Arden is a team. And you know, they're respectful of the idea that, you know, she knows she's a college, and we're paying for that kind of stuff. Like, she's not an ass about it or anything like that. But there is this thing where they could just not answer you. Right, you know, and they can, like, say, look, Bob, this, I already know what I'm doing. I'm doing this, if it's not happening quickly enough for you, I don't know what to tell you. But I'm not getting involved in this conversation that that started a little at the end of high school where she was sort of like I'm doing it because we put it into her hands a lot more. And we're getting ready for college. And there were times I'm like, you need to, like, do something here. And she's like, I know, or I don't agree with you. And I'm like, I'm like, there are times when I'm like, you know, I'm the guy from the podcast, like, I'm pretty sure I'm right about this, you know, and she's and she's like, I don't care. So, but I've learned that they're just that they're more learning experiences. And the one we're often gets stuck on is at the end of a site. You know, like, there are just times when your site's only got a few more hours on it. And you've used a bunch of insulin already for the last few days and just needs to be changed. And I'll send her a text and I'll say this, like gave up like, you have to change it. No, it's going to be okay, there's 40 units left on using these blah, blah, blah. And then her blood sugar's 250 A couple of hours later. And I see that she's changed the pump, like I look on Nightscout like, she changed the pump. And I was like, ah, like, I don't throw it back. And I don't say anything. Honestly, I just go oh, she she's, she saw cause and effect here. And she's getting better at it as time goes. So very recently, it happened again, I said, Hey, I know you don't like this as an answer. But that's not okay. anymore. You should change it. And never answered me. But she changed the pump. And I was like, Oh, I think I won.

Rick Suvalle 32:44
Yeah, I think I think it's the same thing. I'll say to my daughter, like, come on, I can tell you unplug. I'll send in a text message and stuff like that. There's no answer. And then you see the number go down, you know, you know, because she's actually corrected and replug in

Scott Benner 32:55
does she have a an experience that makes her concerned about lows? Or is it just a theoretical worry,

Rick Suvalle 33:02
it's theoretical, that's what's kind of, that's what bothers me is the fact that it hasn't happened. I'm like, we I always say to him, like, we haven't let you die yet. You know, and, you know, so and she hates when I say that to her. But I'm like, you know, you she hasn't had a dangerous low and so I'm just really baffles me, but I but I'm not a type one. So I don't know what goes through her brain and we all have, you know, different things that bother us. So it's just something she's working through, you know, we've tried to work with her and you know, you know, she she tries you know, she's like, can you lower the bait helped me lower the Basal send so that I don't, you know, so that I don't the pump doesn't take me too low. And so we you know, that's kind of how we, we've dealt with it.

Scott Benner 33:49
Does she have anxiety about anything else?

Rick Suvalle 33:51
Yeah, I think she's an anxious person. And but like, it's saying she's doing a lot better, you know, in this past few months, you know, she's been just working really hard about trying to get over some of her you know, hang ups, just you know, in terms of, you know, for herself too, because she knows she's gonna go to college and a lot of this stuff will stack up so she's trying to kind of get over these things now which I applaud her for doing Yeah.

Scott Benner 34:15
Oh, I think that I mean, there's clearly a process that they have to go through it like you can't save them from having this experience the only your only real like, like genuine concern in my opinion, is the the you don't want them to get off the rails in a way that the rails the next years of their life or that they find their way back from like I think that's the bigger concern really.

Rick Suvalle 34:37
Yeah, I just remember I got some I remember going I don't know if your Arden went to like any of the diabetes camps you know during the summer but like we went up there we first went to the family camp and then she she's gone every summer since but I remember the counselors had like the took the parents aside for a while and told their stories to us and one of them said Don't get mad at your kids about their blood sugar's you know be because if you start yelling at them about their diabetes, they'll rebel at some point, like we all rebelled, we decided just not to Bolus, and I was like, wow, it just was it opened my eyes. So I've always kept it kind of even keel even when I'm doing exactly what you're doing, you know, which is, hey, by the way, sites old, you know, keep it even keel and never get angry that kind of stuff and you know, obviously we're concerned for her health if she keeps it up certain things and we have, you know, honest conversations about that, but that was I'm so glad I got that advice early on that, you know, try and keep it because, you know, we can all get kind of worked up, you know about things and I work hard not to and I keep I kind of keep my wife is the emotional one about diabetes. And I'm kind of for me, I'm like, I've compartmentalized it. It's all business, you know, like time to change the site time to do this. Your blood sugar's high, you need this many these many units. You know, I'm always talking to kids that way. It's very business oriented. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:56
no, I think I fall more towards your side of it as well. I listen, Arden had a tough week, last week with her period. And she I saw her fighting with her blood sugar, like for days. And you know, it kind of beat her up by the end of the week. She's like, between my period and my blood sugars, and like schools, like I'm, like, I'm exhausted. So we talked to her Thursday, and we're like, just go to sleep, like, just come back. You don't have class on Friday, like, go sleep it off a little bit. And she's actually did that today. And, you know, it does remind you to take care of yourself. Yeah, and I think the I think the issue can be and this is just me, kind of extracting from conversations I've had with people, but you can get into that situation, be faced with it and say, Okay, I'm going to do the things that help this. Or you can just, like, throw your hands up and be like, Screw it. And people have come on over and over again, you know, in their late 20s to tell their story about college. And they go one way or the other. They're either like, I went there, and I took really good care of it. And I'm good, or I went there and I ignored it the way you were, you'd be worried about and it did me in for for a good stretch of time after that. And then you know, it took me a while to get back to it. And that's the part you know, again, that's just the part I'm trying to avoid. I'm sure she'll be fine. Like it's just, I mean, you're supporting her, you're available. I think that's a big deal. You know, she knows you're there and you'd be willing to help I couldn't set off the Dexcom that part I don't understand that I

Rick Suvalle 37:27
can't do it. You know, I have seen her get angry at my wife for you know bugging her about her blood sugars. And then my she just turned Cher off and I don't have anything either. So but she just then then you know, she's over being angry, you know, few hours later and then share pops back on but that's fine, you know,

Scott Benner 37:45
but that's a mother and daughter thing to maybe just like you don't go out to check on your own kid on the pitcher's mound when you don't send a dad out to talk to their son while they're pitching and it's not going well. So tell me a little bit I picked through your IMDB a little bit but tell me a little bit about your about the path you've been on with animation and what got you to this project.

