#1599 Honey, Honey

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Terri, a 62-year type 1 veteran shares life before tech, college challenges, and 20 years helping others through her work in the diabetes supply world.

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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
Terry, Welcome back friends to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Terri 0:16
Hi, I'm Terry. I was diagnosed in 1963 with type one diabetes back in the old days,

Scott Benner 0:28
I am here to tell you about juice cruise 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right. We're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to st, Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. 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 or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, 887211514, get your supplies the same way we do from us. Med, 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 improve time and range. Learn more and get started today at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox.

Terri 2:07
Hi, I'm Terry. I was diagnosed in 1963 with type one diabetes back in the old days, 63

Scott Benner 2:17
wait if I'm 53 now, and I was born in 71 then you were diagnosed, 61

Terri 2:23
years ago. Yeah, 60 Yeah, 62 years ago. Wow. How old are you now? Well, at the moment, I'm 76

Scott Benner 2:31
Oh, that's awesome. So you were 14 when you were diagnosed.

Terri 2:35
I was 15 years old. Geez, I was 15 years old and taking Driver's Ed. How did you figure out you had type one? Well, between the driving teacher and me, every time I would get in the car, I'd say, Could you stop at the stop and go 711 I need to get a drink. And we had, I had a partner that was driving with me. We would switch, and he would stop, and I would buy a sprite, and I would guzzle the sprite down. And then 15 minutes later, I'd say, Could you stop again? I have to go the bathroom. And he would stop again. And this, you know, went on and on for and he said, You think that there's something wrong with you. And I said, Well, I'm just thirsty. Apparently, this is what I remember about the whole thing, because it's, you know, it's hard to remember, especially when you're old and moldy like me. My mother saw me getting out of the bathtub. She turned around and she went, Oh my God, you're so skinny. What's the matter with you? And I said, Well, I don't know. I've been going to the bathroom a lot lately. You know, I've been really, really thirsty. It did not dawn on her. She had no earthly idea what was going on, and neither did I. So she said, Well, I think maybe you have a kidney infection. We went to the doctor that day or the next day, and I just remember him listening to everything, and he said, Okay, this is what I want you to do now. This was a general practitioner, you know, my doctor that I had seen since I got out of the pediatrician. I want you to get up in the morning and I want you to eat a really hearty breakfast, like pancakes and syrup and milk and eggs and everything, and then come to the doctor so that that's basically, was my glucose tolerance. Yeah, right, my blood sugar was well into the 400 it's almost 500 I guess. And he told my mother, and, you know, yada yada, she cried. And basically he prescribed a bottle of insulin, a glass syringe, a stainless steel needle, and said, Take 42 units of this medicine every day. I just remember 42 and I. Don't eat sweets, does it was that beef and pork? It was mph,

Scott Benner 5:05
mph, it was okay. It was okay. And so, wow, how about that? That's simple. That was the sum of the diabetes education. What about other people in your family? Like, did you guys know about diabetes?

Terri 5:16
My paternal grandmother had type two diabetes, but she was taking insulin, because I remember the insulin bottle stacked up in her refrigerator. She had many, and when she died, they asked me if I wanted them all. And I went, No, I don't think so. I

Scott Benner 5:32
got my own thanks, though, that's the the extent of the direction that you got. And you're 50, you're 15, you're, I mean, that's young

Terri 5:41
15. That was right in the middle, you know, teenage years, people were going out. We, the group that I was with had a place to go. It was a hamburger place, big boy hamburgers. It was right across the street from the temple, and we would go there, you know, on Friday, Saturday and Saturday nights, basically, after whatever we did, and everybody would have hamburgers and milkshakes. And I remember one kid saying, my mother told me that the milkshakes here were low calorie. And I said, really low calorie, maybe I can eat them. And so I started ordering the milkshakes,

Scott Benner 6:24
but you're not testing your blood sugar. Terry, right? Like you're just giving yourself that big shot in the morning, and that's it. There

Terri 6:30
was no testing, except for the urine testing. And because every time I tested my urine, it turned orange, I just decided not to test anymore. What did orange mean? Orange was high, you know, four plus sugars in your urine or whatever. Occasionally, it would be a different color, but that was if I tested in the morning, right?

Scott Benner 6:52
You have brothers and sisters.

Terri 6:55
I do. I have a sister who is three and a half years younger, and I have a brother who's 12 and a half years younger.

Scott Benner 7:05
And are there other like, does anybody have thyroid issues or celiac or anything like that?

Terri 7:09
Nobody does. Nobody on either side besides my paternal grandmother. Okay, that I know of, I don't know about uncles and aunts and things. Wait, I had an aunt who had rheumatoid arthritis, but I was always told that she got it because she had

Scott Benner 7:27
rheumatic fever. Okay, did you have any, like, big traumas or illnesses before you were diagnosed?

Terri 7:35
I have tried to think about that so many times. I don't remember. It could have been, you know, a cold or the flu or something like that. I did have chicken pox. I did have measles. Those were a lot younger.

Scott Benner 7:50
I just interviewed somebody the other day who had pancreatitis, like, really bad pancreatitis, and then got type one later, and I was like, I looked it up, and sure enough, that can happen. I was like, oh, it's interesting. Okay, so you said your mom cried, like you made a specific point of saying that, was she, like, an involved mom, or did she not? She

Terri 8:08
was very involved. She was okay, she was she Yeah, she was the ruler of the roost. Basically, my father was really laid back, and I never saw him get upset. My mother was the one who did all the discipline and everything. But the more I think about it, the more we didn't know what to do. Yeah, I mean, we didn't. She made healthy dinners, you know, I ate as much as I wanted to, if there was potatoes on the plate, and she served, you know, potatoes I ate, potatoes I ate. I just remember having meat, vegetables and a salad, okay, most of the evenings, and buying my lunch at school, sometimes taking my lunch to school. And as a teenager, mainly buying my lunch. There was no, not a lot of information,

Scott Benner 8:57
right? So not a lot to do. Then, really, you just inject. So you injected in the morning. She didn't help you with that. You with that. You did that

Terri 9:03
well for a long time. I could say, Mom, could you give me my shot today or but I do it too, and it was hard, you know, to learn. Oh, it's a little needle phobic, but I got over it. I mean, you got to get over it sometime. Yeah, I know your daughter is having a hard time? Yeah, it's tough, right? I would go, okay, 123, go.

Scott Benner 9:26
I choose. It's about how it ends up. Yeah. So when do you think it changes? Like, what's the first adjustment to that process of managing yourself? Like, because, I mean, you're saying, like, you do the urine test, it's not even worth doing, because your blood sugar is going to be high anyway. When's the first time that and does it come from you saying I need to do something different? Or is it a doctor making a suggestion?

Terri 9:47
Well, I will tell you as much as I can remember I went through all the way through the rest of high school and most of college with that same doctor and doing. Same thing. I remember going to college taking my insulin. Of course, I had had permission to boil my syringes. I had a little hot plate and, you know, in the dorm, and I could do that, but we didn't have refrigeration. So I would keep my insulin in the cafeteria, and I would go down, probably eat breakfast, get my insulin, put it on the tray, and then go up back upstairs and take my shot.

Scott Benner 10:30
You literally kept your insulin in the refrigerator in your college kitchen. I did. I did. Do you remember? Was there other insulin in there, or was it just yours? I don't

Terri 10:40
remember anybody in my girls dorm that had type one diabetes, and I didn't really look for them. My girlfriends knew what to do. My roommate and my girlfriends around you know, knew what to do. There was a time when we were playing softball. Our dorm was playing softball against another dorm. And I know, I remember walking in after the softball game, and it was hot. I'm in Texas. It's, you know, basically hot all year. I remember walking in and saying, I'm going to sit down here by the elevator. And I sat down, and the next thing I knew, I was in my room, and my girlfriends were stuffing Hershey bars in my mouth, and they had gone through two, and they were getting ready to open the third Hershey bar. You popped up when, when I got my senses and I went, let's don't do that. How often did that happen? Probably not that much, especially lows like that. I'm pretty aware of low blood sugars, even to this day, and which is lucky, because, you know, a lot of people can't feel their lows, but sometimes I can feel my low before the Dexcom tells me, or the Dexcom is a little higher, yeah, you know, and I'm a little lower. But that was one of those times that I really, you know, remembered

Scott Benner 12:03
passing out, yeah and not a seizure, just losing consciousness. Okay?

Terri 12:09
This went on pretty much through college. I remember drinking at fraternity parties. I remember not binging eating, but basically eating what I wanted. I knew about sweets. So, you know, I would have a few bites of desserts and let you know, allow myself that, but not knowing what my blood sugars were and not remembering what I had, you know, the carbs that I had eaten before. Yeah, and I don't think I was encouraged to take, you know, a big step and learn more about it, until the ADA came out with all the exchanges.

Scott Benner 12:51
So that's not even carb counting, really. It's like a certain amount of your plate. Is one thing, a certain amount your plates. The other thing is that how it was right?

Terri 12:58
In fact, I was going through some old papers today last night, and I came across some ADA exchange lists, which were really funny, but that's the way I still

Scott Benner 13:09
think, okay, so you start doing that. What in your early 20s,

Terri 13:13
pretty much. I got married right out of college. Okay? I moved from the Dallas area where I grew up. Went to school in Austin, and then I moved to Houston. The man that I married was from Houston, and I went to his GP, who told me, You are brittle. You are very brittle. You have brittle diabetes, brittle, brittle. That's how I spoke. He was from the old country, yes,

Scott Benner 13:39
through high school through college. Do you remember how you measured success? It was it just injecting every day, and you did a good job. And that's the end of our consideration as to whether or not this was done. Well, let's talk about the tandem mobi 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 mobi 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. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, us, med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, us. Med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping. US med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM like the libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide, and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at usmed.com/juicebox, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do.

Terri 16:26
Well, you know, when I went for blood tests, I started eating right a week before, you know, eating diet type menus,

Scott Benner 16:38
you thought it would make your blood work better,

Terri 16:41
right? Yeah. Okay, so I don't remember when I went on two injections, not quite sure when I went on two injections, but I think it may have been at that time, okay, I went on two injections, and then early on in Houston, I went to a meeting of people with type one diabetes at the time. It was before the 80s. It was called AIDS, adult Association, insulin dependent, something like that. Okay? And I met a doctor there who had a revolutionary idea. His idea was to take a long acting insulin and then take a short acting insulin before each meal. And I said, that sounds pretty reasonable. I could do that. And I was with him. He's great. He's still practicing. And that was basically in the mid 70s, okay, he also happened to own a diabetes supply company. He was his office was upstairs, and his store was downstairs.

Scott Benner 17:52
That revolutionary idea comes out. Was he ahead of the curve, like, was he taking a risk saying this out loud, being, you know, kind of a was he out on the edge of the sword? I guess I'm asking, like, you

Terri 18:04
think it was, I'm pretty sure it was. He said, This is something that we are trying now, okay? And he gave a speech about and I went up to him later, and I said, you know, I would like to do this. I'm taking two or three shots a day. I think I was on some regular insulin, or two shots a day. I said, you know, I'd like to try this. I'd like to come to you. I've never been to a specialist before, and I think I probably need some, you know, tuning. It was probably about 7273

okay, because in 1970 or maybe it was later than that, because in 1973

I got pregnant, and I went to a regular gynecologist, obstetrician, and about month seven, I started gaining lots and lots of weight every couple weeks, and he did an x ray and found that the baby was not viable. Oh, my and so that was at seven

Scott Benner 19:16
months. You lost that baby at that point.

Terri 19:20
Okay, I did. Now, fast forward 10 years. I did not know the reason for this, for this failed pre pregnancy, until I got pregnant 10 years later with my son and I went to a specialist, you know diabetes? What is it? Perinatologist, she said, Do you know the reason that you had this bad pregnancy? I said, No. She said it was because of high blood sugars. And I went, Oh, nobody ever told me that

Scott Benner 19:55
you had no idea when you got pregnant, the first time that your outcomes were. With your diabetes had any impact at all in the pregnancy.

Terri 20:03
Okay, I knew that I, you know, needed to eat better. You eat a little bit more for two or one and a half or whatever, like that, always hungry. But when a one CS came out, my first a 1c was 13, and I said, is that bad?

Scott Benner 20:21
Do you remember what they told you? They told

Terri 20:24
me it was 13. I said, Okay, is that bad? I

Scott Benner 20:29
said, Yes, it's very bad. What do you think you just weren't taking enough insulin? I mean, the long and the short of it is, you're doing that two or three shots a day, and then you move to so when you have the 13, a, 1c, you're now doing a slow and a long and a fast acting insulin at that point, right? Okay, and so the guy had the revolutionary idea to do a background insulin and a meal insulin, but he didn't talk about how to measure

Terri 20:54
it. I think we, you know, I think we worked on it. I was the type of person that I'm not fooling anybody but myself, but I would eat a little bit more, or have a little bit of dessert, or take a little bit of ice cream, or, you know, or all of these things didn't hurt until blood glucose monitoring came out, and you could see it every time you did it.

Scott Benner 21:20
Yeah, that changed things for you. It really did. Yeah, having a meter and so, so are you trying to tell me you knew you weren't optimally eating and using your insulin, but you just kind of told yourself you were, and you

Terri 21:33
kept going, right? And then when you, you know, when I had a blood test, my blood value would come out 130 and the doctor would say, well, you're doing well, you know, it's 130 it's good.

Scott Benner 21:45
Was that like your fasting number? That was my

Terri 21:47
fasting number. Yeah, right.

Scott Benner 21:49
So I got you all right. So you get a meter for the first time, and do you start using it? Or does the doctor kind of make

Terri 21:55
you I had one of those plug in dial, dial up type meters. I was excited to get a meter, and I could afford to get one of those ones that plugged into the wall, and you had to run water over it, and it took two minutes and so and then you had to dial it. You had to dial these two dials so that they would match. It took like forever to get a blood sugar. And, you know, once I saw the higher blood sugars, the thing to do was just to get on board. I, you know, then I started asking a lot of questions, how can I be better? What can I do to take you know, what can I do to eat better?

Scott Benner 22:39
Does your increased interest coincide with not just getting a meter, but also a second pregnancy? Or do those things kind of happen at the same time? I'm trying to figure out what motivated you to like ask more questions.

Terri 22:51
When I started going to this doctor, I started paying attention to the things in his office, the store that he had downstairs. This all culminated in my jobs for them, you know, for then and after, I started paying more attention to it, reading a lot of things, and kind of educating myself, since nobody else was going to do it for me, since I had, you know, left my family and my mother really didn't know enough to say, let's find out more about this. You know, let's try to help you, and let's see how you know, we can make you live for a long time, I really started doing a lot of these things myself, okay? And I was interested in his business enough to say, I want to work for you. You know, after my second child was born, I want to work for you. And I got involved in marketing and going to doctors offices and just, you know, trying to get people to come into the store. That was about the time. Fast forward to about 1989 when we moved to San Antonio, I opened a store for him here, a diabetes store, right? So I kind of got in the middle of things. I was running a store. I had diabetes books, I had all kinds of papers. I would go to the doctor's offices, I would see what the endocrinologists were doing. I mean, he was an endocrinologist. I got hooked up with a really good endocrinologist here in San Antonio, but I was working in the diabetes field. It made me learn things.

Scott Benner 24:36
Yeah, it just gave you more access to ideas, right?

Terri 24:39
Yeah. I would go to speakers. I would listen. I would go to the diabetes educators in all the hospitals. I would market them, as it turned out, that company, he finally sold the stores to another company who I don't know. I had six or eight name tags on my chest before i. He finally sold to a company who is still in business, a company that is very, very similar to the company that you advertise on on the radio,

Scott Benner 25:10
okay? Some like us, med, they sell devices and things like that. One of their competitors, right, right? And he eventually they bought up his business. Yes, they did. Did you continue to work for them, or was that the end

Terri 25:22
of it? For you, I did. I worked almost 20 years in the diabetes field,

Scott Benner 25:26
no kidding. And so like to go back a little bit. You have a lot of hindsight here, obviously. So in the time of your life, of diagnosis, into your 20s, even through your first pregnancy, there was no other information, right? It's not like it was out there and you didn't know it. It just until the ADA started talking about it. I've heard other people your age talk about this. You were just doing the thing they told you to do, and there was no it wasn't like there was more to learn, and you didn't know it, right? It just didn't exist,

Terri 25:54
pretty much, yeah,

Scott Benner 25:57
okay, then the ADA comes together, starts putting together guidelines for people, you know, there's magazines, and if you ever saw one of those old magazines or not, but like, Oh, see, my,

Terri 26:05
you know, the doctor that owned the business, he put ads in the ADA magazine. He wrote AD. He was, he was the first mail order diabetes supply company. No

Scott Benner 26:17
kidding, yeah, by point for people listening, who are more newly diagnosed, or just, you know, even just half your age, even that's it like there was nothing. Hey, you're lucky we have insulin now. Good luck. And that's the end of it until, until you can start testing your blood sugar in your home. Because people talk about it now like, Oh, I didn't have a CGM. But then i I finally could see how my blood sugars were moving, and it changed how I thought about it, like you test your blood sugar one day and you thought, oh, maybe I should be doing something about this. Let me learn more about this.

