#1907 Come On Over, Valerie
Come On Over, Valerie
Valerie’s daughter was diagnosed at 12 in full DKA. A year later, a newly-diagnosed mom on California’s Central Coast has become a confident, bold advocate — and shares how she got there.
Jump to a moment
- Type 1 can hide until it’s an emergency. Reagan’s slide — fatigue, stomachaches, weight loss, crying over homework she loved — was easy to chalk up to a stressful season, until a friend noticed her clothes hanging off her. She arrived at the hospital in full DKA with a blood sugar of 860. Trust the “mom gut.”
- You’re allowed to be the one who adjusts. Told the pump “should do it all” and to stop touching it, Valerie kept going once she understood why — and dialing in the correction factor is what finally got her daughter where she needed to be. Scott’s long-held view: feeling autonomously able to make meaningful setting changes is one of the biggest predictors of success.
- Adjust in small, deliberate steps — not by guessing. Valerie changes a couple of points at a time, waits a day or two, then keeps or reverts. She used a large-language model as a starting-point estimate (weight, age, puberty) and then refined from there — not blindly following it.
- Community and format matter. A podcast during chores, a mom spotted at a horse show, one friend on call day and night — Valerie assembled her knowledge from an ecosystem, not a single source. Her A1C went from 11.5 at diagnosis to 5.9, with her daughter running track, playing soccer and basketball, and barrel racing.
- Management first, then the rest. Reagan hasn’t fully “digested” the diagnosis, and that’s okay — Valerie is comfortable carrying it for now. Scott’s note: get the management buttoned up so it buffers the mental-health and burnout challenges that come later. (Reagan also has Hashimoto’s, currently untreated.)
- Touched by Type One — episode sponsor; programs and support for people with type 1 (Facebook, Instagram, touchedbytype1.org)
- Pro Tip Series — starts with “Newly Diagnosed / Starting Over”; the fats-and-protein and correction-factor concepts Valerie leaned on (verify slug)
- Small Sips Series — short, listener-voted takeaways (verify slug)
- Juicebox setting estimators & series menu — correction-factor/settings estimators and every series, up in the menu
- T1D Exchange Registry — a ~10-minute survey that moves type 1 research; US adults with T1D or caregivers
- Tandem Mobi (Control IQ+) — the pump Reagan uses; sponsor link
- Eversense 365 — one-year CGM; sponsor link
Every word of the conversation
Meet Valerie0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of the Juice Box podcast. Welcome. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juice Box 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. Are you an adult living with type one or the caregiver of someone who is and a US resident?
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Have you tried the small sip series? They're curated takeaways from the juice box podcast voted on by listeners as the most helpful insights for managing their diabetes. These bite sized pieces of wisdom cover essential topics like insulin timing, carb management, and balancing highs and lows, making it easier for you to incorporate real life strategies into your daily routine. Dive deep, take a sip, and discover what our community finds most valuable on the journey to better diabetes management. For more information on small sips, go to juiceboxpodcast.com.
Click on the word series in the menu. The episode you're about to listen to was sponsored by Touched by Type One. Go check them out right now on Facebook, Instagram, and, of course, at touchedbytype1.org. Check out that programs tab when you get to the website to see all the great things that they're doing for people living with type one diabetes. Touched by type1.org.
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Visit eversensecgm.com/juicebox for more details and eligibility.
Hi. I am Valerie, and I have I'm a mother to a type one diabetic daughter who is 12 and going straight through puberty.
Fun times. Is this is she is she your only child?
No. I have a nine year old son.
Okay. 12 year old daughter, nine year old son. 12 year old daughter has type one. How long has she had it?
She was diagnosed 03/01/2025.
03/01/2020. Oh, wow. March, April, May. Just a year and a couple of months there.
Yes.
Okay. Okay. Pretty new to the whole thing. How old are you?
Absolutely. I am 42.
42. And married?
Yep.
Married. Married. Okay. 42, married, two kids, diabetes. What brings you here today?
Like, what made you say I I should add my voice to this whole thing?
