Scott Benner 2/24/24 Scott Benner 2/24/24

#1135 Cold Wind: Healthcare Whistleblower Adult NP, GLPs and more

"Kat" is an anonymous Nurse Practitioner who provides insight on working at an adult endocrinologist office. Discussion of GLP meds and more. Her voice and name have been changed to protect her identity.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1135 of the Juicebox Podcast

welcome back to another episode of cold wind. Today we're going to be speaking with a person we're calling Cat. Cat is a nurse practitioner in adult endos office, and she also trains people in nursing. Today we talk about type two GLP is type one. And in the end of the episode, we go over what you might expect in an ER. If you have type one diabetes. Hint, it's you shouldn't expect much. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The cold wind series is looking for more guests. Do you work in healthcare? Does your job let you see what's happening in healthcare? Do you want to tell us all about it? While you're staying anonymous. Go to juicebox podcast.com and send me an email and we'll start to talk and see if we can't get your chilling story on cold wind

a huge thanks to Omni pod not just my longest sponsor, but my first one Omni pod.com/juice box if you love the podcast, and you love tubeless insulin pumps, this link is for you omnipod.com/juice box. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox Hello and welcome to the cold wind series from the Juicebox Podcast. These episodes will feature physicians, nurses and other professionals who agreed to come on the show anonymously to share what they see in the healthcare profession. I've altered the voices of each guest so that they can remain anonymous and feel comfortable telling us what really goes on at their job. Just listen to how well the voice altering works.

Speaker 1 2:19
My name is Beth and my oldest child has type one diabetes diagnosed in October 2020. My name is Beth and my oldest child has type one diabetes diagnosed in October 2020.

Scott Benner 2:32
If you work in health care and have a chilling story to tell about your experiences in the healthcare field, contact me today. I'll get you right on the show. Your story does not need to be specific to diabetes. So today we're speaking with someone anonymously. And before this person introduces themselves, they get to pick their own anonymous name. So go ahead. What do you want to be called?

"Kat" 2:58
Okay, I'm gonna go with Cat, Cat. Cat KT cat,

Scott Benner 3:03
as unreasonable as it sounds, I'm just gonna say do you prefer that with the C or Okay?

"Kat" 3:07
Actually, okay,

Scott Benner 3:09
okay, we're doing it with a K Cat, cat with a K. Cat. Tell me what you do for a living.

"Kat" 3:15
I'm a nurse practitioner. I work at a hospital system, one hospital system. Full time as a nurse practitioner and endocrinology practice. And then for my side hustle. I go to a different hospital system in a different in a different role as a nursing instructor. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:35
Oh, that's interesting. All right. So you're in a, an NP for an endo for an adult, endo or adult. Okay. How long have you been doing that?

Unknown Speaker 3:47
10 years.

Scott Benner 3:49
Do you have any personal attachment to diabetes? Do you have it or know somebody who does?

"Kat" 3:54
I do not have diabetes. I do not have type one diabetes, okay. 100% of my patients in my practice have diabetes. And it's kind of typical for nurse practitioners in an intercalary practice to focus on diabetes. Okay, I'm going to nurse nurse for 30 years nurse practitioner for 10. And I fell in love with diabetes. When someone said, Hey, we're starting a diabetes program. What do you know about diabetes? I said absolutely nothing. I worked in ICU for 20 years. So I learned from the ground up.

Scott Benner 4:27
How long ago was that? About 20? About 20 years into your career, I guess. Yes, yes. So does the practice do mostly type one or type two? Mostly type two, type two. Okay. And the practice does other endocrine things, but you're specific to the diabetes side.

"Kat" 4:44
Yeah, I like to say chronologist do all the fun stuff that thyroid, parathyroid, thyroid cancers, you know, everything else. endocrinology related,

Scott Benner 4:54
right? Just vaguely what's the percentage split type twos, the type ones that you see

"Kat" 4:59
Probably at 515. Okay.

Scott Benner 5:04
All right. So let's start with my question about type twos. What's the biggest roadblock for you in helping people with type two diabetes? Well,

"Kat" 5:17
I work. I do, too. I unfortunate in my early career in diabetes was in a in a clinic. And when I people use the word clinic two different ways. When I say clinic, I mean, uninsured, not documenting, meaning people who will never have a chance to have insurance. So I was dealing with a lot of, you know, no access to health care, well, we were the access to health care in a truly clinic setting, they had no money. A lot of, you know, it's kind of a buzzword now. But social determinants of health, or social drivers of health where they truly didn't know where their next meal was coming from, didn't have stable housing, English was not their first language. So I felt truly blessed that I worked in an inner city place. And I still do, so that, you know, type two diabetes, along with access to medications was because I had I could use metformin and you know, stuff on arrays, and, you know, Walmart from insulin, insulin from Walmart for about three years in my career. And then I go into a private practice, where about 35% of my patients have Medicaid, which, you know, I love Medicaid, getting Medicaid, you have no co pays. So I know, you can afford your medicine, and you come to see me for free, it just the barrier would be transportation, but now we do zoom calls. So a lot of that barriers be taken away. But you do have some access to food issues and health issues and housing issues I still deal with. But now I have, you know, the other 70% of the population who have commercial insurance, which we all know co pays suck, but every say, those are the people who coupons on me for so please go online and get coupons for your medication. So the barriers to type two diabetes are kind of betting on which population I think I think of my truly, you know, office patients has more to do with, I'm not beating around the bush and tried to

Scott Benner 7:13
say, oh, no, you're doing you're doing a good job. Yeah, no, but

"Kat" 7:18
you know, it's, it's what we eat. And a lot of the patients and you know, including myself, you know, deal with depression and things like that, who gain weight. I just may feel when I talk to someone, it's never, not never a lot of the times and yes, I know we have stressors in our life, and we don't make eating a priority and exercising priority. And I still say it's at 28% weight to understand exercise. When someone says and I see people every three, four months, and I see and you have to change something, you can't do the same thing and expect to see a change. So I think we tell like I hear a lot that we're we made a change. But you know, when you really get down to it, they didn't. And again, I'm doing a little self reflecting here myself. Right think of people, but I didn't put people on Adobe or ozempic or Manjaro, the news found that's coming out next week or in two weeks whenever they're not magic bullets. Yes, they do help. But you really see people get results when they make the lifestyle changes. So I think if you're really honest with yourself, we we aren't doing what we're saving a lot of times we're not doing what we say we're doing and we have the best intentions.

Scott Benner 8:35
So what would you say that the biggest? So there's two populations that you've dealt with professionally. There are people who are don't even like you said to have a place to live. They have a they have a completely different roadblock. Right, right. But yeah, yeah, but in a professional see those patients? Yeah, but in a professional setting where people are insured, and come in, you know, they're almost trying to be proactive, or they've been sent there by their general practitioner for a problem. You think the biggest problem that you see is follow through? Is that you you give people information, and they go home and don't do it?

"Kat" 9:13
Yeah, yeah. I'm not labeling because because I, I know, you know, there's so much more than their life and diabetes and with everything else that goes on with life, and it's not, okay, I just, I can't call the biggest barrier. I'll just say one of the

Scott Benner 9:33
Well, we'll find the rest of it. But let's, let's go through that thought a little more though. So they go home with marching orders of some kind, but they're probably immediately met with the fact that their house is full of food that might not be beneficial to them or their lifestyle is set up in a way where they can't they don't have time to get moving or they don't even know how to exercise or how to begin to exercise or maybe they're already in firm some way and it makes it feel difficult. The first time to get a pay You go while wait for this to stop hurting my knee before I keep going. But you know, like that sort of stuff. So the food that's there, I'll tell you right now I think the first thing that happens to people is they get home and they're like, look, I already paid for this food. I'm not throwing all this, thrown all this out. So let me eat through all this. And then next month, I'll start, except you go to the grocery store and you don't buy things differently. You don't suddenly go, Oh, I'll have a carrot. And you know, like, you're like, Oh, I love I love to read us. And so like, that's the problem is the shift plus, the bigger problem might be that the processed foods, and really kind of like high carb, high sugar foods. I think they have a hold on people. You know,

"Kat" 10:44
120% agree with that. They're super addicting. Absolutely, they do. They truly, truly do.

Scott Benner 10:51
My wife bought these little candies last year, right. And she can eat them, like once every light blue moon. But if I see them and have one on my, oh, I'm gonna have three of those. And I don't even think and I just reach out and I take three. I'm like, these are tasty. And then I'll have three today and then three tomorrow. And then the next day, I'll be like, Oh, I might have six of those. I got three in the morning and three in the and I don't think about it. It's just it's in like what she sees as a decorative jar, that she might take four years to go through. And I'm like, if you leave that where I can see it, I guarantee I'm gonna eat all of those in a month.

"Kat" 11:28
And it's funny. Yeah. And I and I in the same way, it just can't be in the house. I struggle with telling someone Oh, in moderation versus nothing at all. Because then people say, Oh, I'm going to just crave it and go get it. You know, you hear I guess my, my own practice of doing this for 10 years, I'm not sure what way works the best, you know, totally eliminate from your diet and just have it as a treat. Or some people say, I wonder I teach in my love. She says get a shot glass and put your chocolate chips in there that you treat for the night. So you're not depriving yourself. So yeah, I get it. People are one way or the other there. And I find that there's, there's little gray on that with people that I know myself. I can't do the moderation thing. It's got to be out of sight. So

Scott Benner 12:19
yeah. So the people you meet, you feel like they they lean one way or the other either just throw it all away, settle on fire, get it away from me, or, you know, I can do moderation, but but some people can.

"Kat" 12:33
Yeah, and I truly you're fighting I? I can't I can't say that. Well,

Scott Benner 12:40
I can't say that. Nobody knows who you are. Okay,

"Kat" 12:43
no. So this is not the first time you when I met. You actually you actually said to me when I said I'm a nurse practitioner practices in the cloud, blah, blah, blah. You said, Are you good at what you do? Do you remember saying I

Scott Benner 12:57
don't know I'm I'm always making a podcast, even if we're by ourselves. I'm just probably just asking questions. So you, so we met in person somewhere. And and you identified yourself and I said, Are you good at was that what I said? I'm an asshole, aren't I? That's terrible.

"Kat" 13:16
I said I should yeah, I'm absolutely I said I'm very good at what I do. And you can judge that by, you know, different avenues, you know, but one of the ways that the organization where I work encourages that is those patient comments that, you know, you're graded by those and Press Ganey scores, and, you know, you get rated by your patients. So I, you know, we get a lot of patient feedback, you know, with the patient, all I hear you get when you leave the doctor, you get a survey, you can fill out the five stars, but then there are those people that take a little bit further and they actually write comments. So, what's consistent about the comments that I get is that I listen, and I make sure that they participate in their care and I explain things, they know that they know the why behind what they do. And it's something like that. So I, I do pride myself on that, like, I don't just say I'm, you're going on with OB and this is why, you know, I make sure they understand how Ruby works or why the SPLC to me, you know, why recommends protect your heart and your kidneys. Oh, by the way helps diabetes to so

Scott Benner 14:26
like a full explanation. So it's not just take take this Yeah, they get to know why they're doing, what they're doing, how they're going to do it and what the expectation is from it. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod. And before I tell you about Omni pod, the device, I'd like to tell you about Omni pod, the company I approached Omni pod in 2015 and asked them to buy an ad on a podcast that I hadn't even begun to make yet because the podcast didn't have any listeners on All I could promise them was that I was going to try to help people living with type one diabetes. And that was enough for Omni pod. They bought their first ad. And I use that money to support myself while I was growing the Juicebox Podcast. You might even say that Omni pod is the firm foundation of the Juicebox Podcast and it's actually the firm foundation of how my daughter manages her type one diabetes every day. Omni pod.com/juicebox whether you want the Omni pod five, or the Omni pod dash using my link, lets Omni pod know what a good decision they made in 2015 and continue to make to this day. Omni pod is easy to use, easy to fill, easy to wear. And I know that because my daughter has been wearing one every day since she was four years old and she will be 20 this year. There is not enough time in an ad for me to tell you everything that I know about Omni pod but please take a look. Omni pod.com/juice box I think Omni pod could be a good friend to you. Just like it has been to my daughter and my family. If you take insulin or sulfonylureas you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most. Be ready with G voc hypo pen. My daughter carries G voc hypo pen everywhere she goes because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar and people with diabetes ages two and above that I trust. Low blood sugar emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily jeuveau Capo pen can be administered in two simple steps even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you storage evoke hypo pen and how to use it. They need to know how to use Chivo Capo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G voc hypo pen is in Ardens diabetes toolkit at G voc glucagon.com/juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma. Or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma. Visit G voc glucagon.com/risk For safety information.

"Kat" 17:21
I do yeah. Or they'll come to me their primary care doctor put him on you know the shuttle to just you know Tuesday Jordans for Sega don't want to be out of sugar. But your agency was telling you that he's infection after UTI of yeast infection. Like he I wouldn't have done that with the reader servers in the 250s. Yeah, I can tell you why that he's infection takes me two seconds. Well, now they're like, Well, I don't want to take any more time. But we'll stop it for now. But let's try something else. And I will put you back on it later. Yeah, we'll talk about it. But so yeah, getting back to that roundabout question is Yeah, I do try to explain, you know, things and right. Yeah. And listen, bla bla bla. So

Scott Benner 17:59
sticking with type two is a little longer here. If I since you're going to be anonymous, you can just say what you think, okay, if if people who came in with type two diabetes, whether it was genetic or lifestyle, or mixture, any any number of ways that they've made it to having type two diabetes, if you could literally control their intake and their exercise? Could you help everyone? Or are there some people who even if they ate well and exercise, they'd still have type two diabetes?

"Kat" 18:29
small percentage, I wouldn't say yes, we still have type two diabetes, but you

Scott Benner 18:33
think it's mostly those ideas? It's movement and food. Okay. Food, food first. And people you find is true, that some people think they're eating well, when they're not. Absolutely.

"Kat" 18:47
Okay. So here's the best example. We check them out, you're gonna come through the door, and it will be high. And also, you know, during the intake process, that nursing assistant will say, you know, when's the last time you ate? What did you eat? I had blah, blah, blah. I stopped at McDonald's on my way. And, you know, but I don't normally eat that. Well, you don't normally eat that. But you had it you just happened to have the day you came to. I just find that funny.

Scott Benner 19:14
Beyond funny beyond funny cat, you find it a lie. Is that correct? Yes, yes. You think they're lying? Like Like, like your your thought is? Why would you go to McDonald's only once this year, and it'd be the day before the the hour before somebody's checking your blood sugar in a medical situation?

"Kat" 19:34
Correct? Yeah. And here's the deal. I live with a man who takes hasn't lost any weight and I can tell you why. It's not the

Scott Benner 19:44
drug. So So okay, so you have personal experience with a person on Weibo V. Are they how far into the process are they? What's their? What's the dose they're getting right now?

"Kat" 19:55
2.40 that's

Scott Benner 19:57
the full dose. They've been on it for a while. Yep. And he's eating through it. Is that your contention? Absolutely. type of food he's eating through? It is is it's still not good. It wasn't good food before. It's still not good food now, or is it is the bulk of food? Both. Okay, now I can tell you when you met me in person I probably had. Do you remember what month that was my experience? August? Was it really though? Okay, so I've lost 40 pounds, probably 30 of them since I saw you. March, April, May, June. Actually, that's not fair, maybe 20 More since I've seen you. So I've lost 40 pounds on Weibo v. And I was not a poor eater to begin with. Like, I didn't take in a ton of calories. Even though I you know, talking about candy, like I don't eat candy every day all day long. My intake is pretty reasonable. I just have always maintained there's something wrong with my body, it just doesn't work. Well. I believe that to be true, even more. So after beginning to take we go V because even on a non therapeutic dose, I was losing weight. Like right away, I lost weight in the first week. On we go. Yeah, you know, now that I'm down 40 pounds, the weight loss is slower, I don't have a lot more to go, I don't think maybe 15, maybe 20 pounds, I don't know exactly. But it's very mean and see, like at this point now fully dressed standing in front of you, you would not go that person needs to lose weight, I look significantly different. I think that I have a deficiency of some sort that the GLP medication is covering for but you think there are some people who don't have that deficiency, they just have the they eat a lot. And that medical.

"Kat" 21:48
They don't have the deficiency. There's lots of reasons why the IDI binge eating disorder, you know, there's reasons why people continue to eat. But the flip side of that is yes, so I do have patients who come in not losing weight on these medications. But that I do see the people like you who are doing phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal on these medications. And I just I just praise them when they come in. It's just a life changing. You know, it's just so life changing for them. And they change the way everyone in their house eats they're so they're making future generations healthier. They're they're teenagers are now eating healthy. It's just amazing. It's just so inspiring to see that.

Scott Benner 22:34
Yeah, no, I believe I believe what you're saying I actually think that the GLP is might change an entire generation of the country and how it needs but

"Kat" 22:41
did GRPs. And now you've got release coming out with the third one, the GRP GLP. One. And I forget what the third hormone is going to be. Yeah, it's helped me out much. But

Scott Benner 22:53
I don't want to skip over the binge eating thing, because I have input on this. I know what you're talking about. Because for me, we go, we can make your stomach feel fuller, right being that does that by slowing digestion. But it also tells your brain you're not hungry. Right? So like, I have to remind myself to eat. But when I when I remind myself like is this a good example, it's 1030 in the morning, I haven't eaten yet. And I had a long weekend. So I decided to sleep in a little bit, get up, record the podcast and I'll eat after, when I'm done talking to you, I still won't be hungry, my brain won't be hungry, and my stomach won't be hungry. But I will eat because I know I need to eat. But I could over eat. If I wanted to. I could I could absolutely make a conscious decision to eat food and just eat it. Which is which is fascinating because it sounds like it can sound like to the person on the outside or the medication stopping and breathing. It's telling him his brain. He's not hungry. It's telling his stomach. He's not hungry. It's all true for me. But if I just said to you right now I'm gonna go downstairs and eat as much as I can. I could do it. I wouldn't feel good when it was over, etc. But if I had that psychological component of it about the eating, which really does, I think go to prove that that somebody in that situation is not being ruled by anything except psychology in that situation. Do you agree with that?

"Kat" 24:21
I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Scott Benner 24:23
So there is that there is a person that could be in that scenario too. So the person you know, they should be seeing a therapist, you think they're not going to know it's you. So go ahead. You can say whatever you want.

"Kat" 24:36
Yeah, yes, yes. Yeah. And there's better medications. That's why, you know, people can take, you know, wiggly and beyond phentermine, I mean, not to phentermine treats, binging disorder, right and stars, but there are people who do need both. So it's not uncommon for me to prescribe some local tribal phentermine or other medications that also help

Scott Benner 24:59
Did you Just say that Vyvanse helps for binge eating disorder. Yeah,

"Kat" 25:04
it's FDA approved for that. That's also

Scott Benner 25:07
that's that. I just wanted to make sure I heard you because you spoke kind of quickly, and I wasn't certain you said that. Oh,

"Kat" 25:12
yeah. It's also it's the only medication for ADHD.

Scott Benner 25:20
Okay. And that helps with that, too. That's crazy or can help with it. And that's something Well, yeah, so Okay, so, Alright, so now we've, we've kind of learned a lot, but we learned about one of the ideas that stops people from being helped with type two, it's not as easy as information, you can inform them, but they're not necessarily going to follow through for a number of different reasons could be financial, could be what they think of is good food could be that they're being pushed by psychology, it could be that they're being pushed by physiology, like all kinds of different possibilities. Yes. And then what happens to them if they don't see gains, if they don't see improvement, it becomes like, I guess demoralizing, and then they stop. When they

"Kat" 26:07
say the medication doesn't work. It's, you know, that's basically it's the medication squat.

