Scott Benner 8/8/23 Scott Benner 8/8/23

#971 Chutes and Ladders

Jared's daughter has type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 971 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's podcast I'll be speaking with Jared he is the father of a fairly newly diagnosed child with type one diabetes. And Jared and I spend our hour chit chatting away as we do. 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. We're becoming bold with insulin. And don't forget, if you have the need use the links that the show provides when you're buying on the pod Dexcom going to us med contour meters G voc hypo pen if you're going to drink a G one, if you're gonna buy sheets from cozy Earth, get better Help or visit touched by type one.org. When you click on my links, you're supporting the production of the show and keeping it plentiful and free. And for that, I want to say thank you. Those links are in the show notes of your podcast player. And they exist at juicebox podcast.com. But you'll also hear me say them during the ad so you can just type them into a browser too. There's not enough time left for me to say anything else. So I'll see you on the other side of this

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth cozy earth.com That's the place you go. You get the comfortable sheets, the incredibly absorbent towels, the luxurious clothing, it's all at cozy earth.com. And don't forget to use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off your entire purchase. today's podcast is also sponsored by ag one drink ag one.com forward slash juice box, you can start your day the same way I do with a delicious drink of ag one, take ownership of your health. Try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Once again, my link is drink ag one.com forward slash juice box.

Jared 2:21
My name is Jared I live in northern Colorado. I am the dad and caregiver of an 11 year old diabetic. She was diagnosed a year ago yesterday. So we are right on her diversity outside of diabetes. I I have been a wedding photographer for 10 years. That is has been my main focus in the last year. So I've been working as well, with my wife, we own two businesses, we own a small law firm as well. And we're expanding that law firm. So I've stepped in to a role there as well to help on the business side of things. So that's what I do for work. For fun. I'm a you know, pretty authentic Colorado and I like to cycle and hike and mountain bike and do a lot of things outdoors. That's that's what I do for fun.

Scott Benner 3:10
I was gonna say you don't live there if you don't want to do those things. Yeah,

Jared 3:13
that's true. That's true. I'm born and raised in Florida. So I'm not native color. I didn't grow up in this area. I came to the west some cheese let's see here 2020 ish years ago, and I lived in Utah for a short period of time. And then after college, my wife and I said we wanted to stay in the mountains. But we didn't necessarily want to stay in Utah and kind of where we were we decided to go

Scott Benner 3:33
where to where did the two of you meet?

Jared 3:35
We met Believe it or not in middle school. We've been together forever. So we we met in seventh grade English class doing a Shakespeare play. And and didn't date until high school and then starting our junior in high school we dated exclusively and we've been together ever since

Scott Benner 3:57
amazing. And for people listening. You're a handsome man, this isn't like a situation where like, I hooked one early Scott and I didn't have any other options. I just had to keep going.

Jared 4:11
While when when I found that, you know, to be honest, I've only had to use my second girlfriend my entire life, which is kind of unusual to find someone that you work so well with. So early on. But I kind of have a theory here I believe that we we kind of raced each other. So we kind of you know a lot of the thoughts in the in the way that we arrive at those thoughts. We learn that together in a lot of ways. So it's a really good, good relationship.

Scott Benner 4:38
It's interesting because a therapist will tell you that it will go one of two ways. And my wife and I have had a similar situation like our lives were such disasters, when we met each other and we grew up in in households where neither of our personalities was the norm, I think is I think that's a very nice way of saying that and And so you kind of meet a person who's in your mind. Reasonable. And you know, and you get together. And then you realize all of the things that no one taught you when you were a child, and you do start to almost, I don't know, assist each other, like as you figure the things out, and then when you get older like this, I don't know, there's a comfort level, that's just like, I mean, I know when she's gonna sit before she does, you know what I mean? And, like, she knows little things about me, like, I would never figure it like, she's like, sometimes when you get irritated, you stomp your foot. And she's like, it's not like, cartoonish, like, you don't pick your knee up your face and go damn it, you know, like she has, it's just this very light, like, you pick your foot up on the election, you tap it when you're, and I was like, for years, I'm like, You're out of your mind. I don't do that. And then one day, I caught myself doing and I was like, Oh, my God. And then I started thinking about all the little things about her that I know. And I was like, Oh, God, I can't even let her out of this house. If she if she turns on me, Jared, what am I gonna do?

Jared 6:03
That sounds familiar. For sure. She has

Scott Benner 6:05
the whole playbook. Amazing and actually made me the most amazing thing is that apparently, you had a girlfriend before her? That's true. When did you? When did you start macking on the ladies when you were six?

Jared 6:16
Oh, my goodness. You probably think I'm younger than I am. To be honest. I look, I look pretty young. But um, let's see here. We did get married very young. I am about I turned 38 year pretty soon. And we started dating when we were 16 and 17.

Scott Benner 6:32
Wow, that's something years ago. Well, congratulations. How many kids? Yeah, we have two kids two. Okay. And you're one with type ones. How old? I'm sorry. She is 1111. And the reason that I leave in the story about my illness in the beginning is because we were going to we were going to record yesterday on the anniversary of her diagnosis. And then I moved it so that Arden could do something that she didn't end up doing. So now I'm recording 19 Times today to make up for that. I think I will be taking a I'll be taking a shower and a bucket between the recordings today.

Jared 7:10
How many how many interviews are you doing today? I

Scott Benner 7:12
have to do three today now because of because I was like I squished everything onto this day. Don't worry. You'll never notice if I got through the G voc thing. I'll be okay with this.

Jared 7:22
I'm guessing I'm your first year the first Yeah, yeah, I

Scott Benner 7:25
tried to sneak in some sleep. Late sleep this morning because Arden was up late with illness. And so we were up helping her anyway.

Jared 7:34
It's art an art at home for a holiday break. She in between semesters. Got some Yeah,

Scott Benner 7:38
her school does quarters instead of semesters. So one of the breaks the one at Thanksgiving, actually last two months. Nice. Yeah. So she came home right before Thanksgiving. And she won't go back until it's not quite too much. We'll go back like January 6, I think I have to drive her back.

Jared 7:56
So I think this whole two week, this whole two weeks, going back after Thanksgiving before Christmas break is pretty useless anyway, so it probably should just extend the breaks.

Scott Benner 8:05
It's the college equivalent of high school when they give you off for days and make you come back Friday. And they're like we need the day for the like, just let me figure it out better than that. Right. But okay, so was there anything about your daughter's diagnosis that was expected as are autoimmune and your family or any other type one or anything like that?

Jared 8:24
No, absolutely not. I mean, at least as far as we know, I would say since the diagnosis, you know, we've dived into the history a little bit more, and a few things have stood out on my wife's side. Her mom and one or two of her sisters have some thyroid issues. But But no, nothing that is ever severe. Nothing that was ever really discussed. It definitely took us by surprise. We We honestly thought that she was just about to enter period, her her puberty and starter period or cycle and, and she had lost a little bit of weight and was emotional. But But again, I don't think that's all that unusual for an 11 year old. And so we did not expect it at all. The first sign that stood out to us was her just falling asleep a random times during the day essentially like she was just utterly exhausted. And she was having a hard time. A hard time staying awake at school. And she had gone into the nurse's office a couple of times. And they had just let her sleep like on the on the bed. They're in the nurse's office. And then they'd call us and say hey, we we think you really need to take better care of your take care better. You're up all night what's going on type of thing. Yeah. And in the first time I didn't pick her up the second time that happened. I wouldn't picked her up and I was like, Hey, what's going on? She's like, I don't know. I'm just just completely tired. I can't keep my eyes open type of thing. And but after she took that power nap, she was fine. She was likely again and So it wasn't super clear. But then we, we were, we had picked her up earlier that day, we were doing a little bit of shopping. And we were just at a hardware store at Lowe's. And we're sitting there looking at rugs of all things. And anyways, I look back and she's like preparing herself to take a nap on the floor in the aisle at the hardware store, like she's sitting on the ground, starting to like slowly slouched down, and, and thank goodness, it wasn't just me there because I probably would just kicked her under the bed get up, you know, and we thought much of it. But my wife her, I don't know motherly instincts, or whatever you call it. She was like, something's definitely going on here. And I didn't recognize that first. And, you know, so we went back home and got the kids ready for bed. And as they were taking their baths and showers, my wife noticed that my daughter's skin looked great. Just had some Yeah, just looked off. And I think it was just from the dehydration is what I would imagine it was mostly from and we have a we have a pretty good relationship with our, with our doctor. And so we just sent him a text message saying, hey, you know what, you have any thoughts about this? And he was immediately concerned and said, Yeah, I'd recommend taking her into er and have that look at that's, that's something's going on. Something's off. And, and so we took her into the ER, I stayed home with our son, my wife took her in. And just like a lot of ers took, you know, two hours for them to be able to see her. But then as soon as they did see her they they did a they did some labs, I think they did a urine and blood test, and immediately came back. And actually when they came back with those lab results, they came back letting us know, we got a helicopter on its way we got to take her we can't we can't help her right now in our current state. So as they came back to tell us that she was not in good shape. The helicopter was on its way. My wife then called me I hopped in the car and ran to the ER and I got there right there strapping her down to a gurney to put her on her helicopter. Wow.

Scott Benner 11:54
She's and somebody tells you here's we figured out what's wrong with you. And we've called for air support. You think we're in trouble? Like that's not Yeah, that's not a that's a panic situation. For sure.

Jared 12:08
It was terrifying. And like I said if it if it wasn't for my wife, I think I would have just said hey, let's let's let her sleep through this the night and see. See how she's doing the next morning?

Scott Benner 12:21
All right, listen, I need to be honest. I've never seen a rib knit boyfriend sleep dress before. But I'm looking at one now on cozy earth.com And I have to admit if I was a lady, I think I'd be sleeping in this. It is made with viscose bamboo just like my sheets and I'm trying to imagine what would happen if I hid my sheets wrapped around me. Oh, I think it sounds wonderful. Okay, you should check it out cozy earth.com There's a ton of great women's wear at cozy Earth. There's a beautiful boardwalk breeze dress lounging T and sweat pants or shorts pajamas. And there's terrific stuff here for the men to shorts, pajamas, pullovers, and you guys know I love the joggers. I can't stress enough that you should check out the clothing. But the towels and the sheets are unmatched cozy earth.com use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off your entire order. Cozy Earth also has socks, sleep masks, scrunchies and dryer balls, dryer balls. Nevermind, I actually use dryer balls. I don't want to make it into a joke but I use dryer balls on my dryer you could do because the earth.com use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off your entire order. Seriously, go check it out. It's fantastically comfortable and luxurious stuff. And I think you're gonna love it. First thing this morning, I wandered downstairs, I took out my ag one cup, a cup. No, no, that's the thing. I put water in it when he wanted it. I shake it, shake it, shake it. I drink it out. Whatever you want to call that thing I grabbed that I put into nice cold water, a delicious scoop of ag one and I was on my way. At first I had to remind myself in the morning to drink at one. But after a while it just becomes a habit. That is a great part of my day. It's tasty. And it goes down really smooth. And I've told you in the past I've tried other drinks for my nutrition and my vitamins and they tasted horrible. Seriously, I've tried a number of them. They were garbage. I couldn't take them. I couldn't choke them down. Ag one. I just drink it and I'm done. It's easy drink a G one and you're done. Oh, they should have called me when they were looking for marketing. Nevermind they did drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. When you use my link, you're gonna get a free a free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order when you use my link drink ag one.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast There are links in the show notes of your audio player and links at juicebox podcast.com. To ag one cozy earth and all the sponsors, please, please click on my links, use the offer codes. It supports the show. All right, let's get you back to Jared. But first let me say this one more time. dryer balls

Jared 15:34
yeah, that's I'm very glad that, that we didn't do that because I don't know what would have happened to me. She may have made it she may not have you know,

Scott Benner 15:42
do you carry guilt about that? Or do you able to let go of it? Initially, I

Jared 15:45
carried a ton of guilt about it. I don't I don't know if I carry too much. Now. Maybe to some extent, but initially I was a mess. Because I kept having this. This reoccurring thought that man if I would have put her to bed, I would have come back to potentially a dead child the next morning. I went okay. And and, and I was were because both my wife and I are self employed. We don't have traditional insurance and so finances and insurance and hospitals and doctors and all that stuff. It's always just a giant pain in the ass to, to work through. And and so I'm always conscientious of that and conservative of that and trying to be like, well, let's, you know, let's let's give it a little bit of time before we before we jump into this. And again, I'm glad glad we did. And I'm glad that we had the insight to do that. That's something

Scott Benner 16:30
do you think about your other child now? Does it worry you? Or does it seem like a one off? And it's not in your head?

Jared 16:37
Yeah, no, we're definitely he's he's it's so interesting because Evelyn our daughter, the diabetic she she's never been had sweet tooth or anything like that. And but our son is always been the kid who finds a bag of candy is going to devour the whole thing in one sitting and stuff. And I know that has nothing to do with with type one, but and we actually have a family history of type two. And I always have thought about that with with Peter and with his sweet tooth, just being conscientious and careful with his health. But we've gone and had him tested and he doesn't show any of the markers. And so, you know, knock on wood, who knows what will happen with the future. But as of right now, it doesn't appear as though there's any concerns and we, the two of them are very close. And he just out of love and sympathy will have her check his blood sugar when she checks her sometimes. And like when she was first diagnosed, and she was struggling with giving herself the injections. He would do saline injections with her and stuff like that. So he's he's a good supporter.

Scott Benner 17:35
No kidding. It's interesting, because something like diabetes, it gives us one hair, it takes one or the other. Like you become more aware of your health. And I think to some degree, people can become resilient because of it. And there's a number of kinds of good things that come from it. But obviously, nothing you wouldn't trade away not to have it but the to me one of the one of the real things it takes away is that ability to live your life believing that you're going to be the 95 year old guy on the news smoking cigarettes for your birthday, like you know, Jared slid the 95 and I don't know if you know this, but he still gets high every day and blah blah blah and like they can they put them on the news. They're eating cake with a fork and

Jared 18:18
the random the random interviews with 101 year old lady Yes, chocolate cake and cigarettes is what did it for.

Scott Benner 18:24
We all think that's how we're we all think that's gonna be us when you know, in reality that ladies on the news because she's easy to find, because she's the only one. But like you have you lose that ability to just let your life unfold in front of you. And, and I am I hate I hate that. I hate that. I mean, like, don't get me wrong, like, I think I'm going to live longer. Because I pay more attention to things. I think I'm going to be healthier as I go. But there's part of me that's like, I can't believe I didn't just get to be one of those people who like, pops up in the morning that's like, going to work and everything's fine and doesn't think about stuff like this, you know,

Jared 19:03
it's definitely caused me to pause a little bit and think a bit more about mortality. There's definitely no doubt about that. I mean, being so close to, you know, to death, essentially with one of my kiddos and who literally that same day she went school and had, you know, took her nap in the nurse's office. We, you know, we obviously weren't concerned we were shopping at Lowe's just a few hours before they're taken away on a helicopter, you know? Yeah. So it definitely, definitely caused me to pause and think a little bit more about that for sure. The fact that I have family history with type two, my grandfather, my dad, and my brother who's only four years older than I am all have type two. i She's almost 10 ish years ago, made a conscientious effort to dive into understanding type two kind of as a preemptive to avoid it on my own and changed the way that I ate and changed the way that essentially I live in an effort to kind of avoid that as best as possible. And so in a in a roundabout way, our kids had been exposed to a lot of the adjustments that we chose to make with Evelyn they had already been exposed to because I had made some of those changes for myself. I tested my own blood sugars and ketones for geez, two or three years, almost daily, trying to be conscientious and aware of how certain foods affected me and things like that. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 20:20
guess when three people in your pretty immediate family start acquiring type two diabetes, you're like, oh, geez, it's gonna happen to me.

Jared 20:26
When it when it happened to my brother, and he's only a few years older than I am. Yeah, it was definitely a kind of a wake up call for me.

Scott Benner 20:32
Well, that's good. I mean, at least you were moving in that direction when this happened to Avalon? How did she handle it? So young age?

Jared 20:40
Yeah, I think kids are amazingly resilient. Like if I would have gotten this right now. I think it would destroy me a lot of ways. She has been amazingly resilient from the management of the actual blood sugar itself. She's amazing. She's truly incredible at it, she doesn't, she has the patience and understanding to do all the right things that she needs to be doing and really hurt her blood sugar's are just phenomenal. Emotionally, it's still a heavy burden and wait for her. And I think it will be forever. I don't imagine that that will ever stop. I actually this morning on our way to school, I was asked her how she was how she was feeling with that. And she was like, it's, it's good. And it just is what it is, you know, and it's, it's just shifted the way that she thinks about herself, I think, to some extent, so from an emotional standpoint, I think it's going to be a long road of recovery. From a actual management of the diabetes standpoint, I think she's well on her way, I would feel confident, taken off for a weekend and just let her be.

Scott Benner 21:45
Yeah. And there's a I mean, it's obvious, there are two important ideas there. But I take your point, it's, it's almost like, you're gonna watch like a documentary about a part of the world where they've been at war for so long, that they're walking to school. And there are people in the streets carrying rifles and rockets fly over their head. And they're just like, Oh, you mean like another one? Yeah, they're just a rocket. Whereas, you know, if you were wandering through downtown Colorado, and, you know, a Patriot missile went over your head, you'd be, you know, you'd be in the sewer hiding. And I think that about diabetes Sometimes, though, like, just because you seem calm, and you're like, oh, this thing is happening. It doesn't mean that it's not a terrible thing that's happening, it just means that you are, you are a survivor, and you are oddly adapted. Finding a way to live your life even though everything around you is kind of a disaster. You know,

Jared 22:41
I think I think the word zone is a phenomenal metaphor, because you really are on a daily basis. No 11 year old should be making decisions that could greatly affect their mortality. But a lot, you know, but she is, you know, she ignores this for a couple of days, she's going to be sick, she miss doses too much, or whatever, this is going to create some complications for her. And she's, she's very much aware of that

Scott Benner 23:02
watching with I mean, if this is the flu, which makes sense to me, if it is, you know, we're we last night like we all went to her room, and we were like, well watch TV with you are watching season two of only murders in the building something we had watched before she went away to college together, and we're like, well, we'll continue watching something together. And, you know, her blood sugar was just like, I don't know, it was just so difficult. Like over like, we I must have given her and she gave herself like, while we were sitting together. I don't know, we must have given her 15 units of insulin to try to move her blood sugar. 60 points, you know, and I was like, hey, Bolus again, she's like, okay, you can feel it. Like in the Okay, it's God, I'm sick. I can't believe I have to do this. But it never comes out. It doesn't show on her face. It's just this little pause and she just handles it. And it's something you know, I did a good job once of hiding my age. When you call close a, a hardware store. I could hear my grandmother in my head going. These stores are going to ruin this town. Because there was a hard when I when I was a kid, my grandmother went to a hardware store. It was just this little place old school. Yeah. And you call it a hardware store. And I didn't push back and I was so proud of myself.

Jared 24:20
Well, what would you call Lowe's? I think it's on the title, right? Lowe's hardware, something like that. But yeah,

Scott Benner 24:25
listen, it's a hardware store. But I am I am programmed not to give it that respect. Like seriously, like, that's the place that came and ruined the town. Like, I'll tell you that. When I was like, I don't even know 14. They were breaking ground in this town that my grandmother lived in on a 711. And she went on for 20 minutes when we drove past that how that was going to be the end of this place. And that, you know, on that land, there's a dairy farm. And I was like, I know and she's like, and you used to and I could remember like We used to as a kid, we would drive to this place is five minutes from where we lived. And a person would give you milk that I'm swear to you, they just brought out of the cow, like five seconds before they still warm milk and the cows, like enjoy it. And then they're putting the 711 there, she was just like this is it right here. This is the beginning. And I was like, Okay, so anyway, I can't think of going against my grandmother and her militants stance against I

Jared 25:31
don't think I've ever I've never lived in a small enough town that ever had that transition. Yeah, that feeling Yeah, that she

Scott Benner 25:38
lived in a place where there was a hardware store and a diner, and everybody drove a Ford car, because there was a Ford dealership on the edge of town. Like it was that simple, you know? Anyway, I don't know, that just made me think of something else that now slipped out of my head. But it'll it'll come back to me where I thought, Oh, God, I'm old. I forget exactly what it was. Anyway, so she's doing well with it. You guys. Okay, does did the under trying to understand diabetes thing? Was it a team effort between you and your wife? Or did you find it go into one person or the other.

