#992 Hannah ReInspired
Hannah has type 1 diabetes and was reinspired after the birth of her child.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 992 of the Juicebox Podcast
Welcome back everybody today I'm gonna be speaking with Hannah. She was diagnosed when she was 12 years old and is now 26. As we recorded this Hannah had an 18 month old child said her diabetes management was terrific through her pregnancy but lost focus after the birth. And that's why we call this episode Hannah reinspired. Please remember, while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. You know, I never record that I always say it on every episode. And somebody recently said, Oh, I thought you just recorded that and played it over and over again, it broke my heart because apparently I could have done that. If you want to help my heart feel better go to drink ag one.com forward slash juice box and start using ag one with my drink or with my drink with my link or go to cozy earth.com buy a whole bunch of comfortable stuff and use the offer code juice box at checkout and save 40% or, or or join the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes or tell a friend about the podcast. Those are all the wonderful things you could do to make me happy. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by cozy Earth. I wear cozy Earth joggers sweatshirt, I sleep on cozy Earth sheets and dry my bits off after a shower with cozy Earth towels. I just bought a bunch of stuff with my own money. But I use my offer code. So I save 40% you can to use the offer code juice box at checkout at cozy earth.com to save 40% off of your entire order, not one item, not just stuff on one tab, the whole website 40%. use the offer code juice box at checkout. today's podcast is also sponsored by us med now us med is the place where we get Ardens diabetes supplies. You can also get your diabetes supplies from us man. They'll do it for like anybody who has insurance they take and they take like over 800 private insurances. My point is us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 You go to the link, where you call the number, your free benefits check if they take your insurance and I'm telling you they take like over 800 of them. So probably take your insurance. Then you get going and you get your supplies the same way we do from us med.
Hannah 2:47
My name is Hannah, and I am a type one diabetic. Diagnosed at 12 and I am now 26 years old and I'm a daily listener. So this is kind of weird talking to you because I hear your voice every day. But I don't You don't know me.
Scott Benner 3:02
What do you mean? I don't know you? I'm talking to you every day. Hannah. Exactly. When you Yeah, I'm in your closet. Yes, right now. It's hard. That's why I couldn't put my camera on. Because then you'd be like, Oh my God, that's my sweater. And it would be very disconcerting.
Hannah 3:19
I am I'm looking at your face though. Your pictures very nice.
Scott Benner 3:22
Oh, thank you. It's the only decent picture I've taken and myself in five years.
Hannah 3:27
I think I remember the story about that one.
Scott Benner 3:30
Yeah, it was nice and thin. Because because the family I was staying with only drank water. I know you're laughing because I said What are wrong, right? No, that's okay. Is it water? Its water. Is it really? That sounds very wrong to me.
Hannah 3:47
I guess it's just your now people know I don't live where you live.
Scott Benner 3:51
When I say water. I feel like I'm mispronouncing a word and everyone's looking at me. Like I when I said it like that. I like the visceral feeling inside was oh, Hannah's gonna be like, Oh, this idiot. Like, like that sounds
Hannah 4:03
How do you say it again? Water. Water Water. What? Okay,
Scott Benner 4:08
what water? All right. I know. It's not right. Don't get me wrong. I'm not insane.
Hannah 4:14
I don't know if mine's right. But yeah.
Scott Benner 4:16
Why don't want to just start coming at this from a different perspective. Why are you saying water? You lunatic? So you listen every day. This is good. Everyone should listen every day. What is? Tell me about
Hannah 4:29
it? Well, I listen. Every time you post I think that's four days a week. It is a new one comes up.
Scott Benner 4:35
I started listening on the other days.
Hannah 4:39
I don't listen on the other days. Well, okay, let
Scott Benner 4:41
me just make a note about that. doesn't support you. Okay, I gotta keep going.
Hannah 4:47
When I first started listening, I think I did listen every day I'd maybe listen to like two or three a day because I was just like taking it all and I loved it. I'd like started at the beginning and then just had it roll on repeat. But then Got a little bit too much so that I don't know, I just listened to the newest ones you post
Scott Benner 5:05
be honest, when you said it got to be a little bit too much did you quietly look at yourself one day and go? Yo, what are you doing? You've listened to a diabetes podcast three times a day for the last couple of months. Stop.
Hannah 5:17
Yeah, my quality of life is pretty low at that point,
Scott Benner 5:19
right? Like, like, your husband's like, Hey, do you want and you're like, No, no, I don't have time for this. I'm listening to a podcast that was recorded six years ago.
Unknown Speaker 5:28
Right? Why were you so
Scott Benner 5:32
like, vigorous about it.
Hannah 5:35
I think when I started listening, I really resonated with the way that you approach diabetes. And it was really impactful for me, in a lot of ways, so I just kept listening and listening. And was, I guess, just surprised that I hadn't heard of it. You know, before, because I listened to quite a few podcasts. And I just kind of found it by chance just on my podcast player and say, Oh, I have diabetes. So I should probably listen to this. And I think just the way that you approach it is through story. I love all the series that you have. But then being able to listen to people's stories is really impactful. And there's always something to be gained from each episode about people's stories. So that's why I like listening, and it's just resonated with me,
Scott Benner 6:21
it's so kind of you to say that and actually very helpful that you said that because my direct access to people who listen to the show is only through Facebook, or social media. And those people are very much focused on management, which is terrific, but they don't tell me. I really enjoyed listening to that conversation with this person. Yeah, I don't hear that from them as much. And so then I'm left to just, I have to steal up on my own and go I know, this is good. I know this is right. Like keep doing it. I always say that. I mean, today's have a pretty cool day here. Hannah. I just crossed 10 million downloads. Wow, for the for the podcast.
Hannah 7:07
That's fantastic. You're at such a huge milestone. Thank
Scott Benner 7:10
you. And I'll say this for people who then go when I stream it, am I not helping download streams? Anyway, you listen as a count is counted. So thank you. Yeah,
Hannah 7:20
but 10 Count, even if someone listens to like 15 minutes of it, that doesn't finish there are
Scott Benner 7:24
standards, IAB standards that track how podcast listeners are counted. And the company that I use for my hosting is IAB compliant. So I don't I don't know the length of time that counts as a download, but mine are legitimate. They're not like, I don't do their things people do to push up their downloads, so they can sell ads. Like, they'll put out like a bunch of like four minute episodes. So that oh, you know what I mean? So like they could have, they could have 10 listeners. But if they put out like five, four minute episodes, then they get five downloads from each listener who's subscribed, like I don't do that I put out like, right contents, either quality, or I don't do it. Right, which is, I appreciate that. Thank you. And there are people who put their podcasts on webpages and put them on autoplay. So that when, when the page loads, the podcast starts to play. And then you go, what the hell is this? And you click and stop it, but they get a download out of it or a stream. So that you know that yours are legit. I don't do any of that crap. These are people listening to the podcast.
Hannah 8:34
Yeah. So it's working, and then keep it up. It's, it's phenomenal. So it's really changed in the last half a year, six months has really changed the way that I approached diabetes in a positive way. And yeah, I just I love
Scott Benner 8:49
it. How the you've only been listening for six months. Wow. Oh, that's so cool. And you've had diabetes since you were 12. And you're 26?
Hannah 8:58
Well, yeah, so this will be this June will be 15 years.
Scott Benner 9:03
Wow. Wow. No kidding. You're married? Yes.
Hannah 9:08
I am married. I've married two and a half years. You and I have
Unknown Speaker 9:11
we do have children? Do
Hannah 9:13
I have an 18 month old?
Scott Benner 9:14
Oh my god had it because I saw you for a minute when we first started talking and you don't like you haven't lost the will to live yet. So I thought you didn't have kids?
Hannah 9:22
No, I love having a kid.
Scott Benner 9:25
Oh, we all love having kids. And that's not what I said. You don't have that stare on your face? Yeah. No,
Hannah 9:33
I slept great last night. You know, he slept through the night so I'm well well rested. He's with grandma right now. And yeah, congratulations.
Scott Benner 9:41
If only you would have had the baby a little later could have been named Scott. But yeah, but no.
Hannah 9:47
And his name does start with an S but it's not Scott. I'm sorry.
Scott Benner 9:51
Is there any way you would tell me that the S is for me?
No, thanks. Wow.
Least I know you won't lie or anything. Conversation. here's the here's the thing I can tell you about, about having a kid. That's from my, from my experience. Just last night, my day went really well. Yesterday, I worked a little too much. I got off a edited. I did an interview that went longer than I thought it was going to be. 90 or so minutes later, excuse me two hours later, it might be the longest episode I've ever made. I had just talked about a very heavy issue with a person and I was like, drained. I came downstairs, I ate some food very quickly said to my wife, I double booked myself that I have to go back up and record again, that episode went an hour and a half. I got done like literally got done turned to I have another computer next to me it turned on my computer to look at my emails. And I noticed that I've have like a warning on my phone about something and I look over at it and it's Arden is contacting me. And she says, I need help. I have a flat tire. And I'm like, wait, okay, so I start like your brain starts chugging through, like she has a flat tire. Is there a pump in the car, let me see what to do. She's at school, like, I don't know that town that well. And then she shows me on FaceTime, she doesn't have a flat tire she she made a turn in an old town along a curb. And sticking out from that curb was an old fashioned cast iron sewer. And it had a sharp corner on it. And she hit it with her back wheel. And it broke the wheel and rip the tire open. Oh geez. And she's like, I was maybe going three miles an hour. And she's and she's like, I know I hit it. But like, She's such a good driver. She's like, I'm such a I'm like, I know it's okay. Like, don't worry about it. But you know, we took care of the whole thing. And I talked her through it. My wife texted her. I was like, It's okay, we're fine. You're fine. Like, don't worry about it. And then it hit me later. This is what it is, like that idea that like everything can be okay. And then suddenly for reasons that have nothing to do with any of the decisions that you have made in your life. Something unavoidable happens.
Hannah 12:14
Yeah, sure.
Scott Benner 12:14
I hate that feeling. I really hated that feeling. I don't care about the tire the wheel like will will replace it, it's fine. But that feeling is it numbs me inside a little bit. So anyway, look forward to that number of times. Oh my god. Anyway, congratulations on the baby.
You are
you found the podcast and you started listening you said I have diabetes? I should probably listen to this but that's how was your was it about management? Was it about meeting other people with type one like what do you think really drew you in at first?
US med always provides 90 days worth of supplies, and they have fast and free shipping us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888721151 for us med accepts Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers. Us med.com forward slash juicebox better service and better care is what US med wants to provide for you. And they've provided that service for over 1 million diabetes customers since 1996. They carry everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and the Dexcom G seven. But if you want the libre two or the G six, they have that too. They also have tandem Omni pod dash Omni pod five. They have so much it's where Arden gets her diabetes supplies. We use us med because well, it's easy. And, you know, it's what we're all looking for a little less to think about us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514. The reorder process with us med is it's insanely easy. I get an email, I click on a link in the email and lol Just happens a couple days later stops at our door. If Arden's off at school. I can call or go through a link and just say hey, you know what, don't send it to the house, send it to college, and they just do that. It's wonderful. Us med.com forward slash juicebox we've been using us med now for maybe two years. And I love it. It's easy, reliable. And Arden supplies are always where they're supposed to be us med.com forward slash juicebox and never open up the drawer and go oh where Are the CGM doesn't happen like that. It's all super easy. Check them out, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? That's not English. Just go take a look us med.com forward slash juicebox. While you're looking at things, look down at your butt at your derriere, your ass, that part back there doesn't deserve to be comfortable. But about your legs and your arms and your torso and your neck. And let's not forget about your bits and pieces. These things are inside of your clothing. They're on your sheets, and they're wrapping your towels. What do you got some garbagey towels, they feel like sandpaper sheets all like you touching them like feels like this. You know, I mean just dry like you need cozy Earth stuff. I'm not joking. joggers, the shirts, the sweatshirts,
Lija Greenseid 15:49
the scrunchies the sheets, the viscose bamboo is so soft,
Scott Benner 15:54
and temperate,
Lija Greenseid 15:55
not too hot, not too cold. I get out of the shower every day, I grab a waffle towel, I take the waffle side to get off all the water and I flip it over to the fluffy side. And I let that fluffy side work.
Scott Benner 16:05
I let it eat. You know what I mean? I'm just shine it up like an apple. Boom, boom, boom, next thing you know I'm dry. I'm soft, everything's great. And my day is on its way. Cozy earth.com use the offer code juice box to save. Don't let this blow your mind 40% off of your entire order. You go to cozier.com Right now I'm there right now free shipping over $50 I'm seeing at the moment. Anyway, let me just like let's imagine for a second Scott wants more bathhouse. So I get a bath towels, I'm gonna get some bath sheets, I get a nice wide, long towel right? Here they are already got a little sale happening. Maybe that sale still be there. When you get there. I don't know. Boom, I pop it in my cart. And then I put in the offer code juicebox and Bada bing 40% comes off the price. Good beat that with a stick. You can't Kenya No, go by Taos.
Hannah 16:58
I think just having diabetes and wanting to hear what you had to say on the podcast. At that time, my son was about a little under a year. So it's still kind of in the, in the thick of like, Baby, newborn baby time. And I did I had really good management of my diabetes during pregnancy. But then after I was pregnant, or after I gave birth, I didn't take care of it as well as it did when I was pregnant. Obviously I was it was kind of like, Oh, now I can relax a little bit. So then I was going from being pregnant, having really good management because I was eating low carb and. And then last summer I found myself just like on the roller coaster and really discouraged and really frustrated that I couldn't like get my act together. And then when I started listening to you, there was so many things that you were saying with the way that you approach diabetes that resonated with me. And I don't know, just motivated me to, like make better decisions. And just understanding the importance of Pre-Bolus and finding the right basil. And wow, figuring out how to use insulin for any kind of food because I've tried every way of eating possible. I'm really glad I have done that. Because I've learned how to give insulin for all of those kinds of ways of eating. And now I'm kind of just like, whatever. But like low carb ketogenic, vegan plant based Bernstein, gluten free, like all of the all these different kinds of ways of eating just to try to figure out what would work best. And then there was something you said in one of your podcasts that you were like, don't eat low, low carbohydrate diet. If you don't know how to take insulin, like if that's your only reason to eat a low carbohydrate diet. Don't don't do that figure out how to use the insulin. And if you want to eat low carb, eat low carb, that's fine. But figure out like you should know how to use the insulin for whatever. And that was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. And so it just gave me that felt like this gave me this freedom to figure out how to use insulin with any kind of food that I want to eat.
Scott Benner 19:05
Am I Am I hearing that you went through those different eating styles hoping that you would land on one that just magically worked?
Hannah 19:12
Yeah, totally. Okay. Because the way that I was managing wasn't great. I wasn't very good at Pre-Bolus thing never have been dull now. I'm now and never really figured out the right, basil. I think it probably worked just fine. You know. And I've also gone back and forth between MDI and pumping so I can, I can kind of do it with both.
Scott Benner 19:34
So even so let me ask you prior to your pregnancy to get pregnant on purpose. Yes. You seem like a person who got pregnant on purpose. By the way, does that mean anything to you? That That makes sense. Like just seeing you in your room that you were in for five minutes. I was like, she got pregnant on purpose. And I don't know why exactly. You just seem like together. Does that make sense? Sure. Yeah, I appreciate I'll take that as a compliment. But we did not get pregnant on purpose the first time My wife was home sick and absence makes the heart grow fonder. And she's much here. Here's something I've never said about Kelly. No one tell her I said this. She's so much nicer when she doesn't feel good.
Unknown Speaker 20:15
Oh, really? Oh my god. She's so sweet
Scott Benner 20:19
and lovely when she's just a little. If I had Munchausen this would be a perfect relationship. Oh my gosh, she's like, you're just like, anyway, point is, is that yeah, so she was home sick, I guess you might have like, anyway, then the baby cam. And you don't occur to me, like as a person who would just be like, whatever. Let's do it now. So prior to the baby, the decision prior, where was your management then.
Hannah 20:47
So when I got married, it was just kind of all over the place. I I guess just starting more at the beginning when I was 12 and diagnosed, I was at the age when I was kind of wanting to exercise independence. And so I took it on. Basically all on my own. Like, first day in the hospital, I gave myself my first shot, no issues, and I was willing to learn, you know what I needed to do. And my parents noticed really quickly that I kind of figured it out and was doing it. And so they kind of took a little bit more of a backseat, which was totally fine. But because of that I never developed the best habits for Pre-Bolus Nene and checking my blood sugar as consistently. I definitely took insulin when I ate but I always just took it right when I sat down to eat. And then I would just check my blood sugar like before when I woke up and before bed. So those were the habits that were just ingrained for, like 10 years. So when I got my Dexcom, probably about four years ago, I realized, oh, this this isn't this isn't working very well. I didn't like seeing the huge peaks and valleys, you know, from giving insulin as you're eating? And that was discouraging, for sure. I didn't like seeing the highs and the lows? And
Scott Benner 22:12
was was some of that just maturity. Do you think?
Hannah 22:16
Yeah, I think so. And then when we got married I we knew we wanted to start a family soon ish, you know, after we got married, maybe like six months after we got married. And so prior to that, I knew that I wanted that in my endo office, they had like, guidelines for trying to conceive, you know, having an agency under 6.5. You know, having having good management, ideally being on a pump. And so that was kind of my goal is like, hey, I need to do that I needed to kind of get my act together. And then I had tried a low carb diet in college. And it worked decently well. So I went back to that, because I knew that that was going to give me stable, more stable blood sugar. So for a few months before we got pregnant, I ate a low carb diet and was able to get my agency under six. And so I felt good about that going into pregnancy, and I kept that going. But I don't like eating a low carb diet. It's not fun. And it's just kind of just sucks. I don't like it. But I did it during the pregnancy because I was terrified of having, you know, really high blood sugars all the time and potentially hurting the baby. So
Scott Benner 23:22
okay, so you see you just kind of I mean, not that I want to be clear, I don't think of eating a low carb diet as being restrictive. If it's a decision, it's a it's a choice, right? Like, I don't think and when I when I hear somebody's like, you know, I enjoy a low carb diet. I'm like, Oh, they're I don't think oh, they're stopping themselves from eating things. They I know they want to eat like, I don't think that you know. But right, if you're doing that, because of a management situation, you were stopping yourself from eating things you wanted to eat, because you didn't know how to Bolus for them.
Hannah 23:55
It absolutely that and that was where I was. And that was the struggle. And it just when you restrict, I don't know all the psychology of it. But when you make decisions to restrict it, it's like, it's kind of like the scarcity mindset where it, it can make you think about the thing, you're restricting more and make it really difficult to avoid. And so then after I had my son, I kind of went crazy and I just ate all the carbs and just you know went crazy and because I had withheld it from myself something I want I withheld it for so long. And now and then I when I find your pockets, I was like Oh, I feel this freedom to eat whatever I desire to eat, and just figure out how to take insulin for it. And that concept was just like transformational for me. And now I'm at this point where I feel a lot more freedom about how I eat, which is you know, which is huge, and it makes it a lot or sustainable? Because when you're restricting something, it's not a sustainable effort. It's like that white knuckling discipline that doesn't. It's not sustainable. So,
Scott Benner 25:12
no, I understand. And I appreciate you saying that. And I'm glad that it helped you. I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed. You wouldn't like to say the kids first initial was for me after all that, but I mean, you know, whatever. You are lovely. Let me just say that. Let's let you're still nervous now. Are you okay?
Hannah 25:30
I'm okay. I get nervous about these things. You know, what I'm nervous about is listening to this whenever you post and listening to myself talk, and then you're like, oh, gosh, that's what I said. That's what it sounds like.
Unknown Speaker 25:42
Are you thinking about that while you're speaking? Yes. Which is weird.
Hannah 25:45
I don't know why.
Scott Benner 25:46
Let me let me tell you my secret. Try hard not to give a fuck what anybody thinks. You'll be okay. All right. You're just you're just sharing what you think no one knows who you are. It's fine. Right? You know, I'm the one at risk here. I'm about to edit an episode, Hannah, will be out a long time before this one comes out. But I'm about to edit an episode where a mom comes on to talk about her trans kids. And me trying to like, you know, me here who I don't, to my knowledge, don't know, a trans person. And it's not a normal part of my day. And so I don't know, I don't know what I said, like, I have to go back and edit. And I'm like, I can't, like part of me is like, well, I can't wait to go listen to that. But but but I am more than a little concerned that I don't understand something right. And then it would come off wrong to somebody, even though there'd be no ill intention behind it at all. Because I really, you know, I kind of feel the way of the world. I feel about the world the way I talked about the way people eat like I don't, I honestly don't have a thought in the world about what people do. Like, I think it's cool, like, what works for you is great, or what you are is greater whatever, right. But anyway,
Hannah 26:59
yeah, which is a really good approach. And one reasons I like you, because all the different approaches, for example, just approaches to eating. The people that ascribe to those things, they're like, this is the only way and you have to be this way. And if you're, if you don't do this, you're wrong. In all this different kinds of ways. That's what I've noticed, like, I don't like that I don't like that approach to life in general. And I don't like that approach to managing diabetes. I think everyone can have their own way and figure out how it works best for them.
Scott Benner 27:35
I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something, right? Okay, I think that's selling. So I think that that's like, don't get me wrong. If you're just a person, like you're just a regular person, you're listening to this right now. And you in your heart believe that eating a pescatarian diet is the only way to exist. And you feel passionate enough about that, to get online and say to people, you have to be a pescatarian you have to be UK, if you don't, you're killing yourself, if you feel that way. Like God bless you, that's fine. I think when you hear people do it in social media, or, which is where you're basically talking about Instagram, Facebook, places like this, if you look hard enough, those people have a financial reason for saying what they're saying, or they are devotees of the person who has that thing. And to some degree, I noticed that with the people that listen to the podcast, like they'll they will go online and say to somebody, this podcast is what you should do, you should listen to this podcast, because because it's so it's so help them. They're so passionate about it, that when someone says, oh, gosh, my agency is nine, and I don't know what to do. Or look at this. There's this big spike. And I don't know how that happened. A person who's heard the podcast, and now understands how to use insulin, and feels the way that you've described, you know, for the last 20 minutes. They come in there with a ton of passion and say, Oh, the Juicebox Podcast, blah, blah, blah, people from the outside, look at that and go oh, look at this proselytizing about this podcast, right? It's the same thing with eating styles. Yes, you know, now the difference is, is that I don't run around telling people. You have to listen to this podcast, and you can't listen to anything else. Because if you do that's wrong. And this is right. I don't say that. I don't feel that.
Hannah 29:24
Right. And that's what I think is so attractive about the way that you do this. And why so many people listen and are on their Facebook group. And so that's a that's a beautiful approach. Yeah.
Scott Benner 29:36
Do you Do you know what I think people I believe my opinion, why people do that. I think that's fear. I think they feel like they have a thing. And if they don't feed it and grow it, that it will wither and die. And so every person who it doesn't matter, right? If we're talking about eating than if I'm out there pushing a high plant diet and you're out They're eating keto. Some people have the feeling like, well, I lost one, I'm losing. And I don't feel like that. I genuinely I genuinely believe that whatever works for you is the thing. And if that means a different website, a different Facebook group, if you want to find a different podcasts that helps you or whatever, and it's not me, that has to be okay. Of course, I can't feel like oh, well, you, you know, Hannah wants to go eat this way. So she's not gonna listen to the podcast anymore. I have to feel like, that's good. Like, if Hannah's okay, then that's good. Now where my competitive nature comes in, when you hear you hear me say like, I want to win, like I do want. I do want everybody to listen to the podcast, but but that's because I believe that anything they may need is in here. And when I find something, it's not I tried to add it. I don't know, I find that to be a different perspective. You know, I don't know if everybody would understand that. But I do my best to keep this place. very inclusive about all ideas and thoughts. I don't even on the Facebook page, I got a note the other day is like, you can't let a person say that he was like, I'm not gonna stop them. Like they're an adult. Like, why would I stop them from saying what they want to say? Why would you want to write and then when you pick through it, the reason they wanted to stop them is because they were afraid of what they were saying. It's always fear. So anyway, thank you. I'm glad. I'm glad you like it. And I appreciate that you're here.
Hannah 31:31
Thank you. One funny thing, when I first started listening, and you started talking about being bold with insulin, I was like, Okay, what does that mean? And I, for three days thought that it was an acronym. And I was trying to figure out what the acronym V O LD stood for. And he's not saying what this means. I was like, okay, the bees, probably basil or Bolus. The O is probably Omnipod. Because his daughter uses Omnipod. And that's a sponsor and the L, I couldn't figure out the L and then the D was probably Dexcom or something. Oh, my God. I thought so hard about this as a what does this mean? I
Scott Benner 32:06
love that you did that. So I
Hannah 32:09
went back to the original. I was like, Okay, where's the first podcast where he talks about bold with insulin? Because surely he says what the acronym is. And then I quickly realized, oh, this literally means just being bold with your insulin and making appropriate changes.
Scott Benner 32:24
It was hard for me not to laugh while you're telling the story. Because I mean, you you listen to a lot of the show. So you know that I don't really name the episodes with a live yet, like specificity. how impressed Are you that I said specificity? Correct. Because I found myself going away not to trip up on that word. But I just, I was talking, it's episode 11. And I was telling the story, it's back. It's back before I even had, like, I didn't have guests that frequently. I was still going through the blog posts that I had written in the years prior that I knew were really helpful for people. And I was kind of trying to contextualize them in these shorter podcast episodes. And I'm talking to myself, if you really listen to it, you hear me talking myself through what I did back then, like, I'm trying to remember it for you. And then I think I said, like, I guess I learned to be more bold with insulin. And then when I went back and edited that, that, that recording those words stuck out to me and I made it the title of the episode. It's, it's not an actual thing that you have. Well,
and then what happened was that a couple of years later,
I saw it hashtag in places. And, and I don't normally think, oh, that must have been me. But I thought I've never heard anyone say that, but me, like, I'm gonna go like, pick around. And as I picked around, I realized that somebody had listened to the podcast, and they they had taken like, picked it up as a mantle. I'm going to be bold with insulin. So it's a function of the listeners, not me. That That term is in the zeitgeist now.