Scott Benner 26:14
Okay, I can tell you this, I have an incredibly long view now of my health, more so than I ever have in my entire life. My wife and I were talking about this yesterday in the car, and I said, I, I now don't care if it's a half a pound a week, like, it's fine. It's fine with me, if I reach my goal weight two years from now, like that, like, but in the past without the weego V, because I wasn't seeing any improvement. If I didn't see like a drop in weight constantly. And it didn't seem significant. It was hard to keep going. And you know, don't I mean, you're like, I'm never gonna get there. This isn't gonna work. I one thing yesterday shouldn't happen again, two pounds, like this is like this is just where I'm at. But because I'm seeing improvement, I can afford to be patient, if that makes sense.

"Kat" 27:02
I absolutely. And you should be any pound. Anytime that enemy. You know, also, there's non scale victories, like you know, about I don't, I just don't really look at a scale, there's so many things wrong with the scale. But anyway, time that scale goes down, and I can show a patient Well, I saw you three months ago, or six, you know, six months ago, you've lost 10 pounds in center, like that's 10 pounds. Before we started, you know, talking, that scale was going up and up and up. So it is progress and maybe some progress. I think people see, you know, I can't stand saying this. But you know, celebrities, whoever losing tons of weight on this, I'm like, No, really, your scale is going in the right direction. But let's see what we can do to, you know, make make the document a little faster.

Scott Benner 27:49
Another reason not to compare yourself to somebody online, is that they show you their first picture, when they're when they're at one weight. And then that's not even if they're showing that you're used to seeing them like that. Correct. And next time you see them, they've lost 40 pounds. And you're like, Oh my God, look how quickly that happened. Like didn't have probably didn't happen quickly at all. It probably took them a year. But they were hiding for a year while they were they weren't taking any new pictures during that time. Right. So you didn't see the process of it happen. Yeah, I started making videos online when I started doing weego V. Because after I lost the first 10 or 15 pounds, I was actually comfortable pointing the camera at myself. And then I realized that this will be a good, like visual diary of over time. So I kept doing it. Because even I was like, the first time I made a video. I'm like, oh my god, I look better than I've feel like I've ever looked. And then a month later, I was like, Oh, I looked terrible a month ago. Like look at me, you know? And so I thought, well, I'll keep doing that. Because then people can see the progress instead of just showing them like the finished product and being like oh look, because then it feels magical. And it's not magical. It's it's I mean, I've been doing this since March. It's November now, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, it's I'm nine months into this. And there are weeks where I lose a half a pound. And I just have learned to say that's amazing. And I keep going. It's

"Kat" 29:07
yeah, that's exactly. That's amazing. And that's slow. You know, it's, you know, all the cliches that you can think of, it's not a marathon, it's a marathon. You want that to be slow. And I just feel my one of my favorites is when the tide rises, all boats rise, like you feel better and just when people say, Oh, you recruit and just to keep it going keep the momentum going to keep you motivated to put in the effort. So I'll tell you right now, you know, patients come in and say oh, so sick on it. i Since I've been around, you know these medications as young people that have been in the market since don't quote me 2005 With Victoza and I remember when I first started I'm like yeah, let me try that. I don't have any weight to lose with the drug but it was fine. The drug reps like, Hey, you want to try this? And like I said, I was new to new to diabetes. So I had to learn how Metformin worked. Yeah. So I'm like, Yeah, sure. Let me try that. I throw up left and right. Even on the lowest dose. Well, the first week I tried it, I lost four pounds. I was like, Oh, my God, I am not hungry. I feel great. Yeah, we to still on the point six through.

Scott Benner 30:27
Were you eating through it? I know. That's a weird term. But were you just pushing? No,

"Kat" 30:32
no, I just, I had it partially if I drive,

Scott Benner 30:36
so not good for you? Yeah.

"Kat" 30:39
I say sick if the wind changes directions, but then like, Tanzeem came on the market, then you had by Dorian, it was on again, we tried to answer him the weakest one ever tire on the market anymore. Threw up. So then like I would try low dose Manjaro. The 2.5 People say they tolerate a lot better than people do. In my, in my anecdotal evidence, people tend to tolerate low dose Manjaro better than it was epic. So again, you know, I got access to all this crap. I'm again to try Manjaro threw up on it. So not

Scott Benner 31:14
for you. Yeah, I mean, does that make sense? For me? Yeah. No, it makes sense. Um, look, I I've had people ask me like, Are there side effects. And I'm like, I'm like, I don't know that I've had like a bowel movement that I've been super excited about, you know, in a while, but I, but here's, here's my response to that I have a flippant response and a serious response, my flippant response is, I don't dislike a loose stool. More than I dislike being heavy. So like that, that to me is like, Okay, this is what this is, I also think that I have a perspective of my body is reshaping itself. And I think there's a lot of like, this is a very non technical way to say this, but I think there's a lot of badness inside of me, and it's coming out. And I don't think that that's going to be a smooth process. So like, I mean, I'm losing a lot of fat, a lot of fat. And I don't like and you know, if you eat a high fat, if you ate a low carb, high fat diet, you'd have loose stool, like that would be a thing that would happen. Right? Right. So I'm expelling a lot of fat. And that makes sense to me that my body is not perfectly balanced at the moment, but so many other things that have been unbalanced, our balance. So my expectation is, is that at some point, I'm going to have to get on a medication where I can vary the dose a little more. And that perhaps what I'm taking right now is maybe too much or not enough for like I won't know, but like that, I haven't found the answer yet. I also think there are likely other things unbalanced in my body that I'm not aware of. I'm also trying to look into those things as I go along. Great, yeah, but it's just it's to me, it's just, it's a science experiment. It's time you get to keep going. But then that's the problem, right is that I'm a person who a had access to the medication, it was paid for by my insurance, I have the access to food, I have a job where I can actually say to myself, like, alright, well, here's how I'll eat because I don't I'm not up at 6am. And running out the door. I you know, I don't get 30 minutes in the middle of the day to eat, like I have, like, my life is different. You know, and I think those things all impact them. And I think that those same stressors, impact people trying to change their diabetes as well. Absolutely, you know, so I think that our lifestyles, and I don't mean, like around food, I mean, our lifestyles, the way Americans lives work, and the food, the food that we have access to, and the time that we have to prepare it, I think those are the three issues.

"Kat" 33:49
That makes sense. Actually, your patients, you know, leave of absence from work. And they come back and you know, it was just wonderful. And, you know, I'm thinking of one of my patients type one on a pump. He's like, I ate well, I exercise, I didn't have the stress of my job. And, you know, I feel amazing, and my blood work shows it. He's like, Well, I gotta go back to work now. You know? Yeah,

Scott Benner 34:13
like she's all over maybe. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I was wondering if you've seen this, before we move on. Let me ask you this question. My wife had an interaction with a person who's on ozempic or we go probably we go via I think it was just for weight loss. So we go v, right. And this person said that they lost like all this weight over like year and a half. And they were almost like down to a maintenance weight. Like they were at that back close to their goal. And they had also made changes she said, you know, that being on the medication had taught taught her how to eat better and like kinds of foods, amounts of foods, etc, exercise. And then suddenly, one day woom insurance calls and says, we're not covering this for you anymore. And so the person said, Well, I'm not going to panic. I am going to keep eating the way I eat, exercising the way I exercise I'm gonna keep doing the things that I've been doing, you know, all the lifestyle stuff. And she said that no lie, absolutely no lie. She started to gain weight slowly. And she's like, I did not eat anything different. I didn't do anything differently. My exercise my intake, everything was exactly the same. And my body just started to put weight on again. And that's how I feel like I am. That's who I feel like I am in this scenario, like this medication is doing something for me. I don't exactly know what it is. But it is filling a gap that I have that my body can't do by itself. That's what I see happening for me. So you see that with others is what was going to be my question.

"Kat" 35:42
I see it, I do. One thing about these medications is you people say I'm on this rest of my life. I'm like, yeah, it's some way shape or form, whether we lower the dose or maintenance dose, take it every 10 days instead of every seven days. Some people take it every two weeks, I have one of my co workers who lost weight on one Coby and she was happy about her weight, and she just stopped it. And then lo and behold, she comes work the other day, really throwing up all over the place. So what did you do? So I took a movie, I said, how she changed. She said, Oh, my, you know, 2.4? I said, What was last time you told me? She said June? I said, Oh God, you can't do that. You literally have to start back over from zero. If you give your body that much of a break. It's your girl. Yeah, so you should be told your practitioner, you know, should we telling you that these are considered lifelong medications even

Scott Benner 36:38
working there, she didn't know that, that you have to because you titrate Up we go visit example, you titrate up when you start taking you it's it's like a quarter of a was it point two, five milligrams to start, right. And then and then you it's four weeks of that and four weeks a point, five 4.7 5.6 Or one one to fight like it goes on forever to get to 2.4 is like a six month like March really to get to it. And so now 2.4 is the highest I will tell you, I don't think 2.4 is enough for me. Because I lose weight in the first four and a half days of the week. And then I put some of it back on in day 567. That's why I'm so all I lose three pounds every week. But my net loss is only point five. I'm

"Kat" 37:26
sure there will be worse clinical trials go with higher doses. It's just it just makes sense.

Scott Benner 37:32
Yeah. So it's just it's all of it's incredibly interesting. Also, I think it points to first of all, I don't mind talking about the GLP is I think it's a good conversation. But at the same time, I think that the plight of a person with a GLP deficiency if there is one, you know, pointing nine out? I don't think yeah, I don't think it's much different than a person who has type two diabetes, the struggle is my point. I think the struggle is very similar. Yeah, absolutely. My gosh, so then what's it like managing a type? Like? So this is a great example, because Jenny says all the time on the podcast, like she's like, you know, most adult endos don't see many type ones. So you said maybe at 515? Is your is your breakdown? So do you know a lot more about type two than you know about type one? Of course, yeah. Are type ones in the same sort of boat as type twos, meaning that they might lack education, access and or desire or ability to follow through?

"Kat" 38:31
Yeah, absolutely. I just in a funny story. You know, the reason what you put out the, the the reason I came was to talk about what happened, she come to the hospital with type one diabetes. I

Scott Benner 38:48
have two thoughts. And then I do want to go over to talking about hospital intake for type ones. Do you think type ones and type twos at a basic level are kind of suffering with the same problems like access, desire, ability, education, that kind of stuff?

"Kat" 39:05
So yes, but, and I talk, I don't want this to come out wrong, but my heart actually breaks for the type ones living where I live with for many, many years, there wasn't an endocrinologist in the city. So now I have people who are in their early 20s who have type one diabetes and did not have good care. So the long term complications, they have the blindness, luckily, and actually blindness, and the neuropathy, the gastric creases, and diabetes distress, the depression is which still there, it's there aren't great therapists or people who are trained to deal with diabetes distress. So that just breaks my heart. So to me It's just to a whole nother, to a whole nother level cat. Do

Scott Benner 40:03
you see those things with frequency at at younger ages where you're at?

"Kat" 40:08
All the time? Okay. potations through the roof through the roof people

Scott Benner 40:12
in their 20s who are blinded by their type one? Yes. And this is because they, so they have insulin. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. They don't know how to use it? No,

"Kat" 40:26
they don't know, I've had, you know, someone diagnosed at age five and just doesn't know the basics of diabetes rate basically hanging on by a thread that they don't, they aren't in DKA because they'll take full, full take for Basal insulin, but they haven't taken human log in a long time. Or they'll take it once every three, four days. You know, so just, you know, we live in an area we live in, in between Philly, New York. Yes, there's children's chop in Philly and New Brunswick and hospitals all we were back, you know, not having the parental support they may need not just, it's it was rough growing up in the city, and not having an endocrinologist not having someone to go to but yeah,

Scott Benner 41:12
yeah. So in that setting, the setting that you're that you're local to, there's not a lot of parental support, which leads to people growing up not knowing what they're doing, which leads to a really advanced diabetes Complications early in life. Yes, yeah, absolutely. How do you, if I gave you a magic wand and said, go ahead and help these people? What do you think would help them? Now they're in their 20s? They have all these problems? I know, they're in a different situation. But what would have stopped them from being in this situation? Should have been my question?

"Kat" 41:45
Well, I mean, it goes back to all the social determinants of health, you know, with the food, you know, access to food, just the education piece not being local and not being able to follow up. And again, unit technology, so much better now. But just not having just not knowing how important it is to know what your blood sugar is. Or they just don't know the complications, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, and somebody who's 26 years old, you know, is something I see is I talked about erectile dysfunction all day long, basically.

Scott Benner 42:21
To try to scare them into thinking if I take care of myself, I can keep having sex. Sure, yeah. That makes sense to me. But okay, yeah.

"Kat" 42:30
They're going to urologist and each one exists. But anyway, it's just the complications. Let's

Scott Benner 42:33
think deeper. I get what stops them. Right. I get their problems. I know, I heard what their problems are, I understand what they are. Let's say they still have those problems, is there a way to help them like it because you can't fix their problems, right? You can't pull them out of poverty, you can't give them a you can't give them a smarter brain. You can't give them a parent that cares about them. You can't give them all those things. You're talking around some stuff, but I hear what you're saying. Like, so you can't do those things for those people. Are they lost causes? Or is there something we could do for them? Like, is there something they could be told? Is there something they could be shown? That would like alright, yeah, they're gonna go to McDonald's before they go to the doctor. We can't stop them from doing that. But could we teach them how to Bolus for the McDonald's? Oh, absolutely.

"Kat" 43:19
Absolutely. And that's where I'm just gonna get at the CGM. Knowing what their shares I know, I just think, yes, I work with a team of people. I work with wonderful diabetes educators. We had to have tons of resources in our office, I love where I work. I love what we do. Just the education. And once you, you know, once they're engaged, they come and once they see progress, you know it, they're excited. So yeah, I don't think they're nervous because I just, I'm just so I just love the fact that that part of my job where I get to help and if they take one thing away from an appointment, hey, you're on a pump. Now, you know, I have aggressive the other day she was diagnosed at age five. She's never been on pumps. You know, I did what she knew even when a pump was how they worked. And she's been on one for a couple months now. And I just pulled up her CGM and her pump report and like, well, look what happens when you Bolus before you eat. Wow, I didn't have spikes and she doesn't have blood sugar in the 400 you know that she may peak to 250. But that's pretty freakin amazing when you lived in the 402 50s

Scott Benner 44:26
not great, but you're not going to be blind when you're 26 to 50 either like so you know, maybe it buys them more time to have an epiphany or to mature or to meet another person that can help them with their like it buys your time to do better. Well, it changed your

"Kat" 44:43
life because her stomach your gastric resists, like she couldn't eat she spent the first six hours she was awake, try not to throw up but now that her blood sugars are coming down and do much more steady. For some it feels better. So she sees it. It's that instant gratification that instant instant, but you know, she feels it now. Already, she feels better.

Scott Benner 45:06
Can I ask you a question? And this was not my intention when you came on. But is there a world where the hospital you work at would let me come give a talk to people in that situation to help them understand how to use insulin? Where would they never let a person in? Who doesn't have credentials? No, I

"Kat" 45:22
think you're open to it. I think they would be. Do you

Scott Benner 45:25
think that would help? Like, if we just did that like high level, this is insulin, this is how it works thing, here's why it's important. Like, give them an hour and a half of late and then let them ask questions and then send them back on their way is that is that because there's a part of me inside that thinks that the podcast is successful about management stuff, because it is very clear about when and how to use insulin, and why changes need to be made. Sometimes, depending on food, I'm saying this thing. I think one, if you're going to be amazed by how the podcast helps people, it's that I'm not having a two way conversation with the people are listening. So I'm able to like dispense the information in a way that they can pick and choose from and help themselves without being able to re ask a question. And without me knowing their specific situation. And I think that having figured out a way to do that, maybe that would translate to people who are in the situation that you've spoken about, like maybe that makes sense. I don't know if that made sense or not. But I mean, I'm I'm also not, I don't know, I'm sure that I'm sure you could do it, I'm sure there are plenty people that could do it. But I think that what they might need is for someone to like, instead of doing an a, you know, an appointment, if you did a large group, collection of people, if you just if you just said look like, you know, come out on Saturday at one o'clock, you know, there's going to be this there'll be food, like, you know, like make it enticing, like make it a thing. And you know, while you're here, someone's going to explain, you know, Pre-Bolus and your meals to you, or getting your carb ratio set or stuff like that, like real simple, basic stuff that they could maybe and then maybe have nurses and doctors there to actually help them get their settings, right, like on site and stuff like that. Like, it seems to me that if you did a health care, like a three hour health fair like that, you could make a pretty big impact. And then maybe you could start that process that I've started hear on the podcast, which is if you can get a core group of people to buy into the thing that's happening, they actually go tell other people about it. Because they're they're super excited because their life has changed. And then they meet another person with diabetes. They go you know what, I used to have this this, this is my problems, but I don't anymore, because I learned how to do this. It wasn't that hard. You know, like that. That kind of stuff? I don't know. Like maybe I'm being Pollyanna. Maybe there are some people who are just never going to be okay. I don't know, but it seems there are some

"Kat" 47:52
people are never gonna be okay. That is that is a yes, that is an accurate statement. Like,

Scott Benner 47:57
it's a harsh truth, right? You're just you're not reaching every little. Right? Like, they got a bad roll, and they're not gonna be able to rebound from it. Oh, yeah. And there's some people get a bad roll. And they find their way through it. There are some people who like stand up immediately and say, I'm not letting this happen to me. There's different versions of responses when somebody gets diabetes, for example. And a lot of that is contingent on things that outside people can't help. Is that fair?

"Kat" 48:22
Yeah. And it's also learned responses. Yeah.

Scott Benner 48:26
meaning they've, they've grown up with the idea that their life sucks, and that it's gonna go poorly, and so that when it does they just go okay, well, here's more of that. Yeah. Right. Now, that's upsetting, but I understand what you're saying. And I appreciate you being so direct about it, too. Thank you. Let's take the last little bit of this time and go over this, this piece here, right. So people type ones. I guess we should do both right. Type ones are type twos, they come into the hospital for something emergent. They should not expect anyone to really understand their diabetes. Let's start with type ones. They shouldn't really expect anybody to understand that their type one diabetes in the ER, is that right?

