#1573 How You Do
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Nurse Marissa navigates pneumonia, double T1D diagnoses, and family resilience while advocating smarter, empathic care.
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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.
Marissa 0:15
I'm Marissa. I have two boys with type one diabetes. I'm also a nurse practitioner, and I still work as a registered nurse. If
Scott Benner 0:25
this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the Dexcom g7 the same CGM that my daughter wears. Check it out now at dexcom.com/juicebox, this episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox
Marissa 1:47
I'm Marissa. I have two boys with type one diabetes. I'm also a nurse practitioner, and I still work as a registered nurse. You
Scott Benner 1:55
have two boys with type one How many kids do you have in total? I have
Marissa 1:59
three. How old are they? Like, where do they slot? So my oldest is now 17. He's the boy Eli Liam is 11. He's my middle boy, and then my daughter is nine.
Scott Benner 2:15
Okay, and how old were the boys when they were diagnosed? Well,
Marissa 2:19
Liam was diagnosed when he was four, so that was about seven years well, it was a little over seven years ago. He was four years old, and 13 months later, his older brother was diagnosed.
Scott Benner 2:29
Oh, no kidding, yeah. Oh, so different ages, but same time
Marissa 2:33
frame. Yeah, it was crazy. I couldn't even believe the second one
Scott Benner 2:36
you give the first one you believed. Okay,
Marissa 2:40
yeah, that's actually, I'm really grateful for that diagnosis. Tell me, to be honest, tell me about that. So I think that's what makes my story a little different. Because, I mean, even as a registered nurse, completely out of left field, so all the parents that feel bad that they didn't recognize their kid had type one diabetes. Like, don't feel bad. Like I had, you know, a long medical career, and I had no clue. Like, it was never, ever on my radar. Okay, but, um, so Liam was four. He had just started daycare slash preschool, and he'd gotten the flu, and the flu turned into pneumonia. You know how when kids have have fever, and then it goes away, they're like, up playing and stuff. So he did that for a few days. Well then he's kind of stopped, and he was just laying around. And so I started having, like, a really bad feeling. I noticed during the night he was kept kind of moaning in pain. And I was like, Okay, this is weird. He was sleeping on my right thankfully. I'm really glad that he was sleeping with me so I could kind of be aware of this. So I thought, Okay, I'm calling into work, right? So I called in, I got an appointment at the largest pediatricians office at eight in the morning, which is unusual, to get a sick appointment so early. So I know everything lined out perfectly, and I didn't really, I was just really nervous, but I didn't want to let on to my husband how nervous I was, so I didn't really let myself think of, you know, what's wrong? I thought, is it an appendix? Is it this or that? Didn't know. So when I got into the waiting room, I counted his respirations, and he was breathing like 60 times a minute. And I was like, this is this is weird, right? So even the doctor, she's like, um, you need to go straight to go straight to the Children's Hospital, which is right down the road. So I did, got him in there, and literally, from the door, the doctor looked at us, and she's like, Oh, he has pneumonia. I mean, she was like, dead on. She's like, all these kids have been getting pneumonia lately. Well, so my baby had pneumonia, pneumococcal pneumonia, which is not a good one. And he had been, you know, immunized everything. But anyway, he had pneumonia. We spent 17 days in the hospital. Holy, hell, really, yes, wow. Like, like, it was so scary, because he about the time I got him there, and, you know, they got him started on antibiotics and everything. They never did steroids, keep. That in mind, but they started him on antibiotics. He literally, the poor baby, could only lay there and breathe like, that's all he could do. He couldn't watch TV, couldn't play on the iPad, nothing. So to watch, like a really active four year old go to just lay in there, yeah? And all he really can do is breathe like, half dead, yeah, yeah. Like they had him on, you know, they increased the oxygen to where he was on, high flow oxygen in the in the nose, so it's a nasal cannula, high flow. And at one point, the reason his stomach was hurting, she said, was because kids, when they have pneumonia, the pain can radiate into their like abdomen. Also, he had a little bit of a decent fluid that they had to, you know, that he had developed because of the pneumonia. So at one point he did go to the ICU, which that was a little scary, because I'm an ICU nurse, not with kids, adults only, so frightening when your kid has to go to ICU and they, they actually took him down, they put in a PICC line, you know, the IV in the arm with the three ports, because they knew he was gonna have to have IV antibiotics for a long time, yeah, at least, like two weeks. And so they put that in, and then they drain the fluid from his lung. Oh my gosh. And so he was able to breathe a lot better. That was the only time I cried because he he he actually, he had a breathing tube, and I never seen my baby, you know, with on the breathing machine. Yeah, four years old too. It was so scary. So luckily, they were able to get the breathing tube out, and he was fine. As far as that goes. A little side note, because it's a little funny, he was so swollen, like he had so much fluid on him from just the IV fluids and not moving around and everything. Okay, he would probably kill me for saying this, but his testicles were huge.
Scott Benner 6:49
He's not gonna be thrilled you said that. No, no, but he was so pitiful, because he would tell people, my penis is huge, like he would be so pitiful, but he didn't call it testicles, and he was just telling all the nurses, was just telling all the nurses, my penis is huge. Saddest thing. How old is he? Now he's 11. He's got to see it as funny. Now I know, like, that's a really scary story about, I like, how you said, like, not the good pneumonia. You didn't I mean, and, yeah, not the good one. But no, I just love the little four year old boy. Like, hey, my penis is huge. And they were probably like, right on, buddy,
Marissa 7:25
like, cracking everybody up, but it was so pitiful at the same time
Scott Benner 7:29
I understand, yeah, no, that's crazy. Oh, I have a story here. It's not about me, so I can't tell it. If it was about me, I don't know if I would tell it.
Marissa 7:40
You could pretend it's about you. I guess I just want my youngest
Scott Benner 7:43
brother Rob to respect it. I'm not about to tell his story right here. That's all, bless it. Anyway, anyway. So the one thing I'm confused about is, while they're looking at him for the pneumonia, is he also in, like, on his way to diabetes, or, like, how does that overlap?
Marissa 7:59
Well, that's what's so weird, you know? Because, like I said, we're in the hospital forever. One of the nurses told me one morning, when he was getting better, he was doing a lot better on less oxygen. He was feeling so much better, not as much fluid on board. He was starting to, you know, eat all that stuff. Well, she says we've noticed his blood sugar's been going up on his lab work every day, his blood sugar is going up a little bit. And I was like, Oh, really. I said, Do you think he could have type one diabetes? And she said, maybe. She said, we're gonna check some antibodies. And I was like, Okay, what? Didn't tell my husband. Okay, I love my husband dearly. We've been together, like, 22 years or something, but I know I'm not gonna give him a potential thing to worry about. I'm gonna wait till it's a real thing, right? So I didn't tell him. So I went home to take a shower, because I was staying at the hospital, obviously, right? Yeah. So I went home to take a shower, get some stuff together in the afternoon, when they had drawn that the auto antibodies and everything, in the morning, his brother and sister in law were there with him. Thank goodness. I'm grateful for that. And so I'm I'm home, and I'm just getting everything ready to come back, and he calls me. He's sobbing, sobbing, like he can barely speak. I'm like, Oh, my God. Is my what happened? Is my baby dead? Like, did he? Did he have to? Did he stop breathing? You did he go into his heart? Stop? You know what's happening, right? And he's like, they say he's got type one diabetes. And I was like, Oh my God, oh, thank God, thank God. Like, I was just like, so grateful. Like, oh my God, thank God. That's, that's, that's what they that everything's okay. He's breathing, yeah, yeah, he's okay. I was like, Oh my God, you like, scared me to death.
Scott Benner 9:39
What other things do you not tell him about? Is there a list? Yeah, there's
Marissa 9:43
things you know. I don't I don't want him to worry about something. I'll just wait until he really has to worry. Or if he doesn't have to worry, then he doesn't have to even know, right? Tell
Scott Benner 9:52
me about why. I mean, listen, diabetes is enough reason to be upset. But like, Is there stuff in your husband's family that. Would make him more upset about this?
Marissa 10:01
No, I think for him, it came out of left field. He didn't know anything about type one diabetes or even type two. We don't have, you know, really, any diabetes in our family at all. He didn't get, like, a nice preamble, hi, Mr. So and So, listen. I want to talk to you about some test results. It was more like he said this doctor that was not even, we don't even think she was on our case, like we don't even know her. We know I know who he's talking about, but she wasn't one of our doctors that I knew of. She walked in and she's like, well, he has type one diabetes. Do
Scott Benner 10:35
you think that doctor, does he have any hindsight? Did that doctor think they were telling him that for the first time. Do you know? Or
Marissa 10:43
I have no idea, I don't know. Yeah, geez. Well, I have no idea, but it like literally scared him to death. But then he scared me to death, yeah,
Scott Benner 10:50
sure. The way his reaction made you really feel like something dire had happened, which it had, but, yeah, not the thing your brain went to,
Marissa 10:57
yeah. I was like, Oh my God. Like, I mean, I just went cold all over, you know, how you do, yeah, when is it? And I was like, Oh, my God, you'll tell me, is he okay? Is he okay? And he's like, yeah, he's okay. And he's just, you know, watching his iPad. By then, I was like, Oh,
Scott Benner 11:09
do you remember two weeks ago when he all he could do was breathe? This is
Marissa 11:14
big improvement, big improvement. So I talked, we had two neighbors, like, practically in our backyard, both type one live, kind of next door to each other. And I was like, oh, you know, this guy has type one, and this guy's that one. They're fine. They do well, they manage. He's like, Oh, okay, okay.
Scott Benner 11:30
Well, so you have two people local to you, to your home, and both your kids, if you have any concerns that there's something going on in the atmosphere, the ground, water or anything like that. Like, have you ever thought about that?
Marissa 11:43
I haven't really thought about that. One of our neighbors, he was in his 70s, diagnosed as a child, and he passed from something completely not related to diabetes. But he wasn't, I don't think from our town. And then the other guy, I don't think he was from our town either. I think he was so but, yeah, that's a good question, right? Like, four in the, like, walking distance, that's kind of,
Scott Benner 12:04
I just put up an episode recently with a girl who's like, you know, she's like, there were so many people sick in, like, the cul de sac I lived in, and later they found that there's a place nearby them where, like, it was kind of like a dump that had to be clean and, you know, so now she wonders about
Marissa 12:21
that, you know? I mean, it does make you wonder. Yeah, a lot of things make me wonder. Yeah, definitely
Scott Benner 12:28
not. I don't know if I'm gonna get answers to most of them, but, oh, so, okay, so you're now, he's been in the hospital for how long at this point, a couple of weeks. This episode is sponsored by tandem Diabetes Care, and today I'm going to tell you about tandems, newest pump and algorithm, the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology features auto Bolus which can cover missed meal boluses and help prevent hyperglycemia. It has a dedicated sleep activity setting and is controlled from your personal iPhone. Tandem will help you to check your benefits today through my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox this is going to help you to get started with tandem, smallest pump yet that's powered by its best algorithm ever control IQ. Plus technology helps to keep blood sugars in range by predicting glucose levels 30 minutes ahead, and it adjusts insulin accordingly. You can wear the tandem Moby in a number of ways. Wear it on body with a patch like adhesive sleeve that is sold separately. Clip it discreetly to your clothing or slip it into your pocket head. Now to my link, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, to check out your benefits and get started today, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app. You can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom. Dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox head over there now.
Marissa 14:43
Yeah, it was towards the end of his day. Okay, so I think we ended up staying for maybe three or four more days. You know, had to do the at that hospital. They do, like, hours long. Training is a really good thing. And they. They said, even you know, anybody in in our state, I am in Central Arkansas, anybody in our state, they go to that hospital, to the Children's Hospital for education for at least overnight. Yeah. So, yeah, we had to learn all that. You know, as a nurse, I've done like 1000 bazillion finger sticks, been doing on your kids a little different. But I wanted to go ahead and do that and give him shots, you know. And so my husband did too. He didn't have any problems with that. So we immediately started the care. He pulled himself the other did he? He did. He did. Once he found out it was okay that that type one is, is manageable, and our kids gonna, you know, do great. He was, he was all
Speaker 1 15:39
good. He just didn't understand what it was. Even he didn't,
Marissa 15:43
and I didn't warn him. I didn't say maybe I should have, but, I mean, what are the odds that I'm going to be gone two hours and they're going to come in there and break this life changing news? I
Scott Benner 15:52
was just trying to get a shower here. Well, and by the way, I should have guessed out loud Arkansas, because I had a feeling, and you have so there's so many interesting turns of phrases like, oh, you know how you do that? One's, is it the bless your heart? Well, no, I love the you know how you do that? One's my best. I don't even think you understand that. That's something you say, Oh, I'm gonna have to pay attention. It's at the end of a, like, a declarative statement. You're like, I went and got coffee. You know how you do it's almost not like talking. It's it's almost like a noise at the end. I think it's awesome. Oh,
Marissa 16:26
thank you. I was worried. I'm worried about listening to this later and hearing my the accent that I don't hear in my own ears when I speak. You know, you think
Scott Benner 16:34
everybody's just picturing you chasing a wild boar around at a football game or something? Yeah, sure, definitely. I'm sure they don't I listen. When they listen to me, they probably think, what dumb mafia like, what do they even think? You know what
Marissa 16:47
I mean. No, you have a great voice. I've actually met you. You and I have met I'm one of the millions of people that you've met. Where, where did we meet? We met at the 2023 type one touched by type one conference in Orlando. Oh, no kidding. Awesome. Yeah, and I have to give a shout out, because I met my guy, bestie Peggy. Hello, Peggy. She also recorded with you recently about digestive enzymes, but I met her there. Yeah, she was from Minnesota, and I came from Arkansas, so
Scott Benner 17:14
that's lovely. And you guys just came, just to see the touch by type one event,
Marissa 17:18
yeah, and I literally, you know, I'm on the lookout, you know, my eyes are looking around for Dexcom, right? And I saw one on this little boy, which was her little boy. And I was like, she and I are osmet, and we're like, Oh, you got one too, you got one too, you know, so
Scott Benner 17:32
and, yeah, it's lovely. I it would have been nice if you said you came to see me, but, I mean, it's fine if you just, oh, wait, wait, you did come to see oh, you flew all the way from Arkansas.
Marissa 17:40
We drove, actually, we drive a lot of places. My husband likes to drive.
Scott Benner 17:44
Tell the people how lovely it was to meet me. I'm just
Marissa 17:49
it was lovely. It was lovely. And I sat in there when you did the kids thing. And I had both my middle son, and then my daughter, she was in there too, even though she's not diabetic, but she was in there. I'll
Scott Benner 18:00
tell you like, I hope it went well for you in 2023 but the one I did last year was awesome. Yeah, the kids just, it was a great group. I was actually just talking to somebody yesterday about going back. I'm definitely going back this year
Marissa 18:11
2025 Yeah, I'd like to go back again. I drug my, um, my teenager, you know, because he, he was, I guess, 15 at the time, which, I mean, if you know anything about teenage boys. He's quote, unquote, listening to you, but he's also got his feet propped up and his head back and his arms crossed. You know, teenagers sweet. You know that's what
Scott Benner 18:29
they are. My son's in his mid 20s, and sometimes I can bleed an entire sentence to him, and he looks at me and goes, what? And I'm like, Okay, right, right. My wife would say I do the same thing, but nevertheless, so Okay, so you get that diagnosis that you go through the training, but I wonder how you found the training to be, because, I mean, you're an RN, right? You've worked with seriously ill people before, like, right? Did you feel like it was a complete, like, complete, had you not known anything about diabetes, would you have walked out of there thinking, I can do this? Or, like, what do you think of that initial setup they have? I
Marissa 19:04
think they do have a really good education. And there's dietitians, and, you know, the other educators there that do have type one, and that's really cool. And then the nurse that took care of my son on in the diabetic floor, he she was type one. So I think with all of that, that helps kind of put your mind at ease. Oh, this, you know, here's this, this, this nurse. She's going to work 12 hours, she's got type one. Well, okay, she's doing great, right?
Scott Benner 19:33
Makes you feel better that she can do a whole shift like that. Yeah, yeah. It really does awesome. So when you left, did your well? I mean, I guess I should ask, not just assume, like, did being an RN help you, or did it hurt?
Marissa 19:48
I think it helped a lot, because, you know, I wasn't scared of shots or needles or sticking his finger. I wasn't scared of, you know, making decisions. What I was scared of was not knowing his blood sugar. Every second, because we didn't leave with the Dexcom. I remember calling the nurse in one night because he was really, really sweaty, and I was like, Do you think he's low? You know, I was wondering how I was going to manage that at home. Yeah, it's
Scott Benner 20:12
an interesting moment, isn't it, when the first time that you realize, like, the implications of the whole thing, the highs and the lows, and then somebody checks with a meter, and then it's over. And if your next thought isn't, well, what is it now and then? And five minutes later, like, Well, I wonder what it is now like, is it up or down? Is it moving? Is it steady? Like, that's, it's, listen, I did it for a long time without a CGM, and I think it might, it might have added years to taken years off my life, you know. So I
Marissa 20:39
believe you I really do, you know. And they told us, when you go home, you know, wake up at 2am right? And check, check blood sugar at 2am so I'm checking right before bed, and then I'm waking up at 2am to check. And I was exhausted. I mean, obviously, right, yeah, because then I have to turn around and get ready and go to work.
Scott Benner 20:58
Listen, I was a stay at home, dad Benard, and was diagnosed. And even as she's older, like my job, you know, is out of my house. And I don't think I spend nearly enough time telling all you what an amazing assistance that is to me, not to have to actually get into a car and drive somewhere to prescribe time. It helps a lot with all this, actually. So, you know, the opposite is, you know, you can't be when you hear people say, like, I'm doing the best I can, or, you know, like, how come you didn't get that blood sugar down for three hours? Like, I literally had to be asleep or I wouldn't have been able to wake up in the morning, go to work, do the thing, pay for the stuff. Like, right? Yeah. It's, it's just all encompass, yeah. So how long were you managing a four year old with type one before your next kid gets diabetes
Marissa 21:44
13 months Wow. So, so about 13 months later, I came home from work and my kid had been at school. He was in the fifth grade. He said, Mom, my teacher's getting mad at me every day. And I was like, why? And he said, well, because I get to school and I have to go to the bathroom every morning. And I was like, oh, oh, that's not good. I should probably check his blood sugar. Now, that's that's not possible, right? So I put it off a few days, and I got home from God bless him. I'm so glad he was persistent, because a few days later I got home from work. Unfortunately, it was the day before my husband's birthday. But anyways, got home from work and he's, he says, Mom, I had to pee three times when I was playing my video game while ago, he said, and my throat is just feels that really weird, dry. And we had actually gone on a trip about a month before that, and we were in the car, we couldn't stop at the bathroom soon enough, like he had to use a bottle to pee. I mean, so, I mean, duh. Should have figured that out, right? But I didn't. So I said, Okay, well, let's check your blood sugar, and it read in the four hundreds. And I was like, That can't be right. Let's do another hand. That's
Scott Benner 22:53
right. I'm gonna put us all in the garage and start the car. How old is he right then? And there he was, 1111, okay, so you're like, obviously, you're gonna get blood out of a different finger. It's gonna go better. So you did that and
Marissa 23:06
what happened? Same, same result. No kidding, this glucometer is not working. So my husband stuck his finger, and he was like, 89 and I was like, oh, no, it works. It works. So I knew then, you know, pack a bag, go to the hospital. But I did, I did try to get away like, he's like, Well, should I eat? And I was like, Well, we're about to eat, so I guess, go ahead and eat. Like, you know, don't be hungry. Yeah, go ahead. And so I even text my neighbor, whose husband, you know, has type one. And I was like, Oh, this is what happened. Do you think, do you think I could just give him some insulin? I was like, you think I could just give him insulin? It's like, nine o'clock at night by now, you know? She's like, Oh, no, you better go in. And so, of course, I did, you know. And then when we got there, he said, Hey, Mom, do you think I might have type one, two? And I said, Yeah, I really think you do. And he was like, okay, that kid never shed a tear. He is my, he's my anxious kid. Like, from day one, he's been super anxious, scared of the wind, you know, things like that. He's really, you know, accomplished a lot with he's overcome a lot in that year's time he was giving he was actually giving shots. He's like, do you think I can give him his shot? Yeah, sure. So he was giving shots. He was with supervision, obviously, but checking his blood shirt. He was doing all that to his little brother, and I think that helped prepare him, honestly. Oh,
Scott Benner 24:40
okay, yeah. So it all felt doable, yeah, because he had seen it done, and he had actually been a part of it at some points. Oh, that's awesome. And to this day, like, how many years later is this now?