Terri 26:48
My daughter, who just turned 50, got here with no glucose monitoring.

Scott Benner 26:53
That's scary through that pregnancy, yeah,

Terri 26:58
you know, I finally got pregnant about six or seven months later, and that pregnancy was fine. By that time, another year and a half later, they figured out that they would take the baby, they would do some testing on their lung capacity, and take the child three weeks early through C section. So she was born three weeks early. She was seven pounds, one ounce at whatever that is, 36 weeks or something. She looks like a moose in the preemie nursery, because they had to keep her in there for a while.

Scott Benner 27:35
They took her early so that she wouldn't gain more weight in those last few weeks. What

Terri 27:39
they said was that babies of diabetic mothers in the last three weeks of pregnancies tend to have mysterious deaths. Okay, so they would take

Scott Benner 27:51
them. Gotcha? Does she have type two diabetes today as an adult?

Terri 27:55
She does not. Okay. She's very thin and very active. She's got psoriasis.

Scott Benner 28:01
She does have a little bit of an autoimmune thing. You said you had a son too, right?

Terri 28:08
My son is perfectly healthy. So far,

Scott Benner 28:11
so far, you said, Hello, so far. He

Terri 28:15
will be 40 on my birthday. He was born on my birthday.

Scott Benner 28:18
Wow. There's a world where you could have a 4050, and 60 year old child, or not 60, but like your kids would have been, if that first pregnancy goes to term, your kids would have been spread out, like, pretty significantly, huh,

Terri 28:31
right? Yeah. I mean, you know, I had a brother who was 12 and a half years younger, and then I did it myself, yeah, but that was due to really bad medical advice, really, because I had a doctor. Finally, when I did get to a specialist with my daughter, who said, Well, you know, you had it. You had one good child. I don't recommend you have any more. And I said, okay, but I will tell you a funny story. When I was working for the doctor. I went to a family practice convention. We had a booth there, and I was handing out all kinds of things to these family practice doctors, and in another booth, do you remember? Did you watch Seinfeld? Of course, yeah, okay. Do you remember the episode with the today's sponge.

Scott Benner 29:23
I mean vaguely, but I don't know if I have enough details, but go ahead, tell

Terri 29:27
me. Elaine, you know, got a whole closet full, you know, she, she bought out the, I don't know, the wholesaler of these today's sponges, and she would have dates with these men and decide if they were sponge worthy or not. It was really a funny show.

Scott Benner 29:47
She didn't want to use up a sponge on a bad guy. Yeah, I got you Okay,

Terri 29:51
right? As it turned out, I changed my contraceptive just because those things came out and sounded like. Those were a lot easier than what I was doing. And so I got pregnant, oops, at this family practice convention, I came by and they said, Oh, you know, how are you? And I'm talking to them. And I they said, Have you ever used our product? And I said, I have. Can you wait a minute? And I went back to the booth, and I got my purse and with my picture of my baby son, and I said, Yes, I've used your product, and here's the

Scott Benner 30:27
result. Yeah, here's how it worked out for me. I tried your contraceptive, and I have this kid.

Terri 30:33
And they looked at me and they said, You may leave this booth right now.

Scott Benner 30:37
Feel free to walk away. Yeah, I love that. So what did you name your son? Is he spongy or what do you call him? You guys ever call him SpongeBob? That'd be awesome.

Terri 30:47
My husband used to call him froggy because he would laugh like, like, froggy the Gremlin. You old enough to remember that the Gremlins movie no was before that? Oh, sorry, was on some, some old black and white TV show, and he would laugh

Scott Benner 31:07
like that. All I can tell you is, I referenced Rocky and Bullwinkle the other day, and I realized that I was watching a television show as a kid. A cartoon is a child that was made like 15 years before I was born. I thought it was brand new. It was already, you know, already you know, it's already 20 years old. When

Terri 31:22
I was watching it, I love that play. I love that show. It was good.

Scott Benner 31:26
Okay, so let's jump forward a little bit. Okay, because here you are. You're 76 years old. You somehow know who I am. That's ridiculous, and you've been through all this stuff. Like, is there a time when you think back and think, this is when my diabetes understanding knowledge and technology became more modern. Like, when do you think of as your you know as your modernization of your diabetes? I think there's two

Terri 31:50
times Well, a couple times once, when I got an insulin pump in 1997 endocrinologist I was doing well at the time, and he said, You're doing so well, you don't need a pump. Now, he was a big name here in the San Antonio area, very big name, I guess he pumps were just becoming the fashion with the type ones, and he didn't think that I needed the but I but I got one anyway. Okay, so I started with a Medtronic 506 or something like that, and I moved up from there with with Medtronic. I decided, after getting all of these electronic devices, that I had to have the newest and the best. Unfortunately, the insurance made you wait four years, of course, you know, to upgrade. I did not go on the pod because I thought it was too bulky at the time. I went on the tandem for a while. I loved the tandem, but I did not like the clip, and I couldn't put it anywhere.

Scott Benner 32:54
Can you imagine it right now? If you're listening in your tandem, you're like, oh, it's the clip we that's how we lost her.

Terri 33:02
The Omnipod, because, of course,

Scott Benner 33:05
probably like, damn it, you just couldn't find a place to comfortably wear the pump at that time. That's

Terri 33:10
great. Too much rolls around my I'm not fat, but I have a roll around my middle. And every time I'd stick it on my waistband and bend over around, it would either stick me or pop off, and it didn't have the right clip to clip it on my bra or in my bra, so I just couldn't find a place to put it. And I would get really frustrated. And then the Omnipod dash came out, and I thought I would try it, and I really liked it. I really liked it. In the last couple years, I would say in the last two and a half years, I decided to really get into the intricacies of learning diabetes. Okay, well, the first thing I did was pay exorbitant amount of money to a guy on the online I'm sure you know who it is, but and I took his class, and I paid half attention to it, I didn't dig deep enough when I finally decided that his method of Teaching was not the way that I wanted to learn. And I had been reading your the Facebook page, like a lot of women or a lot of adults, thinking, Oh, it's just for kids. It's it's parents with kids as asking a lot of questions. And then I would see some questions from adults and go, Well, you know, I'm learning from this. And then I started listening to your podcasts, and that's when I got really, really into it, you know, I'm finally, after 60 some odd years, finally understanding how insulin works.

Scott Benner 34:57
I'm glad that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that's really great.

Terri 35:01
And I still get frustrated with things, because I think that all pumps need to be on extended Bolus, especially if you eat any protein,

Scott Benner 35:12
even the aid systems, you wish they still had an extended Bolus. The Omnipod

Terri 35:16
five has an extended Bolus, and a lot of times I'm in extended Bolus for at least breakfast and dinner, and then I switch back to auto, and I'll switch back to auto at night, which will be, you know, fine and perfect. Then if you want to eat something in the middle of this extended Bolus, you can't give yourself any more

Scott Benner 35:38
because it's because you just will it cancel the extended Bolus. If you make a new Bolus,

Terri 35:45
you could, okay, you know, I could figure out how much is left and then extend that, you know, take what I want to eat and then wait, and then, you know, and then eat it.

Scott Benner 35:59
Are you using it like automation for overnight and and you're running manual during the day. Do you do that every day? I

Terri 36:06
run manual part of the day. Okay, I try to get back on on auto mode. But then if I eat a lot of protein, I drink a smoothie in the morning. I drink the same smoothie that I've had for probably a year or more. It's got this, you know, the protein powder. It's got peanut butter, almond butter. It's a high calorie, high protein. It's got strawberries and bananas in it, cinnamon, all that stuff. Yeah, it's got about 54 grams of of carbs. Well,

Scott Benner 36:41
I mean, and that's important, right as your age specifically, right, to get that protein in and and to get enough fuel for you during the day. Is it harder to eat when you're older? Do I hear a lot of people say that, like, I'm not hungry anymore? Is that part of your issue?

Terri 36:55
Well, I don't know if that's because of age or the fact that a couple of years ago, I had a bacterial gut infection that just really messed me up. I mean, I lost a bunch of weight and I wasn't hungry for a long time. I bought lost a bunch of muscle, yeah, and I'm trying to get it back by going to Pilates and walking. And I think my face is a little fuller. I mean, put on a couple more pounds and I look, I don't look so gaunt anymore. I eat that because I know I can, I know exactly how many proteins and fats that I have, and I drink that, and I'm not hungry until about two o'clock in the afternoon.

Scott Benner 37:39
Okay, so it's good, it's filling, and it's giving you the micro and macronutrients that you need,

Terri 37:44
right? I probably should add some of that green stuff that you advertise. I

Scott Benner 37:48
mean, listen, if you want to, it's, I think it's drink ag one slash Juicebox.

Terri 37:53
Does it taste funny? Does it taste like green? How does ag

Scott Benner 37:56
one taste I've heard some people describe it as like lemon, but I don't have that feeling about it. What I can tell you is that I tried a number of green drinks. This is the only one that I can actually drink that doesn't make me want to, like, dump it down the sink. It's not like a root beer float or anything like that, but it's it's pleasant, it's not objectionable, it's not gritty. You know, I like it. I think it's the one. It's funny. Because I think people think, well, they just, they buy an ad. So you say you drink it, but it's the one I landed on that I actually liked. So just kind of got lucky that they were interested in doing it. I don't know. You can give it a try, see what you think. If you don't like it, you know, stop doing it. Since I've been on a GLP medication. I use a protein powder too, you know, because sometimes it's just, I mean, I don't know if it's my it's my age or not, but there are days where I feel like, Oh, my God, I do have to eat again. Like, I mean, how long am I going to be alive? You know what? I mean, I don't want any of this anymore. I've eaten this stuff so many times. Like, I find myself wishing all the time it was the Jetsons and I could just take that pill and I'd be done. But, you know, sometimes you get hungry for something, but I don't know, generally speaking, I'm not like a real food person. I don't run around like thinking, oh God, you know, it would be awesome today if I had this or this.

Terri 39:07
Well, as an older person, you do see a lot of older people. I mean, I go out with a group of altar Cockers. Do you know what that is?

Scott Benner 39:16
I know a little Yiddish. I'm good. Go ahead.

Terri 39:19
Okay, that's old people who complain a lot, and most of them will share, you know, share meals, not because of cost, but because they just don't want that much food at night. Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:31
by the way, you're making me think that, if I can, I can keep podcasting another 20 years. I could just make a podcast where I just bitching about stuff constantly. I think that would be awesome, don't you just got on here and just made a list of grievances. One of them would be the kid in the green hat this morning who was texting with both hands while trying to make a right turn in front of me. I'd like to complain about him for about 20 minutes, if I could. Yeah, I'm gonna keep that in mind. I might, I might ditch this diabetes thing one day and just turn into an old guy bitching. That'd be a ghost. I might, I might actually get old guy bitching. Dot com right now, just so I can get, I can get ahead of this. You know, I love to complain. I can't wait to get older. It's going to be awesome. But you guys hate it when each other complains, though, right?

Terri 40:09
We, I know we do, and we and we all talk about, you know, the illness, or how good or bad the illness is at the moment, especially the husbands. A lot of the husbands are failing my my husband passed away 13 years ago, almost 13 years ago.

Scott Benner 40:27
Oh my gosh. And how old were you at that time? In your mid 60s,

Terri 40:30
I was 64 he was 65 he didn't feel good for the longest time. And I kept saying, call the doctor. Call the doctor. I finally, one day, handed him the telephone. I said, this is a telephone. I know you know a phone because you're an attorney and you're on the phone all the time, so, but this is a phone that calls the doctor. I'm leaving, call the doctor now, make an appointment. And the doctor didn't like what he heard when he met with him and said, I'm sending you for a CT scan, full body scan, right now. And he sent him over and came back with he had tumors in his Liver. Liver cancer doesn't come from the liver. It metastasizes to the liver. So they were kind of unsure, even until the day he died, where the cancer really started. But he lived for about 18 months, worked every day, up until two weeks before, called the family, you know, a couple weeks before, before he died, he didn't know he was gonna die, but and he said, Okay, here's the papers for this, and you take this, and I want you to do this. And you know, it's like everything was planned. I couldn't have asked for anything better, right? He was a cool guy. Bernie, the attorney,

Scott Benner 41:55
I'm sorry. Do you think going sooner to the doctor would have changed his outcome or not

Terri 42:00
necessary. It depends on how much sooner, you know, how much sooner, how badly? Because it was stage four at the time, he just kept saying, you know, I just close the door in the afternoon and take a nap in my office. I said, That's

Scott Benner 42:16
not you. Was he on chemo for those 18 months?

Terri 42:19
Yeah, he was, yeah, Geez, that sucks. I'm sorry. It was, did you try to date afterwards?

Scott Benner 42:28
Go ahead, Tara, tell me, how'd it go?

Terri 42:32
Yeah, I did. I had several boyfriends, one for about almost six years. We're still friends. And then a couple here and there I was on dating apps, and I have one who, right now is here. Is he in the

Scott Benner 42:50
house? Now? No, he's not here. But Terry, can I ask a very Listen, I know you're 76 and people are going to think this is indelicate, but I really have a serious question. You were with your husband your whole life, right? So you you age together. So you just, I don't know if people realize this or not, but like, I mean, if you stop every once in a while, you're like, God, I'm older. Like, you can see it, but you don't really feel it day to day, because you're aging together. But once Bernie is gone and the next guy shows up, the first time, all the clothes come off, you think I'm about to have sex with an old man. Does it feel that way? Please tell me, I really want to know, yes, but you don't feel like you should be right? You feel like you'd be like, Oh, I shouldn't be doing this. I'm downgraded. No, no.

Terri 43:32
I you know, nobody feels their age. I mean, some people do, you know, during, you know, it's like, Oh, I feel like I'm 99 today. It can't move in our brains. You know, we still have life and love and vitality, and we think that we're 40,

Scott Benner 43:53
yeah, fairness, Terry, I know what you look like. You don't look like you're 76 right? You know, lately there's been this trend on Tiktok. It's called, this is 50. And there are people are like, you know, they hold their camera. I'm like, Look, here it is. I'm not wearing any makeup. I'm 50 years old. This is what 50 looks like. And I'm looking at some of these people. I'm like, Y'all look like you're 70. I don't look like that. I held my phone up to myself. I was like, I couldn't even do this challenge. These people would get mad at me. They come after me. I've got nice dark hair still, you understand? And I wonder, like, I'm like, that's it's 50 for you. And like, right on, like, I'm glad you're proud and all that stuff. But like, I see people nowadays like you, you look like my dad would have been thrilled to look like you when he was 60. You're 16 years older than that, and you, you spent a half an hour telling me your your a 1c, was probably 13 most of the time, while you were growing up,

Terri 44:42
I was really lucky. I don't know what it was. I just went to the retinologist Yesterday. I have no you know, I had no retinopathy. He said, not only are you the best patient that I have seen today, he said, I haven't seen a patient like. You, I had another doctor say you're my most boring patient.

