Scott Benner 5/26/25 Scott Benner 5/26/25

#1532 Couch Potato Summer

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

Zuzka tackles a lethargic “couch-potato” summer, guiding her 14-year-old son’s diabetes and motivation.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

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

Zuzka 0:15
Hi, my name is zuska, and I'm a mom of type one diabetic. If

Scott Benner 0:23
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.

Today's episode of The Juicebox 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. Ever since 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 Miss boluses or miscalculated carbs thanks to meal detection technology and automatic correction doses. Learn more and get started today at Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox

Zuzka 2:00
Hi. My name is zuska, and I'm a mom of type one diabetic zuska.

Scott Benner 2:07
That's how I say it. Yes, that's how you say it, because it sounds like it has a lot of S's, but when I look at it, it doesn't have any.

Zuzka 2:14
It doesn't it's because z is in front of k. So in my language, the Z pronunciation changes to us. No kidding. What language is that? It's Slovakia. So, like my legal name is Susanna, but people did like me, call me zuska. So I just introduced myself as zuska in United States, and that's what I go by. Awesome,

Scott Benner 2:38
awesome. Well, zoo Scott, it's nice to meet you, although Nice to meet you. Thank you. I got the feeling when we started talking before we recorded, that you must listen to the podcast because you You paused in the middle of the sentence and said, What did you say? It's so strange.

Zuzka 2:51
Yes, because I it felt like I'm listening to podcasts, not like talking to you in a real person, you know, in real time. Because I was like, I should just be quiet and just keep on listening. That'd be an awesome,

Scott Benner 3:03
uh, escalation of the technology. If you could just pick a podcast and it would talk directly to you. That'd be that'd be pretty great. Yeah, yeah, I'll work on that. And you said you have a child who has type one? Yes, I have a son. How old is he? He is 1414. How old was he when he was diagnosed? He was a little after his eighth birthday. Okay, so it's been a while, Six years. Six

Zuzka 3:26
years. We just celebrated February 25 Oh, wow. Other children. I have other daughter, and she has no autoimmune diseases as of right now, knocking on the wood.

Scott Benner 3:38
I'll knock on it with you. Don't worry. Your son has anything besides type one, or is that? That it?

Zuzka 3:43
About a year ago, he got diagnosed with hypothyroidism. Okay, how's that going? I think it's fine. We got the numbers down. I insisted on testing every year because of the podcast, because they were going to do it only every two years, and that's how we found out.

Scott Benner 4:02
So as he's growing, you'll be able to keep an eye on medication adjustments. Yeah, that's awesome. That's a good idea. What were his symptoms? How did you realize he had thyroid issues?

Zuzka 4:11
Now, looking back, he was just like a couch potato all summer. And I'm like, it's like, is that him turning into teenager? Like, why he's just laying around all the time, like, not wanting to do anything, yeah. And then we got him tested. And whatever that test was, it was 13.

Scott Benner 4:28
Oh, gosh, yeah, no, that's a that's pretty significant, yeah. So, like,

Zuzka 4:33
the end, I was like, we're not, like, waiting for a mail order. You need to go to the pharmacy right now and get it and get his double dose and get him going.

Scott Benner 4:41
Good, good. That's Oh, so you have a good Endo, it sounds like I believe I do. Yeah, that sounds like it, and

Zuzka 4:47
she also does. Now, when I have from podcasts, she pretty much does what I ask her to do. So that's

Scott Benner 4:53
helpful. You dropped out for a second. But when you come with information from the podcast, she just accepts it. Yes, oh. Right? I'm finally getting a little bit of respect.

Zuzka 5:02
Yeah, I like, you know, I learned stuff and I'm thinking, and that's why I, like, insisted on the, you know, Tiger testing and all of that, and she's all good, and she always gives us praises, but because I know how much better we can be based on a podcast, I'm like, never happy. Where

Scott Benner 5:20
are you at now that you're that you're good, but not happy?

Zuzka 5:23
So we have been with a one to six and under, but we're learning more independence. So his last one was 6.4

Scott Benner 5:32
Yeah. I mean, Arden's, you know, in college and and we're constantly, you know, giving away more and more focus. I wouldn't say that we have a lot to do with her diabetes most days. And she's not rocking a five, seven or anything like that, you know, like so it's, um, I mean, the truth is, is that if I just took her stuff from her, which is not a thing I would do, but if I just took all of her stuff from her, I'd have her a 1c back, like that in a week, and yeah, she's still just figuring the whole thing out, and that's a big part of it, really. You know, being able to have the tools and understand the job is one thing, but then how to blend that job into your life is a different thing. So yeah, and

Zuzka 6:13
I think that's what kind of, I mean, we probably got into, like, how he got diagnosed and stuff, but like, that's our biggest struggle right now.

Scott Benner 6:22
No, I would imagine his age, and he's had it for a while. He's probably sick of it by now, too. Oh yeah, he's in a burnout. Tell me about his diagnosis. What were your first signs? Thinker?

Zuzka 6:32
So I was like, thinking how I'm gonna say this. And because you always ask, like, were you surprised, you know? And I mean, generally speaking, I was surprised. But when we were like, in the middle of it, I was telling the doctor he has diabetes, he had a cold, just like everybody else, and then he was just acting strange. He's starting to wet his bed, you know, and drinking a lot. And then I remember one time he came out of the shower, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I can see a ribs. Like, that's weird. And then I was talking to my friends, like, Hey, have the kids, you know, lost weight. And they're like, Yeah, but like, you know, we go forever annual once a year, so you don't really know how much they lost. Like, it can go up and down as they go through the growth spurts. One of the significant was like, one time he woke up in the morning and he ran from his bed by this thing, and he's like, my heart is beating so fast, so fast. I need to drink. I need to drink. I need to drink. I'm like, something's wrong with my kid. And I took him to the clinic here they check his blood sugar. It was 92 and at that point, I was calling for about a month. I think I would call my pediatrician, like, twice a week, like something's wrong with my kid, like something is like, I know something is wrong. And I even said, like, I think he has diabetes. And she's like, there's no way he has diabetes because of that 92 blood sugar, right at that one time, you know, I was like, then at this point, I was like, well, let's just hope he is UTI. Let's just hope that's it. I went to the clinic. I remember, I picked him up from school, and I said, Well, we'll be right back. It's just like 10 minutes appointment. They finger prick him, and the reader said, too high to read. Wow. And I I look at that lady that was doing it, and I'm like, what that means? And she's like, well, I might be broken. Let's just see. Let's do it one more time. And he did it again. At that point, she walked out of the room. She's like, I just have to check on something. And then the doctor came in and she asked, So do you have any history of diabetes in your family?

Scott Benner 8:41
Yeah, through everyone's stories, the I just have to go check on something. Means I have to go tell the doctor your kid has diabetes.

Zuzka 8:48
Yeah, yeah. I feel like so I live on the island by water from the mainland, so we had to take ferry, and there was no ferry going to the mainland at its that point, and my husband is captain. So I just remember they're like, telling us, telling me, like, Okay, you have to go to the ER, you cannot go to urgent care. They will be waiting for you. We call the Children's Hospital, Go call your husband. And I remember calling my husband and saying, What are you doing? And it's like, well, parking the boat like the big ferry. And I said, Wow, we have to go back on it. You have to run an extra trip, yeah?

Scott Benner 9:26
Keep it running. We're gonna keep it. Keep it running, just for us, though. Nice private tour. Yeah, yes,

Zuzka 9:31
yes. So we did that. I remember the other ferry captain is like, Hey buddy, do you want a cookie? So he had one last cookie before insulin on the ferry ride. And it took us, I mean, maybe four, five hours to get to the ER, because it's, you know, it's like to get to the ferry, we had to get, grab our stuff. Then it's 30 minutes ride, and it's another hour at least, you know, all of that. It was quite a while before we got to, er, this is

Scott Benner 9:58
good. We're gonna have to take a. Side, a little left turn here for a second. So where are you right now? Where do you live? I

Zuzka 10:03
live on Washington Island. Oh

Scott Benner 10:07
so you're up in the northwest, yes.

Zuzka 10:10
Oh so, I don't know if you remember one time I posted on Facebook a picture of a house on the ferry. Yes, that's my house that came across water. Yes, we do all the ice fishing that you hate. You know that, like no people more dear than people, that's us. That's me.

Scott Benner 10:28
I don't hate it, I just think it sounds very frightening and sign of silly. That's all only because it's not warm. I know, yeah. Oh, that's so interesting, because at one point you just said, my husband's the captain. I was like, Is that, like, a weird, like relationship thing, or is that his job? I wonder. We're equal

Zuzka 10:46
partners in this relationship. Very captain. He's

Scott Benner 10:50
a furry captain. He's not the captain of you. I got

Zuzka 10:52
it absolutely not. Do

Scott Benner 10:55
you ever talk to your son about that? Does he remember that whole thing? Or was he kind of out of it at that point. 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 and 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 Today's episode is sponsored by a long term CGM. It's going to help you to stay on top of your glucose readings the ever since 365 I'm talking, of course, about the world's first and only CGM that lasts for one year, one year, one CGM. Are you tired of those other CGM, the ones that give you all those problems that you didn't expect, knocking them off, false alerts not lasting as long as they're supposed to. If you're tired of those constant frustrations, use my link ever since cgm.com/juicebox to learn more about the ever since 365 some of you may be able to experience the ever since 365 for as low as $199 for a full year at my link, you'll find those details and can learn about eligibility ever since cgm.com/juicebox

Zuzka 13:01
check it out. I don't think he remembers much. I remember just because it's very small ERD that we went to, like, literally every, every time the doctor came to our room, he said, I'm waiting for the Children's Hospital. I'm waiting for a phone call. I called the children's hospital like he wasn't doing anything on his own. And I just remember like, seeing him so skinny there. But my son likes the attention. So I think at that point he wasn't looking at it at something like horrific. He likes all the attention. Yeah, he's over that now, but at that point, you know, he wasn't like, upset or anything I

Scott Benner 13:41
got you I'm so glad that you live where you live, because I didn't want to. I'm sitting here, like, testing my geography in my head, and I'm thinking, I think Slovakia is landlocked. I'm like, What is she talking about? And

Zuzka 13:53
not anymore, you know,

Scott Benner 13:56
like, I don't think that's an island. And I started thinking, like, do I have to check like, I don't want to check myself. I'm pretty sure that's right.

Zuzka 14:02
No, I live United States, exactly. I was born in Czechoslovakia, which is now Slovakia. Yeah,

Scott Benner 14:07
it's actually, did it split into two? Is it like, Yep, it's like, chechia and Slovakia. Now, is that how it works?

Zuzka 14:14
Czech Republic and Slovakia? Czech Republic, okay, all right, split in peace. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 14:19
I've had a surprising number of people on this podcast from that part of the world. It's really interesting. How did you, how did you find the podcast? Then,

Zuzka 14:26
when he was diagnosed, I just needed a break from life, so I started to take walks every day. Like I would just tell my husband, like when he was diagnosed, it was, it was so hard. Like we would take, we would take turns who's going to the garage and cry, because you have to keep it together for the kids. And I just needed a break. So I like, I would go and just walk up and down the road, and I, you know, I would just like, look for you. Diabetes podcast, something to listen to and learn from. And I kept going back to you, because it's most conversational, and it's not just about the knowledge about diabetes. For me, a lot of it is just being within people that are going through the same thing? Yeah, no, well,

Scott Benner 15:22
I'm glad, I'm glad you found it. I know there are plenty of people who like the like the small sips or the bold beginning stuff, and I like making it, but at the same time, like, I really don't think the podcast would have endured if it was just all that. No, I just think it needs to be, you know, conversational is a nice way to put it, but it needs to be entertaining too, to some degree, you know, like, or why would you why would you flip it back on again? And

Zuzka 15:44
you don't want to feel alone, like I feel as a parents or diabetes, like you feel so alone because people just don't understand. Yeah, no, I know. So hearing someone going through the same thing and and coming on the other side better. It just so helpful. Yeah, it's just so helpful. Well, you've been

Scott Benner 16:03
listening for six years. Can I ask a question, then, because you're a great person to ask this up. Is it helpful too, that it's more light hearted, that it's not so, like, even when we're having conversations, it's not super serious and sad 100%

Zuzka 16:16
I just don't want to, like, listen to your podcast every day and cry, you know, I I want I have to keep on living my son has to keep on living my husband like we all have to keep on living, yeah, so it like I wouldn't listen to it if it's a Debbie Downer, no, I agree all the time. Okay, that's good. I remember when I joined the Facebook, I think it has 4000 people. Oh, yeah, I got it. Like, I remember you like making a big deal, like, we have 4000 members. And I don't know how many 1000 you have right now. 59,000

Scott Benner 16:50
this morning. There you go. Yeah, you know, it's funny. It got to a point where I like making posts that are, like, celebratory, you know. And my wife says to me one time she goes, I don't know if this feels celebratory anymore, if it feels like you're rubbing it into somebody. And I was like, What are you talking I'm like, What are you talking about? She's like, you were just like, we have 50,000 she's like, you know, I think we all get it. It's growing. And I thought, Oh, that's not how I think about I just think of it as, like, look, it's, you know, it's getting bigger, and there's more people here. We're helping more people. And she goes, Yeah, I might cut back on the celebratory post. Maybe she goes, maybe just every 10,000 at this point. I was like, you

Zuzka 17:24
know, she always keeps you in check, but I think that's something you should be proud of. It's more of us in this community connected, you know, before you know, the Facebook and all the social media, we weren't that connected. Like, I don't know, in person, any other mom that I can, like, talk to on daily basis, Yeah, no kidding, the more people you connect, the better for us. Yeah, who are in it? I

Scott Benner 17:52
agree. And also, some people come and go. I'm honored that you've listened for six years. But I don't think everybody does that like I think at some point people are like, Okay, I feel comfortable now, and we know how to do it. And you know, I'm gonna go do something else, which I understand, although I do see a lot of people come back and they'll say, I knew what I was doing. It was going great, but I got unfocused, and now I'm back again, listening, and my a 1c is coming back down. My variability is getting better. There's something about being connected to it. I think that helps people

Zuzka 18:21
as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, and like, when, when my son goes to college, I will go and listen to the episode about getting ready for college that you just

Scott Benner 18:30
right, yeah. Oh, that little series, that was good series. Even like adding more people, it's funny because there's a, there's a small subsection of people online who get mad if somebody asks a question that's been asked already, but I genuinely believe that that's the part of the goal of the group is to be there when someone asks, you know, a day one or a first year question that you've maybe heard asked 15 times, but you and you know the answer to that's perfect, because you know the answer, Like, you know, we just need a couple people. Or

Zuzka 19:03
maybe I needed a reminder. Yeah, maybe I knew it right, and I just put it on a back burner, yeah? And now I need to be reminded again. Yep, no,

Scott Benner 19:12
it's very valuable. I can't believe that I was able to keep it like, the vibe in there the same as it grew. That's the thing. I can't believe that that we accomplished. It's, it's, it's usually those groups get too big, and they get unwielding, and you kind of lose control of them, and then they just burn themselves out. But this is just continuing to go so, very, very cool.

Zuzka 19:31
There are people diagnosed every day, yeah? So every day you have those people desperate for community and information. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 19:39
I agree. He's diagnosed. I'd like to hear a little bit about how you started off with management. Is, was it pens? They give you a pump? Do you have a CGM? How did all that work?

Zuzka 19:48
So after the ER, we've been in the ER for like, four hours or something, and then the doctor goes, like, so we have a 730 appointment in a two. Children's Hospitals, so now you can go to the hotel. So they just let us go sleep in a hotel, and then we have, like, the full day education, and we were on pens, Lantis and Humalog, silly advice. I remember giving my son a shot, and I did such a bad job that he started to trading on his own because I did such a bad job. It's like, I'm doing this on my own. I'm not letting you do that again.

Scott Benner 20:31
Is that a hack? You just really mess up the one time? And the kid's like, I'll do it, never mind,

Zuzka 20:36
take it as you will. But like, I remember it was like, I didn't know better. And it was, like, almost, like I stabbed him, like, if I had knife in my hand and I

Scott Benner 20:46
stabbed him with the pen, yeah, you really I, like, lunged, yes, like,

Zuzka 20:50
they didn't give me orange before to practice.