When I wanted to add a nutritional supplement to my diet, I began to drink a G one. Now I drink a G one in the morning as part of my ritual and you can as well I want my nutrition to be covered. I want to thrive and that's why I drink ag one drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. I take my ag one I put it in a nice cold glass of water shake it up. Actually I use the this container that he wants me it's not really glass but that's neither here nor there. I shake it up a couple quick shakes it dissolves nicely and goes down beautifully tastes great and it gets me ready for my day. So if you want to take ownership of your health it starts with ag one try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Once again use my link drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. My daughter has been wearing an omni pod every day since she was four years old. And today as I'm recording this, Arden just turned 19 today that is 15 years of wearing a nominee pod every day. We don't do that. You know, because their sponsors their sponsors. Because we do that. Only pod five is the first and only tubeless automated insulin delivery system to integrate with a Dexcom G six. It is available for people with type one diabetes ages two and older. It features smart adjust technology. It's in every pod and it adjusts your insulin delivery based on your customized target glucose, helping to protect you against high and low blood sugars both day and night. If you're not looking for that algorithm, check out the Omni pod dash. They both include a waterproof tubeless insulin pod that can be worn almost anywhere you give yourself an injection. Each pod eliminates the Need for multiple daily injections plus the automated delivery system and the Omni pod five helps to simplify life in so many ways. But like I said, if you want the Omni pod five without automation, that's terrific. If you don't want the automation, get yourself the Omni pod dash. Now at my link Omni pod.com forward slash juice box, you can scroll down a little bit, you'll see some purple buttons, where you can check your insurance coverage or asked to go for a test drive a free Omni pod trial, check it out, won't you? Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Only insulin pump you don't have to take off while you're swimming. We're bathing or any of your activities. You want to run around the house crazy, where you're on the pod want to go play soccer, but you're on the pod got some like adult fun you want to get involved in? Don't have to take it off for that either. You don't I'm saying adults, you know what I'm saying? Think about it for a second. Yeah. Because when you disconnected jump in the shower or wherever you're jumping, that's probably an appropriate Can I say that? Probably not. You might forget that. You might forget to put your pump back on those two pumps, when you have to take them off to go in the shower, they gotta go back on again, on the pod, you can leave on no matter your activity. On the pod.com forward slash juice box. There are links in the show notes that on the pod ag one and all the sponsors, when you click on my links or type them in a browser, you were supporting the production of the show, and you were keeping it free and plentiful. And speaking of that, I want to thank you so much. Just give me one second here. Just the other day the show hit 13 million lifetime downloads, total downloads for the Juicebox Podcast and started at 13 million. That's crazy. I think this time next year, it'll be over 20 million. And that's because of how much you listen, the way you share the show how you support the sponsors, everything that you guys do, and I can't thank you enough. Thank you so much. I'll see you at 20 million.

Rick Suvalle 42:12
was able to do a couple animated, you know, series episodes early in my career and then kind of, but they were kind of one offs with not people that were like regulars in the business. And I always kind of wanted to get into animation. I've always been a fan of it. And I love you know, the the world building and the creativity involved. So it took me a long time to kind of get my way into animation. So I was you know, biding my time with those Sci Fi Channel movies and Hallmark movies that you see on my IMDb and but then a friend of mine had created this show called the stinky and dirty show on Amazon. And he said, you know, you want to write an episode for me. And I'm like, for sure. And we I actually got I got kind of blocked at the time by Amazon because they felt that like I didn't have animation credits. I didn't have preschool animation credits, it's a slightly different type of writing. And so, but my friends, like, you know, writers, right, you know, I can I can teach him how to come up to speed really fast on that kind of stuff. But he's a good storyteller. And I believe in him. And they initially said no, and then because they I think they were wanting like the Amazon, you know, was new. And they wanted they call these Emmy winners. And eventually, when those people didn't work out kind of rested on their literal laurels. They, you know, not even, you know, putting periods of end of sentences. My friend said, Now, can we bring Rick in? And they said yes. And in the meantime, this friend was such a good friend. He's like, let's let's build you up some street cred and get you on some other shows. And he recommended me for a couple other shows. And I was able to get some animation credits while I was waiting for that. And to Amazon's credit, though, they basically said, Oh, this guy did a good job, maybe next season, we can make him the head writer. So that worked out really fast. And so that that kind of started on the path there. I don't know if that.

Scott Benner 44:08
I'm also wondering if it's when they start off and they want those pedigree people if the pedigree people aren't like, oh, we can steal some money from this real quick and move on. Then you get to the people who really want to work and, you know, it makes sense to me. Does that show still run? Or how long did it go for

Rick Suvalle 44:26
it still, I mean, we got a couple seasons out of it on Amazon. It's still there. People are still discussing the great thing about like, you know, the way streaming is people new people discovered all the time I had a meeting the other day where they're their kids four years old, and it's he's a boy and he loves trucks. And that show was, you know, for your listeners, it's about you know, a dump truck and a backhoe loader who are best friends who solve problems with garbage and resourcefulness. And so, you know, it's very, you know, quote unquote boy show. So you know, anytime before year olds flipping through the dial, they see the The trucks with faces on them. And they're like, I gotta check that out. So we get new fans all the time for sure. So that's still out there.

Scott Benner 45:07
It's interesting how it works the same way for the podcast, there are people who just like find it. Nine years after it started as if it's brand new. It's really Yeah,

Rick Suvalle 45:16
for sure. And there's always a newly diagnosed family every day. So

Scott Benner 45:20
yeah, I don't That doesn't seem like it's gonna stop anytime soon. So then you get that, you get that? I guess? Time, right? How many episodes do you think you wrote on by the time it was over?

