#1186 Hey Jude

Mary Kate's pregnancy was completely normal, until it wasnt. 

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1186 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When Mary Kate was 23 years old she was pregnant experienced a kinked cannula. That cannula put her into DKA and it caused her to go into labor early, almost killing her and her unborn son. 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. 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 have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, and you'd like to help with T one D research right from your home, you can by going to T one d exchange.org/juicebox and completing the survey. That's it. It'll take you about 10 minutes. You can do it from wherever you're sitting right now on your laptop, your phone, tablet doesn't matter. T one D exchange.org/juicebox need to be a US resident who has type one, or is the caregiver of one. And just like that you're helping

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one is an organization dedicated to helping people living with type one diabetes. And they have so many different programs that are doing just that check them out at touched by type one.org. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G seven and G six continuous glucose monitoring systems. dexcom.com/juicebox Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Mary Kate 2:43
My name is Mary Kate. I've had diabetes since I was 12, which means about 13 years, and I had my first baby in November of last year of 2022. And it was kind of a disaster because of diabetes. So that's why I'm here. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:06
you're here to tell your baby making disaster. Yep. It wasn't going poorly for a while, right? No,

Speaker 1 3:13
it was like, perfect. Perfect until the day he was born. Literally.

Scott Benner 3:20
We'll get to that first Medicaid. Let's figure out a little more about you. So you're 25 years old?

Unknown Speaker 3:26
Yeah, my birthday is coming up. 24. Now, but yeah.

Scott Benner 3:30
This is my favorite part of what it happens. Like when people are like, Well, no. In a month, I'm going to bed I'm like, Oh, God, nobody cares. So you're diagnosed 12 years old? Was that? Puberty or pre puberty? Or right as it was happening? Right as

Unknown Speaker 3:50
it was happening? Yeah. A

Scott Benner 3:51
mitzvah? Yes. Yeah. Any diabetes in the family? Other autoimmune in the family? No, nothing. Nothing to say you were surprised that diagnosis would be fair. Ah,

Speaker 1 4:06
yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I had been feeling poorly for a while. So it wasn't surprised that something was wrong with me. But you know, being like, just a little girl. All you think about diabetes is you know, that commercial of the guy saying diabeetus so definitely had no idea what was coming for me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:25
well, for Burnley people have forgotten his name. It's okay. There you go. Yeah. So that you know, you weren't feeling well for a while. What did that look like? Um,

Speaker 1 4:35
I mean, all the textbook stuff like we should have caught it even sooner than we did, honestly, because it was a ping like crazy eating like crazy drinking like crazy. I was in band at the time at school, and I played the saxophone. So that's a reeded instrument and you have to keep the reed wet in order to play. And I was like, I'm unable to play my saxophone for the hour period at school, because my mouth is so dry. I keep having to go out to the hall to get drinks of water from the fountain because it's just like, so dehydrated.

Scott Benner 5:11
You think you had a very absorbent read in your saxophone?

Speaker 1 5:14
I mean, I just, I was thirsty, I guess 12 You know, you're 12 You don't think something's wrong with you? You're just

Scott Benner 5:23
listen. 12 2060 Most people are like, I didn't think anything was wrong with me. I just thought, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever was happening to them. So, how long does all this go on for before you end up at a doctor?

Speaker 1 5:35
Well, my dad's a doctor. So not very long.

Scott Benner 5:38
What kind of doctor is your dad? He's like a,

Speaker 1 5:41
like a family doctor, just general general practitioner. So not not too long. I ended up going on vacation with my mom and sisters and my dad and brother stayed behind. And that, like close one on one time between my mom and I is when she was finally like, okay, that, you know, she's not being dramatic. There's something really weird going on here. So the day after we came back from that trip, I was in his office getting, you know, all the labs done? Yeah. China.

Scott Benner 6:14
He found it that way. Hey, how many brothers and sisters do you have? Straight? Okay. Are you the youngest?

Unknown Speaker 6:19
I am.

Scott Benner 6:20
I could tell. All right. Well, I just could tell because your mom was like she's not being dramatic, which means that your mom had lived through a couple of kids already. Why did you why did you think I could tell?

Speaker 1 6:33
I don't know. It's just usually a negative connotation when you're the youngest, like you're, you know, whiny or annoying or spoiled or

Scott Benner 6:40
do you feel like you've been whining for the first six minutes of this? Not enough. You've been terrific. I know, I just thought if that was your mom's response, then you must be one of the younger kids. Yeah, yeah, that's all. Okay. So your dad, that's weird. So you were diagnosed by your dad? Yes. How do you remember that? Like, was he? Is he the one that told you? Yes. Yes. Was it a weird experience? Like your dad being your is your was your dad always your doctor Dexcom G seven offers an easier way to manage diabetes without finger sticks. It is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone, your smartwatch. And it effortlessly allows you to see your glucose levels and where they're headed. My daughter is wearing a Dexcom g7 Right now, and I can't recommend it enough. Whether you have commercial insurance, Medicare coverage, or no CGM coverage at all Dexcom can help you go to my link dexcom.com/juice box and look for that button that says Get a free benefits check. That'll get you going with Dexcom. When you're there, check out the Dexcom clarity app where the follow Did you know that people can follow your Dexcom up to 10 people can follow you. Right now I'm following my daughter, but my wife is also following her. Her roommates at school are following her. So I guess Arden is being followed right now by five people who are concerned for her health and welfare. And you can do the same thing. School Nurses, your neighbor, people in your family, everyone can have access to that information, if you want them to have it. Or if you're an adult, and you don't want anyone to know, you don't have to share with anybody. It's completely up to you. dexcom.com slashed use Box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. And when you use my link to learn about Dexcom you're supporting the podcast.

Speaker 1 8:35
Yeah, like, you know, on paper, we would put one of his partners, one of his business partners. And if it was anything serious, he was very hands off, because he's like, you know, he didn't want his emotions or anything to get in the way. But for all the routine, you know, kids stuff, we always just, you know,

Scott Benner 8:53
you take care of it.

Speaker 1 8:54
Yeah, he'd do it at home, whatever. I don't know, it wasn't that big of a deal, just because I had no idea what it meant. They had told me prior to the testing, like you might have diabetes, and that might mean that you have to take shots, you know, for a while, but they were very like, vague. They didn't Yeah, they did not explain like the severity of the situation, or that it would change my life forever. Or, you know, they didn't want to scare me, I guess until they knew for sure. I

Scott Benner 9:22
was just wondering if your dad wanted to be the one to say those things to you. Or if it's not nice to have a more removed person tell you something like that? No,

Speaker 1 9:32
I don't think he wanted to be the one because even that day, I was sitting in his office and he was like, well, all he said was, well, you do have it. He didn't say you know, you do have diabetes. And here's what's going to happen to you. He just said you do have it. You didn't even call it what it was.

Scott Benner 9:50
But Mary Kate, you can imagine from listening to all these episodes that he was he was probably incredibly upset.

Speaker 1 9:56
Oh yeah, definitely. But he's You know, stoic and quiet. So,

Scott Benner 10:03
gotcha. Well still, though inside, he must have been devastated. And now he's like, now he's probably stuck between Am I a doctor? Or am I her dad? Like, I don't want to be the one like, I don't want her to think back on this moment. It's her father telling her like, I bet you there was a lot going through his mind. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so you find out you actually have diabetes? Didn't go to the hospital? No.

Speaker 1 10:27
So he that was a Friday. So he managed me. Over the weekend. He got me into an endocrinologist in a larger city that falling Monday, and they they took over my

Scott Benner 10:39
care. Okay. You remember, I mean, 13 years ago, doing the math? Did you get a pump?

Speaker 1 10:47
Yeah, actually, the insurance required six months of injections. So I did the bare minimum. And then I jumped over to animus actually,

Scott Benner 10:56
yeah, the ping? Yeah, you miss it. And that was better. So okay, good. I'm not good. But like, most people are always like, I miss my, my animus ping, either. I don't know what the hell they're talking about. I've never even I've never used one. You know, it wasn't great.

Speaker 1 11:11
But, I mean, the pumps today are great, too. So we've got algorithms. So

Scott Benner 11:17
yeah, I completely agree. Okay, so you got on a pump pretty quickly. was living with diabetes 1314 15 through high school? Was it problematic for you? Did it go pretty smoothly,

Speaker 1 11:29
it went, as well as it could have gone honestly, for the first, well, through middle school, I had a difficult time as far as just like, self esteem. And, you know, I tried to hide it from everybody. So that part was hard. But as far as actually managing the disease, I, I was super independent with it. I really didn't want help, and honestly did a great job, even as a middle schooler, and then in high school, probably later, high school more like junior year senior year, is whenever I started, like actually trying to educate myself on my own. And that's when I figured out like, oh, you know, you can actually have an agency lower than six, and you know, those sort of concepts. My endocrinologist, she was fine, but she had pretty low standards for what was successful. So, you know, I, I rode in between six, five and seven, probably like, all the way up until senior year of high school, before I figured out like that it was achievable, and necessary to do better. through college, I really got things under control. So what

Scott Benner 12:45
led you to wonder if what you were doing wasn't enough?

Speaker 1 12:50
I don't know. And I don't know if I even did wonder or if I just stumbled into that. I'll tell you what, what really like, got me? Well, Dexcom made a big difference in my life, obviously. And then the first thing that I stumbled across was like, you know, low carb lifestyle. And then from there, I found myself in a Bernstein Facebook group. Do you know about that guy? Yes.

Scott Benner 13:16
A little bit. Yes.

Speaker 1 13:19
Yes. So he's huge on the low carb thing. But anyway, he's got a YouTube channel. So I found myself down that rabbit hole, I read his book. And his whole thing is, he's very pro low carb. But he's also pro bold with insulin and teaches you you know, how to Bolus for proteins and fats in a way that nobody ever had. And he's like, ancient like in his 80s, or 90s. And, you know, has always has always been in the fives. It went C was his big thing is to try to be to try to keep your blood sugar at 83. So that made me kind of have a light bulb moment of like, oh, the goal blood sugar doesn't have to be 120. Right? It can literally be

Scott Benner 14:04
at three your goal. Can you make your goal?

Speaker 1 14:07
Right, yeah, right. So somehow I found myself there and that that's whenever I started striving for Lower, lower.

Scott Benner 14:15
Did that experience make you eat low carb? Or did it just make you shoot for lower numbers? Yeah,

Speaker 1 14:23
I ate low carb for couple of years. Like, yeah, couple years.

Scott Benner 14:27
It worked for you.

Speaker 1 14:29
It did. Yeah. Why did you start as I like bread,

Scott Benner 14:34
like bread? That's a fair enough reason. This is a weird conversation for me because I'm of the opinion that people need to know how to use insulin. And then after they know how to use it, they should go forth and live their life anyway, they decide to if it's right, you know, four carbs a day or I don't know 40 or 100 whatever they I don't care. I honestly don't care how people eat. But if you get too involved in conversations about How people eat, you will find extreme people on, you know, sides, like with anything else who are ravenously upset with you. And I try not to have people ravenously upset with me, especially when I wish I could explain to them, I am very happy for them that what they do works for them, I just don't want them. I'm in a weird position. I don't just make a podcast, I also have an incredibly like, huge Facebook group. And so my concern always is, is that if a brand new diagnosed person comes in, and it's like, I don't know what I'm doing Oh, right, yeah. And someone comes in and says you if you just don't eat carbs, then this will be fine. Okay, fair enough. But it doesn't allow that person the opportunity to learn how to use insulin, or what will happen if they have a piece of bread, which they are probably going to do at some point or, you know, what would happen if your five year old, you know, was low carb by you're doing and which would be fine. And then they leave for college one day and wonder what pizza is. And exactly, now they have no idea how to Bolus for for these cars. And so, again, to be very sincere. Sorry, very Kate, you don't know the extraneous problems I have in my life. But you're probably starting to figure him out right now while I'm talking. Yeah, to be very clear, I do not care how people eat. I think if you eat low carb, and that works for you. That's amazing. Fantastic. Congratulations, whoo, good, sincerely. But from a macro position, which is one, I find myself in having seen 10s of 1000s of people with diabetes, start their journey or be lost in their journey or whatever. I can tell you that it's my opinion that understanding Insulin is the first step not removing carbs, because then you can sort of falsely make your way through, which is fine if you do it forever. But look at you, you're 25 and you're like, look, I'm I want to have bread again. I can't do this anymore. Anyway, that's my point about that. I don't know why. I do know why I had to say that. But But I think it's cool that you found that I think it's cool that you gave it gave you the idea. And it's you know, are you able to live in a way that you think is healthy now not being low carb? Oh,

Speaker 1 17:14
yeah, absolutely. I'm, I'm, I'm fully bought into the juice box method at this point. And I, I do what I want, and I'm still successful with my diabetes, which is for me, that's that's the best way

Scott Benner 17:28
to do it. Well, congratulations on finding your way to it. I think that's fantastic. Do you think if you would have found the podcast before hearing about low carb, do you think you'd still be in the same spot right now? I don't know. That's a good question.

Speaker 1 17:44
I might have tried out low carb anyways, because at the time that I did it is when keto was like the biggest fad. Huge. Yeah. So I Yeah, you know, might have just done it anyway, just to see what it was like, I

Scott Benner 17:56
think I should be clear. I don't eat a ton of carbs. You know, like, I don't have diabetes, but I also like, I mean, I went to dinner the other night, I had beef, I had a little fish. I there was a piece of bread on the table like flatbread. I had one or two of them. But I think if I buy I mean, there's no sugar in what I drank. I had a bit. I'm gonna guess that at a dinner. I had, I don't know, maybe 25 carbs at dinner. You know, and probably the rest of the day. I probably didn't have 100 carbs that day. So you know, probably I mean, I think I definitely didn't have 100 carbs that day, and I don't most days. Tough, but I think processed foods a big problem. Especially if you use Yeah, totally agree. Right. So anyway, okay, so you're making it through? Everything's going well, you get married at some point?

Speaker 1 18:45
I do. Yeah. When I graduated college, I got married.

Scott Benner 18:49
And you've just recently decided we're going to make a baby. So that's the rest of this conversation. So you're married? You want to have a kid? Is your agency already in a place where they're comfortable with you being pregnant? Or was that something you had to work towards?

Speaker 1 19:04
No, it was already there. So I had been in the fives for a couple of years at the point when I got pregnant.

Scott Benner 19:10
Oh, fantastic. Okay, so you were well on your way to knowing what you were doing and having success over and over again? Yes, gotcha. Okay. So we decide to make the baby and here it comes. Tell me about the pregnancy. How did the first trimester go?

Speaker 1 19:24
I'm pretty much textbook. I bought Jenny's books, so shout out to her. And that helped out a lot. I kind of knew what to expect. So a lot of lows first trimester but nothing too crazy because I was well prepared. I yeah, I have a great endo as well, who actually, whenever I found him initially, he was like my favorite. He was like, Do you want to have a baby? Eventually? I'm like, yes, he's like, my favorite patients are pregnant women. He's like, here's what you're gonna do when you get pregnant. You're gonna tell you Your husband, you're gonna tell your mom and then you're gonna tell me. So he was you were very very hands on and super helpful throughout the whole thing. So

Scott Benner 20:09
that helped a lot. And what he said about they're my favorite patients is because you're not gonna see a woman with type one trying harder than when they're pregnant normally, is that what his opinion was? I think

Speaker 1 20:18
he meant from a more clinical side like he's, he's, he's obsessed with diabetes, he only does type one. So I think he likes the challenge of managing a pregnant woman and likes you know, all that he gets to educate and all that he gets to do that's that's really what I think he meant gets a

Scott Benner 20:37
little game day adrenaline from it. It sounds like Yeah, I think so. Alright, so. So you're saying first trimester went about as you expected, you took a little while to dial in insulin, get it? Right. So you didn't have lows? And, but other than that pregnancy wise, nothing out of the ordinary diabetes wise, you were, you were happy with where everything was. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen. I

Speaker 2 21:10
was going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult, unimaginable, you know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school, I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 21:43
Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 21:48
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it. Did

Scott Benner 22:03
you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in. I

Speaker 2 22:07
never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see. You know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more. You know, how I'm able to type one diabetes? To

Scott Benner 22:28
hear Jay Lin's entire conversation. stay till the very end. Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community.

Speaker 1 22:40
Yeah, it was it was great. I mean, you're making changes constantly, like, at least every week, if not more. And all throughout pregnancy, I was in the 5.0 range. I think I started pregnancy at like, five, three pretty low. Now as things went on, I did through second and third trimester, I was gradually getting higher and higher and higher, but I had not made it to a 6.0 a one C yet even at even before delivery. So it was I mean, yeah, I was getting higher as as I went on, as you expect, but nothing dangerous. Everybody was happy with me. So it was all going really really well.

Scott Benner 23:20
Were you employing any of your low carb ideas to help.

Speaker 1 23:23
I cut out all sugar, basically. But I mean, I was I was still eating bread.

Scott Benner 23:30
Like the breads that the crux of this right here like what's your favorite bread? Do you have if I said that to you? Would you like blurt something out? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 23:38
I would blurt out sourdough.

Scott Benner 23:42
Pardon me once they ask you what the second favorite bread is. I wonder if we can't make an incredible list?

Speaker 1 23:49
No, no, I'm not that obsessed. But it's just, I mean, it's just delicious. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:54
I mean, I can't say otherwise. It's fantastic. I swear to you, like even just like a thin, like anything really? Like I'm like, oh, like at dinner go there. And I'm like, What is this? And I opened the basket up and I'm like, Well, I'll try that. There was little Ribery there. I was, like, I'll take a little rye bread. It's like kind of it's fantastic. So you're not low carb. And but you did cut out sugar. What did that mean for you? Like what what had to leave your your life for you to get rid of sugar.

Speaker 1 24:20
My creative outlet is baking. And so I for a long time I've baked like, only about once a week just for fun. So I completely let that go because I've never had the self control to bake and then not eat what I've made. So for for my whole pregnancy. I was just like, forget it. Like I'm not going to be making any desserts because I just knew it would be you know, not good

Scott Benner 24:50
for me. Pretty much the only place you're getting sugar from to begin with. Yeah,

Speaker 1 24:53
no, I'm not a I'm not. Yeah, that was it. I don't I'm not a candy eater or anything like that. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 24:59
So you thought if I cut out baking, did you find um, I'm changing my thought midstream. But did you find like a black hole for your creative this? Like, did you do something else you could do with your creativity? Or what did you do to replace?

Speaker 1 25:16
Oh, I, I guess I just I'm not a very creative person anyway, so it's not really that, like, big of a deal for me to just kind of turn that off. Okay. So yeah, didn't really replace it. Did

Scott Benner 25:27
your husband lose weight during your baking? Shutdown?

Unknown Speaker 25:31
I don't. I don't think so. Actually,

Scott Benner 25:33
I would probably have been grateful if I was like, oh my god, I'm always eating that bass stuff she

Speaker 1 25:38
makes. No, he gave me a really hard time the whole time because I always do a really big birthday cake for him. And he didn't get his. Oh

Scott Benner 25:47
my gosh, you were serious about it. Oh, I see. Okay. All right. Are you are you a rule follower in general?

Unknown Speaker 25:54
For good rules for stupid rules?

Scott Benner 25:57
I gotcha. But once you decided that, was it you're not there was no like, well, I'll make you a birthday cake.

Speaker 1 26:02
No, no, because I it was just it was about me. I wouldn't have had the self control

Scott Benner 26:07
not to eat that birthday cake. Yeah, good for you good for knowing. And, and well done, like actually following through on it. That's pretty impressive, actually. Alright, so second, you're welcome. second trimester, do things start to change? Not

Speaker 1 26:21
really. I mean, they changed by the book where, you know, you're slowly needing more and more and more insulin every single week. But, you know, it was manageable. What

Scott Benner 26:30
was your Basal rate when you started your pregnancy? And how did it move up?

Speaker 1 26:34
I would say my average Basal rate pre pregnancy was probably like 0.6 0.7. And then by the end of pregnancy, my average, which I only made it to 33 weeks. So when I say the end, that's what I mean. By the end, my Basal average was probably like, 1.5 1.6.

Scott Benner 26:56
Would you mind telling me what you weighed when you got pregnant? When

Speaker 1 27:00
I got pregnant? Somewhere between 125 and 130?

Scott Benner 27:04
Okay. How much did you gain while you're pregnant? Shane pounds? We'll get you showing off. Okay. Hold on a second point 6.7. Up to about 1.5. Well, that is interesting. Because it's not it's not about your weight. It's about it's about the hormones and everything that's happening inside of your body where the need goes up like a full unit an hour. That's something isn't 24. That's 24 more. Yes, yeah, units a day, a lot

Speaker 1 27:33
of extra insulin, and I affected my carb ratio as well, by the end of it. That was actually the bigger impact by the end of pregnancy. Like, my breakfast carb ratio was 123. What was even as crazy. What

Scott Benner 27:47
was it when you started

Speaker 1 27:48
one this? Well, either one to six or one to five? They're different for meals for me, but it

Scott Benner 27:54
doubled. Hmm. About that. So you, you probably added 30 or 40 more units a day being pregnant?

Unknown Speaker 28:03
A lot. I don't know. But a lot.

Scott Benner 28:05
That's so interesting. I mean, I mean, I know what happens, but it's still it's still incredibly interesting. You know, okay, but you managed it and you expected it and stayed with it. Jenny's book helped with that. Definitely good. Yes. Good. Did you listen to any of the pregnancy episodes of the podcast? Yes.

Speaker 1 28:22
Yes. All of them actually. Which is that also helps. I kind of had a roadmap. Okay,

Scott Benner 28:27
great. Oh, that's good to know. Okay. So, things are going along. You're cruising. Let's just be honest here. It's a humble brag, but you're cruising through pregnancy doing a fantastic job. And can this baby? And are you working during the pregnancy?

Unknown Speaker 28:41
Unfortunately, I was yes.

Scott Benner 28:43
I think that every day when I'm working to unfortunately, I'm working. And I've never wanted to carry a baby, except in my hands. Okay, so you're working. You're you're pregnant, it's going really well. And you get to 33 weeks and it sounds like that's when the train comes off the track. So what happened? What

Speaker 1 29:01
happened? Okay, so I got the flu. Okay,

Scott Benner 29:06
you're not supposed to get sick. When you're pregnant. You're like, have like, super immune system when you're pregnant. It's someone licky with this. Is that your husband's fault? This is what I'm trying to get at. i

Unknown Speaker 29:15
It's not his Okay. Unfortunately.

Scott Benner 29:19
It would be so much better if you could hold it over his head for the rest of time and mourn, but Okay, so you get the flu. I'm sorry. Keep going.

Speaker 1 29:25
I apologize. Yes, I get the flu probably. So my baby was born on a Wednesday I started feeling sick on the previous like, Saturday or Sunday. I know I didn't go to church on that Sunday, because I was under the weather. So yeah, I mean, I I was just kind of managing at home. I was feeling bad enough that I I knew it was either blue or COVID Probably. But with both of those, it's kind of like well, that you know, there's no treatment. I mean Tamiflu if you get there early enough, but maybe that'll help. Maybe it won't. And maybe they'll give it to you if you're pregnant, and maybe they won't. So I was just kind of hanging low resting a lot. And then actually, I started getting worried like, Okay, I diabetes, I probably have the flu or COVID. And I've got a baby. Yeah, at this point, all I'm concerned about is the baby. I had a maternal fetal medicine appointment on that Tuesday, and I like, pretended not to be sick. Because this was back when like, if you had any sickness symptoms, they wouldn't let you come to any appointments, because I thought you would have COVID or whatever.

Scott Benner 30:39
You pretended to have the flu? Yes, you just think you look like you were on heroin when you walked in maybe or something? Because I guess it's hard to pretend not to have the flu. How did you accomplish that? I'm interested what?

Speaker 1 30:50
Well, I like I managed to do my hair and do my makeup. So I would look a little little better. Yeah. And they required you to wear masks anyways. So that was really the saving grace. So I wore a mask. I took like a hot tea with me. So I'm gonna try to keep the cough like at bay, because I'm just thinking, like, I have to check on my baby, or I'm gonna go crazy, you know, worrying about him, right? So I fill out the questionnaire and say, you know, no, I don't have any sick symptoms and all that. And he was perfect. So make it to the appointment. They're like, amazing, you know, they did an ultrasound, everything. Everything was great. They said, Get out of here. The next day is when crap hit

Scott Benner 31:35
the fan. Wow. And it happened very quickly. Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker 31:39
I would say it was very quick.

