Scott Benner 6/17/25 Scott Benner 6/17/25

#1550 Reconnecting Canada

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Fierce Mom from Winnipeg: Fights for Coverage, Fights Through Hangups.

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

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

Ashley 0:15
Hi, my name is Ashley. I am the mom to Anna who's diagnosed with type one at age three. I'm excited to be on the podcast today. If

Scott Benner 0:26
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. A huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link, go check it out. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox,

Ashley 1:53
hi. My name is Ashley. I am in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and I am the mom to Anna, who's diagnosed with type one at age three, and also the mom to George. I'm excited to be on the podcast today.

Scott Benner 2:10
Awesome. I'm excited to have you. Anna is how old now? She is eight now, so five years ago? Yes, you bet. And George is older, younger,

Ashley 2:21
younger, younger. He just turned three. No, look at that

Scott Benner 2:24
nice little age. Oh, George wasn't around when Anna was diagnosed.

Ashley 2:29
No, yeah, it was just Anna. Anna was actually the first one in our family, not just our immediate family, but extended family, diagnosed with type one. So was a very big surprise. Any other autoimmune in your family? Well, it was interesting after Anna got diagnosed with type one, a month later, her cousin, second cousin, Mike's cousin's kid, got diagnosed with type one, and then a couple years later, another cousin got diagnosed with type one. So it's it is interesting that something you know, the virus that was circulating around in when she was three, somehow also reacted to her cousin. We didn't actually see her cousin, but, you know, things go around, right? And so something about that this now, in this particular time, I think, in our genetics versus before, where there was no type one, so yeah, but no, no other autoimmune that we know of. Yeah,

Scott Benner 3:23
she's diagnosed than a cousin. How long after, like, one month later, a month later, but not people you see frequently or anything like that. No. And

Ashley 3:33
actually, he was actually living, not in Winnipeg at the time, but in Canada and and then a couple years later, another cousin,

Scott Benner 3:40
so Anna's first, she's three, three, and the cousins how old

Ashley 3:47
he was, like 24 which is interesting.

Scott Benner 3:50
Then the third one, like 10. No, you guys must stay away from each other the holidays. Now,

Ashley 3:56
yeah, no, yeah. It's just it was interesting because then, and of course, the cousin, the younger cousin, that was diagnosed in Manitoba, as soon as we heard they were at the hospital, we're, like, texting them and, you know, helping them out before that. Yeah, there was no one in, like, our aunts, uncles, cousins, no, but nobody with type one. This is like, 2020, 2021, let's see. Let's see, five years ago, yeah. 2020 Yeah. Okay. This is during COVID, is what I'm asking. Well, the diagnoses was before COVID Fully hit, right? Because COVID Hit 20. Oh, sorry, no, this was 2019 That's right, sorry, 2019 because she's turning eight in October or nine in October. So it was before COVID hit and then COVID hit, yeah, pretty early on in her diagnosis, there in 2020

Scott Benner 4:43
did she have anything you can recall, like Coxsackie or another virus? Did she get hit hard with, you know, an illness, anything like that?

Ashley 4:52
She had a really bad case of the croup, like toddlers get that kind of thing, that bad barking cough. So I think it was. That it was quite bad. She had it quite bad, and so much so that I remember, yeah, my dad got really sick, like we all kind of got really sick. That was beginning of July or end of June. And then over the summer, she kind of seemed maybe like a little bit more tight, a little more cranky. And then in the fall, I started to notice, like she was really constipated, that the peeing lots didn't really trigger, because she was like, potty training and a toddler, and you're like, going to the washroom a million times no matter what, so that didn't trigger. And she was in diapers, but then she started getting yeast infections, and that was weird. So I went to the doctor, I was like, This is strange. And they were like, Oh, just put, you know, this cream on. And I was like, Okay. And I was like, constipated. And they're like, oh, you know, eat more fruit. I'm like, she's eating a ton of fruit. But, like, she was not, it was never issue for her. And then we went to the doctor again. And then she had her physical in October, turning turning three. They still didn't pick it up. When I look back now on pictures, I can tell in her face, but technically, she was still, she wasn't gaining weight, but she wasn't losing too much, I guess, for them to catch it. And then one day, she was just like, laying on the couch looking so sick, but no fever. And I was just like, something's wrong. I don't know what it is. I have no idea, but like, I gotta go. I gotta see a different doctor. Because the doctor I'd seen at that point, we had seen three different doctors, her regular one and two other ones, yeah. And I was like, I don't know what's going on. So I took her to this clinic we have that's staffed by emergency ER doctors, but it's kind of like an urgent care. Because I thought, you know, I think they're gonna know at that point, I still didn't know, like, emergency, right? Because it wasn't like, it didn't seem somebody had

Scott Benner 6:43
only told you that your daughter had, your three year old had problems that 45 year old women usually get, yes, yes, have her eat more fruit and

Ashley 6:52
yeah, and use some cream. So as soon as we go in and I say, say those things, those same things, and the doctor looks me in the eye and like, we're gonna do a finger poke. They poke her finger. She's off the charts, like the poker the glucometer won't read her number. So she's like, Okay, we're gonna go to the Children's Hospital. We'll let you know that you're on your way. We'll call ahead. And I was just like, and her face was just very, very serious and calm that like, you need to go now. It'll be okay. So we rushed down and got diagnosed and all that. But yeah, like, I tell actually, like, and then we got a new, new family doctor after that, because I was pretty upset that, you know, we had missed that, and that it had to get so bad of her, like, laying on the couch, lethargic, yeah, to get diagnosed. So I taught and her new doctor. When I told that story, I was like, okay, so start out, I need to tell you the story of, like, her red flags that didn't appear because it wasn't peeing, because she was in diapers. And he said, you know, as soon as you would have said about infection, I would have immediately done a done a blood blood test, like, done finger poke, a 1c like, that's not normal for a toddler. And I was like, exactly,

Scott Benner 8:01
you know, it's funny. You said something that, like everyone says, and it's the first time today that I wondered about it when they say you need to go to the hospital right now. Like, don't go home. Don't do this. Just go home. Like, it makes me think. Like, how many people are told by a physician you have to go to a hospital right now and then they just don't go like, I wonder what that number is. You know what I mean. It's a common thread through everyone's story. Yeah, doctor never, doesn't say, Don't pass go, don't collect $200 just get there. It's interesting. So, yeah, okay, so you have a doctor now you're happy with, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox, the dex Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes, the Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks, if you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox head over there. Now. This episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Would you ever buy a car without test driving it first. That's a big risk to take on a pretty large investment. You wouldn't do that, right? So why would you do it when it comes to choosing an insulin pump, most pumps come with a four year lock in period through the DME channel, and you don't even get to try it first. But not Omnipod five. Omnipod five is available exclusively. Through the pharmacy, which means it doesn't come with a typical four year DME lock in period. Plus you can get started with a free 30 day trial to be sure it's the right choice for you or your family, my daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day for 17 years. Are you ready to give Omnipod five a try? Request your free Starter Kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox find my link in the show notes of this podcast player, or at Juicebox podcast.com

Ashley 10:37
Yes, yes. Her doctor right now is, is excellent and, and when I told that story, he was like, yeah. And he and he said he had actually recently diagnosed someone with type one just from their intro appointment over the phone, based on things they said. And they were like, you know, I think you need to get a blood test right away. And I was like, Oh, that's so good. Like, so but I think there is a problem, and I'm still hearing stories of folks that it has to get so bad before you're diagnosed that, like every primary care physician and walk in doctor needs to, like, it doesn't hurt to do a finger poke. And if it's not, then it's not but, yeah, little kids like sometimes have to get so bad before diagnosing. I don't know. I think there still is a lack of awareness among some doctors. Yeah,

Scott Benner 11:22
I hear you. I also wonder, like, if the symptoms aren't enough to trigger in their head, hey, this could be diabetes, then I wonder, is it also unreasonable to expect that the symptoms would be enough for them to trigger the idea of like, finger poke like, what if the like, if finger poke was like, you know, you hear this, this and this, you definitely do a finger poke. Like, how come, if you do this, this and this, you don't wonder diabetes, like, how do you get them to have that moment when they hear that that information? Or,

Ashley 11:49
I mean, the other way to go. And then what I've thought of, actually, is just at the yearly checkup, when you're doing already your shots, they're already crying. You could just do a poke. Like that would cost pennies to do a poke. They're already crying. You know, it's not fun. That would have caught my daughter three weeks before she was in DK, because she saw her physical appointment three weeks like she turned three, three weeks before diagnoses. So if they had poked her finger, just as like a normal routine thing that would have, I mean, she still was probably in DK, but it wouldn't have been as bad, because the last week before diagnosis is when I got really bad. I

Scott Benner 12:26
have to tell you when my when my mom was in the hospital and they just stuck her finger, it cost $100 every time they did it. So I don't know if it's gonna be that's how they charge for it. That's the test strip and the now, the nurse that I sort of got Yeah, it was Yeah, every time they checked her budget, it was $100 Wow. We have a different system than you do. Okay,

Ashley 12:42
well, in our system, I don't know, like, the cost to our taxpayer system when you get a shot is $7 so I think a finger poke would be less than that. Nice. There's no vaccine in Canada.

Scott Benner 12:51
I'm sure it would be. I was just saying here, here, it wouldn't be as cheap as you think. Because people say all the time, like, how come they don't just do this? Like at every doctor's appointment and blah, blah, because the insurance probably won't let them, even if the you know, the physicians wanted to do it, I don't imagine they'd be able to get it through the insurance, is my point. So, right, yeah, anyway, so, okay, so this all happens is obviously out of the blue for you, and she's very little. You guys go to the hospital. How long you there? Like, what's the first week's like, you

Ashley 13:19
know, we just, actually just had to stay the one night because their first day of training, we were so good, I guess we, like they thought we were okay enough to go home the second night. Or, I guess she wasn't so bad. So, yeah, we had training all that week, so it was like Monday. So was when it happened, when took her in, and then Training Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, actually, there's three days of training. And then Friday was Halloween, poor kid, but she was still pretty sick, so she handed out candy, and I don't know we dosed her something, but she was still kind of pretty tired and little so didn't really, really know the situation. But yeah, so we had the training and that that went pretty good. And the big, the big thing that was, like, a huge game changer for us, was getting an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor, which, at the time, we did have a program for kids only in Manitoba, but we didn't have CGM coverage, but we have private insurance, but that didn't cover CGM because it wasn't under it's called the public umbrella of PharmaCare, which public drugs are covered not it wasn't yet to Manitoba, so, but we kind of, like, researched it. I listened to the Juicebox Podcast. I was like, listening to all this. I was like, Okay, we got to get a CGM. This is really scary. We don't know what she is, and we need to get a pump, you know, as soon as possible. So talked to them and tried the libre first, and then we switched to the Dexcom, and just loved it. And it was a huge game changer for our control and nighttime. And when you

Scott Benner 14:54
say it's not covered, the it was covered. It's covered for children, but not for adults. At that time, I know this is five years ago. But yeah,

Ashley 15:01
yeah, it has, it has changed at the time, insulin pumps recovered for 18 and under CGM were not at all for any age at that time. So we paid out of pocket. Are you to pay for it yourself, right? Yeah, which we were able to. But then seeing like the difference in that, I, along with Trevor and Ken and Liz, a group of us. We decided during COVID times that it was like December 2020, like this isn't right. Like we need to change the coverage here in Manitoba, especially during COVID times when there's, you know, pandemic and dangerous health situations and more people are getting diagnosed, we need to have coverage. So we started a large campaign, and I'm super excited to say just recently, as of today, April 15, we now in Manitoba, have one another pillar of our campaign, which is free insulin. Now for anyone with type one or type two that uses insulin, free insulin in Manitoba, no deductible. How'd you get that done as of today, well? And we have other stuff too. We have all ages, insulin pumps for everyone and CGM for everyone we but the third pillar. We had four pillars back in 2020, and the third pillar, insulin came true today. And the last pillar is insulin support in school. So we, like, kind of we drafted, like this manifesto, almost of these four things that we wanted. Let's not call

Scott Benner 16:25
it a manifesto, okay, okay, yeah, you take that out. No, no. It's funny. That's fine. Trevor's been on the podcast, right? Yes, yeah. Like years ago, yes. And then at that time, it was about access to CGM, yes, I see. How do you all know each other?

Ashley 16:44
So we met. We there. We have this Facebook Facebook group, Manitoba families for type one. Any Manitobans listening? Not on the Facebook group. You should come join our Facebook group. I would love it

Scott Benner 16:54
if you would have said you met because you're penguin farmers, but it's fine that you said it like that. What's the Facebook group called again, I'm sorry. Uh oh, she's gone. This is it, Ashley. Ashley, you're back. What happened? You okay? I'm okay, sorry. I just hit, hit a button by accident. Oh, I thought you got mad about the penguin joke. Sorry. No.