Hannah 34:00
Oh, interesting. Yeah.
Scott Benner 34:01
So I love that it tortured you for a number of days. Did you ask your husband were you like, what do you think the O stands for?
Hannah 34:08
I don't think so. I think it was just my musings in my brain just thinking Oh, I wonder what this is. But I don't know why my immediate thought was this has to be an acronym.
Scott Benner 34:18
Yeah, I don't either, but that's fantastic. Well, I don't even know like if I tried like if I could come up with one I don't think I could Yeah, sorry.
Be on Battle No.
Hannah 34:36
Lost to L every time.
Scott Benner 34:39
Well, wouldn't it be funny if it was beat on low diet or low carb diet but anyhow, like, but that's You see, I think that's to completely telling because it took You as well like, like, you saw it and you're like bold. What could that mean? What like what is that? Like? I know All I meant by it was that I was being timid with insulin. Yes, that's all I was scared of it and I wasn't using as much of it as are needed. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that helps you. No kidding.
Cool.
This is great. All right, so baby comes out. And you do the thing where your life is shifting huge, by the way is the thing. It's the parenting thing. Yeah, the first thing you do is give away your own health or happiness. That's how it works. When you're divvying up the pie. You look at the pie and you go baby, by the way, the pie after you have your first baby is Baby 98.5%. Husband point 5%. Me 1%. Yeah. I think I said in a book I wrote that when my son was born, I became my, my, my son and wife's major domo. They were just, she was like, Hey, how can you possibly service the baby? And I properly? Yes, I'd be like, what about me? And she's like, there's no, you, you don't exist anymore. And I was like, okay, so But you gave away your own care. But I don't think if I'm guessing, it isn't just because you're like, fifth, I don't care about myself. It was because the way you got through the nine months wasn't purposeful.
Hannah 36:14
Right? It was forced, yeah. And I didn't know how to give insulin for the way that I typically would eat. So I was just all over the place. And that was pretty discouraging, but been able to figure out and whatnot. Another reason why I love your podcast, is because there's not, it's not like you listen to these five episodes, and then all of a sudden, you have the tools that you need to now make the changes in your life, like diabetes is a long game. It's a it's a throughout your whole life, you're going to be always learning. And even just the the way the podcast is with over 800 episodes, and that they're long episodes that that kind of, you know, we're not even talking about diabetes the whole time. But just the story in your conversations. And the fact that it's just long kind of just shows that that's how diabetes is that's how you learn through it. And it's a it's a daily thing. And I think before I found your podcast, I was just so focused on Oh, my gosh, today, I my blood sugar's high. And I was so yeah, just focused on the the here and now and discouraged, and I didn't know how to just take that and learn from it.
Scott Benner 37:30
Yeah, you have that that very like micro view?
Hannah 37:34
Yes, it was very, it was a very, like micromanaging, trying to figure out so then, if my blood sugar was good, then I was feeling good. And I was like, this is fine, you know. But then if I was having a rollercoaster day, or if my blood sugar was high, and I didn't understand it, I would just get discouraged and be like, this stinks. And definitely, I've experienced a lot of diabetes burnout, which you said, I think it was a guest maybe as a therapist you had on she said, diabetes, burnout is when you're trying really hard. And you're not getting the results. Because which that was totally what I was in for a long time, especially in college. I was trying really hard, but I wasn't trying to write things. So I was trying really hard. But it wasn't working. Because it wasn't I didn't have the tools or the correct information on how to how to maybe I didn't have the right basil and I didn't know how to test for it. Or I didn't. I wasn't taking enough insulin or whatever it was, you know, like you're trying really hard and you're not getting the results. And then it's just daily. frustrations. Yeah, frustration.
Scott Benner 38:36
Yep. Yeah. And then the frustration turns into well, why am I doing this? It's not working. Right. Yeah. And then you then people stop trying and then we turn that burnout, but the burnout happens before you stop trying. And yeah, I I made a note here to myself, because you said something I want to bring up later. But before I get back to that with the hell Goddamnit Hannah,
I'm getting old fight just flew right out of my head. It's not your fault.
You were just talking about all that about the burnout. And oh, learning. I got it. I don't think that people learn the way most people tried to teach. Right? Like, oh, 100% Yeah, we're stuck in that mindset of, we'll all sit down, I will tell you a list of facts. You will retain those facts. And then I will sit down again and tell you how to use the facts. And then you will practice using the facts and now you have learned and I think that's you know, based on probably how we grow up in in, in school, right, like, you know, here's a bunch of facts that will test you on them. I was a monumentally bad student.
Hannah 39:53
I've heard you mentioned this. I know this.
Scott Benner 39:56
I would if you looked at me in school, you'd be like, Oh, that boy must bumped his head on something, you know, like, I, I look confused, I'm failing. Like, if I could get a D in something I'd be like, right on this is amazing. I'm gonna pass. And that that was most of that was most of my time in school. I was better at social studies, Social Studies was storytelling. Yeah, right. And I was bad at science science was facts and and remember the facts and then put them in the right place. I'm bad at math, math is facts and the right place. If you could put a projector on my brain and watch me figure out math, you'd be like, why is it happening like that? But, but I come out with the answer. Right? I'm literally telling myself a story about the numbers and how the numbers work. And so to me, the biggest mistake being made in patient care is that we're trying to tell people, these are the facts. These are how the facts work, go do it. Right, instead of think of all the things that you know, and I'm not even just talking to you now, when I'm talking to everybody and all the things that you know, the information that's in your head, you hear people say all the time, like, I don't know why I know that, like, Why do I know Bruce Springsteen? 73 like, you know, I know that, because the person I interviewed yesterday brought up Bruce Springsteen, and I said, Oh, Bruce Springsteen, 73 I don't even like Bruce Springsteen. Why do I know Bruce Springsteen, 73, I heard an interview with him. And he mentioned he was 73. And it stuck in my head. I don't know why. And I think that most of us know, most of what we know, in that same fashion. And so the podcast is set up like this, so that if you listen to an episode, hopefully, you're entertained, but you're not going to shut it off and go, Oh, that episode was about this, and this and this. And I'll never forget that. It'll just be three weeks from now, like something will happen with your diabetes. And you'll be like, you know, I'm probably just going to do a Temp Basal increase here. And you're not even going to know why you're doing it. And that, that, to me, is why it works. Yes, yeah.
Hannah 42:08
Yeah. And another thing that that idea is shown is the idea of carb counting, like, whenever I learned how to do that, you know, when I was diagnosed, and I hated it, and I'm the I'm like you were I look at a plate of food. And I say, oh, that's six units of insulin. I have absolutely no clue at the carb count. Because I don't like I would last a day if I had to sit and calculate all my carbohydrates. But I know, based off, you know, the type of food it is my exercise level, my, my hormones, my sleep, all these other factors that I'm not consciously thinking about, but it's intuitive that I know, okay, I need six units of insulin or whatever the number is, or I need a higher Basal or I need a lower Basal or, or whatever. And that's that idea is how I've always done diabetes, but I always felt like I was doing it wrong, because they don't do that at the endocrinologist office. Yeah. And I was like, I was always fighting the way that I was, quote, unquote, supposed to do it based on their terms. But well, the way I'm doing it is working better. And so then hearing you on the podcast, like, oh, that okay, this is okay. Yeah, this is, this is okay. I can I can figure this out on my own, because I just wanted to do the right thing. And I wanted to follow the rules with what I learned at the office, but it just didn't work.
Lija Greenseid 43:35
You don't have I'm
Scott Benner 43:35
bad. I don't know where to put commas in sentences sometimes. Sure. Yeah. But I'm a published author. You have a book? Yeah. Well, no, it's I mean, a publisher paid me to write a book. Like everybody writes stuff, and self publishes it now. And if that's good for you, that's fine. But you're not a published author, you publish yourself. I'm a published author, a publisher came after me and said, Hey, you write down your thoughts. We'll put it in a book and sell it to people. And I don't know where commas go. But that didn't stop me when they made me the offer. I was like, right on, I could do that. And I thought I can tell a story, or figure out whether I'll figure out where the commas go later. And it just made me think of that with you in the in the office, because you're like, I know how to do this. Why are you telling me I'm wrong? Or that I shouldn't do that. I can't just because I don't know where the commas go. Like that's, I don't have to do it your way to do it. And I mean, I think that I think society is proving that out. In a big way. There's been a lot of interesting little shifts, like, here's one of them, apostrophe s. Have you noticed that people have stopped using it willfully? I haven't noticed. They know what belongs there and they don't care. And they're like, I'm not doing this anymore. And it's taking over. Yeah, and it's moving towards functionality over You know, what I guess, quote unquote, is supposed to be. And so I don't know if that's right or not, it might be infuriating to some people. I just think, sure, I just think it's interesting that the, that people can move in that direction. I know, we're all worried about this generation. But if we can get them out of their house and get them around other people, they're going to be really good. Like, like they they they're not held back by what everyone says is supposed to happen. And I don't I think about diabetes management that way. Like I honestly, I don't care what anyone says, because I think they're only saying it because the person before them said it. And you know, and I think I've told the meatloaf story. In my book, I've told it in this podcast, I don't know where it originated from. But to me, it says everything you need to know about the way you're supposed to do things. And you'd be surprised how much of what you think you're supposed to be doing is based on nothing? Yeah, so count your carbs. And if you don't do it, right, that's both. Like, like, I can count carbs perfectly. And if I'm not accounting for fat, and something, it's not going to matter. Right? You know, and then you have that person thinking, but I count the carbs perfectly. Now that this didn't work, well, this is an anomaly. So that's just diabetes. So there's nothing I can do about that. So this is now what I'm going to live with. And they don't even realize like, no, it's just, you know, there's a certain amount of fat and the French fries you just ate and about 60 or 90 minutes after you eat the fries, you're gonna get a spike because your digestion slows down. And there's actually a formula you can come up with take the fat and translated into insulin, and stop that from happening. Like, wouldn't that be better to know?
Right, you know, and then good,
Hannah 46:56
or you just had a big hike, and you need way less insulin for that meal. So if you do your typical carb ratio, you're gonna plumb it, or whatever it is, you have to think about all the variables and what's going on in your day. That's so that your carb ratio is going to be changing all the time. And so I don't I just don't use carb ratios. Really, I just know how much insulin I need. And that's just, it's through years and years of personal experience and being thoughtful about what my blood sugar's doing, based off of the circumstances. Yeah,
Scott Benner 47:35
but people also need a pat on the ass a shove, you know, I mean, I don't think we're allowed to tap people on the button anymore to say, good job. But anyway, like, shove, I didn't want to say shut, but you need somebody behind you, bracing you and saying you're doing the right thing, keep going. Or, you know, if this is working for you don't doubt it. Because a lot of people, I'm gonna say many people don't have whatever the thing is, I have where I hear something, and I go, I don't care what people think it's fine. Like, like, we're just gonna keep moving. I don't take into it. And by the way, even that's a misnomer. I care what people think. I just don't, I'm just not stopped by people's opinions. And so but a lot of people are, and it sounds like you, you might have been as well, which makes absolutely, yeah, 100% which makes sense because you plan the baby. And anyway, I don't have time to go into your whole psychology, but I understand you have. And by the way, just by how you had things hung on your wall. I love it.
Unknown Speaker 48:34
But but that that is a gift
Scott Benner 48:36
you need to give to people you need to be able to tell them to trust their gut.
Hannah 48:40
Yeah, and I didn't I didn't have that before the podcast really because and I don't I don't think anyone should do this. But I quit see my endo halfway through my pregnancy because they were so against me eating a low carb diet. Every time I went they told me I was going to damage my baby, which I couldn't bear hearing but my blood sugar was awesome. And so I just stopped going because I knew that what I was doing was better for my health and for my baby. So the podcast is something that gives me the confidence to say okay, yeah, you can make these decisions and you are the master of your own diabetes health. And so I think I'm at a place now with if we get pregnant again that I'll be able to go to the author like the endos and say, Okay, this is this is what I'm doing this is how I'm doing it. You know, can you support me in this instead of just feeling like I didn't know how to advocate for myself right for back then. I was just just discouraged I just stopped building were you in the hole?
Scott Benner 49:44
Okay, I cut you off. I didn't mean to I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Hannah 49:48
So the whole later part of my pregnancy I was just on my own
Scott Benner 49:52
when when the doctor said low carb is going to hurt the baby i But first of all, I have no like I'm not a nutritionist. I don't know if that True or False or something? Right. But did they know that you were doing it because you didn't know another way to keep your blood sugar stable?
Hannah 50:10
No, I don't think they understood that because I didn't really go to them frequently beforehand, maybe once or twice a year. And then well, and they had a diabetes specific doctor, I think is really great knowledgeable. She works with type one diabetic pregnancies. That's her whole thing. And so she knows how to do it. But they didn't really know me. And the first time I went in the office, there was no congratulations or, you know, we're excited for you. It was like, here's the risks here. And here's what you need to do, you have to keep your blood sugar's in this range, this is what is expected. And, or you really could hurt your baby. And so it was just really, like scary. And so the way they approached that wasn't very helpful. And I was telling him I was eating, I wasn't eating the amount of carbohydrates they wanted me to eat. And that that was going to delay my baby's brain development or whatever, which didn't need to happen end up happening. He was perfect. But so there was just no, it was like, we were fighting against each other. There was no, I just didn't feel supported. So I just stopped going, there's no harm at all. Yeah, and I didn't feel the freedom to share my story. And they didn't know really who I was, or, or whatnot. But I'm hopeful that going forward, I can, because I do want that support, and being able to have a professional to talk to and
Scott Benner 51:33
yeah, it would be, it would be amazing. You know, what's interesting is that, in your scenario, the doctor is the doctor starts off their life with their own thoughts. And then their thoughts are fed by the parents, and then by their teachers, and where they go to college. And, and then after that they're pretty set and how they think about things. Now they see other people's experiences, but because they're in the risk aversion game, they're, they're probably seeing things from the what can go wrong, perspective more, more often than not, and, and they're not blending you into that conversation about like, who you are, whereas, you know, and this is unfair to them. But the, like making a podcast and talking to so many people like this, the voice of this podcast, it started out as mine. But now it's an it started out the same way. These were my experiences and everything, but now it's, it's blended with everybody who's ever been on, because not only do I grow with their conversations, and my responses grow with with having had their these conversations, but their stories are, are bright here, too. So, you know, like, it's not that a doctor could accomplish that, maybe. But that's what you need, you need, you need a big picture beyond what you can imagine. And it has to be, it's a lot of feelings mixed up with words, and intentions. And you know, the intention of your words and the tone that they come with. I speak differently now than I did before. Like I used to have when I first started making the podcast, if you if a person, like you talk a little slow. For me, it's not a big deal. But you're a little more measured when you're speaking. And when there's a moment when I know how you're going to finish your sentence. And in the past, I would have been compelled to say it out loud. And now there's a voice in my head that says someone's going to someone is going to hear her, like really hear her right now. And I need to let her finish that thought it's not just about her and I having this conversation, it's about the people listening to it as well. So there's tone in your voice, and intent and sometimes sadness that comes from people. And other people learn from that when they hear it. They don't know what's happening. They don't learn from it, like two plus two is four and take the test. They they learn by hearing it over and over again. You're not gonna get that from a doctor's visit, not just around diabetes, obviously, but in anything,
Hannah 54:07
right? Because you need that experience. In the end people's support and people's stories.
Scott Benner 54:15
We, you don't, you don't want the pilot pontificating about their feelings while the planes crashing into a mountain. You need an immune like if you do want the pod to go, Oh, here's what I learned. Let me get this thing out of the way. And that's what the doctors miss out on. Like, if you could find that OB right now. And tell them I came to you pregnant, and you didn't go, congratulations. You just said here's all the things that could go wrong. I bet you if you told that person outside of their practice sitting having a cup of coffee with them, they'd be mortified that they did that. Yeah, you know, but that doesn't help you because that was that because now that's your experience. Right? You know,
Hannah 54:56
and I'm probably going to see that same doctor For my next pregnancy, because she is the only one at the office that I go to that is she she does all the pregnancies. So that's what she does. So I don't know how I'll approach that I may share my experience and see if we can do it different. We'll just kind of have to see how that goes at that time. But I think and I hope that it will be a better experience together and that there can be more of a relationship to be had through that.
Scott Benner 55:29
I'll tell you, I don't know if you care. But I'd walk in and say, hi, before we get started, I need to share with you that in my last pregnancy, our first meeting was all about fear. And I didn't feel any of the joy that I thought I would feel coming to the OB, and it's not your fault. I don't think he did it on purpose. But I don't want this, this new relationship. We're about to have to get off on that same foot. Please, like do your best to treat me like everyone else. Because I think you saw diabetes walk into the room and not Hannah the last time. Yeah, yeah. Then by the way, they won't like that you'll probably get fired.
Hannah 56:14
No, I think that I could do that. It would be uncomfortable for me, but it would be the the best approach.
Scott Benner 56:21
Yeah, I mean, it's the only way because otherwise, like all of her, her. I mean, is it a hey, her sorry, her. Yeah, okay. Yesterday I made I was, I don't know if people understand. Like, I don't think doctors are just men or women. I just, I just I pick a no, I pick a pronoun, and I go with it while I'm telling the story. And yesterday, I did it on an interview. And I stopped and I was like, I'm so sorry. I'm like, was it a man? And the person goes, Yeah, I was like, okay, then I just felt like I just did it again. But she's going to, she's just going to revert to what she does. Right? You know what I mean? Maybe you'll get a little more hay because your baby came out. Okay. Or because you left me you left in the middle a little bit, right. Maybe she'll be like, Oh, it's you? Yeah. Your baby. Okay.
Hannah 57:15
Yeah, I'll probably I'll probably bring him like, yeah, here he is.
Scott Benner 57:18
Yeah. Your his look like his eyes are on his head and everything doesn't have a tail. Turn them around. Like, look, hotel? Oh, I didn't think to ask you that. When you're like, I laughed. I was like, is the kid okay? Like you come out with like a foot coming out of the side of his head or something? Right. You know, so, um, but But
Lija Greenseid 57:39
I mean, listen, that it's tough. Like, I
Scott Benner 57:41
mean, there's part of me that thinks that maybe you do a, maybe you have a meeting with her prior even and say, Look, I'm thinking of getting pregnant again. I'd really like to come back here. You know, here's, here's what I was hoping we could do. I don't know. Like, it's all about them. And trust me, it's a lot about ego. Yeah, like, if their ego can handle it, you'll be okay. But if if she can't let that go. Might be might be unpleasant. All I can tell you is that the OB that handled my first child's birth was so devoid of personal anything. It's like, it's like talking to a robot that was gonna catch your baby. But he didn't know what he was doing. Kick came out. Okay. So yeah, who knows, but we weren't dealing with diabetes while we were doing it. Right. What is your story? Like, how long have you been personally with diabetes? Because your notes are very sparse, but they mentioned some struggles a little bit.
Hannah 58:45
Yeah, for the first 10 years. So from 12 to 22, I was kind of just coasting and doing the same thing. I had a Medtronic pump. And I gave insulin right for eight. And I checked my blood sugar maybe twice a day. But I was living with unknown shame about diabetes. When I was diagnosed for some reason, because of maybe my age, where it was developmentally my personality. I was immediately filled with shame. When I was diagnosed when they told me you have diabetes. That was the overwhelming feeling, but I wouldn't have said that then I didn't know what that was. It honestly wasn't until 10 years later that that really started to come out in ways that were really unpleasant. So in college, you know, 22, pretty severe anxiety and depression, almost all surrounding diabetes, but I didn't know it, and disordered eating and diabetes, distress and denial about it, and just confusion. I wish someone would have told me or my parents when I was diagnosed that it was going to impact mental and emotional health. And maybe they do that now, I hope they do. I hope they share that. But I needed counseling, and I needed therapy to really work past all of that. And so like, I would encourage, like anyone who has diabetes, if you haven't had counseling, or therapy for it, do it because it was so helpful for me. And my counselor, she didn't know understand diabetes at all. But she understood trauma, which she she told me that a diagnosis like that at 12 is a traumatic experience. Yeah, because you, you understand, oh, this is a, well, you're losing a part of yourself, part of your body is not working. And it's going to affect the rest of your life. And so we unpacked all that we worked through it, and I did EMDR therapy, which I know, it's been mentioned on the podcast before. And that was so helpful. Because before doing that, every single time my blood sugar was high, I was filled with shame and panic. And so I wouldn't, I just wouldn't check my blood sugar. Because I couldn't handle that emotional, it was so uncomfortable. But being able to work through, being able to work through that with a counselor and doing therapy was was really was really helpful. And just be giving me more freedom to actually take care of myself in an impactful way. Because shame is a, it's a really powerful emotion. But it's never correct. Like shame says that you are a bad person, like it's an identity. It's like, I'm bad. And that was what I felt every time my blood sugar wasn't, quote, unquote, in range. And that's a lot to handle, especially, you know, as a middle schooler into high school and, and just being able to go through a grief process. Like I think anyone with diabetes will have to go through a grief process, which is, whatever the fives however many stages there, I know, there's denial, there's anger, there's bargaining, there's, eventually you get to acceptance. And that took a long time for me, like I was probably in that denial stage for 10 years. And what that looked like, for some people that maybe looks like not managing at all, which is really dangerous. For me, it just looked like keeping it kind of hidden to myself and taking insulin. So I didn't end up in hospital, but I was never told when I was diagnosed, oh, you're gonna probably have to work through this, or there's gonna be some mental impact here, or there's emotional impact here. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:02:25
It's interesting, too, that, that most people don't exhibit enough signs so that people around them could think, oh, there's something wrong. Or this for sure. You don't even know if you're hiding it as much as it's just, you're trying to function. So yeah,
Hannah 1:02:44
and I was excelling. I was excelling. In school, I was a three sport athlete, I was, you know, doing great by everyone's standards. But beneath the surface, there was a lot of struggle.
Scott Benner 1:02:55
Yeah, no, I think that all the time, when people are telling their stories, and you know, that they're surrounded by people who would have done something had they known. I mean, sometimes there are people who are surrounded by people who know and don't help, and that's a different problem. But, but it's just, I mean, it's just terrible that that could be so true for you. And that yet, it you're so far away from the answer when the answer was really, but just seeing a therapist and, and working through it. You know,
Hannah 1:03:28
yeah. As we were working through, you know, my depression and anxiety and different just struggles I was having, it kept coming back to diabetes. And at first I was like, No, this is this doesn't have to do with diabetes. This is that's different. That's a separate thing. But it kept coming back to that. And eventually, I just realized, oh, yeah, most of this is, was surrounding my diagnosis and how that affected me at that time and that age. And I remember we, what's that?
Scott Benner 1:03:58
Is it just shocking to be diagnosed? Right?
Hannah 1:04:01
It Oh, yeah. A total shock. Yeah. And my I, I didn't know how to handle it. And there's no pause.
Scott Benner 1:04:07
It's not like, it's not like someone says to you, hey, you have diabetes. And over the next number of days, weeks and months, we are going to thoughtfully go through what all that means. It's like you're at the doctor or the hospital. And then suddenly, everything about your life changes. Yeah. That's like having a car accident.
Hannah 1:04:28
Yeah, it's it is a traumatic experience, and trauma. I think a lot of people experience trauma in their life in small ways. It may be a big thing, a different different kinds of trauma, but a diagnosis like that is there should be mental health support and emotional support for any diagnosis like that, and I I don't think it's widely understood. But also like my therapist, she didn't know she didn't have diabetes. She didn't understand what it was. I just kind of told her about it. So you don't have to Find someone who's a diabetic counselor. Yeah, if I find someone who's a counselor and is good and can help you
Scott Benner 1:05:08
understand how people's emotions are, are hurt and how they can be brought back.
Hannah 1:05:13
Yeah, and so it dramatically in two ways, it dramatically impacted my management in a positive way. Because one I wasn't having panic attacks. So then I wasn't experiencing that, you know, increase in adrenaline and cortisol, and that spikes my blood sugar. So it from a physiological standpoint, it was helping, but then also, it helped me to, it took away the burden of making the daily decisions to Pre-Bolus and make corrections and change my insulin. So it was kind of the two two ways that it really helped me be able to manage better day to day.
Scott Benner 1:05:51
That's terrific. I mean, it's just anything that works, obviously, but Right, therapy gets a bad rap from some people. And so I don't think they think to try it, I think they think it's an admission of something again, more shame. Really. Yeah,
Hannah 1:06:09
yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I, for me, it wasn't until I decided that I needed help, and was going to reach out that it was helpful, because I had tried, you know, previously, because I was encouraged to by other people, and but I wasn't ready. So it has to be when the person is ready, and they they seek it out. And they admit, okay, yeah, this is time. This is where I am. And I want to get help is when when you actually get help that changes.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:33
Yeah, I mean, shame
Scott Benner 1:06:33
looks like different things to different people, right? Like you could feel excluded. You could have, like, exposure that you don't want somebody looking at you. Care expectation, I
Hannah 1:06:45
was always embarrassed about it. Like, I never wanted to tell my friends that I had diabetes. I don't know why it was embarrassing. It just was because I also associated diabetes with like, an old fat grandma. Like, that wasn't me, why do I have diabetes? Because I didn't understand type one and type two and the difference?
Scott Benner 1:07:01
No, why do I get like an old person's disease? Yeah, why
Hannah 1:07:05
did I get oh, I'm 12. And why didn't Why do I have a grandma's disease? Because that's what everyone would say like my, I would tell my friends, I would just say hello to a few people and be like, Oh, my grandma has that. And I'm like, Yeah, cool.