Rick Suvalle 45:32
Um, I wrote, I might have written at least 10 episodes on that. And then I was the head writer. So as a head writer, you kind of you work with the Freelancers, and you kind of help shepherd their stories along and then you rewrite all the phases. So you know, a freelancer is not going to know quite know the voices or how we like things written and you know, some story points. So we kind of go in and we kind of rewrite,

Scott Benner 45:59
okay. Does that lead to another job that leads to another job did

Rick Suvalle 46:02
you know I got that. And that led to my relationship with, with Amazon doing some development work. And I ended up working at Disney afterwards, that led to a job at Disney, the same guy who created the stinking, dirty show, he got a job as a head writer over on a Disney show called tots. And he asked me if I would be willing to go be a staff writer for him. And there's not a lot of positions in animation. It's like staff writer, head writer, and then you're either the creator or you're not. And so I said, Sure I'd, I'd love to. And it was like almost like a vacation. I was not the head writer. So I could just write scripts and help break stories with the rest of the writers. And you know, just kind of and then develop my own stuff on the side. And so while I was working there for a couple years, I sold a bunch of shows, original original ideas, or some stuff based on IP. And one of those was one of the things I was developing was Thomas on the side, Thomas and Friends, the reboot. And so that went forward. And in the middle of that a show, I had sold the DreamWorks, my newest show, do drop diaries, got picked up by Netflix. And so I kind of launched Thomas and you know, produced about 32 of the episodes and standalone movie for them. And then I went on to work on the show that I created.

Scott Benner 47:27
Okay, and this this show is coming out right now on Netflix. Yep. Well, what's it about?

Rick Suvalle 47:34
It's called the dewdrop, diaries, and dewdrops are my made up, you know, term for these little family fairies. It's a show about you know, every, every home with kids in the world has fairies, secretly helping them with the little things that can fall through the cracks. It could be, you know, you misplace your last tooth, they see it fall under the bed, and they have to get it onto the top bunk before the kid falls asleep and puts his head on top of the tooth pillow. So the Tooth Fairy gets it in time. Or it could be you left your favorite toy at the park and they got it these little tiny fairies have to bring it, you know, back. And so it's, it's a girl power show, because I've got two daughters and I was inspired by them. So but part of it was I wanted to create this kind of metaphor for little kids that can do anything because you know, a lot of us t one D parents are like, you can do anything, nothing's gonna stop you diabetes. Now, the show is not about diabetes, but it's just that spirit of feeling like I want my kids to be able to do anything so and being little tiny characters. It's a metaphor for being a kid and reaching for big goals. And so, but I felt like if it's a fairy, actually, originally, they weren't fairies. They were just little little characters that helped and dreamer said, could they be fairies? And I said, Well, let me think about it. If you give them magic in flight, you're taking away all the ingenuity and creativity they have to do to get things done. So I said, so what if we compromised, and they're fairies and training, they've got wings, but they can't fly. And they've got one magical power each one can talk to animals one's got some super strength. One has this magical melody that can lull you to sleep. And you know, it's really fun and like we're saying It's girl power. But it's also I want to do a show that I would want to watch as a parent. And so every episode opens with like an action adventure homage to some action movie like Raiders of Lost Ark. And so it's just really fun. So boys and girls can both watch it. It's a preschool show but has fun kind of stakes and danger to it. And yeah, so so I'm really excited about that. And you know, part of me being a T one D dad also was I've got this kind of the secret agenda was having as I hired a T one D on my staff as a production coordinator. I also hired Brec Bassinger, the star of CWA star girl who was a T one D actress and JDRF ambassador, I got her to be I, one of the characters in the show, okay. And she was great. Like, you know, I was DreamWorks. And oh, we asked her to read. I'm like, can't we just make her the offer? Like, and she's like, No, I'll read and it's my birthday. And I'm gonna read on my birthday for you. And I was like, how awesome is Breck? And so that was great. She She read and got the part. And I hope if we get a second season, that I want Nick Jonas to play a dad character on the show as well.

Scott Benner 50:26
Nice. Oh, that's excellent. Man. Is there? Like you said, there's no diabetes in the show? Have you thought about ways to do it? And it just doesn't work? Like, didn't they mean? Like, is it is it too Nishi? For

Rick Suvalle 50:38
people? It is, to a certain extent, I mean, especially in the preschool space. It's, it's too much to explain, especially to kids that don't have it, right. And so, you know, oh, I've got this constant glucose monitor my blood sugar is low. It's really hard to show and especially in that younger age. And even if you look at like, Pixar, a scene read, there's two characters with CGM and pumps. But there was never mentioned of it, right? Because it would slow down story. So it's hard. But if you look at like, the Babysitter's Club on Netflix, I think was Netflix. They had that that has a T Wendy character, and they talk about the blood sugars. And they did a pretty good representation of type one diabetes better than I've seen out there. So it really is hard to, you know, like a preschool space. If you wanted to show a disability, it's probably someone in a wheelchair kind of thing so that they can kind of identify and see it, it just has to do with the comprehension thing at that younger age. I wish there was a way to show it and you know, spread awareness that way. I had a friend who had a live action preschool show. And he was saying, Hey, we're gonna make one of the characters of type one diabetic. I said, fantastic. And he's like, so we're gonna get started debut them on the Halloween episode. What what candies? Can't they eat? Yeah, you're like, I was like, I was like, I don't think you should do a type one diabetic care?

Scott Benner 51:53
Well, maybe you could put a device on one of them and never mentioned it.

Rick Suvalle 51:57
Exactly, just like seeing red dead. I think that's a fun way to do it. And just kind of, you know, it just especially for the kids out there, I think, you know, with seeing red, you know, it's like, it's like, when you see a Dexcom in the wild, right? You know, you see someone at Disneyland and it's on their arm, and the kids are always like, oh, luck, you know. So I think it's that kind of identification. Just like, you know, you don't want it to be like the American Girl doll that has the type one diabetes and has the pump and all that stuff. But again, it is a little bit difficult for that younger age group. And so that's why I really still wanted to, you know, promote awareness by hiring Brack and hiring a type one diabetic on my, on my staff. And so, you know, and just being a T one, D dad, you know, I wanted to just whatever I can do to get the word out about so I know I'm on your show, but I'm hoping to go on mainstream, you know, nondiabetic podcast, and talk about how diabetes was an influence. Yeah. And just really kind of get awareness out that way. For you know, the people older than four years old,

Scott Benner 52:59
well, I have a suggestion for somebody to do a voice who I think has a great voice and as T one, two, from Wizards of Waverly Place, Jennifer stone.

Rick Suvalle 53:07
Yes. Yeah. She's

Scott Benner 53:08
got a great voice. That's my pitch right there. I think she was

Rick Suvalle 53:11
she was one of the two people I we, you know, I think we were circling her and Mary Mauser from, you know, she's rough, Mateos daughter and Cobra Kai, she's a T one D shirt now. And BRAC and so I think we were circling all of them for potential roles in the show. Okay,

Scott Benner 53:28
well, so I didn't have such a new idea. Nevermind.