Because of the complete unawareness of it all, I would like to maybe start with her diagnosis because that is what is so strong with me. And the fact that even sitting in a hospital telling me them telling me that she has type one diabetes, I had no idea what they were talking about. Mhmm.
So what gets you to the hospital? What did you see? Was she ill? Did somebody say something to you? How did that whole work?
Go through that part.
From Mexico to the Bathroom Floor3:52
Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. I start with Mexico. We went to Mexico in January.
Everything was fine, normal. When we got back, she was acting very tired. My stomach hurts here and there. I have a headache here and there. She has always been very bright with school and no problem with homework.
Towards the closer to the diagnosis, I was seeing her crying over, like, math homework, which she loves Mhmm. Any type of thing like that. And I was like, I am so confused. Yeah. And we I didn't have my husband in my life at the time because we were separated, and it was just me.
And I was chopping that all up to our family is going through a stressful time. These are just normal kid things that happen. Maybe she just got overrun that day, and feeling a little off.
Of all the things that threw you off about or the the yeah. I guess shone a light on her, the stomach pain, the the not being able to deal with things that she's usually good at, was there one thing that, like, hit you harder than the rest as something that really made you worry?
Yeah. So that went on for, like, a month, two months, and then she went she she had she's rode horses since she was five. She went to a horse show early in the morning, rode all day long. I was at my son's baseball game working the Snack Shack. I had a friend drop her off.
And prior to that, my friends had kinda said, oh, look at her little pants. They're so big on her. And I remember looking like, oh, that's weird because I don't remember that. But, your mind plays tricks with you. Mhmm.
When you see your kid every day, you don't notice the weight loss.
Sure.
So she came to me, and she was very embarrassed because she couldn't at that time, she was having trouble holding her her pee. You know, she had go pee all the time.
Mhmm.
I did not notice a lot of water. I I know in a lot of episodes I hear that they were just drinking, you know, eight glasses or more, but I didn't it was just the norm. So that day is the diagnosis day. And so she comes to the snack shack. I'm busy.
I'm like, okay. Here. Have some french fries. Have some Sprite. Have some peach rings.
Those were our favorites to share together. Mhmm. So then we go home, and she just kinda gets worse. And I'm like, okay. Just take a shower.
Maybe you're just tired from riding your horse all day. She didn't have a towel in the bathroom, and she, at that time, was in a lot of pain with her stomach and just her whole body. So she was in the fetal position on the mat in the bathroom. And at that point, I came and gave her a towel, and all I saw was a skeleton and her all her ribs. And I was like, oh my god.
I don't know what's going on. This was a Saturday, of course. I do have a friend down the street, and she was in nursing school, and that's the only thing I could think of. I called her, and I said, I don't know what's going on. Something's wrong.
Yeah. But in my mind, it was like starvation. I said, what do you wanna eat? She said, Chipotle. I took her.
We went in the drive through. When I tried to give her food because I was like, just eat just eat. Her mouth was then so dry. She could not swallow, could not eat. Again, keep in mind, I know nothing about the type one and what I should look for.
So I'm it's not making sense to me. So then we get home. My friend comes by. She checks her out. She does all of her her stuff.
She says she looks alright, but something's kind of off. She's kind of thinking the worst, more cancer like, but then she's like, can you smell her breath? And I did. It did not smell fruity. She's like, I'm gonna go home and get my glucometer.
So she goes and gets it, and it just didn't work. And she's like, that's weird. I maybe it's broken. Maybe my glucometer's broken. And she said, don't wanna send you to the hospital because I feel bad.
I was like, it's okay. Like, just keep my son. I will take her. I would rather go to bed knowing what was wrong or if something's going on.
And that's how worried you were. You were beyond, like, we can't ignore this any longer.
Yeah. But still not knowing what it was. And how knowing, like, really what a finger stick meant.
Sure. Valerie, give me a half a second, though. Like, Mexico, which, by the way, I can't believe you brought that up so earlier. I could've called this one south of the border disorder. But but it's too early it's too early in the episode.
But but so from Mexico to this, you know, skeleton on the floor Chipotle ride, how what how much time is there?