Scott Benner 1:07:19
Great. Yeah. No, I mean, it's,
if you felt that way, then at least a sliver of the people you're going to bump into are going to have that same thought, now you're aware of that. And, you know, so everybody you approach, you, you kind of subconsciously believe like some of these people are judging me now. And then you get that that's that unwanted exposure, which can feel like shame. You can also your expectations are have been let down. That's a feeling that that that shame thrives inside of as well. Yeah, yeah. It's terrible. There's been episodes about shame. I should do more honestly, at but earlier, you mentioned the word scarcity. Oh, did that come from your therapy?
Hannah 1:08:03
Oh, I have no clue. I don't know. So don't remember what I said that. In regards to
Scott Benner 1:08:08
Yeah, so there's, um, you said scarcity mindset. Yeah. And it just struck me because, like, three days ago, somebody said that to me. Oh, in the oddest place, I was getting my teeth cleaned. I don't know if you're this, everyone's dentists come in and do a checkup while the person in the middle of the teeth cleaning.
Hannah 1:08:31
I for sure. That's what mine does. Right.
Scott Benner 1:08:33
And so do you have a chatty dentist? Like one that actually cares to talk to you? Yeah,
Hannah 1:08:38
mine is very chatty. It's very difficult. He's white. It's very, it's hard because my mouth is open. And there's fingers in my mouth. Oh, he's talking.
Scott Benner 1:08:46
Oh, I see. You're alive. Oh, you said he's very charity. He's difficult. And I was like, you were like, it's difficult because they're, they want to talk to you while your money with your Outlook. So my, my guy is a really thoughtful person. And, you know, does talk to you about your health before he checks you. And he asks you about your whole life. And he asked me about the podcast. I've been going there for a very long time. And you have to try to imagine that. I am who I am. Always, like, I like I, you know, like I walked into the dentist's office that day. And I had a question. And I just walked in, and there's like three people working there. And I know all these people and I'm like, Hey, I
Unknown Speaker 1:09:29
gotta ask you a question.
Scott Benner 1:09:31
Is there anybody else in here? Like any other patients, and I can see down the hallway to the doctor who I've known personally as well. And he, I say, can I ask my question? He looks at me across the distance and just start shaking his head back and forth. Like no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Meaning there's someone in here and I can't be sure what you're about. So please, oh my gosh, but all I really wanted to ask not that this matters, but it was the very early appointment. I walked in. I was like, how do you guys get Got this early every day is horrible. And so they're like, Yeah, we come to work every day at this time. And I was like, That's it, you should get a different job, this is not good. And they're like, well, we can all make a podcast, I was like, hey, hey, hey, I worked for an hour and a half today. I was like, I'm gonna go do more don't don't. But you know. So anyway, I was joking around a little bit, he comes in later to clean my to help with the teeth cleaning. And I said, I gotta thank you, I've never felt so seen in my entire life. I was like, you knew not to let me speak out loud if there was another person here. And we laughed a little bit. And he said, I've just at the end, he starts to mention, like, you know, I've known you for so long. And he's like, your life has been like, like quite a transformation, like, you know about the things you've accomplished and done, and you know, what he was talking about. And it led him to say, How's the podcast going? And I told him, that it was about to hit 10 million downloads. And that, you know, and he's like, Oh, he's congratulating me on everything I said, but I just, like, I get up every day. This thinking about how to make it, keep going, like, how to keep it going, and how to grow it. And I said, the Keep it going part and the growth part of the same, because once you see it helps somebody like, kinda like, once I hear your story, I think, well, I can't stop making this podcast because there's going to be another hand, right? And, and at the same time, there's not just another hand, there's 1000 Other hand as well. So if I could grow it, I could reach more of them, and maybe more people would have the happy outcome that you've had. And I said, so that's kind of how I think about it. And I'm always worried it's going to stop. And he's, and he's like, what I was like, it's like, Dude, it's, it's media, like, they're going to get sick of it eventually. If I don't, if I don't keep morphing it and letting it grow. But not too quickly, like the podcast can't just make some like, monumental shift, it has to slowly morph is the right word from like, like, as it grows and gets different, but not too different. So that the people who like it don't go, Oh, God, this thing changed. I'm dropping it now. Like, it's a hard thing to do, to keep to gather people in one place. And keep them interested in a way that they're like, I want to go find that podcast, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go learn about whatever this episode is about. And he said, Oh, that's a scarcity mindset.
Don't think that way.
And I was like,
is it? Like,
I don't think it is. I think I think he's, I'm being realistic. But, but he was so worried for me, he's like, please don't think that way. He's like, let that go. And things will just flourish. And I'm like, I don't know, man. 10 million, like, is flourishing, isn't it? You know, so anyway, we had this long conversation while I was sitting in a weird angle. And he was like, looking over at me with a bright light on my face. Is it not a thing that you think about? You just kind of said it in passing?
Hannah 1:13:10
I think I just said it in passing. I think I've definitely heard the concept of a scarcity mindset versus an abundance mindset. But yeah, I'm trying to figure out if that's if what he was talking about is truly a scarcity mindset or not.
Scott Benner 1:13:26
Yeah, I think I'm being realistic. I mean, you think of all the TV shows that you bailed on in the middle? Oh, for sure. Right. And so think of all the work that that person that that TV show did to get you to try that first episode, right? And think of how at some point you were actually enjoying it. And then one day, it just wasn't important for you anymore. And the problem from my perspective, like from the TV shows perspective, if they lose enough viewers, then they don't get to make the show anymore. And it just ends. But those people go on to be producers and writers of other television shows. I'm never going to make a thing this popular ever again. Right? This is your thing. And I don't mean like I can't lose my thing. I mean, I can't just decide to go help people a second time. It very well may not work again. And I And to give you context for that. I've been talking about this a lot this week because of the 10 million but a media will tell you there's like over 4 million podcasts. That's not true. There's like 4 million parked RSS feeds meaning somebody was like, I'm going to make a podcast about pumpernickel bread. I'm going to lock down that feed I'm going to like I'm going to register the pot, the pumpernickel podcast, which I don't think you can make a whole podcast about but I do love the title. And and so there are a lot of locked down titles like the way people used to sit on and probably do still sit on like, they squat on URLs, like they'll buy a you know something.com thinking they're gonna use it later and they never or do. So that happens a lot with podcasts. So anyway, there's a certain amount of actually active podcasts, but only I think it's about a million or half a million excuse me, there's about a half a million podcasts that actually put up an episode at least once a month. And wow, of them. 95 or 96% of them, don't get enough downloads to interest an advertiser. Wow. So
Hannah 1:15:30
you know, there's a very small percentage of podcasts like yours that has
Scott Benner 1:15:35
enough downloads that an advertiser would say, Well, this is would be a valuable place to put my advertising dollars. And the reason that's important is because if you don't have advertising, then you can't treat it like a full time job. And there's an episode out today, with Stephen, it's called, I think it's called Steven Appleseed. And I've already listened. Oh, okay, great. So you Wow. Hey, Hannah, how are you? Thank you. Oh, my gosh, hey, so far, especially
Hannah 1:16:01
I listened to on my walk this morning was great.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:04
Oh, cool. So So
Scott Benner 1:16:05
Stephen is making a point at some point in there about all the quality content that he has heard from people with diabetes over the years. But how none of it ever gained, like mass exposure?
Hannah 1:16:17
Yeah, didn't gain traction, right.
Scott Benner 1:16:18
I am one of the only people who's ever done that.
Hannah 1:16:23
Well, that's interesting. You say that, because I now remember when I chose to start listening to your podcast, I clicked on it because it said diabetes. And I saw that there was a download from that day. So I was like, oh, it's current. Like, it's it's an active podcast, and they're gonna keep he's gonna keep making episodes. Yeah. So because you sometimes you click on a podcast, but the last episode was six months ago, or a year ago. And so I wouldn't be drawn to listen to that one. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:50
Do you have any idea if you
Scott Benner 1:16:51
go look how many podcasts the last episode that went live says, we're just going to take a break for Christmas. But we'll be right back. And I'm like, No, you're not because it's hard to make a podcast. And it's, it's demanding and time and all that stuff. And, and so anyway, like, I wasn't boasting before, like, like, I'm one of the few people who has created a thing that's gained, what content creators might call escape velocity. Like, like I'm, I am, I get to decide how this goes. And, and it's not like, like, listen, there are other podcasts, and they have advertisers. But I guarantee you, the US advertisers have given them 20 $40 To put an ad on it. Like it's not enough. There's not enough to live off of they have an advertiser, and it looks good. But it's not a real. It's not a real business model. I guess, if that makes sense. So you have to make you have to find a balance between this sustaining itself financially, and it helping people. And I have, in my opinion, I have struck that balance. So great. Yeah. And now we're getting to the point where people who aren't medical related, are starting to ask about advertising on the show. Oh, wow. And I think that's where that's when my freedom will really like crank open? Do you have a freedom?
Hannah 1:18:11
Are you going to change the structure of the podcast? Are you always going to keep it same kind of structure?
Scott Benner 1:18:18
I can't see changing how it works at all. Like I like the three conversations, one medical episode a week. I liked that format. I liked that the medical episode is generally speaking shorter. I like that, like hearing you talk about long form content was really exciting for me, because I believe people want to hear long conversations, because they're real. But I but I, but there are people that the management base people who are mostly the Facebook base people are like, no, like, I don't I don't want to hear a two hour conversation with a girl who thought about hurting herself when she was 12. But I do. Like, I want to hear that conversation. So I'm doing the thing that you hear most creative people do. I'm making a thing that I would listen to.
Hannah 1:19:06
Yeah, well, and it is reasonable. I mean, I I choose to listen to it every day. So yeah, keeping because it's people's stories. And there's always something to relate to. And there's something that draws you into someone's story and someone's experience rather than facts. Like we were talking earlier. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:19:23
My son tried to say to me a couple of months ago, he's like, are you ever going to make that podcast bigger than, than diabetes? And I said, it is no, and he's like, What do you mean, he's like, every day you talk to somebody who has diabetes, or it's like the caregiver, somebody with diabetes, it's about diabetes. Like it's not like it isn't. It isn't like, I think there's something amazing about hearing every conversation in the world, but everyone you're talking to has, like, like there's insulin in the refrigerator, you know? Yeah, that
Hannah 1:19:53
that there's that one commonality. Yeah, no,
Lija Greenseid 1:19:56
I love that. I
Hannah 1:19:56
wonder I wonder how many people listen And that don't have diabetes or don't aren't a caregiver, I would, I would think it's pretty low.
Scott Benner 1:20:06
It's a shame because there are episodes of this podcast that have little or nothing to do with type one that are really good episodes. Like did you
hear Perry last week?
I don't I don't know if I after dark California sober. Oh, yes. Okay. That episode could have been in any podcast? Yes. Yeah, it does it he's gotten
Hannah 1:20:29
but but someone with that that that not associated diabetes isn't gonna listen to it.
Scott Benner 1:20:33
Yeah, it's a shame it's a it's a good podcast episode. And I have a lot like that I believe that I have a lot of episodes that are like that. And and it might never, it might never find people who don't have type one or diabetes in general. But that's okay to me. Because it for the people who did find it. I hear enough from them that this is their favorite podcast, not just their favorite diabetes podcast. And that, to me means the same thing, I'm probably never gonna get to like, you know, I'm probably never gonna get to like, 5 million a month. But I don't care. As long as it's reaching people with diabetes, it doesn't matter to me if it gets past that.
Hannah 1:21:13
Yeah, there's probably there's going to be a ceiling, but it's still going to reach people in there. And I think that, like I share it with anyone that I know that has diabetes, or I don't know if they'll listen to it, but I just tell them about it. And so there's word of mouth is powerful to share it.
Scott Benner 1:21:29
It's the only way honestly, yeah, word of mouth is the only thing that works. My goal is a million a month. That's that's what I'm trying to get to a million downloads a month. How close are you halfway there? Oh, wow. So that's what I'm shooting for. I want to I want to get to a, I want to get to 12 million a year. And then I'll reassess it and see what's what's happening because of the 10 million that just happened. And I want to be clear for people like it's not it's 10 million lifetime, like I started the podcast in 2015. It took four years to get to a million. And then it only took one more year to get the 2 million. And then there was couple years in there that did really well. But they weren't like extravagantly well, but the last 5 million came in like the last 12 months. Yeah. So now we're on to it now. Like we're getting there. So. And that escape velocity is important because it gives you freedom to do other things. Like you can tell somebody to go to hell if you want to. Right? Not that I haven't so far, by the way, I really should say that the advertisers I have I'm actually very proud of them. I think I have a lot of gold standards and diabetes cares, advertisers, I think prizes are great. Yeah, yeah, no. And they're very supportive of the show. And I have no reason to want to walk away from them. I'm not saying that. But just the idea that I could, you know, is, is freeing. I don't know why. But you know, and there's even a part of me that thinks like, like, at one time, it's going to like, I mean, you guys don't know this, the pressure I live under, but if you don't use those links, I'm going to lose those advertisers. I live in that reality every day. And, and so when I lose the advertisers, I lose the show like it's gone. And then the next Hana just doesn't get this because you think oh, no, the podcasts will be there forever. But it doesn't work that way. Like content gets content that isn't new, gets stale, and it disappears. Yeah, the difference between a compendium of information that will help people and a book that nobody looks into, is the newness of the show.
Hannah 1:23:42
Have you ever thought about reposting old episodes? Like
Scott Benner 1:23:48
you because people haven't heard them?
Hannah 1:23:51
Yeah, you know, number like random numbers into two hundreds or three hundreds like that. I wouldn't necessarily go and scroll to find. But if you were to post it, and it was up, you know, tomorrow, I might listen to it. I wouldn't even know that it was from two years ago. Would you ever do that? I
Scott Benner 1:24:08
just had a conversation online with people. And I asked that question. If on Friday, I ran a best of episode kind of thing. Oh, sure. Yeah. Would that bother you? And most people were okay with it. But they wanted it clearly branded.
Hannah 1:24:25
Oh, to clearly show that this is a repost
Scott Benner 1:24:28
Yeah. Like this is this is a this is a reposted episode. Now.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:32
Would I do that? I don't see why.
Scott Benner 1:24:36
I don't see why I shouldn't. Like I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I think it would bring out those episodes to people who haven't seen them yet. And I do think that's a good idea. And I thought so when I had the conversation. The truth is that after I thought to ask people about it and came to the conclusion that it was a good idea. I forgot that I was thinking about it. So I just pulled up my to do list. So I can add it.
Hannah 1:24:58
You can do repost Fridays. or something? Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:25:00
right. And but that's, that's so interesting because I had an entire day where I thought about that, then I had conversations with people to make sure that like my thinking about this correctly. And then I thought, I think this is a good idea. And then until you just brought it up, I didn't remember that I had ever done that. And it's because, I mean, there are a few people who helped me with the Facebook group. They're very helpful. And there's this girl named Angela has been helping me lately with stuff like there's a it'll be gone by the time people hear this. But there's a survey right now about for listeners to the podcast, which has been like, Yeah, I think I took that one. Oh, my God. It's got like, 700 responses already. So thank you. It's amazing. Yeah, the person who made the survey for me is a mph grad from Hopkins. And she's in she said, she sent me a text the other day, hold on a second. I'm gonna find it because what she said was, we were talking about the survey. Hold on. I know, I'm like, this is boring. But give me a second. Even prestigious medical research groups struggled or produced surveys with this many active participants. Wow. And I was like, Ah, cool. And so like that kind of stuff, like people are helping me behind the scenes with things like that. They're all very lovely people, but the production of this podcast, and the worry about it, and all the meetings with the advertisers and all the other stuff that has to happen, sending out invoices, which by the way, I'm not good at is it's all me. It's all Yeah. And so I would like to share it. But I don't know how to do that. Honestly. I think they're part of the reason why it works is because it all begins and ends with what I think is the thing I want to do.
Hannah 1:26:43
Yeah, there is something to be said about delegation, though, I used to be a varsity softball coach. And I had to learn really quick that I had to delegate things in order to accomplish what I wanted to watch. You have to put a lot of trust in people, but you also have to influence them in the direction you want to go.
Scott Benner 1:27:02
Yeah. When I'm growing like that a little bit, I have a I have an art student right now making, like art for me that I'm not involved in. So I'm not sure if I'm gonna use that. I have to say it, but like I at least, was like, Oh, I can do that. Because I realized that like this podcast is big enough. This would look good on their portfolio. Oh, sure. I was like, why am I not taking an intern on RT, I should be doing that. So
Hannah 1:27:27
is there so many people that are part a part of the Facebook group who have been impacted that have certain gifts and abilities that may be able to contribute? You know, it's hard to find them or be willing to try it. But, but also going back to the Repost, right? If you repost Friday, there's not much to be lost in that I don't like you mean, those specific ones may not get as many views, but you'd still probably get more downloads per week.
Scott Benner 1:27:53
You see, I don't worry about them not getting views, I worry about them pissing somebody off.
Hannah 1:27:57
And then that person just stops listening. That's my bigger concern.
Scott Benner 1:28:02
So should I be concerned about that? I don't think so. I don't know. You don't think so? Because you've only been listening for six months, and I saved your life and all that stuff. So but, but like, you know, somebody who's been listening for four years might be like, just wake up in a bad mood one day and be like, you're I'll give you an example. There is a person who has been following this podcast forever. I know them from online. Always been a lovely person.
I thought always a little strange, but never in a weird way. Just, you know, lovely, different way. And about like three months ago, they just turned on me.
Oh, and I like, I mean, look, there are 34. As of this recording, there are 34,000 people in my Facebook group. I'm maybe aware of 200 of them by their avatar and because their name sticks in my head for weird reasons. As far as their posting style, I maybe only know five of them. And those are usually problem people. Because they get brought to my attention, right? This is not a this is a person I knew of if you showed me their avatar, I would have thought nice lady. And I have like a generally like, good feeling about them. Yeah, but all of a sudden out of nowhere, just like came at me like you like you don't care about people anymore. And like I'm like, What in the hell like I haven't changed the way I make this podcast. I'm completely open about the fact that there are advertisers, you know, like it's just, it's all about the ads now and I'm like, I I did something one day that just rubbed this person wrong. And they just like flipped like a light switch.
Hannah 1:29:40
But I also I don't know if that has to do with you as much as it has to do with them and maybe a circumstance in their life that then came out
Scott Benner 1:29:51
towards you. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I somebody told me the other day. I'm not listening to the podcast anymore because you have athletic greens as an advertiser and I'm not Like, okay, yeah, like, I don't know what to say, like you. This is a person who told me previously This podcast was a really great help to me. Yeah. And I'm like, I don't like, look, it's athletic greens. It's a green drink, drink it or don't drink it. You don't have to buy it like nobody's making you do it, you know, like, and it's like, do you I wanted to say, when you're watching tennis, when CBS in the afternoon, and an ad comes on for something that you don't, I don't know, well, I don't even know what the person's problem was with it. But But you you don't have a good feeling about do you shut the tennis match off? Do you go oh, I can no longer watch tennis on CBS. Because they like Downey, get on me like, I'm like, What in God's name? Like, what kind of a thought is that? And so I am aware. Now these people are very few and very far between these interactions. Yeah, but it's still in the back of my head. I don't know how many of those people my gonna piss off if I run an extra episode on Fridays, even though I do think it's valuable for people who haven't heard them before. Who won't think to go back. And I could easily you know, I could easily ask the people who listen and love the podcast make me a list of episodes that you think should be, like, best of material. Yeah. And and they would come up with the great with great ideas for people. Yeah, man. I don't know. I should just do it. I shouldn't give a crap. What happens? Just do it? Yeah. And I'll blame you if it goes wrong. How's that sound? I'll take that. Sure. Well, if you pay my kids tuition. Well, then I don't know how far you're gonna get.
Hannah 1:31:38
If it doesn't, if you feel like it's not working, you could just stop doing it.
Scott Benner 1:31:41
I'm teasing too. I don't actually think it'll be a problem. It's just one of the things that I'm tasked with worrying about because it's my Yeah, right. So this, these are my hells, okay. They're not so bad. So I'm not complaining about them. They're just, they're just the things I'm, you know, that I think about throughout the day when I'm making this thing. Anyway. All right. Well, this was terrific. Thank you very much. You do like long conversations, and you gave one so I appreciate it.
Hannah 1:32:09
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. No, it
Scott Benner 1:32:12
was really it was really lovely. You're terrific. Can you hold on one second for me? Yes, thank you
How about Hannah, given a great podcast interview, thank you so much. And also want to thank cozy Earth and remind you to use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off of your entire order cozy earth.com Who else was today's podcast sponsored by Do you remember? I can tell you, us med us med.com forward slash juice box or call 888-721-1514 Do your business with us Matt just like we do. You know at the end of the cozy Earth add like way back there. I was just like, go buy towels. I thought this is how I should do all the podcasts be like go get it.
Go get up. stuff. Good stuff. Use the link.
So articulate. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode that Juicebox Podcast
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#991 Nice Day for a Mow
Ian has had type 1 diabetes for twenty years.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 991 of the Juicebox Podcast.
Today I'll be speaking with Ian, he's 32 years old and has had type one diabetes since he was 10 years old. So it's a very emotional conversation we talk a lot about how he feels about a lot of different things, type one diabetes, and other issues. 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 are becoming bold with insulin. Considering drinking ag one, use my link, drink ag one.com forward slash juicebox. If you want to save 40% off of your entire purchase at cozy earth.com use the offer code juicebox at checkout. And don't forget to follow touched by type one on Instagram, Facebook, and go see what they're doing and touched by type one.org. I have a little time here. So let me remind you that episode 1000 is coming up quickly. And I am re releasing it completely Remastered. The audio is terrific. Imagine I went back in time, found myself in 2019 and said hey, you should probably buy Jenny a good microphone for this. Imagine that happened? Well, it kind of did because it's all remastered look for episode 1000 Soon. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod five. Learn more and get started today with Omni pod at my link Omni pod.com forward slash Juicebox Podcast is also sponsored today. By who who want to guess guessing your head contour. That's right, the contour next gen blood glucose meter contour next.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. When you click those links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free.
Ian 2:07
Hi, my name is Ian. I'm 32. And I've been type one diabetic for the past 22 years.
Scott Benner 2:14
Wow. Interesting. 22 years diagnosed at around 10 Yep, you're 32 Now, okay, any kids or family?
Ian 2:26
I have two stepkids that I'm currently in the process of adopting,
Scott Benner 2:32
Oh, very nice. Any autoimmune or type one in your family.
Ian 2:37
My great grandpa on my mom's side was diabetic. We're not sure if he was type one or type two. And then I have a cousin on my dad's side who's 10 years younger than me and was diagnosed at the same age with type one.
Scott Benner 2:53
There's type one your dad's side. How about other autoimmune stuff? Do you have anything?
Ian 2:57
Um, I have psoriasis. My mom deals with some hypothyroidism. But that's the gist of autoimmune stuff in our family.
Scott Benner 3:08
I love you said something just now it's so colloquial. It's probably to your to wherever you live your area. But your mom deals with a little hypothyroidism little little touch of it.
Ian 3:21
Just a touch of the hypo.
Scott Benner 3:25
I love that idea. My mom's just got to touch the hypothyroidism. What does that mean? Does it is it something she deals with? It's not impactful on her day to
Ian 3:36
day. Yeah, she does take medication for it. Right. But it's nothing that's ever really impacted her life on a day to day basis.
Scott Benner 3:47
Interesting. Okay. Well, you have more than a touch of the type one I imagine.
Ian 3:52
Yeah. fair bit of the type one.
Scott Benner 3:55
Oh, gosh. II and I don't think we usually named the episodes in the first 120 seconds but you're on a strong start here. More than a touch of the type. 110 years old. Do you recall it at all the moment you found out?
Ian 4:12
I do. We had actually gone to a roast beef chain fast food restaurant,
Scott Benner 4:19
Arby's or Rogers. Arby's. Arby's. Go ahead. Yep.
Ian 4:23
Ironically, the one that I started working at when I was turned 16. But we get gotten there, five for five. Got home as the family and I ate a roast beef. went into the bathroom and puke my guts out. Came back out still starving, hungry. Ate another one puked. Again, we were out a roast beef sandwiches and went to the fridge, opened it up, looked through it couldn't find anything I want and turned to my mom and went. There's no good food in this house. I'm pretty sure at that point. She was like there better be something wrong with this kid. or he's Yeah, he's grounded for the next year
Scott Benner 5:06
because I know how much money I spent on all this food in this house.
Ian 5:09
Yep. So she had been trying to get me tested for a few months before that, because I'd been drinking a lot of water, I grabbed one of the big 32 ounce cups, and fill it up three or four times in the night and get up and use the bathroom. And I thought that was normal. I thought everybody just got up in the middle of night to pee a bunch of times. But every time we had gone to our, our family doctor, it was a fasting test and my blood sugar would be okay. So finally after this, my mom takes me in and says to the doctor, like you're testing them right now. Check his blood sugar, and he checked it and I was 487 Oh, gosh, okay. Yeah. And at that point, our I was not very happy with that doctor, looking back, he gave us a shot to insulin, because there was at the end of the day, said go home. I'll see in the morning. He didn't work out for for pretty much we went in there. At the end of his office day, he gave me some insulin said, oh, yeah, you're diabetic. I'll see you in the morning for a little bit of training. And so, went home came back the next morning, and gave us like, the 1015 Minute rundown of this is your insulin, you're going to take this much at night. You're going to take this much in the morning. These are how many grams of carbs you can eat. Good luck. Wow. And send us on our way. Happy day. Yep, yeah. And I was not big on needles. At that point.
Scott Benner 6:53
You're old you weren't big on needles.