"Kat" 49:07
Absolutely correct. Okay. You are giving staff members way too much credit. I read all the posts in the comments. And no, please don't expect that you have to be your own advocate as a lot of people have mentioned. Do not take your pump off. Beg plead. Stand up for yourself, do not take your pump off. Unless there's an you are in DKA or have a severe hypoglycemic event. Or you know, obviously test some tests. But there is really, very few reasons why you would need to take your pump off. That is I when I were I'd work with a very so the two hospitals where I work. The one hospital is very robust. We have a diabetes test for force we meet once a month. We have inpatient diabetes educators. Who are amazing, which you do not find that in hospitals anymore when budget cuts happen, that is the one of the first positions that go it's a full RN salary. You know, asked around how many hospitals have inpatient diabetes educators and I will tell you, not many. I can think of 10 hospitals in the area. And where I work is the only hospital that has inpatient IVs educators. So nurses who will who will go see with the bedside, you have a CGM, when you have a form bond that you meet with you, they mature everything is, you know, per hospital policy, which means we know you're wearing it and everything's okay. Very, very few places have that tooting our horn a little bit further. When our nurses get oriented our dogs educators do in servicing to everyone that walks through the door. We do quarterly in services to our residents and interns. Having said all that, it's like whenever I have to say the nurses have a little bit more knowledge than nurses who don't receive our, our education, but there's so much more to be done. From the time that Scott that you posted about this topic. I could list so many stories to doing yesterday between that time and today. A week. You know, someone was under our care in the hospital like DKA How does that happen? It happens. Someone was in the ER came in by ambulance with a blood sugar 600 from a doctor's office seen by the doctor but the nurse didn't get to the patient patient didn't feel like waiting. Went home three hours later came came back the next morning and full blown DKA backup less than five super super sick. What happened someone the patient comes in on some pump hounds that ER staff come on insulin pump. Okay. Communication gets lost. The first provider on the hospitalist sees the patient document in the chart, insulin pump was removed. They gave the patient you know 3040 units Lantus. I remember the dose. A couple hours later, they're hypoglycemic. The nurse says oh look, no, they're they've got their insulin pump on it wasn't a pump. It was a CGM. Remember it's not disturbed. But anyway, the patient had the pump on gotta dosa Lantus. And the staff had no clue what that piece of technology was. This. This isn't a week.

Scott Benner 52:34
This isn't a week art. It was in the ER for something not diabetes related. And she had to go back once it was while she was at school people are going to hear me say this a lot because it's so crazy, but I'm gonna keep saying it here. So she was in the ER 12 hours one day, one day off 12 hours the next day, and in 24 hours of care over two visits. You should guess how many times they checked her blood sugar? Just pick a number how many things in 212 hour visits? How many times do you think they would have checked her blood sugar? Never. They never once checked her blood? No. Oh, Jesus, never. They never paid attention to the fact that she had type one diabetes the whole time she was there. And they put her on morphine when she got there. So she was not able to handle herself. Didn't check on her blood sugar. Trust me, they didn't know she was on an algorithm that's like fine tuned with an inch of its life or that I was managing it remotely through one of her roommates who was in the room. They didn't know any of that. They just never checked on her again. That was it was all just left up to chance. So and she came in, I have type one diabetes. This is my insulin pump. This is my continuous glucose monitor. These are my things. You would think that that would put her on a protocol where they would check on her but never they never even came in and said Hey, what's that CGM say your blood sugar is? Well never ever give those people that education but it doesn't stick to them. No.

"Kat" 53:56
Some. So when you get oriented to hospital, you're bombarded with speaker after speaker after speaker presentation presentation. That's what I'm talking it up to because the information was you know, was reviewed. It's simple. It's this is this the pump. This is a CGM. Please know what it looks like. We're here to help call us. So I'm losing. It's not better. But it's not great. It's not great at all. And again, we have these resources. I can tell you, there's other hospitals that don't even address this stuff. And we review every hypoglycemic event that happens in the hospital. We review every DKA event, you know, we review this stuff, we talk about it so we have root cause analysis. We haven't, you know, updated and improved and provided education. We know these things happen and they continue to happen.

Scott Benner 54:56
Can I ask a scary question and maybe we can As you do you do Nurse Education. So you're gonna have the, you might have the pulse on this one, put diabetes out of the out of the picture for a second. How many other things did the nurses not understand? Just so many. So our expectations of nurses is is incorrect. Correct? Yeah, yes. And then when you get to the doctor level, the doctor doesn't really see the patient that much. And is it also not true that the nurses can sometimes depending on the doctors, be afraid to go back and speak to the doctors?

"Kat" 55:32
Oh, absolutely. That mean that I have to admit, over 30 years of doing this, that culture has changed. I still say I do get a practitioner. I'm a provider. But I do get up if I see a doctor comment if there's no seat. And if somewhere else I can go I mean, yes, I get I still do that. It's I know That's old school have made but now the culture is you're not penalized for making an error. So it's we want you to know you're encouraged to speak up, they call them good catches. One hospital boy, where is you know, you report a good catch maybe the patient's date of birth, when the name brand name band didn't match up with what it should have been, like, you actually get recognized for that. They'll say, Hey, good job, your name gets put in a raffle, you get chosen, you get eight hours PTO time, like it's that culture is changed. And it's a whole read back and verify type thing. If I say to you get eight units. We're not allowed to give verbal orders anymore. By the way, it's got to go into the computer. But the nurse is supposed to dismiss a question everything and I, we do want to texting, you know, secure message. Hey, you said to give 14 to human world sounds like a really high dose. Is that? Is that what you want? I'm like, yes, thank you for clarifying. You know, so the nurses, it's a different culture these days, they are supposed to ask questions and not just accept something they think is wrong.

Scott Benner 57:03
I'm following up, though, on something another person said to me on one of these episodes, so is it not possible that some doctors are terrific, but some of them are kind of ego driven? And if I'm the patient, I'm like, Look, I need insulin. And the nurses wife talk to the doctor about it. And I said, well go talk to the doctor about it that the nurse may not be in the situation with like, I don't want to go talk to that guy. Because he is he's an asshole. And like, this isn't going to go well. And he doesn't want to be told what to do by the patient, let alone by me. And I know that's not going to happen. So I'll slow walk through this and try to forget about it. That's that stuff not happened to

"Kat" 57:35
us. But that's how nurse like look at your, you gotta look at yourself, okay, in that situation? And I'm saying, yeah, there's there's lots of nurses out there, there's nurse residency programs, where brand new nurses are hooked up with a mentor, and they have a nice year long orientation. But you know, at our hospital, there's 80 nurses in that residency program right now. And you combine that with 100. medical interns, you tell me, you know, who's leaving who here

Scott Benner 58:05
and people come through so quickly, so eat. So even if we like, even if we choose type one diabetes as an example, and say, Look, we're going to teach them, we're gonna give them a crash course on type one, it doesn't stick to them. It also leaves open about 1000 Other things that they don't understand that they you don't have time to give them a crash course on. So then emergency medicine really is just, we're going to ignore everything else about you. And the thing that's got you here trying to die we're going to try to get in front of Sure. Yeah, that's it. But is there a better way, honestly, or is that what it has to be? I

"Kat" 58:36
don't know if there's a better way, it's what it has to be right now. They will tell you it's because they're short staffed, you know, there's the throughput is slow, meaning patients are hanging out longer in the ER than they should. It's called they're holding in the ER er hold, we got 20 year holds. So now the ER nurses are taking care of the ER holder and they really should be taking care of the ER, true ER patients who have been triaged yet the patient's just aren't moving. Yeah,

Scott Benner 59:03
why are the holds not taken upstairs?

"Kat" 59:05
There's no room for him upstairs. Therefore, there's no nurses to care for him upstairs more. So it's because there's no, not room upstairs. There's just no beds available

Scott Benner 59:15
to space and staffing is a problem as well.

"Kat" 59:17
Absolutely. And it will, it will continue to grow. Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:21
Because there's more sick people than there is hospitals. Yeah, it's

"Kat" 59:25
seasonal. You know, we're, you know, it's that time of year where things are ramping up again, but yeah, better

Scott Benner 59:32
to get sick in the spring than in the winter.

"Kat" 59:36
Yeah, yeah. And some hospitals because of the staffing shortages. It may be a 200 bed hospital, but they're only staffed for 125 beds. So you can hold 125 patients, despite the fact you know, the hospitals went broke paying for agency nurses spent, you know, I can't even tell you the numbers the amount of money per month that they spent there. recouping from that. So they, they do what they had to do like close units to using the staff, they have staff beds that they can.

Scott Benner 1:00:08
So no different than when I go to a restaurant and there's tables, but they don't see me because they don't have waitstaff. Perfect.

"Kat" 1:00:15
Perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:00:17
I say, Well, you've painted a lovely picture for us. Thank you so much. I'm so sorry. Sorry, no, this is what these what these episodes are gonna be the people in the medical field coming on telling the honest truth about what they say at work. So I appreciate you doing this very much. I really do.

"Kat" 1:00:34
You're welcome. I have wasted wasted.

Scott Benner 1:00:37
Oh, we did. We did fantastic. You were great. I liked the mix of of talking about, you know, in the hospital talking about, you know, in the office, talking about significantly underserved people at the same time. And you were really honest about a lot of stuff. I'll tell you the one thing that bothers me is that when we talk to people, we say like, well, what would fix this? And you say, Well, the problem is that they don't have this and they don't have that, and this isn't the way they grew up. And I'm like, Okay, what then? Then there's no answer after that, like you, people are incredibly good at pointing out why things are going wrong. Not very good at stopping them from going wrong. Or, or saying, Look, we can't stop them from going wrong. But here's what we could do next. We seem very good as a society at saying, Well, you know, that person, they this is what happened to them. So but nothing we can do. You know, like and that is where we get to we get to nothing we can do. And maybe that's true. And maybe it's not. That's kind of what I'm trying to get at. I'm trying to find out if there's something more that can be done. Or if really it is just sometimes life is just luck of the draw. Yeah, so anyway, this is a bummer. I'm gonna go hold on for me once. Sure.

If you'd like to wear the same insulin pump that Arden does, all you have to do is go to Omni pod.com/juice box. That's it. Head over now and get started today. And you'll be wearing the same tubeless insulin pump that Arden has been wearing since she was four years old. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Tchibo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGLUC AG o n.com Ford slash Juicebox. Podcast. Once there was a time when I just told people if you want a low and stable a one C, just listen to the Juicebox Podcast. But as the years went on, and the podcast episodes grew, it became more and more difficult for people to listen to everyone. So I made the diabetes Pro Tip series. This series is with me and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a Certified diabetes Care and Education Specialist. She's also a registered and licensed dietitian and a type one herself for over 30 years and I of course, am the father of a child who was diagnosed at age two in 2006. The Pro Tip series begins at episode 210 with an episode called newly diagnosed are starting over and from there all about MDI Pre-Bolus Singh insulin pumping, pumping and nudging variables exercise illness, injury surgeries glucagon long term health bumping and nudging how to explain type one to your family. Postpartum honeymoon transitioning all about insulin Temp, Basal. These are all different episodes, setting your Basal insulin, fat and protein pregnancy, the glycemic index and load and so much more like female hormones and weight loss. Head now to juicebox podcast.com. Go up in the menu at the top and click on diabetes pro tip. Or if you're in the private Facebook group, there's a list of these episodes right in the feature tab. Find out how I help keep my daughter's a one C between five two and six two for the last 10 years without diet restrictions juicebox podcast.com Start listening today. It's absolutely free. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

#1134 Jake Leach from Dexcom talks G7 and Stelo

Dexcom EVP Jake Leach returns to answer listener questions about G7 and fill us in on the new Stelo.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 1134 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's podcast Jake leeches back from Dexcom. He's going to talk about Dexcom G seven, you guys asked a bunch of questions I asked him of Jake, and he's here to tell us about a new product called the Dexcom stello. I said hello stello But he said that was not the marketing campaign. I thought it was amazing. Whatever. 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. When you place your first order for ag one with my link, you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D. Drink ag one.com/juice box. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout. That's juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. US med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well us med.com/juice box or call 888721151 for use the link or the number get your free benefits check it get started today with us med today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is the meter that my daughter has on her person right now. It is incredibly accurate and waiting for you at contour next one.com/juicebox. And no Dexcom is not sponsoring this episode. You can use my link in the show notes to find out more about Dexcom what no Hell, alarms are going off. Everybody run dexcom.com forward slash juicebox. The alarm was just to remind me to make a phone call. Jake, I appreciate you coming on. I know we're short on time. I have a lot of questions here. Do you mind if I jump right in?

Jake Leach 2:36
Let's do it, Scott.

Scott Benner 2:37
Okay. Is it pronounced stello? Like hello?

Jake Leach 2:40
It is Hello. You got it.

Scott Benner 2:42
Okay, is it just for type twos? Can people with pre diabetes get it? What about other biohacking stuff? Like where's it going to fall in the market? Yeah, so

Jake Leach 2:51
we're super excited about the stellar product. It's specifically designed for people with type two diabetes that are not taking insulin. And there's some very specific reasons for that. It's really around the product features and the needs that it's trying to address for users. We can go into those. But you know, it's there's that 25 million people out there in the US that have type two that do not treat their diabetes with insulin. And so it's really targeted. There's not great availability of CGM for that population. And so that's really what we're going after it's specifically designed for their needs, is built on the same performance and accuracy reliability of Dexcom CGM, but has a new mobile app that is completely redesigned for that user group.

Scott Benner 3:37
Why do people in this category need something different than what you already make? why did why? What was the necessity for a different product? Yeah, so

Jake Leach 3:45
there's a couple of ways to look at but one of the most important ones is that this is this population is not at risk of hypoglycemia. There's, you know, the really important components of our G seven product, and G six and previous generations of that G series that has the predictive low glucose alerts, the low glucose alerts, the urgent low, the 55, all of that technology was developed about keeping people safe from hypoglycemia. This group of people with type two that aren't using insulin, and also don't have a risk of hypoglycemia. That's what this product is designed for. So it doesn't have those alerts. The way we think about it is it has all the information and insights without the interruptions of alerts, they don't need those. And so it's a much simpler product. When I know someone who is using G seven and isn't taking insulin, it doesn't have hyperglycemia challenges. I basically say turn off all those alerts, get all the turmoil in your urgent low, you can't turn off but all the rest of them, you can just turn them off because you don't want you don't want those, you know, nuisance alarms happening.

Scott Benner 4:49
So if there's a person who's typed to right now wearing g7, for example, and they do get low, for whatever reason, maybe they're I don't know, who cares. Why will they be forced To be to go on to stello buy insurance needs, now they'll be able to stay with what they have.

Jake Leach 5:05
Yeah, if you're if you're covered, if you're, you know, g7, if you have coverage for g7, that's not going to change. Coverage for g7 is really strong across all multiple daily injections, insulin pump therapies, Basal insulin, and then there is some coverage. For people who are in this category that, you know, they don't have hypoglycemic challenges. They're not an insulin, but they're using CGM. And so we actually did a published a study of 7200 of our users that went on to G six, and used it to really increase the GERD increase their time and range, but they were all people with type two diabetes, that were not treating it with insulin, they happen to be able to get access to the device, and so they're using it. And so but you know, they're basically using g7. They've got the real time data, but stello is going to be a much better product for that group.

Scott Benner 5:54
So is there a accuracy difference between stello and G seven? No, it's

Jake Leach 5:59
exactly the same level of performance, accuracy, reliability, it is the first 15 Day sensor, okay, that we're launching. And so it has 15 day where it's on the g7 platform in terms of hardware, but it's branded different, and it has a completely different mobile app, the way we think about it is accuracy is extremely important to anyone who's monetary glucose, whether they're, you know, they're treating their diabetes with insulin. Maybe they're not. Or even you know, when you think about health and wellness, it's so important for CGM to be accurate, you can easily be misled to think you have a metabolic disorder if the CGM is off by even a little bit. Sure.

Scott Benner 6:38
So does this mean we're going to get a 15 day where G seven,

Jake Leach 6:41
that's the goal? Yeah, we're working on a 15 day where G seven as well, we're actually doing clinical trials right now, on some enhanced technology on the sensor probe, in particular, to ensure we get the low level of reliability, we want out to 15 days, we have a very high bar for performance and reliability out to the total sensor wear time. And so we take that very seriously, because we know that our customer satisfaction has a lot to do with the performance and reliability of our sensors. And knowing that we want to make sure that the duration is truly the full 15 days and not something, you know, less than that plus

Scott Benner 7:23
what you just talked about, about being safe in lower numbers and and having that accuracy down there is really important. All right, well, they need a prescription. It sounds like yes,

Jake Leach 7:32
yeah, right now, you know all CGM is in the United States, FDA has declared their prescription devices. And so the idea is, you know, you need the performance need accurate accuracy, reliability, but the other their prescription devices until the FDA decides they're not

Scott Benner 7:48
the is the biohacking market big enough for you guys to be interested in? And does this product put you closer to that

Jake Leach 7:55
ease? Great question I do that we've definitely feel that there is, you know, a really large opportunity outside of diabetes for CGM and metabolic health, and generally healthy living thing about pre diabetes. The stello product is specifically designed for this group of type two users that don't have great access to CGM, and we really want to build a product for them. And you know, it's a large group of people that could significantly benefit from having real time CGM data. And so that's what we're focused on. Yeah, it puts us closer towards towards the group. And you know, as we go down that acuity curve, but we felt like, this is a group that doesn't have a product designed for them today. And that's why we basically focused on on that, oh, my

Scott Benner 8:38
brother, I'm gonna call him as soon as this is over, I've been able to give him a sensor once in a while. And the difference it makes in his life with type two is insane. And but his insurance won't help him get a CGM at this moment, with type two because he doesn't use insulin. Our

Jake Leach 8:54
goal is to basically generate whatever evidence is required so that we can ultimately get coverage for this population. Because there you're right, the benefits are so clear, yeah, many folks, you know, that aren't taking insulin are, you know, haven't ever really monitored their blood glucose. And so they have no idea how it changes throughout the day I was talking to someone recently, who had started using CGM is in this category has type two recently diagnosed type two, and didn't really, you know, just was told over time that their agency numbers were creeping up, but he was told to eat healthier exercise more and more activity, but it's not particularly helpful information. But when you know, he got access to a CGM and start using it. He learned so much about how his diet was impacting his glucose and he just started making all kinds of not that dramatic, he didn't like go you know, keto or anything. He just made some some subtle changes that was really impactful to his average glucose, you know, is average glucose was around 150. And he's you know, been working it down to the point where, you know, hopefully he's gonna lower it's able to see you know, below six and a half and get get out of the diet. So,

Scott Benner 10:00
do you see this as a constant wear item? Or do you think it could be educational for them? And then they might not need it after that?

Jake Leach 10:06
I think everyone's gonna be different. I think it's gonna be a lot of different use cases, as we go to this, this broader population. I think, you know, for me, when I think about stello, and the importance of the product, one of the things is really important is to make it extremely engaging, so that people engage with the data. Basically, there's a component of it significant upfront, that's going to be around education, and continuing to understand how different foods do impacts, you know, particular individual. But then there's also the component about reinforcing positive behavior, right? I mean, you can basically when you see your data, you see your average glucose is really in line. It's a constant reminder of boy, you're really doing well, let's keep doing that. I think a lot of people are going to work continuously, we see like when we've used the product in these populations, where we've seen users that are having access to CGM today that are in this group of users that don't take insulin, they do want to keep using it, the were times are very consistent even with what we see in our insulin users. So I do think there's a significant demand out there for this type of product. And the benefits are pretty clear. And CGM is a very cost effective tool for managing the overall cost of somebody that has diabetes. And so we really feel there's an opportunity here to overtime, get get this product reimbursed, but at first it's going to be cash pay at a very affordable competitive price out there in the market.

Scott Benner 11:28
So the pricing will be different than like if I tried to cash by g7

Jake Leach 11:32
Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be different. It's a different product. It'll be different. We haven't we're not releasing any details exactly around it until we launch but the the goal of this product is to make it accessible to as many people as

Scott Benner 11:45
possible. Launch you're hoping for mid year 2012.