Rick Suvalle 53:31
No. And Jennifer is actually she works her day job these days. She is a nurse at a hospital right here in Burbank. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:37
no, I know, I've had her on the show. She was terrific. She was such an normal person that I told her when we were done. I was like, wow, that was you were so great. Like, I've I've interviewed other people who have a degree of fame. And there's sometimes like, you know, a veil between you and them. And she was just she was so cool. It doesn't surprise me actually, she has a pretty popular podcast that she started recently about the TV show that she was on, and it doesn't surprise me at all. So I don't know if you'll find this boring. But I want to understand, like the whole process of pitching a show to Netflix. Like what's that like? And how long does it take? Well,

Rick Suvalle 54:17
so initially, it's I pitched to DreamWorks directly and DreamWorks sold it to Netflix, but similar process. What if I went into Netflix directly? But I had a connection to DreamWorks, you know, a friend, a friend knew one of the executives there and they said, Oh, would you meet with Rick? And they said, Sure. So I came in with an idea. I came in with kind of a three page pitch. And I asked my next door neighbor who is, you know, visual artists to like, draw two pictures of a little tiny character with a leaf hang glider, you know, and that I would add, I bring to the pitch and they pitched it verbally and again, it was they weren't fairies at that point. So they As part of the process, and you know, they liked it, they saw something in it. And they said, Could you make it fairies? And we had that back and forth. And I said, I said, if you do it my way, I think that that'll make it work and make us both happy. And then it just becomes an evolving process there was there was a quite a few back and forth before they purchased the idea for me, right. And eventually, after a couple rounds of notes, they said, Yeah, we'd like to move forward and pay you to develop this with us. But DreamWorks takes, it takes a while, because they they do such a comprehensive pitch package. So they spent a lot of money on, you know, visual development, we did a whole animation test, we brought in, you know, an actress to do a voice test for us with the with the animated character who ended up being so great that she's one of the stars of the show. And so we had, I think it was like a 64 point, PowerPoint presentation, all with art. And so this is bigger than ever. I mean, like, I have the ability to go in and pitch three pages, something directly to a network, but, but having this big, behemoth of Dreamworks, behind me and that pedigree and they're, you know, when they make the deal, they're ready to go into production, you know, and I also had to write a pilot and a series Bible to present as part of this development process. So we had questions, you know, during the development process, the paid development process, like, well, we've got these three dewdrop best friends that live in different apartments, but they're tiny, how do they get in touch with you with each other? Do they have cell phones, and I was like, No. And I remember it was just like, in the moment of like, they have dual alerts, it's kind of like Batman's bat signal, but they shoot out these like butterflies that go and get each other. And that's part of the show. And that was just, you know, we were in the creative roll on that kind of stuff. So. So all that stuff comes together. And we, you know, we eventually go into pitch it to Netflix, and they have a first look deal there. And actually, you know, this is little inside baseball here. But like they actually passed initially, because they had another fairy show in the works. And they're like, but eventually, while we were still pitching it around town, that other ferry show fell out. And Netflix called up and said, Hey, is that still available? And we're like, yes, it is. And so we were able to set that up. But that was a development process on that one was two and a half years or two years. Until we about two and a half years. So we started production. So it's a long process, for sure, especially animation, because then you have to build all the characters you have to mock. It's a 3d CG show. So it's like modeling and rigging the characters and design. And I had meetings that were, you know, I remember having like too many hour meetings about like, the pattern of stripes on one of the characters socks. And I remember eventually going, like, so frustrated, like, Is this really what we're doing? We're, you know, eventually going, can it just be number 11? And like, number 11, they're like, Oh, you'd like number 11. That's the That's it? I'm like, Oh, wait,

Scott Benner 58:00
you're waiting for me?

Rick Suvalle 58:02
Yeah, I was like, Oh, wait, I'm the show runner, I forgot that. I could probably just, you know, tell them what I like. It was very early in the process.

Scott Benner 58:10
How many scripts do you have to have before you go to Animation?

Rick Suvalle 58:14
Ah, you before you sell it? Or once you're in the wetsuit,

Scott Benner 58:18
once you're we're making the show? I mean, you have to send the scripts off somewhere to be automated, right? So do you

Rick Suvalle 58:23
Yeah, for sure. We used a company in France called Team toe amazing animation company. But we would do so scripts are being written, a lot of it overlaps. You know, so once the scripts are written, and you know, every week, a new first draft is due, we had we had an order for 52 episodes. So you know, every, every Monday, I would have a final draft. So 52 weeks from when we start, you know, we'll have all those scripts done. And then but, you know, a week after we finished the final draft, we have a recording session, and we record the voices, and they and then a week after that, you know, I mean, more than a week after that, it takes a while. But the next stage would be we would have like a storyboard launch where we would like meet with the artists and they would kind of look at the script and ask us questions and kind of like do some drawings saying do you mean this? Do you mean that and then we go on to then they do what's called an animatic, which is kind of a moving storyboard, just all black and white sketches. And then after we get notes on that, and refine, they eventually go into animation, they'll do a what's called a a layout pass first where we kind of see those T model pose. It looks like it just a figure that doesn't move or they just move it around like a doll. You know, just so we get that kind of figure out is this the right angle for the shot and you're looking at the that kind of stuff and then they start the actual animation phase and there's a lighting phase and then there's you know,

Scott Benner 59:54
involved in all that are you like, yeah,

Rick Suvalle 59:57
as executive producer and showrunner Um, you know, I'm there for giving music score notes and meeting with the with the composer's, I'm looking at, you know, the boring part of the job is like when they make a leaf, I'm gonna get 45 different angles of a leaf to sign off on. So it's very exciting in the very beginning, but then eventually after you been doing it for a while, you're like, this. Looks like a teacup hold.

Scott Benner 1:00:22
Yeah, cat and see which one at bat. Hey, does. DreamWorks is universal, right?

Rick Suvalle 1:00:28
Yes, yeah, NBC Universal. Do

Scott Benner 1:00:30
they do a lot of animation in France, because I seem to remember Scott Moser living in France for a couple of years to make the Grinch. So I wonder if there's a lot of animation that happens there.

Rick Suvalle 1:00:40
Yeah. Oh, no. There's a lot of different animation series in France. But I mean, there's a lot of them in like Vancouver as well, a lot of places go to India and Korea. But there's quite a few in, in France.