Scott Benner 45:03
That's awesome, but I said

Terri 45:05
I want to be boring. Yeah,

Scott Benner 45:07
no kidding, don't I don't want to be anybody stored at dinner. I don't

Terri 45:10
know what I did. Maybe I'm better than I thought I was. Maybe I did better at the times that there was no glucose monitoring, right? And the times that I did check that were, you know, that were so, quote, bad, out of control, maybe I should say out of control, were the times that got me depressed or sad and gone. Oh well, you know, there it is again. It's high, but maybe the rest of the time I was okay, or maybe I have good genes. I don't have any neuropathy or retinopathy

Scott Benner 45:45
or lucky, right? Like

Terri 45:46
I yeah, I think it's, you know, it's luck, because I had two friends in high school, Guy and his sister, and both of them are deceased for a long, a long time ago, one was kidney disease, and one, well, she kind of drank her way through college and went blind, but, and those are the things that nobody, you know, want wants to hear. And the parents who listen to this, you know, they don't want their kids to to know these things they want them to know. Like I went to a diabetes camp as a, you know, as a marketer from the from the store that I worked for, right? And we did the diabetes camps here in San Antonio. And one of the girls, you know, saw my pump, and she's, oh, you're on a pump. And I said, yeah, she's, can I ask you a question, do you have any children? And I said, Yeah, I have two children. Shit, you have two children. I can have children. So, you know, I want these parents to say, with all of these gizmos and gadgets now you can do anything,

Scott Benner 46:54
yeah, really, I have to say, Terry, i The longer I do this, the more I think that what people hope is that if you just do all the right things, you have, you know, outcomes that you want. But I'm more inclined to think that people are kind of who they are, of course, you know, if you run into troubles, that's you know, not you know, like diabetes is an example. That's not something you control, but it's probably got more to do with your personality, how you're wired your environment, about how you're going to end up handling those things and being impacted by them. I think that's the stuff that you you have more control over, that you don't realize, and that we always focus on. The other thing, like, well, just Bolus right, or do this right, or, you know, and everything's going to be fine. Like, I think some of your kids are no nicks, and they were gonna turn out poorly whether they got diabetes or not. Now they're having a problem, and they have diabetes, and people blame the diabetes, right? Not to say that diabetes is exciting to have and doesn't have a huge impact on your life, but I wonder sometimes if there wouldn't have been another thing that would've befell them if it wasn't this, because, like, I don't know another way to, like, explain people who just, you know, have type one and RA and hypothyroidism and are just skating through life like, like, there's some magic potion about who they are and how they were brought up and how they think and how they react to things, etc, and so on. That just leads them to a good place, no matter what happens to them before, you know what I mean, there's some people get sad and they're sad for 20 years, then I don't think that's the thing you can control. I don't think you can control any of that. Meaning, like, I don't think you should take the blame for being a depressed person any more than you should take a credit for a person who just skates through things. Like, it's just random almost

Terri 48:39
before all of the technology and even into and now, I never let diabetes be the focal point of me. You know, I was somebody else I was, and hopefully that's what the parents are teaching these kids, diabetes is not your focal point. You just happen to have that, just like somebody else happens to have a bump on their elbow or brown hair or anything like that. Yeah, you know, you are an artist, you are a musician, you are a creative person, you are a mathematician. You are, whatever you are, and you just happen to have diabetes, and you happen to be taking care of something that somebody else doesn't have to take care of. So that makes you even more special. Yeah, listen,

Scott Benner 49:34
if you're a welder or, you know, yeah, you get up during in the morning and you have a good day, or a landscaping job all day long, or, you know, you're standing at a cash register. I mean, whatever it is, like, I want to tell people like, I think you are who you are, and this is an addition to that, and it's not fair and it's not great. But if you think that it's as easy as other people are doing, well, because they don't have diabetes, and you're doing. Poorly, because you do. I mean, I'm not saying that doesn't have a big impact on a life. It certainly does, but there are some people who are getting through it, and I'm also not a person who says, like, so just do what they do, because I don't know that that's possible. I don't know that everybody can just do the things that work for one person then say they're going to just lay over top of another person to work. I'm trying to say that. I think it's more of like, sometimes things just go the way they go for people. Like, I know people who are, they barely pay attention in college. They're incredibly smart and incredibly successful, right? And I know people have a kid. You look at the kid when they're eight years old, you that's, that's a little Ted right there. Like, I can see that. And 10 years later, sure enough, Ted's in a bunch of trouble. And five years after that, Ted's in more trouble. And like I saw this coming 20 years ago now, was that a collection of nature, nurture, wiring, you know, things out of their control, probably. But what I'm trying to say is that I don't think diabetes puts you in a bad situation, like, I think it just ends up enhancing the situation you're in. It might be valuable to look at the big picture and not just blame the diabetes because something's going wrong. I mean, that's my only thought. I don't people be mad at me for saying that, but like, yeah, it's, I mean,

Terri 51:18
look, I didn't, I never had special compensation. I didn't have a 504 plan. I didn't have, you know, I there was nobody. I taught school for 10 years. There was nobody besides the person that was teaching next to me, who I could call on or followed me. I have nobody following me ever. I've never had anybody following me, and that's, you know, it's kind of scary. I've always thought I'm going to handle this myself and I'll deal with it. You know, if the time comes,

Scott Benner 51:52
I'll deal with it. I couldn't be happier for you, Terry, or how things are working out. I'm also saying, though, that you could take another random person, drop them into your life, and they'd have a poorer outcome than you did. Like I do, I do think a lot of it's just the randomness of your wiring and how your brain works and how your emotions work. Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm babbling or not. No,

Terri 52:16
it does, and it's about background and how you managed problems as a child. You know how, how your parents taught you how to manage things as a child? You know it will pass, or it's a big Magilla. It's a big thing.

Scott Benner 52:33
Yeah, a lot of life is the randomness of who you get as a mom and a dad. It really is. A lot of your direction comes from things you don't even you don't even realize, you know. So anyway, are you and I are going to meet? Is that correct?

Terri 52:47
We are in a couple days. That's awesome that

Scott Benner 52:52
you're coming on the cruise. It's going to be so cool.

Terri 52:55
I was so excited. I thought there was going to be, like, hundreds of people that we're gonna sign up, but I'm happy that, you know, it's gonna be a nice group of people. Yeah, we're gonna have an adult dinner.

Scott Benner 53:10
We are, I know I've been told that I have to eat, like, every half an hour, or something like that. Apparently, I'm having dinner with a lot of different people.

Terri 53:18
I was wondering, because, like, our dinner is at 845 and I have a roommate, and she says, I don't eat past seven o'clock. And I said, Well, why don't you eat a little early, and then you can drink the dinner and, you know, have a salad or something like that. And she said, but the food in the dining room is really good. I sent her a, you know, shrug emoji is like, what can I do about it early? Are you?

Scott Benner 53:46
Yeah, well, so we're doing it, and it's about 100 people that are getting together. It's going to be awesome, and we're going to make a decision pretty quickly after that. Like, if people have a good time and it goes off the way we expect it to, then we're probably going to announce another one for the following year, and hope, hope to make it a little bigger the next time. I mean, I think it's for an inaugural try. I'm thrilled with how many people are coming, and I get to drive, yeah, and you live in Texas, so you can just go to the port and jump on the boat. And then we think next time it's going to go out of Miami. I think that, oh, yeah, okay. So the next year, I think in June, end of June, we're going to go out of Miami and do one

Terri 54:23
by that time, I'll be in California. I'm moving to California. Are you my son and two babies and sister and her family? And the only person that's not there is my daughter, who lives in Dallas. I want to see my little grandsons grow up and flying out there is expensive. They call me honey,

Scott Benner 54:46
but that's your grandma. Name honey. That's my grand. My grand. My

Terri 54:49
grandmother was, was honey too, and I loved her so much, so I wanted to keep the name alive. That's lovely. It's funny, when they're in the store, they'll say, Hey, honey, I. Like, what people turn around and say, calling people honey, but that's my grandma name. Oh yeah. And I'm trying to take a very big house and get rid of all the crap. I

Scott Benner 55:14
tell my wife all the time, like, let's get rid of this stuff now. Like, let's get rid of it. Now I still point to something I go that, you know what that box is? That's a box that one day, one of our kids is going to carry out of the basement when we're dead and they're going to curse us all the way up the stairs. I was like, just throw it away. Now, I think I'm getting through to her, so I'm super excited about that. Yeah,

Terri 55:32
do it? Do it. You know, how many of these things do you need? I'm trying to consolidate my closet, because the closet that I'm going to have is like five by five, which is nothing.

Scott Benner 55:45
Do you think you should have moved sooner out of your bigger home? Or are you comfortable with the amount of time you spent

Terri 55:51
there? I like the time that I spent here. I'm just tired of the big expense, yeah, you know the big water bill and the big electric bill, and I have a swimming pool that is really pretty, and very few people get in it. If I, you know, if I get in two or three times a summer, that's a lot, but I have to keep it up,

Scott Benner 56:12
yeah, and pay right? It is one of those things, like, when your kids are younger and they're bringing over friends, it's the greatest thing, right? But then, right, yeah,

Terri 56:19
right. But then it's a lot of upkeep and repairs, and I just had a really big plumbing bill, like, really big, and it wasn't big enough to meet the deductible, but it was big enough to take a chunk out of my pocketbook. Yeah,

Scott Benner 56:34
sucks. So you're gonna go get a smaller place in California. Where is it? Southern, Northern, middle of the state, where you going? Well, my

Terri 56:41
son's in the LA area, okay, all right, so I will be there, and they're building this senior living place, and I think I'm going to move in and have a little place and be next door to somebody else who plays poker and mahjong and, you know, walks and, yeah, have a time, has a dog, has a dog, and all that kind of stuff. And my friends here are sad to see me go, but I think it'll be fun. I think it'll be fun. It'll be something

Scott Benner 57:10
new. You're taking your boy toy with you. You're gonna pick up a new one in LA he's not willing to go. Did you ask?

Terri 57:20
He's a Texan. He just doesn't want to go, and he's good company. I like him. I like him. We we travel and we have a good time, right?

Scott Benner 57:28
What is the um, this is my last question for you. You're married a long time to a guy. It sounds like you really liked 42 years. Yeah. So is it understood? Like no one's trying to like, replace that experience, obviously, and you're not young enough to have it again, like you're not gonna, even if you fell into a great love, right now, it's not gonna go 42 more years, right? So does it make everything feel a little more transactional? Like, hey, he's good company, or he likes the kind of movies I like, or I like the way he does that thing. Like, is that, is it that easy?

Terri 58:00
Pretty much. Yeah, it really, it's, it's, pretty much. I mean, you know, they've got to be fun, funny, funny. It's, is a big thing with me. They have to have a sense of humor and laugh and be fun and like, the same thing, movies, theater, you know, outdoor type activities, even the same TV shows or something like that, because we do sit and watch a lot of television. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:28
is that freeing that you're not looking for a person to build a life with? It's just fun.

Terri 58:33
Yeah, I bet you know it is. And when I move, you know, I'm not even looking for that. I'm looking for companionship, whether it's male or female. You know, if three girls want to go on a trip, that would be fun. If I meet a guy and he says, you know, let's go to Las Vegas, that would be fun.

Scott Benner 58:56
Yeah, I hear it. That's awesome. I mean, that's really great. And it does. It just feels like a weight lifted, like he's you're not trying to build like a like. It's just different when you're younger, right? You're looking for somebody that you can build a life with, who you think will be good parents, stuff like that. Here, if this guy gets on your nerves, you'd be like, that's enough. We're good. And, yeah, it's not too bad, right? To just say,

Terri 59:17
because they have their own family, usually they'll have their own families. Might seem to have met a couple that don't speak to their families. Unfortunately, most of the men will have a family, and even the family of their deceased, if it's if, just if they are deceased, right? Wife, if they're divorced, they may not be friends with the family, but, but you know, they may have two different sides of the family if you know, if their wife died, if their spouse died, yeah, I see what you mean.

Scott Benner 59:51
Okay, I really appreciate you doing this. First of all, thank you so much. It's a lot of insight. Actually, you, there's no way anybody would think you were 76 listen. Into this just No, just no way. Yeah, it's awesome. Like, I'm happy for you that things are going so well. And you know, if this podcast added anything to your life, that's awesome. Like, I'm just super glad

Terri 1:00:12
I love to talk. I love to talk to people. My daughter tells me, I'll talk to a telephone pole if it say anything back to

Scott Benner 1:00:19
me, not back at you a little bit. I listen. I love talking to I'm not going to argue about that. I think it's, you're very you're very natural at this

Terri 1:00:25
really good. And I can't wait to meet you like in person,

Scott Benner 1:00:29
genuinely. I'm excited. Yeah. So, yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's literally, uh, let's see, one week I fly to Galveston in 11 days so, and then we're just gonna go out in the sun and have a nice time. And I already told the person who's coordinating all this like, I want to spend my entire time just meeting people and talking to people. I said, I'm going to accomplish that for sure. You're not going to do any tours. I think I have one excursion set up with I think most of the group experts from the Facebook page. We're going to go to a beach for one of the excursions. But I really do. I mean, I think you guys listen, it's a vacation for people, and that's awesome, but it was also not cheap, and I really want to spend time saying hello to everybody, and not just in passing, like, I'd really like to sit with people and get to know them and and, you know, I'd like to build my

Terri 1:01:20
question is Nico gonna be there? She's not, no, she's not.

Scott Benner 1:01:25
Who will be there?

Terri 1:01:27
Suzanne would not tell me who the speakers

Scott Benner 1:01:29
were, yeah. Oh, it's gonna be me. And then virtually, Jenny's gonna do a talk, and virtually and virtually Eric is gonna do a talk. Okay, that good. Yeah. It took us a little while to figure it out we were actually, we were genuinely trying to get both of them on the ship. One of them had a personal reason. They couldn't come, but wanted to come. And the other thing was, is that it was just expensive to get them there. And the truth is, is that this is a break even. So I don't know the exact accounting, but I don't think I'm going to make like, $1 on this, like, this is just going to be an event for me, like a thing to do and to meet people. I tell you what, I'll buy you a drink. That's lovely. I don't even drink, so you don't have to worry about it. I'll buy you a soda. Thank you. But, you know, no lie, the goal is that if we do it again the following year, that it attracts more people, and then the money that we make with that attraction, I would very much like to bring Jenny and Erica onto the ship too. So that's my goal. But we're gonna have some swag there from like Omnipod and some other companies, and it's gonna be a good time. We're just gonna have fun and meet people. That's my my real goal is to help people build a community. I hope people leave there with, like, personal relationships that they take home with them and keep going.

Terri 1:02:43
Well, you know, I've got this new roommate. We've been talking and I'm anxious to meet her and see how her life is going. I think she was newly diagnosed the right way as a type one, not too long ago, not the way you were. You mean, well, no, I mean as an adult, yeah, oh, yeah. And, you know, just a few months or years ago, the correct way, I think she went along being Lata for a long time.

Scott Benner 1:03:11
Oh, I see, okay, yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to hear your everyone's story. I mean, I know most of yours now, but All right. Well, Terry, thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. Hold on one Oh, it's my pleasure. Hold on one second, okay?

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#1598 Future Murse

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.

Brandon, 20, has lived with T1D for 4 years and is currently studying to become a nurse.

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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.

Brandon 0:14
Hi. My name is Brandon. Let's see. I've had type one diabetes for four years now, and I am currently a nursing student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. If

Scott Benner 0:25
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. The episode you're listening to is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us med. A huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/juicebox you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link. Go check it out. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the ever since 365 the one year where CGM that's one insertion a year. That's it. And here's a little bonus for you. How about there's no limit on how many friends and family you can share your data with, with the ever since now app, no limits ever

Brandon 2:18
since. Hi, my name is Brandon. Let's see. I've had type one diabetes for four years now, and I am currently a nursing student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Awesome. How old are you? I am 20 years old. So my birthday is in August, so I'll turn 21 before the start of my senior year. Wow, you're 20?

Scott Benner 2:38
Yeah, I'm kind of young. No, no. That is, it feels, I think it's because Arden is 20. It probably feels particularly yelling to me. So you were diagnosed right around your 16th birthday, around that time,

Brandon 2:48
yeah, that's, that's right, I was, it was March 27 of 2021, so 16 years old, and it was kind of like a big shift in life. I guess you could say at that time, still sort of feels like it, but I've definitely gotten quite acquainted with it.

Scott Benner 3:06
Yeah, you have, how long do you think it took to go from big shift to acquainted?

Brandon 3:11
Well, for the first month, we ate just box food, because it had the carbs on it. After three months, I think I got my first CGM, which was the FreeStyle Libre two, which was, like, it worked fine, but you had to, like, scan it, which was kind of weird. And so I wasn't like, a huge fan of that. Yeah, I would say after that point, like, after I got that CGM, because I would just scan it basically, like, every, like, two minutes, every five minutes, whatever it was, just because I was not paranoid, but I was very curious. I kind of treated it like a video game, almost like I wanted to keep my blood sugar in between the two lines that kind of thing. Yes. So

Scott Benner 3:47
gamify diabetes Exactly, exactly. There have been a couple of companies who have tried, over the years to gamify diabetes with apps, and I'm sure for the people that they work for like They're awesome, but it doesn't seem to be a a widespread idea. So, yeah, tell me what you liked about it, though. Well,

Brandon 4:06
so I've seen those apps as well, and I haven't liked those apps, but I did have to download a few of them, like, like, it was a really weird chain, because when I had my I got the FreeStyle Libre three eventually, which I actually really loved. I think I prefer it over what I'm using now, which I'm on, the Omnipod five and Dexcom six. I think I like the FreeStyle Libre three more because it gave me that update every minute, so it allowed me to adjust faster. And yeah, so I had to, like, do this, like chain of apps so that I could get my libre data onto my Apple watch. It was like the weirdest thing ever, and it worked like half of the time. So that is the one thing that Dexcom does have, is they have just, like, direct connect. And I don't have to think about

Scott Benner 4:47
it. And then with libre, that doesn't work that way any longer, either, I don't think so. Yeah, that was people just making something work the way that. You know, Can I say something about technology? You're young man, so sure. I won't mention it again. But you are young, like you can see you, you might not know this, right? There is constantly stuff coming out, right? And people have to make a decision, where do I jump in on this? Yeah, do I get in now? Do I get in later? Like people are going through that with chat GPT right now and other AI models, right? Some people early adopt, which is awesome, but some people don't know that they're early adopting, and they end up with a CGM that doesn't talk to the thing. But then there's a guy online who makes an app that makes you that, and you're like and it can become frustrating if you stay in that early adopter space too long. You can feel like you're spending your whole life adjusting your tech. And I think there are some people who probably love that, which is awesome, and that's, I think, how it gets moved forward. But for the other people, like they're not looking for that they want on works, that's it, right? So when you dug into it, did you know you were digging into being early on that? Or did you did you think, Oh, this is just the way it works, and I have to adapt it to my needs.