Ashley 17:15
Penguin joke was funny. Penguins in southern Manitoba, though, or polar bears. Polar bears. Polar bears are in northern Manitoba, which is quite far away from us. Can

Scott Benner 17:24
I tell you a secret? There's no penguins in Canada at all? Well, that's true, not where they live, but I just some zoos. But, yeah, look at you being very specific. All right. Well, fine. Then penguins live everywhere, where there are zoos I'm saying, I guess. Where do they come from? I don't want to say right now, because I don't want to show off that I know. So you guys all meet each other. Your was very telling. You're like, you don't know where penguins come from, idiot. So you guys all find each other on a Facebook group, and you realize, or I guess, you're talking, and you're like, Wow, this is crazy that we can't get CGM for the kids or something like that. How does that go from like, a bunch of people online just complaining to each other or wishing out loud into actual action. Like, how does that happen? Yeah,

Ashley 18:06
it's a good it's a good question. Like, people were kind of like saying, like, there were certain threads that kept coming up all the time, and it was no glucose monitor coverage, private, private or public. No insulin pumps for over 18, no insulin support in schools, and the cost of insulin so like that. Kind of those threads would come up, and Trevor and I were chatting because Anna was diagnosed, and he was someone that would help folks kind of in the group. And now I've kind of become that person too. Like, if someone's asking a question, they'll like private message and say, Hey, do you want some help? You wanted some information? And I was chatting with him about CGM and pumps different things, and saying, Yeah, I want to go down a pump and all that. And then it just kind of morphed into, like, oh man, like, there's no coverage. And, you know, our family, like, I'm a teacher. And, well, actually, that's, that's, that's, that's not a guarantee that you make a decent salary. I know in the States, it's a lot harder, but in Canada, actually, we do make a decent salary here. And so I said, you know, we can pay out of pocket, but even us like this should be covered under insurance, like if for everybody, because it's going to save money to avoid emergency rooms, like short term and long term. It'll save the system money, right? So

Scott Benner 19:21
actually, tell me, too, it's one of those situations where in different provinces, there's different rules. So you live where you live, and it's not covered at the time, but it's very possible somebody else lived somewhere else and it was covered,

Ashley 19:33
yeah. So some provinces at that time did a lot, didn't still at that time, so it's kind of been and there were organizations like larger organizations like diabetes, candidate JDRF, now breakthrough type one, like working on some of that, but during COVID, things like really shut down for advocacy, because there weren't those lobby days and there weren't meetings with politicians. And so we kind of saw an opportunity. Community as a grassroots group to really make some inroads with policy, just trying to, like, we had time on our hands, like, I like we kind of, you know, you can't do anything, you can't see friends, and so we're like, let's take this on. And we and we talked, we talked to someone at JDRF, and we had that, and Trevor came up. Well, actually, it was my mom that I need to give a shout out to my mom, Ruth, who came up with idea for the finger prick challenge. She's like, you know, maybe if you can get the politicians to prick their finger and see how hard it is and how ineffective it would be, maybe, you know, that might get them to really change their mind at flash, get media attention, and so. And then Trevor was like, Yeah, that sounds awesome. And Liz and, and then we kind of figured it out, and so we gave these kits to the politicians and and they did that, and we got tons of media. And then we had these like demonstrations at the ledge during COVID time. So it's all like, you could have maybe 10 people at some times, or 15 people spaced apart with masks outside. And there wasn't much going on, right for lobbying, like none of the big organizations, not diabetes, just anybody. Nobody was like lobbying at the ledge, having rallies and stuff. And so we would call ahead and be like, Okay, so what's the limit? And it'd be like, 10 people spaced apart 20, whatever it was at the time. And so we did one was like antiques roadshow, where we had different antiques showing that finger poking was antique. And so kind, you know, it's kind of like visuals. And we had one time we did an amazing race. We had the politicians go through different rate, you know, events. And everyone was like, game to do it, because there, like, were no events going.

Scott Benner 21:44
They were bored too.

Ashley 21:46
Yeah. So they were like, we had the Leader of Opposition. We had, like, tons of elected leaders come out and chat with us and see all that. And then did lots of virtual meetings. The big thing getting folks attention was people in the it's called a constituency, but, like, where you live, their elected representative, having people from there ask for a meeting. So we targeted, like, all the different areas, put a lot of pressure, like, with the opposition to pressure, just like media, there was a lot of lot of layers, trying to educate why it was important, why we needed to have it during a time. At the time, we had a government that was like an austerity government, the conservative it should be like the republican party down there that was not adding anything to the budget. But we had such a concerted push for the opposition and working with government that we got it like the first one was 25 and under for CGM and pump. That was the first kind of benchmark, which was four years ago, and then I think it was two years ago, then we got the all ages for pump and CGM. So we kind of pushed, pushed, pushed, and it was a huge, huge thing. No one was getting anything at that time, like nobody, no group was coming away with a win at the time, and it's awesome because, yeah, so it was super, super good and and huge. And now, like, I just, I'm so heartwarmed, like I heard a few weeks ago from a senior that was 65 and recently diagnosed with type one, and she had no idea about the campaign, and because she just got diagnosed, and she's like, she has an insulin pump now, and she's like, I'm fixed.

Scott Benner 23:24
She's gone again. You're gone. You're not there. You're talking to yourself. Muted. Hello. 65 year old just diagnosed. Oh, she's gone, gone. She hung up on herself. It's awesome. I should leave this in, Rob. We might leave this in, depends on how fast she comes back the austerity party. There's no way most of us understood what she was saying. There. Also, where's the ledge like? Is that like the train station on Yellowstone, where they throw the dead bodies. What do you think that is? I should ask about that. Ashley, uh oh, a polar bear got her. Yeah, she's dead. That's a shame. It's so cold up there. Probably the cold. Then she fell over. Immediately the penguins drug her outside, where the polar bears ripped her apart, limb from limb, which is a shame, because look at all the people she helped with CGM, with CGM and other stuff like that. But now a senseless death out in the wilderness. It's not fair. When you're breaching new lands and you're spreading humanity across the tundra of Canada, this stuff happens. It's not polite, but Nature never is. You understand what I'm saying? My god, she's really been gone for a while. I can't keep talking like that. She really could be dead. This would be such a shame. Can I call this one polar bear attack? Imagine if she never comes back and there's no updates. What if she left her family in the middle of this? She's like, this is a great opportunity for me to just get out of here. Yeah. Oh, she's back. Hold on a

Ashley 25:02
second, Ashley. I'm so sorry. I like, I like, kept talking, and I guess I hung up on you. You hung up on me a while ago. I'm so sorry. I kept talking for a long time. Where did I leave off? First, I'll

Scott Benner 25:12
tell you where you left off. But don't worry, because I filled the time nicely with a tale of you trying to conquer the tundra of Canada, but eventually the cold got to you and you were killed. Sadly, of course, because nature is unforgiving. Then the penguins drug you outside, where the polar bears ripped you apart, limb from limb, which we spent some time going over how sad that was, because you helped all those people with the CGMS and everything else. So that's what we did while you were it's like a children's story that you wouldn't read to children. You were talking about the 65 year old lady who was diagnosed, didn't know about anything, and now you found out she has a CGM, which I'm assuming made you feel like, wow, look at all the work we did. This lady's benefiting years down the road, yeah,

Ashley 25:49
CGM and a pump with no waiting periods. So the pumps, the other big thing was they used to have to jump through hoops. That was one of our demonstrations, too. All the hoops you have to jump through to get an insulin pump before the kid program, you had to have it at least a year. You had to have it a 1c under 10. You had to have all this stuff. So now there's no criteria. It's just type one you want to get a pump and, you know, you talk to your doctor about it and all

Scott Benner 26:12
that. So like, do you think you actually talked them into understanding why this was necessary? Or do you think you bugged them to the point where they were like, Why don't we just give them this so they stopped coming

Ashley 26:20
here? We did work a lot of education on it. And then, I mean, on their side, they would have, you know, pulled up research and stuff. And we had some research too, that we that we showed, but like they would have done, like on the civil service side, their own, you know, research, but part of it was education. Like our, one of our big things that I would like recommend to people at in any any country, if they have a committee meeting of their session, something on health care, we kind of, we loaded up a speakers list of like 12 speakers. So committees is like talking about a law that's going to pass. Now, the law wasn't about CGM and pump, it was about something else. But they were nice enough to just, you know, let us talk about what we were talking about under the umbrella of healthcare, yeah. And in that, we were able to, like, educate the committee members, which included folks that were, you know, on the financial kind of team of the government and the opposition people. We were able to do a lot of education. So that was really good. And we just met with so many people and just over and over. And

Scott Benner 27:21
it was your finding that, like, once they understood the situation, they were like, oh, yeah, we don't do that. That's crazy. We should do that. It wasn't being kept from you as much as it was that nobody knew that you wanted it. Is that fair?

Ashley 27:34
I think so, and that they didn't realize how important it was. And I think type one like folks and parents are often, they have lots on their plate, and it's hard to advocate. And we do have organizations that do that, but it's not like the grassroots people saying, like, you know, like, we've avoided going to the hospital because it will alarm a severe low and like, they can tell those stories which are really impactful. And then people are like, Oh, wow. Like this tech, you know, and with a pump that it can work together with the CGM, and, like, all the good things that come from that, you know, kids can do better at school, like they can be in a range for learning, and, yeah, and so all of that. And so it all kind of fits together. And then that led to our, like, latest campaign, which we have not achieved yet. We are right in the midst of it, though, like we now have a committee of Health and Education meeting together, and I really, really hope that by the time this is aired, that we have insulin support in schools, for daycare and young children, like for little kids that can't self administer. Right now, we don't, so a lot of folks, even though we have free pumps, can't get one because you can't, you don't have any help at schools or daycares for little kids. It

Scott Benner 28:44
took me a long time of interviewing Canadians to realize that, why is there so much regular and mph being used in Canada? It's because there's no nurses at the schools. That's right, yeah, of all the odd decisions, because there are plenty of schools here that there aren't nurses at and people still, they find a way to handle it right. Like, you know, there, there's schools in America where the secretary helps you with your insulin, or, you know, like, whatever, somebody in the you know, a delegate or an advocate in the school who's willing to help, you know, makes it known to the school, like, I'll help the kids with the stuff, and then, you know, you get somebody to do it. But what a strange, backwards way of doing something. Do you know what I mean, like, seriously, you're using insulin, that is, I mean, generally speaking, not used anymore. I mean, unless you're maybe really low carb, and you're, you know, you're using it for background. But, like, there's so many insulins that have been invented since then that work, you know? I mean, arguably, much, much better. And yet, in Canada, they're just like, Oh no, it's 2025 here's regular and mph for your, you know, your newly diagnosed five year old, because, you know, some of the months of the year while your kid's at school, like, who's going to give them the insulin? Is that not frustrating? Once you realize that's why it's happening, yes,

Ashley 29:56
yeah, it's extremely frustrating. And I was able, like, if I was a five. Minute drive from her daycare when she was little, and her school isn't too bad, eight minutes. So I was able to drive and then, so as I'm driving and doing like the lunchtime hustle, you run over, run back, I'm in a position that I'm not a classroom teacher. I'm in resource counseling. So I have the flexibility. My employer is flexible. But I'm like, This is not fair, that this isn't not fair, that we have to use

Scott Benner 30:22
50 year old equity. Like, yeah, it's just a strange thing. It would be like, if I don't know what it would be like, it would be like, if somebody told you, like, Oh, you're not feeling well, well, we're gonna put some leeches on you. You're like, why can't we do the testing? Like, oh, there's no nurses at the testing center. Like, could you put some there? Like, why are we still reaching back to like, such an old idea. It just smells of, of exactly what you talked about. It's just that nobody was looking at it, so it just, it's like, well, this is how we do it, so we just keep doing it this way. Oddly enough, it's not some big organization that gets through to people. It's a handful of people who met online. Like, really awesome. You know, it just really, it's a great story,

Ashley 30:59
yeah, and, and the organizations like their focus, you know, they haven't really taken on insulin support in schools until recently. I would say diabetes Canada. I'll give a shout out to Joan Jean, if she's listening, the advocacy director that

Scott Benner 31:17
she's gone this is my favorite part of the show so far. I mean, she's awesome, but the part where she hangs up on herself, because, like, you imagine right now, she's talking about Joan from diabetes Canada, and all the hard work she put in there to it, everything and and it's such an interesting so let me go over it. First they got the CGMS for the kids, and then, you know, they got that expanded to older and older people, CGM and pumps, if you if your doctor says you deserve it, there's no arguing. You just get it. Then they got I mean, we haven't even gotten to the free insulin thing. Like, I'm trying to figure out what that's about now. She's trying to make sure there's support in the schools so the kids can use their insulin pumps at schools. There's really wonderful work being done, and in a short time too. Like, I mean, five years to get all this accomplished is pretty astonishing. Actually. Do you think she's still right now talking to herself? She could be. I feel bad about that. I want to say and when you're listening back, Ashley, because we absolutely are keeping this in I do feel badly right now. Here she is. Here we go.