Scott Benner 31:41
So did you think because I know what happened, right? I know how but what did you think was happening? At first, like, were you blaming the illness is what I'm getting at. I

Speaker 1 31:53
thought that it was. So what happened? I'm by myself all day, the day. So it's a Wednesday the 16th I'm at home alone all day. So I'm just like, veg and now watching movies, feeling like crap, whatever. And then around like, I don't know, 6pm I started having cramping. And so I think this is Braxton Hicks. Right? I'm 33 weeks. So Braxton Hicks would be totally normal for that to start happening to me. So that's that's all I thought once I started having this cramping I just associated with the pregnancy and I think must be Braxton Hicks. Everything must be fine. This must be normal. It's kind of where my head starts out.

Scott Benner 32:34
And you call your dad, I always wonder every time you have you mentioned something, I wonder if you call your dad? No, I did not call my dad. Okay. No reason just, it's not what you do? Well,

Speaker 1 32:44
I guess I just didn't want to freak anybody out. I'm always afraid of making something into a bigger deal than it needs to be. So I was afraid that either, you know, I would be dramatic. And it would become a whole thing when it didn't need to be or that he will be dramatic and told me to, you know, the ER, which was what I should have done, but you know,

Scott Benner 33:06
right. So to you're sitting here, you're watching your movies, you're having your cramping, and you think it's normal? How long do you believe it's not like, how long did you live in that before you thought, oh, I should do something.

Speaker 1 33:17
Maybe only like 15 or 20 minutes before I text a friend who had recently had a baby. And I'm like, because they're getting progressively more painful. And I'm just like, How bad are Braxton Hicks supposed to hurt because, you know, like, what the heck, this is hurting really bad at this point. And of course, you know, this is texting and she can't see me. You know, whatever. Basically, she's like, Yeah, they can hurt pretty bad. So I'm like, Alright, I guess this is just how much pregnancy and labor and Braxton Hicks sucks. So I just get in the bath and like try to you know, manage the pain basically. And so as I mentioned, I was home alone. So my husband was actually an hour away. And he was at the time he was in professional school. And he was going to be getting out of class in 30 minutes. And I was like, I can ride this out for 30 minutes. And like, you know, see how I am see if it gets worse. Again, like not be dramatic. And wait till it gets out of class calm. So that's what I did.

Scott Benner 34:26
Let me ask you a question. How much of that is growing up with a physician hearing stories about people are always running to the doctor when they don't need to or like you program that like, you don't go unless you have to.

Speaker 1 34:36
I'm also a nurse myself. Now

Scott Benner 34:40
we're getting to it. So okay. Yeah,

Speaker 1 34:42
yeah, I was trying not to admit that I guess. But yeah, so I'm definitely programmed to, you know, I don't know not make a big deal about everything. Right. And I also feel like whether or not it's true, I've always been told that have a low pain tolerance. So I'm thinking like, well, maybe I'm just literally the world's biggest wind. And you know, so I need to wait until this really hurts. You got

Scott Benner 35:06
to be careful about that stuff. My wife grew up being told she had terrible sense of direction. And of all the people I know, she has the best sense of direction of anybody. So I think she just got lost one time when she was 16 in the car and people like tagged are with, you have a bad sense of direction.

Speaker 1 35:21
Right? Yeah, the things people tell you can really get in the way of your thinking.

Scott Benner 35:28
Okay, so you're like Mary Kay, you're a baby. You know, you're a baby. Everybody tells you that. So just stick it out. This doesn't hurt other people wouldn't mean wow, who cares? Pain is pain. It is whatever it is to you. But I take your point. Exactly. Okay. I'm sorry. So moving forward, we, what do we do 730

Speaker 1 35:44
hits, apparently, is when he got out of the class. So that's when I called him. And I'm like, at this point, I think I'm in labor, because the pain is just like through the roof. Like, I'm not able to be quiet anymore. I'm like, in a lot, a lot of pain. And I as I call him in a big tizzy. Like, I don't know what's going on. Maybe I'm in labor, this hurts so bad, like, you gotta get here or whatever. And he's like, What the heck are you doing? Why haven't you called 911? Basically, you're

Scott Benner 36:16
calling me for I'm in grad school? I don't know anything.

Speaker 1 36:20
Yeah. And so he's like, I'm going to call me and they'll tell me to call an ambulance. And I'm like, don't do that. Don't do that. Call the OB emergency line. So I convinced him to call the OB emergency line and Shaddam 911. So he hangs up with me calls them and lo and behold, they don't answer. So he calls me back. And it's like, I mean, this is all much more dramatic than I'm replaying it for everybody. But

Scott Benner 36:48
just so you all know, there's screaming and yelling, and you guys were yelling at each other. And there's high pitches. Yeah, I gotcha. Go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 36:55
Exactly.

Scott Benner 36:58
What are you doing? You like I just thought that it was like, like that kind of,

Speaker 1 37:02
right. Pretty much. Okay, gotcha. So he called back and he's like, they didn't answer I'm calling 911. Forget it. Basically, he's pretty cool under pressure. And obviously, with the way that I was freaking out, it was, like, obvious that that's what needed to happen. So he calls 911 to come pick me up. Meanwhile, he's like, you know, trying to fly. He's an hour away. So he's trying to fly back to where I am as fast as possible, because we don't, you know, we don't know what's going on. His side of the story is he thought with when I called that the baby had already died. He was like, I thought that I don't know. Like he just died inside of you. And your body was trying to, you know, give birth to our dead kids. So he's freaking out.

Scott Benner 37:49
Oh my god. Geez. Yeah, he took a leap. Ah, that sounds good. Yeah,

Speaker 1 37:55
yeah. Yeah. So called the ambulance ambulance gets to my house. Probably around like, eight or so he called 911. Around 745. And the ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital.

Scott Benner 38:08
Not the hospital you work at though, right? No,

Unknown Speaker 38:11
thank God. No.

Scott Benner 38:12
Okay. All right. I was wondering if that was part of the reason you didn't want to call or not?

Speaker 1 38:15
No, no, I commute to work. So that was okay. Okay.

Scott Benner 38:19
Not the issue. He must come in like hair on fire when he gets there. Well,

Speaker 1 38:24
he doesn't get there in time.

Scott Benner 38:27
Oh my gosh. Okay. Keep going. Look at you. Very key. Look at you tell on a story. Good job. Keep it going.

Speaker 1 38:35
So, yes, ambulance takes me to the nearest hospital which thank God I live in a big city. So it's a very, very good hospital and it's a hospital that has a NICU and a like a level four NICU thank God. So anyway, but I get there I'm, but whenever the ambulance gets here, I'm like, at this point, I'm, I think probably having a panic attack. Like I'm just screaming, like freaking out about everything. Everything hurts. But I think in my mind, I'm also like, really multiplying the pain because I'm so terrified about like, what's happening to me right now. So I get wheeled in to like labor and delivery, er or whatever. And I was in too much pain to lay on the stretcher or the gurney or whatever. So I got on it on my hands and knees that was more comfortable. So I can't see anything. And I like can't move out of this position either. So I'm like, just looking at the floor. But there's a million people running all around me. Everyone's everyone's freaking out, probably because I'm freaking out. But eventually they like, you know, they flipped me over and they everybody's poking me for labs and IVs and they're putting the contraction monitor on me and they're trying like how Oh, to get a Doppler on my baby to see how the baby's doing. That's whenever I hear somebody yell out, the heart rates only 60. And if you don't know anything about babies, a baby in utero, heart rates, like very, very high 151 60, something like that. So then I really start freaking out, because I think my baby's gonna die.

Scott Benner 40:26
You actually know what that number means. So yeah, a lot of people wouldn't, wouldn't know. But you did about that. Okay, so now you're flipping out more.

Speaker 1 40:35
Now I'm flipping out more, and I'm literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Where's my husband? Where's my husband? And nobody, which I've been on the other side as a as a health care provider and like a life or death emergency and it's, I understand why it's like, you really don't have the capacity or the time to address the patient's needs. But oh, my God, nobody would talk to me. They're all just like, doing things to me. But no one is talking to me. Nobody would answer me where my husband was, or tell me what was happening or what they were going to do to me. It's just horrible, horrible, like mad, panic, chaos. They do a cervical check. And I'm not very dilated. Yeah, she was like, she well, the OB yells at me, she's like, I need to do a search for cervical check on you. Because if you're dilated, you need to push right now and deliver this baby. Otherwise, we're going to the LR and so I'm like, okay, okay. Okay. And you know, she does it whatever. I was dilated to like a two or something. So, that was it. They pretty much immediately wheeled me off to the O R. And next thing I remember is finally a nurse. I'm still screaming, where's my husband? Because like, I just needed so badly for somebody to like, speak to me, like a human being to calm me down. And of course, I wanted him to do that.

Scott Benner 42:02
Yeah. Also, Medicaid, I think it's important to point out, you're a really mature person. I don't know if you know that about yourself. And but you're not that old. So like, it's all well and good to be mature. And like, you know, have your head about you because you have a job where you have to and stuff like that. But once it happens to you, you're 20 How old? Are you at that moment? You? 23?

Unknown Speaker 42:25
Yeah, yeah, I was 23 You're

Scott Benner 42:27
like a baby yourself? Yeah. Like, yeah, and you don't I know, listen, I've only been talking to you for 45 minutes. But I would definitely come get you if there was a problem that didn't involve you. Because that I think you'd be really, I think you'd be really rock solid. And it sounds like you grew up in a serious household with, you know, doctors, and, and, you know, you went on to be a nurse, etc. But like, it's the whole time you're talking. All I could think is you're my son's age. And he almost not qualified to deal with anything. So. So you know, and I remember being young too, when When Kelly was having a bit when Kelly was having cold, she was pretty young. And I look back now and I, I see myself through my eyes now. And I can see myself through how I thought of myself back then. Like we thought we knew what was going on and that we were handling things. And I'm sure we were but like as I look back on myself now I didn't know what the hell I was doing. So anyway, that just it's been ringing in my head the whole time. You're talking like How old were you when this was happening? So anyway, I'm sorry. So you they knock you out and give you a C section or you go out from the pain? How does that work? Yeah,

Speaker 1 43:38
they knocked me out. So I feel like the, you know, oh, ours are so freakin cold. So I remember. Well, finally, as we're running to the O R, a nurse comes right up to my face. And she's like, what's your husband's phone number. And in that moment, somehow I remember. I remember its phone number. So I recited off to her. And then the next thing I feel is just like that cool blast of air of being in the O R. And so I'm like, okay, like, I know what's going on. And then the OB, again, like, is screaming and she's like, we're going to do a lot of things that are going to be really uncomfortable, but I'm trying to save you and your baby's life. And then I just feel like this big dump of cold liquid on my belly, which I think was them literally just dumping beta dine on me as opposed to like doing the proper, right you know. And then the anesthesiologist comes over my head and he's like, this is gonna burn and then he just slams in whatever anesthetic he used into my IV.

Scott Benner 44:46
propofol, that stuff burns. I've had it before. Probably the Jacksons. Yeah, there's an by the way, for anybody who's wondering, I didn't know you're like, please let Mary Kate keep telling her story. But if you ever have to have it in a non emergency situation If they can cut your arm and put, they can put in something else that numbs it and takes the sting away. I can't think of what it is like Benadryl or something like that. It's probably not Benadryl. You probably shouldn't listen to me for medical stuff. But ask the anesthesiologist, isn't there something you could put in there to stop the burning? Because there is so yeah, burned like, Oh, I've had it. I've it feels like fire rolling up your arm and across your chest and it feels like your heart is gonna burst when it gets to it. Yeah. And the the issue is, is the rightest you think your heart's gonna burst? You just fall asleep? But anyway, keep going. So the burning comes, you're soaked in beta Dine, someone's talking to you about saving your life and the baby's life. And you and

Speaker 1 45:44
I go out he I remember the horrible burning and screaming from the burning and then he slaps the face mask over my screaming face. And that's that slides out from

Scott Benner 45:56
there. Wow. Oh, my God. Well, they saved your life. Obviously. Yes. Yeah. And we've already talked about your son. So I feel like everyone knows this was like the Titanic where you're like, I wonder what's gonna happen in this movie? Like the boats gonna say for sure. But we knew you guys were gonna be okay. So what? What happened? Like, why were you suddenly from months and months and 33 weeks of this is easy. My onesies are terrific. My blood sugar's are great. I'm cruising to Holy hell, I should call an ambulance. What the hell happened that day.

Speaker 1 46:27
So as I already told you, I got the flu. And as every good little diabetic knows, the flu predisposes you to DKA or, you know, any sickness. So I had that going against me and wasn't really thinking about that properly. And the day of my son's birth, I changed my pump site around like noon or one. So I did that. And then basically laid on the couch doing nothing. I was snacking. Like, I don't, I didn't, I don't think I'd even really eaten for the entire day. I was just sort of nibbling on some Wheat Thins and drinking like some Gatorade zero. So I looked back at my CGM graph in preparation for this and up until the birth my my blood sugar, I didn't even go over 150 for the day, because I was basically just laying there not even really eating but change my website around noon or one. Then if you look at my CGM graph, around 5pm, I go over 180. And then as I said, I kind of started all this cramping around like 6pm. And by 6pm, I was, let's see, by 6pm I was over 250. And by 7pm, I was over 307 pm is when I called my husband and the ambulance got there sometime around eight. My son was born at 844. And at 844 My blood sugar was 297 Were you bolusing

Scott Benner 48:11
in the afternoon while you were going up, or were you too sick to think about it? Yeah,

Speaker 1 48:16
I was. I was bolusing. But like, so I changed my site around noon or one. And I didn't even go over 130 until 415 didn't go over 180 until 505. So it's just like it happened. At Well, it happened slowly until it until I got you know, like a double arrow up but so from like noon or one till four, I mean, I wouldn't correct for anything until I go over 130 So from then I'm not doing anything about it. And then yeah, once the pain got so bad i i totally wasn't even thinking about diabetes anymore, right? I forgot about diabetes.

Scott Benner 48:53
So I mean, I'm assuming most people have figured out what happened by now but just say it.

Speaker 1 49:00
So my frickin cannula was kinked you had

Scott Benner 49:05
a king cannula you're in DKA I was in DK you had not had nearly enough insulin since noon. Yeah,

Speaker 1 49:12
yeah, exactly. So I wasn't I wasn't eating properly which I should have been because Hello you have the flu like you should be. You should be doing those boluses I should have been drinking a regular Gatorade, Gatorade zero and been doing Bolus is for that or something. But I wasn't I wasn't taking good care of myself from like a sick day perspective. And then my my fatal flaw is I put my pump site on like my love handle area. And by then my belly was so big that I couldn't like twist around to to look at which I'm using auto soft 30 So it's not a perfect view anyways, but you could at least see condensation kind of collecting if you had a bit cannula. I do remember looking in the mirror Before I called my husband trying to see like, is there condensation there because I had had that thought, because by that point I was pretty high. But yeah, so yeah, too little too late.

Scott Benner 50:11
I just want to mention for people that you can be in decay without a high blood sugar. Like just yeah, not having insulin can put you in DKA. So if you're not pregnant, and that happens, maybe you're, you'll eventually think, Oh, my, this is the cannula you might reintroduce insulin to yourself and then a couple of hours later feel okay again, like you might have been able to hydrate and Bolus your way out of that. Like it's just right, but the DEA threw it threw you into labor? Is that what you think happened? They're not sure. That's kind of what I mean. No one's gonna know.

Speaker 1 50:45
Right? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what it seems like another theory my so it wasn't even my OB who ended up delivering the so my, my actual OB, whenever I tell her the whole story, another theory she had is maybe the dka put me in such severe dehydration that like I had lost so much amniotic fluid, but I was having horrible cramping. She said she's seen that happen before or maybe it was Labor it's kind of weird that I was only dilated to a two if it were labor and the pain was so bad, but you know, who knows?

Scott Benner 51:21
I mean, you can Google DKA causes early labor and get a number of different things that are interesting to read. But we're not going to do them now. But that's that's crazy like a kinked cannula. You are on the the cruise of all cruise pregnancy you get you get the flu, which you probably would have been okay with if the cannula didn't kink? Yep. And then yeah, back quickly all that happened.

Speaker 1 51:45
One mistake is sometimes all it takes to literally ruin your life.

Scott Benner 51:50
Yeah, I thought you were gonna say ruin the cake. Gather you're gonna go back to the baking thing, which would have been amazing, but I ruin your life is much easier because you were close to being dead. Do you think that's true?

Speaker 1 51:59
I don't know. I I think I would have been okay. I was when I got there. I was like, I mean, I was not doing well. I was I kind of like looking septic. i My heart rates was like what my babies should have been, I was like, way up 131 40s 150s. And my blood pressure was super low. So I wasn't doing well. But in terms of like, acidosis, I wasn't actually doing that bad. My Ph wasn't horribly low.

Scott Benner 52:30
When did they start managing your your blood sugar's after the the emergency C section? Because it's not like you didn't roll in there going, Hey, guys, by the way, I have the flu. And I changed my sight today. So God knows maybe that cannulas like you didn't have those conversations with anybody. So how long did it take them to figure all that out? Well,

Speaker 1 52:47
in I actually did tell them I did manage to get because you know, they're asking you questions. So I managed to get out. You know, I'm 3333 weeks, three days pregnant. I do have an OB because if when they see like a horrible situation like this, they kind of just assume that you're an idiot. And maybe you haven't even had any OB care so that I was able to get that out. I was able to get out that I had to have type one diabetes, and I was able to get out. I think I have the flu. That's like all the personal information that I gave them. Good

Scott Benner 53:18
for you. Mary Kate, is that because you're a nurse that you thought to make sure to squeeze that all out? Do you think?

Speaker 1 53:25
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like, they've got to know all this.

Scott Benner 53:28
Right. That's well done. Are you a different person professionally now because of your experience? I

Speaker 1 53:34
don't know. I think about that a lot. I'm sure her I'm sure it's affected the way that I treat my patients, but I don't I'm not sure in what ways? Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:44
Do you know Artem was in the emergency room last weekend? Twice? Oh, no. She had lower stomach pain that we couldn't figure out it looked like appendix at first. Anyway, she's at school, she ends up in an emergency room. They had her there for 12 hours and help her they knew they just they were like this isn't your appendix thing. Like they booted her Yeah. Then she ended up back there the next day because it it looked like okay, maybe it wasn't an appendix. But it feels like it could be gallbladder now because some other symptoms arose. And she finds herself back in the emergency room for 12 more hours sorry and spent 24 hours in the emergency room over 48 hours. And I would like you to guess how many times someone checked her blood sugar?

Speaker 1 54:25
Oh, God. Maybe? Like I would say at most twice on each occasion.

Scott Benner 54:34
Yeah would never surprise you. Wow, Never Never. No one ever checked to see what her blood sugar was the entire time she was in either time.

Speaker 1 54:43
Wow. They even asked her where they like Do you have a CGM?

Scott Benner 54:47
No they never talked about her diabetes. She was managing it. I was managing it remotely. What

Speaker 1 54:51
a disaster. Yeah, I mean, it's it's most of my colleagues have no idea how to manage it or have no idea what type Mine is for dang sure.

Scott Benner 55:00
Also keep in mind she was rocked on morphine both times. So if something did go wrong, she wasn't in the, in the right mind to take care of it either right? Arden's arm doesn't drink. She didn't do anything. So you hit her with morphine. She's, she's over pretty much, you know. And so I was managing it the first time, remotely. The second time I got on a plane and flew to where she was because of how bad the first time went. Yeah, I don't blame you. Yeah. So anyway, she's doing better now. But that's not that's not the point of me bringing this up. The point of me bringing it up is she was 19. Clearly scared, had something she couldn't figure out. They didn't know. She got there said I have type one diabetes, like, you know, told them the whole thing no one ever once looked. It's just embarrassing. Like, I didn't yell at anybody when I got there. But I wasn't nice. And I finally got them to do the testing they needed to do so we could rule out the things that needed to be rolled out. They were trying to street her the second time without checking her gallbladder after having her there for 10 hours.

Speaker 1 56:02
She's ers are just so dumb. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:07
When I got there, a man was standing over top of her and her roommates, and he was badgering them to leave. Wow. And art in about 15 minutes before I was able to get there. She said to him, I demand that you admit me? Yeah, yeah. And that's the only thing that froze him long enough for me to get there. Like she didn't really want to be admitted. But she's like, she's like, I knew they were kicking me out. And then if I asked to be admitted he wouldn't be able to kick me out anymore. Right. So she froze him. And she was like, I demand to be admitted. And that that was it. Like it gave me enough time to Uber from the airport to where she was. Oh, that's crazy. Anyway, it went great. Good job. I'm not gonna say the name of the hospital, but your disaster. So anyway. Yeah, so cool. What's your name? The baby. Jude. Nice. You call for him? Hey, Jude.

Unknown Speaker 57:02
Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:03
I mean, I would does it make you sing after you call for him? Of course, I was gonna say is your brain not as simple as mine? Because I'd be like, hey, now that I've been told that I would start singing.

Unknown Speaker 57:15
Pretty simple. Yeah. So wonderful.

Scott Benner 57:17
And he's fine, obviously. But he was early. He was seven weeks early. And so he was definitely not done cooking. What did did he have to be in the NICU for a while?

Speaker 1 57:26
Oh, yeah, you're just getting to the well, I guess for me, it's the worst part of the story, maybe not objectively, the worst part of the story. I was, you know, they put me to sleep for the C section. And the last thing that I had heard about him was that his heart rate was 60. But by the time they got him out, he actually had no heartbeat. So they resuscitated him there and the O R, and were able to bring him back the resuscitative and intubated him, and then he was in the NICU for six weeks. Wow.

Scott Benner 57:59
That's a long time. Did you? Was it touching go at any point? Or was he just too small to come out?

Speaker 1 58:05
Like they were, they were pretty confident with us that he was going to survive. They were really scared that he was going to have like severe brain damage. And they were very upfront with us about that. Just because they didn't nobody knew like how long. I mean, frankly, he was dead. Nobody knew for how long was he dead? Before they brought him back? In a baby. That's, I mean, that's a big deal to not have oxygen to your brain for any amount of time. That was that was the main concern. We were pretty sure he was gonna make it. But yeah, he took a really long time to recover, just respiratory wise, took a long time to get off the ventilator. And then, you know, I recovered from my acidosis within like, 24 hours, but it took him like, oh, my gosh, like, six or six or seven days. So yeah, so my DKA like, put him in metabolic acidosis. My blood was so toxic and tainted, and he's just getting all of it, obviously. So when they got to him, his his blood gas was just a disaster. So that was kind of the main thing that took so long. And then once they had all that correct, and it was just kind of your normal NICU stuff of getting him big and getting him able to eat and breathe on his own and everything.

Scott Benner 59:30
Do you feel like there's any deficits?

Speaker 1 59:33
No, oh, my God. No, he is. He's right on track. He's doing amazing like, and he's huge. People have no idea ever that he was a NICU baby.

Scott Benner 59:46
How old is he now?

Speaker 1 59:47
He is almost a year. He's 11 and a half months old.

Scott Benner 59:52
Congratulations. That's lovely. Thank you. Did you name him after St. Jude?

Speaker 1 59:56
No, but we did learn after the fact We're not Catholic, but we are we are Christian. And we learned after the fact that St. Jude is the Saint of impossible prayers, desperately

Scott Benner 1:00:08
cases and lost cases, right? Or lost desperate cases and lost causes maybe.

Speaker 1 1:00:14
Yes, yes. Something like that. And that was just like, Wow, what a God thing because we, I mean, for us the only way the only way we survived the only way he survived is just the flooding of prayers that we had from our community going out for him and just the way that he's completely fine now is kind of mind blowing. So he's definitely definitely was an impossible prayer.

Scott Benner 1:00:38
I'm risking freaking myself out here. Did you pick that name before the day? Or after?

Speaker 1 1:00:43
No, he's it was like three days after, actually. Because if you

Scott Benner 1:00:46
were like, we were gonna call them do the whole time, then I'm freaking out. But then Yeah, I'm okay with that. Well, you made a sad song and you made it better is that the line took a sad song and made it. So what are we gonna call the episode? Hey, Jude, probably right.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:01
I mean, that's pretty cute.