Brandon 5:58
Yeah, I think it's the second. I think I just wanted to make the technology work for me. I wanted to have my blood sugar on my Apple watch, you know, so that I when I was walking around campus, I don't have to, like, pull my phone out and look at my phone. I just want to turn and look at my watch real quick and see, okay, that's where, that's where I'm at. You

Scott Benner 6:16
don't want to do it for convenience sake or cause you're not you're not up for people knowing you have diabetes.

Brandon 6:22
Oh no, no. Just for convenience sake. Okay, I don't really care. I tell, actually, I tell, like, not everybody, but I'm a very, like, widespread advocate, like, especially in the nursing school, about diabetes, and I kind of have been even before nursing school. I guess maybe I could explain a little bit the program like it's a two year program of, like, doing pre requisites, and then it's two years you have to apply to the nursing school, and then two years in the nursing school. So when I say in nursing school, I mean, like, my junior and senior year, yeah. So, like, before nursing school, yeah, even in high school, like, I kind of had been like, yeah, look, I'm a diabetic. And I was always really weird, like, when I first got home, like, because my cousin has diabetes as well, but it's not blood related. I talked to her and her family, and I was kind of like, look, I really want to be like an advocate for diabetes and kind of just be like, Look, I'm a type one diabetic, and this doesn't mean that I, you know, ate bad food, or, etc, etc, or, you know, type two is actually a lot of genetic as well. What

Scott Benner 7:20
made you want to be like that, like, that? Like, what made you want to be out in front of it? I don't know. I

Brandon 7:25
feel like I'm I've kind of been like a, maybe an extroverted person for most of my life, and so like just talking to people comes natural, which makes sense for me. Doing nursing. I don't know. I think I just wanted to help share, yeah, about diabetes, because it's not like, widely recognized or known about. Sometimes, do

Scott Benner 7:44
you think that that's you wanting to help others, or you wanting to make sure that people know the thing about you? Like, I didn't do anything wrong. I

Brandon 7:52
see, I see, no, I don't think it's that. I think it is mainly about helping others, which is like it, which kind of tailors into like, why my career as well? Like, I want to eventually maybe get like, an NP, like, a nurse, practitioning degree and work with diabetes, you know, and other endocrine disorders. I just want to help other people. And like, your podcast has been a help to me, and so I try to, like, spread the word to other people. Like, hey, look at this podcast. Or, like, here's this idea that the podcast gave me, and I'm giving it to you now so you can help better your care, so all

Scott Benner 8:24
that kind of thing. Thank you. Was nursing always your focus? Or did that happen after your diagnosis?

Brandon 8:30
Yeah, that happened after the diagnosis. It was when I was in the hospital that I kind of realized, wow, these nurses are really awesome, and had made my experience here really fantastic, to the point where I, you know, I wrote about them in my my intro or my essay to get into nursing school, I was like, Look, these guys have made huge impact. Like, I still remember their names, you know, yeah, and I want to be able to give that back to other people. And I remember specifically when I was in the hospital, I didn't really want to listen to any physicians or nurses or anything who didn't have diabetes, for some reason, yeah, well, no, it makes sense, because I'm like, Well, look, you haven't experienced this, like, firsthand. You don't really you can understand it medically. We don't personally understand it, maybe, and so I wanted to kind of be that that bridge almost,

Scott Benner 9:26
yeah, when you said that they these people that helped you were so lovely. Was it about vibe and feeling or about knowledge? Like, where do you think they were stronger?

Brandon 9:37
It was definitely about vibe and feeling like the nurse's job is definitely to have knowledge, like I've learned that, you know, we have to know all this stuff, but it's about how you make your patient feel, and how comfortable they feel and how because, I mean, going to the hospital is not comfortable in any way, you know, so just them being able to go. Comfort me, helped me feel, allowed me, like, take in more information and, like, remember stuff better, I think, and just feel

Scott Benner 10:08
better, right? It's interesting, because Arden was in the ER for a hot minute a week or so ago, and wow, and she just needed, like, an IV antibiotic for like, like, a tonsillitis that got out of hand. Oh, man, but, but point being that the nurse that helped us was light on information, but had a great way about her. And I realize, as you're talking, that if you would have asked me, how was the nurse in the ER that night, I would have said, Oh, she was great. But the one thing I asked her, she was so wrong about that my answer should be, well, she wasn't really very helpful. That really does kind of show what that job is about. She did a great job with the IV. You know, she didn't do anything technically incorrect, but we asked her question like, hey, this medication you're giving her. How long until this happens? And she was off by days. It's really wrong and but yet, I have a good vibe about her after leaving the hospital. It's interesting. Yeah, it's

Brandon 11:05
interesting. Stuff like that is definitely hard to remember, but the one thing that kind of nursing is about is patient centered care and focused care and making sure that the patient is getting what they need. Basically,

Scott Benner 11:19
what's the breakdown of your schooling? Technical to how to be a good nurse? Do they do? They talk to you about both of those things we don't

Brandon 11:28
really have, like, how to be a good nurse classes. It's mainly look. Here is your medic, medications that you need to remember. Here's like, all these diseases you need to remember and how they work in the body. You also need to know how the medications work in the body. There's a few classes about, like professionalism, or like evidence based practice, like research stuff like that. And then we have, for the first year, a, we call it C 10, or like skills lab. And that is, like, every Friday for like, four hours, and you are just learning a new skill, or learning a couple new skills, and just like, practicing and getting it under

Scott Benner 12:04
your like, placement or something like that, like an actual, yeah, like, hands on stuff like that. Okay, interesting. Is there anything about nursing that you don't like? I

Brandon 12:13
don't like the fact that, I mean, it kind of makes sense, but I don't like the fact that I can't, like, diagnose stuff. It's just so frustrating because, like, when you look at certain lab values, you're like, that is extremely concerning. And you definitely have X, Y, Z disease. But I can't say that. I just have to pretend like, oh yeah, everything. Maybe not pretend it's fine, but be like, Yeah, I'm just gonna take care of you until your doctor gets here as soon as possible to tell you what's wrong, that kind of

Scott Benner 12:40
thing. So having a person stand right in front of you and you have some knowledge about them that they don't have yet, you feel weird holding it back. Yeah,

Brandon 12:47
it just kills me on the inside. And like, for some of our simulations, like we one of the simulations I did, I it was like a UTI, and I was like, well, says there's bacteria in your urine. And I is fed in the simulation, yes, it looks like you have UTI. And I was, I got critique for that, because they're like, Look, you can't diagnose. I'm

Scott Benner 13:06
like, also, it's right there. It may not have been a clean catch. That's a phrase I know

Brandon 13:11
Correct. Yeah. I mean, it's totally possible. They would probably order another test and then see what happens there. So

Scott Benner 13:19
Brandon, I just took a victory lap with my arm. Nobody's here to see it. This is I knew a phrase. I mean, you, yeah, yeah, you're right. I was like, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Could not have been a clean cut possible. Okay, so two year program. How long have you been in

Brandon 13:35
it? I just finished my third year, and then I'll graduate next year. Okay,

Scott Benner 13:39
cool. Four Year program. Four year, excuse me, I was gonna say like, you're doing it wrong. Sorry. Four Year program and you graduate next, do you go right into a job? Does the nursing school help you get work, or is there just a lot of work to have? Like, how does that? How does that all shake out when you think of a CGM and all the good that it brings in your life, is the first thing you think about I love that I have to change it all the time. I love the warm up period every time I have to change it. I love that when I bump into a door frame, sometimes it gets ripped off. I love that the adhesive kind of gets mushy sometimes when I sweat and falls off. No, these are not the things that you love about a CGM. Today's episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by the Eversense 365 the only CGM that you only have to put on once a year, and the only CGM that won't give you any of those problems. The Eversense 365 is the only one year CGM designed to minimize the vice frustration. It has exceptional accuracy for one year with almost no false alarms from compression lows while you're sleeping, you can manage your diabetes instead of your CGM with the ever since 365 learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox, one year, one CGM. This episode is brought to you by a. Omnipod Would you ever buy a car without test driving it first? That's a big risk to take on a pretty large investment. You wouldn't do that, right? So why would you do it? When it comes to choosing an insulin pump, most pumps come with a four year lock in period through the DME channel, and you don't even get to try it first. But not Omnipod five. Omnipod five is available exclusively through the pharmacy, which means it doesn't come with a typical four year DME lock in period. Plus you can get started with a free 30 day trial to be sure it's the right choice for you or your family, my daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day for 17 years. Are you ready to give Omnipod five a try. Request your free Starter Kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox find my link in the show notes of this podcast player, or at Juicebox podcast.com a

Brandon 16:01
little bit of both. There's a lot of jobs right now for nurses. And on top of that, the nursing school also, like, helps you with figuring out, like, regulations and licensing and stuff like that. Because if you get a license in, for example, my state, Wisconsin, that transfers to, like, I think, like 20 ish other states and I don't have to do any extra licensing, but I want to go to, like, California or Minnesota, or, I don't know, like New York, probably there's like, additional licensing stuff that I have to take care of for the National, like board certification exam. So they help us figure out, like, the details, and also help us, like, apply for jobs and stuff like that. So they're helpful in that regard.

Scott Benner 16:42
When you're growing up through the idea of maybe becoming a nurse, it's also during the time of, like, right after covid, where people are talking about like, nurses are bailing on nursing like did did that not impact you one way or the other. I think after

Brandon 16:56
being in the hospital, I understand why that happened, and I don't blame any of the nurses that did that. I kind of, I have thought about that as well, like, what if another pandemic happens? It's probable that it will occur. In my personal opinion, this is no, this is no, like, you don't know, I don't have any insider knowledge, but I just with those, you know, global warming, etc. I just think that it's possible that another pandemic could occur in the future. And I thought about that, like, Would I be able to stay through it? And I don't know. I guess I'll figure that out when I get that out, but for now, I'm just going to do my best.

Scott Benner 17:33
That's awesome. It's nice that you're not deterred. Have you talked to other practicing nurses before you make a decision like that before, like, before you like, I'm going to nursing school. Maybe I ought to go talk to a few people about what the jobs like, or did you just be like, sorry, I'm going to make my way through it.

Brandon 17:49
That's actually, that's a good question. I think before I was, like, doing nursing school, not really. I did definitely talk to, like, a lot of the nurse practitioners, kind of, like, gaging, oh, you know, like, what is your job? How do I get your job? Like, what's your salary, etc. But not really, like the bedside nurses, I haven't really, I didn't really talk to them before nursing school. It was only, like, after I was in clinicals and things like that, that I was able to, like, understand what their job was. Like, okay, so I don't

Scott Benner 18:17
want to get you in trouble here. Okay, so, okay, but, but you listen to the podcast, you've heard a lot of people's stories about being diagnosed or going in for help and getting, like, shaky care. Yeah, and you've heard a lot of stories from people who've gotten awesome care. When you hear about the shaky care side, does it hurt you? Does it feel like somebody's coming after your profession, or you like, because you know how hard you're working at something. You know other people who are doing the same. Is it hard to hear someone be critical?

Brandon 18:49
Not really well. I mean, like, maybe a little bit, because I would like to assume that all people and nurses have like people's best interests in mind, but I've run into my fair share of nurses who I'm like, I don't know how you have a certification. Like, I don't know how you have your your certification. So there's just, like, you know, there's a few bad apples in every profession, I would say. So people who have had, you know, experienced poor care. That's super valid. You know your care and your experience is, you know what it was, right? And maybe it's because you had a nurse or a doctor who just was tuned out that day. Or maybe they're just not, you know, a great nurse or doctor, right? Yeah, it's just kind of healthcare. You know, there's nothing's perfect, so it can't, I can't say that someone else's experience is invalid because, you know, they felt a

Scott Benner 19:42
certain way, sure, but it doesn't make you feel a certain way. Doesn't make you feel attacked, maybe a little

Brandon 19:46
bit, you know, I again, Nursing is a hard job, and I don't think people would like truly understand, you know, like, if you're in the hospital and you're working with your nurse, you're not seeing how many other patients they have and how much work behind. Scenes they're doing, talking to providers, talking to pharmacy, you know, coordinating with, you know, or whatever it is. There's a lot going on. So,

Scott Benner 20:08
yeah, it's insane. Also, I feel like it can seem to the patient like a service industry. Do you know what I mean? Like, like you're a waiter.

Brandon 20:15
That's kind of how I and some other nurses describe it, yeah, sometimes, like, it is kind of a service industry trying to keep your kitchen, running back

Scott Benner 20:22
to the table, running to the kitchen, running back to the table. Like, can I get this? Can I get that? You got to keep it all in your head as you pass by people, they're yelling out the door. And for a shift that can be, how long most shifts are, standard is 12 hours. Yeah, that's a long time. How do you practice or prepare for running around for that long with type one. I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us Med, you can too us med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, to get your free benefits. Check us med has served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996 they carry everything you need, from CGM to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, libre three, Dexcom g7 and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod tandem, and most recently, the eyelet pump from beta bionics, the stuff you're looking for, they have it at us. Med, 888-721-1514, or go to us. Med, Comm, slash Juicebox to get started now, use my link to support the podcast that's usmed.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514,

Brandon 21:49
thankfully, I have the the algorithm working for me, so that's taking care of most stuff in the background. But you know, there's some days where you don't get to lunch until one or 2pm Yeah. And for me, I don't eat breakfast because I try to do like, a little bit of intermittent fasting. So, you know, making my schedule, you know, eating my first meal at like, one or 2pm and it can, you know, my blood sugar can be fluctuating throughout the day, so I just have like, glucose tablets with me to help regulate in case, like, I start going low. So when

Scott Benner 22:19
you get to that time, when it's time to eat, you need to eat, but that's not always going to going to be the case,

Brandon 22:24
right? Sometimes you don't get a lunch either. So yeah, that's another thing you have to think about.

Scott Benner 22:30
Eat out of your dirty pocket, right? Do you have any brothers sisters?

Brandon 22:36
Yeah, I have of a younger sister,

Scott Benner 22:38
yeah. Is she concerned about diabetes at all, I

Brandon 22:43
think a little bit, she's talked to me sometimes where she's like, I've been peeing a lot. Can I test my blood sugar? I'm like, Yeah, sure, go

Scott Benner 22:50
for it. So it is in her head. She does think about it a little bit. It's in her head. Yeah,

Brandon 22:55
I tell her not to worry too much about it, and even if she does get it, you know, like she has me and my aunt and my cousin as a resource to help her, but I understand her

Scott Benner 23:05
fear. Yeah. What did you mean? Your cousin has type one, but they're not blood

Brandon 23:09
related? Yeah? Sorry, so the type one isn't blood related. It was married in to that side of the family, so we like her grandfather, who is not my grandfather, so that kind of makes my uncle, my aunt is my blood relative, and my uncle is not, and my uncle's mom had type one.

Scott Benner 23:29
Gotcha. Okay, so it's somebody you know, because you're related to them. But, I mean, I assumed that. But I was just I wasn't like, yeah, sorry, yeah, no, Brent, I wasn't, I wasn't like, What's this magic where you're related but you're not related? I just I wasn't confused, yeah. How did you find the podcast?

Brandon 23:43
Actually, through my aunt, when I was diagnosed, like my aunt was doing a good job with my cousin, for sure, for I don't even know how many years it would have been at that time, like seven years, but after I got diagnosed, she kind of, like, I don't know how necessarily to like, communicate all this information that I've learned to you to help you without overwhelming you. So she went and looked for resources online and found the podcast and then shared it with me. Oh, no. And then we both started kind of like listening to it at the same time together.