Scott Benner 20:54
I think I've made every mistake in the books. Like, doing it, like, I've gone on on the wrong angle, I've gone too slow, you know, like, there's a lot I don't know. I'm glad we don't do many of them, to be perfectly honest.

Zuzka 21:08
So we did that, and I think in about whenever next and the appointment. So in three months, I was on the phone with Dexcom, and then we got Dexcom.

Scott Benner 21:19
Yeah, it's important to go quickly. Made a big difference, I imagine, yes, yeah, you didn't manage for long without it, I guess, yes, yeah, but,

Zuzka 21:28
but, you know, two sides of a coin, it's like, it's great that you have Dexcom and you don't have the finger prick, but then you have this unbelievable amount of data that you can obsess about, you know, having all this I'm definitely glad I don't want to live without Dexcom. Did

Scott Benner 21:47
you get past that feeling? You still feel overwhelmed? I

Zuzka 21:51
don't know. I just heard my accent so bad and I said that. I just don't know the balance between, like, keeping his physical health good, or his mental health and our relationship, you know, like, I don't want to, and I'm trying really hard not to react to every number you know, or when he's high, like, oh, trust Him that He gave himself insulin and let it sit there for A minute, because it takes a minute to start going down, or Dexcom to catch on. So real learning six years in,

Scott Benner 22:28
still learning. You know, it's funny, I think a lot about how to communicate that to people, and I think so far through conversations the best way, because I don't know a way to sit down and say those things. You have to wait. Sometimes you have to see what's going to happen. You can't overreact. Like, it's easy to say, but like, the feeling while you're in it is difficult to ignore,

Zuzka 22:49
yeah, because if it doesn't start going down, they're like, Oh crap. Doodles, I just, you know, wasted 20 minutes. He could have insulin in him. Yeah, no.

Scott Benner 22:58
And then you have that feeling, especially at nighttime, when you're like, I'd like to go to sleep at some point. Or, you know, we're trying to go outside and do something, or like you're trying to get to that number for a real reason. Does it still feel like, Oh, he's being hurt, health wise, by this, or is it more about like not having to manage it? Like, what are you trying to escape? When you're trying to escape

Zuzka 23:19
that number? I am trying to escape bad numbers being his normal. Like, you know how that, like, slowly that, like, oh, 150 is okay, one eight is okay. Two is 200 is okay, and then it's your normal. I'm trying to escape that, but we are trying to teach him independence, and I'm trying to let go, and I'm trying to have a good relationship with him, and I'm trying him not to develop a bad relationship with food. Yeah, there's like, so many things to think it about. And I wish there was, like, if you do a, then it's B, you know, but there's just that and like you just never know. It's like 1000 decision, yeah, every day I

Scott Benner 24:07
have to tell you, I it's probably not very comforting for you, but I still feel exactly like that. Yeah, that's not comforting at all. Yeah. So those concerns and the desires I have, those exact ones, and I'd have to say that Arden's biggest impediment is, is the waiting. Like, she still waits to do things, and she's not yet seeing the value in like, if I do it now, it'll be less effort than doing it later.

Zuzka 24:37
Yeah, that part, there's so many times I told my son, like, if you just take the 10 he's an Omnipod if, well, if you just take 10 seconds to give yourself insulin, then we don't have to deal with it for three hours after, because it takes a minute if you get high. And he always, when he gets high, he knows that's bad, so then he crushes himself, and then he's too low. I always. Kind of like, you know, if you get high, you're gonna get low, yeah, because you're gonna crash it, because it's hard to catch it, the fast drop when you're super high, going low.

Scott Benner 25:08
Listen, Arden is 20, and I just recently told her, You got lower. She got too low to ignore at 4am right? And I said that happened because you didn't change the pod the day before, when I said, I think now's the time to change the pod. And she looked at me like crossways, you know, and and I said, you left on a site that wasn't working, and so you kept pushing a bunch of insulin through it, and it wasn't being effective, but that insulin was still going in there, and it was gonna, it was gonna catch up eventually. You know what I mean, like, it was gonna, your body was gonna use, and it happens overnight. And I said, if you just would have put a new pod on that pod would have been very effective. The number would have come down sooner, with less insulin, then there wouldn't have been all that insulin sitting around. And then you don't have this, like, late and low overnight. She finally got too low at four, but she was getting low throughout the night. Like you could see her just drifting down and down and down. And she's using trio, so she's got an algorithm going. And you know, that thing was trying to stop that drop for like four hours. It had taken her basal away at like midnight, and she just kept dropping steadily midnight, right till four o'clock, when it just, you know, it wouldn't, it wouldn't catch alarms obviously went off, and we were like, okay, took care of it. Like, it wasn't something, like, a big deal compared to that. But then we were awake and, like, she fell back asleep pretty quickly, but I stayed up for 15 more minutes to make sure, you know, and then that suddenly it's 430 and you're like, Oh, God, am I awake? And I said, anyway, all this is fixed. If 12 hours ago, we would have done something different, and you we wouldn't have had to go through all this. And there'll be people who are like, Oh, she's 20. She should know. Or like, I just still think that's young. The real meaning of it's just not, it's not getting to her yet. It will one day, like I've spoken to a number of people who, you know, who've grown up with diabetes, and you get to a certain age, and it's like everything else in life, you go, Oh, okay, I see this is important, but you got to stay healthy till you get to it.

Zuzka 27:08
So I have a question for you. So you told her you should change your path, right? And she didn't do it, yes, right? So then what? Like you just let you just let it go, like, tell me what I should do, and my son doesn't listen to me.

Scott Benner 27:25
That's my growth period, right there. Then I go, okay, she's 20. I told her, she understands why I've communicated it pretty well. She seems irritated. I don't think she's going to do it. Now, what am I going to do? Am I going to make myself crazy for the next 10 hours? Or are we just going to let this be the teaching moment that it is and it moves on? I'm comfortable with it being the teaching moment that it is, because for us, a bad outcome is a six, five, a, 1c if she was ignoring it and her a 1c was nine, I would probably treat it differently, but it's not killing her to have this learning experience, so I let her have it. I probably think of it exactly the same as if, I guess if I said to a kid like, Don't smoke weed, and they were like, I tried weed, I'd be like, Okay, I guess that's like, you know, but if it was like, Don't try heroin, and they're like, No, I'm going to I guess I'd step up and be like, Okay, well, I guess we found my line. Yeah, I think that whether it's diabetes or just regular life, no one learns by being told, actually, you told me you like the podcast because it's conversational. Like, right? Like, if I sat down and just hammered a bunch of ideas at you, you might be resistant to it. I think parenting is the same. Honestly, if you really listen closely to the podcast, I really just apply how I think about life to diabetes. That's all I'm doing, you know, so it's not killing her in the moment. So she's gonna be high, not feel as good as she could. Get low overnight, have that experience, and one day she's gonna, it's gonna happen, and she's gonna think, you know, I should just change that stupid pump. So,

Zuzka 29:05
you know, there was, there was so many times over last six years that I'm looking at Dexcom reading and I'm like, Oh, my God, he's about to have a seizure, you know? And that's like, crazy. I think I'm losing years of my life from the stress of it, and it's, you know for sure, it's not good for him either. So I, like, I don't know how far I can let that independence go at this point. I mean, he's still very young, although, like, let me try. You know, I can do it. I can do it. He makes mistakes, and sometimes they are big mistakes. Or his new thing is he he closes Dexcom app so I can't see his numbers. Oh, that's not okay, because he can see it on the Omnipod five app. Yeah, you know, and that it's just really. Hard and really not okay, right? And also like he's, so I told you, like he's, he's burned out, so every alarm, every pee, bothers him, yeah? So he just, like, he shuts it off so I don't have to listen to that. And he's like, I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine. I'm like, You're not fine. You're 39 Yeah?

Scott Benner 30:19
Okay, yeah, they think I'm fine. Covers every blood sugar and situation between just about to have a seizure and 500 I'm fine. Everything's fine. Yes, listen, I understand, like, psychologically, where it comes from. I would say this, like, if he wants to try to do it on his own, it's awesome, but he needs to know what the tools do. He can't say to you, look, I've got the whole toolbox here. Leave me alone. I know what to do, and then grab a wrench when he needs a hammer. You can't just ignorantly go forward not knowing what you're doing. If he has some ideas to try to enact, I would say, Look, you want to do it on your own. That's great. Here are the things you need to do, like these are the things. Go ahead and do them, but you don't just get to wildly guess about what to do and make yourself super low or, you know, and, and when it goes wrong, shutting off the Dexcom. So I doesn't, so I don't know. That's not an answer, no.

Zuzka 31:10
Well, and the other thing, if you super high or super low, you're not really your best self, right? How do I know you're making the right decision? Because he his personality changes, sure when he's high or when he's low, and

Scott Benner 31:24
that person's trying to make decisions that they already didn't understand. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Zuzka 31:29
I know it's very, very hard. People look at my son and he's very healthy, and the work that goes into it Sure, and don't see him when he's super high or super low, and how it affects him. You know, I think that sometimes people because he wasn't in coma, he wasn't in a hospital overnight, he never has a seizure. Knock on wood, people don't understand how bad and how quickly this can get. Yeah, they just think it's easy because you look okay, yes, yeah, because we look okay. And he has, you know, he has his Dexcom, and he has his bump, and I am so glad that nothing bad has happened, yeah, of course, you know. But then, because nothing bad has happened, people don't understand the seriousness of it. When you

Scott Benner 32:20
say people don't understand, do you think he's one of those people who doesn't understand, or you just mean outside people, I don't know if he wants to understand. I think that's a powerful insight, honestly, because I've had those feelings sometimes when you start to explain something to art and she goes, I don't want to know about this. It's not about, like, having a seizure or something. It's even just like, hey, what does this pill do? Or, Why am I doing this? Or, like, can you start explaining it? I think, I think there's part of her that's like, look, I don't want to understand why this is so important, because I'm going to realize I have to do it. You know what? I mean,

Zuzka 32:50
yeah, yeah. When he got diagnosed with hypothyroidism, that's what he said, is like, just another part of my body not working, yeah, you know? And that's sad. And I tried to tell him, like everybody has his burdens, like this is not going to go away. I almost feel like no one ever sat me down and said, zuska, your son has diabetes. It was like, Well, it kind of looks like it. And I almost feel like I'm still waiting for this big meltdown to let all these emotions out of me, but I'm realizing, because diabetes is not going away, that I just have to live with them at all times. Yeah, have

Scott Benner 33:32
you tried torturing the captain that might make you feel better

Zuzka 33:36
daily basis?

Scott Benner 33:37
Okay? Well, if that's not working, I don't know what to do. My wife seems to really excel at it. So I I like when you talk to other women when they're not involved in your life, they'll say things like, well, they know that they can say that to you, because you'll take it and you won't stop loving them. And I'm like, I don't that doesn't make me feel

Zuzka 33:59
better. Well, she's stick around for all these years, she's not gonna leave you now, you know, I don't

Scott Benner 34:04
know if we want to test that, but okay, well, yeah, no, I again, I think that was really, is really something you just said there about like you're not sure what he really wants to know. I think that's probably something people could really resonate with. You can't make it too real for me, because then, how do I shut my Dexcom alarm off when I can't take it anymore? You know? How do you escape an impossible situation when it's an impossible situation? Yeah,

Zuzka 34:31
I wish he would understand that if be if we are proactive, that we would spend so much less time on diabetes, and we would avoid so many like, bad feelings.

Scott Benner 34:44
Step out of diabetes for a second. Think about all of the things that you see going on in the world. Could we not say that about all of them? You don't even mean if people just put a little effort in now instead of later, they'd see or if they just didn't. Eat this instead of that, then this wouldn't have like the problem you're having, or that anyone's having. It's not diabetes specific. It's a human problem. If it wasn't diabetes and it didn't feel so omnipresent, and it didn't feel so important to living, you'd be having this issue with him about something different, because this is issues that people have,

Zuzka 35:24
if that makes sense. I mean, his biggest issue is the biggest issue, whatever that is for every kid. Yeah, you know, for every child, it's just, you know, if, if we can go back to this, like you being life coach on some of these episodes, like sometimes in the middle of the night, you know, like he's 181 90, and I'm thinking, shall I get up and give him insulin or not? You know, because then I, like, once I'm awake, it takes me an hour to fall back to sleep. Like I'm trying not to be the lazy mom, you know, take care of my kids, or if needed, like, wake him up, if something you know, needs to happen, and then I'm like, Well, if I wake him up in the middle of the night, he's not going to fall back to sleep, then he's going to have a bad day the next day, because he's going to be, you know, so tired. And I just don't know where the balance is again, because based of the knowledge that we have, you know, from Jenny and you you know, we can do so good. But if I push every little thing that I know, number one, it might not even working, work as well as I think, because I'm not him, you know. But number two, he would hate me because I'm just taking care of his diabetes, but I don't want our relationship to be just about diabetes, so sometimes I choose to let diabetes go because I don't want to get into another fight with him about diabetes, because our relationship has to be about more than just diabetes. Of

Scott Benner 37:07
course, yeah, I find myself often thinking there's something to be done here, but I don't want Arden to think I don't trust her, yeah, or I don't want her to feel like she doesn't know what she's doing, like I'd almost rather her have a less than perfect outcome, but feel good about it than me to step up and be like, Oh, that's awesome. But if we just did this, then this would be like, better. I try to avoid that, although I would say overnight, the other night, we were making adjustments to insulin. Didn't get them quite right. So overnight, she started rising the system. Couldn't get ahead of it, and I think when she got the 140 and still had, like, a diagonal up arrow, I it was, I mean, she was definitely asleep, I walked into her room and I made a Bolus and and went back to bed, because I think it was going to end. It was a very specific situation, and we had made an adjustment. I was like, Oh, this adjustment is not going to be right for overnight. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. Then it's two o'clock in the morning, and this thing's going to go 141 60, maybe level out at 180 and then the algorithm is going to fight with it for four hours. And then, you know, if she tries to sleep in in the morning past seven o'clock, then her new settings are going to come on. It's going to make her low. And like, I just was like, I'm just going to go Bolus this. So, I mean, I did that. I didn't tell her honestly. I don't know. You know how when, like, everybody else is watching television, and you're doing a load of laundry and you're like, I'm helping them, they don't care. Nobody appreciates this, like, but it really does need to get done. Like, I kind of looked at it that way. I guess

Zuzka 38:36
we trying to get him well, he wants his independence. Also. I don't like him having fun by him at night, because I don't know if he's just on it playing games, and he needs to sleep. So we've been going back and forth over last couple of months. I even get him a sugar pixel in his room, and then he just unplugs it because it wakes him up. So for now, we're trying to do like on the weekends, he can have his phone by him at night and take care of it. And on weeks like school night, it stays with me at night. But during the weekends, the rule is, if I have to come downstairs and take care of your diabetes, the phone goes back with me and it's with me for a week.