Jared 26:11
So we've found so that, so the first month was miserable. And I think that is probably true for most, I felt like, you know, we went into the hospital, and they told us, Hey, your kid almost died. But no worries, we've stabilized or Now go home type of thing. Like, that's what it felt like. And, you know, the education was, you know, mid COVID. And so this is, you know, quick half day. Very, very basic training. And, and one of the challenges that kind of frustrated us a bit with the training, as well as we had four or five different instructors teaching us and they were all covering the exact same information. So one would leave next one come in for their their portion, and they would just cover the exact same thing, or they would contradict one another. It was just like, super frustrating. super frustrating. And so you know, going home with our paper, and pen, and meter and strips, and you know, that basically, you know, we didn't go home with a CGM, we didn't go home with any sort of pomp or any anything of that sort. And trying to be trying to be a good dad, you know, I, I initially was probably very type A trying to watch her numbers very closely. And it just felt initially hopeless in a lot of ways. I found myself getting down in the dumps. And I was trying to trying to be a good example and trying to not bring her down. She's the one having this experience. Why am I feeling like when she she's the one that should be. And I actually went up one night, middle of the night, which is on the computer, I don't know, just killing time. And on some dads helping dads Facebook page, I posted some, probably some depressing rant of sorts about how horrible things were. And another dad reached out to me privately and said, Hey, my son was diagnosed four months ago. You know, let me let me talk you through this, things will get better, you know, and, and that Dad and I have become really good friends. I mean, we've never had a chance to meet in person, but just Facebook friends where we chat back and forth regularly still to this day. And he is who introduced me to, to the podcast, to juice box and to some other resources. And once I was initially, given those resources, diving into them entirely, is what alleviated that depression. And that kind of anxiety that I was feeling at that time, it allowed me to feel a sense of, oh, I can do this look, this guy can do it, I can do it type of type of thing. It gave me a sense of not everything's out of control, you can actually legitimately control this if you follow these steps. And understanding and learning those steps became kind of my number one priority for a period of time there where I just dived in as much as I could and absorbed as much as I could. And that is really where the difficulty and challenges of diabetes, that's kind of where they were alleviated. And I just I felt like oh, cool, we can do this. Yeah, the

Scott Benner 29:09
diagnosis is, it's like Chutes and Ladders, right? Like you, you're living in this reality for as long as you are. And then in a split second, you're just on another part of the board. And it's completely foreign. It's not what you planned for. It literally is like, it's the first time that's ever occurred to me like that. It just, it feels like someone picked you up on Earth and put you down on Mars and said, just keep going. Like you don't We don't even have a second here, you know, so and

Jared 29:39
I honestly think a lot of at least from my observations, watching other parents who posted in the community and things like that. I often think that they are still living in that state that I felt like I was in for that first month, that state of hopelessness that we can't control this and that we're just throwing darts at the wall hoping that something sticks and I think a lot of people live there. For a long period of time, some probably their entire life, they probably never fully feel like they have a sense of control over it. And I don't want to give like the miss the Miss. Kind of the impression. I should say that, that diabetes is completely controllable. It's not there's days where you absolutely are doing, you know, chasing highs and lows and things are completely out of control. But but for the most part, I feel like if you follow these 10 or 15 Steps pretty closely, you're gonna see a massive improvement. Yeah.

Scott Benner 30:27
So I think that were, I think, why, why the reason why my thing spread the way it did, is because I was able to separate those two ideas. I people in the space would commingle them all the time, they'd say, Well, diabetes is unpredictable, so therefore, it's just going to be crazy. And I would look at it and think, yeah, that's true. But like you said, sometimes, not constantly. And honestly, if you do these couple of things, the crazy days are much fewer than the, than the reasonably stable days.

Jared 31:03
And, and the level of crazy changes greatly. Like for now, you know, a 200 is crazy for me if we get up in the 200. Okay, we got to really take some action here and get this all taken care of. I don't think she's been in the 300 since her diagnosis, because we've we've brought that down, you know, so the crazy changes, you're not seeing swings up into three, four hundreds, really ever

Scott Benner 31:24
instead of instead of, you're exactly right. When people like oh my god, we had a high blood sugar today. And they mean like 380 400, like it was their Dexcom is just like that flat dots across the top. go any higher. And yeah, I just I don't know what happened. I just, I'm glad it's resonating for you. But I don't know, I just I spent the time and I broke it down, like kept breaking it down. And I was like, well, it's gotta Pre-Bolus You got to understand the food, you have to be flexible. You can't stare at highs, like, you know, like, you can't over treat lows. And then I was like, Oh, God, I think that's it. But like, I think I used to joke all the time, like the podcast should be one episode long, 10 minutes. And but nobody would listen, they'd be like, that doesn't make sense. That would be the end of it. Like you have to kind of get, I don't know, you need a tour guide to just sort of walk you through it. You know,

Jared 32:17
I think I think the podcast for most people speaking for myself, and I would imagine this resonates for most people, it is just very comforting to know you're not alone. And you feel incredibly isolated when you first get this even even family who you know, is trying to care and show their love and support and stuff. They're not living it in and out on a daily basis. And so there's just still this feeling of isolation, I think, initially, and having someone you know, thank goodness, you know, the friend, his name's Kyle, thinking, as Kyle was there to reach out to me. And we could, anytime I came across anything, I just shot him a quick message. And he responded immediately. And we just had this constant ongoing thing. And he's only handful of months in front of me with his son. But I think the the, the podcast allows you to hear other people who are challenged in the same way and it just feels comforting to know that you're not completely it's the

Scott Benner 33:11
difference between being plopped down on Mars in the middle of a dust field and being popped down on Mars where six other people were plopped down who has built houses and somehow own a Tesla now, you know, and be I guess Elon Musk shot it there for them. But, but but but, uh, you mean like, you're like, oh, look, this isn't what I wanted. And it's not what I expected. But apparently, this works, you know, like, I just, there's something I don't know, I'll figure it out and move on and in to your earlier point. And how when people don't find that information, they can just get stuck in the loop. Because I mean, think of it like we're not You haven't said what hospital you went to. But if you're in Colorado, you're probably in a pretty good children's hospital. And, and to say that somebody came in the room and said one thing and the second person came in and contradicted them. If you're not of the mindset of I'll take this over. You can be stuck there forever. Hmm, it really is that simple. I've, I've been good.

Jared 34:08
I'm just gonna say I mean, with our initial diagnosis, we had 10 days worth of ongoing communication with the doctor nurse that was assigned to us. And on the 10th day, she gave us our new Basal rates, and she disappeared. And that was the end of it. Yeah, that was that was the whole thing. And in this year, we've only gone back twice. And it's really because we go back and it's like, we don't need to be here. This is kind of a waste of everyone's time. So can we do this remotely? Can we just can we just email back and forth and make sure we're on the same page and get the prescriptions we need to get? And luckily we found some an endo that's that is respectful of that. And it's like, yeah, you guys are doing great. Just yeah. What do you need essentially,

Scott Benner 34:48
I think that can be comforting to people to know that it can get to that point like I college food used more insulin than I expected it to. And so Arden was going to run out of insulin at college and like contacted the doctrines like I just need you to send a script to where artists at school. And she goes, I can't do that. You haven't been here in a year. And I'm like, wait, we haven't. And I didn't even know. I was like, Oh, I'm sorry, I made an appointment, you know? And I said, Okay, now, can you send a script on? And, but that's it. I mean, that's my, it's my fault. It's our fault for not scheduling something, but it was the, you know, not to explain it. But when you go into when you really just

Jared 35:26
need to send them clarity, and they're just gonna look at that. And that's the end of when you can do much in a visit.

Scott Benner 35:32
When you go into the office, the person at the desk on the way out, says, Hey, why don't you rebook your next one? I go, okay, because I'm a boy. And I'm like, Oh, that makes sense. And if the person wouldn't say that, as I was leaving, I gotta be honest, I don't think I'd book an appointment. So we were getting off these virtuals. And nobody was there to say, when do you want to come back? And that's it. I just was like, Yeah, but to know that could happen, I think is probably comforting for people as well. I have to tell you, I remembered the second time I made myself sound old.

Jared 36:04
You're acting like you're 75 or something.

Scott Benner 36:06
I'm a generation older than you stop it. I said Patriot missiles. Those are like, war tools from the 80s. I don't even imagine they make those anymore. And I know that's a weird thing. But when I said that, I was like, those exist anymore.

Jared 36:22
Anyway, well, I didn't know a patriot. I thought you were just being patriotic or something.

Scott Benner 36:28
was actually the were missiles during I think the I don't know, it's not the point. But when I was younger, if you turned on the news, people were shooting Patriot missiles at each other. And I and now I know it made me think I don't even care about warfare. But now when we're done talking, I'm gonna find out if that's a standard weapon or something, I don't even care. And I want to know, I just want to know how old I am. Anyway, so what, what, what gear has your daughter been using for this first year? Yeah, so

Jared 37:02
we started out just with a pen and and a meter, of course. And then after probably two or three months, we were able to get her on a Dexcom, which truly was a life changer. I mean, it really was I, I think that every single kid should be leaving their diagnosis with a Dexcom attached to them. And I'm also, as I mentioned, because we're both self employed, insurance and stuff is tricky, peeved that they charged $90 per finger prick. For every 30 minutes the entire time we were in the hospital instead of slapping a Dexcom on to her while she was in there. But it is what it is. Yeah, every single time they came in every single Yeah, if you I broke down our bill, because we had to based off of how we're paying for it. And every 30 minutes, they were required to take her blood sugar. And that was a $90 charge to come in and prick her finger and record that data. And I'm thinking to myself, Why? Why didn't you just throw a Dexcom on her the moment she came in, like, we need to watch this very closely. And we have a goal of of decreasing this anyway. So I could go off on that rant. Yeah,

Scott Benner 38:05
I think you have your answer from your description.

Jared 38:07
Of course, there's, there's $2,000 worth of fingerprints. And then the next day they say, okay, 11 year old, you're off on your own, you need to do this on your own. But, but so, so Dexcom after two or three months, once we got that sorted. Initially, we were having take care of that out of pocket, but then we were able to get her on some really solid insurance. And then probably six months into it, we got her on the on the button. And that's what she's been on ever since. And I we haven't started looping because I was really hoping to get her on the five. But if we can't get that approved, then I'll probably start looping on my own. Okay.

Scott Benner 38:46
Do you feel comfortable doing that if you have to? Yeah,

Jared 38:49
yeah. Yeah, I mean, I haven't I haven't dived into it. But I've, yeah, I'm not too concerned, to be honest.

Scott Benner 38:54
So I would if you're, it'll be too late by the time it comes out. But I still want to tell people what you did yesterday, which was so nice online, to celebrate your daughter's anniversary? Do you want to tell people how that occurred to you or, or what you wanted to do?

Jared 39:12
You know, we've been thinking of a handful of different ways we wanted to just, I don't know, give solace to this day, or to her one year diagnosis and just kind of pause and, and make sure that that we're doing something special for the community for our daughter. And just, I don't know, just a way to kind of think about this day because it really is a day that changed everyone's life in this home. And so, I am a wedding photographer, but I have done landscape photography for the photos for some time. And so I thought, hey, these photos don't really get much I don't sell any of these because I don't market myself as a landscape photographer, anything. These photos don't really get much traction with them. Let me see if people would enjoy this. So I posted in the community on my page on a handful of different pages, kind of a post sharing how awesome my kiddo is and celebrating this one year and then also letting people know if they would like to order These prints with the holidays coming around, they'd be great gifts, and that 100% of the proceeds would be going to touch by type one, which is a great organization that I feel like, helps a lot of people. And so that's why they posted in the community looks. And we've had, I've been watching it super closely, but a dozen or so purchases come through already. So once we're done with that will fulfill all those orders and all the all the proceeds will be donated.

Scott Benner 40:23
Oh, that's really it was really nice. I got a poster size image of one of your flight time, I thought your nighttime photography was really exceptional. And I don't know, I had trouble picking. I started sort of going through and I'm like, I don't know, where I would put all these I'm at the give that one to somebody. And yeah, but I just thought that was that was really nice. You know, I know, it's probably not, um, it's not like a million people are gonna buy a photo, and it's gonna decimate you or something like that. But the idea of doing it, of not just saying, hey, here, I want to celebrate my daughter today. But I have a thing that I could I could maybe give back here with that I think you people might enjoy on top of that. Oh, it just struck me really well. And then it made me I almost didn't see it. And I started thinking like, I don't know what Facebook has to do to figure it out. But I run a I run out like a vibrant Facebook page, and how can I get tagged in something and not know it exists? Like there are people who send me messages and like, are you seeing this? Are you seeing that? I'm like, I don't see, I don't know what Facebook does? I don't see, I don't think I see 10% or I get tagged in. So anyway, I thought it was really nice. You're getting tagged

Jared 41:28
in 5060 things a day, probably. So it's probably not easy to follow. It's overwhelming

Scott Benner 41:34
at night before we go to sleep. My wife said what are you doing? I'm I'm just answering people online. It just you know, I've gotten it down to a shorthand at this point I used to when I first wrote my blog, like a person a month would send me an email and say something like, Oh, my God, things are so much better. I wanted to thank you is this usually if people sent the right to an email, it's, it's a it's a lovely thing. You don't want to skim it. You don't I mean? So you're, you're reading it closely. And, and then I'd take time and I'd answer back. But the podcast turned it into like, I started getting one a day. And then now it's, I don't know, 1015 people every day are reaching out to share what's going on with them. And I'm like, This is amazing. And I want to respond and I don't know how to

Jared 42:19
that celebrity status you picked up on for tickets. So yesterday.

Scott Benner 42:24
So this really, so I have a couple of people. I'm very particular about the way things get done, but not in the way that we're you'd be like Scott's a control freak. I'm not I would gladly give away a lot of the things I do every day. Absolutely. What if I had enough money, I'd hire people. But I don't have that money. So I'm, I only can be helped by the people who volunteer their time. And a lot of people have and some of them are, get me. And some of them don't like, like Isabel helps me with the Facebook group. But she's a person who reached out to me. And I was like, I did the same thing I always don't like I'm fine. You're very kind, thank you. But I don't know the rest of that voice in my head is I got this thing here because I do what I want to do when it makes sense to me. It's my vibe, it works if I start bringing in other people's vibes, and then she said just you talk to me and I'll and 20 minutes on the phone with her. And I was like this lady's in my head, like, knows what I'm doing, you know. And I'm like, alright, you can help, which was great, because the Facebook group, if I'm being if I'm being 100% honest, there's sort of like a little triumvirate here, right? Like, I made a podcast, it's great. The podcast, bought out the Facebook group, the Facebook group is huge. But people know it as a Facebook group. They are oftentimes there and don't understand that there's even though the Facebook group is called Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes, people don't recognize that it's for a podcast. So the goal is to take the people from the Facebook group and introduce them to the podcast. And the way I found to do that was to answer questions with links to episodes. And it works except it got so big, that there was a moment where I'm like, Well, I can't do this, you know. And then so Isabelle started helping with it. And it was like it was such a weight was lifted. I was like, This is great. And then it kept growing. And I said first of all, I'm not paying her. She's like, you know, just helping when she can I feel terrible. She calls me boss privately. And I'm like, I'm like And so like when you have something for to do I feel like I can't just say to her, hey, you know what you should be doing right now. Because I don't pay her and be you know, she has a life and everything. But she comes to me one day, and and I and we were talking and I said I wish there were more of you? And she said, Oh I think there are and I was like what and so she pointed out these three people. I mean, I can say their first names because it's Krysta and Nico and Stephanie and she's like these three people would be good at this. And so we reach to them and again with the same amazing offer. Hey for no money. See, if you'd like to help support this thing, and it got easier again, it was it was, it was really terrific. But I can't, like I can't keep up with it. So anyway, I get a note the other day from this person. And she's like, I just recently graduated from like a really impressive college. And I want to help any way I can. And so I had a nice call with a girl named Angela yesterday. She's young, she's like, a year or so older than my son. And she started talking about the podcast. And I swear to you, and she was explaining to me what she sees it as she's just got a master's, and she's getting a master's in public health, I think she wants to go on to become a doctor, like, this girl was an impressive person, you know. And she started talking about the podcast and calling me an innovator, and talking about how it was moving the space in a different direction. And I'll tell you, that was I was I didn't know how to

Jared 45:59
react, I think she's spot on. I think it takes someone who's not completely seeped into the the medical side of things. I don't think an endocrinologist could create a podcast, like what you've what you've done, they have so many rules and, and just guidelines that they have to kind of abide by that it really takes a parent who has lived this experience, to be able to speak to parents who are living that experience, I don't I think I think it'd be almost impossible for for a doctor to have the same level of success that that you've had with the podcast.

Scott Benner 46:33
When I first started, I thought like, Oh, it'll just be parents because I'm a parent. So that's all little care. Then when it went to adults, I was like, This is crazy. And then when type twos who use insulin started showing up, and they were like, hey, the podcast works for me too. And I mean, you have to imagine, I mean, you've listened to enough to know, like, I didn't do this on purpose. Like it was an idea. And I had a hope and a goal. But as it built and turned into what it turned into, it's not like I had some Machiavellian like whiteboard behind me where I was like, first of all, dominate this space. And then I'll do a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, and I'll take over Facebook, and like, you know, like, it wasn't like that. It just kind of worked the way it worked. But to hear her describe what she thought the podcast was, was, I don't know, it was good for me, because I thought even the things I knew, I don't think I can give them the correct way. Because I joke around, and I'm really sarcastic and everything, but I don't have a feeling that I've done some amazing thing. And you should all be walking around thanking me for like, like, I don't feel that way day to day. I'm aware of what it does. But to hear another person and an impressive person explained it back to me. I was like, Wow, I did do that. And then I just didn't I didn't know how to react. So it was this strange thing, you know? Yeah.

Jared 47:46
I think almost, if you were to watch, I think almost all great companies and and organizations, if they are able to create a community that will take them to the next level, you look at some of the greatest marketing companies out there. You look at Harley Davidson, for example, there is a community that they have created. Yeah, they great, great motorcycles as well, or whatever, however you feel about motorcycles, but but more so than the motorcycle more so than the info you're providing. The community that people are able to join and be part of, is really what sets

Scott Benner 48:18
it apart. It's a it's a lifestyle, the motorcycle is and as you're saying that it made me realize that the lifestyle around the podcast is just sort of being healthier and happier with as little effort as possible around diabetes. And, and to have what you talked about earlier. It's just strange to me, like, I mean, it's December right now you and I are talking, I'm winding down like the eighth year of the podcast. And I just hit 800 episodes. And it's odd to me to sit here with a person I don't know, and just hash out a conversation and recognize that I still don't know what this is completely. And a no it was when I was talking to this person yesterday. I don't know if she'd want her name on here. And she started talking about what any way I could fit into the organization. And I laughed and I was like the organization and she goes yeah, I'm like, It's me. And she goes, No, you have people that work for you. Behind the scenes. I was like, no, like, I mean, there's these lovely people that help with the Facebook group, but she was you don't have an editor. I was like, No, and she was you don't have this and I was like no, I was like it's it's all made, like I make the whole thing. And she goes oh, oh, and then she got very like, like, you know, like I'm still sitting there a little beat up for my illness and a sweatshirt like leaning into the camera like she's all upright like she's obviously been on some very professional calls. I'm just leaning over my desktop trying to hold my head up, you know, and I don't know it's just really it was a nice thing that happened yesterday.

Jared 49:43
Well you don't have an editor or whatever while it is may just be just you it doesn't have to be it you certainly could. It has grown to the I would imagine to the point where you know you could outsource some of your editing and whatnot. If you chose to if you wanted to. I had to see that with with my business itself. In a similar fashion, it grew to the point where I had, I was faced with the, essentially, the question is, where's my time most valued? And is that with my wedding photography? Is that camera in hand at a wedding, or is that sitting behind a computer processing these files, and while I can train someone to process these files in a very particular method, and, and, you know, we can work on that over a period of time, for me, that allowed me to then take on another 10 or so events a year, which is really how I make money. And so, for me with with the photography, editing, you know, I've had a full time editor for three years. And that has allowed me to double the amount of work that I take on because I'm not here at a computer.

Scott Benner 50:41
And so I completely agree with that. And I also think that that would allow me to record more. The problem is that me recording more doesn't lead to more income. At some point, there are only certain amount of days in the week, I can only put up a certain amount of episodes, I can only put a certain amount of I mean, I could sell more. I could I could I don't like thinking about this. I can sell more ads if I wanted to. I choose not to. Yeah, so

Jared 51:09
like, but rather than doing more recordings, you may be able to recapture more of your personal time and pursue personal endeavors. Oh, no, it would

Scott Benner 51:16
definitely help my life, don't get me wrong, I could go go for a walk and things

Jared 51:20
like that. So So for example, with me, since I've, since I've changed the way that my business runs, it's allowed me to enjoy summers, I take, you know, in the middle of wedding season, I take almost an entire month off because I don't want to work during that month. And financially, it doesn't impact me because I've made these adjustments. For the month of December, for example, I am doing literally zero bookings, I've done this for like five years, and I block out the entire month and I don't take a single booking and it allows me just to be present with my kids in the summer, when they're home from school, I get to take a month to hang with them. And in the winter Christmas break, I get to just be Mr. Dad, you know, and, and have a have a good time. This is

Scott Benner 51:57
the Colorado and you I bought, I bought out December at the beginning of 2022. And hold on a second 123.

Jared 52:07
And then you made a mistake on

Scott Benner 52:10
1314 1516 1718. Nine, and I'm gonna record 19 times before Christmas. And I somehow set up a recording for two days after Christmas. And that was and now I'm I'm in the position where people are contacting me and want to be on the show. And I'm saying to them like no why it's November, December. I'm telling people can you get back to me in June? Well, I

Jared 52:33
want to say so. I'm trying, I was trying to refresh my memory. When your reminder email came through. Hey, don't forget about our call. I was thinking holy cow. This is It's been a while since I scheduled that. I've tried to pause and remember exactly. When I reached out to you. I feel like it was about three months into her diagnosis four months into her diagnosis. Yeah, that I initially reached out to you. So some seven, eight months ago, maybe longer. I can't recall

Scott Benner 52:58
it. Don't worry, Jared six months from now this will come in. It's the one thing about me that's scheduled. The way you heard that I built the podcast is off of just like, I'm basically a canoe going downstream and there's a fork in the in the stream like every 20 feet, I go left, right left, just sort of how I like do things. But when I took an ad the first time I said to my wife, I sold an ad to these people. There needs to be an episode. They're like, I owe it to them. I'm going to start recording ahead of time. And she's like, can you do that? And I said, Yeah, most of my conversations are incredibly evergreen, and the ones that aren't, I'll just put in in real time. And now I and the other day, the list popped up in front of me. I actually got an email from Steven who's in a terrific episode. And he said, Hey, if you didn't like it, you know, it's cool. And I was like, I'm like, What's he talking about? So I pulled up the queue, my editing queue. And I saw it in front of me on the screen a list of of files. And I thought, oh, that doesn't look right. I don't think I have enough. And so I started counting. And when I got to 70 I was like, I guess I'm okay. Anyway, but part of that is why it's also because I wanted to treat the podcast, like a real podcast. Like, you know, I didn't want to give you an episode a month or one a week. Like it's content. If you there's four week if you want to listen to them, you should and if you don't want to. It's cool, you know, like, like, but it needs to be there. It just occurred to me one day I was I was doing it once a week. And I thought how mad would I be if Howard Stern was on once a week when I was in high school. You know,

Jared 54:38
like, I love I love that you compared yourself

Scott Benner 54:42
just because as a kid as a young person when I needed content he was on every day like it was there and I thought I should treat it like a real thing. Not like a hobby, you know. But anyway, the downside of that is is that I now see my schedule. I'm booked through October version of 2023 already, like every day,

Jared 55:03
yeah, and I mean, content is king in this in the world of entertainment. Fortunately, or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, those who tend to have great success tend to be great at putting out massive amounts of content. And for whatever reason, YouTube with the daily vlogs that certain people went out for for a period of time, they're the number one YouTube channels were the individuals that were somehow able to put out a daily vlog every single day, and create a community around that where people like, like when we were kids, and we'd watched, you know, TV, and we had to log in right after you sit down right at the right time at seven o'clock, my show comes on seven to 730. Don't bother me while I watch it. I think those that create a community that is similar in fashion in the sense that every day on my drive to work, I'm gonna pull up and find Scott's most recent podcasts and listen to it. That's, it's a good thing.