Scott Benner 24:13
Oh, that's interesting. So she wasn't a listener. She was just trying to help you,

Brandon 24:16
yeah. And then it ended up helping my cousin as well. Oh, awesome. Well,

Scott Benner 24:20
hi to everybody. That's, that's really what? Oh, what a, what a lovely thing to do for somebody. Yeah, no, she's fantastic. Yeah, no kidding. Usually, when you ask somebody for help, they'll help you, if it's like, right there, you know, he's like, oh, yeah, I know what to do. Here's the thing. No problem. I gotta go look for it. You don't usually get out of people. Oh, what a nice person. Yeah,

Brandon 24:40
no, she's lovely, and she helped me, you know, get to where I am, where I haven't had an A 1c above six for like, three years now. So good

Scott Benner 24:48
for you. Man, that's awesome. How about your parents? Because that's such an in between age. Like, did they look at you and go, Oh, he's old enough he can do this. Or were they trying to help or, you know what I mean? Like, I feel like there's this thing that happens where, when the kids are at a certain age, when they're diagnosed, the parents don't want to, like, push themselves into it where they should, like, does that make sense?

Brandon 25:10
Yeah, that one's a little bit trickier. I would say, oh, is your dad in prison? No, no, nothing like that. Nothing like that. No, both my parents were in the hospital with me, and for the first few months they they were kind of like my guide, because I was kind of tuned out at the hospital, and so I was using what information they had to kind of like guide my care a little bit. They didn't get to do injections, though, because they each did one injection, and it went awfully so I said, I will take care of that part. It's true. I mean, my dad, first time he did it, he put in my arm, and then he injected it, and immediately pulled it out, and I saw, like, four or five units spill onto the floor. And I was like, Huh, okay, so yeah, they didn't do injections for me, but they did help me with, like, figuring out carbs. And we even, you know, we did the scales and stuff at the beginning. We're like, two blueberries, is this many carbs, right? So we did all that so that we could, you know, kind of get Gage, oh, okay, a piece of bread. It's like, 1015, to 20, whatever it is, right? Depending on the size. And after we kind of, like, got that basis, I kind of just took over for the most part. And they kind of were just like, you know, checked in every once in a while, like, Hey, how's it going, how's this going, right? And, you know, sometimes you don't want your parents to know. Oh, yeah, my blood sugar has been 200 all day or whatever, right? But after a certain point, you know, I got

Scott Benner 26:37
it under control. Have you ever said the phrase, it's fine. I've got it.

Brandon 26:41
That was my coined phrase from the age of 16 to about 19. So yes, no, if

Scott Benner 26:46
you ever want to marry a girl in New Jersey and make a baby that's definitely gonna have diabetes, she knows that phrase too. You can come right over and start chatting with her.

Brandon 26:55
It's fine. I got it fine. I've used that one before too.

Scott Benner 27:01
I feel fine. It's fine. I've got it. Dad, leave me alone. Stop. It's just such a balance. Like, so your parents let you lead the way a little bit. Do you think that when they stepped back? Have you ever talked to them about it like was their expectation? Like they really thought you had it? Or they were like, well, you know, he's not doing great, but it seems like a like a pain point that we don't want to push through.

Brandon 27:22
I never had officially, like, talked to them about it, but I think they kind of just wanted to see how it worked out for me. And I think they trusted me, because I have been pretty responsible for most of my life, so I think they trusted me in figuring it out. Yeah, kind of that

Scott Benner 27:39
makes sense. One of the hardest things to do, I think, parenting wise, is like, people will say it like, oh, to watch your kids make mistakes, but, you know, they have to do them. I don't think of it as even a mistake. It's a it's like a learning process. And, you know, like when the learning process is touching the stove and it's hot, you want to step in and say, don't touch the stove, right? And you do when they're young, and you should, right? But then where does that line get drawn? Like, do you let them fall? Do you let them, like, linger after they've fallen? Do you let them make friends with somebody where it's not going to work out? Like, do you let them, you know, do you while they're dating somebody that you're like, This is not right. And it's not just me being a jerk here, like this, this person's not right for a reason. I should point out. Do you say that? Do you hold it inside like you go through this constantly, but when you get to diabetes, especially when you've raised a kid with it, and you're like, you know, years into it, and you know, if we Bolus right here. If we do this with the temp basal, if we do that, your blood sugar is never getting high. Like, but once they take the reins, like, stepping back and saying, I know there's value in this learning experience, but I don't want the learning experience to tip over into a bad habit, like, how do you stay in the Batman I'm telling you, yeah, it's a tightrope walk that just it sucks. I don't know another way to say it.

Brandon 29:08
Roy, yeah. I think the weird part about my situation is that because I was diagnosed so late and my parents were only involved for a certain amount of time, they kind of lack that knowledge and experience that even my aunt had, that my aunt has, right because she took care of it for you know, I think it's like 14 years at this point, something like that might be even longer. So sorry, tired to my aunt, if she's listening, because she probably will. They don't have that knowledge. So it's kind of just on me, especially now. And I think a year ago, I kind of was like, Well, I wish they knew more, because there's times where they, you know, they'll make a comment, or they'll say something, and I'm like, No man, that's that's not even close to being right, but yeah, and I maybe I'll say, well, and I don't think so right, but,

Scott Benner 29:55
but they were never really in the fight, so they didn't really have to learn the tools

Brandon 29:59
Exactly. Thing. And that doesn't mean that they're not supportive still, and they want the best for me, it's just that they don't maybe fully understand it.

Scott Benner 30:06
Yeah, of course. Because how would they even do that? Right? Like you imagine you're taking care of it. There's already you're 16, there's already a parental child struggle that goes on one way or the other. And if they were like, listen, you're taking care of this, that's great, but teach us as you're learning, because we want to know too. You would have been like, Get away from me. Right, right? Yeah, definitely. And you seem like a pretty level headed person. Thank you. Yeah, were you when you were 16 for

Brandon 30:31
the most part? Yeah, you haven't been a real dick to your parents at any point. Maybe not, maybe a little bit. I mean, that's obviously me talking about myself in front of a million people, but hard to know. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I guess I probably don't have the same perspective that I have. Like, but now you're not dude.

Scott Benner 30:48
You weren't doing heroin and like stuff like that, yeah, going crazy. You weren't somebody who, like, every five seconds they were like, oh my god, what is he doing now? Like, it wasn't like that.

Brandon 30:57
No, they kind of just like, let me be for the most part, because I would just kind of stay out of trouble and do good in school. So

Scott Benner 31:04
all right, trying to figure out, because you said you were a little disconnected in the hospital, which I understand, you're probably in shock about all this stuff going on, right? So your parents are taking in information, but it pretty quickly pivots to you, you go to your your did you go to your aunt? Or did your aunt go to you?

Brandon 31:19
I mean, she kind of like helped me get diagnosed in a way, like she had a post on Facebook that my sister saw that was, like a reoccurring post every year about like signs and symptoms of type one, and then my sister would talk to my mom, and my mom took me to my aunt, and then she helped me get, like a finger stick. And then she was like, go to the hospital. And then she kind of was involved in my care a little bit after that, just kind of like calling and checking in, like, Hey, do you need? Hey, do you need anything? Yeah, we, at that time, we only lived like a block or two away from them as well, and this was also during, like, the pandemic, though, a little bit, so we were cautious, but she did, you know, come and help, like,

Scott Benner 31:54
you're acquainted a little bit. Your little sister diagnosed your diabetes from your aunt's Facebook post, yeah, basically here, that's awesome,

Brandon 32:03
yeah, I know, and I have to live every day knowing that my sister can hold that over

Scott Benner 32:08
me. Now, no kidding, how much younger than you is she? I think she's three years younger. So your 13 year old sister comes to you one day and goes, Hey, you have diabetes. No, she went to my parents. Your parents said, Hey, this one over here is peeing a lot. We got to do something. I saw something online. No kidding. Wow, that's crazy. Good for her. What's her name? Her name's Caitlin. Caitlin saves the day. That's awesome. Good job. So did you not know anything was wrong?

Brandon 32:36
I guess, kind of like while I was living it, not really like I knew I felt very depressed and always tired, but I assumed that was because there was a global pandemic happening, and I hadn't talked to people in like, a long time, but I knew I was eating like five meals a day and drinking like 100 something ounces of water every day. So

Scott Benner 32:56
do you remember the moment that you're I'm assuming your mom got tasked to come to you and say, Hey, Caitlin thinks you have type one diabetes. We should go. Were you like, What the What are you talking about? Yeah,

Brandon 33:06
for sure. I was like, Heck no, that's not possible. Because, I mean, at this time, I had no idea anything about medical field, anything, yeah, the signs were there, for sure. But I was like, hell no, I don't have that

Scott Benner 33:18
must have been insane. I would I imagine the look on your face was these two big like, oh god. I almost made a reference that maybe is 40 years old.

Brandon 33:27
Oh man, oh my

Scott Benner 33:29
God. Have you ever seen the wolf in the old cartoons that sees the pretty girl and its eyes bug out?

Brandon 33:34
There's Oh, Looney Tunes. Well,

Scott Benner 33:38
yeah. I mean, yeah, you know that. Okay, yeah, I kind of know you're talking. I like, I see you, like, like, with your just your eyes, like, bugging out of your head. Like, what are you talking about? And now, by the way, I'm seeing a thumbnail for your episode, which is a young nurse with his eyes bugging.

Brandon 33:54
I like it, yeah, you

Scott Benner 33:56
must have been like, what is happening right now? That's a crazy way to find out.

Brandon 33:59
Yeah. And then blood sugar was like, 350 or 360 or something about it's like, let's do that again. Let's just wash your hands. And then she's like, You should probably go to ER.

Scott Benner 34:08
So by the way, the most frequently word heard words before a type one diabetes diagnosis are, let's wash your hands and try that again. I guarantee it. So your sister just rolled past you every once in a while and go, Hey, do you remember that time I diagnosed you? Time I diagnosed

Brandon 34:23
you with diabetes? Yeah, that happens. Oh, I would do that for sure. I still live at home so she Oh no for 100%

Scott Benner 34:28
like, even in the middle of an argument. If you're like, hey, you know your shoes are always in the floor, I'd be like, Oh, my God, they are. I'll get them right after I remind you that I helped you with your diabetes that time. Yeah, yeah. I'd be a dick about it, for sure, in a fun way. I just want to say yeah, for sure. Awesome. So okay, all right. So let me go back to my question, what, what? And by the way, good job keeping me on track. I got you what kind of nursing is attractive to you?

Brandon 34:54
So yes, it is like that. You can kind of choose where you want to go. Mm. And for me, I want to do diabetes stuff in the long term, but in the short term, it's not super possible with like, just a bachelor's degree. Like, I could go work at like, a clinic, but then I would kind of only be doing like that intake stuff. Like, Hey, what's your name, etc, right? You want to get your hours right, right? I'm going to take your a 1c right? Yeah, that's not really what I want to do. I want to be more on the MP side of things where I am helping you help, like, with care. Like, hey, I need new insulin prescription. I need, I want a Dexcom, right? Stuff like that. Like, that's what I want to be doing long term. But for short term, I have no idea. So I've kind of just, like, left it up in the air. I'm like, maybe I'll go work bedside. Maybe I'll go work in a clinic. Maybe I'll work in cardiology. Who knows, right? Yeah, I'll just, I'll figure it out. Game experiences, whoever offers me the most money, I'll go there.

Scott Benner 35:52
Would you ever do travel nursing? Yeah, you would okay, you have no problems, like, like, like, just leaving the state and going somewhere and trying somewhere

Brandon 35:59
else. Yeah, sounds good, as long as, like, again, it's like, the whole licensing thing, right? You got to figure that out. But, yeah, I'll do that. That sounds like fun. Hey, yeah, I'll go to Miami, pick me, get me out of Wisconsin.

Scott Benner 36:11
Cold. My friend's daughter does it right now, I think she's pretty happy where she is at the moment. But she's been in, like, Arizona, Hawaii, Baltimore. She actually left Baltimore, like, she went to her mom and said, I have to get out of this hospital. I'm no longer shocked by seeing someone be shot. I need to leave that. That's how she told her mom, like, she's like, I'm numb to a gunshot. And I think that means I have enough experience. I gotta go. So, yeah, that's fair, yeah. So she went somewhere else. Now you're listening to the podcast, and people are talking about their experiences with doctors and nurses and healthcare in general. Is that helping to inform how you want to do your job?

Brandon 36:50
Certainly, yeah, that is like kind of what I have drawn on for, even just like our general care, I just want to make sure that people have a good experience in the hospital, you know, maybe not to the point so much where they like remember my name, like I did with my nurses. But I just want them to help ease their pain and help them get acquainted to like their new lives, if they're, you know, going through major surgery, etc, or whatever it is, you know, it's, it's not easy, and I just want to make it as easy as I can for them.

Scott Benner 37:23
Did you hear the Grand Rounds series? No, okay, so there's a series in the podcast, and it's just called Grand Rounds. But what I did was I went into the Facebook group and I collected, I mean, we made an exhaustive, seriously exhaustive list of what people wished their doctors would have done or not have done during their their intake, their early days, you know, through diagnosis, through learning, and then beyond. And we ordered those things as far as, like you know, at the hospital, like, you know, going home, like, kind of in that, like, chronological order, we took all of their feedback, and Jenny and I sat down and talked through it all. And then after that, I brought in, I think there's at least five or six different physicians, endocrinologists, sometimes people with type one diabetes who are endocrinologist people who have type one in their lives, but are different kinds of doctors, and we talked with each of them about what they thought care should look like.

Brandon 38:27
That sounds really interesting.

Scott Benner 38:30
It might be. And I'm wondering, if you end up going through it, what you'll find you're just kind of like in the perfect position, because I keep wondering, like, you know, your aunt finds the podcast. She gets it over to you. You've got an A, 1c, under six. That's awesome. But, like, I keep thinking, like, is there a way to get to doctors too? Like, you know, there's this podcast has been going on for a long time. Now. People are going to grow up listening to it who have type one diabetes. Some of them are going to become nurses and physicians and MPs and etc, right, I'm trying to figure out, like, how can we get the message from people going through it back to doctors so that they can make you know better decisions, or know what to look out for anyway? On my website now, under guides, there's two links. One's called improving type one diabetes care, a guide for physicians, and there's one called Juicebox for Doc's Grand Rounds takeaways. And they're both, like, pretty exhaustive. I mean, I'd almost call them like research reports, but they're made with an AI model, but only from the transcripts from the Grand Rounds series.

Brandon 39:42
Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean, I'm all good with AI. So,

Scott Benner 39:46
yeah, no, you're young. You don't care. But my point is, is that some people listening, right there he is, again with the AI. Here's what I can tell you, I had upwards of like 20 hours of recordings. Wow, with doctors talking about their experiences with Jenny, and I really picking through everybody's feedback. And there's a lot in there. And I'm not, I don't know who you all think I am, but if I sit down to pick through 20 hours of this, to take, you know, to write down takeaways and take notes as I'm going through like that's never, I'm never gonna get that accomplished, right? So at one point it wasn't so much so, but at this point now, like these AI models are much better writers than they used to be even nine months ago, and they're much better at pulling out information. And you can kind of keep them on task by telling them, like, do not leave this information, do not go to the internet. Don't put in your own thoughts. Just pull this information out, and then you can go back and hand check it afterwards, which is what we did, right? Yep, if you're looking for, you know, basically 90 people's thoughts about what they wish would have happened for them, and six really awesome physicians thoughts on what they think they should be doing, all collected together. It's a good read. Yeah, I don't know how to get it out into the world. I look at it, I think, I don't think anybody's seeing this, because what are you gonna do? Right? Like, we didn't send an email to a doctor's office and go, you should read this. Like they'll be like, Oh, good,

Brandon 41:15
yeah. Be like, all right. And next email, Hey, I got an email

Scott Benner 41:19
from a podcaster who thinks they know how to be a doctor, that's how it's gonna feel, right? So it's up to people like you, or people in healthcare to, first of all, actually believe in it, and then secondly, give it to somebody else. And that's, you know, what I'm hoping for, I guess,

Brandon 41:36
yeah, no, I've, I've kind of thought about that as well from the podcast. Like just being able to like you are kind of raising a generation of people who are learning about this information, and we can go into the field. And I mean to be honest, when I am talking about diabetes, even to like my nursing cohort, like I that was one thing I tried to do, is educate them on type one diabetes, be a one on other, like 159 of us, whatever there is. I want them to be able to go into the healthcare field and be like, Oh, I remember the thing that Brandon told me at, you know, whenever, when I was talking about this nursing research before class started, or when we were just having a conversation in the lounge, right? I'm trying to educate them, mostly with stuff from the podcast and also from stuff from my life about type one diabetes, break those stereotypes and help them, kind of like, understand what it is to have type one diabetes and how to take care of people who have type one diabetes, so that they don't have those experiences. Yeah, but I didn't know about that series, because I've just been listening from zero forward, basically, oh yeah,

Scott Benner 42:46
no, I figured that out. Because earlier you said something about like, like, Oh, I didn't realize you did that. Or something like, Oh, you, hi. You hired an editor. Like, yeah, yeah, you're not up to that part yet. No, no, and I'm going to tell you something Brandon like, this will sound self serving, but it's not you listen to this podcast straight through, I think you'll be an excellent diabetes educator. Yeah, yeah, I

Brandon 43:09
really. I think so too. And that's kind of what I found. Like, I'm only like, 600 episodes in something like that. It's a small things like being able to just glean that small information from people talking about their their time. You can hear their tone right, right? And you can hear how that experience impacted the rest of their their care. So it's really important to get it right at the beginning.