Scott Benner 1:01:03
I think that's what we got to do. Well, there's a lot there, Kate. Like I'm now I'm emotionally spent from having this conversation. I now I'm sorry. No, no, seriously, though. It really is crazy. That. It just that one moment, like, Listen, I've I've had that happen. Right. Arden had a pod that had to be changed while she was swimming. And sort of there'd been all this activity during the day. And so we expect them to have like lower blood sugars in the evening because of the of the all the activity and the swimming people know this. Right. So we changed the pump. It is literally in Gosh, Arden's been using Omnipod. Since she was four, she's 19. That's 15 years in 15 years of using on the pot that's changing one every three days. She's only ever had one king to cannula. Oh, wow. happened after that? Swimming. And so she wakes up the next morning. She's in DKA the next morning, just from that King cannula overnight. So Right. I don't even know how many pods. That is. It's insane. Right? We can figure it out. But 15 years, 365 days, probably 100. And some pods a year should probably wear. I mean, just crazy bow over 1200 pods maybe happen one time. And the one time it happened. It happened while she was asleep. Right didn't happen in the middle of the day where we would have noticed or something like that it didn't happen in a situation where we would have noticed quicker because her blood sugar would have shot up because it didn't shoot up because of all the swimming. Like just these little happenstance variables that kept it from being discovered right away. And it was you know, anyway, look, I always

Speaker 1 1:02:48
say it was just the perfect storm. Like everything lined up for a horrible disaster, right? Just was. And I feel so long. I was so angry because it's like, one tiny mistake one lapse in. You know, I don't know

Scott Benner 1:03:07
what I don't even you can't even blame yourself. Really? I mean, the cannula just kinked when you put it in? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:03:12
but you know, it's like, well, I should have made sure that it was working and all that. And I should have been doing like real sick day management that would have helped. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:23
but you know how many times people in your like with diabetes? get by? You know what I mean? Like, they just go like, I know what I should be doing. But it's going to be okay. And nine times out of 10. It is okay. And then

Speaker 1 1:03:36
that's been me my whole life. I've never I've never passed out from a low. I've never gone into DKA. So I kind of had this attitude of like, no, I got it. I got it. I always got it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I'm telling you. I raised a little girl with diabetes. That's the biggest problem that is the most difficult to address is that it's difficult day today to have the same. Oh gosh, what's the word like sense of like, sense of like, we have to be on top of this that you have when you're parenting someone with type one, like when you're doing it as an adult? It doesn't make sense, right? You'd make yourself crazy. But yet, something's going to happen at some point. But look, you know, this could happen that can you could have kinked three days before before you were sick. And you probably would have figured it out. Your blood sugar would have started going up you haven't I know what the hell Oh, I just changed my site and blah, blah. But the cannulas being sick, blah, blah, blah. And you just you're trying to get through it. I'm telling you, that's crazy. Well, well, I'm happy obviously that it all worked out. And really nice of you to come on the podcast and tell everybody about it. Thank you so

Speaker 1 1:04:40
much. Oh, absolutely. It's like a dream come true. Kinda.

Scott Benner 1:04:45
Oh, do tell. I have a couple of minutes. Why am I fantastic? Now's the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:53
Oh, I think you know,

Scott Benner 1:04:55
it's fine. I'm very happy that the podcast is here. been invaluable for you through a lot, you know, through this time. So I really do appreciate you adding your story to it, because this is the kind of thing people need to hear. Like, you know, it's all well and good when nothing bad happens at the other side. But, you know, this is a great, it's a great experience to share to give people the idea that you do have to be diligent, you know, like, you can't just keep letting it go over and over again, it's gonna catch up at some point. And, man, I'm just glad that it all worked out. And so your husband, he, he gets there. I just this is the last little Yeah, he's there while you're in surgery already, is when he arrives. So

Speaker 1 1:05:39
it turns out well, I, I didn't ever see him. When I woke up. I wake up and I see him. So I'm gonna go thank God. But what actually happened is he he was there. And this is just perfect storm. It's hilarious. They took me to labor and delivery er, the ambulance did and he shows up to the hospital and goes to main er, and is at the ER front desk, like where's my wife? Where's my wife? Benedetta. And by the time, you know, the ER locates me and is like, Oh, she's over in lnd. Er, I was already back in the or so. That's, that's how we missed each other just

Scott Benner 1:06:17
like that. Oh my gosh, does he know? When do you to find out together the baby situation? Where does he find out before you wake up?

Speaker 1 1:06:28
Together, but I was like, kind of, you know, half there. I remember the doctor standing there and being like, he's alive. But we don't know if he's gonna be you know, fully functioning basically. I remember her being like, you know, just very direct about it.

Scott Benner 1:06:47
And tempering your expectations. Yes, yes. But

Speaker 1 1:06:52
he, you know, obviously went to meet him without me and everything like that. So

Scott Benner 1:06:57
did you were you with it enough to know how bad it was? Or were you kind of really out of it?

Speaker 1 1:07:01
I was really out of it. I thought I was with it. But then looking back I didn't really come to for for like two days because they had me on a you know, a lot of pain medicine and then I was still in DKA and yada

Scott Benner 1:07:16
yada. Sure. No, no, no, I imagine. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Well, if it's okay with you, I'm definitely calling this one. Hey, Jude. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I'm thrilled that, uh, that everything's okay. I seriously it's very kind of you. I would stay on with you a little longer, and talk about other stuff. But the truth is, I'm looking back on our conversation. I think this is about as much as people can take from whatever.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:39
I'm, I'm sad that I'm such a depressing. No,

Scott Benner 1:07:41
not depressing if it feels like I'm on a roller coaster.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:45
Yeah, I mean, well,

Scott Benner 1:07:48
yeah, I just feel like I feel like we've been on the Tilton world long enough. Now we all need to get off.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:54
Everybody needs to go listen to something happy.

Scott Benner 1:07:56
Yeah, I'm sure there's an after dark or someone's doing something absolutely insane. You can go listen to that. It'll probably pop you right up. Although I'm told by some people they don't like the after darks because they find them sad, but I find them incredibly interesting. So I don't know. Do you like them?

Speaker 1 1:08:11
Yeah, not. They're not really my style. I've I've only listened to one I think to me, to be honest with you.

Scott Benner 1:08:17
It's too much when people's like, have so much like distress in their life.

Speaker 1 1:08:22
Yeah, basically, I'm like, my life's crazy enough. Like, I don't want to I feel the same way about like sad movies or scary movies. It's just like, I don't want to consume, you know, negativity, I guess like life is. Life is crazy enough. It

Scott Benner 1:08:35
certainly is. Hey, here's my last question for you. Are you planning on having more kids?

Speaker 1 1:08:41
I am. Yeah. Yeah, you think it'd be okay. All I can do is pray. Did

Scott Benner 1:08:47
you ever figure out who gave you the flu?

Speaker 1 1:08:51
No, I don't know. Is probably at work. Realistically, it was flu season. I didn't care for anyone directly that had the flu. But we did have patients there that that were flu positive. Around.

Scott Benner 1:09:02
Yeah, I take it all right. I just like it because I there's part of music. I hope it's not somebody in their family. Like, like, you know what I mean? Like, like,

Speaker 1 1:09:11
that'd be horrible. I would not be able to get over that one. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:09:15
How did your dad handle the story afterwards? Because he understands it too. Like, is it hard for him to hear? Ah,

Speaker 1 1:09:23
yeah, definitely. He's like, he's really emotional, but like, keeps it on the DL. So I don't know. I know, like my parents came down, you know, the next morning and my husband's parents and I know everybody was kind of a mess. But I didn't. Everybody put on a brave face for me, I guess is the point. And I didn't really wake up out of all my craziness until like day two or three. So until

Scott Benner 1:09:49
you've been in a situation where a loved one is in a desperate that way. You don't realize how everyone just gets very like, Oh, it's fine. You'll look great. This is going to be okay. A Don't worry, I told my mom not to worry three hours before she was going to I knew she was going to die. And I was pretty sure it was going badly. I like Mom, it's gonna be alright. Like, there's nothing left to say. You know what I mean? Yeah. What are you going to? What are you going to do? Go? Oh, looks bad man. You better talk to Jesus because I think he's coming. So like, you know, it's so everyone does that thing, because they're just trying to get you back to a good place, you know? And exactly, yeah, it's wonderful. Well, listen, I'm glad you had people around you. And the law worked out. If you hold on just one second. I just need to talk to you for a second after we're done. But thank you so much for doing this. Of course, I

was happy to Oh, great. I don't one second.

A huge thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org or on Facebook and Instagram. A huge thanks to Dexcom for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast dexcom.com/juice box head over there now. Get started today. Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experienced living with diabetes, you show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes to find you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made the finding diabetes, go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes, to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're gonna hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Speaker 2 1:12:22
My name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:12:37
Nice. How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes?

Speaker 2 1:12:39
I was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:12:44
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What do you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Speaker 2 1:12:49
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:12:58
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Speaker 2 1:13:01
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:13:22
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Speaker 2 1:13:25
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 1:13:43
Was there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one? No,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:47
I was the first one to have type one in my family.

Scott Benner 1:13:49
And do you have children? Now? I do not know. Do you think you will one day, still

Speaker 2 1:13:54
thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:13:59
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Speaker 2 1:14:02
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about

Scott Benner 1:14:10
eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes, I

Speaker 2 1:14:14
experience a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes. What

Scott Benner 1:14:24
do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Speaker 2 1:14:28
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt I felt like I needed to always have something on me and that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:14:50
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis, and what other challenges did you find? along the way.

Speaker 2 1:15:00
Yeah, I think the initial one, I felt isolated, I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know, this is like hard for you. But I was like, you really don't like I, I just felt lonely. I didn't know, you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this, you can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been, you know, I don't even remember what it was like, for life before diabetes at this point, because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a life with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:15:34
when you found yourself misunderstood? Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 2 1:15:42
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it, which I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:15:59
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Speaker 2 1:16:03
I think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before, is

Scott Benner 1:16:25
college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Speaker 2 1:16:31
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university. But then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more. And with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:17:23
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Speaker 2 1:17:34
I didn't, you know, I honestly didn't think about it, I just was i Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with them. So sorry, connect with them all. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:17:54
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people, but there's still value in that. Right?

Unknown Speaker 1:18:06
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:18:07
What do you think that value was at the time?

Speaker 2 1:18:09
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:18:25
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:18:29
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around, and I noticed stumbled upon the patriotic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my punk you couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you can see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:19:04
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Speaker 2 1:19:17
I will refuse to go anywhere. Like, I would run to the bathroom. I just didn't want to do it in public because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out because I was so afraid. But then once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work and what does this mean and things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand And what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:20:02
what did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well? Can you tell me how that is either different or valuable? I guess compared to meeting a few people in real life?

Speaker 2 1:20:19
Absolutely. I think if you look back from when I was first diagnosed to now, you, I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes. And now it's like, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, and you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that, that kind of just motivates me, and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know, how I live with type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:20:54
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Speaker 2 1:20:58
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows, it understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mic? I'm actually a type one diabetic? This is what's going on? I need your help. What about?

Scott Benner 1:21:36
Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Speaker 2 1:21:49
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of event or anything like they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front? Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:22:06
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:22:21
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars, you know, I can tell like, for my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And and so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have snacks, we got to take some insulin, and my blood sugar is running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin, and I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:23:12
right? Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah, I

Speaker 2 1:23:23
can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I always at least said it, I have been showing that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of understood it, because I'm scared, but it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the work day because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:23:56
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Speaker 2 1:24:12
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions, or comment and be like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos and upload videos, and I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make like just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:24:42
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Speaker 2 1:25:09
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so it's like, and I think that one thing, and obviously, it's a big stereotype of our diabetes is you don't feel like you have diabetes. And that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed.

Scott Benner 1:25:38
What are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist, and you make a plan for the next few months? What are you hoping to achieve? And where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes, I'll

Speaker 2 1:25:49
be honest, I was not someone who is you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my chance, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs, I see your, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high, too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:26:37
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself. And then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Speaker 2 1:26:44
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible you're doing it's just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jalen,

Scott Benner 1:27:22
I appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:25
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:27:27
If you enjoy Jalen story, check out Medtronic. diabetes.com/juicebox Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com

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#1185 Type 1 Doesn't Discriminate

Rouselind and her son have Type 1 diabetes.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, welcome to episode 1185 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's show I'll be speaking with Rosalyn, she has type one diabetes and a child who also has type one. Today we'll talk about Rosland story that begins all the way back with mph, and will also discuss how different ethnic backgrounds have different pathways to learning about diabetes. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. If you have type one diabetes, or are the caregiver of someone with type one, the T one D exchange is looking for you they just need you to complete a survey it takes about 10 minutes. You just have to be a US resident who has type one or is the caregiver of one and you can do this survey it helps move type one diabetes research forward, your answers will help T one D exchange.org/juicebox. To save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com Please use the offer code juice box at checkout. And if you're going to drink ag one two with my link drink ag one.com/juice box don't forget to find the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes 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 this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the only implantable sensor rated for long term wear up to six months. The ever since CGM ever since cgm.com/juicebox.

Rosalind 2:09
My name is Rosalind. 42 years old, I was diagnosed with type one when I was 12. And I have two children. One my son is 13. And my daughter is nine. My son also has type one. He was diagnosed when he was seven. And he was recently diagnosed with celiac earlier this year

Scott Benner 2:29
as well. Okay. And your daughter's nine she doesn't have does not have any autoimmune issues. Thankfully, no. Okay. All right. This is on your side, the autoimmune or are their father's side too. Until

Rosalind 2:41
now, I was the only person with an autoimmune. I have two siblings, and neither one of them has type one. No one on either side of my family has type one. Until recently, when my son was diagnosed with celiac, I found out to my mom that we actually have I have a second cousin. I think yeah, his second cousin who actually also has celiac.

Scott Benner 3:04
Oh, okay. All right. Well, then that's I mean, not a big, not a big tree for sure. But at least that's a little more information for you. You were diagnosed when you were 12. That's 30 years ago.

Rosalind 3:15
It was 1993. Oh, wow.

Scott Benner 3:17
What was that? Do you remember that at all?

Rosalind 3:20
I actually do. I remember I started with symptoms towards the end of sixth grade. Obviously, we didn't we didn't have a history of it in the family. It was also the 90s. So you know, no one really there was no internet or anything like that. I remember being very thirsty. I remember the kids would get mad after PE when it was my turn to get up to the water fountain. I also remember kind of like the teacher like being upset every time I had to go to the restroom. And then I remember also looking back at my pictures. I was so so so skinny for my graduation pictures. Yeah, I didn't get diagnosed officially until the end of the summer. So I basically went on with the symptoms for like three months. That's

Scott Benner 4:02
what I was gonna ask you. Do you think it went on for about three months? Yes. lost weight, bothering kids at the water fountain. But do you think the water fountain is even a thing kids understand now? They have bottle filling stations. Now. Did you know that right?

Rosalind 4:17
So no, I don't think so. You remember you would just

Scott Benner 4:21
put your mouth right on it. You didn't care?

Rosalind 4:24
Exactly. Especially when I was going through that. I mean, I would just stand there. And I remember the teacher will counsel 10 per kid. So what I will do is stay a little bit extra and then go back to the end of the line. And hopefully you get another turn. So I remember that so clearly. Yeah.

Scott Benner 4:41
Is that a thing? You ever? Do you recall it being worrisome to you or no? No,

Rosalind 4:47
I actually don't because I don't even think my mom realized that until my stepfather was the one who noticed and said she's losing a lot of weight something doesn't seem right like she I don't know. I don't think she noticed that either. Wow.

Scott Benner 5:02
Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things right. Like, I don't know how you didn't go. Did you go into DKA? Or do you remember being taken to the hospital or doctor's office?

Rosalind 5:10
Yeah, no, I did not. I don't think I wanted to DKA. But I do remember I was in summer camp. And I remember my mom picking me up. And I remember I was just laying down on literally on the concrete as other kids were playing. And so geez, she just picked me up and took me to the Children's Hospital. Because what happened was when my stepfather mentioned to her, she she looks really, really thin. Something isn't right. She just took me to the regular pediatrician and they did blood work. So they called her a few days later and let her know, hey, her sugar is high. You got to take her to the ER right now.

Scott Benner 5:43
And when she goes to find you just lying on the ground,

Rosalind 5:46
I remember that. Yes, I was laying I had like zero energy. And this was in Florida in the middle of the summer. So it was like super hot. And I do remember that I was laying down

Scott Benner 5:57
like a fried egg on the ground. Well imagine that. Yeah, but seriously, imagine being so depleted, that you? That seems like a reasonable thing to deal with laying on the hot ground, you know, right.

Rosalind 6:10
And I remember always like when she would serve me dinner, I would eat all of it. But then I would always and it was so funny, because then later on, she was like I was killing you. Because I would always ask for more soda. And my mom was one of those moms that was okay. She will just give us more soda. And I remember drinking like glasses after glasses of orange soda. You

Scott Benner 6:29
know, everyone's mom. And so I'm saying that they're like, Oh, I can't believe like, my favorite part is when people are like, you know, we were on our way to the hospital. And my kid asked for some food or something or said they were hungry. And I thought well, maybe this is their last time so I got them some big crazy meal or something like that. And right. Your mom was just happy to probably that you were eating. Honestly, you don't I mean,

Rosalind 6:50
probably Yeah. Because I was so skinny. She was we were all I have two sisters that we were all very small growing up. So she was probably like, okay, she's finally eating. And then she probably she also thought it was like, oh, puberty and you know, she's changing and all this other stuff. So she never put the two

Scott Benner 7:05
together? Of course not. And what gets you there? Finally, is your stepfather saying, hey, something's wrong. She takes you to the doctor. They do the blood work, and then this whole thing starts for you. Correct? Yeah. Okay, so management 30 years ago looks like what? How many times have you thought it's time to change my CGM? I just changed it. And then you look and realize, Oh, my God, it's been 14 days already a week, week and a half. Feels like I just did this. Well, you'll never feel like that with the Eversense CGM. Because ever since is the only long term CGM was six months of real time glucose readings giving you more convenience, confidence and flexibility. So if you're one of those people who has that thought that I just did this then I why we're gonna have to do this again right now. If you don't like that feeling, give ever sent to try because we've ever since you'll replace the sensor just once every six months via a simple in office visit ever since cgm.com/juicebox. To learn more and get started today, would you like take a break take a shower you can with ever since without wasting a sensor. don't want anybody to know for your big day. Take it off. No one has to know whether your sensor has been failing before 10 or 14 days. That won't happen with ever since. Have you ever had a sensor get torn off while you're pulling off your shirt. That won't happen with ever since. So no sensor to get knocked off. It's as discreet as you want it to be. It's incredibly accurate. And you only have to change it once every six months. Ever since cgm.com/juice box.

Rosalind 8:45
It was NPH and regular. I had the I still remember the one touch meter the squared one that took 45 seconds to give you a result

Scott Benner 8:56
was that the one that looked like a like the size of a brick. It wasn't

Rosalind 8:59
as big as a brick. But it was I think it was called One Touch basic. And then eventually they came up with one touch to

Scott Benner 9:06
me to try to find a picture of it while we're talking. It

Rosalind 9:09
was like gray it was like light gray and then I still remember the the middle was like a darker green. And then it was 45 seconds to get your results which was like oh my gosh, longest 45 seconds where you

Scott Benner 9:22
just like standing there waiting to see if I am looking at it. Oh my god. You can find one on eBay still. One Touch basic by lifescan.

Rosalind 9:31
Yes, yes. It will say that I remember that. Uh huh. Oh,

Scott Benner 9:35
that's fantastic. Look at that thing. But look, you know what it looks like a Um, wow, this is something no one's I don't even know if I should bother saying this. But I used to have a handheld football game. But the football players were just dashes on the screen. And the football player that had the ball was a bold dash and the other ones weren't and then you had these little I know no one remembers this at all. You're too young for that. You're like, Yo, Scott, come on. I had Colico vision at least, it just looks exactly like that. It's crazy. It's just a gray box. You you described it perfectly by the way. It's

Rosalind 10:11
in my brain. Like I can literally see it right now. And I don't have it in front of me. Yeah, that's

Scott Benner 10:15
amazing. So let me kind of work backwards a little bit. How is your overall health right now? Do you have any, any issues?

Rosalind 10:23
I luckily do not have any complications whatsoever that I know of. And I mean, I get tested. I go to the doctor regularly. So I don't have any complications.

Scott Benner 10:35
Amazing. When do you know how long used regular an MPH for?

Rosalind 10:38
I use regular and NPH? Actually a little bit like a little too long. I think I started our Lantis and human log, like in 2005 or six, or maybe even seven to be honest with

Scott Benner 10:54
you. Oh, uh, you were over 10 years doing it that way? Oh, yeah. That's something and then when you move to the more modern insulins, back then you're not pumping still. You're doing MDI.

Rosalind 11:08
I actually you mean now currently back then

Scott Benner 11:10
when you got off regular and mph? Did you go to a pump? Oh, no, I

Rosalind 11:14
was on pens. Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 11:16
How long did that go for before you made it to a pump?

Rosalind 11:19
I actually made it to a pump because of my son. And I actually started on a pump

Scott Benner 11:24
last year. Ah, this is what I was wondering if you were gonna say so your your the way you manage was the way you manage it was working fine for you. And you you had no need to change it. What were your A onesies like over the last decade? For example?

Rosalind 11:37
I honestly don't think I ever went past like an eight. Okay. I never did I remember when I first got pregnant with my son. And I went in they of course, it wasn't perfect. I think it was like a 7.6. And then I worked really hard at it. And I went down to I think the lowest I got throughout his pregnancy was probably like a 6.2.

Scott Benner 11:58
Good for you look at that. And then after the pregnancy is over, do you kind of just go back to the way you did it before? Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So with your MDI, and I have to be honest, like holding than a one C like that, coming from the time you came from is very respectable, and and like good work. You know what I mean? Because you I mean, how much information did you have about diabetes? Honestly, honestly,

Rosalind 12:20
not a lot. But I think I figured some things out. Like I figured what made me feel good and what didn't. I also remember, as a child, it was, we would go to the clinic for for type one. And it was like the day that although type ones would be seen by an endocrinologist. And I remember a parents who also had type one talking to my mom. So I was born and raised in Miami. So it's a big Hispanic community, as my culture is also Hispanic. So we eat a lot of rice, right, and beans and stuff like that. And I remember this woman talking to my mom and saying, let her eat as much as she wants just not as much rice. Okay. And so, yeah, that always stuck to me and to my mom. So I would always have more protein and veggies. Also, we had a nutritionist when I was hospitalized. And again, it was a big Hispanic community. So even the nutritionist was Hispanic. And she even said that you want any more, eat more, be more protein, eat more veggies. Not as much rice don't have a lot of racks. It's

Scott Benner 13:22
crazy how things happen while I'm recording. Two days ago, I put up an episode. It's a type two story with this girl who's Mexican. And the next day, I you know, we talked about kind of culturally how that impacted with food when she was growing up. The next day I recorded with a woman who has type one, if I'm being honest, Roslyn, she was a very white lady. And she had a very Spanish last name. And I was like, What's going on here? Like when she spoke, you could tell she spoke Spanish. And I was like, what's happening? So I just asked her, her husband's Mexican. Oh, he had just gotten type two. And she that led into more conversation about the culture and the food. And then when you just said today, like, you know, this is my heritage, and it's like, what am I on? Lika? You don't I mean, like, is this like, tell them under this week? What's going on here? It's like, fifth, I

Rosalind 14:08
would say that because I've been listening to your podcast since my son was diagnosed in 2018. And I'm like, Hey, we I need to hear more Hispanic stories or other cultures. I need to hear more, because I'm like, I know. I'm not the only one.

Scott Benner 14:20
Apparently, I'm on it this week. So it's fantastic. You said that I was like, this might be like, I gotta look to see if like, I made a did I put out an email for like, cultural like stuff? And I'm like, I don't think I did. But anyway, so you know, it's funny, I think, because when people come on from different cultural backgrounds, they have no trouble saying look, it's our culture. We eat a lot of this or there's a lot of pasta or a lot of rice or you know, like, but but nobody ever says look, I'm a I have a standard American diet culturally. We eat a lot of processed food and a lot of like, it's it's interesting, isn't it? Yeah.

Rosalind 14:56
And I actually did hear that episode. You're mentioning with the Young Lady earlier this week, and I remember when she was talking about that. And that's exactly what I thought. I'm like, wait a minute. Every culture has food is actually there's healthier versions and and then the regular good stuff. You know what I mean? We can

Scott Benner 15:13
all eat chicken and broccoli, but it doesn't matter what your culture.

Rosalind 15:18
Right? It just depends on how you make it. Yeah. Is it? Yeah, is it portion control in my opinion. And so I learned that early on, and I tried my best to stick to it. And that's what I did.

Scott Benner 15:32
I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies, and 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/juice box 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 in Dexcom 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/juice box or just call them at 888-721-1514 get started right now. And you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. I think what people are really saying is they're going look over generations, the people in my family have decided that on these days of the year or this day of the week or whatever, it doesn't matter what we because it's the thing we do. And so you know, it's Christmas. So you can eat cookies for breakfast or like, you know, it's this so that and you know, I don't know, I'm interested by it. It's a it's an interesting way people talk about their food. So I don't know, I'm always I always like these conversations. No. You're MDI this whole time. And then, by the way, not an uncommon story. Your kids diagnosed and what does that do? It makes you reevaluate yourself.

Rosalind 17:35
Um, yes, absolutely.

Scott Benner 17:37
What is it, you see, that makes you think, Oh, maybe I should be doing something different.