Scott Benner 55:58
I appreciate that. I was talking to the girl yesterday, I told her, I said, I can't believe I do something that I enjoy. That helps people and pays some of my bills. Like as a child, I just thought it was going to work in my uncle sheetmetal shop forever. Like, you know, I was like, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to, I'm going to I have a task, I'll do it. And then I'll build a life outside of that that thing will pay for the life outside of it. That's what I'm going to do. And so I told her, she's like, you're working too hard, she said. And I said, No, I don't think I'm working hard enough. I see. Because I'm 51. And I think you're right, I think I think I've I don't know if I'm moving the needle, but I redirected it in, you know, and people are thinking about things differently now. And it scares me speaking about how social media works, and how content works. Contents, like, think of it as a stone that you need to keep warm. And if you have a flame in your hand, and you can hold it to the stone, the stone stays warm. And the second you take the stone away from the flame. It's ice cold again. And she's like, why like somebody because somebody said to me the other day, why did you put out an extra episode the week of Thanksgiving? And I was said I said well, they needed it right there. I put out an episode about how to handle eating that day. Yeah. And and she's like, but as well as many people listen to it. And I said, I don't know, probably not. And then I but but I think that's where it's needed. And so I went back and looked at Thanksgiving, and they're not real by the way, Thanksgiving. For people who don't make content or use the internet for what they were. It's one of the deadliest weeks online. Like it just it just it man, people disappear that week. And I was only down a couple of 1000 downloads a day that week. So it held up and, and I and then so I said this the person in my life, I said see there is a desire for the content there. Everyone else stops doing it because they've been told don't bother that day. Nobody. Nobody's gonna listen. But I don't know. COVID told me the opposite. Like when I think

Jared 58:06
that was the only one I listened to last week, ironically. Right? Because it made it seem very, it was a very practical podcast, this is something we're all going to be dealing with this week. Right? Fresh, you know, having a refreshers. Great. I honestly think I may have, yeah, I think I listened. I've listened to it before because it was a repeat, right?

Scott Benner 58:25
It's 30 minutes. And it just it gets you're ready for a day of eating. And it just it's I don't know, I think of it as like when the coach gets everybody on the sideline before the game and gives you like, Let's go kill them talk. And very quietly, because they don't want the parents to hear that they're explaining to your children, how they should turn themselves into guided missiles and go try to hurt somebody. But But yeah, like, like, get out there. This is what we're going to do that way it's fresh in your head when it happens. You're not to stop and think you're like, Oh, the voice in my head told me this earlier this morning while I was ripping up stuff and or something like that. And, and I also sprinkled more Nishi stuff through that week too, because I thought, well, somebody wants this, they'll really want it. And if they don't, I'm not burdening them with content. Anyway, I have a whole theory around it. And it's working out pretty well. But I wanted to be there for people. I think what you talked about earlier around community and stuff like that. That's the part. That's the it's almost the most important. And it's the last thing you think of Right, right. That's very true. Yes. So you kind of have to what I explained to this, this person yesterday who is going to end up helping me with something I said I think that one of the biggest mistakes that content I don't think of myself as a content creator.

Jared 59:38
You're definitely a content creator.

Scott Benner 59:42
I think the biggest mistake that people make when they're creating content around health stuff, is that they deliver information that they believe people want. And I deliver information that I believe that people need. So I take them to some degree it take you guys out of the equation, because I'm assuming you talked about earlier you met a guy, Kyle. Right. Yeah. And he's only four months ahead of you on the path. But still, he's seen every broken branch and pothole and dark corner, and he knows how to turn it around to you and say, Hey, don't step there, step here. And if he was asking you what to do, you wouldn't know because you were behind him. And I, that's how I feel sometimes, like, don't get me wrong, I'll, I'll go online. Some of the best episodes of this podcast for our management are based off of like, people's, like feedback and like, Oh, I do this and this situation, or like how to travel or how to, you know, handle a sick day or something like that. I love going online and getting everybody's thoughts and kind of correlating them and talking about them. But if you just got diagnosed, I mean, flat out, I know more than you do. You're like, I shouldn't be asking you what to do. You know what I mean? So I think that's in a in a time in life where everybody is very, I don't know, careful not to offend anybody. And sometimes offending people can be as easy as telling them something they don't want to hear. I just think that, I mean, listen, between you who were just diagnosed that me, I put me at the head of the path. And so I don't know, I just throw I put out information the way I think it's needed. Yeah,

Jared 1:01:17
I think I think you're you're spot on, I think, with time, just being able to sit with someone who's experienced the same thing, even if it's not sharing specific ideas of how to improve but just sitting with someone who is experiencing the same thing is is hugely helpful. I think, Kyle, and I, you know, he's his sons on on the Omnipod. Five and Evelyn is not so we're a little bit different. But now at this point, what it what it has become as our friendship of just a show me your 24 hour Thanksgiving, your graph, you know, Heck, yeah, we both we we both did it, you know, we both stayed in range, great work, you know, and it's just a way of just keeping up with one another in that way and supporting one another in that way. Right.

Scott Benner 1:02:01
It's listen, I appreciate even for you. I mean, it's obviously not as many men come on as women. And generally speaking, when men come on, they're more conversations like this, because I don't know, you know, there trust me there have been guys on there as in touch with their, with their feelings as anyone's, I mean, Josh has all the feels is one of my favorite episodes. And it's it is a great one. Yeah. And Josh is just Josh is in touch with how he feels. And he's willing to just say it out loud, which is where a lot of guys fall short. Like they have thoughts and feelings, but they're not so open with them. It's hard for me to get men to come on who are just, I don't know,

Jared 1:02:41
I think my wife and I have divided our responsibilities with you asked us earlier and I actually didn't answer it all the way. I handle Evelyn's health 100% in the sense that I'm fully responsible for for making sure she's, you know, she's dosing when she needs to and, and taking care of her meals or whatever is associated with managing your health. And my wife is one 100% responsible for the insurance and dealing with the doctors. And we've split it in that way. I don't want to deal with any of that. I will wake up two or three times every night all year long. So at the end of the year, I don't have to read negotiate our insurance terms. I'm completely content to do that. And that's the way we've divided it. So while my wife I think could very easily step into this role and handle Evelyn's health we've chosen not to we've chosen, responsible don't Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:29
yeah. It makes a lot of sense to me. Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should?

Jared 1:03:35
Nothing specific, I think I think what I was really just wanting the impression I was really hoping just to pass on to the community. It's just a message of hope message that for those that are freshly diagnosed that things absolutely do get better that this horrible experience that they are going through with time will pass and the management of this just like anything else, the more you do it, the more proficient and accurate you're going to be. And just to be patient with yourself to give it time to recognize this isn't going away. So if you screwed up today on the pizza you got tomorrow and work on on figuring out how to dose for that tomorrow and, and slowly, every single day, hone in your process home and hone in your systems hone in whatever it is, until one day it becomes second nature to you. To the point you're not not thinking. It's not taking over all of your mental bandwidth. It is something that is happening and you're aware of it, but it's happening in the background of life. It's not happening in the forefront of life. And I think that that is that will happen quicker, the more that people are willing to dive in and to understand the actual logistics of how to manage this this disease and the sooner they can do that the better. But time heals a lot of a lot of this as well. And just naturally over time. I think a lot of those a lot of that will just become easier and it won't be The main thing that you're you're thinking about

Scott Benner 1:05:02
in the beginning, it's hard to believe that you'll be the line leader one day. Right? Where all the way in the back and you feel like I don't, where are we going? I hope someone knows. And then one day, you'll just, you'll be the person who's everybody's behind you. And it just works.

Jared 1:05:15
And I'd love just to remind people again, just keep it simple. And what I mean by that is, you know, get your basil honed in, if you get your basil really honed in your life is tons easier. And that was a huge thing for me. And it fluctuates, too. I mean, it's not, you know, my daughter can go anywhere from nine units a day to 18 units a day. And it fluctuates based on her health and you know, with, you know, your daughter getting the flu, she's probably going to require a little bit more, and you're going to be conscientious of that, as she's getting sick.

Scott Benner 1:05:44
arted had 200% of her Basal rate from 8pm Last night till six in the morning.

Jared 1:05:50
Yeah, I wish that Dexcom allowed you to go over the, or, excuse me, Omnipod allows you to go over 90% Temp Basal, because oftentimes, you want to experiment with that, but then just change your Basal profile, not not a huge issue, but get you get your Basal profile honed in. And, you know, we we try to be as bold while maintaining responsibility as we possibly can. And it's hugely helpful. And then the last thing is, we have you know, the Pre-Bolus is huge timing is almost as impactful as the quantity of insulin you're giving, it almost truly is. In our home, the rule that we've kind of put is 20 minutes, unless you hit 75. And then you can go ahead and eat. And that has worked really, really well for us.

Scott Benner 1:06:34
When I was a college. She's like, I'm Pre-Bolus. And I'm like It's not long enough. And she's like, yes, it is. And she got home. And for the first couple days, she's like, Oh, look at my blood sugar. I'll handle it. And one day I said to her, Look, you did a great job. She really did. I think you did a marvelous job at school for your first time. We just have to make a couple of like fine tunings here. And so she had this big meal once and I said, Why watch, let me Bolus for this meal. And then she didn't spike and I succeed, you just You're not Pre-Bolus and long enough. And she's like, Oh, okay. And then but it was kind of under her breath she was. So I take your point, I think it's, I think what you just said, is right. And also I feel like you're repeating something I've said, so it feels weird to agree with it. But

Jared 1:07:18
that's probably where I came up with the idea. But we're a big fan as well as eating our meals kind of in a particular way. This morning, her daughter wanted some Christmas candy she got from her Advent or whatever. And, and she ate it first before she ate her breakfast. And although she dosed for it, because of the order that she consumed it, we saw a spike that I don't think we would have saw if she would have eaten her normal breakfast first and then eating the chocolate on the tail end of it.

Scott Benner 1:07:42
Right. Also, when you come out of come out of sleep. There's a lot of impacts in the morning, too. But alright, I'm gonna let you go. But I have to ask you first Why do you have a nice microphone and headphones?

Jared 1:07:51
So I in the in the photography industry, I'll do podcasting and stuff as well. Yeah, I haven't done it as much in recent years. But years back, we had a large community where we create education, about 250,000. Members and and I was doing a weekly online livestream, where I was interviewing people in a similar fashion.

Scott Benner 1:08:13
Oh, that's cool. Sounds terrific. So more people should have podcasts that they sound good on my podcast. That's what I want. All right, Chad, hold on one second for me. Okay. Yeah.

A huge thanks to Jared for a a huge thanks to Jared for coming on the show today and telling us your story. I also want to thank cozy Earth and remind you to use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. And don't forget, drink a G one.com. Forward slash juice box. When you make your first order at my link, you're also going to get five free travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D. And if you already use a G one, but you didn't sign up through my link, you can switch the mind and support the podcast. Do it, won't you? Please thank you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Once there was a time when I just told people if you want a low and stable a one C just listen to the Juicebox Podcast. But as the years went on, and the podcast episodes grew, it became more and more difficult for people to listen to everyone. So I made the diabetes Pro Tip series. This series is with me and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a certified diabetes care and education specialist. She is also a registered and licensed dietitian and a type one herself for over 30 years and I of course am the father of a child who was diagnosed at age two in 2006. The Pro Tip series begins at episode 210 with an episode called newly diagnosed They're starting over and from they're all about MDI Pre-Bolus Singh insulin pumping, pumping and nudging variables exercise illness, injury surgeries glucagon long term health bumping and nudging how to explain type one to your family. Postpartum honeymoon transitioning all about insulin Temp, Basal. These are all different episodes setting your Basal insulin, fat and protein pregnancy, the glycemic index and load and so much more like female hormones and weight loss. Head now to juicebox podcast.com. Go up in the menu at the top and click on diabetes pro tip. Or if you're in the private Facebook group, there's a list of these episodes right in the feature tab. Find out how I helped keep my daughter's a one C between five two and six two for the last 10 years without diet restrictions juicebox podcast.com Start listening today. It's absolutely free.

#970 Call Me Boss

Stephanie has type 1 diabetes and a long story.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 970 of the Juicebox Podcast. My voice has extra timber tonight. Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Yes, sir. Let's go

today I'm speaking with Stephanie who has had type one diabetes for a very long time and her pathway to pumping, the insulin she used and for how long. So really fascinating story. I hope you hope you settle in and listen. While you're listening. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. For those of you who do not live in the tri state area in the northeast, don't be scared Stephanie's not in the mob. She just lives in New York. Don't let her accent frighten you. If you're looking for community around your diabetes, check out the private Facebook group. It's absolutely free Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but you don't have to have type one you could have type two be a caregiver doesn't matter to me. Everybody's welcome. Get yourself five free travel packs, and a year supply of vitamin D with your first order of ag one when you use my link, drink a G one.com forward slash juice box. And you can say 40% off your entire order at cozy earth.com When you use the offer code juice box at checkout them them them them them them them them this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter, learn more and get started today at contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. I had an opportunity overnight to use the contour twice last night. And it holds up. I'm saying like Arden has gone to college and she's coming back now. But boom, boom like riding a bike click like bang, bang, bang bang I got a number. Oh, easy. Contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. You want accuracy. You want a contour meter? Hey, for the first couple of minutes, Stephanie's using a different headset we fixed it started over so there's a cute little conversation with their daughter in there. A couple of quick words and then we start and it sounds better. I'm telling you it sounds better. Make a few the first couple of minutes. I think that's what I'm saying. Hey,

Stephanie 2:36
hello, how are you? I'm good. Let me just make the volume a little louder

Scott Benner 2:42
here. Okay. I don't mean to keep talking. So

Stephanie 2:45
no, it's fine. I can do it. My husband's a programmer. So he's got all fancy things. So I got it right on the keyboard. Very nice. He has fancy headphones too. So give me one second. Okay, there we go. That's the volume button.

Scott Benner 3:04
You feel good about it. Yeah, that's good. Great. Excellent. Thank you.

Stephanie 3:08
I just want to say I just turned around and my eight year old is staring at me right now. What you want to say hi, I'm sure you can say hi here and say hi.

Scott Benner 3:19
Hi. Hey, man. What's your name? Emma. Oh, Emma. Hey, Emma. I didn't know you were a girl. Or I wouldn't have said Hey, man. I would have been like, Hey, how are you? You're How old are you, Emma? Oh, eight. I used to be? It happened to me. Everyone's at a point. Yes. You know what point that is? When you're Yeah, that's exactly right. You're pretty. Okay, like that. Let's just Yeah, I guess let's they leave you back a bunch of times. Yeah. You know, any kids that didn't make it all the way to like, third grade yet? But we what was that? birtley. Is that a person? Yeah, yeah. What happened there? Do you think? I don't know. No. Does he seem Is it a boy? birtley? Yeah. Do you think they left them back? Because his name is birtley? No. Definitely not. Okay. All right. Do you have any things you love that you want to tell me about? Pizza? Pizza. Where do you live? Where do you live? New York. New York. New York. Oh Babylone. New York. Yeah, we're pretty close to each other then. Close. Yeah. Ever get out of New York. Your parents never let you go anywhere. We went to DC. Yeah, Washington DC. That's nice. I was just through there. The other like two weeks ago, I was picking my daughter up in college in Georgia. And we stopped in DC for him and on the way back. You know where Georgia is? No, no, it's because you're right when you're 10 years old now. All right. Do you give your parents a lot of trouble? Are you pretty good kid? You don't know. Does that mean you're a bad? Does that mean you do know? And you don't want to tell me? I don't think you're a good kid. Yeah, that's nice. Mom says that that is definitely true. All right. Well, it was nice meeting you. Okay. Have a good night. Bye. Bye bye. Okay, close the door, please. Sorry about that. They always think they have something to say. I get these notes every once in a while people like you should have more kids. And I'm like, you don't really mean that.

Stephanie 5:44
It might be interesting, though. She's she's very she would play off you very well.

Scott Benner 5:49
That would be every once in a while works out great. It's just that some people are like my kids really talkative. And then you start talking about I'm like, I don't know where you're from that you think this kids talk to the kid can say anything. No one's gonna listen. I have advertisers.

Stephanie 6:05
Like I have to, I have to like, keep this going.

Scott Benner 6:09
This can't be the last time I do it. And you got to hear your kid on the podcast. So exactly. Most of the time. It's the kids. There's like a young girl on my schedule right now. And yeah, I know. It's gonna be good. I've never spoken to her because she reached out to me by herself. Oh, wow. And then I was like, Look, you can come on, but your parents need to know. You know. So yeah. So they like loop their parents in during emails. And like they I really put it on them to handle it. And then you know, you eventually hear from the parents are like, listen, she's like, 40 in our heart, just leave her go.

Stephanie 6:44
It's like, it's fine. Don't worry,

Scott Benner 6:46
absolutely fine. Just let her be on the podcast I don't even want to hear it doesn't even matter. It's interesting. And every once in a while, it turns into like, that episode from Russia with sarcasm with like this 14 year old girl. And it was like stunning. She was diagnosed, got really shaky direction from the hospital, went home recognized the kid right by herself recognized like, this isn't okay. When on the internet, found the podcast, listen to the podcast, went back to her parents with a list of stuff she needed. That she's like, get me one of these. I wanted these and one of these. And then I can't and then put her a one seat in the low sixes

Stephanie 7:28
that I give her credit. I couldn't do that until I was in my 30s

Scott Benner 7:32
all by herself. I'm like, yeah. That's amazing. You know? Damn, no, yeah, that's really impressive. Do you have any questions or concerns before we start? Okay, so I know where we're at. But I'm just gonna have you start over. So all the audio matches up. Just introduce yourself. And I'll say something and we'll keep going. Okay,

Stephanie 7:52
no problem. Hi, this is Stephanie. I've been diabetic for 32 years.

Scott Benner 7:57
Hi, Stephanie. How are you? Thank you for helping me. Who is that? My CGM are yours? Yeah, no, it's

Stephanie 8:02
probably yours. It's not mine.

Scott Benner 8:04
I didn't I didn't mute my phone. Artists. Blood sugar just went up over 120 she's so sick. I can't believe we've kept at this low so far today. Well, that's good. Yeah. She was sick a college and we thought she was okay. We got her home. But when I picked her up a little bit of meatless, like I said, to order the car, I'm like, well, we should take you the doc when you get home. You shouldn't still be like coughing, you know? Yeah. And she's like, No, I'm alright. Okay. So she was all full of herself, because she got through 10 weeks at school, and she was still alive and everything. She's like, I'm doing great. Are you kidding me? And then now she's been home for a couple of weeks. And the other day, she had this great opportunity to go into the city for a fashion she was going to intern in a fashion thing. Oh, nice. And the night before, she's like, I'm really sick. Something's wrong. So that was like Wednesday night this week. By yesterday, by Friday, we were like scrambling to get her a telemedicine visit. And the guy Dr. Like, looked her over and had a long conversation with her and said yes, she has a sinus infection, probably from the illness, you know. So that's what

Stephanie 9:08
I got. I just got over that and my daughter to same thing, and we were still coughing two weeks later, so just keep that in mind. It seems to be it sticks around for a while. Listen,

Scott Benner 9:18
she's the last of us like, it's December 3, and we've cold Kelly and I have been sick to some degree or another since October 6. It's terrible this year. Yeah. Really. I used to say I was so like, full of myself. Like during COVID. I'd record the show. And I'd be like, listen, I mean, I'd like to go out but I haven't been sick in like three years. This is I didn't know. I didn't know we were gonna have to pay it all back. I didn't realize there was a ledger, you know. So,

Stephanie 9:45
I mean, I work in cardiology, I do medical records, nothing like patient facing or anything like that. And it's oh man, like the girls. Some girl was out with the flu and she was like, Oh my God, you had the flu. Like how was it she was it It was worse than COVID this year. Yeah. Well, like,

Scott Benner 10:02
oh, we had COVID. And then it turned into bronchitis. Oh, and then the antibiotics didn't work for Kelly the first time. So she went through an entire, like, 10 day round of something, and then still needed more. Yeah, at one point. I mean, it just, it was like, honestly, like I said to a buddy of mine, he's a doctor. He's like, How's everybody doing? We're gonna talk. And I said two weeks ago, if Kelly would have died, it wouldn't have surprised me. Like, that's where we were at. Like, I mean, I would have been like, don't get me wrong, like, I would have been shocked. But I wouldn't have been like, Oh, I didn't see that coming. Because she was really in trouble. And, and now she's, she's starting to do better. So

Stephanie 10:38
it took a while. I got COVID in July, and it took me I was sick for the full two weeks. And then I went back to work, because luckily enough, my office still offers the you get paid for being out. And I was like, okay, and they, what do you call, I went back and I was I was still, I think a month or two later, I was still like, off. I was coughing I was and they're like, you still I went to pulmonology I went to everything and they're like, it's just long lasting. COVID Welcome to the world.

Scott Benner 11:09
Yeah, it really it's just it's, it's unbelievable. Like, yeah, I've never been sick this long in my life. Yeah, me neither. Yeah. And I got through this. I have not missed a podcast recording a couple of them I was wrecked for and I'm proud. I am proud of how well I hid it while I was doing it. Anyway, Stephanie, you've had diabetes. Since how long? When were you diagnosed?