Scott Benner 39:24
Yeah, the phone's a tough one. I'll tell you it is. Yeah, because it is, it's not just a phone, obviously, almost the last thing it is is a phone. I tried to explain to you, like, I'd like you to hold your phone to your ear, and you're like, I don't know. I probably never do that. Even it's so much more, like, it's a, it's, obviously, it's a portal out into the world to everything, you know, and kids are probably not going to choose to do something really awesome with it, but they could, like, he could be watching a nature documentary. He could be watching that Daredevil show on Marvel right now is very good, like he, you know, he could listen. He's 14, you know, I'm saying he could be doing other stuff with it. It's. Tough, because you're not just leaving the controller to his insulin pump with him. You're leaving a portal to the world with him. Yeah, yeah. And they don't have the, listen, I'm 53 I barely have the wherewithal to put it down sometimes. Like, you know, how's he gonna do it? You

Zuzka 40:14
know, you always said, like, I hardly think about diabetes. That's true. I always tell people like, all I think about is diabetes, but I'm so sick of talking about diabetes, except this one hour with you, I'm very happy to I love the diabetes community around Juicebox, because they're like, people like me, and I struggle because sometimes I want to tell people, like, in the morning, like, oh my gosh, we had such a bad night. Like, I tell them sometimes, but I don't tell them all the time, but in a same time, I'm like, I don't want to tell them because I don't want them, like, not to have my son over for a play date or a sleepover, or if he's dating your daughter, you're going to be like, Well, don't date him, because, you know, he's so much work, yeah? Like, it's just,

Scott Benner 41:04
it's hard. No, I know. I know, yeah. Well, then use the group for that. Just go into the group and be like, I had a really bad night. I needed to tell somebody, and I don't feel comfortable saying it in my real life. So here it is, and you'll find 25 other people probably had a bad night too. They'll commiserate with you,

Zuzka 41:21
you know, oh for sure. Like, there's sometimes when people, and I did it too, like, you post at three in the morning, like, hey, blah, blah, blah, it's happening. Anybody out, you know, up and they're like, Oh yeah, me too. You know, it's not going great. I remember, for people around diabetes, like, not directly related. When my son got diagnosed, like I thought no one would ever have him for play dates, because it's like so much work and I would have to explain everything. And I remember one of my friends being like, Oh yeah, we'll totally have him over. And that was so meaningful to me, yeah, like, that meant award to me, because at that moment, I didn't know that that can happen. Like, you know, one CIGA diagnosed. Now it's normal. Now he goes, but, like, it was so hard first to be like, he's gonna go and be in a care of someone else. Will they be okay with it having, you know, kid with diabetes in their household, knowing the risk and are willing to do if something needs to happen. You know? Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:27
I'll tell you the thing that breaks my heart still and now that Arden is older, like, trust me, I had all the concerns when she was younger, because there was, by the way, there was a family who said, like, she can't stay here overnight. I've also had people like, one guy, one Father. He said, I got in the morning and came over to pick her up. And I said, How was it? He goes, Oh, it was perfect. Everything was great. I'm like, You look terrible. He goes, I wasn't able to sleep. He sat up all night worried about her bloodstream, but he still did it and invited her back. And what a good guy. Yeah, right. And I've had people say, like, I'm sorry. She just can't stay here. It's just people who were overwhelmed or not interested, or whatever they you know, just it's not fun for them, and so they don't want to whatever. But nowadays, as she's older, if I had, like, the equivalent of that horrible feeling, I think, is that, I mean, Arden does. She's on the internet, like, don't get me wrong, but she's not very, she's not super involved in this. So Arden is a really, really pretty girl, and she's a lovely person and smart, and, you know, she's a great personality. She's a really great package of, you know, of a person. And sometimes I'll hear her joke about things like, you know, like, oh, you know, she meets a boy or something. And like, it's something like, oh, we'll see, like, you know, how much of me he can take. But she doesn't mean her personality or she means, like, her troubles, you know, having to take a pill for this or that, or a shot, or, you know, insulin, that kind of thing. It's funny because I watch her navigated not differently than all the young women that I've that I've had interviewed, like, you know, in their teens and then their 20s and and even talking to married women who have type one like, I can see her like, naturally doing the things that I've heard other thoughtful, smart women do. Don't tell too much at first, but don't hide it, like all that stuff. She met a boy recently. She came home the other night. They were, you know, they watched, they were watching a movie. And she came home the other night, and he brought her back and dropped her off, but she told him, I have to go back now, like, I have to change one of my devices. And she didn't, like, tell him more, like she had to swap her Dexcom out. She didn't tell him more. She didn't say what it was, just, you know, I have a, like, one of my devices I have to change. She said. About an hour after he dropped her off, he texted her and asked, did that all go okay? Like he didn't know enough about it to ask, like, a pointed question, but he checked in with her, and that was a moment where I thought, like she told us about it. So I thought, Okay, that's good. This is a thing that happened that she's comfortable with. So, yeah. I try not to be heartbroken about it, because she seems like she's navigating it. Yeah, you know, it's different. She's a little older.

Zuzka 45:07
Can I ask you one more question about Arden? Yeah, of course. So I remember how old was Arden, when she went to Disneyland and you had like a nurse going with her? Do I remember it correctly

Scott Benner 45:19
High School, yeah, she was a senior in high school. They did a senior trip to Disney, and there was a nurse there for everybody. But this nurse reached, we were able to reach out to her and get her Oh, God, I'm making you're making me. Remember this. She came in one night to give Arden a juice in the hotel room, and Arden texted me and was like, This lady's like, shoving the juice on my face. I already had shoes. That was her senior year of high school.

Zuzka 45:45
Okay, so tell me, how did you get from if my daughter wants to go to Disneyland in her senior year, she needs a nurse to she's going to college, and there's no one. I mean, I know her roommates have Dexcom, like, my son wants to go on, like, overnight trips, and I'm like, Well, you can go because there has to be someone. So I will have to go with you, or your dad will have to go with you, because, you know, so how, how did that process? Because it's within a year, right from her senior year to her first year of college, yeah. So,

Scott Benner 46:20
I mean, I guess the first thing is, is that the school was providing a nurse for everybody. Okay, you know, so they were there. It's not like, I was like, you send a nurse, or my kid can't go. There was a nurse. So we utilized it.

Zuzka 46:30
So you, you wouldn't if that wasn't for the nurse, would you specifically ask for one? How would you deal with it?

Scott Benner 46:37
I would have found a different way. I think the answer to your question is, is that you have two choices? You can stand still or move forward, and you can only move forward with the spaces that are provided. So when we have to move forward, I look around me for my resources and I make the best of what I have, but we're not going to stop moving forward. Does that make sense? Tell me more. No, listen, if you're trying to send your 14 year old away for a week without somebody there, I understand you not wanting to be on him. I understand you saying, look, at this point, buddy, you don't know what you're doing well enough to avoid lows. You get low sometimes, and it's in the middle of the night. This is not a this is a safety issue. It has nothing to do with our trust for you or whatever, we're just not at that point yet. But if he was 17, and he could take care of it, and you could, you know, look in the face three guys that were going to be in a room with him and say, Listen to me, you guys are going to be gone for four days. No one lets him die, you understand? And here are the things we're going to do. Then I would say, between that, and then, you know, having find my iPhones, you could, like, send a, like, a loud noise to wake somebody up. I used that a couple of times in Arden's freshman year of college. I just looked around me for what was available, and I MacGyvered it into that. Is that a reference? People are gonna know shoot? Probably I won't. MacGyver was a television show in the 80s. Oh, I know. MacGyver. Okay, we're a guy took for everything, or make it two out of everything he could make something out of anything, right? So, like, you know, like, so she's going to college, or not, not letting her go to college. This is this new situation. You're going to get roommates, but you don't know who they are. They can be drunk, high, or, you know, checked out, or in a, you know, in a boys room overnight, they might not even be there. So you just look around for what's around you, and you adapt it to the situation and put yourself in the safest and, you know, make sure there's redundancies. It's not just like, Oh, I'll do this if she gets low and there's no second step. Like, you had different steps. And there are nights that you'll, like, sit in your bed and think you're gonna have a heart attack while you're waiting for somebody to answer, and then you just come to realize that if that doesn't work, then you're gonna call 911, and then there's another system in place and another system in place, and hopefully it's enough. But the alternative is, is that that kid lives in your house the rest of his life and has a really weird life, and you don't want that either.

Zuzka 48:59
Yeah, that's not allowed, yeah, so we just tried it for the first time. Well, so number one, we are in a different situation, because, again, we are separated by water. Even at two o'clock in the morning, I can just go and drive somewhere three hours, right, if he needs me. So we tried it for the first time. Me and my husband went off the island and we let him stay at home. We had his cousin, thank goodness, stay with him. And of course, he got too high, then he got too low, then he got annoyed by alarms, so he shut off his Dexcom app. Yeah, so me and my husband in a hotel, and three in the morning we're like, what we do, what we do? Like, do we wake up this cousin, and then at some point we did have to call the cousin and said, I'm she because she was in a house, because we needed a secondary phone, you know, say another person there, and she had to go find him. Of course, he was funny, like, I had Juicebox. I'm like, why couldn't juice answer the phone call, text me. Back something. So I'm not here sitting on the bed with my husband for two hours, like, is he having a seizure, and no one's around him.

Scott Benner 50:07
I'm fine. Well, that's nice. Well, me and the captain just had a stroke, so, and I didn't mean that like that, yeah, calling my husband a captain. Well, you called him that. I mean now to me, he's the captain. You're Tenille. We're moving along. I

Zuzka 50:20
am very proud of him, as long as we know that he's not captain of my life. Yeah, no, I

Scott Benner 50:26
understand, yeah. Out in the world, he's a respected man in your home. He's an idiot. I got it. Don't worry. I know it's gone. Okay,

Zuzka 50:33
my son is 14. By the time he's 17, he will grow immature. I will grow immature as a family. We will grow immature, and we will be able to go through this process to let him go to

Scott Benner 50:47
college. Yeah. I mean, you're probably going to need some weed too, because you're not going to calm down. I don't think this guy, it sounds to me like you've got a lot of that mom thing in you. It's not good. Well, I love him. No, I know. I know. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean, like, loving him and being worried is bad. I mean, like, the the anxiety piece is tough, the overbearing, yeah, it's terrible. Like, it's, I don't know, like, what nature did. I mean, I guess, honestly, I look at boys and I look at girls, and if nature making me feel horrible, well, no, if nature didn't do this to you, ladies, we'd all be dead already, because guys, because your son's an example. Guys would be like, It's fine. Don't worry about it. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Right into a volcano. Look at every story a guy tells you, I was a mess. I was doing this, I was doing that. You know, I met this girl. She got me straight. It's how it works. I don't know if anybody's

Zuzka 51:37
paying attention. That was the best thing that happened to her. No,

Scott Benner 51:41
no, yeah, I would have died in a road rage incident years ago if I hadn't met Kelly or something like that. But at the same time, like whatever that switch is, it's unfair to you guys that it doesn't have a dimmer because whether it's a baby six months old choking on a little bit of formula, or a 25 year old out on a date. You guys have the same level of, oh my god. Everything's going wrong. We're all gonna die. I have to stop it. I know that the best I've come up with is to say, hey, you should calm down. But I don't think that works. Really. That doesn't work very well. So I don't, I don't do that anymore.

Zuzka 52:19
It's like, no, don't make me calm down. You come up on my level of anxiety. Join me. I was just

Scott Benner 52:25
kidding. Any man who says calm down out loud is gonna lose his testicles. I don't think it's a good idea at all. Obviously, you don't just tell a person who's upset to calm down. But like, what I'm saying is, is that, from my perspective, I'm not having the same response. I don't even know how to interact with her when she feels that way, because I'm like, This is not what I'm doing, and it's not even this. Wouldn't even occur to me to do this, but I think I've learned over the years, it's not occurring to her to do it. It's just happening to her, like she just gets jacked up like that. That alarm goes off overnight. My wife gets a cortisol spike. She wakes right up. She's she's ready to fight a war, and I'm like, Hey, our blood sugar just dipped under 70. Calm down, like it's okay. I don't know what you do. I mean, I think for your sanity, I think you should probably keep working on giving him better a better idea of how those tools work, because when he can make more measured decisions, he's going to have better outcomes, and you're not going to be put in that situation as frequently, which isn't going to put him in dangerous situations. I almost feel like that's the conversation. Like, I know you want to be more in control. I want that for you as well. At the moment, you know, sometimes we're doing really great, and sometimes we're not. I think there's just a few more things you need to learn once you have those things, those tools in your tool belt, like, I think you're going to be great at this. I'm excited for you to go out and live your life and spend the night somewhere without, you know, without me and dad and but we got to get you to that point wishing it isn't going to make it true. We're going to have to do a little bit of work here to

Zuzka 53:56
get to it. Yeah, I was a really bound after that one night. I told them, I'm like, what a wasted opportunity. Like you fought for this opportunity to be left overnight, and you completely wasted it, you know, like there's so little that you could have done just answer your phone. Okay, I have one last

Scott Benner 54:15
let me just say this though, maybe a little less Eastern block in that response there. You know what I mean, just a little less, you're like, back home, we'd throw you out in the snow, and if you didn't die, then you were okay.

Zuzka 54:31
All right, one more question, because I know you're gonna be like, Oh, we had the hour we're done. Hey,

Scott Benner 54:35
by the way, I want to say that's Rob's fault

Zuzka 54:40
and all the money he's charging you, I know. No,

Scott Benner 54:42
no, listen, he's very, he's a very, an awesome editor, and he's a very fair person. When it was just me editing, I just like, I would talk forever, and I'd be like, whatever. Like, if people want to listen to for 90 minutes, they can listen for 90 if they shut off an hour. Like, I don't care. But I do pay somebody by how they edit now, and I am much more kind. Magnus and elvit. So like, if you like that the episodes are a little shorter now, then you can thank Rob, and if you wish they were longer, it's Rob's fault, wrong way recording.com. If you're looking for an editor. But go ahead. What's your question?

Zuzka 55:12
Okay, one more question. So what is she now 22 No,

Scott Benner 55:16
she's 20. She'll be 21 this summer. 20. Okay. Never

Zuzka 55:19
mind. Is she starting to see how much you have been doing for her in life, or she's still like, like, no, like, that's automatic. There might like, is there a way that San will see that someone like, oh my gosh, she my mom was a nudge, like she was just caring, trying hard.

Scott Benner 55:38
Oh, I see. Okay, legacy. We're worried about your legacy here. Okay, of course, I would say that Arden's in the spot now where she still believes that I have unnecessarily put too much effort into her. I don't think she's gonna get to the part you're talking about till mid to late 20s, and I base that on other conversations I've had with people in their mid to late 20s. I don't think this has anything to do with Arden and I or this situation. I really do think it just has to do again, with like, people and how our brains work. And I think that it's, it's interesting and and I understand people who would say like, oh, you know that person's 20 they're 22 they should know. But there's really great research that says your brain is still forming into your mid 20s. There's great research that says that young people benefit greatly by help with their diabetes up until like, 25 years old, like help from their parents. So that's very beneficial. When I go back and interview people who are older, who fought their parents tooth and nail through that time. They'll tell you when they're 2728 29 and 30. I wish I wouldn't have given my parents so much hassle. I wish I would have listened more. I did need help. I didn't realize it at the time. So I think we're in the right now. We're in the I did need help. I didn't realize it at the time part. And I think that if we can continue to have a reasonable relationship the way we are right now, and trust me, not, every day is great. We were, like, Arden and I were yelling at each other about something tangentially diabetes related, 48 hours ago, like, you know, that

Zuzka 57:15
makes me feel so much better, yeah, 100%

Scott Benner 57:17
like, I mean, like, and we were almost in a, like, an we have a very similar personality, so we were almost like in a screaming match at one point, like it stems from all the stuff that you've gone through and all the stuff that I've shared on here coming to a boiling point. I'm trying to assert this as needed and necessary. She's trying to assert her independence. It's all very important to do. I mean, I even think the argument is important to have. But you know, the next day, we're not fighting still, like we're reasonable and everything. And I just think we're in that part right now where she still thinks either I don't know how she feels about it, whether she doesn't feel like she deserves or needs the attention, or maybe she just doesn't want it, like, I don't know, like, you know, in that soup somewhere. I think that if we stay on the course we're on, and keep making reasonable decisions, and I back off when it's not absolutely necessary. And she steps up when she's able to that. She'll continue to mature. She'll get to a point like we all do, where you look back and you go, Oh my god, I broke my mom's balls on this, and I didn't need to.

Zuzka 58:15
And I don't even need my son to realize that, like, you know, I was horrible. I just need him to understand that I am not this horrible, overbearing person, like I am just trying my hardest between raising him to be a functional human being and not hurting himself, health wise, with diabetes, with a long term complication,

Scott Benner 58:37
yeah, no, and that's completely reasonable, but you're in an unwinnable situation,

Zuzka 58:42
yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, I can win, yeah? Because you

Scott Benner 58:45
have all of the you have all the challenges of raising a person mixed with all of the challenges of not taking care of diabetes well and hypothyroidism on top of yeah and that for fun, just because there wasn't enough to do. So you have all those things mixed together. You are you're making the best of a not perfect situation. And the truth is, you know, when you see those people online who are diagnosed and they're they have this initial knee jerk reaction like this just changed our lives. Nothing's going to be the same anymore. Here's the secret that's true, right? Like but you have to adapt to it. You have to continue to do the best you can with the cards you're dealt, like that's that's what not giving up is, because it's not going to go away. It's not going to go away, it's not going to change, and the implications on all sides aren't going to change. It's not going to stop being medically a medical disaster if you don't take care of yourself. Kids aren't going to stop not listening to their parents. Cinnamon is not going to cure it. Cinnamon is not going to get it. I mean, we tried, it didn't work. So, like, this is it? This is why I have, over the years, talked about the way astronauts think, because an astronaut is taught to address the next thing that's trying to kill them. Because everything's trying to kill them, and so you can't fight all the things at once. You fight the thing that's in your face that is currently trying to kill you, that is not a fun way to live. And while I don't believe diabetes is a situation where everything is trying to kill you constantly, I do think that attacking it from that position is valuable of I'm going to deal with the thing right now that is the most present and most necessary to deal with. I'm not going to think about the rest of it because, yes, I'm dealing with this thing right now. And is there another thing that's going to try to get us 10 steps away? It is, but it doesn't help me to think about that right now.

