#1528 Klutzy Before MS

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Barbara, 50, was misdiagnosed at first but ultimately learned 21 years ago—at age 29—that she has type 1 diabetes; she has since also been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Barbara 0:14
Hi, my name is Barbara. I'm a type one diabetic. I was diagnosed 21 years ago, at age 29

Scott Benner 0:21
if this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management, go to Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. 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. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is brought to you by my favorite diabetes organization, touched by type one. Please take a moment to learn more about them at touched by type one.org, on Facebook and Instagram. Touched by type one.org. Check out their many programs, their annual conference awareness campaign, their D box program, dancing for diabetes. They have a dance program for local kids, a golf night and so much more. Touched by type one.org. You're looking to help or you want to see people helping people with type one you want touched by type one.org. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes and their mini med 780 G system designed to help ease the burden of diabetes management, imagine fewer worries about missed boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox This episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox

Barbara 2:31
Hi. My name is Barbara. I'm a type one diabetic. I was diagnosed 21 years ago at age 29

Scott Benner 2:38
Yeah, see, you messed me up a little bit while we were getting this set up. I'm going to tell you why. Like, you were like, you why. Like, you were like, Oh, I'm going to try my husband's headphones. They're like, as old as my kids. They're 30, but you sound like you're 25 Well,

Barbara 2:50
you have no idea what a blessing that is to hear, because in a few days, I turned 50, and the very next day, my oldest turns 31

Scott Benner 2:59
so that was my next question. Is you guys were like, making babies out of high school, right?

Barbara 3:04
Pretty much, yeah, pretty much, okay, but married 30 years. Wow,

Scott Benner 3:08
so what? How old were you when you got married? I was 2020 My husband was 21 No kidding, you like high school sweethearts,

Barbara 3:17
no, not at all. We met. I was 18, and that was it. We just started seeing each other, dating, and it

Scott Benner 3:28
all worked. Got married. No kidding. Obviously, it's, either it's working out, or you're so tired you can't imagine getting rid of each other. You know, I don't.

Barbara 3:35
It's probably a happy medium of both. There are times

Scott Benner 3:39
when I look at my wife and I'm like, she doesn't like what I just said, but it's not just said, but it's not worth it to her. I like this. It's much more comfortable. So that's pretty cool. See, you weren't listen was this a shotgun wedding with the kids ages in the wood? Or

Barbara 3:54
no? Well actually, so we have two children. My oldest is going to be 31 and and Julie, that's her. She was a product of a previous relationship. So she was born the day after my 19th birthday, and he was long gone at that point. And my husband, Michael, my current husband, yeah, he had been around and he had been trying to date me for many months, and I just wanted nothing to do with that. So then, after I had this, this baby, and I'm, you know, raising her as a single parent, and, you know, barely an adult myself, I just turned 19, he just, he was men with her. He just fell in love with with with her, with me, and together, we just decided to get married, and two years later, we had our little boy, Bailey,

Scott Benner 4:50
our Barb. Your life is the rich tapestry that we're gonna find out about here. There's

Barbara 4:53
many layers, trust me, very interesting. I already feel

Scott Benner 4:56
it. I feel that that youth in your voice is more like now. Really youth, it's a pension for trouble. So we'll, we'll figure that all out. I like this. Gotcha. Arden's gonna be 21 soon, and she announced the other day she couldn't take care of her puppy because of her menstrual cramps. So I'm like, when you were like, I was, you know, just sort of an adult at 19, I was like, I don't know about that, but, you know, 30 years ago, different. Yeah, you're such a lovely person that a 20 year old boy married you with a baby. Yeah. Why are you so lovely? What's going on? I don't know. You know, I don't know what makes you so

Barbara 5:34
there's, there's, there's some more layers to the story. So I was 19, well, 18 when I was pregnant, and I was kind of, I don't want to say embarrassed, but I didn't, let's put it this way. I didn't tell anyone I was pregnant. I lived at home with my mother and my brother, who had recently moved back with his five year old daughter, going through a divorce himself, and I told no one. I was pregnant until the morning. I woke up on my 19th birthday and went, huh? I don't feel very well. And that night, we had some snow, and I remember my mother and I shoveling the driveway, and I went to my room to go to bed, and my water breaks, and I'm like, Okay, now what am I gonna do?

Scott Benner 6:21
Barb, how did you, My God, we're never gonna end up talking about your diabetes at this rate. But, like, so how are you just a very slight person, or are you bigger? Like, how did your body, how did you hide that you were pregnant? So

Barbara 6:32
I gained about 15 pounds. I was probably like, 125, foot three at the time, I don't know, to be honest, spoken to

Scott Benner 6:43
your mom. In hindsight, if you've been like, come on. You knew I was pregnant, right? No, she did not know. Your mom's not like, a meth or something that would make her like, No, nothing like that. Okay, so more

Barbara 6:54
layers. I was adopted by my grandparents. So this was my grandmother, who I call my mother, because she's raised me from very little age on up, and I don't know. I don't know how anyone didn't know. Now, my husband, I remember we weren't dating right here at the time. He claims he knew, he suspected it. I don't buy that at

Scott Benner 7:18
all. Wait while you were pregnant, you were not with the father at that point during the pregnancy,

Barbara 7:22
correct? Yeah. No, he he was, he was gone when I announced my pregnancy to him. He was goodbye, okay,

Scott Benner 7:28
but, but you weren't being intimate with your husband, your current like you got to really worry about him if he didn't know you were pregnant. And that was happening. So

Barbara 7:38
my FA, my family, owned the local bowling alley, and he would come in with his friends a couple nights a week. And so me working there, he was trying to to ask me out,

Scott Benner 7:52
avoiding him. Yeah, no, no, I listen. I once asked a girl out at a clover I don't know if anybody knows what that is, but she was a cash register person I'd never been in a store so many times in my life before I figured out the right way to do that.

Barbara 8:05
My mother recently asked him. She says, so Hey, Mike, do you bowl anymore? He goes, No, I got what I wanted.

Scott Benner 8:13
Yeah, I was throwing those balls around so that, you know, you know, it's funny. I just realized the way I started dating that girl would probably be stalking 30 years later, oh, I'm sure, yep, yep. And what your husband did too, you know what? I mean, you guys gotta understand, we didn't have hinge. There was no other way to find we had to talk to people. It was, it was difficult. Hey. All right, so you have, can I ask, like, generally speaking, where in the country do you live? Ohio, Ohio. Okay, all right. This is the family business. Getting pregnant early your mom was how old? No,

Barbara 8:44
so my birth mother had me when she was 21 okay. Now, when she was one years old, she had a brain aneurysm that ruptured. Oh, my God. And now she's in her 70s now, so at the time, it's amazing she lived through her pregnancy review, there was some some brain damage, and of the, you know, things of that nature. So when she had a child, she wasn't really able to take care of that child. That's where my grandparents stepped in and they adopted me. I

Scott Benner 9:23
see Did you know your father? No, no, no, okay, wow.

Barbara 9:27
We have since found him, although he has passed my daughter was able to figure it out through one of those ancestry things, yeah, we were able to figure it out. He has since passed away. But no, I had never, never met him.

Scott Benner 9:43
I think I recently may have figured out that I have a half brother because I'm adopted. I started to get noticed. Like, you know, I'm gonna stop now. Do you know what I mean? Like, you just I'm like, I don't think, and it's never what you want it to be, or even close exactly

Barbara 9:58
same thing. Yeah. Julie discovered I have, I have a half sister, and no, there's, there's no, no reason for me to track her down.

Scott Benner 10:07
Barb, what I'm saying is, when your story is my mom, who had some, you know, brain issues, got pregnant by a guy who left her like, you're like, I don't think I need to know the rest of this. Like, it doesn't feel like unless my story is my mom was a princess, and she didn't have time to take care of me. I don't really want to, I don't want to hear about it. Okay, it is interesting. The twists and turns that that lead you to, you know where you are now. Yeah,

Barbara 10:33
yeah, exactly. How old were you

Scott Benner 10:35
when you were diagnosed? I was 29 Oh, wow.

Barbara 10:41
And it was the typical they thought I was type two. And actually, the the amusing part of that was, do you remember the show? Er, yeah. Okay, so I started to have these kind of weird symptoms, you know, I was, it was about a month after my 29th birthday. So, you know, I'm 28 years old, waking up 345, times in the middle of night to go to the bathroom. In my delusional thought process, I'm like, Oh, I'm getting old. Well, that's not old. But anyway, I had an excuse for every odd symptom, you know, yeast infections, drinking a two liter of Diet Pepsi a day losing weight. I was probably like 115 and I was watching, er, one night after the kids had gone to bed, and there was a scenario on that was a type one, and I'm watching this thinking, oh my gosh, that's literally every that's my life. So I googled it, and every single symptom, every single symptom I could recognize, except erectile dysfunction. So I'm like, Okay, it's time to call

Scott Benner 11:55
the doctor. You were still getting nice heart erections. That's why. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay. Wow. So what is it like Noah Wiley and Dr Mark Green, like, helped you? Or is that, am I remembering these names right? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. I just want to throw a plug in here for no particular reason. Noah Wiley's new hospital television show on max called the pit is really good. You should check it out. Oh, I'll have to check it out. Yeah, I've never seen that. Maybe you'll get diagnosed with something else, yeah,

Barbara 12:24
well, hopefully not, because I do have a few other issues. What else is going on? So, just hypothyroidism and multiple sclerosis. When

Scott Benner 12:33
did you get an MS diagnosis? I was diagnosed

Barbara 12:36
with MS 10 years this year. No kidding.

Scott Benner 12:40
Oh, I'm sorry. How has that impacted your life? Not too bad,

Barbara 12:44
fortunately. So the thing with MS is you get lesions either in your brain or your spinal cord. Mine are my spinal cord, which what that means is it's mostly affecting my balance. So I was walking with my friend one day at a park, and we're on this boardwalk, and I'm walking like at an angle. She thought I was gonna walk off the boardwalk, just my balance was just so off. You were

Scott Benner 13:14
listing, yeah, pretty much tell people the real sadness of this. You're a professional tightrope walker, yeah,

Barbara 13:21
yeah, I had to give that up. Yeah. I'm a I'm a klutz. I'm well known way before Ms for not being very graceful. I

Scott Benner 13:31
mean, what did that feel like? What was more shocking, type one diagnosis or Ms. This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus, which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control IQ. Plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox to check out your benefits and get started today. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, who is making life with diabetes easier with the mini med 780 G system. The mini med 780 G automated insulin delivery system anticipates, adjusts and corrects every five minutes. Real world results show people achieving up to 80% time in. Range with recommended settings, without increasing lows. But of course, Individual results may vary. The 780 G works around the clock, so you can focus on what matters. Have you heard about Medtronic extended infusion set? It's the first and only infusion set labeled for up to a seven day wear. This feature is repeatedly asked for and Medtronic has delivered. 97% of people using the 780 G reported that they could manage their diabetes without major disruptions of sleep. They felt more free to eat what they wanted, and they felt less stress with fewer alarms and alerts you can't beat that. Learn more about how you can spend less time and effort managing your diabetes by visiting Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox, probably the type one, really, probably the type

Barbara 15:48
one only, because at the time, the only knowledge I knew of diabetes was growing up as a child, my dad, my grandfather, he was a type two. He actually, he had passed away when I was 15. My only knowledge of diabetes was, was him. And then when my son was born and I did the the test for gestational diabetes, it had come back questionable. Well, it was like 140 which No, now that I know that that was nothing, but at the time, you know, 140 big deal

Scott Benner 16:26
I could do 140 right now when I see it, yeah, exactly.

Barbara 16:29
So, you know I had to do, and of course, this is in the mid 90s, so you had to do the five hour glucose test, yeah, and then it ended up coming back fine. So they they labeled me impaired glucose tolerant. So they said, it's not necessarily gestational diabetes, but you know, you just should act as if it is. But they don't tell me what you do to act as if it is, yeah, go figure that out. Exactly. So that was my only knowledge of diabetes. So

Scott Benner 17:07
if I weren't you 21 at that point, yeah, you should go figure it out. Yeah, exactly. Did you say? Hey, take a hard look at me. Look like I'm figuring anything out. I'm 21 years old. I got two kids, two guys. I don't know my mom. You think I'm over here making sense of the world. Like, help me a little. I love when they do crap like that. Like, you get it, you know, it's funny you said, you said earlier, you know, I was misdiagnosed initially as type two. And you said, it's so blase, because you're obviously, it's an experience you've had, and your experience talking to other people who have diabetes, but I just had to have a conversation with somebody who this is happening to in real time. And when I said to them, Oh, listen, this happens all the time, they couldn't wrap their head around how that could be true. Oh, wow, yeah, they were like, wait, what? People are constantly misdiagnosed type two instead of type one, like, as a person who had never been ill before, never had, like, a real diagnosis of something, not really been involved in the medical community at all, I guess, like, you know, in their personal life, they were like, that doesn't make any sense. Like, you go to the doctor, the doctor does some tests. They tell you what's wrong with you. So for a week, these people were running around going, like, my kid doesn't have type one diabetes, and it was an adult child, so, and I'm the one who's going, like, no, like, I'm so sorry. He has type one diabetes. And then, you know, five, six days go by and you get a text from this person. They're like, you were right. And like, they're devastated, like, you know what I mean, like, and so it was nice that they were able to, like, bounce it off of me and not go too far down the wrong road. He wasn't taking medication didn't need, or, you know, being misdiagnosed, or hurting himself somehow, which is awesome. But like, I felt very bad for them for the five days where they had, they got to pretend, or hope, or whatever you want to call it, that this wasn't going to be that. And I felt bad for them anyway. Well,

Barbara 18:56
that's like, so, you know, I make an appointment, you know, going to see the doctor, and you know, the nurse is, you know, checking me in, asking me, you know, why I'm there. And I said, Well, I'd like to be tested for diabetes. And she gives me this look like, Okay, why do you think you need to be tested for diabetes? So I start listing everything off. She goes, Oh, okay, Doctor will be in. So you think any of them would be smart enough to bring a glucometer in? No. So doctor comes in. I explained the same thing to him. He's like, Okay, we'll order some some blood work. So I go the next day get the blood work. They call me later that day and said, Well, you do have diabetes. We are a little alarmed by your numbers. Doctor called in a prescription for you pick that up and then come see him next week. So I said, Okay, well, let me ask you this, what was my blood sugar? Now, the only really knowledge I had was when I got that call that my blood sugar was 145 when I was pregnant, right? So then she tells me it was 487 and I went. Oh, that's high. She goes, Well, we're more concerned with the A 1c which, again, I have no idea what that means. And she said, we're more concerned with the A 1c which was 15 or 14.8

Scott Benner 20:13
Jesus, please tell me they just gave you Metformin, right? They gave me Metformin. Yeah. Okay, so did you die, or did you make it back the next week? So

Barbara 20:22
I go to the pharmacy to pick it up, which is our local grocery store here, and the pharmacist knew my mother in law. He his mother lived on the same street as my mother in law, okay? And so when I go to pick it up, he looks at me, and he says, Is this for you? And I said, Yes. And he says, I'm really confused. He goes, when I saw the last name come in, I thought it was for your mother in law, not you. And he said, Why are you prescribed this? So I tell him, and he he was the one who said, you sound more like a type one than a type two. This isn't gonna work. And when the nurse had called me and was telling me these numbers, I said to her, I need insulin. She goes, Oh no, honey, they've got great advancements. You'll never need to take a shot because you're

Scott Benner 21:14
type two, and we're gonna fix it with your Metformin. It's gonna be great. You know, love it. Oh yeah, get excited. It's happening. So what do you do now? You have, you have your own thought, which is, you're not agreeing with the doctor, the nurse, correct the doctor and nurses thought, and you have the pharmacist on your side. Like, what do you end up doing? Like, this is interesting to me. Like, how do you handle this, this crossroad? Sure.

Barbara 21:37
So this was the day before Good Friday. It was a Thursday. I remember my kids had had half a day of school. She called me as we're getting ready to go into parent teacher conferences. You know, no, I have this appointment for the following week. So I'm not really thinking much of it at this point, going through the rest of my day and then go to the pharmacy pick that med up. And now I'm, I'm kind of thinking, Wait a minute. You know what's going on? Well, when I see the doctor next week, we'll, we'll just figure it all out. So my husband, my mom and I, we go to this doctor's appointment, and the doctor now suddenly the doctor's office has a glucometer, and it was like 520

Scott Benner 22:23
Jesus. Are you okay? What are your other symptoms at that point? Looking back,

Barbara 22:27
I had lost probably 25 pounds. I was going to the bathroom constantly. I was constantly hungry. The

Scott Benner 22:35
doctor didn't say, hey. You know, I don't know a lot of type twos who lose weight. No, no, not at all. No, like I got type two diabetes and dropped 25 pounds. I've never heard anybody say that to me one time. Yeah,

Barbara 22:47
no. I mean, I was a 29 year old that weighed probably 115 Jesus. He had, yeah, he, he, it was not on his radar at all. Was it an old or not jump to twice? No. I mean, he was probably maybe late 40s, early 50s. At the time, I

Scott Benner 23:07
am looking for ways to give this guy a pass. I can't figure it out. Yeah,

Barbara 23:12
my husband and I have found a different general practitioner. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:19
I go to the pharmacist. He sounded like he knew what he was doing. Be like, Listen, if I gave you 20 bucks, could I call you once in a while with my medical concerns? Jeez, I'm still like, I have to tell you, like, this is the most frightening,

Barbara 23:30
the best thing this guy could come up with. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 23:34
I know we just talked. We just talked over each other by mistake, but let me say this, and then I want to hear what you're going to say. Like, this part frightens me the most about people's stories. The time between you're sick, you're losing weight, something's obviously wrong, you go to a physician, you find something out, and now you're living with that wrong diagnosis. Living scares me because whether it's five days and it just ends up bursting your bubble a little bit like in the story I told you. Or if it's some people who somehow are in such a lot of situations that they live for one two years misdiagnosed, you know, during a very slow onset, or the people who are misdiagnosed and then end up in DKA, which it freakin sounds to me like you're in, like, yeah, I most likely was the story. Gets Okay, Barb. Barb, you're breaking up, so let's wait a second till you get your signal back. Hold on a second. Barb, you can't hear me. Can you? Okay? Wait. You were broke. Okay, you're back. Go ahead. I can hear you, fine. Oh, no, you were like, This is what you sounded like. I'll have I'll have Rob leave it in so, so you can hear like everyone else will hear, but you get to hear it one day, you were like, No, that's exactly what you sounded like. The signal, just so funny. But go back to that moment. Go back to that moment. Keep talking.

Barbara 24:58
So we go to the stock. His appointment, and he basically is just giving us the rundown of of diabetes, which is just the type two information. And he said, so you know it could affect your eyesight, but don't worry about it. We'll just get you some glasses. And I looked at him, I said, No, that's not how it works. And plus, my vision is horrible. I wear glasses. Over contacts.

Scott Benner 25:23
Don't worry. If this gets worse, we'll get you glasses like that's your Jesus. Yeah, pretty

Barbara 25:27
much. So then he orders another type two med. I don't remember the name of it. I remember it started with an A and it has since been pulled from the market. So he put me on that. And I remember my mom was was pushing for an endocrinologist, and so he said, Well, we can schedule an appointment. I'll refer you. This is back when you had to have referrals, because I'll refer you to an endocrinologist. You can meet with him. In the meantime, you can meet with a diabetes educator through the Health Department. So I'm thinking, Okay, we'll we'll get somewhere with some of these other resources. Yeah, so I meet with the diabetes educator a couple days later, and she had a little more knowledge, but she's still going by type two, even though she told me that her two year old grandchild was just diagnosed with type one, but she was an older woman, and I'm thinking her thought process was, I was an adult, I was type two, and that is what it was. So she wasn't even, you know, thinking type one. She was giving me all the information I would need as a type two. So basically, diet and things like that, as I'm walking around with a blood sugar of 500 Yeah, taking these pills that are doing nothing for me, Yeah?

Scott Benner 26:50
Jeez. How long does this go on for a couple weeks?

Barbara 26:53
And I'm calling the doctor's office because now I have a glucometer, and I'm testing my blood sugar and it's, you know, 500 if it's reading a number, usually it's reading high. And so I'm calling this doctor every couple days, and I'm not getting anywhere. So finally, I get a call the next day, and the nurse said the doctor was doing rounds at the hospital, saw the endocrinologist, mentioned to you, mentioned your case to him, so he said, give his office a call and he'll fit you in, you know, ASAP. Well, probably what happened was I probably wore his office down because his staff was just so bothered by me calling daily that that's what happened. Let me

Scott Benner 27:40
tell you about Barb. And they go, Oh, Barb, yeah, no, no. She's calling every 10, you know. Geez. All right, I guess so that nut jobs calling again. Let's get her in before she really, like, starts, you know, blowing us up. Well, okay, so now, what does the endo say to you?

Barbara 27:52
So I go in to see him, and I'm telling him everything, and he's like, Well, you know, you're, I think you're type one. I think it's actually type one and a half, you know, lotta. And he said, so I'm gonna prescribe some Lantus for you, and then we'll, we'll start with that, and then we'll see him in a few weeks. In the meantime, the pills aren't going to do anything for you, so stop taking those. So I said, okay, no

Scott Benner 28:16
direction about eating, or how all this works. Anything at all, nothing. Okay, just take some Lantus

Barbara 28:22
and Lantus. Okay, so no instruction on how to even administer Lantus. Wait, what? He writes me a prescription for needles and Lantus to go to the pharmacy to pick it up.

Scott Benner 28:33
Doesn't tell you how much to inject.

Barbara 28:35
Well, I think on the prescription it said, like, 20 units or something, but

Scott Benner 28:39
he didn't say, hey, Barb, you're 29 Have you ever injected anything into yourself or anybody else in your life? No, no, let's go figure it out. Huh?