Stephanie 11:30
I was. APR. 91.

Scott Benner 11:34
APR 91. How old were you? Then? Seven? APR 91? Seven years old? 2001 2011 2021. You've had diabetes for 31 years? Yep. 91 was 31 years ago. Yeah, right.

Stephanie 11:52
Tell me that.

Scott Benner 11:55
That's the worst thing you've said so far. And you're gonna say more bad things as we move forward. And I still think 91 was 31 years ago, it's gonna be the worst part of it. So

Stephanie 12:04
the worst when you work in like the medical field, you look up people's date of birth, and I don't work in pediatrics. So you're like, oh, this person is too young to come in. Wait, this person is 20 years old.

Speaker 1 12:15
When you start scrolling, you know, when you put your your age into a website, and you get to your birth year, and you're like scrolling and scrolling, and you're like, What the hell? Yeah. Yeah, flick your finger a bunch of times before you find the 70s.

Scott Benner 12:30
Anyway, it's not great. You've had diabetes for quite some time. You're married. You have children. How many kids? Do you have?

Stephanie 12:37
One, one.

Scott Benner 12:38
Is there any diabetes in your immediate family besides, you

Stephanie 12:41
know, but my mom had thyroid, which I found out actually through your podcast that that's where my link probably was, was through my mother.

Scott Benner 12:49
She have Hashimotos or did she have

Stephanie 12:52
just I honestly don't know which one but I know she had. She was on thyroid medicine. She she never really told us. I think it was hyper but I could be wrong.

Scott Benner 13:01
Okay. You think she was she had Graves disease? Do you think?

Stephanie 13:05
Maybe maybe like, again, she said enough is my family doesn't talk about their health issues. I know my dad has type two. I found a meter. I was living with him for a little bit. And I found a meter in this house. And I was like, huh, and then I found out like a couple of years later that they told him he pre he was pre diabetic. And I'm like, huh,

Scott Benner 13:26
so your father was told he was pre diabetic? You have type one diabetes? He never mentioned it to you?

Stephanie 13:30
No, no. No.

Scott Benner 13:34
Okay, Italian. What's your back? Yeah.

Stephanie 13:37
He's actually the Greek part of my family. But yeah, Italian Greek, German, French. Fascinating. And I think that's it really is Irish somewhere. Somewhere in there. I'm Irish.

Scott Benner 13:49
Somewhere in there. I don't know I I mean, maybe I just talked too much. But if you came and told me something, I'd come home and I'd be like, Oh my God. Listen, everyone.

Stephanie 14:00
My dad's a very private man. He always has been always been

Scott Benner 14:04
Yeah, well his podcast will be terrible. Yeah. He'd welcome everybody to go on my telling you guys anything. I should try that one day and see if it works. If people would stay tuned in like I'm not going to share anything of substance at all today. That would be hilarious. Okay, so you've had diabetes for a really long time. So you started out regular mph or No, you did

Stephanie 14:30
a regular mph I had the one touch I called it the brick because it was like gray one that you had to put like a huge drop on that one. And that was it. That was pretty much it and you know, sliding scale all that fun jazz.

Scott Benner 14:45
How old were you when you went to like a fast acting and Basal insulin? Probably 12. I mean, you were probably younger still.

Stephanie 14:53
I was I was on the younger side. I didn't get off and then are probably until Well after I met my husband, to be honest, so we've been married over 13 years because he was the one that convinced me to go on an insulin pump.

Scott Benner 15:09
Wait a minute. Yep. You freaking me? No, I

Stephanie 15:13
was on nNr for quite a bit of time. Like, I don't I don't first time I remember going on any quick acting like Humalog or anything was when I went on insulin pump.

Scott Benner 15:24
So you were Wow, you were 18 years on it. Yep. And you're, you were 25 when you when your husband started pushing you towards other stuff.

Stephanie 15:34
Yeah, we got married when we were both I was 25. He's a couple years older than me. And so yeah, about 25 Because it was before we got married, he convinced me. So it was probably two years before then

Scott Benner 15:47
what made him have an interest in an opinion.

Stephanie 15:51
His supervisors son had type one. And I ended up I was at his house one day, and it was sitting there and it was laying on his couch and I go, I feel like crap. I just don't feel good. And he goes, Why don't you look into this pump thing. And I'm like, pump like what's what? And he goes, and he was explaining it to me. So I ended up starting working with him. And I talked to him, you know, his boss, and it was like, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. You need to do it. I was like, Oh, okay. And then my, I was still at my pediatrician pump therapist, which tells you, my pediatrician endocrinologist was tells you how long I was there. And she turned around, she goes, Well, we'll get you on the Medtronic CGM. She put me on that thing and then put me on the pump. And I never looked back. And I mean, don't get me wrong. I got off the Medtronic version very quickly. But you know, the Medtronic CGM like extremely quickly because it was terrible.

Scott Benner 16:52
I'm sorry, my truck.

Stephanie 16:54
Listen, you know, it didn't work. For me. It works for some people, like I'm all about, hey, do what works for you. But they definitely didn't work and back then it was like a harpoon. So, you know, yeah. It was terrifying to put in.

Scott Benner 17:06
It's a tough it's a tough road to hoe when you develop a thing. And the community developed the fort decides to call it a harpoon. Like that's

Stephanie 17:15
exactly right. Yeah, I was in my 20s. First time I was on in a sump pump. And what was interesting was, I went to diabetic camp, I went from I was, I think eight or nine, my mom found one. And I went and I went for two weeks, and I have a friend that actually lives right by me still, and she was on his pump. So the first time I saw it was in camp, but I never showed interest in it. So my mom never pushed me to go get it. And I just kept doing the nNr for as long as I did.

Scott Benner 17:55
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Right Wow, it's crazy. Okay, so I want to kind of get this part out of the way before we talk about the rest of your story of like when you signed up to come on the podcast. I'm going to read you what you wrote. You said I asked what you there's a question when people sign up it says what are some of the themes you hope to cover? Yeah, your says pregnancy with type one growing up with type one. And he said if you'd like I can have my mom on with us too. She's not up on the new wave to type ones taken care of. But I had, and then you talked about and I also had postpartum anxiety with my daughter. And then. So for context, I don't really, I haven't said this in a while on the podcast. As I'm setting up in the morning to talk to somebody. I look at the note they wrote, like, I don't look at it ahead of time. But the other day, my son said to me, why, why the hell are you recording on Saturday night? Yeah. And I was like, I hate to say this. It's definitely but I said, I don't know. Here's what I can tell you. I do a lot of like, I do everything on the podcast. So like the scheduling, like I what I said was, if I let somebody record on Saturday night, there was a good reason. I just don't remember right now. But because he asked me, I got in bed last night before I got bed. I thought, I wonder why I did say yes to this. And then I started looking at your emails. And right as we were getting ready to do this, your mom passed away? Yes, I'm so I'm so sorry. And I had, I felt bad about the way I said to my son like, I don't know.

Stephanie 21:07
Don't worry that listen, you can't remember anything other than a podcast you put out. I'm surprised you remember what day it is?

Scott Benner 21:15
Honestly, the, we just put up a post on the Facebook group, because we're trying to get passages from the podcasts that are memorable for people are particularly impactful for them. And I want to use them for like social media posts and stuff like that. Yeah. So I had to put up a post and say, Look, you know, if I ever said anything, or Jenny or guests said something that really helped you or stuck with you, or whatever, can you listed here? And someone put up something and said, I don't remember what episode that was Scott, do you remember? And I responded, I was like, Look, I'm really the wrong person to ask, you know, because I'm recorded six months in advance. I just realized this morning, while I was I was taking the dogs out. I was I was writing a US med add my head while I was outside with my dogs. And even that struck me as strange. And then I realized I have about 70 episodes ready to go. Like, like six months of the podcast is recorded already the next month. And I was like Jesus. So anyway, they asked me where they thought I said that it's a weird thing to have somebody say, Hey, you said this. Do you remember saying and I say oh, I do remember saying that? When I go I have no idea. Like, I couldn't begin to tell you anyway. I feel terrible. Was your mom's passing a surprise? I imagine. Yes.

Stephanie 22:34
Yeah, it wasn't. It was definitely she was pretty healthy. I mean, she she suffered with a lot of things in the sense of like, when she was 21, she got hit by a drunk driver. So she was on a good amount of pain medications and stuff. And I think we had a kind of tough year, wasn't it? We had three deaths in the last year and a half. So and one of them was her boyfriend. And he was like her lifeline and wonderful man. Like I loved him to death. And when he passed, I think it hit her harder than anyone kind of knew. And I think she was just lonely. I think she just she was done. You know, and I think she just kind of she they said they when they found her she was you know, she looked peaceful. And it was no, they figured it was natural. So it was just her time to go. I mean, it sucks to be honest. But, you know, you try to think you know, she's at peace now, you know, with whatever she was dealing with, you know, but it was very sudden. How old was she? 70? Yeah, she just turned send 70 In April, her her birthday. I was diagnosed on her birthday. Oh my god. Yeah. So we always we always made a joke. Every year when I was newly diagnosed, I would do something new on her birthday, like give a shot of my own or, or do something as a birthday gift. thar. So. You know?

Scott Benner 23:57
Well, I am very sorry for your loss. Can I ask you what you thought her addition to the podcast was? Why did you want her to come on?

Stephanie 24:05
Just it was amazing. Like one of the reasons why I went to like a JDRF event before COVID. And I brought her there and my like Dexcom goes off and she goes oh, what's that? You know, she knew what it was. But she's like, what does that mean? And I go well, it's I'm like 80 and she freaked out. Like she literally almost had a panic attack looking for a juice and I'm like, Mom, I'm okay. I'm 80 and stable. We can go in a little bit and get some fruit or something, I'll be fine. And she it's amazing. The differences because she was like well, are you're gonna I'm like, Mom, it's not like when I was a kid where I would hit 8085 and you'd have to rush somewhere because we know where I am. I'm not dropping, I'm not anything and she was oh, and it was amazing to see how disconnected from where the care was compared to the years ago. Oh, where and I mean, this was one of those women when I got diagnosed, she went to the library, and to get every single book that was diabetic and everything, and did research and was like, I mean, she I told her about the podcast a couple of years ago, I don't know if she ever picked it up to listen, because I mean, it wasn't she wasn't take, she wasn't my caretaker at the time. So I don't know if she decided to not listen to it or whatever. But she, she was all about researching it. And she was OCD about it and making sure I got the care I needed. And she had a binder, she, you know, the differences between now and give you an example. And I always love telling this story. So when I first got the Medtronic pump, and you could download it to the computer and send it to your doctor. I did that. And I called her and I go, I'm gonna send you an email. They sent it to her. She looks at and she goes, she goes, What is this? I don't know. I told my blood sugar's and she goes, Did you type these on? Because she used to do an Excel and make all the graphs and stuff through Excel. And she looks at it. And she goes, these have all the graphs. You just plugged your pump in and I go Yeah, like you plug it in, and it downloads. She goes, Sure bitch. died. I was like, What do you just, you know, hard to listen, I'm showing it to you because I want you to see, this is less of a burden on me that it was a kid she goes, I know, but I'm still gonna call you.

Scott Benner 26:28
But But this doesn't help me or the time I lost the doing this.

Stephanie 26:32
Exactly. That was the day. I mean, she would have had stories for you. like you wouldn't believe what I went through when I was a kid. Because she took care of all of it. I didn't never felt like I was a diabetic when I was a kid. And that's a lot coming from those days. Like, you know, I never I don't remember ever being told I couldn't do something.

Scott Benner 26:52
You know, what were your your goals, like health goals back then?

Stephanie 26:57
Honestly, I think my mom kept those all in her head. I think mine was just to stay alive. You know, I don't think I ever thought I never thought of diabetes, as you know, oh, I can't do this. I mean, I used to ride my bike all over the place. And it'd be I'd be at school when I ride my bike all the way to the bowling alley, which was miles away and she wouldn't chew and bat an eyelash. So it's like, it was the normal See, I think my mom wanted me to have because my sister also growing up had growth hormone problems. So she was seeing an endo prior to me. So I think there was some like, oh, well, I know what I have to do. I have to take care of her. So we're ready. Have you know an idea of Oh, you have to give because she was on shot. So my mom's like, Oh, I gotta give another kid shots. You know, but she is my my goals were just to stay healthy. And I mean, I think I'm trying to think and I never found when I was looking through the house. I was curious to see if she kept the book, which I don't think she did. But the binder had like all my A onesies and everything like that. And I don't think I ever I mean, now that I look at it a onesie of what I had back then was insane. But like I had a 7.3 on nNr which was insane. Yeah, like, so. You know, back then it was like unheard of

Scott Benner 28:20
you feel like you were low a lot or no?

Stephanie 28:23
Oh, no, I don't. I don't. I don't remember being like where I always had to had juice with me. I mean, my mom always did carry juice with her. But I don't remember, I did have when I was first diagnosed. Actually, it was like three instances. I remember having like, what I consider blackout lows, where I didn't remember anything or anything like that. And that was when I was first diagnosed. I was in the honeymoon period. And I went to school, and I got off the bus and I fell. And the principal there was like a long concrete walkway ran up and grabbed my head before I hit the concrete. And I woke up looking at my dad trying to give me juice because he had come to the school to take care of it. And I was like the they said that the vice principal saved me from cracking my head open because I would have fallen on the concrete. The lows I don't remember when I was a kid. I don't remember a lot of them.

Scott Benner 29:15
Do you remember what your imperatives were like, What? What day to day? What were you looking for and trying to make happen or trying to avoid?

Stephanie 29:22
I mean, I wasn't allowed to eat a lot of sugar back then. I mean nowadays is a lot different like growing up. I had an endo that was third in the nation. So he was very ahead of his time. And like when the thing is like I hear like stories from people that have had, oh, well you couldn't have cake on your your birthday at that age. God forbid you have like any sweets, right? And this doctor would say listen, let her have a cupcake. Just don't give her the icing. So what would happen was like we get a cake and I would eat the cake in the middle and my mom loved icing. She was an addict for icing. She would eat the icing So I would eat the cake and she would eat the icing. It was an always thing for us growing up, but that was the thing, like, I never had a non normal. And I don't know how she did it. I don't know how, especially with the technology that we didn't have back then now it's feasible, like if I want a cookie, or if I want this, you know, this, I definitely don't eat healthy now, which I should?

Scott Benner 30:22
Well, you know, I think as, as people talk about living through that time with diabetes, it seems to me that you just either got lucky either the doctor gave you some reasonably good settings, and you ate, reasonably speaking the way the doctor said you should. And those things worked. Or the opposite would happen is that people weren't taking enough insulin, and they were the food they ate wasn't covered. And they had high blood sugars, or some people but but also the lows. You just don't hear a lot of people from that time say I was constantly low, I think you probably learned how to eat to the insulin if you had to. Yes, right. Does that make sense?

Stephanie 31:02
And I do that sometimes. Now still. Yeah. Because that's the thing, like, especially when I was pregnant, I was like, Oh, well, she wants me to eat this amount. I'm gonna, okay, I'm not hungry. But I have to eat this amount of carbs during because when you have to eat more food when you're pregnant stuff, I would, okay, I'm taking 35 carbs. I want to make sure I eat that 35 carbs. And I would eat more. So I wouldn't go low. Right? Because I would always have a habit of going low, like, during my pregnancy no matter what time it was. But you know it. That was the thing, I think because too, if you think about it, we didn't have the Dexcom we didn't have that technology that was like, Oh, well, she's going low. Or I see that low. I mean, times did she do my test? I don't know. Like if she did it rigidly religiously, like the two hours after a meal. Like they said, maybe she would have saw a low or something like that. But I don't know. I don't remember ever suffering from terrible lows. And that was the thing. I mean, I know I ran higher because it 7.3. You know, you definitely can tell that it was my sugars that were higher than than normal.

Scott Benner 32:13
Yeah. When did you get different technology? Like when did you get us? I'm assuming you use this Dexcom next,

Stephanie 32:21
yes, I use the Dexcom. Next I went, so I left my pediatrician because I was talking about getting pregnant with my daughter. And I

Scott Benner 32:29
well, your pediatrician said, I don't have any experience with this whatsoever. Yeah, my

Stephanie 32:33
endo pediatrician was like, listen, he was fine seeing me the pomp therapist said absolutely not. She was like, No, she's like, I can't and I'm like, Okay. And I was 20. We actually it was when I got married before I got married, because I don't but I know like I was talking about it. So they said you should look for a new no then. And he was like, I really don't want to lose you. Because I mean, I knew that guy from pretty much my whole childhood. And he was like, okay, he's like, No, he goes, you know, just, you got to find one. So I found one. And I went in the pump therapists educator was wonderful. And I go to her and she goes, Oh, well, she you know, your old file says you have a Medtronic CGM. Why are you not wearing and I'm like, because it hurts and it's terrible. And she goes, Okay, she goes, we're gonna put you on index calm. But I'm like, What's the Dexcom. And then she showed me the Dexcom. And I would like it was night and day. It was, to me totally different with the technology and how it was applied. And everything like this is this is perfect. And that was before the automatic insert or it was when you have to insert yourself so but I was still I was like, Okay, let's, let's try this out. And we did that. And then eventually, I went from Medtronic to animus and I was on the Animus with her. She changed me. But the endo I got was terrible. I walked in. She looked at me said Are you okay? Get your way. A wincy lower and she walked out the

Scott Benner 34:05
room. And I was like, What? Are you in a rural area?

Stephanie 34:09
No, I'm in I'm in pretty. I'm in Long Island. So I you got stonybrook you got you got all the big hospitals, all the big doctors over here. I have like, I think in a matter of five miles. I have like six endos like, so it's not the object. I didn't have a choice. So I found another one. But this one was just she didn't. She was like, Oh, well, you haven't anyone see of pipe. So I think at that time, it was like 6.5 or seven. And she was like, Oh, you're good. Don't worry. I was like, okay, and you know, like we you've said numerous times you just kind of go like Oh, okay, I guess I'm okay.

Scott Benner 34:47
Right. Yeah, well, if they say so then why why not believe it? Well, I judge it. Yeah, so Okay, so you had a CGM they got you. You did you eventually you move to a pump. So you got a pump going now, when you get paid But right around that same time,

Stephanie 35:01
I got pregnant when I was in my 30s that when I turned 30 When Emma's eight, so that's, I'm 39. So I was like, so you

Scott Benner 35:13
pumped for a few years like that with Dexcom and other stuff before you got pregnant? Yes, yeah. Okay. Do When do you find the podcast?

Stephanie 35:22
I found the podcast right after I had my daughter. Oh, wow. I found probably around or right after I had her. And the reason was I said, Well, I got a one C of 6.0. Why can't I get it lower? And I forget, I probably was just searching for podcasts because I have a habit of just randomly doing searches. I'm like, Oh, let me see. And I saw it. And I was like, Let me listen to it. And then that's all I've been doing. And that's how I found the podcast was just searching. Yeah. And

Scott Benner 35:56
I guess I'd want to know, like, after this whole life of, you know, using regular and then trying different stuff and getting through and you're pretty old. By the time you, you know, figure out I could probably keep my onesie lower like this was the information in the podcast like new to you? What did

Stephanie 36:14
you one thing, the one thing that I thought was interesting, that was no and this this, I mean, not that this will come maybe to a shocker to anyone. The first time I heard about Pre-Bolus thing was from you. And then when I brought it up to my pump therapist, I'm like, Pre-Bolus. And she goes, you're not doing that yet. They said, No. She was no wonder you having the spikes. Thanks. Like, thanks. So then I was like, okay, so this guy knows what he's talking about. So I'm not like,

Scott Benner 36:43
well, isn't it interesting, though, that you could have, I mean, that you had diabetes for that long? heard me say Pre-Bolus Your meals. And you thought I don't even know if this is real or not. Like it's a it's a really, I don't know what the I don't know what the apples to apples thing is here. But it feels like you're watching football for 30 years. And then you're like, Who are these packers? That everyone? Yeah, you know, it's a strange thing to, to believe is can be true, but I think it's overwhelmingly true.

Stephanie 37:14
It is. Yeah, it's extremely overwhelming. And it's like, Wait, there's all this information that oh, wait, like, I mean, don't get me wrong, I never ate great. Like, I genuinely eat whatever I want to a point. But like, I never had great blood sugar. So I was like, Well, I was able to get a 6.0 How do I keep this Do I still have to eat the diet of being a pregnant woman and like, you know, eating, I had everyday peanut half a peanut butter, jelly sandwich, cucumbers, and something else are probably broccoli or something that was like, what they consider putting quotations up free foods, you know, and that's what I ate for nine months for lunch every day, because it didn't, it didn't do anything to my blood sugars. It didn't do anything. And that's what I was advised to eat. So I ate

Scott Benner 38:01
it right. So basically, even all that time into diabetes, you still don't really know what you're doing. But you get you get to be pregnant, and people say to you look, you have to keep your agency lowered, it's gonna hurt the baby. So instead of, there wasn't even a thought in your head, that there's a way to use this insulin where my agency will be lower. It's all about it was all about the food to you.

Stephanie 38:24
Yes, it was. And then I realized it wasn't like, it's,

Scott Benner 38:28
it's interesting. It's really interesting. I find it fascinating, honestly. So okay, so you start Pre-Bolus In your meals, and you know, doing things like that. And then you started expanding what you were eating and starting to learn that different foods needed different amounts of insulin. Yeah, didn't just mean the carbs. And you just grew from there. And you really you found the podcast, the very beginning to

Stephanie 38:49
Yeah, and I listened to I think, majority, I found it. And I was like, I'm gonna listen to it. And like, I think I listened from when I went. And then I went back and listened to the older ones. And it was like, because I think I take it from my mom. I'm like, I want research. I want information. I want to know, okay, this is something because health changes constantly. Like the health care little well, this is good for you. This is bad for you. And I'm like, You know what, let's let's try this, you know, and see what happens

Scott Benner 39:18
in my lifetime. I've heard news stories that completely contradict each other. Oh, yeah. Well, thanks. Like if you have to do this, and then like, 10 years later, they're like, Well, you know, half two was probably pretty strong. And then, you know, five years after that, they're like, you don't do that.