Ashley 32:14
I'm so sorry. I think I'm like, my cheek is hitting it. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You

Scott Benner 32:18
shouldn't apologize. I have the greatest little I actually just did a whole recap of everything you guys have done so far, waiting to come back. Tell me a little bit about that good. Keep going. So

Ashley 32:27
the influence support in schools right now. Some provinces, which are like states, do offer it, like with support staff trained by nurses, and one province does have nurses, but then they have a shortage of nurses, which creates a problem. So we're looking at the model of support staff trained by nurses here, and now we're in kind of the committee with health and education. We just had a meeting. But it is tricky, because the easier thing is to just leave it the same, like, that's easier because schools are like, Oh, insulin. They're scared of it, or whatever,

Scott Benner 33:00
I mean, whatever. They don't want to do it. But go ahead, they don't want to

Ashley 33:03
do it, yeah, but we have CGM now, and so it kind of had to all be in order, like we had to get CGM coverage so everyone can have a CGM. So if you're like, you know, on social assistance, you don't make any money right now, you get CGM. And if you're low income, you're going to meet your deductible, your public deductible with your insulin and, well, I guess, not insulin anymore, but your other other supplies. So the point is, like all the little kiddos have CGM Now, one way or another, right? And so now we have that safety net in place that people aren't finger poking. So the risk, you know, with the with the pumps, you can set the max Bolus, you know, really low to, you know, you can set that low TO KEEP IT folks safe so, and there's lots of, you know, you can do a double check. There's lots of things you can do to keep everyone safe. But the risk of having kids on outdated insulin and not having the with with looping automated insulin devices like we can't that risk is higher than having having the pumps now, and we all, we all know that, but I think it's just kind of trickling down now, yeah, yeah. I don't understand

Scott Benner 34:09
how people's minds work. Like, well, like you're saying, Hey, we're treating these children as if it was 50 years ago, maybe longer, very detrimental to their health and their happiness and their day to day living and etc and so on. And by the way, here's a bunch of examples of people who grew up 50 years ago, and you know, some of the complications they have now, like, so and they go, Well, what if someone miscounts the insulin? Like, wow, that's the LEAP you made. Like, awesome. Like, just way to miss the forest for the trees or the ice for the snow. Yeah. I mean, earlier, you just kind of blase. We Hey, insulin is free. Now, like, how did that happen?

Ashley 34:43
So that one actually was a huge or systemic one. That one, I can't our committee wasn't responsible for that one, but we did put it forward. So which is awesome. So the whole federal government, the like, you know, you would have, you know, your president, your congress, Senate. So our. Federal Government made a deal now with Manitoba for it's called PharmaCare with no deductible. So for contraception and diabetes medication and for diabetes, so far, they're including insulin, the squamous, the nasal, glucagon and type two, Metformin, type stuff. So they will all be free as of today, with no deductible, which is amazing. And I think, I mean, why did they pick diabetes medication and contraception? Like it's kind of interesting to two things to start. But for sure, for diabetes, I think the campaigns of the national campaigns around the importance of diabetes medication in our system and all that. And we were hoping to see pump supplies and CGM in that, like, free, with no deductible. And we're not sure where that's going to end up, because there was talk about that, and then when we actually saw the document, it wasn't in there. So we'll see, like, it can be built on, though, right? It's a stepping stone. Like, that's a big deal. It's a step. It's a big deal. It's a huge stepping stone. We do have an election going on right now, though, at the end of month of April, we might have a different government. And they have said, like, so our current federal government is the liberals, which would be more like your Democrats, and the conservative the conservatives, when they had said they were going to get rid of PharmaCare, like get rid of this drug program, because it's not in their philosophy. But there has been a lot of pressure on them, so we'll see what they actually do. I mean, hopefully the pressure is enough that even if they won, they wouldn't get rid of it, but they want to do more tax cuts, right? This

Scott Benner 36:36
could just flip right back again. It could.

Ashley 36:38
It's at the whim of government, but saying that when something becomes so entrenched, like, it's free and kind of go to the doctor, it's free to go to the hospital, even a Conservative government, that's pretty hard to take that away. Take it away, yeah, you know, like, if once it becomes very entrenched, and that people wouldn't, you know, be, you know, if you're not going to get elected because of that, then they wouldn't take it away. So it just, yeah, I would imagine

Scott Benner 37:03
you're pander to your base while you're running, like, hey, we'll get rid of that pharma thing. Don't you worry. Put us back in charge, and we'll get rid of that for you. Then you get there and you go, Oh, we forgot to do that. And then just, it's probably good politics while you're running for office, not good politics once you're in office. I would imagine exactly,

Ashley 37:18
so hopefully. And I mean, then that's up to the organizations and the grassroots people to say, like, don't, you know, get rid of this. This is really good. But the tricky thing is, like, it only is starting today in the elections at the end of the month, right? So that is tricky. Are

Scott Benner 37:32
you recording today just by happenstance, and it's starting today? Yeah, yeah. I actually

Ashley 37:36
didn't even know like that when they had said it would be start in June. And then we just found out. I just found out yesterday, actually, I was reading the like bulletins from the government, because I like stuff like that, and and then I was like, April 15, okay, that today.

Scott Benner 37:54
That's awesome. You're like, a little dork, Ashley. You love stuff like that. Is that what you're saying? I

Ashley 37:58
love politics and the news and all of this, which is probably why I enjoyed doing the campaign so much. And, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I love, I love all this stuff. So it's, yeah, it's important to kind of keep informed of what's going on. But I do find it frustrating sometimes when folks, like, don't, didn't want to help out. But I do understand, like, type one folks and type parents with kids always have so much on their plate that it is hard to kind of take up extra Well,

Scott Benner 38:25
listen, it's a good example of, like, you know, politics is it follows the whims of the people who are paying attention to it. So you pushed. You got what you wanted. If somebody else would have stepped up with the thing they cared about, they might have their thing. Now, you know, yeah, for sure. Speak up. I think so, yeah, for sure. It's awesome. So how is your daughter doing? Like, now she's got her pump and she's got her CGM, and it's five years later, like, how is How's her diabetes going? Good?

Ashley 38:47
Yeah, she's, she's a true bird. She She's super active. She isn't involved in tons of stuff. She's in dance and Girl Guides and and she loves going upside down on the monkey bars. And, like, she's very, very active child, and swimming, she's able to, like, swim her laps, go on the deep end. And, yeah, she's always been super active, and that's what's been great about the Omnipod. And the tubeless has been so, so good for that, and the Dexcom. So I can't say enough about how great her pump and CGM has been for her management, and also just for her to be be a kid

Scott Benner 39:24
and just be able you have to go to school every day to give her insulin. So

Ashley 39:28
I was, yeah, well, we would split it up with our family. So there was different helper people, grandparents, someone from the team was going every day. Now that she's eight, like she can, you know, we can FaceTime her with her food. We're lucky that, like, She's old enough to do that now, so, but we were, we're up until last year, for sure. Every day, yeah, someone from the team, we

Scott Benner 39:53
got to a point where you said, like, she can do this. Like, if we're talking to her, she can push the buttons make this work. And,

Ashley 39:58
yeah, for sure. And the in the maturity level, it depends on the kid. You know, there's no set age. And then, you know, I have a friend that her kid has Down syndrome, and so, you know, then it's not an age, it's that, right? So we definitely need to have folks at the school trained to support kiddos.

Scott Benner 40:13
I mean, isn't it odd, seriously, that you can't just like that? It's that hard to get something set up, but somebody just can't agree. Like hell, I could text you at lunchtime and push these buttons for me and that the person in the room couldn't handle it. I know nobody wants but is liability really the reason there? Like, because here, I think it's liability. Nobody wants to be liable for anything. But is it the same in Canada? Yeah, I think,

Ashley 40:35
like, it's just been left out. Like, because we do right now, kids get medication from schools if the doctor signs off on other medication, including, you know, seizure medication, feeding tubes, you know, like there is lots of medication. Well, not lots. You know, medication is being delivered in schools already with the training of the nurse. Just, you know, insulin has always been left out of it, and I think it just hasn't been explained or advocated to the Department of Health like that. That's not right for kids. Yeah, yeah. So, like, it's interesting.

Scott Benner 41:07
I mean, you just mentioned feeding tubes. So like, feeding tubes, other medication, oral medication, blah, blah. There's all these different things. And then you come up and you're like, Well, can you push this button so they can have the medication going, Oh, no, that's not possible. And does anybody then asked, why? Like, what makes this different than that? Did you ever get any feeling for what the reasoning is? You just feel like, because you keep saying, like, Well, they didn't know. But like, how much do you really need to know you're giving that kid it's meds, and this kid is meds, and that kid are meds, and my kid can't have their meds. Because why? I don't see any common sense at all? Do you?

Ashley 41:41
Yeah? No, I agree. I totally agree. I think it was risk averse. And the school, like the Department of Health, is who does the guidelines with schools. And so there is maybe some hesitancy there, but there is risk already. Like, anytime you have a type one kid at school, there's risk. And if they're on mph, there's a large risk that they're gonna go low, because, you know, it's unpredictable insulin, and if they don't quite eat their exact carbs, they can shoot low, and greater risk of them running high all day. And yeah, I've had parents say, like, the schools are saying, like, oh man. Like, your kid's acting out and not able to learn, and I think it's because they're high like, the some of the schools have, like, figured it out, yeah. Like, they're like, this is a problem. And also, what happens? A lot of times, people will put kids in schools near where they work, so then they can't be with their neighborhood kids, like, I have a friend, their kid goes to school like, half an hour away from where they live, because that's where their parent works. You know, there's all these arrangements happening that the it's just wild that people are having to change their lives. You know, work different hours, work part time, just to like, so their kid can have proper health care. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, I think the next

Scott Benner 42:57
time your Facebook group gets together and decides to fix something, you might want to teach people how to do crazy. Critical thinking. It might be awesome. I think that might fix a lot more problems. It's just very interesting. It's such a simple idea, and to watch it, like, watch somebody in there just go, Oh, I can't do that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I can't push the button. I don't want to be involved. Or, like, I don't know enough about it. Like, you what you know about a feeding tube? Somebody taught you that too. You don't mean, like, I don't know, also, like, if you want to be an educator, you're a teacher, right? Yeah, if you want to be an educator, like, doesn't that come along with the fact that some kids have things they need during the day? Like, how do you just go, oh, no, sorry. We don't want to be involved. It's a weird thing to say. You don't. It's like, it's like, if I said to you, like, I you have a farm and horses on it, you Yeah? But we don't pick the poop up. I don't want to be involved in that part of it. Like, that's too bad, you know, I'm saying, Am I making sense? Ashley, yeah, okay, yeah,

Ashley 43:48
no. For sure. For sure. Like being in schools, 100% we learn about all kinds of kids with different medical needs, special needs, you know, we work. We learn all the time about, you know, how we can support kiddos. Yeah,

Scott Benner 43:59
is there anything else being ignored besides diabetes? Well, diabetes is

Ashley 44:04
the only healthcare thing that parents are responsible for in Manitoba. It's awesome. No other, no other need. You know, asthma, like seizures, you could put seizure, you know, medication in someone's cheek. You know that's that's

Scott Benner 44:18
all, okay, insulin, no, sorry. Can't be involved. I love how you're so Canadian. By the way, you're so like, there's things you're mad about. You just, you just pause when you get mad. Do you know that about yourself? It's awesome. Like, anytime you're like, I could go off on this. You just go, Hmm, it's very nice of you, very Canadian. I think. Have you apologized to anybody yet? Today, it's early, still I did

Ashley 44:42
to you. I said I'm so sorry that I hung up on you. I am sorry. Could

Scott Benner 44:46
you say more like sorry when you say it? Please next time, thank you. Appreciate it. You're coming on the podcast today just to tell us about, like, all the things you guys have gotten accomplished and the things that are still on your plate. You know, get. And coverage at school. Once you get to coverage at school, you just hang them up. Like, are you done? The boxing gloves, go over the mirror and you're finished. Or, like, you guys have other things you're thinking about. Well

Ashley 45:08
then we'll go like, we got free insulin. We want to go free, like, pump supplies and continuous glucose monitors. It should all be free for for folks of all ages. So that would be the next, the next thing, but we the benchmark of free insulin there. The next one should be easier, but in coming on and talking about all this like it is, like a rah, rah. But I also want to just kind of let folks know, talk to your representatives, like, whether that's US, Canada, another country in the world, and like, you can make a difference even, like a small group of people, and then getting other folks to join in, like, really having a concerted effort, can make a difference that people, if you keep going, keep going, like, we've made actually really huge change in a short amount of time, relatively like, everybody wants it right away. But if you keep chipping away at it, we can get better, better coverage, better healthcare for folks with diabetes, and I think it's a population that high needs. But if we keep everyone healthy now, like, our future is bright, and so it would be amazing if we get better and better care for folks, yeah,

Scott Benner 46:13
unless you live one of those countries where they disappear, you from making noise, and then I would keep quiet. Okay, well, that's true, but I'm hearing what you're saying. Like, you gotta, you gotta get involved. Like, it's very quiet frustration, and it's not, I wouldn't call it big, but I've heard frustration from you a couple of times. Like, you're like, I don't know. You apologize for them. You say, I know people whose kids have diabetes are busy, but what I'm hearing is, but we need more people to be involved in this if you really want to get something accomplished. Is that really the rest of that sentence? Yeah, I

Ashley 46:39
think so. And I think, like, just there are folks, probably, I know in Canada there's different groups, different online groups and things, and there are people mobilizing for variety of things, for type one folks. And I think, like, the school issue in Canada is still a huge thing. We have three provinces that have support, but seven that don't so I would really encourage folks to, like, work together and and try to mobilize in the provinces for that, just with the technology and getting better and better. Now, Omnipod five has been approved by Health Canada. Yeah, I saw which is amazing. So we got that loop pump, and then we have, of course, the DIY loop and Medtronic in tandem. It's

Scott Benner 47:21
a big deal for people don't know the history of Canada. You guys are generally years behind everybody else getting stuff like that, just having it available, let alone anybody paying for it or being covered. Oh, she hung up on herself again. That's awesome. Do you think she's still talking? Let's not wonder about that again. What was that going to bring up to her just now? Oh, I remember. I'll hold that thought. Will she apologize as soon as she comes back? On lay your bets. The longer I feel like the longer she doesn't realize she's talking without me here, the bigger the story is when she comes back. I'm gonna take this opportunity to put just a tiny bit of Vaseline on my lip, which I do while I'm talking, so that my lips don't smile together. There professional secret. Is it weird that there's a giant tub of Vaseline on the desk? Sure. Hey Ashley, welcome back. I

Ashley 48:11
guess, I guess we're probably done. Why

Scott Benner 48:13
do you feel like you're done? It's awesome. I know I was just

Ashley 48:16
gonna say, I think I got cut off. Just the looping pumps are so amazing. The tech and and little kids can benefit from those so much, you know, the really small insulin doses and and not having to have needles, and being able to snack. And I just saw, like with my daughter, how awesome, and that was even before there was a loop, but how awesome the pump was. And I just knew it's not right that so many kiddos can't access that. And at that point, it wasn't the cost, it was just there's no one at school to help them. And, like, how sad is that? Like, it's not even a cost barrier. It's just, you know, there's so many folks out there doing having a hard, hard life for no reason.