Scott Benner 1:00:53
Yeah. No, I mean, I just don't, that's a really, like I said, I don't know if I can even explain all of that. But Scott used to be Kevin. Well, I guess Scott maybe is Kevin Smith's producer, still. But he's moved on and done some other stuff. And he made the Grinch movie. And I just remember on his Instagram for two years, he suddenly lived in France. And then the movie was ready. And then he didn't live in France anymore. I was like, Oh, that was interesting. You didn't have to go to France?

Rick Suvalle 1:01:18
No, because it was smack dab in the middle of the pandemic. So we had like, every day 9am Our time 6pm their time, we would have like, like an hour meeting to catch up and figure out what needs to be done and give notes. That kind of stuff.

Scott Benner 1:01:31
52 that's a that's a pretty good commitment. Right? 52 episodes?

Rick Suvalle 1:01:35
Yeah, it turns out to be like two Netflix season drops.

Scott Benner 1:01:39
Okay. And then do they? Is it one of those things that you think is like, is it one in donner? Do you think, though, they'll want to talk if it does well? Or do you talk about that hope

Rick Suvalle 1:01:49
is I mean, because it's Netflix, you know, they're going to be data and see how many clicks we get, and how many people watch you know, three minutes, or they watch all the way through and want to watch the next episode. So they'll need at least, you know, probably eight weeks worth of data, like to see if it's a hit. And then if it's, or it could grow, you know, somewhere in between, like, we're talking before, like, stinky dirty, could have a brand new audience, you know, you know, but they could suddenly start to grow and realize, okay, yeah, we'll pick up another season, another production season. So we'll see. I mean, my fingers are crossed. This is my baby. I mean, the show is my love letter to my daughters. And so I really want another season. And I really want to see it continue. And I have an idea on how in another production season, how to show disabilities in a different way. Not quite type one. But I think disabilities are important to be represented on screen. So I want that done. And I've got, you know, so I have ideas on where to take another season of this show,

Scott Benner 1:02:47
you just made me wonder if the people listening to my podcast know that I have to sit in meetings with advertisers and tell them my listen through rate while they're deciding if they want to buy more ads and things like that. freaking mind numbing, and somehow scary at all is like my, the last quarter of every year of my life is spent walking around on eggshells trying and trying to bring the podcast back to people for like another year. And it's you've had some you've had some sponsors have been around forever, which is great. They're very cool. Like the people who support the show are amazing at how they do it. It's the new people that come in, you know, it's a, it's a space that's becoming more and more understood, I used to deal with people who were just like, they didn't know what they were even asking me. But now, now they seem to understand that a little better. So I'm answering a bunch of questions and trying to make a podcast the same time.

Rick Suvalle 1:03:34
Right. And you also get out and you also get these advertisers are very specific to the type of podcasts you have, which is, which is nice, because you know, if you're just another movie review place, you know, you really need to, you know, hear about, you know, whatever, you know, hot hot pot is popular these days.

Scott Benner 1:03:50
I do have as it's gotten larger. I do have like athletic greens and some other stuff that you hear and more podcasts are coming to me, which is terrific and exciting. But you're not wrong. Like there's a lot of comfort, knowing that it's a nice show, and that the advertisers are I mean, I don't know another way to put this, they don't have a lot of options. Right? I'm kind of I'm kind of the guy. So it is very helpful, but it's still no less stressful. Like, you know, sure. I've been doing this for nine years. And if I see two days go the wrong way on downloads. I'm like walking around the house like it's over, forgot it. My wife's like, isn't it Easter? I'm like, that doesn't matter. They could listen. So alright, I feel for you. I hope you can avoid that and just sit back and enjoy the ride. What do your girls think of the show?

Rick Suvalle 1:04:39
They're, I mean, they're a little old for it now. I mean, but I think about I came up with six years ago and it's finally coming out but still they they're great. And my older daughter is interested in animation as a potential career. So so she kind of likes checking out the animatics and I'm actually going to her high school animation class next month to kind of show you The process, you know, I told you all those steps, I'm going to show the opening this I've got this great like opening on the pilot where it's just like, you see little fairy running from like the boulder in the cave from Raiders Lost Ark. And then she jumps out into the light and you realize she was behind the couch and the baby just pushed the soccer ball after her thanks. And so I basically am showing all the different stages of that one, you know, 92nd clip to the class saying, Okay, here's the animatic. And here's the initial drawings. And here's the T pose phase for layout. Here's the animation. Here's the lighting and so, but they did it. I mean, my little, my little one has not so little anymore. She's taller than me now. She's 14, and she's in that very grumpy. Just a teenager, and she does grunts. So I don't know if she likes it. But I think she thinks it's cool that her dad does this, but she won't say anything to me about it. Yeah. When you

Scott Benner 1:05:57
do a gag, like the Raiders thing? Is that for adults watching, is it just for you? Or is it like is that your way of like kind of secretly showing a little kid something that you love?

Rick Suvalle 1:06:08
It's, I mean, it's all of that. I mean, it's like I really want I mean, whenever you try and do a joke, and in especially the younger thing, it has to play on their level. So you can't do you know, verbal, you know, puns as much or you know, verbal jokes that they're not gonna understand, they'll understand, you know, the, you know, they fall on their face. And that's funny. But you know, so that kind of thing. But they're seeing the danger of this giant ball after them going with wide eyes. They're like, you know, this is crazy. But as the parent who's co watching, they're like, oh, my gosh, that's really the Lost Ark. Or they're like, oh, my gosh, that's Tron is that Tron? We're watching? Right? You know, it's like, so they're, they're kind of having a fun time. I like to give those wings to parents. I mean, I just, there's so many shows out there that don't do that, that, you know, the parents like, this is terrible. Why does my kid like this, ya know, but it's like, you want them just kind of, you know, while they're, you know, while you're doing laundry to go stop for a second to go. That's pretty funny. You know, how how long it

Scott Benner 1:07:04
can stick with you too, I can sing, I think I could probably sing the opening to out of the box. And, you know, a couple of other, I mean, a Little Einsteins theme is still running, you know, so it is nice to give something, you know that if I'm in the room with it, at least I can. Maybe you should slip in a couple of esoteric back and forth, the kids will stare through it. But

Rick Suvalle 1:07:26
ya know, it's great. So I do try and do as much you know, humor that I think the adults will watch. And the show is technically what they call Bridge, which is like a little preschool aged up a little bit. So we have a little bit of that danger. But you know, we also have to be careful, like, we don't want to like to see the kid climb on the chair with books on the chair to read something I have to be, you know, cognizant of those type of things.