Zuzka 1:00:36
And sometimes the mental health is more important than physical right like, sometimes we have to choose to back off right and let them make mistakes, to learn.

Scott Benner 1:00:46
Listen, there's a diabetes version of a Saturday night where you eat ice cream and potato chips, right, right, where you're just like, I've had a week. This is a disaster. I'm gonna put the worst TV show on I can find eat a pint of ice cream, and then I'm gonna wash it down with a Dorito. And this is not a good decision for me. I shouldn't be doing this, but I don't really have another way out, right? Some people get into that situation and they drink, that's not a good decision. Some people get in that situation and they get high, that's not a great decision either. But sometimes people just get to a point where they need to do something, and if they don't do it, they're gonna snap. Yeah? And that's the thing I'm talking about. Like, snapping is not an option. So no, you gotta bend. Giving up is not an option. Yeah, I don't think you're a big American football person, but sometimes you gotta play a little prevent defense, little bend, but don't break. Every play can't be I can't give up a yard. You can't put that pressure on yourself because, because the other side is going to win sometimes, and if, if your goal is always perfection, then every time the other side moves, even if it's just a yard, you're going to feel like I failed. So once in a while, you say to yourself, on this next play, we're going to let them get four yards, and I'm going to rest a little, and then I'm going to come back and smack them in the teeth, and we'll put an end to it here. And that's, I just think that sometimes that's what life is, and sometimes that's what diabetes is. Because again, you know what I'm thinking? What's that

Zuzka 1:02:10
I'm thinking, like, thank God he's using football, not baseball, because going into it, I'm like, I have no idea about baseball. Like, he's gonna say something about baseball, like, comparison, and then I'm not gonna, you're

Scott Benner 1:02:22
not gonna know it. No. I mean, listen, I can, I can do it in baseball, and a little bit, yeah, no, I can. I can do it in baseball if you want, but it would have been more about, like, walking a batter and then, like, just it felt more natural. Understand, I honestly think football is the more natural, like explanation to another, yeah, if I grew up on the other side of the world. Again, I think soccer is a is a great sometimes you just got to let people run themselves out. You know what? I mean? Like, it's, yeah, you you can't constantly be in a battle of perfection. It just doesn't work. So, you know, you keep playing the game. You give a little, you take a little, you give, you take, you go back and forth, and you just try to be on the right side of the score when it's over. That's, I think that's all life is, honestly.

Zuzka 1:03:03
You know what I don't do on Fridays afternoon. Fun fact, what's on parent? That's my break. That's

Scott Benner 1:03:10
your ice cream and Doritos. You're like, it's Friday, yes, try not to kill yourself. Goodbye.

Zuzka 1:03:14
Friday after school, me and kids. I'm like, whatever. Get yourself dinner. Find yourself something. We all on our own, doing our own thing. I don't parent as long as they don't die. We're good Friday this afternoon. Listen,

Scott Benner 1:03:27
we're just a couple of generations behind. That's how I was. Like, that was my entire life. Like, my wife will tell a story that during the summer, I don't think it's a story. She thinks, like, Oh, I think my mom would love it if people heard this. She said, during the summer, we got up, we got dressed, we ate. My mom literally pushed us out the door and locked it behind us. And it was come back at dinner like you go take care of yourself today and come back at dinner.

Zuzka 1:03:52
That was the 70s. I know, I don't know how my parents did it. Like no cell phone, like, you know, come back home with the street lights turn on. Yeah, right. You know kind of deal. My

Scott Benner 1:04:03
parents didn't know where I was ever, never, and you're here doing just fine. I'd also, I didn't have a portal to the world in my pocket, like so you could only, you know, you could only plunder what you could walk to, and there wasn't much near you. A lot of my childhood is just wasting time, just going around, kicking a ball around, throwing a ball around, talking to people, walking. How much of your life was spent walking to someone's house to see if they were home alive? Yeah, and then they weren't home and they had to walk back. There's two hours a shot, yeah, and you're tired, so you really can't get into much. I mean, the worst thing that we could do as kids is shoplift, seriously, like, there really wasn't much to do if you were going to get into trouble. I don't know. It's a different world. So also, I think it's possible that our access to the world has made people more neurotic, too. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. You

Zuzka 1:04:56
feel like with Dexcom. You like having Dexcom, but it's like all these days. Yeah, sure,

Scott Benner 1:05:00
right. When you hear that somebody 16 states away, you know, lit a car dealership on fire, you think, Oh, that could happen here. And, like, I mean, it's not going to happen there. It happened there. It's not going to happen all over the place. Like, you know, there's bad weather in Texas. They don't have electricity. That makes you nervous. You know what? I mean, like, that kind of stuff. You didn't know about stuff like that before. That before. You just didn't know, like, you knew about big things, and sometimes you didn't know about them for weeks or months until after they happened, and the nightly news was, like, not even a thing. Like, most people didn't even watch it. But now it doesn't stop. Like, right? It does not stop no matter what side of like, any idea you're on, from the littlest thing, like how to make bread, to what's going on in politics, like in everything in between, you have access to 1000 opinions, and they're all jacking you up because they want you to like and subscribe so like, you know You're being you're just being ratcheted up to 1000 every digital touch point you have in your life.

Zuzka 1:06:04
Yes. So people want me anxious, obviously, yes.

Scott Benner 1:06:09
So you'll go back and check again. This is very simple. Like, that's why the news is scary. Like, even in the 80s, like, you know, they'd always tell you something scary that was going on where you lived, so that you'll come back next week to see if you're safe or next day to see if you're safe. It's all marketing. Everything is marketing. You're being marketed to constantly. It's for your time. They want your time. They want your attention. Because the longer you stay in their thing, the more they can charge for ads. That's all this is if you just put your phone down, you'd feel better if you stopped watching the news. The world wouldn't change one little bit. You don't actually have any impact over it. The world wouldn't change one little bit, and you would feel better. Doesn't matter who's your congressman or the president or what's happening in the world. The world is going to do what it's going to do, and you and your house, you don't have a lot of impact on it. So it'll make you feel better, but it's not going to actually do anything. You know what? I mean? I was sitting in traffic the other day, and I saw a woman give a guy in a Tesla the finger, and it was clearly just because he was driving a Tesla, not because they weren't doing anything, right? And I thought, Oh, my God, that does that woman think she's making a political statement? I was like, that's you bet she is, yeah. And I thought, That's so interesting. And then I look closer and I realized the guy in the Tesla didn't see her giving him the finger like it never had. I'm watching the whole thing, like from across the intersection. This is fascinating. So she's now performatively giving him the finger because he doesn't see it. I thought, Oh, she feels like she's done something. Yeah, she felt better about herself. Yeah. I was like, That's fascinating. I was like, she thinks she's making the world a better place. And I was like, That guy that Tesla looks like, it's six years old. People at that a long time ago, you didn't even, I'm like, this is all fascinating. My thought for her was, very simply, if she put her phone down, she'd be happier. That's what I thought when I saw that happening. She should really get off of her social media algorithm. It's making her crazy. That guy was just, he's the guy. He's just trying to go to work, you know what I mean? So anyway, yeah, put your phone down, you'll feel better. Thanks. You're very welcome. I appreciate you doing I appreciate you doing this with me. Very much. Thank you, Scott. If only we could have found a way to refer to you as Tenille. At some point, we could have called this episode captain, and Tenille would have been awesome, but I don't get that one, but oh, it's an old singing group from the from the 70s. Don't look it up. Wasn't

Zuzka 1:08:37
living in America like offending me right

Scott Benner 1:08:41
now. It's just word play, Captain, no, please don't look it up. It's not worth looking into. Now I have to no please that well, that's gonna be a big waste of five minutes of your life. No. Couch potato. It is, yeah, whatever you say, couch potato, Summer, yeah, I think it fits. Okay. All right, that's what we're gonna do. Hold on one second for me. Okay?

Zuzka 1:09:02
You Are

Scott Benner 1:09:05
you tired of getting a rash from your CGM adhesive give the ever sense 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. 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 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. I'm waiting for you, and it's absolutely free. Juicebox podcast.com, 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. Tiktok. 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. You 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. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com. You.

Please support the sponsors

The Juicebox Podcast is a free show, but if you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can make a gift here. Recent donations were used to pay for podcast hosting fees. Thank you to all who have sent 5, 10 and 20 dollars!

Donate

Scott Benner 5/25/25 Scott Benner 5/25/25

#1531 Series and Collections

All of the series and collections in the Juicebox podcast quickly explained so that you can find them more easily.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

COMING SOON

Please support the sponsors

Donate

Scott Benner 5/22/25 Scott Benner 5/22/25

#1530 After Dark: Divorce and Addiction

Anonymous guest discusses a porn addiction, alcohol use, and the resilient climb toward recovery and renewed self-worth.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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

Anonymous Speaker 0:14
Hi, my name is I'm a parent of a type one diabetic in Texas. If

Scott Benner 0:21
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 juiceboxpodcast.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. The episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by touched by type one. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram, and, of course, at touched by type one.org check out that Programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes touched by type one.org today's episode of The Juicebox 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 ever since. Hi, my name is,

Anonymous Speaker 1:50
I'm a parent of a type one diabetic in Texas. You're

Scott Benner 1:53
a parent of a type one in Texas, but we met in Florida. Yes,

Anonymous Speaker 1:57
that's right, it was at the touched by type one conference almost two years ago. Did you

Scott Benner 2:02
travel to Florida for that conference? Yeah, I did. Oh, wow, that's awesome. How did you find it

Anonymous Speaker 2:08
from you? I was I started listening to the podcast a little a few couple months before that, maybe. And one episode you mentioned it. It was a free conference in Florida, and I checked the dates it was available, so I booked it, flew out there and enjoyed the conference. It's great. That's

Scott Benner 2:26
awesome. That's great. Also, yeah, the value there is you can fly into Orlando for less than you can Uber across town. So it's not usually too bad from almost anywhere in the country. Well, it was, it was lovely to meet you. Let me make sure say your name again. I want to make sure I say across make sure I say it correctly, like that. Yep. Okay, that was good, awesome. Oh, thank you. And you are the father of a child with type one. That's right. Okay, you have a couple of interesting little bends to your story. I feel like we're gonna get to every one of them, so I'm excited about it. But tell me a little bit first about your child's diagnosis? Sure. So

Anonymous Speaker 3:04
that was two years ago, just over two years ago. So 2023 in January, we had all gotten COVID. Around New Year's beginning of the year, the whole family got COVID. The little one who was for the time about to turn five, he seemed to have it the worst of us. We didn't really know what was going on. As the rest of us were getting better, he seemed to be getting worse, and that, that's really all we kind of knew. There was a little bit more leading up to that, which, looking back, knowing what I know now, we should have picked up on sooner. I was the frequent thirst, unquenchable thirst, really, and frequent urination had started a couple months earlier and kind of gradually increased over time. It just started out pretty normal, and then, like, a little bit week by week, he was, like, drinking more and more water and going to the bathroom more and more often, yeah. And it was such a slow increase that you know as it was happening. Didn't think much of it, but after a couple of months, like, oh my god, this guy's peeing every 30 minutes, like, this isn't right.

Scott Benner 4:10
You're saying then that you think the diabetes symptoms began before the COVID.

Anonymous Speaker 4:14
Yeah, I think they began before the COVID, but the COVID made it worse, and then so then he went into full DKA, which we didn't know, took him in to emergency room one day, because he would have been throwing up. He wasn't able to get up anymore. He wasn't able to drink water anymore. So we took him to the emergency room. Thank God the doctor there knew immediately what it was. The first thing they tested was blood sugar. First Reading came up high. He didn't even give a number. It was so high, yeah, so they had to do another test. His blood sugar was 833

Scott Benner 4:53
My gosh. How old is he at that point, he was 425

Anonymous Speaker 4:58
this was four. Two

Scott Benner 5:00
days before his birthday, and he's your youngest, or no, there's a younger one. He's my youngest.

Anonymous Speaker 5:04
I have another one that's a few years older. Okay, okay,

Scott Benner 5:08
well, so what do you think you said? Or how did it present that the ER, right away said, this is type one diabetes.

Anonymous Speaker 5:15
Hmm, good question. I was carrying him in, and we didn't really say anything. Like, it was, like, on site, really, yeah, he, he was looking, I hate to say this, but on the verge of death, really, like, he lost a third of his body weight. He looks like a skeleton with skin on. Like, it was really scary at that point. What

Scott Benner 5:41
slowed down your ability to to seek the help? Was it that you guys were all sick at the same time? Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 5:47
we all had COVID, so we thought that that's what it was. So we were resting, taking it easy the day before we went to the ER, my wife actually took him to an urgent care clinic. They did not check his blood sugar. They heard the symptoms about the COVID related symptoms. They also heard the symptoms about the thirst and urination. They tested him for COVID, and they sent him home with that, yeah, some basic care instructions. And,

Unknown Speaker 6:13
yeah, hmm, a third

Scott Benner 6:15
of his weight. How much did he lose? Almost

Anonymous Speaker 6:18
10 pounds. Oh my gosh, yeah. He was down to 11 kilograms when they weighed him, and he would probably have been like, 15, I think, okay,

Scott Benner 6:26
okay. So you go to a to, like, an urgent care, you don't really get much of a you probably get the Oh, it's COVID kind of thing. And then yeah, the next day, you're all just like, No, no, he's dying, yeah, when you take him to the ER, do you take him to the ER, thinking he's dying from COVID. Yeah, really. Okay, so when the doctor looks at him and says, This is type one diabetes, are you relieved or shocked?

Anonymous Speaker 6:51
Both? Yeah, diabetes hadn't crossed my mind at all. I've heard of diabetes. I'm aware that insulin pumps exist, and it's insulin, it's, I know it's a blood sugar thing, and insulin, I'm aware that there's treatment for it. That was kind of where I was at. I didn't really know what the treatment was like or anything. But once I heard diabetes, I was I did feel relieved. I thought, okay, there is, there's treatment for this. There's something to be done, and we know what it is.

Scott Benner 7:19
Yeah, it's not this scourge that's going across the planet that nobody seems to understand very well. Yeah, exactly. Listen, I met your son when I met you, is that right?

Anonymous Speaker 7:28
No, you didn't. He didn't go with

Scott Benner 7:30
me. No, oh, how do I remember that then? Oh, I'm trying to think of how I remember, why I remember it differently. Oh, that's a shame. My memory was garbage. You met a lot of people that weekend. It's okay. I did meet a lot of people, so I guess I'm going to jump around, because I know about your story a little bit, but I'm going to jump here for a second on that day in the ER, you're a married person, that's right. How long after that, were you not a married person?

Anonymous Speaker 7:55
It became final nine months later. Were

Scott Benner 7:59
you in the midst of getting a divorce during the COVID? Yes, Oh, fun. The day

Anonymous Speaker 8:04
that he went to the ER, I had a meeting with my lawyer the same day of that morning I met with my lawyer because we were supposed to go to mediation the next week. So we were my lawyer had scheduled a pre mediation, no game, planning session with me that morning. So I've been talking to my lawyer that morning, planning how we would handle mediation and all that. We are going to get a mediation seven days later. This is like

Scott Benner 8:30
2023, ish, is that right? Yeah, that's right. Okay. So this is not like, oh my gosh, like COVID time. This is three years after COVID time. Did og COVID have something to do with you guys getting divorced? Or is there another aspect that's a whole other story, whole other thing. Okay, all right. It's not like, Okay, I just know. I just know too many people that when COVID hit, they were like, Oh, this is the end,

Anonymous Speaker 8:53
right here. Yeah, we were on the rails before that. I got you.