Barbara 28:48
Yeah, pretty much go figure it out. So I do. I go figure it out. Fortunately, the person that it's a different pharmacy I go to at this time, and I knew the person, she was actually a parent at my kid's school, and so I'm explaining all this to her. So she says, Okay, let me at least show you how to draw up the insulin and and, you know, give gave me some some background information, because she knew that I had no knowledge other than take this, right? So I remember that night, I'm home with this insulin, and I said to my husband, I have to inject this. And he was, he was worried about me injecting it without having any actual training on it, and so he didn't want me to. And I'm like, No, you don't understand. Like, we need to take this. Did

Scott Benner 29:39
he say you don't understand. Got to take this Barb. You're very klutzy. He didn't say that. Like, you're a very klutzy person. Like, let's not get involved with this. So

Barbara 29:47
I go in the kitchen and I inject it. Because I'm like, Okay, I've just got to do this. So I, you know, injected the Lantus. Well, I had had a follow up with the primary care, so with had already been scheduled at this point. I was not smart enough to drop him yet, so I go and see him. Tell him, yeah, I saw the endocrinologist, and, you know, he said it's, you know, type one. So he gave me Lantis. So I'm I'm taking Lantus. Then he says, okay, he goes, I think you need a faster insulin, too insulin to cover your meals. So I'm going to write you a prescription for R and give you a sliding scale. Well,

Scott Benner 30:25
now this guy's got all kinds of ideas. It's interesting. Boy, that's the PCP, right? Like, that's your general practitioner who could not figure out that you had type one diabetes. But then once the endo said you had type one and this is what I think you should do, that doctor said, Oh no, here's what I think you should do, right? Awesome. Wow. Yeah, I don't know how we're all alive, but keep talking. I'm sorry. And he still would label

Barbara 30:48
me on things as type two. I mean, he had not come to that recollection that I was type one. He was just under the impression I was type two, requiring insulin, but he gave me R. And so then I go back. I'm ping ponging between these two doctors now. So I go back to the endocrinologist, tell him that the primary care who prescribed me R, and so now I'm taking both of those. They have me split the Lantus. Take some in the morning, some at night. And now numbers are starting to come down. And so now I'm starting to see, you know, starting to feel a little better, starting to see 100 right? And I think, probably, like, I think was, that was April, May, June. It was two months later. I had an A, 1c, and it was like, seven, four, okay, so I came down, you know, kind of quickly, and I ended up seeing that endocrinologist for just a few years. I wasn't real fond of the care I was getting from him, but it was better than what I had been getting, yeah, from from the primary care. I remember it was quite a struggle to get better insulin than r, and I remember he he didn't want to to prescribe me Nova log. He had said to me, he's like, I'll switch your insulin one time, but that's it. I'm only gonna switch it this once. Okay? I'm like, All right. Because in the meantime, you know, I'm researching things. I'm finding things out, realizing that R is kind of old, and now I want a pin. Because I'm using vials, I want a pin, yeah, and that was begging to get, to get a pin, which I don't understand. What the issue with that was, it was just a delivery system. It was the same stuff. I

Scott Benner 32:35
find it crazy that you're telling a 20 year old story that I've also had somebody tell me six months ago? Yeah, that's the part that I think I find maybe most baffling,

Barbara 32:47
right? Honestly, it's easier to comprehend knowing this happened 20 years ago, but knowing that this happened within a year, that's, that's

Scott Benner 32:55
sad. It just means like that. For some people, it's not every, I'm not saying every doctor, obviously, but like but for some, for some doctors, there's just, there's no ability to they just, they can't move forward. They don't know how to do it. Or, you know, I don't know. I don't know why. It's beyond me to understand why. Well, let's fast forward a little bit, because Sure, you're 50 years old, and the only intake you have here on your little note to me is that you want to talk about how your carriage changed since you found the podcast. So what was your What was it like up until then? How did you find it? What changed for you? So in 2008

Barbara 33:31
I decided to go on an insulin pump. Just for reference, I was diagnosed in 2004 so about four years in, I decide I want to try an insulin pump. So I went with Medtronic, and I had used Medtronic insulin pumps. And things were, were I thought, well, a one CS and the sevens, but everything I had been told, I was told, Hey, you're doing great, you know, the typical, you know, stuff. And at that, my current endocrinologist, who I started seeing around 2009 in his office. They would do what they call pump clinics. So once a month, the Medtronic rep would come to the office and she would download your pump, and she would go over your information, and she would make any changes that the doctor had authorized. She could make within like, 10% anything beyond that, then, you know, she would give the recommendations to him, and he'd review it, and then you make changes. Okay, so every time I would go in, it was my a 1c, were in the sevens and, oh, you know, you, you could probably stand to do a little better, but, you know, other than that, you're doing great. I knew that there were people out there with a one season, the fives and the sixes. How did you know that? Ironically, my best friend is a type one diabetic. Oh, and she's been a type one diabetic since, like, freshman year of college, and I had just met her. I've met her around the time I was diabetic. Knows she was a parent at my kids school, and her daughter and my daughter are best friends, and her a 1c. Was like, 5857, okay. And I remember thinking, even know how that's possible. And she was MDI. What

Scott Benner 35:18
you know? Why are they telling me my seven is great, if this is, yeah, right, she was MDI,

Barbara 35:22
and she was maintaining that, so she actually went on a pump when I went on a pump and telling her how great it was. But again, that doesn't necessarily mean my control was any better. It was just that, you know, convenience is what, what I was getting from it, yeah. So I had switched to her endocrinologist, and like I said, I never ate, was able to get the tighter control that I wanted. Well, no one had ever used the words Pre Bolus with me. That was the key, okay. And it was during the pandemic, when I was home with with the MS, the medications that I take to to to prevent it from progressing, I immunocompromised, is how I would be labeled. So during the pandemic, I was home from work, and I remember thinking, You know what? I'm going to try to figure this. You know, figure this out. I was on Dexcom and Medtronic, so I'm like, but my Dexcom was just a, just a don't die function. For me, I was just using it for when I was high, when I was low, but I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know what to do with the information. If I'm low, you drink a Juicebox. If I'm high, you try to give yourself some insulin. You know, it might not allow you to take insulin, because I'm, you know, riding 300 a lot. I didn't know what to do with the information that I had, so I remember I was on a Facebook group and someone was talking about a podcast that Kevin from Dexcom had had done, and I clicked on it and listened to it, and it was yours. It was your podcast, and it was, like, it was not quite 500 it was like 480 ish, something around there, okay. And I remember listening to that podcast and thinking, wow, I could listen to this. This is this. This sounds really helpful. So I started listening to a few more of your podcast, and I'm listening and I'm hearing words that no one has mentioned to me at all, you know, Pre Bolus, things of that nature. So I start doing it, and I get down to a

Scott Benner 37:40
six nice. It's exciting. Yeah, what do you think you heard that moved your a one? See a full point. Is it just the pre bolusing? I

Barbara 37:51
believe it was just the pre bolusing, because I don't think I was doing anything different, and I don't think I had the knowledge to do anything different other than Pre Bolus, because I thought I knew everything I needed to know as it was so

Scott Benner 38:06
fair enough to say Barb, then you understand your diabetes. You know incredibly well, with the fine exception of how to time your insulin. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Gosh, should have called the podcast Pre Bolus probably would have been more popular. You got down to that. What were you gonna say then? I'm sorry I asked you, like, how it helped you? No,

Barbara 38:25
no, that's okay. So I start listening to the podcast, some of the other episodes, and I start, you know, doing some some pre ball listing, and it's working. And I realized that there was a whole wealth of information that I didn't know. This is the key. It's the Pre Bolus saying, trying not to get your numbers once your numbers are in 300 it's hard to recover from that. But if you're talking a number that's 151 60, I could function with that. I can get that down to a 100 to a 90. So I was able to do that. And then around that time, it was time to get a new pump. So I decided, well, I'd only been on Medtronic, so I thought I'm gonna give the Omnipod a try, which last week I went back on Medtronic, so I have the 780 G right now.

Scott Benner 39:19
You went Omnipod dash? No, no. Omnipod

Barbara 39:23
euros, iros

Scott Benner 39:24
pods. Okay, so like old school, you were just Yeah, and then how come you didn't go to Omnipod five? Why'd you go to 780 G? I

Barbara 39:32
have really good insurance. When I called Medtronic to figure out what the pump was going to be, and they called me back, first thing he said to me was, Wow, you've got really good insurance. And I said, Yes, I know that. And the problem is that runs through durable medical so to get the the Omnipod five running through pharmacy, my coverage is not as great I see, and I use a lot of insulin a day. Mm. I'm using 120 to 140 units a day, so I am literally changing my pump every day. Would

Scott Benner 40:07
you tell me your insulin to carb ratio? Or do you have any like hormonal impacts, something going on,

Barbara 40:14
not that I know of. I have, I have gained a lot of weight. I was

Scott Benner 40:19
just gonna my years, my next question was going to be, if you gained weight? Oh,

Barbara 40:23
yeah, yeah, I'm like, I said I was, you know, 121 30. Now I'm 240 when are

Scott Benner 40:28
we going to listen to Scott about the GLP meds? So I

Barbara 40:32
want to try GLP meds. My insurance does not cover we go V they don't cover it for weight loss. And I have talked to my doctor about trying to get it as maybe a dual diagnosis, type one, type two, right? He keeps kind of putting me off. He this is what he told me. He told me he would do it when I went on an insulin pump, he didn't care which one, but when I went on an insulin pump, that with an algorithm.

Scott Benner 41:01
That seems senseless, but my thought here is, is that, I mean, if he can't make the case to your insurance company that a one to four carb ratio might indicate some insulin resistance, I mean, I don't know what he's thinking. Do you know what I mean? Right, right? Yeah. So, I mean, can you tell me about how many carbs you take in in a day? Yeah, it's 100 No, not a lot. No, and, and you're using how many units a day? About 120 Oh, my goodness, yeah. I mean, the GLP is a no brainer. It wouldn't matter if you were getting your insulin through a sharp stick, that you were poking a hole in yourself in and then dumping the insulin, and I would think you should still try a GLP Med, right?

Barbara 41:40
No, that. That's my plan. I my plan. Now that I'm on you did the thing he asked. I his requirements that he asked me to do, right? So once I go back for my next appointment, I'm gonna push toward

Scott Benner 41:54
for that good for you, I would imagine that if you have insulin resistance, that's a side of your weight, that you'll see a more immediate impact. But if you have insulin resistance, that is due mostly to your body compensation composition, then when you know you start losing weight, you should see your insulin needs go down. I'm gonna guess why he wants you on an automated system. He thinks, as you lose weight, your insulin needs are gonna change drastically, and hopefully the the algorithm will keep up with it, yes, yes, and you won't end up being low. I mean, he could have just said, you can start an algorithm system or not, but let's just pay attention to your insulin needs as you lose weight. And that would have been the same thing if I'm right about what he was thinking, right,

Barbara 42:37
right? That No, no, because that's pretty much what he said. So, yeah,

Scott Benner 42:41
oh, all right, yeah. Then, then that's, I mean, that's exactly his concern, is. He thinks you're gonna get low, but I don't know. Like, well, I don't know why. See, that's one of those things where people's, like, preconceived notions get ahead of their brain. Like, you've had diabetes for, I mean, 20 years, he can't just say to you, like, look, you're gonna lose weight, your needs are going to go down. We're going to have to keep adjusting your set. Maybe he doesn't want to be involved in the settings adjusting. Would that be, yeah, I don't know, but you don't need that. You wouldn't need that from him, would you?

Barbara 43:13
No, no, no, I I feel I'm knowledgeable enough now that I can, I can work with him whatever comes at me. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:21
Are you excited for Medtronic to add that new CGM, yes, yeah. That was

Barbara 43:27
quite the learning curve, which we're talking about a week and a half now and and going back to tubing, wasn't that much of a hardship. Giving up the Dexcom and trusting the sensor, that's been the learning curve. I've enjoyed that

Scott Benner 43:44
less. Yeah. I mean, I don't that that sensor of theirs is available in Europe, right? I wonder when it's coming up. You know, it's funny. I could just email somebody and ask, but they probably can't tell me,

Barbara 43:55
right? Yeah, well, when I called Medtronic, the Medtronic rep I talked to I had mentioned that to him, and he told me he had recently tried Omnipod five for a little while, and he told me that the new sensor, and I don't really believe much of this, but he did say it is FDA approved. They're just waiting to make sure they have enough before they release it to me. That doesn't make sense. But what do I know? I'm

Scott Benner 44:23
gonna try something here. I don't think I've ever done this, but let me see this. Do you you guys have an idea on when? What's it called simplra that right? Yeah. Let me spell it right, so I don't look like an idiot. She'll be like, great. We buy ads from you. You can't spell our stuff. So let me just take a look for a second here. Okay, making sure I'm spelling right. Do you have an idea when simplera will be available in the US? I. I won't tell anybody. I won't Okay, yeah, okay, let's see what happens. Very cool. It's like a little test of my, my power, yeah? Which I'm sure is gonna come back very limited. It's gonna say something like, you haven't signed enough NDAs for this one, buddy, or I don't know, I don't know usually, or we're hoping, like, you know, I understand, like publicly traded companies can't, they can't go although I don't know, the world seems to be changing so quickly. Now, apparently you can just say anything you want out loud. But you know, they don't say, You know what we're shooting for July, because if they don't hit July, it could hurt their stock. It could also be seen as, like, manipulating the stock and stuff like that. So there's, like, a lot of reasons they don't share stuff like that. I'm interested in do they have an idea? So let's see what happens. Okay, so you have an algorithm going now you're liking it, right? I've heard very good things about 780 Do you like the way it works?

Barbara 45:59
So I'll have to admit, the first couple days, I was thinking, Oh no, what have I done? But then I went, Okay, just give it time, because I think that's the biggest issue. Is it just it needs those first few days to I'll use the word learn, although I don't think that's the appropriate word that they would want me to use, you know, to get the right information dialed in. And then after a few days, it started leveling me out closer to that 100 target, whereas those first few days it was riding me at like 141 60. And I wasn't happy with that, sure, but now I'm now it's a little closer. I mean, it's not keeping me at 100 like I would like, but it's keeping me more like 110 120 so again, it's only like a week and a half in, so I can work with what's going on, because I know it'll just, it'll just get better, so I'm not too worried about it. Okay,

Scott Benner 46:53
yeah, no. I mean, listen, I've heard really, genuinely good things about it from people actually, going back, I'm going to say, over a year ago, from somebody I met who was overseas and already using it. My friend,

Barbara 47:05
she's, she's had it for quite a while now, like, think when it had first come out, she had recently had a new Medtronic pump. So she had, they had upgraded her as soon as the 780 G was available. And so she had been using that, and she was telling me, she goes, Oh, I think you'll like it. I think you should go back. And I went, I don't know, I don't know if I can give up the Dexcom, right? You know, I was running low on the on the supplies I had back piled so I knew I had to make a choice and do something. And what I did,

Scott Benner 47:37
it's awesome. Yeah, hey, you know what? I'm gonna brag for a second here. I knew, I knew about people having good success with 780 G from Europe because I was giving a talk once in Connecticut, and a few people flew across the ocean to hear me speak nice. That's my brag. I was very nice. I wasn't. You're entitled to that. I'm proud of it. Now, in the moment, I was just shocked. I actually think I said to her, What is wrong with you? Also, it felt very pressuring. I've had situations where people like, oh, I drove 16 hours to be here, and I even then, I was like, way to pressure me. I don't think I can come through to that, like, that's a long drive. But when somebody said I flew from England to hear you speak today in Connecticut. I was like, what now? Like, cool, but now I feel like I gotta really do a good job. I wasn't really feeling any stress until you just told me you got on a plane to do this. I you know, so I only drove over, like, an hour and a half to get here. Okay. Anyway, all right, cool, we'll see you're moving along. Like, can I ask you, do you have expectations about why you gained. I mean, you gained a pretty significant amount of weight. Like, was that through, like, aging activity? Like, what do you think got you there? Combo

Barbara 48:49
of everything. I think once the MS took place and I was my activity, I wasn't walking or is active. I think that had a lot to do with it. I actually had a knee replacement a year ago, which I think was the other thing in my letter that I mentioned wanting to talk about the experience of the surgery. So I had torn the meniscus in my knee, and so that laid me up for a few months. And although I was in the two hundreds prior to that, I think it was just a combination of lack of activity, and once it started going up, it just started going up, you know, you know, aggressively, we'll say, Okay,

Scott Benner 49:35
I understand is, is weight gain? Can that be an implication of Ms? No,

Barbara 49:40
not that. No, I don't believe. So I think it's, it's a byproduct of the lack of activity.

Scott Benner 49:46
Okay, I see, oh gosh, it sounds so easy for people like, just do that. Or like, you know, if you've been listening for a long time, you'll know that. I think, like, three years ago, I'm like, I'm getting a bicycle and I'm gonna ride a bike. I started riding the bike, and I'm like, Oh, my knee. Hertz. Then I was like, I have to have a knee surgery. Awesome. And then it takes time to rebound from that. Like, you don't think, like, I still, I don't know about you, you're about my age, but I just have my nose prepared. So for all of you were like, Scott, got a nose shot. I didn't get a nose shot, but I guess I kind of, I get an internal nose shot, right? So, you know, double deviation busted up cartilage. They opened up my passageways, like the guy explained to me at the follow up. I was like, Hey, I probably should have asked before you did this, but what did you do? And he's like, oh, you know you he's like, you had a double deviation. It was like, sticking out on both sides, blocking your airway. You had an overgrowth of soft tissue that had to get removed. It was blocking your airway. You had cartilage that was busted up and re formed a bit it was blocking your airway. And he goes to and at the bottom, I opened up your nostrils and tacked them down to make them wider. And I was like, Oh, awesome. Is that why my the top of my mouth is numb? And he goes, Yes. I was like, Oh, awesome. He goes, that should go away. I'm like, okay, whatever the reason is. I'm telling you what they did is because 20 years ago, if I would have had something like that done, like, three days later, I would have been like, Let's go like, I would have just been up and moving, and I'm now two weeks removed from it today. Today's two weeks. I'm like, Oh well, my digestion is just back to normal now from the medication they gave me because they put me on a bunch of antibiotics. Like, I'm like, at least my stomach feels better now. And like, and I was the first five or six days I was exhausted. Like, you know, like, like, I'd sit here, get done working, and like, just try to work. And I'd be like, zoning out. Like, some people will listen and go, Well, yeah, he had surgery on your face. But I've been a person that my whole life, like, I would have run through that wall, no problem. And this time I'm like, God, like, if, if I go to have something else done, I'm gonna have to build real recovery time into that. I guess that's the age I'm at now, you know, and you don't think about that as it's as you're getting older, but I am thinking about it now, and, you know, it makes perfect sense to me that you get, MS, you slow down, you know, you have a problem with your knee, and all of a sudden, like it turns into five years later, right? Yeah, that sucks.

Barbara 52:05
The irony of the whole thing with the knee was I had bought a treadmill, similar to your bicycle story, staring at you. I bought a treadmill, and two weeks later, I can't walk. My knee hurts, so I make an appointment for the doctor, and I walking down the hallway to see my primary care, and my knee snaps. Well, it that was the meniscus did a full tear, and it just snapped like a rubber band. Oh,

Scott Benner 52:34
it's terrible. I'm sorry. Yeah, listen, I got a long note from my brother the other day, and he's like, my feet hurt so bad. He works like a, like, a stands on a concrete floor, you know, and he's, and he's getting older now, and he's like, I can't believe this is happening. He's like, he's like, I can't even stand up. And I was like, Yeah, you're old. Like, you know, like, you have to go buy better shoes and get insoles in them. And, you know, his text reminded me of the Oscars were the other night, and that Mick Jagger gave out an award. Now, I don't know how old Mick Jagger is. He's in his mid 80s. Maybe he's an old man, you know, and he comes out and he's like, he looks old, but he's still full of life, and, you know, he's all right there and everything and but I looked down last like he is wearing the craziest pair of old man sneakers I've ever seen,

Speaker 1 53:21
these big, ugly, black sneakers.

Scott Benner 53:24
Anyway, it's coming for all of us. So what's your antic like? What's your expectation you're going to start a GLP? You think you can stick to it and then look up a year from now and have lost, you know, a fair amount of weight? Yeah? I mean, that's, that's what I'm hoping for. Yeah, I think you can do it. I know a person who lost 100 pounds on it in about a year and a half. So my

Barbara 53:45
daughter actually has been on wegovy, and she has lost 40 pounds on wegovy, and probably, well, she had started on her own, and then went to wegovy. So she it's been about six months now, and she's lost 40 pounds. And then, of course, in January, her health insurance provider dropped bucovi, so she just picked up a semi glutide from a compound pharmacy the other day. Yeah, so her next injection will be one of those.

Scott Benner 54:17
Glad she was able to keep it going for herself. I have to tell you, it's changed my life so drastically and for the better. Like, if someone took it from me, I mean, I would go to great lengths to get it back. Oh

Barbara 54:29
yeah, I've definitely been following your story, and I've shared the podcast with her, where you, where you've been dying that. Oh,

Scott Benner 54:37
I'm glad. Listen, I'm 60 pounds, like I seem to be, I don't know if you've installed is the right, like I'm at 60 pounds now I do. I think I have more weight to lose, I think I have some fat to lose, which I'll obviously, like, you know, you know, it'll, it'll make my weight drop down. But I don't think it's a lot. I think it's more about body shaping now that where I'm at, yeah. And just, it's just been such an awesome tool for me. The week that I didn't take it for my surgery, I gained like, five pounds, wow. And I didn't need any differently. I just started gaining weight. And I was like, Well, this is just awesome. And by the way, I mean that both ways, the medication is awesome and, and I mean the sarcastic awesome about like, I can't believe that without this, like, my weight just starts going up again, I don't know, like, I'm grateful that it exists and I'm disappointed that that's the reality, I guess, is both sides of it. Yeah,

Barbara 55:29
I definitely look forward to being able to try it. I will, I will try my best to get that prescription so

Scott Benner 55:36
she's going to the compound pharmacy because it's not being covered. She's paying cash. Is that a thing you've considered doing? Or you think you can get it covered? I'm

Barbara 55:44
going to try to get it covered. If not, I can try the compound pharmacy. Now, the issue with the compound pharmacies, it is no longer considered. Ozempic is no longer I forget the term, yeah, you know where I'm going. I wish

Scott Benner 55:59
I understand. I don't know the words, but it's if it's no longer considered something, then they then they're not allowed to compound it anymore,

Barbara 56:08
exactly. So when she picked up the compound, she said there was a long line of people picking it up. And so they're going through every so often in the line, making this announcement, saying the last day that we can make the current formula is like April 21 they're currently working on submitting another formula that's slightly different to get the approval for that. So they were telling everyone, the next time you pick up, you'll be fine, but then we should have an answer for you at that point, if we were able to get the approval for the next formula or not.