Scott Benner 48:55
I'll make this other point for you, because, listen, everybody's not gonna be, you know, you with your energy to, like, you know, go organize and set up meetings and and go out there and educate. Like, everybody doesn't have those skills, right? Like, I get that, but I do take your point, though, that things would move quicker and better if more people put their voice behind it. But it's just, it's just what it is, and you have to make a decision at some point, like, I've got diabetes, my kid has diabetes. Like, these things are impacting me. I've got to make some space for this. Like, and I'll give you my listen my if you wanted to get me upset about something I'm not really upset about, but more frustrated, you'd say to me, Scott, tell me a little bit about a podcast with 20 million downloads and 1000s and 1000s of reviews and 10s of 1000s of people in a Facebook group saying, like, I listened to this series and like, look what happened. Like, I'm doing so much better, and all this. And then someone comes along and says, Just tell me what to do. I don't have time for this. That's, yeah, my favorite one is, I don't listen to podcasts, okay? Like, well, I don't know what to tell you the guy who thought. Have to give you the answers, put it in a podcast so like you're telling me, like, you can't just listen to 20 hours of a podcast to get the answers you need, because you don't listen to podcasts. Like, yeah, you seem like a nice lady, Ashley, but, but then so I feel bad saying this. But what the does that mean? If I said to you, Ashley, hey, there's a volcano coming, we have to drive away right now. And you said, I get car sick, like, I don't know, like, I'm just like, Yeah, well, today you're going to get car sick because we're going to get away from the volcano that's erupting. Like, it's a strange thing to me for somebody to come to you and say, I don't know what to do. I'm really struggling. I'm having a lot of problems. My health is deteriorating. I'm aware of all this. Can you help me? And I go, Yes, I can. Here's a 16 part series. And, oh, it's in a podcast. Oh, I don't listen to podcasts like, What the I don't even know that must be how it felt to you. I'm imagining when you're like, we need a bunch of people to support this so we can make it happen. And everybody goes, we do need these things. It's not fair. Blah, blah, blah, can you come to the meeting? Oh, not on a Thursday. Sorry. Is that frustrating? Like you, it's okay if you can. Don't want to say because you seem very nice, but did I outline it pretty well.

Ashley 51:09
I like, I always try to go to the positive. Like, the more you know, we were able to, like, draw in a lot of people in at different levels of engagement. And I would just go, like, even at the lowest level engagement, like, if everyone that's listening now in Canada that doesn't have insulin support in school would, right now, email, ideally, email and call, you know, their minister of health and their province, that would actually make a huge and like, if everyone did that, you know, in the next week, that would make a huge impact. Because they track, they track how many people are calling, how many people are emailing, and then meetings and things like that can come out of that, but they need to know that it's an issue. Yeah, and it is hard that, like, you know, someone's right to health, you know, needs to be an issue. But there are a lot of competing interests from so many things in the healthcare system and in the, you know, in the world in general, that we know, there's a lot of competing interests. You got to

Scott Benner 52:00
be in line early, and you got to have your hand out, and you got to be a squeaky wheel. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, you're Canadian, so like, a very polite squeaky wheel, but still, like, if they don't know where to look, they're not going to look at you like, someone's not just going to wake up one day in power and go, You know what? I'm having this premonition that there are kids that are using old insulin because we don't have nurses in schools. I'm going to get up today and fix that like that's never going to happen. Yeah, that's right, yeah. You need people to walk out in the streets and bang, you know, bang on a pot in a pan, and scream and yell for a little bit. So, yeah, you guys did that. I You deserve a ton of credit. Like, anybody who does work like this deserves a ton of credit. It's not, obviously, it's time out of your own life. It's not easy. I'm sure there was expense involved. Getting people together to do anything is insane. Like, have you ever tried to, like, organize a softball game as an adult? Go ahead, good luck. You know what I mean? Go ahead and get 18 people together on the same piece of dirt with their baseball gloves. Yeah, you can't accomplish it. So it's more work than like, You're making it sound like it was easy, but I'm gonna guess that a big chunk of the last five years of your life have been taken up with this? No, yeah. Like, more. Yeah, more. At

Ashley 53:03
the beginning, the COVID times, for sure, was like the big push and the insulin, it's kind of been the last couple years. So, like, we did a tiered thing. We didn't take it all at the same time. Like, we worked on, chipped away, on things, having a strategy, like, definitely like to guide you, like, what do we want? And to be clear on the Ask, and then just trying to folks to jump on and and meetings, you know, with with the elected people like they do care what people want. They want to get elected again, you know. And we, when we proved even a party with the opposition, huge opposition support, which is the NDP party, pushed it forward, but the Conservative Party, which was a party of austerity, did, did do the financial for all ages, pumps and CGM because of all all the pressure, right? So it can, you know, you can get success with any with any party, if there's enough momentum behind it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:59
that's awesome. It's a great message, yeah, you know, in the end, like, you ever heard somebody come on the show and say, like, Whoa, I I'm having terrible outcomes with my Endo. I went to my endo and I said, like, you know, what do we make settings here? And then it goes, I don't know how to use that pump. Yeah, what's your whole job? Why don't you take five seconds and figure it out? Yeah? How many people a day do they say to like, I don't know how to use that pump. You can't go home. And then I've said it. Are like, you couldn't go home tonight and figure that out. And they go, Oh, we work a lot. I'm like, well, work. How about four more hours today to save everybody all this trouble? Like, my point here is it's weird where people draw lines in their head. Yeah, you know whether it's the people who you're looking to help, or the politicians who get to decide if you have help or not, or the people at the school are like, Oh no, I'll do a feeding tube, but I won't do this. I can't do glucagon, but I can do an EpiPen. Like, none of that makes any sense, like, so, you know. And so how do you get it to make sense? You educating is a nice way of saying it. But in the end, you got to bang on people's heads till they do what you need them to do. Like. Sometimes it just is what it is, right? And you're too nice to say that because you're from Manitoba, but, like, I can say it because I lived in Philly and jersey, so nobody expects me to be nice. Like, when I'm an asshole, everybody's just like, Oh, it's fine. He's from the East Coast. I can get away with it anyway. Everyone do your jobs. That was my point, Ashley. I had so much fun with you hanging up on yourself today. I really did enjoy this. I'm leaving all of it in. I've left directions to the editor already in audio. I'm like, don't take any of this out. Oh boy. I just want to hear you like going in and out and coming back and saying you're so I think it's really lovely. And I think it keeps the information paced well too. So Well, maybe you can

Ashley 55:40
put the commercials in the hang ups. Oh, Rob, there you go.

Scott Benner 55:44
That's a great idea. That's a great idea. Yeah, we could put an ad every time you hung up on yourself. It's awesome. And maybe more people could do that so that we can make the editing easier. Let's think about that. You're terrific. I remember having the same kind of upbeat, lovely conversation with Trevor. You guys are all very lucky you you met each other and got together because you got a lot accomplished together. It's really awesome.

Ashley 56:05
Yeah, and, yeah, it's, it's a team, team effort, 100% and and I was want to give, sorry, a quick shout out to Michaela and Christy, who are part of the influence in schools support team the latest campaign. They're kind of my my buds. Michaela has done an amazing job preventing presenting the government. So, yeah, shout out to them too. They'll appreciate that. Well, listen, while

Scott Benner 56:24
we're shouting people out, I want to thank Mike who helped me get tires on Arden's car two weeks ago. Imagine if everybody just came on and started saying each other's names, like, Oh, I just, I really want to have patty. She helped me a lot. Okay, and everybody else is like, Patty. Who the hell is Patty? Oh, the one thing I can't let you go before I ask, What the hell is the ledge?

Ashley 56:43
Oh, sorry, the legislature is, like our government house. Oh,

Scott Benner 56:47
I had it, by the way. I thought it was like on Yellowstone, where they throw the dead bodies over at the train station. Like you were like, we all got together at the ledge, and I was like, Oh, this seems like something very sinister, but Oh,

Ashley 56:58
my goodness, you're right. I did not explain that. Okay, yeah, so like the House of Representatives, or, like, you know, like a large historic place where the government meets. Okay,

Scott Benner 57:08
you're, I hope I didn't ruin the train station, for anybody who hasn't watched Yellowstone yet. Nevertheless, like you, the way you said it, I was like, Oh, I thought it was a, like, a, like, a physical place like you like, in my mind, you were like, I don't know it was like, Canada's version of, I don't know, red rock or something like that. Anyway, it's funny. What should we call this episode? I think we might call it disconnected Canada, because you hung up on yourself so many

Ashley 57:35
times. Okay, though connected, because it was all about connection. How about reconnecting

Scott Benner 57:41
Canada? Okay, that's better reconnecting Canada. I like that, yeah. All right, that's awesome. I can't say Manitoba, because people don't even think that's a real

Ashley 57:51
place. No, you can see Canada, yeah, that's fair. All right, Ashley, hold on one second for

Scott Benner 58:02
me. I A huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link, go check it out omnipod.com/juice box, Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox. Today's episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox,

thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now, seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcasts and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend, and if you leave a five star review, ooh, I'll probably send you a Christmas card. Would you like a Christmas card? I created the diabetes variables series because I know that in type one diabetes management, the little things aren't that little, and they really add up. In this series, we'll break down everyday factors like stress, sleep, exercise and those other variables that impact your day more than you might think. Jenny Smith and I are going to get straight to the point with practical advice that you can trust. So check out the diabetes variable series in your podcast player, or at Juicebox podcast.com 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. 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?

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#1548 Extra Dirty Toilet

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Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Anthony 0:14
My name is Anthony, 25 years old. I've been type one for about three years I live in Australia, originally from the UK,

Scott Benner 0:25
my grand rounds series was designed by listeners to tell doctors what they need, and it also helps you to understand what to ask for. There's a mental wellness series that addresses the emotional side of diabetes and practical ways to stay balanced. And when we talk about GLP medications. Well, we'll break down what they are, how they may help you, and if they fit into your diabetes management plan. What do these three things have in common? They're all available at Juicebox podcast.com, up in the menu. I know it can be hard to find these things in a podcast app, so we've collected them all for you at Juicebox podcast.com, please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox,

Anthony 1:46
my name is Anthony, 25 years old. I've been type one for about three years. I live in Australia. I'm originally from the UK.

Scott Benner 1:55
Okay, Anthony, is there any autoimmune in your family? Yeah, there's

Anthony 2:01
celiac in my family. I've got a type one cousin. There's a bunch of hypothyroid there's a few different things. Um, that's me and my my cousin are the only type ones. Only

Scott Benner 2:11
type ones. Okay, did you live your life growing up thinking like something might happen, or was it not talked about that way? No,

Anthony 2:19
not at all. So I was always someone who never, never got sick and didn't really have anything else and so completely out of the blue, really, yeah, you didn't

Scott Benner 2:28
realize you didn't get sick because you had a hyper, overdrive, auto immune, immune system going, Yeah, I guess, all right, it was like working overtime one day. It was like, You know what we should do today? Let's go find that pancreas, see what that thing's doing. Yeah, exactly. How did you end up in Australia from the UK, and

Anthony 2:45
my family moved so I was, I was about 11, and we all moved to Australia. My parents always wanted to move out of the UK. We got close to moving to Sri Lanka, all places. Oh, and then, and then, I think my mom got a better job offer, but then eventually

Scott Benner 3:01
moved here. I mean, this seems like the only time Anthony, I'm going to be able to say this, so, oh my god, I guess so there's times people don't know. It's not fun making a podcast, because sometimes you go to say something you think like, Man, this sounds dopey, you know? And I generally will share, do you listen to the podcast? Yeah, all right. So I'm happy to tell people I have a chameleon or two, right? But I actually, God, here we go. I keep a small lizard that's from Sri Lanka, and they're endangered there. Oh, god, they're endangered there. So my goal is to let the two I have breed and then I don't like I don't I'm not really looking to be in the reptile sales business. I'll get them back to the breeder that gave them to me so that he can kind of disseminate them out into the hobby, so that they, hopefully, you know, can gain their numbers. Anyway, they're called kofodus dambara. I can't believe I'm saying

Anthony 4:00
that I love that. I love to have a pet lizard.

Scott Benner 4:02
They're very tiny. They're only a couple of inches long. They live in a fairly small enclosure. They get along super well. They're friendly, like, they kind of jump on your hands while you're, like, feeding them and stuff like that. Yeah. And they're, you know, because of deforestation, they're not doing well in Sri Lanka. So, yeah, anyway, God, no one. I've never once said something on the podcast that I wanted to follow up with. Please don't tell anybody this. Anyway, I'm by myself, and I'm embarrassed, and I shouldn't be like, I just think it was. It's just a nice thing to do. You know what I mean? Yeah, anyway, all right. So you, you're like, you're 25 you're like, Dude, stop it.