Scott Benner 8:57
Okay. Well, this is interesting. So did the diagnosis slow the divorce down at all? Like you're living at home getting divorced? Is that right? Yeah, we were

Anonymous Speaker 9:07
still living together. Yeah, we were separated in the house. So we'd been separated in the house for a couple of years. At that point, divorce had been filed four months earlier, and we were still living in the same house together. I was trying to wait out the process basically, like, this situation is livable for now, where we have separate rooms, separate lives, like we take care of the kids, we each take care of our responsibilities. Why shake things up until we have to like, okay, we're getting divorced. Our marriage is ending. Fine. It was still to be determined. Who is going to be moving out, where you're going to move what's the child custody agreement going to be like, and things like that. So I was trying to to get to mediation, see where things were going to land, and then proceed from there.

Scott Benner 9:54
Okay, so did the kids know? Well, like the kids are young, but did they understand that? Like we all live together, but we don't.

Anonymous Speaker 9:59
Yeah, we didn't explain a much going when it was starting, like, when we started sleeping in separate room bedrooms, I don't think we, I didn't explain anything to the kids about that. Like, mom and dad are just sleeping in different rooms now. Yeah,

Scott Benner 10:14
it's, like, regular marriage, except you, like, said it out loud, yeah, okay. Like, I don't want to, like, I'm not trying to dig too far. I'm trying to set up the expectation for how the diabetes gets split up later. That's really what I'm interested in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there was part of me that wondered if the shock or the of the diagnosis, like, pushed you guys together a little bit, or things stayed pretty much the same. From there, we

Anonymous Speaker 10:42
had to work together. We did work together on on his treatment. It was it took both of us, early on, literally chasing him around the house to give him an insulin shot. You know, one person chasing him, the other one, like setting the trap, basically ambush, and one person had to hold him down. Sometimes, one person had to hold him down while the other one did the shot. Like, that's just how it went at

Unknown Speaker 11:06
the beginning. Yeah, you

Scott Benner 11:08
you understand. What I'm trying to figure out is, did that whole time, did it make you see each other the way you remembered you? Or was that anxiety of that time a thing that drove you like, because, what am I asking? You've heard people be on the podcast before, right? And like, but this time's difficult on their marriage. Did it make your difficult thing more difficult, or did it bring you together? I guess neither. Okay, you guys were cemented where you were then,

Anonymous Speaker 11:37
yeah, we were there was no chance of of reconciliation. At this point, I was done with the marriage. With any chance. I spent years trying to work on reconciliation. I see so at this point, we were able to work together as CO parents, learn about diabetes together, learn to manage together. But so that did slow down the divorce process, because once, when he went to the hospital that day, I called my lawyer back and said, pre cancel mediation. We can't go. It was seven days later, like he's getting him into the ICU. We can't do it. I don't even, I don't know when he might, he might be helped by then, but even me as I can't do it, yeah,

Scott Benner 12:21
right, I'm fried. And an hour and a half ago, I thought my kid was dying. So yeah, let's take a pause. So

Anonymous Speaker 12:27
we put a pause on, on everything. And we were really focused on on the kid for a few months. And then after a few months, April ish, things were settling a little bit. I started to feel like I knew what I was doing. I looking back, naive, no idea what I was doing. That's when I, three months later, I reached back out to the lawyer and said, Okay, things are settling a little bit. Let's, let's get this process moving again. And

Scott Benner 12:51
does one of you take the reins on the diabetes thing? Because I feel like it's you, but I of course, don't know your ex, so I don't know. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast podcast is sponsored by ever since 365 and just as the name says, it lasts for a full year, imagine for a second a CGM with just one sensor placement and one warm up period every year. Imagine a sensor that has exceptional accuracy over that year and is actually the most accurate CGM in the low range that you can get. What if I told you that this sensor had no risk of falling off or being knocked off? That may seem too good to be true, but I'm not even done telling you about it. Yet. The Eversense 365 has essentially no compression lows. It features incredibly gentle adhesive for its transmitter. You can take the transmitter off when you don't want to wear your CGM and put it right back on without having to waste the sensor or go through another warm up period. The app works with iOS and Android, even Apple Watch. You can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox, dot com, slash, Juicebox, one year, one CGM,

Anonymous Speaker 14:05
no, I tried to make it even between us. One point of Con, one point of contention we've had kind of started way back then, because, of course, when he was first diagnosed, we didn't have the technology yet, like we went home from the hospital with with a contour meter and test strips and, you know, Huma log Junior pen, quick pens, that kind of thing. And so we were doing finger sticks throughout the day, including overnight. In our co parenting life, I had kind of set up a precedent of sharing responsibilities in other areas. So when it came to dropping kids at school and picking them up, we split up those duties evenly. When it came to dinner, we split that evenly as well. We took turns making dinner and the major response. It is a parenting and taking care of the house. We we split as evenly as we could. That's how I wanted it to be. And I helped me to make it clear, you know, who was cooking dinner each night. Because early on, sometimes it was the crap shooting. Neither of us wanted to cook. So once the diabetes started, start, I started to see, okay, how can we split this up? This responsibility up? Because he was in daycare at the time, so somebody had to go to the daycare during the day, check on him during lunch, make sure things are being done right, because the daycare was not prepared for that. And at the same time, somebody had to check him, check on him at night, in the middle of night, two o'clock in the morning. So that ended up becoming how responsibility was getting split. I worked from home, so I worked a mile away from the daycare. It was easy for me to take off my lunchtime, be there for his lunch, check on him, check his blood sugar, get him insulin as needed, and make sure he ate his food and all that kind of stuff. And that means that I left night times to her. I tried to split that with her initially, and I took I tried to take some turns waking up in the middle night to take care of him, and then realized she was going to wake up anyway, even if I was there, even if I was even if I said I'm going to take care of it tonight, she would also wake up. And then I'd have to try to take care of the kid, and also have her looking over my shoulder, which I hated. So let

Scott Benner 16:22
me tell you something you've just tapped into. One of the things that my wife and I still argue about, like, if I get up in the middle of the night for something diabetes related, and I come back into the room and she's awake, I say to her, if you're up, why am I up? Yeah, that like I'm getting up so you can sleep. If you're going to be up, let me sleep and you take care of it. Yeah, yeah, no, I got you. So

Anonymous Speaker 16:44
we didn't say this out loud, and maybe I should have, but when I realized she was going to wake up anyway, and daytime lunchtime was going to fall on me because of my proximity to daycare, I quietly decided, okay, she gets I get daytime, she gets night time okay, and that was how I that's how I decided we would split it. That became an issue as we proceeded to mediation,

Scott Benner 17:08
because it sounded like you were dumping it on her. Yeah, yeah. She

Anonymous Speaker 17:11
made it out to be that I was incapable of taking care of her child at night, not that I was letting her do it and taking on other responsibilities. There was a bit of a blow up a month later that resulted in me moving out of the house. I don't know yet if I want to get into that story gotcha, but I ended up moving out suddenly, and we had to get a emergency custody agreement in place. And the only thing she would agree to is I could have our older son every other week, the non diabetic child, but the diabetic child, she said, you can't have him overnight, and she was really adamant about that. Okay, so i i for two months when I was my week with the kids, I would go to her house to pick him up in the morning, take the kids to school and daycare, drop them off, and then pick them up in the afternoon, have dinner with them, and then in the evening, take him back to her house, drop him off again, then go back home, put the other kid to bed, wake up and do it the next day again. Yeah, and I did that for two months to keep the peace enough to Okay, fine. I want to have some custody of my kids, and I just wanted to get to mediation. Let's get to mediation. Let's get this settled.

Scott Benner 18:26
That worked for the time being. It was horrible,

Anonymous Speaker 18:30
but it worked. It got I got through two months and I barely remember it. So yeah, at the time, it felt miserable, but it is what it is, and I got through it. I

Scott Benner 18:40
don't want you to like, I understand the delicacies around talking about a divorce on a podcast and everything. I think I'm getting the vibe from you. And of course, I'm not speaking to her. I don't know her. Her side of is probably your your big asshole and everything like that. So I'm sure that everybody has their opinion. But it does sound like, you know from this part of the conversation that we're having, that there was a there were a lot of times for you to overcome resistance. Who cares why it's there and that you were trying to accomplish that it feels like maybe the diabetes thing got used against you a little bit, which is unfortunate, obviously, are one of you markedly better at diabetes than the other, or do you both kind of have a handle

Anonymous Speaker 19:20
on it. That's an interesting question, also, because we would both say, Yes, I'm better. I'm pretty sure.

Scott Benner 19:27
How long were you guys married before you decided not to be married anymore? 10

Anonymous Speaker 19:30
years. We got married in 2012 and divorced. So 11 years, by the time it was final,

Scott Benner 19:37
when did you stop liking each other? If you got married in 1120, 13, sounds like you got sounds like you have a fair amount of animosity to both of you. Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 19:49
there was the last five years were pretty rough. I'm sorry.

Scott Benner 19:53
Sucks. That's okay. Yeah, no, no, I what am I saying? I was gonna say I grew up with a in a divorced family, but I'm married. I know what you're talking. Good about listen, I married almost 30 years. Wow. Yeah, I beg. There's not much difference between your marriage, just my wife and I are more hard headed than you guys were. I

Anonymous Speaker 20:12
was willing to try to make things work. That's what I wanted. I wanted to work out the issues, to, like, figure out how to how to get past it and reconcile. Somehow she was adamant against that, so

Scott Benner 20:23
it was broken for her, it wasn't getting fixed. Now, listen, the other thing in your notes, does it factor into this, or does it not fit here?

Anonymous Speaker 20:30
We can get to that. Okay, I think I can get there.

Scott Benner 20:34
Okay, keep going. So, yeah, please go on

Anonymous Speaker 20:37
the mediation. We got to mediation, and she was still sticking to that point that I can't have the diabetes child overnight. We may actually agree to everything else custody for the other child. No problem. 5050, custody assets, house investments or whatever. We made a list. We had a full list. We we just put stuff in her column, stuff in my column. Made it as even as we could, and agreed to that all the details were worked out, except for this one. She did not want me to have overnights with the diabetic child,

Scott Benner 21:08
gotcha, and it took all day on that one issue. What were the arguments against? He

Anonymous Speaker 21:16
said that I could not wake up for a low at night, she said that his numbers were bad when he was with me. Granted, we were six months into diagnosis, right? I had maybe started listening to the podcast. Maybe not yet. No, actually, no, I didn't, because I learned about it two weeks later. Gotcha, I learned about it from diabetes camp, so I hadn't started listening to podcasts yet. We knew what the doctor told us I knew the insulin to carb ratio and the insulin sensitivity factor. I knew how to do the math. I know I knew about checking blood sugar. We had a Dexcom by then and all that, so we didn't have the insulin pump yet. That came later, so I knew the basics, but there's so much variability to this that I've learned since then. So I can back then I could, I can remember saying, like, I understand this. I know what I'm doing. But now two years, almost two years later, they're like, I didn't, yeah, you had a fairly new you had a six month understanding of it. Yeah, I had a six month understanding Yeah. But is it fair to say that so did she?

Scott Benner 22:17
Yeah, yeah. I would agree, yes. It's not like, it's not like she was like, rocketed ahead of your knowledge somehow. No,

Anonymous Speaker 22:23
okay, no. And that that's what I remember talking to the mediator about, because he would go back and forth. And he walked into the room one time, he said, and he I remember him saying to me, she says the number, his numbers are all screwed up when he's with you. And I pulled out my phone, I pulled out the app we were using to track his numbers. We used to use this app for logging food and insulin shots and things like that, and his blood sugar when we at meal times. And I pulled out the phone and said, Okay, look, two days ago, he was with her at her house, under her care. Breakfast time, his blood sugar was 240 lunchtime, his blood sugar, and she gave him insulin for it. She gave him this much insulin lunch time he was still over 200 and like, that particular day, I guess, coincidentally, was kind of a crappy day for his blood sugar, but it was under her care. Of like I was looking at, looking at what she did, and like I would have done the same thing. I don't think I would have done anything different, but his blood sugar was still high.

Scott Benner 23:21
Yeah. Now you're in that horrible situation where you're like, look, here's an instance, based on how you're measuring this, that she didn't do a good job. But let me be honest and tell you, I wouldn't have done anything different than she was doing. This thing is just variable, and to try to say that one of us is better than the other is ridiculous.

Anonymous Speaker 23:37
Yes, exactly. That's the point I made to him, and he hit with him, seeing the chart like that, he he got it, but it took a few more hours before what finally did it was because we had been the mediator. Had been going back and forth between us. We were in different rooms in the building. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:54
I'm not laughing, but it's kind of hilarious. But I know like, your mediator is going

Anonymous Speaker 23:59
back and forth. And towards the end of the day, he's like, I have a Hail Mary. I have some I have an idea. Let's get you in the room with the lawyer, with her and her lawyer, all of us down at the same table. And let me ask you about the diabetes because, because I had already, like, spent the day teach, teaching him about diabetes management as much as I knew. And so we did that. So we all sat down in a room. He asked me how I managed diabetes. I explained again about insulin carb ratios and measuring blood sugar and all the basic stuff you you learn at the beginning. And the lawyer, her lawyer, also asked me a few questions about how I how I manage and and all of that. And then, after that conversation, their attitude changed. I don't know what happened in the other room, but after

Scott Benner 24:48
you're a classic divorced dad the way you're so, so kind when you're talking, because I feel like I know what happened. It sounds like they went in the other room and went like, Hey, I think you might be fully here, because this all now that we. Understand it better. Seems like this, but you don't have to say that. That's just how it seems to me from the story that

Anonymous Speaker 25:04
could have been. The other thing that crossed my mind is like, hey, we don't want to put him on a stand. He actually doubts, like he knows what he's talking

Scott Benner 25:10
about. Oh yeah, yeah. We maybe, let's just be smart about this, or we're going to cause ourselves a different problem somewhere else.

Anonymous Speaker 25:18
Yeah, I got you. That's the best thing, because I do speak well, like, and I knew what I was talking about. I could rattle everything off, off top my head and explain things. And so I speak, well, yeah,

Scott Benner 25:30
I would love to be in a mediation, not for this, because this sounds horrible, but like, I love, I would love to argue about something, anything really just be sounds like it would be awesome, not if it's about your personal life, but the mediation

Anonymous Speaker 25:41
was so boring, though, like we were sitting in the room the media would come talk to us for a little bit and get our side and like, Okay, you got your list of assets and things, and get your side of the story, then go back to the other room and talk to them for a while. And I was just hanging out by a lawyer, just waiting. What's

Scott Benner 25:57
it like buying a house and you already own a house is the worst thing that's ever happened to

Unknown Speaker 26:02
you. I haven't bought a

Anonymous Speaker 26:03
house yet. I've been renting the last couple of years. I'm starting to think about it, especially because a couple years ago, mortgage rates were terrible. Yeah,

Scott Benner 26:13
that was the time. Oh, that's

Anonymous Speaker 26:15
the one thing when, when we were still married, when COVID hit, interest rates plummeted, right? So I got her house refinance and got us a mortgage rate I want to see under 2%

Scott Benner 26:27
Oh, a joy, except it's not your house anymore. Not

Anonymous Speaker 26:30
Not anymore. She got the house. Oh my gosh, the worst. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking now, like, am I gonna buy a house, giving

Scott Benner 26:37
a house to somebody? But yeah, you can imagine it just, I'm, I'm thinking about it. It's breaking my heart. Just Just,

Anonymous Speaker 26:43
just terrible. I lost that 2% interest rate. That's exactly

Scott Benner 26:47
the part that would bother me. I'd be like, but I got such a nice rate. Oh, good for you, by the way. Nice refinance. Good catch. Yeah, it was good timing. I refinanced during COVID too. I saw it coming. I was like, hey, get some free money. Okay, so you get through mediation, and now you've got, now you got a rhythm setting. Now the kid can stay with you like so what do you do? How do you set it up? At the

Anonymous Speaker 27:13
time, we were doing one week on with both kids, one week without the kids. So kids, both kids are with me for a week. Both kids are with her for a week. We did that for about a year. We've changed to a slightly different schedule since then, but we were getting to that rhythm of, okay, I have both kids for a week managing the diabetes. When the kids with me, it's all on me. I was doing everything, waking up at night, daytime checks like around when the school year started. We also got the Omnipod. He was starting on the Omnipod. I was the one pushing for the Omnipod, or at least some insulin pump. I was open to anything at that point, if you wanted Omnipod for two, for being for being tubeless, fine with me. I don't really care. I, although I am interested in tandems algorithm, I'm, I'm hopeful for OmniPods next algorithm, because the current algorithm, I think, is not

Scott Benner 28:02
aggressive enough you want. You want Omnipod five to be more aggressive with highs, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. Is that enough to make you switch?