Stephanie 39:35
Like, wait, did you just tell me to do that?

Scott Benner 39:38
And but still, I believe it. Listen, as I'm listening to your story, a little bit has to be blamed on staying with a pediatric endo for so long.

Stephanie 39:47
I kind of agree with that, that I look back because I know they were very heavy on diet. Like, you can't be eating this. You can't be eating that like they were very heavy on making sure I didn't go out and have three cookies in a setting or you know, everything like that. But my endocrinologist wasn't like that. So my, like my pump therapist and the nutritionist, because I remember going to the pump therapist and her saying, because I was when I got the Medtronic, and I was like, I forget how much insulin I was taking. And it was higher than she felt was normal. And I said, she goes, you're gonna end up 300 pounds if you keep eating like this. And it was like, Well, is it the food? Or is it the object of the amount of insulin I'm taking? Because again, then you get in your head, old insulin is making me gain.

Scott Benner 40:38
That's fascinating how that perpetuates over and over and over again. Yep. But the idea that insulin makes you gain weight. It's just, it's silly. And Insulin helps you store what you've eaten. Right? You still have to eat it. So yeah, it's, it's just, it's fascinating to think that that perpetuates still. And to this day, I have to, on the Facebook group, I have to three times a month, jump, jump into a post and say, hi, insulin doesn't make you gain weight, calories, make you gain weight, I'm not comfortable with what you just said here. Like don't give people the idea that this is how you start eating disorders. Because people get into that idea of like, Why can't use insulin. So they start, they start modeling their, their intake around trying not to take any insulin law because they get confused, because then when the insulin number goes up, they go see more insulin, and I gained weight, well, no more food, more carbs, more calories, and then you had to use more insulin, then you gained weight, just like everybody else would have who ate, you know, five gallons of ice cream a day. So yeah, well,

Stephanie 41:43
exactly. That's the thing. I dated a gentleman for a while he struggled with his weight for a while. And he thought a diet was get fat free ice cream, but eat the whole thing. But it's fat free. It's but it's fat frightened. No, it doesn't work that you know, and I tried, my profession originally was going to be in colder. I went to culinary school, certificate course whatever. And then I came out of it. And I wanted to become a diabetic educator, because it was something I was interested in. So I went to school because you have to do this and that like all the different schooling. So I decided to be a dietetic tech first. So I went into nutrition. And it is so much in the nutrition background that you learn that it's insane. Not that I ever finished it because I had my daughter and I never went back until maybe when I'm older and she's able to care for herself. Yeah. But I learned so much in the sense of because this, I think was one of the reasons I found your podcast more quickly to is I was in the room. And I said we have to present one day. And I said to the teacher said, Hey, we're learning about diabetes, can I present my stuff? And she goes, What do you mean your stuff? And I go my pump my like, I'll bring in supplies. And I'll present it and answer questions to anyone. And they're like, Yeah, sure, like, whatever. So it was amazing. How many people didn't know anything.

Scott Benner 43:12
Not that amazing, Stephanie, because you've just described it for decades. You didn't know what you were doing? Yes, exactly. You know what I should do? I should be a diabetes educator. But you didn't even know what you were doing for yourself half the time.

Stephanie 43:27
Yeah, that's the thing. I thought I knew my point. And that's the difference. I thought I knew crap. And I knew

Scott Benner 43:35
everybody listening is gonna look at their next time they go to their CD, they're going to look in they're going to be like, Hmm, did you not know what you were talking about? Decided to become my CD. But now that's fascinating. Like, it really is. I mean, that's just something else. You don't I mean, like, like, you literally, you describe, like, look, I didn't really know what I was doing. And I was managing everything with food. I didn't understand how insulin work really at all. And that and then you know what I thought to do? I'll be a diabetes educator. Like holy.

Stephanie 44:04
Yeah, exactly. Because food foods, everything would literally be

Scott Benner 44:08
like, if right now. It was like I could probably build a rocket. I can't, by the way. Yeah. And I know. So. Oh, wow. That's really something else. Honestly, I find that story. Fascinating. Yeah, I'm kidding. So. So you find the podcast and you pull things together. Like were you able to accomplish the things you were hoping for?

Stephanie 44:29
I mean, I'm still definitely struggling with Lowe's, which I've noticed and I think it's just because now that I have the insulin and I'm like, Well, I don't need to be afraid of this. I think I jumped too quickly. So my thing just went off and I'm at 150 but I ate an hour ago. So I'm like, it was high fat. Do I cover Do I not like I but instead of just putting one unit in, I'm putting like three or four. I have to I think dial it back that I'm not so aggressive with it. Because I've had the and with everything going on with my mom, and this year and everything. I think the stress is starting to weigh on me because I've had at least three bed low episodes

Scott Benner 45:16
is because I actually eating and then using a lot of insulin.

Stephanie 45:20
Yeah, yeah, that's definitely I think what the issue is I'm like, Oh well, I'm eating all this these carbs and the sugars and these everything and I'm like I'll just cover for it. And then four hours later I'm dropping to the point where like it happened this afternoon, which I was like, Oh, great, what a day to have this happen. I had to because my daughter, I'm a big believer in her understanding what I have because it is genetic. So if she gets it, I want her to see that you will be okay. So there was a book I got it was why mommy beats. That's literally the name of the book. And it's about a woman that has an insulin pump and why it goes off. And this is why and it's very, it's for a very young audience. And so one of the parts is if, if Mommy needs to sit, sit and drink juice, you have to let her basically. And so when I was having this episode earlier, I turned her because my husband goes Stephanie, go downstairs and get a juice because I was getting to the point where he's like, you're getting crazy. Go Go get a juice. And I told her I said Emma, can you go get me a juice and she knows she goes runs gets me my juice. And you know, she doesn't get scared. She just brings it over. And he's here mommy drink it for me. So like, that's, that's the thing is like, one of the big things for me is that I have to learn that. If I'm 150 I'm not going to die. Because there's been a couple episodes recently that you did that you taught that, oh, if you go up to 141 50, you're okay, as long as you come back down. And that's the thing like in my head, I'm like, Well, I'm 150 Oh my God, I need to take six units to get my blood sugar down. But that's not always the case. And I

Scott Benner 47:05
share something with you. Yeah. This is the eighth like, I'm a few weeks away from the eighth full year of the podcast being over and also at the ninth year of the podcast. So in 2015 I didn't know what I was doing. I was just trying to make a podcast and I'm the one thing that was consistent has been consistent throughout the entire time as I named the podcast episodes very like it's not haphazardly, but I listened through the episode if I hear something that was funny, or that makes sense, or it has something to do with this. I'll make this episode title chicken thighs. You know, and then I know that

Stephanie 47:39
that was a good episode, by the way.

Scott Benner 47:42
Yes. And so I'm listening back to this episode in the beginning back when I did a lot of like single mic stuff where I would just talk about diabetes stuff. And I will listen through this one. And while I was talking, I said I guess I just learned how to be more bold with insulin. And I called the episode Bolus with insulin. And then I've told this story before, but years later, I started seeing people online say, Oh, I'm trying to be more bold with insulin. And I was like, That can't be like a coincidence, right? And then I started realizing it was a phrase that people kind of clung to, and they liked and they were sharing. But the problem is, is that I never got to say, you know, when I said I was trying to find a way to be more bold with insulin, I didn't mean like unsafe or not thoughtful with insulin. Yeah, I didn't mean just like willy nilly just throw a whole bunch in and see what happens. I do think that people understand that from listening. But at the same time when you're trying to find a way to be more aggressive because you think you're not using enough insulin. A lot of times people don't have context for how much more and they can just be more aggressive and they can start having that feeling that you that I think you're describing, which is that any any kind of arise after a meal, I must have done something wrong, but that's not that's not always the case either. You know, so,

Stephanie 49:00
because I know I had a high fat meal so I'm like, You know what, that's probably why it's hitting me now. And give myself two units instead of the the six or seven you know,

Scott Benner 49:11
we bump it down a little bit don't don't like you shouldn't be running at it like you're in a Hobbit movie with a hatchet or something like that, like just screaming and swinging a blade I'll get it like just be a little more bold, be a little bold, I don't know to people I know a bold means. Anyway, so you're figuring that part out so you're in a weird situation you're stressed out. You're eating just like you're eating does sound like you're having celery and then and you're being more aggressive you're seeing a spike being aggressive again, probably because the spikes making you feel like I don't want this to happen. And then you're getting low afterwards, which is gonna cause you to eat more food, which is going to Yeah, you're gonna have to figure that out. Yeah,

Stephanie 49:54
yeah. Well, that's that's that's always that's even before the podcast that was always an issue that I had When I first got on a CGM was and I mean, people I've heard on the podcast and other people that I've heard in diabetic groups that I'm a part of, have always said at first, when you get the technology, you're looking at these numbers and seeing a crap and going up to something and you're panicking. And I think in my head because of highs to me, scare me more than lows. And I don't know why. Like, I can deal with it. Okay, here's the juice box. Like literally, I have a juice box on the decks desk right now. So if I went slightly low, I could drink the juice box while I was on the podcast, I am very conscious of keeping things around me. But when you're high, it takes another two three hours to bring it down from a 200 You know, so I think that's where my problem is that I have to realize if I'm 151 60 Let's see what happens let it if it doesn't level out after the 160 then give yourself a couple units like don't let it but if it's two hours up that's Don't even get me started. I rage Bolus constantly.

Scott Benner 51:08
So what ends up happening are you miscalculating how much insulin you need for the meal? Are you not like covering it the way you should be? Is it a Pre-Bolus issue?

Stephanie 51:16
I probably am not covering it the way I should be because of the Hi Fi because I'm still the extended but because I'm on a T slim. So it's has that control IQ. Which when I first went on the control IQ I lost this last year on my my pump therapist, I felt so bad. Because I just lost it. I'm like I have an agency of 5.4 This thing is screwing me up. And she's like, What do you mean? And I'm like, It's making my sugar's high. And she's like, let me look at you know, we had to change a bunch of stuff when I changed over the control IQ. Because everything my levels weren't right, you know, my Basal and Bolus, all that it was all off. So no, it just it the highs. That's what scares me the most I can deal with a low. And I think what happens is when I had these hot, high fat meals, especially recently, it's usually eating out, which I mean, the the when the podcast you were talking about your daughter going to college and eating the food there. And it's similar. It's like eating out all the time. And that's what I've been doing, because I don't feel like cooking. You know?

Scott Benner 52:26
Well, it sounds like you know what's happening? You just have this kind of Yeah, you know, figure it out. Yeah. I think you figured it out. I think you have to do it. Yeah. Well, that's that's the problem. It's like, well, well, it's it's I'm glad you know, at the very least I'm glad you see it you understand what's happening and how you could make adjustments to it. So it's tough. You said earlier you choked. But you have ADHD.

Stephanie 52:53
Yes, I have ADHD and anxiety. How does

Scott Benner 52:56
that play into your diabetes?

Stephanie 52:58
I don't think the ADHD I think growing up was more an issue. I think I have a little bit more control over it. Now. The issues that I find with it is if I'm doing something else, so if I'm making dinner, and I'm like, Okay, it's 15 minutes before, I have to take my insulin. But if I'm cooking, I totally forgot. Like I literally set it a timer sometimes because I have to make sure that if I'm cooking that I take my insulin the 15 minutes before dinner's ready. Because if I don't, then I have the high blood sugars. So that's the biggest factor. I think the ADHD en memory, the remembering to do things like oh, did I take my insulin and then I mean, luckily now with the pump, you can kind of look okay, I have I have stuff on board. And it's the amount I should have taken. But it's just remembering to Pre-Bolus That's the biggest issue and my endo gave me I forget which it which quicker acting quick acting insulin he gave me recently to try and the pump can't remember it for the life of me now.

Scott Benner 54:04
I should start a line of trivets or potholders that say it smells good, have you Pre-Bolus

Unknown Speaker 54:13
I would totally buy that.

Scott Benner 54:14
I joked around around the other day. And I have a place where it's a company that makes the merchandise that I sell for the podcast. And they they bring out new stuff once in a while. One of the things was a candle and I just put the word Pre-Bolus on a candle and I just did it to put it in the group to be like, Hey, everybody, don't forget to Pre-Bolus and so many people were like, I would buy that candle and I was like,

Stephanie 54:37
what would it smell like? What does Pre-Bolus thing smell like?

Scott Benner 54:40
It was a it was just a wax candle like but it was just the idea of like big people like I would I could use to sign for my refrigerator. I could. Yeah, and I take their point. Like it's I don't know that that's even ADHD to be perfectly honest with you.

Stephanie 54:56
Probably not it's you know, I mean and to there's been There's so much research into ADHD, and factors on like, people hear ADHD, and they think about a kid that's running around like a crazy person. But now they've sucked it into different. I'll email I can't remember the woman's name that I've listened to, I'll have to email it, you can put it in the link if you want or something. But she, she's ADHD herself. And there's so much more to it, that people don't realize. Because I mean, you could be extremely intelligent with it. But you're just, it's just your focus. It's not even your focus. It's, I don't know how to explain it. Like my, my issues are getting distracted in the sense of like, I'll drop my clothes on the floor, even if the hamper is next to me. And that kind of thing. Like, there's a disconnect from that into the hamper. So that's so my stuff. I think because I grew up with the diabetes, it doesn't the ADHD and the diabetes don't really affect each other too much. I don't usually have too many issues to the point

Scott Benner 56:04
where every time somebody tells me about ADHD, it sounds I started thinking like, that just sounds like being a person to me. Yeah,

Stephanie 56:11
well, this, I'll have to send you the link. Because that's what a lot of people are saying. But there's more to it than most people realize. Because it's not because people people forget things. And the difference is is it affecting your daily life? Is it affecting your every day, like where you're losing your keys every day or you're losing? You know,

Scott Benner 56:33
my glass window right now I haven't known for four days. So Well, there you go. Here's the here's the thing. I'm sick. Kelly sick. Arden sick, cold sick, right? There's four sick people in our house. There's, I have a job. Kelly has a job called looking for a job Arden's home from college just think she's trying to get done. And I obviously took my glasses off and put them down somewhere and can't find them anymore. Is it possible we're all just trying to do too much? Like, you know what he means? Like, I'm not saying at all. I'm just saying that at this at this point. Now, ADHD is like, it's like hair, everybody. I mean, it's like I have

Stephanie 57:11
that. That's very common. It's extremely common. Now. I'm

Scott Benner 57:15
wondering like, are we just diagnosing everybody that can't find their glasses? Or? Or? Or is there something we didn't know that we know now? Or? I mean, I don't know. I? It's just interesting to me.

Stephanie 57:26
Yeah, this this woman that I listen to on YouTube, she talks about it, and I wish I can. This is part of my ADHD brain. Short term memories are really terrible with remembering names. Like, it has to be a name. So I started a new job a year ago. There's four people at my job that I know their name Fair enough. And the only reason I know they're in and this is like, hospital setting, like there's hundreds of people I see daily. There's like four or five people that I know their name. And I know like, you know, whatever, and I deal with them daily. But the difference is their names I've heard before they absorb quicker. If I have a person that has an uncommon name for a year, I won't memorize your name. I'll be like, Hey, you.

Scott Benner 58:14
I don't know if this is a real thing. I feel I'm googling something. Yeah, I feel like I heard something one time. Yes. Okay. So there's something called Dunbar's number. Dunbar's number, is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people from whom one can maintain stable social relationships, relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to another person. This number was first proposed in 19 in the 1990s by a British anther, Robin Dunbar that shouldn't have been surprising to me, who found the correlation between primate brain size the average social group size by using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates. He proposed that humans can comfortably maintain about 150 stable relationships. There is some evidence that the brain structure predicts the number of friends one has, though causality remains to be seen Dunbar expanded it informally as the number of people, you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happen to bump into the middle bar. I don't know. I'm just saying. Maybe you took that maybe you already know. 150 people and you're like, oh, like I'm done. No way. I'm remembering your mother. Like no. happening. Sorry. Well, I mean, I don't know. Like, again, like I said, I have no idea and yeah, I'm all for people being okay. I just, I just had a private conversation with somebody the other day, and they said, well, the number of people who come on your show that say they have ADHD is staggering. And I was like, Is it a like I said, is it a thing? Or is it like a social contagion almost, you know? And by the way, if you have ADHD Don't get mad at me. I'm Not saying you don't have it. Calm down. But it's like, okay, I'm not saying you don't have ADHD, I'm saying it's interesting. I grew up. I didn't know anybody that ADHD. And now I can't turn one way or the other without somebody saying to me like, oh, I have anxiety or I have ADHD or I have this. Is it possible? We all have? Like, I don't know. Are we calling something? We already had something new? I have no idea. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. Who knows? Me knows.

Stephanie 1:00:27
No, that's not my job. That's my

Scott Benner 1:00:32
question. I have absolutely no idea. No opinion. I seriously don't. By the way, there's sometimes or sometimes you listen to a podcast and like the personal say, like, Listen, I don't care about this one way or the other. But I think this like, Well, it seems like you do care.

Stephanie 1:00:45
It's like you have a

Scott Benner 1:00:47
quietly, I really don't have an opinion. I just, it's just interesting to me, you know. So anyway, it makes sense. It makes sense. You don't know you thought you'd be a good time? To take you seriously at all.

Stephanie 1:01:05
I didn't think that one. Oh, you know, I probably would have been shocked because I used to also say to like the professors would like because you have to take, you have to spend X amount of hours with diabetics before you can even sit for the test to be a diabetic educator. And then I said, I probably can sit for that test and pass it. And now I look back and I'm like, they were all sitting there and saying she's a moron.

Scott Benner 1:01:29
Okay, Stephanie. That's fine. Yeah, it's

Stephanie 1:01:32
like whatever pat you on the head. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:01:35
I'm imagining right now people are listening who are in college, or their kids are in college and thinking like, what did they major in? Like? Was it something they wanted to be good at, or something they were actually good at? And, you know, I think that's where you felt like you were obviously profoundly impacted, and really wanted to help people. You know, and you skipped over the part where, where you might not be able to, I don't know, like if LeBron James said he wanted to be an f1 driver. I don't make those cars big enough for you. I'm sorry, you can't do that.

Stephanie 1:02:07
It's like your you can't fit your cars. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 1:02:11
It's super interesting. All right. What else did you want to talk about? I'm sorry.

Stephanie 1:02:14
One of the things. And I listen, like I said, the memory is terrible. And it got worse after I had my daughter. One of the things I was interested to see. And I don't know how many if there's episode, I know you had a couple episodes where there was couples. That would be something that's very interesting, because now that so one of my my really extreme lows. My mom was in the car, it was actually the last time she was down here. My husband didn't know what to do. We've been married 13 years, he just kept yelling at me, what do you need, and my mom turns around and goes, you need to stop at that 711 And get her another juice. That's what you because I happen to go through all my juices were out for the day. And she had to tell him because she I mean, how many years had he and it's not his first time I was with him for about a year and I had a major blackout. And I was at my mom's house. That was before I was on the insulin pump. That's what made him suggested more. And he didn't really know what to do. Like he was very confused, like, well, I'm telling her what does she need from me? And I said to him, like, you can't, you can't, you have to physically take something, put it in my hand and then I will drink it. Like you physically like and it's amazing. Because not that I'm secretive about my diabetes, I talked to everyone about because I like to, I don't care. Like if you know I have it. I never realized I never educated him along with myself on what to do you know what I mean?

Scott Benner 1:03:50
I have an episode right now that I don't think is out yet. And, okay. The woman has a seizure. And, and the and the and the fascinating, the uneducated way that her husband handles it is something like, like, as she was talking about the whole probably the whole scenario. I'm like, How's it possible that somebody you've been with that long has this little understanding about what they're doing? And I mean, I'm having the same thought. Now, while you're talking like you. I mean, you said this just happened? You've been with this guy for a pretty long time. And he's doing the equivalent of me being I don't know, passing a guy on the sidewalk who's having a heart attack, clasping that grass in her chest. And I'm saying to him, like, Hey, do you have any idea what I should do for you? Like, you mean like, it's, um, it is really, but to your point, I wonder if that's not the norm as well.

Stephanie 1:04:44
It's not, it's not it's been even my mother like after because we ended up going to dinner after I came, like, came up because I was conscious. Like, I wasn't like I understand. I was there but I wasn't there, you know? So she, she said I haven't seen knew that bad in years stuff. And I said No, I haven't been this bad in years. And I said to him, Well, Mike, I said to my mom, I said, You know what worries me the most. I said, Ken didn't know what to do. And she goes, Steph, how many have you had in front of him? I'd like to maybe. Because do you really expect when was the last one that you had like this? And I said, Well, not that bad. But, and I because he got up one morning, years ago, he got up he went to work. And he broke his MO was still in daycare because he brought her to school. He got up and I hadn't gotten out of bed yet. And he said stuff, get out of bed and I got out of bed. And he's like you were going really slow. And I ended up unconsciously because I was blacking in and out going to the fridge and getting myself a juice. He didn't have he didn't recognize it. And that was the thing like that was Emma was No, not even she was like less than a year old. Because we are we moved when Emma was your mom's?

Scott Benner 1:06:04
I think your mom's point was is that he didn't grow up with you with this. He's also not your parents. He doesn't care about you the way I do. Yes. And you know, and you haven't told him?

Stephanie 1:06:15
Yeah, yeah. So that's the thing. It's, it's the last couple of ones he's been around for. And this time, he was like stuff, something's wrong. You need to go get a juice. He's like, what's your sugars? And I'm like, and I just looked at me, he goes, go get a juice. And so then we walked downstairs. And that's when I said, I'm gonna get me juice, and she got me a juice, but he's getting better at least recognizing my signs. So I mean, not that I want it to keep happening, you know, at least at least,

Scott Benner 1:06:43
stopped and sat down and said to him, Hey, this is, you know, could end up being a problem one day, the maybe I should just explain this to

Stephanie 1:06:51
I did the one the last one. When my mom was here. I said, Listen, I need to talk to you. I say what happened today? Can't happen again. I said, if I am like that, you need to just get me juice. Or if I ended up collapsing, because I got one of those. The emergency kit because I hadn't carried one would with me in years. And then I heard the one your ads for the one that's like an

Scott Benner 1:07:18
Evoque hypo Pan.