Jake Leach 11:49
Yeah, summertime. Yeah. Summertime. So it's under review by the FDA right now. We submitted it last year. Review is going great. Soon as we get an approval We'll start you know we're we're already working through the stages of getting ready for launch. Yeah, we plan to launch it this summer

Scott Benner 12:00
is that review mostly aimed at the app and the BME because if the device is the same as G seven What's there to review. Far too often we accept the blood glucose meter that someone hands to us, the doctor reaches into a drawer and goes here, take this one. That is that is the one you want. Is that accurate, you have no way of knowing. But if you want accuracy, and you want to be confident in the blood glucose readings that you're getting from your meter, you want that contour next gen. It's incredibly easy to get the same meter that Arden uses, just go to contour next one.com/juicebox That's all you have to do. The contour next gen is easy to use and highly accurate. It features a smart light that provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, Second Chance sampling technology that can help you to save money with fewer wasted strips, contour next one.com/juicebox I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience. And it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while actually for about three years now. Because that's how long we've been using us med us med.com/juicebox or call 888721151 for us med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omni pod dash, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor index comm customer satisfaction surveys. They have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996. And they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. US med carries everything from insulin pumps, and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and Dexcom G seven. They accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at us med.com/juicebox Or just call them at 888-721-1514. Get started right now. And you'll be getting your supplies the same way we

Jake Leach 14:21
do. You're right it's a it's a simpler review. Because there isn't as much g7 was a massive review for us because we changed so much of the product. It is extending out to 15 days. So we did a clinical study to show I CGM level performance all the way out to 15 days. So there's clinical data review. And then there is a lot of it is the user interface and the human factors. I mean, one of the important things here is for people who get access to this product, understand that they're on insulin, they should have g7 They shouldn't have this product, this product is really for those that don't aren't at risk for hypoglycemia. That's one of the important factors. But yeah, they're basically doing that review. So We're hoping for swift approval and being able to launch this summer. Do you have any concern that if it's so much cheaper in cash, and people can't get covered for g7, that type ones will use it and then not have the safety net of that LOW Alert? is a great question, Scott, something we kind of discussed and organized around eternally saves coverage for g7, when you think about out of pocket costs is really good in the United States if you have coverage, right. So if you have coverage, when it's the lowest out of pocket costs CGM available, on average, you know, a third of our users pay nothing. And then you know, the average copay is less than $40. If someone does get access to it, it is very accurate and reliable from a glucose reading perspective. So I think in that case, you know, you've got a safety safety factor there. But if anyone is using insulin, G seven is really the right, right product for them, because it has those, those safety features. But I think in general, having access to glucose readings is better than nothing. Yeah. So in general, you know, that's one of the reasons why the performance and accuracy is so important, even for this type of product is you really, people need accurate, reliable data. Yeah, it

Scott Benner 16:09
feels like to me the difference between what obviously the FDA has set up as you know, guardrails for keeping people using insulin safe. And that's great for the population. But for one on one people who are stuck, I agree with some things better than nothing. So it's interesting, does this gonna cover for pre diabetes? Do you think

Jake Leach 16:27
that when I think about products, I think about the user groups and designing it for their intended needs, I think there's quite a bit of overlap between people who have pre diabetes and those that have been diagnosed with diabetes, there's a lot of overlap there. But I do feel like our main focus right now is all about this group of type two twos. But you know, we're going to, we're going to continue to evolve. I mean, we're planning a pretty rapid pipeline of enhancements to this product, based on, you know, things that we already have in the hopper in terms of release training that we want to get out features for stello. But also, based on what we learned, once we launched it, right, getting this product out in a large number of people's hands, getting the customer feedback, we've always, you know, we strive to make sure that all the user feedback gets filtered back into the team. And then we develop, we make feature enhancements based on user feedback. That's primarily that's what primarily drives both the features we implement and the timeframes for which we do it. That's going to be exciting kind of release train. And so you know, as overtime, we do feel like there's lots of opportunities to help people, you know, live healthier, lower their average glucose, better mouth, metabolic health,

Scott Benner 17:32
it's all good. I just think that I just had an experience with a family member who wanted to get a GLP. And they're a one C was point one off of being technically having diabetes, saw the doctor literally told her just get your a one C A little higher and come back and I can get it for you.

Jake Leach 17:48
I was like, Well, is this what we're doing know that some of the the way the healthcare systems work and things? Sometimes that is unfortunate that you end up in a situation having to make decisions like that? Yeah, it's crazy.

Scott Benner 18:03
Besides the feedback that comes from the audience all the time about how grateful they are and stuff like that. There was just one person who said, Could you please do more advocating with insurance for other people who would need CGM, they use this as an example, adrenal insufficiency. That's the thing that's not covered. And I guess what they're saying is, if you're ever in a meeting, could you just yell out that too, for other people who experienced low blood sugars but don't fall into these categories?

Jake Leach 18:27
I couldn't. Yeah, I completely agree. I think you know, one of the things when we advocated around Basal coverage with Medicare, we did push very hard for that hypoglycemic people who have hypoglycemia incidents are at risk that aren't on insulin, right? That group is covered under Medicare. And we're working to try and get better coverage by private payers, for anybody who has risk of hypoglycemia, okay? Because we fully understand that it's g7 is a great tool for that group. Getting better insurance coverage is really important.

Scott Benner 19:01
So Jake, as you may imagine, when I reached out to the audience for questions about stello, I also got g7 questions. Of course, is there anything else about stello? Or before I hit you with these, these questions?

Jake Leach 19:14
The only thing I'd say is, you know, people often ask, why do we Why do we name it stello. And so that that word, in Italian, it means stem, and it really stands for growth and resilience, and progress. And that's the way we think about how this, our hopes for it is that it provides that type of support and benefit to people with type two. So it's a it's exciting name, you ended up naming a product that always there's a lot of things that go into that, but it was a really fun journey to land on it.

Scott Benner 19:42
I just assumed you wanted to have commercials that said hello, say hello. And so I didn't think there was much more than that to it, but it's nice to know there's something else to it. That's what I was saying. All right, ready? I'm just gonna start I'm going to start big and then go lower. Usually I would do it the other way, but no reason to tease that out. There's only 10 more minutes in the episode. So Omnipod, five and g7. Yeah, timeframe that you know about anything you're willing to say, hey, net cough twice?

Jake Leach 20:07
Yeah, it's the same, basically is what insolate has said they're tracking? Well, you know, we've done all the validation work. And so we're excited for it to come as quick as possible. So,

Scott Benner 20:18
okay. When people asked me, I tell them, I'm like, that's a Omnipod question. It's not a Dexcom question. But if I don't ask you, I'll get. There'll be pitchforks. So g7 has been out for a little while now. Yeah. Has there been any? Or are there any plan changes or improvements that have happened or happening?

Jake Leach 20:37
Yeah, there's there's quite a bit actually, we've behind the scenes, with any new product, when you launch it, you've got things that were in the pipeline that you wanted to implement, and you launch it, and you continue to implement those enhancements, and also, based on user feedback, and as we see the product performing, we're really happy with how g7 launch has gone globally. And we've made quite a few enhancements, some of the examples would be as we enhance, we put a feature in the Bluetooth called Rapid reconnect. And so what now your g7 does, and we're basically shipping this in all channels. Now, this enhanced Bluetooth, there may be a little bit inventory out there in different channels where they're still with the older version. But this new version is basically it advertises every minute, or reconnection to the phone. So if you ever do lose connection over Bluetooth, it will advertise every five minutes. So it catches back up very quickly, we also enhanced the Bluetooth performance of the radio on the antenna. And so that antenna performance produces a longer range. Really excited about that. So those two kind of went together into the g7. We also have an updated adhesive patch that we're putting in, it's the same patch, it's on stello. And so that is cutting its way into g7, we'll be getting shipping in different channels over time here quickly. And so that that gives it enhanced, where time, in terms of just a little bit stickier, get you out to those that have challenges getting out to 10 and a half days with a patch this this should really help them just call

Scott Benner 22:09
the supplier and yell stickier. Is that how that works.

Jake Leach 22:15
So much that goes into adhesives, particularly around, you know, the durability of them, but also breathability and your potential irritations and irritants and things in there. There's a whole lot that we do before we make a change. And it's a project,

Scott Benner 22:31
is there a world where you'll get to a more sensitivity friendly adhesive that still holds on or does that technology just not exist? No, it

Jake Leach 22:40
does. I mean, we've we've overtime made quite a bit of enhancements, we did it on G six, where we actually had a patch that lasted longer, but also had less irritation than we did with the previous and G seven made another step where irritation was lower with G seven than it was with G six. And the studies we ran, particularly we actually ran studies in people that are you had known sensitivities to medical adhesive, just to better understand how much better g7 was. And so this new patch is even better than that. So it's it's a, you know, the technology continues to evolve. And so I think we're going to continue to see, you know, better technology, better adhesives, we're always, you know, trying to look for the best that's out there and develop it ourselves as well. And we're not stopping and we got to keep making these products, the best we can possibly produce. So

Scott Benner 23:30
I know you guys work hard, and I don't think you just mindlessly forget something.

Jake Leach 23:34
So when I asked you, how come I don't see direct to watch, or Where's delta change and stuff like that? How does that, like how do things get prioritized? I guess? Yeah, it's a great question. We can cover direct to watch too, because that's exciting news. Their main thing is we prioritize it based on user feedback and what we feel, you know, based on the product development team, what we're capable of producing and a certain amount of time, like how we spend our time, and what the prioritization based on user feedback is. And so, Director Watch has been a great example of something that has been highly desirable for a very long time. And we've been working on it at a very strong, dedicated team focused on developing that. And we finally got to the point where we're comfortable with that Apple ecosystem that when you switch to direct to watch mode, your sensor communicating directly to the Apple Watch, without the phone in the communication loop. We're very comfortable that you get all the glucose alerts you need to get because that has now taken over as your number, your main display device where you're getting those critical alerts. That has been what a big part of the journey over multiple years is getting the point where we are confident that that system will always produce those alerts when needed. I work closely with apple on it. They were really helpful in making changes to the Apple Watch operating system to be able to make this happen and We did submit that to the FDA last year. And we do plan to launch it here as soon as it's approved. So that should be coming very soon, based on what you just said, is

Scott Benner 25:07
it possible? I'll see it for stello? Before I see it for g7? Because they don't have the work? You know what I mean? Good. Good. Good

Jake Leach 25:15
question there, Scott. We're not given all the specifics out of bed stello At this point in time, but you'll see it on G seven very soon.

Scott Benner 25:21
If you say good question, I think I'm onto something, hey, this is directly from me and other people too. But nightstand mode now that Apple added that to the phone, like please, that would be amazing. What about delta ready to change and seeing the the last reading for followers like a lot of my stuff here is for for like caregivers, they want to know more about customizable alarms for like school nurses or people who only part time take care of other people with type one, you know, the delta is a big one for them. Basically, what they're saying is that the follow up when you're a caregiver, it shouldn't be different than the user app, because there's a lot of things you have to do and you're blind to those. In that situation, there's a pretty significant portfolio of updates we're going to make to follow. We you know, we've made some over time, but we have been primarily focused on G seven Dexcom, one and stello, getting the user apps updated, but an in built out. But follow is such an important part of our ecosystem for our users. And so I want to I've been pushing the team for more innovation in that area. And we are we have a portfolio of updates we're going to make, it includes a lot of the features that that had been asked for over time. And we'll put them out in order as fast as we can. But it is it is an area where I want us to innovate more. We have a couple of minutes left, and I have a couple of questions that I just know how you're going to answer them already. So I want to ask a bigger question. Is there an inflection point coming with CGM? Or is it just going to continue? Is it like an iPhone? Is it just gonna get a little better every time I get one? Or is there is there a leap to be had? In terms of like, features, performance?

Jake Leach 26:59
All of that? Yeah, I

Scott Benner 27:01
mean, more performance, like stuff, like, you know, listen, I love g7, my daughter, let me be clear, my daughter is at college right now with a 5.6 a one C, like, that's pretty cool. If you asked me to come over there and wash the windows, I'd be happy to do it. So like I'm happy. But first day couple of urgent lows that are fakes, you know, compression lows, you know, that kind of stuff? Like, is there a world where it's just one day? You know what I mean, when they sit around and talk about AI to ever watch a guy sit and talk who really understands it? And he's trying to tell you that 10 years from now, you are not going to understand the world anymore? Like, is there a Is that happening for CGM, in your mind, like in the future? Or is it more of a study as we go?

Jake Leach 27:42
I think so from a performance perspective, just on the accuracy and reliability of the products. There's still plenty of mileage to go. And you mentioned some of the variability on the first day, compression lows, you know, sensor, longevity, all of those things. It's interesting over the evolution of CGM, there's been, you know, big tech problems that we've tackled and solved, right. And those are some of the problems that you mentioned some challenges. That is something that we're very focused on. And you had a lot of very passionate excited team members about continuing to make the most accurate, the best CGM ever right. And so there's going to be more progression there. I think where you're going to see the most though like large step change function type of innovation in CGM is what we start doing with the CGM information, and how we start interacting with both physicians, caregivers and the users. I think that is where the user interface what you're looking at with G seven today is going to be extremely different. You know, as the years go on, and we you know, we're going to continue to launch new platforms, we've got G seven just recently launched, but you know, obviously, GA is well underway. And so those are some of the innovations we're gonna see. It's just, it's, it's really exciting what we can do now that we have, you know, mobile platforms, mobile phones are pretty ubiquitous, and the computing power, and then you got aI starting to come in and you start to think about how one of the things I talked about CES was just the conversational nature of the data presentation to say a physician, helping them get down to the most important thing to discuss with a particular patient could be easily short circuited if you could just rapid fire answer their questions in a conversational format for a particular user based on their real that users data. Yeah, I think it's pretty exciting.

Scott Benner 29:32
Check two things are we talking about? Like I was at this pizza joint last week, you remember last week and when eat the same thing again? Let's go like that kind of stuff. That kind of stuff. Yeah. And I don't think I've ever said this out loud on the podcast, but I've been logging the podcast into an an AI bot, and 1000 hours worth of conversations about diabetes. You would be stunned at how accurately li it answers. So, like granular questions about diabetes, it's really I can't wait like, and I know you guys have been at this for a long time. Like, I know, I have the the honor of kind of seeing the big picture. Like, I remember the first time Kevin said to me, I don't have diabetes, but I were CGM, and I don't eat potatoes anymore. And now look where we are. You know what I mean? Like, like, really like now people with type two diabetes. My brother's a great example. He's already told me, I wear that thing. And I thought, I thought that was good for me. I didn't realize what it was doing to me in the background. And that's, man, that's gotta be eight years ago that he said that to me. You know, so I know people need to be patient. But I remember when you guys started looking at data, and I thought they're gonna do something with that one day. So like, I mean, like, you know, you're not gonna retire soon. Are you Jake? How are you? Good. Okay, all right. Yeah, no,

Jake Leach 30:48
thank you. So this is my 20th year at Dexcom. But I'm not going anywhere. We

Scott Benner 30:51
got a good succession plan that the guy under you knows what he's doing. Yeah. Oh,

Jake Leach 30:55
yeah. Oh, great team. Yeah, absolutely.

Scott Benner 30:57
I don't want the ball getting dropped here. You know, when you decide it's time, you know, I'm sorry. I really appreciate this. I should have you back on more frequently. We haven't done this nearly enough. This we should have. So thank you very much.

Jake Leach 31:09
It was great. Scott really enjoyed your time take care.

Scott Benner 31:20
Huge thanks to us med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Don't forget us med.com/juice box. This is where we get our diabetes supplies from you can as well use the link or call 888-721-1514 Use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us med. Having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next one.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter.

Once there was a time when I just told people if you want a low and stable a one C, just listen to the Juicebox Podcast. But as the years went on, and the podcast episodes grew, it became more and more difficult for people to listen to everyone. So I made the diabetes Pro Tip series. This series is with me and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a Certified diabetes Care and Education Specialist. She's also a registered and licensed dietitian and a type one herself for over 30 years and I of course, am the father of a child who was diagnosed at age two in 2006. The Pro Tip series begins at episode 210 with an episode called newly diagnosed are starting over and from there all about MDI Pre-Bolus Singh insulin pumping, pumping and nudging variables exercise illness, injury surgeries glucagon long term health bumping and nudging how to explain type one to your family. Postpartum honeymoon transitioning all about insulin Temp, Basal. These are all different episodes, setting your Basal insulin, fat and protein pregnancy, the glycemic index and load and so much more like female hormones and weight loss. Head now to juicebox podcast.com. Go up in the menu at the top and click on diabetes pro tip. Or if you're in the private Facebook group, there's a list of these episodes right in the feature tab. Find out how I helped keep my daughter's a one C between five two and six two for the last 10 years without diet restrictions juicebox podcast.com Start listening today. It's absolutely free. You can use the same continuous glucose monitor that Arden uses. All you have to do is go to dexcom.com/juice box and get started today. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

#1133 Put me in Coach

Troy has type 1 diabetes and was a college athlete.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 1133 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Troy is 27 years old he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at age 13. He played baseball in college, some basketball, but eventually hurt his knee tore his ACL. We're going to talk all about that talk about rehabbing the difficulties of rehabbing injuries, and I share some remembrances of what it's like to have a child who's a college athlete. While you're listening today. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan, or becoming bold with insulin. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ag one drink ag one.com/juice box. When you use my link and place your first order you're gonna get a welcome kit, a year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. G voc hypo Penn. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juicebox My name

Troy 2:00
is Troy Tucci. I am 27 years old and I have been a diabetic since I was 13 years old. So 2009

Scott Benner 2:07
Thank God you said your last name. Here's why. All last night Arden goes any chance you're talking to a relative of Stanley Stanley Tucci. And I said, if the person doesn't say their last name, I won't be able to ask them while we're recording.

Troy 2:20
I get that quite a bit. Let's because he's delightful. Yeah, he's great. I mean, I wish there was relation, then I would probably be able to afford a lot more medicine than I can currently. But you know, that's

Scott Benner 2:31
right. Yeah, I would. I mean, hope so. Although he did that CNN show. To me, it felt like a money grab. But

Troy 2:38
whatever. That's how it usually is with with Hollywood, in my opinion. But hey, people

Scott Benner 2:42
still like it. Listen, you get an opportunity to do something. I guess what the hell go to a couple places to eat a couple of meals make some money? I mean, would you turn it down?

Troy 2:52
No, not at all. I would love to eat food for free and make money off at the same time.

Scott Benner 2:56
So all right. So fair enough. Let's see. 2027 I was so excited. You said to chi out loud. I didn't hear how long you've had diabetes.

Troy 3:09
I have had it since I was 13 years old. So working another son 14 years so a little bit longer living with it than I have been with.

Scott Benner 3:18
Without it. You said a weird thing.

Troy 3:21
What are your living people say that along with it?

Scott Benner 3:24
Yeah, without it? Yeah.

Troy 3:26
It's not really a weird thing. I would say it's just different because I don't really know life before it. You don't remember? Not really. I mean, I my girlfriend likes to think I have a terrible memory in general. But I like to think that I couldn't really remember much other than being able to eat what I wanted. But I could still do that now. So

Scott Benner 3:44
yeah, listen, I have to tell you, I think it's a boy thing too. Like my son's just like, I don't know, do you remember any of that? Like, like, even like I said something really kind of, like, heartfelt to my son. I don't know, six months ago. And something happened the other day. And I brought it up and he goes, I don't remember you saying that. I was like, okay.