Anonymous Speaker 28:12
If I was making the decision alone, I would probably switch. Okay, I would probably get

Scott Benner 28:18
try loop. Oh, okay, move to a DIY

Anonymous Speaker 28:21
I could see either doing loop or eyelet, like, right, either all the controls in the world, or give me none of them and do everything. Oh,

Scott Benner 28:30
break that down for me. Tell me how I'm because that's pretty. That's two pretty opposite feelings. So,

Unknown Speaker 28:35
yeah, it's if

Anonymous Speaker 28:38
it works well, if it works the way it says. They say it does, and I doesn't require input, and it's it's easy to manage that. That's a dream. Like I want the diabetes to not take up so much time and energy and focus like that. That's ideal for the pump to just do everything by itself. And I just, we just live our lives like when they get the BI hormonal pump, I'm gonna start pushing for it. Okay,

Scott Benner 29:07
your imagination is that in the future islet has a bi hormonal pump that can bring up a low and maybe has a more aggressive algorithm that's shooting closer to six than to seven. And, yeah, that's what you then, then it's kind of hands free.

Unknown Speaker 29:22
Yeah, much more

Anonymous Speaker 29:23
so yeah, but I could also see doing the management and the hands on the loop, being able to, like, Bolus remotely, is is interesting to me, like, because at school, his blood sugar runs too high, and they don't do enough to take care of it sometimes. So

Scott Benner 29:39
it's hard for me to remember sometimes that you're talking about like a six year old and I'm talking about a 20 year old. It's funny. The rest of what you said tracks for me as well. Like, I think if you told Arden that a tubeless pump had the ability to stop her from being low and all she had to do was tell it like this is a normal meal. I mean, I don't. See a world where she wouldn't say, Yeah, let's try that. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So. And anyway, I'm glad people are chasing everything, and I want to say I agree with you. I think Omnipod should try to make their algorithm more aggressive. I've

Anonymous Speaker 30:11
had some interesting conversations with the reps about that. I'm sure everybody feels

Scott Benner 30:15
that way. Just in the end, the way it addresses highs is a little slow, and that gets you higher highs and longer to come back down. And we all know the pump can do it because people using a DIY version of an algorithm are using it with an Omnipod, and it's working great. So, right,

Anonymous Speaker 30:30
exactly. Yeah, yeah. So we've settled into this routine where I have him for half the time and I'm taking care of him, and she hasn't for half the time she'd take care of him. I've learned a lot from listening to you and Jenny and Erica and every all the other guests you've had on the show. I haven't listened every episode. Listened to a lot, but I have learned so much more about how to how to deal with this, how to count carbs, and I don't even part, barely even count carbs anymore. A lot more. Just look at the food and guess kind of thing. I took the kids to the Renaissance Fair on the weekend. Okay, we were having lunch, and my kid got steak on a stick. Okay, tell me for steak on a stick. I took a guess or gave him, like, a unit or something. I don't remember exactly. It's like, All right, let's just see how this goes. And ended up working out fine. Yeah,

Scott Benner 31:25
you're able to cover the cover the protein and any maybe fat that was in there. And yeah, it's awesome. I'm gonna guess the answer is no to this. But have you ever broached the subject of listening to the podcast with your ex?

Anonymous Speaker 31:36
I mentioned it. She said she's listened to it once or twice. Got the feeling she doesn't like it. Oh,

Scott Benner 31:41
nobody likes me. That's okay. It's fine. Sorry. No, don't worry about it. I mean. And

Anonymous Speaker 31:45
so I've listened to podcasts, I've learned so much more about how to manage so I've learned to manage highs pretty well. Where my ex wife has concerns is she feels like I end up with too many lows, too many very lows. That's what I get in trouble for in the endocrinologist appointments. We go to the appointments together, by the

Scott Benner 32:06
way. Oh, awesome. What do we call low and very low? What are those numbers?

Anonymous Speaker 32:10
Low is under 70 very low is under 55 okay. Oh, my God,

Scott Benner 32:14
you just unlocked a fear me having to go to an endocrinologist appointment with my ex, like that doesn't I'm sure, for her, by the way, as well, but I'm just saying like that does not sound fun. We go

Anonymous Speaker 32:25
to every appointment together. We always have Okay, and so she gets concerned about the lows, especially overnight lows. She will call me in the middle of night if, if his blood sugar goes too low. I have a sugar pixel on my nightstand. It wakes me up. The vibration Puck is under my pillow. I'm already awake. I wake up, I take care of it, but she will usually call me anyway in the middle night if there's a low. And when we're talking, when we when I say there's a lot of lows overall, long term, the chart of how much he's in range, how much he's low and all that, it's about 1% in the very low category and maybe three or 4% in the low category. I

Scott Benner 33:04
mean, you're telling me that three or 4% of the time he's between 55 and 70 and 1% of the time he's under 55 Yeah. I mean, that sounds like everybody who has diabetes to me,

Anonymous Speaker 33:14
right? Yeah. And so they get on my case about that awesome,

Unknown Speaker 33:18
yeah, kind of fun, but I managed to

Anonymous Speaker 33:21
keep him in range 75 80% of the time. Usually, yeah, then I look at her charts, or like her that, look at when she has him. She does very good with lows and very low just like sometimes no very low, sometimes no lows even,

Speaker 1 33:36
is there a pot here? Yes,

Scott Benner 33:41
of course, but it's because he's always 220

Anonymous Speaker 33:45
not 220 but like 160 Oh, okay, but 160 and then a lot of excursions up to two, up to 220 he's with her. He's very high, maybe 15% of the time, and then high, like 25% of the time. And you very high, it's like 5% and high, like 10% something like that, if all the numbers add up.

Scott Benner 34:06
I mean, I feel like we know which side of this argument I'm on. But okay, that gets to

Anonymous Speaker 34:10
why. I kind of wish Omnipod was more aggressive, because I don't really know how she manages highs. I get the feeling she lets the Omnipod deal with it. Oh, I see. I don't, I don't agree with that. I want to, I try to prevent a hive as soon as I see it start,

Scott Benner 34:25
yeah. So it's just two, it's two differences in theory, right there. Like, she's like, it'll go up and come back and you're like, I can stop it from going up, yes. So if you got a little better at getting ahead of the lows, nobody could bitch at you anymore. And I

Anonymous Speaker 34:38
don't mean like, Yeah, I've been, I've been trying to, I've been trying that, trying to overcome that,

Scott Benner 34:41
yeah, also I want to say I didn't use bitch at you as like, a gender thing, just,

Anonymous Speaker 34:45
you know, yeah, that's for the other listeners who are going to write reviews,

Scott Benner 34:49
right? I don't want to. I'm not a misogynist. I bitch at people all the time. Okay, yeah, I just want to be clear. All right, wow, boy. This sucks. I.

Speaker 1 35:00
Yeah, yeah, oh my god, yeah.

Scott Benner 35:03
But it also Joking aside, it sounds like you guys are doing a really reasonable job. Like, in the end, the kids doing well,

Anonymous Speaker 35:11
yeah, his a 1c is in the low sevens, like, so I think 7.3 last time,

Scott Benner 35:16
yeah. What's the offset there? What's his a 1c if he's with you for a week versus her with a week. I don't know how to

Anonymous Speaker 35:22
calculate that, but if I had to guess, probably six, probably 1% lower with me, 1% higher with her. Okay,

Scott Benner 35:27
so you're offsetting. You think if he was with her constantly, she'd have more of a high seven, high seven, maybe an eight, an eight. You're offsetting. There's no way to ask him how he feels. He's seven now, yeah, you don't know, so

Anonymous Speaker 35:42
I'm trying to work with him on Hey, when your phone beeps like, Hey, check it.

Scott Benner 35:48
Good luck. I'm still working on that

Anonymous Speaker 35:52
at home. Like he checks his numbers with me. Like, when his phone beeps, he'll check his numbers and he'll tell me what the number is like, okay, it's a little high. Why don't you check the Omnipod controller. Press use sensor. Tell me if it thinks you should get insulin. He does it. It says point one, five. All right, go for it. Do that. Yeah. I want to get him in the habit of, like, okay, he's high. Just see what Omnipod wants to do and do that. Like, that'll be a good starting point, yeah. Oh, it'd

Scott Benner 36:16
be awesome. But, you know, there are people listening who've had diabetes for 35 years. Just heard you say that and go, Yeah, I'm still working on that, too. That's an ongoing battle, a human battle. Really, listen, I think you guys should be proud of how it's going. I've interviewed divorced people that don't go nearly as well, so you're handling it well. Also, you guys have a certain kind of disposition that you were able to be divorced but stay in the house for that long together?

Anonymous Speaker 36:43
Yeah, I was pretty fine with it. She was pretty angry. One of the time was

Scott Benner 36:49
that a financial thing, is that the reason you did it,

Anonymous Speaker 36:51
I didn't want to be away from my kids, yeah, and I also worked from home at that point, even when the divorce started, like I want the house because I work here, and I didn't want to move and I wanted that 2% interest rate, yeah,

Scott Benner 37:05
okay. I mean, I get the solar

Anonymous Speaker 37:07
panels back in 2017 god

Scott Benner 37:09
damn it. I bought solar.

Anonymous Speaker 37:15
And honestly, like when COVID started, I would they, everybody had to work from home, and I haven't been forced to go back yet. So I was still working from home. I work here. This is my office. I want to stay. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:28
what was the level of if I'm wrong about this, that just set me straight or tell me it's none of my business, but am I getting the vibe that you came home from work one day, which is to say, walked out of a room and somebody looked at you and said, I don't want to be married anymore. And you were like, What? What was that? How it happened? Or no, it wasn't like that. You saw it coming.

Anonymous Speaker 37:46
I was an asshole. I had a lot of problems. Gotcha

Scott Benner 37:49
All right. There you go. Look at you trying to get the ladies on your side with that statement. Very well done. They're like every woman listening right now is like, I would just one day like some guy to walk into a room and just admit that he's an asshole.

Anonymous Speaker 38:04
Yeah? And I was, I was walking through life, not really thinking about anything, focused on myself, a very selfish, self centered person, and there were difficulties in our marriage because of that, because of that, yeah, and I decided to start working on myself. So it's Hey, this leads to the other topic. I was never a heavy drinker, except back in college, but I had other issues going on that led me to 12 step recovery programs. And doing that, I also realized I'm an alcoholic, so I've been sober seven years now, and those difficulties that I caused seven years ago. She was not able to get past culturally,

Scott Benner 38:44
you guys the same background.

Anonymous Speaker 38:47
No,

Scott Benner 38:49
wait, wait, stop, stop. I knew it. I knew it. Oh, my God, can I generalize for a minute? Okay, you're of Indian descent, right? Yes, okay. And so when you talked about being very like, I'm gonna open up a can of worms here for people who think I'm generalizing, but I have a lot of Indian friends, so give me a minute. When you talked about just being focused on yourself, like, I have to admit, I did not know your background right away. I know you. I see what you look like and everything, but let's be honest, you're a little fluid. You could be a couple of things. Is that fair to say? Yeah, right, visually, so. But when you said I was very focused on myself, and then when the addiction thing was drinking, I was like, Oh, he's he's Indian. And then when, when she pushed back on you being too focused on yourself, I thought she's not, because culturally, that's very acceptable. Am I wrong about any of that? No, no, you're not wrong. Yeah. Like Indian women, generally speaking, expect that from their husbands on some level. Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 39:48
divorce is very rare in India. My parents are divorced. Oh, really, which is, I can't think of anyone else in the family that's divorced, except my parents and me. Do you

Scott Benner 39:58
think it was because your dad? Up as an asshole, or what do

Anonymous Speaker 40:02
you think the story that I got growing up was that

Speaker 1 40:05
dad had an affair? Oh, well, that'll do it. I don't know

Anonymous Speaker 40:09
the truth. I don't know. Oh, I just overheard things from mom, and to this day, I don't really know he did marry the woman that he supposedly had an affair with. So I don't know fair

Scott Benner 40:19
enough, but people's lives, no, no, but people's lives are so interesting. Talk about a little bit about what that was like. Were you like, work focused, or was it something? No, it was. It was very inward and drinking. You said,

Anonymous Speaker 40:32
uh, yeah, my primary addiction is pornography. No kidding,

Scott Benner 40:37
yeah, you know how sometimes I say you're the first person to say that on the podcast. Okay, I'm saying it again, but that's very honest. I appreciate that so Oh, and that was something she was aware of, yeah, but she didn't know how bad it was. I see, I see, let me say again, how valuable it is for you to be that honest. Because I know you online. I see how much that kid and your family means to you and everything, and I think that people would have been people be like, Oh, drinking, I get it. Like, you know what I mean. But then also you're being very like, It's brave, I guess, to say that, because that's the thing. People aren't going to go like, Oh, yeah, okay, I get it, yeah, yeah. It doesn't get talked about enough. Yeah. How does that separate you from your family? Just a lot of alone time,

Anonymous Speaker 41:24
basically, yeah, very focused on the content on my phone.

Scott Benner 41:29
Wow. When did that start? Do you think, Oh,

Anonymous Speaker 41:32
I was exposed to pornography when I was like eight years old, and it probably started then, too

Scott Benner 41:40
young, yeah, for sure, yeah, wow. And that's because of us. How old are you? Oh, it

Anonymous Speaker 41:45
was very similar to a story I heard you tell recently. I I'm two months behind on the podcast. Oh, magazines in the woods. You talked about the cable box. Oh,

Scott Benner 41:55
the cable box. Oh yeah, yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 41:57
That was, that's, that's what it was for me too. Well. Figured out, you we had the black box cable box, but the channel was blocked. Figured out, if you go to the channel above, but the TV on channel two instead of channel three, then it comes in all blurry. Did you

Scott Benner 42:12
figure out that if you slide the plastic card through the top, move it around, you could make it come in better? No, no, that was specific to ours. Yeah, I also had the story of which I still feel stupid for. But we found the the books like, you know, the books we found pornography in the woods, like some kids had hidden it out there. And we were so young, we like, we told our parents. And now I look back and I realized my dad probably walked out in the woods and was like, Oh, awesome. Is it a thing you can joke about now? Like, how far past it are you? And what's the process to get through it?

Anonymous Speaker 42:47
Yeah, I joke about it. I started a 12 step recovery program that led to me doing other recovery work. And a couple years into me trying to change my behavior of my life. She was tired of it was tired. I don't know. I couldn't fully tell you what was going on with her. I can tell you I was trying. I was trying to change. Yeah, I was aware that I had problems. Tulsa programs, they're a lot of work, right? They really teach you how to look inward. So I was starting that process. I was pretty new to it, yeah,

Scott Benner 43:23
and she had had an Can I ask, Did did it keep you from being intimate with her? Yeah? Oh, wow. Okay, yeah, yeah, I got you. It was easier, easier, oh, than having to deal with somebody else's emotions to get to the end. Yeah, yeah. What did you figure out about your personality that let you slip farther down that road than other people do? I

Anonymous Speaker 43:48
I have a hole in me that I keep trying to fill with something else. And when I was in college, when I was like a young adult,

Scott Benner 43:59
that was alcohol. It's drinking. You drank a lot later, when pornography

Anonymous Speaker 44:04
became ubiquitous,

Scott Benner 44:07
it really is readily available. Yeah, I

Anonymous Speaker 44:09
switched. And what it comes down to is there's something in me that I'm not happy with, that I feel incomplete, and I keep trying to fill the void with something else, and I have a tendency to just reach for anything that feels better in the moment I see it was alcohol, it was porn, it was video games, sometimes it was whatever. It was people, sometimes it was my wife, sometimes it was work, sometimes like sometimes work filled the void. Yeah, but I've learned that nothing fills the void. Nothing, nothing in this

Speaker 1 44:48
world fills the void. Did you ever get the opportunity to ask your dad about it? A

Anonymous Speaker 44:52
little bit when I was getting divorced, I called my dad and asked some questions, but. Yeah, that's, that's when I started questioning and my own recollection of events, because he told stories differently than I remember them. Yeah, and I, I was a kid. I don't know if my memory is correct. I don't know if his memory is correct. That that left me like, starting to question even the story of their divorce. I don't know, but haven't really got farther into it. Yeah, I don't have a good relationship with my parents right now.