Stephanie 1:07:19
Thank you. There you go.

Scott Benner 1:07:20
Thank you.com No, no, hold on, hold on. Calm. No. How do I not know this? Oh, my gosh, this isn't this is embarrassing.

Stephanie 1:07:35
Okay, I can't remember the name. No,

Scott Benner 1:07:37
I say these things, constantly. And then, but I say them in a specific time. And I guess that out of out of rhythm. I don't even know. I'm incredibly sorry. I'm sorry. If you vote glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. You have to say it that voice. Over voice changes. Voice for you keep talking. I just put out an episode about like when to use G voc because I had that conversation with the other person I was talking to. And I went back to G voc. And I said to them, like, Hey, are you interested in like, getting together with me and doing like a real informative half hour like me, Jenny? Because I really don't think people know what the hell they're doing. And I'm, and I'm wondering, you know

Stephanie 1:08:28
what, that was the thing like I got when the inhaled one came out. I got that one. Because my doctor is always big on me carrying one but I haven't for a while and he's like, listen, he was like the this inhaled one came out. Why don't you get it? And I said, Okay, so if I'm like, unconscious, you just sprained my nose. And he goes, No, this one's actually for if you're having one year a little blackouts, you can use it then for your nose right? Back. Yes. I mean, yeah. And then I never used it. Like, thank god knock on wood. Then I got these. And I have three of them. Because my insurance paid for three, so why not get three? And so I'm gonna throw one in my purse. Because as a doctor in my office that always she has a husband, that's type one and knows even totally less than, like, like, it's insane. And I'm like, try the Juicebox Podcast and she goes, what? I don't listen to podcasts and like, Just do it. I'm like, if you want give me your cell phone number, I'll send you like, please, you're making

Scott Benner 1:09:27
me feel like I'm the only one that cares about all of you. Well, you do you worried about themselves? Am I the only one

Stephanie 1:09:38
but this one was hilarious. She said something the other day. And I was like, because he's he's trying to get Omni pod. And I'm like, Well, I don't have that. I have the the tube one. But you know, then I explained to your daughter has she's like, Oh, yeah. And I'm like, Yeah, seriously, please just listen to it. And then I said to her that I got I got that and she's a Whatsapp. Like, well, it's like an epi pen. And she's like, What do you mean? I go, you know how like the emergency kits come in the red thing? She goes, yeah, she goes, I have no clue how to use it. I'm like, I'll get this one because it does everything for you, basically.

Scott Benner 1:10:11
Thank you. May I just say something right now, if the advertisers are listening, this is an example of where Stephanie's friend is gonna end up buying in this situation and on the pod and I'm not gonna get credit for it. Sorry. On the pod, okay. Yeah. All right. Take that into account. Next time I tell you, the price is going up all you not just I'm not just talking. I'm talking to all of you. Yeah. There are a few advertisers who really understand something that in advertising they call the halo effect. And then there are some who fight me on it. And I'm like, listen, okay, when someone's in their doctor's office, and they go, Hey, give me one of those in pens. That was me. But they didn't use my clicky Clicky. And then you're all like, I don't know. Like, I don't know. Anyway, that's all.

Stephanie 1:11:01
Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's the thing like now, now that I got this new toy, I like to call it, I have to show my husband and I have to be like, Listen, this is what you do. If I'm unconscious, but I'm gonna listen to that podcast episode.

Scott Benner 1:11:14
You let him listen to it? Like, yeah, that's

Stephanie 1:11:20
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna send him a link. Because every once awhile if there's an episode that I find educating to me that he should listen to I send it to him. I don't know if he listens to it.

Scott Benner 1:11:29
But I mean, I'm not even making this up. For me. Everyone listening should send episode 789 to loved ones and be like, listen, whether I use this glucagon, or I use a different glucagon, everything about this is basically Apples to Apples except the, the actual tration of it. But no kidding, like, your conversation is making me so upset tonight. Because

Speaker 1 1:11:54
it's because I'm like, how, how are so many people wandering around don't know how to use their glucagon? Or how are there so many people wandering around married to people with diabetes, they don't even know how to handle a simple situation. Like, it's not just you're not just your guy. You mean like,

Stephanie 1:12:09
and I think what it is to is, in some cases, not mine, like you don't want to be a burden to that person. You don't want to be like, Oh, well, now it's your turn to take this burden on my theory with the whole thing. Why? And again, I guess I'm not giving him enough burden, because he has no clue how to take care of that. But he's gotten better the last couple of times. So I have to remember I have to talk to him about it. And I have to be like, Hey, listen, this is if I'm, this is what you have to do. If I'm low, you know, whatever. I think what the problem is, like, people get married, and it's not like, Oh, it's my parents, because like, I would have bad lows. And I would call my mom. And I'd be like, Hey, Mom, I had a bit low last night. And and, you know, she goes, Well, what did you do? And we would go down the list to figure out why I had low like, conversation. He's not involved in that conversation, because it's easy to talk to someone that understands it. And now that said enough that she's not around. He has to be educated in this because God forbid, and I've said this to him before. I said, What would happen if I got, I don't know, God forbid, hit by a car, or fell down the stairs and was paralyzed and couldn't change my own insulin pump? What would you do? Yeah, he doesn't know he has no clue what to do. And that's like, my pump therapist said like, a while ago, I am going to send this to my dad. But I do have to tell the story. When I first got the insulin pump. When I was in the pediatrician, endocrinologist, they said you need to bring the family members that you live with or you are with constantly. So I brought my husband, which was my boyfriend at the time. And my dad, and I was living with my dad. My dad turned to the pump therapist and asked if my blood sugar. So if blood sugar changes, I think he put it as would affect my mood. And I was like, we both looked at him. He's known as mono me my whole life and the pump divers like Yes. Like, yeah, she she'll be moody when she's high or when she's low, depending on how her body reacts. And like it was just, it's amazing. Someone even being in your life entirely. They're not involved in it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's as simple as you know that and it's not a judgment on him. It's just my mom took, I think 90.9% of the care was on her. Because she was a stay at home mom, she was able to if I needed anything, but that's the thing.

Scott Benner 1:14:46
You just have to tell people that's like you have to and you have to find a way to impress upon them, that what you're talking about is not frivolous, that it's very serious that it could be life or death and that you know, just please commit Just a memory. You know, I mean, I have that episode in the Pro Tip series. I think it's, I can find it real quick. It's called explaining type one, it's Episode 371, that you can send it to somebody who doesn't have diabetes. And it's Jenny and I just kind of telling a person like, look, this is what it's like to have diabetes. And you know, I think that can be helpful. But again, like you said, you send things to people, you don't have to listen to them or not. It's all very Exactly. And

Stephanie 1:15:25
I think, you know, honestly, I think eventually he does listen to him. But does he say he listens to it? No. But you know, that's something I think that that as even anyone that's in a relationship, whether it be boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever, any committed relationship, if you're spending more than a couple of days with this person a week, you need to let them know, Hey, this is what I have. And I know it's not easy. I know people have this stipulation on, you're a diabetic, and people are not going to want to be with you. But that person, I think you've said it before, if that person doesn't want to be with you, as a diabetic, they're not right for you. Because years down the road, they're not going to be a

Scott Benner 1:16:07
class, if you had red hair, and somebody didn't like redheads. That's not the right person for you. Exactly. It's just that easy.

Stephanie 1:16:13
Exactly. You know, and he, my husband is a wonderful man. He's a wonderful father to my daughter. I mean, during the postpartum depression, he helped me extremely with that. And I wouldn't give him up for life. But I need to myself my error was not educating him enough. Through the years that I've been with him, and that's where I think one of my issues was, okay,

Scott Benner 1:16:39
well, I appreciate you very much sharing this with me and for taking the time and for doing Saturday night and all that stuff. I actually found this really, like thought provoking. And, and I think it's important for people to think about what you're what you're explaining today. You can't just walk around being the only person who understands what's happening to you. So,

Stephanie 1:16:59
exactly, because you end up being unconscious on the street. Because as much as we live in a world that you have people in your life if they don't know how to handle it. Calling 911 Yes, will help but 911 will not be there. quick enough. If you are that gone.

Scott Benner 1:17:16
I I listened. This was perfect. Thank you very much. I were done. This was perfect. Leave it right here. Yeah, the tactic, just tell somebody, explain it to them. Make them understand if they don't want to understand, find somebody that does want understand, but don't just walk around, hoping that the guy or the girl or whoever standing next to you is going to like, magically pull some, you know, pull something out of their ass when you need it. You know what I mean? Like, be sure they know what it is, where it is and how to use it. Alright, great. All right, Stephanie. Thanks so much. Can you hold on for one second for me? Thanks, of course.

Hey, how about Stephanie coming through with a hell of a story. Thank you. Thank you much, much. I was gonna say Thank you much. What am I? My 12 Thank you so much. Definitely. Appreciate you. It wasn't gonna say what was I about to do? Thanks so much, definitely for telling your story. gotten off track here. I also want to thank the contour next gen blood glucose meter and remind you to go to contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. Get yourself an accurate meter, you deserve it. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terminology. And that's why I've created the defining diabetes series. These are short episodes, where Jenny Smith and I go over all of the terms that you're going to hear living with diabetes, and some of them that you might not hear every day, from the very simple Bolus up to feed on the floor. Don't know the difference between hypo and hyper will explain it to you. These are short episodes, they are not boring. They're fun, and they're informative. It's not just us reading to you out of the dictionary, we take the time to chat about all of these different words. Maybe you don't know what a qu small respiration is, you will when you're done. Ever heard of glycemic index and load? Haven't doesn't matter, you will know after you listen to the defining diabetes series. Now, how do you find it, you go to juicebox podcast.com up top to the menu and click on defining diabetes. You'll be able to listen right there in your browser. Or you'll see the full list of the episodes and be able to go into an audio app like Apple podcasts or Spotify and listen to them at your pace. Download them into your phone and listen when you can. The defining diabetes series is made up of 51 short episodes that will fast forward your knowledge of diabetes terminology. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

#969 Saturday Night

Danielle is an RN who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in her own hospital.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Danielle 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 969 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'll be speaking with Danielle she's a nurse who hosted her very own hospital. She was actually scared of carbs, and once had to give herself glucagon in a hotel room while on a work trip. Today she uses control IQ after doing MDI for a number of years. And this is our conversation. 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. Don't forget to support the sponsors if you want to Dexcom use my link and on the pod my link us met my link etc. and so on G Bo Capo pen use my link links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. When you click on those links, you are in fact supporting the show. You'll get a free years supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs when you get your first order of ag one with my link drink ag one.com forward slash juicebox

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My name is Danielle. And I have type one diabetes will La da it's just kind of morphed into solely type one I guess you would say. And I got diagnosed at 29 While working as a nurse at the hospital

29 Your nurse Lada still.

So I when I was originally diagnosed, I was diagnosed with type two misdiagnosed, then working at the hospital, I was rounding on patients with one of my endocrinologist, let him know. And he said you're not type two. And I was like, No, I'm pretty sure I am just got diagnosed with it. And he's like, who in your family has type two diabetes and I had no family history. I was not obese, I had a healthy lifestyle. And he's like you're not type two. And so he's like, well check, check your blood sugar. Like I was only checking it like maybe once twice a day at that time. And he had me check my blood sugar with one of the hospital meters and it was in the five hundreds I don't remember the exact number. And I was fasting. I only had bought coffee yet that day. And he was like, Absolutely not. You are not rounding on my patients. You need insulin right now. So he took me in the Med Room and pulled out insulin and gave it to me, right there in the middle of the hospital middle of my day. And then he pulled me from the floor.

See now I thought we weren't gonna get any more unique diagnosis stories, but that was very unique. So yeah, he just he just assumed taking a brief history and seeing the blood sugar. He's like, this is not Yeah, type two.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I had worked with him for for some time. And I think that he, he knew enough about me to just kind of go off of that gut instinct. And he injected me with three units right there. And I was like, sit down. I'm gonna check on you in an hour.

Did your blood sugar move? refused? Wait, hold on, you refuse the insulin?

No, I took the insulin. He wanted me to go to the ER I refuse to be at the ER at my own hospital. And he knew I was pretty strong willed. So he let me sit in the nurse's station.

You know, I don't I've heard that statement from nurses so many times. I think I kind of understand it, but it's been spoken to me a dozen times. I won't go to the ER in my own hospital. What Yeah, what's the vibe behind that?

I think there is this, you know, mentality of a lot of nurses that like we're the caregivers. We don't need the care. We we help fix people And I didn't want to ever be seen by my peers as sick, Ill weak, I would have rather went to a less. I would call like, just less skilled hospital. I've been treated by strangers, then treated by my peers and people I knew it because I'm not a great patient. I know too much to be a good patient.

That's, that's interesting. Okay, I appreciate you speaking more about that for me, because I just that phrase has come up so many times. Okay, so, how long ago was this? How old are you now? Yes.

So I'm 36. Now.

So seven years ago,

seven years? Yeah.

Do you remember? When he came back an hour from then what was next?

Oh, yeah, my blood sugar like barely moved at all. It was, I want to say low for hundreds, maybe high three hundreds. I mean, didn't really touch it. But I mean, nothing. Three units of insulin is not touching a blood sugar of 500. That has been 500 for God knows how long. My agency at the time was? 15.7. Yeah. And so I had lost I actually went to the doctor originally for my original type two diagnosis. Thinking I told my, my PCP that I thought I had a spinal tumor. I was paying all night long, I would get these horrendous leg cramps. But I would only get them at night when I lay down. And I only really acknowledged how much I needed to go to the bathroom at night. And so I thought it was some sort of tumor benign tumor in my spine. Pressing on a nerve making me pee and hurting my leg.

Now you jumped over a lot of other operating options there when you got Yeah, yeah, you sound like I did. I did really did. Like Kelly's, like, what's wrong with my arm hurts. I have arm cancer. It's obviously arm cancer and dying. And this is it and well, so did they put you in the hospital? I mean, if the three units only moved you a little bit, then you need to be like titrated down or

he did not he because I was pretty adamant. And I was like, I'll walk out. I'll go ama I said, give me orders. I will go home and I will get my blood sugar down. And he thankfully trusted me to do so. And I did. He was like I want I want text updates every hour then of your blood sugar.

Are you married?

I am married. Yeah,

this is he does he does He looks tired. Are you?

Oh, yeah, I'm sure he's he's mentally and physically exhausted with me

every day. What's wrong? Yeah, I don't know if that's Danielle. Everything's fine.

It really is. He? Well, and I didn't tell anybody my diagnosis for a long time. Okay. Like I originally, my husband was the only one that knew I didn't tell anyone in my family. I didn't tell. I wanted to have it under control before it answered any questions? Okay, so my mom who's also in the medical industry, I just, I knew that she would lose her mind. If she found out that I had a diabetes. She or be especially like an insulin dependent diabetes, she would just freak out and not know anything but need to know everything. And so I wanted to just have a rhythm developed and have something to wear. I could say, Hey, I got diagnosed with this. But I have it under control. Here's what I did.

How long did that go on for?

It? It took probably about four months before I let anyone in my family know, or friends or anybody at work. I just didn't want to answer questions to something I didn't have the answers to,

you know, do you think I should put the ads here so that parents who just heard that an adult child didn't tell their family for four months that they had diabetes so they can absorb that and cry and all the things like he imagined like the mom of a 12 year old right now going, Wait a minute, they're gonna leave the house and then something like this is gonna happen to them. They're not going to tell me like, like, people are freaking out. I'm freaking out a little bit. I'm like, oh my god, like I like you don't I mean, do you have kids? I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, I do.

I have an eight year old son. Okay, so you know how any reasonably intelligent parent is looking at their child and thinking, well, they're doing like 10 things that they shouldn't be doing that I don't know about. I can't possibly know what all of them are. But one of them shouldn't be withholding a major illness.

Oh, yeah, I know. They were not happy.

Oh, no, no, I I'm dying to hear the story of when you told your mom four months later that you had diabetes. But yeah, but so I understand the idea that you thought like, let me get it in hand. Right? And then I can tell people and comfort them at the same time with Don't worry, I've got it all figured out already. Yeah, yeah, any part of you just not want to tell people you have diabetes, like at work or anything like that,

you know, a handful of girls knew at work because they were in the nurse's station with me when I got pulled from the floor and sat at the station. And they were kind of my close knit work group, we kind of planned our schedules together and things like that. So that was okay, because they were also a resource, not that floor nurses are very educated and diabetes, to begin with, you know a lot about the disease process, and you know, how to give insulin according to just standard sliding scale orders, but you don't know the, the effects or the signs of low blood sugar, you all you know, is what the meter tells you when you check.

Okay. And that's it? Well, you know, I'll stop you for one second, then we'll get right back to it just made me think of this morning, as I was getting ready to talk to you. I was doing my social media. And I know, you're like, oh, Scott, you should have a social media person. I know I should. But I'm like, I'm trying to go through it. And a message on Instagram, from a doctor, you know, person puts up a post to tell everybody, I don't know how diabetes is going. And she's thanking some people at the end, she says, and the Juicebox Podcast for giving me all of the information I did not get in medical school. And it's just, I mean, I know it's true. And I understand why, like I understand, like, going to nursing school will take 20 years if they were going to dig into everything that you are going to see. But it's still shocking to hear that, you know, a handful of nurses and in a hospital only really know, this is the number give this much insulin where the doctors child will get diagnosed, and a podcast would end up being more valuable than a medical school degree. Like that stuff is, it seems crazy. You know, it's just the

power of shared information. I mean, every I truly believe that every diagnosis and every diabetic is so unique in I mean, we have a lot of common similarities. But yet, the whole diagnosis and the whole treatment and how you approach things, it's just it's unique to every individual. And it's really hard to get that sort of unique approach. In any sort of hospital or care setting or even an office setting.

You would have no way of knowing this, but my my podcast is is slotted as a medicine podcast also on this is ridiculous. Nobody cares about this, but Apple podcasts, there's Apple podcasts, health, which is the kind of the parent category, then there's a subcategory. That's medicine. I'm in medicine, right. So I'm in health, and then I'm in medicine, and my my podcast charts pretty consistently in the top 20, all year long in the medicine category, but it's surrounded by nursing podcasts, which are incredibly popular, where nurses get on and talk to other nurses about things. They're going to see how they handle stuff. It just made me think of what you just said, like it works for diabetes, but it also, I mean, there's five really popular nursing podcasts. So it must it must work great in that scenario as well. Anyway, yeah, absolutely. So anyway, I'm sorry. So you're so here you are, you're at home, do you actually figure it out? Because you have lotto right, so it's,

I do so the very next day, so I essentially manage kind of every few hours checking and I don't really come below 300 And I feel somewhat I feel the low blood sugar effects in the three hundreds as well. So I knew just I mean, as long as I felt okay, I stayed really hydrated, and I fasted I wasn't eating because I had an appointment the next day with my endocrinologist and that's where he gave me love Amir and so I started on lab Amir I think I started at like 30 or 40 units a day, it was a pretty, pretty significant amount. And just the blanket kind of sliding scale of your blood sugars this take this much insulin, none of it was a you know carb ratio. We didn't talk about carb ratios or you know correction factor. All it was was mealtime sliding scale insulin.

And that's just seven years ago.

Yeah, seven years ago. That's

interesting. And what was that was that because I mean because that's a I don't like using terms like a lot but That was more basil than I expected you to say. Like, I'm looking at it. Yeah, I'm looking at a picture of you. And if this is a reasonable representation of you, you're not your slight person, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I think part of it was, again, like some of his orders are based off of a one CS. And in those sorts of things. So the higher somebody is a one C was the more love Amir or Basal insulin that he would initially administer. And so I, he wanted me to take some time off of work, and just like focus on it. And he's like, if you're feeling really low, then you know, beat and reduce your Basal. If you are not coming down, then you know, give yourself your your sliding scale. And so I did that for a few days in it worked. Well, I would say I got myself into an average of two hundreds, still feeling really low all of the time. But I was happy that it wasn't I felt out of the danger zone, essentially, out of just walking DKA.

Did you think you had type two?

Well, so it had been about three or four months between my diagnosis of type two to La da, but then prior to type my type two diagnosis, I would say it was probably three another three to four months that I had a spinal tumor in my mind.

So over six months, your blood sugar's elevated, and you're treating it by drinking coffee and nothing else. Is that kind of what you were doing back then?

Oh, yeah, I would drink a ton of coffee, water. And then But prior to Well, when I first got diagnosed with type two, also, I was given Metformin. Okay. So that that would help.

Obviously, it wasn't. So Metformin doesn't work for type one diabetes, amazing. By itself, by the way, some people do take Metformin, I do still take it, I do still take it. Does it help with persistence? It does,

because I follow well, and we can get into how I got to keto diet. I feel like I started a keto diet before I knew what keto was or that being a thing. I just quit eating carbs. But I it definitely helps because I have a higher fat intake. And so I think it helps curb some of that insulin resistance from that increased fat diet.