Troy 4:06
Yeah, it's it can be that way. Sometimes. I don't know. It could be a guy thing.

Scott Benner 4:10
It's also why boys don't seem to hold grudges. Yeah, that's true.

Troy 4:14
I would say that. That's very true. Because that that has happened and experience. I can't really hold a grudge or if I'm mad at somebody for something. It doesn't last long. It can be like terrible, too. I mean,

Scott Benner 4:25
Oh, for sure. No, no, I just one of my favorite things is the watchmen. Like, almost beat each other to death. And then like three days later, they're like out together. Yeah, of course,

Troy 4:35
or I've seen it in cases where people will fight each other and then they'll like pick each other back up and be like, Alright, man, good stuff. Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:41
sorry. Sorry, that had to happen. Right? Yeah. Anyway, so you do not remember much about being diagnosed.

Troy 4:51
Oh, I remember being diagnosed like I that's probably like the most vivid, you know, good memory that I have. So I was I it's Pretty weird thing. So my parents divorced right before this too. So it was kind of like bang, bang, like, right one after the other. My I was having symptoms, I was drinking a lot of fluids, I was probably going through a 24 case of Gatorade in a couple days. And I was also playing sports at the time, too. So like, my parents just thought it was nothing at first than they thought it was a UTI. You know, and obviously, I was having issues wetting the bed at 13 years old, and that's pretty uncommon. So I was having that issue. And they were like, alright, well, we're gonna go schedule you for a doctor's appointment. And they were like, I think it's UTI. And I was like, I'm 13 I don't even know what the hell that is. Anyways, so I go there, and I don't go with my parents. So I have a, like a housekeeper slash nanny at the time, because I had a younger sister as well, that needed to be tended to Yeah. And so she took me to the appointment. And I go and the, you know, the doctor is like, Alright, we're gonna have you just, you know, do a urine sample. Did a urine sample he comes in, he's like, alright, well, Troy, you have you have diabetes. And I'm like, okay, like, what is that? And how do I get rid of it? Yeah. And then he like pulls, it pulls up a seat, and he's like, alright, well, here's what you're gonna need to do. He's like, I don't want to give you too much information now. But I want you to go home, gather your stuff. I already talked to your parents. They're already both on their way home. And you know, you're gonna go check into the hospital. And I was like, okay, to get rid of diabetes. And obviously, I'm freaking out. No idea what's going on Toronto,

Scott Benner 6:19
I got to stop. You're here for a second. I just had surgery on my foot. And I realized I need to put it up, or I'm not going to be able to do this. So there's going to be some noise. Hold on a second. Do your thing.

Troy 6:29
I know all about surgeries. You'll hear too. I

Scott Benner 6:30
apologize. Give me a second here. We're gonna move the mic. It throbs a little Troy. Okay. So that heartbeat Oh, it's just I thought it'll be fine today. And I'm sitting there, you're talking. I'm like, Oh, this isn't gonna work. So two things I love. You're like, I don't know what a UTI is. And I don't know what diabetes is. So what do we do? Because all of your illnesses prior to this have been something you go to a doctor for. They clear it up somehow. Interesting. Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Oh,

Troy 7:00
you're good. What happened by the way, we're having your foot

Scott Benner 7:03
Troy. So I'm old. You won't know about this for another 15 years or so. But I woke up one day, and my big toe on my right foot hurt terribly. And my wife, of course, says What did you do to it? I have no recollection of injuring my toe. And I thought it'll go away. And then a few days went by and it was getting, like no better. I thought, I mean, did I break my toe? Maybe? And I thought, Well, if that happened, what are they gonna do? I go to a doctor, they're gonna say your toes broken, and they're gonna say it'll heal. So I didn't do anything. And then a couple of weeks, turned into a couple of months. And it got worse. And, you know, I started limping. I was like, oh, man, there's something really wrong with my toe. I should do something about that. But my mom was sick. And I, you know, I didn't do like gets in the way. Yeah. And then every once in a while, it didn't hurt. I was like, hey, that hurt today. I'm good. But then when it hurt, it hurt really terribly, and I couldn't walk, it wouldn't bend up, etc. So finally, a couple of months ago, I got it in my head. I was like, I have to do something about this. But then my mom got sicker and sicker. And eventually she passed away. And I appreciate you're very nice. And so I'm out visiting with her towards the end of her life, and I slipped in a hotel. It's the soft water. It Do you have soft or hard water? Where you live? Do you? Would you even know? I'm not really sure what you mean. I know you don't. Right. It's meant that there's only one time here a couple of times water, right. But you'd also didn't know what a UTI was. So I have to explain. So there's minerals in water different in different Oh, it's like water softener types. Yes. Okay. In some places, people don't know probably don't even realize it if they live there. But if you come into a place that has softer water, and now I'm just saying water a lot for the people who enjoy hearing me say it incorrectly. Me included. Yeah. So if you when you get in the shower, it actually you feel soapy, or slimy when it's on, and it's slippery. And I guess people who live there don't even know anyway, I'm in a hotel shower. I'm literally making peace with the fact that I'm not going to see my mom again. I'm getting a shower getting ready to go to the airport. And my foot slips. Like I wasn't falling like Bugs Bunny or something like it just slipped forward a little bit. And it smacked into the side of this tub. And lightning and fireworks went off in my foot that shot up my leg into my brain. And I was in a massive bad way. I had to take a handful of painkillers to get through the airport to get on the plane to get home. And so I'm basically I can't walk. My brother is in the airport just laughing at me. He's like, look at how slow you're moving. And I'm like, I know he's like, we wouldn't need a nice scooter for you and I'm like, I'll be okay. Anyway, I get home my mom passed away a couple days later. That throws me off again for a few more weeks and I finally go to a doctor's appointment. But I go to urgent care first because I'm a boy and I'm still thinking maybe it's not that bad. And you know, and she does an x ray. So you just have a little bone chip here. And I was like, oh, cool, she because I think it's just free floating. It's sitting in the joint probably causing you pain. I'm like, This is excellent. I'm gonna go to a doctor, they're gonna pull up this little bone joint chip out and be fine. So I get there. And the real doctor, not that well. Yeah, I mean, that the real doctor. I mean, if you if you're working in urgent care, I know you're a doctor calm down. But, but um, you know, he, he's like, manipulating my toe. And he goes, this doesn't hurt, right? And he bends it a certain way. I go, No, that doesn't hurt at all. That way squeezes us doesn't hurt here does it? And it was almost like he knew where it wasn't going to hurt. I wasn't. I wasn't catching on quickly enough, though, is waiting for it. Yeah, just tell me if this hurts, and he bends my toe up. And then the rockets red glare happened again. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, man. Stop. Like, What? What? What? He goes, Yeah, I thought that was horrible. What did we do it for that? Yeah, like, so. He goes, you have arthritis. We need an X ray. And I said, Dude, I brought you an x ray. And he goes out again another x ray. I'm like,

Troy 11:04
Yeah, we don't trust other doctors X rays. And he

Scott Benner 11:07
wants to charge me for an x ray. But that's fine. Whatever. So does an x ray. I have a delightful back and forth with the X ray tech that is not politically correct. So I can't tell you about on the podcast. And it was one his side not mine, by the way for all you listen to think Oh, Scott said something horrible, wasn't me. And anyway, so I go back in and he and he sets up a surgery for me like boom in a week. And they give me the Jackson juice and put me out and I want to shout out to the anesthesiologist who I said last time I had, you know, Jackson juice, the propofol just turned you off. You know how Michael Jackson died? Yeah, okay. So I'm getting that. And it burns like, crazy. I'm just cursed. That's how much it burns. They put it like in the top of your hand, you can feel it like hot lava going up your arm into your chest and you pass out and you wake up and everything's fine. So I say to this to the anesthesiologist, this happened to me last time, and he goes, I know how to stop that from happening. I'm not it's not going to happen. So I was like, God bless you. So he did that didn't burn really cool. For people wondering he put lidocaine in first to kind of like, I guess numb the pathway that the medication was gonna go on. And then he squeezed my shoulder at my forearm and like at my, at my bicep, and held the lidocaine in my arm for a couple of minutes before we put in the propofol, but pretty cool. So I wake up, I feel fine. I'm like, This is it. Everything's fine. And the guy says to me, calls me later that night, he goes, how you feel? And I go, it hurts. And I got my foot up. And he goes, Okay, cool. Listen, wasn't really arthritis. And I went, why did he go see me? There's a little bit your joint because I cleaned it out and all it goes, but you have like torn cartilage in your toe. And I was like, what? And he goes, Yeah, it's not good. I had to give you a microfracture procedure. And I'm like, wait, what?

Troy 12:55
He goes, Wait till the whole night to tell you what he even did do. Probably

Scott Benner 13:00
after dinner. I mean, you probably went out in the afternoon, right? Had an ash went home. Yeah, he loved his wife. I don't know what he does in the day. You know, they mean and then he gets home he makes his calls is and by the way seems like a lovely man. I don't assume he's cheating on you. So basically, they poked holes in the bone to try to spur cartilage growth, but it's not the cartilage that I lost. It'll be something called like fibrous cartilage. And if that doesn't work, I have to go back to talk to him about having the bones in my toe fused together. Geez, yeah, Troy?

Troy 13:34
Is it your Are you a righty or lefty. If you

Scott Benner 13:38
take insulin or sulfonylureas you are at risk for your blood sugar going too low. You need a safety net when it matters most. Be ready with G voc hypo pen. My daughter carries G voc hypo pen everywhere she goes because it's a ready to use rescue pen for treating very low blood sugar and people with diabetes ages two and above that I trust. Low blood sugar emergencies can happen unexpectedly and they demand quick action. Luckily, G voc hypo pen can be administered in two simple steps even by yourself in certain situations. Show those around you where you store G vo Capo pen and how to use it. They need to know how to use G vo Capo pen before an emergency situation happens. Learn more about why G vo Capo pen is in Ardens diabetes toolkit at G voc glucagon.com/juicebox. G voc shouldn't be used if you have a tumor in the gland on the top of your kidneys called a pheochromocytoma. Or if you have a tumor in your pancreas called an insulinoma visit G voc glucagon.com/risk For safety information.

Troy 14:50
Well I'm right handed Are you is that you're right you're right big toe

Scott Benner 14:54
it is does that matter? What do you know?

Troy 14:57
Do we just know I mean I just know for My experience of playing sports and like my injuries like I had a big toe issue in my back right foot from swinging so like from like taking like such hard hacks and like, however the case it was I like sprained my toe and ended up obviously not doing anything for it because I'm a guy. Yeah. And yeah, so that's that's just why I asked. I was just curious just because I can kind of see some correlation that or if you're just dominant in that regard, like I, I do a lot of things with my right foot over my left foot. Like I, that's like the first step I take, and I'm not really conscious of it. But

Scott Benner 15:30
how about that ice? I haven't thought about that. I can tell you that. I'm walking oddly, it's making my knee hurt. You know, it sucks. It's outside of your knee that's bothering you. It's the inside but insides where I just had my knee cleaned out like six months ago. So I'm a little light on cartilage in there, too. Yeah,

Troy 15:48
try not to compensate. That's the biggest thing. And I can tell you because I've been there done that. It just cause a different problem, right? Yep, exactly. Yeah. Just moving around the other side. All right. So anyway, this

Scott Benner 15:59
is what happened to me. I mean, obviously, this is my mom's fault. So now, it's I don't know what happened. It's just terrible. Now I hear Yeah, yeah, it is terrible. Anyway, it's such a it seems like such a small thing, but it messes you. Like a toe really messes you up. So

Troy 16:16
Oh, yeah. They say you can't walk without your big toe. Yeah,

Scott Benner 16:20
I don't need that problem. I'm losing weight. Now. Troy, here you

Troy 16:23
go. So then it should be easier than this, then you're putting less stress on the body while

Scott Benner 16:27
so you're thinking like that. I'm just thinking I'm about to be like, you know, I'm gonna have a coming out party soon. I don't want to be lengthened.

Troy 16:35
Anyway, coming out party can be perceived in a couple of different ways. Can

Scott Benner 16:38
I have a weight loss? Kingson Tara, can I would that be? That'd be is a cultural appropriation. I just wanna have a big party where I wear or something pretty good people can see. I

Troy 16:50
think that people do that all the time. I don't see why you couldn't. Yeah. All right. I'm gonna just make sure you invite me since I'm we're planning it together right now. Yeah,

Scott Benner 16:58
I'm almost down. 30 pounds. Wow, that's actually very impressive. Pretty cool. Excellent.

Troy 17:03
Are you taking anything for that? Or Oh, hell

Scott Benner 17:05
yeah. Yeah, I'm doing cocaine. And I'm using we go V. Which is a club we go V, which is ozempic rebranded for weight loss. Okay. Yeah. So it's a once weekly injectable. And I've been on it for 16 or 17 weeks. Okay. It's insane how well it works. I lost two more pounds this week.

Troy 17:28
So I wish I had that problem, I have the problem of losing weight and fluctuating weight and not being able to gain it. I had my entire playing career in sports to was hard

Scott Benner 17:37
for you to put on weight. It was impossible. So So tell me so you're diagnosed when you're 13 or so. And you're a baseball player, even as I listen, you played in college, so you must have been playing your whole life. Right?

Troy 17:48
So that's a funny story. So I played baseball and basketball, my whole life growing up for as long as I can remember, both baseball and basketball it you know, I don't know if they can consider being four years old and playing sports. I don't know if that's organized enough to be considered. But I played my whole life. But I actually took off six years of baseball. So I stopped playing my sophomore year in high school, had a bunch of injuries. And then my dad kind of sat me down and was like, Hey, you got to make a decision here. Do you want to keep playing basketball? Or do you want to keep playing baseball, and then obviously, I'm gonna listen to my father. And he's like, play basketball, play basketball. So I'm like, okay, the fact that he told me to do that, and then I took six years off just strictly playing basketball, and then tore both my ACL is playing basketball. Oh, you're a year apart from one another. So the first one was 2014, literally the day before my regional finals game in high school, and then crossed the stage, then got surgery in the summer, rehabbed for nine months, went to a school in Minnesota, turned my other ACL on the first captain's practice. And then went home and got surgery and then kind of started over went to junior college. And then that's when I picked up playing baseball once again, after six years.

Scott Benner 18:53
Can you talk a little bit about what it's like to put so much effort into something and then have a mechanical problem? Stop it? Oh, it's

Troy 19:01
really hits really tough. That's what I experienced the most. Just like, you know, the darkest days, I would say, the first time was really hard, but obviously doing it again, and having to go through that rehab of nine months was just draining physically, mentally, emotionally. That's fine when I fell into like, the deepest depression of my life, but obviously, you know, I wouldn't change it for the world because I ended up playing baseball again, and meeting tons of great people. And, you know, that sort of thing. Obviously, I didn't want to change my path at all. Yeah.

Scott Benner 19:32
I think that one of the most difficult parenting moments I've ever had, was sitting next to my son in a surgeon's office. When the guy was reading his report his report from his elbow, and he said, this is there's a partial tear in there. And that word, yeah. And I like I have to tell I'm being serious like not crying. was one of the hardest things I've ever done as a parent. Like, I didn't want him to see me.

Troy 20:05
Yeah, you have to show it, you have to make it seem like it's kind of nothing. And I

Scott Benner 20:09
don't know what my face read. But it was one of the hardest things I've ever done was to like compete myself composed. And it's not because of people listening who don't play sports or whatever might think like, that's silly. Like he's fine. You know, like, he just can't throw a ball anymore. But that kid started playing baseball, like organized baseball when he was four. And he did it. He did it constantly and forever. And it meant a lot to him. And he was in college playing baseball COVID had already happened and screwed everything up. And he didn't even let COVID mess up. He just went and train privately somewhere else and kept going. And at the moment this happened to him. He was throwing a fairly consistent 93 mile an hour fastball. Yeah, and then this happened. And you have to shut it down. And they tell you, you're going to rehab it and the rehabs like six months, and it's very specific. And he did it, like he did it dutifully. He did come back from it. But he just like, there was a couple miles an hour off. And while he was still like in the 90s, but it was more like 91. And he's trying to work through it. But as he's trying to work through it times ticking away too. And schools ending and his opportunities to play baseball are are getting shorter and shorter. And he's also playing in the field and like, yeah, he's trying to do these things. It just was like, I don't know that anything ever would have come of it. Generally, I'm saying like it just Yeah, it's not the point. Like I think people think oh, like you think you're going to be a professional baseball. It has nothing to do with that. It really doesn't. Yeah, it's about for some people. My son is one of them. You might be too. It's about goal setting and achieving. And then resetting goals and re achieve. Yeah, exactly. That's just how he got to where he was. He was always just setting goals and trying to get to them. Yeah.

Troy 22:02
And you can't take that drive away from people like that's just like someone, for example. Like I mean, to put it out of the context of sports like that's like someone growing up just absolutely loving reading or loving screen player, or acting or whatever. And then 1015 years later, after doing it your entire life and only knowing that you're told you can't do it anymore.

Scott Benner 22:22
Yeah. And it's got nothing to do with your intention or your desire or your workout. Right. Right. Yeah, it's really it's, I mean, not that it's not a thing everybody understands or doesn't understand. It's just, I mean, it's not specific to people who play sports. But I mean, it wouldn't have been any different. If I was in a room and somebody would have said to Arden, you can't follow the stream, you know, whatever it is. And I would have, I would have had the same like reaction. It was really terrible. And he Well, let me ask you like, so you go, should you switch back? I mean, you mess up both your legs. That's crazy. And so basketball, the beating of basketball that's over. So is that what makes you go back to baseball?

Troy 23:03
Actually, I decided when I was getting my surgery, like I could have kept my scholarship was and it was an academic scholarship and a small school in Minnesota, but I decided to give it back and come back home and get my surgery because everyone, I'd only been there eight days. And I didn't know anybody. I was already depressed as all hell, you know, wanted to go home and be around my family. So got surgery, and then rehabbed again for nine more months and decided that I was just going to start over from square one and play basketball at a junior college. So I went to the local junior college near my home at the time and play basketball again and played a season. I just didn't it wasn't the same, I couldn't move the same. I was a very like quick, witty, like fast assist first point guard. And it just didn't work out anymore. For me, I was scared to drive the lane, because that's how it happened twice. One of them came from non contact, the other one was contact coming down from a rebound. So I just wanted nothing to do with the paint. So after that I started you know, that was actually in 2015. When the cubs were kind of making a run in the playoffs the first year before they ended up winning it the following year. And that just kind of brought back a lot of emotion with baseball. And so I was like, You know what, I'm at a junior college can't get much lower than this. I heard that the baseball coach really takes anybody who doesn't cut players you just might not play but you can be part of the team you know. So I decided to do that I sucked for a year and then ended up just sticking with baseball playing the whole entire summer and just trying to get back into that and then earn a starting spot in my junior college team the following season. actually played a couple of games for pet for the basketball coach because he he needed some extra players and he was my teacher for one of my classes so I played a couple games basketball and then strictly played baseball after that and then ended up going to a division three school kind of an hour away or so from my house.

Scott Benner 24:47
Good for you. That's that's really that's hard work. And then a lot of not giving up. Are you like that and other parts of your life that not giving apart?