Scott Benner 45:29
I'm sorry. I um, I'll tell you that. You know, my parents got divorced when I was 13. My dad had been cheating on my mom, like, for a decade, so it was easy to just paint him with that brush. And, you know, there it is. And I'm sure that's how my mom felt and everything. But you know, you meet my dad 20 years later, and he talks about being married after I've been married for 15 years. And I'm like, some of that stuff he's saying sounds reasonable, and then you start realizing that nothing my mom said was incorrect, nothing my dad said was incorrect. They were just two different people who had two different perspectives in a personal relationship. And, like, if I get your ex on here right now, she's gonna go, Yeah, well, my ex husband was addicted to porn and he ignored us, and I'm gonna go, Oh, she's got her perspective and her life too, which is what I think makes those, those mediation so difficult, because neither of you are wrong while you're in there talking, and yet you have to come to some sort of an agreement. That's tough, you know, like, that's tough stuff. I was just wondering if your dad maybe had some similar gaps in his psychological health that maybe you identified with. But I guess you didn't get to that with him. Yeah, I don't really know on that part. Yeah, I understand. So what do you fill it with? Now, I guess recovery work. Oh, I wish you would have said meth. That would have been hilarious. But

Anonymous Speaker 46:46
I go to meetings every day. I have friends in recovery program, in my recovery programs, and good for you. Try to keep working on that. And I feel it with my kids. I fill it with my I've developed new friends and trying to get out more. I do volunteer work on the weekends, so I'm trying to find ways to fill the time and they're enjoyable.

Scott Benner 47:08
Do you drink anymore or not at all? No sober

Anonymous Speaker 47:11
seven and a half years. So

Scott Benner 47:12
then my follow up question to that is the porn thing follow the same pathway, like is a little not okay? Or can you be California sober with weed, like you are with weed, with porn.

Anonymous Speaker 47:24
I don't know. It's ongoing struggles.

Scott Benner 47:28
I got you. Yeah, so there's, it's not as easy as just like, well, I just won't do that ever again. Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 47:35
yeah. It's not quite it's very easy to access and

Scott Benner 47:40
slippery slopey, when you a little bit, I didn't mean whatever pun is in that Sure, yes, it could be a slippery slope. Yes. About that man, that's tough. Are you dating anybody? No, but a thing that occurs you to try.

Anonymous Speaker 47:54
I'm on Dating Pro, dating apps. I'm trying to get myself out there like that's something I was gonna ask you something I was thinking about bringing up because you do your I don't understand series. I don't understand how to date. As a 39 year old is divorced with kids like, just don't understand what

Scott Benner 48:12
you're well, listen, you got to find somebody who's as dinged up as you are, because they'll also be accepting you understand, like, I I'm not trying to be funny, like we were, God, how much of this am I gonna say?

Anonymous Speaker 48:24
Dating app for parents, for single parents? Yeah.

Scott Benner 48:26
I mean, honestly, like, you don't like, you're not gonna go pick up a Kardashian at this point. You know what I mean? Like, like, people are no one listened to this. I probably don't know what I'm talking about, but people make allowances when they choose other people. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, if you're six, five and chiseled out of stone, and you got an IQ in the 120s and you're making 200 a year, you don't go to Arby's and ask out the girl making the the fries, right? It just doesn't work that way. Could you, could you meet her somewhere and fall in love with her? You absolutely could, but, like, that's just not how people do things. So yeah, if 100 is is full, and you got to take a point off for everything that people find undesirable, you've got to score. You got to go find somebody with a similar score to yours. Yeah, see what I'm saying. Otherwise they'll be like, Well, why would I do this with you? I could maybe go do it with somebody else. It's a weird way to think about people, but I think it's right. I think that's how we make decisions on stuff like that.

Anonymous Speaker 49:22
Yeah, I kind of get it. So I'm trying to do things to keep myself busy, try to put myself in new places where I can meet new people. And the dating apps are terrible. Have you

Scott Benner 49:34
ever figured just going thinking of going the other way? Why don't you jump up in the dating app and be like, Listen, I've got a pretty significant porn addiction. If you do too, I think we'd be perfect together, like, you just go on, like, a, like, a bender together. You know what I mean?

Anonymous Speaker 49:47
Yeah, I don't, but I don't want to, I don't want to talk

Scott Benner 49:51
off the defense, yeah, wow. It really is that serious, huh? Yeah, yeah. I'm making light of it, but it's like, because what I'm thinking is, like. That was a drinking thing. Like, you wouldn't go on the app and go, Look, I'm a recovering alcoholic, but I don't feel like pushing back anymore. Like, who wants to dive off a cliff with me at the end there? It ruins your life. It ruins your liver. It ruins all those kinds of things. But the porn thing is going to ruin something too, isn't it?

Speaker 1 50:15
Yeah, it ruins your spirit. Is that what it is? No, yeah. Wow.

Scott Benner 50:19
Just demoralizing.

Anonymous Speaker 50:21
Well, it, at least for me, it, it's such, like you said, a slippery slope that nothing else matters eventually, oh, like

Scott Benner 50:31
a black hole where you just, like, everything else is gone. Just porn, yeah. Can I ask a question? Does it ramp up like, you know, you start off with, yeah, you start off with weed, then you go to Coke, then you go to like, like, I mean, are there points where you're typing in and you're like, I can't believe I'm even trying to figure out if these words go together, yeah, of course. Oh, that sucks, man. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, it's probably tough to get a hug from somebody over this, huh?

Unknown Speaker 50:57
Yeah, that 12

Scott Benner 50:59
step meeting must be dodgy, as am I wrong?

Anonymous Speaker 51:04
Yeah, I ended up in a different program. You know, as I was getting as I was trying to get better, she came to me and admitted to her own indiscretions.

Scott Benner 51:15
Oh, no, your wife was cheating, yeah. Oh, in response to you, ignoring her, not even in she was tired

Anonymous Speaker 51:30
of feeling angry at me, and that was how she could feel better. Wow,

Scott Benner 51:34
so much easier for a woman to find casual sex and a guy, that's for sure. Yeah, because you were like, how do I date again? The answer is, be a lady. That's the simple way. Oh, how long was that going on? More More importantly, forget that. Did she tell you after you were divorced? No, no, during the marriage, did it even though you were ignoring her? Did it hurt that she did something equally crappy to you at this

Anonymous Speaker 52:03
point, I was trying to get better. So, yes, oh,

Scott Benner 52:08
I was in recovery programs by then. Why did she tell you? Oh, she was asking for permission. Oh, she's like, I wait. She's like, I did this. I want to do it more. Be cool with it. Yeah, basically, Oh, Jesus. I thought maybe, like, I wasn't sure if she was trying to hurt trying to hurt you or if she was trying to unburden herself. I couldn't figure out which it is. I don't know either. Yeah, that's tough. The only reason I can imagine to go to the person to tell them is to either unburden my guilt or to hurt them. Like, I can't see another reason. Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 52:38
and to this day, I don't really know what she did or anything like that. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I know what she asked for. I know what she told me and but I don't know what was really going on.

Scott Benner 52:50
Do you care at this point, years later? Sometimes, wow, that sucks too. I try not to, because

Anonymous Speaker 52:58
the conclusion I came to because I ended up in a recovery program for people who are cheated on, basically, to put it short, most people in the program are that way. I was working on that, working on it from that angle, and came to a point where I realized it didn't matter what happened in the past, what mattered is, where is she now, and what does she want for the future? Are you willing to work on our communication and build trust between us or not? If you are great, let's just put the path behind us, and let's work on, on, work things out, if, if you're not well, whatever happened doesn't matter anyway. Let's just end this. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:46
do you wish you guys would have tried harder, like you wish you would have been interested. Or do you you? Do you think it was salvageable?

Anonymous Speaker 53:54
I think so. Yeah, I know people in my recovery programs who've been through so much worse and gotten through

Unknown Speaker 54:01
it together. Man, you're a good dude,

Scott Benner 54:03
which is a weird thing to say after you've admitted all this stuff, but like you're like, you feel like you have a good soul. Does that make sense? Thank you. Yeah. Do you feel that way about yourself? Do you think you're like, an internally kind person? Yes, yeah, I do too. That's interesting. Yeah, you don't want, you don't want to paint people by the things they've done or been drawn into, or mistakes they've made. Sometimes, I think you just need to see that who you are and that there are just a lot of roadblocks between you and and being the person you want to be every day. Yeah, yeah. So is this as simple as, like you're in therapy, like you look back, did you just like growing up, just not fulfilled somehow, from your parents? I

Anonymous Speaker 54:46
don't know if it's that simple that plays into it. You talked about the ACES with Erica. Yeah, that's part of it, of course. I don't know if it's all the whole story neglect growing up my parents, I didn't feel. My parents were around enough, especially after the divorce. And yeah, there was, Do you

Scott Benner 55:04
have a classic Indian upbringing? Like, did you leave school, go to more school, come home, eat, get up, go to school. Well,

Anonymous Speaker 55:09
I grew up in LA, so lived in a like, oh, you know, white suburbs,

Scott Benner 55:16
yeah. So no, not really around here where I live. I mean, every Indian kid's got the same look on their face, which is, I can't believe I know how to code, and I'm 11, and you know, a lot of expectation for them, like a lot. Yeah, there

Anonymous Speaker 55:30
was some expectations, but not a lot. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say a lot, although, yeah, I have a check on my shoulder, because, you know, I always felt like I wasn't good enough. I don't know if I could say there was a lot of expect. Lot of expectations, but it was always do better.

Scott Benner 55:45
You weren't meeting them if they're no matter what they were, as far as they were concerned. Basically, yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 55:49
it was a little bit of like, All right, good job. You ending on the test next time

Scott Benner 55:53
get 100 are your parents first generation or second? I was the first born in the country. You were the first. Okay? So they made it. They were like, We did it. We got here. Like, yeah, now go take advantage of all this stuff that we're supposed to do now, yeah, do better than me. Don't let us down. Yeah, that's and then they get divorced, and then your time is split, so that must weigh on you. Let's be a bummer here for a second. That's got to weigh on you incredibly. Like, you don't want your kids to feel that way. So what do you absolutely

Anonymous Speaker 56:21
yeah, it was that was part of why I was so adamant on on trying to work things out. I remember how hard that was for me as a kid, and I didn't want to put my kids through that.

Scott Benner 56:32
Yeah, your story makes more sense as we dig into it. Yeah. No, seriously, what do you do? And my first question is, is your ex still angry at you? Or is that part over

Speaker 1 56:43
for her? Seems like she's still angry. Yeah, not sure. I

Scott Benner 56:47
would be. I want to be clear. I'd still be angry at you, but you're trying to get to this goal of not letting this thing happen to your kids. But she does not have that experience growing up in your life to know that that's a thing to worry about. Or does she her parents are divorced as well, I see you guys are both on the same page about this part. Then

Anonymous Speaker 57:03
her story is a little bit different. The parts that I know, what I see happening in our interactions now is it feels to me like she projects her feelings and her attitudes towards her father to onto me as her father passed a long time ago before I ever met her, so I never had a chance to meet him. She has told me that he was addicted to everything, alcohol, drugs, sex, everything, and he left, or I'm not totally sure on the divorce story, but when they got divorced, he was gone, he was out of her life, and he never got better. He was it was an addict to lead that, yeah, when we when you're when we interact, I feel like she is projecting her feelings toward him onto me, and sees me that same way that I'm an addict. I'm always gonna be like, I'm never gonna get better. I

Scott Benner 57:56
think people do that in general. It's just that's such a big topic. It's probably more impactful, like, I think, you know, I mean, listen, I'm from a divorced household, and I'm adopted, right? So my wife had to deal with the fact that, like, anytime anyone argued when we were first together, I thought everything was over, yeah? So I'd panic that way, because, like, I'd be like, Oh no, we're disagreeing about something this. Talk about slippery slopes. We're all gonna move out. No one's going to know each other. We're all going to like, you know, we're going to be broke and living in crappy places and not grow up. Well, yeah. Like, I was going to like, yeah. Like, speed forward into that thought. My wife told me a story a long time ago, and it seems to encapsulate mostly how she feel, like, how her parents treated her, right, like, about big stuff, but she said that there was this day that her dad was replacing a light switch, and she wanted to help, and so he let her screw the light switch cover on. And I've probably told this once before on the podcast, but as we all know, like the cover on a light switch only goes on one way. You can't fit it in correctly. It literally goes around the switch. If the screws go in, it's on correctly. So he let her do that, and she screwed in the screws, and the light switch was on, and then in front of her, he unscrewed them and then put them back on. If you ask me, one of the things my wife, like, still hurts about inside from growing up, it's that idea of like she's never doing a good enough job, like that thing. So that's the light switch thing is a story. But, like, she got that from her parents a lot, same thing as you you got a 98 why wasn't it 101 like that kind of stuff that just sticks to you. It just does. And then you see it in other people, whether it's there or not, especially when you're married. Like, you look up and you go, why are you doing this stuff? Like, you know, you think, like, why are you making me feel that way? But you don't realize you just feel that way from when you were eight, and it's just not going away. And so you start seeing it where sometimes it doesn't even exist. Yeah, and yeah, being alive is difficult. I'm not going to say otherwise. How old are you? By the way,

Anonymous Speaker 59:53
I'm 39 turning 40 this year. All

Scott Benner 59:56
of that story inside of 40 years. Yeah, yeah. Well. That's the good news, though, you got a lot of time left. Yeah, doesn't feel like it sometimes, but, yeah, you wake up 10 years from now and this thing, this all could be in your past. Yeah, that's true. I hear you, except I don't know what you're gonna do about that. That's a tough addiction. Like, I mean, listen, alcohol is not like on your phone, you know what? I mean? Like, at least you got to go buy it somewhere. Like, yeah, you probably can't even look at Instagram. Yeah, I don't everything's so sexual at this point. Like, everything. I've complained about it and joked about it a lot, but there's an entire generation of people that think that a job is like, bouncing, you know, and guys like doing thirst trap stuff and like, there's just, like, it's a culture at this point. So, yeah, it's only going to get worse, too, like, because the line keeps getting pushed and pushed like, you're 40, I'm 53 you probably could agree with this, but maybe, maybe your life is different. But I'm going to tell you that if you would have gone and found me 20 years ago and told me that a girl can make a living taking pictures of her feet, I'd be like, I don't understand what you're saying. Dude. I mean, like, I'd be like, no, wait, what? And then you'd have to explain the future to me in a way that I'd be like, oh, like, they sped up the delivery system for sex and digitized it. I was like, I'd have to be like, Oh, that's crazy. It's not a thing I would have been able to imagine. So my point is, is like, I don't know what is going to happen by the time I'm 63 but I'm guessing it's going to make what's happening now look like, like Romper Room compared to what's going to be so, I mean, I feel for you. I don't know. I don't know how the hell you're supposed to avoid that. Plus, on top of that, you're a person and you're, you know, of a healthy age, and I'm sure you have a sex drive. And I don't know, man, seems like a lot. What do you guys talk about in that group that that's valuable to you?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:47
How to deal with life,

Anonymous Speaker 1:01:49
how to deal with life on life's terms,

Scott Benner 1:01:51
because, because, why? Because, what happens that moves you in the direction you don't want to go. When

Anonymous Speaker 1:01:58
things don't go the way I want, then I try to control and manage and fix things and will it to be the way that I think it should be. And so what I get from the program is learning to accept reality, except that things are the way they're they're meant to be, and that I don't know what's best, and I'm along for the ride.