Scott Benner 56:46
Yeah, it's something about the availability of it. I don't know the phrasing right. If it's available commercially, they can't compound it. But if it's, if it's hard, like I guess, I guess it's about shortages. So if there's a significant shortage supply, then they can maybe temporarily be allowed to produce until the supply is back. And I did just see one of the big companies announced the other day, there's no shortage. I didn't realize that was a business decision when they said that they're saying, oh, there's no shortage, which means compound pharmacies can't make it correct. I see, well, you know what's gonna happen. I'm seeing it happen all over the place. Like, you're gonna see companies making generics of it, but, yeah, oh yeah, or biosimilars, or stuff like that. Like, that's all gonna happen, I think, quickly. And if you listen to Dr ham D's episode, yes, he seems very certain that newer forms in pill form, we're gonna be just as effective as the or maybe more so than the ejectables, one day, and I, and I actually remember saying to him something like, like, in the future, and he's like, not as far in the future as you think. So it's like, all right. Well, that's good. So because I do think it even being injected slows some people down. You know, some people aren't thrilled getting injected with stuff. And it makes it seem less approachable, I guess. But I think, I mean, obviously it works so well for so many people. I mean, a lot of companies are going to want to get in on it, and so I think there should be a lot of availability moving forward, but that doesn't help you today. Like, you know what? I mean, like, you're, you're in the situation, you're right now. You don't want to be waiting two years or whatever, right, right? Yeah, wow. What, uh, what have we not talked about that we should have,

Barbara 58:19
like, I said, I had, I had knee surgery. I ended up having to have a knee replacement after all that, because it

Scott Benner 58:26
was so damaged. Yeah, so what's that like? Doing that with type one? Some of your

Barbara 58:29
episodes over the years, you've talked about people that have had surgeries. You've referenced, I think, a surgery or two that Arden had. So when I went in for the pre op stuff at the hospital, I kind of knew what I should what I should mention. And I had talked about, you know, wanting to make sure that I had my phone in the operating room so they could monitor my Dexcom. Wanted to keep my Omnipod running, things like that. And they had checked with the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist said, Oh yeah, it's great, you know, we want to, you know, make sure we keep things running. So I said, Okay, let me know what, what do you want from me that day? How would you like me to place these sites? So they had given me all sorts of information, you know. He said, you know, just put them on your arms. We'll have your your phone, make sure it's on lock, but I'll have your code just in case. Everything seemed to go great. I saw my endocrinologist right before I mentioned to him the discussion I had, and he had even said to me, he's like, that's exactly what I would advise you to do. That's the plan that I would put in place for you. And I said, My only fear is that the day of surgery, they changed the plan. And he said they're not going to do that. He said, if they told you you're going to keep your pump on, you're going to keep your pump on, well, you know where I'm going with this, right?

Scott Benner 59:57
Oh, hi, welcome. Good morning. Let's get your pump off. Wait, I talked to the guy. What guy we don't know that guy, right? Yeah, it was more as we're

Barbara 1:00:04
wheeling into the R Yeah, yeah. They had checked my blood sugar against a Dexcom, and it was 142 to 143 i They were so impressed at how close it was. They anesthesiologist and his nurse. They were making jokes about doing selfies with my phone and the or, I mean, it was great banter back and forth. It seemed like everything was going great. So then the nurse says, Okay, we're ready to go. Looks at my husband said, you know, give her a kiss goodbye, and we'll, we'll keep you posted. So they're walking him out, and they start to wheel me, and the anesthesiologist says, Okay, it's time to turn the pump off. And I went, wait, what

Scott Benner 1:00:49
were you guys not just out in the hallway joking around about how great it was all work and everything. You don't remember any of that. Do

Barbara 1:00:56
you know I can't do that? And they said, No, we'll, we're going to monitor everything. Remember? He said, so we'll, we'll take care of everything. Well, I decide I'm not comfortable with just suspending it because I knew what was going to happen. So what I did, I did suspend it, although I shouldn't have. I put it on a three hour, figuring, okay, when it's done, when three hours are done, at least. If I don't know where this PDM is, it's going to turn basal back on. You know, if they lose it, or whatever the case happens to be, because of this point, I don't have as much faith in them as I did 30 seconds previous. Losing faith as I'm being wheeled into the alarm. So I put it on three hours. Next thing I know, I'm waking up. The rumor I was 140 wheeling in, I'm waking up. And I can hear them say, the anesthesiologist wants to know what her last blood glucose was. And they said 480 Oh, my God. And I went, wait, what? I'm 480

Scott Benner 1:02:05
Yeah. How'd you guys screw this up? Jesus, something going

Barbara 1:02:09
through the numbers and looking I see where I hit 450 and when I hit 450 that's when they gave me some insulin in the IV, so it kept me steady at 450 and I got up to 480 but had they not done that, I mean, who knows what I would have been because we're talking three hours without any insulin. Yeah, and distress on my body, of course, right,

Scott Benner 1:02:36
right, right? They don't know. Trust me, they don't know. They don't care. What they know is you're not going to die in three hours without this insulin. And they think that's better. Like, I don't, I don't know what they you know, what? I've had doctors on. I've asked them. They're never very clear when they talk about it. They're just like, well, you know, better high than low, like, that kind of, like, simple stuff. And, you know, like, like, why not just let the algorithm keep what? I mean, what would it have hurt to just set your target temporarily to 200 exactly, you know, exactly.

Barbara 1:03:03
Now, remember, I didn't have an algorithm at the time, okay, so I didn't have anything like that or, I mean, we could have done that with basal. I mean, if they were knowledgeable enough, I would have gladly reduced my basal to 50% Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:03:17
just kept something running. Also, you have an IV, and if I start to get low, you can give me dextrose. It's not a big deal, you know? It's not a big deal. And you

Barbara 1:03:26
and you can see the trends, because you have my phone in your hand that you just double check to make sure it's accurate, right? Hahaha,

Scott Benner 1:03:34
we should take a picture with it. Look how accurate it is. Remember all that again, out in the hallway?

Barbara 1:03:40
Yeah, exactly. That sucks. My surgery was actually outpatient, so I was scheduled to go home that day, but in the meantime, because they want you up and moving, so they put me in a patient room after recovery, and the idea was, give me about an hour, give me something to eat, regulate the pain meds, and then physical therapy would come in, and they would get me up and moving, and then, you know, slowly, get me, get me to the car and home. So immediately, when I woke up and I knew what was happening with my blood sugar. I'm I want my husband, and that poor man, he was walking down the hall, he heard them say, Okay, turn your puff off. Michaels,

Scott Benner 1:04:22
like, Am I in charge of getting your blood sugar down? I think I am, right. Yeah, pretty

Barbara 1:04:27
much. So they immediately bring him in. Now, they want me out. They want me in that patient room. Because they even said to him, he goes, how quickly can we get her to a room? She's under 500 we can, we can release her to the room now, yeah, because he's figuring, once we're in the room, you know, we can get you out

Scott Benner 1:04:45
of their face after my nose surgery. Like, I don't know if I knew which way was up. And the guy was like, All right, well, we called your ride. I'm gonna call me right? I'm like, I can't see all the walls yet exactly,

Barbara 1:04:54
okay. Well, I get into this room and I. Again, I'm expecting the nurse in the room they are in to help. They he didn't even know I was a diabetic. Yeah, so we get in the room and he's, you know, doing vitals. I still have some oxygen going, some coming out of the anesthesia I had been intubated. So he's got some some ice chips going and showing me this breathing thing that they wanted me to do every 10 minutes. And then he's putting some more pain meds on board and giving me some Zofran, because now they're going to bring a tray of food in so I can eat. And so they bring this tray of food in, and they uncover it, and it was the worst food ever. It was salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, peaches and heavy syrup, pineapple, white bread and an Italian ice an iced tea. Wow. And my husband looks down at this tray, and he says, that's a diabetic tray, because he had talked to them when they came out and gave him the she's out of surgery, her blood sugar was high. He had said, she'll work with getting her blood sugar back under control. But can you make sure you give her a low carb meal? Because she's not going to want to have a heart high carb meal. Also,

Scott Benner 1:06:18
she's 450 and you've had her insulin off for three hours, and there's a lot going on here. And the nurse goes, dial, what now?

Barbara 1:06:25
Yeah, right, exactly. Then he reaches he goes, well, well, why would she need a diabetic meal? And he my husband, said, well, she's a type one diabetic, and her blood sugar is 450 so he goes, Well, you won't be needing this. And he reaches over and grabs the little cup with the sweetener packets,

Scott Benner 1:06:42
but he took the one thing that you would have helped you. Why would she need that? Let me just bang my head through the wall, and then I'll explain it to you. Hold on one sec. Well, listen, I again. I don't think this is even specific to diabetes. You know what I mean? Like, sure, you call a place and say, Hey, listen, I get my car worked on. This is the same problem. Hi, I'm having this problem with the car. Let me note it for you. And then it all down. Like, great. You show up with the car. They go, what's the problem? I'm like, You know what the problem is? I called this week. Well, I don't know. Tell me again, to tell you again. Like, what did I tell the last person for like, like, you know what I mean? Like, then it happens, and the mechanic comes out and goes, What's the problem? Like, Jesus, I told her, I told him, I gotta tell you now. Like, why am I telling everybody if, like, why don't you just let me fix it? Like, like, right? And then that's the feeling you get, like, no one's actually paying attention. There's no How do I mean this? You want to think that there's a comprehensive web of communication in whatever you're doing, whether it's at your doctor's office or getting your car fixed or somewhere else. But the truth is that's not the case, and that most things are limited by the ability of the human being you're talking to to do their job, understand your needs and communicate them. And I just don't think that generally happens again. I don't think it's specific to your knee surgery or the fact that you had type one diabetes during it, or anything like that. I just think this is a limitation of human beings. I

Barbara 1:08:14
agree. Also, I had a second surgery a few months later. Ironically, I had broke my toe a week before the knee surgery on the other foot, and I was not going to hold up the surgery for treatment for a broken toe. So in the meantime, I had to have surgery to repair that that toe, and it was a different hospital, and I went in knowing what could happen. And so I'm going to have a very nice conversation with that anesthesiologist. Then an anesthesiologist says to me, my husband is a type one. He's on T slim. I know exactly what to do. My blood sugar stayed 118 the entire surgery, right? That's been

Scott Benner 1:08:55
my experience too. It's like once you bump into somebody that knows what they're doing, then it then all the things I just said, that's all gone now, now you just have somebody at the point of contact. Who knows what they're doing. Is the biggest thing other than that. I should have recorded what I said to the first person at the car place, and then just when I walked up to the next person said, Hey, what's going on? I should have just pushed play and held my phone up, yeah, because you're wasting your breath till you get to the person that's going to be actually doing the work. And then now it's important for them to know. And if you get lucky and you know, you get that situation you have with a toe surgery, then great, somebody knows what they're doing. And Bing, bang, boom, nothing to worry about. But the truth is, is that if you're going to be involved with medical care and you have type one when people say you have to advocate for yourself, that's a very polite way of saying you have to re explain someone's job to them as it is pertinent to you. Every time you look someone in the face, that's your job. And by the way, they may not understand or care or even put what you're saying into effect, or once they hear you, they might just take the Splenda from you, the one thing on the tray that may not have made your blood sugar go. Yeah, exactly, yeah. No. It's, I mean, listen, it's good to know, because you're, you're gonna get into a situation like this eventually, and you really do need to know how to, I'm gonna say advocate, but I'm gonna, I think what I mean is explain people's jobs to them, specific to your details. It's just the sad fact of all this, we're not there yet. You know, everything's not interconnected, and maybe computers and AI fix this. Maybe it makes it worse. I can't wait to see what happens right now. The, I mean, to use a, I guess, a saying from the 50s, like my mom would have said, is, like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Yep, exactly. Police your toe, your toes, all better you need, oh yeah, what's the bounce back time from a knee surgery like so the

Barbara 1:10:44
knee has been pretty good. I was off work for 12 weeks. I work retail on a concrete floor, so I was off for 12 weeks. Did some physical therapy, and it took about a year. They had set I still had some stiffness. I mean, I was able to move around and things of that nature. But they had kept saying, well, give it a year, because about six months in, I'm like, Well, I still have some stiffness and stuff. And literally, I think it was January, I went I realized my knee is great. It's almost back to normal. And it was a year ago last month. So yeah, it's pretty much takes a year. It is what

Scott Benner 1:11:22
it is. Like one day you just like, it's boring. But I was told I had arthritis in my toe, and they were gonna clean it out. But then they got in there and I had to get, like, micro needling surgery or something like that. And when I came out my it was stiff, like, it was hard to bend. And some days, day after day, I just sit here trying to curl my toe up, like, you know, and I was like, God, this is never going to work. And now I don't remember how long ago that surgery was, but my toes good. So, yeah, yeah, just sometimes it's just it takes longer than than you want, and then, like you said, you wake up one day and you're like, oh, doesn't hurt anymore. Awesome. So goodbye, all right. Well, Barbara, you were terrific. I appreciate you doing this with me. I went over time a little bit, but I enjoyed hearing the rest of your story. I can't thank you enough for doing this, and I'm thrilled that you found the podcast and it was helpful for you. Oh yeah,

Barbara 1:12:10
I have to thank you, because it has, it's been life changing. I mean, I know I've hear other people, you know, say that periodically, but it genuinely opened up a whole world of what to do with the data and with the numbers. And my a 1c are now under six, it's great. Yeah, I

Scott Benner 1:12:28
couldn't be happier for you. And it's very kind of you to give me some sort of credit. And I think everyone should, is what I'm saying. Yeah, anyone who's ever come on this podcast and not thanked me, I think you've, you've really missed an opportunity. So,

Barbara 1:12:42
my God, well, I appreciate everything you do. And I have heard every episode. I listen to it every day, and I've gone back and listened. It was about close to 500 episode when I started listening, and so I went back and listened to those previous ones. And yeah, it's, it's been life changing. You're caught

Scott Benner 1:13:01
up. You've listened to 1400 episodes of this podcast. Yeah. Barb, awesome. You're my favorite person. Well, thank you to whoever I said that to in the past. Don't feel slighted. Barb, stepped up. Okay, okay, yeah, no, this is awesome. Hold on one second for me, sure.

Thank thanks for tuning in today, and thanks to Medtronic diabetes for sponsoring this episode. We've been talking about Medtronic mini med 780 G system today, an automated insulin delivery system that helps make diabetes management easier day and night. Whether it's their meal detection technology or the Medtronic extended infusion set. It all comes together to simplify life with diabetes. Go find out more at my link, Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com this episode was sponsored by touched by type one. I want you to go find them on Facebook, Instagram and give them a follow, and then head to touched by type one.org where you're going to learn all about their programs and resources for people with type one diabetes? Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? When I created the defining diabetes series, I pictured. A dictionary, in my mind, to help you understand key terms that shape type one diabetes management. Along with Jenny Smith, who, of course, is an experienced diabetes educator, we break down concepts like basal, time and range, insulin on board and much more. This series must have 70 short episodes in it. We have to take the jargon out of the jargon so that you can focus on what really matters, living confidently and staying healthy. You can't do these things if you don't know what they mean. Go get your diabetes to find Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on series. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com. You.

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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
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Chelsea Morgan 0:16
I am Chelsea Morgan, the International Women of service sweetheart for 2024 Derek's mom and also the owner of my own small business and a non profit of Derek defenders.

Scott Benner 0:32
The podcast contains so many different series and collections of information that it can be difficult to find them in your traditional podcast app. Sometimes. That's why they're also collected at Juicebox. Podcast.com, go up to the top. There's a menu right there. Click on series, defining diabetes. Bold beginnings, the Pro Tip series, small sips, Omnipod, five ask Scott and Jenny. Mental wellness, fat and protein, defining thyroid, after dark, diabetes, variables, Grand Rounds, cold, wind, pregnancy, type two, diabetes, GLP, meds, the math behind diabetes, diabetes myths and so much more, you have to go check it out. It's all there and waiting for you, and it's absolutely free. Juicebox podcast.com, 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. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the twist aid system, powered by tidepool that features the twist loop algorithm, which you can target to a glucose level as low as 87 Learn more at twist.com/juicebox. That's twist with two eyes.com/juicebox. Get precision insulin delivery with a target range that you choose at twist.com/juicebox, that's t, w, i, i s t.com/juicebox. You this episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, today's episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with with the ever since now app, no limits.

Chelsea Morgan 2:37
Ever since. I am Chelsea Morgan, the International Women of service sweetheart for 2024 Derek's mom and also the owner of my own small business and a non profit of Derek's defenders. Wow. Okay, hold on a second. How old are you? I am 30 this year. I just turned 30 in January, almost twice

Scott Benner 2:58
as old as you. And I haven't done that many things, and the whole time I've been alive. So let's figure some things out. Do you have type one, or does a child, my son, Derek? Derek does. How old was Derek when he was diagnosed? He was four years old. How old is he now? Seven and a half. Okay, about three and a half years any other kids I

Chelsea Morgan 3:17
do? I have a six year old now. He just turned six in January as well.

Scott Benner 3:21
Awesome. Any other autoimmune in the family? I have

Chelsea Morgan 3:25
Hashimotos, but that's it. My husband's side is very clean when it comes to their health. Is

Scott Benner 3:31
that how they put it? We're clean over here. I put it

Chelsea Morgan 3:35
that way because I have a lot of issues mental health, physical health, and my whole family has always had some issues, but Ryan never he only went to the hospital one time his entire life for what he broke his collarbone snowboarding one year, and that was when he was dating me. So I make the joke that I did it to him.

Scott Benner 3:53
You'd never been to the hospital till you met Morgan. Yeah. Kelsey, Morgan gets people to the hospital.

Chelsea Morgan 4:01
I catch phrase. I'm so gonna tell him that when he comes home. Don't you

Scott Benner 4:05
worry. Let's go meet some other people and see if we can't get them sick. What do you mean? You have other stuff going on?

Chelsea Morgan 4:10
I actually have borderline personality disorder, and so that's been a long struggle my adult life, coming into that diagnosis and learning how to deal with it. But I also have had a total of eight surgeries, which a lot of times. I have more surgeries than adults who are twice my age. And it's not just from, you know, my appendix, I did have my appendix or my wisdom teeth. I've had knee surgery. I've had two shoulder reconstructions. I run the gamut

Scott Benner 4:40
interesting. Go through your surgeries with me very quick. I'm gonna see if I can keep up. I'm gonna try to keep up. Ready

Chelsea Morgan 4:45
Go ahead, sure. And ninth grade, I had my appendix term. Moved in 12th grade, I had

Scott Benner 4:49
wait Chelsea, hold on one second. I think we gotta, I think we got a game here. Let me just clear off a little space. Go you. You got appendix? I got appendix. Go ahead. What's next?

Chelsea Morgan 5:04
Wisdom teeth in 12th grade. Oh, wait, hold on, nope. Meniscal repair in 10th grade.

Scott Benner 5:10
Where's that in your knee? Yes, all right, I haven't had a meniscus repair, but I've had my knee repaired. Go ahead. Okay,

Chelsea Morgan 5:16
then I had both wisdom teeth, or all rose stem tooth removed. I guess it's four.

Scott Benner 5:21
I've had mine removed, but not during surgery, but we're still gonna check it three for three. Go ahead, I

Chelsea Morgan 5:27
had 3c section. Well, one DNC and 2c sections. Oh,

Scott Benner 5:31
I think you got me on this one. I do not have that. Go ahead, and

Chelsea Morgan 5:35
I've had both of my shoulders repaired or reconstructed.

Scott Benner 5:38
I've had my right shoulder repaired. Not your left yet. Well, I gotta be honest with you, there's days when I think maybe I ought to go get that looked at, but not yet. But I have had my toe repaired. You have your toe repaired. I

Chelsea Morgan 5:52
haven't had a toe. You can take that win. Okay,

Scott Benner 5:56
how about an ankle to ever tear an ankle up and have to have surgery on it? Nope, not that one, neither Scott, he's pulling ahead carpal tunnel syndrome. I do have carpal tunnel but I've not had surgery for it yet. Oh, baby, I have Okay. Now let's see. Hold on one second. I want to be fair about the carpal tunnel. I had carpal tunnel surgery, but I didn't have carpal tunnel syndrome. As I look down at my left hand, putting my thumb top my finger. So I'm like looking down my hand, kind of the thin way, there is a scar that goes from between the second and third knuckle of my thumb almost to my wrist that, oh, my goodness, I opened my hand up with a box cutter, not on purpose, well, no, and it left a lot of damage inside and tightness that was released by carpal tunnel surgery.

Chelsea Morgan 6:42
Oh, well, that stinks, because I've heard how painful carpal tunnel surgery can be. Though I

Scott Benner 6:49
watched it on the monitor, I only had a local block. They blocked me from my shoulder down, and I realized, I was like, What's that for? And they said, Oh, it's we do a lot of the surgery on the monitor. I was like, Oh, can I say it? And the guy was like, seriously? I'm like, yeah. So he turned it towards me, and I watched the surgery. It's pretty cool. I just had a double deviation fixed in my nose. I had broken cartilage, double deviation and some other stuff from a fall when I was younger. I couldn't breathe anymore, and now I can breathe like a baby. It's awesome. Okay,

Chelsea Morgan 7:19
I'm gonna be so weird. Have you seen the Facebook ads for the breathe right strip that is like metal and it opens the nose. All I can think is that you took that first deep breath and was like, This is what breathing is. Oh, that's amazing. I don't know how to handle this right now. Chelsea, I

Scott Benner 7:38
wanna tell you something. It was so bad over the last couple of years, right? So I had, I couldn't sing in the car anymore. I'd get out of breath. I'd get like, Oh God, I'm not okay. Out of breath. The editor of the podcast was having to every time I finished speaking, he'd have to edit out where I would go afterwards, because I was, I hold my breath when I'm speaking, usually. So like, think of if you really listen to the podcast, think about that. I go off for a minute or so, not breathing. It's not even fully healed yet, and it's 1000 times better than it was. I'm still obstructed from the natural process of the healing, and it's already amazing. I did have that feeling, though, when it was not just when it was like, Oh my gosh, this is incredible. But prior to the surgery, I actually said to a couple of people, the surgeon being one of them, genuinely, sincerely embarrassed, but I said, how do people breathe? And the guy looks at me real strange. And I was like, like, you know, like, air comes in and it goes out. Where does it go in? Where does it go out? And he goes your nose. And I said, People breathe in and out through their nose.

Chelsea Morgan 8:43
Oh no.

Scott Benner 8:44
And he looked at me so sad. I was like, and I think at first he thought, like, is this guy mess? I'm like, I didn't that really, ha, that's how people breathe. I was like, that's awesome. Do you think I'll just naturally do it, or will I have to teach

Chelsea Morgan 8:57
myself? Well, what was it? Did you have to teach yourself? I

Scott Benner 9:00
find myself doing it without thinking about it, which I find very encouraging in the first two weeks. That's awesome. Yeah. So anyway, I didn't realize that people, I guess everybody, could, like, insert their mouth, breathe their jokes here if they want to. But I did not realize that people inhaled and exhaled through their nose. I thought it was one or the other, and I just didn't know which it was.