Scott Benner 43:32
Yeah, that's such my takeaway after making grand rounds, actually. And you'll hear me harp on it when you get to it. But the way they start is often the way they finish. And you just don't realize what a misplaced word or sentiment or ill timed piece of advice or an idea could throw somebody so far off the track that they can't find their way back, you know, and then once they even if they realize they're in trouble, if they intersect another person who doesn't know how to get them back quickly. It just spins out of control. Yeah, and then I end up interviewing those people when they're 35 and 40 and 45 years old, and they're like, Oh God, I found the podcast last year. And they say stuff like, why didn't I find this earlier? Because they're thinking about their lost time and their lost health. And if you could hear those stories, and you were the person intersecting somebody on day one with their diagnosis, I think it would change how you spoke to them. It definitely would, yeah, but I don't think that sitting in a room in an hour and a half class where somebody puts that up in bullet points in front of you is going to make the same impact

Brandon 44:41
Exactly. And, I mean, that's kind of my little thing, like I've seen. We've had lectures on diabetes, but it mainly focuses on type two, because that's just the, you know, it's the more common one. It makes sense that I would, if I was making material, I would do that too, yeah, but we have done a little bit of type one. But. It's not satisfactory for me personally. And so there's times where I just like ask a question that I obviously know the answer to, but I just want my professor to say a certain phrase or sentence so that maybe that sticks with the people in my class. You know, things like that. I just want to try to educate them. Even

Scott Benner 45:20
with teaching, you get lucky and you get unlucky sometimes, like, sometimes, right? You just you get a great instructor, somebody who cares, and they're thoughtful, and they get it, and then sometimes you don't, and that's not even under your control either, like, so you might go through an entire course and not get the same takeaway you would have gotten if you randomly got placed with a different instructor, and there's, there's nothing you can do. But this, again, I know this sounds self serving, but like this podcast is the best way to disseminate this information, because, man, at 20 years old, you just said, sometimes you just hear a tone in their voice, and you can kind of like, get what they're saying differently. Like, I was so touched by that, because I spent a lot of time talking to people and getting them comfortable and saying stupid stuff to them so they're not nervous, so that they might say five things in an hour, that somebody, at the end goes, Oh, that's the stuff that's going to stick with me when it's over. And those are the things that make it easier to keep your a 1c under six or help you when you know it's the middle of the night and you're sick and your blood sugar is like, rocketing up. And like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. And then you think, no, I do know what to do. Because some lady on some episode said a thing that stuck with you and you, and you pull that out like your Batman, and it's like, and you're like, boom, this is the tool I need. Like, right off my belt. Like I didn't, yeah, I didn't even remember it was there. But now that I know I need it, whoa, here it is, and I know how to use it,

Brandon 46:46
Yeah, certainly. And I mean, I feel, I feel especially that way, because, you know, that is my job as a nurse. Our job is about education as well. That's like, the big part of it is we're learning our material so that we can teach you when we end up taking care of you. And so the more I can do now to help educate my classmates, the more that they can do to help educate other people in the

Scott Benner 47:09
future. I'm super excited to hear you say that, because a second ago, you said, look, they spend a lot more time telling us about type two diabetes and type one because it's more you know, frequently seen. But you ever meet people with type two diabetes, they don't know anything about their type two diabetes, like, so that means they're spending extra time teaching you something, and it's still not actually impacting the end user. Do you know you mean, like, you know more about it, hopefully. But there's something about the process that doesn't leave people informed. And it's not just diabetes, I'm telling you, it's not just diabetes, it's everything. Anytime you hear somebody deal with a medical issue, that's not one and done, that's not a pill and it's over, right? Because I don't need to know how you fix my shoulder. Like, it's cool. It works again. Like, thank you. It's awesome. Let me definitely pay the bill, and I might even send a card over and say, thanks. So if I bump into you at the grocery store, grocery store to shake your hand right? Like, that's awesome. If something I'm dealing with every day isn't understood, then we all tend to, like, try to let it melt into the background. We ignore it. It's where phrases like, oh, that's just diabetes comes from. You know, like, Oh, your blood sugar has been 300 all day. Yeah, it's just diabetes. Nothing I can do it. Nothing I can do about it. You know, I've got the sugars, whatever, like, version of that, wherever you are in the country, you know, I've heard people say, Oh, it's my whole family's got it. It's gonna get me one day. Like, wow, you're 28 years old, and you've already resolved yourself to the fact that you're gonna die early from type two diabetes, because you've seen it happen to a few people in your family. I'm like, right? That's crazy. I don't know what to do about that systemically, other than to say that a person like you, like a front lines person, right, who has the knowledge coupled with the understanding of what it's like to live with it. I think you will probably be responsible for more good launches for people over a 30 year career than you'll be able to count. And I'm telling you, man, like I find a ton of value in what I do, and personal value too. Like, I was just standing with Arden's endocrinologist yesterday. We were chatting, and she told me about a person she helped recently, like no big details, but like, this person had PCOS, and nobody would help her. And so this doctor got her onto a GLP, and it alleviated her symptoms so significantly, and her pain and her struggle so significantly that the next time she saw her, the woman just walked into the office and grabbed her and started crying and just hugged her, like hugged the doctor, because of the relief that was been brought to her. Yep. And she said to me, Well, you know what I'm talking about. And I said, I do. And I told her I was like, if you would have met me 30 years ago. Know, you would not have been like, I bet that guy, one day is going to find a ton of comfort and value in helping people live better with diabetes. I'm like, Yeah, that was not me. Like, actually, if you knew me back, then you'd be laughing right now, how ridiculous that sounds, right? But at the same time, the next thing I said to her was, I'm so happy, and I feel so valuable. And every time I look up and hear from somebody, or see somebody doing better, I think like, you know, that's another kind of I don't know like, root in the world, or tentacle, that that is an offshoot of the thing I do every day. And I try to think of it as like, not just like, you know, you reach a mom today who maybe helps raise a kid who's never gonna have a bunch of problems because they understood this stuff, but then one day, that kid might have a kid who has diabetes. By having these conversations, we all might be helping somebody who isn't gonna be born for 20 years. And I think that's awesome. I think you could do that too,

Brandon 51:05
yeah? And, I mean, that's kind of what I hope to do, but and make some money, as you said earlier, yeah, and make some money. But, you know, it's not just that's not just me. Though anyone can kind of do this, right, like anyone can be an advocate for diabetes. And, you know, talk about, yeah, this is kind of what my life is like. And you can talk to your doctors, your nurses, things like that, and kind of be like, Hey, this is how diabetes has affected me, right? And give your story to them. And who knows, maybe that changes the way they look at it in the future as well.

Scott Benner 51:37
And you're not going to save everyone, and everybody's not of the same mindset, right? Like, so you might give somebody a great launch, and they might just not care, and I don't think it's because they don't care. I mean, if you listen to the podcast, I don't think anybody doesn't care about their health, right? I think that people are often impacted by other psychological, financial, et cetera, like situations that can stop them from taking as good care of themselves, like just being super busy, like, you know, like working 12 hours a day. How do you prioritize things? Like, it's, it's almost impossible, right? Yeah. Like, but for those people that you get a hold of, and not only have you given them a good launch, but you've given them good tools, now they can break it all down and make it make sense for themselves, and then when they need help, they won't be lost about how to go find more help either. Like, you know, you say to people, like, advocate for yourself. You know, most people don't know what that means, right, right? Like most Yeah, yeah. Most people assume I go to get my tires changed, I don't need to advocate that the guy puts the stem cap back on right? Like he should know how to do that. All of those situations like you just expect people to know, and you don't think I have to advocate for this. Like no one goes to a doctor thinking, I better make sure they do the right thing.

Brandon 52:56
I think the best way that I've learned like this was a my my pediatric endocrinologist made this a goal for me, like, learn how to advocate for yourself. And first I was like, what does that mean? But eventually, I kind of realized that it is getting as much knowledge as you can, arming yourself with that knowledge, and then feel free to question your doctors and your nurses right, challenge them in a respectful way, because maybe it'll help them think about whatever the problem is in a different way, in a different light. Just try something because they have a lot of patience and a lot of other things maybe going in their lives. So if you challenge that thought, you might break them out of that autopilot for a little bit and just kind of help you get the best care that you can

Scott Benner 53:43
have. But I'm saying that next step, like, say, You challenge a healthcare provider and they don't really know the answer, they could ball up and just play defense right. Their ego could get in the way. They could get embarrassed. They could just be like, Oh, you're a pain. Like, do you know, how many people I know have advocated for themselves, and in their chart, it says that they're problematic.

Brandon 54:05
Yeah, I hate when I hear nurses being like, Oh, this person's uncompliant. I'm like, yeah, they try other things. Or are they just talking and advocating for themselves? You know, exactly,

Scott Benner 54:16
like there's a difference between, hey, you need to take this pill at three, six and nine, and they don't do it, and you saying something incorrect to them and then pushing back, and they're not listening to me, right, right, right? That's a big difference. And so, you know, in the end, right? That's, that's just people like, you know, some people are gonna take that job and be right for it. Some people are gonna be a nurse and not be right for it. Some people might be very caring and human, but not very technically adept, or vice versa. You're not getting a robot, you know what I mean. So although, let me ask you about that, Brian, you're 20 years old, AI is doubling on itself. A. About every six months, right? Yeah, did you ever think I might have picked something that that might not be the same in my lifetime?

Brandon 55:08
I mean, I kind of hope it's not the same in my lifetime. Actually, this is interesting. Our school is very AI, I guess, and they actually encourage us to use it for, you know, not for cheating purposes, but for, like, prepping and stuff. So like, I've used it for, like, preparing for boarding, like the board exam, like I can just ask, Hey, make a question that the board exam would ask me about this problem, right? But in practice, I'm very excited for what it will look like in the next 2030, years, even when in the way that we can, like, save time, like aI listening to your conversation and recording it and auto charting it for you, saving me, like 10 minutes of that conversation, like I have to go chart that eventually. But if it just is auto charted, and I can just look through it and be like, yeah, that looks accurate to what we talked about, then I can move on to the next patient and just start doing that right? Or, I don't know, I did some research recently, or, like, helped participate in some research about, you know, delivering water and delivering messages through robots. And I thought that was really interesting and cool, because it takes more off of the nurses plate, so they can do other things as well. So I'm hoping in the future that AI does take parts of my job, because I want to be able to do the other parts of my job even

Scott Benner 56:27
better. Yeah, oh, see, this is exciting to me. I like, I like talking to somebody your age that's in your position right now. That's, that's really great, because I feel the same way, right? I mean, listen for those people like, I don't know, that sounds like something that's gonna like, you know, they're thinking Terminator when they hear it right now, I'm not saying it can't end up being that. I'm just saying, right, right. Okay, you're asking 20 year old Brandon to go to school and learn something and then learn a lot of things. And he's already telling you they don't really teach us much about type one diabetes, for example. There's also a lot of other things they're not teaching him about. Imagine that our lovely brand in here could learn everything, right? Everything, and that when you asked him a question, he just said the answer, and he knew it immediately. That's what you're talking about. When you're talking about AI, you're talking about a large language model that is trained only on the information that you want it to have, right? So you go get all the information in the world you need about nursing, and you put it into this model. You give people a prompt to ask a question that you could give it a voice prompt like, if none of you have yet downloaded the chat GPT app for your iPhone and just had a conversation with it about something, it's a great way to learn about what I'm talking about, right? And I mean a literal, out loud conversation, not even texting it, questions, like, because you realize you hear something and that makes you think something else. It's the way I interview people, right? Like you and I don't know each other. There's no notes here. Like, I'm not following a format. When I'm talking to you, you said something, it made me think something. I asked a question. Sometimes it leads to nothing, sometimes it leads to something. Sometimes I ask a person a question and I get back an answer on my car, and I guess I probably could have skipped that. Sometimes I get back. Oh, yeah, no, Scott, I am a little upset because my father used to beat me and blah, and then you go, like, you learn something from somebody, right? So you can do that with AI. So try to imagine that AI has all the current medical knowledge that we hold, and you get to ask it a question, hey, my fever is this? I felt like this over the last three days. Here's some background on me. I have type one diabetes, I have Hashimotos, I have acne, I have heavy periods. I This that, imagine you said it to that, and then five seconds later it came back and it said, Oh, you're probably anemic. Your blah, blah, blah needs to be stronger. This needs to happen. That that's information that, if you're lucky, you'll get out of your doctor over 18 months of visits every three months, if that doctor can hold all that stuff in their head about what's wrong with you, which they're not going to so you go to them in June and you just mention, my periods have been heavy. That's it. You that You say that right when you come back three months later, they don't remember that like they don't. But you might say the next piece that, along with the heavy periods, would lead them to go, oh, this plus this is that that's not going to happen for you, unless you're lucky, unless you're advocating, and you get a great doctor, and you get lucky and you look into it, and blah, blah, blah, otherwise, imagine if you just kept saying that to an AI, and one day it just spit back to you, like, here's all the things you've said to me. Here are the things I think we should look into. Take that to a doctor,

Brandon 59:42
right? And then you just think about the situation you talked about at the beginning of our conversation. Like, what does this medication do? Or, like, how long does it take for it to do its thing right? It just be like, Yeah, three days, whatever it is, right? And you don't have to rely on that. I mean, I don't. Remember all of that stuff, man, like she I'll try my best. I'll probably have to go look it up after you ask me. I'll be like, All right, let me go quickly, look at my encyclopedia of drugs and just be like, okay, yep, I remember it

Scott Benner 1:00:11
now. This wasn't a bad person. And for clarity, I said Arden was getting an IV steroid. And I said, How long do you think it's going to take for her her blood sugar, because I was thinking, because we need to, like, we're going to ramp up her, her basal and get ahead of it. And she goes three days. And I was like, Okay, thank you. And then she walked 24 hours, by the way. Then my human nature jumped in. I was like, this lady, don't know what she's talking about. What she was probably thinking was like, how soon until she's getting maybe, I don't know what she was thinking. It doesn't even matter, right? Like, but she did not understand type one diabetes well enough to know that what I meant was, How long until this makes her blood sugar higher. I assumed she'd understand that, and then when she didn't, I got gruff about it, like, not outwardly, but in my head, I was like, All right, well, I gotta talk to her anymore about stuff like this, right? Like this, right, right. Here's the thing I haven't shared yet. Is that a half an hour before Arden and I left for the hospital, I did two things. I spoke to her physician, because I said, this looks like it's becoming emergent. I don't know that we should be waiting until tomorrow, right? And I so I spoke on the phone to her physician, who said, I agree with you. I think you should go to the hospital. I was like, Okay. And then I spent, I'm gonna tell you, four minutes while Arden was upstairs, getting her charger and putting on more comfortable clothing to go to the hospital with, and all that stuff, I spent four minutes on my phone explaining to chat GPT what had been going on with Arden for the last week and a half. And then I asked it what to expect when I got to the hospital and Brandon, I am not lying to you. I know we got a good NP that night, because everything she did was literally what chat GPT said she was going to do. And in the order that she did it is the order it gave it back to it had,

Brandon 1:02:01
that's crazy. I mean, not, not too crazy, though, because it makes sense, like we follow procedures,

Scott Benner 1:02:07
yeah, because that lady learned from procedures, and so did chat GPT, right? I knew I had a good person standing in front of me, because she was recalling what she was taught in almost a robotic way. So I was like, All right, she knows what she's doing. So I got comfortable, like, I'm gonna listen to her. Then we got to a point in the evening, I'm going to tell you it was at 230 in the morning. Oh my where she wanted to keep Arden overnight to get another round of IV antibiotics. And I did not want that to happen, but I also wanted to make sure that it wasn't medically necessary. So while she was gone, I asked all of my questions to chat GPT to find out what her concerns might be. And then when she came back, I said to her, can you tell me why you're asking her to stay the night? What is your real concern? Because we can go pick up more antibiotics in the morning orally, and keep going like she's got the IV infusion of it. It's gonna last until midday tomorrow. You're gonna, right? You're gonna tell me to get up, go to the pharmacy, take get this Med, start taking it. That's what you're gonna tell me, right? And she said, Yes. And I said, Okay, why does she need to get it by an IV one more time? I'm like, what are you really worried about? Now I already knew what she was really worried about, because the computer told me okay, but also because I had my own intuition about what it was. But I didn't lead her to the answer. I let her tell me what she thought she was worried about, obstruction. I see okay, because Arden's tonsils were overlapping.