Rosalind 17:42
So first of all, he was diagnosed in 2018. And it's very interesting, because I'm not the one who caught it. It was my husband.

Scott Benner 17:50
Yeah, that is kind of funny. Yeah. I'm always like, How did I miss

Rosalind 17:53
that? So he wasn't even showing like symptoms. He there was no weight loss. There was no frequent urination or anything like that. The way we found out was, it was a Cinco Demayo weekend. And my son has always been a big eater. And so he wanted tacos. I was like, okay, cool, make them tacos. But he kept asking for more and more food. And I mean, he was seven at the time. And I think he had like, four toggles and my husband's like, something's wrong. Like, why is he sweating like that? And I'm like, What do you mean, he's running around and he's eating? And my husband for some reason to this day, I will never know what made him ask that he goes, get your meter and check his sugar. I was like, Okay, I was like, You're crazy. But okay, I'll check a sugar. Check a sugar here. Sugar was 220 something. And I was like, This is not right. So we did a second test. And it was 220 something again, then I checked myself, check my husband cuz I'm like, the meters broken. This can't be right. Yeah. And so when we see that it's actually reading, right? I mean, the rest is history. We I we got them. We took them to the ER. And by the next morning, it was you know, they diagnosed him it was type one

Scott Benner 19:07
that break your heart or where does that land you? Like psychological?

Rosalind 19:11
Oh, my gosh, no, I was devastated. Why?

Scott Benner 19:14
Tell me what what about your life made you feel that way?

Rosalind 19:17
I felt really guilty. For some reason. I even got emotional now.

Scott Benner 19:23
Okay, I'm sorry.

Rosalind 19:26
It's okay. He was so young. And that was always my biggest fear. And I felt bad because when I planned when we plan to have children, I mean, honestly, he wasn't planned. But before that, I had always asked doctors, what's the likelihood that my kids will get this? And they're like, oh, no, they're likely to it's the same as anybody else. That's what they were telling me. I even had the handle told me that due to my age, because I had them when I was 29. They were like the likelihood is even less that your children will have type one Okay, it's like, okay, cool. Even as a baby, I asked this pediatrician, they're like, it's, you know, he has the same risk as any other child. So then fast forward to this day, and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe that's happening. So my fears. I mean, I guess it's just be living with that. And he was so young, and you know, just thinking complications and things like that, even though I didn't have any. But, you know, it has always been in the back of my mind that that's something that can happen. So

Scott Benner 20:30
were you seated with those fears? When you were growing up? Did people talk to you like, about it that way? Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. So eat like this, or this is gonna happen, like, take your insulin, or this is gonna happen, those sort of things were said.

Rosalind 20:45
Yes, not by my mom. My mom never did that. But the end goals were not exactly. I still remember one Endo, I went in, I don't remember my agency. So I don't remember what caused him to say this to me. But we go in, and he just puts his hands over my eyes. And he tells me if you continue this, this is what's going to happen, you're not going to be able to see, I was like, you know, that terrified me. And I was like, Oh, my gosh.

Scott Benner 21:09
So did it work? So I've heard it described by people as someone tried to scare me into taking care of myself. And it backfired, or they tried to scare me, and it worked. Did you like Were you scared straight? Or did you just ignore it? I

Rosalind 21:23
didn't ignore it. And it also I also wasn't scared straight, I still just went on doing what I was doing. And in the back of my mind, I just basically started thinking, I might as well enjoy everything as much as I can. Because you never know when this thought or the other might happen. So it was always in the back of my mind. But it didn't. I mean, I still went out and ate my sugar still ran high. Sometimes, you know, I still partied and things like that. But I wouldn't say a scare me straight. But it also did kind of, I guess, in a way. Now, I don't want to say help. But I guess it just always made me aware of the fact that, you know, I might have issues later on. So I might as well enjoy things as much as I can. If that makes sense. Like

Scott Benner 22:06
it does make sense. I've and I've heard other people say it, that, to me seems like the danger of it. Like if you if you tell somebody, Hey, if you keep going like this bad things are gonna happen. But then they don't tell you how to stop going like this, whatever that means. You have no tools, you just now you just have the consequence in front of you. And right,

Rosalind 22:24
because there's not like they gave you they told me what to do after that. It's not like, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 22:30
It's my biggest pet peeve with doctors is they like to tell you like, the x is going to happen if you don't fix it, but they don't tell you what fix it is. And you know, where they I don't know, if they assume you know, I can't tell Rozlyn? I can't tell if they assume you know, or if they don't know how to explain to you how to achieve it. I can never figure out exactly, maybe it's sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just bad communication. Maybe sometimes it's a doctor who doesn't understand what to tell you. Like, I don't know the difference, but it's upsetting because then you have this conversation with somebody 30 years later, and you're like, hey, you know, I didn't know what to do. And, you know, you would you have worked at it if you knew.

Rosalind 23:12
I think so. But I think also what I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that if they don't have a lifelong condition, they don't understand how difficult it could be to manage that along with life. If that if, if that makes sense. And I think they think that those quick courses that they gave you of counting carbs, or the exchange diet, which is what they did back then, like they think that in one week that they teach you all that that's just what you're gonna go by forever. Yeah, they don't know. Yeah, I think it's a lot. And then also the fact that what they see you for, like 15 minutes. Yeah. So I

Scott Benner 23:47
definitely think the mix of the problem is a little bit that most medications are like, Hey, take this in the morning on an empty stomach, or, you know, like that kind of stuff. And I do think they feed out that diabetes information in the same way. You just count this, you do this, you push the button here, it's all going to be fine. You know, don't worry about

Rosalind 24:06
Yeah, because when I went on shots, when the pens, I remember they gave me a class on how to carb calm. Until then I didn't know how to carb count, because I was still on mph and regular. Yeah. So now fast forward to the Lantis and human. I had a class for like an hour, I think. And I remember I think it was a nurse. And so she taught me how to carb count. And so what she told me was one unit per 15 carbs. And I remember going home that day and thinking I counted correctly. And I gave myself way too much insulin and I started dropping. I remember like sweating and I'm like, Oh my gosh, what is going on? And then after that I was like, I need to figure this out on my own because they really what they were telling me wasn't working. So I kind of just tried to figure it out on my own. Just like I had a scare with Atlantis, where I was told to take it in the mornings. No, I'm sorry in the evenings they told me to take it in the evenings. And then I would wake up and I will be really low during the night. So what I did was I started taking it in the mornings, and I helped a little bit.

Scott Benner 25:08
And that's you around 22 years old, right? Like in your early 20s? Yes. When you started shooting, right, right. So this is interesting, because you had an experience, and then said to yourself, that's not right. I'm going to have to experiment. But some people have that experience over and over again, and they do not have the nerve to break free of what the doctor told them. Like, why were you so comfortable saying, I'm not gonna do this overnight? I'll do it during the day. I really

Rosalind 25:34
can't tell you. I just knew I was scared to go to sleep at night and not wake up. So I was like, okay, maybe I can try this in the morning. At the end of the day, it didn't make sense to me. I'm like, What is the point? I was always used to doing my NPH and regular in the morning, not before bedtime. So I guess I just apply that idea to the Lantis.

Scott Benner 25:53
You just apply common sense. Like if I'm gonna get low, I'd like to be awake while it's happening. Correct? Yeah, that's simple, isn't it? Wow. Isn't that interesting? And so just your personality? Do you kind of not take crap from people generally speaking?

Rosalind 26:05
I think so. Yeah.

Scott Benner 26:08
You're like, Yeah, sure. I don't want to sound harsh, but I don't take people. Right. No, it just because you see what I'm saying? Like there are plenty of people who will struggle for their life, doing a thing that they absolutely as they're doing it think this is not the right thing to do. Right. And yet they will. It's what the doctor told them and they and they won't break free from it. So go so good for you. Congratulations. But still, even having done that in your early 20s. You're still getting seven and a half, eight a one sees you know, get it down to the six is for a pregnancy. Babies born back kind of how you're doing it. You have another little I mean, it looks like if he was seven, she's nine. She was three. She was Yeah, then she was a baby when he was four,

Rosalind 26:55
three and a half or four. Okay. And another thing to what you said before that another thing I had pushback from the doctors was, I would always test my blood sugar. I they've recommended before meals. And I remember this so vividly. No matter who the handle was they were always asking me, why are you testing so much? Because I was testing sometimes up to 910 times a day. And they couldn't wrap their head around why I was doing it that often. And I remember having to tell them, I'm exercising. So I need to know where my blood sugar is before I start exercising, or I need to know if I'm lower now before I get in a car before I started driving. And so that was another pushback I got they would always ask me. Why are you testing so often, you're only supposed to test before meals.

Scott Benner 27:43
Two things that happened to me when Arden was younger that stuck in my head. And I still like I can picture the scenario I was in when it was said to me. So the first one is similar to you. I said, Hey, listen, she's eating and like an hour and a half after she eats her blood sugar spiking up? And do you know what they said to me? Stop testing, then. Wow. And I'm like, Yeah, I was like, Stop, hold on a second. So for blood sugar is getting really high. And I want to know what it's doing. So I can figure out how to stop it. And they're like, does it come back down? And I'm like, yeah, they go then don't worry about it. I'm like, but no, but like, it could go to 300 or more. Right? I was told the same thing. Yeah, just don't test them. And I was like, so we're gonna go with head in the sand on this one. I was like, that's, that's your vibe. And the other thing around insulin that was said to me. And testing specifically that I just like, shocked me immediately, is I said, Well, how often do I have to test her overnight? And they said, You don't have to test overnight. And I was like, Well, if I don't have to test overnight, why do I have to test during the day? And just the blank stare? Like I said, What's the difference between being asleep and being awake? I'm like, I don't understand, right? You need to get sleep. And I was like, that doesn't address the problem of her blood sugar. It's fascinating. Like, there's no common sense in either of those states. Right? And that's what people were told for freaking ever. Just forever. Yeah, they

Rosalind 29:13
just tell you, I think they just tell you, whatever it takes. So just make a quick thing. Just get out I need to see. To be honest with you.

Scott Benner 29:20
I like how honest you are about that. You're like I just think they want you out of there.

Rosalind 29:26
I mean, it makes me that's what I've noticed, you know they have a waiting room full of people you're just another number they're just trying to get get you out of there. I honestly think that after everything I've learned what myself and especially after my son, when you're diagnosed with something it's kind of your own responsibility, I guess to do your own research because honestly, you're you're you're on your own. Unfortunately the person

Scott Benner 29:49
who made those two statements to me, I think is a very well intended lovely person and who actually cared about Arden right, but to say the Give me those two answers. Just don't look after she eats and you don't have to look at night. That's a complete misunderstanding of, of of insulin, right? Unless you understand how it works. You're deciding to concede for me that we can't be successful and healthy. So why bother looking? Like if that's what they that was one of the other, she that didn't know what she was talking about? Or didn't think it was possible to fix, even though she understood the mechanics of it. I don't know. I just very upsetting to me, trust me, right. That was maybe 13 years ago. I can make myself upset right now about that, if I think about it,

Rosalind 30:36
yeah, it's because how many people don't receive the same advice and literally just follow that. And then, you know, that creates all the issues and complications probably were so many, I was told the same thing with my son when he first started going to the doctor's visits. So they would say it's been two hours since he ate. So that's pretty normal, that his sugars are gonna be elevated, you'll eventually come down. They used to tell me the same thing. It's

Scott Benner 31:00
something else, I don't know it's up. It's like I said, I get upset when I think about it. So alright, so anyway, so he's diagnosed. And what happens the their endo tries to put them on a CGM, or by the way, are using a CGM during any of this time.

Rosalind 31:14
Oh, that's another story. So after I have my daughter, she was born 2013. I guess the Dexcom four had just come out. And so the endo gives me or puts me on the Dexcom. It worked great. But unfortunately, I had to stop using it because I would have horrible skin rashes. And I remember calling Dexcom and saying, Is there a way I can fix this? What can I do? I really need it. I really want it. But I can't handle these rashes. I mean, my skin would be wrong. Unfortunately, they didn't have an answer for me. I didn't know about diabetes groups on Facebook or anything like that. So I just stopped using the Dexcom. Wow.

Scott Benner 31:54
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, and now we know, well, first of all those original devices, that adhesive was like duct tape, get really, really held on and they've learned over time, I mean, all of them. But Dexcom. Specifically, they learned over time, like we have to find a balance between how much the sticks, and how much it irritates people's skin. And they do a good job with it, like over the generations of figuring out but yeah, you got so you got into early basically, and then had a problem and never got back to it. When when's the next time you thought about a CGM again after that. I

Rosalind 32:29
thought about a CGM after that when my son was diagnosed, so when in 2018, when he was diagnosed, I remember in the hospital, I asked, Are there any support groups that you guys have anything because I need support, I need to know what's going on. I need to know what to do. And so basically, they're like, No, I'm sorry, I don't have anything. So then I started looking at Facebook, and I joined some groups there. And I started seeing everyone talking about Dexcom, and then also the libre. So when I asked his Endo, they said that he he got diagnosed, right when the Dexcom G six was about to come out. Okay. So what she told me was he got diagnosed in May. And if I remember correctly, the G six was released, like in July. So she said that in two months, we can go ahead and put them on the G six, there's no point on putting him on to five. I said, Okay, well, if if he can't have that, for whatever reason, you're saying, what about the libre? And then I remember I got him on the libre. Because she I don't remember what was her reason for making me wait, or not giving me the libre, but she eventually gave me the libre, the prescription for the libre? Because I told her Oh, they wanted me to check him at 12 midnight every night. And I'm like, Okay, we, me and my husband both work. And if there's something available, where it could be a little bit easier, or give me peace of mind when he goes to school? Why can I just have this in the meantime? Yeah. So they finally let me have the libre. And I remember having to wake up and swipe them in the middle of the night and all that good stuff. And then eventually, as soon as the Dexcom came out, we went ahead and he got on the on the G steaks. And then he started complaining of the itching as well. And that's when the parent group started helping because I realized, Oh, I could just spray some flow nice on him and he'll be fine and that

Scott Benner 34:19
crazy. Of all the weird that

Rosalind 34:23
I felt so frustrated. I was like, what was the three four years ago? I could have been fine. Yeah. So I then of course, then I got on it as well. So then we were both on the Dexcom yeah,

Scott Benner 34:33
sometimes I see stuff like that. I'm like wait to go internet. That's amazing. Like who's the first person who was like, I'll spray flow nasal on it, let it dry, then put it on. President I have it's such an inappropriate story I've told on the podcast before and I'm not going to embarrass you with it here. But I use Flow neighs once for something that it's not meant for and it really saved me two already. I'll tell you afterwards. It's such a dumb story anyway, maybe at the end not right now. So okay, so he's a G six. And then does he get a pump pretty immediately,

Rosalind 35:08
he got a pump. So my son is very interesting. He's a very, I don't know, he's just very, he's wise beyond his years. He's very like with it. I remember coming home with him. And my hands used to literally shake whenever I had to give him a shot. So two weeks into diagnosis. He's like, I can do it. I'm gonna do it. And we were like, Okay, you are? And he said, Yes, I got it. I was like, Cool. And he and he did it. So then fast forward to another year. I think he was eight. I send them to a weekend diabetes camp that they had in Florida. So he goes, and I guess he sees other kids with an army pod. And he comes back and says, Mom, I really want that. The kids have like a remote and they can just trust. I mean, they could just give themselves incidents. I don't have to do shots. Yeah. So I was like, Okay, we'll talk to the doctor. And I had asked from before also, because once I started listening to your podcast, which is I found that in one of those parent groups, someone said Juicebox Podcast, so I started listening to you in 2018. He must have been like two weeks in diagnosis. And so I remember when I initially asked where he was still honeymooning, he honeymooned for a long time, because we caught it so early. And so they said he wasn't on enough insulin to be able to use the Omnipod at first. Okay. Right. So it wasn't until 2020 that he was finally able to get on the Omnipod. I

Scott Benner 36:30
see. I see. i By the way, I love that your seven year old, at that point, watched you shaking with that needle and thought this lady is not my best bet. I bet.

Rosalind 36:41
He's like that, even with the celiac diagnosis. He's like, I'm fine. I got it. Don't worry about it. And I'm like, Are you really no good. Sometimes I just I kept putting things like that.

Scott Benner 36:51
But how many times do you inject yourself every day? At that point? I mean, when when he's diagnosed, when he's diagnosed, you're injecting still, how come? You couldn't do it to him?

Rosalind 37:00
I think I was just a mess. Yeah, I was just a mess. It was I took it really, really hard. I was really, really sad. And it just I don't know, I was just a mess. heartbreaking,

Scott Benner 37:10
right? To do. I'm sorry. It's heartbreaking to do it. Like, especially

Rosalind 37:15
it is I just couldn't believe that he would have to go through what I you know, have been going through all these years. And I think what especially broke my heart was that at least I got diagnosed at 12. He was seven. And so it was really difficult for me. But I think he's a really strong kid. And I think it also helped I think, at least that's what my husband says the fact that he sees me doing it, he would always see me injecting myself in the morning before heading out the door to go to work in school. So I guess he's just like, Okay, this is just what we do. She looks fine. So I'll be fine.

Scott Benner 37:48
So the family thing, I guess. Yeah, well, like red hair, I guess is what we have. That's pretty. That's pretty great. He sounds terrific. Absolutely. Let me make sure I understand this. Now that it's not you, it's him. You're like, we need to do a good job. And I don't have enough information, even though I've been at this for nearly 30 years at that point. And so I'm going to go out into the world. I'm going to find some support, see what other people are saying. I mean, I'm assuming it's a life jacket thing like you. But it's not right. Like you get him first you don't you don't figure it out for yourself and then go to him, you figure him out and then relay it back to your own care.

Rosalind 38:27
I think it kind of happened at the same time. Okay. I remember when he was in the hospital, it was a weekend. And so they wanted, they said they figure they're like, Well, you have it. So it should be fine. But we still want you to make sure your husband understands carb counting as well. Well, little did they know I honestly had never really carb counting. So we're sitting there learning how to carb count and my husband's actually doing better than me.

Scott Benner 38:52
Well, he also knows what diabetes looks like, because he saw it on your kid in two seconds. That's like you said earlier? Like, I don't know why he saw it so quickly. But what I thought was was he's been watching you, probably

Rosalind 39:03
because I remember I mean, I feel so bad for him afterwards. Because at night when I would have Lowe's be free. You know, I didn't have a Dexcom. So he would be the one waking me up. You know, sometimes. And I guess that he mentioned he told me, you know, this is what I had to do all the time with you because you would sweat and when I would see you sweating or you wouldn't move I knew something was wrong.

Scott Benner 39:24
Yeah, that's so so it's funny. He thought of the sweating is a low blood sugar. Right? Right. So he saw your son sweating and thought diabetes, but he was probably sweating because his body was just working so hard at, you know, trying to stay nice to try to stay alive at that point when his blood sugar was high in that crazy. Well, yeah, good for him. And good for all of you, honestly. And it's lovely to hear how well your husband takes care of you too, and looks out for you. Oh,

Rosalind 39:51
thank you. Yeah, I've heard some episodes where people talk about their spouses and how some of them are not that like vested into it and whatnot. And it's interesting because I remember when I started on the Dexcom, after my son, he wanted to follow me. And I told him absolutely not. It was so bad. Of course, I eventually let him follow me. But until then it had been my thing. You see what I'm saying? So I was, I took care of it, I got it, don't worry about it. And he's like, Well, I need to know what about when I'm at work, and you're at home with the kids? How can I not know what your sugar is? Why don't you want me to know? And so yeah, it was it was very interesting how that also switched. Because until that moment, I think he didn't obviously, he didn't know what diabetes all entailed. And also, I felt like it was something that was just mind for me to take care of. And I didn't need anyone to help me. You

Scott Benner 40:45
also, by the way, coming up through regular an MPH, you didn't know all it entailed in a modern world. Until exactly so you started worrying for your son and paying attention to what other people were doing. And then it brings you along. So if they asked you like, what's your one see now? Right now I'm at six point to look at you say and that's not you freaking out because you're pregnant. That's just how you live. Exactly. Good for you. That's wonderful. And your son similar? Yes,

Rosalind 41:11
he's also like, 6.2, the highest he's ever been, I think was 6.70. And that's middle school. That was a hole. Yeah.

Scott Benner 41:21
Hey, do you eat rice again? Or do you not like it anymore?

Rosalind 41:24
Oh, no, we rice sweet. Everything's

Scott Benner 41:26
your back. You're like, Hey, I figured out insulin. gave me that rice.

Rosalind 41:33
We figured I figured it all out. Thankfully, listening to your podcast, I was a big help to be honest with you, especially in Dublin game. Oh, yeah. I remember listening to your first few episodes. I mean, I've listened to all of them for the most part. And I was like, Oh my gosh, he doesn't like how I do it. Because they were really strict about wanting me to count carbs. And I'm like, I don't do that. I can just look at something and at least for myself, and kind of know how much I need. And so that's kind of how I started doing it for him. And it wasn't that it wasn't working. But they wanted me to do it their way by counting. And I was like, oh, that's kind of like not how I do it. And so I just learned how to, after listening to I think I forgot which episode it was. But I was like, Well, you know, if his daughter's doing great, and this is how he does it. I'm pretty sure I can continue to do it the way I've always done it and my son is going to be fine. Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:23
I think what works is what's best. And you know, that's what works for you. You but you can't lie to yourself. You can't say oh, no, it's fine. Like I have some people say, Oh, my a one sees a man. Great. And I know a one see, like, I know we're looking at time and range, too. I'm just using this as an example. But I hear people say like, Oh, my one sees are great. I'm like, Oh, I used to just say, I used to think when people said that. Oh, they think great means what I think great means. But then I learned to say what what is it? And they say, oh, it's been in the sevens. And I'm like, well, that's, that's by the way. It's it's hard work and well done and etc. But it's not a great agency. And you know, like so like, you know, what is it about their management style that's leaving them at a seven? What could they be doing slightly different that would make it a six or lower or whatever. And, you know, I think you have to have those conversations, or else people kind of I don't know, they kind of float to the middle of what their understanding is like if at some point. I mean, I think ADA still says sevens a target a one C? So I believe so. Yeah. So if your doctor is telling you, Hey, listen, we're happy around seven, and you float up to 7.8. Sometimes he goes, Don't worry about it. Like like, you know, now in your head, you're like, wow, seven eighths, okay. And you know, if just understanding how insulin works a little differently, or how the food was impacting you, or something like that could take that number and bring it into the sixes. I mean, that's a conversation worth having, in my opinion. So, you know, I love that that happened for you. And it's funny, right? You didn't want your husband looking at your CGM. But when it came to your son, you were like, I'm happy to let anybody give me advice anybody at all. Like, I'll go out in the world and find people, not your husband, but other people. It's I just, I want I want unmarried men to hear that so they know what to expect one deck, but by the way, vice versa, ladies, it's gonna happen to you too. You'll be like, he doesn't listen to me listens to everyone else. It's true. Yeah. I'm gonna shift gears a little bit here for you. Because in your notes, it says that are you untethered?

Rosalind 44:21
Okay, so that that's the reason why I wrote to you last year. Yeah. Not me, my son. Okay. So when he started middle school, sixth grade lot, well, two years, he's in eighth grade now. So that was two years ago. His blood sugar, he was very, very thin. And so the pods would sometimes fall off, or the sites would become like, I don't know, blocked, I guess is the word I forgot. Or he would always complain that it would hurt. He would always have an issue with the pods, especially while he was in school. So I a couple years ago, I had listened to another podcast. I can't remember her name, but she had just mentioned him PASI that her son was going through puberty and that he was untethered. So basically, he was taking PT recibo was still on his pump, because he was on so much incident. My son had just the, you know, he was 1112 he started puberty, you know, you could tell the changes, growing voice change all that. And the blood sugar's were just insane. And I felt like I couldn't keep up. And so I asked the doctor again, I asked, I said, Hey, can I can we do this? Can I give him a little bit of extra PT receiver, while his pump is still working? Because my fear is that he's going to go into decay, or something happened while he's in school, and I'm not going to be able to make it on time to school, or he's gonna pay attention to it. She told me I couldn't do that. She said something about the pump getting air in it. And it just didn't make

Scott Benner 45:48
sense. Yeah, that's not an accurate description of your question at all. The idea of being untethered, I don't even know where that word came from, you would shoot your Basal insulin, like, like you were on MDI. And some people then would just use their pumps for meal and corrections. Or sometimes they would split it a little bit, a little bit of basil from the pump, a little bit of basil from the MDI. Now, you can see that sometimes the people who have like, like significant insulin needs, because you can flood your pump sites if you're using a ton of insulin through them, and it makes them kind of less effective sometimes. Right?