Chelsea Morgan 9:19
I have a weird thing about my face, because I have TMJ, so I scrunch my face really hard. If I'm petting a dog, I can start crying because my face starts to hurt so bad from grinding my teeth just petting a dog. It's like one of those things that is like, how do people just sit here and pet their dog without doing that? I totally understand what you're saying, and I know that's weird thing to say, but it's something I think about too. It's something

Scott Benner 9:43
I think about too. Not at all. Okay, so now the other part, would you say borderline personality? When does that get diagnosed? I

Chelsea Morgan 9:50
was diagnosed with that. I believe I was 23 or I might have just turned 24 I'm sure many people say, you know, I'm by I'm acting. Bipolar with the mood swings, but bipolar has more of the mood swings that take longer time frames. So you're going to be happy for a few months, maybe even for a few years. It's not the automatic swing within hours. For me, I can go from zero to 100 and then right back down to zero again. And that was a learned process. I did extensive outpatient therapy for over six months of four days a week, three hours, three, four hours a week, a day. Sorry, just learned how to how to be. I'm going to say normal, air quote, normal. I have these emotions that are really big, and they come out, not always at the best time, but I've grown. I've grown in the last six years, so much from that and continuing therapy, my medication cycle, all of those kinds of things. What's

Scott Benner 10:49
the medical understanding of how that happens? I don't

Chelsea Morgan 10:52
know that. I've done a whole lot of research into the why? Because it's like bipolar, where you get diagnosed as an adult. It can be a chemical imbalance. I do know that I still struggle, even though I'm on really great meds, and I do have really good days. I'm have more good days than I have bad days now. But I do know that a lot of it can be environmentally impacted, so depending on your family, how you were raised, you know, if you come from an impoverished area. I'm not saying that I did, but a lot of trauma. I did have a lot of trauma growing up, and that spurred me into not knowing how to handle my emotions, and I think a lot of that caused me to need to grow and and learn how to have healthy emotions, which wasn't something I was so good, always good at

Scott Benner 11:40
would you be comfortable sharing what some of those traumas were? I My

Chelsea Morgan 11:44
parents divorced very when I was very young, but my dad lived in Maine while my mom lived in Pennsylvania. And as a single mom, my mom's life wasn't always easy. She was also in the military, but Army National Guard, so full time. You know, we moved around a whole, whole lot. That makes it hard. I didn't know how to maintain relationships with people from a lot of those things. And this is growth, you know, I have talked to my mom about a lot of this, so I am, that's why I'm comfortable talking about it. And then my stepdad was deployed when I was 16, and he was a big rock in my life, and it wasn't so solid when we when he came home, things were tumultuous, because it was Afghanistan, and that is what it is. And then me myself. I joined the Army straight out of high school, because they always said, and I love them for it, because they wanted me to have goals. They said I had three options. I could go to school full time and not pay rent. I could work full time and pay them rent, or I could join the military and go explore the world. And so I chose to go explore the world because I didn't quite know what I wanted to do with my life. Despite going to school for culinary and baking, focusing on baking as a teenager, and having a full ride scholarship to Johnson and Wales and Rhode Island, I gave all of that up so that I could serve my country. I was a fifth generation. I can trace it back before the Second World War of my family. Yeah, I am not comfortable talking about the trauma that happened in there, but I'm sure that you can imagine the things that happened.

Scott Benner 13:15
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Chelsea Morgan 15:17
Yes and No my mom, oh gosh, the day I told my mom I was joining the military, we got into a really big fight, because she wanted me to go to college. I had the will, I had the drive. I was an extremely good student, and I had a really big, promising future that I fought for to get there. And she's like, why are you giving this up? And so she didn't understand. But for me, I knew I would. I didn't want to spend all my money on school if I wasn't ready, and I wasn't making enough to even live as a teenager, so that's why I went that route, pride, yes, but a lot of like, get myself out in the world and get some real world experience. And it was great, because I became a paralegal. And when I became a paralegal in the army, I come out of the army and I've got a job right away. I had served in South Korea as a confinement facility paralegal, working with those enlisted who were dealing with incarceration and getting them home. I worked with the South Korean government and taking care of our soldiers who were confined there things like that. And it was such a life experience that when I came home, I had job opportunity. I right away, went into being a paralegal and getting my degree as a paralegal as well.

Scott Benner 16:34
I see awesome so you don't regret the not going the bacon cooking route.

Chelsea Morgan 16:40
Sometimes I wonder how my life would be different. I can't say I'd regret it though I wouldn't have my children, and that was the whole reason I didn't want to be a baker, was because bakers get up really early and they have to work on the weekends. And I knew I wanted children, and I wanted to be there for them, and I couldn't see myself getting up that early, and you know, not being there for them at that time, I

Scott Benner 17:03
have to tell you, it's what made me stop doing it. So really, were you a baker? I had no idea. So when I headed into high school, your options were go to high school or you could go to technical school and high school. Yeah, I only went because it was a day away from school in middle school, like, you could go visit the tech school and look around. So I went for the day off, if I'm being perfectly honest, you know, they're, they're touring the building. And, I mean, it was interesting, the way it was set up and everything. But nothing like, really sparked my interest. I was like, oh, like, there was actually a class where you just made school lunches and served them, like, like, right, there was, that was and it was a class. It was a three year course. And there was a three year class where, like, you ran the school store, like it was retail, and there was a hairdressers, and there was small engine repair. I'm trying to remember everything that was in there, metal shop, like, like, that kind of thing. And I was like, I don't really care about any of this. And then, if I'm being 100% honest, I enjoy cooking, baking more so, but just, you know, recreationally at home, but there were a lot of pretty girls in the baking class. And I was like, Oh, I guess if I was going to do it, I would do this, but I still had no real interest in it. And then at the end, at the, you know, they, they're kind of explaining everything at the end, and then they explained the schedule. And as soon as they explained the schedule, I was like, I'm coming here to avoid going to high school. Like, this is awesome. The schedule was two solid weeks at high school and then two solid weeks at the technical

Chelsea Morgan 18:31
school. Oh, y'all. Did it differently? Well,

Scott Benner 18:35
in a three year period, because my, I think my middle school went to ninth grade, so I was in ninth grade. So I was in ninth grade when that was happening, so I figured I have three years left. I have to go to high school for three years, or I have to go to high school for a year and a half. And I was like, cha ching. That makes a ton of sense to me. So I spent three years every other week, or excuse me, every two weeks, and we ran like an industrial bakery, and then we sold to the community, yes, and I was incredibly good at it by the time it was over, and I enjoyed it. And then I got a job at a bakery, and I was like, wait, I have to be here at 1am I swear to you, I may have done it for a week. And then I said, I'm so sorry, but I can't do this. And I stopped. So I

Chelsea Morgan 19:21
went to in our high school. Every ninth grader goes and sees our CTC, and I went with everybody. And I I loved cooking with my stepdad, and he's a phenomenal cook. Still is to this day, really great cook. And I said, you know, I want to learn more about this. My parents saw me going to Harvard and becoming a lawyer. I said it for years that I was going to and I was like, you know, I kind of want to give this a try. They were upset. We talked about it a lot for a long time, and then they agreed to let me join. And I think it was my third or fourth week. And because we do culinary and baking, we're all together, so you learn both skills. And they needed somebody to compete at a regional level for baking and pastry. And they asked me, because I don't know, I just struck them as somebody who might be interested. I was a 10th grader who knew nothing, and I loved it, and I took off with it and went to state level for competing and everything, and it's a lot of fun. Now, it's great because I choose to cook different foods for Derek. Sometimes it's not all the time, but when I do, I have a knowledge, a baseline knowledge, of what I need to do thanks to my time there.

Scott Benner 20:37
I do think I'm I'm just generally speaking better in the kitchen because of it, yeah? And even, like, Arden enjoys baking, and so I'll help her sometimes, and but we used to do it at scale, like, I didn't make a loaf of bread, right? I made 150 loaves of bread, yeah? And like, you know, you didn't make cinnamon buns, you made 1000 cinnamon buns, like, it was that kind of stuff. So it was a great time. I really do remember it fondly. And the girls were pretty and so that helped I once was we had our own, like, locker rooms with bathrooms like, you know, for for the bakery, and we makes it sound like everybody, but a few of the we used to, used to, like, congregate inside of them, but it wasn't a unisex situation. So, you know, a lot of times you'd be in the girls bathroom, talking to the girls, so they'd be in the men's room, or, like, that's kind of how it just worked. I was suspended one time because I got caught in the ladies room. Oh, no, I was there invited. I just want to say, I think some of the girls were smoking and we were talking about, like, what? I don't know what the hell we were talking about. I guess the teacher realized that we were gone and probably smelled the smoke coming from the girls room, and like, kind of came in and said, I'm coming in. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh my god. So I literally, like, out of a bad movie, was in the stall, standing up on the toilet trying to get away with it, and I did not get away with it. So I got it, got a couple days off. Ironically, I went to tech school to get time off, and they gave me even more time off. Yeah, I was just gonna say, how'd it work out? It's very nice of them, honestly. Okay, so tell me a little bit about learning about your son's diagnosis. That

Chelsea Morgan 22:14
was hard. I love talking about my story with Derek, and he loves me talking about it, so I'm gonna give it to you as plain as I give to everybody else. I got really sick, but before I got sick, Derek would walk up to me and he'd drink 16 ounces, like from a water bottle and ask for more water. And I was like, That's so weird. This is a little weird. So I googled it. Is it a sign of a growth spurt? Because I know when you eat a lot, you grow but I was like, maybe, maybe I just don't know anything fair enough growth spurt. No, that's not what Google said. But he had, he still does. He has a lot of issues going on now. He's been diagnosed with ADHD, and he has a language disorder and anxiety disorder. At the time, we thought he might be autistic, and we did have him tested. So weird things are going on. If I tell somebody that I think my child has type one diabetes, they're going to tell me I have Munchausen, because I'm always trying to come up with something for him. And that's not accurate. It always came that something happened, but it made me feel crazy, like I thought we were going to have this normal childhood, and it was just turning into so much more. So fast forward, I get a stomach bug, and I was very sick laying on the couch. I was having a hard time. Couldn't even stand up without needing to run to the bathroom. And Derek starts vomiting, and I'm like, Okay, well, he's got my stomach bug. No big deal. Well, we'll we'll monitor, make sure he's getting his fluids. And my husband is home. He's a gamer, and he's gaming, and he's like, Yeah, Derek. Derek fell asleep underneath, under my computer, and he'd wake up and he talked to me, and he just fall right back asleep. But every time he drinks something, within 2025, minutes, he's throwing up and it's not staying down. I said, Okay, I think at this point you need to get him to the hospital. He's dehydrated. We need to make sure he's going to be okay, because it's a lot of throwing up, yeah, because it's COVID time in 2022 still, you know, they're so strict on the precautions, I knew I wasn't going to be allowed to go in because I was sick too. So Ryan takes him, and I text him a while later, and I'm like, Hey, what's going on? And he goes, they took his blood sugar, and it just said, Hi. And he like, just put h i so I'm like, What? What does this even mean? What are you talking about? And he goes, I don't know any more than that, because he's a guy, and he's not the most adept at being in the hospital and advocating for what he needs. So I call him, and I say, put the nurse on the phone. He's like, you don't have to do that. I said, Yes, I do. And I and she puts him on the phone, and she tells me, and I said, Wow. She goes. We think that he was actually passing out all those times he was falling asleep. He was actually passing out. And so I come into the hospital, they're going to transfer him. We use chop because we're outside of Philly, and they wanted us to go to Penn State. And I am not talking Penn State. I'm sure that they are great over in Hershey. But I said chop is number one for endocrine. We are going to endocrine. I don't care if we have to wait. We're going there. So I have time to make it in and and tell my baby how much I love him and how sorry I am. And the doctor pulls me aside and he goes, Miss Morgan, if you would have waited two more hours, your son would have died. Oh my gosh, how high was his blood sugar. He was over 1000 his a 1c, was 10.3 but he looked like death. He looked like a skeleton. I have pictures of him. I mean, it was pretty bad. He lost in his little 38 pound body. He went down to 30 pounds. And so he was, he was pretty sick for a while that I didn't recognize. How long do you think it was going on? For probably a month, maybe a little bit more. And I kill myself for that, you know, hard to

Scott Benner 26:02
say. It felt so bad, you know, I understand it happened to us, and I understand how you feel. My gosh. Okay, so now you're a thought, you're sick and at the hospital, and you guys are going to chop like, What's the process like of getting him from where he was to being healthy? I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies, I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us med. Us med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, US med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod 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 g7 they accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at us med.com/juicebox, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting Your supplies the same way we do.

Chelsea Morgan 27:41
He was in for four days. He responded really well to the insulin, so they didn't have to keep him in for too long. He didn't have to go ICU either, which was amazing. He started on a on a potassium drip, and was receiving insulin and they, you know, had to do all of our education. So within a day, I was feeling better, so I came down the next day and stayed with him and learned all of the shots and stuff. He was so amazing. Now this is before it was with daddy, so he would just lay there. They put IVs in him. They're giving him insulin via syringe. He's just laying there. He's not, not complaining. The moment I walk in that room, the child's Water Works turn on, he is back to himself. He is like my mom is here, and I can tell you exactly how I'm feeling, and it ain't good. So we had a lot to work through and learn. His finger pokes. Never a problem. But giving him the insulin. I mean, there were times where I was one leg over his body, my other arm holding on to him, and I'm just trying to put insulin in his arm where I can it was quite the fight, but initially he was really good in the hospital, a really good listener to what the doctors were saying. He is extremely intelligent, so I'm not surprised, but at that time, we didn't realize how smart he was, so we it was just really he was a good kid. I can't complain.

Scott Benner 29:05
That's awesome. How did it make you feel awful?

Chelsea Morgan 29:09
I thought I was killing my child. I held a lot of regret, because I felt like if I would have caught it earlier, maybe something could have been different. And realizing now all my research now, I know nothing would have been different. We just would have known sooner, and he might not have had to stay in the hospital as long, but I felt like I failed my child, and he had enough going on. Why am I doing this to him too? But I have rule, and I still have this rule to this day, I get 24 hours, 24 hours to feel really bad about myself, to kick my butt, to to feel the guilt and cry as much as I need to, but after that, 24 hours, we're turning it off. We're going into mom mode, and we're gonna figure out how to live our life with this disease or whatever it is that we have going on, like our ADHD stuff going on. I feel guilt over all. These things as his mom, I'm not bringing that to the surface. That stuff is going to stay, you know, I might talk to my therapist about it, but I'm not showing my child this. We're going to be strong, we're going to get through it, and we're going to do it as a family. And I recognize his emotions. I'm not telling him not to have them, but I don't dwell, because if I do that, you know, the mental health stuff starts to pick up and I can't that's not good mom. I'm not gonna be a bad mom. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna shove that down a little bit, and I'm gonna handle business. Are

Scott Benner 30:29
you able to do that for yourself as well, or is it only control that you can assert when it's for the kids?

Chelsea Morgan 30:36
That's a really good question. At this point. I don't know that. There's a whole lot that would make me lose my mind. The way that I I lost it about Derek and the guilt that I felt even competing in pageantry, I at the end of the day, you know, if you don't win, that can be tough. But I, I don't hold on to that. I just go, Okay, what's next? And and move forward. Yeah. So

Scott Benner 30:58
I learned a skill. Did a therapist teach that to you?

Chelsea Morgan 31:02
No, I think that's a life experience, not so much a therapy experience. Give

Scott Benner 31:07
yourself 24 hours and then that's that, right? Does it ever not work? Do you ever wake up on the 26th hour and go, Hey, what the hell

Chelsea Morgan 31:15
I don't even know that I gave myself a full 24 hours for Derek's diagnosis. So sometimes I think I'll give myself an hour here or there. You know, the burnout does happen, but for the most part, no, I don't. After I've set my mind to this is what we're going to do, I'm very hard headed. We're having a discussion about what we're doing for our vacation, and I'm like, This is my plan. This is it. We're not deviating. This is Chelsea's plan. And Ryan loves me for that. He's not an overly emotional person, but he also doesn't want to plan everything. So I get the plan, I set the plan in motion, and we all just follow, and they're happy to do that. So when it comes to all things, I tend to just find my way as I think is necessary, because I put on a really good front for people. I might break down, you know, and this is for diabetes. This is for relationships with other people. This is all of it. At nighttime, I might give myself time to cry. I might become very vulnerable. But in the daylight, I try to be as strong as possible, because I've learned one that not a whole lot of people care if you're sad, if they have their own things going on, they don't necessarily want to hear what you have going on all the time. There's a lot worse going on in the world, and not everybody wants to listen to my my sob story all the time. It's very, very adult of you.

Scott Benner 32:38
Oh, thanks. It took a while? Yeah, no. I mean, it's a big leap for people to make. How do you start off with managing is it? I mean, it's really little. Did they try to give you pens? Did they talk to you about a CGM? I'm interested in how that went. Chop

Chelsea Morgan 32:53
is very big into requiring you to have an extreme amount of time understanding how to work out the math for giving insulin. So we did not start off with, well, I will say pens. I don't understand because we didn't have them. So I can't say, like, I don't know how much you can control that, compared to syringes. We've always used a needle syringe, but they say that you have to have six months of Dexcom, free pod, free time, so that you are capable. Three to six. I'll say three to six.

Scott Benner 33:27
Shout out chop, which was Arden's Arden's hospital growing up. Yes, absolutely. That's not right. There's no reason to keep somebody from a CGM for six months. I understand the idea and everything, but that's my opinion. I think that's wrong. But go ahead,

Chelsea Morgan 33:42
now that we're here, now that we have it, I totally agree with you. But sorry, cats biting me. What

Scott Benner 33:49
just happened? My cat

Chelsea Morgan 33:50
was biting me. He's a love nibbler. He wants it's his way of saying, like, love me. I didn't know

Scott Benner 33:58
I'd have anything in common with your cat, that's awesome. Do you think we can call this episode Love nibbler? Because I believe we're going to, oh yes, unless you can sum up with something better. I was actually stuck on 25th hour because I don't know how the hell I jumped over 20 from 24 to 26 when I made my my comment earlier, but we're gonna go with love Nibbler for now, go ahead. I'm sorry,

Chelsea Morgan 34:21
that's fine. By the way, our cats names Christoph and Elsa. So Christoph was the one nibbling he's my nibbler. So anyway, so top has this like, you know, they they want us to wait. And I was okay with that, mainly because Derek didn't want it. And body autonomy is extremely important to me for my children, especially with all that he's had going on. So he sees these things sitting on people's arms. He doesn't understand what they are, because he's four going on five, and he's like, No, this is no, I'm not doing this, but we were still fighting the needle. Levels. And it wasn't until I went to a friend and was talking to her and she she had done a lot more research into the diabetes than I had, I kind of took it step by step. I took what chop was giving me, rather than I didn't join, like, I didn't join groups until he was eight months into his diagnosis. I did research, but I didn't go so far into like diet changes or anything like that. I wanted to know the why behind it more than the what to do with it at that moment, and that's just how I dealt with it. But anyway, so she tells me, Chelsea, body autonomy is important, but he is five years old, and he doesn't understand that these are life saving devices and they're going to make all of your lives easier, because we were still at the point where I was holding him down to give him insulin, and he was choosing not to eat so he wouldn't get insulin. It wasn't all the time, but you know, he would rather not have a snack when he's a little. He was 35 pounds, just so tiny when you think about it. I took my friend's advice. I went and I pushed to get the pump. We were probably five months in when we got the pump. We were four months in, I believe when we got Dexcom. Can I be honest about something that that I didn't that I was a bad parent for but I didn't know it was bad parents, please. I didn't know that parents that don't have their kids on CGM wake up at like 2am and check their kids blood sugar. I didn't do that,

Scott Benner 36:22
by the way, chop gave me that advice 20 years ago. I said, What about testing overnight? They said, don't worry about it. I said, well, the why is it important if I test during the day? No answer, right? Yeah, go ahead.

Chelsea Morgan 36:32
They didn't tell me. I had no idea. And so I'm sleeping through the night. And my mother in law is going by the way, my mother in law is my best friend. Her name is Sherry. She is very supportive of us. She learned everything to take care of Derek immediately, because they have weekly sleepovers. And she's a wonderful advocate for Derek as much as I am, so I have to give her all the props and shout out for this. But, you know, we get him on the Dexcom, and she's like, you know, everybody says their kids go low overnight and and we don't know that. And I was like, yeah, he wakes up. I mean, he wakes up. So I clearly I'm not doing anything wrong. He's alive, right? Get the Dexcom. And I realized how much he's waking up, and I'm going, oh, did I almost kill my kid? How much did my child almost die? And I had no idea. And that was very eye opening for me. So then we pushed to get the pod, and we get the pod, and that gave us more control, because he's he was little, and he still does this. He's peckish. He doesn't always eat when he wants to, or says he's going to, doesn't eat all of it. So, you know, giving him insulin hasn't always been easy, but they also didn't tell us about pre bolusing when he was in the hospital. They're just like, well, give him insulin once he's eat. And I'm sure their thought is, well, he's little, so he may not eat everything. The problem is, he's little, and he eats everything, like everything in sight. So learning about pre bolusing once we have the Omnipod. And why didn't I know these things? Where were these things when I needed them, and it gave us a huge sense of freedom. And Derek felt it immediately, and the need for him not to have it went away. He wasn't uncomfortable. He willingly took the changes, even when they were hard. The biggest thing for us was learning that we needed to get Goo Gone, or we were using unisol, and now they don't have the liquid unisol, so getting that kind of stuff so that we can get them off, that was the worst part. Was getting them off. I was just ripping them, tearing his skin off. Tell me

Scott Benner 38:31
now with hindsight, if chop comes to you and says you don't you need six months of learning the math, what would you say to

Chelsea Morgan 38:38
them? Pound sand.

Scott Benner 38:42
Why? Why are they wrong?

Chelsea Morgan 38:43
You can do both things. You can learn the math, and you can have the tools that you need. Giving him the Omnipod gave him better blood sugars immediately. It wasn't over time, he still was not having good agencies. He was eight. He was in the eight. And I get it for some people, that's great. His a 1c is 6.3 right now, we are not having crazy lows. I mean, sometimes, but that's a god bless my son, by the way,

Scott Benner 39:12
you would have had those lows without the CGM too, right? Here it is, in a nutshell, having a CGM or a specific way of delivering insulin and or both, even perhaps, and understanding how diabetes work. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. It is not an either or situation. You can actually do both at the same time. Crazy.

Chelsea Morgan 39:34
I appreciate the knowledge that they gave me. Listen

Scott Benner 39:38
how nice you are. Go ahead.

Chelsea Morgan 39:40
I know that they're number one. I fully support them being number one for other things too. My friends have different problems with their endocrine systems that I've learned a lot about, and chop has been very good about and helping to handle I think that the handling of this is wrong and. And I give my friends all of my information. I mean, I mentally unload. There have been a total of five. And I know for you, you've probably do you, I don't even know if you keep count of how many people you've saved by sharing your information, like sharing Arden

Scott Benner 40:15
story. I wouldn't know how to count that. But I I wonder. Sometimes I

Chelsea Morgan 40:19
started Derek's defenders, which is our soon to be nonprofit, so that I can share Derek's story more and give people things, even small things. Like, I want to give out eyelet ports. Are you familiar with them? The injection ports, right? Yes, yep. I want to give those out to people when they're when they're diagnosed with, like, kids get getting diagnosed with diabetes, because the pain that my son felt doesn't have to be there, like, let's you know, things like that, but I share Derek's story through Derek's defenders. And the reason I do that is because I don't want a doctor walking up to my friends or to strangers, I don't know, saying two more hours and you would have killed your son. I don't want that for anyone. I don't want them to feel those things. So that's why we talk about diabetes. I go to schools. I go to on I get on the news as much as I can. You letting me talk about this right now? I mean, I'm sharing Derek's story. You're sharing you share Arden story all the time. These are ways that we are saving people and and that's just what I want. That's and that's Derek's goal too. He became a JDRF Ambassador this year, so he can share his story more. It's lovely

Scott Benner 41:21
that you're getting out there and telling that story. That story. I think that just sharing what's happening, you know, in real time is valuable and let people, you know, figure things out for themselves. Like, what if, instead of somebody telling you this is how it has to be, they said, This is how it could be. It could also be like this. We could also do a mix of these things. What do you think sounds right?