Ian 6:55
For some reason. I didn't like shots. But I remember being on top of my bunk bed and my mom trying to get me to take my insulin and my sister having to climb up onto the top bunk to help get me down to give me my first shot.
Scott Benner 7:12
Yeah, that's a good corner to hide in. Because it's it's in the corner and it's up high.
Ian 7:16
So yeah, you have the high ground. There's no notch back. So
Scott Benner 7:20
you didn't launch a counter offensive when they came for you?
Ian 7:23
I thought about it, but I was out of stuffed animals probably
Scott Benner 7:27
didn't listen. Let's do a little trivia. Do you know who the deep voice guy is for Arby's?
Ian 7:32
I know who you're talking to. I do not know his name. I don't know his
Scott Benner 7:35
name. It's vegan Rames thing rights? actor who would you know Vin rams and Mission Impossible. What else was the in? God? He's been in so many of those Mission Impossible movies lately. I can't think of any other stuff. Oh, Pulp Fiction. Is he Oh, yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. And so when you said five for five I can just that's all I get here is ving rains going Arby's five for five. Jesus. You is knocked me off course early on, with his with his Arby's knowledge.
Ian 8:07
Well, when you get hungry after this episode, you'll at least know why.
Scott Benner 8:11
Yeah, exactly what the record against it's gonna make me crazy. But, uh, ya know, I that I don't know, like Arby's is not a huge thing. I don't think anymore. And yet, I can hear those commercials in my head. And if I'm doing my job correctly, you're hearing this commercial in your head right now. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is small, accurate, has a bright light and an easy to read screen. But it's accurate, accurate, accurate, accurate. This is my opinion. Well, let me see if I said what's the most important thing about a blood glucose meter accuracy. I guess I got number one. After that bright light for nighttime use. That's that's the second means that the second one, I'd be able to read the screen. I want it to fit my hand. Well, I guess I like it to have second chance that okay, I want the next gen. That's what that's what you want. The contour. Next Gen blood glucose meter has Second Chance test strips, a bright light for nighttime viewing an easy to read screen, it fits well in your hand. And it's incredibly accurate. Not every blood glucose meter can say it's as accurate as the contour next gen contour next.com forward slash juicebox. Now here's the great thing about my link. It's all there. There's a button right there that says buy now it takes you to like six different options where you can buy like Amazon's a bunch of online sellers. Here's the point, the test strips and the meter. Very well maybe less expensive out of your pocket cash than you're paying now for test strips and a meter through your insurance company. That's a that's completely possible. You should check And if your insurance covers it, well, that's great. Just tell your doctor I want to Contour Next One blood glucose meter and contour strips. Because I want accuracy. I want stability. I want to know what my blood sugar is. And I want to not have to think, is this right? am I guessing contour next.com forward slash juice box. Go get it now. The I mean, years three, four years aren't has been using the contour meter. They are exceptional. And that's what you deserve exceptional contour next.com forward slash juice box whether you get it through your pharmacy, your insurance, you buy it through cash on my link, contour next.com forward slash juice box is where you go to learn all about it. Arden is getting ready to go back to school, the summer break is over sadly. And we're packing up our supplies. So we're getting a whole bunch of on the pods together in a box for her to take back to the college with her. And as I was going through the drawer you have everyone has a drawer right supply drawer getting out Chivo Capo pen test strips from contour on the pods. I started thinking about how long we've had these things and how many of these pumps you know has she worn over the years and it's so many I can say like without hesitation. It's a great experience. It is like I mean to Bliss. She can swim with it. Take a shower with it. Activities exercise all with the Omni pod. It's not obtrusive at all. No cords, tubes or anything like that to get caught on things. That just works. It works terrific. If we love it. Omni pod.com forward slash juice box you can get a test drive of the Omni pod at my link and you can learn more and even check out your insurance coverage. It gets started Omni pod.com forward slash juice box when you use my links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful.
And they're pretty new, right like they can't be battled a finger. Eames although he's in his 60s. I guess it could be anyway. I don't want to go down this video rooms rabbit hole.
Ian 12:43
Have an hour long podcast about Arby's.
Scott Benner 12:46
Yeah, I don't know if I could do that. Honestly. I was think no. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I'm I'm arguing in my head about huifeng Ramzes. Nevermind. What a strange, strange discussion to have out loud in front of somebody else without using any words like that. No, yes. No, no. What are you having rams? Okay. Anyway, Pulp Fiction. I mean, he's, he's, he's got a small very good part in Pulp Fiction. Okay, so Alright, so now you're, you're in your bedroom, you've you're unable to fend off your sister. I mean, was she older or younger. But she's
Ian 13:31
two years older than me. And she's, I've always been the one. And she's always been, like, bigger than me, like, substantially larger and stronger than me. So she dragged me down out of that bunk bed, pretty much kicking and screaming and took my shot. And then we ended up going and seeing a diabetes educator. And she was amazing. She helped me out a lot. And that's she was the one who Morse led the change to grams of carbs to unit insulin. And we saw a switch there and then ended up switching family doctors to somebody who is more familiar with type one
Scott Benner 14:17
and had more empathy, I would imagine Yeah, yeah. A lot more.
Ian 14:21
He was great. Loved him. My niece and nephew actually see him as their primary doctor now.
Scott Benner 14:31
Well, I mean, you know, it's interesting, I can understand if you're if your GP is not the right person for it, like that's fine. Right? You're I mean back then. Right your pediatrician and but, but to just because I have a image in my head of like you with your handout, and him just slapping a couple of needles in your hand and a vial and being like, listen, count that should that good luck. And even if it wasn't like that, that's your memory of it, you know? And so I do wonder sometimes if I mean, if you asked me to sit here and recount the moment when somebody explained insulin to me, I don't think I even remember. Honestly, like, I could paint your pictures like big broad, kind of like fuzzy pictures of the day with words or you know how it went. But I only really remember. Like, like, moments of it.
Ian 15:24
Yeah, I mainly remember him, giving me that like handing on the vial of all, I think it was humor, log and cloudy. And given us a rundown, you can eat this many grams that breakfast, this much for lunch this much for dinner. And then I remember going into my fifth grade classroom, and just walking in and standing up there and be like, I'm diabetic now. Which was ironic, because we had another type one of my class who was diagnosed most in third grade.
Scott Benner 16:01
You remember what the reaction was from the kid?
Ian 16:04
He was just sort of, okay. I'm not alone now. And then his dad was actually great. His dad reached out and was like, if there's anything you ever need, I'm here to talk to your parents ever need anything? Because we went to a really small Catholic school? So there was like, 80 kids from kindergarten to eighth grade. Yeah. So is everybody knew everybody?
Scott Benner 16:28
Well, that's what that's I mean, that's, did you find that helpful? Did you like take advantage of it ever?
Ian 16:36
It was helpful. Just knowing everybody there was there wasn't anybody in the school that I didn't know. But I was listening to your podcast, actually, yesterday, and I heard something you said about Catholic schools. Find them the girls there, I'd have to say, of having been in Catholic schools from kindergarten to 12th grade. Not my experience with the Catholic girls.
Scott Benner 17:02
Because it's because you were the ones they knew. Yeah.
Ian 17:05
See, I found better if you like my wife, if you find a former Baptist preacher's daughter. Those are the ones you got apply.
Scott Benner 17:14
Oh, that's your experience. You need your own podcast if you want to tell that story. Oh, my gosh, that's interesting. That's it wasn't our experience. They just knew you too. Well, to be interested in you. That's all.
Ian 17:30
Yeah. They knew me as the scrawny little guy. So they're like, yeah, it's just em. You gotta
Scott Benner 17:35
go find people who don't know you. So that you can be whatever it is. You say you are, I guess.
Ian 17:40
Yeah. And then you just got to hide the crazy for just long enough for him to get comfortable.
Scott Benner 17:45
Is that it was how you handled it.
Ian 17:47
That's how I handled my wife. I hit the crazy for just long enough
Scott Benner 17:52
that it would you let it out when it was too late. She's like, Oh, I like the guy now.
Ian 17:56
Yeah, well, I waited till I propose She already said yes. Then Then she got crazy.
Scott Benner 18:02
It's too late. Now here's,
Ian 18:05
here's the ring.
Scott Benner 18:09
Well, I don't think it's uncommon for people to put their best foot forward in the beginning. Although that usually does mean holding something back. Right. Well, how about that? How old? were you when you met your wife?
Ian 18:24
Um, it was six years ago. So I was 26.
Scott Benner 18:29
Okay. And so, I mean, how much of that's interesting. So how much of diabetes? Do you let her know in the beginning of dating? And then how much do you kind of let out as time goes on? Or do you just blurt it all out at once? How do you handle it?
Ian 18:47
I let her know I was diabetic, like right off the bat because I have a forearm tattoo. That's medical alert. So she knew. But she wasn't really involved in anything at the beginning, and we moved in together within eight months of dating. And so once she moved in, she started seeing a little bit more but it was me taking care of it and she was just sort of there along for the ride. Okay, and now she's gotten a lot more into it because I've gotten to a point now where I can afford the insulin pump and and the CGM. So she follows me on Doc's calm. And she's really good at if she gets the low notification check in and like you need some you want me to grab you some. So
Scott Benner 19:37
okay, I'm just I don't care one way or the other, how you have your thing set up but I'm just wondering, could she figure out a meal Bolus? Does she know how to help you if you're too low? Like how much of it does she have?
Ian 19:50
She doesn't really figure out meal Bolus type stuff, but she definitely could help me with when I'm low. I've been lucky and haven't had to have assistance yet. But she knows where the Basal glucagon is, and how to use it and everything so. Okay, and she also, I sent her your podcast on low blood sugar. Oh, back when I first started listening, and she's like, that's the most I've learned about what to do in a long time.
Scott Benner 20:21
Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's good. I mean, I like that I like the idea that there's shareable content that can help, like, catch somebody up. But it's also interesting that just living with a person doesn't give you that context. And I don't mean, like, interesting, like, Oh, why is she not doing that? Or why are you not telling her? I just think it's interesting. Like you're living your life, like you go to work. I imagine she has a job to, and then there's things to do at home. There's kids, and it's not like every moment of your diabetes is a is a TED talk, you know, right. So it just doesn't come up enough for her to actually absorb it on that level. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Are you comfortable with that?
Ian 21:03
Yeah, I'm okay with it. Um, I've been chronically single for most of my adult life. So it just seems like something that I deal with. And I'm okay. I'm used to dealing with it alone. So it's just sort of what's natural to me.
Scott Benner 21:22
How involved were your parents.
Ian 21:25
They were more involved at the very beginning. And then it was quickly handed off to me, because within a year of my diagnosis, my grandpa died of prostate cancer. And then my parents were separated within another year and divorced my freshman year of high school. Okay, so there was a, there was a lot going on for them. And it was just sort of handed over to me. And I had a lot of self hatred and anger over the diabetes. So that held me back for many, many, many years.
Scott Benner 22:04
Can you tell me about that? What do you mean by self hatred?
Ian 22:09
With everything that went on, with my grandpa passed, and shortly after, and then we were raised Catholic. So it was very family oriented. And my dad ended up having an affair. And
Scott Benner 22:24
can I stop you for a second? Yeah. It's hilarious that you're like, listen, we were raised Catholic. So obviously, we're very family oriented. My father had an affair, which is not a family oriented decision.
Ian 22:39
Because it was so out of character. And so out of left field. It threw me for a loop here. As to what am I supposed to do with my life? How am I supposed to act as a man? Yeah. So with that, and then the hurt that it caused my mom and everything, it just, I had a lot of hatred, just getting diagnosed. And then there's no face to diabetes. There's nothing to be mad at. Yeah. Physical to be mad at. Yeah. So when your parents asked you, what's your blood sugar? I'd get upset. And it was the first question was, What's your blood sugar? It felt like they were tying all of me who I am emotionally to a number. Right. And so that caused a lot of animosity towards my parents, like, they became the physical manifestation of diabetes to be, and they were, what I could take my aggression out.
Scott Benner 23:45
Okay. Well, that makes sense. What about? I mean, what about the part where you were mad at yourself?
Ian 23:52
I guess at some point, I please. I felt like the divorce and everything was partly because of my diabetes. And I never felt good enough. So to punish myself, I just decided not to take care of myself, subconsciously and just, I'm going to keep myself on my feet. Like I'm alive. I'm conscious. But I'd ride in the four hundreds, five hundreds and not not feel it not care.
Scott Benner 24:26
What was the idea behind that you're going to punish yourself for your parents divorce.
Ian 24:31
punish myself for that anything I felt lacking in myself? It had to be my fault. So I'm here. I'm not going to live a long time. Screw it. Let's just try and carry on like, nothing's wrong.
Scott Benner 24:49
So So you became your very own whipping post, basically. Yep.
Ian 24:54
Yeah. For anything many, many years.
Scott Benner 24:56
Okay. Do you? I mean, it's so Hard question. But do you think your diagnosis actually had some hand in pushing their marriage apart? Or is that just your child's head?
Ian 25:08
That's just my child said, looking back. I think it was the death of my grandpa that sent everything sort of. I'm sure it wasn't great before that, but I think that's what, really did it. Yeah.
Scott Benner 25:27
The straw that broke the camel's back kind of a situation. Yeah. Not not like your mom and dad were going along like, June and Ward Cleaver and your grandfather died. Your dad's like, I'm gonna go throw my penis in somebody else. Like nothing like that. It was just like, probably a slow distraction. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then that hits you? Do you believe that? Did you live with your mom or your dad?
Ian 25:49
We had joint custody. I was supposed to do 5050 custody. But I ended up spending the vast majority of time with my mom. Okay. And there were years at a time where I just wouldn't talk to my dad or I'd see him at holidays. Because I didn't want to see him.
Scott Benner 26:09
Okay. Did your mom know how you felt?
Ian 26:14
Yeah, she did her best to take care of me emotionally and physically. Like, I'll give her credit. That woman is a saint. I don't know how she managed to make sure I always had insulin, always had food. Always had clothes on my back roof over my head. But she managed it somehow.
Scott Benner 26:38
There. But about the part about you, like how you felt and how you treated her? Do you think she was aware of that? And? Or do you think on her? From her perspective? You were just upset? Like, do you think she had a more general idea of what was happening? Like, oh, Ian's upset, because we're divorced. Or he's upset because he has diabetes? But do you think she understood? Like, the deeper because you're explaining clearly how you felt? You know, you're angry with everything and took it out on yourself? And do you think she understood that part of it?
Ian 27:13
Um, at the time, I don't think she did. We've actually talked about it more recently. And I've explained it to her like, this is what was going on. I'm sorry for being a dick as I grew up, but this is what was going on in my head. She thought it was more just uncontrolled blood sugars. were causing everything and being a teenage guy. The hormones that go along with that.
Scott Benner 27:39
Do you think that has some validity?
Ian 27:43
I definitely do. And looking back that uncontrolled blood sugars definitely made me way more aggressive and ready to have those verbal arguments. But it was also be fueled. My like, rage and hatred would be fueled. When it was we'd have those arguments and that was the immediate What's your blood sugar? And then that doesn't felt so invalidating.
Scott Benner 28:08
Yeah, yeah, right. You couldn't possibly be upset. This is your blood sugar? Yeah. I don't know if it's right for everybody. But I mean, for me, personally, I can remember back to being in that age. And when that when those real, like, when that those hormones hit you. It everything is either aggressive, or, or looking for a mate. Like kind of, like it just it feels like you just want you'd like I mean, for me, it was like I looking for girls, and my interactions around other things. I were always turned up to 100 for some reason.
Ian 28:49
Yeah, it was. There's either you're at full stop, or your full set. Yeah, there's no in between.
Scott Benner 28:55
It's hard to it's hard to, like when and when it's happening. You're there's contextually you don't understand. And even if he did understand, I don't think you'd be able to go to step back out of yourself at you know, 1819 years old and be like, Oh, I'm not really upset. This is just the influx of hormones that are making me a man, you know, like, it's, I don't think you'd be able to do that one way or the other. But just like aggressive interactions, and you know, and then I mean, the just, I don't know for you in but like the any free time was spent looking for girls.
Ian 29:34
Oh, yeah. Even when it wasn't necessarily free time. You'd multitask. Yeah,
Scott Benner 29:40
you could. You could ignore an important task if it meant if it meant some girl looked interested a little bit, you know? Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to put into words. I tried to explain this. My son was getting older. My wife would be like, What's wrong with him? And I'm like, You have no idea. You leave him alone. He's, he's on a path. So
Ian 29:59
alone. Don't, don't not make sure you knock before you go in,
Scott Benner 30:03
don't spend the adult stand in front of him, that's for sure. When he's when he's on a limb, he's on a tirade or, or, you know, just, I don't know, it's interesting. And my, my son's a little more mellow. But still, it's, it's, um, it's there, you can just see it like, you know, I personally don't think that I don't think it completely stopped for me until maybe like 10 years ago, and just slowed down really more than stopped like that whole, just that. I don't know that aggressive nature when testosterone is and as I get older, and it goes away a little bit, I miss it a little bit, too. Yeah, you know, you're not that old yet. But
Ian 30:49
I feel like it My back's destroyed. But that's what I get for being a landscaper. That's tough work. Yeah. So it beats what I was doing before I used to work in plastics. So I made, I worked in a factory for 12 hours a day and running the machines that make different food cups and stuff. So yeah, landscaping, at least I get to see the sky
Scott Benner 31:15
to go outside. And I worked in a factory setting when I was a kid for four or five years. And there was gaps of time in there where I did landscaping. And some of those landscaping days were something like was just you're up at the crack of dawn. And before you were awake, you're bouncing around in a truck somewhere, you'd already loaded equipment onto a trailer, like the freezing cold even in the summertime, it's feels like it's cold at six o'clock in the morning. And you just spend your day like doing a job that if you did it your house when it was over, you'd collapse. But in this situation, you did it. And then you climbed into a truck and tried to pull yourself back together while you drove to the next place to do it again. And then you know, they wanted you to work until the last ounce of light, then you'd go I'd go home and take a shower and eat something and go to sleep and wake up and do it the next day.
Ian 32:11
Yeah, I made the mistake of doing that and then telling my wife, I would put in a patio at our house. So I'd get home and go start working on the patio. It's like I don't have energy for this. But I promised the wife make her happy.
Scott Benner 32:28
And I'm never gonna get to sit on this patio. Now, it is it's incredibly difficult work I'll never forget when I first got my first job. This guy had a tree farm where he was raising these tiny little trees, you know, and it was just acres. And I remember one day today, I have something for you to do today. And I was pretty young. And I was like, okay, and he dropped me at this field with us a string trimmer and a can of gas and my lunch. And it was like 630 in the morning. And he said, you know, I'll be back to get you at the end of the day. And then I just walked between these little trees just cutting the weeds around each one of them all freaking day. It was I mean, you have no it was it was one of the more soul crushing moments of my of my young working life. I remember standing there thinking like I have to figure out how this isn't going to be my reality. Yeah, so anyway, not fun and I feel for your back. Does anything help it?
Ian 33:40
Actually a hot shower helps. That's that's what I do. I'll just go home take a hot shower. That seems to make it better.
Scott Benner 33:48
Is it muscular? tightness? Yeah,
Ian 33:51
it's just from bouncing around on on the Zero Turn all day. Because we got pretty sandy soil out here. Yet gophers and mole holes and then you're just bouncing CRASH CRASH CRASH.
Scott Benner 34:04
Yeah. My I'll tell you I haven't said this yet. My wife got me a gravity table for Christmas. It's not as expensive as it sounds. I think it was just a couple of $100. But you basically it's a platform you strap yourself. You strap your feet into it and then just lean back and you can hang completely upside down. Oh, I remember those. It's very relieving. It's yeah, it's pretty nice. Actually. I made fun of it when she gets in her head in my head. When I opened the box on Christmas. I was like, What am I gonna do with this? But then she's like, try it put it together and try it. I was like alright, so you kind of like you go upside down and the only and I hang for just a couple of minutes. And it's it's interesting. You have to almost consciously let go of the tension in your back like it like when you hang upside down your body tightens up like it wants to hold you from from expanding and if you Just let yourself like go and let it relax. All of a sudden you feel like you're hanging from a, it almost feels like you're hanging from a hitch between your hips at the bottom of your spine. And then everything just kind of like, expands. It's very nice, very nice, actually. So anyway, it's, it's also sitting in my living room, because no one knows where to put it.
Ian 35:24
At least it's not having all the laundry Hey,
Scott Benner 35:27
oh, yeah, that's actually a good point. There is nothing I knew on it. That would make it worse. Anyway, so when you talked about in your notes about mental health issues around diabetes, this is what you were talking about what you spoke of earlier? Is that correct? Or is there more,
Ian 35:44
there's that and then I deal with a lot of anxiety and depression. That's actually been getting better. As I've gotten my blood sugar's under control. But a lot of it was tied to the self hatred and the poor self image. I felt like nobody would ever want me because of the diabetes. And I felt like I was doomed to die young, which I know isn't the case. Now, like, logically now, but emotionally, that's what it felt like?
Scott Benner 36:18
Well, I interviewed a lady yesterday, in her mid 50s, who was diagnosed as she was young and engaged. And she described a shift in her life about, I don't want to give it all away, because it'll come out near yours. But she described a shift in her life where she became very, like, focused on getting the things she wanted, like children, and marriage and stuff like that. And she ignored, not particularly liking some of the people in her life. I don't want to give it all away, but it was fascinating. And that turned into depression, and drinking. And so it's funny. Not funny. Haha. But but interesting that back to back days, would be with a 50 year old lady who's describing feeling exactly the way you felt. And then you coming along being like a guy in his 30s, who talked about it, about him feeling that way to it, it feels very universal, I guess is what I'm saying. Yeah, you know, it's interesting, you know, that, that a 10 year old boy and a 25 year old girl could pretty much have very similar thoughts after their diagnosis.
Ian 37:35
Yeah, I think it's just one of those. It's such a big change in life, especially when you're old enough to sort of understand what's going on. Because I do remember, pre diabetes. Like what life was like and how much it changed. So quickly, I think that I didn't have the tools on hand to cope with that in a healthy way. So I started coping with it by ignoring it, and just trying to push it down and not think about it.
Scott Benner 38:12
Okay. And that didn't obviously work for you, because it bubbled out in other ways.
Ian 38:17
Yeah, I didn't deal with the root problem. And then it caused so many other issues in my life, emotionally and mentally.
Scott Benner 38:28
Do you think you've dealt with them? Or do you think you just are in the midst of dealing with them? And how did you do that? Was it therapy or something? You do it on your own?
Ian 38:37
Yeah, I'm currently in therapy. And I've been work, I think I'm in the middle of working through a lot of my issues. So it's a process and I know it's going to take time. And I've learned to give myself a little bit of a break with how quickly I'm going to move through that process. But I've seen drastic improvement in my agencies and my control. So I'm taking that as a win. It's not quite where I want it. But we're moving in the right direction quickly. Okay.
Scott Benner 39:13
Do you know anyone else who deals with similar things? Like I'm trying to decide if like the depression anxiety piece takes on a similar life in your inside of your life as diabetes does because it's an alone thing? Or do you are you able to share it with somebody?
Ian 39:34
I don't have anyone really close to me that has type one that I talk with about it. I'll go on the group every once in a while Facebook and reach out there, but it's that disconnected sort of like asking strangers or talking to them, so you got to censor yourself a little bit. Yeah, not that not that they're not great people. It's just it's Different telling a friend something than telling a stranger? Sure.
Scott Benner 40:05
But in your day to day life, there's no one to share with like, I feel anxious or something like that.
Ian 40:10
Not really, like I'll talk to my wife about it. She knows everything that's going on with me. So I'll talk to her quite a bit. She works from home. So when it's like now and I'm not doing much, but waiting for snow. We get to spend more time and she gets to be a sounding board for me.
Scott Benner 40:34
Yeah. All right. Let's shift gears for a second because you're you're saying you're waiting for snow because you you want to go snow plowing to make money. Yeah, yeah. All right. How did Jeremy Renner hurt himself so badly?
Ian 40:47
I thought he got ran over by his is he's got one of those snow cat things. Yeah. Yeah, I think he was helping pull somebody out and it ran over his leg
Scott Benner 40:59
is credible, isn't it? Like it's terrible. Like my wife tells me he tried to jump in at the stop it from rolling. I don't know if that's the like the story or not, and all I could think and he's hurt so badly. I felt even bad for feeling like this. But I was like, Does he not know he's not actually a superhero? And, and by the way, he was one of the lesser superheroes. He wasn't like Thor, and like, this is but I saw an image of him recently. And he looks like he's lucky to be alive. Oh, yeah. He
Ian 41:30
looks I saw is I think it was a Tiktok or something he put up from the hospital and he looks Roth.
Scott Benner 41:37
Yeah, no, no, I it's not just his legs. That's for sure. Not that that wouldn't be enough. But you know, he, I think it got it had to have gotten his chest cavity somewhere. Because he looks like he's, like literally lucky to be alive. Yeah, I'm just really, I mean, it's terrible, obviously. But it's a dangerous thing to do. Like, you know, like, I used to do the God as badly as I didn't like, you know, the landscaping. The plowing, oh, my God, you go out at night after everybody's like, right, like on the first snow, they want you out. It's you plowed completely overnight. You're doing it forever. I remember this one night, we hit a race or cap. And like, I thought the truck was gonna flip over. And then the plow was broken. And then we were in the middle of the night welding it back together. And oh, my god, I can't believe you're excited for that incident around when I hope this happens.
Ian 42:35
Well, I had the first year I was I started the business. I was out found I had the plow fall off the truck at midnight in the middle of the worst storm of the year. And at that point, I was one man show and there's nobody to call for help. Because it's 1231. One in the morning. You got to figure it out.
Scott Benner 43:00
That sounds about right in. Do you stand in for just a moment in front of the truck after you realize what happened? You just cursed for a couple of minutes and then figure out what to do.