Marissa 24:51
Let's see, Liam was seven years Eli was six years ago. So now I will tell you, though there's a difference between being a guy. Diagnosed at four and 11, because the 11 year old, when you're diagnosed at 11, obviously, you know you've just you've had all this soda and candy, and you've never had to worry about anything affecting your blood sugar. Right now you do the four year old, he does not remember. He's 11. Now he doesn't remember. He thinks he knows everything about diabetes. He does not remember not needing it.
Scott Benner 25:21
He just eats the way he eats, and it's not a big deal to him. He didn't have to give anything up in his
Marissa 25:26
mind, right? Yeah, he Yeah. And he was even when he was four and five. He was even he wanted to stick his own finger. He wanted to do his own shot, you know, his own glucose shot. And then at some point we had to leave him with my in laws, and he actually gave his first injection before we were on the pump.
Scott Benner 25:46
I remember Arden doing her like her first pod by herself, because she was with my sister in law. And I think she just got, she looked around and was like, All right, I think I'd be better off doing this myself. Not that they, you know, not that they weren't just, they were new at it, and like, it was, you know, and she was like, All right, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna, I'll get it. And so when we were so nervous because it was remote, we weren't there. We were on the phone trying to talk them through it and everything. And, my gosh, so
Marissa 26:15
I know it's fun. They get so used to it and they see you do it, yeah, I feel confident. Just no because Liam's just recently done his own pump too, and it's that's a little bit life. I still help sometimes, but sometimes he's getting ready for bed and he's like, I'll just do it myself. It's life changing.
Scott Benner 26:31
I've seen this, this thing, even with Arden now, like, for literally the most part, like, literally 99 and a half percent. Like, you know, she doesn't, she's not looking for help with this stuff, and but there's a time, like, if she's sick or she's exhausted or something, you can see her just be, like, here, just, just do it, please, you know, like, once in a while, like, you know, she just hand you the pod back. Like, here, you stick it on. But it's very at this point, just incredibly infrequent. But
Marissa 26:57
it's so helpful that that you can just hand over here be my pancreas, dad. I mean, that's such a big deal that she's lucky to have you to have figured out all this stuff that you've figured out. Yeah,
Scott Benner 27:10
no. I mean, I'm assuming one day she'll know that too. That'd be awesome.
Marissa 27:14
Let's hope, right. I'm
Scott Benner 27:15
sure when she's in her mid 30s, she'll probably like, cruise past me in a room and just like, lean in real quick and go, Hey, thanks, and then just keep going. So, yeah, no, I think she's incredibly grateful for everything that she's got going on. But it's it doesn't stop it from being, you know, what I've learned being me is that it's not magical, like everyone out there probably thinks like, oh, it's probably great for her, because, you know, like, the guy that taught me the stuff and helps me, like, you know, he's there. So it's, she still just has diabetes, you know, like, it's still annoying and upsetting and all the other things that it is. It doesn't stop being that for her, just because, you know, we know how to handle things. Or, like, I was telling you before we got on, like, she's sick right now. She's on an antibiotic and and a steroid, and the steroids messing with her. But you know, like, even as the doctors giving her, like we were in an urgent care, and if this person is listening like, we really appreciate it, there's an urgent care near us, and there's a doctor there, she has type one. So, like, we knew what was wrong with Arden. We just knew, you know, we knew what she needed. So we went through the urgent care and she got looked at, gave her the steroids and the antibiotics. And as she's given the steroids, she's like, now, you know, like, you're gonna have to make adjustments with insulin and and she said, what she was, what she said, and I'm sure, to some degree, she thought I didn't need to be told, yeah, but still, like, with what she said, even if she had gone deeper into it, if I didn't know what I was doing, I would not have been prepared for what's happening right now? Like, oh, it's a big deal, yeah. Like, I'm, you know, I think I'm running Arden's basal at like, 2.1 units an hour right now, or something like that. Oh, goodness. Which is insane. Because, right, I think her basal is like point 850 my gosh. And, you know, like, last night she we were cruising, but she took those steroids again, like, the last dose, and the blood sugar started going up. And, like, I had to, like, you know, I mean, she's on DIY algorithm. And, like, you know, so she's using trio. I had to make, like, temporary adjustments to basal. I had to make a huge Bolus. I had to, like, I did a ton of stuff to, like, hold a blood sugar at, like, 225, and bring it back down again. It was, Oh, my word difficult. Like, three, four times the amount of insulin. I don't think, if you don't know that, like, where are you going to get the nerve to instead of bolusing a unit for something, bolusing four units for it, like, you know what I mean? Like, you're not going to be able to do that. So
Marissa 29:37
it's very difficult. Yeah. And even though we had good training at the hospital, there was a lot that was never covered until I discovered the podcast,
Scott Benner 29:46
yeah, well, I mean, you know, especially with the steroids, like, I don't know how to prepare for somebody for like, four times the amount, if that's the situation, like, you know, anyway, yeah, tell me a little more about that, though, because, you know, you are an RN, right? Like, you are working with, like, critically ill people, like, for a lot of your career, too. So you must have seen your fair amount of people in DKA,
Marissa 30:07
oh my gosh. There's some of the sickest patients, I think, that I've ever
Scott Benner 30:11
had. Well, how does that impact you when you realize your kid could be in it?
Marissa 30:16
Oh, it's like, terror, you know, like, Oh my gosh. What am I gonna do to I've gotta really prevent this, and I've tried to share this with, you know, nurses I work with now, it's very easy to go into DK. It doesn't take a lot to go into DKA, because, you know, when you know nurses are, for the most part, jaded, right? We've seen we've seen this, we've seen that, you know, we've frequent flyers. You know, you just kind of assume, as a nurse, I think you kind of assume people don't take care of themselves. I mean, honestly. And so when you have DKA patients, you're like, Oh, they're just not taking care of themselves. But what you don't realize is, maybe they had a pump malfunction, maybe they couldn't afford insulin, maybe they this the that, you know, there's who knows. And I really became way more empathetic. It's a lot to take care of somebody with DKA too. Like, it's a very involved, you know, you have to know their you have, you're trying to get their anion gap back in range, and their PH, and then their electrolytes, and then you change different fluids and stuff. It's like a big deal. And then, of course, you stick their finger every single hour because, you know, hospitals won't allow you to use a CGM, which is absolutely ridiculous, but I did become way more empathetic, yeah, towards people and I, I know you, you and I, everybody with who has diabetes, or a kid with diabetes, you've had to try your best to prevent it.
Scott Benner 31:36
Have you had like, a moment where you've looked now, since then, since your understanding of it is deep, and have you looked at somebody in DK and thought like, I wonder what's like? You have the time as a nurse to wonder what happened to them in not just the fault back to, oh, they just must not take care of themselves,
Marissa 31:52
yeah. Like, if the patient is well enough, awake alert, or they have family, I've been like, hey, you need to listen to this podcast, like, or at least joined the Facebook group. I said, you know, it's not your fault. This is really hard, you know, things like that. I'm a nurse practitioner as well, and so I work with patients with this special, well, it's supposed to be a rare cancer, but we're like the cancer center for multiple myeloma, okay? And these patients are on a lot of stereo, at least a weekly steroid. I mean, imagine I have several diabetic patients, and I have one that's young. She was, she was diagnosed with type one in like, her 30s. I think every week when I see her, I'm like, okay, so what did you do? You know, with your insulin to offset your steroid, you know, so I have to shout out to her, because she is or she knows about you. But anyway, she is bold. She's giving. She's on the Omnipod five, Dexcom, g6 but she's also giving herself like Lantus. Oh, wow, for the steroid. Yeah.
Scott Benner 33:02
Well, I had that thought a couple times in the last couple days. Like, I was like, Oh, I wonder, like, would injecting a we don't even, I listen, I'm going to say something I don't think I'm supposed to say, like, we don't even, I don't have an injectable basal in the house. Like, I know you're supposed to keep it as a backup, but we just, we never have, there's no zombies, and there's a, you know, there's a Walgreens down the end of the street, right, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, I thought, God, just a layer of basal that's not going through the cannula. That's really where my concern is, is like, because, you know, the site is going to get flooded, and it's going to get, you know, it's going to get over saturated, it's probably not going to work as well. And, you know, like, you just all that's in your head. But if you don't know to think about that, then all that's not in your head. You just, you know, your person online that I'm seeing going like, Hey, I'm on a steroid. Their blood sugar is 450 and they're like, I can't, I can't seem to give myself enough insulin. And you know, you're already sick, and having a high blood sugar is not going to make that better, you know, right, right?
Marissa 33:55
It's just going to make it worse. And there's a term for that, where you're on the pump and then you still do the basal. I can't remember the term. I think they actually had to untethered. Yeah, untethered. That's it. And I actually had to do that with my oldest son when he went through puberty, like, say he was in 1415, oh my gosh, like, his Omnipod wouldn't last two days. Oh, no, you know, yeah, so much insulin, yeah. And so I went ahead and did that, because, you know, my insurance is not going to just give me unlimited amounts of Omnipod five. So I did that for a while. And we have a really good endocrinologist. She knows I'm a nurse practitioner. I'll just leave, change things here and there. And she was, like, she wasn't pleased with it, but it did help a lot, like I was, and I was just trying to guesstimate, okay, I'm gonna just do, you know, bring your settings down, because it was before automation, bring your settings down this amount, and then bring, you know, and it we didn't have any lows. It helped,
Scott Benner 34:55
but it worked, and you didn't have any lows, and it held, what was she mad about? Well, she went.
Marissa 35:00
Mad, but she was just like, you know, since that's kind of not, I don't, I don't know, it's not empathetic, you know,
Speaker 1 35:06
just she don't like you thinking too much,
Marissa 35:09
well, yeah, she's like, well, I don't want to get she's probably thinking, I don't want to get in trouble, right? You know, for you doing this craziness. But she, she was just like, oh, we'll just write that, you know, for the insurance that you can get the pod every two days. And so we did that for a while, and then, and then my insurance was like, oh, sorry, we're not going to cover that anymore.
Scott Benner 35:27
Yeah, no, thanks. Has it gotten better? As he's gotten older,
Marissa 35:31
it's gotten a lot better. It's gotten a lot better. And then the automation has, you know, once we went on the Omnipod five with the automation that's helped a lot.
Scott Benner 35:41
Yeah, it's the algorithms are awesome. Is there any concern about your daughter?
Marissa 35:49
I mean, I'm on the lookout. I keep saying, I'll, I might do her antibodies. But you know, as we know, you can have antibody or you cannot have antibodies and then have antibodies. So I'm like, I haven't really talked myself into doing that yet, but I do check her blood sugar occasionally when she's either sick or moody or something like that. Jeez.
Speaker 1 36:11
How often are you doing it?
Marissa 36:12
Well, I hadn't done it in a while, but
Scott Benner 36:16
if you're shooting for moody with a with a kid, right? Does she have any other autoimmune stuff, like or did the boys or you or anybody else?
Marissa 36:24
My husband's mom has rheumatoid arthritis and she has multiple sclerosis. My sister has hypothyroid. My brother in law has it's my husband's brother. He has some different autoimmune things. I don't know if anything actually has a name yet. I know there's a thyroid issue. And then, you know, the urticaria, urticaria, whatever you want to call it, he breaks out, is that constant? Yeah, he's had that for a long time. And my sister also had that for a while as
Scott Benner 36:55
well. So on your husband's side and on your side,
Marissa 36:59
yes. And then ironically, or maybe not ironically, I have a second cousin on each side of, like, my mom's side and my dad's side, and they were diagnosed as children, oh, while I was an adult, okay, and these little children were diagnosed. But that seems kind of far, doesn't
Scott Benner 37:16
it not to me. That sounds like a lot to me, also that brought the brother in law with urticaria, tell him to make sure his TSH is under two and see if it doesn't stop. Okay, okay, by the way, talking about turns of phrases you said about, I don't know if it's his sister or something, you said she, she has some hypothyroid. I don't know what some hypothyroid that's gotta
Marissa 37:37
be. Well, she's had hypothyroid, I guess back and forth in range. Maybe that's what I mean. But yeah, it's just a little bit, just a touch.
Scott Benner 37:45
She has a touch of cancer. Like, that's what it sounded like to me. Yeah, a Smith touch, the mother in law. Ms, how old was she when she was diagnosed?
Marissa 37:53
Oh, my goodness. Let's see. I want to say she was either late 40s, early 50s. Her sister, actually, our twin sister was diagnosed with MS before I ever met my husband, and then he told me, I guess when I first met him, that his mom was having some vision problems. And I was like, Oh, she needs to be checked for Ms. And she eventually was, and she's doing really well. As far as that's concerning, they've come a long way with multiple sclerosis drugs, awesome. Well,
Scott Benner 38:21
that's good, but yeah, I mean the thyroid stuff, I hear a lot of thyroid what you just said. So, like, I I'd keep an eye on that too, especially for your daughter, maybe, oh yes, I know, a little more common for women than men, but not, not a lot, but a little more. But especially with, you know, families with a lot of autoimmune stuff going on, which I would characterize you as having a lot of autoimmune after that list? Yeah,
Marissa 38:43
I guess so you like, like, I said, type one was never on our radar even, and I didn't even know it was autoimmune at that point to and I'm a nurse, and that's another thing I want to talk about. Like, how little education you get as a nurse about type one diabetes. Talk about your wasted education. Go ahead. So you know, in in my I got my bachelor's degree, got my RN. I mean, there was so, so little information.
Scott Benner 39:09
Were you about to curse? Marissa, no, there's a pause that I'm I'm like, she's not gonna curse, is she? I thought you were gonna say there was so little F in education. I was like, That doesn't seem like a thing she would do, but go ahead.
Marissa 39:21
I mean, that's true, just so little in nursing school. And while I'm on the subject, because this is a little bit ironic, I think when I was nursing, schools are evil, right? Any nurse can take like, I don't know that many nurses who was like, Oh, I love my program. It was great. No, it's hard. Okay, if people knew how hard it was to become a nurse, there'd be even fewer nurses. Let me tell you that. So
Scott Benner 39:47
is it the things you learn, or is it hazing? What is it
Marissa 39:50
they're mean, I don't know. So I went I started college at 18, right? Got in the nursing program at 20, and graduated at 22 so. So I'm young. First of all, you start out with a big class, and a lot of them drop out or whatever, because you have to have above a 75 like, if you have below, I think it's a 75 maybe an 80. Anyway, you don't pass,
Scott Benner 40:14
yeah, well, that's good, but go ahead, that
Marissa 40:17
is good. But then the clinicals, you know, that's where you go into the hospital, and at that point, because that was 100 years ago, we had to wear all white and a stupid little bib apron thing over you with the name of the school on it. Anyway, everything white so stupid pantyhose. Anyway, whatever. Holy
Scott Benner 40:39
hell are you, Marissa? What are you 90? What's going on? I'm
Marissa 40:43
just 91 it's fine. But yeah. So anyway, they're so mean, like, you can get three, what they they call critical use. I don't even know what U stands for, but it's a critical use. You can get three of them. If you get if you get three, you're out of the program. Okay? You'll never guess why I got one? I don't know. Tell me, please. I'm excited. Forgotten my watch. You forgot your watch. I forgot to wear my watch clinical.
Scott Benner 41:09
Had you forgot your watch two more times, you wouldn't have been able to be a nurse. Yeah? Awesome. This seems like a, like an X rated movie that you they've got you dressed up, very weird with the with the pantyhose, and they're and they're throwing a lot of rules at you. I'll tell you what I get confused by. Take it out of this for a second. I don't understand the human beings need to haze people. Nope. Like, I don't like, it was hard for me, so it's gonna suck for you. I don't get, I really don't get that. Like, it would take one generation of people to go, you know what? Somebody made this unnecessarily hard on me. I'm going to make this a reasonable experience for you, and things would get better, right? Yeah, I don't know why we're so hell bent on persecuting people, but
Marissa 41:54
nursing schools are like that. Instead of being like that, teach us more stuff, tell us some more real world stuff. So that was my first critical you Okay, so then here's my second one, and I almost got kicked out of the program, and it does have to do with diabetes, which is really funny, because now I have two diabetes, and I actually study diabetes, you know, by listening to the podcast and all that other stuff, right? So when I was in report, which is when the night nurse is telling the day nurse about the patient, what to do, blah, blah, yeah, so I was writing on 630 in the morning. Okay, we're not even firing on all still cylinders here, quite awake, right? So I wrote down that this patient needed blood sugars, Q, D, that means every day, right? What I should have written down was Q ID, that means four times a day. So at lunchtime, this patient had taken a bite of mashed potatoes before I realized he needed a blood sugar check, right,
Scott Benner 42:54
and that, and that almost got you another another hit. Yeah,
Marissa 42:58
yeah. I had to spend my whole spring break of my senior year writing papers about diabetes. Yeah, I'm not, I kid you not. Just so, and that was in March, right? And I was graduating in May, so I couldn't mess it up.
Scott Benner 43:12
Oh my gosh, hey, my wife puts q id and QD on stuff all the time because she that's how she writes for work. And every time I'm like, I don't I'm like, Kelly, I don't remember what this means. Give it. It's like a shorthand to her, because, yes, her technical writing, yeah. It means
Marissa 43:26
you can get kicked out of nursing school. That's what it means. Yeah. So ironically, you know, I have now type two or two type one diabetes kids, right? But honestly, I don't remember much at all from undergrad about diabetes, except that I wrote about type two diabetes. That's what my papers were on type two diabetes, right? Yeah. So then I go, I decided I would go to nurse practitioner school, like 14 years after I'd been out of school, I literally have maybe one page, maybe half a page, on type one diabetes. I'm not kidding you, just that you need insulin, basically, that you have to have insulin to survive. There's so little, no,
Scott Benner 44:03
I know. I mean, listen, it can't be that people are that inept. Like, I just think it's not taught at all. It's not, I mean, you can't wrap your head around why? Like, it doesn't make sense. But other than, I guess, they're just trying to give you a high level overview of a bazillion things, right? And then they assume there'll be people who will, who will choose endocrinology as a as a drill down then, then they'll learn about it. But I don't know. That doesn't seem to happen anyway.
Marissa 44:28
I know it's crazy. My friend went to a different nurse practitioner program, and she showed me hers, and she literally had half a page too. Yeah. I was like, This is crazy. But yeah, my
Scott Benner 44:39
brother was, you know, being treated for type two diabetes, and it wasn't going well. And I, you know, I let it go on for I let it go on. Listen, they're my younger brothers, and my parents got divorced when I was really young. So I love my brothers, and they're my brothers, but I also feel responsible for them on some level. You know what I mean? I let it go on for a while. I'm. Happy to say it that way. And then I stepped up, and I was like, listen, we're doing this and this and this and, like, and now he's doing awesome. He just called me yesterday. He's like, I've lost 56 pounds. And like, yeah, he's doing great. Like, and I, you know, he's not running around with high blood sugars all the time and like, stuff like that. Like, it's just, like, it wasn't that hard, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, to help him, you
Marissa 45:19
know, yeah, and you had to be his advocate, because, like the physicians whose job now, don't get me wrong, because they are super overworked, right? They see, what, how many patients in a day? They see a patient every what, 1020, minutes or something. But still, you could at least say, look at this resource, or listen to this podcast, you wouldn't believe how many times I've thought I need to be a paid sponsor here for Juicebox Podcast, because I tell so many people, yeah, about it,
Scott Benner 45:49
I actually considered one time running some sort of a contest for people. Like, I don't know how to do it, like, for how many because you should see the you know, like, this morning I woke up and I let in 76 new people into the private Facebook group this morning. Group this morning. That happened, I'll take credit for 30. Okay? That happens like every day, right? There's also an amount of people who the out. You know, the Facebook algorithm, like, you answer a couple questions and it does some digging, and if it's comfortable, like, auto lets you in. So there's probably 100 new people in the last 12 hours, but I see some of their answers, and it's usually just like, hey, listen, somebody was asking a question on another Facebook group, and someone said this was the place to come. Or my doctor told me, my doctor told me, is one of the most common ways.