Brandon 1:03:42
Yep, like that makes sense. So what? Airway obstruction?

Scott Benner 1:03:45
Yes. Okay, so she said, I'm worried about airway obstruction. I said, Okay, I thought that might be what you're saying. So this has nothing to do with the antibiotics or clearing up what's going on. She goes, No. I said, well, she's been like this for seven days. This is exactly what I said. She's been like this for seven days, and she's not dead yet, so I assume this is going to be okay. And I do also think that the broad spectrum antibiotics you hit her with are going to work pretty quickly, because Arden had already tried two different antibiotics the week before that didn't touch her problem. I said, do you agree with that? And she said, Yes. And I said, Okay, if I promise to take her to an ENT tomorrow. If there's any problems, do you have any trouble with her leaving? And she said, Nope, that sounds good. I didn't push her into it. I wasn't being difficult, right? She and I together got to a comfortable decision that I was only able to really get to because I used AI to find out what it was she

Brandon 1:04:38
was thinking, Yeah, and you respectfully challenged her, right?

Scott Benner 1:04:41
And I checked myself too, with AI, like, if I thought something, like, I at one point, I said to it, I'd like to take her home, but I don't want to cause a medical emergency. Like, what are all the reasons why I wouldn't want to take her home right now? Like, so I knew before I anyway, like, I'm just telling you, like, that's a. Long way to say, I think there's going to be a time in the very near future where you're going to be recorded while you're talking to your patients, I hope so, everything you're saying and everything they're saying, and then you're going to go back to a screen or a terminal, and it's already going to tell you what you should be thinking about. Yep, yeah.

Brandon 1:05:21
And, I mean, to be fair, like there are some limitations, and we we explored that, like one of our professors wanted us to explore what the limitations are right now, but that's right now, and who's, who's to say in a few years that those limitations are going to be gone, and we don't have to worry about them as much.

Scott Benner 1:05:39
Listen half the people listening to this, not half of them, but a lot of people listening to this right now are probably living with undiagnosed something right like hypothyroidism or anemia or low vitamin D or any number of things. It's really genuinely, meaningfully impacting your health and happiness. And you are just saying things to yourself like, well, I'm older now. I get you know I was I was, I was going to gain weight, I got older, I was going to be more tired. This happened to me. I have diabetes. That makes sense. That's not true. I put up an episode last week. It's just with this girl. She's like, in her mid 20s, and she's a little on her own. You know what I mean? Like, she doesn't really have very helpful parents. She's got a number of different medical issues, and they're not being addressed. It took me a half an hour of talking to her. I was like, Hey, I think you're anemic. Hey, I think you have this. Are you being treated for your thyroid situation? Oh, they said it wasn't bad enough. Oh, what the does that mean? Right? You have all these thyroid symptoms. They're not giving you the medication. She goes, No, they said it's not bad enough. I'm like, Is your hair falling out? Are you tired all the time? Are you lethargic? Do you feel depressed? She's like, yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm like, seems bad to me over Hey, I've even done that in episodes where I've sat down with somebody and just said, Tell me everything that's wrong with you. We just beat it into an AI model, and it comes back. And I'm like, here, like, take that to your doctor. Like, you know what? I mean, it's just, I get very frustrated by it. But of course, I think it's because I have a lot of conversations people who are generally speaking in that situation. But anyway, you all got to get out of your own way and just do what's going to help people, and not do what you think is going to save your job or your but I mean, that's what we're going to run into, is that they're going to be people fighting against this stuff, tooth and nail, some for very good reasons, and I'm not unaware of those reasons, by the way, what's the great example? Like, if you told a robot, like, make as many paper clips as you can, don't let anything stand in your way. Like, what happens when, like, they run out of metal and they don't know to stop, and they start, you know, rip their robots rip down the buildings to melt the I beams, to make more paper clips, like that, like like that. All needs to be worked out, obviously. And there are going to be plenty of people Brandon who are going to use this stuff in a nefarious way, right? Yeah, you're going

Brandon 1:07:53
to get, I mean, like, it's like, I said, you put the nurses at the beginning. There's a few bad apples in every profession, right? It happens.

Scott Benner 1:07:59
Yeah. I'm just telling you, like, try to imagine a world where you sit down in front of your computer, explain how you feel, and before you even reach a clinician, you know what's wrong, and you can then send it to them and let them re evaluate it. Now you've got human eyes on it, right and and, boom, you're to your answer right away, Yep,

Brandon 1:08:21
yeah, I agree. I will have to put one caveat in here, please, for right now, please do not be Dr Google and like, fight against your healthcare professionals like hell because you found something online that said XYZ, yes, it's good to respectfully challenge them, like Scott was talking about in his example, be like, hey, question. I'm gonna ask this question, I'm gonna ask this question, and I'm gonna state My reasoning for why I'm thinking this. But don't be like, Well, Google said this. So this is true. They are still. They have gone through hundreds of 1000s of hours of medical training and experience. They we do know what we're talking about most of the time. There's just, like, some small things. So please be respectful to your healthcare workers. Thank you. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:09:07
there's a ton of things you might not know to ask, right? So if you don't know to ask, you're not going to get the answer back and listen. Also, many of you are going to go to awesome doctors and nurses, like, absolutely awesome. But that's not why the conversation needs to happen. The conversation needs to happen because a you don't know which is which Right. Like, if I go to a doctor, my expectation is they're a great doctor. If they're not, how do I know that right? That's good. That's a good question. How do I know I'm not getting the care I should like? If I if there are two people in front of me, like a game show, and I picked the left door, not the right door, and I would have got a better answer in the right door. I'm never gonna know, because the doctor in the left door is gonna go, oh, Brandon, here's your problem, yeah, and here's what we're gonna do. And blah, blah, blah. And six months later, you're like, still, like, hey man, my ass is still dragging, you know what I mean? Like, I don't like, you're not even gonna think maybe the guy sent me the wrong way. Like, maybe. Maybe she didn't know what she was talking about. Like, that's not it. Here's a big picture answer to my question. Generally speaking, how many visits to a doctor does it take to get an answer? Everyday acute issues like strep throat, UTIs and ankle sprains, one visit, sometimes two if you need tests, okay, new but common, chronic conditions like high blood pressure, type two diabetes, thyroid troubles, takes one to two visits tough to sort out problems that need a specialist, like an autoimmune issue or a migraine, for example, can take between three and five encounters with a doctor to come to some sort of an answer. Rare Diseases seven different physicians over a five year average.

Brandon 1:10:43
Okay, yeah, yeah, that's what. That's a long time. Yeah, that's a long time. And no one should have to wait that long.

Scott Benner 1:10:49
You're living your life while that's happening, right? That's my point. My point is that the quicker you can get to it, the quicker you can hopefully get back to your life, or get an answer, or, you know, whatever ends whatever's gonna happen next. And this is not because doctors are bad people. This is just again. This is the limits of humans like and the system and insurance and healthcare in general and all that stuff. I'm gonna ask you one last question. I'll let you go. All right, sounds good. You seem like a really decent guy. Thank you. And the way the system is set No, you're welcome. And the way the system's set up is you're basically working for a bank that sells band aids. How do you reconcile that the healthcare system is not perfect? And I think probably everybody listening recognizes that even the medical professionals, right? We realize it's not a perfect system, and the only real way that we can try to change it is by trying to get ahead of things, like the upstream approach, or has a lot of different names. So trying to get ahead of things and trying to shift our healthcare system instead of treating symptoms, you know, finding the root cause of a problem and treating that ahead of time. And that's kind of a goal that I have as well. It's just trying to, like, help people before it becomes an issue, so that they can live their lives to the best of their ability. Brand, you did not answer my question. Oh, I'm so sorry. Don't be sorry. What I'm saying is, that hospitals are, generally speaking, owned by major conglomerates. They you know, if you look at, if you look at most big businesses, they don't the thing they make their money with is not the thing they are. They usually are lending money, or they have a lot of money, and they and they make that money by selling health care, and but you're the person who's like, I'm trying to help people like that and not that, maybe we're not all in that situation. I mean, honestly, I think if you stop and think about it, we're probably all in that situation to one degree or another. When you are such a like heart first person like, what do you think is going to be your first feeling when you realize you have to order a test that you think isn't necessary, because the diagnosis allows it, and we're allowed to bill for it, so we're going to do it. Yeah,

Brandon 1:13:06
it's going to suck. Like, I know I'm going to have to probably do things like that that I'm not wanting to do, per se, or that is not necessary. I guess at the end of the day, I'm just living my life. You know, I got to earn my paycheck, and I also got to take care of my patients, and whether or not I'm ordering, you know, an extra test or whatever else, I'm still trying my best to help them in any way that I can. And so maybe it's not ideal, not maybe it isn't ideal to be, you know, working for the system. That's not really working for us, but I'm just going to try my best to do what I can

Scott Benner 1:13:47
good answer, and I think it's a very reasonable answer too. I also think you might turn into one of those guys who like slowly closes his eyes and nods his head no while he's saying something, once in a while you need a test from don't do it. Say no and I don't think there's anybody not in that situation, right? Like, if you're working at the Apple Store, you know, 17 rows down the line from you as a kid in a mine, digging up minerals for batteries somewhere. Like, you know what I mean? Like, there's everybody's gonna get caught in that to some degree or another. But it just, it's very in your face, because people are so aware that they feel like they're being ripped off when they're involved in their healthcare. You're a good dude, and I really appreciate this conversation, and I think from all of us, we're super happy you're gonna be out there trying to help people with diabetes. So thank you very much.

Brandon 1:14:36
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the talk. I had a great time. I'm definitely a lot more comfortable than I was at

Scott Benner 1:14:41
the beginning. All right, man, hold on a second. A huge thanks to my longest sponsor, Omnipod. Check out the Omnipod five now with my link, omnipod.com/g Box, you may be eligible for a free starter kit, a free Omnipod five starter kit at my link, go check it out. Omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox Are you tired of getting a rash from your CGM adhesive. Give the ever since 365 a try, ever since cgm.com/juicebox beautiful silicon that they use it changes every day. Keeps it fresh. Not only that, you only have to change the sensor once a year. So I mean, that's better. A huge thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Don't forget us, med.com/juicebox This is where we get our diabetes supplies from. You can as well, use the link or call 888-721-1514, use the link or call the number get your free benefits check so that you can start getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us met. 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

I am here to tell you about juice cruise 2026 we will be departing from Miami on June 21 2026 for a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. That's right, we're going to leave Miami and then stop at Coco k in the Bahamas. After that, it's on to st, Kitts, St Thomas and a beautiful cruise through the Virgin Islands. The first juice Cruise was awesome. The second one's going to be bigger, better and bolder. This is your opportunity to relax while making lifelong friends who have type one diabetes, expand your community and your knowledge on juice cruise 2026 learn more right now at Juicebox podcast.com/juice, cruise. At that link, you'll also find photographs from the first cruise. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com.

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#1597 Advice for T1 Parents from T1 Adults - Part 2

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Adults living with type 1 diabetes (from the podcast's private Facebook group) share their thoughts with type 1 parents.

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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.

If you're looking to meet other people living with type one diabetes, head over to Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. Because next June, that's right, 2026 June, 21 the second juice Cruise is happening on the celebrity beyond cruise ship. It's a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. We're gonna be visiting Miami Coke, okay? St, Thomas and st, Kitts, the Virgin Islands, you're gonna love the Virgin Islands. Sail with Scott and the Juicebox community on a week long voyage built for people and families living with type one diabetes. Enjoy tropical luxury, practical education and judgment, free atmosphere. Perfect day at Coco Bay. St, Kitts, st, Thomas five interactive workshops with me and surprise guests on type one, hacks and tech, mental health, mindfulness, nutrition, exercise, personal growth and professional development, support groups and wellness discussions tailored for life with type one and celebrities, world class amenities, dining and entertainment. This is open from every age you know, newborn to 99 I don't care how old you are. Come out. Check us out. You can view state rooms and prices at Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise. The last juice cruise just happened a couple weeks ago. 100 of you came. It was awesome. We're looking to make it even bigger this year. Hope you can check it out. 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. Every once in a while, I see a post on the private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast that makes me feel like I wish everyone could see this, and today that happened, so I'm going to give you a ton of highlights from that post. Don't worry, I'll get through it quickly. I know Scott reads you the internet might not be your favorite thing, but trust me, this is valuable. The original poster asks for adults who were diagnosed as children to answer a couple of questions, is there something you appreciated that your parents did to help you as a child? Is there something your parents didn't do that you wish they had done? And so far, I'm seeing in under two hours, 86 replies. I don't know if I'm gonna read you all 86 of them, but maybe, who knows? Let's see, my parents involved me in my own care very early. They let me be a kid, but they also understood that this disease was lifelong, and in order for me to understand it as best as I can, it was best for me to get involved. I'm glad they did that for me. They never pressured me or anything, but they did a good job being honest with me about the disease and the care and letting me take part in it. They also taught me it's okay to say no to food. Sometimes, I think a lot of people, especially in the US, have horrendous relationships with food, and they feel like they need what they want, and they want all the damn time, and then sometimes wonder why their diabetes is hard to control. Sometimes they told me no, and I'm glad they did, because now I can say no to certain foods in certain situations easily, and it doesn't phase me at all. It's just food and it will still be there later or tomorrow. And I'm grateful for all of this. Thank you. Next one. I was diagnosed at 13 in 1995 the only thing my parents did immediately after diagnosis, like while we were in the hospital, was learn to do my injections, because I refused. I was so thankful to them for taking that off my plate. My mom sent me to diabetes camp my first summer with diabetes. At the time, I was terrified and I did not want to go, but I'm glad I did. I learned so much the first day, including having reverse peer pressure to do my own injections. I saw a six year old doing their own shots, and I felt like I should know how to do it as well, so I just did it. I attended the same camp Clara Barton and I'm still friends with a handful of girls I met the very first summer. This person goes on to say my parents were hands off other than the shots, and I didn't know I had a choice about it. In their heads, diabetes was my thing. I'd have to live with so it was better for me to figure it out while under their roof instead of after I had moved out. Did it make me take a lot of responsibility at a younger age, it did, but it also made me incredibly confident in myself and my ability to take care of myself. It taught me advocacy and adaptability and that I can lean on others when and if I need to. Isn't that awesome? She goes on to say, My parents always allowed me to be the final say. And my decisions in my care. Did I want to go on a pump, stay on shots, try new insulin? I did a lot of my own research and discussed it with them, but at the end of the day, my decision to this day, 30 years later, my mom still celebrates my diagnosis day with a card and a little note about how proud she is of me. Some years have been more difficult than others, so her little notes of encouragement and showing me that she sees me and how hard I work. That was lovely. Made me emotional. Thank you for sharing that. Let's see. Wow, this is a great post. You have some awesome insight on a bigger picture. I'm 37 and have lived with type one diabetes for 32 years. My parents did a great job, even before Dexcom and pumps of never letting me use my diabetes as an excuse to not to do something through adulthood. I've always had that mindset. It may take more prep, but I've been able to do things that I've wanted to do. I hated that they restricted food. Learned to Bolus for tough foods together, so they'll have the knowledge to do so without you and talk about alcohol and drinking effects on your glucose. So I'm an ICU nurse, and I can't tell you how many patients I've treated that could have avoided a hospital stay with that knowledge. Another great insight. I was diagnosed at 13. I'm now 39 so this might be different for those of you who have younger kids, but my mom had me get involved right away, gave myself my first shot, checked my blood sugar all the time. She was right there. Knew how to do everything, knew what questions to ask, but she wanted me to be as independent, responsible for my care as possible. Person goes on to say, I felt ownership over myself and what was happening to me. I didn't feel like the doctors or my mom were telling me what to do, and without her stepping back and letting me handle it at 13, I would have felt like I was just another thing I had to do, or that my parents were telling me to do. And I have talked to her about this since becoming an adult, and she said it was really hard, especially in the beginning, to not just do everything for me, because that is an instinct of a parent, to protect your kid at all costs, to make things easier for them, but she knew it was going to be the right thing for me, having something medically wrong with you, you can feel so out of control, and it's very easy to not feel autonomy over your body. So having the tools to feel as in control as I could was so important if I needed her. My mom was there. She was at every appointment. She knew how to do everything. She goes on to say that back in the day, we used to have to eat at certain times of the day because of how the insulin worked. So I had to eat my breakfast at 8am I used to babysit late nights, and my mom would make me breakfast and bring my glucometer insulin to my room, wake me up to do everything. I would eat and go back to sleep.