Anthony 4:43
No, I love animals wild. I've done a wildlife degree. I've got a bachelor of wildlife science. I love everything about Yeah,

Scott Benner 4:50
oh, no kidding, yeah. I'm telling the right person, yeah, yeah, definitely the right person. You went to university for what

Anthony 4:57
a bachelor of wildlife sciences. It's called. Yeah, yeah, what do you do with it? I teach childcare. I'm a childcare teacher. Oh, I don't really use a degree anymore, but yeah, it's all about. It was all about anything from research with animals to zoos, anything to do with wildlife. Who covered really? Yeah, was

Scott Benner 5:19
it hard to get a job doing that? Or did you find yourself not interested? I ended up working in

Anthony 5:24
it's called Bush regeneration in Australia. I think some places called it rewilding. I was killing weeds in national parks, right? And my degree didn't count anything. So I had to do a certificate and be on a trainee wage like, Oh, my God. I ended up leaving that when I was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 5:41
Oh, in the 70s here in America, there was a wave of Bush regeneration as well. Yeah,

Anthony 5:47
no, it's really good. I really enjoyed that. Oh, but it was just kind of kind of the workplace sense of like they didn't want to pay us and they wanted to give us some training wage and all that sort of stuff. So

Scott Benner 6:00
now you teach kids yeah. And now teach kids, we teach them not to get a degree in what?

Anthony 6:04
Yeah, yeah, exactly, in wildlife science, whispering

Scott Benner 6:08
in these kids ears, listen to me, math, science, okay, not wild. But does it help you live in that zoo that they call a country that you're in? Yeah,

Anthony 6:19
at least if we get a snake at work, I know what to do.

Scott Benner 6:24
You're the guy. Can you imagine people like snake and they're like, Oh, don't worry, Anthony, wasted four years on a degree. We'll go get him.

Anthony 6:30
No, yeah, definitely. Every time there's an animal. Do you keep animals? Personally, just got a dog and a couple of cats, but I really want to get like, a lizard or something.

Scott Benner 6:40
You guys have some pretty cool lizards in Australia that you can keep. Yeah, we

Anthony 6:45
do, yeah. It's quite restricted on we can't have, like, not native lizards and things like that. There's a lot of native ones you can have yet,

Scott Benner 6:53
right, right, right. Awesome. Okay, all right, all right. That's Yeah, listen, well, maybe you'll get something one day. We've taken your Bearded Dragons here in America and turned them into like kittens. They're everywhere. They're pretty cool. Match, yeah, I'm just gonna say this, and then we're gonna move on. There's a girl on Tiktok who's taught her bearded dragon to poop in the toilet. And it's, it's somehow awesome and disgusting at the same time. I don't know,

Anthony 7:16
yeah, I don't know what to think about that. She holds it over,

Scott Benner 7:19
and it just like, glad. And I'm like, oh, it's happening anyway, not the point. When did you first get signs of type one, like, what? How did it present itself?

Anthony 7:29
Yes, it was while I was working in Bucha generation. So I got a couple of ticks on my head, okay? And I got sick from that with some sort of tick virus. Sorry, my dog's about to knock over the coffee table with some sort of tick virus. And I just never felt like I got sort of recovered properly from that. I started feeling tired. I was super thirsty, but it was starting to warm up. And this was my first year working in Bucha generation. So I was like, Oh, it's my first summer. I'm just drinking lots of water. And I was going to the toilet a lot, and I was like, Well, I'm drinking lots of water, so I'm going to toilet a lot. But eventually got to the point where I couldn't, I could wake up twice every night to go to the toilet and like, that's not normal, right? And so eventually I went to the doctor, and he's like, Ah, I was vegan at the time. He's like, Oh, it's probably some nutritional thing because you're vegan.

Scott Benner 8:19
Throwing his own politics into his

Anthony 8:23
but he threw in the glucose test just just in case, he said. And then I just got this call, and we like, oh, it's type one. And he it's not type one, sorry. He said he's type two. And he was really shocked. No, he said, because of my age, it must be type two,

Scott Benner 8:39
that's what he said, because you were 22 you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox, the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juice dexcom.com/juicebox, head over there. Now let's talk about the tandem Moby insulin pump from today's sponsor, tandem diabetes care, their newest algorithm control iq plus technology and the new tandem Moby pump offer you unique opportunities to have better control. It's the. Only system with auto Bolus that helps with missed meals and preventing hyperglycemia, the only system with a dedicated sleep setting and the only system with off or on body wear options. Tandem Moby gives you more discretion, freedom and options for how to manage your diabetes. This is their best algorithm ever, and they'd like you to check it out at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox when you get to my link, you're going to see integrations with Dexcom sensors and a ton of other information that's going to help you learn about tandems. Tiny pump that's big on control tandem diabetes.com/juicebox the tandem Moby system is available for people ages two and up who want an automated delivery system to help them sleep better, wake up in range and address high blood sugars with auto Bolus. Yeah, yeah, awesome. Yeah. You're young still like how little people know is probably going to continue to shock you for another 15 years, I would imagine,

Anthony 11:01
yeah, well, he called the endocrinologist from the hospital when he got these results, and this was what the endocrinologist told my GP, awesome. She's just great, right? So it says he asked me about all like, what I eat, and so it says on my like chart from my diagnosis, because I said us, I don't really drink sweets. I don't drink soft drinks. Sometimes I have like, a nice tea, and it says drinks lots of sugary iced tea. And I was like, it's not really what I said.

Scott Benner 11:29
I said, sometimes I have a tea, and

Anthony 11:33
they're like, Aha, yeah, exactly right.

Scott Benner 11:37
Describe yourself, Anthony. You're lean, chubby, muscular, lean,

Anthony 11:42
and I was before diagnosis and type one and everything, I was 65 kilos already. I'm about six foot not to know what that is in town. Sorry, to find out, kilos.

Scott Benner 11:53
How much did you lose? Tell me. Tell me again. I'm sorry, 10 kilos. That

Anthony 11:58
sounds like a lot, yeah. And I didn't really have that to lose.

Scott Benner 12:01
65 Why does do you love when you type something in and it changes what you type? Like, oh,

Anthony 12:08
it's great, isn't it? Yeah, you don't have to, you don't have to change it for me. Yeah. Don't have to guess, yeah.

Scott Benner 12:14
Don't guess I typed it myself. I'm good with it. If I'm wrong, like, you know, I'll fix it. Let's see, 65 kilos is 143 pounds. Oh gosh, yeah, you didn't and you're six feet tall, yeah? Oh yeah, you don't have any there's no way for you to lose right? Yeah, to go. Was it? Yeah? Okay, yeah. So 22 like, are you with the doctor, with your parents? Are you by yourself?

Anthony 12:39
No, I just went by myself. So he gave me a call in the morning with the results, and was like, Oh, can you come in this afternoon? And I was like, yeah. So I carried on working, like, like, carrying, like, a 25 liter pack of weed killer on my back, and, like, hiking through the bush the rest of the day. And then I was stopped at the bakery and got a caramel slice, because I was like, well, it's probably the last one I'm gonna have for

Scott Benner 13:02
a while. Oh, no, kidding. You had that, and you're not a big sweet, but you had the fear. You're like, I better grab something real quick. Yeah, exactly. Oh, my God, by the way, how much money are you making crawling around in the bush again for the with the RE film? Like, next

Anthony 13:14
nothing. Next nothing. Yeah,

Scott Benner 13:18
I imagine you out there like half in DKA, and you're just like mumbling to yourself about your degree and the weeds.

Anthony 13:26
Yep, COVID in ticks and leeches and yeah, oh,

Scott Benner 13:29
awesome, yeah. No, no, there's no amount of money. How much would have made it a good job being serious, I

Anthony 13:38
don't know. I genuinely enjoyed it, like it was the money was the only bad thing about it. For me, awesome. There was one place we worked for where we had to put on, like, knee high gum boots and like, wade through mangroves to get to the place that we're working. And you'd misstep, and then you boot fill up with water, and that would just be it for the next hour walking with a boot full of water and but I loved it. It's great

Scott Benner 14:00
you did. There's no feeling of like, I know a poisonous snake is gonna kill me now. No,

Anthony 14:05
when we saw a snake, I was excited. That was, yeah, good to see it.

Scott Benner 14:10
I got you all right. I don't know what's wrong with you people, but I know. Listen, by the way, also I know I'm the one with an office full of reptiles, but like, I still don't understand, I don't understand the whole snake can kill me thing. And everybody's like, Oh, look. But anyway,

Anthony 14:22
as long as it's over there and I'm over here, well, I know, but what

Scott Benner 14:25
happens if you, like, come upon it by mistake, they hear

Anthony 14:28
you way before you see it. So most of the times you see a snake, it's slithering away. So I'm counting on the snake, not the one to run, yeah, yeah, pretty much, right. But, but they do okay, that's what they do once working with like slashing this, these bushes with machetes to try and make paths for us. And then I go to lift it up to slash, and I look at where I'm about to hit, and there's a snake on the branch I'm about to butcher the snake. So to, like, stop and try and move the snake with the handle. It was a pie thing. It wasn't a venomous one,

Scott Benner 15:01
sure. Now that one would have just like slowly constricted you till you died. Not so bad, no, not so bad at all. When your eyes are popping out and you're still alive and everything, it's awesome anyway. So you're at the very not helpful Doctor getting even less helpful advice from an endocrinologist. So what's the next

Anthony 15:19
step is? Omingering about doing the blood test for type one, and ends up being like, Oh, well, you got to do blood tests again in a month, so we'll do it then. And it refers me to a diabetes educator and to a different endocrinologist, because I live in a different area locally, so I didn't get the same endo that was on the phone, but I just took my time getting my appointments and sorting that all out, because of what I'd later find out was ADHD. But at the time, I didn't know,

Scott Benner 15:48
how did you feel during that that period? Like, did you feel like, oh gosh, I feel ill. I should do something, or did it not feel emergent to you?

Anthony 15:56
Yeah, well, I started on Metformin and trying to do a do a diet. But, like, my diet was really, like, healthy and low carb anyway, just cut out the ice tea, yes, but I started, like tracking it and using there was like this CSIRO diet with like points for different types of food and all this weird stuff. And it helped a little bit, but not much. Like I was still waking up, and my blood sugar would be like, 12 in the morning, and, yeah, it would still spike every time I ate because I wasn't having insulin. You

Scott Benner 16:30
know, do you think that you were in some sort of a honeymoon situation?

Anthony 16:33
I think so. Yeah, I think definitely that helps, and that's why the Met farm has sort of helped a little bit at first.

Scott Benner 16:40
So between the honeymoon and you now having an even more restrictive diet, were you actually able to restrict your diet more?

Anthony 16:48
Like, yes and no. Sometimes it was sort of stayed, like I said. This would have been like 1617, it would come down and and hover around the sort of 1012, sort of mark, which is still obviously high, yeah. But then I would, I would just be, like, frustrated, I think that it just wasn't working, and that it was so restrictive, and then I just go and get a chocolate bar, just because, like, I'm just gonna eat anyway, because my sugar's high anyway.

Scott Benner 17:11
You had that feeling of just, like, meaningless, and it's not doing anything. So I might as well, yeah, live my life. Okay,

Anthony 17:17
yeah, definitely. And I sort of, I like, I had the feeling that the diagnosis was wrong. It was just getting the like, what to do about it right. Like, in that month, trying to get back into the diabetes educator and like, the doctor was, like, not wanting to the blood test and just trying to like, yeah,

Scott Benner 17:35
yeah. Did you have that feeling because of your family history? Or Had that not even occurred to you at that point? No,

Anthony 17:41
so that hadn't had an attachment. I didn't know that the autoimmune was all connected in that way. So I was like, I've got one cousin who's type one, but out of like, I've got like, 15 cousins. So like, yeah, I

Scott Benner 17:53
love that. That's great. That's great logic. You're like, but there's so many of them. It's only one, yeah, it's just one,

Anthony 17:58
right? That's not a family history. But when I actually look at autoimmune most, most of my family does have something. I imagine

Scott Benner 18:05
if you would have gone to the internet and said, Listen, I have 15 cousins, and only one of them has type one diabetes, what's the odds that I have it too? It would probably have come back and said, about the same odds of in the general population where diabetes is about one in every Yeah, yeah. You've been like, oh, okay, never mind. Plus, it's not the it's not just the cousins you're tracking. It's everybody in your family and, you know, historically and everything else. Yeah, wow. Well, that sucks. So do you live by yourself at that point, or do you live with your parents? I live with my partner? Yeah. Okay, okay, so you're not with people who like, love you, raised you and is looking at you going, like, something's wrong. We have to help. You're off on your own. You tell your parents I might have type two diabetes. And they're like, Oh, let us know what goes on. Is that about it?

Anthony 18:48
Yeah, yeah. They don't know more than me about it, so they're like, sure. Like, that's the doctor said, Right, right. My partner was very much actually. He was like, I don't think you have type two he was pushing me to try and get the correct diagnosis stuff.

Scott Benner 19:01
Have you ever spoken about with him? Like, what gave him that idea? Yeah, he

Anthony 19:05
knew a couple of people as a kid with type one, and he was just like, You're so skinny, I see the way how healthy you eat. You've been vegan, you like, basically go on a hike every day for work. Like, that's not type two. You know, it

Scott Benner 19:18
seems crazy that you might have type two diabetes, right? Okay, so did you listen to him? And if not, has he bugged you about it for the last three years? Yeah, definitely.