Scott Benner 1:07:49
Yeah, that's very interesting. Do you? So this is so then you're working on the show. Now, does that preclude you from doing other things? Or how's your

Rick Suvalle 1:07:58
does? I mean, like, I have been exclusive to DreamWorks on past kind of the exclusive phase right now. So they need me definitely during writing phases and certain phases of production to be totally exclusive. I'm always allowed to develop my own stuff, that the question became, like, if it's one of those turns into a job, but development takes so long as we were talking about how it took me two and a half years, you got to get a job in between. So I try and develop a lot of stuff. And but um, I've reached the point in my career where I can probably work on two shows at the same time, you know, maybe take a little bit of a backseat, and we're like consulting producer and one of them and give kind of, you know, very specific notes or sit into like a color correction session or something like that. So it's

Scott Benner 1:08:41
interesting, because I don't think people think about that. I mean, I know I hadn't in the past, but I'm assuming it's, it's not like, it's not like the show runs for this many years. And you get paid every week, right? You still have bills, and you have to live and somebody wrote you a check. And now that part's over, I assume. So now you're doing the work. And you have to keep yourself moving. Like that's,

Rick Suvalle 1:09:02
yeah, for sure. And like when I was exclusive, you know, I had finished the writing phase, but I was still exclusive at that point for looking at animatics. And, and animation and giving notes and that kind of stuff. But I did I got an opportunity. My old show, Thomas and Friends, you know, they said, Hey, we want someone to write a Christmas movie for us next year. Would you be willing to do it? And I just asked DreamWorks Hey, can you give me permission in my contract to work on that movie? And they said, Sure. And so you just it's just got to be aboveboard. You know, if I came in and said, Hey, I want to also show run another show for your competitor, they might be a little less likely to say yes to that

Scott Benner 1:09:40
one. No, thank you. If you have a good idea, give it to us. Is that the idea? Yeah, exactly. But now

Rick Suvalle 1:09:45
like I said, I'm not exclusive at the moment. And so which is great. That's why I'm doing a freelances for other shows coming out. And you know, while I wait to see if we're gonna get picked up for another season,

Scott Benner 1:09:56
it's interesting. It's interesting, isn't it? How everything is changed like when my Kids were a little, like a Pixar movie, for example, like DreamWorks and Pixar were like putting movies out in the theaters constantly. And now it's almost like that. It's not really the focus anymore. Like it's almost like movies come out in theaters as an addition to their being dropping on somebody's streaming service or something like that.

Rick Suvalle 1:10:19
Yeah, I mean, it's very strange. I mean, we've been talking about this lately, because we're talking about getting, you know, talking to DreamWorks about publicity for the show. And like, why haven't we done it yet? I mean, it'll be out there by the time this thing airs. But they The thing is, people don't have the same attention span anymore. So you know, you don't see I like when I was a kid, you know, you would see a trailer for a movie coming out next year, like, you know, 12 months away, or the big summer tentpole, you're getting a Christmas, they don't do that anymore, because no one's going to remember and they don't they only care about the now. So the bulk of publicity for my show is going to happen once it airs, or like in the days leading up, but they'll drop a trailer like a month before. And then in the days leading up, you know, there might be a little bit but the bulk of it's going to happen after because we don't want parents to go oh my gosh. This dewdrop diary sounds perfect for my kid. Where can I watch it? Oh, it's not out yet. Yeah. Forgotten.

Scott Benner 1:11:18
It makes sense. It really does. I, I'm always talking with people about, like, there's so much content in the podcast. And it's so relevant to people. But if I don't keep repackaging it and showing it back up, they start thinking it's old. And I'm like, No, there's, there's a conversation that lasts about 90 minutes about how to Bolus for the fat and french fries. I don't need to do it again. It's right there like it, you know, go use that one. It's interesting. I always have that feeling like if it wasn't for, but at the same time, if it wasn't for that, if that's not how people's minds work, then we'd all be watching mash, though, because that was fine. That was That was great. You know, like, why don't we just do this over and over again. So it's tough, because when you're creating it, you want people to enjoy it. And when you're consuming it, you're like, Where's, where's new and more, I just miss movies. I grew up going to movies, and there's a beautiful movie theater two miles from my house that is sitting absolutely dormant with weeds growing out of the parking lot. And it's hard. You know, it's so sad. Yeah. So. And then in the theaters, you do go to now we're all like, I don't I don't know how to put it. But it's not quite right. Like it's digital. But it doesn't look great. And it's not about the experience of being at the theater. And I don't know, it feels like a thing that's, I wish would come back a little bit. But I might say, yeah, for sure. Anyway, I'll make a bunch of money one day, I'm gonna open up a drive in that that'll be it.

Rick Suvalle 1:12:41
I love the drive. We took the kids when they were little I remember when they when one of my when my little one was first diagnosed for like, what we just wanted to do something with them that we could control and be with them. And like, let's go to the drive in. And there's a few out here in Los Angeles. So that was just I just remember being great night.

Scott Benner 1:12:56
Yeah, we used to my wife used to get off the train even after we were married on Fridays, and we would just rush home get changed real quick drive over, like sit around in the back of the car and watch a movie. And it was fantastic. But anyway, to your point, everybody is moving so quickly that I mean, though we're not even measuring things, as did I turn it on? It's like, did I stay? Like who would have I've walked out of two movies in my entire life. Like, honestly, too, and I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I hated Edward. And I did not like Robin Hood Men in Tights. Those were the two movies. I just got up and I was like, I'm okay. I don't need this. Thank you. But other than that, once you're there, you'd made a commitment. And you you'd sit and watch. You know, I feel like

Rick Suvalle 1:13:36
yeah, there's so much content on television now and streaming that, you know, like, if I'm not drawn in by the first episode, I'm not watching anymore. You know, it's like before you I'll give it one or two episodes, maybe three. And now I'm like, not holding my attention. I'm done.

Scott Benner 1:13:50
I actually, now it's valuable for people to give you a recommendation. Because then you think well, maybe I maybe I should make it to the third episode. They keep saying get to the third episode. But yeah, that's really interesting. So is there anything we haven't covered? Anything that you want to talk about that? We haven't?