Marissa 46:29
Oh, that's great, because our doctor didn't tell us. Well, yeah, but
Scott Benner 46:33
it's really like, I mean, that's heady for me. I'm like, your doctor, you know, wait going back to my brother for a second, like, I get that the doctor could be busy or overwhelmed or whatnot, but, like, they were never going to help him, right? And then, like, I'd say, Listen, this is what we want to ask for this. And he'd say, Well, the doctor said, I'm like, you don't care anymore. What the doctor said, I'm like, This is what we're doing. Find a way to this. And that's not a thing. My brother's, like, accustomed to like, I'm accustomed to it because I had to do it for Arden, right? And you know, other people in my family have thyroid issues and, like, people are, you know, been sick over a year. I've, I've a lot of practice of being like, no, no, we're doing this. But my brother doesn't. And either do a lot of other people who, you know, they'll just go, Well, yeah, but then the doctor said, so I stopped. Like, I hear that all the time from people like personal life and on the podcast. So you have to be there to go. No, say it again. Ask a different way make it you know, yeah,
Marissa 47:28
you have to just advocate for yourself, you know. Since, since I get to, you know, see patients as a nurse practitioner, like I said, my patients have cancer, but they have other stuff as well. And so when I do have type ones, I feel like we really can connect, and they can trust me. And so that's why I'm like, okay, you've got to listen to this podcast or explain pre bolusing the way you did, because nobody told me pre bolusing until I discovered the podcast,
Scott Benner 47:58
even though you've been through school and help. Yeah, they don't talk about any of that in school. Yeah. I mean, listen, I I say all the time, like, I get way too much credit for just telling people to worry about how the timing of insulin works. Like it's not a thing, that it shouldn't be a big deal. Do you know what I mean? Like it should be a thing. Like people say, Oh no, I already knew that. But that's not the case for most of the people who end up with us. You know what I want to say, though, like, asking somebody to advocate for themselves is one thing. Like, if they can actually, like, muster up the steam to do it is great, but they don't know what they're having. They don't have the if they had the answer, they wouldn't need the doctor first of all. So, like, so now here you are in a situation with a person who you're counting on to help you, who may or may not have the answers, but you definitely don't have the answer. So how the hell are you supposed to advocate for something you don't
Marissa 48:45
know exists? I know, I don't know the answer. That's, it's, it's sad, you know, um, and some people are just like broken down by, you know, they're so used to not feeling good, or what, or, Oh, I guess this is just how life is now. And they don't even, can't even express, yeah.
Scott Benner 49:01
I mean, look at your son. I mean, I know he's only four, but like, imagine if he had to advocate for himself when he was in the hospital with no, my gosh, right. How you gonna do that? You can't. You're, you're, I just said this to somebody the other day. I said, my biggest concern now is that I'm gonna, like, have a problem, like, a medical problem, one day in front of a bunch of nudniks, and then I'm just gonna look up and go, like, Oh, great. None of these people are gonna be able to help me. You. Able to help me. I don't want my death to be because I passed out in the wrong place. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you don't know who's around you and but you're going to get to a point at some point where you're going to say, I don't have it in me. Like, I don't have the ability to help myself. At this point, I'm counting on other people, and maybe with the diabetes, even my brother type two. Like, sure, you're not passed out in the street, but you are in a dire situation. You don't know the answer to the question, and you're hoping the people around you do know and and the the worst part is that when they answer you, you don't even know if they're right. Yeah, that's true. You could end up being with bad information forever and ever, and thinking like. I'm doing what I'm told, this is going to be okay. Yeah, it's very upsetting. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I'm doing my best here. You know what? I mean, like, but I'm not reaching. I'm not reaching enough people,
Marissa 50:09
I know, but you are reaching a lot. Like, you know, I Googled, or I got, I got on the Facebook and looked for, um, support groups for parents after a while, because I was like, I'm kind of struggling here, you know, and I have, you know, I know medical stuff, but I'm struggling. And so that's how I found your group. And then when I joined and I started looking through, I was like, Oh my gosh, just looking at people's questions and answers like this really makes sense. And then when somebody mentioned that there was a podcast, I was like, why? I've never listened to a podcast before let me check this
Scott Benner 50:41
out. I'm a fancy lady now. I got an app on my phone,
Marissa 50:46
and it's a free app handle this.
Scott Benner 50:51
How is so many things going my way today?
Marissa 50:53
Right? It just was life changing. You know, I do think you're like God's gift to the diabetic community, and so I try to share, you know, with other people, and, you know, let them know that there are resources. And yeah,
Scott Benner 51:07
there's this thing that I can't tell you because it sounds, it sounds so douchey, but what? Oh, God, am I going to say this? Oh, I won't say who it was, who it is, because I don't want them to be embarrassed. But I mean, in fairness to me, I get a lot of praise. But, I mean, it is praise, like, like, you just gave me. It was very kind, right? But it happens with a lot of frequency, because I reached so many people. And sometimes someone I know will send me like a little candle as a text. And it's like a It's kind of like a joke about, like, you know, the religious candles in the aisle at the grocery store that, yeah, and this person's always like, your face is going to be on one of these candles one day, and, and we laugh like it's not a thing. I actually think I just wanted that person doesn't think that either we're we're trying to make light because it's so, I know people won't, like, maybe understand this, but it's heavy to have that many people thanking you all the time.
Marissa 52:03
I bet it is, yeah, I bet it is, especially when you're humble, not
Scott Benner 52:07
burdensome, heavy. But like, there are certain people listening who will not believe this. And I think for you, you've maybe have confused my sarcasm with my not my sarcasm at points. But that's fine. I don't need that. It's lovely. And I like, you know, I hear from people, and I make sure to answer everybody, and I think it's great, but I also think they're doing the work. Yeah, I just said the thing out loud. They took it and ran with it. I don't think I deserve credit for it, and it's not a thing I need or I want. Oh, I know what you mean. I don't know if I'm in a unique situation, and people can understand it or not, but like, it's lovely, and I appreciate it, and I I'm not asking anybody to stop, but I'm also not over here, like, you know, like a heroin addict going, like, I need three people to thank me in the next hour, I'm gonna, like, have a breakdown. Like, if no one ever said thank you again, I'd be, like, it's long as they're helped. I don't care, because you
Marissa 52:57
feel like you're providing the information, but they're doing the work. And I get that, you know, because, you know, when I have, like, my my chemo patients that finish their chemo cycle and they're like, Oh, thank you so much. Well, I really didn't do anything, but I'm cheerleading here for you and telling you what to expect. Yeah, whatnot. I don't, you know, I'm, I know what you mean, but just like having, bonding out all that stuff, like, I don't know if it would have taken a long, long time to for me to trial and error. Everything that I just learned from the podcast
Scott Benner 53:26
took me a long, you know, it really did. Like, I don't say it much, but like, when I talk about it, I'll say, like, look, you know, you guys have the podcast. I literally struggled through every step of it and just kept like, I, you know, I said it earlier, right? Like, I was on business, stay at home dad, so I had time, like, and so I could stop and look back all the time and just kind of macro, look at everything and see how things affected. Like, I wasn't running to work, or, like, you know, I mean, like I had time to make diabetes my job, basically, yeah, yeah.
Marissa 53:56
Which is a blessing, you know, that that you did have, that, Oh for sure, benefited all of us. That's
Scott Benner 54:02
nice of you to say, like, but like, it took forever, is my point? Like, Oh, I bet she was two when she was diagnosed. It's not like when she was three. I was, like, the guy from the podcast, like, you know what I mean? Like, it was she was six seven, but I started, like, pulling my thoughts together and like, you know, it took me a while. Like, I felt like I was killing my kid too. Just like the rest of you feel
Marissa 54:21
right, like even, even today, you know, Liam was a little high, and I was like, do half a unit. And he's like, okay, so he did half a unit, and now he's like, 103, double arrows down. So I'm like, Oh no, eat some gummy you eat a few fruit snacks to even out. Yeah, you know, it's just, I don't know, you know, I still struggle sometimes with these kids, and especially they're not physically connected to me at all times, right?
Scott Benner 54:50
Yeah, it's harder. It's hard the amount of times before any kind of systems were in place, Arn was just wearing a regular Omnipod that I would texture, and I'd be like, Temp Basal increase 20% for 30 minutes. Minutes, and then, like, 510, minutes later, I'm like, oh, cancel that. I shouldn't have done that. Like I had to do that so many times before I knew what to do, when to do it. I feel like I haven't said this in a long time, but I really do think that eventually you go through so many experiences that if you're paying attention to them and taking lessons out of them, eventually you can see them coming, and then you know what to do, right? Like, you're not guessing, but I guess, though I almost cursed, but you're very southern, so I'm not going to. I think the irony of you southern people is, I think privately, you're cursing all the time, but like,
Marissa 55:36
oh yeah, frustration you know more, the more frustrated, the more the more bad words,
Scott Benner 55:41
you know, like I I had to make those mistakes a lot and then learn from them before I could see them coming and get ahead of like, I'm telling you. I did that for a really long time, and then I started even being able to write about it on a blog helped me to find a way to be articulate about it. But short, because I don't believe people read. Yeah, how do you be quick but thoughtful and say something in a way that not just some people will understand, but like that, you can be reasonably sure that most people listening or reading are gonna You don't wanna be confusing, right? Like so they learn to do that while I'm blogging, and it's hard in writing, but I got better at it, and then it made me really good at talking about it. So yeah, that's I get it. Yeah, that's nice.
Marissa 56:29
Yeah. Just, do you ever stop looking at the numbers? Like I feel like I look at them. I'm always on guard with the numbers. No, I never look ever. Yeah. So maybe one day I won't look yeah,
Scott Benner 56:42
it'll come you know what I mean? Like, you know, there's a I want to make sure I say this the right way. Like, so there's a moment when you're going to realize that a 160 blood sugar is not the end of the world. Oh, yeah, definitely. And that a 200 for an hour is going to happen sometimes, but I don't want people to think like, oh, okay, well, then I just won't worry about that. That's not the case, right? I manage all of them, like, or Arden manages all of them. Nobody is like, you can't stare at a high blood sugar. It is the quickest way to an eight, a, 1c, that you can find, right? And that is the quickest way to apathy that turns into a, nine, a, 1c, that turns into like, you know, you saying, Oh, my shoulder is frozen. Like, like, like, you know what I mean? Like, it's the quick path to that. So I'm not saying ignore it, or that I would ignore it, or that she would ignore it. What I'm saying is, is that when it happens, you manage it, you don't freak out about it. And that takes, that takes a while before you can see that number. And just go, okay, and then do the thing. I don't know. Like, I've never been in a military operation, but, like, I would say that, you know, in the beginning of diabetes, I was the guys running off the boat on Saving Private Ryan, and just like, it's screaming and just shooting into the air. And now I'm more like, you know, like a Navy SEAL. The way I handle it is, we're going to do the things that we're supposed to do. I'm pretty sure we won't die. And if we die, that's not going to change that we're going to do the things that we're supposed to do, yeah? And hopefully it's all going to work out. I think I've said it before, like, I try to think of things the way astronauts do, right? Just okay, everything's trying to kill you, okay, but what's going to kill you right now, that's the thing we do. That's a good way to look at it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that takes a while to get to that. So you have to have the experiences, figure it out, know how to take care of it. Then you've got to be able to keep in your heart that the higher blood sugars aren't okay, but they're not a panic or a failure, and we just have to keep taking the steps and doing the things. Yeah, that's where I'm at now. I'm Zen about it
Marissa 58:49
now, but there's plenty than I used to be. It's
Scott Benner 58:53
coming. Is my point? Like, you'll get to it, because there's plenty of times in the past where Mercy was like, you know, like, a beep, beep, what happened? What I do, what I mess up? How'd this go wrong? Like, you know what I mean? Like, so upset. You're upset for an hour. The kid knows you're upset. Like, it's, you know, I think it's all part of it,
Marissa 59:12
right? I try not to take it personally, and I try not to just text about diabetes, though, that to my kids, although I'm kind of probably bad about mostly texting about diabetes to them. But, you know, try to do this. Try to do this. But, you know, the 11 year old, he thinks he, you know, he doesn't take into consideration, like, really, what his blood sugar is at lunch. He just kind of, I'm getting three units, you know. And so sometimes it's like, Oh, hold on there, yeah,
Scott Benner 59:38
there's an art like I said, Arden is pretty sick right now, and I walked into her bedroom last night, like the end of the night, and I went in there because her settings needed to be massaged, right like for the cylinder. And I also know that she's she's got trouble remembering to take her thyroid medication. Oh, and so I was walking in there to make an adjustment to the insulin, or to talk to her about the adjustment for the insulin, and I knew in the back of my head that I should remind her about the thyroid medication, but I looked at her and I just thought, I'm not going to mention the thyroid medication tonight. Yeah? Like, she just like, she's beat up. Like, right? Like, she doesn't need me coming in that room, going, diabetes, hypothyroidism. Like, you know what I mean, like, so I went in there. I said, How are you feeling? And then she's like, oh, you know, she told me how she was feeling and everything. And I said, Okay. I said, Listen, I don't think these settings are gonna work. Like, let's take a look at them together and see if we can figure out where to, you know, move them to. And I thought everything inside of me wanted to be like, in here, take this pill, right, right? I just didn't say it. I kept it focused on her, because as she gets older, I'm becoming more aware of the human side of it. Yes, because she can be more expressive about it than she could be when she was little. And she just, she doesn't want to be sick, like, you know what I mean, like, and she doesn't want to have diabetes on top of being sick, and she doesn't want to have thyroid problem on top of diabetes on top of being sick. And like me walking in there and going diabetes, thyroid insulin just makes her feel like she doesn't
Marissa 1:01:14
exist. Oh, yeah, I can, I can say that. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:01:17
So there's, again, a balance between doing well for them, physically and and psychologically. That's
Marissa 1:01:25
true. Yeah, that's true. And my oldest, he does get burned out more than my middle because he, I think if he remembers not having to worry about stuff, and he gets burned out a little bit more. So we've had our times where he was like, go to a friend's house, but he didn't chuck a sugar the whole line, things like that. We've been through that when he was MDI, but no, for sure, things are better now.
Scott Benner 1:01:46
That's good. Listen, it's not going to stop happening. Like, that's what I've learned from talking to people. Like, in the beginning, you wanted to say, like, oh, it's because they're nine, it's because they're 15, it's because they have diabetes, yeah. And like, I've now talked to somebody at every age 10 different times, and it's not changing. Like a 35 year old, a 45 year old, a 60 year old sometimes is like, I don't want to do this. And it's not a conscious give up. I know it's part of the churn of the whole thing. You know what I mean? Like, burn out, yeah, the way the water comes in and goes out and goes in the tide, like, just, sometimes just it, just it eats stuff up as it comes through, and I don't think there's anything you can do about it. Sometimes
Marissa 1:02:26
just, they just get burned out, you know. So I'm happy to take over whenever, and, you know, just kind of, you know, Bolus from the next room, or what, you know, whatever it is I need to do so they can just worry about being kids.
Scott Benner 1:02:38
I think that's awesome. I think that everybody diabetes or not, does better when there's a person with them that can just for a sec, just shoulder the load for a second for them, whatever it
Marissa 1:02:48
is. So, yeah, don't you say and I hope all the kids have that. I know it's difficult for a lot of parents, yeah.
Scott Benner 1:02:54
Well, listen, the biggest difficulty I see from people is that they're like, well, that's their disease. They should take care of it. Or where they're 13, what are they going to learn? They're 19, what are they going to learn? Like, I, you know, I would ask you, if you feel like that, like, go into a quiet room somewhere and be real honest with yourself and tell me, have you learned yet? You know what I mean? Like, there's not a thing you count on other people for. I think it's just frustration and and Everyone's tired. Oh, you know. So eventually you just go like, Oh, this is theirs, not
Marissa 1:03:22
mine, but it's kind of a family thing. I think it is. Yeah, I know you know what. I mean, it's just like, the whole family. We're all part of it. We're all diabetic,
Scott Benner 1:03:31
yeah, yeah, no. I mean, it's just my son the other day, like, he's a really sweet, nice, smart kid, right? And I was cleaning up after Arden's puppy. And he goes, where's Arden? I said, she's really sick. And he goes, Oh, she's been sick a lot lately. I said, Yeah, that's why I'm helping her. But he's still too young to know, like, what? Like, he still thinks, like, Well, you got to push through. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. I'm like, All right, man, well, like, she's pushing through. Like, you know she's not. Can jump out a window. You know what I mean? Like, she's, she's just, she's just laying down getting a nap and, like, and I'm gonna do this for her and and by the way, you know this morning when I came down to make myself breakfast, and you were working, and you were in between meetings, and you texted me and said, Hey, do I smell you cooking? I didn't say, push through, right? I said, Yeah, I'll make you a wrap too. You know what I mean
Marissa 1:04:23
Exactly? Well, I have to know about this puppy too, by the way. Oh Christ,
Scott Benner 1:04:27
listen, I made a mistake. I just want to say, Marissa, what kind of puppy he's a French Bulldog. Oh, those are so cute. And he's got Doberman colors. He's like, he's like, that brown, but he has a little bit of lighter brown in him and like he's so here's what happened. I don't know if I've been clear about this on the podcast yet, but we'll do it here. Marissa, why not? Right? So Arden's at SCAD the Savannah College of Art and Design for a couple of years learning how to make clothing. Yes, and I will not malign. Them, but it was a bad fit for Arden. That's polite. Okay, here's my own opinion, right? I don't think they do a good job of teaching anybody there seems a little bit like a mill, and maybe they're just happy to have your money. Oh, okay, I will use as a word for word. Example, Arden was in a pivotal class that she needed for her major. She needed an understanding of this thing to move on. She was told by her instructor directly, not through another person. And I know this is a quote, because it was texted to me. I can't believe this. This was just said to me, and I'm quoting. I've never done this professionally. I've never taught this before. Oh, if you have a question, don't ask me. Oh, my. And then they were given a YouTube link. Oh, gosh, I won't tell you how much I paid for that YouTube link, but that YouTube link was not enough for Arden to get a masterful grasp of what she needed to learn. And then she came to us and said, I now do not understand this thing, and if I am to go on to next year, I'm going to fail miserably for not having this understanding. It was about that time that she started taking a like, a step back and talking to more people, and they started realizing things like classes were not always available, and it started feeling like they weren't available on purpose so that you'd have to stay longer stuff like, Oh, I've run that past some people who know the school, and those people said that that's not a crazy thing for me to be wondering if that's happening. So anyway, all that put together, Arden said, I am going to leave here and pivot and go somewhere else, and I think I'm going to get a psychology degree. Awesome, right? So in the pressure of making that switch, she felt a lot of pressure just to keep going, because she knew she was going to be behind. So she, like, came home, told Scott she wasn't coming back, applied to a few schools, got accepted, and chose the best school that she was accepted to that for her major and everything. And then she was at Pitt University of Pittsburgh. Awesome, awesome. And she did great. I just want everybody to know like she was there for one semester, fantastic. Perfect grades, but she was literally by herself in a concrete box, and she did not know one person there, and everybody she was in school with was suddenly younger than her because of this thing. And she just one day, like, she was, like, I just, I just want to come home. Like, like, I want to just go somewhere close to home. So Arden is in school now close to our house. She's commuting. She's doing awesome. She's getting a she's getting a great degree, very positive. It's all going very well.
Marissa 1:07:50
That's awesome. I know you're glad to have her close too. Listen,
Scott Benner 1:07:54
of course, I want my kids around for as long as I possibly could, where it's not hurting them at the same time, all of that happening on top of itself. The thing you'll never know about SCAD was it was like a job, but it was like a job where you worked 1820 hours a day, and that's terrible. So she was there at 1819, just going that hard, then boom, pivot. Get her out of there. We had just gotten her her own place in Savannah, like, and we had to, like, like, get out of it for her to go to pit. And then she went all the way from Savannah to pit. Then she was completely by herself. And it just was anyway, I think, while she was at Pitt and she was by herself, she started sending everybody pictures of puppies. Oh, our dog had passed away. Our oldest dog had passed away that summer. Basal, no Indeed, indeed passed away this summer. Oh, so sorry. Thank you. But basal is 11. We didn't realize, because Indy was so freaking old, it made basal look like a puppy. But all of a sudden, all of a sudden, you're like, God, basal is a lot older than you think he is. Anyway. Like, look at this one, Dad, look at that when mom takes group chats with puppy pictures all the time, and I'm like, no one's getting a puppy. We're not getting a puppy. Leave me alone. No puppy, no puppy, no puppy, no puppy. And my wife's like, you know, I really think she could use something, and she's having a tough time. And so, like, that was in my head a little bit, but I was still hard lined. I was like, I know a puppy's a mistake. Like, we're not getting a puppy. Like, we'll get her anything else. Well, one day, she sent a picture of this puppy, and I was like, God, damn, this Puppy's Cute, right? So like, I think I got, like, weak, and then the picture got me, honestly, it just felt like she needed something positive to happen. And we love, like, you know, we love our dogs. So like, Yeah, we had a long, like, a lot of long discussions. They were uncomfortable at some points even about, like, you know, this is your dog, like, that kind of thing. But the last bit was, when you move out, this dog goes with you, if that's a year from now or five years from now, I don't care. But that's not my dog. It's your dog. So anyway, yeah. He's really adorable. Like, if you're listening to this, like, go find my Instagram and look around, because there's a really cute dog on that Instagram.