Anthony 19:26
He definitely takes credit, but definitely and for realizing his diabetes in the first place. He was like, that was

Scott Benner 19:33
me. Oh yeah, I would do the same exact thing. Eventually

Anthony 19:35
get the blood tests, and sure enough, it comes back type one. You're like, what

Scott Benner 19:40
was your first thought? Oh, I can't believe I got to go tell go tell him he was right, yeah, pretty much.

Anthony 19:48
I think by that point, I'd pretty much accepted that. Started listening to the podcast already as well at that point, and I was like, yeah, it doesn't sound like I have type two. How did you find the podcast? I found it through Tiktok. I was. Was searching on tick tock for diabetes, and then someone mentioned your interview with the Omnipod CEO. And I was like, that's not even in Australia, okay, but when I was looking for more more diabetes things, I was like, how was that podcast that somebody mentioned? And when I found out, yeah, it's so interesting

Scott Benner 20:18
to me. Like, you have to imagine, like, my position, like, I make this thing and I put it out, and I'm like, how do people get? How do people get? And like, you know, Oh, I saw a thing. And then I thought, Oh, that's not for me, because that's not even in Australia. But then, like, weeks or months later, you're like, What was the name of that pot? Like, that's such a Yeah. And

Anthony 20:34
then I thought, again, oh, it doesn't even have type one. He's just a parent. He's just all going to be about kids. Yeah. Obviously, when I listened, it's not Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 20:43
no. I don't have really the ability to speak like that. I don't, I wouldn't even know how to do that. I'm good with kids, though. By the way, I am going to children with diabetes this summer, and I'm going to do a whole thing with kids. Oh, yeah, awesome, yeah. I'm great with kids. But also, I had a conversation with a woman yesterday that, trust me, you shouldn't let your children listen to so I don't know, I just talk about things the way it occurs to me. So you find the podcast. Can I ask just real quick, I want to get back to your story. Do you just start listening randomly? Do you find out about the like, the series, like the Pro Tip series, or something like that? Like, how does what's

Anthony 21:14
your entre? I start off listening randomly, and I remember I like search, like Australia, and I search for things like that that I thought would be relevant and and then I happened across, I think, I think it was just one of the new episodes that came up was part of the series. And then that sounds like, Oh, I'll go back and find the rest of these

Scott Benner 21:33
interesting. That's helpful for me, actually. Thank you. I appreciate because what I'm trying to do is never how it's taken, like, that's the strangest thing of starting something like this, is that, I mean, I've been doing this now for 11 years, like, so in 2015 I was like, well, here's what I'll do. I'll do this, and this is the reaction they'll have. And then that didn't happen. And I was like, oh, so I do this, and then they have their own reaction. I'm like, okay, that makes sense. Like, you know, everyone's different, right? Yeah. And you think, okay, then there's, like, well, I made the Pro Tip series. It's there. Go find it. Well, that's not exactly how that works. And then, you know, we recently added like, another episode to it, and I remember somebody saying, like, Oh, I didn't even realize this was a thing. And there's part of you that wants to bang your head against the wall when you say, when somebody says, you're like, behind, trying so hard,

Anthony 22:19
yeah, you've made that specifically, and then no one's listening. Yeah, people are gonna find it, don't they?

Scott Benner 22:25
So anyway, it's, you know, always a way to, like, try to get people back to, like, I don't know, you know, the way social media works is that, you don't, I mean, think about it, like at some point today, you're gonna stick your phone in your partner's face and be like, Oh my God, look at this. Yeah, and a week from now. If I said, Hey, go back to last Wednesday, remember that video you showed him, you'd go, No, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, I'd have no idea. Yeah, it goes that quickly. So it's kind of my job to always be reminding people that so you find the new person without pissing off the people who already know, who don't want to hear over and over again about something they've already figured out. Like, it's a weird balancing act anyway. Yeah, it is. I deserve a lot of credit, is what I'm saying. Okay, so you wait the month eating chocolate bar is kind of given up, like, then you end up at the end dose appointment, and what do they tell you? Yeah,

Anthony 23:14
the diabetes educator was first the endo took ages to get into for the diabetes educator, but by this point, like, a couple of days before, I'd been diagnosed type one, after the results came back, and the GP given me insulin, and he's just put me on, like a sliding scale, really. And so the educator had the referral from when I was type two, and she looked at the referral and looked at me and looked back, and she was like, I don't think you're type two. I was like, yeah, so she, she was much more on to it than than anyone else so far had been. She's got me just doing just four units each meal at first, and then eventually, I think after a month or two, carb counting, okay, but she's really good at just letting me sort of do what I want with it. I just say, like, hey, like, I think I need to increase my basal. And she's like, Yeah, that sounds right, okay. And then eventually she was like, Yeah, you you've got this. You can start adjusting, like, whenever you feel like you need to just make sure you wait a couple of days. And this

Scott Benner 24:13
is gonna sound self serving, but I genuinely, I don't mean it this way, but do you feel like you learned how to take care of your diabetes

Anthony 24:20
from me? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, I've told there's only a couple of people that I've met with type one since, since my diagnosis, but I tell them about your podcast, and I say I've learned more from you than any doctor or endocrinologist or educator anything. Definitely. So

Scott Benner 24:35
did you get the vibe from the diabetes educator that they were relieved that you knew what you were doing. You know what I mean? Because I try to imagine all the stories you hear of people are like, Well, I went to the diabetes nurse educator, or I went to the Endo, and I, you know, my a 1c, was nine or 10. I didn't know what I was doing. Like, I'm trying to put myself in their shoes, if they're like, oh, wow, good. Here's one that's going to be okay. You know, I

Anthony 24:57
think she was because, because the first I didn't, I. What I was doing, right? Sure, I think she picked up that I was, I was picking things up, and I, you know, wasn't going to be neglecting my kind I was gonna, gonna be putting the effort in and trying to figure it out. And she's like, well, if you can figure it out, then great, you know, and supported that, yeah, I'm

Scott Benner 25:16
gonna put this out there, Anthony, maybe somebody will hear this. And there's no way this would ever happened, but this is just something that I'd be super interested in. Like, listen, I should start again by saying, I know this can't happen. I'd love to be in that setting for a week and talk to people like, and figure out, like, is it just impossible, or are they missing something? Like, I like, I wonder, like, No, right? Yeah, it's super interesting, because, like, listen, far more people are gonna go to a doctor and then there's a coin flip. Either get one that is good at explaining it to you or giving you other resources, or you're not, and far fewer of those people are gonna make it back to me. So am I being unfair by saying, like, I can't believe that they're generally not able to direct people well or, like, if you put me in that scenario, would I be lost too? Because there's part of me that thinks I could do it. Yeah, I'd love to find out. All

Anthony 26:09
right. And this GP that that misdiagnosed me has been like, he was my family's doctor for a while, and he's been like, great with everything out he'd like, finally, after years of seeing a different doctor who is just doing like, rinses on my sister's ears because she had a chronic ear infection, this GP finally figured out that there was something more going on that we shouldn't just be like cleaning the ear infection. We should be figuring out what what the problem is, right? Why does this ear keep getting infected? Why does it happen? The previous GP didn't even bother thinking about that, right?

Scott Benner 26:44
No, so you're saying so you had a reasonable this person was better for you than somebody else was. But once, once you get into the the nitty gritty of diabetes there, I understand the GP, not, not under you understand,

Anthony 26:55
then he contacted the Endo. Yeah, I don't understand the endo

Scott Benner 26:58
at all. Right, that's the piece I

Anthony 27:00
don't get. Like, because, yeah, maybe it was just like, well, he's not my patient, so not gonna put the effort right, I don't know. Yeah,

Scott Benner 27:06
I've had people on here before. There's people listening right now, who I've spoken to on the phone for 45 minutes, and they've woken up the next day with a flat graph, yeah, like, so, I mean, how long was your doctor's appointment? Oh,

Anthony 27:19
I don't know. Nah, they're normally 15 minutes, but it was a lot longer he made. The longer one for me, I should have done even, uh, maybe an hour. I don't know. I don't

Scott Benner 27:27
know. I feel like I could do it. Is what I'm saying. I feel not just me, by the way, by the way, this is for those of you on Reddit who are like, he's so cocky, I don't just mean me. I feel like other I feel like other people could do it too, yeah,

Anthony 27:38
someone maybe with like, years of medical training should be, should

Scott Benner 27:43
be able to do I am a guy like, who just, like, spent five minutes telling you that I got a Sri Lankan pygmy lizard and I'm trying to take care of it. Like, yeah, you might not want to come to me for it, you know what I mean? But like, I'd like to explain to the very touchy people who live in the world that, like, just because I'm explaining how I feel doesn't mean I'm cocky. I'm trying to give you a reasonable look into how I feel, and it's not based on nothingness. Listen to Anthony, I saved him. Okay, definitely, absolutely, I was using the word save to be funny, but if you want to agree with it, I'm going with it. Yeah, I don't know like I it just doesn't seem right to me. But nevertheless, so you basically get your diagnosis, you get your meds, they sliding scale, you you go out, find the podcast, you're like, well, that's not how I'm going to do this. I'm going to do it this way. And now, three years later, your a 1c are where usually, well,

Anthony 28:31
the actual blood tests always come back in the fives, but my Dexcom always does it in the sixes. I don't think I think the six is more accurate. I think something's making my my actual a 1c less than it is, but either way, it's really good. Do

Scott Benner 28:45
you unconsciously do better before your blood draw? That happens to people?

Anthony 28:49
No, I don't think so. Okay, I don't think so. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:54
Jenny explained it to me one time, like the the A 1c blood test is weighted towards, I think, most recent. So, yeah, sometimes people like, get super, like, type a about it, like, leading up to it and throw the the average off a little bit.

Anthony 29:09
Yeah, at one point my GP, a different GP, was concerned that I had like, a slightly low iron, and my a 1c was low, that it could mean that there was some, like, low level, like bleeding. But at the time I was I was booked for a scope for to test for celiac, okay, which ended up being negative, but he thought maybe might have been, that was your iron low. Well, it came back up by itself. It wasn't out of range low, but it was lower than the last test. If that makes sense, there's that

Scott Benner 29:39
GP doing a good job again, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. This

Anthony 29:43
is a different one. Now he's really good this. GP, yeah,

Scott Benner 29:45
no, that's awesome. Yeah, okay. Do you think it's possible you guys will ever adopt and name a baby after me?

Anthony 29:52
I'm not. I'm not sure Scott would be the name of choice. I'm afraid. No, I

Scott Benner 29:55
know it sucks. What could my name be? Where you're like, you know what? Let's go with it.

Anthony 29:59
I. Don't know. Hey, you're so

Scott Benner 30:02
young. You're like, Dude, I get no baby. Like, relax, yeah, I gotta gain 40 pounds and give up before we start doing like that

Anthony 30:14
exactly. I got enough of them at work, right? Like, Oh, yeah.

Scott Benner 30:18
I guess that really does give you some perspective. Definitely. I can't imagine. How many kids at once are in that room? 22 holy crap. How old are they? From three to five in my room? Oh, it must just be like herding cats all day. Oh, yeah, absolutely, that's absolutely. So what made you want to come on the podcast and

Anthony 30:41
it just listening and hearing everyone's stories is always just just so helpful. Has helped me so much. So I just come on and share and my story can help people think, great. Oh,

Scott Benner 30:51
that's awesome. Thank you, yeah. Well, you stayed up late to do this, so we should, we should make the most checking your note here. So I somehow, and you somehow, got through all of this without telling me you think your diagnosis was from a tick bite.

Anthony 31:08
Yeah, yes, I didn't even get to that, did I? So obviously, like I said, I had the tick back and got sick, but I think that might have been what triggered it. Like, you know that, like a virus typically, is a trigger. I hadn't, can't think of any illness I had. Otherwise, I just got this tick virus, and no thing that might be what trigger this.

Scott Benner 31:29
What is the virus called from a tick bite? Do you know there's a bunch

Anthony 31:33
of different ones, so they didn't test for a specific one? I can't even remember the names, to be honest. But yeah, I just got these two tick bites on my head, and then I was getting like, fevers and just like, incredible nausea. And like, I really wanted to vomit, but nothing was coming. And all of my, like, previous places where I'd been bitten by a tick, swell up, swallowed up, and got really itchy, like a mosquito bite, it was really weird.

Scott Benner 31:57
Okay, Powassan, yeah, there's a whole bunch

Anthony 32:01
of different ones. Yeah, yeah,

Scott Benner 32:03
I'm watching chat GPT like, think about it right now. Some people don't like that. It's now thinking out loud in front of you, but I enjoy watching what it's thinking. It's going through so many different ones. It's very interesting. But you get bit by the tick, and then how much later after that are you thinking, gosh, I have diabetes. I struggled

Anthony 32:21
to remember the exact time, but I think it must have been, like, a couple of months later that I, like, actually booked to the appointment and got to the doctors. But like I said, I was worried at first that I had some more serious tick virus. Like Lyme disease is, like, super controversial in Australia, whether it's here or not, but they often talk about Lyme, like diseases and things like that, from ticks that had about three work. So I was like, What do I've got something like that, and that's why I'm just not feeling back to 100% at all. Right? Maybe

Scott Benner 32:51
you got run down and, and then your immune system kicked in and and kept going,

Anthony 32:56
yeah. I think that must have been what happened. Yeah.