Rosalind 46:22
And I think that that's what was happening to him. He was on so much insulin at that point. I mean, I kept changing his Basal rates. I kept telling him to Bolus more for lunch. And I mean, his blood sugar's were just constantly high while he was in school, right. So what I decided to do was, I said, let's start with giving him seven units of PT receiver, and then just still keep his Basal going. Like

Scott Benner 46:47
how the story went from your doctor told you no to how you did it.

Rosalind 46:52
Oh, yeah. I just couldn't sit there and watch it anymore. I was at work every day, looking at his Dexcom. And the moment lunch would come. Not even that just breakfast. And I would always ask him, I'm like, What are you eating? What are you doing? I mean, that's a whole other story. Eventually, we found out he was he was having lunch from home and also school. Yes. To lunches. He's a big eater. Not a big guy. Not a big kid. But he eats a lot. Yeah. And so

Scott Benner 47:23
if the doctor said No, where did you get the transceiver from? Oh,

Rosalind 47:27
I will still MDI.

Scott Benner 47:29
Yeah, yeah. You know, earlier when I said, Do you not take crap from people and you act it all. demure? I feel like there's a whole other part of you that could have answered a completely different way.

Rosalind 47:41
To me, I mean, I don't see it that way. I just see, like, I don't know, I just feel like if someone tells, you know, just Can you try to figure it out onto someone says, Yeah, or you figure it out yourself? I guess I don't know, Ross,

Scott Benner 47:51
and I've been talking to you for 45 minutes now, like your common sense is really strong. It's impressive, actually. So every time you've been intersected with a problem throughout your story, you actually refer back to common sense. And you follow it, which is this very cool. And, and you did it here with this too. So good for how long did he doesn't still do that? Or he does?

Rosalind 48:12
He does not? He does not. So he did that for a good year. It did help a little bit, it helped because we stop having pod failures, right? And occlusions. It helped with that. And also helped stabilize his blood sugar a little bit more, he was still getting high. But it wasn't as bad as before. And at least I knew, Okay, if he has a pod failure, or like is not dosing correct, you're correctly or whatnot. IBC still has that background incident in.

Scott Benner 48:41
I hear people talking about now to their pumping. But they also got themselves a prescription for a Frezza. They inhaled insulin. And when they get like, when they get tough spikes or sticky highs, they'll use the president break the high, but the pump does everything else. It's very interesting when people get, I don't know, a little DIY about diabetes, and like, you know, like the flow neighs idea like, oh, look with the internet figured out, you know, it's really interesting. Oh, absolutely.

Rosalind 49:10
I think that Instagram, Facebook groups and your podcasts have been a great help because you just hear something and it kind of sticks to you. You're like, Wait, let me try that. I've never thought of that. And then you just try it and it either works for you or it doesn't and I just tried, you know, fantastic.

Scott Benner 49:26
Hey, is your daughter? Did you do trial net or anything to see if she had any antibodies?

Rosalind 49:33
I tried trial net for her and her antibodies were negative. That was in 2018. Okay. Then fast forward to a year later. I picked her up from summer camp one day, and she's like, she tells me she doesn't feel well. And I decide to check her blood sugar and I'll never forget this. It was one night before. So I freak out. I asked her what does she have? She said she had a cookie, no juice. So I'm rushing home. I get home. I check her blood sugar again. It was like 117 120 I was still afraid. So I took her to the doctor to get blood work done. And this was the second time that I had her tested through my son's Endo. And again, she didn't have antibodies. I guess her sugar just went high, because they gave her too much sugar.

Scott Benner 50:17
I felt like a hippie for a second. You shouldn't drink fruit, or vegetables. Like you shouldn't be blending things. Well, I'm a vegetables but think you shouldn't be blending fruit down and drinking it. It is not good for you. Your body does not know how to handle it like that. So Right. Yeah, it's why it's so effective at bringing up a low for a person with type one. And battling that what that insolence doing because it's just it's not your systems just not meant to drink juice. And by the way, I don't just mean like, you know, like something that a company makes and sticks in a juice box. I'm talking about orange juice, pineapple juice, like that stuff is hard on your system. So right

Rosalind 50:53
because it's so many oranges for one glass, instead of just having one orange and moving right along. Yeah, I got a glycemic

Scott Benner 50:59
index for that is insane. It's just, it's a ton of sugar. So anyway, whatever you give me I'm like, yeah, do what you want. But I'm just saying no. after

Rosalind 51:10
that. I never gave her juice again. I mean, she was one of those kids who love juice. I mean, now she'll have like the Capri Suns that have like five grams or six grams of sugar. But that's it. She will not have a juicy juice ever again. Which is what they used to give them in school. Yeah.

Scott Benner 51:23
Oh, listen, look how look how far you've come from your mom like laying those orange sodas on everybody. Yeah, I know. People don't know. Like, listen, you're not my age. But you could buy a two liter bottle of soda for 50 cents. And it was a lot of liquid and it was sweet. And people liked it. And you know you could the house was stocked with it like we used to have it. Oh, absolutely. There's everywhere like the countertops. There was like soda bottles lined up everywhere. Oh, yeah,

Rosalind 51:53
absolutely. Especially our generations that they weren't as health conscious as now. Now everyone's low sugar, low fat, organic, but back then we just ate whatever was there. Yeah, whatever

Scott Benner 52:03
was cheap and available. That was food. So yeah, my god the pizza, they would serve us at school. I don't even know how to describe that. It's like if you if you know what I get an Ilios frozen pizzas. That's bare bones frozen pizza. I don't think the pizza at school was that good even.

Rosalind 52:22
It was not. It was not. It's funny because my daughter hates school lunch. I have to make her lunch. She brings in lunch every day. And sodas my son, especially now with the car. But she hates school nodes.

Scott Benner 52:36
Art and moved from her freshman to her sophomore year in college to a an apartment that had a kitchen because she's like, I can't keep eating here. It's It's killing me. Like, yeah, it's gross. She came home with weight on she came home with like her agency was up like her. She's like, Dad, you should see how much insulin I'm trying to use. Like to keep this down. She's like, I gotta get a kitchen. And that that's what she's doing now. And boom, you can see it right away though. Just the processed food. And I don't know all the fat and salt. They put in things so that it tastes better. And just, you know, not good for you.

Rosalind 53:11
Yeah, it's awful. It's awful. It's so hard on your body and on your sugars. Because especially when you eat something like that. It's like your sugar stays high forever. It's like it doesn't want to come down. Oh,

Scott Benner 53:21
yeah. She said actually, she said she didn't feel well, yesterday. It's so weird for your kid to be sick. Like, and not with you. Like it's a hard thing to get past. You'll see when your kids get older. It's it's a terrible feeling. Yeah. But she just like she called me in the nighttime. She goes, Man, my stomach hurts like I am sick, I feel nauseous. And she's like, I'm just gonna lay down. And you know, she gets up the next day. And it doesn't feel good in the morning, but eventually feels better. And she's great. And then the afternoon comes. And I'm talking to her yesterday afternoon. We're FaceTiming and she's telling me about how one of her classes went. And her roommate comes from negocio you want to go out and get this. And Arden goes I really don't want to cook today. Like yeah, let's do that. And I was like, alright, well, you know, I'm gonna go you go ahead and go and do what you're going to do. Her blood sugar was not good for like three hours after she ate. And I texted her and I was like, Hey, you miscalculated this meal, like, you know, just, you gotta hit it. Again. It's not, you know, you're not making a dent in this and the algorithm, by the way is hump and trying to get it down. It's not working. And I'm like, you know, you need to add more carbs or more insulin or something like that. But that was just one time of her getting into a groove of bolusing for food that She's made herself and bought at the grocery store versus going to a restaurant. And then she was struggling again and didn't you know, all the regular amount of insulin she should have used for a meal like that that she would have made did not work when they bought another place. So

Rosalind 54:49
yeah, it's crazy. And I She actually doesn't live far from me because I've seen that you posted she's out in Savannah. We recently moved over here not far From the Oh, no

Scott Benner 55:00
kidding. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Have you been in the South? While you were been in Florida? So you move north a little bit? Um, yeah. Nice. Do you like it? Oh,

Rosalind 55:09
it's very different from from where I used to live. Because even though Florida is in the south, I lived in Miami. So it's a very different it's not at all.

Scott Benner 55:18
Miami has its own place. It should be its own state.

Rosalind 55:20
Is everyone? Yes. If you know, you know, it surely is. So it's it's been very different. But

Scott Benner 55:26
it's good. Nice. Arden says it's a little too slow for her. It is it's

Rosalind 55:31
very slow. But we actually moved here because my husband started working at a job here. And so we just decided to move the family here because at the end of the day, Miami is very fast paced, and in my opinion, not the best place to raise kids. So

Scott Benner 55:48
what if you want to give them a coke habit?

Rosalind 55:51
party all the time. I'm like, Yeah, that's just not working. But

Scott Benner 55:55
it's not bad. Yeah, no, Arden says I love it here. It's a lovely place. It's too slow for me. I don't want to live in the south. And she's like, she goes, don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to go to college. She was places wonderful and everything. But yeah, I don't want to stay here. We're like, Okay, well, oh, yeah,

Rosalind 56:11
my son says that already. He's like, Oh, once in five, because he already has his life planned out. I'm like, That's okay. I don't want to stay here either. Once you guys are old enough and leave, I'm out of here to Daddy

Scott Benner 56:21
can come if he wants to, but I'm getting out of here. Have we covered everything you want to talk about? If we missed anything? No,

Rosalind 56:30
I think we covered everything except that I didn't talk about his celiac diagnosis and how that was kind of like, similar to the same thing. They tell you a diabetes. Um, it's interesting. Um, once we moved here, he had a new Endo. And so they ran all the bloodwork all over again. For some reason that was interesting in itself as well. That's another thing I should add as to why I'm not crazy about living here. But healthcare here, in my opinion is not great.

Scott Benner 56:57
Yeah, a little downslide. And in the quality of the doctors, you're seeing not just

Rosalind 57:01
the quality, the quantity, actually, there's only like, a few angles. There's only one pediatric Gi, which to me is insane. Okay, yeah, it's been even for me, there's like only a handful of endos over here. And it's been really difficult to find one that I like, I don't like any of them. And then I just have to stay with the one I have. So luckily for me, I know what I'm doing. Because I mean, I don't want to keep going. But for a short while I worked at an endo office here. And it's really sad to see how people here manage their diabetes and how poorly they're doing it, it was really sad. I actually had to stop working there because I couldn't see it anymore. I

Scott Benner 57:42
really just the level of understanding that they had as patients or as the doctors had are both both the

Rosalind 57:49
level they had his patients. And I also got to see it from the other side. There's only so much a doctor can do when they have so many patients, and only a certain amount of time per patient. And this person's coming to you and you're trying to help them but there's only so much you can do to help

Scott Benner 58:06
man they don't understand. Right. And yeah, they really,

Rosalind 58:09
don't. They? I think that's another thing. I think a lot of them just don't understand. They can't wrap their head around it.

Scott Benner 58:16
Yeah, no, I believe that too. I look I get to see. I mean, between the Facebook page and the podcast, I see a lot of people like 10s of 1000s of people talking about their diabetes. And it's I think you're right. I think there's some people who have a basic understanding, or some people have a slightly better understanding. There's some people are like superheroes at it. And there are some people that when you watch them, it feels like that, like no one's ever even, like mentioned to them what's going on? They're just right. Yeah,

Rosalind 58:48
I just think they think that this is like, Okay, I have diabetes, I'm just gonna end up in a bad place. It is what it is. I mean, I saw it all from younger people to older people. And I mean, just to hear their blood sugar. I'm like, how are they walking in here? Like,

Scott Benner 59:03
it's that, like, I've got the sugars feeling. And this is my life. This is my lot in life. And this is what gets me and I guess this is how it goes. And it's so sad because you know, it's doesn't have to be like that. And, and yet, it does end up that way for a lot of people.

Rosalind 59:19
Yeah, man, I think yeah, definitely. And the health care here, you know, it doesn't work. I mean, it doesn't help. There's, like I said, there's not a lot of doctors that you can choose from, you just have to stick to whoever has an opening. And you just, it's like good luck. And so when I took my son to this Endo, which is what was covered by our insurance, and not that there's any other endos around, I was taken aback because he asked me about what sure my son had type one diabetes, like, yeah, since 2018. And I'm also type one. And so he gives me a look and he goes, Well, we're just gonna run on all the blood work. So he goes ahead and does that.

Scott Benner 59:57
You've had diabetes for 30 years. Was your son's had it for five years? And he said, Are you sure you have type one? Well,

Rosalind 1:00:05
and not only that, then he also asked me if I was willing to talk to other parents. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:00:10
well, yeah. Oh, he saw you're a one season. He's like you want a job?

Rosalind 1:00:16
Are you willing to talk to other parents about Taiwan? And I'm like, I guess if you want me to, because I guess he was seeing some really bad stuff. And I can only imagine because at the time, I was working in another office, and I knew and I'm like, if you want me to help, I could help. But I don't. I mean, I'm not a medical professional, per se. I was just working on the front desk. Basically, he ran the paper, the blood work. And then when we go to the next visit, he says that my son's the markers for celiac were a bit elevated, and he was referring us to the GI. So he goes and we had to have, he had to have an endoscopy, which of course came back that he had damage and he had Cydia. And so when they told us this, I thought it was absolutely horrible that we're sitting there with my son, and in comes a doctor, basically, part of her explanation was that if he doesn't follow what he, you know, a gluten free diet, he could end up having cancer. And I'm like, Who says that in front of okay, like, really? Oh, my

Scott Benner 1:01:14
God. I've talked to so many people who got that like that scare tactic, gi doctors. And by the way, I'm not saying it can't happen. It certainly could. But I mean, that's a pretty aggressive like first step for that. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Rosalind 1:01:31
Well, not only that, maybe that's something you might want to mention to me when he's not in the room. You know, can we

Scott Benner 1:01:35
talk in the hall for a second?

Rosalind 1:01:39
So needless to say, I was a mess. When I left that place. Again, it was like reliving another diagnosis. It was very difficult, but he's he's taking it like a champ. He's doing what he needs to do. But it's definitely not easy having more than one autoimmune, especially not celiac. And I've learned that a lot of people actually have both. But yeah, I would say if I had to choose one, I'd say type one. And that's what he says is what I

Scott Benner 1:02:05
have to tell you is that so many people are so poor communicators is fascinating to me. I mean, what does that look like? Like, Hey, buddy, do you like spider man? You do? Oh, yeah. Do you like Tom Holland or the other guy? Oh, that one? That's great. If he bred you're gonna get cancer. Oh, great. What in the hell? Like, like, seriously, what it? How does? It's so frustrating. It is really, really very frustrating. You know? Like, it would have been a hard thing to say to you like to pull you aside and go, Hey, listen, this is not, you know, whatever the stats are about it. Maybe it's not incredibly common. But you need to know if this is a thing. You just go home and just blindly ignore because some people have that quiet celiac, right where it's doing the damage, but they don't have pain from it. So they they just what was happening to my son, I get that they need to get it through to you that you can't just go home and ignore it because there's not going to be any symptoms. But my goodness, like whatever. I don't know, at this

Rosalind 1:02:58
time, it was not great. Needless to say. I was trying to find another doctor but I know that there is in town for pediatrics. So

Scott Benner 1:03:09
yeah, I'm, I feel very lucky about the person we moved Arden to as an adult because it means she doesn't even do type one anymore. But we were just like, please, like, please, I don't know if you've ever heard the thyroid episodes. There's an episode with a with Dr. Benito. And she came on and explained thyroid stuff so beautifully. And she she manages all everyone's thyroid in my family. But when Arden had to leave the, you know, the the pediatric Endo, I called her and I was like, Is there any chance you would see Arden for her type one on like, we won't be any trouble? Like, you know, I just need you to run some labs and write some scripts. And she's like, Yeah, no problem. And I was like, Oh, that's great. But it already freaks me out. She's like, you know, she's not an old lady. But she's a she's an adult. I'm like, she's not going to be in practice for as long as Arden needs somebody. And so right. It's scary. Good.

Rosalind 1:04:01
Doctors are hard to find. And not to say I mean, his endo is not a bad doctor, though, because He even offered to just do the blood work to keep up with his levels for celiac. Because I guess maybe he knows that he's not the best GI doctor.

Scott Benner 1:04:19
I don't know what I'm doing. What do you say? What do you whisper I don't know what I'm doing. Jesus, my God, what I went

Rosalind 1:04:29
back to him after the, you know, he got diagnosed with celiac. And he went back to his endo follow up. He actually asked me how did I like the doctor and I said, I'm actually trying to find a second opinion.

Scott Benner 1:04:42
Don't worry, we're also trying to get away from you too. Right? I don't, you know, I can see a world where, listen, I'm a proponent of the idea of like something you mentioned actually, I guess they used to do it a long time ago. You said there was basically like tight One day for kids it your Windows Office? Like, yeah, I think I think you wouldn't need as many qualified doctors if they could see people in bigger groups. So if you found a great Endo, but I don't know, instead of seeing 10 people a day, you know, 15 minutes at a time, like, what if you just had three two hour talks every day and 100, people could come to each talk. And you could just come in at any point during the week and sit down on one of those talks. And there'd always be a talk happening with a qualified person, and it becomes a HIPAA thing, because people would want to talk out loud about their specific stuff. But know that you couldn't do the big talk, and then roll people into the small appointments, write their scripts, ask their personal questions and get them out. That would

Rosalind 1:05:47
actually help a lot here, because that's how they run it here. He only sees as type one patients on Wednesdays, I

Scott Benner 1:05:55
just think there's a better way to do it. And I mean, I need somebody to think about it and actually try it. Right.

Rosalind 1:06:00
If someone could figure it out, it would be great, because it's really sad in places like here that I'm experiencing. Now. You know, a lot of these kids are going to grow up with type one from a very young age, and they're not going to have any knowledge of what they're really supposed to do. And

Scott Benner 1:06:14
now they're gonna Yeah, they're gonna have problems now for sure. Okay. I really appreciate you doing this. This was fantastic. Thank you for for reaching out. Thank you for the nice stuff you said about the podcast. I'm thrilled that it helped you. And I really appreciate you sharing your story. And your son's story was is really fantastic. And like you said, Well, I hope more people reach out with varying backgrounds and want to be on because this was fantastic. Absolutely.

Rosalind 1:06:42
Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we're coming from all types of places, backgrounds, and everything I want definitely doesn't discriminate. So it's great to hear all the stories, ya know

Scott Benner 1:06:53
that it really is. It's just very kindly to come on and talk about it like this. Thank you so much. Can you hold on for a second for me? Sure. Thanks. A 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 met. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juice. Box, get the only implantable sensor for long term wear get ever since.

If you're ready to level up your diabetes care, the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast focuses on simple strategies for living well with type one. The pro tip episodes contain easy to understand concepts that will increase your knowledge of how insulin works, and so much more. My daughter has had an A one C between five two and six for since 2014 was zero diet restrictions, and some of those years include her in college. This information works for children, adults, and for the newly diagnosed and for those who have been struggling for years. Go to juicebox podcast.com and click on diabetes pro tip in the menu or head over to Episode 1000 of the Juicebox Podcast to get started today. With the episode newly diagnosed we're starting over and then continue right on to Episode 1025. That's the entire Pro Tip Series, Episode 1002 1025. 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. 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

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#1184 Just Potter

Brittany is a returning guest. This time she is a mom.

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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
Let's all go to the lobby and have ourselves a snack. Hello friends welcome to episode 1184 of the Juicebox Podcast and if you know that song, you're old

Hey, I'll be talking with Britney today. This is Brittany second time on the show she's 29 years old was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was 12. She's had a one season the sevens and eights when she was younger. And she's back today to talk about a number of things, not the least of which is having a baby. And we talk a lot about the movies, which is why sang that old song from the 50s about going to the lobby to get a snack. Let's all go to the lobby you don't know. Whatever, young people. 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 are becoming bold with insulin. Here's a couple of things for you to do very quickly. cozier.com use the offer code juice box a 40% go to T one D exchange.org/juice. box fill out the survey completely you're helping people with type one diabetes through type one diabetes research must be a US resident have type one or be the caregiver of someone with type one. Drink ag one.com/juice box start with ag one with my link. You're gonna get some extra stuff. You'll find out about it on that link. One last thing or a.com/juice box online production and so much more get a free 14 day trial ora.com/juice box au are a Today's episode is sponsored by touched by type one that's touched by type one.org great organization helping people with type one diabetes, they just want you to know about them, and to follow them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one.org. You know what else? This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever since CGM. And sure all CGM systems use Transcutaneous sensors that are inserted into the skin and lasts seven to 14 days. But the Eversense sensor is inserted completely under the skin lasting six months ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or searched the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Brittany 2:48
I'm Brittany, and I'm back a year later. Last time I was on the show I was home, I think I was over 20 weeks pregnant. So now I'm kind of ironic. I'm almost nine months, nine months out from being nine months and last time I was

Scott Benner 3:07
on the show. We're hitting a little bit of a thing here. Okay.

Brittany 3:11
So I'm back to kind of just talk about everything I learned in my pregnancy and birth. And now being a mom with type one.

Scott Benner 3:19
Excellent. Do you know the episode we run initially?

Brittany 3:25
The number I don't remember the number. Let's see if we don't because I was very excited when I saw it.

Scott Benner 3:35
Things go by Alright, here's what I can do. I will search the word pregnant. See if that gets me anything. Miriam pregnant in Slovenia. That's not you know, we insurance our pregnancy stories. diabetes, pro tip pregnancy. In vitro? Jevin. In vitro? Nope. Okay, now we go to your first name.

Brittany 3:59
Your first name is not one that was accidentally pregnant before my wedding.

Scott Benner 4:05
Interesting. I probably ended up calling it something ridiculous. Now. I can't search it. Do you remember what it was called?

Brittany 4:11
No, I don't. But now I have long brains. That's my excuse. I'm gonna second it was something short and sweet. Well,

Scott Benner 4:18
I've now just I've searched your first name Brittany. correct spelling on my website. Episode 102. Not you. This is Brittany digs. She was abducted. Do you know this when she was abducted, put in the trunk of her car and escaped using the light from on top. And we brought that up and we return? Yes. Yes. And then here's one Brittany smokes a lot of weed and has a bunch of autoimmune diseases. That's not you? Absolutely. Do you smoke a lot? A lot to say if you don't want to. No, I don't. Okay, Tommy's mom, daughter Brittany has a rash in Penn. Facebook last scription was

Brittany 4:55
like Britney is type one diabetic in six months pregnant. I do know that serious

Scott Benner 4:59
Wait, hold on a second. Let's go back. Yeah. I didn't call you like preggers or something like that, right? I'm spelling pregnant correctly, Ani? Yes. Imagine if I wasn't spelling pregnant correctly. Alright. You don't live in Slovenia? No, you're not calling. Are you Miriam? You're not Miriam. She's having a baby. Nope, that Samantha title was so short. How many of you all been pregnant on this podcast? Geez. You're not Canadian? Nope. Is that there's one called for love of attendant that has pregnancy in it.

Brittany 5:35
I'm impressed you somebody's pregnant. I feel like those are important stories. Oh, my

Scott Benner 5:39
God. Yeah. Well, you know why? We're never going to figure out what Episode You're on. So we're gonna let that go now. But anyway, Brittany has been on the podcast before there's today's counting 1041 other episodes, just go listen to them all, eventually, you'll hear it. Think the pregnancy stories are really interesting and important. For two reasons. One of them doesn't get covered as well. That's not my fault, though. For the first reason is, a lot of you're gonna get pregnant. And it's adds its own set of challenges. And they are a little repeatable from story to story, so you can really learn from them. The other, I think the other reason is because pregnancy is really just a variable, but a lot of them and they switch frequently. So if you can handle pregnancy, you could you could diabetes, anything you know, so I think that even if you're a man or never going to be pregnant, or anything like that, I still think those conversations are really important. That's why I love having them appreciate you being on. So let's do a little bit of catch up. The baby came out. Was it a little boy baby, a little boy, girl, baby

Brittany 6:50
was a boy. Oh, and you named Scott time you were asking? Yeah. And I named him probably the opposite of Scott.

Scott Benner 6:55
There's an opposite of Scott, which talks to calm talks. It's it's super

Brittany 7:00
unique and very different. And I like seeing people's reaction. Or you go gaga is name is Ace, AC. Oh, my God.

Scott Benner 7:11
Ace is the kid's name. Now, is this a? Is this? Is this a? It's not a kiss thing? Is it?