Marissa 1:10:08
I'll do that because I love puppies. Like, I think puppy is always the right answer. Puppy is always the right answer, always the right answer. You
Scott Benner 1:10:15
trying to name your episode? Oh, I don't know.
Marissa 1:10:19
I do love puppies. I was going to
Scott Benner 1:10:21
use that thing that you said at the end of that sentence, which, by the way, you you successfully stopped saying after you said, Oh,
Marissa 1:10:26
thank you. Thank you. I guess I was like, subconsciously, you know, aware you probably shut it
Scott Benner 1:10:31
off. Yeah, don't do any more southern stuff. So is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have?
Marissa 1:10:37
I think we're good. You know, I had broke down a few notes and stuff. So I think, I think I'm good. We made it through. We got, we got what you wanted. Yes, I really appreciate you talking with me. Oh no,
Scott Benner 1:10:49
it's been great. The puppy picture was put up on February 7.
Marissa 1:10:53
What's his name? Friday? That's cute. Why is that? Is there a special reason? No,
Scott Benner 1:10:59
just, Arden was just going through names and trying to figure it out. And it was during the the Eagles run the Super Bowl. So my son was pushing very hard to call him say, Quan, I'll tell you that much. He started calling the puppy say, Quan, okay. She's like, that's not his name. And he goes, it should be no, I don't know. She just went over a bunch of different names, and she's like, I think I'm gonna call him Friday. I was like, Okay, so he's Friday.
Marissa 1:11:22
Oh, awesome. Well, congrats. It's like having a baby. Oh yeah, you
Scott Benner 1:11:26
just learned to go up and down the stairs, which is at a dimension we've, we've had in this house two dogs before Friday, and they, they don't do stairs, like I, I've dogs that have never been upstairs in my house like, because they they will not go up the stairs. They will only go down a few stairs. They're just like, they've never been stare dogs, man, this day, this dog, I'm upstairs one day, and I'm like, what's hitting me in the back of my leg? And he's like, there. I'm like, Oh no. And then I was like, I was like, gonna go back down? He stared. He stares at the staircase, and he's like, I'm not going back down. So we thought, okay, maybe that'll keep him from going up. Wouldn't stop him from going up. The other day, he just, I watched him just run down a flight of stairs, and I was like, Oh, I
Marissa 1:12:09
know, right. You're like, now he can make a mess in two floors. Exactly
Scott Benner 1:12:13
what I was thinking. I was like, Oh no, we were keeping the puppy explosion in one place anyway. This was really nice, thanking me. But this was really nice of you to do like, you know, you tell your story of your boys and and your family and everything, and share with other people and and get me talking, and I think I said some pretty valuable stuff there around the 45 minute work, yeah, and I and you did as well. So I'm thanking you. It's very nice.
Marissa 1:12:35
Oh, I hope so. I just, you know, I want people to know that, you know, diabetes is not the worst whatever. I think everybody knows diabetes is not the worst thing, but I just think it was like I was so grateful that my kid had diabetes instead of whatever else My mind was was thinking up, yeah, and it was such a great accidental way to learn. In fact, after he kind of got well and he was in the honeymoon phase, he didn't even require insulin for like, a year. No, no, yeah. And so then he came out of the honeymoon phase and blah, blah, blah. But my his, I think his agency was like 6.9 when he was diagnosed.
Scott Benner 1:13:11
Okay, you know the irony here is your husband's freak out gave you perspective that you probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Marissa 1:13:18
Yeah, you're probably right, yeah, even though thank him, yeah.
Scott Benner 1:13:22
Well, listen, there's no you don't have to do that. That's okay. You don't want to start making him feel like he's valued or smart, because then he's going to get all full of himself. Okay. Keep him right where you have less true. How long did it take you to put him where he is right now, keep,
Marissa 1:13:36
oh, gosh, I think I'm still working on it.
Scott Benner 1:13:40
That's the difference between the South and the North? Because my wife put me in my spot pretty early on. I was like, oh, okay, is this where I belong? Oh, maybe that is the difference. Well, I'm moving to Arkansas, then, yeah, you should visit. It's really pretty here. Oh, no kidding. All right. Well, I'll put it on my list of to do's, is there a time of year I do not want to come? I mean,
Marissa 1:13:57
if you don't like hot weather, you probably don't want to be here, like August, maybe even September.
Scott Benner 1:14:03
Okay, all right, yeah, Arkansas, not in August or September.
Marissa 1:14:07
Yeah, like, right now it's 70 degrees, skies blue, some clouds, breezy. It's just beautiful today, but it's April. So and
Scott Benner 1:14:16
do we call ourselves Razorbacks? Or is that?
Marissa 1:14:18
Oh my gosh, yes. Razorbacks, Arkansas. Razorbacks, the Go hogs. That's what you say. Yeah, that's what I say. Well, that's what Arkansans say when I get there, Arkansas. Oh, I never thought of that. There are Kansans. Oh, you're an arkansan. Yeah, it's an Arkan we are Arkansans. I like you saying that. Okay, all right. Well, like Kansans, but Arkansans, oh, wait, so
Scott Benner 1:14:39
if I'm from Kansas, I'm a Kansan, I guess, Oh, you don't know. I
Marissa 1:14:44
don't really know, but we are our Kansans, so I'm not sure. That's a really good question. Well,
Speaker 1 1:14:48
I don't know. It doesn't matter. We'll be okay. All right, hold on one second. All right. Thanks. You.
Scott Benner 1:15:00
Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link. 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. Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox Podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community, Juicebox Podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. Of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com.
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#1572 Smart Bites: Teaching Nutrition That Sticks
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.
Teaching real-life nutrition habits for kids, teens, and adults—how to build healthy foundations and make better food choices without guilt or overwhelm.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends to another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.
Welcome to my nutrition series with Jenny Smith. Jenny and I are going to in very clear and easy to understand. Ways walk you from basic through intermediate and into advanced. Nutritional ideas, we're going to tie it all together with type one diabetes, talk about processed foods and how you can share these simple concepts with the people in your life, whether it's your children, other adults or even seniors, besides being the person you've heard on the bold beginnings and Pro Tip series and so much more. Jennifer Smith is a person living with type one diabetes for over 35 years. She actually holds a bachelor's degree in Human Nutrition and biology from the University of Wisconsin. She's a registered and licensed dietitian, a certified diabetes educator. She's a trainer on all kinds of pumps and CGM. She's my friend, and I think you're going to enjoy her thoughts on better eating. If this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcast or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. 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, the episode you're about to listen to is sponsored by tandem Moby, the impressively small insulin pump. Tandem Moby features tandems newest algorithm control, iq plus technology. It's designed for greater discretion, more freedom and improved time and range. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox Jenny and I are back to add to the nutrition series, but we've been talking about personal stuff for a while, so I just told Jenny, I'm all warmed up. I might speak too quickly, so keep an eye out, Jenny, if i i start babbling too quickly, I will fix it. Thank you. Yeah, you just slow me down. You go, Hey, slow down, buddy. So far, we've done the first three modules, and today we're looking at number four, advanced nutrition. And you have this marked for 18 and older health professionals and those wanting in depth understanding. So what are we going to talk about today?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:59
Yeah, so we've talked a lot about the some of the basics, right? Even, I think last time, we talked a lot more about how more processed types of foods impact overall health in a lot of different categories. And the reason for this more advanced Nutrition has to do with understanding how much your body needs, and it really is based on things like your sex and what weight you want to be at, how active you are, and then even moving into the diabetes realm, which is, again, the big piece of your podcast is, why is It then important to focus on the wealth of nutrients coming from all of those food groups that we've talked about already? Right? All the macronutrients boils down to the micronutrients. At what level do those micronutrients have a role in overall diabetes management, whether it's type one or type two, there are numbers of things. And I think a big, you know, a big piece is that people in general have been very focused on carbohydrates. And in the end, what I see is there's no understanding of how much to have in your intake on a day to day basis, okay, and especially, I see that for adults, kiddos, many times, will have a meeting with a registered dietitian, especially first at, you know, initial diagnosis to establish where are they on their growth curve. Are they growing well, have they kind of fallen off because of loss around the diagnosis time? How to get them back on their curve. And then what does your child do? Are they athletic? Are they more sedentary? But in all, whatever age you're at, it's understanding how much do you need, that's from a caloric level. And then again, those micronutrients, how much do you need of that? There are, you know, host of places that you can kind of chart things. There's things like lose it in my fitness pal and I spark people and places to put in weights and goals and that kind of thing, and get a feedback of this is your overall nutrient goal based on your parameters you've entered. But working with somebody to really establish that is valuable, because if you're really just focused on covering the food you eat with insulin, you could 100% have an overage, or you could be undercutting what you need in one category, and then your overall health can suffer.
Scott Benner 5:35
Do you find that people just think of eating as addressing hunger a lot of times. And not so much about fueling, right? 100% Yeah? Because it's funny, because you say macronutrients. And even I was like, macronutrients, like, is that a thing? I don't understand. So I went over to like, a web portal, and I was like, give me some examples of macronutrients, in case I don't know what I'm talking about. And all it said was, carbohydrates, proteins, fats and water, yeah, but you need a mix of chicken breast, rice, oats, like, you know, that kind of stuff. Yep, I get afraid that people are like, Mac nu. What is that like? But I gotta take a supplement. Like, you know what I mean? Like, no, you just have to eat a reasonable balance of quality foods when you're hungry,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:18
right? And you can, let's say you are the healthiest in choosing your they're all organic, and don't do anything that's processed and whatever. But if you don't know how much food you actually need, you could have the loveliest looking blood sugars. But you're wondering, well, why can't I get rid of this excess 10 pounds or whatever? Why
Scott Benner 6:37
won't my muscle build up because I Yeah, right, yeah, because I eat chicken. But actually, Jenny, you put me to this, like, while I've been losing weight, because I said, I told Jenny, I'm like, I'm taking in protein I'm doing this and this, she goes, Are you eating enough? And I was like, Oh, I don't know. What's enough, yeah, you know, I didn't realize. Like, so I'm putting all this effort and eating chicken and not eating enough of it. And I was like, Oh, you got to be kidding me. I added a protein powder, yeah, yeah. Because I was scared, I was like, I'm on a GLP. I don't want to not have enough protein. No, okay, and we
Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:07
lose muscle mass as we get older. I think it's after about the age of 30 or 35 if I remember correctly, you no longer really gain a heck of a lot, and it takes a lot more effort to maintain and then build that muscle structure, right? So anytime you're doing more of the resistance training and whatnot, you're really kind of tearing muscle fibers apart, yeah, in like, layman's terms, explanation, right? And then you have to rebuild that. The way that you rebuild that is putting back the right grouping of macronutrients. And also then the reason we eat the big food groups for their caloric value, which comes from the macros we get all of the micros, which, again, we've kind of talked about the micronutrients being non caloric, but they do provide the vitamins, the minerals, little antioxidants, and those pieces that we have to have from a very Small structure in our body. Our cell structure requires those,
Scott Benner 8:03
yeah, and these things exist in the right foods, but they don't exist in some things. I know it's so hard to think about, like, yes, a manufacturer makes a potato chip and then they add something into it, because it has to rise to some level to even be considered to be food, right? So they'll sprinkle something on it. But this is not where you should be getting your vitamin B from, or something like that, right?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:25
I'm imagining them at the food man. They're like, let's sprinkle this. How much do I have to sprinkle
Scott Benner 8:29
on that? We can feed this to humans, right? Right? Like, and because it's all flavor and nothing else, really, it really is, right, yeah, where do people like, trip, like, how come they don't add butter or avocado when they're looking for fat or something like that. Like, how come, or is it always just too much or not enough? Like, where do people, like, fall short when they're not getting their macros? 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, you can manage diabetes confidently with the powerfully simple Dexcom g7 dexcom.com/juicebox the Dexcom g7 is the CGM that my daughter is wearing. The g7 is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or smart watch. The g7 is made for all types of diabetes, type one and type two, but also people experiencing gestational diabetes. The Dexcom g7 can help you spend more time in range, which is proven to lower a 1c The more time you spend in range, the better and healthier you feel. And with the Dexcom clarity app, you can track your glucose trends, and the app will also provide you with a projected a 1c in as little as two weeks. If you're looking for clarity around your diabetes, you're looking for Dexcom, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, dexcom.com/juicebox head over there. Now
Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:04
we fall short entirely in our education system. That's where we start to fall short is nobody learns these things unless one you've gone to school to understand them, like I have right, or you've done your homework and said I don't feel right. Or I'm trying to do this in terms of, like sports performance, and I'm not quite getting there. What am I doing wrong? And thankfully, now, you know, we don't have to go to like, Encyclopedia Britannica to look things up at the library. We can Google it or use AI systems or whatever to look up information. But unless you're really willing to do that, we fall short in the fact that we haven't been taught how much do we need? Why do we need it? And that's kind of the basis of this. Is the build of understanding, so that, you know, as kids, kids get what they get in a good way from their parents, what their parents understand and bring into the house has value as they then grow up and start to make sense of well, gosh, I was a runner. Right in high school. I got better at running, but thought I could probably do better. I went into college as a runner, but really didn't know why I was failing and not progressing. Had they learned some of the things about what goes in to build their body and to build that piece, they probably could do better. So in understanding these basic ideas, the goal is essentially to build a platform for parents to educate better. That's why this is more advanced, right? People, I said, probably over about the age of 18, so that they can really incorporate this idea in starting with how much do I need? It's based on where you are in your life, who you are, what your workout plan is kind of like. And then a piece behind it that even goes a little bit deeper is we're all made up genetically a bit differently, right? We have genes that have come down through our own heritage, that do impact our own body's metabolism, right, how we store and burn those macronutrients that we essentially take in. And I think a great way to boil it down is, you know, we talk about diet plans earlier, we've listed a whole bunch of them, right? And the piece here to figure out is people end up really do their homework. They end up finding some type of fueling plan that feels the best for them and gives them eventually the results that they want, and then they stick with it. But there is no one plan. There is nothing that will fit every single human on this planet. And the reason has to boil down to our genetics. We are all a bit different. You have to do your homework. You have to know a little bit about, well, you know, my grandma, my dad's mom, she was probably the tiniest person in our family. She was very healthy. She just died in old age, right? A better portion of the other part of my family, my mom's side, all definitely have some type of metabolic issue. They are much bigger people. They had there's a lot of cancer, obesity and all of that kind of stuff. And so if you know enough family history and enough history in terms of family health history, we can work against genetics.
Scott Benner 14:30
It's hard. You know, how I prove that out in my head is I'm actually thinking of this one person who has type one diabetes. She's, I can't think of her name. She's probably listening like, great, she's Canadian and she's a bodybuilder, right? Okay, I see her online. She pops up in my feed all the time. And I think there's a person who perfectly figured out what nutrients their body needs, right? Because you don't build to that size by mistake. Like, look, no, I'm doing resistance training. Every day, right? And when I'm done, I'm like, Oh, if I look like this all day, this would be awesome, right then, but, like, but I wake up the next day and I don't look like that anymore. But if I take enough protein and I eat the right way, I actually hold that the next day, right? Like, so she's figured that out, like, blown up in a big way. I'm not asking all of you to do that, but I'm saying this, like, if you're not using the right building blocks every day, not only are you gonna have lesser outcomes, right? You brought food in anyway. You might as well bring in the right food, you're gonna have lesser outcomes day to day. But what Jenny's saying is, like, it could really impact you 10 and 20 years from now as well. And I think maybe, just to highlight the idea, before we started recording, I told Jenny I missed my GLP medication for a day, and I woke up that following day two pounds heavier, and it's just water weight, right? It goes away. But like to Jenny's point about us all being different, it doesn't make any sense that my body would retain two pounds of liquid just because I'm not taking that GLP for a day. Like, there's something wrong with how my body's built,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:05
and it's making up for it with using it for why? Why does it work that way for you and for other people? Exactly, it
Scott Benner 16:12
doesn't Right, right? Like, how come, like, some people take that medication? I've heard people say, like, I've been on it for three months, I haven't lost any weight. I lost 14 pounds in the first week, right? Whatever happened, my body was like, Oh, we've been looking for that. And like, you know? And boom, and all that water weight came out of me. Why? It doesn't make any sense. I didn't change how I ate. I didn't, didn't, I didn't even know I was on the medication. Like, I didn't feel any differently. So tell me if I'm right about this. Because sure, like, I told you I went I just said, like, Hey, tell me what my macronutrients are and it breaks them down into carbs. But it also says what carbs do is that it gives you quick access for fuel for your brain and your muscles. Gives you some examples, oats, rice, pasta, potatoes, fruits, beans, table sugar, honey, and it says protein building blocks for muscles, enzymes, hormones and immune cells like chicken, breast, eggs, Greek yogurt, tofu, lentils, salmon, peanut butter. So I'll make sense to you, okay, Jenny's like, great. Good thing I went to college because now any dumb ass can ask this thing. But
Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:11
like, well, it's a good thing you can read. So there you go.
Scott Benner 17:15
Fats, long term energy. Cell membrane structure helps absorb fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. You can get that from avocados, olive oil, nuts and seeds, butter, cheese, fatty fish like salmon. And then it lists water right? And it says that this is often listed separately, but the way it thinks of it is solvent for biochemical reactions, temperature control, nutrition, transport, and so you can get water by drinking it or by eating things like cucumbers, watermelon, broth, stuff like that. So that's what you're talking about. You're talking about, like a good blend of these kinds of items. How long if I'm sitting here now listening and I'm like, I don't feel right, my body's not where it should be. I know something's wrong. How long do you think a person eats like that before they sit, stand up and go? I do seem like, I think I feel better now. Like, how long do you think that has to happen for?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:11
It would be a pure guess. Honestly, if I put a number out there, days, weeks, whatever I think it does depend on how, for lack of a better word, how messed up their system is, right? It's gonna take some cleansing, if you will, of a system, especially if there's a lot of packed in issues in the arteries and the vessels and that kind of stuff, there's a lot of cleanup that the body has to work on. And one of the big pieces in our body that really is driving our sort of burn, our metabolic everything, is our mitochondria. There are a host of really good books all about mitochondria out there. It's really, you know, what we call the powerhouse of the cell, right? And then how we generate energy comes from how well our cells work, how well they clean themselves up, how well they kill themselves off, how well they regenerate. And so again, how long would it take? I think it doesn't take long to determine a fueling plan that you know doesn't feel right, okay, right? Because I can definitely say I'm somebody that I know how to do, for lack of a better you know, use is I can do the ketogenic diet. I have very flat looking blood sugars. I can do it to a T, but I do not feel the way that I know that I should feel on it okay. It doesn't work that way for me metabolically. So I know what works for me. I know what I've found works for me, gives me energy, allows me to be active the way that I need to, allows me to think through the course of the day without brain fog, etc, etc. So I think how long it's going to take might also. To take some experimentation and say, well, especially with diabetes, this doesn't seem to be working for me. I've tried everything in and out with Bolus timing or insulin timing and everything. Maybe I need to clean this up. Maybe I need to cut this back a bit, add a bit more of this, and it may not be a specific named diet, so to speak, but you will end up finding things that make you feel well and also, in the realm of diabetes, help you manage your blood sugars as well as you possibly can, along with also letting your body respond to insulin the way that it's supposed to
Scott Benner 20:33
respond. Yeah, and I don't want to sound like a hippie here, but like I think also when you start eating differently, I've had this experience, it takes a little while for your again. I even saying this out loud makes me feel stupid, but like, I know that this is true. Like, your gut microbiome, like, it takes a while for it to shift again. It's been breaking down whatever the dust is that they put over the thing to like, like, that's got to get out of you. Like, right? And it's not so much. It's got to get out of you is that it's like, it's that your body has to learn how to deal with something. Like, you've put your body in a situation where it is pretty reasonably processing a ho, ho or whatever, like thing, like, right? Like, it's nothing Jenny would not eat if you put a gun to her head. So, like, your body's learned how to get that through you, and now you're putting in good stuff it doesn't have what it needs to break down chicken and, like, it's, it's a different mix in there, and so you have to kind of make it through that, maybe take a probiotic at first to try to help you along. Because I hear, I hear all the time people say, like, oh, I made a shift, but my stomach was uneasy, or, like, I just couldn't do it anymore. And I'm like, Yeah, I think that's because your body was so used to doing it this way. It's got to adjust it this way.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:41
It has to clean it up Absolutely. And so that's why I don't think that there's a time frame to really put on, how long until you start to feel better. And again, with diabetes in the mix, you do have, you have a piece to watch that other people without diabetes don't have. We have a CGM or a glucometer to be able to use and say, Well, I'm not quite feeling better yet, but I do see that my blood sugars look better when I do this.