Gotcha. Okay, so, I mean, I have the luxury of having your what I'm going to call the most complete note anyone's ever sent me about being on the potty. But But I want to, I want to start picking through everything. So this was not a comfortable time for you this sliding scale is happening. Are you scared most of the time, or, like,

at this point, at this point, I wasn't very scared, because I didn't know. I mean, I knew very brittle diabetics, either from highs or lows or extreme insulin sensitivity from just working in the hospital or working in a long term care setting. But I never really viewed myself as sensitive to insulin because I was injecting a lot of it and it wasn't doing much at the time. A lot of that was probably diet as well. And again, just kind of the blanket orders and the mismanagement when initially diagnosed. But no, I was just really determined to like, have to hundreds be my highs, or even low three hundreds be my highs post meal. And my goal was to get my my lows back to the one hundreds, somewhere in the one hundreds. I just wanted to see what the 100 So knowing that, like, I can't, I knew that I can't rush this down. Like I wasn't going to feel good internally. If I went from having an average blood sugar of five hundreds, 406 Hundreds, for months, just back down to 80 to 120. It wasn't going to

feel well. You were feeling low on the two hundreds at that point. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about like, I feel like working in a hospital. Like I've talked to nurses, not just on the podcast, and they'll say that, you know, everyone I meet with diabetes, generally speaking, is not great at taking care of their diabetes. They're high all the time or they're high and then low and then that yeah, I use the word brittle because I don't know because it means unstable. Yeah. And, and, and then you get this feeling that that's what diabetes is like, almost like I have a friend who's a police officer and Every one that he encounters during his day

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I think initially, yes. I think that that was definitely a perceived thought. Prior to me having it right. Once I got diagnosed, it was like, Oh, my, this is not easy. It's like why does this feel so bad? And I thought, you know, like, I'm smart. I'm a nurse's this isn't a big deal. And I was actually you know, as sad as this is I was actually like it's somewhat relieved that it was type one and not type two. I had this like notion in my head of like, if it's type two, I did something wrong. Like I ate terribly. Like I didn't take care of myself. No one else has it. That means I did I didn't do something right for me. And then I thought to myself, if it's type one, then it wasn't my fault. It's out of my control. And I actually like found comfort in having a type one diagnosis as odd as that sounds.

I don't think I actually think that it's common because yeah, I just got done recording with a type two the other day and I try my hardest to put type two episodes into the show but it's difficult to get them to step forward and one To do it, and overall the vibe is, I don't want people to think I did this. And, yeah, it's just it's a, I think it's just a very human way of thinking about it. Like, you just don't want people to look at you and think, oh, look what you did to yourself. And I understand what you're saying I understand it. So, okay. What happens? Like, do you go back to work at some point? Or how do you get through?

Yeah, I, I had just, I just had a couple of days off, I took PTO, and no big deal was feeling better. I would say by like, the end of my first week, I was in the one and two hundreds, and I was pretty bold, I mean, I, I was not checking my blood sugar as often as I do now, because they still kind of just had this mindset of pre meal, checking it because that's what I knew. I wasn't doing a ton of like post meal checks. So as long as I was back down to to a somewhat decent number, I would say, near the 150s pre meal, I felt completely comfortable, still giving myself as much insulin as I needed, according to my sliding scale. And so I felt like I had it, you know, relatively under control. I got to a place where I wasn't seeing a lot of two hundreds at all, it was very, very rare. In my morning, kind of wake up range was typically 90s. And so it felt like my love Amir was was working well as as well. And I actually slowly HAD, Once my blood sugar and a onesie started to come down. I actually started decreasing my love Amir and I have always kind of managed my own insulin outside of my sliding scale. When it comes to my basil. I kind of always dictated after my initial orders from my doctor, I kind of dictated it after that if my blood sugar was higher at bedtime, I would give myself a little bit more basil. If it was lower, I would I would decrease the amount of units in in was really flexible, right from the beginning, because I felt like he he's not seeing this every day. He's not seeing me every day. I will know when it's working. And when it's not.

That's, and that's a real benefit of your job. Yeah, because so many people spend years not making what they consider, like obvious like they see it right in front of them. They're like, I use this much. And then this happens. I bet you a little more, a little less would do this. And then they don't have the nerve to make the leap because they don't want to override the doctor. But you were just like, I'll change that. No problem. That's yeah,

I think there's probably a little love hate in that when it comes to my physician's opinion. But

yeah, I was pretty beginning. Living with you. They don't they don't say exactly, you know, so.

I mean, he knew what he was getting into when I walked out of the hospital that day.

I would love to talk to him. I wish I had. Yeah, that'd be an interesting, just a 10 minute conversation. Because all of that was so different. Honestly. But, but interesting. Okay. Well, so in your note, you talk about some fear of insulin, but you didn't start Yes. You didn't start with the fear. Now you are you there now? Are you like seven years later? Do you have problem with it now? Or it? Was it a thing that you went through?

Yeah, so it was definitely a thing I went through. So probably a year after diagnosis, I switched jobs. And we came, started working for a dermatology company and was traveling with that dermatology company. And so it was my very first travel assignment, actually. And I got on site, got to my hotel room had picked up my dinner, and my blood sugar was high. And I think it was just kind of from the stress and increased anxiety of traveling all day and things like that. And so I was in the three hundreds, looked at my sliding scale, gave myself my insulin and sat down to eat. And there wasn't much of a you know, doctors don't often talk about Pre-Bolus Or how soon before you eat or how soon you should give insulin before you eat. And so I just give myself my insulin, sit down and start eating. And I'm watching TV, not as hungry as I anticipated. So I don't finish it, but I don't think anything of it, and then blindly cut unknowingly and I don't feel it at this point. But I get an alert on my phone for my Dexcom that says I'm dropping and I've got two arrows pointing down. And I was like, Huh, that's strange. I was like, my food will catch up. All I had was a salad like a Greek salad. It wasn't anything substantial to to catch it by any means. And then it gets to the point to where it's dropping. And it's not stopping. And I look again, and it's 34 with two arrows pointing down, and I was like, This can't be good. Mind you, excuse me?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you were

hundreds. Yeah, certainly hundreds to my it just said low on my meter. But my last one had two arrows pointing down. My meter said 34, my meter doesn't have arrows. So I checked my blood sugar. Mind you, I didn't check my blood sugar before I sat down to eat, I just went off of my Dexcom also. But I checked my blood sugar, it's 34. And I like instantly get to this like, sometimes you don't, I feel like you don't know your blood sugar's low until your blood sugar tells you you're low. Like you, it takes your body a minute to catch up sometimes. And so I instantly feel the effects of a 34 that's dropping. And I know I am in my hotel room, I'm alone. No one knows what room I'm in. I haven't even talked to my husband since I, I mean, I literally had just checked in sat down and ate. And I have no choice at this point. Like, I know that glucose tabs are not going to do enough. So I get my glucagon out, somehow manage with like this violent shaking of hands, either from the mixture of anxiety and just below itself, shaking, draw up the glucagon and inject it in my arm. And then I wait, and hope that I don't pass out in a hotel room by myself.

Were you capable of thinking I should call 911? Or did that not pop into your head?

You know, so I didn't. And I actually called so one of the other girls that I met at this new company I had started had diabetes, and she's had type one diabetes since she was a child. And she was kind of my like, resource and my lifeline. So my first thing I thought to do was to call her and so I called her and she said, Okay, what hotel are you at? What room are you in? And so she knew to get that information right away? I did not. So I got that information to her. And she just stayed on the phone with me. And she's like, my very first words to her when we got on the phone was at what point? Should you not give yourself your glucagon? or at what point should you give yourself your glucagon? And she's like, Oh, well, you don't ever give it to yourself. It's it's only you know, in case you pass out or, and I was like, Well, I just gave it and she's like, wait, what? Why? And I was like, wow. And I told her the story. And she's like, Yeah, yeah, that's that's a good choice.

Yeah, there's, I mean, there's a lot of opportunities for you to give it to yourself. I think the way you described it was perfect, actually. Yeah. So how low did you lose consciousness?

I did not. I did not, I don't know. So she, I knew that I did not want to check it again. For 20 to 30 minutes, unless I started feeling worse than what I was feeling. I knew that it was going to take some time. And I knew that, just me personally, that sometimes the panic is worse than the number or worse than waiting. So I knew that if I checked it, it very well could have gone lower than 34. But I knew if I checked it, I was going to continue to overreact or get myself so worked up into an anxiety attack that I'm going to my heart rate is going to go through the roof and that it's just going to be worse for me. So I just stayed on the phone with her and waited and waited. And it was probably the longest 20 to 30 minutes of my life.

Did you ever talk to her about it afterwards?

Not really. No. I mean, we, we, I am also her lifeline. I mean, we will go six, eight months without talking. And I know if my phone rings and it's her. She's She lives alone with her young son. And I know that, that now is when she needs me. And I'll answer and she's like, Hey, I'm in the 40s. This is what I'm doing. You know, I just want to like I don't want to put this on my 10 year old son to have to call 911. Here's, you know, and I have her address. And so we're just kind of each other's lifelines. And when I first was diagnosed, she was definitely like my little bucket of knowledge. I would just pick her brain over tons and tons of things. But then, very quickly, I learned what's working for her and what she sees as successful management is not what I want, and it's not what works for me. And so, yeah,

I was just wondering if, like you were coherent or like it, but you know, if you're, if your recollection of those 20 minutes is the same as what It was really happening. That was hers. Yeah, that was what I was. Yeah, but okay.

Yeah, I don't know, after after I checked, you know, in that 2030 minute window. I was in the 50s. I remember that. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna be okay. And I felt good enough because you know, when you're that well, like, it's hard to eat, or it's hard to like, you know, and I didn't have I had glucose tablets, but I didn't have any gel I didn't have and I had like chips. And so I knew I'm gonna go and get a, like a full sugar soda. So I went and got a soda out of the vending machine. And I called my endocrinologist. He called me back and he was like, Well, what's your blood sugar? Now? By the time I talked to him, it was like, an hour later, maybe an hour and a half later. And I was only one like, 160s I don't think I ever I never hit above 165 That entire night.

And that was that the old school? Red Box. Yeah, just the mix it Yeah.

Oh, geez. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, a bit of an adventure.

I stabbed myself in the finger like multiple times, just from the shakes alone.

And y'all I gotta give you props. You stuck that? That big needle in your butt? Is that what you did?

No, no, I stuck it right in my like shoulder like my arm. Really? Yeah, she's and I was like, here we go.

is hard to go to sleep after that. Were you nervous?

Yes. So thankfully, my endocrine you know, I worked a long time with my endocrinologist when we worked at the hospital. He stayed my I've also since made him my PCP. I told them like, hey, if I get the flu, you can get me some medication. Like I have diabetes. That's, that's what I need to see. So he's all my doctors now. But yeah, he knows me very well. And thankfully, he called me like every two hours throughout the night, and he wanted to check on my blood sugar, because he actually had me not take my love Amir that night, he wanted me to take it in the morning. He's like, I, he's like, you're alone. For the first time traveling like this just happened. You need to like play it safe. And that's when I realized that I'm probably a lot more sensitive to insulin than I ever realized. But my food intake was comparable enough. And my correction factor is not what it appeared to be. Because essentially, every time I was giving myself insulin, I thought it was more so for correction, but really, it was correction and food. And so when you add a meal, and that has little to no carbs, and take that big of a correction. It just plummeted me.

You ironically, I mean, we've been talking now for a while. And you just the story mimics that of somebody who really was having their outcomes by mistake. Like, do you know what I mean? Like you don't want to say you didn't know what you were doing. But it sounds like you didn't know what you were doing. It sounds like Yeah, right. Like, it sounds like you were using insulin kind of haphazardly. But you didn't realize it and then know exactly right. So we put on this one day where your blood sugar shoots up probably from travel anxiety, and adrenaline and stuff like that. And then you come in with this big Bolus on top of having a salad which is not going to offer much resistance to begin with. And that's the first time you look and you say, Well, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, like, that's, you know what I mean? That's it's it happens to everybody. I think the podcast exists, because that's true. After talking to enough people, I believe that a lot of people who use insulin are I don't want to use the lucky like that it's going as well as it is that they're just Yeah, I agree. Yeah. It's like they're not making a lot of informed decisions. They don't know how insulin works. Generally speaking, doctors are kind of keeping them in a I don't know, they just you know, they're like, here, do this, do that. Yeah, you're higher than you want to be. But at least you're not injecting yourself with glucagon in a in a hotel room. And then that just becomes the norm. And if you're lucky you get through and but for most people, they end up with stories like yours once or twice a year. Yeah, yeah. So what did you do after that? Because I don't imagine you just sat around you were like, I guess this is my life.

Ya know, so the very next day, I took a mentality of I'm allergic to carbs. And even though that meal didn't contain carbs, I don't know what the switch was. But I mentally made this correlation of people who are allergic to peanuts. Don't run around. only eating peanut butter and jellies and injecting themselves with epinephrine just so they can have some peanut butter and jelly. I'm not going to eat carbs, and I won't need this sliding scale insulin that that tried to kill me. If I can just have a regular stable blood sugar, I'm not going to need that sliding scale. And that was my thinking, my endocrinologist who shared a few few words with me that it was wrong. That was not the correct thinking that I'm not allergic to carbs. But he didn't change my mind

or change or correlate, I understand the line you drew. I mean, I also I have this 124 hour experience that was valuable to me in the podcast, which is I was at the dentist one day. And I was peeing a lot. Like I had to like, no, he was doing work. I mean, in the middle of a procedure, I'm like, I gotta go to the bathroom. And so I got up and went. And at the very end of the procedure, I went again. And then the nurse grabbed the dentist and said, you know, he paid before he came in here before we started. And so the guy pulls me aside and goes, Hey, I think you have type two diabetes. And I was like, Well, I definitely know that I don't. But, you know, what, do you know why you're saying it turns out it was really iron deficient. Like my body was falling apart, basically. But not, not the point. The point is, I went home, and I had to call a doctor and make an appointment. So I called the doctor, I told them, You know what had happened, I'm lucky to live in a place where I wasn't gonna have to wait forever to get an appointment. And I had an appointment 48 hours later to get a physical. But for 48 hours, I couldn't bring myself to eat. Like I was just frozen. It really was I couldn't eat. I just didn't eat for days. And I feel like that's what happened to you in the beginning. And then it's where your brain went here like, well, I won't need insulin if I don't have carbs. So I'm going to not eat carbs. I think that I don't think there's anything I want to be very clear about this. I don't care how people eat, I guess Daniels, but I should say I really genuinely don't. I just want people to know how to use their insulin for whatever they're taking in. I have no opinion about people being low carb or not low carb. I think whatever works for you is terrific. But I do think that a lot of people get to low carb because of that fear and lack of knowledge. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying you should be eating 1000 carbs a day or anything like that. But you know, yesterday Arden's home from college and she's, you know, in the afternoon, she says, I'd love a cheeseburger. I was like, okay, so she's like, I haven't had one in like, three months. And we took her out for a cheeseburger. She got some fries and a milkshake. And you know, Arden's a Wednesday is still very respectable. So how many carbs is that? I mean, hundreds, probably, you know what I mean? Like, it's a lot. Yeah. And I know how to Bolus for that. And I'm not saying you should eat a cheeseburger and french fries. I'm saying that people should know how to use their insulin. But moreover, that I think your pathway. I mean, it mimics what happened to me, right? Like, I was immediately like, Oh, my God, well, what I should do is not eat carbs ever again, if I have diabetes. And I wasn't using insulin at the time, it just was like, well, I shouldn't do that. I completely understand it. How long have you been doing it like that? I mean, because you switched to basically keto, right?

Yep. Yep. So I have, I'm still keto to this day. And now I like don't there is no, I think initially, it was really nice because I had lot I mean, I didn't even realize that doing something low carb would cause you to lose weight. And I had already lost some weight from just undiagnosed and untreated diabetes. But then once I got my insulin and started insulin, and I started, you know, using the nutrients that I was putting in my body, I gained weight back. But yeah, once I started low carb, I probably lost about 20 pounds. And I was like, thrilled. I was like, Oh my gosh, who? Why didn't nobody tell me? I think people have probably there's probably lots of things out there that say it but I enjoy pizza. So I didn't stop eating carbs until then. But yeah, I still am low carb. I don't know. I would say I like don't have a desire to eat otherwise, I just find but I don't I don't I'm not like a I'm not making like crazy almond flour things or I literally just eat meat and vegetables. For the most part and that's it.

It's not a nice way to say I'm not those people you see online.

I'm not. I'm not I don't have a cookbook. I'm not making fat bombs, or any. That's it's too difficult. I need easy things and I like vegetables a lot and

start meat. Start your own food. Facebook page where you're putting pictures off of your low carb meals. You didn't do any of that. Yeah.

No, no, no. It's literally just bacon in the microwave.

Unknown Speaker 45:10
Microwave bacon.

Danielle 45:11
Yeah, I did send the Baconator it's great.

I'm coughing now. I blamed the COVID. Yeah. Were you trying to name the the episode? Microwave bacon was you did it?

Microwave bacon? Yeah. I mean, that's it. So yeah, I live, I still live on microwave bacon.

totally gonna be the name of this episode. I just want to be unless you say something absolutely insane in the next couple of minutes. You're right there. And so when that happens, you have to dial back your, your baseline, and all of your

Yes, dramatically. So I got to a place to where I, you know, initially was in like the 3040s. I was taking every day 30 to 40 units. And I got to the place where I was taking, I would say 14 to 20 units.

Wow, wow, that's reasonable. So I mean, that's excellent. Do you pump or MDI or what do you do?

So I did I started a pump in March of this year.

Okay, recently. Are you using an algorithm control IQ? Or?

Yeah, yeah, I have control IQ, which has been amazing, because I would say it, you know, doing low carb and doing all of those things, worked for an incredibly long amount of time. And until it didn't, then in like, October of last year, it just stopped working like I needed. I now needed fast acting insulin for protein, I now needed fast acting insulin to just look at vegetables like it was something I was completely not used to, but yet still knew that I had a decent fear of fast acting insulin because I mean, I hadn't taken a unit of insulin and probably a fast acting insulin in yours. I mean, my blood sugar just didn't go high. Until it did.

It's a lot of combined with the Keto eating. And that Yeah, you did a ton of help. Your body was helping and now suddenly that part's over, I guess.

Yeah. So I had like, my C peptide rechecked, and he was like, Yeah, you your pancreas. It's just kind of absent at this point. You could go without, and

maybe you kill microwaves, Daniel. Yeah. If you had a crappy microwave, you've been standing in front of it for six years.

zapped my pancreas. Amazing,

isn't it that that Lada can take six years to do that, and longer? It's amazing. You know, it really is. So when you started using more insulin, did that trigger bad feelings? It did.

It did. And he knew. So he said, Well, let's switch to from just your theater jobs to the impact. And he's like that way you can give yourself half unit increments. And you can start small, because I told him, you know, otherwise, give me a vial of insulin instead of these pens, and I'll draw it up myself or dilute it drop, do whatever I need to do to take less insulin. I did not want to start with it's strange, though. I didn't want to start with whole units of insulin with my blood sugar in the hundreds. But when my blood sugar back up in October was running in the 250s. I would I called him in the evening and I'm like, I don't know what to do. He's like, take two units of insulin. I'm like, I can't take two units of insulin. I could die. And he's like, just take two units of insulin.

You like five years ago when a hotel room? Yeah,

exactly. And so I would take it and I mean, it would move my blood sugar 20 points. But it seems for me that anything over two hundreds. I am just sticky. Like it takes a lot of insulin. Oh, what I would consider a lot of insulin to move my blood sugar in the two hundreds. However, in the 150s I am super sensitive to insulin.

Yeah. Oh, that's not uncommon, or, I mean, I think most people go through that too. Like it's, yeah, you know, basic idea. You're taking an amount of Basal insulin that keeps you nice and stable. I don't know what you're shooting for. Were away from like food, like in the middle of the night. Where do you sit stable?

Right now we're back then. Oh, back then because we're talking about that. Back then. I would say I was I would go well, so I would go to bed at 190 to 220 and a Just my insulin, my Basal according to that number, and then I would wake up. I mean, it would drop me. I mean, I was still at that point taking too much Basal insulin for for my body, it would drop me to 80s 70s 60s I woke up in the 50s and 40s before and so I before getting the impact and then before the pump, I was like well maybe I need to split my lab Amir doses maybe I need to split this basil and my doctor that's an I was not I did not want a pump for a long time. And he was like, I think that you would be a lot more successful with a pump like you're a control freak, this is going to give you that control you're looking for you can't get this type of control in in fine tuning your your basil needs. Just with with your injections. You want that? I'm sorry,

I didn't mean to cut you off. I apologize. Oh, go ahead. He wasn't helping you by giving you old basil like love Amir either because you were probably shooting it in the evenings. And then 24 hours later, I mean, I don't think live we're living near doesn't really last 24 hours. So nevertheless, six hours of that 24 hours you're going up if you have a meal with more carbs in it. Now the suddenly you're 190 and the you're kind of autonomously deciding to shoot more love Amir because of the higher number. And then maybe the next day you have a little exercise or you don't eat as heavy in the evening. And then you you know, you get ready for bed at 120 and choose a different amount of basil. You were doing that right? Yeah, that's what was yes, I was. Yeah. I mean, if you had a like a new, I mean, like for SIBO as an example, like if you had a modern basil, you might not have run into those problems at all. And no, not for nothing.

There. He tried. He tried to give me to Siva.

Daniel was difficult.

I was just too much of a control freak. And I was like, No, I'm not going to try new things. So thank you. Again, I know I know what to expect with with this insulin. Oh, yeah. I mean, at one point, my insulin tried to switch me just from Novolog to human log, and I like threw a whole stink about it. And I was like, I don't care what it costs. Without insurance. I'm not changing my insulin. I know what this does to my body, you

know, probably wouldn't have mattered, right?

No, yeah. No, it wasn't. But I stuck to it.

Well, I mean, listen, no one can say that. You won't like stand stand firm, that's for sure. Okay, so you're using in pen, by the way, I should say in pen today.com. Unless they're not advertisers in 2023, when yours will come on. And then in that case, please don't go to that link. But if there's still if they're still advertising, go get yourself an embed. Exactly. A great device like, right, like it's given you a ton of functionality that, you know, it's kind of a mid middle ground, like you get some functionality from a pump on this app. And that, and you stayed with that for a long time. It sounds like

So yep, I started the impact in November of last year. And I, I actually used it until March of this year and the in pen between November and December, the amount of insight and like insulin on board that it would show me and that was half units gave me like so much excitement and kind of drove the hope for a pump. And so I had already met my deductible at the end of last year. So I told my doctor, I said, order me a pump. Like, I'm just gonna get it and I'll start it when I'm ready to start it. But I want insurance to cover it. So let's, let's go ahead. And so it got delivered on December 28. of last year

in Penn was kind of your gateway drug to a pump. Yes, it was it was the gateway, you were like, Hey, this is this is valuable. Give me more of this. Did you just not want to wear a pump? By the way? It feels like you don't want

it? No, it wasn't I didn't trust the technology of a device or a third party decision maker. That wasn't me. But I had also come to terms quietly and I would not have shared these with anybody but come to terms with I I'm not doing it right. I'm not doing something right. I'm still uncontrolled in the grand scheme of what I would consider control and maybe the pumpkin help. However, I would never tell my doctor that just because I don't know why they're like to be right. An independent.