Brittany 7:19
No, no. It's funny, like everyone's different guests. And ties. Right, right. Well, my husband is a pilot. So people do go by that by default. But that's not even really where the thought train was. Oh,

Scott Benner 7:34
okay. When you got pregnant, did he do the thing from Star Wars, where they had to blow up the death star at the end? It wouldn't have been sexy, but it would have been hilarious. I

Brittany 7:43
hate Star Wars and he loves Star Wars. So he'll probably appreciate that. Yeah, no, no, we wanted a unique name. We didn't know we were having a boy or girl. And I don't know, we just liked it. It's just as simple as that. But I guess I kind of like the has ties to like, I guess I can say this. Our last name is heart. And so ace of hearts. It's kind of a tie to playing cards. And I was just at my nanny who's passed. So there's a little sentiment there. But other than that, I just want him to have a unique name that no kid would have. Because I am a teacher. And that's hard to find.

Scott Benner 8:19
Yeah. If you have another kid, you're gonna call them like club or something like that.

Brittany 8:24
So we've gotten all the questions about like, how are you didn't follow up this? And I'm still like processing like type one diabetes pregnancy, so I'm just able to answer that right now.

Scott Benner 8:34
Can I vote? I think the next kids Joker, Joker. I've gotten that from my students. 100% It's got to be Joker and Ace. Are you kidding me? That would be amazing. They could probably have like a whatever the next tick tock is going to be in 15 years they'll probably be very, very famous for, by the way tick tock fame last six months, everybody so you'll be very, very famous for like five seconds. But yeah, yeah. Okay, so ace comes out. Do people sing the hardware store song to you sometimes?

Brittany 9:02
I don't get that a lot. I have a spin Shura? I've heard that. But yeah, no, I haven't had the Ace Hardware song yet. But when we told him he's in school, but maybe that will be relevant.

Scott Benner 9:15
Yeah, I'm going to start calling your kid that helpful hardware man. And then we'll see where that goes from there. This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen.

Brittany 9:31
I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult? Unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went I was going to a brand new school. I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was. My hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So, you know, I decided that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Did

Scott Benner 10:04
you try to explain to people? Or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Brittany 10:09
I honestly, I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it.

Scott Benner 10:24
Did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in,

Brittany 10:28
I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 10:49
To hear Jay Lynn's entire conversation stay till the very end, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box to hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community. Well, I love that you pick something different. Obviously, my kid's name is Art. And so yeah, I'm done with that. You can appreciate that. Yeah. Arden is when we chose Arden as a name. We went to the there's a website that the US government has that tells you how many people have your first name. And really, it's broken down by gender as well. So when we were choosing to wow, how old was art in 2004. She was born. So it's like 2003. And my wife and I are like, you know, going through baby names and everything. When we landed on a couple of them, we started looking more deeply into them Arden at that time, only something over 9000 Not 10,000 over 9000 Americans were named Arden. And an overwhelming majority of them were men. And they were older. So and we were like, yeah, we'll call our daughter back. And yeah, to do that for us.

Brittany 11:57
I don't know if they'll be disappointed. Maybe it's more popular than I assume, but I don't know any. So

Scott Benner 12:02
maybe, hey, do you have an ability to be a little closer to your microphone by any chance?

Brittany 12:07
Yeah, I think so. Well, it's my phone is up better.

Scott Benner 12:10
Are you gonna you're on your phone? Yeah. Are you on your speakerphone? No,

Brittany 12:19
I have with air pods in and I just have the zoom app open. Oh,

Scott Benner 12:23
okay. So you're talking through the air pods? Yes, yeah. Okay. Is your hair blocking it or anything like that?

Brittany 12:30
No, actually, I had been on today. Okay. All

Scott Benner 12:33
right. That's fine. Don't worry. You know, we'll do we'll just make the editor fix it. Fix this Rob. Done. The poor guy. I'm not paying him that much money. He's probably like to get us all. Tell her to get a different headset and lead me out of this. Okay, so aces out. We've already I'll tell you right now I'm I had to push the feeling out of my head that it never occurred to me that the blowing up of the Deathstar was oddly sexual. But Tao that hit me like a ton of bricks. And so, really, did you ever think that? No, I

Brittany 13:07
don't like Star Wars, and I watched like 10 movies in my life. So

Scott Benner 13:10
wait a second. You don't watch movies ever? No, I don't do not like, strongly

Brittany 13:16
encouraged. I don't like sitting for over an hour and a half staring at the screen.

Scott Benner 13:23
Fair enough. But I mean, there have been some really good movies. They don't capture you.

Brittany 13:29
They don't capture me. What do you do with that reader?

Scott Benner 13:32
Are you not sitting while you're reading? I am sitting while I'm reading. This is hypocritical of you, but okay, so

Brittany 13:39
read for an hour and a half. Okay, fair enough. 2030 minutes, max. Yeah. Before Bed?

Scott Benner 13:46
That kind of stuff. Yeah. Okay. No, girls don't do that. Do that. Girls do that. I gotta add that to my list of questions that I asked people like, dude, because men will like make up an encampment. Yeah. All right. I'm actually writing this down. Do women sit too long? And do stuff in the bathroom? That's not the bathroom. Okay. There's my description of that. Okay, so But back to this. Well, what's the best movie you've ever seen? The

Brittany 14:22
best movie I've ever seen. It's interesting. You're not gonna answer that. And I'm big Harry Potter person. Did you like my default answer?

Scott Benner 14:29
Did you like the movie?

Brittany 14:30
I did like the movies, but probably because I could relate to the book. Wait,

Scott Benner 14:34
have you seen them all? I've seen them all. Isn't there like 677 Look at me. So you've seen 10 movies. Seven of them are Harry Potter movie or the other three like those bad remakes with the the British guy at the British guy.

Brittany 14:51
I feel it. Some family sit around and like it's part of their family traditions. culture I like to watch movies. My family never did that. My mom still this day does not watch TV. Does she have one? She has one. Is it embarrassingly old? No, because my dad watches it. But like to watch the news, like, we just weren't TV movie people. And I know a lot of people think that's weird about me, but I'd kind of like to use

Scott Benner 15:21
a few of my most endearing memories are in movie theaters.

Brittany 15:26
Really? Yeah. Like,

Scott Benner 15:27
it's kind of creepy to me. No, I wasn't. No, it's not a Peewee Herman thing. This is a sweet thing. Hold on. I'm going to explain it to you now. Please do what did you imagine I was doing in the theater.

Brittany 15:41
I just don't feel like it would be an endearing place to make a memory.

Scott Benner 15:44
So one night, Kelly had to work late. The kids were really young. Like Arden was like, three ish, maybe that which makes call maybe five. And Kelly had to work late than her train got. Oh, wow. Yeah, the reason the train got slowed down might not be in a good part of the conversation. So I'll skip over that. Let's just say some people like to step in front of trains when they're tired of being alive. So Kelly was stuck on the railroad tracks for a number of hours coming down from the city. And I was incredibly scared that I was going to fall asleep and not be there to pick her up because we grew up like when we were Jesus the whole time. My wife took the train. We were too broke to pay for the parking at the train station. So I would get up early every morning and drive her to the train station. And then come get her in the afternoon. So there was a movie theater, not far from the train station. So I put the kids in their pajamas. And I took them to a movie and I watched we watched spirit stallion of the Cimarron. Which you're not gonna know it's a an animated movie about a horse. In the Old West I have

Brittany 16:54
seen isn't a toy Disney related to DreamWorks. I think I have seen like those types of movies.

Scott Benner 17:00
Okay. Okay, so so my kids and I sit there. We're all in our pajamas. How many times have you thought it's time to change my CGM? I just changed it. And then you look and realize, Oh my God, it's been 14 days already a week, week and a half. Feels like I just did this. Well, you'll never feel like that with the Eversense CGM. Because ever since is the only long term CGM was six months of real time glucose readings giving you more convenience, confidence and flexibility. So if you're one of those people who has that thought that I just did this then I why I'm gonna have to do this again right now. If you don't like that feeling, give ever sense a try. Because we've ever since you'll replace the sensor just once every six months via a simple in office visit. Ever since cgm.com/juice box to learn more and get started today. Would you like to take a break, take a shower you can with ever since without wasting a sensor, don't want anybody to know for your big day. Take it off. No one asked to know have your sensor has been failing before 10 or 14 days. That won't happen with ever since. Have you ever had a sensor get torn off while you're pulling off your shirt? That won't happen with ever since. So no sensor to get knocked off. It's as discreet as you want it to be. It's incredibly accurate. And you only have to change it once every six months. Ever since cgm.com/juice. Box. And we made like we brought a blanket. And like we did this whole thing and we just cuddled up and watch this movie. My son must have had an amazing time because he then was like love that movie and like merchandise from it for years afterwards. And then we picked my wife up after she had this very kind of like harrowing experience. And I watched her look in the car and see the kids in their pajamas. And I was like, Hey, we just got back from a movie. And she was like, she was delighted that we did that. And it was a nice and that's why I remember all that. Yeah, I remember a man suicide very fondly is what I'm saying to you

Brittany 19:03
know, make the best of situation. Yeah,

Scott Benner 19:06
I leave that part out when I remembered if I'm being 100% on. Yeah, yeah, I went to get Thank you. I appreciate you. But oh my god. Romeo is bleeding. Do you know that movie? No. Gary Oldman. Me and my friend Mike are seeing it in this theater. It's a sparsely like, there's not a lot of people in the theater. And this group of young kids come in. They're a bit rough and tumble you can hear as they're coming through the place. But the movies like an hour and 15 minutes into the film. So obviously their movie ended they were sneaking into another movie. big group of kids. They come in they're going row. Romeo, where art thou like they're doing that coming in the theater? They settle in two rows behind us, and two of them. One of the women and one of the men begin to copulate. You know that word Yeah. So she's seated and he's facing. And it becomes obvious after a moment that they're trying to blow up the Death Star. And I'm like, These people seem dangerous. But Mike was going to say something. And I remember putting my hand on his. And I'm just like, do do not say anything like that. I'm like, they're willing to walk into a movie theater screaming, and then have intercourse. I don't think we're up for this fight. Anyway, that's a movie theater memory I'll have for the rest of my life. Yeah, you

Brittany 20:39
have some really positive funny ones.

Scott Benner 20:42
I've been to a lot of movies, though. Yeah, I have not. Yeah. When I was younger and angry. I remember schooling a bunch of people on how to be quiet in the movie theater. And after I did it, every adult in the room applauded and thanked me out loud. Well, no, I'm

Brittany 20:57
definitely not going to be going. Because now I have a baby. And that's something that we have not figured out how we can do.

Scott Benner 21:02
How old's the baby now? What do we say nine months?

Brittany 21:05
He's nine months on Sunday. Oh, well, you're not

Scott Benner 21:09
gonna make any effort to take that kid to a movie. You won't even take your own kid to a movie. Are you willing to take yourself to a movie? Right?

Brittany 21:14
I mean, my husband mobile, he feels very strongly and other side like his family's type of family that will randomly like send a movie quote in the family group message and everyone's guessing and I'm just silent.

Scott Benner 21:24
Have you never seen a movie on Christmas Day? No, the best time to go. But what's ironic

Brittany 21:30
is I actually worked at a movie theater in high schools. Okay, for maybe this is like a deep, dark memory for me. Because I absolutely hated it. And I always smelled like popcorn. And they asked me to work on Christmas Day. And I was like, 16 was like, Absolutely not. And not having any work etiquette. I just called them one day and was like, I'm not coming back.

Scott Benner 21:57
I was like, what? You're not concerned that there's an entire day where Jewish people have nothing to do and this is the only thing for them to do and you didn't want to help them? I

Brittany 22:04
guess not. I was 16, self centered.

Scott Benner 22:08
16 and self centered. That should be the name of all of our autobiographies.

Brittany 22:14
Gonna say it sounds like a movie title. It does,

Scott Benner 22:16
right. Okay, fine. So you're gonna ruin this kid's life and take it to movies, whatever, that's fine for you. But don't you get like your, your husband's gonna get to pick all the movies. So what's gonna happen? Here's what's gonna happen. 18 years from now, some girl is going to try Well, I guess if he's gay, it'll work out. But some girl is going to try to get that boy to sit down and watch a romantic comedy with her. And he's not going to do it. Because he hadn't gone through the beatings of you dragging him to Michelle Pfeiffer films or whatever. Do you know what I mean?

Brittany 22:48
And I already haven't steal the love of books for him. Like he has a ridiculous amount of books for a nine month old. And the other day his daycare teacher told me, you know, we did storytime today. And they're all babies. So, you know, she's just sitting there trying to read him the story with the three other babies and she's like, he actually sat there and listened and intended to it. While the other babies were just looking around or crawling away from me. Like I've never seen that before. And I was like, Oh, he's

Scott Benner 23:16
been indoctrinated. You've got it. You're done. Well, you've created a little baby readings. I don't know. I don't know. I was gonna say zombie, but maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's a cult. Maybe it's a cult. Yeah. Yeah.

Brittany 23:27
So he's officially on the dark side of my, my reading.

Scott Benner 23:33
Okay. All right. I'm okay. With all this. It's fine with me. Can I suggest a couple of movies for you to try? Yeah, you could suggest them at the end. I'm gonna make a list. I want to make a list of movies while we're talking. That I think you should try. Do you have anything that you enjoy more than something else? Like a genre?

Brittany 23:50
I like movies that make me cry. Oh,

Scott Benner 23:53
I love to cry. Because I'm a big SAP. You want to cry? Alright, I'm gonna think about that while we're gone. Alright, so aces. Dad puts that baby in there you come on the podcast, Kid cooks comes out what you learned what you figured out?

Brittany 24:08
So I think, you know, your whole premise of the podcast was being bold with insulin. And I talked a lot on my last episode about how I never really knew how to do that. And I think mostly comes from the fact that I was afraid of insulin for a lot of time that I had diabetes as a teen and didn't really know how to use it properly. I guess. Like I think a lot about how when I was diagnosed, I feel like I was told this is insulin. Count your carbs. Use this ratio. Take your insulin, don't go low.

Scott Benner 24:43
Don't go low. And don't

Brittany 24:44
go low. You know low is so scary to avoid at all costs. If you're low, like make sure you eat 15 carbs and make sure your blood sugar comes up and if it doesn't, in time, eat another 15 carbs and I don't think I followed that script and didn't really get me anywhere. And I became afraid I have using insulin and then I really have to deconstruct that idea. In order to get the agency in the numbers, the 70 to 140 range is what's recommended for pregnancy. And that was probably the biggest barrier that I had to break through. And I didn't slowly I did it step by step.

Scott Benner 25:17
I want to hear about it. Yeah, tell me first when you were, how old were you diagnosed? 12. Okay, so through those years, Where were your a one sees that? Like, what was average for you always, always in sevens or eights? Sevens or eights?

Brittany 25:33
Yeah, but I think I talked last time to how I was much very much a person that was like 300 or 50. So I just kind of balanced out in the middle and I got a one sees that looked okay. On paper. Yeah.

Scott Benner 25:45
That's pretty common for for them. For sure. Yeah. So is the pregnancy, what makes you like figure it out? Or were you on your road to that before then?

Brittany 25:55
Definitely the pregnancy. So I had a an endocrinology appointment, you know, you're getting married, and I started a family. Yes, and yes. And then she told me, the numbers told me the expectations. And just that was pretty much it. And I was so overwhelmed. I have recently got control IQ, which helped me immensely. But I still was like, I was like, 6.7 with control IQ. Okay, I still had to learn how to how to use strategies and skills and just knowing my body and trusting insulin to get it under six.

Scott Benner 26:31
Let me ask you quickly, was it strategies and skills? Or was it the amount of insulin or was it both that you were lacking?

Brittany 26:37
Was bull, okay? When that happened, I was like, Okay, let me just try each month to get my average blood sugar because I use Dexcom clarity. So I think when I started, this was like, 165 was my average. And I knew a weakness of mine was Pre-Bolus thing. I had known that since forever. But that was being afraid of insulin, I was so afraid of insulin that I wouldn't want to give insulin prior. And fear that like somehow it would make me start crashing, or I wouldn't eat what I thought I was going to eat or something would happen. So I had to work around that. But you know, I started just Pre-Bolus and even five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes until I got off to like a nice 15 minute Pre-Bolus would slowly start to see myself come down and then eat. And that alone I think brought me to like a 130 Yeah, average. I mean, it was life changing.

Scott Benner 27:34
People. I tell people all the time, I think Pre-Bolus thing brings Ray once he down a point. And it just, you know, it cuts out a lot of spikes. And a lot of those times where your blood sugar hangs high. And it stops lows later, which stop you from eating more food and going back up again.

Brittany 27:53
Right. It completely stopped the roller coaster that I was often. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:57
okay. That's amazing. Well, I know the onus right, you do it because you're pregnant and the doctors probably sitting there telling you I mean, you just had this baby. You're 29. Right. So you live for like 16 years with diabetes within a onesie in the sevens. Is that about right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So this is a complete change for you. You have to do it because sleep change. Yeah. Because you have to do it because you want to make the baby. But that's really it. Right? Yeah.

Brittany 28:22
And I genuinely didn't believe that I could do it. Really, like I had been so stuck. And my because it was 16 years like or 15 years of living like that. And I I just thought I knew, and I don't know, I knew I was afraid and I thought I knew what I didn't. So I was going into it very overwhelmed. So I would I did that for a month and then the next month, I focused on accurately treating lows. That was another big weakness for me. Once again, being afraid of insulin, overtreating.

Scott Benner 29:00
So you were treating lows over treating lows, then not putting any insulin in for what you've just done with the food.

Brittany 29:06
Right. Okay. Because I was terrified of being well, I've never had a seizure, but that was always a big fear of mine. And honestly, like the way I was educated in the hospital, my family was really afraid of me going well as a kid. So when I would be low, like it was like, you know, urgent, like drink this whole glass of chocolate milk is something that I see now it's completely unnecessary. But at the time, that was what we thought we needed to do to keep me safe. Wow.

Scott Benner 29:34
And you broke this up into pieces because, well, I have to tell you, you're talking about crying earlier. You just said I genuinely thought I couldn't do it. That almost made me cry. I got I got like, momentarily. I wasn't like choking back tears. But I had that like, I don't want to like paint myself as as unstable. But I got that welled up feeling like oh, that's so sad. You know, not just because yeah for a number For reasons not just because you were trying to have a baby but just in general it was I found it sad. But so is that why you broke it down into steps? Because it felt undoable and you thought I'm gonna have to do this and in segments,

Brittany 30:12
yes, I could not I knew like the areas needed to work on like over, not overtraining lows Pre-Bolus thing. I started pairing protein a lot with meals to help stay stable. Trying to think of Oh, movement, like using like walking if I'm like, above a certain number. And I knew if I try to do all those things at once, it would be too much for me. So I just did one one thing at a time until I was in all those habits at the same time.

Scott Benner 30:44
Oh, nice. I have my first movie for you that I think will make you cry. Okay, it's not a particularly good movie. It's a manipulative movie. Like it's trying to make you cry. But, okay. I saw it under protest with my wife in a movie theater. Like it was one of them. I must have looked like a four year old being drugged. They're like, oh, I want to see let's do a movie. There's other good movies out why? Watch it? Again, I'm going to tell you it's not a good movie. But life as a house. Kevin Costner Now Kevin Kline, Kevin Kline. Oh, God all look, hold on a second. Okay, I'm

Brittany 31:23
ready down.

Scott Benner 31:24
Alright. It's not a good movie. Don't watch it. No one listened to it and be like, I'm about to see a good movie. It's Kevin Kline, who by the way, I think as a kid with type one diabetes. I probably shouldn't say this. I should probably shouldn't say that. In case it's not true. But I feel like he's been involved with JDRF before. Hold on a second. Look at this Kevin Kline rabbit hole. We found ourselves down very quickly.

Brittany 31:45
You don't even have to tell me it's not gonna be good movie because I don't watch Kevin

Scott Benner 31:48
Kline expectations are low. Hold on a second. Kevin Kline and Phoebe cage. Do you know who Phoebe Cates is? No, that's upsetting. Wait, wait, hold on a second. That means you've never seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Brittany 32:03
No. I disappoint a lot of people when I get to this top boy that she's

Scott Benner 32:09
60 Oh my god. Phoebe Cates, if you're listening is 60 now. And when I was a young person, she was the hot girl in a bikini in a movie back when they used to put a lot. Listen for you young people. You don't know this. But movies had boobs all the time. Like that was a thing. Like if you if you went to a movie and some girl didn't take her top off and you were just like, what happened to this movie? Where's the boobs? Like? It was like that. Phoebe Cates is married to Kevin Kline, Kevin Kline, a terrific actor, Phoebe Cates a lovely woman. They have a 29 year old child named Owen. He has type one diabetes. No way. I know things. Dammit. Alright, so yeah, you really pulled that out? I really did as amazing. That's why you people listen to this podcast for the depth of good information I have in my head and completely useless information that I have in my head. So Fast Times at Ridgemont High? No. No.

Brittany 33:07
I'm telling you, I disappoint people because I don't I cannot relate. Like if I'm in a public situation and people start talking about movies. I just want to leave. I just want to melt them to the ground. If someone

Scott Benner 33:20
says Spicoli to you, it means nothing. No. All right. Jesus, whatever. Okay, it's fine. I'm gonna give you my here's my second crying idea. But it's a big ask. And people are gonna think I'm out of my mind. Except for the people who know what I'm talking about. You have to go watch all the Marvel superhero movies.

Brittany 33:42
I've been forced to watch the movies you have. These are the ones that have like the extension at the end after the credits. Yes.

Scott Benner 33:48
I can't believe that's how you know about the Marvel movies. You're like they put stuff at the end of the credits that even makes me sit there for that. That's it right. My husband won't leave the theater. Yeah. And he won't take you to a decent dinner and and he's, he's too bloated with popcorn even give you a good time afterwards. And you're just sitting there all annoyed? Is this all right? Yeah, okay. And you're in New England, so it's cold as hell. So you're pissed all the time. So. Okay, so here's why. I think it's an end game. So did you see endgame? I mean, spoiler alert. For the for people who haven't seen these movies, but like, When? When? When iron man dies? Have you seen that? I don't know. Probably. And they have a funeral at the end. At a cabin.

Brittany 34:32
I think I have seen this one.

Scott Benner 34:34
Oh my god, this is so. All right. Here's why I'm saying this. I think people have seen them already. Probably know why. I don't know that I've ever cried more in a movie, which felt ridiculous to me when it was happening because we were in fact, watching superhero movies. Okay, which would don't have a ton of heart to them. Usually. And these are movies that have been out for like, I don't know, at that point. It felt like a decade like we were getting to the end of it. Maybe that had something to do with it. But anyway, Robert Downey Jr. who will refer to as RDJ. Going forward is Iron Man. He has a daughter in the movies, he dies in this battle to save the universe. And at his funeral, his best friend sits down next to his daughter, ask, like how she's doing. And she says, she's like, once a cheeseburger, and he says, I'll make you as many cheeseburgers as you want. Your dad loved cheeseburgers, and made everybody cry. Because in the very

Brittany 35:35
cold and it felt like sun being in the reading. That is like a colon itself. I

Scott Benner 35:43
just heard you defend the reading thing. That was a fantastic response to what I just said Good for you. Because in the first Iron Man movie, it Tony's taking, this is so ridiculous, taken hostage, and he escapes finally, and when he comes back to have a press conference, because he's a famous like billionaire. He stops and gets cheeseburgers on the way and before he gives his press conference, he basically just sits on the foreign eats these cheeseburgers. And they shout that back like 10 years later with this little girl just lost her father, and the line from the actor who had some Oh my god. He's in one of my favorite movies that he wrote it actually. Oh, my God, I can't remember his name. No. You I see what you just tried to do there. I just couldn't remember like off top my head. I have it now. Jon Favreau. You do not know who Jon Favreau is? That one sounds really familiar to me. All right. Okay. Anyway, if you ask me, Mike, if people right now are like, Oh my god, what is Scott's favorite Jon Favreau movie? I'm not embarrassed. I'm just gonna answer it, Chef, which is another movie you don't know. It's about this guy in a food truck. And I like it because it's like a redemption film about him trying to get back to his family. But he doesn't know that's what he's doing. Anyway, this is not the point. Sounds like a movie. I was like, okay, Chef, are you going to cry? I don't think you're going to cry. But try Chef. Chef. Also, where I first learned about Gary Clark Jr. is moose music. Do you know who that is? No, you're just trapped in New England. Yeah, I gotta get you out of there. That's okay. So do you know who know a con is? No, a con? Yeah. No. Okay. He's

Brittany 37:21
a singer. And he wrote this song northern attitude about growing up in New England. And it literally just describes what we were talking about my last episode about the kids that bullied me when I was first diagnosed. Yeah. And you asked if it was seasonal bullying, because they were just in a bad mood, because you've been freezing for six months. So you can you can listen to that song and all that stuff. Alright,

Scott Benner 37:41
no icon. And what's the movie? Or what's the song called?

Brittany 37:45
Northern attitude?

Scott Benner 37:47
I said, I'll listen to it. I'm on Sabre helping each other. Yeah. Yeah, you're like, Yeah, I'm never watching those movies. Just so you know, I

Brittany 37:56
might watch these movies. I can't promise every single one. But chef sounds interesting to me.