Troy 24:56
Yeah, I would say that I am I mean, I don't really know I mean up until A couple of years ago, when I graduated, I didn't really know anything else besides sports. But academic wise, I mean, I was never a kid that really cared about grades or school in high school, and then went full circle when I got to college. But Coach kind of told me, Hey, to earn a spot on the field, you got to be good. But also you need to have your grades up, otherwise, you won't see the field the court anywhere. Yeah. And that's when I really honed in and I ended up finishing, I think I finished for like a 394 GPA. I went to school for exercise science, because of having so many injuries and torn ligaments and muscles and surgeries, and you name it, I just want to understand the body a little bit more and kind of being a diabetic kind of helps that because you learned about a little bit with the body and the endocrine system and all the other systems of the body throughout that too.

Scott Benner 25:44
Are you doing that for a living now?

Troy 25:46
I'm not No, not even close. Wow. Well,

Scott Benner 25:48
so you ended up with that degree. But what did you end up doing?

Troy 25:51
So I did after I graduated, I ended up starting my own LLC and doing baseball lessons, softball lessons, strengthing auditioning classes, that sort of thing. And I really loved it. But I did that to make ends, you know, I and I started to kind of drain from that just just within a year. You know, I love the kids. And I love giving back because I had coaches that kind of did the same for me. But I just didn't want to do it for the dollar. I wanted to do it because I, you know, really enjoyed working with kids. And you know, trying to help them grow and see them succeed is just just kind of made me happy. Okay. And so I was working in a couple of facilities had my own thing I was doing kind of bouncing around renting out fields and that sort of thing. And then my girlfriend and I actually decided to get away from our hometown in Illinois, and moved out to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in December of last year. So just kind of came out here. I was doing customer service for like a sporting goods company that I was at before, right. And I was able to do that remote and kind of keep that job throughout the move. But now I actually found a job doing in home sales out here. So it gets me out of the house gets me to meet people. And I'm driving around and exploring and getting to know the

Scott Benner 27:02
area. Yeah, hustler a little bit. You're moving truck trying to Yeah. What is what is she doing your girlfriend? She

Troy 27:09
does. So she was a financial advisor for a company called doesn't really matter what your company is called. But so she was a financial advisor back home. And then we moved out here and she was able to move like home offices, if you will, I guess. So she's out here now. But she's not a financial adviser. She just working underneath a financial advisor now. Because I mean that I couldn't even tell you that that job just sounds so difficult and hard. And I mean, she's good at it. She's good at what she does. But she went to school for like actuarial math, and like she's really good with numbers. So she's kind of just helping them out over there. Now. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:43
my son played baseball with a guy in college who got out and sort of did what you did. And he decided he was going to be an agent. And he, like, found this one guy that he thought like nobody cared about. And he's like, I think this guy can do it. And that guy is pitching on a professional baseball team now. That's awesome. That's amazing. He's his agent. And he was able to go to a bigger agency and say, Look, I represent this guy, if you bring me in as a partner, I'll bring him with me. And he actually built that thing for himself like that. See, that's really cool. And that crazy. I just I thought that was such an amazing story. Honestly, it really is. Yeah. Well, appreciate you tell me about this. I want to talk a little more about before we move on. So I watched my son go through a transition when he realized that he was hurt. And that decision of like, am I going to like try to push through this and rehab it, and like, then go back and keep doing it. And he did it like he was six. I mean, honestly, the way he did the rehab was really, I was amazed by it. I took a lot of effort. Every day, it was difficult and painful at times, and there was no clear win in sight. Like just keep doing this thing. So that hopefully six months from now, when you go back to the doctor, they'll say, yeah, it's okay. Like, you know, and then you still don't know if it's going to explode five seconds later, one way or the other. That was really something like to watch him put that work in on something he didn't know could pay him back or not, I thought was really interesting. But

Troy 29:19
yeah, it's really just like the not like you don't really know, kind of, like the fear of the unknown or like, you don't know what's next, or what can possibly be you just kind of keep working towards one thing and hoping that it's going to Yeah,

Scott Benner 29:28
yeah, yeah. I mean, like, Listen, if you if you decide to put the effort in to build a house, you know, at the end, you'll live in the house. This whole thing was just like, I mean, it's hard to put into words like the amount of rehab that went into it, and specific exercises and specific care and all this stuff that he had to do every day. And then it was, you know, you weren't sure that it was going to pay you at all like, like, it was just really it was it was an arduous thing to go through. And then he went back and played his senior year and had a great year and it was it was wonderful like it all All that hard work paid off. He had that. Yeah, like the time of his life for a couple of months in his senior year during the season, right, like a great time. But he still was like, well, wants to apply it again and again and keep moving. And so he starts resetting his goals, but they've just been had been so much of you didn't live through COVID. But like these kids last, like a season for COVID. All

Troy 30:21
I did was to see yes, so I so I graduated at 25. I, my, my college career was very, oh, later because now Yeah, because of my surgery. So I was under the impression. Now, I don't know if this is true or not, don't quote me on this. But I was told that, you know, once I went to school full time, when once I took full 12 hours of credits, that my eligibility clock would start with the NCAA. So I was scared of that. So I was taking only part time classes, I was taking like 910 11 hours per semester while I was rehabbing so that I didn't start my clock. So I don't know if that helped or hurt me. But I was able to play I got a year back because of COVID. My that was probably my best season, which is unfortunate because I was doing so well. And I, you know, didn't meet my girlfriend at the time. So I was really trying to pursue playing professional baseball still. And 12 games into the season, we were having the best season that we could have had in our season actually ended in Florida on our spring trip in our last game and in our coach kind of brought us into a hotel like conference room and we all all 40 of us cried together like little kids that are teasing with over

Scott Benner 31:26
that's where colts ended in the same in Florida, that on a spring trip. It's possible we were at the same place. So yeah. And I remember the same thing. I remember the seniors Cole was a sophomore. I remember the seniors. The game ended, and the coach went out. I think it I think it was like partway through the game. They decided this was the last game. And and then and then we're going home. And the school had said they're going to cancel the season. And I watched like it's tough, like seniors in college. That look, I mean, especially athletes, they look like men, you know what I mean? And they're standing out in the field, hugging each other crying. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, my God, like, this is terrible. And then, you know, that whole season was gone. And then the following season, they did this abbreviated like, I don't know, 14 games season. So my son did the same thing you did. He didn't go back to preserve his eligibility. Okay. Yeah, he trained. Like he just trained in baseball, and went to classes remotely. And that he was able to do a similar thing, where he just like kind of took a little bit of a break. And that break kept him from his clock running for his NCAA clock. And yeah, then then he went back and had all this eligibility left and had like a really great, like, senior year. But then there was such a gap in his playing time that when he was trying to like keep playing people were like, well, you beat him play for a year. Now. He's like, nobody played for a year and a half. And they're like, Yeah, but you don't have stats, and we don't know you for that year and a half. And that ended up being an issue for him. So yeah, it was really upsetting. Honestly, it was terrible. But it really is. Yeah. But what I wanted to get to was, when you finally decide, I'm not doing this anymore. Were you able to make a clean cut with it? Or was that a process as well?

Troy 33:16
You know what, it's really funny that I was able to make such a clean cut, I played my whole life, my whole life was dedicated to basketball. Obviously, I had baseball in there from a lot of the time, you know, I played travel ball from like eight to 14 whenever it was in high school and did all that. But basketball is the main part of my life. And I actually transferred a couple different high schools sort of due to that, but also other reasons with my parents divorcing and that sort of thing. But mainly basketball, like I switched, I went to a whole new high school my senior year just to play basketball. So like to have that and then just choke totally, like, wipe it away and kind of be done with it. I think the hardest part for me was my dad not being accepting that I wanted to play baseball again. Like, he just knew that, you know, he had the feeling that he was, you know that I was a great basketball player and that he wanted me to keep playing. But he just couldn't accept the fact that I was done with basketball. And I think that was the hardest, the hardest, like, cut to have.

Scott Benner 34:11
I watched the the end of it for Cole took a couple of months. And it was like this slow realization like, Oh, that's not working out, or this isn't gonna line up. Like that kind of stuff. And I'm not sure about my at the end, though he was his arm was fine. I don't know what would have happened if he would have gotten to the end. That's good that he ended up healthy though. Yeah, I think that too, because I don't know he could have gone back and gotten hurt again or something and you know, would have been another rehab just to rehab just to use your arm and not to play baseball and all that stuff. So yeah. So the interesting spot where he, from my perspective, where he just lets it go. He was starting to look for jobs. And he was trying to find a job in a certain place because he thought I'm gonna go to this city. And I'm going to I'm going to keep training Like, I'll keep training as a pitcher. But I'll work at the same time like he was trying to figure out a way to support himself. And so he was looking for. So Cole has a study like a, I don't know how to put it. My son's degree is in quantitative econ. So it's like data and statistics and things like that. Yeah. And data analytics. Yeah. And he wants to work in baseball, like, like, Cole wants to be the general manager of a baseball team. Like, that's what he wants to he wants to make the decisions about, you know, who they use and who they get and stuff like that. And that's, yeah, and that's his goal, right? It's a big goal. It's hard. But so he's applying for all these jobs with Major League Baseball teams. And he's in the middle of a, these, these job applications aren't like you don't fill out a piece of paper and then go talk to somebody they give you projects to do on your own, they give you a very limited amount of time, and you have to come back with your work. So he's in the middle of doing a project for the Tampa Bay Rays. And he has to choose a Rule five position player and a Rule five, pitcher for them to, to consider. I don't know if people know what the Rule five draft is, it's not really important. But they're these kind of players who are kind of on the outside, they're probably minor leaguers. They're getting passed around like they're good players, but nobody really wants to commit to them. They're kind of on the fringes. If you're a Phillies fan, Shane victory no was a Rule five draft. Like he's one of the guys that came out of the Rule five draft and moved from one team to another and ended up being you know, take up an all star on a World Series team. So Cole's doing the date going through the data. And he's poring through the data. And he just kind of says to me, look at all these guys these pictures. And I was like, right, and he goes up there my size. They're my weight. They throw as hard as I do. And I'm like, right, and he goes, they're three years, four years older than me. I'm like, Okay. And he goes, No one cares about them. And I went, right, he goes, I'm not doing this anymore. He just like, like it just the data was in front of him. And it was like, it made sense to him. Like, I don't want to spend the next three years throwing this baseball to be in a situation where I'm on some lists where people are like, Hey, can you find anything good on this list? And he's like, I don't I don't want to put that kind of effort. If there's no, like reasonable, you know, way to get through it. Yeah, he's being realistic. Yeah. And he just like, boom, like, I just watched him let go over. It was really interesting. I was very proud of him. Because, like I said, at that point, he's 22, maybe. And he's still young. He's still young. He's, I mean, I can't. For years, I can't have a catch with my kid anymore. at a close distance, like the Biden, y'all gonna break your hand, you don't even know. It, just my thumb, like, like the pad of my thumb and my thumb gets sore and swollen. The ball makes a noise when it's coming through the air that is unnerving.

Troy 38:15
Like, Hey, we got it, maybe we gotta teach you how to catch that glove. Or maybe we got to get you with two in the pink two fingers in the pinky

Scott Benner 38:21
pocket I was doing that I was doing. I'm an old man. I'm just you had the glove pad on there, too. So I used to put a towel on my hand in my palm just to try to create more padding like anything. Like we had like torn up towels that like and I'm not like, I'll say this thing. I look at my kids. And my assumption is that my mailman is very attractive and athletic. So because I'm not, I've never been nearly as athletic as my kids are. And so it's that way, though. Yeah, I know. So I'm not out there, like all schlubby but I'm not. I'm not him. You know what I mean? So like, I'm out there trying to do this thing with him. He was still at that point when he decided to stop. But other things happen a boy in our town got drafted. And that brings his his spirits of New Orleans once you see that that makes you want to stay with it. The kid quit in like three months of being drafted. He got drafted and he was out like I think he did one minute like low a season and he was like, that's it I'm done.

Troy 39:25
I was a young was he did a good job that a high school or college out of college, you would think that he would actually stick around longer. I mean, some guys will get shelled, though. And then they'll just be like, Nope, this isn't for me. And it's better to make that decision early than spend six to 10 years in the league and then beat yourself. And then you get that one who's that dude from the A's it just got like he was in the league for like, last 13 years or something like that. And he finally got called up for a game and then got brought back down and then he like kind of goes back and forth. It's just I mean, it's a lifestyle. Like there's no I mean, yeah, it's a it's an absolute grind. You know, I have nothing but cred I have friends that are playing pro ball right now, you know nothing but love for all them. Yeah, it's just you've got to be willing to do it. And you got to be willing to kind of put your family and your career and life to the side. Yeah, while you chase this dream. And it just wasn't working out for me I was 25. When I graduated to former torn ACLs, seven broken bones, I ended up tearing my labrum on my left side right before my COVID senior year. And that's when I had to make that decision to either get surgery and not play or just play around it to play with the pain. I did it for a year already. I did it during COVID. And I had my best season. So I was like screw and I'm not gonna go into the knife and then potentially have it not be the same. So I might as well just keep playing with it. And I don't really deal with the issue much I just can't do certain shoulder exercises at the gym. But other than that, I'm good and I'm golfing a lot now.

Scott Benner 40:47
Were you able to go from swinging a bat this way a golf club?

Troy 40:50
I was but I didn't. I didn't touch a golf club until, like, the end end of my career. Like I didn't, I was so against it. And I know I know why. Because I ended up playing a season of softball over here with some friends. And it's just totally different. Like I can't even I can't even justify the

Scott Benner 41:09
two. Do you miss playing? Or do you miss camaraderie? Is there anything about it that you wish still existed for you? Oh, I

Troy 41:17
missed it all. I mean, I it took me a lot. You said it was easier. Like you asked about the clean cut with basketball, it was so much easier to cut basketball because I moved to baseball. But if I went just cold turkey kinda, you know, I think it would have been much tougher. Now after my playing career, I was still that's kind of why I think I started to dive into giving lessons because I didn't want to let go. I really haven't watched MLB baseball much that's I have an issue with the, you know, the emotions of umpires these days, and just kind of everything where the games going. And I think that some of the rules are good. But I just don't watch it as much as I used to. And as much as I would have liked to. I mean, I'm out in South Carolina, there's a de lo a Cubs team out here. That's the only only baseball there is. And I've gone to a couple games, but I just am not. I'm not into it as much as I was. But it definitely took a lot longer for me to get over it. As far as compared to basketball.

Scott Benner 42:08
Yeah. When my son was playing, he didn't. He didn't go to professional baseball games. He said he didn't he didn't like to watch people play baseball. He wanted to play baseball. Exactly.

Troy 42:17
Because I would just be itching out there. Yeah. And chances are I'm just chirping the guys out there and I have no room to talk.

Scott Benner 42:24
So how did you manage your diabetes through all of this the basketball, the baseball being away at college having injuries like how's that been for you?

Troy 42:34
It was a struggle for sure. But I mean, I was actually just having a conversation with my mom this morning, because I kind of wanted to know, kind of how it was like, did she like obviously I remember everything, but I just wanted to know from a different perspective. And she was like, Yeah, I never helped you with any of that. That was always all you you were very controlled with that I the only time she ever actually gave me an injection was in the hospital when they told her to. And they like were like training us. So I've always given myself my own shots and everything. But basically what happened was I was they didn't give me a pump for the first three, three and a half years of me being a diabetic. It was all just MDI injections and a meter, I was checking five to 10 times a day and taking up to 10 shots a day.

Scott Benner 43:19
And where's your like, a one CF during that time?

Troy 43:23
Oh, that was it was high. I was dying. When I was diagnosed, it was 12. And then I, it really hasn't been much. It was like around the 1011 Nine during that time. And then I got on Medtronic when I was in high school. And that was just brutal. I didn't like being connected like that, and just had so many issues. That was I think that was more when Medtronic was a little bit newer, at least I hope so because there was a lot of issues that I was having with them, whether the battery cap would come off and it wouldn't stay on or whatever the case was. And then I actually when I was in, like early in college, when I switched over to to baseball, I actually kept the pump on at times. And then there was one time in particular during summer ball when I kept it on and I hit a I ended up hitting like a triple that I stretched out. And then I kept my pump on I didn't even know I had my pump on until I was at third base. And I was like, I'll be fine. You know, I want it to slide into home. And I slid into home and I broke my pump. And it was just beeping at me like uncontrollably for like 15 minutes and I'm sitting. Luckily it's summer ball. So I was able to sit on the bench and let someone sub in for me while I was on the phone with Medtronic customer service trying to figure out how to turn off but during basketball, I would just take off the pump and that was I would run high a lot. So that was kind of an issue. And then after the Medtronic issue that I had, I just decided to go back to injections. So I was on the in pen for a while throughout college actually throughout like a lot of my playing career. And then I didn't get on the Omnipod dash until I finished playing baseball.

Scott Benner 44:58
Okay,

Troy 44:58
all right towards the end And I mean,

Scott Benner 45:00
higher a one sees and that kind of stuff like, is that a thing you learned after time? Like, did you again because I'm also hearing your parents got divorced as you're being diagnosed, right? So your mom's? Are you living with your mom? I

Troy 45:15
was living with my mom at the time. And then sort of like halfway through high school is startling with my dad. Okay,

Scott Benner 45:22
so that so that's there's some unstability there. So neither of them really are on top of the diabetes. They're letting it up to you. You're not doing a terrific job, obviously, because you're a kid. Correct. But you're keeping yourself moving. Where is it now, like, what have you learned over the years, taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it should at least be simple. That's why for the last three years, I've been drinking ag one every day, no exceptions. It's just one scoop mixed in water once a day every day, and it makes me feel energized and focused. That's because each serving of ag one delivers my daily dose of vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, and more. It's a powerful, healthy habit that's also powerfully simple. Before I was taking ag one, I would get that brain fog in the middle of the day, and I just couldn't seem to get on top of it. But now that doesn't happen anymore. By starting my day with ag one I found focus, and a renewed ability to perform at my highest level all day long. Drink ag one.com/juice box, when you use that link, you're supporting the production of the Juicebox Podcast, I drink age you want in the morning, but you could use it as a coffee replacement before a workout or in your smoothie. If there's one product, I had to recommend to elevate your health, it's ag one and that's why I've partnered with them for so long. So if you want to take ownership of your health, start with ag one, try ag one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D 3k. two and five, three ag one travel packs with your first purchase exclusively at drink ag one.com/juice box. That's drink ag one.com/juice box, check it out.

Troy 47:02
Omni pod is a lifesaver. That's what I've learned. Dexcom is also a lifesaver. I just it's just easier once I like once I stopped playing honestly, I hate to say it, my numbers got way better. But that's because I didn't have such a gruesome schedule. And you know, I'm I played Division Three baseball, I didn't play D one baseball where we're getting all this delicious, more healthy food delivered to us or made for us. We're stopping at gas stations on the way to and from games or McDonald's and I'm refusing to eat that. So that's really where it came from. But the the AutoSum, the automated system on the five is, is just next level. And it's just much easier. And because I think that my biggest problem was I usually don't eat early in the mornings, I'll usually fast till anywhere from like noon to two, three o'clock. And then I'll eat later at night. And I'm kind of more of a snack or later at night, if anything. And that's kind of when I would be running higher is later at night. And then throughout the middle the night I'm not awake, obviously to give myself insulin or to see where my levels are heading. And then that's where the five kind of nip to that and it's been great since.

Scott Benner 48:07
Wow. So how long have you been doing it? Part Five?