Scott Benner 1:02:22
And so if you feel like that and you slip and you take a drink, for example, like, what does taking the drink accomplish when you feel like the way you just described? That's

Anonymous Speaker 1:02:32
what happens when I forget about the things I learned in recovery program. Okay, you know, I'm trying to fix, manage and control my life again.

Scott Benner 1:02:40
How does a drink give you control back? That's what I don't understand. Feel better in the moment. It's a quick fix. Everything's out of control. But I know if I take this drink and I hear that ice click that glass, and then I get this vibe from it, and I'm at least at a known quantity place, I put myself back, okay? And the porn does the same thing. Yeah? Interesting. You ever gamble like you ever slipped down that one I used to play poker? Did that do the same thing to a lesser extent? Yeah? Okay, ready? Here's a weird question. Does managing diabetes give you any of that vibe? Yeah, a little bit. I hear that from people sometimes, yeah, yeah. It's weird to think that your kids probably gonna have a better health outcome, you know, because of the way you're better control things, yeah, because you want to control things, that's really something. Wow, my God, is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have? Like, what am I missing here? Because I'm out of my depth on like, six different things. We

Anonymous Speaker 1:03:37
didn't talk about my Hashimotos, which I was recently diagnosed with for my

Scott Benner 1:03:41
GLP medication. So tell me about it. What did you figure out first that you the Hashimotos,

Anonymous Speaker 1:03:47
Hashimotos six months ago, maybe so actually, I think the day that I scheduled this with you, I got the diagnosis from my doctor. I knew my TSH was high, and that had been tested before, but it was in range, so that that's what the doctors would tell me, it's in range, don't worry about it. So I went back and check because I listen listen to you and listen to some episodes about Hashimotos, about thyroid, and heard that it can be high and still have these symptoms, these issues. So looked into it again and found out that when they said it was in range, it was in range, it was actually 3.7 so I found a new doctor. I was trying to schedule with my doctor, and I screwed up and ended up with a brand new doctor. Technology, I don't know. I was like on an app to schedule with my doctor, and I picked the wrong clinic, I guess, and ended up with a brand new doctor. Happened to

Scott Benner 1:04:40
me with a haircut once, but I noticed. I know what you're saying. I showed up, and I'm like, Who are you? But yeah, I got, you got

Anonymous Speaker 1:04:47
to see doctor. I was like, my TSH is high. I want to be tested for and my kid, and my kid has diabetes, diabetes, so I want to be tested for the autoimmune stuff. So he didn't want to. I was like, what? Why not? What? Why shouldn't they do it? And he was like, they have to take your blood. I don't care about that. Take the blood.

Scott Benner 1:05:07
That's the barrier to entry. Okay, yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 1:05:09
Like, I remember asking, like, why not to do the test? And he had nothing, like, Okay, do the test. Then what are we talking about? The test and test the positive for the antibodies. So he said, so he said, You have Hashimotos? Okay? I got in touch with an endocrinologist office. I ended up just getting one on my own, just like, found one and like, Hey, I diagnosed with Hashimotos. Can I see an endocrinologist here? Like, they worked it out. I don't know what they did to do, but ended up seeing a new doctor for an endocrinologist, and he ran all the tests again, got me on Synthroid and switched to the generic level with thyroxine,

Scott Benner 1:05:53
got my TSH down to one point something, 1.5 I think, and you felt better. Yeah, I felt better. What symptoms did it clear up for you? Depression,

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:02
anxiety, aches, joint aches, those have gone away.

Scott Benner 1:06:07
Hindsight, how long do you think you lived like that? 30 years. Do you think that had anything to do with like, some of the troubles you had in your personal relationships? Yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:17
I wonder that. I don't know if I'll ever know the answer, but that that's crossed my mind. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:23
I imagine it does. So now, did that alone help you with any of your other problems that we talked about today? Or no, it didn't touch those. My

Anonymous Speaker 1:06:32
life gets better, better and better. It's progress. I'm working on getting better. So yeah, it's progress, not perfection. It's always get better. So no, for sure, yeah, yeah, I have less depression now, less anxiety, and all of it helps, the medication, the recovery stuff, all of it helps. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:06:51
no. People should look, especially people listening to this podcast. If you've got a bunch of autoimmune in your family, in your life, or whatever, you should look into your thyroid. Just make sure it's okay, because the anxiety, the depression that, you know, short tempered, like things like that, like all that could, you know, could be impacted there. Yeah, but how do you get to the GLP? Were you was your weight an issue?

Anonymous Speaker 1:07:11
A little bit? I, I had been on a roller coaster weight for last six years, or something. 2017 I used to weigh just over 200 pounds. I'd finally crossed 200 I was inching towards 210 I was like feeling terrible at myself, so I made a change. I changed my diet. Try to stick to your salad for lunch, and portion control and doing all that stuff. And it really did make a lot of changes. And I around that time, I cut out caffeine and soda. Mostly I drink it Sprite, maybe once a week. Now, made huge diet changes. Didn't really start exercise or anything. Towards the end, I was starting to run, but in four years, I lost 50 pounds. Wow, I was down to 160 pounds four years ago, then, with all the issues going on in my marriage, some other things happened. I found out some other stuff that didn't know, some snooping stuff, so they discovered some things. And I can pinpoint this takes my mind, because when I look at my weight over time, I can see there's a particular event that happened four years ago when my weight started increasing, really? Yeah, it was a traumatic discovery. Okay, so from that point, four years ago, I started gaining weight again, and now I'm coming up to 200 again. And so when divorce started, especially once I moved out, I was like, Okay, I'm gonna start going to the gym. I got a personal trainer. I was working on my diet, exercise increased protein, going to the gym three times a week, doing what you're supposed to do, and not making any progress. And

Scott Benner 1:08:47
this time, it didn't help. Yeah. So finally, a

Anonymous Speaker 1:08:52
month ago, they started young the GLP. I didn't get the name brand stuff. They put me on the compound. My insurance wouldn't cover it. Didn't

Scott Benner 1:09:01
that just change. Aren't they not allowed to compound it anymore? I don't know. I

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:05
got it a month ago. Oh, have a vial on my fridge.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:09
Which compound

Scott Benner 1:09:12
I'm saying that wrong? I don't want to be the bearer of bad news. Hold on a second. Oh, no. But in the meantime, tell me, like, tell me how that helped. It

Anonymous Speaker 1:09:21
helps my digestion. You talked about GLP deficiency. I think I have that too. Okay, because I was having for the past year and a half, I've been having digestion issues. And, like, not to be gross, but like, when I eat food, it comes out of me within two hours. Okay? I was hungry all the time. I was eating. I was trying to eat healthy snacks, but I was eating a lot, and think that's counter productive to trying to lose weight. Once I started the GLP medication. The next day, my bowels were working better. My hunger was decreased. I was feeling great. I. Uh, it just it made a night and day difference, like the as soon as I started taking the medication, my stomach seemed to be working correctly.

Scott Benner 1:10:11
Yeah. I mean, listen, it's it significantly bettered my life and my day to day. I got up this morning and I rode for a half an hour. That's like the first thing I did today, which is not a thing Scott used to do. I'll eat normally, eliminate normally. My energy is better everything. But I have to tell you, today is March 27 this article is three days three days old. Oh no, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have scored big wins from the FDA in recent months as the agency cracks down on copycat versions of their GLP one blockbusters now, as the battle with compound glps comes to an end, both pharma giants are ramping up their direct to consumer offerings in the obesity space. So the FDA declared last month that the shortage of semaglutide, the active ingredient for novos wegovi and ozempic, has been resolved a decision that restricts pharmacies from manufacturing compounded versions of the drug. The agency did the same for Lily trizepatide found in the obesity and diabetes meds that found in majaro late last year. So I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't know that you're going to be in the same boat the next time you try to get it against you should start looking now about what to do. Okay, yeah, so the idea was, is that if the FDA says there's a shortage of something, then compound pharmacies are allowed to make it. And it sounds like that the companies must have got together and, you know, with the FDA in court and said, Look, there's no shortage. And got the shortage designation lifted, and now you can't compound it sucks. Your insurance may be covered for other reasons. If I get fat or maybe that's not, that's not the way you want to go. I was gonna, I was gonna ask you this unrelated to this, but any type two in your family, your parents, your grandparents, anything like

Anonymous Speaker 1:11:59
that. My mom's type two I'm pre diabetic.

Scott Benner 1:12:03
Oh, Cha Ching, there you go. You get your GLP for that. Can't you? I don't know if I can. I'll try that, not for pre diabetes, maybe. But

Anonymous Speaker 1:12:10
yeah, that's what I mean about getting fat. Or if, if I let the diabetes go and push for type try to get myself type two diabetes, then I can maybe get it.

Scott Benner 1:12:20
What a system, huh? That's terrible. Yeah, can't get it to keep yourself from being pre diabetic. But listen, two years ago, someone in my extended family was told the same thing she was told by a doctor, if you can just get your a 1c up another point three, we can give it to you. So just, you know, yeah, just go, you know, do what you're doing and and keep ignoring your health, and come back in a month and we'll check, we'll check your a 1c again and see if we can't get you that GOP medication. I was like, Wow, what a system. Yeah, terrible. I might be in the same boat, Yeah, but you're paying cash for it, right? Yeah, I'm paying cash. Well, the truth is that at this point, I don't know what you're paying for, but the cash price might not be. I don't think it's what it

Anonymous Speaker 1:13:03
used to be. I want to say it was like six or $700 a month. What are you

Scott Benner 1:13:08
paying now? 150 that's a big difference. Yeah, no, never mind. It's not gonna be that cheap. Yeah, geez. I again, I did not want to be the bearer of bad news, yeah? But, but, as you said, and I thought, I think I know something. Let me check. Oh, man, I'm sorry that feels. I feel like I ruined your day. If somebody told me I couldn't have the magic juice anymore, I'd be devastated. So I feel like I know how you are feeling in the moment, and it's, yeah,

Anonymous Speaker 1:13:35
yeah. I have enough to ask me another month, I think, because I'm only on the 50 units now, and they've been doing 25 units, and they're set up at 50 units after four weeks. So

Scott Benner 1:13:48
yeah, are you trying to lose weight still? Are you just trying to get all those other benefits with digestion and all that other stuff both? Yeah, gonna say you can go down like, I don't know how you shoot it. Do you shoot it with a pen, or is it in a vial?

Anonymous Speaker 1:14:03
I have a needle, vial. I have a vial. Drop from the vial, injecting my stomach. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:14:09
I mean, you can try cutting back a little bit to make it last a little longer, to see if you can get some impact from it still. But you're in a situation where you're trying to go up and dose, not down. Well,

Anonymous Speaker 1:14:19
I've been doing great with the with the dose I've been

Speaker 1 1:14:22
on. Oh, all right, awesome. Yeah, so

Anonymous Speaker 1:14:25
maybe that's an option. Just stay at the low dose for longer. Try to

Scott Benner 1:14:28
buy yourself some more time to figure it out. I don't know what the answer I honestly, it's so new. I don't know what the answer is right now, but you should definitely do some Googling. Okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, that's okay. No, it's not, not after the conversation we had, I literally feel like it's my fault the next bad thing that happens to

Anonymous Speaker 1:14:49
you. Now, let's get me started on the path, on the journey, and so I try to make the best of the what I have left of it and see what happens next. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:15:00
I don't know what's gonna happen. I In the end, a lot of people are using it. I can't imagine that. They're just gonna freeze everybody out and nothing's gonna come of it. Somebody's gonna push back on the pushback at some point. So, yeah, I mean, or more insurance is gonna have to start covering it for different reasons. You've got to imagine, if you're the comp, if you're Lily and novo, you must be out there doing all kinds of, like, testing on all different kind of use scenarios. They had to have looked and said, what are people using this for? We got to get all this FDA approved because they want to sell it. Yeah, they're not in the business not selling that stuff. So, right?

Anonymous Speaker 1:15:33
So I guess that means maybe I'll be without it for a while, but hopefully down the road.

Scott Benner 1:15:41
Yeah, I can't see a world where they don't find every pathway available to selling it. Do you know what I mean? That sounds like dastardly, but like, and I'm sure it is on some levels, but also it is helping people with a ton of different things. What about people out there that are, like, I don't know, addressing their PCOS with it, or, you know, there's a lot of other reasons people are using it. It's helping them. I don't see a world where you can make people's lives that much better and then go, I was kidding, you know, like you can't have it, like something's gonna get worked out, is what I'm saying. But again, it's not fair for you in the meantime, and it certainly doesn't make it better. Yeah, okay, sorry about that. We've been talking for an hour and a half, so I'm going to tell you, thank you very much. I really appreciate this. It's funny. I knew you had an addiction recovery story, but it was a left turn for me. I didn't realize what you were going to say. And again, I just have to tell you, I think it was incredibly brave for it to share that, and I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Anonymous Speaker 1:16:37
Yeah, thanks. And one more mention, please, juice cruise coming up. I'm gonna be there. Oh, awesome. Gonna meet you on the cruise. Anybody listening? Come join us. Meet

Scott Benner 1:16:47
me. Yeah. No kidding. We're Yeah, yeah. Like, listen. I didn't know I could turn it into a dating thing for everybody. Yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 1:16:52
I was about to say that, but

Scott Benner 1:16:55
100 listeners myself, I'm so close to being able to say Erica is going to be there too. I'm working that out. Are going to we're going on a cruise together for was it five nights, right?

Anonymous Speaker 1:17:05
Yeah, I think so, five nights in June. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. The kids will be Yeah, we're all set to go. I genuinely,

Scott Benner 1:17:11
we've been talking about it a lot this week. I had a couple of meetings about it this week, and we're setting up some sponsors so you guys get, like, you know, grab bags and stuff like that. And we're trying to get a couple other things set up. Cool. It's just really super exciting, like, we're already talking about doing it again next year. So wow, everyone who's involved in getting it going is super excited. I am genuinely, like, my wife said, What do you like? How do you see these five days for you? And I was like, Well, I just think I'm gonna get to meet a lot of people and talk to them and hear a lot of stories. And I was like, that's really kind of all I want out of it is, you know, just to meet everybody. And I think I can accomplish that in five days. It'll be a lot of I'm sure my voice will be shot somewhere around Thursday. I've met so many of you like digitally, and I've met so many of you like, in passing, at conferences and stuff like that. But like, just really, like, almost living together for a few days. I just think is another level of of getting to know people and and through getting to know them, you get more of the depth of their story. Because, I mean, you just did it over last 90 minutes, man, like you said things, you're not the only one. You know what I mean, there are plenty of people in your situation, and these just are not things that we talk about. And I think until we understand these things about each other, it's more difficult to I don't know, just to see yourself and other people maybe, yeah, there's a lot of value in and anyway, that's what I'm hoping to do. I'm hoping to see inside of people and hear as much about them as they're willing to share. So that's what

Anonymous Speaker 1:18:37
I look forward to, meeting the other people who deal with this with diabetes. I'm hoping my kid meets some other kids and maybe meet some of the Facebook regulars that I kind of getting to know from the Facebook group. Yeah, I don't know who's going, but I'm hoping some of the regulars are going frequent commenters. I

Scott Benner 1:18:55
think they are. It's going to be a good time and then from there. And seriously, the reason we're talking about next year already. Is this a big undertaking to get this launched and everything? You know, it's a heck of a thing to make out of nothingness, you know? Yeah.

Anonymous Speaker 1:19:07
So while you're planning it, let's just start playing the next one, right? I get it, but

Scott Benner 1:19:12
I really do feel like maybe this one will create the excitement that would let the next one be even bigger, which would let us bring more speakers and really just try to turn it into something. So anyway, that's that's the goal, to capitalize

Anonymous Speaker 1:19:22
on the excitement the post crew. Is excitement that people will

Scott Benner 1:19:26
have. I don't think anything's gonna sell another cruise better than pictures of the cruise. So yeah, that's what we're shooting for. All right. Well, awesome. Actually, April, May, June, this will have come out after the cruise. So hopefully, every, hopefully everybody listening had a good time. So thank you, yeah, okay, hold on one second for me, this is awesome. Thank you.

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. The podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by ever since CGM. They make the ever since 365 that thing lasts a whole year. One insertion every year. Come on. You probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast if you're living with type one diabetes. The after dark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about, from drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction and so much more. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark there you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.

Please support the sponsors

Donate