Scott Benner 38:02
Okay. All right. That's fine. So much like we're trying to get you towards a normal life. In segments, you break up your diabetes into segments, and you teach yourself to Pre-Bolus. First, how long did it take you to get over that fear. And to put it into practice,

Brittany 38:18
I would say, a month in, like, I think I spent the whole month of January doing that last year. And I started to feel better because I, I was so into, it allowed me to be more in tune with my body and actually see the effects of insulin. And I started to trust like, Okay, I know what this is going to do. And then when I started doing things, like not overtraining, my lows, like actually just having, I don't know, a couple Starburst, or a couple of sips of juice, and seeing my blood sugar gradually, and come up. I was like, Oh,

Scott Benner 38:51
this can work. Once you get used to it. It's pretty intuitive. Right? Yeah.

Brittany 38:55
I mean, my whole pregnancy, like, I am just amazed at how intuitive I was. And like driven to do this. I mean, that was, I had the driving force behind me, but just I did such like, I don't know, change in the way I approach my diabetes. And it helped me so much like have the pregnancy and like birth experience that I wanted. Because when I was first told expectations for my pregnancy with endocrinologist, he was telling me like, you'll have to have an induction at 38 weeks, and you'll probably be an insulin drop. And I know this is the way we do things. And I was like, I'm not even pregnant yet. I don't even know. You know what that means for me, but I don't like being told, you know, because you have diabetes, this is what's going to be the plan. So I basically found out you know, they were telling me that because that's their standard care for people that have diabetes and they're pregnant. But I felt like if the high blood sugar risks aren't there and the baby looks great, and I'm still healthy, why do I need to follow them? This intervention basically did for

Scott Benner 40:02
you. That's amazing. Where did you learn about it? Well, I learned about what the idea to Pre-Bolus did a doctor tell you about it? Did you hear about it online to hear about on the podcast? How did you? Oh, from juicebox? Oh, well, yeah. And then you still wouldn't end the baby after me. That's fine. Yeah.

Brittany 40:18
So you changed my life. And you get, and I get a follow

Scott Benner 40:21
up public. I get a follow up interview, and maybe I'll get you to watch a couple movies. My favorite movie that will not make you cry. But is is my I think it's my desert island film, like the one I could probably watch over and over again, is Pulp Fiction. But my I tried to show it to my kids, and they're like, I don't understand why you like this movie. I'm like, Okay, thanks a lot. I do have a great story about Pulp Fiction, and then we're gonna get on to the rest of what you did. Okay, it won the Palme d'Or award at the con Film Festival. I don't know if any of that means anything to. So with Pulp Fiction, actually. Okay, so it gets this big release coming out as a as a winner of you know, at a film festival, which drags in all the old people who don't even care, they're not going to look like the internet wasn't a thing as much back then. So all they know is this one, one, the best film at the con. So my wife and I before we're married, before we're married, as we're married, right around the time we got married. We go to see Pulp Fiction, because I'm excited to see this Quentin Tarantino movie because I've seen Reservoir Dogs and some of his, like, his initial movies, I'm super excited for it. And it's an incredibly violent film like and just, you know, different and it's a Quentin Tarantino movie there. They all kind of have that feeling to them. But imagine I'm in a packed movie theater with 60 and 70 year old off the Cockers Do you know that word? Very old people. And as the movie becomes offensive, they start to realize this isn't some feel good film festival winner, and they start leaving in droves. And they are complaining as they're walking out of the theater. And I was delighted every time something horrible happened in the movie, and it made another group of them. And I'm going to tell you how I was gonna, I'm just gonna come out and tell you that when Ving Rames is sexually assaulted in the film. That was it for most of them that really did clear the place out. And then it was like my wife and I were in this like theater by ourselves. Like it was fantastic. And then when we walked out, the movie company was there to do exits. Like what did you think of the film, and I filled out the card. And I handed it to the girl and she was like the only one who liked it. And I was like, I think the wrong crowd showed up.

Brittany 42:42
Anyway, because that's not what I've heard about that movie.

Scott Benner 42:45
No, no, it's if you like, if you like a movie like that. It's fantastic. But I'm just I have again, a lovely remembrance of it. In the in another movie theater memory. Also, I met my wife at a movie theater. No way. Cuz she worked there. And my brother, so I knew people worked with ready already. My father was a volunteer fireman, the local movie theater caught fire. The guy showed up, put it out so quickly, they saved the building. They saved everything. The theater was only closed for a couple of days because of how well the firemen showed up. From then on. If you brought your fire the badge that you had for being a volunteer fireman, you saw the movie there for free, or your family members, anybody. So I never paid to see a movie growing up ever.

Brittany 43:33
This sounds like a big script. It's actually true.

Scott Benner 43:35
And so I became friendly with some of the guys who worked there. And some of the women who work there, like kids my age. And because you're there a lot. And I'm still very good friends with a number of them actually, like actually, some of my best long term friends are people I met who worked at that movie theater. I have a friend who got married in a movie theater, like they walked down the aisle, like and then got married in front of the screen. So I've been to a wedding in a movie theater. Right? Point being, I spent a lot of time there. And one day when my little brother needed to move a job, I was able to get him a job at the movie theater. And then you'd go down and hang out with them talk to him once a while and stuff like that. And then one day, this girl shows up who's like a manager. But obviously like college age, and that was my that's my wife. Now she had gone to an island vacation with friends with her girlfriends. And she came back very tan with her hair braided. And when I saw her I thought and this is a quote from inside of my head. I would like to have sex with that girl.

Brittany 44:36
How old were you?

Scott Benner 44:37
I don't know, in my early 20s Maybe by then. I don't know. 2122 I'm not sure like in my early 20s True Romance story. Yeah, True Romance. By the way, a movie Quentin Tarantino wrote, really? Yeah, I've heard of that one. I could do this all day. Christian Slater. Roseanne arc All right. So good, not the point. So I met my I met my wife in a movie theater.

Brittany 45:06
Yes, I really started like movies with the wrong person you did you screwed

Scott Benner 45:10
up here, because I'm going to tell you one more thing at the end about me in movies. But that's later. For now, let's talk about how that young boy that saw the girl with the braids in the movie theater eventually had a baby, whether that had type one diabetes, and then he made a podcast. And now you were able to have a baby? Isn't it amazing? Now? I wouldn't go through and around and around. If you ask me what the podcast does for people, I can be very high minded about it and talk about digging into little crevices of diabetes and teaching people things. They're never going to hear other words, like I think it's amazing for the people who take that information out of it. But for most people, what I'm going to tell you is, I think I just taught them about timing. And the idea to Pre-Bolus, the overwhelming amount of notes that I get from people that just say, I learned to Pre-Bolus from the podcast, and it changed my life is it would be hard for me to put into words. How many people say that to me. So it doesn't surprise me. It's fantastic. But you kept digging because of the pregnancy thing. So you see, you figured out the Pre-Bolus. First, I was

Brittany 46:19
probably around like 6.3 ANC from Pre-Bolus. And, and then I had to keep digging, and then that definitely allowed me to be so much more confident with everything that pregnancy brings up because eventually I was doing like 45 minute Pre-Bolus is wow. Yeah, you have to wonder third trimester because I was so resistant. And I I don't want to think about what I would I think I would have just been in a panic state. If I hadn't, like had that knowledge and confidence from prior.

Scott Benner 46:50
Right? Well, I don't even know how you'd make the decision. Like, if you're afraid of insulin to that level, and you don't Pre-Bolus to begin with. And the truth is that even when you're sitting at a stable blood, I'm not wrong, right? Like you could be 110 You need to Pre-Bolus 45 minutes before you eat, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know how you would make that leap.

Brittany 47:09
Right. And I think it would have led to like, I actually didn't end up getting induced. I was never an insulin drip. I really went kind of opposite of what they had suggested at first, because I was so confident in my management, and he was perfectly healthy and everything went really well. So

Scott Benner 47:30
congratulations. That's really wonderful. And I

Brittany 47:33
actually, yeah, it is wonderful. And I have to credit my so I had a doula. You know what that is?

Scott Benner 47:40
I do? Of course, you gave birth in a blow up bathtub in your house?

Brittany 47:46
No, that is the perception of doulas. No, I'm not one of those types of people. But I did want my birth to be like as calming, I think because of my diabetes. And I knew like, you know, all I was told about was the risk factors. And I didn't want to be thinking about that, while giving birth, I wanted my birth to be positive. So she actually has type one herself. And she was there to help me like advocate when I really couldn't focus on it on how to handle my blood sugars. And

Scott Benner 48:22
it was amazing. And how'd you find her?

Brittany 48:25
So I joined a type one diabetes and pregnancy support group was actually on Zoom. It was even located near me, the support group like leader was living in Virginia. But she had her come on as a guest speaker, and she lives like 25 minutes away from me. Wow.

Scott Benner 48:42
That's so serendipitous, isn't it? Yeah, speaking of movies. I just I'm going to tell you something before we move on, because you have a decision to make more finished. At the end. I'm going to tell you one lovely story about seeing a movie. And I'm going to tell you one horrible story about me being horrible in a movie theater. And you get to choose the horrible stories. You can either choose the Jurassic Park story, or the Roy Rogers story. But I can't give you both of them. Because if you hear both of them, you'll think I'm a terrible person.

Brittany 49:18
I actually have a story about a movie theater and my diabetes. Go say go for it.

Scott Benner 49:24
I want it right now. Speaking

Brittany 49:26
of, you know before, having my day was really in a good place. In college, I faced a lot of like, I would say negative side effects and having uncontrolled blood sugars. And one of them was having UTIs frequently, and I met this boy who's now my husband, and he loves movies. I hate movies. He asked me the movie I said yes. And I have a UTI. So we're sitting in the movie, and I think I had to go pee five or six Times in like an hour and 40 minute period. If you didn't never said a single word about how I had to go to the bathroom. You

Scott Benner 50:07
weren't like scratching to where you

Brittany 50:11
but I was in such terrible pain and had to go the bathroom. Oh,

Scott Benner 50:15
that sucks constantly. Yeah. And he asked you out again, you're

Brittany 50:19
gonna get and he says he barely noticed, which I do feel like that's his personality. So

Scott Benner 50:24
he barely noticed that you would move to Pete five times. And yeah, Brittany, I know what you look like you're a handsome lady, he was probably willing to overlook a few things. So like, he's scratching and going to the bathroom, but I'm just gonna say, whatever. Anyway, if I did that, no one would call me back. They'd be like, I don't know, you got to repeat five times. I just didn't call him.

What movie was it? So

Brittany 50:56
I don't know that. I remember the premise. It was about like this. I actually picked it though. These boys had to work on this farm. Some like immigration. I don't know. It was a movie that I that I would choose. And he just was along for the ride.

Scott Benner 51:15
Brittany, let's dig into this for one more second, your first date with a person who was now your husband? You do not know the movie. It was? No, it wasn't

Brittany 51:23
my first day it was probably the third or fourth, third or fourth date. And I have Mom Brain. I swear after I gave birth. I don't remember. Oh, yeah, it's bad. Anything like I and I was such a person that remember every single detail of my life writing everything down, never forgetting anything. That's not who I am anymore.

Scott Benner 51:42
Yeah. You get strong in other ways. But that's not one of them. Yeah,

Brittany 51:45
but those things just leave my mind. Like, doesn't matter anymore.

Scott Benner 51:50
Arden's in her midterms right now in college. And she's been, I'm gonna say for about eight days in a row now just on like a white knuckle roller coaster ride of no sleep and a ton of work. I'm not over exaggerating. So last night, a couple times in the afternoon, I sent her a text on my Arden, something's weird. Your CGM is getting wonky. Like it's got to be at the end. Thinking that's gonna make her change it but she's too busy and focused on what she's doing. So about eight o'clock at night. I'm like Arden, please. I had to get up this morning at 4am to take coal to the airport. I am not like, I'm not up for being up late tonight. Like, you know, like, and she's like, well, you can sleep and I'm like, No, I'm like, if you're not getting any, like, glucose readings, that means your algorithm is not working. And I'm not just gonna go nappy time and wake up and find out my kids dead. So I'm like, I won't be going to sleep. So if you could just Dad, don't tell me what to do. I'm like, Oh, come on, please. I don't think she changes the CGM until midnight. And I'm up with her. I'm texting her. I'm like, I'm up. She's like, go to bed. I'm like, Nah, I'm like, You do not understand what it is to have a child. I'm up with you. I've got your back. Keep doing what you're doing. But I'm staying up with you until there's readings from this thing. So she flips it on all good. And then, you know, oh my god, I'm going to sleep. But like a few hours later, she's low, probably because the algorithm wasn't cutting back or Basal that she needed to cut back while she was you know, working for the hours before. Yeah. So now I'm like, up waking her up getting her to, like, have some stuff. You know, treating this blood sugar and everything. And I'm, it's like 415 in the morning. And I think I've been up for 24 hours. And I'm too old for that, Brittany, but I didn't have any trouble doing it. But if you ask me a question, like, who's Jon Favreau? I'm like, I know this guy can picture in my head. He makes that movie chef. I love that movie. They turned it into a TV show on Netflix, which is a cooking show, which I absolutely adore. He does the cooking show with this guy named Roy Choi. And I think that's I know what the and I can't think of John fibres name. And I think that's from having children. So like socially

Brittany 53:58
Tiller diabetes, so yeah, that's interesting that you so she's in college and you

Scott Benner 54:04
are texting her like that. How's that interesting?

Brittany 54:07
Cuz I never had that experience. And I always think, like it did my parents. Good. Because it is so stressful. Oh,

Scott Benner 54:14
I'm gonna die sooner than other people Bernie probably but that's okay. It's part of the bargain when you make a move. Thank you always do that for her. I mean, there's gonna have to be a time where she's paying for this stuff on her own. And she goes, You can't follow me anymore. That's has to happen eventually. But I still hold like, yeah,

Brittany 54:30
yeah, it's okay with you following her. Yeah, she's fine.

Scott Benner 54:33
Listen, in any other situation. I don't know a way to put this in any other situation. I'd be like, hey, that CGM doesn't look right to me. I'd get rid of it. Right. And she doing? It's the She's so busy. She can't fathom stopping. Yeah. So I say to her, Arden, you are going to spend five minutes changing your Dexcom at some point tonight. If you do it now. It will make later easier. And she knows that then it wasn't easy. No, she didn't do it. She waited hours and hours and hours to do it. Like she didn't have CGM readings for like three hours last night while she was doing her homework. Like it just it was done. Right. Actually, I think it just expired at that point. And because of that, her algorithms running her her baseline Basal rate, but it's not cutting back if it needs to. It's not doing any of those isn't Thursday it does, right. So I think that's what led to a low, like literally at like four o'clock in the morning. But she's so stressed out in that moment with school. That yeah, I get it. Yeah, she cannot fathom stopping for five minutes. And I think in her mind, she's like, I'm gonna get all this done, then I'll change my CGM. But then she changes it goes right to sleep. And this is the I would say that this exact scenario is the only sticking point we have with diabetes while she's away. It's this one scenario, this exact one here, change it before you go to sleep. Well know that she wants you to stop and do it. So it doesn't cause her a problem. Yeah, but if she's not busy, then she's happy to do it. At the right time. That's the only problem we have. Yeah. But anyway, I stayed up. And I watched the rest of a bad TV show that I'm enjoying. And then that was it. Well, it's amazing. When you were in college, how valuable would it have been? If somebody was just kind of had your back a little bit? I

Brittany 56:22
think it would have been really valuable to me in the long run, but I think I would have felt, I don't know, annoyed? Or baby for lack of a better word.

Scott Benner 56:33
Isn't it funny as 30 year old person, you're like, I would pay somebody to do that for me. And when you're 19, you would have been like, why did these people will leave me alone. Right.

Brittany 56:42
And my husband, my husband was absolutely amazing. And my pregnancy with his support my diabetes. Let him

Scott Benner 56:49
tell you more about that. Tell me about what he did. He

Brittany 56:51
did everything that you just did for art. And I mean, just like staying up with me, encouraging me really knowing my diabetes, so well that he could give me like his insight into I think you need maybe, I don't know, just a small correction here. Or, you know, I'm rising above 160. I think it's gonna come and stabilize in five minutes. Let's just wait this out. Like, having that insight for me. Amazing. I mean, it took so much of the weight off for me and didn't make me feel so alone. Gives you a

Scott Benner 57:20
partner. Yeah. Listen, I, I will tell you that I think Arden was irritated twice last night by me. Because around this idea, but here's when she stopped being annoyed. And when she was when she stopped being annoyed, and then eventually changed it. I said to her, she said just go to sleep. And I said, that's not how being a dad works. I'm fine. I've got your back. And then she was okay after that. And, you know, like, I think I just kind of broke through a little bit to her. Yeah, and I also know, she's under a lot of stress and working hard. And up late. She was in her fashion class yesterday afternoon. And the school sends around this person, like, I guess it's like a guidance position. But I'm using like high school terms. And they go from class to class. And they're like success supervisors or something like that. So the the woman walks into the room, kind of surveys the room before the class starts, sees the project, my daughter's about to hand in, looks at her looks around, blah, blah, blah. She goes, I see the star in this classroom. She says to everybody, and my end artists, like I sat up and I thought, Oh, I wonder who the star in this classroom is. And she goes, it's you. And she points to Arden. And she goes, me? And she goes, yeah, she goes, How can you tell? And she goes, that presentation you're about to make is, it's like you went above and beyond on it. I can tell just looking at it this physical thing Arden had on her desk. And she goes, yeah, and you're the only one that looks like you haven't slept. Or just like great. I looked like get that's how this lady knows I'm gonna be successful. And I and she's telling me this over FaceTime yesterday afternoon. And she's like, I don't exactly I don't love that compliment. And I said, I once got a compliment from somebody when I was writing a book that is so insulting to me. And the people writing the book. I'll never say it out loud. And Britney, I'd be happy to tell you when we're done recording, but anybody who enjoyed my book would be insulted by it. Yeah. And I was like, this is a compliment, but it isn't. Anyway, she's fine. Like the answer is I don't I don't interact with her. Almost at all. I think that's the first time I've talked to her about diabetes. And since her period started, and I texted her, Hey, you're you need to like like, basically like do a Temp Basal decrease here like you, your your algorithms too strong for this part of your period for probably the next three days. And she's like, Oh, okay, that was the end of it. I don't think I've talked to her for two weeks before this moment. You know, I know people some people listen to this now like, he's a pirate. And they're always talking like I barely ever talked to her about it. So, yeah,

Brittany 1:00:03
I definitely don't think that but I just, I mean, when when I was diagnosed and stuff my parents, I was at an age, I think I didn't talk about this, but an age I wanted to be independent. And to me, Independence meant, like, I could do this alone. And no one showed up to help me. And I really prided myself on that for so many years. And then there's that feeling to where it's like, I didn't want to feel like I was messing up my diabetes, I wanted to feel like I had a handle on it. So any advice that I was given? Like, it took me a while for to be okay with my husband having input. I can not be defensive over

Scott Benner 1:00:38
it. Oh, you're saying being given advice made you feel like you were failing? Definitely. So even if someone said something to you, that was accurate, and you were like, oh, hell that is right. You resist it, so that you wouldn't have to feel like you've been screwing up. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.

Brittany 1:00:55
It's funny, because my husband, now I don't want to help anymore, because I'm not pregnant, leave me alone. But also, like, I'm enjoying just being over 140 Without thinking, Oh, my God, am I hurting my baby? So I think the other day I was drinking this ice coffee. And he looked at like my graph, and he's like, you know, that's gonna really spike you.

Scott Benner 1:01:18
Did you say, Yeah, you know what's gonna spike you when I kick you out of this house? You're still sending me money for 18 years?

Brittany 1:01:25
I'm like, I am not pregnant anymore. We live.

Scott Benner 1:01:28
Do you know how hard that must be for him? Yeah, it's, it's

Brittany 1:01:32
hard for him. But he definitely we both had this transition. Like, after the baby was out, like, okay, we can breathe, like high blood sugars don't need to be in this range, though. This thinking about the possible consequences of that.

Scott Benner 1:01:44
I think that any decent relationship where people love each other, and they're married, there's this feeling of like, you, I don't want you to die. Like I want you to be healthy for a really long time. And when you see a spouse doing something that's not good for their health, it's very upsetting. For me at least, like I've had that feeling. My wife doesn't have diabetes, and I've had that feeling like, why why are we doing this today? Or why are you eating that? Or, like, you know, like, that kind of thing? Like, I need you here. Don't die? Like, you know, exactly. And it's a weird feeling. And I don't think it's conscious. I don't think it comes out in those words through my brain. I think that's the feeling I have like, oh, I can't Kelly can't hurt herself. I love her. Like, that's how it feels. And then, of course, if I say something she do whatever you just did, like, you know, get away from you, idiot. And I'm like, okay, because you need isn't it weird? You need the autonomy to hurt yourself to feel like you're in charge. Right? That doesn't make any sense. You know that right for me?

Brittany 1:02:40
Yeah, no, I know. And I've been so reflected on that, since but I am enjoying like this, this little. I mean, I have some of these habits that I built from pregnancy. And I actually took a little more insulin for that coffee when you said that comment. And then I ended up going low. So I got

Scott Benner 1:03:00
you got well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For sure. You're rolling?

Brittany 1:03:05
Yeah. Enjoying that flexibility of like, you know, I don't have to be so stressed because there's a number over 140 When I was pregnant was like, I need to do something about this. And I was constantly constantly having to think

Scott Benner 1:03:20
about it. Yeah. And futzing with insulin and all that stuff.

Brittany 1:03:24
And but yeah, thinking about every single variable that could exist. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:03:28
I don't think I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. Honestly, you know, I take like, all the kind of like psychological impacts that you're talking about. I take them very seriously. You know, there's been times in the past week where Arden's like CGM is beat and I thought, Oh, she should do something here. But I see that it's going to be okay. Like, I see what she did. And I know it's gonna be okay, but I can make it be okay faster. But I don't bother her about that. Because she's doing a terrific job. So, you know, like, and she needs to grow and learn and not feel and I also don't want her to hate me and resent me. So like, you know, you picking I hate to say something that I think my mom would have said, but like you pick and choose your battles, like you've been some things just look at you. That's not worth it right there.

Brittany 1:04:12
Yeah. I mean, I'm a seventh grade Special Ed teacher. So that's like, My motto is pick and choose my battles. And I definitely do that with diabetes. But when I was pregnant, I seriously didn't feel like I had that choice. Sure.

Scott Benner 1:04:23
No, it's a different it's a different war. That point. Yeah. So yeah. But when your husband mentioned the coffee, does it not make you think he doesn't mention things all the time? This must really seem important to him? Yeah. But it doesn't matter in the moment.

Brittany 1:04:39
It doesn't matter. Maybe. Maybe once I've had my year of postpartum, I can accept it but for right now, I am enjoying my baby. And all the hard work I put into getting him here in a healthy way.

Scott Benner 1:04:56
This makes me think of this. I bought this car the other day. Want to give Kelly on our anniversary, which by the way is not for like 10 months. But it's it's, it's too good. It's a it's a art of Wednesday Adams folding her arms. And it says, the only person that gets to torture you is me. That's gonna be our anniversary card next year. I delight. I have it on my desk. I delightfully bought it. She goes, What's that isn't he can't see it's our anniversary cards, because our anniversary is not till August. And I was like, yeah, she's, you're never going to remember to give that to me. And I went, Oh, challenge accepted. So I'm literally gonna put it somewhere and write anniversary card on it and just hang it in front of me for the next year, because I am just remember to give it to her. But it made me think it made me think of that when like, your husband's like, Hey, you're hurting yourself. And you were like, go to hell.

Brittany 1:05:55
And you know what, because my agency was always so much higher. And now it's still like under seven? Sure. So in my mind, I'm like, I'm not gonna start over this one spike here. Yeah. Oh, pronounce that with my mental health?

Scott Benner 1:06:10
Yeah, well, I'm not making I'm not I'm not suggesting you do that at all. Yeah. But what I would suggest is that my conversations with people reveal that when you start pushing the line, you will eventually keep pushing it. And one day, you'll have you'll, you'll say that to yourself, and you go, look, it's only one ad. I'm not gonna like my mental health is more important. And then one day, you'll be like, it's just 200. My mental health is more important. And like, I think that that's a concern, like something to watch out for is all I'm saying, based on conversations.

Brittany 1:06:46
I feel like that describes my entire management prior to being pregnant. And now I know what's possible. And I know I've done it before, and I have new standards for myself. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. I hope to follow them. But I do I do get what you mean, because I was definitely Oh, it's only 200 person for like, a decade.