Troy 48:09
I started in June of 22. So June of last year, I think it was actually a little earlier than that because it came out. I think it was cleared by the FDA in like February or something. And I was waiting and waiting and waiting for that

Scott Benner 48:23
prior using dash, is that right? Okay, and then you go to the automated system. And how did you learn to settle

Troy 48:30
I had an endo that kind of set it up for me, based off of my dash settings a little bit like I don't think it was like correlated at all. I think she just kind of used what I had from my other settings and that sort of thing and kind of mess with it a little bit. And then actually, I saw that was around. Yeah, so it was last year. So then I ended up the last time I saw that doctor was in October last year. So I don't really I actually just got an agency yesterday out here, but I did it in urgent care. So it takes three days for it to come in. gotta send it out to a lab or whatever. So I don't have a current agency. But it was the lowest it's ever been rate when I jumped on it in June and it was 6.80. Man good for ya. I expect to be way lower. I mean, I'm not wanting to settle for anything, let alone that. But

Scott Benner 49:19
I mean, listen, that it's a long time for a little kid who's got all this other stuff going on that you've been gone over to try to like, you know, grow up, become an adult, realize that this needs more care and concern, figure out what that means. Actually put that stuff into practice. And to get to a six eight is really terrific. And you and are you thinking there's nothing and

Troy 49:42
it's lower already, but even I mean, I've had issues with insurance, so I haven't steadily been using Omnipod five like I wish I can. Now hopefully now that my insurance has kicked in with this new job. Hopefully it'll be fine and smooth sailing from here on out. Obviously that's not usually how it goes in the case of our diseases here. But, you know, I'm hoping for that. And I'm hoping that I can stick with him you had five and stay with the Dexcom. I don't really know about the G seven, obviously, because it doesn't have that set up with the five yet, but I'm cool with the G six now and you had five until the wheels fall off. You know

Scott Benner 50:17
what, when you don't have insurance coverage, what do you do? I'm

Troy 50:20
just going back to, you know, injections, which is tough because I haven't had really an endo since October. So I'm kind of just doing it. I'm just, you know, you're my endo at this point you in the Juicebox Podcast has been my Endo. And so it was myself just trial and error. It's just really that and I've just been doing injections. And then actually I've been kind of contacting Omnipod and Dexcom and getting replacements for ones that I've had in the past that I've never called in on and stuff like that. So I'm kind of sort of milking it a little bit,

Scott Benner 50:46
I guess. Okay. Well, Troy, when we're done, hold on for a second. Okay. Yeah, I might have a couple of things here I can send. I just I appreciate the conversation very much. Because I have this, you know, this personal connection to watching like, Forget sports, like it's not baseball, like, it's, it's watching kids move and transition through parts of their life. Like, that's the part that I'm I'm really amazed by, and I can see where the pitfalls could be. You know, where that stuff could go wrong? Where you could like, you know, you talked about feeling depressed for a while, around your injuries. I was worried about my son when he you know, I was like, what's going to happen? Like, I'm not saying he did something, or that I saw something that made me think, Oh, God, is he going to be okay? But you put so much effort into something. And for it to just like disappear. Right? And I don't know that that's any, you know, that that's that much different than I don't know, like waking up one day when you're 23. And having diabetes. Like, you know, like, there's this thing you've been doing an expectation you have is a path you're moving on. And then suddenly somebody just steps up and goes no over. You can't can't argue you can't fight you can't, you know, can't send in a form to try to get us to change our mind. This is just happening. Yeah. And you know, and it's, I mean, it's tough, man. Do you have brothers

Troy 52:19
and sisters? Yeah, I have an older brother. He's four years older than me and older sister who's two years older than me and a younger sister, who's five years younger than me.

Scott Benner 52:25
Were they any help through all this? Like, just comfort or?

Troy 52:30
Yeah, a little bit. I mean, my, my older sister is now a PA, she played basketball in college, she was actually one of the best national shooters I've ever seen. And I tell everybody that, but she, she kind of was a big role model for me for sports. And then she's a PA now, like I said, so she's, she knows she has a little bit of a grasp of kind of diabetes more than anybody else in my family. So that kind of helps a little bit. But other than that, I mean, even my mom says, she's like, Hey, listen, like even she told me this years ago to I remember, like, vividly. But her her and my dad both said like, hey, you know, obviously, we're really sorry that you got this. But if if it was going to be anybody in the family, we're glad it's you because you're able to handle it. And we know you can handle it and kind of do your thing. So

Scott Benner 53:14
is it funny, like that? The VA onesies? You talked about having earlier? We're talking about like it's being handled? Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? Like it's, um, this is not uncommon. Hold on, I have to sit up, I have to move that the legs are falling asleep up there. So yeah. Sorry about that. Up there too long. This is not uncommon in these conversations, right? The idea that you're alive, and you're doing your insulin, so you're handling it. But your agencies, whatever it is, and it's not really being handled well. It's being I mean, handled. But how everyone is so comfortable saying, Oh, you had it, but you didn't happen. Exactly. And then they tell you, you can handle it. But did you know you couldn't handle it? Or did you think you were doing a good job? No,

Troy 54:07
I didn't think I could handle it at all. But I think that I was also that young kid that kind of was annoyed with my parents getting on my case about stuff and kind of would tell them that it's okay. Or tell them that it's good. And then they obviously just stopped kind of putting that effort forth.

Scott Benner 54:25
Yeah, I don't trust anybody. They told me it's good. Whether it's on this podcast or in my real life. I'm

Troy 54:30
like, Well, what's new and what's good, you know, it can be different from everybody but honestly, I think that I had a I had a really hard time with my Windows after I was diagnosed and even at like my, my pediatric endo was so mean to me that I would literally be so scared to go to the appointments and like, how did that happen? I don't know. I just like she would just like really, like lay into me. And it was like, she wouldn't put any like, blame or like kind of like get upset with my parents. at all, she would just get upset with me and like, she would just like, get really angry with me. And like, I was obviously an emotional kid at the time, my parents had just divorced, I didn't really have much, you know, parental supervision, and that and that sort of thing, or anyone kind of like helping me in a, in a sense of like, Hey, Troy, you should probably do this, you should check this, like, my mom was great at counting my carbs for me, and like cooking the meals and like making sure that I had the right numbers down and stuff like that for the most part. Or like, she would help me with like my low blood sugars and stuff like that. So it's not like they were like unfit parents in that regard. But obviously, diabetes is a different beast that you need to tame head on. And we just really didn't. So just butted heads with her and like, she would see my agencies and she would just think that I wasn't trying or wasn't doing anything. And obviously, I had the honeymoon phase, and I had all these different things going on. And she just didn't really give me the proper care. In my opinion, I wasn't getting changes in my numbers like I should have been. She was kind of just they were letting me coast. Like they didn't put me they refused to put me on a pump until my sugars got better, which I didn't think made any sense at all. But I was also 13 and thought that I knew everything at that time.

Scott Benner 56:09
Well, I agree with you. I mean, I don't if if it's a thing, you can't first of all, she's got to know your parents just got divorced, right? And you're young, and you're not doing well. And her answer to that is to say, well keep doing this till you figure it out. And you were scared to be exactly. Well, what the hell, man? That's not

Troy 56:30
good. Yeah. So I had some, some PTSD with with Endo, so bounced around to a couple I actually had, when I was younger, I was a very short kid, very, very short kid. So when I was diagnosed, my dad spoke to somebody, one of his friends or whatever, I guess, who was a basketball coach. And he was like, Hey, you should check out this foundation, down at Rush and Chicago. It's called the magic Foundation. And they basically will test you for like hormones and that sort of thing. So I ended up getting tests on my pituitary glands. And they it was like this whole nine hour test that they had to do with a bunch of bloodwork every few hours. And they found out that I wasn't producing enough like by any means, like I was very below the amount that I needed. So I started to take growth hormone therapy, and do that for a couple years too. So that was also affecting my sugar's a lot too. And they had, they were also acting as my Endo, too. And that lady was just even worse, it was just like, brutal, so bad.

Scott Benner 57:25
I wonder if I'm stretching you out. Lead

Troy 57:28
ACLs. I got I've had that same thought pounding in my head for years, because I was thinking that my dad was being a little greedy, trying to get me an extra couple inches in my height. And that's how I ended up tearing my ACL and having these injuries all over because of my body growing out of or my bones going too fast or growing more than they should have, or obviously, it's abnormal growing and that sort of thing. So I've definitely thought that myself, I just haven't confirmed it. Or, you know, I don't even know if I want to know if it's for sure. True or not, because I don't know how I feel.

Scott Benner 58:01
Yeah. Oh, you'd be? How tall were you before the procedure? So

Troy 58:05
I was, let's see, diagnose diagnosis, I was four foot nine. And I was 79 pounds. And I was at 13. And then going into high school, I was I was 411. going into my senior year, my freshman year high school. And I was and that was where I was five at graduation.

Scott Benner 58:25
Is your list, highlight reel on your baseball thing? Are you five? I

Troy 58:29
like to think I'm 511 my girlfriend thinks I'm not she thinks I'm like five, nine. But I would say I'm like 510 510 and a half. So

Scott Benner 58:36
this is so interesting. My son never lied about his height. And it's so common in Oh,

Troy 58:44
it's common in basketball to I the only reason why I did it is because all my other teammates lied, and I was taller than him and I was like, I'm not putting that I'm shorter than your dude, I'm two inches taller than you like, that's gonna look bad for scouting. So I would. So that's when I started to lie is when all my other teammates did. So I had to look like I had to look the part. So I'd always be an inch taller than the kids that I was actually taller than

Scott Benner 59:05
so that that really is we've had this conversation because my son's like, I'm not lying. I'm 511 just say I'm 511 and he actually is 511. And so, but other people around him are like I'm six one and he's like, I'm taller than you. It's like it would happen like everyone would pick a number that they thought somebody would be interested in. It's It's so fascinating. But anyway, it ended up hurting call sometimes, because when he said he was 511 people assumed he was five nine. Yeah.

Troy 59:35
It's like, a secret like with that. It's just so weird how that works.

Scott Benner 59:40
Yeah, listen, here's the secret. I'm gonna tell all of you because I've been through the whole thing now. When they see you they know. Exactly. Exactly.

Troy 59:49
So it's like what does it matter? I'm 511 with cleats on? I'm definitely 511 So that's why I was like cool. I'm gonna be wearing cleats most of the time.

Scott Benner 59:57
Well, that and that is another thing too is the big holes like I'm like six one in my shoe.

Troy 1:00:01
That's when you should put six. I'm not going to take they're gonna tell you to take your shoes off and measure your height at a at a combine or maybe in a combine they would, but like, at, like a showcase or whatever, however they do that.

Scott Benner 1:00:14
Yeah, it's interesting how people's minds work. So I think Cole's natural position is centerfield. Yep. And he and he has an affinity. I mean, he's old. Now. He probably said, I can't do that anymore. But like, he had an affinity for where the ball was, like he was he was always where the mom was. And so if you put a ball off a wall, he'd be standing there,

Troy 1:00:37
he knows where it's gonna, like ricochet. He knows where it's gonna bounce

Scott Benner 1:00:40
that like it's not a catchable like, like, keep in mind, it's not a catchable ball. And most people that I watched, the entire time he was doing this and recruiting and everything, most people would have been 1015 feet away from where the ball landed. But cold would almost catch those balls. And then he'd have it like, immediately get it back in I to see to tell you how many singles many guys how many elbows were held to singles. Yeah, how many triples were held the doubles? Like that kind of stuff. Isn't it's insane. But it but people don't see it that way. They see Oh, you got really close to the ball. He didn't catch up though. Yeah, right. And and so the ones that were catchable. He made look easy. And and the ones that were uncatchable, he was there, and he would impact the game properly. But an untrained eye would see it as Oh, why were you so close, but didn't catch the ball? And that it's a real thing. Like it was hard to play for people who understood the nuances of it. Yeah, it was really interesting. And so anyway, my point was, that people who knew would say to me, Oh, my God, how fast is he? What is he must run like, and they would say some crazy 60 times. Yeah.

Troy 1:01:50
What is What do you like to see? Or what was his 60? It

Scott Benner 1:01:54
was never like insane. People thought he was running like a six, three or a six, two. But he was always more like a six, six, still just. But he knew where the ball was Troy. Like he knew where it was going. He would move when the bat was being swung. Like he had a real, he's probably

Troy 1:02:13
a really good quick twitch. But also, even if you're running a 60, like no one, I saw the 60 doesn't really make sense because no one's ever running 60 yards in a straight line. And yeah, with him being that fast for a 60 he's able to get to spots so much faster than other kids because he can he knows not only does he know where it's going, but he can move. So he's gonna get there a lot quicker than an average person would. And that's what that's what helps a lot out there. And people don't realize that though.

Scott Benner 1:02:39
Yeah, no, but what but when people are measuring things, what they see is there's one kid it's always one short kid who runs like a six to 16 like some in that he's out there and his bare feet. Like, yeah, like he grew up in the jungle or something like, you know, and he's like, he's like, I don't even need shoes. I can do this. Kid flies, can't catch a baseball, terrible outfielder, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But look at the 60 That kid gets people pay attention to the unfortunate part about scouting. Yeah. And then once in a while, you get somebody who really knows what they're talking about. And I was, listen, we were at a summer game during COVID, maybe, because like, like, you know, while schools were shutting down, like real baseball players, were still playing baseball places like my son played more better baseball, because it COVID than he would have played if he was in college. And so we're at this field 111 Summer, that summer, I think. And this guy with a clipboard, he comes around to our side of the field, and he goes, whose son is wearing this number. And I was like, is the father of this kid here. And I was like, God, it's my son. And he comes over to me, and he goes, Hey, I'm here for the pitcher today on the other team. And I'm like, right, he goes, and he told me what team he was there for is there for he was a pro scout. And he said, Your son, I've been watching him he's like He grades is a professional outfield. Wow. And and I said, I know. Thank you. What do we do about that? He goes, I keep playing. It's literally how it went, like, I had a man stand in front of me and use the words your son grades out as a professional outfielder. And then when you ask them what to do next, they're like, yeah, just keep getting Stassi ups. And yeah, and it's all it's not. It's not the system isn't

Troy 1:04:27
nice. That's why it's it's part of the reason why I decided on to play professional baseball, but I was also 25 and broke broken.

Scott Benner 1:04:37
What my point is, is that is that they, they take the things that they can do. So if you're taller, good. If you're bigger, good. If you're super fast, good. These are things that minds can like absorb quickly. Like there's no one standing there except one guy one day. Luckily says things like, man, your son takes perfect routes to things. His arm is turret like I think what happened was that day the they were just they were on a team that was so good that got they would just run out to it because they didn't even play the same position the whole game because they were just they were so good, it didn't matter, they could go anywhere and play anywhere. So in one inning, cold moved from center to right. And someone hit a ball down the line, right down the right field line. I think there was someone on second. And no, no, excuse me, there was someone on third. And Cole caught the ball down the line in foul territory, I'm going to tell you probably 250 feet down the line in that space, going into the fence and call through the kid out trying to tag from third to go he's and caught the ball. But you know, obviously, so like, that's the kind of stuff he could do. And in the end, what he would tell me is I'm not tall enough,

Troy 1:05:58
they don't care. You know, today, look at all the other guys though.

Scott Benner 1:06:02
But it's always one guy, you're gonna be every every. Every generation, there's a three foot tall guy that plays professional baseball, he was the what was the is the guy before LTV was something tool whiskey or something like it's always ROI. Is that who I'm thinking of like, right, like, so there's always one. And you know that it's out today, and then it'll be another one. But but the point is, is that I don't know that my son could or could not have been a professional baseball player. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that, based on his size. That was it for people, they were like, he's not that he's not tall. And then that would be kind of the end of it. And it was really it was, it's a hard way to live it really. And so I'm talking about this for people who are listening, because if your kids are going through this, my best advice at all, as Troy has in a second, my best advice is find a school where academically you fit really well. And that you could play baseball or your sport or whatever it is and go and have a good time. And if anything else comes of it, then that's a bonus. But if you're not a monster, or running like lightning, or something like that, you can't will yourself into the position you think you can will yourself into like it just doesn't have my son is a really skilled baseball player and it did not matter. Like in the end, it kind of didn't matter. You almost have to be lucky. Lucky, huge. No, yeah, it's

Troy 1:07:26
really about who you know, to honestly, I mean, I would say that the biggest thing is, don't waste your money on all these damn showcases, and all these different money grab events just to get you to think that your kid's gonna play somewhere. And I definitely agree with what you say. And to piggyback off that, go somewhere where you're gonna play. I don't know, I mean, unless you want to be that kid that to tell everyone Hey, I played at a division one university, or hey, I want I was on the baseball team in Division One University, I didn't play a single minute or a single inning or a single at bat. But I was there on the team. I just wasn't on the roster. You know, it's obviously personal preference and whatever kids want to do. But if you actually are pursuing college baseball in the next level, go somewhere you're going to play I was always trying to put off junior colleges and put off junior colleges because I thought that I was better than that. And I might have been sure but I it didn't end up panning out that way. And Junior College ended up saving my life and I think JUCO sports in general and just junior college in general, even if you're not playing sports is a great route because you're gonna save a ton of money and in the end.