Rick Suvalle 1:14:09
Not really, I mean, this has been great. I'm just really excited to talk to you. And like, I've been a fan of the podcast for a while. And so I was excited. When you know, I reached out to you and you were like, Yeah, let's let's chat.

Scott Benner 1:14:25
I couldn't believe it. I was like, I was like the guy with the Arden daughter. He's back. I had no idea what you did really like at that point. I do have a question. Maybe you don't know the answer to it, though. At some point, I imagine you go to your daughter and say, Hey, there's another little girl named Arden. She has diabetes, blah, blah, blah. Does she give a crap or does she just like, Oh, that's interesting.

Rick Suvalle 1:14:45
I think well, I mean, at the time when I told her she's like, that was really cool. I mean, I do remember her saying, wow. But it's like it wasn't like, you know, hey, can we be friends? Or you know, and I think it was pre I mean, the kids were too young to have Instagram like now it's like mind honors, like, you know, she just got into UC San Diego. And it's like, all the people are an Instagram and she's meeting new potential roommates that way, you know, like, and so, you know, back then it was like, Okay, that's great. We did a Facebook message or something, you and I, and I think that's where it ended. But I think she was definitely curious. I thought that was cool because she had never met another art. And now she goes to high school with another art and which is always interesting to me. Oh, that's crazy.

Scott Benner 1:15:23
Oh, that's very, very cool. Yeah, I actually watched art and do the same thing. Getting off to college she met, they found roommates, through Instagram became friends, they all sussed each other out for a while made decisions and everything. And it was it was really cool. Like, even just a few years prior to that my son did it over the phone. And now, you know, it just changes. So what is she going for you able to tell me?

Rick Suvalle 1:15:46
Yeah, she's, I think the degree they have there. It's called Media Arts. So it's kind of some kind of California crunchy type of film degree where you kind of learn philosophies, but you also take still photography, and you do learn film, there might be a little bit of animation, but it's really pushing like, you know, whatever social issue you want into the films that you do and the projects that you do. It's very, like I said, there's a little crunchy in terms of that respect. It's not like straight film school. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:16:22
I hear what you're saying, you're going to be hiring your daughter in four years, like, Oh, my God,

Rick Suvalle 1:16:25
I hope so. I mean, she's such a great artist that I would definitely use her for character design, if I could. Isn't that interesting?

Scott Benner 1:16:30
Where they're so my, my art and through growing up, maybe there was one year, she seemed to put some effort into an art class. And other than that, just not she was never that person. And leading into her senior year, she says, I want to go to art school to learn how to design clothing. And we were like, you don't sew? And you don't, you've never drawn anything. And I was like, Are you sure? Because our backup was pre law. She's like, okay, that or I'm gonna be a lawyer. And we were like, Okay, and so we supported her, obviously. But when you send her off, you're like, I wonder how this is gonna go, you know? And she sent a drawing back to us. And I was like, wow, is she gonna like, like, power her way through this. And I don't know, like she when she first got there. She's like, I don't know if I can do this. She was a little shaky. And I told her a story. And I sent her a picture. This is going to be very strange for some people. But I, I sent her a picture that Howard Stern drew on the air about 20 years ago. It's a character of somebody he works with. And I sent a picture that he drew of a field near his house in the last couple of years, because he's taken to painting and this sort of in his 60s. And I said, the same person who drew this horrible caricature, painted this. And I said, I've heard him say that anybody can teach themselves how to do this. And so I said, I don't see why you couldn't either. And she sent us something back a couple of months later, and I was like, why I can't find it, show it to you before we go. But I was like, I'm like, Oh, my God, you did this? And she said, yeah, she's like, she just sits in her room and practices like, and she doesn't even want to draw. She's just, that's part of the curriculum, she has to learn how to draw first. And I think she's finally getting to the sewing machines now, but I didn't know what else to do. Because it's, it seems like a thing. I think it seems like a thing, like what you do, or even this thing I'm doing probably seems like magic to people. But it's not like I taught myself to do this. You know, I I taught myself what the equipment was that I taught myself that I recorded, and I listened. I was like, That sucks. I wouldn't listen to this. I'm gonna do it this way. Like, I thought if I could teach myself this, maybe she could teach this to herself, too. So that's very cool. So I want to wish your daughter a lot of luck. And thank

Rick Suvalle 1:18:46
you so so funny. There's so much light because the same thing like my daughter, Arden was taking some animation classes. I never knew that she was even interested in drawing, and then she starts goes into Rome starts doing some drawing, and I'm like, this isn't half bad. And meanwhile, she's like, and if that doesn't work out, pre law, overlays, same thing, same thing, and I was like, Oh, wow. So but the she was gonna go to this other school that has a very animation heavy major. And, and we were all set to go to this expensive private school for her and for next year, and then she turns to me and goes, I don't know if I like the actual animating part like is like learning all that software. I just kind of like to draw and I was like, well, this school is great for that. But if you're interested in like, other stuff, you got to do a better school. Yeah. And and they also have, you can do the visual arts stuff at the other school. And then we went down there and looked I was saying earlier this weekend, just like oh my God, I feel like I belong at this place. And so I was I was happy to hear that.

Scott Benner 1:19:51
Yeah, it's very well organised incredibly comfortable where she is and she definitely she definitely found the right spot. So it was awesome. Yeah, I It's tough to because my son is just like he just wanted to play baseball. Like I mean, he, I think he only went to college, because he was on a baseball team if I'm being perfectly honest. And he's like, I don't know what to major in. And I was, you know, you talk to him, he didn't know. So I was like, well, you're good at math, like do something mathy. And maybe we'll figure it out from there. And he comes out with this, like quantitative econ degree. And he's like, I don't know what to do with this. And I was like, Are you kidding me? So he found a job. He's working for a subsidiary of Sony right now doing like back end sports stuff. So like, all the all the number stuff that you see on television, when you're watching almost every major sporting event is happening, you know, where he works. And, and he started there. But you know, I don't know, I don't know how kids pick something to go off to college and do I mean, you went to school, but like, with what like saying, like, I'd like to write gaming. Yeah,

Rick Suvalle 1:20:59
I mean, I didn't know I had no skills. I mean, I made a video like a spoof of Ghostbusters, when I was in sixth grade, you know, with a big deck to deck video system and got my dad's finger in front of the lens half the time, you know,

Scott Benner 1:21:12
have you ever heard me tell the story on here where I newly married, and I make this announcement to Kelly one morning that I have this idea for a movie and I'm not going to go to work, I'm going to sit home and write it. And I hash out on there all day. And I hash this all out. I put I've probably put 10 pages together. And she gets home and I'm like, here it is. And she reads it and she goes, have you ever read a Bridge to Terabithia? And I said no. Why she was what you're writing it right now. And I was like, Are you kidding me? It was such a down moment. I had this like this house. And there was a fence in the back and beyond the fence in the woods where blah, blah, blah, doing all this? And she's like, Yeah, that's a book.