She was my support, even though she wasn't the one doing it all. That's another one. I'm gonna cry making this damn episode 45 years type one, diagnosed at six, also the parent of a type one, teaching me to be independent and able to advocate for myself is the best thing my parents did for me and that I'm doing for my daughter, let them live and learn and be there to support them when they make a wrong choice, but don't make them feel bad, because in time, they will figure it out on their own. It was a long time ago for me. There wasn't any technology, but what helped was that my mom included me in decisions, not that I made the decisions, but that she would work through the food counting and the insulin amounts with me. She also kept a journal of food insulin and just as importantly, how I felt, be it cranky, drowsy, sick, or whatever. We didn't have a CGM or even finger sticks when we started out in 75 so connecting how I felt with the BG was important. This person has had diabetes for 50 years and still carries an A 1c of five, seven, and they say knock wood. No complications yet. I was diagnosed at five, and one of the best things my parents did was to let me figure things out with them. It's another one saying the same thing. I was only a child, and I was fairly bad at being a child. Even at five, I was fairly bad at being a child. I don't know what that means. It's funny, even at five. So I wanted to learn and manage and treat my own hypos, inject myself and etc. I had been at school for six months and thought I knew everything. My mom was also not an alarmist, and treated my diagnosis with calmness and a lack of fuss, as did her parents. My father is a little more alarmist, but he did a good job of masking it. However, his side of the family were quite hopeless. They irritated me profoundly with their random fussing. My mom also told me that a lot of adults are a bit stupid and had learned incorrect things about diabetes, and I might have to put up with this for a while. No, it's awesome. She taught me to swear in lieu of lollies and chocolate. This was a bit fabulous, because I had a thing that other kids didn't even if I couldn't eat the same treats they did. It was in the 70s, and the diet was quite restrictive. She says, I now swear and eat chocolate and maintain a very tidy HBA 1c and A time and range. I also have. Good mental and physical health. The absolute best thing that happened in my early type one years was that at my friend's sixth birthday party, my mom and I had worked out some good options for me to eat, but Caro, my mom's friend, quietly told me that all the jell orange quarters were sugar free and that I could go mad if I wanted to. I nearly cried with relief. I had already taken on a lot of responsibility. It was my choice, and I was doing my best to get things right, but Kara had just made my job so much easier. That's awesome. You guys are really sharing. This is lovely. Hold on. I see this person has a slightly different perspective, very interesting. Ready? I've always had the mentality that if I was going to have to do this for the rest of my life on my own, I might as well get as much help as I can while I was living under my parents roof, I will say I didn't get as zoned in on my diabetes care until I was like 23 when I started to see small but reversible complications. My a 1c has always hovered around seven and a half to 8.2 for 20 years, and I'm still trying to get it lower. My suggestion is to ask your kid what they need from you. Show them this group and put the podcast on when they're around. If they are still young enough, send them to camp, if they're old enough to take on some responsibility, let them or make them, but don't ever be mad at them for a mistake they do with diabetes. They are already feeling the mistake and the consequences before you realize it be caring and annoying. She laughs. Remind them to Bolus, remind them to check blood sugar. I grew up with just the basic pump and finger sticks, so there was a lot of nagging, but I really don't mind. They never restricted food. There's a dosage for every food, and we were capable of eating it. Now, healthy food options should be taught to everybody. Just being type ones can eat whatever they want. That doesn't mean that they should eat the things that people think they shouldn't all the time. Moderation and proper nutrition education is key. Protein and fat is a must. Intermittent fasting has helped my insulin uses go down. My blood sugar leveled out, and the average time and range has now gone from 10 to 60% over three months. That's awesome. Good luck to you and your kid. I appreciated that my parents never restricted what I ate. I was always told I can eat whatever. I just need to give insulin for it. As a young girl, I think that helped my entire childhood not revolve around food, counting carbs, sugars may be high sometimes as part of the disease, we don't always need to be perfect. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 14, and now I'm 46 my parents made me do it from the beginning. My mom was a nurse. She knew the basics, but I did my own injections, glucose testing, et cetera. One thing that both my parents did that helped me was they immediately switched to drinking water and diet soda. They let me be a normal teen. I played sports. I went to France in the summer after my senior year, I went out with my friends. I worked all summer long, and I know they worried, but their worry didn't get so bad. They didn't allow me to do stuff. We still ate cake on my birthday and had pizza on Friday nights. Type one here for 20 years when I was diagnosed in my teens. Looking back, I will always be grateful that my parents taught me from diagnosis that my care was my responsibility. They were there every step of the way, every appointment, etc. Because of this, I am so much more involved, invested, versatile, responsible, accountable, proactive, grounded and humble in my care. For example, should my insulin pump break down, I am able to easily get back to being MDI, the internet and all the conveniences of tech go away. I know the fundamentals of bolusing and carb ratios, corrections, etc. My parents did not micromanage me, or at least I don't think they did. This person says that all families are different, but I think my advice might be to let go a bit and let the child learn. I understand that can't be done for a very young child, a toddler or baby, etc. And every person is different. Some are definitely more independent than others, but I guess once a child gets the grasp and the understanding of what to do. You have to let go a little bit. This person was diagnosed in 1983 someone posted episode 392 advice for type one parents from type one adults. So this is an update to that episode. If you want to go listen to that one as well. I am totally for this, because I feel like I'm ruining my kid. This person says, just diagnosed two months ago. Probably just normal parent guilt, but it's on a whole other level. I'm glad to be hearing from other adults with firsthand type one perspective. Look, they get some support here. You're not ruining your child just by caring and posting. This shows you're an amazing parent. I agree. I wish mine would have sought help for their fear and anxiety surrounding me. It took years of therapy as an adult to stop feeling like a problem. Oh, I've been waiting 62 years to be asked this question. Well, then this is going to be hell of an answer. I think my answer is that my parents were great. It's just that I realized that things look different from my perspective, and I wasn't sure my folks knew that i. I hope that makes sense, my parents encouraged my independence so that I was able to take charge of myself at a fairly young age. At the same time, they would quietly pitch in on tasks that I had trouble with until I didn't. They made sure I never felt like an object of pity. I know my diagnosis was much harder on them than it was on me, but they managed to set a positive tone and live by it. It was basically a normal kid like life, but with hard candy in my pocket, and I think they sent me to camp. It must have been easier back then fewer tasks and benchmarks. Okay, this person says diagnosed in 87 at age nine. From the get go, I was taught how to manage, how to draw up insulin, measure, food, etc, what portions looked like for situations when I wasn't at home, how to treat it low. My parents gave me agency over my own body and over my diabetes. They never made a big deal about it. I was never told I couldn't do something. Never denied a sleepover or a party or a hot dog at school. I didn't miss school for lows or highs. I had no accommodations unless I was actively experiencing a Hypo. I am so glad my mom never said she wished it was her instead of me. She actually became a type one at age 50, many years after my diagnosis, and I never thought to myself, Oh, now she'll understand what does that success look like for me. Now I have three adult kids a degree, no complications yet, no diabetes, anxiety, nothing I see as a true impediment to getting the life I want. I don't pray for a cure. I have never once felt sorry for myself or asked why me. I am deeply, deeply grateful that my parents gave me the gift of independence. This person jumped in because I commented about an hour into this, and I said, I'm going to make an episode out of this post. And a person said, Oh, I think that's amazing. I'm the parent of a 10 year old daughter diagnosed in 2024

I'm also a nurse practitioner, and it is amazing what I didn't know and how much I've learned in the last eight months. My biggest struggle is preventing the prevention of resentment. Because of our daily battles, I want my daughter to feel like a normal kid, yet she often resists what that means fixing highs, late pod changes, etc. I read a post by a member months ago that said she resented her parents for all the pressure they put on her and the control and the constant nagging, I don't know how to find that happy medium. I don't either. That's why we just talk about it. I'm struggling, and I feel like I'm drowning at times. I take on complete management myself. My husband doesn't do anything. It's 24/7 as we all know, but I want her to feel as little stress as possible while being as independent as she wants to be with their own management. I love advice on helping to decrease the resentment and how to foster the trust and care and relationship without causing a strain as the age. I'm including that here because that's the middle right. Like you know, you can hear from all the people that you know can look back in the rear view mirror and say, here's what my parents did, and it really worked for me. There are just as many people whose parents did that and it didn't work for them. There are just as many people who were more involved, and, you know, did things longer, like there's no one size fits all answer for this, some kids will respond well to what you've heard. Some won't. My mom would tell you that she tried really hard, and I wouldn't listen to her. It was not until I found a reason to be responsible for my health that I started to care. You can lead a horse to water. I hope I can be a cautionary tale for kids now, but they really need to find their own path and a reason to care. I was diagnosed at 14. So I was very independent. From the beginning, my parents learned about how to give shots, but never gave me any, not that I wanted them to. They were with me at all my classes. Learned the basics, but after that, probably the first year, they didn't keep up. I've always been doing this myself. It is definitely not their fault, because the doctors always told them that I was doing great. I really wasn't doing that well, I had an A, 1c in the eights, and I never asked for help. I wish they would have taken more time to learn about how to help me, not lecturing me, because I definitely wouldn't have listened, or just time to keep up with the technology so that I had someone to lean on if I needed it. That being said, they have been my biggest supporters since my diagnosis and after the initial fear of low blood sugars, they never bug me about numbers. If I would have asked for help, they would have tried their best and still would. So basically, even if your kid is easy in quotes and does everything themselves, you should still learn about management and how to live with diabetes. They might not appreciate it in the moment, but they will later. I love this post as a type one adult. I appreciate your curiosity and willingness to listen to those living with the disease. I'm so glad this is going to be an episode Me, too. I was diagnosed at 50. Mean and loved being independent. I would have absolutely despised having my parents on my back about my diabetes, even when they would make comments I would get frustrated. But the key problem was they weren't educated about it. They didn't really try to learn the disease and the nuances of it. They just knew sugar equals insulin, low sugar equaled eat. That's what they know. Maybe they had been more educated and approached from the viewpoint, I might have been more open to it say that the other downside to them not being educated was that I wasn't given opportunities to become educated. I struggled with my sugars until I became an adult and took charge of my own. All this to say, I think there's a bit of resentment when you have an older child who craves independence and already feels pulled down by their diagnosis in their life, and they have a parent who is breathing down their shirt. But there's also a blessing in having a parent who cares enough to learn with you. I think there are so many gray areas, and you really need to know your child best. Take their cues when they're ready to be more independent, let them let them make small mistakes, let them become educated. Let them learn their body cues and when they're ready, let them go on and do the things on their own. They won't live with you forever. And a well educated diabetic is more important than a well educated parent. I was diagnosed in 1994 at age 16, but because my mother and grandmother both had type one, I grew up surrounded by it, and my parents worked with diabetes educators to help me get dialed in. I took over most of the management fairly early, because I knew it would be necessary if I wanted to go to college. I have a weird experience with this. I wasn't type one as a child. I was diagnosed in my late 20s, but I was raised by a parent with type one. It wasn't intentional, but it taught me a lot about how I wanted to manage and how intentional I am about handling burnout and stress related to diabetes. He faced a lot of different challenges than I did due to available technology, so his options were limited, but his relationship with diabetes and the complications and outcomes he's experiencing really impacted how I handle diabetes for myself, we have a pretty open relationship, but he's always been fairly closed lipped about his diabetes, and sometimes I wonder how different his relationship with diabetes would have been if he had a social support structure like we have now, with social media and outreach programs. I was three, and I can actually remember my first time my mom and dad held me down to give me my first needle. It was horrific, but if they hadn't, I've kept going, I wouldn't be here. My mom gave up her life to give me mine, and I am ever so grateful. Once I started doing it myself, I really understood all the anxiety and worry over something you can't always control, and respected her more for it. It is a hard and tiring job, and when you've got a healthy support system, it makes it a little easier and a little more fun. Type one for 33 years, diagnosed at 12. It was hard, and I felt alone and hated so much. My mom helped me, but still, to this day, doesn't understand the things I felt, but I'll say that I wish my mom helped me longer. It was learning for all of us at first, but after a year, I was left to do it on my own. I'll also say I've been married for 23 years, and my husband may not feel what I feel, but he has helped me since the first day we were together, and he helps me not give up and not feel alone. This person says I am sending lots and lots of love to everybody. I'm 57 and a type one since my teens. I think it's wonderful to have both perspectives. I am 100% complication free. I love telling that to people to confront them, but I can't claim to have been diagnosed as a young child. And the most surprising thing about this group is the level of regret and guilt parents feel. I'm a mother of four, and I understand those feelings would be completely normal. I just never considered how my own parents felt at my diagnosis. Personally, I would say, understanding the physical side of things, being tolerant of lows and out of range, because I don't always feel fantastic, but don't change your goals for your kids because of this disease. They are still strong, beautiful, capable people. I don't ever want anyone's pity, understanding. But understanding is awesome, though. I believe that we all need to find a way to do everything with diabetes that's been my life. How can I do this? I haven't missed out on a thing, and I'm a kinder, more compassionate person because of type one. That's very nice. Type one adult diagnosed at 12. I appreciate that. My parents let me be my very independent self. I gave myself my shots, calculated my carbs, did my math, check my sugar. I was older than a lot of the kids that I see here in the group sometimes, but I didn't have any restrictions on food either. One thing I did not appreciate was being treated differently. I wasn't allowed to go to friends houses for sleepovers or after school events very often because my parents worried about me. It is possible that it's different now, since they have Dexcom and follow apps, but when I was diagnosed, that was not a thing. I also wish my parents would have advocated for newer technology. I feel like they just went with it and so. Pump, and that was it. I had the same one for 10 years before I got my own insurance. I've only had a Dexcom for the last four or five years, and I just feel like the advocacy was not present enough. I was diagnosed at 12 in the 80s. I took the bus to my diabetic clinic myself, dosed myself alone in our bathroom, and never knew what was going to be on the plate for dinner. School. Teachers did not know I had diabetes. I managed all my lows, bought all my low snacks. There was no glucagon. That's what was going on at the time. My mom let me handle it,

but she was there when I asked for help, which was few and far between. I was nine at diagnosis. To be fair, she was a teenage mom with two young kids who lost her husband at a young age, so I was pretty independent from the get go. I don't know if mentally, it was something she could have dealt with at the time if she had to manage it all, she was an emotional mess. When I was discharged from the hospital, I knew how and when to check my blood sugar, give injections which insulin I needed for what I could carb count fairly well, and had a notebook paper cheat sheet I kept with me in my insulin case until I memorized the carbs that I ate most. I knew what to do on sick days and that it was my responsibility and decisions that would make or break my outcomes. No one could do it for me. She let me yell and scream and be mad, but also confided in her about being scared and feeling different. Though no one treated me any different than any other kid, because I wouldn't let them my diabetes was never allowed to be an excuse, to be honest, the only thing my diabetes ever held me back from was a career in the military because I couldn't pass the health check. I wish she didn't worry as much as she did, but it's in her nature. I didn't understand that until I had my own kids. So my advice, they can handle what you let them, but you have to give them a chance. Don't let their life or yours be dictated by this disease. This person says, Thank you so much for sharing your stories. I have tears rolling down my face reading your thoughts and experiences. As a parent of a newly diagnosed type one who's 13 years old, I promise to carry you all with me in support and try to guide him. Thank you through the original poster for this thread, I hope it's just as meaningful to others as it is to me. Diagnosed as a teen, my parents loved me, supported me, and attended diabetes education classes with me, but they let me handle my diabetes on my own. This set me up for success in college and beyond. The other things parents did right? I wanted to go to diabetes camp, but we couldn't afford to, so my mom found a scholarship through Lions Club, going to diabetes camp as a teen, soon after diagnosis, changed the trajectory of my life and helped me in so many ways. Yes, there are some risks associated with sending kids to diabetes camp. For me, the benefits were immense, and now I have lifelong diet buddies. Okay, well, I've gotten to the end of the 96 comments, but I will now refresh it and see what else there is before I stop. That's just been good. You guys are smart. I'm proud of this group. Let's see. Maybe this is the end. Yep, that's it. I made it. So in three hours, 96 people commented. Other conversations broke out. I think I read you pretty much everything. It's been a half an hour, as Scott reads the internet, that's probably enough, right? Going to take all of the information in this post and find a way to turn it into a blog post. So check for that at Juicebox podcast.com We'll call it a companion to the episode. You'll find it. Thank you so much for listening to me read the Internet. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You

and don't forget, if you enjoyed this episode, there is another episode that was made years ago on the same topic. It might be interesting to hear that one as well. It's episode 392, called advice for type one parents from type one adults, I think I'm just going to call this one advice for type one. Parents from type one adults. Part two, not the most imaginative, but not bad either. I might find a way to combine all these into that blog post I was talking about too. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast, private Facebook group Juicebox podcast type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast type one diabetes. Diabetes on Facebook. If you or a loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one, you can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and@juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu, the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong wayrecording.com,

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