Chelsea Morgan 41:41
Yeah, you know, I live that life right now. I'm sure you hear this all the time because of your community on Facebook about, you know, carbs, no carbs, wheat, no wheat, all those kinds of things. And we choose the mixture of lifestyle, you know, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't, and and I think that that's important for people to choose how they want to have their life, but I think that, knowing that information, I think that chop should share how people are going low carb as an option. They're not saying you have to do this. They're just saying, here is an option for you.

Scott Benner 42:14
No, I don't think anybody has to do anything. And I don't actually, I mean, I've said this 1000 times, maybe on the podcast, but I think that we get to where we are, you know, slowly, historically, meaning, you know, 20 years ago, it was probably a great thing to say to somebody like you really need to understand this before you get a pump, because, but what's the rest of that for? Because back then, their concern was, if you inject a basal insulin. Then even if you don't Bolus for your meals, even if you get your carb counting super wrong, you'll have some background insulin happening. You won't end up in DK, that is what they were hoping for, right? Like, so if I put somebody on a pump and they don't know how to use the pump, maybe they won't get their basal delivered correctly, or maybe the pot or the pump site will go bad and they won't change it, they'll end up in DK, like I get, where the the idea started, and how it progresses through technology. But the problem is, is that 20 some years later, they're saying the same thing, and the game has completely changed, right? Right? It's a different game, and you're using old rules, right? That's all

Chelsea Morgan 43:17
I do. Think about the people too, when it comes to the basal and Bolus, who dose themselves with the wrong one, and I see it daily in the group's help, I gave myself 34 units of quick acting insulin for sure. Oh, my God, I can't do that on my pod. Thank God we can't do that, that kind of stuff. Also,

Scott Benner 43:41
what a great opportunity to learn about, like, how the food impacts the insulin versus how the insulin impacts the food. Thank God, they come online and talk about it, because, first of all, they get great, great feedback, right? If people are like, look, just reverse engineer, like, what you do 10 units? Like, you know, what's your car ratio? Oh, your carb ratio is one to 10. Wow. You can eat 100 carbs right now. Like, I bet you haven't done that in a while. Like, yeah. Like, go get, you know, that kind of thing or and then they learn and, you know, other people get to see it happen, and hopefully it stops them from doing it. I'm just telling you that we should not be talking about things now based on problems that existed in the past, that generally speaking, don't exist anymore. I agree. Okay, I give you a pump and you don't know how to use it. You get insulin. Well, if you were also wearing a CGM, then the thing would beep when your blood sugar got high, right? Problem solved, you know, so. And you get all of the myriad of benefits that come with seeing your data in real time, which is absolutely expensive anyway. How's he chugging along right now? Like, How's Derek making out? Well, we just had COVID last week. So retro of you, that was a learning

Chelsea Morgan 44:45
curve. He's never had COVID before, especially being sick. So that was quite the learning curve for his insulin needs, but he's great. Last night, we had a pod that was very uncomfortable. He came in upset because it was you. Digging, and it cracked. The whole pod cracked and was digging into his skin. So we changed that. But anyway, that, I mean, that's day to day stuff. He's great. He wears his pods out in public for people to see. He tells everybody he'll walk into a room and be like, I have type one diabetes, just so everyone knows for so that he can be safe and so that he can talk about it. He's so cute with it. I love him. He's different. If you met him, he you would love him too. I know it. He's just a really great kid, and he doesn't let it hold him back. He does baseball. He's in Cub Scouts. He plays outside every single day with his friends, or inside if it's cold, because we live in Pennsylvania and the weather doesn't know what to do with itself right now. He lives his best life. He's gone to diabetes camp, not really wanting to go this year, but that's okay. He's gone to other summer camps that in our area are willing to accept type one diabetes, and I love them for that. I keep tight control when he's there so and I make sure he's not too far that I couldn't come If there was an emergency. And he lives his very best life. I think that Derek is going to have a great life, no matter what he chooses to do with it. He's gonna go very far.

Scott Benner 46:08
What if I met him and I didn't like him? Wouldn't that be awkward?

Chelsea Morgan 46:11
It would be really awkward. But I don't know how you would do that. You'd have to like, really not like kids. He's just

Scott Benner 46:17
like, oh my god, your kid is terrible. I hate this kid.

Chelsea Morgan 46:21
Well, I will say that ADHD makes some things hard. He doesn't always know how to stay still, and is very technology obsessed, which is hard, but we work on that, and he's come a long way in the last two years with with everything that he's got going

Scott Benner 46:38
on. What does technology obsess mean? He likes his phone. What are we talking about here? He wants

Chelsea Morgan 46:42
to play Minecraft. 24/7, he will play I don't know. Do you have an iPhone? I'm sure you have an iPhone. I'm looking at one right now. All right, so if you download game pigeon on your phone, play games with people through text messaging. It's bad, but you can play beer pong. They call it cup Pong, but you can like beer pong on your phone with somebody that's forever away, and there you go. You're playing games battleship. They play checkers and chess. He does love chess, so he'll play chess on his phone. He loves we're a very big Disney family, so we watch a lot of Disney movies. He wants, he wants a screen in his face all the time. And I know that's a generational thing that they're seeing that, you know, kids, we were not an iPad family. He did not have that kind of access, but he wants that TV on all the time, and I think it helps his brain calm down. So he's pretty tech

Scott Benner 47:36
obsessed. Awesome. Listen, I loved technology when I was growing up. I mean, it wasn't really technology back then, but I really did love it. So I had an Atari, you know, like people were like, What is this magic in your house? Like, it's a video game in my house, my friend, my

Chelsea Morgan 47:51
husband, is very big into gaming. He has a very nice setup upstairs. He streams with his friends, and so he sees his dad doing it, playing these hardcore games that he can't, you know, you can't get out of because if you stop playing, I don't know what's gonna happen, but something's gonna happen. They might come and find you. That's my theory.

Scott Benner 48:12
I had a robot when I was a kid, and it was a few feet tall, honestly, like two and a half feet tall, and it was on a base, and it had like treads under it. And everything you had to program it like there was the little buttons on the front and it they were just forward, left, right. And so you would just, like, hit Program, and then go, like, go 123, segments forward, then make a left turn. One segment, then go forward, two segments, make a right and then it would walk through the house. That was technology. Like my first remote control car had a cord between the remote control and the car. What? That's a thing. I'm old. Yeah, my first video game was a knob on the side of my television. On there was a knob on either side, the left or right side, so you could play Pong. Oh my gosh, you'd throw a switch on the TV, and the TV would shut off, and this blue, screen would come up, and then you had you turn the dial LEFT or RIGHT, and the paddle, which was just a block, like a bar, would go up and down the right side of the screen, and the one on the left side of the screen, and then a ball would come out, but the ball was square, and then you would touch it, and it would bounce, and then ricochet, and the other person would try to stop it from going off their side. That was it. I mean, that was a real thing we had. So do you like game? Do you game now? No, no, I stopped when I became an adult.

Chelsea Morgan 49:31
I hope my husband listens to this. I'm gonna

Scott Benner 49:33
tell your husband what happened. I had a kid. One day I bought him Madden, and he loved it. And I realized I'm an adult and I have things to do, and I never played it again. Oh, yeah, that's all. Also he was way better at it than me. It was very frustrating,

Chelsea Morgan 49:52
right? Derek does play he does play college football on the TV with his dad that he likes to do that too. But Ryan still. Bottom on that. I think we've got at least another year before Derek starts beating him at all games. Yeah,

Scott Benner 50:04
I don't know. I just I've gotten to the point in my life where I don't have enough time to like, like, sometimes I find myself going, Why? Why won't I go pee like, I think when you get to that point, you're not like, you know, we should do we should settle in and play Madden. So I just don't have that kind of time anymore. I don't know if I did have that kind of time. Truth is, I do something else with it too.

Chelsea Morgan 50:25
So So I do over 600 hours of community service this year alone. I'm at 600 and it's a lot of work. So when I see them playing, I'm like, go find something to do, find somebody who can, who you can help, or at least go find a friend to talk to. Why? Why are we playing this anymore? But I tell my kids this, don't yuck. Someone else is yum. So just because I don't like it doesn't mean they don't have to, and I will be as respectful as I emotionally can handle that day. That's fine. I'm

Scott Benner 50:58
gonna regret not asking you this, and I feel like I might regret asking you this, but you say you the 2024 what

Chelsea Morgan 51:05
I'm the International Women of service, sweetheart. I won an international pageant in July of last year, and so I competed and won, and the sweetheart is our age division. Thank

Scott Benner 51:18
God you said it again, because for the life of me. I kept thinking, you saying sweet, tart. And I was like, I don't understand. Like, well, I mean,

Chelsea Morgan 51:25
I am sweet like that. You might pucker up. It's okay. Remember, love nibbles. What is that we focus on community service. That's why I started. I did not start pageantry as a young woman. I well as a young as a child, I started pageantry as an adult a few years ago through they were originally American women of service, but have since escalated to being an international pageant that focused on community service and the women as a whole. So you won't see us on stage in bikinis or things like that. We are a Scholarship Pageant focused on who we are as women and young children, because we do have a child's division as well. We come together, we do a lot of community service and focus on those who need more than us, or whatever our passion is, because for me, my passion raised type one diabetes, but really it's the medical community and supporting them, however, I can where my sister, Queen Kathy, is in Las Vegas, and she loves working with goody two shoes, who give shoes to children of all of their schools in Las Vegas, which is so cool. I love her platform focusing on that. And my other friend knits hats for babies in the NICU or somebody going through cancer. And another friend, you know, all of these different things that we do, we come together and we celebrate that through our pageant experience, I still get to look beautiful in a dress. Interview is the highest point. So I have to talk to people and explain who I am, what I what I focus on, and where I plan to go, and then we get to rock that stage in whatever we choose. That's

Scott Benner 53:04
awesome. That's a great way to shine a light on community service being done.

Chelsea Morgan 53:07
Yes, we I love it. It's a huge part of who I am. I did not do a whole lot of community service throughout my childhood. Wasn't really sure how I could get into that, even in my adulthood, where to look for that. So when somebody I saw or somebody I knew through Facebook won a pageant, I was like, oh, that sounds like fun. And I was in the middle of my diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and really needing to find who I was again. So I said to Ryan, hey, I think this is something I want to try. And he's such a supportive husband. He's like, Okay, please don't ask me to come. They came but and they loved it this year. But he's he's just been so great about it, because I now I have all of these contacts, and I do so much. I work with the Adelyn Rose Foundation. I work with Ronald McDonald Make A Wish Foundation, and a lot of different opportunities, uh, warm blanket Hugs is somebody to do a lot of work for. So I love the ability to get out there and talk about diabetes, but also see where other people are and meet them with what they need, or just a shoulder to cry on. Well, Your husband

Scott Benner 54:14
must is really supportive because he's giving up his College Game Day time to come out and watch you. The kids come watch you do it. Derek

Chelsea Morgan 54:22
did come and watch. Blake was still a little young. He's five and a half at that point, and we didn't think he was gonna sit through a whole day. Derek didn't do the best sitting still, but when they put the crown on my head, the whole room was quiet. You know, they had cheered for me already, so they were quiet, just waiting for me to take my first walk. And Derek yells out, good job, Mama. And just the whole place there wasn't a dry eye, including myself. I pulled him up on stage with me because I told him this one was for him. I share his story all over the country because of him, so that people know what diabetes looks like ahead of time to save, to save that life if they need it. And and so he knows that this is as much for me as it is for him. Yeah,

Scott Benner 55:04
that's really wonderful. There is something here in your notes that I wanted to ask you about. What a weird thing for me to keep to the end. I guess I don't understand exactly what you mean when you said you just said medical bullying.

Chelsea Morgan 55:14
Oh yes, when I entered those Facebook groups initially, I saw a lot of families posting, and if you remember, I waited a long time to join those groups on purpose because I couldn't. I knew I wasn't going to be able to handle all the information at one time, but I saw a lot of parents posting because it was the back to school time that their child dealt with somebody smashing their phone or being taunted, don't play with them, because if you play with them, you're going to get diabetes or not inviting them to a party, because there's going to be sugar. And mom didn't understand that said child could have sugar as long as they were dosed for it. And that broke my mom heart, because I don't want Derek to be treated different. I know he is different, but I don't want him to be treated that way. I want him to have a whole life experience that is filled with love and care and support. So the focus on medical bullying comes around talk bringing diabetes to the kids, explaining what it is. I give it. I basically say, and people might crucify me for this on the internet, but I say, for a five year old, I will tell them he's allergic to sugar. Oh, we understand what that means. I'm allergic to bees, I'm allergic to gluten. I'm, you know, they can understand that at that level, but the older they get, I'm giving them more information into what diabetes really is, and by doing that, Derek doesn't face bullying. He's not left out of anything. Parents actually send in treats that are de friendly, because they know we don't give cupcakes. It's just our personal choice. They'll send in something else. And he doesn't know any different life than any other child. I think that a lot of the bullying that happens, and this isn't just for diabetes, it's for all things, is because you don't understand. So if you're watching a child get diagnosed or deal with an autism diagnosis, and they're getting bullied because of it, kids don't understand it. And so I bring that information to them, but I also share it with parents and teachers and faculty, because they might treat him differently without meaning to it just creates this safe space. That's what I want. I want to save space. I don't want Derek to come home with broken things. I don't want his heart to be broken either. So that's why we do medical bully. Tell me some of the things that you've heard directly. I heard about a child. This one sticks with me like I can read it in my mind, a third grader being pushed in the playground that the child then grabbed the pod. The bully grabbed the pod off of the child and ripped it

Scott Benner 57:44
off for what, like, what gets said during that? Do you have any idea? I don't

Chelsea Morgan 57:49
remember the exact words, but I know it comes that. I mean, that's mean, that is an extreme source of bullying, right? But I've also heard of kids that break phones, and that's a jealousy thing. It's not fair. You get to have a phone at school, and I don't. I'm gonna break it. And that's, you know, it might not always be jealousy. It could be truly just a bully being a bully, but those kinds of things happen. And I think the lack of knowledge is why

Scott Benner 58:17
I ran into a lot of that, not not the pushiness, but, you know, thanks a lot for getting your kid a phone. Now, my kids asking for a phone, I was like, I'm like, Listen, you think a I wanted to get my kid a phone? I think I was like, oh, you know what I should really give my kindergartener, right? You know? And be like, it's just because of diabetes. Like, if you find a way to make the diabetes go away, I'd be, I'd be thrilled to get rid of this phone, like I found, explaining it to people put an end to it. But I guess you meet people who are just like barbarians, and they're, you know, and they, they just, they're not gonna be reflective enough to understand the situation. Just you have a phone, I don't I'm mad. Or, you know, what is that on your arm? Give it to me, I don't know, right? It's crazy. Well, I

Chelsea Morgan 59:00
went into the classroom when Derek was about to get his phone, because he got it in October. So I guess that was six months. Wow. Holy cannoli. We had we were six months without Dexcom or Omnipod. I didn't realize that. I thought it was sooner. So I went into the classroom to explain why Derek is getting a phone, because I thought kids were going to be like this, especially with what I had seen. And I said to them, how many of you have a cell phone? Do you know? Almost every single kid raised their hand nowadays. It's

Scott Benner 59:29
not a problem. I'm talking about 20, you know, I'm talking about, like 15 years ago. So I'm

Chelsea Morgan 59:33
the mom that said my kids weren't going to get a phone until I was 13. God, had other plans. He said, haha. Let me show you what my plans are. And you know now he's had a phone since he was five, and I had to, I've had to navigate that. But I was so shocked, because I was the mom that was like, nope, 13, that's it. Nope, everybody, and most of them had it in their backpack. And the teacher was like, you have it in your backpack. What? What you know shocking, shocking things that have happened that you don't expect.

Scott Benner 1:00:03
I'll tell you. What if using an iPhone meant you had to hit the forward button three times, the left button once, the forward button, again, again, then right, then forward, forward, right, right, forward, forward, back, back, left, forward. Nobody used them because that's cool as I thought that robot was going to be. It was a pain in the ass.

Chelsea Morgan 1:00:25
I do have a cousin, a set of cousins, who, with their parents, have always said 143, and that was shorthand for I love you, or something like that. I love you, yeah, I know, yeah. That stuck with me, but I can't say that. I want to go back to an analog situation like that. I'm good. I'll take my laptop.

Scott Benner 1:00:46
Listen. I think, Chelsea, we could sit here for 25 hours and argue about all the things that technology is making worse, but I could sit here and tell you about all the things it's making better too. And I don't want to go backwards, right? I don't think you can go backwards and you know, it's going to be what it's going to be, and hopefully, like well intended people, will hopefully try to make some valuable things out of that technology. I mean, so far, that's not what's happened, but, I mean, I can hold out hope. You know, if you just right now, just go open Tiktok as an example, and I'll charge you with spending a half an hour scrolling through it, and then don't touch it again for a week, and then go sit down and write down all the things you saw on Tiktok. You will not you won't think of anything. You just won't remember. It's so empty calorie. I don't know like I feel like I sound like an old person saying that, but there are definitely better ways to spend your

Chelsea Morgan 1:01:39
time. I appreciate technology for the things that I specifically look for. You know, recipes, book recommendations, but the fluff I do without. I'm busy enough with the volunteer. I own my own business, I have my kids, and they're all in their own sports and all of those things. So I totally agree with you 100% I think that the fluff needs to go,

Scott Benner 1:02:04
Yeah, I also think that what kind of ruins it is, what kind of ruins everything? I'll say this, and then we can say goodbye. Sure. Once something becomes popular,

Chelsea Morgan 1:02:15
then people

Scott Benner 1:02:16
come along and try to copycat it, because they want either the popularity or the money or whatever comes along with it, which I completely, I'm not gonna tell you I don't understand, but that ends up ruining things sometimes, like, there are some things that were in the world that were awesome that got ruined by everybody glomming onto it. And I know, like, who? Who's the gatekeeper? Who gets to say, who does it and who doesn't like I understand all the arguments, and I know why it goes the way it goes. I'll just give you my best example is in 2007 January, I started a blog about being a parent of a child with type one diabetes, and at that time, I swear to you, the Internet was so fractured and not what it is now, that I didn't even know if anybody else was doing it like. For all I knew I was the only person in the world doing it like I seriously I would have no way to know. I later learned my best understanding where there were probably two or three other type one blogs that existed either around the time mine started or or in maybe the year or so prior to that, like, right? So, but to say that I had one of the first type one diabetes bugs is an absolutely true statement. Okay, it's not a it's not a brag or anything. It's just, it's for the story. The time it took from blogging to explode to when it fell apart, it happened so quickly. It was crazy to me. There were people sharing, like, really awesome stuff, like, like experiences and stories, and you could see the value in all of it. There were a couple people blogging who weren't very good at it, and that's fine. Their blogs didn't get a lot of traction. And, you know, they would kind of die on the vine again, like, I think that's very natural. And when that's 10 or 50 or 100 like, that works. But when you look up some five years later, and some study that was presented to me tells me that there were close to 4500 diet, type one diabetes blogs being written, I was like, Well, what the hell that's not necessary and but then, you know, how do you prune that tree? It's nobody's job. Like, you know, some of this stuff might be and what if some one person's writing a blog that's valuable to six people? Like, that's awesome. You think, okay, that's awesome, until you realize that when you flood the space, it destroys it, right, right? And so eventually it gets so fractured that you as the reader don't have time, and you start acting like, oh gosh, like I'm going to go, like, I want to try this one and that one and this. And then eventually you don't do any of them, and it all falls apart. Then any of the value that it was bringing is gone. Now you can see that replicate over and over again throughout time right now it's huge on YouTube, right? Someone makes a YouTube video, and it's super popular. And you know for sure 1000 other people are going to try to copy that video, and you know what I mean and like and some of them might be really good, but what ends up happening is, is that when you finally go into YouTube and search for whatever it is you're searching for, the returns are so great and so varied in quality that you just end up giving up. And now, instead of there being a few people who were like, delivering quality stuff, there's 1000 people, 909 100 of them are garbage. 100 of them are awesome. And you can't find the good ones from the bad ones, and you flood the market, and it ends you lose that thing. I actually am watching. This is such a weird example. I'm so sorry. It's okay for people who listen, they'll probably know that, like about a year ago, like my family bought me a chameleon, is like a surprise gift. I didn't know what I was doing. I had to learn about it, et cetera. And so I found my way through that world to get information very quickly. And I found a handful of just incredibly insightful, good communicators who had great information. Right there they are, but it got so popular. Reptile videos got so popular, probably during COVID, that everyone flooded YouTube with them. And now there are people who make awesome content that nobody sees anymore. The algorithm doesn't know what to do with it, and you know what I mean? And so instead of seeing five videos in a month that are just incredible, you know, if you try to search for that, what you get is 1000 videos that are garbage. And then I go, Ah, forget this. And I'm done with it. And aside of of that, like, what it does there, I think it's the the draw of monetization, like, and then so the first five people that did it were like, I just want to write a nice type one diabetes blog. Like, I wasn't like, Oh, I'll get a Google Adsense ad and make $50 a month. Like, I didn't think that, like, you know, and I don't think that the first person who was like, Hey, this is me feeding my reptile, and this is how I take care of it. And you can take good care of yours too, if you do that. I don't think they were thinking, like, I think one day I'll get paid by this, but then eventually they do, and then everybody runs up and they're like, I'm gonna do it too. I'm gonna do it too. And they're gonna and they're going to ruin it. Like, I've seen it happen over and over again. I've seen really, like, great content creators that can't get their stuff seen anymore, which is insane. That kind of like, mad rush to get paid turns into like, well, now I have to push out a ton of content, right? And it's turned this space into that, like, it's turned all these space into now suddenly, like, you know, you're like, Oh, my favorite creator has put up a video, and you watch it, and you're like, he just put this up because he needed to put up a video on Thursday. Like there's nothing here, like there's nothing here, and now he's trying to satisfy the algorithm. I hear what you're saying, if you're saying, Scott, you put up a lot of content. Podcast apps don't work the same way, right? So whereas YouTube says, make content, make content, make content, and will serve if people watch your content, will serve them more of it. Believe it or not, podcast apps don't work that way. You can listen to three episodes of this app podcast in a row because you love it, right? And if you don't choose the fourth episode to be this podcast, it will push you to something else, right? I don't make a lot of content for that reason. I make a lot of content because I think we just have a lot of we have a lot to cover, and I want there to always be something there for people that are interested in listening. I also think that if I put one episode up this week, and it's about a certain topic, and you don't like that topic, I don't want there to not be anything there for you like so I like you to have I don't expect you to listen to every episode every all week long, but I like you'd have an option anyway. I just spoke way too long. But notice at the end of it I'm not gasping for air. So pretty big way go you. Yeah. Super excited. Good. Sorry.