Scott Benner 22:06
Yeah. Do you find, generally speaking, that people with type one end up oversimplifying their nutrition, because it is a lot about like, if I can cover this with insulin, without spiking, without getting low, I have a success at this meal.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:20
Some people can oversimplify again, this is where personality comes into the mix, right? Some personalities do really, really well with the same thing over and over, because it's what they've figured out works and they don't veer from it. And if they're okay with that, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as they're meeting all of their micronutrient needs, if they're getting a host of everything they need. There is some limit to eating that way too.
Scott Benner 22:45
Yeah, no, at some point it can't just be about I know how to keep it from causing a spike, right? So, right, yeah, exactly. It's got to be food.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:53
It's got to be food. And in our world today, you know, as we've said before, we have so much that inter that's social about food intake. And can you be social without food? Absolutely, you certainly can. But it food has worked its way into the majority of settings in which we interact with other people, yeah, and so you have to work your way around it. Maybe you establish, I think everybody with diabetes, whether there's a name for it or not, we end up having some type of rule around how we do things, okay, around how we navigate food. We all end up with some some level of disordered eating, truly. You know, when you think about it, you may end up eating less of this, because you know that eating This amount could keep things under control better, or you shy away from this or that. And again, we don't define it by a true eating disorder, name of which there are within the realm of diabetes, but I think we all have these rules that we've established in how we navigate our day to day, to keep our control, so to speak, where we want it to be.
Scott Benner 24:06
I take your point. I mean, when food is medicine, it's tough. Like, you know, you mean, like, Dan, I don't mean like, listen, food could be medicine for all of you if you ate off that list. But like, I'm saying, like, when you know, you're like, oh, I have to eat something now. It needs to work in the next five minutes, or I'm going to get dizzy, or I'm going to pass out, or this is going to happen like it really does change. It's just, it seems like an oversimplification to say, but like, type one, I guess type two diabetes changes how you think about food in a way that I don't think is good. You know, I was just interviewing a woman who had Lada as an adult, and I'm not gonna, like, retell her story, but the myriad of psychological impact she had from not knowing, can I eat this? How much of this should I eat? What is this going to do? Like she was frozen, like she almost couldn't eat at all. Right? It's not fair, but I think what we're saying here is, if you take foods in that you. Find that jive well with your body that bring in micro and macronutrients. You might find diabetes to be easier to manage as well. You know, you
Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:09
may Absolutely and you know, as I as when we kind of started, it was, how much do you need? What you figured out does work? Then what's the portion of everything that you kind of need so just that you've found out, great, I do really well with broccoli, but I don't do super great with peas, fabulous. But that doesn't mean you should eat, like, six buckets of broccoli every single you know. And it boils down to then figuring out, how much nutrient do we need in our day to day intake. And we have, you know, two things. Really we've got our Do you know what BMR is,
Scott Benner 25:44
body mass? No, I don't know.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:48
That's my best guess. No, that's that's okay. I when we talk about, like, caloric intake, we talk about need versus need being what our body needs at base, and then overall, what do we need? Because we've added other variables into the day, like exercise, right? So BMR is our basal metabolic rate. Okay, that really speaks to the number of calories. And again, everybody's is a bit different. It's a base for breathing, thinking cells to develop all the essential functions that would go into maintaining your body, even if just sat on the couch all day long, you still need calories for that. Yeah, and it's a fair amount of calories, quite honestly, to keep your head up, to keep your head up, right? So essentially, then we add on to that. What do we need in total? When we add in our what we're called like activities of, you know, normal daily life, like walking around work, at at our job, or exercise that we do, or, you know, whatever it is, there's an extra amount of calories into that that we want to take into consideration. For those who are working on weight management, how do you know, well how much I need, but I really want to lose weight, so how much deficit then do I need in order to lose a certain amount of weight? So, you know, in terms of that, you may find the fueling plan, but then how much on that fueling plan do you need becomes the next thing to pay
Scott Benner 27:15
attention to, right? And I mean, how do you figure that out? There are
Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:19
formulas. And again, one of the easiest places to go. You can do it free or paid versions. I always think of like my fitness pal, is you can put in your parameters, and it'll give you a baseline of your your needs. And then, when you say, but I'm going to be moderately active six days a week, then it builds into that base an amount also. Then with the goal of, let's say I want to lose 12 pounds. Great. You've told me you want to be at this weight. You're active this amount, your baseline needs are here. So it kind of does all the math for you.
Scott Benner 27:50
Yeah, I hate to say it, but, like, I probably just go to any AI model and ask it, you could probably get the answer. Sure that AI could probably do it. I know people are going to give me crap, but you know, I was interviewing somebody last week who told me, you know, Scott, you talked about how you used AI for something, and I picked it up and tried it. And I've always had trouble talking to my doctors, so now I have the conversation with the AI first, and then ask the AI how to approach my doctor with it. And she's like, and then I email that to them, and I find that it's more concise than when I write it out. That's great. I ask it to be a little more technical so the doctor can understand it better. And she's like, and now I'm having a much better time talking to my physicians about my health. And I was like, Awesome. Cool. That is, you know, hey, I'm this old, I'm this tall, I weigh this much, you know, here's what I usually eat, but I'm hoping to eat somewhere like this. Can you tell me how much of it to achieve whatever I'm trying to achieve.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:43
And many of the platforms will even break it down, even I'm assuming AI would do it too. The more questions you ask or the more things that you want it to delve into. You can say, Hey, I'd really like the breakdown of my carbs, proteins and fats to be this percent, this percent, this percent. And I'm sure that it would break it down and say, great, you want to focus on this many grams from this group, and this many grams from this group to give you the overall, you know, breakdown in 3030, whatever.
Scott Benner 29:08
That's awesome. I think that anything that makes people's path easier is helpful, like, you know, because maybe people are embarrassed to go to a doctor and say, also, by the way, this is a group of people who've lived with, you know, autoimmune issues. There are doctors more often than not, and a lot of them have experiences of going to a physician asking a question and not getting an answer correct. It's a hard one to jump over, which is, I got to go to a doctor, set up an appointment, sit there and go, I don't like my weight or my health or like, so now you're embarrassed to begin with, can you tell me what they're doing? The guy goes, like, get more exercise. Like, awesome, great. I'm glad I took a day off from work for this. You know what I mean? Like, I need a real answer so
Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:44
well, and I think that is the the unfortunate thing people expect that their doctors are the person to go to for any health consideration. And that's just not the case. It's the reason that we have many different clinical places. Places to ask questions, right? I mean, you wouldn't ask your dentist about the fungus on your toe. He'd be like, I don't know.
Scott Benner 30:07
I'd go with my theory about the grocery store. Follow the fit people around, see what they're eating. Your doctor sitting there. Look like he's had seven packs of cigarettes today. Like, Hey, can I can I ask you a question about my health? He's probably like, Sure,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:21
right? Even, you know, even lab work, then, is another place, sure the doctor can order it. You can get the lab work. You can get the lab work back. And let's say, you know, taking this topic kind of further into not macro, but those micronutrients that we want, the reason we want to eat everything, it boils down to, well, maybe we're deficient in something. Maybe we don't have enough, you know, of magnesium or whatever it is, and there are quite a number that's specific to diabetes, play a pretty important role in helping manage background, how your body navigates life with diabetes. It helps with insulin use. It helps with glucose metabolism. A lot of different pieces in the mix, right? So we've got things like some of the fat soluble vitamins, vitamins A and D and E, that could actually be more deficient in those who have especially type one diabetes, you know, and the role of those quite valuable, you know, Vitamin D plays a big role in terms of sort of glucose metabolism, how your body uses insulin. On the cellular level, it has an important role, you know, in terms of overall, how our body sees and interacts with the food and then uses it up, yeah, you know. And then other things like magnesium and selenium and zinc and you know, their pieces B, 12 is a common one that's lower levels, and people who have type one, so if you're going to get those analyzed, great, but then know who to go to to talk about, what to do about it, right? Because I guarantee your primary care is not the person who's going to know the baseline. They're going to say, well, take a take a supplement. You might be have, you might have really expensive PE then,
Scott Benner 32:14
yeah, yeah. Now you're at the grocery store picking up some garbage, gummy or something like that, and spending $50 a month on it. It's not doing anything for you. Also, I'm not going to give any more details here, because I don't want to muddy the water, but you just gave me a great idea for a series for the podcast. So, oh, thank you. Awesome. Sure. Yay. Where are we at on our list? I want to make sure we're I
Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:32
want to definitely talk about micronutrients, which I just mentioned, kind of the big ones, essentially, that are often deficient, not always, but often. Vitamin D, I think, is top of the hit list there, quite honestly, how the body metabolizes different nutrients. We've kind of talked about that you brought up your nice AI of those macronutrients, what your body does with them and why they're important overall disease prevention, kind of more therapeutic nutrition, I think it's a it's definitely a piece that's beneficial to know about, because most people with diabetes may not have a second condition right now, but many people do. Yeah. Many people already have some type of what's called digestive disorder. Many people are always already having some type of heart disease or nerve problem or another autoimmune condition. We tend to in medicine, unfortunately, compartmentalize conditions. Take care of this one, and then we do this for this one over here, when really they all have an impact on each other. So we need to start looking at the whole of the person and what they're living with, whether it's one chronic thing like type one or a host of things like celiac and type one and thyroid and whatever. And we have to see how, from a nutrition standpoint, how are the things that we're doing interacting as a whole? Are there pieces missing? Do we need to start adding something that will benefit the whole, rather than picking them apart and only treating to one thing. Yeah.
Scott Benner 34:05
Okay, so I have to tell you, like, it's because we've been talking about this. I've approached Erica about talking about an idea too, that I think will help with this. And so okay, we'll bring it in later. But I think there's kind of the idea of, there's what we want and what we want to want. It's easy to talk about all this, but, and you can say, like, you know, I want to want this, like, I really do, but what I want is, yeah, you know, pizza rolls, course, yes. So we have to figure out a way. Like you just said, like you can't, you can't keep breaking things up into little like, we'll do this, then we'll do that, then we'll do this. Because if you keep saying like, you like, I'm going to address how I eat, but your brain's telling you not to do these things, you're not going to make it long. You know, there's that piece too. So I'm going to talk to Erica about how to logical. You know, you don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but a lot of this food probably has a hold on you in one way or another. Yeah, and making you want more like little drug dealers running around
Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:04
those people, you know, no that, and that's a great topic to bring up with her, because there truly are, I think we even talked about it before, you know, many different kind of cultural groups and or the way that you grew up eating. It becomes a piece of your family structure. And if you're the one that changes, and now you're doing this, and you're the only one eating the items that you brought, and everybody else is the wealth of the rest of the table, there's a big psychological piece to that, and you almost start feeling like the outsider then. So that's a great topic to bring up.
Scott Benner 35:39
Yeah, I just think that there's things that just get burned into your circuit boards, you know. Like, I'll tell you, you take my wife to a movie, she's buying popcorn. It doesn't matter if she wants it or not. Sometimes she'll have, like, four fingers full of it, and then she puts it down. I'm like, I think we just bought $75 worth of popcorn for you to have a handful of popcorn. I'm like, You didn't even want this. And she goes, No, I know, but it's hard to go to a movie without popcorn. I'm like, what? Like, it's something from her childhood. You know what? I mean, like, it just sticks to her. She goes into a movie theater, she buys popcorn. You want that? I mean, I don't know, but we're at a movie like, okay, let's just imagine all the other things that you're doing throughout the day that you don't realize. So
Jennifer Smith, CDE 36:20
absolutely, I there a host of things. Again, that's why, from this age, this more advanced piece, it's a I hope that more you know, parents, adults who have influence on the younger can start to understand it and even bring in some of the concepts in an easy way into family structure. Because it's what I've tried to do with our kids to help
Scott Benner 36:45
them. I've said this before in probably my weight loss series and other places, but you're gonna hear me cheerlead for glps, because I think some people are in such a generational pickle that they it's not, honestly, you can go to all the therapy you want. I don't think you're breaking free of it. Breaking free of it. If you can stop your brain from wanting to eat and stop your stomach from telling you you're hungry long enough for you to eat these macro and micronutrients have I mean, Jenny, look, it's two years now, I look like a completely different person. Now, yeah, I'm just gonna be honest with you, I don't think there's any world where I would have done this on my own. I could have accomplished it on my own. I forget that me even trying. I've been trying my whole life. I don't think I was getting it done. If you want to sit here and say that, you know, you go back and my dad grew up on a farm, and they ate, like, way too much food, and my mom was all about, like, make more, make more. And it was never good food, but there was always a ton of it. Or, you know, I think I shared with you recently that I'd eat grilled cheese constantly, but it was just wonder bread, butter and Velveeta. Yeah. I mean, I've probably eaten a truckload of that in my life, I'm sure, like, and so now I'm an adult, and I'm like, Oh, I can eat better now. I don't even know what that means, and my brain's wired from the sugar and the carbs and all the other stuff. Like, I was never somebody threw me in a hole so deep that even with a flashlight and a pair of spikes and a ladder, I wasn't getting out of it, right? Sure, this GLP came in, and it was like, here, you having trouble not thinking about food. Boom, done. You having trouble feeling full? Boom, done. And it's also wasn't magical. It wasn't a month or six weeks later, like it's two years later, yeah, but, but two years later, and I walked into the post office the other day. We have a very quaint little post office in my town, right? Like, it's literally, it's like five by five, and the same woman's been running it for years, and I only go there once a year to mail my taxes, because I like to see them put the I want to make sure it's dated correctly, right? Went in. I'm like, is this a my fault? If it doesn't go well, right? So I didn't see her last year. I saw the other guy that works there, and I walked in this year, so I hadn't seen her in two tax seasons. I walked through the door, we made eye contact. She lit up because she saw it was me, and I'm delightful, you know. And so, and she goes, Hey, how are you? Oh, are you okay?
Unknown Speaker 39:03
Because you look like you're a smaller human.
Scott Benner 39:05
Now it's been two years. I've looked like this now for eight months. I don't register what she's talking about, and so I'm frozen, and I'm looking her in the face. I'm like, What is she asking? Am I okay? And I can I just put it? Went, Oh, you think I have cancer? And she goes, Yeah, do you? And I'm like, No, I just I've lost a lot of weight, and we haven't seen each other in a while. She goes, oh, good for you. And then she started telling me about her husband and cancer and stuff like this. But what I realized is, is that, like, you know, had I seen her three months into this, she wouldn't have noticed. She wouldn't have noticed six months into it, she might have started seeing in a year. So if you're going to make these changes for yourself. It's not going to be right away, and if you need help, then you need help, right? I hate turning on another podcast or a TV show or something online and seeing some jacked up person tell me like you just don't want it enough. Like I want it plenty. Like I. Don't have your genetics, I don't have your job, I don't have your money. I don't have a lot of things like, right? Like my mom grew up giving me Velveeta cheese. I'm in a hole here. So anyway,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:09
well, I think the other thing, from a help standpoint, help from one angle, maybe it is some type of medication that helps you clear up that that food piece. But then I've seen enough people as well who may do fine using it in terms of what med does, but they still don't know the basics of what we've been building. You have to put it all together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have to find and if you don't know how to do that, and you want the wealth of benefit, if you are deciding to use something like this, then work with somebody who can truly help you get in quality. Because, again, there are a lot of pieces to using this medication that do focus around the quality of the food and those macronutrients and which ones are more heavily important.
Scott Benner 40:56
I am certainly not saying Just jab yourself once a week and eat your Doritos and like, and meld away. That's not valuable. Like, look, maybe it would be valuable on some level, but it's not. It's not what you're trying to do. But I'm just telling you, like, I have a personal story from this week in a meeting, and I can't give you any of the details. Like, somebody was in a meeting with somebody and said, I've lost over 100 pounds on a GLP medication, and in that room, someone treated them like they cheated. Oh, well, yeah, I guess if you don't have the stick to itiveness to do it on your own, yeah. And that person, by the way, was significantly overweight, and I was like, What is wrong with all of us? You want the same thing they have? Like you're mad at them for taking a shortcut, like it's not a shortcut. They weren't getting there, like it's not I know these people. They're not out there. They're not out there eating Crisco with both hands. It's not the world like, you know what I mean. So I'm not saying just take the Med and don't do anything else. I'm saying that if you can do all these things without that medication, then you should, and I think that's great if there's other things in the way I don't want to see you spend 10 years talking to a therapist to figure out why you want Cheetos on Thursday afternoons, because your mom used to come home and yell at you, like, I don't we ain't got time for all that. Jenny, right, life is short. Yeah, that's all I'm saying. Look, I got all upset at the end. All right, sorry.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:16
Oh, good. You didn't talk. You didn't talk too fast. Though they're all They're all warmed up, and I
Scott Benner 42:22
wrote myself a note before we started that. Just said, slow down.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:27
I did a great job. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hold on a second.
Scott Benner 42:36
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 head now to tandem diabetes.com/juice box and check out today's sponsor, tandem diabetes care. I think you're going to find exactly what you're looking for at that link, including a way to sign up and get started with the tandem Moby system. 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. You
my diabetes Pro Tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward, practical insights that truly make a difference, this series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin dosing adjustments or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal experience. And we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The Diabetes Pro Tip series runs between Episode 1001 1025 in your podcast player, where you can listen to it at Juicebox podcast.com by going up into the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com you.
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#1571 After Dark: Scared Straight
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.
Brock, 29, turned his life around after prison and heroin, now thriving with T1D and love.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.
Brock 0:14
Hello. My name is Brock West behest, and I am a type one diabetic, and I have been for about 10 years. If
Scott Benner 0:24
this is your first time listening to the Juicebox Podcast and you'd like to hear more, download Apple podcasts or Spotify, really, any audio app at all, look for the Juicebox Podcast and follow or subscribe. We put out new content every day that you'll enjoy. Want to learn more about your diabetes management. Go to Juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and look for bold Beginnings The Diabetes Pro Tip series and much more. This podcast is full of collections and series of information that will help you to live better with insulin. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin. This episode is sponsored by the tandem Moby system, which is powered by tandems, newest algorithm control, iq plus technology. Tandem Moby has a predictive algorithm that helps prevent highs and lows, and is now available for ages two and up. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox 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,
Brock 1:47
hello. My name is Brock Westby. Hess and I am a type one diabetic, and I have been for about 10 years, and I live in Wisconsin, sure enough, you know, place that gets plenty of crap from you.
Scott Benner 2:03
What you think I give Wisconsin crap?
Brock 2:05
I mean, you know, from what I've heard, yeah, so, you know, I listen to the podcast in a I have been listening to it in a chronological order, and I'm on episode like 666 right now. And yeah,
Scott Benner 2:24
Brock, let me ask you, how old are you right now? I'm 2929 Okay, so you were diagnosed around 19, yep, just out of high school. Maybe,
Brock 2:34
no. So I was going to say, you know, if, yeah, we can just jump in that way. I graduated high school at 17, not because I was super smart or anything. My birthday is in September. Okay, so it just worked out that way. I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school, and my mom ended up finding a program out in Colorado called Ski Area operations, and I'm a big have, have been my whole life. My mom and dad got me started, like when I was two, or something like that. That's what they tell me. I don't, I don't, you know, there's no pictures. They can't prove it. Well, no, there are, there are pictures. I don't know. You know exactly how old I look in them, but young, you're
Scott Benner 3:20
making me think of when my wife is telling stories and the kids are like, that's not what happened. You're missing the I always wonder whose memory is right, or if maybe nobody's is or, you know, but, but so, so you moved to Colorado right after high school when you were 17.