Scott Benner 32:59
So I'm gonna tell you that our friend says that there isn't a well established tick bite virus, in quotes syndrome in Australia, akin to like a tick borne encephalitis in Europe, or the Powassan virus in North America. In Australia, the medical focus of tick associated disease has historically centered on bacterial infections and toxin mediated effects that said, recent scientific investigations using next generation sequencing have revealed that Australian ticks harbor a diverse array of viral sequences, and then it goes on to explain them. That's crazy,

Anthony 33:34
yeah, they just don't really know much about them. Yeah, yeah, it's really something,

Scott Benner 33:38
okay. But still, you hear a lot of people getting some sort of virus, or getting an illness, or having even, I've had people on here that really swear that they've just kind of had, like, you know, something tragic happen to them, or, you know, shocking, I've heard about that. Yeah. So, yeah, it's interesting. But so you get ill and then you get type one a couple of months later, yeah, interesting. What are you talking about here with you got an ADHD diagnosis as well. When did that happen?

Anthony 34:05
So it took a while to actually go through and get the actual official diagnosis. So I got diagnosed last year, but it started after I was type one and the GP mentioned like, like this, you know, a big diagnosis. I can give you a referral to a psychologist, and if you're struggling, just let me know. And a couple of months later, I just was feeling really overwhelmed by it all, and just like that, it was just a lot to sort of process and having to do it every day. And I went as a psychologist, and she was about as good as the endocrinologist on the phone. She had me, like, breathing while I wash the dishes, and I don't really understand what else, but, yeah, but she sort of like, I don't know, didn't really look at the bigger picture, and just was talking about mindfulness, and that just wasn't working for me. And so eventually I just gave up the psychologist, and. Was like, Oh, whatever.

Scott Benner 35:00
So you went to a psychologist to talk to people, and she was to try to figure something out. And she's like, can you try deep breathing while you're doing the dishes? Yeah,

Anthony 35:08
talked about meditation. And I was like, I just can't concentrate while I'm meditating. Like, like, ADHD, right? Like, and she's like, oh, we'll try doing it while you're doing something, like washing the dishes. And I'm like, hardly ever wash the dishes. I'm procrastinating. She

Scott Benner 35:25
didn't pick up from any of this. She's like, I can't focus on the dishes and the meditation at the same time, and I don't really do the dishes because I tried to avoid the dishes. She

Anthony 35:33
Yeah, and I mentioned that, like, I felt a little bit like self conscious about my way after diagnosis, because I was, like, really skinny and like, people were like, like, someone said, like, like, Yeah, you look gone. Someone that just stuck with me that I look gone, and in my mind, I was like, Well, I don't look any different. Like, yeah, but she fixated on that a lot. That didn't really help with that. I don't know it wasn't for me, I guess so,

Scott Benner 36:00
you're around people friends, somebody says, Yeah, somebody uses the word gaunt, which you're like, Oh, awesome, yeah. And then you can't change. And

Anthony 36:07
looking back, it was true. Like, sure to blame this person. It was very true.

Scott Benner 36:11
But still, like, it stuck with you, yeah, yeah. And how so, like, does it come up in your mind? Is it every time you look in the mirror? Does it change how you eat? Like, does it have a lot of impact?

Anthony 36:23
No, no, it didn't change how I was eating or anything like that. I just started to just be conscious of like, well, that's, I don't even know how to describe it, hey, but I just felt like I didn't notice any, any physical difference. I only weighed myself after I figured out it was type one. I'm not one to weigh myself regularly, so I hadn't even realized I'd lost weight. And then I started well, like, if I didn't notice, is that just how I look all the time? Yeah,

Scott Benner 36:50
yeah. Does your partner mention it? Does he say, Hey, your body's different? Like,

Anthony 36:55
he noticed is but not noted. He didn't say I was going to like that, but he definitely noticed, noticed that after the fact as well, like, he's like, yeah, now that we like thinking about it, you just seem skinnier. But I thought it was just because you were so active at

Scott Benner 37:10
work, yeah, right. And then the weight didn't go back on after you were diagnosed.

Anthony 37:14
It did slowly, I think I gained over the sort of first six months of insulin, like five kilos or so, so maybe half of what I'd lost, but then I started going to gym and eating more. So now I've gained much past, not much, but like, past what I was pre diabetes as well, okay, in muscle and stuff. So yeah,

Scott Benner 37:37
all right. And how does the ADHD like eventually, when you figure out that that's the issue. What do you do about it?

Anthony 37:42
Yes, eventually it was my partner who was getting assessed. He, like years ago, talked to a GP about it, and the GP was like, Oh, if you have ADHD, then you would be able to sit still in my office. And so it sort of got dismay. But then his mum, just like casually mentioned, other doctors said that you had ADHD when you were a kid. Oh, he was like, Oh, thanks for telling me. So he was trying to, like, go through that, and I had to do an assessment for him. What's that assessment like? So it's just a whole bunch of questions on like, a scale of like, strongly agree to strongly disagree, of like, sit still on chairs. What else is there? Things like, well, losing track of what you're saying and stuff like that. And so I was just ticking all these boxes for him. And I was like, I did that one, I did that one. Oh, maybe I have this too.

Scott Benner 38:36
Oh, wow. So while you were helping him, you started thinking, this might be a thing I've got going on. Did they medicate that or what did they do? Yeah. So

Anthony 38:45
eventually, he started on medications first, and then when I eventually got, got into the psychiatrist, I started medications. What the end of last

Scott Benner 38:53
year? Okay, yeah. And what has that done for you? It's been,

Anthony 38:58
like, helped in ways I didn't even realize. Like, I feel like I'm like, way more proactive at work, like I didn't even realize I wasn't doing this, but I'm just able to sort of think ahead more, okay, I'm able to not great at doing that, the chores still, but much better than I was, like, the dishes aren't piling up, like the laundry just isn't sitting in the baskets all the time. Like it was, like it was just stuff like that wasn't happening. I have inattentive type. ADHD, okay, so I don't have so much the light bouncing around the room. Classic, what people think of ADHD,

Scott Benner 39:30
you have trouble planning ahead for things,

Anthony 39:33
yeah, just just in terms of focusing, because I was struggling to focus. I was just in the moment, trying to keep on top of what was happening right now. Okay,

Scott Benner 39:42
oh, I see. And what about like if I said to you, your room being your bedroom being messy? Does that bother you or not bother you?

Anthony 39:50
Yes, it would bother me, but I would just sit and you wouldn't do anything about to get up and pick up some clothes. I need to get up and just not do it. I just couldn't. And physically get up and do it is, yeah, it's like, executive function, they call it. It's like, sort of how your brain plans what it's going to do when

Scott Benner 40:09
you actually stood up to clean your room. Are you able to do it to completion? Do you have to, like, set up a process to get it accomplished? Like, how does that work? Yes,

Anthony 40:17
the performance and everything like that. It would not I wouldn't do it until there was some need. So I'd be looking for a shirt or something, and couldn't find a particular shirt. Then I would start picking things up, because I'm looking for the shirt, you know, until that moment, it would just be like extreme procrastination,

Scott Benner 40:35
okay, no matter what. Yeah, and so the outdoors job was probably awesome for you, because it kept changing. It absolutely, yeah, oh, I see. Okay, it kept changing. It's like, literally changes second by second, and you're always moving, always doing something you can't stop, or you're not doing the job. So it kind of overpowers that feeling, yeah,

Anthony 40:54
definitely. And Charco, in a similar way, has been really good for it, too. There's some more planning aspects involved, but especially because it's a Montessori center, it's like child LED. So we're just waiting, following what the child's doing, what their interest is. I can just sort of, I call it following my nose, like I'm not, not sort of like planning or focusing very well. I'm just doing what's in front

Scott Benner 41:18
of me. Is there other ADHD, through your family. Yes, my

Anthony 41:22
sister was recently diagnosed as well, and my parents have never been assessed, but me and my sister always say that they out they have it too.

Scott Benner 41:30
What do your parents do that make you feel that way? From England to Australia, I'm sorry. Move from England. No, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Anthony 41:41
My dad especially has, like, always been, like, very forgetful and like, things like that. But my mom's similar, similar to me, and just sort of loses, like, focus of what she's doing. But they've never, never been assessed or anything. I think it's just, like, a generational thing, isn't it?

Scott Benner 41:57
Yeah. I mean, listen, you made it this far. That's how we think. Yeah, I'm like, I'm 53 I only have to make it 20 more years. What am I doing? I'm gonna get involved with something else

Anthony 42:05
tired. So he's like, it's like, it was the point, right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 42:08
exactly. What medication Did they give

Anthony 42:12
you, as I'm a vivax, yeah, okay,

Scott Benner 42:14
is that heroin? What is that? I forget what

Anthony 42:18
that is. I think they're all like, related to, like, met on the methamphetamines, but I don't know exactly

Scott Benner 42:23
to the makers of Vyvanse. I don't think there's heroin in your medication. I

Anthony 42:27
don't know what it is. No, I don't think it's quite like that, is it? Yeah, I

Scott Benner 42:30
am finding out what's in it, though, because it is, like, basically getting you like, it's speeding you up, right?

Anthony 42:36
It's a it's a controlled substance and everything like that. But, yeah,

Scott Benner 42:40
is there any downside to it? No, there hasn't been,

Anthony 42:43
well, like, not on this. So I started, you know, increasing the doses lucky day. But then I got to a point where I felt like I couldn't get a sentence out without just stumbling over my words. It was just I was starting to go the other way and lose way more focus than you know what I had in the first place? Yeah, that's

Scott Benner 43:02
interesting, yeah. How long if you stopped taking it? How long until you were back to that?

Anthony 43:07
If I miss a day, I notice, like, I'll be listening I was listening to podcasts on the way to work. Like, why aren't I listening to it today? Like, why do I keep missing it? And I'm like, Ah, you're

Scott Benner 43:17
listening to me talk in your car. And you keep thinking to yourself, I'm not following this conversation.

Anthony 43:23
Yeah, oh, that's interesting, exactly. And the problem is, right? I take it in the morning, and it relies on my unmedicated brain remembering to take it.

Scott Benner 43:34
It's a bit of a dirty circle. You're caught in there. Yeah,

Anthony 43:36
yeah. It is a bit of a catch 22 right?

Scott Benner 43:40
So similar to an amphetamine, then, yeah, okay, yeah,

Anthony 43:44
it's a stimulant. That's the word the stimulant. Yeah.

Scott Benner 43:47
Wow, interesting. Did your partner go on it as well? Yeah, he

Anthony 43:51
tried by vans, but he felt like it was just fading by the afternoon for him. So now he's on Dex. I don't know what Dex or dexamphetamine, right? Dexamphetamine, okay? Which is like a short acting once he has to take it throughout the day. Gotcha,

Scott Benner 44:06
I thought you're gonna say he just went to meth. I thought you're gonna say, but no, do your friends try to buy them from you? Some

Anthony 44:14
of them have joked about, I think, I think some of them would have

Scott Benner 44:20
like, I'm just trying to focus here. I gotta drive to work and these kids. So instead of reacting to the kids now at work, you're proactive about it,

Anthony 44:29
yeah, and stuff like, they call it like, responsible person for the afternoon and just planning, like, closing down the rooms and that sort of jobs and routine sort of stuff, I feel like it's helped a lot with, and I'm also studying as well, so it's definitely helped.

Scott Benner 44:46
I wonder what the opposite of ADHD is.

Anthony 44:48
Opposite of ADHD? I'm not sure, because when

Scott Benner 44:51
I'm in a room, like, if you put me in a room with four people and a radio show where three people were talking to each other, I'd. What everybody was talking about, and it's been like that my whole life, not at all like, Anthony's like, I don't know that experience. Thank you. Yet I'm a person who, like, I'm gonna get an email now somebody's gonna be like, Oh, Scott, you have ADHD. I listen to this podcast, and I know you do. Yeah, I don't think I do, but it's interesting. Like, because like, I like it is interesting. I like telling stories out of order. I think it's more engaging that way. Like I said to somebody the other day, they said, I'm so sorry. I felt like I was all over the place, like, while I was recording, I said, No, I took you in those directions, like, you didn't do that. I did that to me. It's like Pulp Fiction storytelling. And of course, this

Anthony 45:40
person, like, that's just the story. It's just, it is just all over the place. That's what it is. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:44
right, right, right. Like, and she, of course, this person is too young to have ever seen Pulp Fiction. It made me upset. I told her about that. I've never seen it either. Sorry. No, it's fine. But in my mind, John Travolta is alive. He's dead, and he's alive again in the storytelling. And you have to be able to figure out that, like, there's different story lines happening, and you're in different timelines in those storylines, yeah? And I have no trouble with that, and I think that's interesting. So I do that with the podcast. Like I take you somewhere, then I bring you back, and then I take you somewhere else, and we go backwards again. I just find it more interesting than speaking linearly about things,

Anthony 46:18
because, yeah, interesting, doesn't that? Yeah, yeah. I don't

Scott Benner 46:22
want your story to feel like you're reading from a bullet list of like, here's what happened to me over the last three years.

Anthony 46:27
Yeah, no, that's all. That wouldn't be interesting, would it? Yeah, I don't think anyone would listen to

Scott Benner 46:32
that. No, no, it would be terrifying. You just be like, oh God. Like, I want to be better, but I don't want it badly enough to listen to this. To the last thing on your list that I'm endlessly interested in, because I do have a feeling like everyone in your generation wants to have something it's like, Oh, finally, I was diagnosed with something awesome. I can't wait to put it in my profile. What do you mean a possible autism diagnosis?