Ian 43:14
There was the the very heavy sigh and then but it wasn't as bad as when I was in the factory and would lose my mind when things went bad. It's like, I'd gotten to a point where it's like, alright, this sucks, but it's not going to get fixed. Unless you fix it. So to get going and getting mad. You got it back on. Oh, got it back on finished out the night. I think I plowed for 16 hours straight that day. Wow. I forgot Oh man just collapsed.
Scott Benner 43:47
Listen, I was just the labor in those scenarios. And I remember making great money on those plowing nights.
Ian 43:54
Oh, yeah. When it's good, it's great. And when it's slow, it's really slow.
Scott Benner 43:59
Yeah. Well, you have to keep going north makes you go to Canada.
Ian 44:05
Well, I mean, I have a stepsister who lives in Canada. Okay. So maybe someday we'll, we'll try and move to the great white north.
Scott Benner 44:16
Get closer to the stone. Okay, so what else do we have here? So I'm looking back at your notes. You. You come on the podcast while Oh, no. Let me go back to one of the things first, you're one of the few people who mentioned in their notes. I always wonder why more people don't bring it up, but just the financial side of diabetes. And yeah, I mean, can you talk about that a little bit like where its problems have been
Ian 44:47
for years. It's it was I just couldn't afford it. There was the insulin was expensive even with insurance. Insulin was expensive up Go to the endo wood before you hit your deductible. That's a $300 visit when you're making, like $24,000 a year, that, that hits hard. Yeah. And then you go there and they're giving you a hard time because a you're not taking care of yourself. It's hard to afford the insulin to take care of yourself. And then they would push the pump on me. And it's like, I'd love to do it, but I can't afford it. Like, I don't have any wiggle room in my budget. To pay for that it would be well, am I buying food? Am I paying rent? Or am I paying for the insulin pump. And luckily, back in November, we finally got to a point, we hit our out of pocket Max and I went ahead and got a pump. So after probably 20 years of trying, I finally got one.
Scott Benner 45:56
Oh, good for you. That's great. So have you ever not have you ever rationed insulin? Have you ever skipped things because of money? Or if you've been able to make it so far,
Ian 46:09
there's times I've gone and I couldn't afford the insulin that was prescribed to me. So I went to Walmart and I got the Doval in the dirt, cheap stuff. And I knew it wasn't the best. But it was what I could afford. And it would at least keep me alive. Yeah. So what you had
Scott Benner 46:32
some you had some experience with that, because you use cloudy as a kid, right? Yeah.
Ian 46:37
Yeah, we did for probably about the first eight, nine months, and then I got on Lantis it's not very long.
Scott Benner 46:45
Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I guess people like to understand like nowadays, Walmart actually sells a nova log, as well. It's it's rebranded Nova log, but it's Nova log. Yeah. And they am but they also sell what, what I'm in was just talking about two, which is not the same as your fast acting insulin. And that's where confusion comes in. And it's just upsetting to hear somebody say, Oh, if you can't afford your Novolog eggs, for example, then just go buy this. It's it's not an apples to apples comparison. It's a you know, to me, it's, it's, it's a downgrade in your care, and also dangerous because the insulin doesn't work the same way as the insulin you're accustomed to. But I don't know it just it sucks that that that that's happened to you in the past, but you were able to get a pump?
Ian 47:37
Yep. Yeah. I have insurance through my wife's work. And luckily, she's moved up in the company. And she's doing great. So we hit our out of pocket max this year, or this past year. And I'm like, you know, what, the, the endo had been asking about it and pushing it. And like, if you can give me a price, which was another thing it was trying to get an actual number on what it was going to cost. was always holding back. Like, I'd love to do this. But if I don't know how much it's going to cost every month, then guys can't say yes. I can't say yes, because I got two kids to feed. They're growing like weeds and constantly growing out of clothes. So it's like, I need to make sure they're taken care of first. And their basic needs are met before I think about upgrading to a pump over over the insulin pens.
Scott Benner 48:35
Has the pump been an improvement for your health or
Ian 48:40
just definitely has Yeah, it's been nice to know that I have the tandem and the control IQ just knowing I have something in the background that's also working on it on my blood sugar's it lets me breathe for just a minute. Yeah. So it doesn't seem as overwhelming just knowing that it's doing its thing. given me a little bit of breathing room to know if it's not alarming. You're okay. Don't you don't have to sit and hyper focus on it.
Scott Benner 49:13
That's not it's a nice. It has that has that help with your anxiety by any chance?
Ian 49:19
It has quite a bit of course. That's it's helped with the anxiety around the diabetes, everything else is just life's been one thing after another lately so it gets overwhelming. Yeah.
Scott Benner 49:32
And that is life. It's not going to change if you're waiting for like a moment where it feels like a Hawaiian vacation. That's not coming.
Ian 49:43
I just like five minutes to catch my breath. Because we got we got married at the end of 2019 went on our honeymoon and then COVID hit and then my sister in law moved in. And she was staying with us. And then last year, it'll be a year in February, she passed away. Unexpectedly, she had a brain aneurysm rupture. So it was very quick, very unexpected. And then we her son had moved in with us too. And he was a sophomore in high school. So he wanted to finish out high school up here. His dad lives in Illinois. So we had offered you know, if you want to finish out high school up here, that's fine. We'll take care of you. So went from COVID to changing jobs to my sister in law passing away, to all sudden being a parent of a teenager. Yeah. So we're finally seem like we're at a point where we can just,
Scott Benner 50:55
yeah, take a breather. Well, that's, maybe you will actually experience a letdown. I mean, if you have all that going on. That's, that's really, that's kind of you to take him in as well.
Ian 51:07
He was a good kid. And yeah, yeah, he's since moved back with his dad, which is his choice. That's fine. We just want to do what we could to support them because being 16 and losing your mom is horrible. It's horrible. Yeah.
Scott Benner 51:21
Yeah, no kidding. I was gonna my examples pale in comparison, I was gonna say that Arden called the other day from school, and she's like, I hit something in the road in my wheel broke. And I was like, okay. That's like, out of nowhere, like, your day is just going along, and all of a sudden, the phone rings. And it's a thing you don't I mean, you're like, okay, and you stop everything. It's interesting, isn't it? Like, in the course of a normal day, you don't think you have any time to stop? But then something like that happens? And you stop. Yeah, it's it's interesting, how you kind of draw your lines with your time.
Ian 51:55
And especially with the kids, like, when it's your kid, it's a whole different ballgame to Yeah, it
Scott Benner 52:03
was a checklist in my head, like when it happened. I'm like, are you okay? Is anyone hurt? Is the car right? You know, was anyone in the car with you? Did you hit another car? Did you like, you know, you're like going like, she's like, I just hit something in the road. And my, and my tire like, good. I was like, oh, okay, okay. All right. I was like, well, we're gonna have to get the car towed or, you know, get the tire fixed or whatever. And she's like, I've got homework, and I'm like, Well, you're not doing it now. Now, you're gonna stand there on the road and wait for somebody to come. So you try to like, coordinate the whole thing. My point is, is that I was on my way to get a sandwich. When that happened. I just recorded two episodes of the podcast that night. And I was like, I'm gonna go downstairs and make a sandwich. That's very excited.
Ian 52:49
Did you at least still get the snow
Scott Benner 52:51
I don't even think I ate. Oh, well,
Ian 52:53
then when she comes back on break, she owes you a sandwich.
Scott Benner 52:57
It doesn't work that way.
Ian 52:59
You can dream you can dream
Scott Benner 53:01
comes Bo. She goes back on break, she's gonna sleep and then have things she needs. So. But yeah, I mean, my point really, is that it's sort of a false expectation that our lives are going to be serene at some point, especially if you start involving other people. Because then their stuff becomes part of the whirlwind. And then to your point, the kids stuff is your stuff. Yeah. So anyway, try accepting it.
Ian 53:34
That's, that's what I've been working on in therapy is acceptance. Good. And, Lord, give me patience and give it to me now.
Scott Benner 53:43
That's all it is. But you just have to. It's almost like you have to want it. Yeah. You know what I mean, like in that action movie, when the bullets start flying, and one crazy character smiles and runs forward. That's where you got to be in your head, like, your tires broke. Excellent. I know how to fix this. And then go, You know what I mean? So you know, you were talking about insurance earlier and money. And it is, it can be shocking. I got a script filled for someone the other day, beginning of January. And I am so accustomed to getting pumps or Dexcom supplies early in January. Like for years, it's just always kind of hid that way. And then I think something happened because we switched suppliers. So we got a big enough order at the end of 2022 that I didn't need them right away in 2023 for Arden. So anyway, I go to get this prescription filled. And the person hands it to me at the window, and she's like, it's 78 something and I'm like, No, I have insurance. She goes that's with the insurance. And I'm like, No, I'm like, I never pay for this. And so I'm confused for a second. And then I realized, Oh, this is my deductible. I'm so accustomed in the first tours. Three weeks of January of using up my entire coat like, like my part if it's gone already. And my out of pocket is usually is taken care of right away. And because we didn't get pumps or something right away, it didn't happen. And I thought, Oh God, this is what people are talking about. Who don't pump who say that all year long. They're paying their out of pocket costs. I'm just used to making one big out of pocket payment and it being over. That makes sense.
Ian 55:28
Yeah, I was. This year, I was everything that I could get before January 1, refilled, I was like, do it now. I don't care if I need it quite yet, but we're doing it now. All insurance is gonna cover it.
Scott Benner 55:40
Oh, you have to I mean, if anyone's listening who has any kind of issues, like you should be on your calendar. It should be on your calendar. December 1, get everything refilled.
Ian 55:53
My wife was shocked last year when we hit our out of pocket Max. I'm like, Hey, baby, I told you you get with me. We're gonna hit those fat. With me.
Scott Benner 56:01
It's all gonna be clear sailing after that. Anything you want. You need a Tylenol with codeine, you're gonna be free, because you're rolling with it. And now let's ignore the part where we spent all the money already.
Ian 56:18
That's what we always do. Just ignore what money I spend and focus on the kids. They're gonna want quarters for popcorn on Friday.
Scott Benner 56:27
Nice. You can pay something for a quarter where you live. That sounds
Ian 56:31
Oh, it's they do it through their school. Oh, like popcorn thing. So they can buy like a little bag full of popcorn for a quarter and
Scott Benner 56:41
the school? Kids don't miss that.
Ian 56:43
Oh, no, the kids, the school shaken me down. They know who's paying for it.
Scott Benner 56:49
It's like when they do that thing at the end of the year. And they're like, on Monday, everyone will dress like this. And on Tuesday, this and Wednesday, this and that. I'm like, Who's paying for all these costumes? What do you think is happening? And do you not realize that in my life, there's a child running around telling me they have to get a flannel shirt for Thursday's dress up day. Like, stop it. I would love to be in one of those meetings with a teacher and be like, stop. Stop doing this, please.
Ian 57:17
I'm just trying to keep the clothes on the kid. Yeah, this is not fun. They're trying to strip down to their underwear and run around the house and say it's cold in the middle of winter.
Scott Benner 57:26
Oh, you have little kids? Yeah,
Ian 57:29
seven and nine.
Scott Benner 57:31
That's a fun age.
Ian 57:33
Like, they run around the house. I'm cold. Well go put some clothes on Michigan and it's winter, it's gonna be cold.
Scott Benner 57:41
I'm cold. You're not wearing a shirt. My kids like to come downstairs and like it's cold in here. And I'm like, where something, we can turn the heat off. I was like, Who's paying for that? Although my son's now in his second week of his first job out of college. And already it was I don't understand where all the money went in taxes. And I was like, Well, let me show you. And they, there was a holiday. But he's a new employee and he doesn't get paid for the holiday. So he's like, Hey, I have off on Monday. And he's like, but that's not really good news, because I'm not going to get paid. And I was like, right. I bet you and all I could think is he's not going to ask to turn the heat up the next time he comes. So it's gonna be like, it's fine. Someone put his shirt on.
Ian 58:26
Now, you understand that utilities are expensive.
Scott Benner 58:29
Yeah, no, I think he's, he's a bright kid. Like he charted it all out as soon as he got there. But now it's, you know, it's an entry level job. It's he's not making, you know, it's not making $500,000 a year. So he's like, he's, you know, he's like, let me obviously, I don't have unlimited funds here. So let me you know, budget myself out. He's like, I have to work on these days. And I was like, No, I know. So, anyway, life, huh?
Ian 58:58
Is life. It's always fun. until it's not.
Scott Benner 59:02
Have we covered everything you want to talk about, or what am I missing?
Ian 59:06
I pretty sure that was everything. No kidding. I wrote that note. Oh, well, it's
Scott Benner 59:13
six months ago. That's my fault. Yeah, sorry.
Ian 59:15
Oh, no, you're all good. Yeah. Wait, you have things going on in your life too.
Scott Benner 59:19
Dude, I I recorded the podcast this week. Let me pull up my calendar. I recorded the podcast eight times this week. And it was one of those things where I was like, I'm going to take off the first two weeks of January 1 to get Arden back to school. And then of course my son's job. You know, like you're looking for a job for months. You can't find anything and all of a sudden they're like, you have to start on this day. And he had to relocate. And so on the same day in January, we had to start back to school for Arden and start off to where Cole had to go. So we split up it was is like crazy. And then I we had to get him an apartment like sight unseen. I had to get him down there and move him in. Like we had to go to IKEA and get him furniture and, you know, pots. He didn't have anything, you know one thing, right? So, you know, so we're doing all that and I'm like, Well, I took off from recording the podcast. So that's, that's good. And I got to play catch up. And now I'm like, I'm looking at my calendar, there's eight this week, and there's two for seven or six next week, I'm doubling up on my Fridays and Mondays, which are my days off to edit. And I'm instead of editing, I'm recording two episodes, like, like, Oh, what am I doing? Now? Listen, that's not landscaping, or whatever hard job somebody listening has. But it's it's incredibly time intensive. And, and I also want to be fresh to have these conversations as well to like, you don't want to get on and be like, oh, so diabetes in Hmm, that's something
Ian 1:00:58
just one hour of dead air.
Scott Benner 1:01:01
Me just going Wow, it sounds hard. So, you know, you're trying to be awake and rested and everything else. And anyway, I'm not complaining. It's obviously a dream job. But nevertheless, I just want to make sure that, you know, men's episodes are always shorter. I did not realize that. I don't know why. Except for Josh, who has more feelings than everybody. His episodes seem to go on forever, which are lovely when he comes on. But no, yeah, men generally come in right around an hour. Oh, they're not as verbose.
Ian 1:01:36
Oh, I have a limited vocabulary. And unless I had a ton of sentence enhancers, then I can usually get things done pretty quickly.
Scott Benner 1:01:48
You know, you think you've making this podcast like writing a paper. Like, like, I gotta throw in some various to get up to my word.
Ian 1:01:57
I'm trying to cut some words out because I don't want you to have to spend hours editing and bleeping stuff out.
Scott Benner 1:02:03
So I don't, I don't, that my podcasts go up pretty much the way they're recorded. I don't edit out content. So I do have some questions for you though. Like when when you found the podcast, how long ago? Was it? I
Ian 1:02:19
want to say it was probably I listened to you early on. And then I stopped like I listened to a couple episodes. And I wasn't in a great headspace at the time. And so I listened to those couple of those, like, history stuff. And I started listening. Hardcore. Oh, probably back in April,
Scott Benner 1:02:45
just this year, or just in the last year?
Ian 1:02:48
Yeah. Okay, I, I cannot stand silent. So I went on my bluetooth headphones while I was mowing and stuff and just listened to your podcast.
Scott Benner 1:03:00
Nice. And does it help you? And if so how?
Ian 1:03:04
It does, I'm just knowing mainly that I'm not alone in dealing with a lot of stuff. And then, like the pro tip episodes, and the defining diabetes, like more understanding how things work, and getting a good basis of what to do are a good starting point. Because I've been diabetic for 22 years. But I don't have 22 years of experience, if that makes sense. I've been sort of slacking off. Sure. So it's like, Alright, like I was, I've been really working on the Pre-Bolus thing lately, and it's like, gets a little frustrating when you can't get it first, right? It's like you've been doing this for 22 years. And then it's like, but you haven't you haven't been working on the Pre-Bolus for 22 years. Give yourself a little grace. Correct what you need to and move out to try it again. That's time.
Scott Benner 1:04:02
Are you seeing an improvement in your variability?
Ian 1:04:06
Very much. So I used to be up and down. Like I'd go up into the three, four hundreds and then shoot down into like the 50s. And I think the last time I went over, like 240 was a couple of weeks ago, and I've cut out the super bad lows. Good. That's like I'll get into the 60s. But I don't usually go much lower than that lately.
Scott Benner 1:04:32
Excellent. So you are you're still pulling together then?
Ian 1:04:36
Yeah, yeah. Was it? Nine months ago, my a one C was 12.5. And this last one I had was a dead seven.
Scott Benner 1:04:48
No shame. Really? Yep. Good for you, man.
Ian 1:04:51
Thank you. Oh, yeah, that's
Scott Benner 1:04:52
wonderful.
Ian 1:04:54
I'm trying to make I told my endo My goal is to be in the high fives the low sixes She's like, as long as we can cut out these, like super bad lows. Let's go for it.
Scott Benner 1:05:04
So you're figuring it out. Wow, man, you were? Well, you're not kidding, either. Like you. You didn't talk around it, but you alluded like you've had diabetes for 10 years. Right? And or 20 years really more? Yeah. 22 years. Yeah. And, and you had a 12 a one C in the last 12 months.
Ian 1:05:24
Yep. And before that, it was probably, I'd ride in like, the teens before that. And not think much of it, just whatever, I'm alive. And I had gotten lucky to this point to not have complications. So I figured, well, I've gotten away with it this far. I might as well just keep doing it.
Scott Benner 1:05:48
But you don't feel like that anymore. No, now I'm,
Ian 1:05:51
I've gotten to a point where it's like, I got kids to look, look out for and if nothing else, I got to do this for them. So that dad's around, to see them get married and go to college and everything.
Scott Benner 1:06:05
She's saying you made me sad. Damn it.
Ian 1:06:09
Sorry, I didn't mean to start off your Friday that way that
Scott Benner 1:06:11
shows me you told me about your agency decrease. And then I realized the rest of the story that went with it. And then you started telling it, I'm like, Oh, God, that would be sad. But I'm happy for you. I'm not sad. I'm, I'm thrilled like, what do you think moved you? Like, was it that you were working on your mental health, and you kind of gotten to a better headspace, is that you heard the podcast and somehow that alleviated or brought something to you. I'm trying to talk to people who might be in your similar situation, like, how can they get started?
Ian 1:06:42
I definitely think starting therapy and working on the mental stuff, got me moving and then listening to the podcast. Felt like it gave me the tools to actually buckle down and focus on it. Yeah. So it wasn't like going in, go fix this car. And here's a pair of needlenose pliers. And that's all you got to completely rebuild this engine. It was all right, listen to the episodes. And now I gotta ratchet in some sockets and get the whole toolkit to focus on my diabetes car.
Scott Benner 1:07:22
And you have the energy, I'm assuming because of the therapy to actually use the tools now.
Ian 1:07:27
Yeah, that's great. Now there's not that self hatred, holding me back.
Scott Benner 1:07:32
Yeah. Is there anything I could have done inside of the podcast to help you feel like that? If you weren't a person who found therapy? Is there anything I could be doing to help people who aren't seeking out like the help that you're getting?
Ian 1:07:48
I honestly don't know. I never question.
Scott Benner 1:07:53
I just follow my gut on this whole thing. So I'm just I like hearing like, it's appreciate you sharing this with me, because I don't know how to put this like, like, I'm the guy who made a thing, and I don't know how it works. It's
Ian 1:08:08
just flying by the seat of your pants.
Scott Benner 1:08:10
I don't know why it works. I know what it does. And I know that it works. And I know that if I fuel it the way that I think to fuel it, it continues to work. But I couldn't rebuild it on purpose, I don't think and and so I'm somewhere between confused about what it is that I do. And marveling at what you just said, and that some of it came out of this, you know, you know, so it's a I'm in a strange headspace. When people talk about this. It's possible. I'm trying to figure it out for myself if nothing else, because you're talking about what you're saying. And I I'm feeling very I don't even know how to explain how I feel. Part of it is like accomplished but that's not the whole feeling. Some of its proud but that's not the whole feeling. Some of it, I just feel lucky to be involved. It's there's so many. I think that's why I can't put it into words. I think there are so many different feelings that come from hearing somebody say what you just said, as the person who makes this podcast. And, and it's I don't know, I don't know how to I don't know how to articulate it, which might be strange if people have been listening for a while like, oh, like Scott ran out of words, finally. But I think I have too many words. To make sense of them if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, we'll
Ian 1:09:44
just the way I say that to my kids is you have big feelings right now.
Scott Benner 1:09:49
I do have big feelings.
Ian 1:09:52
Gonna go to treat you like a seven year old?
Scott Benner 1:09:55
Why don't I get a warm piece of toast and go watch television for a while.
Ian 1:09:58
I mean, I think you've earned it.
Scott Benner 1:10:02
Thank you. I'm not even gonna put my real pants on yet. I'm just gonna sit on the floor. But I'll tell you what, if they still ran cartoons on Saturday morning, I think one day just for fun, I'd get up at 530 in the morning, go watch my emails. I remember doing that when I was a kid at my grandmother's house, and it was wonderful.
Ian 1:10:24
I would sit down and want to watch the the Robin Williams is Genie from Aladdin. Oh, really doing that great minds think alike. Not that I remember that childhood. That's your space. Hmm. That's my space that a bowl of Cheerios. And sitting on the floor. That was a good Saturday morning.
Scott Benner 1:10:47
We used to watch. So on Saturday morning for me, it was the mighty heroes and Mighty Mouse. And then they'd run Superman cartoons. And sometimes Spider Man as I got older, but if you don't know what the mighty heroes are, if anybody doesn't know what the mighty heroes are, I'm sure you can find them on YouTube. But it's just I don't know. It's like when I tried to explain it. Like my son watched Top Gun, the original Top Gun The other night. And he's like, Hey, I watched Top Gun. And I was like, Yeah, so what do you think he has this terrible movie? I'm like, what he goes, it's old. And I was like, Yeah, I guess it's just the old. I didn't like it. I was like, right. But he saw the new Top Gun. And he enjoyed that for what it was. But he saw the old one. He's like,
Ian 1:11:43
that's like me trying to get my wife i i grew up watching like 80s movies like Uncle Buck and family vacation Christmas vacation. And I'll start quoting those to my wife and she looks at me like I've never seen that. Okay, go watch it. Now. That movie sucks. 90% of my vocabulary is movie quotes.
Scott Benner 1:12:10
I'm talking to you from John Hughes films right now. You don't even know it. Well, you grew up in the right area. Those John Hughes films must have felt like old home week, right? Oh, yeah. I know. I tried to tell my kids I'm like Ferris Bueller's great. And they're like, it's not we watched it? Like, no, it is there. Like, it's too slow for them.
Ian 1:12:30
You guys, they better watch out, they might get written out of the inheritance?
Scott Benner 1:12:34
Well, I'll tell you what, first of all, we're gonna get some inheritance together, and then we'll worry about writing it down somewhere. I need about I need about 100,000 More of you to listen to this podcast, then there'll be some inheritance. But anyway, and I enjoyed talking to you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Ian 1:12:51
My pleasure. My pleasure. It was great talking to you, too. No, I
Scott Benner 1:12:55
really was wonderful. I wish you a ton of luck. You are on a terrific path. If you wouldn't mind in a year, send me an email and tell me how you're doing. I? I'd love to know how it's going.
Ian 1:13:06
Yeah, no, put that on my calendar.
Scott Benner 1:13:09
I would really be wonderful. I sincerely mean that too. I don't say that to a lot of people. But I would love to hear how you're doing
Ian 1:13:15
it because I named the episode so fast, isn't it? Making your job easy?
Scott Benner 1:13:19
Well, the biggest problem is is that we already have somebody's got the meats title. Ah, so I can't go with the Arby's thing. And randomly calling you Ving Rhames it's not going to make any sense to anyone at all.
Ian 1:13:35
This guy sounds nothing like
Scott Benner 1:13:37
I tuned in. I have to be honest with you. I didn't hear it. Yeah, Episode 483. Jessica no longer has the meats. I already have an Arby's theme title.
Ian 1:13:50
Well, when I was there, it was Life's good under the hat.
Scott Benner 1:13:55
Good under the hat. That yeah,
Ian 1:13:57
that's showing how old or how long ago I worked at Arby's. That was I worked actually saw on my Facebook memories was 11 years ago on January 1 was the last day I worked there.
Scott Benner 1:14:10
No kidding. Now, I have to tell you something before we go. Have you ever heard me talk about my friend Mike? Who had type one he's passed away? Vaguely. Yeah, I don't. I don't bring him up very much. But when we were kids, he worked at Roy Rogers. And when you said you worked at Arby's it made me incredibly sad for a minute. And so I set your day Oh, no, no, it's no trust me. I'm okay. I have these conversations for a living I'm okay. But it hit me really hard. Because I can picture Mike and that stupid uniform working at Roy Rogers. And like stealing like roast beef sandwiches the end of the day and stuff like that. And and I just thought like, I don't know, it just made me it put you in his space in my head for a minute. I had to separate you guys. eyes for myself so that I can talk to you. But anyway, you're, you're doing much better than he was so so I'm happy for you. I think that's why I care about what happens. So please do let me know what's going on. Okay. I will most definitely. Alright. And I hope you have a great day.
Ian 1:15:15
Thank you. You too.