Brock 3:35
Yep. So I moved out to Colorado. You know, my parents helped me move out there. So I lived in Leadville, Colorado, which is the highest incorporated city in North America, which is a, you know, just a fun fact. What does that mean? No, highest elevated, highest incorporated city with the elevation being 10,200 feet of the city that I was living in, okay, but then, in more ways than one, just because, you know, we easily going, you know, everybody's smoking weed out. Nice, interesting. Everyone, everyone's and I was, I was one of the ones smoking the weed. So
Scott Benner 4:12
did you pick up weed in Colorado, or had you found it in Wisconsin?
Brock 4:16
Uh, no, I mean, I've done some, and I've dabbled in Wisconsin, like when I graduated high school, I did it with a couple of my buddies. And,
Scott Benner 4:24
you know, but you turned pro in Colorado,
Brock 4:27
yeah, right, right. I was, you know, doing it every day out there.
Scott Benner 4:31
Can I ask just when you move to a place like that, at that age, are you on your own? Are you living with people? How do you work that out?
Brock 4:37
Yeah, so, I mean, because I was going to college, I was living in the dorms. So, you know, I got out there and met my roommates. And so it was a, like a technical college. It's a rather small so, you know, you get to meet all the, you know, everybody else that's coming in. And I wasn't out there completely by myself. You know, I guess I was as far as, like, I didn't have family or anything out there, okay, after they brought me out there, you know, and helped me get settled, then they came back to Wisconsin,
Scott Benner 5:09
right? I got it, okay, I, for some reason, I thought you just, at first, I thought you just moved there to, like, work at a ski resort. And I was like, oh, that's crazy, but you went to school and you got that job at the same time. Yeah, I gotcha. I gotcha. Okay, are you out there in school when you're diagnosed?
Brock 5:24
No. So I was back my second year after my second year out there. I came back to Wisconsin, and I was doing construction with my dad. Started the summer at like 160 pounds. By the end of the summer I was like 130 pounds. And, you know, just urinating all the time, typical signs and symptoms. And you know, we were thinking maybe it was gonna like a UTI. So went and got the urine checked, and, you know, came back with blood sugar. I don't Unfortunately, I've hit my head. I've cracked my head open a couple times, you know, through my life with, you know, doing dumb stuff. Anyways, I don't remember everything, but I don't remember, you know, exactly how high my blood sugar was when I got brought
Scott Benner 6:09
in Brock. Let me ask you a question. Off the top of your head, what are the different ways you've cracked your head
Brock 6:14
open? Snowboarding, when I was learning to snowboard, I was coming down bunny hill doing like a falling leaf, which is just like side to side on your heel edge, and ended up catching, like an ice chunk that was in front of me that I didn't see, and fell forward, and the board came around and caught me in the back of the head. Okay, yeah, yeah. So that's one way. And then let's say, on a trip in, I think it was in California, my aunt actually was shutting a minivan trunk, and I was like, still in the area, and it caught the corner in my head, and I guess all out of order. Anyways, I think the first time it happened was at school, at recess. It was kind of instant karma, because I was going to get on the monkey bars. There was somebody like, already in line to do it, but I, like, budged them, and I went and jumped, grabbed I tried grabbing on, and like, slipped and fell backwards and caught my head on, you know, one of the bars. Have
Scott Benner 7:15
you ever been concussed? Have you been out? Ah, I No, I don't believe so. Okay, you just whack your head a lot. Yeah, okay. Like, you're, like, your own personal Whack a Mole. It's interesting. Okay, so you're back home working. Can I ask just briefly, like, Did you complete the course in Colorado?
Brock 7:34
No, so it was a two year program, and are you asking if I ever did or, I guess, regardless of the question, no, I I never ended up completing it. Okay, I was like a couple credits shy of getting it. I There was like one main class that I didn't pass that I need to, you know, go back out and finish.
Scott Benner 7:52
But So basically, you went to Colorado, smoked a pillowcase full of weed, and your parents, like, get home and work construction.
Brock 8:01
Is that? What happened? No, I was coming back in the summers, you know, I guess probably because of, like, what you were saying, that just because I didn't really have, I mean, and you know, like, I had friends and stuff from college, but you know, just because I knew, you know, I knew I had work lined up back here in the summer.
Scott Benner 8:19
Okay, okay, all right, so when you're diagnosed, who figures it out? Like, do you come to your parents and say something's wrong? Do they notice? How does that work?
Brock 8:27
Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say, I think it was mostly me, you know, I'm sure they, they noticed as well. I definitely, you know, was like, the amount that I'm paying and everything this is something's gotta be off,
Scott Benner 8:37
something's genuinely wrong, yeah, so you told them that you got. What do you go to a doctor or hospital? Yeah, yep. And do you remember much about the diagnosis? Were you in the hospital? Long were you like, was it shocking to you? Do you remember how you felt?
Brock 8:51
I don't remember, like, the exact while I was in there or anything, but I know if this is how I felt exactly when it happened. But you know, I was like, I'm 19 years old. Like, this is, this is bull, you know, right? There's no way that, you know, I'm invincible. I'm 19 years old, and, you know, nothing can touch me. I mean, besides for me cracking my head open. But that hasn't done, you know, anything, besides for some short term memory loss. All
Scott Benner 9:17
right? I think so. Yeah, is it possible you hit your head so hard, your pancreas not working? I don't
Brock 9:23
know. I mean, it's a possibility, yeah, so I my mom, I think one time, mentioned a theory that she had I and so my my parents ended up getting a divorce. When I was I was like, a junior in high school, okay, I would have been a couple years, you know, prior to me getting diabetes, but I know that you know high stress things sometimes lead to it stop, stopping of your pancreas, your
Scott Benner 9:48
mom trying to blame your dad for your your diabetes. I mean, is there other autoimmune in your life, in your family, other people? Type one diabetes. Do you have hypothyroidism, anything like that?
Brock 10:03
Not any, really, that I know of. I was doing some digging on that, you know, before coming on here, because I know you like to ask that question. And my grandma told me that one of her cousins had diabetes. I'm not sure you know who that was exactly, or if it was type one or type two? Yeah, besides for that that you know, just me. Now,
Scott Benner 10:26
let's go back for a second about what you're calling me crapping on Wisconsin. Is it because? Is it because I made fun of my sister in law for taking basically like, fake popcorn and dipping it in caramel and calling it food, is that? Is
Brock 10:42
that? Why? That's funny. I just heard that episode not too long ago. Okay, no, it's just, you know, it's because it's so cold you don't care for the cold, yeah. But, you know, I'm a winter sports enthusiast, you know, I like skiing and snowboarding, and, you know, that's,
Scott Benner 10:59
you use that phrase, you don't care for the cold. I think that my brain goes, Wait, there are people who care for the cold.
Brock 11:07
Okay, no, I'm going to be completely honest with you, people don't care for the cold, but we enjoy what we can do in, you know, because of the cold, because of the snow that it produces, you know, you know, the best days that I've ever had were, you know, like, sunny, Blue Bird, Colorado powder days you get hit with like, 12 inches of snow, and the next day it would be like 40 degrees sunshine,
Scott Benner 11:33
snow still on the mountain. Yeah, Brock, listen, then, let's re say this. Then, like, because what I think you're telling me is that you put up with the cold because you like snowshoes. Well, yeah, no one likes the cold. That's my point. No one heads outside when it's 20 degrees and goes, Oh, awesome.
Brock 11:56
20 is not bad. Shorts. At 20 degrees, yeah. So, so, you know, we've, we've emailed a couple times. I sent you my motorcycle. So I, I ride bikes, um, I, the reason I bring this up is just because this last winter, it was like negative one degree out, and I rode my motorcycle over to the ski hill, saying it was like, negative one degrees and, yeah, no, I rode over to
Scott Benner 12:26
listen to this. I used to ride 12 months a year. Okay, yep, I did not have a car.
Brock 12:31
Oh, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah. You, you know, because you it was mandatory for you, you know, it was the only
Scott Benner 12:37
mode. It was mandatory for me because I couldn't afford a car, mode of transportation. Yeah, for sure. So I used to get up in the morning, I'd start the bike. I'm not gonna lie to you, there were a few weeks of the year where some guy that I worked with would pick me up, because even he was like, Dude, you can't ride that motorcycle tomorrow. Like, so, like, but I'd get up in the morning start the bike. It would take forever for it to warm up. Yep, I'd stand inside, like, completely clad, you know what I mean, like just gloves, like everything, like I scarf around my helmet like an idiot, and then I would just run outside, get on the bike. I had like, a 20 minute ride, and I just tried to get there as quickly as I could. And by the time I got there, my hands were numb. My face really was terrible, but it was all worth it, because I made $5 an hour. Brock,
Brock 13:22
so it was all awesome, making that bank. It
Scott Benner 13:25
was piling up, sometimes $30 a day, okay? Chatter was flying everywhere. By the end of the week, some days I had $100 then I gave it away to pay for them, but what was I doing? I should have just sat at home. You've got your type one now. It's not a thing you're looking forward to. Obviously, you're 19. You're like, Hey, what the hell is going on? Your parents are split up. Are you living with one of them at your diagnosis?
Brock 13:53
At diagnosis? Yeah, I was living with my dad. Okay?
Scott Benner 13:57
And did he get involved? Or was it like, did he look at you from across the room? Like, wow, that sucks.
Brock 14:03
They left it onto me for the most part. Like, from the jump, but I wasn't really taking care of myself. So I ended up back out in Colorado going to school again. Like I was telling you I thought I was invincible. I was like, you know, screw this diabetes thing. I'm not, you know, taking care of that. Yeah, I ended up in DKA, like, a number of times. The last time, my parents ended up coming out to Colorado, and they're like, Hey, you gotta come back to Wisconsin and get your health figured out, and then you can come back out here and, you know, do what you want to do finish your degree or whatever
Scott Benner 14:42
you're 19 at that point, yeah, and your divorced parents came to Colorado together to collect you. 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/juice, dexcom.com/juicebox when you use my link, you're supporting the podcast, 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. They were worried about you.
Brock 17:00
Yeah, yeah, no, it was a pretty serious episode. I had been feeling, you know, like I had some sort of a flu or something like that, and I came back to the apartment I was living in at the time, one of the roommates that I had had a king size bed, so I ended up going in there and laying down in his bed. And just because nobody else was home at that point, and when they ended up getting home, I was unresponsive, so they called the guy that was teaching ski patrol class that I was in, because he was the EMS in town, okay, uh, he ended up coming, and they got me into the ambulance, and I believe, ended up having to drive me, like, to Denver. So I pretty sure they drove, I don't think I was ever in a hot or in a helicopter or anything, but, but
Scott Benner 17:50
you were out of it, if you don't know that. Yeah, no, well, so
Brock 17:53
the first thing I recall after all this, I woke up with a tube down my throat, and, you know, I was like, what the, you know, what the
Scott Benner 18:01
rock? Are you taking insulin at all? Man, were you taking basal even,
Brock 18:05
I think, like, here and there, maybe I would take, like, some basal, but no, okay, and this was, you know, part of the why I wanted to come on, you know, just tell people that, hey, it's not worth it. I know everybody has probably told you, but 100% it's not worth not taking care of it. You know,
Scott Benner 18:24
listen, we're gonna get into a been ask you, like, a couple of questions. First, okay, because I want to hear about this moment. But first, I just this is a public service announcement for all you guys out there you think your boys have your back. Just remember that when Brock was dying, they didn't call 911, they called a guy they knew because he was an EMT. Okay? Like you gotta, you gotta have clear friends around you. Do you see what I'm saying? You know what to do? Brock, right? If a, if a person's passed out next to you, you call 911, right? Yeah. But okay, so you're, you're awake, tube down your throat. Serious situation. Your parents are on their way, or they're there already, I'm not sure. Yep. You're not taking insulin with any regularity, so you're not even getting up in the morning and going like, all right, at least I'll shoot my basal, which is usually the story you hear from people, like, I just shoot my basal and I didn't Bolus. Like, but my question is, what was your understanding of what would happen to you if you didn't take your insulin? What did you know to be true? Like, was this a surprise when you ended up in the hospital, or was this just, you like, willfully saying I'm just gonna die at 19.
Brock 19:26
I didn't, like, give up on life at all. But, yeah, I mean, I think I was like, I was just so in denial, you know, I was like, you know, this, this can't be real. Like, I've, I've lived my first 19 years without any anything, you know, without having to take shots and doing all this, you know, right? You know. And I got the full wrath of my actions because of what I did. Well, yeah,
Scott Benner 19:50
but I'm saying is that, like, while you weren't doing it, like, this is the psychological part I want to dig into. You get up in the morning that stuff is somewhere in your room. You're looking at it, or, you know, it's there. Or, you know, you should be taking this insulin, right? Like, so when you don't do it, what is your expectation of what's going to happen? Like, if I went up to the stove right now and turned the flame on and I said, like, Brock, I need you to reach out and hold your hand over the flame. You'd say no, because my hand is going to get burnt. But, like, right, when you look at the insulin and say, I'm supposed to be injecting this, but I'm not going to. Why? Why aren't you like, what do you think is going to happen next when you don't do it?
Brock 20:28
You know, I think in my mind, I'm thinking, I'm just going to continue on, like, before I got this diagnosis. But that's not how it works,
Scott Benner 20:37
right? Because so it's just, it's just, I don't know what the word
Brock 20:40
is. It's willful, willful ignorance. Okay, I guess maybe, or some, something like that.
Scott Benner 20:46
That's not the first time you're in the hospital. So other bad things have happened. So your body was kind enough to you to go like, Hey, here's a preview of what's going to go on. If you keep doing this and you were like, Oh, the previews are nice, but I want to see the show on opening night,
Brock 21:01
exactly. I want to see the full movie. Yeah, let's
Scott Benner 21:03
see the whole Monty here right now. Like, what's gonna happen? Right exactly? By the way, for people to say, I know it's the full Monty, it's not important, but we'll keep moving on. So now you're there. Do you think if your parents don't come and get you, you would you have you just cycled back out into life again and done it again?
Brock 21:19
That's a tough that's a tough question. Because, you know, this was, like, a really, a really large event, you know, waking up with the tube down my throat. I ended up having, like, somewhere, at some point during this day, I they punctured a lung, and I had a tube coming out from my side as well.
Scott Benner 21:36
Oh, I've seen that on TV, yeah.
Brock 21:39
You know, it was, it was very in depth, and I think it would have woken me up either way. But you know, I guess you know, it was nice that nice of them to come out. Obviously, you know, they they love me, and they showed me that by coming out and being like, hey, dumb, get you together, because this is not working. Clearly, Are you their only kid? No, I have one older brother, okay, two years older than me. Gotcha.
Scott Benner 22:07
Hey, I've never done this before, but Brock people have connecting words they use when they're talking. I've had like in the past, like so, but I stopped myself from doing it. You do? You know, so do you want to apologize right now to rob for all the times he's gonna have to cut out you saying, you know, go ahead, go ahead. Just apologies, Rob.
Brock 22:25
I'm, uh, I'm from Wisconsin. I do apologize for all the times that you're gonna have to cut that out.
Scott Benner 22:33
You just have the right temperament for that. Normally, at the end, I leave a voice note for Rob that. And I would have started like this, Hey, Rob. You know, there's going to be some editing in this, you know. And you know, at least, listen, at least it's not, oh yeah, right. Oh
Brock 22:49
yeah, you know, don't you know? You bet
Scott Benner 22:54
I appreciate the whole string of them right there. Oh yeah, wow. Okay, so they How long are you in the hospital for do you not even recall? No,
Brock 23:02
I think it was, it was about a week, or might have been a little less than that. We could my mom had already had a trip planned to Jackson, hole Wyoming for skiing, and I was invited on that. So we were like, Oh, we got to get out of we got to get out of the hospital to get, get to the next place and go ski, really?
Scott Benner 23:24
Oh, wow, you didn't grow up with my dad. First of all, he wouldn't have taken you on vacation. Secondly, if he had one planned and you did this, this would have been how he would have punished you for it. He would have been like, remember how we were going to Jackson Hole. You're not going out anyway. Yeah, I'm not going to and I'm going to be pissed about it, and then take out that anger about me not going on you. This is if we ever left the state that we lived in, which we never did, nevertheless, like so you guys went skiing after that. Yes, we did. Yeah. Was there? This is not a judgment of your parents, but was it a whole week of your parents just in every quiet moment telling you how important your life is and that you have to take care of your diabetes. Or was it not spoken about? No, I
Brock 24:07
think it was a lot of that. It was a lot of hey, like, really, you need to figure your life out, like, start taking care of this, because clearly this is a real disease. I'm sorry, I didn't
Scott Benner 24:17
mean to make you,
Brock 24:20
yeah, I won't think about it, but they told me, you know you gotta, you gotta figure this out and take it seriously, because this is your real life, and you're running out of chances.
Scott Benner 24:30
No, quickly, seriously, man, your dumb buddies wait a little longer. And yeah, I don't know what happens to you, or they don't come home, or something like that, not that they're dumb. You understand I'm saying,
Brock 24:40
yeah, no, no, yeah, yeah. I mean, we're all in college. We were, we probably weren't the smartest, but, you know, college is dumb, but you know, no, we could talk
Scott Benner 24:49
about it like this, you were young, and you didn't know what you're doing, and everybody was high as a kite. And, like, they probably for the first two hours, they probably just thought you were stoned, right? Yeah. They're probably like, probably did look how calm. Comfortable, Brock, is he looks great.
Brock 25:03
Look at him on the king size bed. He's just so happy. You know,
Scott Benner 25:07
if it was nowadays, they'd be taking pictures of you with their phone and putting it on Instagram. All right, so does it get through to you on that trip? No, no. Can I ask you a question? Brock, this is going to be a little unfair. I could be completely wrong about this. Do you come from money?
Brock 25:26
No, no, I would say that my my mom's, I mean, both my parents are middle class. I would say, okay, all right, on the wealthier, I guess, side maybe.
Scott Benner 25:37
But are we saying for Wisconsin or for the world? No, no,
Brock 25:41
definitely not for the world, and probably not even really for Wisconsin. We're not well
Scott Benner 25:47
off. I tried to show on Wisconsin for you. You didn't hear it. I don't even know what that means, but I was just making that up. The only reason I asked is, you have a fancy name? Do I do? You not think you do.
Brock 26:01
So the name is my mom and my dad. They both wanted to keep their their last names, so me and my brother got both of them and say
Scott Benner 26:11
your name out loud, Brock West behest, yes, you're Brock West behest. That doesn't sound like something that would be on a TV show like and, I mean, it could be exposed, like, I guess six one blonde guy walks the room. They're like, Oh, look, everyone, it's Brock West behest. And also you're going to Jackson Hole, which is not cheap, like, so that's like, that. I started doing the math on that.
Brock 26:34
Yeah, yeah, my mom, that's what I was saying. So my mom, she makes decent money, and she's good with her money. She loves to travel, and she
Scott Benner 26:42
puts her money where it makes her happy. Yeah, gotcha, yep. Okay, all right, I just, and by the way, I wasn't just asking to ask. I was asking because I can't think of a guy's name, but I had a guy on, listen, I've done so many episodes, I don't know what it was. It was before, okay, I think when you get to his episode Brock, you're going to be like, Oh, this is the guy. I think I sound like, yeah, kind of like, attitude. And I remember him having come from, like, a little bit of privilege, and I was just trying to, like, like, I was trying to decide, is this you going, I don't want what I don't want, and so I'm not going to do it because I've lived that way and I don't need to, or if it was just you saying, like, more, like, simply psychologically, like, I don't want to accept this. I'm going to ignore it. It sounds like it's the the latter. So I think I understand better now. And I wanted everybody else to know too. Like, yeah, I don't know another way to say this. Like, I wanted to make sure they knew if you were just a spoiled kid who were like, I don't like this. I don't want this.
Brock 27:41
Yeah? No, no, that that's not the case. Not the case. Okay, no, I know I had to buy everything that I wanted, yeah, with my own money.
Scott Benner 27:50
Awesome. Okay, all right. It doesn't matter to me, one way the other. I just want to understand that. Oh, right, yeah, for sure. Okay, so we leave Jackson Hole. They take you back to Wisconsin. They put you back to work.