Rick Suvalle 1:21:56
And that's, that's the hazard of screenwriting is like every time you have that great idea. Like, as you're starting to execute it, you'll read in the trades that like oh, so and so is making that movie. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:22:08
You always hear about comedians texting each other, like you don't have a joke about like this premise, do you? Because, you know, that's exactly how I felt. And I have to tell you, that really kind of crushed me like because I was like, I only had like this one day, like how many more times is the scroll going to be okay with what I just said to her like, I'm not going to work today, I'm gonna write an idea down. And so and we just like I said, it just there was nobody around us that lived in that space. And so it just felt magical, not not tangible. And anyway, I'm lucky that I got to do any of this stuff. Honestly. That's pretty cool. Well, Rick, I appreciate you doing this very much. I know you can't tell me exactly when when it's coming out. But when people are hearing this podcast, your show will be available on Netflix. Yeah,

Rick Suvalle 1:22:52
they'll be able to find it on Netflix. And I think they're gonna do some kind of big announcement about like Netflix family summer, but that'll already be announced before this. But yeah.

Scott Benner 1:23:02
Oh, that's very cool. Well, when if whenever that announcement comes out, get in touch with me. And I will. I will. We'll put it in the private Facebook group as well and let everybody know what's happening. So awesome. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Maybe we'll get your first 40,000 listeners or viewers. Awesome. That'd be amazing. Better. Very cool to talk to you. Hold on one second for me. Okay. Sure. Thanks.

A huge thanks to Rick for coming on the show telling us about his kids his life and his new show do drop diaries. Don't miss it on Netflix. Not only can you support Ric and the show and type on actors, but get this Rick said he told me online just a couple of weeks ago, if the show gets a second season, he's going to let me be a voice in it. I'm going to be a fairy. I mean, if you guys go watch do drop diaries right now. Get going. What are you doing? Don't you want to hear me be a fairy here. I'll do a line from after the music. I'll do it. I have to thank Omni pod for sponsoring this episode. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box and of course drink ag one.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes. Links at juicebox podcast.com. Okay, I have an idea. Hold on a second. Stay with me.

Okay, I have the trailer here for dewdrop diaries. I'm gonna do some lines from it. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. I guess that's one of the fairies. The fairies got to be an adult here somewhere.

There there's a father he says. Hmm, someone must be looking out for me today. I can do it. Look how good I sounded. Alright, let's keep going. I'm gonna say you're right. Thanks. I can't be a kid. Like my voice is too deep, right? I could be an animal. I can definitely be an animal's voice. What kind of banana nor could I be get dog. Or what else? You guys aren't much help when I can't talk to you directly. There's a baby. How cool would it be if the baby had a really deep voice in its head? Rick? When the when the baby thought to itself he sounded like me. That'd be funny. Hold on, what else do I have here? I don't think I can play a fairy. My voice I can't get my voice that high. I don't think you want that. You want my nice natural voice? I'm gonna have to be a parent. Alright, that wasn't as helpful as I thought. You know what I'll do here? I was like, it's recess restarting. Give me a second. Fairy show. Dialog. Hmm. That's Midsummer Night's Dream. Hold on a second. What's the very famous fairy? The little one Tinkerbell Tinkerbell script there. There we go. To them. Do you do them? Oh, a narrator I can be a narrator for sure. Have you ever wondered how nature gets its glow? Who gives it light and color as the seasons come and go? I can totally do that. I'm like that guy. With the guy. You know what I mean? The books were rhymes. Anyway, I could do that. I could definitely be an animal. I could do narration or I could be a parent. I have an idea. I have to hold on. But it tells you chat TTP, right. A 32nd promo for the new Netflix show. Do drop diaries. Okay. We'll we'll let the robots take care of this. And then this will be my my coming out. Right. So here we go. I don't know if any of this is right. So get ready for a heartwarming journey like no other Netflix presents the highly anticipated series dewdrop diaries. How was that? Then it cuts to a picturesque town it says then the narrator comes back in the charming town of Douville where dreams come to life. Follow the Extraordinary Adventures of four unlikely friends. Meet Lily the curious bookworm ON HOLD ON A tripped up meet Lily the curious bookworm Max the mich. Alright, so my first read Max the what? Max is the mischievious Max the Miss. Okay, Max, the mischievious inventor meow the talented artists and Ben the adventurous nature lover. Join them. By the way. I don't know if any of these names right this Chechi TP could be out of its mind. Join them as they unravel captivating mystery, solve puzzles and discover the magic hidden within their town. With each episode. Prepare for unexpected twists, heartwarming friendships and lessons that will inspire viewers of all ages. Right? binge watch the enchanting series and let your imagination soar. How was that? Was it good? To be honest with me? Could I do this? I feel like I've got a nice secondary income idea here. I can be a voice actor. I would start a bit Hello. Hi, how are you? I'm Scott. What do you do? Oh, I make a podcast and I do I do voice acting? Yes. I'm very famous. I'm gonna do drop diaries. That's how that's how I'm gonna talk to people. If you guys watch do drop diaries and give them a second season. I have to be honest, I just listened back to it. I don't think I should push my voice so hard. Rick, I'm going to need to be directed. That's for sure. I'm I'm a novice, but I'll come around quickly. I just think with a little bit of direction. And just a little prompting and maybe teach me how to sit up straight. And I have this little thing here. My molift gets a little wet. Like if I could figure that out. Right? Right. I just need a little direction. And then I could be the man. I could totally be the baby's voice or the dad or I mean obviously you already have a dad. So you're gonna need a neighbor. Like so get a neighbor. I'm going to be the neighbor. This is it. I love this. You want me to go slower. I can talk slower, Rick up to speed up and be faster. I can do that too. I'm very versatile.

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