Scott Benner 1:15:16
Thanks. Hold on one second, okay
I want to thank him for coming on the podcast and telling me that story. It was really very kind of him. It's kind of all of you to come on and tell your stories, but I really appreciate it and thank you very much. I also appreciate the longtime sponsorship of the contour meters contour next one.com forward slash juice box, get yourself a contour next gen blood glucose meter and those Second Chance test strips. And of course on the pod who's been with me since the beginning, Omni pod.com forward slash juice box I guess with me as the podcast or as an advertiser, and with my daughter who's been wearing it on the pod every day since she was four years old, Omni pod.com forward slash juice box.
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#990 Accidentally Amazing
Both of Aimee's daughters have type 1 diabetes and are neurodivergent. Paw Patrol!
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 990 of the Juicebox Podcast.
On today's show, I'll be speaking with Amy. She is the mother of two amazing young girls who have type one diabetes. 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. If you'd like to save 40% off of jogger sheets, towels and all kinds of comfortable things, go to cozy earth.com and use the offer code juicebox at checkout to save 40% Are you looking for a Dexcom go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box use my link check it out. And don't forget the 1,000th episode of The Juicebox Podcast is coming up very soon. And we'll be marking that special day with a rerelease of a remastered diabetes Pro Tip series, completely remastered for audio and released at episode 1000. Don't miss the juice box series that started them all the diabetes Pro Tip series completely remastered and coming soon at episode 1000. If you're like me, you may be concerned that you're not getting the vitamins that you want every day. That's why I drink ag one. Every morning I get up I take one scoop of ag one, put it in with some water cold water, shake it up and drink it down. That's how I get my day started. You could to drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. Use that link to get five free travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D with your first order. Drink a G one.com forward slash juice box. today's podcast is also sponsored by touched by type one. This is a wonderful organization helping people living with type one diabetes. And all they want is for you to learn more about them go to touched by type one.org or find them on Facebook and Instagram. Honestly, I don't know why I said or do all three Facebook, Instagram and touched by type one.org they're genuinely doing good things for people with type one diabetes.
Aimee 2:29
My name is Amy. I am mother to Zoey and Riley. They were diagnosed with diabetes in 2021. Type one. And yeah, we are huge listeners of Juicebox Podcast and it's helped us a bunch so we thought maybe we could connect and share some of what we've learned a little bit about our story. Thank you so much for having us.
Scott Benner 2:55
pleased that you're here. Can you do me a favor? Yeah, give me one second. It's gonna be noisy for a second. I'll be right back. Sure. I promise noisy there that was my son was applying for a job. And he used my desk. So we moved everything off of my desk, including my whiteboard that I use while people are telling me their children's names and things like that. And I just had to bring it back and wipe it off and Okay.
Aimee 3:35
He did have a cheat sheet two,
Scott Benner 3:36
he got the job by the way. Oh, yeah, it's exciting. Except it's he's gonna have to move to take it. So
Aimee 3:43
remind me what field teason he has a
Scott Benner 3:47
bachelor's degree in quantitative economics with a minor in mathematics that leans in statistics direction, but he got tired.
Aimee 3:55
My brain just like zoned out what you were saying? Yeah.
Scott Benner 3:59
But here's the thing. He doesn't want to really work in an office too much. So perfect. Perfect job. So looks like he's gonna take a job doing some stuff. He's trying to get into pro sports and do data analysis in pro sports. So it looks like Oh, getting getting in that direction. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Amy.
Aimee 4:19
How old I mean, particular sport. Baseball. I know. I'm interviewing you now.
Scott Benner 4:24
No, it's fine. Baseball if someone's weren't listening right now and they're the lead data analysis person for like, you know, I don't know the Rockies for the Phillies or something like that. They should. Or any of them he'd go anywhere. He's gotten it's probably the one
Aimee 4:40
sport we don't watch in our house. He's gotten I was hoping you'd say football.
Scott Benner 4:45
Do you know someone who works in professional football?
Aimee 4:47
I don't. I was thinking the other way around. Like when he gets in. He can be my connection.
Scott Benner 4:54
Yeah, I don't think that's gonna work out UBC Get maybe you wouldn't be surprised. But the people who listen to this podcasts have been incredibly helpful. Lining him up with just conversations to have with people trying to meet people, stuff like that they've been really, really wonderful. He's had a number of really great phone conversations in industries where I don't even know if he was particularly interested. And it gives you an insight into who's listening to the podcast. So yeah, he had, I think I can just say it like roundabout, but he had a phone call with someone from the Secret Service, to see if he would be interested in that. He's had a couple of other companies that I don't think he would have had a connection to, if like, lovely people from the podcast wouldn't have reached out and said, hey, you know, I know that the hiring manager here or if you, you know, I don't think I could get him a job. But here's the person if you spoke to could really help him understand how to apply his degree better. And what's amazing, lovely woman named Michelle helped him completely revamp his his resume, which was a big help. Because he put it together and more of a hip way. Even in the house for like, I don't think I do that. If I was, you know, applying all these jobs, I'm never hearing back. I'm overqualified. For some of them. Like it's your resume. And he's like it's not. And then Michelle came along and took his resume, like literally for free on her own time, and revamped it, contacted and spoke with him, told him how to fix it. And he started getting like phone calls. Right. As soon as she did that,
Aimee 6:31
I swear that writing resume is like putting it together. It's like an art form. Because there's so many intricacies and like things to it that, you know, could be interpreted so many different ways by employers too much of this too little that can just they won't even take a second look at it. So it's it's really, it's interesting. Yeah,
Scott Benner 6:48
even just the format of it, I guess maybe they scan them and computers look at them first. So they sort of have to fit a format for the computer to be like, this one's viable. So anyway, yeah. Anyway, that's not we're not here to learn how to get a job. So you know, let's go meet somebody.
Aimee 7:05
I'm sure that he's not going to be the first that I'm sure people in the group help each other out so much. I'm sure he's not the first to hope to be helped out. Like, in that
Scott Benner 7:13
sense. Yeah. Yeah, we did a thing the other night, all this together online, I can probably just say this a lot better. The internet, like certain companies don't like it when you give things away, especially medical supplies. But oh, yes,
Aimee 7:29
I did see that. Yeah,
Scott Benner 7:31
I just I was in a very festive mood the other night, and I had a lot of medical supplies that we didn't need anymore. So my intention was to go online, find somebody who could really benefit from them and give them to them. But then the people who were like, Hey, you don't usually do this, but I have 40 of these or 10 of these or whatever. And I basically just set up a swap meet for a forum for about an hour or two. And we must have covered like, 20 families with stuff.
Aimee 8:01
I didn't realize it was that many. That's awesome.
Scott Benner 8:03
I sent my stuff. I split my stuff up between three different families. Wow, there's a family with a small kid now who's gonna have an insulin pump for like, let me do the math. Honestly, might be able to use an insulin pump for like six months for free, because there's somebody I hooked them up with those. Anyway, it made me sad because I thought there's so many people in this group. We could be doing this all the time, but it opens you up to scammers and like, yeah, it's, you know, anyway, it's a thing I have to avoid. But it was nice.
Aimee 8:35
Yeah. There's another group that I'm in as like a, you know, a backup group to the jukebox. Maybe they did something similar recently. But they ended up having a post like we can't do this anymore sort of thing because somebody did end up getting scammed out of like, $250. Yeah, and it was just so sad because it's literally the person who needs it the most the person who can't afford to be scammed is the one who gets scammed. Well, I told everybody so heartbreaking
Scott Benner 8:59
over and over again, if anyone asks you for money, don't give it to him and ask and tell me right away, you know, so. But that was my full time job, I probably could sit there and run it like a swap meeting and let people help each other. It's the it's the scope, the group is so big, that you there's always someone there to help. You know what I mean? Yeah. Anyway,
Aimee 9:18
I mean, I know you've got a lot on your plate. But you know, as as the group continues to grow and stuff, maybe down the line, you could set it up as because I know like when all this stuff started happening over in Ukraine, there were a lot of organizations, nonprofits that were able to kind of gather the supplies from everybody themselves. And then they distributed from there to make sure that nobody was getting scammed, and that everything was getting where it needed to go. So maybe, you know, not anytime soon, maybe down the line, you can do something where everybody just kind of donates to you in one place. And then you have volunteers from within the group that you trust to kind of disseminate the supplies where they need to go.
Scott Benner 9:55
You don't know how old I am. Amy, I know that when you say that, you don't know how
Aimee 10:00
No, I do because I have so many ideas and so many helpful and thoughtful intentions like that. But I don't have the time, or the mental capacity at this moment in my life to do them. Yeah. So I completely relate to just because it's a great idea doesn't mean it's always possible right away, but maybe with the right people, you can, something you can explore. It's a
Scott Benner 10:19
money thing, honestly, right? Because if there was enough money, you still have to ship everything. Yeah, you can hire somebody, you could hire a person who could do it. And you could, you know, you could afford the shipping because that's the other thing. You can't say to somebody, like, I ship the stuff out to three families yesterday, on my dime. And I think it cost me like, $65 to ship everything. So like, Yeah, you get involved in that. And then, but it's, it's funny, we were just talking about this today and on Facebook people, I left a curse in a in an episode by mistake. So somebody's like, Hey, you left the F word here, if you wanted to take it out, then starts a conversation where inevitably people are like, I would pay if you just put up episodes where you left the cursing. And I'm like, okay, but here's the thing. Like, I can't, you know, like, I would like, first of all, I don't curse on the podcast, and I bleep out the cursing, because it limits the some countries that I can put the show in, if you hearse and it limits people. And you might not know that as a person who, you know, if you're a person who doesn't care about dropping an F bomb once in a while, but there are people who send me notes are like, Listen, you said F and didn't bleep it out. I'm not listening to the podcast anymore. And they're not kidding, you know what I mean? So like, I don't want to eliminate those people. If I go to a pay model and say, Look, there's episodes over here that say don't have ads on them, and there's cursing and etc, the advertisers aren't going to be thrilled to know that I'm splitting up the listenership and take people away that might hear their ads. And so there's just all these. So the idea is, and if you just charged everyone, and don't think this hasn't like crossed my mind, because it has like this, this year is a great example. 2022 you're recording like right before Christmas with me? The podcast has 5 million downloads this year. So you don't need to be a mathematician to know that if I charged 50 cents for a download, I would have made two and a half million dollars this year. And you think and you think oh my god do that. Except that's not really true. Because if I charged 50 cents a download, I wouldn't have 5 million downloads this year. Exactly. you'd stop people from getting to the information or from the comfort or even just the entertainment of it. And there are people who would look and go, you know, $4 a month seems reasonable, but I'm not paying it. And now, there's some kids sitting somewhere where for $4 times 12 for $48 a year that kids a one sees a point and a half higher than it would need to be if their mom listened to the protest series, for example. And I can't wrap my head around doing that. So here we go. So there's no, there's no bigger ideas getting built. Because I think the big idea is reaching as many people as you can and helping them.
Aimee 13:04
Yeah, absolutely. Anyway. Absolutely.
Scott Benner 13:07
I mean, 12 minutes later, how old are you?
Aimee 13:11
Whatever I was born in 87, don't whatever that makes sense that correct. I'm, I'm that person. I'm the person who has to take out the calculator every time someone asked me, because I'm just my brain doesn't do that. It doesn't retain my age. I think I'm 30 530-536-3587
Scott Benner 13:29
You were born Junior two years before I graduated from high school. So you're 35 Oh my God. You're 35 Give me your kids names again.
Aimee 13:38
Riley. And so we Riley is five she just turned five. And so we just turned three.
Scott Benner 13:45
And we don't care about your husband right now. Right?
Aimee 13:49
You know, he's always telling me everybody's gonna think you're a single parent because you never talked about me on social media. That's my husband's voice right there that I just did. So I have to mention him. Because otherwise I'll I'll hear about it later. So yes, my husband's name is Chris.
Scott Benner 14:06
Was that you just doing a Caucasian dialect by the way?
Aimee 14:09
Yes, it is. Can you tell I was gonna ask you. Why sound Hispanic? Because I don't think I sound Hispanic people tell me I do. And then obviously you just heard my voice change. And that's my, even though he's not Caucasian. He's also Hispanic. So I don't know why I did that voice you
Scott Benner 14:24
did, though. You made him like a white guy in your story. You're like, you did I know. You
Aimee 14:31
think what it was is that's more my stern voice and I associate sternness with old white men. Oh, that's why it went that way.
Scott Benner 14:41
Do you sound Hispanic? Yeah. Yeah. At the ends of your words a little and when you speed up when you speak a little bit, but I've met you I've met you and Chris in person. Yes, Chris paths is easy. Yeah, yeah. You not so much. Like if you were like, if you were like I'm Irish. I'd be Like, No you're not. But I think Chris,
Aimee 15:03
Chris has like the lighter here and the lighter guys. He's very, I think my thing is I'm like super white. And then when I have my hair like my funky colors, like if I do pink or green or whatever, then I think I pass a little bit more. Just like for general American, like just white person
Scott Benner 15:20
trying to name your episode general American. No, no.
Aimee 15:26
I think we, I think a couple of months ago in in a an Instagram DM, we we discussed that it should be something like, like, do I live near a nuclear plant? I think was was what you had said. And I said, Oh, that's gonna be the name of the episode call you name it that
Scott Benner 15:40
call you The Simpsons or something? So Riley has type on?
Aimee 15:45
Yes. So Riley has type one. So we also type one.
Scott Benner 15:50
When was diagnosed first,
Aimee 15:53
Riley was diagnosed first. So she started having symptoms, which I didn't really think of as symptoms of weirdly enough, because my sister is also a type one diabetic since we were children. And it just didn't really occur to me, it occurred to me sister, she asked me, she said, Well, you know, I told her, Ryan's been drinking a ton of water. Recently. Actually, the way that it happened was I had a friend with a daughter Riley's age, and she was drinking a bunch of water. And she was feeling like lethargic, and all these things. And I said, Oh, that that sounds kind of like diabetes, let me put you in touch with my sister and kind of testing you can have done because I wasn't familiar at the time with things like trial net, but I knew that they existed. So I said, let me just put you in touch with my sister. And then through that conversation, I started noticing, well, you know what, Ryan's actually been drinking a ton of water recently, too. But I didn't really notice anything else that really, you know, was like, oh, diabetes, diabetes. So I kind of just put on the backburner. And then she sort of phased out of it for a little bit. So that was like October 2020. And then, April 2021, things started to kind of ramp up again, I started noticing that she was having a lot of bruising, like really easy bruising. And she was sleeping a lot, she would have like massive ravenous appetite. And then the next day, it would be like she didn't even want to look at food. So that's something was going on. But my mind, I was thinking more like a urinary tract infection or something because she was also saying Ouch, whenever she was wetting her diaper, okay. And then she started wetting the bed a lot overnight. Like I'm talking like a human sized puddle in the middle of the bed, just like the whole mattress wet. And so at that point, I took her into the pediatrician. The funny part of the story is that I took her in for a sick visit. And her sister was due for a wealth a wellness check, like her yearly exam. So I took them both in the same day at the same time. And they check them both over, they told me come back on Monday with Riley so that we can do a urine collection. But nothing was mentioned about tea Wendy or anything, they said more they were thinking like something like anemia probably UTI something along those lines. So we went home, I brought her back on the Monday, so April 5, and I was supposed to collect the urine sample at home. So I started loading her up with apple juice. We get to the pediatrician, they take some blood work, and immediately come back in the room and they're like, hey, so you might need to sit down. Don't freak out. I need you to have your husband pack a bag. And if you can't drive come and get you but you guys need to go straight to the hospital. Because Riley is diabetic. And I have a very strong feeling that she's about to be in ketoacidosis. And I was like, Oh, I know those words because of my sister. And I just My reaction was I started laughing because I was like, There's no way this is happening. And it just That's my reaction. I was just giggling nervous giggle. We went to the hospital. And sure enough, she she was diagnosed there and they put her on some fluids. Thankfully, with the blood of gases and all the stuff that they check, they figured out she wasn't in DKA. But she was like right at the edge. So I believe her a onesie in the ER was like 13.8 13.7 or 13.8. Okay, so at that point, then we started realizing, oh, some of this stuff now makes a lot of sense because she was having like random napping when she hadn't been napping. You know, we had eliminated that from her schedule for months. And just all of these things kind of lining up. She had been having blurry vision, which we didn't think was we didn't put that together because Riley is also autistic. And so she does a lot of what we call stimming which is just like sort of like, I guess like these tics and different things that give her like sensory input. So recently she had been like taking her fingers and like squinting her eyes and opening them like really wide and just making different shapes and we thought that was just her I'm having a new stim. And after the diagnosis, we realize, Oh, she's now that her sugars are in control stop doing that. We really think that that was now in retrospect her, like having blurry vision from the high blood sugars and just trying to actually open her eyes more so she could see better. And that was like a real interesting thing to look back on and realize because it was like right there in front of our face, but we didn't. We just didn't put it together. You know,
Scott Benner 20:28
stemming repeated repetitive behaviors or noise is often associated with autism. Stemming describes self the accumulation stimulatory. I don't know why smart people can't just talk like everybody, but okay. Stimming describes self stimulatory behaviors that involve repetitive movements or sound, commonly refers to behaviors displayed by people with autism, such as flapping, rocking back and forth. You don't have to be autistic to stem for example, tapping your foot when you're nervous could be an example of it. It does look different, though, when it's a sign of autism. For instance, behaviors like finger flicking and twirling can become excessive and or obtrusive, and someone who has autism.
After you're done listening today, please head over to touched by type one.org. Check out all the good things that they're doing it touched by type one, there's the big conference coming up that I'll be speaking at that in a couple of weeks actually getting close now, I think it's sold out, but you can check touch by type one.org. And by sold out, the Tickets are free, I just maybe the tickets are gone, you can find out what else they got the big dance recital coming up all kinds of stuff, touched by type one.org. This is a great organization helping people living with type one diabetes, learn more about them, and follow them on Facebook and Instagram. There are links to touch by type one in the show notes of the podcast player you're listening in now. And at juicebox podcast.com. You'll also find links to all kinds of other things there. Like my next sponsor, ag one, I began drinking ag one because I was concerned about my gut health and my vitamin intake. And now I use ag one every day. It's a foundational nutritional supplement that delivers comprehensive nutrition to support your whole body's health. I heard about ag one on a podcast, just like you're hearing about it now. And I clicked on a link and you can use mine. Drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. It took me a little bit of time to move ag one into my morning ritual. But after a few days, it just became a habit. Get up, get your ass go downstairs, grab the jug of water, grab my ag one shake, shake, shake. Next thing you know, I'm doing something good for my body. And what keeps me doing it? Well, it's how I feel. I just feel better drinking ag one. Drink ag one.com forward slash juice box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. If you can't remember, drink, ag one.com forward slash juice box. When you use my link, you're also going to receive five free travel packs and a year supply of vitamin D with your first order. So if you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with a G one. Try ag one right now with my link, drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. When you click on my links, you're supporting the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful.
Unknown Speaker 23:49
So
Aimee 23:49
yeah, so we kind of wrote it off as just, you know, it's probably a stem, it's, you know, we'll take her to the doctor, we'll get her checked out. But we don't think that all of these things were connected. And obviously, in hindsight, we can now see things like irritability was another thing we wrote off because obviously was was not obviously but with autism. There are a lot of triggers and triggers lead to meltdowns and different behaviors. And at that point in time she was in therapies and things like that. So we were working on a lot of those things. But she was also very expressive. And had we had noticed that she was super irritable more than usual. And so we just kind of wrote it off as Oh, she's she's in the therapy. She's working on things. It's gonna get harder for her before it gets easier. She's working through stuff. So we kind of just put it on the backburner. Didn't think about it twice. And definitely, with her being in the hospital, more so than the actual diabetes diagnosis, what worried us and what scared us and what really shook us was this idea of how is she going to deal with this as an autistic person because is a lot of the autism centers around, like I said, triggers which can be physical triggers things like, you know, the poking of the fingers and the shots, we thought that was just going to be impossible for her because, you know, sometimes she just gets like completely naked around the house because she can't stand the feeling of the clothes on her skin. So now imagine thinking about her future of constantly having to be touched and prick them prodded. And then when she gets an insulin pump having to wear that all the time. And so we were were more nervous and more, just, like really scared of how all that was going to affect her more so than the actual management of the diabetes. So
Scott Benner 25:41
how well, okay, so that's a lot. Let everybody soak that up for a second. Yeah. How old was Riley when you realize she had autism.
Aimee 25:49
So she was probably about, I think she was like six months old. When we started noticing that she wasn't meeting these standard milestones that they give you from the pediatrician, the CDC lays out, we knew that she was physically delayed because she had plagiocephaly, which is basically when the head kind of gets like slightly misshapen from tightness in the muscles. And that typically occurs when an infant can't lift, like they don't do enough. They don't spend enough time on their stomach. Yeah, or they spend enough time on their stomach, but they just don't have the strength. So they end up having to do physical therapy, which is what she ended up having to do. She had to wear a little baby helmet, which was adorable. But she had to wear this little helmet. And she had to do physical therapy for like nine months, in order to properly learn how to lift her head and then eventually crawl and then eventually sit. And then once she was able to be sitting, then she kind of the next couple of milestones she made up on her own and she was fine. Like walking, running, things like that. But But yeah, so I started, those were the first signs. And then speech delay was the next thing that was really big for her. She she didn't, she would babble a lot, but she couldn't really, she really, she had to mode she would either babble a ton and repetitively. So not really actually communicating. Or she would completely shut down and just not speak at all, which led to a lot of like frustration and tantrums and things like that.
Scott Benner 27:19
I have a question going back to the, to the wearing the wearing a helmet to stop the flat spot, which is called plagiocephaly. Yeah, all right. Not bad. If you don't address that, if you don't use the helmet. Yeah, what do they tell you is going to happen.
Aimee 27:36
So the head will stay misshapen. And those bones which are really soft, and kind of just migrating to, you know, because when a kid is born, the the cranial bones are like really soft, and they are not quite fused together so that the infant can pass through the vaginal canal and all that stuff if you're burning. So once they start fusing, they're gonna fuse into whatever shape so if a kid spends a lot of time, you know, in a in a swing, for example, or you know, like their highchair, whatever, they can develop these flat spots, and then their bones will actually fuse like in that shape. And that can lead or cause pressure on the brain in areas where there shouldn't be excessive pressure, which can lead to like problems with vision, it can lead with problems with the sinuses. For Riley, she had like her cheekbones actually were like, too high up, because her face wasn't like it wouldn't expand the right way because of the plagiocephaly. So, yeah, we were the little helmet. And then they they did, it's called a doc band, if you want to look it up, they do like a before and after. And they show you the different shape of you know, the facial features and everything. And it was insane to me, like her head is still a little bit you can tell it's a little bit differently shaped. Because for her, the first round of the helmet didn't work as well. So she had to wear like two different rounds. And by the second round, a lot of her bones had already begun to fuse. So you can still tell that there's like that difference in her head shapes. Yeah, but even just from the before and after pictures, you can see what a difference it made, like her whole facial features, like they changed because of her cheekbones being able to drop down and set where they where they shouldn't be pretty interesting. It's
Scott Benner 29:24
amazing, actually. Yeah. So for you. And I mean, I'm looking at the numbers here. So you're in like your early 30s. And you have a baby and then the baby, you know, started showing the signs. What's what's the, the impact on you personally in your relationship at that point,
Aimee 29:44
honestly, I mean, so a lot of how we reacted to it goes back to the fact that I myself have a lot of health issues and we weren't even able, we weren't sure if we will be able to have like our own kids. So when We started noticing the signs, you know, obviously, there's a part of you that's just kind of like, oh, you know, I don't, I would never choose to have medical complications for my kid, or differences because we kind of come to, we've come to see autism is just like we're differently wired versus it being like a defect. So it does present challenges. But a lot of those challenges come from the fact that our society is not designed for people who are differently wired, not so much that they've been differently wired causes an issue in and of itself. I don't know if that makes sense of,
Scott Benner 30:36
so what are some of your health issues.
Aimee 30:40
So I have lupus, I have systemic lupus. So that's like, it involves all the systems of the body, which is an autoimmune disorder. And then I also have Hashimotos thyroiditis, and endometriosis, which is a gynecological disease. And that I don't know if you know anything about that. But basically, it's tissue from inside of the uterus, or tissue similar to that of inside of the uterus ends up in places of the body where it shouldn't be. And then whenever your hormones change throughout the month, that tissue like contracts, and it can basically choke out or cuts like blood supply off and cause scarring and damage to wherever it's attached. So if it's attached on the bladder, or the bowel, different places, it causes a ton of pain. And then it can also affect your your ability to it affects fertility a lot.
Scott Benner 31:34
And Riley has autism and type one. Does she have anything else?
Aimee 31:41
Oh, no, no, she is. Yeah. So far. So good. She'll be getting as she ages, she'll get like the testing done for lupus because? And for endometriosis, because there is an increased chance for both of those things since I do have them. But that will be something that usually that manifests itself like in the teen years, late teens, early 20s kind of thing.
Scott Benner 32:02
How about Zoey, does she have anything? We want to talk me? She has type one, obviously. But is there anything else happening?
Aimee 32:08
Yeah, no, she is she is going to be evaluated pretty soon for sensory processing disorder, which is it falls like within the realm of autism and like what they call the spectrum. There's a lot of back and forth within like the community for autism about like, like preferred language and, you know, like how these sub conditions are like described and things like that. So I think you had an episode that aired recently with another parent with an autistic child. And she kind of touched on a lot of those things like how even within the community, we're not really sure how we're what is appropriate, or the appropriate way to talk about it or explain it. Yeah. But yeah, as of right now, it's considered like a subset of autism. But basically, it manifests itself instead of like, affecting cognitive abilities, it manifests itself more physically. So do we need like a lot of stimulation, or having too much stimulation will send her like into like a tantrum or be really upsetting for her and difficult to deal with? So lots of noises or physical input can be really overwhelming for them both.