Brock 27:59
When I'm back in Wisconsin again, I'm living with my dad, who is living with his girlfriend at the time. I'll fast forward just a little bit. Just day after Thanksgiving, I'm supposed to be working at Ty roll, which is the ski area near me. I ended up calling in because I was hung over, and then I was sleeping on the couch in the living room, and my dad's girlfriend's grandkid came in and threw a pillow at me, and before I realized what I was doing, I had walked over and I picked him up From underneath his chin, and I realized, you know, pretty great. As soon as it happened. I was like, oh shit. And set him back down, and, you know, checked on and made sure he was all right. And he seemed like he was physically All right, but he was shaken up, obviously, yeah, and he went and told his uncle what happened. His uncle came into the living room. He's like, Hey, you gotta pack up your and get out of here. And I was like, I don't have anywhere else to go. He's like, That's not my problem. I was like, I mean, I guess you got to do what you got to do. So he called the cops. I went out onto the back porch, crack the beer, waited for the cops to show up. I hadn't mentioned this, but I have a problem with authority. I'm hearing that now, but go ahead. Right, right. Yeah, I was gonna say, as you know, I don't know if that's common or not, but yeah. Anyways, so the cops show up, and they start asking me questions, you know, and I'm not really being very cooperative. I ended up finishing the beer I was drinking, and I got up to go grab another one, and I think they thought I was going back inside, they started like putting their hands on me. They hadn't said I was under arrest or anything at this point, so I started fighting back. They ended up tasing me and putting me in the cuffs. Brought me over to the squad car. While I was sitting in the squad car, I pulled the cuffs back around to the front and rolled down the window because. For whatever reason, the windows were not locked. I was sitting on the window with my arms up on top of the SUV, and the cops ended up eventually seeing that, and they came out, and when they they opened, you know, got me back in the car, opened the door, and they were going to switch the cuffs back around to the back. And when they uncuffed my right hand, I punched one of them in the face, and I took off running. Didn't make it very far. They hit me with the deployable taser. And that was, that was basically the end of it, all
Scott Benner 30:27
right, Brock, that's crazy, but let me just ask you, what's it like to be tased? It's
Brock 30:32
not, it's exhilarating. It's not, it's it's not. The worst thing in the world. Pepper spray is worse.
Scott Benner 30:37
Everything that people need to know about you comes from the from the answer. It's exhilarating. What's it like to be tased? You're like, oh, Scott, it was awesome. I punched the guy and ran away, just so he would do it again. Awesome, right? I'm going to take a bit of a left turn here for half a second. But the amount of people, the number of people I've interviewed recently or telling me they have porn addictions. I was thinking about them when you were like, so I moved back in with my dad. I was asleep on the sofa, passed out drunk, and my stepmom and I was like, oh, all the porn guys were like, Whoa, this is gonna be great. Anyway. Seriously, nothing like that, dude. We're gonna have to dig into this, not in your episode, obviously, but the amount of people telling me like I have a serious porn addiction lately is crazy. Oh, yeah, but here's what I've been doing while you were telling your story of exhilaration. I found out that multiple head injuries can lead to things like irritability, poor, frustration tolerance, impulsivity, aggression, defiance, like, stuff like that, right? No kidding, yeah. Do you know if you had like, Have you ever talked to your parents about like, was I like this before I hit my head?
Brock 31:51
Yeah, I started hitting my head pretty young, like I was telling you the first one was at at recess. I was in elementary, I don't know what grade, but, you know, I
Scott Benner 32:02
wish for everybody Brock that they could have a job like mine, where someone could say that to you and then you're allowed to laugh. Yeah, right, because I don't think it's funny. But no, seriously, like there's no I get Oppositional Defiant Disorder, characterized by ongoing patterns of anger and irritability, mood, argumentative, defiant behavior, vindictiveness. Does any of this sound like you, yeah.
Brock 32:20
I mean, it definitely, definitely did, especially when, when all this so, you know when all this happened? As I was saying,
Scott Benner 32:27
Yeah, let's go back to that. You've been tased a second time. Where does it go from
Brock 32:31
there? Yeah. So, so I got brought in, and I got charged with suffocation, strangulation to minor, and then battery to a law enforcement officer and I born 100% disagree with that first charge. I think that's completely Bull. I did not like put any pressure on I literally just lifted him up from underneath his chin. Either way, I know that's 100% wrong.
Scott Benner 32:54
You're not arguing about the act, you're arguing about the charge, yeah,
Brock 32:59
yeah. But either way. So anyways, I got sentenced with both those, both felonies and or got sentenced to two years. Wow, two years in, six years
Scott Benner 33:09
out. So, okay, so you served. You served all two years. Yeah.
Brock 33:13
So I ended up doing 14 months in Walworth County Jail, which was the county that this happened in after that, I got switched over to Green Bay, which is max prison, really.
Scott Benner 33:27
Hey, why did they move? Yeah, what did you do in prison? Brock,
Brock 33:32
I it was what I was doing in jail, because of my my opposition to authority, yeah, because of my opposition to authority, I I acted out a lot when I was in County. I ended up in the hole for like 60 days straight while I was in there.
Scott Benner 33:49
So, hey, watch that language. Watch your language. The porn addicted guys are listening.
Brock 33:55
Yeah, right. Well, go, go ahead. I would be crying
Scott Benner 33:57
the whole time, so I can't really like my opposition would be floating around in my own tears that yelling, I'm a podcaster, please leave me out of here. But seriously, like, you're in there. Do you see the through line at that point? Like, Listen, man, they brought you home to save your life, and you're drunk on the sofa, not going to work. Like, it's not exactly like, yeah, Brock's not exactly like, Hey, I'm pulling it together. Yeah? No, the kid takes you out, you know, out of your mind for a second while you're still hung over, you go after him and all this, like, happens after that, but when you get into pre into jail, excuse me, you don't say to yourself like, Oh, I see the actions that got me here. I'll stop those things. You just double down on them, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, all right. And so, like, fair enough, it's not a thing you you're not consciously doing these things. This is just these. Are your reactions to these, to any situation, really? Yeah, I gotcha. Okay, my next question is, even though that's all happening, is this the best your diabetes has ever been taken care of?
Brock 34:57
Yeah? Oh, 100% I was gonna say. That, you know that was, yeah, the silver lining of all this is that I was taking care of my diabetes while I was locked up, because you're forced to, right? That's what finally got me into taking care of it. I see managing it,
Scott Benner 35:14
okay, but let's talk about like, so you're on a schedule with your diabetes in jail. That's cool, but then they move you to the max. Like, does the Defiance continue? Or does something about like, what straightens you out? Because you're not like that now, is that right?
Brock 35:28
Yeah, no, not, not at all. And I was gonna say, I guess as soon as I got into the max, I maybe that was a good move by them. Was like, I, I'm not gonna act out here, because I was, I was locked up literally in cells with murderers, like serial killers,
Scott Benner 35:43
and like, yeah, so that caught me to write down,
Brock 35:46
yeah, right. You know, I'm like, I don't feel like acting out to prove any point here, right? So I'm gonna just lay low and do my time and get out. Yeah. Did
Scott Benner 35:55
you have any weird experiences that are like, in the max prison that are worth telling
Brock 36:01
actually, I have one from in County and so the only time I've ever done heroin was when I was in county jail, because, like, I was telling you I was in, I was in the hole for like, 60 days straight. We, you know, one of the guys in there said he had some. I have no idea, you know, how he brought it in his anus, or, yeah, whatever. No, put it in a bag,
Scott Benner 36:27
hopefully, Brock I have some. Well,
Brock 36:31
you know, I don't have anything better going on, so I'm like, Yeah, I'll give it a go. You know, I'm just in this cell for how, 14 hours a day. So, you know, I might as well do something to change up the scenery or whatever. And it was an odd feeling, for sure, but definitely never got anywhere near that stuff again. That was a one time deal, and my time in prison was pretty smooth. Honestly, I was in Green Bay, and my grandparents live in Green Bay, so they made an effort to come and visit me a decent bit, which was awesome. Very nice. Yeah, it's just great seeing people from the outside and getting to play cribbage and stuff with them.
Scott Benner 37:14
Yeah? Remember, there's a world you're trying to get back to that kind of stuff. Yeah? Right. Yep. 100% that was lovely. You didn't feel judged by your grandparents. No, that's nice. How about your parents? How do they
Brock 37:26
handle all this? So my mom was like, I think they both were in the mindset like, You got what you deserve. To some extent, they weren't like, Haha, you, you bastard, that's what you
Scott Benner 37:38
get. Yeah? What's easy for them to say they're not doing it
Brock 37:44
exactly, exactly.
Scott Benner 37:46
Yo mom, it might not be exactly what you're thinking here. And so did the good medical care continued on in the prison side. Yeah. Okay. And did you notice any difference in yourself once your blood sugars were regulated,
Brock 38:03
yeah? I mean, I guess, like, at the start, not necessarily because I was in Yeah, County at that point, and that was still acting out a lot and stuff, but I guess, I mean, like, mentally, for sure, I like, more stable, you know, right? I definitely felt better. That's
Scott Benner 38:21
awesome. Explain to me a little more about like, what stops this defiance in you? Like, is it like, seriously? Like, the difference between, like, a local cop tasing me is exhilarating, but a murderer cutting my throat not going to be exhilarating. So like, did you just have to consciously hold yourself together? Like, I'm trying to figure out how you went from acting out, like, meaning, like having reactions that were not clearly thought out, that you weren't modulating at all, to actually being able to control all of that. Like, was it just the risk of death that
Brock 38:52
did it? I'd say that's big part of it, and also just seeing people that were there for life. And that was like, that's, this is clearly where I ended up because of not taking care of this. And I want to get out of here, get back out and start living my life.
Scott Benner 39:10
Are you literally scared straight by by prison? Yeah, I guess. I
Brock 39:15
guess so. Yeah, scared. Scared Straight with as far as my diabetes goes for sure.
Scott Benner 39:20
Yeah, right. And it's not like, like, nobody beat, nobody raped you. Like, it wasn't anything like, over the top, like, just the being there, yep, yeah. You were like,
Brock 39:28
Okay, seeing right? And like, well, and yeah, just like I said, it was only eight months that I was actually in prison. The repetitive nature of all of it, it's very boring, tedious lifestyle. And obviously it's not meant to be fun. You know, they're, you know, it's reforming, but like,
Scott Benner 39:48
something not pull out of you, like you were just, like, I'm gonna stop being a dick now. And like, and, yeah, yeah, because I don't want to live here the rest of my life. Exactly. Gotcha. Is it fair to say? That the tediousness taught you any kind of how to set your life up in an order. Like, did you get out and keep up the I don't know what, why? I can't find the simple word that I need here, but the repetition of day after day,
Brock 40:13
yeah, I would say it definitely did, you know, help me get on a schedule, especially, you know, like with the diabetes, but just like overall, I would say it did. It helped me pursue one goal and keep keep on a steady path to get to that goal.
Scott Benner 40:30
Yeah, wow. Has it been hard getting work since you've been out because you're a felon, right?
Brock 40:35
Yeah, I am. Honestly, it hadn't. It hasn't been all that hard. I was fortunate from the time that I got out, I got out in 2018 in November, and I ended up with six years of extended supervision. So actually, I just got off of that this last November. So nice, exciting, I guess. But
Scott Benner 40:55
yeah, so that's parole for six years. Yeah, yeah. What's that like? Check check ins are. How frequent are they? So they started
Brock 41:03
out every week as you show that you're trying to be a productive member of society and staying on the right path and keeping clean and all that. Yeah, they extend the visits further and further by the end of it, you know, I, like my last year I had like, four visits, yeah, so it was like every three months, but present day, do you drink? I do every now and again. I don't drink a lot. I was going to tell you, so I got out on paper and taking care of my diabetes and all that. Even though I was not supposed to be I was drinking a decent bit at that point. What made me stop was actually some motorcycle incident. I ended up getting two speeding tickets within a week of each other. One was on a Sunday. I was coming home from my dad's. My dad lived in Chicago at the time, and I was living with my mom in Monticello, which is a small town in Wisconsin, southern Wisconsin. Anyways, I was coming back from my dad, and I got to, like, Beloit, and I ended up running out of gas on my motorcycle. I pushed my bike to the first house that I found, which was like a farmhouse out, you know, in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately, this guy had a little bit of gas. He let me get I was like, All right, I need to get to the next the nearest town. Yeah, from here. And I was just like, holding the bike wide open to get to the nearest town as quick as I could. I know I was probably burning the gas quicker that way, but wasn't really thinking, uh, all that logically, I suppose. But anyways, I, you know, was doing like 100 and I saw red lights sitting in the media, and I was like, oh, red and blues flipped on as soon as I passed them. And I pulled over right away, and I ended up getting clocked at like 95 or something like that. Yeah, that following Friday, again, I was working at Tyro. We were doing a terror at Tyro, which is like their October they do a haunted house thing. I rode my bike out there, and after the fact, a couple of guys that were doing the haunt thing ended up going to a bar, and I stayed until closing, and I'd been drinking and got out. And I was like, Oh, I brought the bike today. And I was like, I guess I gotta ride home. And so like, Monroe or not Monroe or Mount Horeb, a bunch of towns that don't that are basically unimportant if you don't know where I'm talking to Monticello, it's like a 45 minute drive, if you're, like, doing the speed limit and stuff. But I was like, All right, I guess I'm gonna ride my bike home. And I got on, and I was basically a whole nerd kind of, sort of wide open the whole way. I ended up getting to my small town, Monticello, that I live in, and turned into town, and I turned into an exit lane, just because it was, like, three o'clock in the morning at this point. You know, I'm like, there's nobody out here, and I got lit up at that point. I was like, what the like, where did this guy come from? He's like, I had you at like, 138 but I couldn't lock it in on the radar gun, so I'm giving you a ticket for reckless and imprudent speed and then driving into oncoming traffic because of my, yeah, yep. I swear to God, I was sitting on the side of the road for it must have been like half an hour or something at this point, and they were, I don't know, they were just asking me questions and stuff. And then finally, at like, half an hour in somebody, one of the guys is like, Have you been drinking it all the night. And I was like, I had a few earlier, and they're like, Would you do a breathalyzer? And I'm like, Yeah, I'll do that. I blew like a point zero, 7.075 or something, you know, just under the legal limit, yeah, but I was on probation, and they told my PO that that had happened, and ended up getting. Sent to county jail for the weekend. At that point, I was like, I'm just going to stop drinking because it's not worth it. It's not worth getting in trouble, and it's not worth, you know, good, not worth the hangovers. Anyways,
Scott Benner 45:12
I'm not bagging on Wisconsin here, but drinking beer is the it's the state sport, isn't it? Yeah? 100%
Brock 45:18
Yeah. Drinking beer and eating brats is,
Scott Benner 45:20
yeah, so it's because it's so cold there, you have nothing to do. That's back to my point, right, right? I'd like to tell you that, in addition to the things we talked about, about having multiple head injuries before it can also lead to like, thrill seeking behavior and compulsiveness. Oh,
Brock 45:35
well, I think I feel like I've always been an adrenaline junkie. I don't know if that's anything new.
Scott Benner 45:40
Also, I want to tell you that I was once pulled over on my bike for going 80 over in a 35 so I'm not and for those of you listening, it wasn't like a now I'm explaining now I sound like you, Brock, I'm like, you don't get it, like I was in the hole I was Born. You would have done Carolyn, too. Shut up. I was on a highway that suddenly went down to 35 Yeah, I was going 115
Brock 46:10
quite matter. Yeah, you know you're going. You're going well over speed limit either way. That's how, that's how it goes on the bikes, though, you get up to such a, such a stupid speed, so fast, like, Wow, I did. You don't even realize how fast you're going
Scott Benner 46:23
until you've ridden a motorcycle. You don't understand that. Like, 100 seems like 40 and like, yeah, it really doesn't like, you get it so smooth and you get to it so quickly, like, you can't feel it. I mean, those you now may be driving electric cars might understand that a little better. But like, if you've never ridden the
Brock 46:39
torque, yeah, maybe electric cars is probably similar, but, yeah, I mean, honestly, it's just, it's a whole nother level,
Scott Benner 46:45
no idea, like, how crazy, like, allegedly,
Brock 46:49
the fastest I've gone is, like, 100 and I don't know, 69 or so, like, GPS verified on my bike, but allegedly, I don't know about anything. I
Scott Benner 47:00
listen, it's been a long time I did 160 once, yeah, because the bike went to 160 and I was like,
Brock 47:06
Yeah, but you have to, you have to see, you know, what is it like? Popped up.
Scott Benner 47:10
I just realized I'm three head injuries away from being in prison. Because
Brock 47:16
no, and it ended diabetes diagnosis.
Scott Benner 47:18
I just remember I was 20 years old. And I said, this thing says it goes 160 I wonder if it does, right? Yeah. And it did, yep. I'll tell you 160 you're looking a mile down the road to focus on something. It's
Brock 47:32
yeah, I was gonna say, I'm not, like, you know, super wealthy, is what I'm trying to say. Because I would love to just go to, like, Track, track, yeah, dude, like a track day, but that's expensive, yeah, you
Scott Benner 47:44
know, and yes, listen, just sit at home and go to work. You'll be fine. Listen, is there any way You've tricked a woman into having sex with you since all this has happened? Are you
Brock 47:53
dating? Yeah, there is no. I'm actually engaged. I am like, three months away from marriage. Oh, actually, congratulations, yeah, thank you. Oh, man, I Yes. I've got very lucky. I have the most amazing fiance that I, that I could ask for. She
Scott Benner 48:12
put a helmet on you. I don't think you bang in your head one more time. No, she,
Brock 48:16
she definitely makes make sure I always have a helmet on. And actually, full, full, full, full riding gear. I have, I got pants with padding and jacket with padding, you know, steel toe boots, helmet.
Scott Benner 48:28
Actually, that's great. I used to ride like an idiot, like, we'd go in shorts and stuff like that.
Brock 48:34
But listen, I used to, but, yeah, not anymore.
Scott Benner 48:37
You get out of prison. You take better care of your diabetes. It's been a long time now. Like, how do you manage? Are using a pump? You have a CGM, I mean, you're taking your insulin.
Brock 48:46
When I got out, I was just pens, and then, like, five years ago, or something like, shortly after I'd gotten out, I ended up switching to a T slim, the tandem pump. And after I'd been using the tandem for a while. I started listening. Is when I started listening to the podcast. And I I hear you talking about Omnipod all the time. Here's your Omnipod ad here. Well,
Scott Benner 49:10
actually, I have a T slim ad too. I might do both of them. Well, there you
Brock 49:13
go. Yeah, you know. And I was like the tubeless nature that sounds like that sounds like a good thing. And I actually broke my tea slim riding my motorcycle. I crashed my motorcycle. I was coming into a roundabout, and there was some gravel on the road, and I just grabbed the front brakes and locked it up and tipped over. And, you know, I had the T slim on my belt, and like that, ended up hitting the ground. The screen was all cracked. I was like, I guess now's as good a time as any to switch over to the Omnipod
Scott Benner 49:42
now, exactly right now, thrilled, because there's probably an ad for them on this episode. First of all, I'm going to tell you something. The worst I ever went down was because of cinders too. It is hard to explain to somebody what it feels like to be upright and then gravity like you and that bike. All this, you go down so fast. It's hard to put the words exactly. But anyway, so you went to Omnipod. And, I mean, T slim, a good pump, but you broke it, and you thought, Oh, I'll try this one. I'll go tubeless.
Brock 50:12
I like the tea slim, but, yeah, you know, the tubing is not for you, not Yeah, not ideal. You know, showering, and I, you know, I'm a big I like water too, you know, I swim and do all that. And, yeah, you can't do that with this. People
Scott Benner 50:25
right now wearing a tandem, they're like, I shower. What is he talking about? Yeah, yeah, but you have to take your pump, I understand, yeah. So you make the switch, and that's how you manage. Now, are you Omnipod five? Are you Omnipod dash? Omnipod five? Yeah, automated. Okay. And so, so you weren't, yeah, I was gonna
Brock 50:43
say, so I actually where I am in the listening part of the podcast. I just get into, like, the Omnipod five, like, where you're gonna start going into those interesting tips. In detail, I have the Omnipod five, but I don't really use the automated mode. I use the manual mode because, you know, I, I use all the tips, bumping and nudging and all that. And, you know, I, I keep my keep myself pretty good. I my last a, 1c, I think was 664,
Scott Benner 51:13
good for you. That's awesome,
Brock 51:15
which is, you know, the best that I've had ever and, yeah,
Scott Benner 51:19
yeah, this podcast even works on felons who have head injuries. This is awesome. It does what an ad for me. This is
Brock 51:27
exactly you just listen. I'll tell you. I'll tell you, you got to listen in chronological order for things to make sense and for the knowledge to build up. The way
Scott Benner 51:36
you're putting this to people, they go back to the first episode. They listen to all of them, I get all those downloads, and then there. How long have you been listening?