Scott Benner 1:07:08
I didn't know that. Until I made the podcast. Until I started hearing people saying it. Like just the way you just said it. Like, it's okay. I only killed one person, like that feeling like really like and then next thing, you know, like, I only shot 10 People like it's fine. Like it just you see people like make those, like leaps. They don't think it's bad in the beginning. I don't think my analogy was great there. But I'm I'm not a professional. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but you just see people keep pushing those lines. And yeah, they

Brittany 1:07:37
don't know what to argue that. It comes from, at least my case, like, the information I had and was taught through my endocrinologist. And through getting diagnose, it was never going to equip me to be confident and having like a 70 to 140 range.

Scott Benner 1:07:58
So you started in a hole? Yeah, for sure. It's

Brittany 1:08:01
only 200 was like, you know, when you're dealing with roller coaster numbers, and you don't, you've never been taught the skills outside of like, oh, just count your carbs and take this insulin for it. You know, we'll see you in three months. Like, I don't know, I could never have achieved what I did. Yeah, from learning outside of that.

Scott Benner 1:08:18
That's why I set the in my head, the ranges are set at I don't know, it's pretty colloquial, but 160 to me as I go with something up 180 is high. And 200 is a disaster. And that's how I think of those numbers. Not to say that if her blood sugar's 200, for a while, it's an actual disaster. I just talked to myself that way, so that I react appropriately. Does that make sense? That's a

Brittany 1:08:46
really good point. Yeah. But when when you were educated originally on type one, were you taught that way? Or you came up with that yourself?

Scott Benner 1:08:54
Oh, I came up with that myself. I think my education was to treat a low at 110. I was told 110 to 200 was her range. And that I don't think I was told to correct till 250. Now she was again, yeah, but then that becomes your norm. Right. Yeah. It's stuck in your head. And then these are the numbers are working

Brittany 1:09:17
in my head. Yeah. I mean, I actually had an experience when I was pregnant. I went to Hawaii and got food poisoning. Came back. I was so sick, want to check on the baby. Went to the ER. And I had a low and sitting there waiting. And I didn't have a meter on me. But I had my Dexcom and it was saying I was like 70 but I felt lower than that. So I asked for a meter to check. And I was like 52 So I thought they were going to give you an IV The EMTs. So they are sprinting around the entire er and bring me the biggest glass of orange juice and tell me to drink the whole thing. Unlike if I drink that I would easily spike over 250. And it just is so frustrating because it comes from the same people telling me like, you know, you have to be under 140 To have a successful and healthy pregnancy, right? And having to always be able to advocate for like, no, that's not what I'm going to do. Mixed

Scott Benner 1:10:19
messages are the problem. Yes, I'm writing that down, because I'm going to use it in a different episode. Mixed messages from healthcare are like a huge problem. Like, don't go over 140 You'll kill that baby here drink this orange juice. Yeah.

Brittany 1:10:32
And then I saw the doctor after and I was rechecked. I was 130 for like, I don't know, five, six. And she told me, you know, you're really low earlier, you should keep eating.

Scott Benner 1:10:44
She doesn't know what she's talking about. Right? But

Brittany 1:10:47
I walked out of that visit that day. And it was like, I need to stick to my gut and intuition about decisions I want to make for my birth. Good for you. Because I can't follow this. Like, it's not I know, it's not right for me, and I know what I'm capable of. And it's not this, you know,

Scott Benner 1:11:05
in fairness to that doctor, the people she normally sees probably are not well managed. And so if they're 50, she's probably seen people have sugar and then crashed down again, because they've got way too much insulin going. Right? That's a good point, too. Yeah. For you, you were sick. So and stomach thing, which can mean for a lot of people leads to lower blood sugars. And you knew where you were, like you weren't, you knew you weren't far off, you knew you weren't crashing low, you knew you were just pumping this back up again. But her perspective was probably like, you know, people don't come to the ER with diabetes, because they're super healthy all the time. And you know, so those are the people she sees, and then that's her experience. And that's her perspective. And I know like the induction

Brittany 1:11:50
recommendation, the insulin drip recommendation like that is all coming from situations, scenarios and people that do need those recommendations to have a healthy baby

Scott Benner 1:12:01
be born. Yeah, you're, that story is going to end up in a grand rounds. Episode, I'm making this series called Grand Rounds for doctors. So my idea about it is, is that it'll help doctors understand what they should be doing. And it'll help patients understand what they should be expecting from their doctors. Like, that's my goal with it. And I think your ER story is like, it fits right into one of those episodes coming up. So I mean, I'll keep your name out of it, but I'll give him probably retail that,

Brittany 1:12:27
yeah, no, it's, I mean, there's so many times in my life with diabetes have had that experience, ya

Scott Benner 1:12:34
know, it's just it's such a valid thing to say that they don't mean to give you bad information. But that's bad information for you. Because then if you go through the say, you just listen to her. And the rest of your pregnancy if you get to 70 or 50, or whatever you're treating and banging yourself up to 250 and and spending probably the day trying to get your blood sugar back down again, without making yourself low. Then it that does actually that one thing that doctor says do you and that er impacts your pregnancy and your baby adversely. Yes.

Brittany 1:13:06
And I think I, I had a lot of frustration with feeling like, the decade or so that I was managing on this roller coaster. Like I was going off advice that was given to me at some point. Yep. And then to have to re think of that and figure out what what actually works. And I actually did end up firing my endocrinologist that told me all those suggestions and wasn't budging based on my specific individual, agency and numbers

Scott Benner 1:13:37
for you. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's such a spaghetti of bad information, that you can't really deconstruct it anymore. It's just, it's just too many. Too many things have been said too many times over too many years that are incorrect or slightly wrong that are intersecting with other ideas. It's just it's a twist of, it's just like fishing line. Like sometimes you just gotta cut it, cut it and throw it away. Because you're never going to deconstruct it and figure out what's right. So you might as well just start over again. Yeah, with some basic ideas. Like I need to understand how insulin is timed. I need to understand how these foods are going to impact me. I need to not over treat my lows. I think that stuff that's it sounds so simple to say. And I know people struggle with it. But these are all core ideas of how you stay stable.

Brittany 1:14:27
It sounds so simple now, but it definitely was not to me over a year ago.

Scott Benner 1:14:31
No, I imagine here two years ago. Yeah. Okay, Brittany, is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have? I don't think so. Okay, you want the nice movie theater story or the bad movie theater story first?

Brittany 1:14:43
The bad one.

Scott Benner 1:14:44
Okay. Do you want the Jurassic Park one or the Roy Rogers one?

Brittany 1:14:48
Jurassic Park Thankfully, no,

Scott Benner 1:14:50
that is damn it. They both make me sound terrible. This one this one if I tell this one correctly, and I mean completely, I'm going to sound like an asshole. I want you Keep in mind I was young. But honestly not that young. Jurassic Park comes out. It is like the biggest movie in the world. It you have no idea like they made dinosaurs look real. It was a, you know, for younger people you're like I don't understand like, it's like, it's like when I tell you how amazing it is to have a cell phone, but you're 19 you don't get that Jurassic Park was a big deal. Those dinosaurs looked real, right? So me and my friends were all seen Jurassic Park. We're super excited. And the movie opens up. And there's an opening scene. And we're all just like blown away by it. We start talking during the interlude. Do people know what that is? They play some music, run some credit, stuff like that. Well, there's this woman ahead of me, in front of us in the row in front of us. And no one in front of her. So oh my god, I really shouldn't even tell the story. God dammit. Okay, so the interlude comes, and we start talking to each other to like, just marvel, like Jesus Christ. He's in dinosaurs look real. Like we were like, stunned by it, you know? And she turns around, and shushes us and says, I'm trying to listen to the music. And I want to just say, she's 100%, right? I'm not allowed person in the theater as an adult. As a matter of fact, I'm very quiet. Even back then we were very respectful and movie theaters. But she like, she was really nasty. And she had every right to be but she was, and I think we took our socks off and dangled them behind her head so she could smell. It was not fair or right and disgusting. And I'm sorry. This was she acknowledged. No, we didn't notice that she noticed. So then we moved in front of her and sat in front of her then very slightly bounced, while we watched the movie, but only like a quarter of an inch. Like Like, if for anybody who's sitting down, just tighten your butt cheeks and loosen your butt cheeks and tighten your butt cheeks and loosen your budget. Just keep doing it.

Brittany 1:17:04
I thought you were gonna say she took off herself.

Scott Benner 1:17:09
That then we'd be friends to this day, that would have been amazing. So we we're not through the whole movie just for a minute. Somebody sat in front of her a couple people. I may have been one of them. And we did this very just gentle bounce up and down so that you couldn't possibly sit behind us and not notice that our bodies were moving up and down just slightly because we thought it would be distracting and we were fucking with her. Yeah, yeah, totally torching. Just subtly torturing her. Yes. And then we got up and move back and she didn't talk again. And we didn't talk again. And it was kind of over. mutual agreement. Now that I've said that. I think I'm so glad you didn't ask about the Roy Rogers one. Which Gaya I'm pretty sure this was the better one to tell if I'm gonna make myself sound like a bad person that would have. Yeah, it was pretty pretty incident. Innocent. Okay, now my nice story. So my wife obviously grew up in theaters. I saw a ton of movies growing up not till later. By the way, I didn't start seeing movies till I was a little older. But then I saw a lot of them. I think the first movie I ever saw was Greece in a theater. That was 76. I was like five years old, then I didn't see a movie again until meatballs with Bill Murray. I think meatballs was my second. No, no. Yeah, meatballs and jaws, like right in there were like my second and third movies. Anyway, I don't know the timeline for this. But then after that, I saw a lot of movies, and a ton of great memories for last time very, very much. So my wife and I would go to the theater together when we were dating. I loved I love something. There's something about being in a quiet space with strangers having the same experience that I very much enjoy. And I even like being with you. Like if you and I were dating Britney, I would love that like solemn kind of quiet together. But apart experience, I enjoy that. And I would tell my wife, I really love coming to the movies with you. And just I would say that like right before the movie started, like, I love being here with you. And then that was it. And we've watched the movie. But when we had kids, we started doing that to our kids like this, the movie was getting ready to start. Like we'd lean over to call and say we love you and we love being here with you. Like and we would like that just happened all the time. And then Arden was born. And we just we did it for years and years and years over hundreds and I I'm realizing now I'm not even gonna be able to retire because of the money I spent going to movies because because, by the way, one of the most shocking things about moving away from home was having to pay for a movie. Like I'll never forget being there with my wife for the first time. We were like this is very expensive, because she worked there and didn't pay for it. And I had the firemen pass. And so like we didn't pay for movies for a decade and all sudden we were like they really wants to pay for the popcorn to like, they should probably just give it to us. I've had I've had popcorn delivered to me in a theater by somebody who knew me now they wanted me to pay for it, you know? So anyway, so so my kids are older, you know through the years, we see a A lot of movies always right before the movie starts. I love you. I love being here with you. I love going to the movies with you something like that. So, Cole's getting ready to move to Atlanta to take his job. And Arden's getting ready to go away to college for the first time. And we go see a movie together the four of us. And now my son's, like 22, and my daughter's like 18. And my wife's there, and we've lived together for so long. And we even sit so the kids are in between us. So we can like be near like it's all like very douchey like, but anyway, it's like and so we're sitting there, and it's a pretty empty theater. And I stand up in front of them to take my sweatshirt off, and I turn around, I see the three of them standing there. And I get choked up. And I think is this the last time we're going to see a movie together? And it might be I have no idea, right? So I'm taking my shirt off my sweatshirt off, and I'm folding it up. And I see I think Arden bumps Kelly and goes, I think he's crying. So, so I'm like, all emotional. And I said, Oh my god, like, I love coming to the movies with you guys. And I started crying. I'm gonna cry now. It's terrible.

Brittany 1:21:15
Like, I'm gonna cry. I'm like, maybe gonna be so inspired something come up first.

Scott Benner 1:21:19
So now I'm standing in the theater. I'm not like welling up in the theater. I'm getting crying.

Brittany 1:21:27
bawling your eyes. And I think my son is looking

Scott Benner 1:21:29
at me half like, Oh, this guy really loves me. This is nice. And half like, I think there's something wrong on my phone. And so I'm like, I'm like stopping and I'm realizing, I don't even think they consciously remember being told that over and over again. Right? They're older now. And so I told them the story. I think they do. I don't know, Britney, you hope that because you have a little kid. You're hoping the things that you you're hoping that kid's gonna read when he gets older. And the truth is, he's gonna hate books. Because he's gonna be like, Oh, my mom used to try to get me to read. Oh, she's old. And I'm

Brittany 1:22:03
sitting there like,

Scott Benner 1:22:04
I love reading with you. And you're gonna be like I love one day you were in daycare. You're telling me the story? Yeah. Oh my god. I swear to God, I'm crying right now. Hold on a second. I believe in it. So anyway, I'm here to Yeah, I sat down but you're a tough nut to crack here. Brittany, I don't think anybody's getting you to cry if you want to go watch a movie. But I but I sat down next to them. And I was overwhelmed for a few minutes. Because I just kept thinking this might never happen again. And oh my god is avatar to gonna be the last movie we see together.

Brittany 1:22:42
Please tell me you've been to the movies together.

Scott Benner 1:22:44
All four of us. Not in the last not since call left. No, wait, that's a lie. When we went to Atlanta to visit call. The four of us went to see a movie together. And it was very real. Trisha needs to keep going. He was very relieving to me. I was like, Oh, it happened again.

Brittany 1:23:05
To be emotional trauma. I

Scott Benner 1:23:07
was like, oh my god, like I'm so happy we went there. By the way. In Atlanta, they have an awesome movie theater, and something station to hell. It's called. It's a great movie there. But um, since then, no. Although like Cole will call us and say like, Hey, I just saw Oppenheimer was really good. You guys gotta go make sure you go see it. And so like, so like, we went together, we took art and then her friends like we take like, you know, fill ins for call. Oh my god, you're never gonna see Oppenheimer. No, probably not. I think that's a long movie with a lot of talking. I don't think someone like you would like, I don't think you're looking for now.

Brittany 1:23:45
I'll slowly build into it. All

Scott Benner 1:23:48
right. That's all well, anything you want to tell me? Is there a book I should read?

Brittany 1:23:51
The great alone by Kristen Hanna.

Scott Benner 1:23:54
The great alone. I don't read books, actually. Now

Brittany 1:23:59
that's a long book. I'm remarkably bright creatures. I just got my husband to read that book. And he does not read.

Scott Benner 1:24:05
What's it about? Felt like you're not gonna know.

Brittany 1:24:10
Actually, maybe you will. So it's about this woman who works. She's a lonely old woman and she works in the aquarium and she befriends an octopus.

Scott Benner 1:24:20
million percent not really that. And now I realized it's unfair of me to ask you to watch these movies. Exactly. Oh, I wrote a book in 2013. And I was on a press release about you. And it's called Life is short. Laundry is eternal. It's about being a stay at home dad says stories that will make you cry and feel good about being a parent. Oh, I need to read. I think it's out of print. You might have to get on a Kindle. So as not to have to overpay for a paper copy, although there are some of my basement but please, I'm not digging them out. You can't have them. So nobody asked me was on the press tour for the book. It was doing like a lot of audio stuff. And it was actually One of the things that helped me the press tour for the book is one of the reasons the podcast exists because have you ever heard me tell the story of I was on the Katie Couric show? And she told me I was good at talking to people. Yes, yeah. So that's part of how you get to the podcast. I'm giving these interviews. And then at the end of the might hear back from the publisher. And one day, the publisher calls me and says, Hey, we just heard your last interview, it was terrific. Bah, bah, they were very thrilled because apparently people who write are not very extroverted often. And so they're terrible interviews, usually. Whereas I'm, like, probably more of a performer and not really a writer, right? So they're thrilled with my interviews and everything the publisher is. And she said, we just have an ask. And I was like, yeah, what's the Ask Us? Can you stop telling people you don't read? And I was like, why? And she goes, it does not sound good that your wrote a book, but you don't read because readers won't want to read what you wrote. And it trust you. They don't trust you. And I was like, Oh, really? I'm like, I think it sounds endearing. Like, I can't even read a book. But I can write one. Like, yeah, and she goes, No, that makes you sound like at all and I was like, alright, I'll stop saying that. But anyway, Brittany, yours. Your episode is gonna probably be on the I'm gonna open up a pay service for the podcast where? Oh my God, listen.

Brittany 1:26:20
Can you hear that? Freezing?

Scott Benner 1:26:24
Jesus is going to be this little thing where all the the management stuff is going to live without ads on it. Like Pro Tip series, Bill beginnings and all that stuff. Cool. And also, it'll get episodes where people curse and the cursing will be at it. So I just realized, like, I'm setting that up. Still, it's only going to be like a few. I think it's like, $5 a month or something like that. But your episodes definitely gonna be in because we curse like crazy.

Brittany 1:26:50
Yeah, yeah. It's like I wasn't very filtered, but

Scott Benner 1:26:54
that's okay. Do you want to say like a big curse word now just to say one.

Brittany 1:26:57
Oh, no, I felt the pressure. Did

Scott Benner 1:26:59
you feel why? You pressured? You would feel pressure. What do you know your favorite curse word?

Brittany 1:27:07
I think I say what?

Scott Benner 1:27:09
I say what? You say what the lot?

Brittany 1:27:12
Yeah, that's not really the word or phrase. I

Scott Benner 1:27:16
use a couple of words. I know people are gonna find very upsetting. But I use, I use them. I use them in such a delightful way. I find them to be delightful, but I don't think people do so. I'm not gonna say something right now, because I think about it more before I share that. All right, well, I guess I gotta go bunk, hunker down in my basement and get ready to shoot some invaders because it sounds like the world's gonna need some help for you. I don't even have a gun. How the hell am I gonna do it? Be thrown this monitor at them yelling I'm a podcaster. Leave me alone. Conscientious Objector? That's the work. Is that even a phrase people know? Probably not. You're so young. It's crazy. Like when I say conscientious objector to you? You don't think of somebody in the Vietnam War? Who was there to report back but not fight? No, I

Brittany 1:28:10
don't. Okay,

Scott Benner 1:28:12
I'm old. Nevermind.

Brittany 1:28:13
I don't feel young. So

Scott Benner 1:28:14
I'll take that. Here. Listen, you are 23 years younger than I am. That makes you feel Yeah, yeah. There you go. That's my gift for you today. Your gift for me is this episode that I get to put ads on and feed my family. What do you think people are ever going to be like, pay me to be on the podcast? That wouldn't happen. By the way. Don't ask me. No, but

Brittany 1:28:36
some people you've had, like, I felt like maybe they would say that.

Scott Benner 1:28:41
Oh, you think some people were so interesting?

Brittany 1:28:43
No, I just was I would be. I mean, don't you have never done that? I'm never just surprised that a few of your guests that they

Scott Benner 1:28:51
have an add on. Okay. Oh, like more professional people? Yeah, yeah. No, actually, I'm using Jenny's an example. Jenny just loves reaching people with with her message. Like she doesn't. I mean, in fairness,

Brittany 1:29:04
I'm sure she does. Yeah, she's the one that wrote the type one diabetes and pregnancy book

Scott Benner 1:29:09
with ginger. Her and ginger wrote that together. Yeah. Did you?

Brittany 1:29:12
Did you read that? That book was amazing. It's awesome. Right? Constantly recommend that book?

Scott Benner 1:29:16
Yeah, yeah, it's an awesome book. I can't believe it didn't come up before this is because I was busy talking about movies a lot. Anyway, all right. I'm gonna let you go because you have a baby to take care of. And yeah, and and you have Mom Brain to get rid of. It'll go away for a little while, by the way, hopefully, yeah, it'll come back. When you get older. If my wife's any indication. It doesn't get better. Except take your vitamins. All right.

A huge thanks to touched by type one for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check them out on their website touched by type one.org On Facebook and Instagram. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear. Get ever since. Jalen is an incredible example of what so many experience living with diabetes, you show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes define you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong, and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box and look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. A diabetes diagnosis comes with a lot of new terms, and you're not going to understand most of them. That's why we made defining diabetes. Go to juicebox podcast.com up into the menu and click on defining diabetes to find the series that will tell you what all of those words mean. Short, fun and informative. That's the finding diabetes. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're going to hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform. My

Brittany 1:31:37
name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:31:52
How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes? I

Brittany 1:31:56
was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:31:59
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What are you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Brittany 1:32:04
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:32:13
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Brittany 1:32:17
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went, I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:32:37
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time? I

Brittany 1:32:40
honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Was

Scott Benner 1:32:58
there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one?

Brittany 1:33:02
No, I was the first one to have type one of my family.

Scott Benner 1:33:04
And do you have children? Now?

Brittany 1:33:06
I do not know.

Scott Benner 1:33:07
Do you think you will one day,

Brittany 1:33:09
still thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:33:14
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Brittany 1:33:17
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about eight years now. And you get to travel a lot in that job. Yes, I experienced a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes.

Scott Benner 1:33:39
What do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Brittany 1:33:44
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt I felt like I needed to always have something on me and that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:34:05
So growing up in the small town. What was your initial challenge during diagnosis? And what other challenges did you find along the way?

Brittany 1:34:15
Yeah, I think the initial one I felt isolated. I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through. You know, they were people would say, Oh, I know this is like hard for you. But I was like you really don't like I I just felt lonely. I didn't know you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this. You can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been you know, I don't even remember what it was like for life before diabetes at this point because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a live with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:34:49
when you found yourself misunderstood. Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Brittany 1:34:57
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it, it was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it was I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:35:15
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in.

Brittany 1:35:19
I think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out was people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before,

Scott Benner 1:35:40
is college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time, or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking. So

Brittany 1:35:47
I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person. And he had had it since he was a kid like young once this was like, maybe born, or like, right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college. And I started meeting other people, I was a member of the band, and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university, but then, once I moved to, I moved to St. Louis. And a lot of my friends I met were like med students, and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic. And I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technologies, and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more in depth with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:36:38
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school, but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Brittany 1:36:49
I didn't, uh, you know, I honestly didn't think about it. I just was like, Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with him. So sorry, connect with him. Oh, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:37:08
no. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people. But there's still value in that. Right?

Brittany 1:37:21
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:37:22
What do you think that value was at the time?

Brittany 1:37:24
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:37:39
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah.

Brittany 1:37:44
So about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around and I noticed stumbled upon the Medtronic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my pump. You couldn't, I would wear long sleeves, like, didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And then I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community, just, they embraced it, you could see and they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:38:20
How is it knowing that your diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Brittany 1:38:32
I would refuse to go anywhere, like, I would run to the bathroom, I just didn't want to do it in public, because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the young, professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out. Because I was so afraid. But then, once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on and how does this work? And what does this mean? And things like that, which made it kind of inspired me because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:39:18
What did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well. Can you tell me how that is? Either different or valuable, I guess, compared to meeting a few people in real life? Absolutely.

Brittany 1:39:35
I think if you look back from what I was first diagnosed to now, you I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes, and now it's like, it's all I see. You know, you can easily search Medtronic champions. And you see people that pop up and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that that kind of just motivates me and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell Oh, and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know how I'm able to type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:40:09
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Brittany 1:40:13
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows and understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on, I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know, what's going on with your mate? I'm actually a type one diabetic. This is what's going on?

Scott Benner 1:40:48
I need your help. What about? Once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Brittany 1:41:04
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of Evander ad, and they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front. Because they were like, you know, I care about you, as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:41:21
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation. But what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn? And you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them? Yeah.

Brittany 1:41:36
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars. You know, I can tell like, from my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to you know, when I go out backtrack, when I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have smacked forgot to take some insulin, and my blood sugar's running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin. I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me in my career, because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:42:27
right? Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah,

Brittany 1:42:38
I can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I've always at least said it, I have been someone that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of undershoot it because I'm scared. But it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the workday because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:43:11
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Brittany 1:43:27
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions. I have commented, like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos in different videos. And I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that, but I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make, like, just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:43:57
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook, that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by, you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like, I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Brittany 1:44:24
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so he's like, and I think that one thing and obviously, it's a big stereotype around diabetes is you don't like you have diabetes, and that's something I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed. What

Scott Benner 1:44:54
are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist and you make a plan for the next few months? What do you hoping to achieve and where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes,

Brittany 1:45:04
I'll be honest, I was not someone who is, you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I have personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with it, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs. I see. You're, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like a an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:45:52
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself. And then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal.

Brittany 1:46:00
Yeah, I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible. You're doing it just, it's not going to motivate you because it's you're you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve. That's what really has been the game changer for me in the past two years. Jaylen, I

Scott Benner 1:46:37
appreciate you spending this time with me. This was terrific. Thank you very much.

Brittany 1:46:40
Absolutely. Thank you.

Scott Benner 1:46:42
If you enjoy Jalen story, check out Medtronic. diabetes.com/juicebox Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com

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