Scott Benner 33:14
Is it frustrating? That, I don't mean that the community doesn't. can't settle on, like, agree on things, because you see it in other communities, too, right? If there are people tell you like, I wish it wasn't called type one and type two diabetes and stuff like that, like, everybody has their thing? I don't mean that. But I mean, is it frustrating that it's not like you go to the doctor and doctors, oh, you have the flu? And this is how we treat the flu? Is that part hard? Yeah.
Aimee 33:43
It is it because so much of it is so subjective. And because of the nature of autism specifically being like, it's technically a neurological quote unquote, disorder. That means that it's hard to separate, what would be considered the disorder from what could just be considered quirks that are just a personality, like personality quirks? So and especially at their ages, where they're just developing their personalities, it's really difficult to be like, is this toddler behavior? Or is this something more than I need to be a little bit more flexible on because she has a need that's not being met with autism and stuff? How old was so it is kind of I wish it was just like really straightforward testing kind of thing. Just be like, Okay, this is it's like any disease like that has any subjectivity to it, it's you, you get diagnosed and then you take a medication, and there's always some give or take, and you have to be fluid about certain things, but for the most part, a lot of these things are very straightforward. And with mental health and cognitive and neurological things, it's not quite that way.
Scott Benner 34:51
Yeah, it just it to me it feels like there's things going on in your life constantly. Mostly, you're probably wrong about them. You're trying to figure out what they are, you know, but but it least you can kind of say put it in a box and, and call it something so that you know what to do or how to deal or whatever. But it just I don't know, it would be it would sounds fresh frustrating to me.
Aimee 35:12
I'm going through that. Now, I don't know if you remember, but I going through the process of being diagnosed myself with ladder. Yeah, sir, or type two, we're not sure at this point, which is very much to the point of what you're saying is I just kind of want it to be defined already. So I know how I can approach it because I, I am the type of person that the enemy I know is is easier to deal with than the unknown. Even if it's bad news, and they tell me you're you're gonna have to take insulin, the rest of your life, whatever, I'd rather know that than be in like this limbo, that it seems like I'm going to be stuck in for a while because it's such a slow onset. And there's no real way for them. They're like, well, you don't have the characteristics for type two. But you also don't have antibodies yet for type one. So we're not sure if it's Latta or if it's this or, you know, it, there's so much unknown there that I'm just kind of, like really frustrated with the whole process.
Scott Benner 36:09
I think I understand. Okay, so how old is the only when she's diagnosed? Type one.
Aimee 36:14
So she is 17 months old. Okay, well,
Scott Benner 36:18
overachiever there on that one. And then, okay, and the other diagnosis stuff is happening now. And she's three. And let's just to round out the story. Before we move forward. Your sister has type one as well.
Aimee 36:33
Well, let me let me finish on Zoe's Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're, the unique thing about them is they were diagnosed 14 days apart. So Riley was diagnosed on April 5. I told you the whole story. We ended up in the hospital, we were there. We got our learning, we went home. So we're back at home like around the 10th. I think it was, and we're getting Riley into her routine. She's doing her fingerprints every morning and she's getting used to everything. And 17 month old Zoey comes trotting in one day, and she's just like, sticks her finger out. And she's feeling left out. And she's feeling sort of like, I want to know what's going on my sister, I'm concerned about this do me and she sticks her finger out. And she asked to have her blood, her blood checked before meal. And this is breakfast. So they hadn't eaten anything yet. And I prick her finger. And I'm all excited because she didn't cry and all this stuff. And it took me a second to actually realize what was happening. I looked down at the meter, and she's over 300 Oh, my God. And I'm like that was my sister was with us because she and my mom came to stay with those right after Riley's diagnosis to kind of give a lending hand and help us adjust. Yeah. And so my sister just kind of like her, she starts laughing because she's like, there's no way there's just no way. There's no way that you have hit this jackpot of both of your kids being diabetic. After everything that's been happening. There's just no way. And so I called a pediatrician, and they told me to come in, in the afternoon or that evening. So we take her in. And when we take her in her blood sugar is back to normal. She's like in the 80s. And so the lady is kind of giving me a hard time because this is not our normal doctor. This is the after hours doctor. And so she's given me a hard time about this, like, oh, well, ad is perfectly normal. She probably just had like her finger wasn't clean. I was like, I clean her finger with alcohol. My other daughter is diabetic. Like I know, we're new to this, but we're not that new to this that, you know, we would make a mistake that would give us that number and then we freak out. Yeah. So I'm trying to kind of like advocate and I'm like, can you please just do like a pee test? There's, there's it's so non invasive, just do the pee test. So she does the thing. And of course it comes back Oh plus like three or something like that for ketones, and she's got spillage of glucose in the urine. So then at that point, she's like, okay, yeah, you guys need to go to the hospital. And she's like, but I think you can wait till the morning so we put in the call to our Riley's endocrinologist at this point. And we're like, Hey, we're gonna be there tomorrow morning. And, and just have everything ready. So they take us in and I believe Zoe's a one C was seven 7.6, I believe is what it was when they did it. So we caught it like, like right there early enough. She didn't need to have like insulin right away. But yeah, that's that was the it was sort of interesting, because then like all the people that had just seen as a couple of weeks back, we're like, Wait, why are you back here? And then we're like explaining. And at the time, she was the youngest that they had had on the ward. 17 months old was the youngest that they had had since they opened up that wing for the hospital. So
Scott Benner 39:44
yeah, they get a plaque or something. They name a wing after you know nothing, nothing good.
Aimee 39:51
No, but she did have the did have us teach the nurses how to dilute the insulin. because prior to us being there, they hadn't use diluted insulin for somebody around Zoe's age. It was mostly like kids like in elementary school level. So they would always just get it compounded, like get it at a pharmacy, but with Zoe's age and her needs changing and stuff. I said, Well, I wanted to be able to mix the insulin and myself so that if we need to adjust the strength for the dilution, I can do it from home, and not have to constantly be running out to the pharmacy whenever we're tweaking her dosages and stuff, right. So they actually had us go down to the clinic, we learned how to do the dilution, and like all the math and all that stuff. And then when we got back upstairs because this was in the the endo clinic is within the hospital, when we got back upstairs, they had us the nurses come by like one at a time and had us teach the nurses so that they could learn, and they could begin mixing it on the floor. because prior to that, they would have to wait for the pharmacy downstairs to mix it for them.
Scott Benner 40:55
That's unreal. So yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, so I mean, now there's two of them. And you, I mean it, honestly, do you think about going to the mall and coming home, like doing the old like, I gotta go get milk? Chris. I'll be right back. And then you just or I mean, what are you just so focused on handling things that you don't have time to freak out?
Aimee 41:19
Yeah. So I think I've had enough trauma in my life that I kind of am like, I'm a good man in the storm, I guess is the phrase that I've heard, that probably explains it best. Don't panic. Don't freak out when, when something like crazy out of the norm happens. Just because I've got like, I don't know if it's, it's not thick skin. But it's just I have like this. It's like a fight or flight kind of thing. And I just I focus on what needs to be done in the moment. Rather than dwelling on how did I get here? Why did this happen? Not to say those things aren't valid feelings to have. And of course, I've had them before. I can't tell you how many times I've just sat there in the shower and cried. But also,
Scott Benner 42:00
to stand in the show does nothing for me. Maybe that's why you're crying? Are you doing it wrong? You're supposed to have a shower. Kidding. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, maybe
Aimee 42:10
not, when not when you have lupus, sometimes you have to sit in the shower.
Scott Benner 42:15
Or you see, yes. I can't show you at all. You got too many things going on.
Aimee 42:21
You can joke. I mean, it's that's how I get through it. You gotta laugh about it. And you gotta make jokes, because otherwise, it's just plain sad. How do you man? And that's not me? I don't know like that.
Scott Benner 42:30
Yeah, how do you manage lupus, there's something that you can do to help yourself.
Aimee 42:34
There are it just, it really depends on how progressed it is. And Lupus is a disease that has periods of of activity, and then periods of remission. So like right now, for example, I'm in like a massive lupus flare. And so during the flares, I'll get steroid steroid medication, and that will help calm like the inflammation and reduce the damage that the inflammation is doing to my body, basically, but I can't be on steroids, you know, 24/7, because then that will cause its own issues and its own problems. Yeah, so it's kind of just managing like the flare ups as they happen. And then, you know, the longer you have it course, like I've been told, eventually, at some point in my life, like there'll be lung involvement, there'll be different things like the kidneys is usually one of the big ones, where you start having decreased function and things like that. But there, there are things you can do to kind of just manage each of those symptoms, like separately, there's not really any way to stop it. Unless, I mean, some people get chemo because it's, it's a, it's an autoimmune disease. So basically, if your immune system is so overactive, that you're constantly attacking your own body, then they'll do chemo and that will basically blast your immune system. So now you have higher risk of things like infection and stuff, but your body is no longer has an immune system to activate in order to attack you. So technically, your disease would be in remission at that point. What does that that's reserved for the most of your cases?
Scott Benner 44:01
What's a flare up look like? For you.
Aimee 44:04
So it can vary with this one, it the most basic symptoms of it are like flu like symptoms. So a lot of like, aches, pains, joint and muscle aching, a lot of inflammation, mostly around the joints, all the joints, I'm talking like, like the littlest joint in your pinky finger will, it'll literally just, like swell up. It's also very different, like from person to person. Yeah. And then you get like, there's like skin symptoms. So I'll get like this rash that goes across like the bridge of my nose and my cheeks. It's called the butterfly rash. And that'll just, it's not itchy or anything, but it's just a lot of swelling in the face. And it'd be very red sun sensitivity issues with like maintaining vitamin D levels, because you can't be out in the sun and your body doesn't synthesize the vitamin D as well. So which is very similar with diabetes. They have that issue as well. So it's a lot of things like that digestive issues. It just depends what system of the body is being actively attacked at that point.
Scott Benner 45:04
Okay. Wow. Okay, well, do we just take a break? Should we sing? Like what do we do right now? I mean, is there more stuff we haven't gotten to so far? Well, yeah,
Aimee 45:17
I mean, you want to touch on my sister My sister was, was the first diabetic in the family, the first person that we know with autoimmune, anything autoimmune. And she's, I swear to you, you're gonna want to have her do her whole own episode, because her story is, is incredible. She was diagnosed in 1994. So she's been through tech, like having technology not having technology. She had insurance not having insurance. She was she lived through the era of when we have pre existing conditions on insurance plans is like a Yeah, yeah,
Scott Benner 45:51
I remember basically, I remember being worried about that when Arden was diagnosed, the idea of like, Arden has a preexisting condition, she won't be able to get health insurance. Yeah. And that kind of has morphed in, in how insurance works. But I remember being so scared about that, oh, yeah,
Aimee 46:10
it was such a huge, it was such a huge barrier back. I mean, not with diabetes for me. But with my other conditions, I literally went without treatment for so long, because I was constantly considered, I got I was that person that got caught in the cycle of get a job, have to wait two or three months to get the insurance then have to wait for the preexisting clause to be met the requirement for that. And then by the time that happened, my employer is so sick of me missing work, because I haven't been able to treat the condition because the insurance wouldn't cover it due to the pre existing clause, that now they fire me and I have to go find another job. And the cycle starts all over. And that was literally like my life for 10 or 15 years until everything kind of with the Affordable Care Act and all that stuff, kind of put a damper on put a stop to the pre existing stuff. But yeah, it's it's such a huge thing. And thankfully, and our kids don't have to deal with that now. Because I don't even I wouldn't even know where to begin if if that was still something that we had to contend with.
Scott Benner 47:11
No kidding. I mean, yeah, geez, imagine you couldn't get insurance that your kids wouldn't have insurance. Yep. And then, then you're then you're going to the lake, then you're gone to the middle or
Aimee 47:22
you're still paying for the insurance. You're just not covered for that condition. Which is even worse, because now you're having to pay for the insurance, and supplies and things that are out of pocket. It's still like it. Yeah,
Scott Benner 47:34
yeah. But it won't help you with the thing you actually need. I won't help you. Yeah. See? All right. My God. So your sister, I'm sorry. She's just diagnosed very young as well.
Aimee 47:44
Yeah, she was 11. So I was she's four years older than me. Okay. So yeah, she was like, right in the middle, like starting middle school. And, and witnessing everything that she went through was definitely put us in a place now as parents with two D, Wendy's, where we're doing everything possible to make sure that the kids have everything they need, not just supplies and things like that. But as far as like support and community and just making more decisions involving like the kids mental health, because I saw how much that not having that from her doctors back in the day. It was not mental health was not something that was talked about in 1994. And how much she struggled with it during that period of her life where she was literally like teenager, which is already a difficult time and then just diagnosed and, and she obviously we we were not well off as a family around that time either. So we had a lot of issues with her and the insurance and things like that. And she had to us you really have her on she went through rationing. There was a one point in time where she was taking like her Lantis shot like every two days, because she was just trying to ration it out. She's got a lot of a lot of interesting things that she can share. But she definitely impacted how we think about diabetes in terms of what we want to do, what we don't want to do and things that we want to focus on and what we think is important about management.
Scott Benner 49:11
Well, hold on seriously, your Can I Amy, can I say something? Yes, life is such a mess that it's making me dizzy.
Aimee 49:22
I am amazed that I am so well adjusted, considering everything that's happened and that my kids are so well they just did considering that they have me as
Scott Benner 49:33
your girls or your girls are lovely. And I wonder about please. So it's obvious. So let me let me let me ask you this, when all these things happen in your life, and it becomes obvious that your children are going to have things that they need to do and you know as far as learning and growing and health stuff. There's your life get on the line. mean here. Be careful with a microphone on your hair, by the way, but yeah, there's your time pulling it back. Does your life get smaller in scope? Like, like, when you're first married, you think like, Oh, we're gonna do this, like you have big ideas about like conquering the world kind of stuff, whatever that means to you. And then once it becomes obvious that your needs are going to be daily, and I'm assuming hourly, do you start to like, not? I don't mean like, close yourself off to the world. But you start narrowing your focus, you start thinking like, well, this is my life like this. You don't I mean,
Aimee 50:36
yeah, no, I absolutely, my husband and I drove down to Miami for an appointment over the weekend. And we were literally talking about that exact thing, almost the entire way down. We so for me, I had the benefit, I guess, would be the right term of having been sick myself and having to have adjust my head to adjust my own expectations prior to my kids coming along, and prior to them being diagnosed, so I already had to make huge adjustments as far as what I was what I saw for my life going, you know, into the future. So I kind of already was the head already been tempered down somewhat. I did have you know, I wasn't I went to college, and I was studying photography for a while. And then when I started getting sick, I switched over to pre med interestingly enough, because I started finding all of these doctors that I was interacting with. I found it so interesting. And I watched a ton of Grey's Anatomy. I mean, it definitely influenced it
Scott Benner 51:42
made me think I can be a doctor by the way. I'm gonna slip in sarcoidosis somewhere while we're talking. Whatever.
Aimee 51:51
So that's more of a house a house that is diagnosed. Yeah, right.
Scott Benner 51:55
Every everything they couldn't figure out was was Sark. sarcoidosis.
Aimee 52:01
It's never lupus though. Do you think?
Scott Benner 52:03
Do you think the doc did the writers just got like, they were like, Oh my God, we've been doing this for seven years. I just say sarcoidosis.
Aimee 52:10
Probably. Well, I always thought that was an interesting because so when I went to school, and I switched to pre med, I said, Well look, even if I can't physically work in a hospital, because now my my conditions are progressing. Maybe I can use this in like the way that you know, people work in Hollywood consulting on shows and consulting for, you know, movies and things like that to make sure they have all the medical stuff, right, I would totally love to do that. It's different, and it's fun. And then again, tempering my expectations as things progressed, that flew out the window and and then I just I became a stay at home parent, because it's much cheaper, we would have ended up having to pay more for like daycare, I would have not brought home enough money to cover daycare and still make a profit doing that. So it was just cheaper for us to have me be a stay at home parent. And then I was already in that position when we started discovering that the kids had these needs. So it kind of all just happened that way. But I would be lying if I didn't say that some days, I wake up and I'm just kind of like, I wish that you know, I was still pursuing, you know, photography and chasing this band across the United States and covering their whole tour. And because that's what I used to do as concert photography. I definitely do wake up some days. And I'm like, Oh, I wish that was still happening. But I also feel like my world has gotten bigger in different ways. As you know, we have a huge social media following over on on tick tock and we got on Instagram, we've got that going. We're starting YouTube. And it's something that I never would have seen myself doing back there probably would have made fun of myself, if like me from back then saw me now be like, oh, what you're like a, like an influencer now or something like I would have totally kicked my own butt. But I think that what we're doing definitely fills some of that, if not, in a different way, it fills some of that need and some of that desire that I had before of just like wanting to be important and do something huge with my life, you know, because we are we're not a doctor, and I'm not, you know, fixing anybody out there. But just being able to talk to another parent or even another T one D that's like, hey, you know, I've had this for years, and I've never been able to get over my fear of you know, poking my finger and seeing your kids doing it, you know, with each other and supporting each other has made me reach out and be a part of this community now that I'm finding for the first time. That's so like, huge. And I don't want to tell you, I mean, you live it every day. Having an impact on other people's lives is something that we didn't plan for. But it's not something that everybody can do. And we have to realize that we're we're kind of lucky in the sense that we get to do that.
Scott Benner 54:54
Yeah, I don't know if I feel lucky, but I understand. Yeah, I know.
Aimee 54:58
I think well, so that's where Are our social media name accidentally amazing comes from that it was this thought that we never would choose this even going back if we had three wishes, and we could go back and change the kids not being diabetic, of course we would in a heartbeat. But it's actually turned out to be accidentally amazing in ways that we never would have expected, we've been able to find good things about it to focus on, and more importantly, to help the kids focus on because whatever we model for them in terms of perspective, about their life and their conditions, and their challenges, is what they're gonna build their own perspective about themselves and about what they go through. They're going to build on that. So we have to do our best to set a good foundation for that. Yeah,
Scott Benner 55:47
yeah. I mean, I take your point. And I understand and I feel lucky that what I do during the day helps people a lot. Honestly, I don't feel lucky that you know, that auto immune stuff, found my family, but as long as it did, you know, dot dot dot, then then the rest of it does feel lucky. I was trying to be funny. And instead, I said something that you were like, oh, no, my bed. Okay? Is it intrusive? So these these platforms, they demand video. And what people might not know about them is you could build a massive following on Instagram, for example. And, and it could go away in a split second, like the algorithm could stop pushing people to your content. Or you could just get into a situation where you can't make something for a week or two. And people are just like, well, I'll go find someone else. And then you're gone. Once your momentum is gone, the whole thing's over. Yeah, the the podcasting has that similar issue. And I would be lying to you, if I didn't tell you that I worry about it. Like constantly. It's almost like feeling like you opened a donut shop. And then someone opened one up two blocks away, and you're like, No, no, no, no, no. Like, even if they go check out the donuts, they might never come back. Even if those aren't any better. Like, whatever. It's just, it's, it's that feeling of like, you've built a thing. And it feels like it's built on, I don't know, just straw and mud, you know? So like, do you feel a pressure to be constantly making stuff?
Aimee 57:24
I think I do, mostly because, you know, we're not really like monetizing, or anything off of it, we have a couple of like, partnerships, like within the diabetes space, which mostly is stuff that we do, because it helps us cover our own costs, where supplies like the extra stuff insurance doesn't cover. So by doing like content for them, you know, we'll get some patches here and there. And, and that goes a long way, especially when you have the two diabetics plus now myself, I wear Dexcom, as well. So it's a lot of stuff. But I don't feel pressure in the sense that I have to make the kids do it. It's more like they do it when they're up for it. And when they want to. And thankfully, it's something that they do, I feel like it's made their management a little bit easier. Because when a site change comes up, instead of it being like, Oh, I'm dreading the site change, what they're focusing on is, Oh, are we going to make a video about it? Because we want to, they get excited about making the videos, okay, so it's definitely helped us with the management. And we don't ever, it's, it's always offered, it's never something that we hold them to. So I do feel pressure on myself, when ever they're in, you know, like a phase where oh, maybe they don't want to make as many videos or maybe I've just have a lot of other stuff going on, then I do feel like, okay, I'm not. And it's more like I'm letting people down who are counting on us, if that makes sense. Because we're not even close to doing like what you do in terms of actually helping people understand like, day to day management and things that are actually gonna improve their health. But I think that what we do kind of gives it fills the space of the mental and emotional support that a lot of T Wendy's and a lot of kids and a lot of caregivers need. Yeah. And so like, we feel like we give a little bit of community. And we're kind of a sounding board, sometimes less about giving advice and more about just I hear you, I see what you're going through. Maybe this thing that we did this one time might help you and you can think about it this way. And so when we're not there to do that, and we're not being picked up by the algorithm, then I feel like oh, we're not going to be reaching that one person that might have really needed to see this video today. So yeah, definitely. That's definitely there.
Scott Benner 59:44
Yeah, it can be a thankless job and the and I'm assuming you don't make a living from it, right?
Aimee 59:51
Like, no, no, no,
Scott Benner 59:52
I mean, I would love to but you're doing it, you know, for for the response to that and for what it gives to other people.
Aimee 59:59
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it helps us maintain that, you know, the 10% discount here for our, for our followers 10% there. And I know that, you know, for some people that 10% could make the difference between them getting their kids the patches or not, or getting themselves the patches or not. And so if us, pushing ourselves to make content in order to keep those things going, is what's going to facilitate that, then that's for right now that that's enough, because I don't ever see myself. Like I said earlier, this was never something that I would have envisioned for myself. It's not like, this is my niche. And like, I've always been good at this or something. And, and it happened to coincide with us being diagnosed like, this is not something that every day I turn on my phone, and I have to teach myself, like a new piece of technology to keep up with what's going on.
Scott Benner 1:00:47
You're not a kid anymore, Amy.
Aimee 1:00:49
I'm not. And it's not always enjoyable. I mean, the editing of the videos and stuff down, it takes a lot. It's a lot of meaning to do with the podcasts and stuff and much longer format, obviously,
Scott Benner 1:01:02
I had off tomorrow. And I didn't block the day for some reason on my calendar. And the other day, this this kid, the kid, like under 18, like a teenager wants to be on the podcast. And as I go through the whole thing, I'm like, let me talk to your parents while I send, send her a link and I say, okay, look, you use this link. And but I'm telling you like, there's not going to be a day until like, I know, this sounds crazy, because December 23 won't be a day until like, I don't know, I mean, September or October of 2023, reconsent up a recording. As much as I tried not to bloat my schedule. I was like I tried. So I just screwed it up. And I just, I hear from people, I'm like, That's interesting. Let them come on. Let them before I know it, I'm full. And so I so she pops on. And December 21 is open. And she just and she just takes it. And I'm like my first like, I get the email and I'm like, I'll just email the person back say, hey, that day wasn't supposed to be open, just go pick another day. And then I looked at my salts this girl and she's younger, and she's excited. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll just do that. Or yeah, I'll do the try. And then my wife's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just gonna record she's like, we have a lot to do for the holidays. And I was like, I know, I'm like, but I'm gonna just record tomorrow for an hour, you know? And it's the editing part. There's no way anybody would understand. It's no, it's a massive chunk of my life. And it feels like, I mean, I'm sure all businesses are like this. And I hate to say that this is a business, but it is, you know, and it's a business that happens to be helping people. It's not selling people cars, but it's still it's a, you know, it is like I have to do things on a schedule. I have business relationships, I have to maintain, there's contracts,
Aimee 1:02:47
a lot of administration
Scott Benner 1:02:50
aspects who have no idea. And so you just feel like at any moment, I don't know, it could just disappear. I feel that all the time. And I mean, yes, you wouldn't want your business to disappear because you're paying your bills with it. But or maybe it's part of who you are, or a number of different reasons. But for me, I feel the same thing you're talking about. It's like, I know, somebody gets helped by this. And if I don't make this show, then that stops. And you might think, well, how does talking to Amy, about her and Riley and Zoey and her sister? Like how does that help people's blood sugar's get better? It does. It may be we say something today that helps someone's health. But more specifically, we might make a fan of the show. And then that person might then pick through the show more and go what is bold beginnings? Or what is the finding diabetes? Or what is it a protest, which is where you're going to get real, like management stuff that's going to really kind of pull it together for you. So it's not as easy as just saying, hey, there's 25 episodes here. They're called protests if you read if you listen to them. I mean, honestly, I just got to review the other day. Because I say sometimes listen to the protests, your blood, your agency will be in this in the middle of Texas. And I got a note from a guy and said, just like the guy promised, I listened to the protests. And this is my one say. And so like when you know what actually works. I feel there's a pressure and there's a responsibility. Yeah. And then when you know that the format you're using is social media based, do you think oh god, like? What if the algorithm comes from me and just stops telling people about the show? Or, you know, like, what if people just stop sharing or if it isn't funded? I try not to think about it, but it's there, you know? So anyway, yeah, that's pretty much it. I just complained about having a podcaster people right now there's some somebody right now is under a truck, taking off an axle and there's like, hey, this guy's life is terrible. He had to edit a podcast and he's worried about the algorithm.
Aimee 1:04:47
Well see, that's that's what I was saying earlier. It's not so much that we're lucky we get to do like that we have to do this or whatever. It's more like we're gonna be diabetic or we're gonna have diabetic kids or be diabetic, whatever. Regardless There's no way of changing that at least we get to have a voice about it and and do something, get squeezed something out of it. That is good in the end of the day.
Scott Benner 1:05:11
No, I'll please, I'm, it's, it's the greatest, most lovely thing I've ever done in my life. And I really hope to just do it forever, in a way that helps people. But I also don't want to be at the end, where I'm just like sitting back in this chair going like, so Amy diabetes haco. Had you talk, you know, I don't want to go, I don't want to get bored by it. And, and it stopped being? You know what it is? But I guess that people would sort me out if I did that.