Chelsea Morgan 1:08:45
I see that. I see that in the in my business industry, too, and with all forms of textiles or anything that you want to make, you know we love our do I want to say the word? Am I allowed to say? I'll say it. Timu Shein, however you say that, you know we all love that, but the quality that you're getting is not the same as somebody who I own my own small business. I do this work every single day, day in and day out. I'm actually sitting in my office right now, my quality compared to what you're going to get from a third world country is going to be very different, yeah, but there's so much saturation that people are just going, I just want to save the most money, so I'm going to see what I can get. And then, oh, it didn't work out. I guess I have to go to the person who paid. I have to pay a little bit more for and it's happening through all industries, really. And I don't disagree with you. 500% agree

Scott Benner 1:09:38
with you. Somehow the internet opened up the world and is crushing it at the same time. Like, absolutely listen, like, If a guy says, I'm gonna build a tank to put a crocodile skink in, I don't know. I'm now making up some words, and I'm not. And he makes, you know, $1,000 from that video. What that allows him to do is to make a follow up video, uh, six months from now, go, Hey, look, this is how the setup is working now. It's actually working, and it actually becomes valuable for you that way. It's not just eye candy, but if everyone's making this is how I set up the tank for my crocodile skink video. Then none of them make money, and then none of them can afford to, like, continue to make quality content for you. Like, I sell ads, and so I can afford to sit down two years ago and say, I would like to take some like core ideas from the podcast and turn them into shorter content, and then two years later, put out the small sip series. And you don't know how much effort and time goes into going out to the audience and saying, first of all, give me a complete list of everything that's ever been said that's been said that's been really impactful for you. And not like, big ideas that we all know, but like, was there a phrase that stuck in your head? Like, is there an idea that really left you forward? Like, to and we took that list and then called it down, and then went back and re listened to that stuff and said, Oh, this is what got them here, and then put it back together again. And then sat down with Jenny and and, you know, recorded that whole new series of, like, 21 episodes, which took weeks and weeks and weeks because Jenny, that's not what Jenny does for a living. So I get her, when I get her, you know, then it goes out to an editor who makes a living editing this podcast, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and, you know, who's trying to kill that? And they don't know they're trying to kill it. The 110 people who have launched a type one diabetes podcast since I launched mine, now they're all gone. There's a handful left. I don't want to lie to you. There are some that exist, but I'm telling you that 110 or more. It's probably 150 at this point. I stopped looking at it years ago. People were like, Hey, that guy has ads on his type one diabetes podcast. Now, some of them might have been like, I'd like to sell ads. And some of them might have just been like, I have a story I'd like to tell, which is awesome. Some of them might have been like, Hey, that guy sucks. I can do it better. Like, all these reasons are great reasons to start, and maybe they're right and maybe they're wrong. In the macro view of all this, stepping back like it's to some degree important for people with type one diabetes is going to sound incredibly pompous. It is important, to some degree that I make enough money to live so that I can think about making you a video for six months from now about how the tank held up. It doesn't need to be me, somebody, like, that's important. So everything can't be so, like I was saying earlier, like just empty calories, all your content can't be empty calories. Like, some of it actually has to be valuable. And I don't know, sometimes the flowers get choked out by the weeds. Now, sometimes better flowers grow. And I'm all for that, like, if somebody can come along and knock me off and do a better job, I hope they do well, I don't hope they do, but I think that would be wonderful if they were out there helping people. But instead, what ends up happening is you have 75 podcasts where somebody gets on and tells the same goddamn story. Yeah, and that's what happened to the blogs? There used to be this thing. I actually, I thought it was lovely, but it was called diabetes blog week. Maybe they still do it, I have no idea. But once you're up to 1000s and 1000s of blogs, and they do this thing called diabetes blog week, and they give you a writing prompt right to this on Monday, this to Tuesday, I did it a couple of times, and then one day, I was like, well, that person wrote almost the exact same thing I wrote, which told me that, like, our experiences weren't that much different. And what that led me to think was, well, if that person can write that and I can write it, I don't need to write it, they'll write it. Like, you know, I mean, like, like, what do we need? 75 of the same story for it's good for the person, and it's also it's great for the people that they are able to capture. And maybe that person was found, you know, found that blog wouldn't have found mine, or vice versa, or whatever. But the unintended ending to this, every time I've seen it, my life is eventually you'll over saturate the space and kill it.

Chelsea Morgan 1:13:59
So when you go looking for anything online, it's going to go based off of SEO, of course, and you're going to have, how many views are you getting? So the one who gets the most views gets to be at the top of Google's search engine, and almost every time when you click into whatever it is. Example, right now, I'm working on a project for Read Across America, and I am searching for cute little crafts that I can do in my son's room with paper plates. And I so I type in paper plate fish, and I click on it. I can't even read through most of the blog because it is ad after ad after ad, because all these people are seeing is monetization. But if I go to the exact same the next one underneath it is almost word for word, the same wording too. Yeah, that is. The other problem with blogs is that people are stealing content. Oh, I think, personally,

Scott Benner 1:14:47
yeah, that was, that's been going on forever. And, you know, with AI too, they'll scrape your stuff and then rewrite it and just put it out as their own. That's going to happen soon, too. But listen, I no shade, right? There's a per, I won't say anybody's name, but. There's a person who talks about chameleons online. Their content is rock solid. It is, it's awesome. It's it's a person who pays attention has been in it for decades. Everything you learn from them is valuable. They continue to teach themselves more and bring it out to you. It's awesome. One problem, delivery, not great, but it doesn't matter, because I say to myself, well, that's the information. I'll sit and listen to it, right? And I don't care if it's not exciting, or if it's not visually appealing, or if even, like, audibly, you're just a little like, once in a while, you're like, man, get to it. You know. I mean, what's there? Is awesome. The other day, I tried to find a specific piece of information about one of my animals, and this person's video came up. It's like an hour long. I listened to it everything I needed to know, done, explained. Well, awesome, yeah, but the video's got a few 1000 views. Underneath of it is a video with 857,000 views. With a girl talking about the same animal, but she's doing it with a top that just shows a little bit of cleavage, and she's very well made up, and her background is lovely, and it's all lit well. And I thought I'm going to click on this, and I clicked on it, and, man, she gets almost everything wrong about that. Oh my gosh, the credit of the community. They jump in and they go, that's not right. This is wrong. You're saying that like, blah, blah, but it doesn't matter. 900,000 views with bad information, cuz pretty girl, 3000 views on the absolutely great information, because it just doesn't fit the way the algorithm feeds it to you, or the way your brain wants or whatever. But like, you know, you don't go into a college course and sit down and say, like, oh, this, this very learned person who's telling me this information, she's boring, but it doesn't matter. I'm gonna listen like all the information is great. Like, you sit and do that because you're in college, but when you get out into the world, like, this doesn't work, which is why I've had to do, you know, I've been criticized sometimes for, like, like, why does he talk about diabetes in such a lighthearted way? Like, I mean, surprise, I'm tricking you into listening to information about diabetes. Like, because if I just came out and did what that guy did, you'd click over and go watch somebody else who's, you know, clavicles are showing and then you wouldn't know how to, like, I don't know Pre Bolus for your dinner, and so I don't know it. Just anyway, I don't know how we got here, other than to say, like, I'm all for people making their stuff. I'm really not a gatekeeper. I think that everybody should try. But what it does is it gives me an extra job, like my job now is to, like, innovate, stay ahead, not let the space crash around me, and

Chelsea Morgan 1:17:46
provide the good content that you do provide already doing my bully,

Scott Benner 1:17:50
yeah, so I don't know. Again, I have no idea how this happened, although I am shot out of a cannon today, this is awesome and unfair to you. Chelsea, I apologize. Oh, gosh, no,

Chelsea Morgan 1:18:00
it's true. I live this life every day, so you're not alone in your thought process. It's a conversation I have all the time with people, so I appreciate the conversation I was read. I actually read your post about stuff in your Facebook group about how you're going to be pushing out information, because it was very I love information. Information is how we are as a society, supposed to grow and thrive and all those good things, and so I appreciate the information. If nobody else wants to listen, they know how to turn it

Scott Benner 1:18:28
off. Yeah, again, that's awesome. Just don't listen. It's cool. Like, I, you know, trust me, there's enough people listening. I'm okay. But, like, you know, but what you're referring to is that I've built up what I think is an awesome online like, private Facebook group, right? Like, I think now it's 58 or 59,000 people in there by the time you hear this, I can almost tell you, because it grows so consistently, it'll grow by about 150 every three days. You'll won't hear this for like, six months. So whatever that math is, awesome group people are. It's a genuinely great place. It does about 120 125 new posts a day, likes or hearts, over 9000 a day likes, hearts or comments, 9000 a day absolutely, absolutely valuable for people. And

Chelsea Morgan 1:19:16
I think in your group, though, I do have to say this, you, your group, has some of the most. I want to say light hearted. I don't know if that's the exact correct term for this, but you're not going to get bullied in your group or put down because of your belief, because we all know, you know, we're all coming from different walks of life. Instead of saying you have to listen to this one way and you you foster

Scott Benner 1:19:37
that we very carefully moderate for kindness. That's how we handle it. And I think the group follows my vibe, which I think is also helpful, but but the problem is, is that if I have an episode that goes up today and I'm like, Oh, look, I'd like to tell people about this, I make a nice post up, I put it together, and here it is for you. You can do whatever you want with it. The algorithm won't feed it to people, even though it's my group, it. Just doesn't like. So the only thing Facebook out the Facebook algorithm, enjoys is hot guys with animals. It's good with that. It's good with arguing that. It's very good at if I were to, if I were to write a post that said, hey, you know, Anthony Fauci gave you the COVID. And by the way, today's episode is about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then, then 57,000 people would see it. But if I just write today's episode was about Chelsea, and she came on to talk about this, this and this. It's not that people aren't interested in it, it's that the algorithm literally won't show it to them. So what you were referring to earlier is I'm going to get a endeavor for a month to see if posting the same thing slightly differently more frequently, helps for people to see it. I have to be honest with you, I don't imagine it'll work, but I'm going to try. It's been one of the bigger frustrations of running the podcast and the group. I don't understand how Facebook doesn't know that if 60,000 people are following you, they're interested in what you're saying.

Chelsea Morgan 1:21:04
I know that you will also lose people. Never highlight and at everyone, even though that's an option, don't do those things. That's like, a huge No, right?

Scott Benner 1:21:14
Facebook's Like, here, here's an everyone tag every time you you say everyone, 30 people are just like, Oh, don't tell me what I should be looking at. And then they don't

Chelsea Morgan 1:21:23
Yes, and then you're gone, not coming back. Cannot Win, is the answer. I think that you're doing really, not that my opinion matters. I am not a professional in any like you, but I do think that you are doing well, because I do have the experience of the SEO I used to do, copywriting and all those kinds of things. And I think that what you you put out is good, and as long as you keep it good, I will listen if that matters at all. Well,

Scott Benner 1:21:47
it matters Absolutely. I really, I very much appreciate it. Well, I these are just some of the back room, like, difficulties that make, like, telling you about, you know, diabetes difficult. Like, you would think it would just be as easy as like, here's the information about diabetes. Oh, you want to follow me, you'll see it. Yeah, the small sip series is just the latest thing that's, you know, frustrating, because this is a thing people ask for. And I'm not kidding you, it took two years to get it out and do it correctly, and now here it is. And you go, Okay, here it is. And people say, Oh, I didn't know that was available. And I think to myself, I posted a half a dozen times over the last like, three weeks about this. Like, you didn't see one of those? And I go back and look at the post? No, nobody saw those posts. You know, it's in the podcast feed. You didn't see that there. Well, I'm more in the Facebook group. I don't really like I go listen to the podcast, but I'm not subscribed to it. Like, Okay, that's fair enough. So there's another way. I can't get this information. So here's information people want. They've asked for it in droves. And you go, Okay, here it is. And then the algorithm says, No. But if you'd like to argue about tipping culture, that we could make sure everybody sees, you know, if you want to put up a post about how some you know, girl in New Zealand died because her religious parents didn't give her insulin, I can make sure everyone sees that for you, like, like, that's the kind of stuff. Like, if you want to argue or say something sad, that algorithm will push it at you in two seconds.

Chelsea Morgan 1:23:09
You said something earlier about how people can't believe you, make it all light hearted and all I can still think. It's still in my brain. I hope you don't mind me bringing back up is that? What do they want us to do? Because if we were to sit in our room crying for the next three years because we're dealing with this, we're talking about how negative it is, they're not going to listen either. They're not, you know, they don't want to be a part of that. And I get like death is a mystery, and so people are intrigued by it, but you make people want to continue living. Isn't that a worthy cause? Like, people should be praising that.

Scott Benner 1:23:43
Well, I think most people enjoy it, but the people who don't like the mix of medical and light heartedness that it really makes them upset. Like, don't joke, it's serious. I'm like, I mean, it's serious, but like, what are you gonna listen like? You're not gonna listen to that. Are you like, if we get on here and go, like, hey, Chelsea, so your three year old has diabetes. How's that feel? Well, Scott, I'm thinking of throwing myself out of a window. That's not a podcast. Like, you're not gonna listen, and then we're never gonna get to the part where you're just like, Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. That's helpful that I know. Like, I guarantee you that plenty of people have opened up a microphone and said really valuable things about diabetes into it that nobody's ever heard because it's boring and like, but there's a line between making it not boring and making it empty calories. Like, I don't go empty calories, I just make it light hearted enough that you stay engaged with it. Hopefully, you know, like, that's the goal, and everybody, there's always going to be somebody complaining about something. I mean, that's just gonna happen, right? And I can't be for everybody. I also appreciate that some people maybe just get on here and go, like, I don't like that guy, or I don't want to listen to somebody who doesn't have diabetes tell me about diabetes. Like, there's a lot of reasons not to listen to me. Like, I get all of them. Overwhelmingly, it works for people you know, who who vibe well with me and. So, you know, you just try to keep making it. I'm just telling you that as a person who does not see themselves as a content creator, but obviously is the system that exists to get what I make to you, it could not possibly be fighting me more if it tried. And I mean on Facebook, I mean on social media, I mean in the podcast apps, Apple has made changes to their algorithm over the last two years, or the way YouTube will like demonetize somebody for saying a word they shouldn't say, or, you know, in truthfulness. And this has nothing to do with my feelings about COVID, but the way Facebook, over the last couple of years has, you know, lorded over us and made sure that nobody's mentioned COVID or nobody's like, and if they, if they do, then like, their posts are ripped away, and then it turns the algorithm towards your group. And if the algorithm decides your group is full of whatever, it'll just shut it off, and there's no recourse. Like, so you've spent years just moderating people being like, don't say that. Don't say that. Don't like, not that. I give a if you talk about it, but if you say that, then this space isn't going to be here for other people. Like that is in the way

Chelsea Morgan 1:26:06
even Venmo is doing it. I My friend got me this is a joke for another friend got me a crocheted butt plug. It's not for real life. It's just a haha. Like, if it says, Let me tell you what it says, because you're gonna think, what the hell is she this girl? No, no, I'm feeling a bit uptight, or just down in the dumps. Perhaps you've had to deal with a lot of time here, and I've got your back when it feels like life is a real pain in the ass, I'm always all in like, just a haha, right? So I went to send her money for it, and I put the word, but in the thing wouldn't let me send it. Wouldn't even let me send the word. But to her, I gotta

Scott Benner 1:26:41
tell you, I can't believe you're bringing this up because I have the crochet No, no, no, no, no, no, I No. I'm being serious. I can't believe you're bringing this up because I'm gonna go to my my pictures so that I can get an actual date on this. Because I believe it was Yes Two days ago, I was in the Walgreens two days ago, trying to get nasal gel that Isabelle told me to buy to squirt my nose to help my nose heal. Okay, yeah, and I I'm standing there looking for them. I can't find what I'm looking for, so I start going up and down, up and down aisles. And No kidding, I ended up taking a picture and sending this to my wife. Hello, cake. Buzzy butt, a vibrating toy for backside play. It's a butt plug at Walgreens. Stop it. Oh my gosh. It was next to the little sucky and I don't want to tell you what that does. I'm not kidding there. There were, like, sex toys out on the I guess I don't care. But I was like, Is this how Walgreens is making a living we'll censor

Chelsea Morgan 1:27:41
you online, but hell if we censor you in person, all

Scott Benner 1:27:45
I'm saying is that you know when you're listening to something that's helping you just know that I climbed over 17 different digital mountains and avoided 200 people trying to over saturate the Space 17 other impediments that you wouldn't even know existed, that, by the way, I didn't know existed. The first day, I was like, I think I'll make a podcast tell people how we manage diabetes. So it's a job in itself to navigate the system that brings you the content. You could easily say like, oh well, Scott, just like, you know, put it on Patreon, or do this or do that. Like, it's a nice thing to say, but like, you're not going to reach as many people that way, and even if you made it free, like, you know, but put it on one of those, like, more private platforms, which is the answer, by the way, like, Listen, I have a circle group for diabetes, and it's going to take me forever to grow. I think it's got like, 1000 people in it right now. It's a private group that I pay the server space on, but it doesn't have to go through Facebook. But the problem is that everyone's on Facebook, so that's where you want to be. You know, I could send you the podcast other ways besides in podcast apps, but that would severely limit the ability for me to to grow it, and then it would just end up being a private little thing for a handful of people, and they'd have to pay for it and I'd still make a living, but like then nobody else would get it. And I don't think that's right either. I think that these social media channels, they've taken me and people like me, instead of being a tool that amplifies what we're trying to share with people, we become the thing that they sell so that they can make ad money. I'm not a podcast, I'm not a YouTube channel, I'm not whatever you end up being. I'm just content to draw on your eyes, and then they want to keep you there so they can feed you ads, right? And so that's the game and and you know what I do is I take that, I take that crocheted plug in exchange for hopefully reaching some people, but not nearly amount of people that we could if it was a less, if it's a more unfettered system, I guess.

Chelsea Morgan 1:29:49
I don't know if it's ever like crossed your mind, but if you do make content for something like Tiktok, you could post videos of you recording this, just a snippet, and be like, watched. Chelsea coming up on blah, blah, blah, and have your little it doesn't

Scott Benner 1:30:03
Chelsea. First of all, I am not hot enough. My clavicles are not going to pull that off and and the other thing is, I can't talk while I'm bouncing my like. I've tried, and it just that doesn't work. But no, but the real thing is, is, like, I'm old. I'm not right for tick tock and tick tocks, not right for actual dissemination of information, like, it's, it's like, something that grabs your eye, and you go, Oh my god, that's amazing. And then, like, it's over. Or like, wow, that was fun. And then it's over, oh my god, that guy just fell off a mountain. Nobody goes, oh my god, that guy just fell off a mountain. I would now like to hear 35 minutes about mountains. So even if you collect eyes on Instagram reels or tick tock or something like that. It doesn't actually translate into anything else. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's what

Chelsea Morgan 1:30:47
that's sad. I mean, they try to tell you that it does. That's why I say it. Because, you know other people that medical talk is a thing. It's become a thing that people go searching for information. I watch this one. I will This is how I got Derek into being okay with pods and Dexcom on his leg is that I showed him somebody else doing

Scott Benner 1:31:05
it? Yeah, no, I agree. And listen, I might take the short sips and hammer them down to 60 seconds, but, I mean, I don't know what I'm going to tell you in 60 seconds. It's really going to change your your life that much, you'd have to hear that and then go find the podcast. And I think that what ends up happening is you're talking to people who are not podcast people, and then they will don't go any further, and they're not going to go any further, and then they're just going to hear me say, like, did your blood sugar go up really high? You should crush it and catch it, and then not have any of the salient details about that, and then go do something dangerous, because they don't understand what they're doing. So like, I don't want to be part of that, you know, and I don't want to be part of the outrage culture just to get eyes, because they're also, there are people trying to do that for diabetes. It doesn't work for them either, right? Outrageous outrage, it's not diabetes. It's just like, I had a company tell me one time, like, do you see this Instagram diabetes? Instagram influencer. They're huge. And I went and looked, and it was a girl in a bikini. And I was like, she's not a diabetes influencer. I mean, she's influencing something, but it's not diabetes. And like, God bless her, she looks awesome in that bikini. But, like, I don't know what that's got to do with you understanding when to use your glucagon. You know what I mean, right? Yeah. Like, so I think the platforms tell you that so that you'll go make them content, so they can sell people your their ads, not because they think you're going to flourish in that situation, right? I think that's a

Chelsea Morgan 1:32:30
lie they tell you anyway. I will keep that in the back of my brain when I'm thinking about it, because with my business, I have to think about all the angles too. Good luck

Scott Benner 1:32:38
and good luck to anybody who wants to try it. But what I'm going to tell you really is I have one thing on my I have a couple of things on my side, but one of them, that's the most important, is I have something called Second mover. So there were, prior to my podcast, two or three people doing blog talk radio shows about diabetes. Oh, it was before the technology really existed, so that I sound nice and clean to you right now, right? And so people would literally pick up their their home phone and call each other on a number, and the blog talk system would record that, and then it was available at a link. So you could go to a web page and listen to it. It sounded like, okay, and it was often run by people who I think are awesome, but they were bloggers. They weren't really audio, like, slick, like, so it wasn't interesting to listen to, you know what? I mean? Like, it was, it was, it was very boring. But I had been on a number of them, and those people would report back to me, like, wow, people listen to yours way more than the other ones. And I was like, Oh, okay. And then one day, years years later, I was like, I think I'm gonna make a podcast about diabetes, and I just happened to be first. So most people would call that first mover, like you got there first, so you kind of like, you fill the space. But I honestly think of it as second because those blog talk radio shows were before me, big Fair's fair. And I actually think the ADA has had a podcast about diabetes longer than me. But in fairness to them, I think they just celebrated a million downloads, like, last year, like, after like, a decade or more. And like, you know, I get a lot more. Yeah, so I wasn't first, but by being second and skipping over the bad technology and coming in when technology was better, for when the distribution services were better, I was there basically first, but without all the mistakes that everybody made before. And so, like, in fairness to everyone else who's tried and failed. Since then, I've absorbed the space that principle of first mover says that basically what happens is like you launch a business selling whatever, or you make a reptile YouTube channel, or whatever you end up doing, all the eyes go to you. And there's no eyes left for anybody else. So even if someone comes in next and their products better, or their podcast is better, or their content is better, no one's ever gonna see it. So I also try to stay aware of that and not rest on my laurels and continue to innovate, so that I'm not just the old guy who's got the eyes because I got here first. You know what I mean? I'm gonna

Chelsea Morgan 1:35:19
be so controversial, and I'm going to say it's just like with MLMs, but we don't have to talk about that. Wait, it's like with what MLM multi level marketing. What is that? If you, if you're one of the first ones to join one of those pyramid scheme, yeah, well, I don't want to say that, like I used to sell that stuff, so I won't say scheme. But if you're not first, then you're last, you're not, you're not going to be up there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:35:44
it's cryptocurrency. It's like, Hey, I'm going to sell you this thing. You give me all your money now you go sell this. Now we'll try to sell more. Oops, we didn't sell anymore. I got all your money, right, right? But it's a similar idea. It's just, it's for a, you know, not for a nefarious reason. I just dumb luck, decided to do it. Had enough experience that I was like, Oh, it's a good idea to talk to people this way, but I think the people the way they're doing it right now doesn't work. I'll do it my way. And so I did it my way. My Way seemed to be popular, also not for nothing. Chelsea, I have a nice, deep voice. Doesn't hurt, yeah. And I'm also like, I'm just, I'm a confident speaker. I don't know everything, but the things I know, I'm willing to be like, do the like, Oh, well. I mean, you could try to Pre Bolus, but like, you want to be careful, because, like, it's possible, like, Don't Pre Bolus pizza. Like, I, you know, there used to be all these blogs, and there's people who knew what they were talking about, and I've said this 1000 times, but like, you can't write a paragraph about why it's scary to Pre Bolus and then spend two sentences telling me to do it. You've already talked me out of doing it before. You told me you should I should try it and like so they spent so much time covering their ass that nobody could take them seriously in a lot of those blogs. I know I'm mixing up stories at this point. I'm all over the place, but anyway, I'm gonna let you go. You're you've given me way more of your time than you anticipated. So I

Chelsea Morgan 1:37:06
do have a question. Oh, please, am I allowed to share a photo that I was doing a blog with you today? Or is that a no? Thank you, not until it's posted.