That was the middle of January. So, like, the end of January to, basically, the end of February,
March 1. Maybe about four, five weeks time?
Yeah.
That whole space okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry. So you you leave your son with your friend, and you head to the hospital?
860 and Full DKA8:34
Yes. And so we we live where there's, a smaller hospital. So it's just, like, the general hospital, and she said, just to ask them to check her finger, and I just wanna know if mine is broken. So I got in there, and I told them exactly that. Like, just wanna check her finger.
And for some reason, there was other people in the waiting room, but they just knew. Mhmm. They took her back. And sure enough, I still, again, didn't know what it meant, all it read was high on the hospital one, and their faces turned white. Nurses started running, and I'm just like, I don't know what's going on.
Later, come to find out, yeah, her her blood sugar was 860. Wow. Full DKA. They said we have to get her in and start her on IVs right away, but then we had to get an ambulance and be transferred an hour down south to go to the children's hospital.
You had to get to a different hospital. So did they stabilize her at the first hospital, or did they move her right away?
They they only started fluids. They didn't have any type of pediatric diabetes anywhere at all there. So, no, she was not. She wasn't anything
long at all. They got you got they got you out of there fast.
Yeah. So we had an hour ride. They did not wanna start insulin at all until she was at the pediatric hospital.
How long was she in that pediatric hospital?
She went into the ICU. That was the scariest thing in my life. I did not sleep for forty two hours. Talk about trauma. And she stayed there for a week.
Just she actually got stable pretty quick, and then we stayed in the pediatric just unit for about three days for education.
Okay. And was she did she come back to life? Did her her body fill out while she when she got back on the insulin? Like, how did you how did you notice all that stuff?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
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“I Want Bacon”12:33
That first day, yeah, she was, completely out of it. She did not go into a coma, but she was just obviously tired. She slept for a long time. When she woke up, she said, I want bacon.
I have that feeling when I wake up some days. So And
she's just a little girl. Like, she's always been small, but it was just so funny. And I'm like, oh, yeah. She's feeling better. She wants bacon, and she wants all this off of her right now.
Yeah. That's awesome. Well, so she popped back pretty quickly. Now at this point, somebody's told you type one diabetes. Yeah.
Do you have any context for it? Or is New. It all comes from those couple days in the hospital that your initial context?
Absolutely. It does not like, we've had a little bit of type two in the family because of lifestyle. Never had never thought I of being a medical parent. Nothing in my life as far as family and all that was never a thing.
Okay.
So it was so far in my mind. So, yeah, this was all a shock. The ER doctor had to take me out and just sit me down and explain little by little. But at that point, it's so much information, and I was not sleeping for days. It was a lot.
Yeah. And it's taken me a long time to really digest it.
How how do you mean?
Just all of the information that goes with it, it took me a a little bit.
Okay.
And I and I just don't I was don't I think I was ready for it. When when you have something that changes your life in a moment, it it really takes a while.
Yeah. No. Sure. Yeah. You're not gonna just immediately be like, oh, I completely understand.
I got it. Thanks a lot. But Yeah. But so we you're what are you now? Fourteen, fifteen months removed from this thing.
Right? Are you still absorbing it? Like, would you say that it's still a learning process? And if so, where are you learning from?
Learning From the Podcast14:33
That's a great question. That's what I wanted to talk about. I'm learning from you, Scott. I'm learning from you and your listeners and your and your guests. So she does have a great doctor, but she's very conservative.
We had to wait the six months for the pump, which, yes, that just confuses me. She did have a Dexcom from the hospital, which I don't know how I could have ever lived without that. And just listening because, like, her doctor would love for us to take it super slow and not do what I'm doing. Like, in the beginning, yes, I was that mom of, like, I feel comfortable with her being at 200 and above because, you know, in the hospital, they are talking about lows and all of that. Not really the highs as much.
Yeah.
So when I'm coming home, you do feel like you're coming home with a newborn of, like, oh my god. I don't know what I'm doing. So that was me for a bit. And my daughter, she did not let this stop her one bit. I'm gonna cry because she was just like that.