Aimee 1:05:37
Oh, yeah, I'm sure they'd be calling you out. Yeah, that's
Scott Benner 1:05:39
what I need. Is there anything we haven't spoken about that you think we should have?
Aimee 1:05:44
You know, I didn't want to mention, because we were talking about insurance and all that the kids recently, were in Florida. And I'm sure this is different for every state. But in our state, we are, we're not well off by any means. But we do make more than what the threshold would be considered for SSI or disability. And, you know, we applied anyways, with the kids even knowing that we were just a little bit outside of that, that income range. And we actually were able to get thankfully disability for both the kids. And I think now, I'm not 100% sure if it's due to their age, because I've read in some places they say it's because they're under six. But even if just like one person out there is considering applying, but not sure because of either income or age or whatever, just do the application, I really wanted to put that out there because you never know, get on the phone, talk to the person explain your situation when you're going through the application process. And you might end up in a situation like us where you know, we were approved. And And now for the first time ever last week, we picked up our insulin for $0.00. And yeah, co pays for as you can imagine, with two kids, even on our insurance from my husband's job, we were still paying 65 $75 Each as a copay. Now with this, we still get to keep seeing our same doctors, but the the disability insurance or the Medicaid will act as a secondary and it picks up the rest of that copay. So now we just saw both of our we saw our endocrinologist on Friday, and $0.00 there. And it's just, it's work. And you have to have your ducks in a row, get all your paperwork together, you know, plead your case, but maybe you will get somebody who will listen to you and understand and do whatever they can to help push that paperwork through for you and and find yourself in a situation where you're a lot better off than you were before. So I just wanted to share that. Definitely.
Scott Benner 1:07:43
That's amazing. How long did it take you to like figure that out, put it into place, make it happen?
Aimee 1:07:49
Well, so it was they were diagnosed in April, and we meant to do it right away. But between one thing or another, we got scared off of it. Just hearing people say oh, we were denied, we were denied or denied, don't even bother. So we did it. And then in August, we put in the application August of this year, and by September, we had our second phone interview, and we were approved on that second phone interview. And coverage started in October. So it was a couple months from start to finish. But once we were approved in October, the benefits were retroactive. So they covered us for the months leading up to it. So like Riley had been in the hospital with the stomach flu in September, and we just had to fit out a little paper for the Medicaid. And then they went back in and they covered what was leftover from that hospital bill. Even though it was from before the Medicaid it actually kicked in cheese. That's terrific. Yeah, it's it's fantastic. And it's it's not easy. It's tedious. It is time consuming to go through the process. And once you have it, you do have to get things like referrals and things like that. But it's definitely worth it considering how expensive you know, diabetic supplies can be especially Omni pod Omnipod. Five, the kids are on that now. And now we're getting it covered 100% as well for the new year with a prior authorization and the Medicaid. So there's, there's definitely something to be said about just going through the process. And the worst thing that can happen is you get denied, you still get an appeal, maybe on the appeal, you get approved. Maybe not. But at least you can say you've exhausted every avenue, you know, that's amazing.
Scott Benner 1:09:15
Good for you. Who who put you on to that you figure it out yourself? Yeah, sort
Aimee 1:09:21
of. So I had been kind of which I haven't done it for myself. Technically, I qualify for disability with lupus, but it's a very exhaustive process, especially for an adult. Okay, so I had kind of been thinking about like, Oh, I wonder if the kids qualify, and especially, you know, like with Riley being autistic, we thought, well, if anyone will qualify, at least she will but we'll apply for both anyways. And that will help us a lot because she has a lot of therapies and each one of those therapies is like 3040 bucks a week, etc, etc. So we said well, we'll just give it a shot and we'll try it out and and sure enough, we're getting getting ready to sign her up for equine therapy, because the Medicaid covers it so she'll have like You get to actually be like outdoor farm and have like horse riding lessons and get to be like with the animals and stuff like that something we never would have been able to afford or even think about. It even existed. But through this whole process, it was something that came to light. They had like art therapy, they cover swim lessons, tons of different stuff. And like I said, it'll vary state by state, but you won't know until you actually get on the phone and talk to somebody and go through the process of applying what you may. And if you don't qualify for that they may have other programs within the state that help that might help you cover costs related to the diabetes. So
Scott Benner 1:10:33
if you've ever ridden a horse, it's one of my life some sadness.
Aimee 1:10:39
Do they have horses? I'm gonna pull like a you know, you're always picking on the good. Do they even have horses in New Jersey? We have horses. Is that a thing?
Scott Benner 1:10:49
Yeah, the horses own their own guns and they run a mob thing. Obviously, because it's in New Jersey. New Jersey is a lovely place. Yes, a lot of green, a lot of trees. It's a lot of farmland, and it just it's got that nice, you know, the I 95 corridor or the were the turnpike. You know, everything that's sort of clustered around there. I think that's how people see the states. I'm learning this by the way by driving Arden to college, and back okay, so people are gonna you're
Aimee 1:11:24
only seeing like the stuff right off the highway when you're getting off a restaurant.
Scott Benner 1:11:29
I'm obviously a pushover because Arden's been in school for 10 weeks. And she's home now for the holidays. So I've now driven to where she goes to school, and back again three times, I went down once to see it right. So that we could like take a tour, we stayed for a couple of days, looked around the school, look around the town, that kind of stuff. So that was once down once back. I know I'm supposed to say that often goes to college in Chicago. But anyway, it was like, like 750 miles one way. So I didn't want you drive. Basically, if you just really hammer and don't stop, it takes like 13 or 14 hours to get there. Oh, and did it the first time. I was like, okay, she likes the school, whatever. Then the second time was to take her down. We obviously had to take her there. But art in traveled like the Queen of Sheba, which I don't know if he's even the thing you're allowed to say anymore, because I don't even know what it I don't even know what it means. It just feels like something that a group of kids at Stanford were telling me I can't say anymore. But anyway, I don't know what any of that means. I'm just, it's a colloquialism. And everyone has to live with it. I don't even know she was a real place. But the she, I'm just trying to say she had cars full of her belongings. And then when she it's time for her to come home for the holiday, she says I have to bring a lot of these clothes home. I'm like what she has some of them I don't need some of them are, you know, specific to certain times of the year? I just needed to get them home. You're gonna have to come pick me up, as I was thinking you'd get on a plane, you know? She's like, No, you have to come get me. So I drove again. 750 miles just be by myself. By the way, I was still sick. I basically got I got a steroid pack from the doctor. I was like, listen, in lieu of giving me like cocaine so that I can get through this. Can you just give me a steroid bag, so I don't die trying to drive to this place. And so I'm on steroids, I make it down there. Something happens with traffic. And I'm not going to I don't end up getting there when I expect to. So now I'm like going to arrive at like three in the morning. And I'm like, Well, what am I gonna just sit on the street in my car. So I stopped, I got a room, I slept for four hours. I got up, I drive like the last hour, and I pick her up. We drive home in one shot together. And now this is my third time going up and down to this, this this location. And I'm just like, I'm now driving like a lunatic when she's like, are you not worried about getting a ticket or us dying? I'm like, No, I don't even care anymore. So I think the next time I do it, I'm probably going to be going 120 miles an hour. Just because I'm like, I don't want to I don't want to do it anymore. But she has to go back in 1516 days. So I'm gonna have to drive down there again and drop her off. And then because she's gonna go with a different load of clothing. This is our fault for letting her do like, like a fashion thing in school.
Aimee 1:14:15
Just mail it it's Can you just for
Scott Benner 1:14:18
like $3,000 For what it weighs. I can probably ship
Aimee 1:14:22
stuffing, you stuffed it into space bags. You're
Scott Benner 1:14:24
not You're not seeing the picture me for what the picture is. There's there's like, there's, I'm worried that in the four years she'll be there. I'm gonna get too old to lift this stuff. What do you think of that? So, oh, I've kind of been like, hey, Arden maybe you don't need all this stuff. You know, like try to really ration this out a little bit. But I think I'm going to be picking my princess up in a state far, far away for the next three and a half years. I'm gonna need a new car. I'm gonna put too many miles on it. I gotta be able to. I don't know. I anyway, I'm happy to do it. I actually like it. It's The only time I take off, so it's like four days off for me. Because I leave and I drive down and my car is nice. I'm not working. And, you know, although I do miss talking to people, isn't that interesting,
Aimee 1:15:10
like when you're working like your work from home person or like a stay at home parent, how you don't, technically like you have, you can take time off whenever you want, not whenever you want, but it's a little bit easier because you don't have to submit something to a corporation to get approved for time off. Yet you almost never actually take time off to like just for you to relax.
Scott Benner 1:15:31
My spirit likes to different people, there are people who are constantly taking time off and saying they're working. And there are people like me who just like, I just never stop. And it's why I'm telling you the COVID thing. Like bringing people home from offices for a certain amount of those people. That's the worst thing that's ever happened to them in their life. Yeah, because they just don't know how to stop. So function outside. My wife's one of those people, she needs there to be an end to the day. Honestly, she needs somebody to say, time to go home. That and if she doesn't have that she just keeps working.
Aimee 1:16:07
Yeah, I'm like that. And I will just like all get fixated on like something a task, I'll always find there's always something to do. Like I have two modes I have lupus is acting up or my body isn't cooperating. So I'm literally like a potato, then I I don't even talk to me because I'm not even I can't hear you get just a sack of potatoes, or I have like super hyperactive cannot stop doing anything. I will be painting the walls of this house at two in the morning and rearranging furniture mode. that's those are my two extremes. There's no in the middle. It's one or the other.
Scott Benner 1:16:42
I really do. So anyway, I like going don't get me wrong, my son's getting ready to move away. We're never gonna see him again. And if he told me that every four months, I had to drive somewhere to pick them up. I I'd be like, okay, you know, so I was thinking about this the other day, you were talking earlier about how you and your husband were talking about like a thing. I was thinking the other day, I really am that person. Like in a perfect scenario. I see my family is gathered in the kitchen living area together. And it's not specifically doing anything, just sort of being in each other's like, orbit a little bit. And I realized that like that's, that's a good day for me. Like I don't I don't care that we didn't go somewhere or do something or climb a rock or I don't know, whatever people do. Some people do that. I would just never, I would never find out just so you know, like, oh,
Aimee 1:17:39
it's because do I owe you? Do I owe you money for being able to?
Scott Benner 1:17:42
Yeah, 50 cents an episode, you gotta buy all 12 or 16 a month, and it's $48 a year. And if enough of you do it, then I'll be rich. And then we can just make this pot,
Aimee 1:17:52
I can do the I can do like a bilingual version for you. Like you can charge like for the two separate, you have English cursing and Spanish.
Scott Benner 1:18:00
If I had, if I had a million dollars a year, I would, I would make I would first thing I would do is hire somebody to translate the Pro Tip series and all those series and stuff like that. But anyway, that's trust me. It's my idea. I've had it for 10 years, I bring it up every company I work with, they're like, that's a great idea. And I'm like you want to pay for it? No, not Not really. Oh, okay, great. Anyway,
Aimee 1:18:22
we don't have anything we can tap into. Like I'm saying we like if I'm part of this. You don't have anything anyone like you wouldn't want to tap into like the group and see if there's somebody was in the group. You wouldn't know,
Scott Benner 1:18:35
let me tell you something honest. Okay. Not that not to the rest of it hasn't been honest. But this is just gonna say it's gonna be beyond polite. people reach out to help me constantly. And many of them are lovely. And some of them are what my grandmother would call it, Nick. And, but they're still well, meaning next. Some people overestimate they let their excitement overestimate their ability to help. So they start off like shot out of a cannon and I'm like, great, you know, this, you know, do this. Can you make, you know, images for social media? And they're like, oh, my god, yeah. Like, there used to be this group of people who were like, We're gonna listen to every episode and do better show notes for you. Because your show notes suck, and my show has to suck. Here's what yours is gonna say. Amy has. Amy has lupus. Some other stuff wrong with her. Her kids have diabetes and autism. Like I'm barely talking about date, by the way, and I'm not going to like literally won't I won't do much more than that. So this like group of like, really motivated people. Like for like a month. They all took like 10 episodes of the podcast, they listened to them took notes and turned them into these amazing show notes. And then they just stopped and I was like, Okay, thanks, like, but now I have great show notes on 70 episodes. The rest of them are like Amy, Amy, as you know, and so Look, I'm because I can't do it. Because even when I'm talking to you, right, I don't know what the hell we talked about. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I can't go back and listen, just to take notes. Like, I have to have time to sleep. So anyway, people show up. Really wonderful people very well intentioned, they really want to help. But for the most part, I'm going to tell you that 98% of them, just thankfully, now, yeah, they flame out and very quickly, and it makes it just a waste of my time. So the people who have panned out so far are Isabelle, who helps with the Facebook page. And it's only because it's like, she and I have the same brain about this. Her first contacted me, she's like, I understand what you're doing. And I was like, Well, this is either going to end up with me being murdered, or me, you know, let me find out what it is she thinks I'm doing. But I'll be damned. Like everything I do, like even like kinda like the slick stuff that you don't see. Like earlier, I brought something up to drag the conversation in a different way. And you're like, it's funny, you brought that up? And I thought, No, it's not I did it on purpose. But But, um, but like little stuff like that, she sees it all. And she's the right age and the right temperament and the right intelligence, the right everything, she just fits. She doesn't want to be the person that she's not like, just gonna do one thing, and then send me a note and go, can you pay me because No, I can, if I could, I would have just hired you. You know, like, stuff like that. And there's a few people who help on the Facebook group as well. I don't know if they want their name, shout out. There's three lovely people that just kind of drop links in and help people when they ask questions. I've never asked them if they want their name on here, so I won't just say them. And there's a person right now who's, uh, who's helping me with a couple of specific tasks. And but she'll be gone pretty soon, too. And she's doing a great job, like putting together a survey for listeners and a couple of other things. But for those five people, it took me 10 years to find them. And there's 4050 I'm not, I'm not over exaggerating people who, who contacted and were very nice and wanted to help and then just sort of disappeared. So anyway,
Aimee 1:22:06
I don't think anybody really realizes like, what we're, we're touching on earlier how much work it really is,
and what it takes to maintain it. It's not just doing it once, and you get that, that excitement. And you Yeah, I did the thing. Okay, you gotta do it, like 800 more times.
Scott Benner 1:22:23
Yeah. It's just just what it is, you know, it's not a big deal. But yeah, but I put at least 70 hours into the podcast every week. And like, even sitting here right now, I'm, like, in the last hour and a half, like right before you jumped on. I'm asking people if they want me to be Hawking CBD oil, because some major companies asking me to be an ambassador and my friend, I emailed him back, I'm like, No, I don't want to please leave me alone. I don't want to do that. And the guy's like, Are you sure? Like, you know, your audience might really want it. So I'm like, Oh, I'll do a poll. I'll ask people if they want it. If they do that, I guess I'll do it. But I don't want to. I'm asking people if they want a holiday story read for the podcast, which is now a thing people are asking about. I'm thinking of doing a live session, like maybe on New Year's Day, or somewhere around around New Years, where I'm going to go online, and every 15 minutes, let a new person come on. And I want to see how long I can record with a different person for 15 minutes. Like, oh, that's cool. I don't know. But
Aimee 1:23:22
all that like a podcast roulette?
Scott Benner 1:23:25
Yeah, just keep going. You know. So anyway, and I don't know if I'll do that. I
Aimee 1:23:31
think we accidentally put a little bit more on your plate the other day with that there was a post in the group, where someone was kind of asking like how to swag like a certain meal, I think it was a Mexican food like dish. And then everybody was just going off on it. And then I tagged these events. And I was like, Alright, I tagged you as well. And I was like, you guys should make this like a weekly thing. Because people love this like that. You're like just being able to guess and kind of see everybody's thought process of how they chose and why they chose. I think it gives a lot of insight. And actually, it sounds like more work. But it might be less work, because I'm sure you guys get all the time like, oh, Scott, how do you dose for that? And why do you dose it that way? And I'm sure you get that question like, I mean, I get that question on our social media, we're not even out there giving this kind of advice. So I can only imagine, well, here's but that might be like a way to facilitate like the group to continue to help each other in a way where you're not necessarily having to be directly overseeing it. And like, you know,
Scott Benner 1:24:25
terrific idea. And here's why it won't work. And I can't put any effort into those posts pop up and get organic on their own. When you start turning them into a weekly thing or the thing that happens on Thursday, they die very quickly. Nobody wants to be told when to have a thought. And just because that thread looks so popular that day, you could have moved that that thread three days sooner, and nobody would have clicked on
Aimee 1:24:53
it and nobody would have seen it. Yeah, well, it's the algorithm and even within like the group itself, like how posts get organized and And, and how they show up is a lot. It's based on that too. So I imagine that would affect it a lot.
Scott Benner 1:25:06
I tend to think of it as an organism, that just, it does the things that the organism wants, when it when it needs. And you can't tell it what to do you know how many times people say to me, you should put up a post for every episode, so that we can talk about the episode inside of the post. So we so we do that? No, we do that. It's because everybody wants it. They are some of the least looked at posts that exist. Like nobody looks at them. Yeah, so everything I think they want. That's another secret about doing something for people do the opposite you well, they don't know what they want. If they knew what they wanted, they would need it. If that makes sense.
Aimee 1:25:46
Like so yeah, they would you they'd be able to just go and grab it. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:25:51
Basically, part of my job is to know what you need, not what you think you need. And then and then the podcast because becomes an organism. So you don't think of it that way. Because you're not thinking of it like that. But the flow of every week, or every month or every year, I am sort of orchestrating that flow by putting it together. Like it's not as you know, I don't, I don't. Sometimes I do. Like sometimes I'm like, Well, this episode goes on Monday, because that episode will feed into this one. And this one will bring up this topic. And then next week, that topic is going to come up again. And it'll reinforce it. Like there's there's that going on. And also because I record an order, and then I put my stuff out in the order I record, you are basically getting my concept of diabetes in real time, six months behind when I'm having it. That makes sense. So anyway, there's a lot happening. And it's, I would love it if somebody could help. But the truth is that I think it works because it all kind of comes out of my head. Anyway, I can see that. And not because of me. But just because there's a fluid idea. And I don't have to go into a meeting and hear from five people who have a thought about so like this thing I'm doing right now I'm putting the survey together, it'll go out pretty soon it will be out for a long time, by the time somebody hears this. And it's just the ask some questions to kind of figure out where the podcast is helping people and, you know, etc. The person who's helping me with it said to me, this is the fastest thing I've ever accomplished in my professional life. And I said, Yeah, you know what this is right. And she goes, why I said, nobody else has an opinion, but me. Like we're not sitting in a room with six people are like, I don't like that question. And then we don't talk about it for an hour and a half. And then make another meeting three days from now to come back and look at it again. I go take that one out. Put that one in, say this say that this is what we're doing. Then I look at her go. What do you think? And she gives me her opinion. Oh, Val, you're right about that. Change that to that. Put this here. I don't agree with you about that. But good point. And now it's done. And yeah, you know it just when you don't have to? I mean, it's too many cooks, I guess is the easy way to say it. I think it ruins the stew. Yeah. All right. Definitely. Amy, tell your children that I personally, the guy from the podcast said hello to them.
Aimee 1:28:10
Oh, they know. They know Scott, in fact, well, they're out there somewhere in the living room. But Riley wanted to tell you this morning she woke up and she said I'm going to tell Scott my ABC was 6.40 me it's for a one. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:28:24
I took I understand. You want to get her into telling me before we're done?
Aimee 1:28:28
Yeah, I can do that. Let me see if she'll be up for it.
Scott Benner 1:28:32
If not, then you know, don't worry. Yeah. Okay, hold on. Bonus coverage. People do want CBD oil. Are you serious? I thought this was a no. Oh, this person takes a quarter of an edible gummy. Severe pain. I use CBD for compression fracture my spine. I had a cat with skin cancer. She was on CBD oil. I do the legal kind of helps me sleep. I would like to learn more about it. I use it for my autoimmune arthritis. So a lot of people here but most people said no. But why in case you wonder. I'm talking to Donald Trump. Pick
Aimee 1:29:03
up the headphones. Okay, here we go. I'm not going to talk. You're not going to talk. You don't have to talk. Yeah, don't talk if you don't want to talk to headphones in your ears. You can hear Scott already
Scott Benner 1:29:14
is this Riley? This is Riley Raleigh. If you don't want to talk you don't have to talk. Okay, don't say anything.
Aimee 1:29:22
Yeah, now she got shy. That's okay.
Scott Benner 1:29:24
I'm waiting for that to happen. Does she remember meeting?
Aimee 1:29:30
She does. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:29:31
she does. Probably one of the best things
Aimee 1:29:32
she was Yeah, I'm sure she was remembering when we were having when you had the Zoom recently. Any any gave her her shout out that you said that there was a secret message for somebody in the room that only one person would understand. And then you said Paw Patrol. She got such a kick out of that.
Scott Benner 1:29:53
Paw Patrol. That should be my that should be my nickname. Honestly. I would.
Aimee 1:29:57
I should be the name of the episode. Yeah, you think so? Should I just need an episode you might have? Maybe? Probably not though. You're gonna you're gonna name the episode. Did I just need the episode?
Scott Benner 1:30:08
No, I was thinking Paw Patrol. Actually, I like how she's like, I'm not talking. That's enough of this. I believe in the room. Goodbye. Only Yeah,
Aimee 1:30:15
no, she's sitting here. She's She's sitting here baring her face in my arms and covering her ears. She's like, I don't even want to hear it. But I guarantee you the minute you get off of the call, she's gonna be like, I want to sing a song or she'll come up with something.
Scott Benner 1:30:30
Yeah. Well, I'm glad that her ABC was 6.4. Is that what it was? 6.4 her ABC
Aimee 1:30:35
was 6.4 or ABC. And so her and Zoe's was 6.2
Scott Benner 1:30:40
Wow, good job. That's excellent.
Aimee 1:30:42
Yeah, they're they're killing it. Because Mom and Dad do what mom and dad do. But honestly, if they weren't if they weren't on top of and open to things like having the Omni pod and and the constant finger pricks and things like that, that decks calm. Then we wouldn't be able to manage as well as we do. Honestly. What are you pretending? To some? Who are you going to talk to? Okay, but who are you pretending to talk to? You
Scott Benner 1:31:21
Hey, you know what, Riley?
Aimee 1:31:23
Mommy? Right. Let me let me unplug this. Maybe she can hear your voice. Okay, you're on speaker. Okay.
Scott Benner 1:31:30
Yeah, Riley you don't know this. But other people may podcast and they're pretending they're talking to some people too. Oh, no, that didn't work. No. Okay.
Aimee 1:31:40
Can you hear me now? Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:31:42
I made this silly. Silly. It was a mean joke, but not towards her. I said there are other people have podcasts and they're pretending to talk to people too.
Aimee 1:31:54
That is a means to true joke, but it's a mean joke. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:31:59
it's really true. You guys have no idea. Okay, well, I'm gonna let you go. And I'm gonna go.
Aimee 1:32:04
Well, last thing I need to say. Because I promised someone I would say go ahead. I promise guy that I would say how happy you are on a pod. Because you have to say Omnipod pod. And every time I say Omni pod, I feel like I'm saying it weird now because so many people say I'm no pod. So I told her I would say Omnipod and give her a shout out. If it isn't an omni pod. It is Omni pod. Yeah, she says Omni pod like with an A
Scott Benner 1:32:31
my my very close contact at Omni pod. He says on the pod. So really, yeah. Every time we're on a call, or I can I can hear his voice in my head right now saying Omnipod.
Aimee 1:32:45
So many people on Tik Tok and Instagram even I hear all the time. And I'm always like, maybe I am seeing it wrong. But then I look at it. And I'm like, No, it's got an eye. It's spelled with an eye. So it's Omni pod.
Scott Benner 1:32:55
Yeah. Would you ever hear Elon Musk say Tesla?
Aimee 1:32:59
I have not No, like Tesla. So Oh, like with the Z?
Scott Benner 1:33:04
I think it's the South African thing. But. But still, it's just everybody says stuff differently. Who cares? Doesn't matter. As long as they listen, as long as they go to omnipod.com forward slash juicebox to buy one. I don't care what they call it. Alright. Go ahead and live your life. I'm gonna go Christmas shopping. Excellent.
Aimee 1:33:20
Thank you so much for having us. And yeah, well, we'll just keep doing what we're doing, I guess, and just everybody manage your diabetes, to change your plans. It's
Scott Benner 1:33:31
a pleasure. You have a wonderful family too. And I want to I want to thank you for sharing with me, on occasion and with everybody else is very, very nice to you to be this open about it. I appreciate it. Yeah.
Aimee 1:33:42
Thank you so much. Well,
Scott Benner 1:33:44
Merry Christmas.
Aimee 1:33:45
Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Have fun driving back and forth.
Scott Benner 1:33:49
Oh, it's gonna be the best. Hold on one second. All right.
I want to thank Amy for coming on the show today and sharing her story and telling me about her girls. I also want to thank ag one drink ag one.com forward slash juice box. Get that free year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order when you use my link. And don't forget to check out touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram and give them a follow touched by type one.org. If you're enjoying the Juicebox Podcast, please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it. And don't forget to check out the private Facebook group that now has 41,000 members in it. There is a conversation happening right now that you would enjoy being a part of Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook, but let's be honest, I don't care what kind of diabetes you have. Everyone is welcome. The diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast has been professionally remastered for better audio quality, and it will appear again in your podcast player at episode 1000 That's coming up in just a couple of weeks, the diabetes Pro Tip series, which is me and Jenny Smith, setting you up for success with diabetes. When it comes out if you've heard it before, listen again, if you've never heard it, I really hope you give it a try. I think it's going to lead to the kinds of successes that you're hoping for
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