Scott Benner 1:37:14
Oh, no, you can do that. I don't care. That's awesome. Yeah, cool. Yeah. Please. Like do it. I

Chelsea Morgan 1:37:19
appreciate you. Thank you so much for this opportunity and for letting me ramble when I did, Chelsea, it's been so much fun. I just

Scott Benner 1:37:26
talked for a half an hour. So you're very kind, but thank you very much. I appreciate it too. Hold on one second.

Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years, you can as well us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, my thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode and for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox Podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all of the sponsors. The episode you just enjoyed was sponsored by the twist a ID system powered by tide pools. If you want a commercially available insulin pump with twist loop that offers unmatched personalization and precision or peace of mind. You want twist, twist.com/juicebox, are you tired of getting a rash from your CGM adhesive? Give the ever since 365 a try, ever since cgm.com/juicebox beautiful silicon that they use it changes every day, keeps it fresh. Not only that, you only have to change the sensor once a year. So I mean, that's better, okay, well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me. Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribed in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me, or Instagram, tick tock. Oh gosh, here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page you don't want to miss. Please do not know about the private group. You have to join the private group. As of this recording, it has 51,000 members in it. They're active, talking about diabetes, whatever you need to know, there's a conversation happening in there right now, and I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi. If you or a loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox Podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one, our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered. Record with the Juicebox Podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox Podcast are available in your audio app and@juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrongway recording.com, you.

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#1526 Habit Lab: Breaking a Bad Habit

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Part four of the four part series with Erika Forsyth.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.

Today you're listening to the last of a four part series on goal setting and breaking bad habits while setting good ones. I'm joined today again by Erica Forsythe. You can learn more about her@ericaforsythe.com if this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold beginnings, the diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget 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. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox, check it out. Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link. Dexcom.com/juicebox, ag ones, next gen is now one of the most clinically back, greens, powders, they went above and beyond the industry standard in testing, and have made a great product even better. That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by ag one, use my link drink. Ag one.com/juicebox, to get started, and new subscribers will receive a free bottle of a G, d3, k2, an ag, one welcome kit and five of the upgraded AG, one travel packs with their first order drink. AG, one.com/juicebox Erica. In the last part of this series, we ended talking about how to build good habits. Today, we're going to start with how to break bad habits. But you thought it would be a good idea if we just did a quick review about good habit building before we got started, so jump right in.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 2:24
Yes, thank you. So again, these are, these are the four laws of behavior change from atomic habits from James Claire's book and how to build the good habit is, make it obvious, make it attractive, make it simple, convenient, easy and make it satisfying. In the previous episode, we kind of went through some more examples, so if you, if you missed that, you can go back to that. But the inverse of that, which is just as almost important, right? Because as we talk and think about wanting to start new habits, build new systems, often we do have to replace or interrupt or break that bad habit that we are conditioned. I was just actually listening to, I don't know if you've listened to Mel Robbins, and she was talking about how she is a classic procrastinator, and the first thing she does every morning is hit the snooze button. And so that which you know I'm guilty of, but I do try and use it as a Pre Bolus, but I'll like, that's the then. That's your first habit of the day. You're telling yourself that you are procrastinating, right? Again, guilty of hitting the snooze button.

Scott Benner 3:32
Are you saying for diabetes? You your alarm goes off, you Bolus a little bit, then go back to sleep and let the Bolus work? Yes. Well, you could talk yourself into saying that that's a good

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 3:41
habit. It is. It is a good well, yes, and I actually, I used to not set my alarm early enough, so then that would interrupt the flow of my family Morning. But now I try and set my alarm a little bit earlier. I hit my, you know, Pre Bolus for my coffee and my Dawn phenomenon, and then 10 more minutes, and I'm then I kind of get some, you know, time to get working, yeah,

Scott Benner 4:02
before we go on, can I ask you, do you have, is it dawn phenomenon you have, or feet on the floor? Do you get? Like,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:06
excuse me, well, I have both, and I've always like, morning has always been a battle, and it was until recently, well, I don't know, in the last 10 years, maybe that I realized I just not only needed to increase my basal rates, but just give myself three units has been the magic number for me, when you wake up, when I wake up and I don't eat anything until later in the day, like 11 or 12, but that's for my coffee and feet on

Scott Benner 4:31
the floor. Yeah, the feet on the floor been more aggressive since you've had kids, yes, yeah. And

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:36
getting older and entering into, you know, various stages

Scott Benner 4:39
of life, various stages. She's looking at me like, don't ask me which stage I'm in just but

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 4:45
you all could guess, yeah, yeah, that's, that's a whole other episode party.

Scott Benner 4:51
If you're trying to build a good habit. It's funny because when I look at make it obvious, attractive, simple, satisfying, it actually kind of goes back to me to something like for. Simple, like just talking somebody to taking a vitamin. It's a hard thing to do, because you can say, Oh, this is going to help you with that. But the satisfying part doesn't often come quickly enough for you to feel like your effort is maybe paying you back right away. And that's why it's funny. Before we started talking, I told you with Arden, I said to her, Look, there's this thing. It's, you know, that I think you should take every day. I explained to her why, trying to make it obvious. I told her what I thought could come of it, I guess, making it attractive. And then I still looked at that look on her face, and I said, I will be in charge of handing you the tablet every day to make it simple. And now we're just trying to keep those three things chugging along long enough for her to get to the satisfaction point. Yes, that is so good. But at the same time, she is a person with bad habits about taking vitamins, for example. So if I tried to just hand them to her, or put her in charge of them, or just said, like, look, just do it, because it's right, I don't think it gets done. It's interesting that your bad habits can be fighting you while you're trying to set a good habit into place. Yes. So I guess let's talk about how to break a bad habit. Okay,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 6:11
so the first one, again, these are just kind of the inverse of making the a good habit, is make it invisible, right? So, you know, if you're trying to very easy examples, not eat gluten or not eat refined sugar products or alcohol or whatever it may be, out of the house. And sometimes that might not be enough, right? So whether you're like, you put it in a different part of the nuts, not in the kitchen, but out of the house, and then you really are having to think through, Gosh, I really want this thing. I'm gonna have to do three steps to go get the thing. Yeah. So making it invisible is, is the first one making it un attractive, right? So, in the example of making it attractive, we talked about, you know, what is the space and courage? What does, how can you maybe stack the habit? So if I do something, then once I do one habit, I'm going to do the next habit right after it. So you're making that easier or more attractive for you to be conditioned to do that thing, making it unattractive. Maybe you have a punish like, I know punishment sounds as an interesting word if you do the thing consequence, yeah, maybe, yeah. I guess the consequence is the better word I was trying to find, thank you. And it doesn't have to be, you know, there's a lot of things, of, you know, taking money out of a piggy bank or putting money in every time you do something, but taking it out, right, or checking a box. There's different ways to think about it, but making it less desirable, less attractive to you, and I'm actually striking to thinking of it. And a good example, to be honest, it's a

Scott Benner 7:50
physical manifestation. It's not it's not a telling you don't tell yourself, like, Oh, I'll be better off if I take my vitamin D. You say, if I don't do it, something happens? Yeah, yeah. Interesting, yeah. I mean, yeah. So you make something kind of punitive, like, lose a penny out of a jar. You have a snack you love on Friday, you don't get five of them. You get four of them. Like, is it like, something like that, or can it be just in your head? Like, because it's funny, when you started talking about it, I thought, oh, make it unattractive. I know you said that. It's kind of the inverse. And then I looked up habit stacking, change your environment. That's that's a physical distinction, to make it attractive. And when I still, when I thought of make it unattractive, I think it's funny. I think it, it goes to how my brain works. Like I thought of, like punishing myself, almost in my head. And then I was like, Well, that can't be what she means. Because I thought, like, you know, don't eat a thing, because if you way more like that kind of and that's not a great way to like do anything. So make it unattractive. This one

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 8:46
is tough, so I guess like highlighting the benefits of avoiding your bad habits. So it is more of a mental it is this one, okay, it's more of a mental habit to focus on the unattractiveness of that particular habit you're trying to break. Yeah. Does that make sense? Kind of,

Scott Benner 9:05
yeah. Because, I mean, because make it invisible and unattractive to me could kind of go hand in hand, like the way you were talking about make it invisible. It actually made me think about, like, if there's, you know, using the idea of a snack in your house, there's a snack in your house, you know, it's not good. You throw it away, you now have to go into your car, drive somewhere, walk into a place, hold it in your hand, say to yourself, Oh, my God, I threw some of this out, and I'm picking it up again. Punitively. Pay for it like you're now. You know you're being charged again for it. Drive it home with that thought in your head, stick it in your mouth. Like to me, those two things almost went hand in hand a little Yes, yes, they do. They do. Yeah. Okay, so I get what you're saying though, like you're gonna build a narrative for yourself about why this thing that you've now made invisible would be unattractive to bring back into your life again. Yes, and even if that's just a habit like push. Pushing the snooze button, yes, yeah, yes. I push the snooze button. It makes me I get sleepier. I feel a little lazy. I set an expectation for myself that I'm not a go getter. There's a trickle down effect you walk yourself through why the thing is a bad is bad for you. Have you heard the news? AG, ones next gen is now one of the most clinically backed greens powders. They went above and beyond industry standards and testing and have made a great product even better. You know that I drink ag one every morning, but did you know it just went through a major upgrade? Ag one, next gen is here. It's the same single scoop once a day, and the next gen formula has been clinically shown to help fill common nutrient gaps, even in healthy eaters. I've been drinking ag one every morning for years, and it's sort of the sponsor of my day. So it makes sense that it's the sponsor of today's episode. Subscribe today to try the next gen of ag one. If you use my link, you'll also get a free bottle of a G, d3, k2, an ag, one welcome kit and five of the upgraded AG, one travel packs with your first order. So make sure to check out drink. AG, one.com/juicebox to get started with. AG, ones next gen, and notice the benefits for yourself that's drink. AG, one.com/juicebox my daughter is 20 years old. I can't even believe it. She was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was two, and she put her first insulin pump on when she was four. That insulin pump was an Omnipod, and it's been an Omnipod every day since then. That's 16 straight years of wearing Omnipod. It's been a friend to us, and I believe it could be a friend to you, omnipod.com/juicebox, whether you get the Omnipod dash or the automation that's available with the Omnipod five, you are going to enjoy tubeless insulin pumping. You're going to be able to jump into a shower or a pool or a bathtub without taking off your pump. That's right, you will not have to disconnect to bathe with an Omnipod. You also won't have to disconnect to play a sport or to do anything where a regular tube pump has to come off. Arden has been wearing an Omnipod for 16 years. She knows other people that wear different pumps, and she has never once asked the question, should I be trying a different pump? Never once, omnipod.com/juicebox, get a pump that you'll be happy with forever.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 12:27
Yes, yes, and and then highlighting, okay, the benefits. So what if I, if I wake up without the snooze, I'm up before everybody else. I feel like I already very first habit of the day. I you have that sense of accomplishment instead of waking up feeling like you're behind, yeah?

Scott Benner 12:48
So you almost take that scrolling thing and use it to help yourself, like, you know the idea of, we talked about it earlier, right? Like did a social media algorithm can trick you into believing that just because you've scrolled something and tapped on things that you've accomplished something you can tell yourself that by not snoozing your alarm, I've accomplished something. Give yourself a sense of accomplishment that you can then build on and move forward. I'm assuming, make it difficult. Would be the equivalent of putting the phone across the room so you had to get up to shut it off. Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 13:16
absolutely, yeah, putting putting the phone in another room, you know, having more steps, kind of it does pair with the invisible, right? Because, yeah, you have to, then if you want the snack, you have to get in the car, go to the store between you. So you're increasing the number of steps between you and the bad habit, yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 13:34
looking at this. And these four things almost all pair together into, like, make it emotionally, physically, you know, spiritually unattractive. Like the whole thing, like everything about it is unattractive. Making it visible is making it unattractive, making it unattractive, making it difficult is unattractive. And then the last part, make it unsatisfying. Again, you do something that, I mean, for me, a simple, a simple thing is, like few people have been listening. I mean, I stopped eating fried foods and oils like years ago, right? And it is unsatisfying for me, because I'll get like, I kind of get nauseous if I eat it now. And so invisible. I got rid of all the oil in the house. I kept behind a tiny little thing of canola, because there's sometimes you just need it in some recipes for people, and we make our own popcorn. So listen, I might have spent $100 figuring out which oil you can pop popcorn in and have it be flavorful. And the answer, in case you're wondering, is coconut oil. Oh, yum. That's the one. I went through all of them and you get a flavor. It was weird, saffron. This one, that one like, you know, like I went through everyone I got the coconut oil, and I was like, This is good.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 14:41
Popcorn tastes good that way. Wait, do I like an air popper? Or how do you

Scott Benner 14:45
in a pan, like a man? What are you talking about? An air pop? I take a I take an eight quart pot, I put a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil in there. It's like, goopy. You melt it down into a liquid, cover the bottom with the kernels, get it hot, put the. It on. You hear it start pop, and you little steam out fills right up. Okay.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 15:03
I was well, I was curious where you put the oil, if it was an air popper, yeah, but that's

Scott Benner 15:07
how I pop so, but again, make it invisible. All other oil in my house, vegetable oil, grape seed, safflower, anything we had in house, I threw it away. And I want to tell you I was met with the resistance. But the people in my house were like, Hey, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't think we should eat this anymore. And I had to, like, fight with them, but I had to, I took shit like I just, I generally did they. They're like, we like the popcorn better in canola. And I was like, we are not using canola anymore to pop popcorn. And they were pissed. Make it unattractive. I don't know if it ever worked for them, because they didn't have a, like, a nauseous piece to it, and they weren't paying attention to it. So any value that that my extended family got out of me getting rid of the oils. Now they don't know what happened. You know what I mean, like, and I assume they did get value, because I know I got a significant amount. I was paying really close attention to it. So the unattractive part was easy, making it difficult. I got rid of it. You know what I mean? And to me, the unsatisfying part was kind of vacillated back and forth a couple of times. And you use it and you go, Ooh, I don't, I don't feel good, you know? So it takes away any value you get from thinking the popcorn tastes better in canola oil than it does in coconut oil, which, by the way, gun to my head. It tastes a little better in the canola oil, okay, but it's good the other way and not objectionable. So, yeah, anyway, I don't know. So I broke a habit of popping my popcorn and canola oil. I'm assuming you could do it with something else in being serious, because it's not my preference flavor wise. It was not the preference of the people around me. I experienced peer pressure about it. There was a lot of different pressures. And I was like, No, I'm gonna stand firm on this. How would that spin off into a more difficult thing, quitting smoking, you know, not picking your toenails, like biting your fingernails, like stuff like that. I think you could do it. I think you could put these things into play and figure it out. Yeah, it

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:02
out. Yes, so, and, you know, I'm thinking about one example. I'll share this. My grandmother worked really hard this. This was she is no longer with us, but she worked really hard at quitting smoking. She had a group, you know, support group, and if she smoked one cigarette, she committed to writing a $10 check to the opposing political party of her preference. Oh, and then that was enough for her daughter to keep her motivated, because she was so passionate about her political party and knowing that that would be the painful, very painful and satisfying and attractive thing

Scott Benner 17:41
she couldn't live with it she could do. Yes. How long did she smoke for before she did this? Do you know?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 17:46
Oh, probably 60 years, yeah, but I don't know, 5050, years? Maybe?

Scott Benner 17:51
Yeah, my father, who from the stories, began smoking cigarettes when he was 12, like when I was maybe eight or nine, his employer offered him $1,000 cash to stop smoking. Now, if you can try to imagine, in 1978 we were a very blue collar family, like it was a lot of money, you know, and he did it. He did not smoke for however long, I think it was a month. And it's funny, as soon as they took the money, he got the money, and there was no new, hey, don't smoke for a month. He just started smoking again. It wasn't long enough to break, I think his physical addiction to it so and my dad had, like, a, I think I've talked about it on here before, but like, you know, like you go into a restaurant where they don't let smoke, they don't let you smoke, and inside of three minutes, he's red, sweating, like upset, frustrated, like he was really, really hooked. But, you know, it's funny enough. As he got older and he had a health issue, he stopped once. The proverbial $1,000 was there constantly, he did stop doing it. So, I mean, I guess the goal is to, like, hook this around to diabetes, is you've got to put yourself mentally in the place where you're actually gonna be if you have a problem, you gotta put yourself there before the problem exists, so that you can avoid ever having the problem. Because, I mean, the worst thing I can think of, after interviewing all these different people, is getting to the point where you're having actual physical problems that maybe are not reversible, and now you make the decision to stop you did the hard part and you did it too late. I just want you to do the hard part a little earlier. That's all if

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 19:27
that worked, which we know it often doesn't, unfortunately, right? Like that, not not fear based motivation, but like the fear and anticipation anxiety around what could happen if we don't manage our diabetes? That's really hard. Yeah, keep that front and center. So even though it's a reality, what we're hoping and what I you know, we're all working on daily, right, is to make those positive decisions of who you want to like, what is your identity? Who do you want to be? You want to live a healthy, long life. And most everyone I work with, you know that's. Your end goal. You want to you want to live a healthy, long life, so that, if that is your identity, how can you form a habit today to make that reality worth

Scott Benner 20:10
that? Yeah, hey, listen, if I would have said it to my mom, my mom would have said, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. So I don't that's apparently a very old saying that means, yeah, sure, but that ain't gonna happen. I do think that building like one good decision at a time like you really do change over time. You just, you know, it's hard to see sometimes. Listen, I was confronted this morning with a very rude person in public, and I was so genial and cordial and worked my way right through it. And even my daughter, who's only 22 years old, when we got outside, said, Oh my God, if that would have happened, like 15 years ago? And I was like, Oh yeah, that would it would have been bad, like, I would have had a completely different response. So you can change. I, trust me, what happened to me today? Happened to me when I was 25 the person I was talking to would be crying, and instead, I just, I just smiled and waved. I just went right through it. So that's it. I'm now an adult. Yeah, you made it. Yay. 15 more years till my knee doesn't work, but I did it. We'll finish up this whole thing with like, a nice, big conversation about what gets in the way of habit setting. You can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends. And the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 22:18
head over there. Now, yes, you know, if it were just as easy as you know from Skinner, right? Who did all this, you know, research that we can shape behavior with cue, craving, response, reward, right? If you precede behavior with the reliable cue and end it with the reliable reward, you can shape that middle behavior, which is some of what we've been talking about with how to create that good habits, and, you know, conversely, how to break the bad habits. But as James talks about, and I think it's really important for us to know like, we are emotional beings, right? So it isn't always as simple, even as you know you made that joke. Like, it isn't as simple as like, well, I want to be a healthy person. So today I'm going to do this, this and this. So what gets in the way? So there are different themes I think we could talk about. Is it, is it the theme, you know? Is it? Are you fearful? Is fear intervening or interrupting or preventing you from making that first change because of a you don't know how, you don't know what it looks like, you don't have the support. And this, it's beyond just like willpower, right? It's, it's

Scott Benner 23:24
almost not classic fear. It's more like uncertainty, like underlying uncertainty. Yeah,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 23:29
yes. Are you stuck, maybe in your systems right now, or habits because you feel like you need to understand or perfect the process, right? Like we talked a little bit about that, like, are you gathering all of this information and doing all the research? Because you want to know exactly how to use the pump before you start using the pump? Or, I don't know, trying to think of a diabetes example, because you feel like you don't want to start until you know it all. But as we know, it takes a lot of time. Is it perfection that's keeping you stuck?