Listen, we don't have time to go into why you're like that, but I like it. Basically. You're like a drunk driver. With somebody sitting next to him going Danielle you should let me drive. I haven't been drinking you're swerving. Have guardrails and do you know bouncing over the media? And you're like, I'm fine. And yes, at least I have my hands on the wheel. That's how you felt like I want to be in control this even though you didn't really have any control at all. Exactly. Yeah, that's a therapist. You need not not a podcast. Yeah. Although we could have started the hour that way and probably gotten through it. I'm sorry that we, we did it this way. But so, okay, so Medtronic, the Impend showed you kind of what was available, you move on to a pump. And And I'm assuming to I've been meaning to ask you this for like a half an hour. But now that the Lada isn't helping anymore like the like the long slow goodbye is gone. You seeing more impacts from periods and other hormonal stuff.

So I don't have any periods. I actually had hysterectomy in 2018. So that was a very, very, I'm so I'm just so happy for that. But I don't have to deal with any of that. So I have no like hormonal swings whatsoever.

There aren't many places. So I'll just

in my head.

Well, now you're trying to name this the show again, it's all in my head. What I was gonna say, is there not a lot of podcasts where people would be like, Oh, thank God, I had to have a hysterectomy. Yeah, this is one of them. If you were like, Oh, no hormonal switch was like blood sugar,

I 10 out of 10 recommended.

I didn't think anybody would ever say that either. So you're you're checking a lot of boxes today for things that have never been said on the podcast before. Okay, so you don't have any hormonal swings? The the Keto eating is taken down your overall insulin use, which is exactly what you would expect, are you. My question is, if I, if I held you down and stuck a bagel in your mouth? Would you know how to handle it or no?

No, absolutely not. Okay, so I wanted to try and find out what my carb to insulin ratio was. But my endocrinologist told me, I needed to eat one slice of white bread and inject one insulin, or one unit of insulin and see what happens. And I was like, that's not going to happen. Like, I don't foresee, anytime in the future, I'm going to eat one slice of white bread, I need something I have to find out. My because I don't eat simple carbs like that. And I have no interest in it. Now, if one day my, my mentality on food or my view of food changes, then maybe yes, I should look to find out those things. But for me, I really wanted to know, like, how I wanted to find out more on how the vegetables and the protein or something that's really complex affects it. Like that's the carb ratio, or the protein ratio. That's the ratio I'm looking to find. And my endocrinologist was like, your Listen, you've been doing your own thing this whole time. You're gonna have to figure it out, because I don't know how to help you figure it out.

Does your husband come to these appointments with you?

He used to, he stopped.

He couldn't take the staring between him and the doctor while the doctor was looking at him going, are you okay? And he's like, No, I'm,

yeah, you need to blink if you feel unsafe.

What's your insulin to carb ratio? Right now?

I don't I it's probed programmed, and my pump is one to 10 I do think that I'm super sensitive to carbs. So I think in because of not eating carbs for so long, so essentially, if I get like a low blood sugar, and I'm in the 60s, again, I don't ever drop fast anymore, because I don't have that much insulin on board and I'm not eating something to ask for it. Or I just I'm not super active. I mean, I'm pretty lazy, honestly.

Well, who's gonna? Nobody,

right. But I so I drift down. So if I'm drifting down and I'm, I start to get to the 60s and I know that you know, I need a little bomb. I only have like a half of a glucose tab. And I'll come back up to the 80s 90s so I honestly have no idea what my true insulin to carb ratio is.

Yeah. So you basically you eat a meal and there's an amount of insulin you know, or do you just let the control like you handle it when it tries to rise? What do you do?

The the control IQ handles that right now. So I have like a higher during the day during like eating periods. I have a I guess it's a lower insulin sensitivity that I have programmed in and then At night, early hours of the night, I had a pretty high insulin sensitivity and then early wee hours of the morning, it's a lower insulin sensitivity because I started to rise in the, you know, four hour 4am window. But yeah, I mean control IQ, honestly does a lot for for the management because I'm so low car, how low but occasionally we'll have to Rick, what's that? How

low? How many do you have a day?

of carbs? I mean, it's probably under 20.

Okay. Are you always in ketosis from the low carb?

I don't know, I don't. The only time I've ever looked for ketones is if I've had a really sticky high, but again, like, it wasn't, I didn't ever seek a Keto. Or like a state of ketosis. I just start after no fast acting,

right? Well, I mean, first of all, I applaud you for figuring something out for yourself. I think that's really amazing. That shows a lot of stick to itiveness. Just to find a way through it. Was it difficult to cut carbs out of your life at first?

Yeah, I would say the first. The first two weeks were difficult. But yet they were also really easy because I was driven by fear.

Yeah, you were you were just happy not to be scared.

Exactly. Right. And I had a lot of confidence in it because it worked from day one, day two. And so because I was driven by fear, I felt like making the change was suit was just super easy. Now when I've tried to get my husband to follow a low carb, low carb diet, he will share other feelings on whether that is easy or difficult.

He's like, That's nice, Daniel. I'm having pumpkin pie today.

Yeah, last night, the only thing he ate for dinner was mashed potatoes.

Boys are great.

Yeah, it's like okay, well, let's get after it.

Have mashed potatoes for dinner. Thank you. Goodbye. Yeah. And you don't you don't have a feeling like like, I remember mashed potatoes. They were good.

No, I do joke with my work team and my work family from time to time that I like to eat vicariously through other people are like, I'll go around like I'm notoriously will go around and try everybody's plate at dinner. So if you don't like to share food I'm not wanting to go to dinner with but yeah, like the second my food comes in everybody's foods. Food comes out. Stand up, grab my fork, and I walk around and try and steal a bite.

Did you and your husband decide to get married? Or did you tell him you were getting married?

Yeah, no, surprisingly, he asked. But I really think that he's looking for like that control that he needed.

He likes it a little bit. Yeah, exactly. Man. I say something that I don't know how it's gonna come off. I prefer a girl whose pushes back to honestly. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, and pushes back against what I don't know. It's not like, it's not like I'm out there going, you know, we're gonna do today. Like it's nothing exciting. I just I like, I don't know. I I don't know. I might have to go to therapy dance.

But exactly. Maybe we can get a two for one I

would love to. I was thinking earlier. I would love to. If you ever decide to eat carbs again, like fly me to where you are. I'd love to try to figure it out. Super interesting.

Just watch the watch me try this dive into a bagel. Yeah,

no, I just just the idea of like ramping up your insulin needs for carbs. Like it would be interesting to watch. I also want to tell you how grateful I am for this conversation for reasons that I'll explain right now. I have a really big Facebook page. And big by mean by the amount of people on it. And it's overwhelmingly a really lovely place to talk about diabetes. There's not a lot of the drama that you see in other places people aren't you know, backbiting each other and you know, type twos aren't yelling at type ones and everything. The one thing that's always interesting, is I don't stop people obviously from talking about how they eat either. So there are plenty of like ultra low or low carb people in there. They put up pictures that are food I joked about it earlier, but I that's fine with me. If you decide like Danielle has if you decide that you want to eat low carb, I gots terrific. I think whatever works is terrific for you. But once in a while, a few people do this thing. How do I explain this? Imagine Danielle, if you went on a Facebook page and you said, hey somebody you're in an automotive Facebook page and like, hey, somebody, I was hoping you could help me when I drive my car. I'm hearing a thump from the back left tire. And then a person came in and said, Well, you know you should walk instead that would fix that problem. and you're like, I'm trying to figure out the bumping in my tire, why would I walk, and then this person gets very kind of dogmatic about walking and not driving. And then suddenly another Walker comes in and starts making some case about how your car is bad for the environment. And then a third Walker comes in and they start like, like saying, yeah, and then you wouldn't be using oil and, and you're like, I just really wanted to know about the bumping in my tire, like, how did it get like this? Some people around low carb do that. It's almost like, never see Jurassic Park the way the velociraptors attack? Yeah, they come in from different angles where you're not looking. But I don't know that it's on purpose or not. I like to think Daniel, I'm, I'm a person who believes in people. I like to think it's not on purpose. But there are times a couple times a year where I'm like, this is a coordinated effort to make people not eat carbs. And, you know, one person will come in and say, Oh, well, you know, some say the person's like, well, there's a spike here, does anybody know what I could have done, they give all the information about their settings, and they're looking for help. And then somebody comes in, he goes, Well, you could stop eating carbs. And you're like, not helpful. And then a second person comes and goes, I don't eat carbs. And I love it. It's so happy. And I can't wait. This whole conversation is making me want bacon and eggs. And I'm like, okay, like, they try to like happy up the no carb, which by the way, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, just, it's like there. And then a third person comes in, and then a fourth, and I'm like you, you're the velociraptors that always come and do this, like, would just come in and say, Hey, I don't have any advice for you about this. But I eat low carb. And I know this wouldn't happen to me, maybe you could substitute something a low carb in this situation, or lower carb or you know, lower on the glycemic index. Like there's a lot of ways to be really helpful. But instead it turns into like, this. What feels like coordinated pushing. And oh, yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? And I've never seen anybody put up and by the way, there's plenty of low carb posts. I've never seen someone come in and say, you know, you might not be so unpleasant if you had sugar once in a while, like you don't I mean, like nobody from the other side of it comes in and pushes them the other way. And it's just really, I don't know, like, it's, it happened today very

much is like a club. That, that see. And again, that's why I, you know, don't keep the almond flour and the cookbooks in my house I don't ever want to be be a pushy, low carb eater. But you know, those similar posts in those same posts. If somebody were to say, hey, this was our meal, this is how much insulin I gave, but they spiked. I, I would have nothing to add. Yeah. So I wouldn't comment. I would read it, I would probably read through the comments, and be like, Oh, well, it looks like good advice and move on to the next post that's applicable to me. Because I have nothing to add, like you. You obviously eat cereal. I can't I can't relate. If you offer any advice, I'm not going to tell you to eat eggs instead of cereal. I don't talk to somebody else who eat cereal,

Daniel, you're an adult. Congratulations. Because because I see that there's a person I'm thinking of right now, who I've seen, you know, they come to they come to tell their story about how, you know, carbs are the devil. And the example is I went out to dinner and I got something that had carbs in it that I didn't realize, and my blood sugar went up to 250. And I couldn't get it back down. I'm like, Are you just trying to tell people you don't know how to Bolus, like like, because that's what this feels like, to me. You don't like you can't manage carbs, which is fine. Like you can either and you don't have any practice with it, which is fine. But it's used as an example of why you shouldn't eat carbs, like, no one should eat carbs. Look what happened to me when I had a drink with some carbs in it. And, and I sit back and I watch it. And I think, you know, people aren't seeing that the way you think. Like, I know that they think they're saying see carbs are bad stop eating carbs. But I think what people see is I don't know what I'm doing. And I think they're making their counter argument when they think they're making an argument. And there's nothing wrong with like, the way you got to low harvest is honest, you know what I mean? And, and a lot of people are going to make it that way. And I'm I guess what I'm saying is, is that if, if people didn't try to trick you into being low carb or push you gently into being low carb, you might just come about it on your own. Like if that person just came in and said, Hey, I don't know how to answer you on this. I'm very low carb. But in this situation, if your kid had a lower carb thing, maybe the spike wouldn't happen and just left. I think that would be more valuable towards getting somebody to look into a low carb lifestyle than it is to do that. The only thing I can compare it to. And the one problem you'll have if you manage a big Facebook group, is there are people who try to sell you things. So I'm gonna use a t shirt as an example. A person who really doesn't belong in the group comes in and they'll put up a picture You're gonna be like, Oh my god, I got this t shirt for my type one. It's amazing. And I just want to show it to all of you. As soon as this happens, one of two things is happening. Either somebody's got a t shirt, they wanted to show people, or they're going to start a conversation that eventually leads to somebody saying, Oh, my God, do you have a link for that? Because they're trying to use the people in Facebook is fishing about to sell these T shirts. And by the way, sometimes there's not even a t shirt. They're just stealing money from people. So I'm aware of how that works. Someone comes in post a picture the t shirt, then another account goes, Oh, it's so cute. Where can I get that? And then the first person comes and goes, let me just give you the link. And it's all it acts like it's all very normal. But it's a coordinated effort to show you the shirt and make sure you know how to buy it. That's what the low carb thing reminds me of. Like, it's a coordinated effort to try to move you in a direction. And I just think that it's it's disingenuous, like just coming in. You know what I mean? Just be like, hey, and also, who the hell wants that advice? There's a bump in the back left tire on my car. Like, what are you telling me? I should look into hitchhiking for? Like, it's just, I don't know, it pisses me off. And it's, I have to deal with it. When I get done with you today. It's the next thing I have to do waste my time explaining to adults how to be adults. And I don't care about their low carb, they could talk about all the freaking one. I don't give a shit, honestly. So anyway, I'm sorry. No, I've been upset about that for the last hour.

Well, and I've met other people who are low carb, and it's almost like this like weird cult, like vibe. I've met other people who are low carb, and two are insanely strict about how much protein they take and how much fat they take in and they are like, strict keto, and even outside of the the diabetes realm. The low carb community, they're just, I mean, honestly, they're crazy. So again, I wouldn't, I'm a fear eater, I'm, that's what we'll call it. I'm not a low carb eater, I just

really don't want to be involved in cars. Well,

I just don't want to get messed up with carbs. I don't even mean

it. Like, it doesn't even matter. Like forget low carb. It's it's just a pervasive, it's a way of thinking that every time I see it in the world, no matter where I see it, I rub up against it, I go, I don't understand why this is the tactic you took, like, for instance, during COVID, you could have turned on any podcast that was manned by a person with a six pack and no body fat. And they would have told you like you don't want COVID to bother you than just being shaped like me. And I'm like, Well, okay. Okay, I mean, COVID is here. Now, I guess I could get my body fat down 2.5 In a week before I go out, like, how would I do that? You don't I mean, like, it's, it's these overly simplistic answers to things like just do this thing, which is fairly. I mean, you know, like bodybuilding is an example that that's a big undertaking. It's a lot of effort, it's maybe doesn't fit into everyone's life. And when you're 25 years old, and you don't have a great job, so you can be in the gym for five hours a day, it's easy to stand up with your shirt off and go look at me, look at how great I look, you should look like this. I don't know how I'm gonna do that. You know what I mean? Like, I'm sure if I quit my job and told my kids, they were on the road and sold this house, I guess I could, you know, but and then it just, it's just a it's a team mentality. Like, I'm on Team bodybuilding. I'm on Team low carb, and there's no, we're not allowed to talk about it. Otherwise, I try really hard to foster a place where people can talk about how they eat. Like, I want to, I want to be clear, there are people who will hear this and know that I'm talking about them. And I don't, and I don't I love them in the group. I love that they share their low carb lifestyle, it I've seen it help a lot of people who are interested in it. It's not a perspective that I can personally share. So I'm thrilled that they're in there. I like them. They're just stopped doing the Velociraptor thing. Like if you're listening, if you don't know you're doing it, it comes off really smarmy. And if you do know you're doing it. Yeah, shame on you. That's my message, I guess. Took me 20 minutes to get to

you don't know that we're talking about you than we're talking about?

I think yeah, I just think that I don't know that they're doing it on purpose. Like, there are people who helped me with the Facebook group or like, this is completely on purpose. And I'm like, I always want to just think that that's the people. But I mean, I know there's a way to share what you do without manipulating people. And that I don't that I'm not okay with the manipulation part is the part that I have problem with. Anyway, I'm gonna go I have to say that online and get yelled at. Yeah.

Yeah, I think the, the, the, the Facebook group just needs to continue to be able to provide a safe place for anybody to ask any question free of judgment, because all they're doing is seeking help. Yeah, they're not you know, if somebody asked ask the question, hey, what could I eat differently to not have this spike? Sure, throw in your low carb, jargon and nonsense as to what's working for you. But if somebody says how do I avoid this spike? This is what we ate. Here's my graph. They don't care about your your low carb vs. Yeah. We want to know how to give the insulin.

My car is not idling Well, which they do. Walk. Okay, great.

Well, yeah, well, Nike.

And then eventually, one of them's gonna come in and say, you know, that slaves make those shoes, right? And I'm like, Oh, my God, like, I don't like the internet,

and then it and then it spiraled.

And I want to be clear, that's not the vibe of the Facebook group. This happens every once. It happens every once in a while. And everyone saw I have to get involved. And I have to be like, Look, you can't do that. Like, don't tell this person to odd. That's not what I'm saying. I'm like, read it. That is what you're saying. And I, I kind of

want to play like devil's advocate and see a low carb post and like, sneak in the comments like, well, you should really eat cereal.

You should say, Oh, my God, I can see your abs. You should have cereal. Yeah. Because, by the way, that's a really good point, right? Like, I know, it sounds silly, but everyone thinks their ways the right way. And for every person who thinks that there's a person on the opposite side who thinks you're wrong. So you know, you might be standing there as lean as could be, you know, with all these muscles popping out everywhere. And there might be another person looking at you going, I don't think that looks good. Now, I don't care what people think. But you have to understand that there are other opinions on all sides of ideas. And for some reason, I've never seen a person who eats carbs. Tell a person who doesn't eat carbs, that they're wrong. But I've seen people who don't eat carbs tell people who do eat carbs that they're wrong. And I and I have philosophize in the past, that it might be stemmed in really what your episode was about today. And fear, like they may be just gotten to a really bad situation. They couldn't find their way out of it. And they decided the only way I can handle this is the way you did which there's nothing wrong with. It's just you know, what's wrong with it is when you when you start just pushing it down other people's throats, it's just it's tiresome. Yeah, you know. Anyway,

no, the only thing the and I mean, I'll still occasionally dabble in. It's our bite of carbs. But again, it's when other people at the table order something that looks good. Yeah. Like, oh, can I just have a little sliver of your your tiramisu.

I felt bad for you. Because you said you like pizza. And then I looked online, I see where you live, and there's no way there's good piece of that.

Oh, I mean, we it's, it's just a different kind of pizza. It's not the thick crust pizza. It's the cracker crust.

And, and you know why I said that, Daniel? Because you like pizza where you live? And look at me acting all like Oh, that's not pizza. This is pizza. That's that's I did it so you can hear it. That's what everybody's saying to each other online when they're like you're not doing it. Right. So just who cares? Yeah, I really, like I said,

microwave bacon Shut up.

i By the way, that makes me do you supplement your diet? Now taken like,

I mean, I probably should I don't take any vitamins. No, I did do to get told I actually just got my lab results back from an appointment I had yesterday side. No, my 81 C is 5.6. Awesome. But no, my vitamin D is low. And so my doctor sent me a note and told me that I should take vitamin D or spend more time in the sun. Both of those don't sound like things I want to do at the moment. I mean, I'll probably go get some vitamin D. I don't want to spend any time in the sun.

Jenny would tell you to get liquid and put it under your tongue. That it works much better with vitamin D. Yeah, that it works much better than swallowing it. Also, I don't know if they'll still be advertisers next year. But at athletic greens.com forward slash juice box if you

you, if you get I think if you get on a I forget what they call it like when it reoccurs What the hell? Why can't I find words?

I think that's called reoccurring.

Subscription. If you get a subscription, I think they send you five free packs of trap five free travel packs and liquid vitamin D on off for a year. And again, that's athletic greens.com forward slash use flex. I'm just gonna start sticking the ads wherever I want them. Anyway, by the way, by the time one of you here is that I'm sure they won't be advertising anymore. And I'll be like, I'll be irritated. clicked on. Yeah, but I actually I actually use athletic greens. So I was wondering if you were taking something that was like, you know, kind of hitting you with vitamins and everything like that, but sounds like you're okay.

Yeah, yeah, it's not bad. Lean. All right, you couldn't ask me to Bolus for a bagel but I mean, I can whip up some mean scrambled eggs and salad.

The bagels around here have about 70 carbs in them.

Oh my gosh, that's like a week of eating

my stomach and they don't they don't really digest right away or anything. Yeah, hit your for like, oh, five hours. It's nice.

My son would be an absolute heaven. I do like to smell carbs is that weird? Like I love to like, as he's making a sandwich I like shove my face in the bag of bread and just take a big whiff. I mean, I think as long as too much information,

walking past strangers and smelling them as they go by I think it's not that weird, you know?

I mean, I probably have done something along those lines and some other days of my life. But well, that's a whole nother episode to

anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to talk about.

I don't think so. I think we covered just about everything.

Is there any chance you're gonna go to a therapist and find out why you need to be in charge?

Oh, I mean, I don't think so. That would be that would be like relinquishing some control.

No, I just want to just say that so I would I give the control to the therapist. That sounds ridiculous. Anyway, it sounds like you're doing fine. I don't think everybody needs to fix every little thing about them. But it is interesting that you know what about yourself? And yeah, it's, it's cool. I mean, honestly, you were terrific. So I appreciate you doing this

a huge thank you to Danielle for coming on the show and sharing her story with us. And we're gonna thank cozy Earth cozy earth.com

Speaker 3 1:21:45
Go get your sheets, get your towels, get your joggers, get your call food get comfy, cozy, cozy Earth.

Danielle 1:21:51
And don't forget to use that offer code juice box at checkout to save an astonishing a mind numbing a life altering 40% off of your entire order. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, please check out the private Facebook group. It is absolutely free. It has 40,000 members and there is something happening in there right now that you would love to be a part of read about or just kind of lurk around Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook Do not miss it. Doesn't matter what kind of diabetes you have. You are welcome there. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.