Anthony 46:56
Yeah. So when I sent you the email, I just left my first psychiatrist appointment after getting their ADHD diagnosis. Okay? And part of the assessment, I guess it also asks some questions that relate to autism. And so as she's going through, she said, Oh, it looks like some of the questions you've answered have marked the autism as well. So we might do an autism assessment. And to be honest, at the time, I thought, yeah, like, that's right, that makes sense. Like, I thought that that might be the case. In the end, she hasn't. Since I've been back to the psychiatry, she hasn't mentioned it again, and I've not brought it up because I don't really see, like, the purpose of a diagnosis for me personally, like ADHD had the purpose of the medication, yeah, but there's nothing like that. Specifically for autism,

Scott Benner 47:48
it's funny, like, I realize I don't understand the entire spectrum of autism. I don't understand the entire spectrum of anything. But like, you know, I don't understand the entire spectrum of it. But like, I've been talking to you for an hour now, and yeah, if at the end of this hour, somebody would have said, By the way, we think Anthony has autism, I'd go not the way I understand that he does. Yeah, no, yeah. I mean, would it? How would it change your life if you were, like, on some thin line at the end of us of a spectrum, you know what I mean?

Anthony 48:16
Yeah, that's sort of why I haven't really pursued the diagnosis, but helping me sort of understand, like myself, I think, has helped and like, yeah, in this conversation, like, you wouldn't be able to tell I'm autistic, but it's very like, situational for me. I think if I were at the shops and it was like, loud and it was beeping and everything that's at the shops, and you're the cashier, you might be able to tell, like things like that, or if like you said, you could follow that, like that conversation between multiple people. I've never been like able to follow group conversations. Yeah, all through high school, I was no of just not really talking much at lunch and things like that, because I just sort of would zone out and sort of just the overwhelm of all the noise and lots of people talking at once. Does it impact your life? Poorly? It hasn't, in some ways. Yeah, I think it like things take more of a toll than they otherwise would. Now I'm like very deliberate to try not to have more than one thing, social thing happening in the on the weekend, on any given weekend, you know? Okay, I try not to, like, see one group of friends on Saturday and see another group of friends on the Sunday, because I'll just be exhausted for the rest of the week. I'll just be feeling really like, Oh, I'm feeling so low. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, yeah, busy

Scott Benner 49:41
weekend. Do you feel introverted or no? Yeah, definitely feel

Anthony 49:45
introverted, but I can come across as extroverted, like in some situations, like if I sort of make myself do it for some reason working, if I'm working, it's easier to just be bubbly, like I've done I've worked in customer service and and obviously. Working with kids now I can be out there and stuff like that at work, right? Yeah, it's

Scott Benner 50:06
interesting, because

Anthony 50:07
it's interesting. But you

Scott Benner 50:09
look at people on their social media and it's like, forever, they're like, Oh, that's my trauma, that's my autism, that's my anxiety, that's how I'm like, oh my god, you guys. Like, maybe you're just quiet and you just don't like loud noises. Like, why? We gotta call it something. But I know that's just me being old, so

Anthony 50:25
I get that. I think it's like, like, like, growing up without knowing it. And the same with ADHD too. It's sort of, you sort of start to feel like, well, why can't I just do that? Like, why can't I just talk to people in a group, why can't I just pick up stuff off my floor in my room? Why can't I just do my homework like everyone else does that? What's wrong with me? And then having the this is label and be like, it's not you're just lazy, it's not you're just dumb. It's Oh, you actually have something that's different in your brain that's making it out of you. You know, that's,

Scott Benner 51:01
yeah, well, I appreciate that. I take that point, like, strongly, because I will even I'll tell you, like my kids, like, I'll tell them, like, Hey, listen when I was a kid that was just a dumb person, or, like, you know, when I when I was a kid that was just a lazy person, or when I was a kid that was just the this person or that. So maybe even understanding it is for you, not so much for fixing it, because maybe there is no fixing who you are, like, but yeah,

Anthony 51:24
definitely, especially with like, the autism. So obviously the ADHD has the medications, but I think the main thing for the autism is just understanding it yourself, and that's why I haven't really saw a diagnosis, and I've talked to it a little bit, to the psychiatrist about if I haven't really saw particularly therapy for it, because the best thing for me has just been to be like, No, you just have to be conscious about how you look after yourself. Like,

Scott Benner 51:47
yeah, right. And that is valuable for you, especially because you've taken the Vyvanse, you've taken insulin. Like you do need to be on top of those things, yeah, yeah, exactly. But so many people come on and talk about like, ADHD or anxiety, and they also have type one in their lives. Like, yeah, I genuinely don't, like, obviously, I don't know anything. I just, I bought this microphone, like, a decade ago, I'd have to go start another podcast and talk to a bunch of people who have no autoimmune in their life, and ask them if they see a bunch of anxiety in their and stuff. But, but it feels, it just feels like either everyone's anxious, or this maybe lives around autoimmunity somehow,

Anthony 52:25
yeah, I do. I do wonder if it's related, hey, and there has, there's been sort of demonstrated relationship with like me, with ADHD and autism, and with Ehlers, danlos and things like that. And I hear a lot of that on the podcast as well around what I mean. So I wonder if it's not just, yeah, no,

Scott Benner 52:43
plenty of, plenty of y'all got the, like, super stretchy joints and the pain in your like places, and it's not always. Ra never

Anthony 52:49
been diagnosed with anything, and when I tried to bring it up with a doctor, I just got the whole sort of, you're young and healthy, but I've always had, like, creaky, achy joints, and I can overextend, sort of my knees and my fingers a little bit. So, yeah, I do wonder if I've got it. No.

Scott Benner 53:04
Arden has that for sure. She can kind of stretch in ways she can even my son, like, you know, throws a baseball like, very fast. And when you look at how it happens, like, in slow motion, it's because his body extends in ways that, like, I don't think other people's do, you know, listen in the end, Anthony, like, there ain't nothing you're gonna do about it. Like, this is just how it is. Like, there's, this is the modern version of being, you know, born with one leg that's an inch shorter than the other one. Like, you just gotta keep going, you know, there's, yeah, exactly, yeah. No one's gonna come along and, like, flip a switch or give you a pill and be like, Oh, it's all fixed Exactly. Maybe they will one day, like, I mean, that'd be awesome. Like, if one day they could just plug you into a computer and be like, like, oh, that works a little too much that way. This a little too much this way. And, like, throw some sliders around and fix it up for you. But, I mean, at the moment, I do take your point though, like, knowing has got to be comforting.

Anthony 53:55
Yeah, definitely, yeah. Definitely has helped. Just, just Yeah. And I definitely like, like, being diagnosed as an adult, you should go back and just re examine all of your life being like, oh, that's why that was I was like that in school, you know, like, is

Scott Benner 54:12
that why I was crying at that roller rink? And, well, yeah, I mean, there's, listen, it's very worth looking backwards, right? Like, to try to figure things like that out. Yeah, you know what made you upset? Or, you know, why did you treat somebody a certain way, or treat yourself a certain way? All right, I take your point like it's okay. You guys can keep labeling yourselves. It's all right with me, you talked me into it, Anthony, I wondered about the with you, with ADHD undiagnosed at some point, your partner in the same situation, then you're medicated. He's medicated. Has your relationship changed?

Anthony 54:46
Yeah, I think it has definitely. And with type one as well, I think we're both sort of more able to be more conscious and sort of more present with each other and how we work on our relationship and pre that. Hypnosis when I was obviously not feeling well. I just would come home from work and I would just lay on the couch and just just veg out and just watch TV, and we wouldn't really have much holiday time together. And I think that that sort of took a toll on the relationship a little bit, but being sort of medicated with the ADHD now, we're able to sort of talk about it more, and, like lots of ADHD sort of struggles, is, like, even noticing that there's a problem so stuff like that, we're able to sort of like, hey, we haven't, we haven't hung out much this week. Let's, let's play ball game, or let's watch something on telly. Or, yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 55:38
How about just with, like, your personalities, like, because at some point, if you're just, like, jumping from thing to thing, or not really focused on stuff, and then now suddenly you are, are you? Is it almost like you're different people getting to know each other again?

Anthony 55:53
Yeah, in a way, yeah, yeah. We're able to ADHD. People with ADHD are, like, infamous for just jumping from hobby to hobby to hobby, and not putting any sort of like, actual like effort into maintaining one of them. But we've been able to sort of like, actually work on like interests and find new ones together. We've both gotten really into board games together, so we've been doing that a lot Nice.

Scott Benner 56:16
Yeah, that's awesome. Cool. You guys think you'll get married? Yeah, we're getting married in July. Oh, for my birthday, you're saying on the 31st Oh, could you move it to the 12th and say it was for my birthday? That's awesome. Congratulations. That's lovely. Yeah. What does he do for a living? He has just

Anthony 56:34
started working at a new job. He works in bar housing now.

Scott Benner 56:38
Okay, you guys have a place together? Yeah? Yeah, we got a place together. Oh, nice. That's lovely. Look at you right now you can have the hell that we, all the rest of us, have, after you

Anthony 56:47
get married. That'd be nice.

Scott Benner 56:50
Hey, listen, it took decades to get that right now, you go ahead out there and be miserable with the rest

Anthony 56:57
of us. That's it. We fought for that ride.

Scott Benner 57:02
Enjoy it. You're gonna love it. Super awesome. Last night, my wife laid down next to me and said, rub my calf. Then she flipped over and went other one. And I was like, Oh, awesome. This is great.

Anthony 57:16
Yeah, that's That's it married life. My gosh,

Scott Benner 57:20
is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to there was

Anthony 57:23
one more thing that I didn't get with the diagnosis story that I don't think I've heard on the podcast, okay yet, but for like, weeks before I was diagnosed, the toilet was just growing mold, just we cleaned it like, like, every week, and then straight away it would just be black again. And we're like, what's happening with this toilet? Like, do we need to get a plumber in? Like, and we live in in Queensland, Australia, it's very humid, and mold is just a fact of life here, right? But it was just relentless. And after I started insulin, it just stopped. Yeah, because

Scott Benner 57:58
you were putting glucose into the toilet, yeah, yeah, because they're just feeding it wasn't I like, Yeah, I'll make my own petri dish. Yeah, yeah. People

Anthony 58:07
ask me about symptoms, and I Well, oh yeah.

Scott Benner 58:09
Nobody's ever I guaranteed it. Now that you said that, people are going to start talking about it all the time. Yeah.

Anthony 58:15
I've just never, not one that I've never heard. Hey, I

Scott Benner 58:18
wonder if anybody's ever said that before. I mean, I feel like they haven't. It's interesting. Yeah, you were creating your own, like, like, little petri dish in there, yeah, and the sugar was feeding the bacteria and the mold, and that was supposed to happening. Oh, that's and how long do you think that went on for

Anthony 58:33
bleaching it and, like, scrubbing it, and we tried everything, and then it would just back again in a couple of days. Yeah, I'm glad

Scott Benner 58:40
you cleaned it, because there was part of me that thought, like, before the ADHD meds, they were probably like, it grew out like a like, a mountain out of the top of it. We just peed around it.

Anthony 58:50
Yeah, well, I think, I think growing things in the toilet, sort of the urgency of over the procrastination, we're able to clean it.

Scott Benner 58:59
That's so crazy, because there's like, all kinds of, like, bacteria and microorganisms growing in there, and you're feeding it with the sugar and like, oh, that's disgusting. When you really think about it, it's horrible. Can we call your episode extra dirty toilet? Also, let's see high blood sugar leads to sugar in the urine. Obviously, we know that sugar is a nutrient source can serve as a substrate for the growth of various microorganisms, including bacteria and fungus. Oh,

Anthony 59:30
fun, yeah, lovely, isn't it? Yeah. You

Scott Benner 59:34
ever heard that one story where the adult says that the way her mom figured out she was like a baby when she was diagnosed, they found her drinking out of the toilet. I did, yeah, I bet you were thinking, thank God I didn't drink out of my toilet. Yeah, definitely,

Anthony 59:47
definitely, not going anywhere near that. But I'd rather be growing mold and bacteria in the toilet than drinking yeast infection and in the body, right? Yeah.

Scott Benner 59:58
I mean, that's not a tough. Sophie's Choice there, I definitely would pick the dirty toilet over the drinking from the toilet. You know, what a way to illustrate that what the thirst must be like when you take a person who can't ask for a drink, seeks it out like that. You know,

Anthony 1:00:13
that's what it's like. And I thought I was doing great. I was like, Look at me. I'm like, bringing all of this water with me to work. And I had, like, a camel back and massive, like, bottle. I

Scott Benner 1:00:23
wonder how many undiagnosed type ones have a giant water bottle in their cabinet that they don't use anymore because they were they're just like, Oh, I'm finally drinking the water. They tell me about this is great. God, all right, well, I'm gonna let you go to sleep, because I know it's like one o'clock in the morning there, and I appreciate you doing this very much. I love it be great. Thank you. Yeah, no, I love it when, when you guys from Australia, come on, it's, it's so good. You just have a different vibe that I really enjoy. So thank you definitely. Thank you. No, it's my pleasure. It really is. Hold on one second for

me. You today's episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 and the Dexcom g7 warms up in just 30 minutes. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox,

the podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby, with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com 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 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. 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 wayrecording.com, you got a podcast? You want somebody to edit it? You want rob you?

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