Scott Benner 1:08:29
Yeah, so those things are very expensive. And it's like, it's like a slot machine. Like you're just putting in quarters and pulling, hoping that something happens right. And, and, and Cole had to moments, to moments like all this work that he put in and these things he go and play these showcases to make sure people can see him. So based on his baseball and his grades, he was approached by Penn. So Ivy League school, right? And the guy pulls me aside first to tell me oh my god, your son's amazing blah, blah, blah, he did this thing on. He was on an all purpose field. So they were playing this game on an all purpose field. So it didn't have a left field fence it had like a it had like a right field fence that kind of disappeared into nowhere. So this kid hit a homerun if the My point is that if the field had a fence, this was a homerun it would have been over the the centerfield fence but because there was no fence there to track down have to stop running. So he tracked it down and and caught the ball probably 425 feet into centerfield. And that was a bomb. Like it wasn't like a rocket like didn't me like it was up in the air for a while he was able to get to it. So he caught that ball. And then he threw a kid out at second trying to go from first to second. And Penn came over and he's talking to me. Tell me about your son's grades. What's he boom, he goes this kid's perfect for us. I'm gonna love him. and blah, blah, blah, like, you know, I'm going to talk to you guys after the game. Then cold like comes in pitches a couple of innings at the end of the game the guys like oh my god, you can pitch like ball ball like he's so it's super excited. And then cold walks in off the field and I say, Hey, this is I still remember the guy's name. And I was I'm not gonna say it here. But I was like, this is this guy thinks your you might be good for Penn and Cole, like lit up. He was like, Holy crap, like, I'm gonna get to go to school like close to my house and an Ivy League school and play baseball. And like, this is insane. And then the guy looks at him and goes, how tall are you? And my son goes, I'm 511. But I'm really 511. I swear I am. And he goes, Yeah, he goes, My guy is not going to put you out on the field at that height. And he was like, wait, what? And it just it stopped as quickly as it started. Yeah,

Troy 1:10:50
that's the only thing to showcase. It's just hard. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:10:54
by the way, this happened a second time. And I will call out that school to not call out but I'll name them. North Carolina. Can you imagine how excited I was the day that the Tarheels guy sat down next to me in a in a stadium and said, Hey, is that your son out and center? And I was like, yeah, he goes here. Your coach told me you are his father. He told me about his grades. And we sat there for 45 minutes talking about coal and his grades. And he's like, man, he's really good. And he's like, it's just very impressed. And blah, blah, blah. And he's, we're moving. And the game ends. I swear to you, same thing. Amen. My son comes over guy goes, Hey, how tall are you? Oh, holds like I'm 511. But I really am 511. Okay, gotta go see, yeah, my coaches are gonna let you play that,

Troy 1:11:36
right? See, that's just unbelievable. They're like, hey, what about a deal breaker? Like I do this better than your guy who's an inch taller than me. Nobody cares. Yep. It's unfortunate. That's what and that's what's tough. And that's why I say what I say about showcases, it's not knocking them at all, obviously, if there's some legit showcases going on, and great all power to you for helping these kids. But a lot of it is like the only way I'm sending my kid, I don't have any kids. The only way I'm sending my kid out there is if I know for sure that he's going to be one of the best there. And he's got this one thing that's gonna stand out as opposed to everybody else. He runs a six to 60 he hits the ball, however hard off the bat, he can throw the ball however far however hard, you know, I'm saying like, don't just send your kid to a showcase if he's not ready, either. Because once you show them to the world, that one time, it's there to stay and people are gonna judge him off of that one experience. That PVR report that showcase report that whatever it

Scott Benner 1:12:29
is, yeah. I think generally genuinely what we learned it was the North Carolina guy it did me in like, I was like, wait a minute, like, but why I'm pulling this pull in the slot machine. And cherries came up. And then the charities told me no, thank you. I was like, Wait, like, what? So he's he like literally, for all the time we spent together. As soon as he saw coal, and coal wasn't six, two, he like started to walk away from us. He's like, Oh, I'm sorry. And he started walking away. And I put my hand on his shoulder and I stopped him. And I go, Hey, man, I'm like, What do I do? I'm like, guys, like, you keep coming up to me and telling me that my son's a great baseball player. And then they're not interested because he's not tall enough. And he goes, Yeah, I would find like a school where you know that they do. So what we ended up doing as we started looking at like stat sheets for college. So we first pick colleges he wanted to go to, or that he fit really well in academically. And then we started looking at how tall were the players that started games in his position. And then we basically then targeted the teams that would put kids out there that were six feet tall ish. And then he would go to workouts where those coaches were. And as soon as called to that he had 18 offers to play college. I say that's really smart to call. Yeah, but that's how we ended up doing it. And then the bigger problem ended up being that during this, you know, this whole thing he kept growing. So by the time he was in college, he was 200 pounds and almost, you know, a little over 511. And like a real like adult like if Cole could have I think it was the extra weight. I think if he could have if he was 200 pounds and athletic, they would have ignored that he was 511. But he was back then he was like 171 65 He was still in high school. And then they looked at me and I was five, nine, I think they thought well, he's not going to get any bigger. And so yeah, it's just it's anyway, that's not my point. My point is not to tell you about my son's thing. My point is to tell you don't waste all your freakin time trying to jam your round peg into your square hole because it's going to cost you a lot of money and it's not going to end well. So for most of you that's all that's it. There's a lot of fun and I don't know that I even I'm not even I don't see it as wasted time. But, and I actually do think like to slice it all. way the disappointment. It makes you a resilient person or percent does. Yeah, yeah, if you can get through it, man, you are a resilient son of a bitch when you get out of this process, so great. So tell me a little bit about your goals, like you bounced, like, why are you not using your degree? That's my first question.

Troy 1:15:19
I honestly, I don't really know exactly what to do with it. I mean, I didn't I personally, when when you think about kinesiology and Exercise Science, you think, Oh, you want to be a physical therapist. And when I was in physical therapy, Scott, I just, that was just the lowest part of my life. And I just could see it in the, in my physical therapist, that it was just hard for him to get me. You know, it was hard for him to motivate me to do something for myself. And I just feel like when I was in college, I was like, You know what, I can't see myself doing this for other people, even though now I kind of can. I just don't know other careers that can make me a solid living with my degree without going and get my master's. And I've, my, my former coaches asked me to come back and be a GA and, you know, get my schooling paid for and that sort of thing. But I just, I don't know, I think the only way that I'm going back to school is if I'm playing sports, and I'm not good enough to play on the golf team right now.

Scott Benner 1:16:16
So, so you don't love school?

Troy 1:16:18
I don't I think it I love the, like the schedule of that. You know, I've had my whole life under a routine under scheduling, seeing the same people, you know, that sort of thing. I think I like that kind of community feeling. But I don't I don't love school. No.

Scott Benner 1:16:35
Okay, yeah, I My son doesn't love it either. Actually, there's I honestly think that if it wasn't for baseball, we would have had trouble getting him.

Troy 1:16:44
To codec. Yeah. by imagining both there. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:16:47
And, like, you know, I'm not bragging my son's degree is kind of impressive. And he's like, it's not a thing that he loves. He's just the thing he's good at math is a, it's the way his brain works. So he's good at it. But he doesn't love it. He wants to use it to do like I said, other than Yeah, it's fun to listen to him talk about baseball, he sees it for

Troy 1:17:11
how he sees it from an analytical standpoint. Does he like Moneyball?

Scott Benner 1:17:15
Oh, that movie? Yeah, he loves it. That's

Troy 1:17:16
where the game is nowadays. So like, when you're talking to me and telling me that like, oh, you know, they're they're writing you off because your son is an inch shorter than the average are this and that that's that's Moneyball in my head. I think that that's kind of where it's at is that, you know, it's all analytical now is that and there's not a lot of guys that can feel the game. And they're getting rid of a lot of scouts, that have actually been around the game for a while on that no baseball, and they know players. And it's going off of more of analytical now. Like,

Scott Benner 1:17:43
I think Cole believes that there's a blend that needs 100%.

Troy 1:17:47
Because I agree, I like the new wave of technology and that sort of thing. I think it's amazing. But it also is detrimental.

Scott Benner 1:17:55
Yeah, it's strange to watch a guy, like, stand on a baseball field that can't defensively play his position. But they've done a mathematical formula that tells them that he will prosper more at the plate than he'll fail in the field. And so his run differential will be okay, still,

Troy 1:18:13
like we're willing to take that risk. But we don't want to take a risk on a kid that's an inch shorter than we are used to.

Scott Benner 1:18:19
Yeah, and so I think there's part of like, I think that one of the things that Cole has going for him is that he does have that kind of math mind. But he literally is a baseball player. Like he he has a job now where he works in baseball. And I don't think I'm gonna say exactly where he works. But he said that the one of the things that stunned him when he got there was that he came in with a group of new hires. And he said, he goes, I'm the only athletic person out of all. And he was like, it was really weird. They all love sports. He's like, they, they love it. They know a ton about it, but none of them have played it ever. And he's like, in these are the people who are shaping the ideas. Like it's all theoretical to them. And I was like, that's really and he's actually moving up really quickly. And I do think it's because of the blend of his like, of his experience.

Troy 1:19:12
Yeah, and I hope so because that's I'd rather have someone like him moving up in the system than then someone that doesn't know you know, a quality at bat if it hit him in the face.

Scott Benner 1:19:23
What it takes, but it's it really is. I mean, I love it. Listen, I love watching baseball, but there are times I'm like, that's not a baseball player. That's a professional baseball player who's not a baseball player. Yeah, he's just a really athletic, there's

Troy 1:19:35
no the gamers, you can see the gamers and you can see the guys that have the IQ.

Scott Benner 1:19:40
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. It really is. Alright, well, Troy, what have we not talked?

Troy 1:19:43
I don't know. I mean, we've got I mean, there's a ton that we can talk about, but I got what else you got. I didn't really make notes for it. So I don't really I don't really well,

Scott Benner 1:19:52
I don't want to miss I can't I don't want to miss anything on your diabetes like like you're doing on the pod five now. You're letting it do its thing. thank you are you let me ask you a couple of questions about day to day on your one five stuff. Are you Pre-Bolus In your meals? Does that need to happen? Yes. Okay. Do you watch what you eat? Are you like a careful eater? Like a clean eater? What's your diet, like, I

Troy 1:20:17
would say I'm a clean eater. I was definitely a lot cleaner when I was in school and playing sports and, you know, on more of a diet, but with the help of my girlfriend, and she definitely wants me eating a lot better. She's kind of taken away a lot of the carbs that I'm used to eating, which isn't a problem good, bad or indifferent. I think you can do well with either, but I'd say I'm pretty standard. I eat maybe two solid meals a day, sometimes three. But like I said, I usually feel fast the most. The only thing that I'll really ever eat for breakfast is eggs. I won't really have any carbs or anything like that. Occasionally, I'll have some coffee. I, my girlfriend doesn't really like meat as much as I do. So I've been not eating as much red meat, as I'm used to. But a lot of chicken fish, a lot of greens, trying to at least eat a lot of greens.

Scott Benner 1:21:09
Oh, this girl is telling you what you like and getting you in healthy shape. Good for her.

Troy 1:21:12
She is great. Yeah, for sure. She should have she should be joining me on this podcast, because she would tell you, she'd probably put everything into her perspective, which is much worse in her eyes than in anyone else's eyes. I think she's a little dramatic. So

Scott Benner 1:21:25
I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you about that. But first, you know, your Minnesota came out for one of the only time she said oh, occasionally. Oh, occasionally.

Troy 1:21:31
I don't know from Minnesota though. No, no, no, no, it's all Midwest. So it's pretty close. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:21:38
it's all the same place for

Troy 1:21:42
everybody. And everybody out here knows that I'm not from here. So I don't even try to fake it. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 1:21:47
wait, you think she sees your health differently than you do it?

Troy 1:21:50
Yeah. Like she like, Okay, so just to put some perspective on it. Her father had pancreatic cancer and died a few years ago. So she obviously has, you know, that going on, but he was, you know, obviously, he had to check his blood sugar and do some things as if he were a diabetic because of his pancreas failing. So she knew kind of what his diet wasn't that sort of thing. And then she sees kind of how I eat, but she'll like tell me to, to not eat so much. But then she'll tell me that I'm skinny and I need to gain weight. So it's like kind of like a, you know, like a toss up. Really? I

Scott Benner 1:22:25
think they call that a double edged sword. Yeah, mixed. Yes. Yeah, I

Troy 1:22:28
guess there's a lot of mixed messages. I will say I won't say that. Like, she's like, super dramatic. But like, I like to eat popsicles every now and then. And they're sugar free popsicles, but they're still popsicles. You know what I'm saying? She's like, Troy, you don't need that. Like, just just don't eat those. And I'm like, but I want him. 27

Scott Benner 1:22:49
Just stop eating the popsicles, man. It's easy. I

Troy 1:22:50
know. Well, I've like made my own popsicles out of like, fruit and stuff like that. But it's still like, that's a ton of sugar. You know, I'm saying like, fruits got a ton of sugar.

Scott Benner 1:23:00
Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be alright, if you have a sugar free popsicle, right?

Troy 1:23:03
Yeah, but that's the thing is that, like, I can't eat just one sometimes. It's like, they're, they're just too easy to eat. I think that's the biggest thing.

Scott Benner 1:23:11
But she's looking out for it. Does she pay attention to the diabetes? Yeah,

Troy 1:23:15
she does. Like I share my, my numbers with her. And then when she sees something that she's like, Hey, are you correcting this? And like, yeah, it's already been taken care of. So like,

Scott Benner 1:23:25
you find that?

Troy 1:23:26
I do. Yeah, I think it's, it's helpful that she's kind of on my case, but not too much. Like she's not on me enough towards like, pushing me away. You know, I'm saying like, when I was a kid, and my parents did it, like, I'm not getting that type of feel. It's more of like a soft, softer, like, but still. It's like a firm love, I guess. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:23:46
I was gonna say that. Because earlier, even though you kind of you said your parents weren't very involved with your diabetes, but you still did bring up that you did not like being written about? Correct. And I was, I was wondering, like, do you think they were not involved? Because you push them away as a kid?

Troy 1:24:00
No, not really. I mean, I don't I really don't think that I like pushed them away that hard. I think that it was just like, I'm just thinking of a couple of instances where my mom would kind of be on me and I'm not in the best mood when my blood sugar's high. Anyways, so I think it's kind of like one of those things.

Scott Benner 1:24:15
Yeah, no, I know, I've I've that's a valuable lesson for anybody listening that, you know, it's that's not the time when some blood sugar is very low or very high to start, like philosophizing with them about their health. You're gonna get a lot of pushback. Yeah.

Troy 1:24:30
And I think I really started to understand that when I listened to one of your episodes when you were talking about how you kind of dealt with Arden when she was I don't know if she when she was at school, or whatever the case was, but you were like softer about it. You weren't like, Hey, your blood sugar's low, do something about it, or you might have been talking to the CDE about it. And you ready like, Yes, Jenny. I was gonna say, Kelly, I don't know what I was gonna say, Kelly. But yeah, it's my Well, I'm just throwing names out there. So I, I was close. So but just kind of how you're talking to her about like Hey, like, Hey, listen, like just be more soft spoken about it and not make it seem like, you know, it's your fault right now you need to correct this, like do this now or else you know?

Scott Benner 1:25:11
Yeah, no, there's definitely something to be said for

Troy 1:25:14
time, timing and tone, I would say yeah. Yeah, timing

Scott Benner 1:25:18
tone. When you're talking about like, if it's an emergency situation, then you, you're stuck with what you're stuck, right? But it just, it's not gonna go well, like we have those altered mind episodes because we were learning that there are a lot of people who don't even believe in that. Yeah, like there are a lot of people who have type one who say, well, the people my family think I'm making this up that I'm you know, I don't know, easier to get upset when my blood sugar is higher, or my my brain feels foggy or that kind of stuff. So it's bad enough, it's happening to you. But if the people around you don't even believe in it, geez. And at least you need somebody who loves you who's, who can step back and say Now's not the time for us, like even even though it feels very, like high pressure. We This isn't when we do this.

Troy 1:26:06
Yeah. And it's not like like if my blood sugar is 12 and my mom's like, Hey, Troy, you got to put something in your body right now. Like, I can't really I don't have time to, to get angry.

Scott Benner 1:26:17
Sorry, that's not Yeah, no, I

Troy 1:26:18
don't think I'm alive. I don't think I'm conscious at 12 either. But I've thankfully knock on wood I have never passed out. You never ever had to see anything like that. There was one time though when I was like, my blood sugar was like 24 It was right before dinner, I Pre-Bolus a little earlier than I than I should have. I was like 14 at the time. And I was feeling really like woozy and I like went up to go, I grabbed my plate for dinner, my dad just got home. You know, whatever we started eating. I was like, carrying my plate over the table. And I like was like, I don't feel so good. And then I started walking. And I like just lost control of my body. And like just like kind of like fell. And I guess I don't know, obviously, I looked and it wasn't actually 24. At that time, there was a separate time. And it was like 300. So it was really weird how I like felt like I was gonna pass out and I felt like my blood sugar was low. But my reading was pretty high. It's actually high. About that. Yeah, and I double check to because I was like, Alright, maybe it's just a weird check. But I checked it again. And it was still in like the high twos. So

Scott Benner 1:27:17
that's something else. I'll try. I appreciate you doing this with me very much. And I wish you a lot of luck. It's you're an interesting part in your life. Trying to find your way and get settled at the same time. It's a I'm a little jealous. Actually. It's pretty cool. I like that you didn't just run out of college and say I'm doing this thing, this exact thing like you're kind of free spirited about Yeah, don't

Troy 1:27:39
really have a plan just kind of winging in.

Scott Benner 1:27:43
mean, that's ballsy, good for you. I'm glad you got with your new job. Seriously, that's a big deal, man. Like I just saw somebody online today. She's, you know, in my Facebook group, and she's like, Hey, I lost my I lost my insurance saw that. Like I don't actually yeah, she's like, I don't know what to do.

Troy 1:28:01
I read all those. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I can I can relate to a lot of these people.

Scott Benner 1:28:06
Yeah. Now isn't that interesting? Like it's a? I don't know. It's just, it's something that we like people who have insurance don't think about, obviously, but people who are just trying to like you're not doing anything wrong, man. You're just young. You're trying to find your way through life. And it sucks that this is something you have to consider. Yeah. Yeah, I'm

Troy 1:28:25
glad it's working out. Yeah, most definitely. So yeah. And even if like, even just like, the podcast has helped a ton, so thank you for that. And the the Facebook group has been awesome. I've learned a ton on that. More than I have in the last. I mean, obviously, within the last couple of years, I've had a good endocrinologist, but before that, like you guys, everybody in the in the page, and everything has just taught me so much more than I would have known. And it's just crazy how under educated I was, and I've had it for 14 years now. So

Scott Benner 1:28:55
yeah, I appreciate knowing that very much. Makes me honestly just makes me happy to know that it's helping you. So yeah,

Troy 1:29:02
and even if like even if people that are listening want to you know, talk to me about my story, and whatever the case is, like I I'm very, I don't post on social media more than I should. And I don't know, I'm not really out there. But I do want to kind of be a sounding board and I do eventually want to get these camps going to where I can start having type one diabetic athletes across the world come out and kind of do something like that kind of how Sam Fuld has his going and just kind of piggybacking off that. So I'm always open to to talk to people about this.

Scott Benner 1:29:33
When this comes out, drape absolutely go on the page and share it and say hey, this is me and if you want to talk like I'm here Yeah, you know absolutely do that. There's a lot of people in there you'll find somebody Yeah, most

Troy 1:29:42
definitely even people near near here near South Carolina since I don't really know many people out here anyways as of yet.

Scott Benner 1:29:50
Tart, isn't it to move and not knowing Yeah, but I couldn't

Troy 1:29:53
recommend it enough. Honestly. I think that it's it's something it says something about getting out of your hometown, and I didn't I didn't do it for college. So it's better than I didn't know. Otherwise it would never happen. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:30:03
No, I'm watching my son had to go somewhere to take a job. And he's like, by himself. But the things that I see him doing with his free time, and he's like, you know, some days, he's like, man, what did people do after they were? You know, I said, I had kids, so I don't know. But like, just little things, like, he, like one day, like, called me, he's like, I'm gonna go to the park and play basketball. He's like, I'm just gonna try to find a game. And, and he, you know, he did, he went to a park found a bunch of like, some kids, some adults playing basketball made his way in through it. And, you know, it's, it's that I don't know, that, to me is the big deal. Like, just, you don't I mean, like growing to a bunch of strangers and saying, hey, I want to get this game,

Troy 1:30:47
especially nowadays, too, because I feel like everyone just not wants to, like hide behind their phones, but like, it's so much easier to text somebody than it is to call somebody and actually have a conversation. And I think that says a lot about him is as a person, and just people in general that are able to do that, or that are able to go out and eat by themselves and sit there and not necessarily sit on their phone the whole time and just kind of be where they are.

Scott Benner 1:31:09
It's been a really good experience for him like having to like, you know, like, he'll tell you like, I played baseball the whole time. Like there are things I did, he didn't ever had a job. Like, like my son's first job is his out of college job. He'd never worked anywhere once he would he was playing baseball or studying and and he was working hard at those things. There was no time for him to go like scoop ice cream and a local police or something like that. So he went from never having to get up and go to work to having like a real adult job just straight off the bat like Yeah, yeah, in a town by himself. And and it all happened quickly because he got the offer but the job started in like two weeks we had to move like across the country in total that's stressful. It was really something but but like I said, I said I'm seeing it really. Forum has a lot of benefits. Yeah, you do that kind of work. So alright, Troy Hold on one second for me. I appreciate you. Thanks.

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