Brock 51:44
Oh, man, I don't know. Like I was telling you I was on the T swim, I think when I was originally started listening, and that was five, like, five years ago, or something like
Scott Benner 51:55
that. Been listening to this podcast chronologically for five
Brock 51:58
years? No, so I started to chronologically, but I only, I probably did, like, the first 200 episodes, or something like that. And then I I thought, like, I jump around, well, I learned enough. No, no. I was like, I've learned enough. So I'm just gonna, you know, leave. And after not listening for a while, like, my blood sugar started kind of rising again. I wasn't taking care as much as I should have, you know? Interesting. Yeah.
Scott Benner 52:25
So you listened chronologically. You got through the Pro Tip series, which happens in the two hundreds, and then you were like, That's good. I'm doing a good job. I don't need this anymore. And then at some point you looked up and your a 1c was drifting away from you, and you thought, I'll go back to the podcast. Yeah, interesting.
Brock 52:44
Yeah. 100% I think the community of, you know, other type one diabetics, and just hearing their stories. And I, like, just recently, I heard your conversation with the type two, and it sounds like that's going to be something that you've been doing more of. And that's awesome, because it sounds like the control mechanisms are, you know, pretty much the same, yeah, as far as I can tell Brock,
Scott Benner 53:06
you want to hear something disappointing, sure. I made a type two Pro Tip series with Jenny, and I think it's only eight or nine episodes long. I put out one episode a week for however many weeks, you know, eight weeks in a row, like once a week. You guys know how I do it. If you're listening like, I put out a series. I usually put them out on Fridays. I run them once a week, and you guys have time to, like, absorb them, go to the next step, etc. I did that for a Pro Tip series. It was, it was a limited run diabetes Pro Tip series for type two. And I have never had such a significant drop off and listenership in my in the entire 11 years, like I tried to give more content to type twos, and people unfollowed the show. Even though they were getting they were still getting four episodes a week that were type one, right? It remains one of the quietly sadder things that I've experienced doing this. So, yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah. So I, if you don't see me talking as much about type two, I don't do it because it hurts the podcast pretty significantly
Brock 54:05
that. Yeah, it sucks that that's the case. But, um, yeah,
Scott Benner 54:09
if I have a type two on and do like a standalone interview with them, nobody seems to mind that. But when I say, hey, look, here's information for you, it really pissed a bunch of people off. So yeah. Took me 18 months to rebound from the loss that I had, from from putting out the type two stuff,
Brock 54:27
really crazy. And I'm disappointed in my fellow type ones for you know, not
Scott Benner 54:32
I don't want to judge anybody, but I was disappointed in them, too, yeah, so, right,
Brock 54:36
I don't want to judge anybody, including type twos, you know, like, that's kind of BS, yeah. They're just people living with a disease and, you know,
Scott Benner 54:43
awesome, rock. Let's be clear, a lot of people listen to this podcast. Not everybody left. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, I get that significant number of people where I was like, what the hell I had just gotten to this place? Where I was like, Oh, the podcast is going to tip like, it's going to, it's going to leap to the next level. And then. I just like, went right back down to the level I was on. And I was like, oh, okay, anyway, I'll probably do it again. I'm I have some defiance issues too. I think that type two Pro Tip series is awesome for people. And by the way, my thought was, you're all listening and enjoying the podcast. You know it's helping you. You must know people in your life with type two like, how great would it be to be able to go up to your aunt and say, Hey, listen, I'm having a great experience with my health here because of this Juicebox Podcast. I know you have type two diabetes, they just put out an eight part series I think might help you. Like, here's a list. Yeah, you know, that's all I was shooting for. You listened to and then you stopped listening. When you stopped listening, do you remember where your a 1c was? I
Brock 55:40
think I was like, mid sevens at that point.
Scott Benner 55:45
So mid 7c you were like, I'm so good at this, I don't need this anymore, right? Yeah. And then it drifts away from you. Where does it get to before you say, let me go pick the podcast. Back up again.
Brock 55:55
I think it gets, you know, probably back up to like, eight or eight and a half, you know? And then I'm like, Yeah, I'm not taking care of this. Like I should, like, like I was, and like I should be. Then I get back into listening, yeah? And
Scott Benner 56:08
it's not because you don't know what to do, it's because you've gotten off course with doing it, yeah? So this podcast is like, prison for you. It keeps you on schedule.
Brock 56:18
Yes, yes. It's like, the good parts, not the bad parts.
Scott Benner 56:21
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I actually think that's wonderful. So, like, because it's hard to keep a schedule, yeah, it can be Yeah, dude, I think, I think it's hard. Like, listen, I used to have a job where I had to be up at a certain time every day, which meant that I needed to be asleep at a certain time every day to do it again the next day. And long time ago, Scott, you don't know, I still remember. I don't
Brock 56:45
know, you know, I still remember it poorly today's but,
Scott Benner 56:49
but my point is that I don't have that exact same schedule anymore, and it does lead to you doing things like, like, oh, like, I'll just go out for dinner tonight, or like, you don't, I mean, like, I don't have to cook for myself. Like, I, you know, I got off schedule. I start. I didn't start till 10, and I worked till seven, so I don't have time to cook. Or, like, that kind of stuff happens a lot. And I think a lot of people work from home now too. And I think that that can happen. You lose track of days. Like, I think COVID did it to me. Like, I used to really, like, I used to really look forward to the weekend, and now I don't see the difference anymore. Like, everything just feels the same to me. Now, Monday is Sunday, is Wednesday. Doesn't matter to me. And the same with time. I just like, wow, it doesn't matter what time I do this task I need to do, like, because I work for myself, and I just have to get it done today. So I'll do it at two o'clock today, but I don't know, like, there's something about it, like, I miss there's something about the get up, make your bed, go on my you know, like, the military, go on a hike. Do this? Have dinner. Like, have like, I think there's something good for people. There
Brock 57:53
something about the routine that, you know, just keeps you, keeps you going, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it, yeah, I think it's really helpful for me, of
Scott Benner 58:03
course. I mean, the prison routine was clearly valuable for you, Yep, yeah. So at this point, now there's an Omnipod five Pro Tip series you're about to get to, I wonder if you'll end up going into automation after that.
Brock 58:16
I was gonna say, I'm honestly, I feel like I probably would, because I sometimes I, I'll switch over to automated, like, just for a night and stuff like that, just because, you know, I feel like it definitely helps keep me, keep me level. But that's probably just because I don't know enough yet. But, like, it's not adjustable enough. Like, I don't I always wake up, like, right around 140 if I'm in automated mode, I can wake up anywhere from like 80 to like, 110 if I'm in manual.
Scott Benner 58:43
Well, let me tell you why that probably is. Is because if you're listening to the Pro Tip series and utilizing a lot of bumping and nudging, what you're doing is you're adding more insulin that's not in your settings. Okay, so if that insulin was in your settings,
Brock 58:57
oh, so I'll just have to adjust either, like the insulin sensitivity, factor ISF or or the carb ratio, or something like that.
Scott Benner 59:06
Yeah. So if the if the insulin in your settings isn't covering your needs and you're adding more, if that was in your settings, then the Omnipod five would better understand the amount of insulin you need to affect
Brock 59:19
those things. That makes sense. Yeah.
Scott Benner 59:23
Listen, I think bumping and nudging saved my life, like, you know, trying to understand Arden. I think it's the way that I taught myself how insulin works. Yep. And at the same time, you'll hear, as you're listening on that I start using, like, at some point in the podcast, like, Arden goes on loop, yeah. And watching, I'm past that. Okay, all right, so watching Arden loop, I have this like moment where I go, Oh, the loop is doing what I was doing, yeah. And I was bumping and nudging, and the loop is bumping and nudging, but I was bumping and nudging because her settings weren't strong enough. The loop is doing it because. It's seeing a change and getting ahead of it, and then I kind of meld the ideas together in my mind about how the insulin works. So it's exciting for me. You're like, you're gonna have all those experiences.
Brock 1:00:10
Yeah, I was gonna say I'm super excited too, and that's the thing. I'm super excited to get to them. I'm not gonna, I'm happy with my six five, you know, I actually, you know, like, just looked at my clarity, and I'm at averaging like 6.2 or something like that, right now. That's, you know, I'm happy with that until I get to those and until I get the real full understanding of how to best use the automated system. Yeah, and
Scott Benner 1:00:35
hey, you're doing it right? Yeah. I like you're taking your time. You're learning as you're going so you have a real grasp of it by the time you get to the end of what you're listening to, I think it's great. I appreciate that, that it's helping you. Actually, I appreciate hearing that from you. So how do you introduce your diabetes, and I mean, I guess to another extent, like your pre your previous life, to a woman like when you're you start getting serious with somebody like, you have to tell them, like, hey, look, I've been in jail. I've been in prison. This is what I did. You got to open up for real, right?
Brock 1:01:03
Yeah, I was gonna say, so I'm an open book. That's how I live my life. Like, if anybody asked me anything, I'm 100% open book, I will tell them. I obviously have no problem telling people I'm a diabetic, you know, showing showing off my pumps and stuff, you know, my robotic parts. I was at just asking her about that. I was like, when did I tell you? Or, like, how did so we actually met at work, or at my work. Her mom works where I work. I work at a print shop. She would come in now again, and she would do gardening stuff there. Yeah, she's got a very green thumb. She's very big into plants, and good at doing things that look good and all that. So we were out putting arborvitae trees in at work, and I was digging the holes because, you know, I like doing physical manual labor. But, you know, then I started beeping, and I had, I, you know, ran inside and drink some Gatorade or something, you know. And I guess her mom told her that I was inside fixing my numbers and told her that I was diabetic, but so she knew I didn't actually have to tell her. She, she knew she's very, very open and very into it. She, you know, she, she helps me. Whenever I put my Omnipod on, she always checks to make sure that I'm pink
Scott Benner 1:02:23
in the window. She checks the window for you. Yep, yep. Very nice. Check
Brock 1:02:27
the window make sure that it's pink. She likes to be the nurse, and she'll fill up the pods for me and
Scott Benner 1:02:32
everything. And yeah, that's lovely man. How long have you guys been together? We have
Brock 1:02:37
been together coming up on two years. It'll be well, we're getting married on our two year anniversary. I proposed on the one year anniversary. I guess you know, it's like that when you know, you know. And I knew with her 100%
Scott Benner 1:02:50
and she seemed okay with it. So she was,
Brock 1:02:55
she was in. I was like, awesome. And you know, what's even better? Crazy enough. She's never been to Colorado, but we're actually getting married in Colorado. We're doing a destination wedding, just going to be like us and some immediate family out
Scott Benner 1:03:08
there. That's excellent, man. Good for you. That's really great. Congratulations. That's wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, no, no. I mean, you've been on a on a hell of a ride, you know?
Brock 1:03:17
Yeah, yeah, I have. It's been, it's been a bumpy ride, but, you know, it's smooth, it's smooth sailing here.
Scott Benner 1:03:24
So, yeah, you told a story there that. I mean, you're only 29 yep, yep. And that's, that's a big story, and a lot's happened. You've been through a lot, you've done a lot, you've made a lot of mistakes, you've you've fixed a lot of things about yourself 100% What are you looking forward to in the next 29 years of your life, like, what do you hope your life is like?
Brock 1:03:46
Oh, man. Well, so currently we live in a house. My fiance bought this house before me. She was married previously, before we got together. I didn't, you know, facilitate in the split up or anything like that. You know, he owns this house, and I'm looking forward to buying a house with her, and, you know, hopefully starting our own family after we get married, and showing them what's important in life. And both me and Savannah, Savannah is my fiance. We We love being outdoors. You know, we love hiking. We love going, taking our dogs for walks, and mountain biking, disc golf, anything outside, doing that and showing showing kids that, you know, you can get outside. You don't have to be glued to your phone all the time.
Scott Benner 1:04:37
Yep. Brock, tell me what it is like you're looking forward to showing them. What about life like? What? What do you think it's important about
Brock 1:04:43
it, enjoying every moment, enjoying the small moments and the big moments, and taking it day by day, yeah, just the whole experience,
Scott Benner 1:04:52
being alive and with people and and just seeing what's around you and trying to enjoy it. Yep, yep. You think. You'd ever drink in front
Brock 1:05:01
of them? Yeah, I mean, like I was saying, I do every now and again, still and I definitely don't have, you know, I won't tell them not to drink. I will probably take the same route that my parents didn't. They were okay with me and my brother drinking at a younger age, as long as we were smart about it made, you know, good choices and made sure we had rides home that were not, that had not been drinking and, yeah, doing that sort
Scott Benner 1:05:29
of stuff. Okay. What about weed? Do you think you tell them it's okay?
Brock 1:05:32
Yeah, I would. I definitely say it's okay for them to try and make their own decisions about I don't. I don't do it anymore. I at one point or another, I started to get some paranoia from smoking, and at that point I was
Scott Benner 1:05:48
like, enough for me. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Will you ever tell your kids you did heroin in jail? Oh,
Brock 1:05:58
that's a good question. Yeah, I would say I probably would if I don't know if, if
Scott Benner 1:06:03
I know, I probably sound like I'm joking, but I'm being serious. Like, do you think there's a time in your life, Felix, you know what? I mean,
Brock 1:06:10
yeah. I was just saying if, if that Yeah. I mean, yeah, I would say, probably not.
Scott Benner 1:06:15
When there are five, but like, at some point you might say, like, Hey, I've made mistakes in my life. Here's a couple of them and, like, tell them your story, you know, Yep, yeah. Does your soon to be wife have a story too? Or is she just like a normal girl who just met you?
Brock 1:06:30
Yeah, she's got a story. Grew up in a town in Wisconsin as well, and her first marriage, the guy was, you know, apparently, abusive in more ways than one, physically and verbally, more so verbally, but you know, like everybody has a past and helping her heal from that stuff, and like showing her that I'm here to support her 100% you know, regardless of what she wants to do or how she's feeling, I just want her to, you know, feel valid for feel validated with all of her feelings, and, you know, help her work
Scott Benner 1:07:07
through. Man, that's lovely. I'm glad you guys found each other. That's really something. Thank you. Me too, yo. You're very welcome. I'm excited for you. It's hard to think this when you're 29 but like at my age, like you have so much time in front of you. Like it just this is very exciting for me to hear, because it feels like you're just a new person with a new direction. And you know what I mean? And I like that, yeah, yeah, 100% Yeah. Because it can feel like, when it happens to you, it feels more like, Oh, God, I've been through all this stuff, and I'm already 30 and I'm not even married, like, you know, like, you can think of it that way, yeah, I wouldn't think of it that way. I would tell you that you have, like, 31 years till you're 60. When you're 61, day, you'll have lived longer than you've lived right now, and you can make this next half of your life whatever you want it to be. I love that. Yeah, no, I'm super excited for you. Man, that's exhilarating. Not getting taste Brock. Let's
Brock 1:08:03
all right, that's, that's fair. Let's
Scott Benner 1:08:05
be exhilarated by building a life. Also watch what happens you make a baby. The first thing you're going to do is sell your motorcycle, just
Brock 1:08:13
so, you know, oh, I don't know if that's true. I've gotten Savannah into motorcycling as well. Now I feel like it'll be a part of our lives. But, you know, it'll be, I will definitely tone it down. You know, I already have started doing that just for Savannah, because I don't, you know, I got you trying to stay alive for, yeah, exactly I, you know, I got, I got reasons to stay alive. Rock,
Scott Benner 1:08:34
I wish somebody would have found you when you were five and told you the reasons that you wanted to stay alive instead of, instead of when you looked over the guy and you're like, Oh, I hope he doesn't kill me, yeah, yeah. You're kind of a hippie man. Like, I know what you look like. You're, oh,
Brock 1:08:49
yeah, yeah. I got, I got long hair, yeah, I was gonna say, you, you said, you know, I'll be listening to the episode that of a guy that sounds like me. You said six one blonde hair. That's, I'm like, six foot, and I got dark, I got brown hair, but I got, like, it's down to my shoulders.
Scott Benner 1:09:07
I know, I know what you look like, so I what I meant was that you sound Your name sounds like you're six foot and you have blonde hair, like, that's what got you you're a gentle dude, like, I can't imagine, like, I had a hard time imagining putting my 19 year old son in prison, looking at a guy that he thought, Man, that guy could kill me, like, I gotta sit here, shut my mouth and get the hell out of here, because, like, That guy could hear me wrong and end me for no real reason. It must have been. I mean, eye opening is, I guess that's
Brock 1:09:37
it definitely was. And, you know, it was like, like, my open book Living, like, same deal in there. So like, I would talk to my roommate. I'm in prison. There's nothing else to do, you know. I mean, we can read books and whatever. But like, I would talk to him. So I, you know, I got a lot of stories and a lot of, you know, a lot of things that I was just like, wow, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:09:59
man. Like, I said, You've been through some so, like, I'm happy that you're out the other side of it and you're starting over. And I just, I wish you nothing but success, and I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing your story with everybody. It
Brock 1:10:12
was awesome. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on, Scott, it's been my pleasure. And again, sorry, was it? Robert?
Scott Benner 1:10:19
Oh Rob, yeah, you're wrong.
Brock 1:10:22
Oh yeah, sorry, Rob, about all the editing.
Scott Benner 1:10:25
Rob, Listen, man, maybe there's a world where we just leave all the you knows in and, like, just let it be what it is. Like yours is definitely an episode where I'm going to get a note later that says, like, I spent a lot of time taking you know out of this episode.
Brock 1:10:39
I believe that, yep,
Scott Benner 1:10:41
but no. Awesome. All right, man, thank you so much. And you know, I don't, I don't dislike Wisconsin, right? But no,
Brock 1:10:47
I have you ever visited? I mean, I know your brother, your brother in law, or your brother lives here, brother in law.
Scott Benner 1:10:54
Oh, yeah. Brock, do you want me to ruin the podcast for you? Or do you want to keep listening in order?
Brock 1:10:58
I'm going to keep listening in order. But have you, have you visited, or have you not just
Scott Benner 1:11:02
give me that I visited at the end of my mom's life to see her? Yeah, oh, I'm
Brock 1:11:07
sorry for her passing. Thank you. She was in the episode that I'm listening to. She you know, you were just dealing with some of that going on with some health stuff
Scott Benner 1:11:18
with your mom, but you're gonna hear it all if you keep listening.
Brock 1:11:21
Yeah, that's my plan. I was gonna say Monday through Thursday at work, I listen to your podcast like the whole day, basically,
Scott Benner 1:11:29
man, I really do appreciate I can't tell you being serious. Brock, like, I'll let you go in a second. But people like you who are listening like that, you have no idea, like, how, how much it helps reach the next person who really probably just needs the Pro Tip series or the bold beginnings or something like that, because right, right the numbers. It's the numbers, and they're really important. They're really important to staying current. They're important to advertisers. They're important to the algorithms. Like and the podcast, just if people don't keep listening to it, like, if, if everybody just jumped in listen to the 20 episodes of this series, five of this, 10 of that was like, I feel good and I'm out of here, like the podcast wouldn't exist and it wouldn't be there for the next person. So right, I love that you're listening, and I really do. I genuinely appreciate it. So thank you,
Brock 1:12:14
man. I genuinely appreciate you putting all this time and effort into the podcast and for taking such good care of your daughter and being in the trenches and learning all this and sharing, sharing everything with with everyone. It really is my pleasure. It's my more people that it reaches, that that's the better.
Scott Benner 1:12:32
Thank you. Thank you. It really is my pleasure. I have to tell you, I really enjoy doing this so and all that comes out of it. So, all right, man, I'm gonna let you go Hold on one second for me. Okay, okay, thanks.
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. Dexcom sponsored this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g7 at my link. Dexcom.com/juicebox, hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Check out my algorithm pumping series to help you make sense of automated insulin delivery systems like Omnipod five loop, Medtronic 780, G twist tandem control IQ and much more. Each episode will dive into the setup features and real world usage tips that can transform your daily type one diabetes management. We cut through the jargon, share personal experiences and show you how these algorithms can simplify and streamline your care. If you're curious about automated insulin pumping, go find the algorithm pumping series in the Juicebox Podcast, easiest way Juicebox podcast.com, and go up into the menu, click on series, and it'll be right there. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, wrong.
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