Scott Benner 24:02
Right? I know you got one more leg to this, but I have to say, like, you know, sometimes little sayings really help me. Fear is a liar. Has been a big help to me throughout my life, right? You know, fear is just anxiety making up stories about what might happen perfection. You know, I think there's a ton of honest truth about the fact that successful people often fail over and over again, which, to me, indicates they did not have a perfect system set up when they started. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying something and not going well, stepping back, seeing where it went wrong, and just jumping right back in and trying it again. Like, what else are you doing? You know what I mean? Just absolutely

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 24:39
yes, but there's Yeah, but it's can feel really scary to take that first step when you feel like you have to know it all before doing it. And so just acknowledging that, like I'm feeling like I need to know it all, like, just the power of naming that moment is is really significant. Well,

Scott Benner 24:56
if we could help people, maybe with a personal you. Anecdote, and I'll see how much you're willing to share here. But, I mean, I know there are people who listen to this podcast like that guy doesn't know what he's talking about, but I am figuring it out as we're talking, and if I didn't talk, we wouldn't figure anything out. So you start and go. And Erica shared with me earlier. I think this is okay, so I can say this, but we were talking about the value of working together and and, you know, you told people, well, tell me what, tell them what you told me about,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 25:24
yeah. But actually, when we, when I prepare for our, you know, recordings, it's beneficial for me, personally, professionally, and I enjoy the process, right, as well as the actual recording and conversation, yeah, but when we

Scott Benner 25:41
started, and the reason I appreciate you sharing that, I appreciate you allowing me to strong arm you into sharing that, the reason I bring it up is because when you and I started doing this together, you were not nearly as comfortable as you are now. You were good, but you're you're more comfortable now. And and on top of that, like, being able to say like, this is a great time for me to like, you know, add to what I understand. You were a person who understood a lot when we started. If I go back to when you and I meet and I say, oh, Eric, you know what one of the great values of this is going to be, you would have been like, buddy, I already know what I'm doing. I don't, you know. Like, then you end up learning so, I mean, I get it. If you're an anxious person, or you're you're super type A and you can't move without knowing where every step is. It's got to be difficult. But if you want to take it from a person like me, who you know, I know I don't have a ton of anxiety, and I'm not afraid to fail or have people point at me and say he doesn't know what he's doing, I've had nothing but benefits from acting that way. You know what I mean. So anyway, what's the third leg of this fear, fear perfection, and

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 26:41
so, you know, shame is obviously a biggie. We can get so stuck in, you know where you're at, and then you, you know the goal that you have. And I love this example. I think, I think this is from also James clear. He talks about an acorn, and when we see an acorn on the ground, we never look at it and say, Oh, that tiny acorn, and shame it and say, You're such a little thing, you haven't amounted to anything. The Acorn is still growing, and it's going to do and grow and become a beautiful oak, right someday. And similarly, if we can apply that, when you were looking at yourself today, as I would talk to myself and say, gosh, you know, you never did this yet, or you haven't achieved that yet. Say, gosh, you know, we're still, I'm still growing. We are still just like, you know, you shared too, like we are all learning and growing, and when we tell ourselves Shame on you, you haven't figured it out yet. Why haven't you done that yet? You're still a tiny acorn. We keep ourselves stuck there. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:53
absolutely. You're just a pair of little nuts. Yeah, you couldn't wait to say that. Yeah, I was so excited. One day, one day it'll, you know, one day you'll be what you're mean to be like, not if you don't do it. Like, that's the truth. Like, it sounds like, you know, it sounds like, bro science, but like, You got to get out there and go do the thing. When people say things like, you know, the only things I can't do are things that I haven't tried. I sort of believe that, you know what I mean. Like, I don't think I'm gonna be able to dunk a basket. To dunk a basketball, but I could put a ton of effort into shooting a ball better and be better at it. Like I don't. It's not a thing I'm excited to do, so I don't put my time into it. But if you're sitting around right now saying I want to Pre Bolus for my meals, but I can't seem to get it done, you know, there's a way to set up good habits, get rid of your bad habits, and go from an acorn to an oak. About pre bolusing, or about, I don't know, putting an extra five seconds of effort in at a restaurant, I watched Arden do it last night. We went out to dinner and she bolused. And I was like, that is not enough insulin. Like, I could see it from across the table. I was like, that's not gonna be right. And like, if she would have really looked at it, she could have seen like, oh, you know what I do, think this is more like 45 but she picked a nice, safe number and went with it. And an hour later, as her blood sugar started to go up, I said, Arden, Hey, I didn't want to get involved earlier, but, you know, I don't think you bowl a snuff for dinner. And she's like, Oh, you don't think so. And I was like, no. And she went and looked, and she put more in and she's good after that, did she say to herself, I have to break bad habits and figure this out and set good she didn't like but you're listening to this. You're thinking about like, I have these shortcomings. I'd like to put better, you know, processes in place to give myself more of a chance. You could easily be that person. Listen, if I'm good at diabetes, anybody can be good at it. I think that's just true. You know what I mean. And if, if so many people like go look at the reviews, except for the few people who don't like me, go look at the reviews and say to yourself, at some point, this person leaving this review, that's like, My God, my a, 1c, is five, three, or it's six, two, or my variability is better. At some point they were an acorn, and now they're not. Yeah, you know.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 30:01
And I love what, what you were getting into is the significance of the mindset, like you said, you know, maybe you can't like the basketball like you haven't tried it yet. And one thing that a lot of elementary schools teach is called, it's Mind Yeti curriculum. It's about the importance of yet, the word yet, and so having a growth mindset means I haven't learned how to Pre Bolus yet, or I haven't learned how to dribble the basketball yet, but I'm going to go learn how and practice versus the fixed mindset is I'm never going to get it. You know, we even have the phrase you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Like we have that anchored in our culture and our mindset, that like we're stuck in our ways, you aren't going to change me, and I'm never going to be able to get that. So if you hear yourself having that, what's called a fixed mindset, it is feels like impossible to change, but adding that yet at the end of a sentence is so powerful, and so that's just something I was thinking about. Wanting to throw in here is whatever it is you're feeling stuck on, like I haven't done the thing, and then an hour I'm never gonna do it, or I don't know how, but just add in yet, right? It's adding hope, save,

Scott Benner 31:18
like, physical or financial restrictions, I can't think of anything I don't think I could accomplish if I put my effort into it. And making this podcast taught me that it really did. Also I get, maybe that I have that like my mind works in that direction anyway, because I think back to when, yeah, I think back to when I got the offer to write my book, and I took it, and I called my wife on the phone, and I said, Hey, I'm going to write a book. Like a publisher is going to pay me. I'm going to write a book. And she my wife's first question, she didn't say, congratulations. We knew each other for a while. By then she goes, Can you write a book? And I paused, and I thought, I guess I'm not sure, like, if I can write a book or not, but I said I don't know. We'll find out. And if I can't, I'll just give them back the money. It's exactly what I told her. They're going to write me a check to write the book, write me another check when I'm done writing the book, I said they'll write me the first check. I'll put it in the account. We'll sit on it, and if I can't deliver the manuscript, give them the money back. Who cares? I think I can. And let's find out. And Neil, I guess you, depending on how you feel about the book, you'll decide whether or not I could or not. But like, I did it, like, you know what I mean? Like, I put words together, put them in chapters, et cetera. They make sense. It's interesting, though. Like, when you look at different people's mindsets, like, it never occurred to me that I had never done that before, and when she heard that, it's all she thought of. You've never done that before. You've never done anything that would even indicate you could do this. You were a bad student. Can you even do this? And I was like, I don't know. Let's find out. You know? So anyway, I'm

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 32:51
remembering our all of our conversations around resilience, right? And how, how do you become a resilient individual? And is it, you know, genetic, environmental, all those things, sure, and so part of it probably might be that, but also, you can shape your mindset.

Scott Benner 33:08
I also have zero fear about anything, so to my own detriment sometimes, but I'm just like, you know, I mean, if you're not pointing a gun at me, I'm like, we could probably work this out, you know, like, I really don't have a ton of fear about things. Also, you only have to fail a certain amount of times in life and not die before you just go, oh, failing is not the worst thing that could happen. God, I'm gonna sound like a like a T shirt, but not trying is the worst thing that could happen. Like you don't even like trying and failing just puts you back where you started and you got a story, maybe, if you're lucky, you know, yes. So, yes. What is this about your thoughts?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 33:41
Okay, so with that again, it's about the internal like, Are you keeping your thoughts your goals, whether it's your negative self talk, the shame or even the goals? Are you keeping it internal? Are you keeping it in your mind and your thoughts that also will get in the way of habit forming, you know, goal setting, instead of getting it out, like getting the systems out, that's a lot of the things that we've been talking about. Making good habits is about the physical cues, the physical symptoms, your environment is really, really significant. So if you find that you're continuing to say to yourself, I just I got to do this. I got to achieve this goal. But you've changed nothing externally, whether it's the sticky note on the coffee pot or changing your room around, or putting the yoga mat out, or the exercise outfit out, the sticky note of a positive mantra on the mirror, whatever it is, I think it's Yeah, that could keep you kind of stuck right, if you're just thinking about it and not doing and not getting it out. And by

Scott Benner 34:44
the way, with in today's society, everything's so digitally based to begin with. Like, yeah, there's a ton of people who, like, you'll see everywhere they're like, I'm doing this, I'm starting that. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And they never do it. But like, some people do, some people say, I'm going to make a podcast about diabetes and. 11 years later, they're still doing it, you know. Maybe you won't be that person. But again, I think your point again is, if you hold it inside, go, You know what I'm gonna do one day, one day I'm gonna get all my ducks in a row, and then when those ducks are lined up, you're never gonna do it like that, you know? And there is something to be said for saying it out loud makes you a little I don't know more accountable? Yeah, I guess accountability is the right word, right like, you know, and again, you have to be not afraid to fail, but making yourself accountable, you'll find out if you're going to do it or not. Like, that's, that's for sure. I've listened. There are a lot of things that you guys have listened to on this podcast, enjoyed or it's helped you. That just started with me going, I wonder what would happen if we did this. You know what? I mean? I'm going to reach out to people and ask a question. You know, I opened up a circle community that I think has like 1000 people in it right now, and it's going to take me years to build it up, right? But it gets me out of, like, I don't want to leave Facebook, but it relieves some of the problems that a Facebook ecosystem has. And I think it's going to be a valuable thing. I don't think it's ever going to be as big as the Facebook group. Facebook group, but I think it'll be really valuable for the people who find their way to it. I don't want to charge anybody for it, and it's expensive to run. So the first thing I did was I started a trial, and I said, are people interested in this? And they were. I was like, Okay. And then I got myself to the point where I could pay for the lowest tier of it myself. So I'm going to pay the I'll pay the amount. And then there's some functionality that came out. I was like, wow, we really need to move up a tier if this is going to be really valuable for people. And I cold called some of my advertisers, and I was like, Listen, I need an amount of money every year to run this thing. It is not going to pay you back in any way at all. And one guy said, I'll talk to you about it. I have a phone call with him next month. So you guys might get a benefit, because I was willing to call someone up and say, Hey, here's a shot in the dark. But can I ask you a question? And, you know, ask for people that question. And one of them was like, man, sure, I see you out there helping people. Like, I'll help you. Okay, so go for it, you know,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 37:00
yeah, you got, yeah, getting that out instead of just thinking about it, keep

Scott Benner 37:04
talking to myself about it. It ain't gonna go anywhere. It just, it, just, it's never gonna work out. And maybe this won't work, but we're a lot closer to it working now than we would be if I just kept telling myself like, you know, it would be a great idea. You know, be a great idea. Big deal. No one knows, but you Okay.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 37:24
So what else gets in the way of habit setting the the arrival fallacy, which is the belief that achieving a goal will lead to lasting happiness, right? So most common example, it's kind of an if, when or when I lose the weight, or when I weigh this amount, or when I get this a, 1c, then I will be truly happy. Nirvana comes then, yeah, yes. Obviously, there are a lot of external and internal benefits from achieving some of those examples, right? But it can be a trap for us, when a we arrive to that goal and you still don't feel great about yourself, maybe mentally or emotionally, and then you realize, oh, that's really dissatisfying. But also the shame that you're not there yet. It goes back to the shame that keeping you stuck in where you are right like so I'm I look this way, or my can't get my a 1c down, but I know when I get to that place, then I'll feel good. But gosh, I'm not there yet, and I just feel terrible about myself. The Arrival fallacy is a pretty significant issue concern that prevents us from moving forward.

Scott Benner 38:36
Yeah, just the idea that, like, once I do this, then it'll be perfect. Yes, yeah, once I get to this thing, then I'll be happy. Oh, if I make this much money, that'll be okay. Listen, I have to tell you, I think the opposite about it. I think humans are wired like ants. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think we are supposed to be picking up a pebble, walk into a spot, putting it down, making a hill, going find another pebble, doing it again and again. Like, I think people are happier with the task and, like, what better task than making yourself a better version of you than you are today? Like, and, you know, set it a goal, get it done, instead of wanting that. That like, you know, oh, I I'm finally accounting for fat in my food when I'm bolusing, right? How come I'm not a foot taller, my skin's not shiny, and I don't have a million dollars, right? And men and women aren't chasing me around all over, like, how come I didn't turn into, like, you know, a Nirvana situation. I just look at it as, like, just one more little like thing. We shined up, you know what I mean? And, yeah, you die at the end, and you're probably never gonna get the perfection. But I think you feed that natural human instinct to move forward to better yourself, I think you have to stop believing that it's a certain thing that'll make you happy, and start believing that the pursuit of anything is kind of what makes you happy. You know what I mean? Like, like fulfilling your wiring, which is like trying, I don't know that's. How I find it to be, at least, I I've had incredibly loser days, you know, where everything I've tried to do is just falling on its face, but like, I don't feel like, oh, I failed. I feel like, All right, we'll try something different tomorrow, you know? And just, I don't know, I love that. I love using my own innate drive to make myself happy, if that makes sense, yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 40:20
because, well, because in that, it's about, you know, it's about the journey, not the destination, kind of, yeah, irony or not irony. But I know we hear that a lot, but it actually really is true. Because if you anchor so much on the destination, then you could be miserable, you could never start. You know, all the things that we've already mentioned and I love kind of you've set set me up to use this quote from Carl Young, who is a Swiss psychologist, psychiatrist. He created the theory of analytic psychology, and he said, You must love the thing you want to change, essentially meaning that in order to truly change something within yourself or others, you need to accept and fully understand it, fully, even if it's initially like the thing inside you you don't like it's undesirable, instead of condemning it, shaming it. This acceptance is akin to a form of love. So accepting that thing that is just Gosh, I really want to change, and loving that part of you enables you to step forward, because you're not trapped in that fear and shame,

Scott Benner 41:32
right? Well, I'm going to share something with you guys. So the bones of this conversation, over these number of episodes, Erica laid them out for me, right? And the way we I want to be really transparent, like, I come with the idea I say the thing I said at the beginning, Erica lays out the bones of the conversation. She explains to me the reality of things. I reply with how I feel, like, if you're not listening and understanding that already, like, that's how it happens, right? So we're at the end of this now, and I just said something that I did not plan on saying. It led Erica to her last thought, but while she was having that thought and sharing it with you, I went to our little friend on the internet. Okay, I want to be clear now I'm using chat, GPT 03, Mini and all I said was, what is the human drive to work and move forward? That's all I said. Okay, it says our survival instincts are hardwired into our brains. Early humans had to work, hunt, gather, build to survive. This has evolved into neural reward systems like dopamine releases that reinforce behaviors essential for survival and progress. Essentially, the need to secure food, shelter, safety has set a foundation of work ethic and drive under physical motivations. It says intrinsic motivation, this is the internal desire to achieve personal goals, learn new skills and fulfill one's potential. Concepts like self actualization, as described in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, illustrates how once our basic needs are met, we naturally seek to achieve higher levels of personal growth and fulfillment self determination theory, the theory emphasizes the importance of autonomy, competence and relatedness. When people feel they have control over their work and they are good at what they do and feel connected to others, they are more motivated to push forward. And then here's the last bit of it, goal setting and achievement setting, clear goals, whether personal or professional, creates a sense of purpose. The pursuit of these goals activities activates a reward cycle of achievement that fuels further motivation. This is not a thing I understood completely when I started. I started with I can't believe I'm seeing people online make videos that are taking advantage of people's desire to do better for themselves, and trapping them in that loop instead of helping them fulfill themselves. And we had this conversation, I asked myself a question that I did not know I was going to ask myself, and it turns out, I think I'm right. So like and I'm a little surprised. I just wanna be honest with everybody, I'm a little surprised by that, okay, like all I did was see a thing. And so I'm sharing this not to pat myself on the back, but to make the point about trying. I saw a thing. I thought it was doing something bad. I have at my disposal the ability to talk to Erica, but I don't have the full thoughts to move that whole thing forward, so I lean on her. Take her expertise. She pulls her expertise together, leans it back on me. I lend my cockeyed thoughts back to her, which gets her thinking about it, and we end up with the answer, which is, this is absolutely possible for you, like, take this thing that's being done to you by your algorithm, by your Instagram, by somebody on YouTube, and instead of allowing them to trick you into believing that you're moving forward, actually take something in your life and move forward incrementally, and maybe at the end you'll be like, Wow, look at me. Look how far I came. I have that feeling right now. Having created this series with you, and I think people could, like, take that, like, I know it's not a podcast your life's not a podcast, but take it into your life and pick some boring part of yourself that could use a shine up and, like, put that towards it. I'm really happy with it. How this went. How about you? That's

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 45:18
Yes, I am too. And I think that the starting the small, having the belief that you can change something, is so important, right? Like that. You were just kind of summarizing, reflecting. It does start with that, yeah, having the belief you can and then implementing some of these steps, starting as small as you can, and accepting where you are each day, not letting the fear or the need to be perfect or the shame interfere with that journey, but having the belief that you can and starting as small as you as you need to, I would say, are really important.

Scott Benner 45:56
Yeah. I mean, listen, if you can take this series as an example, and listened to Erica laughing 30 seconds ago. She's laughing because I'm like, Oh, I can't believe this worked. And that happens a lot with you and I, but at the same time, like to leave it with the podcast as an example, but stretch it out a little bit. I spoke to somebody the other day who told me that their daughter and they are healthier now because I shared my weight loss diary. But if you go back to the beginning of when I started sharing my weight loss diary, I got yelled at a lot by people for sharing my weight loss diary. I ignored them. Kept doing it, and two years later, met a lady who said, I'm much healthier because of you. If I would have listened to the first voice that came at me, I would not have done that. This podcast as a whole. In the first month that I started it, I was approached by a person in the diabetes community who told me that I was doing the wrong thing by sharing how I manage my daughter's diabetes with people. She told me it was dangerous and I was going to hurt somebody. And 11 years later, there are 1000s of reviews, and 10s of 1000s of people have listened whose a one sees are better and they're happier and healthier. Why? Because I ignored the first voice that said to me, that's not how we do things here. Like, so you've got that voice in your head, that's not how we do things here. You tell that voice what I told that lady, go yourself, and then, like, you know, 11 years later, here we are now, if it all would have fallen apart and not worked, where would the harm have been? Do you mean, like, I share my weight loss journey, and no one ever says to me, Hey, I'm doing better now because of you. No, like, nothing lost, nothing, you know, there's not what it was. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Is that the thing? Yeah, yes. Just live your life by T shirt slogans. It'll probably go fine.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 47:46
Oh my gosh, yeah. And coffee mugs, yeah, go

Scott Benner 47:48
buy that. Listen, I gotta here's the real secret. Go buy that little book that, uh, Ben Franklin wrote, Poor Richard's Almanac of common sense, or whatever the hell it's called. Just read that. It's all right. There. There were like five people in the world. He figured out every reasonable thing, and he wrote it down. You know what I mean, Early to bed, early to rise, make a fire company, etc, and so on. Like, it's not hard to dream up the world when there's no world. It's all incredibly doable. It just really I'm not a special person. Like, I'm just not, do you know what I mean? And you don't need to be. I just bought a microphone, and I was like, I know a thing. I'll say it into here, and I'll see what happens. What happens. It doesn't work out. It doesn't work out, and it worked out. Maybe something in your life will work out. It's all I'm trying to say. And to back to my anger from the beginning of this. Stop letting can shiny people on YouTube tell you you're gonna be rich if you just listen to them, or you're gonna be this if you just do that, or just do that. Don't listen to them. Don't listen to me. Listen to yourself. Just put your motion and get it done. I can't be in charge. Everybody. Erica makes me upset. We believe in you. No, stop it. That was ridiculous, although I would like to start a cult when

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 48:56
this is all over and we and you and I believe, and yes, believing in all the people listening as well. Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 49:02
you can do it. All I get when I think back over this conversation is that you've got some bad habits. You've got some good habits. You have some pre wired things that are either helping you or getting in your way. Be aware of what they are. Pick something small, fix it, get a little momentum, throw it on something a little bigger. You wake up, 11 years later, you have the biggest diabetes podcast in the world. Maybe like, right? But again, you don't try it. You won't know. So also, please, nobody start a diabetes podcast. Put your efforts into something else. I'm already here. I enjoy you know, my space. I don't need you all. Like, competing with me. I'm done. You know what I mean, Jesus, like, find your own thing. I've just started podcast. If you want to, what do I care? Just do the thing that's in your head. Like, whether it's not buying Doritos or trying a thing or a new job or learning it's. Feel like, Guys, I wish you could be here. I wish you could have been here a year and a half ago, when my son said, only a year removed from college, I didn't learn enough at college, and I have a job, and it's a good job, and I'm comfortable, but I need to understand more, like I'm going to come home and I'm going to teach myself that thing, and he picked this incredibly difficult thing to teach himself, and seven months later, was gainfully employed with that knowledge, like as he was doing it, if I would have had any amount of my parents in me, I would have been like, No way, buddy, like you, keep working at that job. That's a good job. You got a degree. It works for this. The kid pivoted on a just on a dime. He was like, nope, boom, fixed and didn't like, lay around lazy and like, be like, Oh, get to it. Got up every day. Made putting that new information in his head his job. I watched him do it every day for months and months and months. And then when he started applying for jobs Erica. He must have gotten turned down for 400 jobs, because the way you apply online nowadays, it's just you pump your resume out to everything. He had times where he, I hope he doesn't mind me saying this, he'd send a resume out, and before you could, like, straighten up in his chair, he was rejected. Like a bounce back email came back then was like, no, just kept going, you know, so anyway, is there anything?

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:26
It's belief, no, I love it, the belief that he, he will get there. That's because

Scott Benner 51:33
I said it earlier. But like, what's the alternative? You're alive anyway, you're getting up every day, you're washing your ass and brushing your teeth, you might as well, like, put all that effort into something that might move you forward, versus something that's definitely just holding you where you are and making you sad. I know it's not that easy, Eric, I'm not stupid. I understand. It's like, I've been doing this with you long enough. Okay.

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 51:56
Yeah, you knew. You knew I was gonna say, I know what you're gonna tell me.

Scott Benner 51:59
I almost don't need you anymore. I know what you're gonna know what you're gonna tell me, and I know it's and you shouldn't beat yourself up if it doesn't feel that way, and etc and so on. But like, you shouldn't ignore the fact that there's a possibility somewhere that you could achieve that thing. I think you just bite sized chunks are just such an important part of this, right? Like, just don't shoot the moon right away. Just first step. You know, go slow. That's all I got. I burned myself out Erica. What do

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 52:28
you got? No, I think that's good, yeah. If anything from all of from all of these episodes, if you're feeling either motivated or not finding that one small thing, the two minute rule, or, even smaller, whatever it is, and kind of working, working the steps, so to speak, but is really, really crucial.

Scott Benner 52:49
Yeah, yeah. I mean, one step at a time, right? That's all you can do. All right? Again, I can't. Thank you enough. I'm excited to see what we're going to do next together, but for now, I think this, this puts a nice cap on goal setting and habit building and habit breaking. So I appreciate it very much. Yes,

Erika Forsyth, MFT, LMFT 53:04
you're welcome. Thank you,

Scott Benner 53:11
both Erica and I hope that you enjoyed the series on goal setting. We wish you a ton of success Breaking Bad habits and setting new healthy habits for yourself. Please check out Eric at Erica forsythe.com Eric has been on a ton of other episodes. You can find a full list at Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu under mental wellness, and that same list exists in the private Facebook group under the feature tab. Today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox I start every day with a delicious drink of ag one, and I'm ending today's episode by reminding you to go to drink ag one.com/juicebox. Subscribe today to try the next gen of ag one, if you use my link, you'll also get a free bottle of Ag, d3, k2, an ag one welcome kit and five of the upgraded ag one travel packs with your first order. So make sure to check it out with my link. Drink. AG, one.com/juicebox, links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox podcast.com. The conversation you just enjoyed was sponsored by Omnipod five. You want to get an Omnipod five? You can? You want to make me happy? Do it with my link. Omnipod.com/juicebox thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app, like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review. Oh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? My diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference. This series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, or you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com you.

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