She went to school the first day she could, never stayed home, never stopped her sports, nothing. She has taken this and ran. I don't think she has fully digested it herself because I am the full caretaker of
it. Mhmm.
But she's not letting it stop her.
What do you mean you don't think she's completely digested it?
Like, if I ask her, what is your number? I don't know. I don't know.
You feel like she hasn't taken it on completely?
Yes.
Absolutely. She she's aware she has type one. She knows it's not gonna go away, like, that kind of stuff. Does she feel accepting of that part of it?
I don't know. I don't know. She is a little bit hard to talk to. I do we do need to get her hooked up with someone. She is going to camp next month, so I'm kind of waiting for that, to see what else needs to come after that.
But it's it's it's odd because she wears her Dexcom. She she's on the tandem Moby. She'll wear it on her arm here and there, and if it's out, it's out. She's not trying to cover it.
Mhmm.
But she is just very, no. I'm just normal. I'm just doing my thing.
It's a slow process. Also, she's some would you how did you put it? She's sometimes hard to talk to. That describes every human being I've ever met in my entire life, including me. So Yes.
Yes. Yes. It nobody credit. Yeah. Nobody wants to sit down and chat about all the things that are bothering them.
That's not a it it it's not it just doesn't feel I mean, not that you shouldn't, but it doesn't feel natural. When someone approaches you and says, how do you feel about this? You may not know how you feel about it. You may know and not wanna tell somebody. I mean, there's a a lot to this.
Talk about a a marathon. You you know what I mean? Like Yes. Getting to the end of that. But she's Yeah.
But she's taking care of herself, like, well. Right? Like, she wears her gear. She's not scared to Yeah. Show it to somebody, but she doesn't have the level of connection to it that you want or a level connection that you have.
I think that I have. I think that I am totally okay with completely overseeing all of this. I want her to take it as it comes and as she can digest it. I think, you know, she's 12. She has plenty of time that she's gonna have to deal and live with this, and I am completely willing and wanting to do this for her at this time.
Mhmm. So I'm not too worried about that right now.
Yeah. I I wouldn't be either. I I don't I don't subscribe to the idea of, like, you know, it's their disease. Give it to them now. They need to know.
Like, yeah, they need to know, and that's all true, but it doesn't have to happen all today. Right. And
she's absolutely so smart. Like, if she had to do a site change right now, she could do it herself, and and a DexCom, all of that. She she does know. She just simply just doesn't wanna have to take care of it right now.
You're proud of her.
I am so proud of her. I'm so incredibly proud of her. What she's taken on is amazing, and these type one diabetics are so incredibly strong.
No kidding. Okay. So you're saying you were told you're given more conservative marching orders from your doctor. Not not bad necessarily, but what it was, it not moving quickly enough for you? Or
Conservative Orders, and Fighting for the Pump18:45
I didn't I didn't know it all. I had no idea. So in the beginning, you know, she's going to school, and I'm, like, telling the nurses, no. I want her to stay in the two hundreds. Like because in the beginning, she was dipping really quick.
Mhmm. You know? Her body was getting used to trying to stabilize that healthy blood sugar. So when she would see a 100, it was like it was going down fast. So in those times, in those beginning when I think back, it was like, okay.
200 made me feel safe. And the doctors never really, like, pushed me further. And then we got on the pump, and I had to ask for that and keep on track with it. And another thing I have on my list is the insurance. So I had to be the one to, like, make sure that I get it within that year so I could actually get it covered.
You know what I mean?
Did you not have medical insurance at that point?
No. No. We do.
Oh, you do? Okay. Okay. What did you mean you had to get you had to get what in that year? Tell me I'm not pump.
Oh. Oh. Oh, I see.
Sorry. Like, all of the deductibles and everything was covered. So we knew at that point everything, her prescriptions and all that, were getting covered up by a 100%.
I see. Okay. Actually, that's completely my fault if I'm being honest. There's this is gonna sound ridiculous to some people, but there's a lizard in a cage that just leapt across it, and it took my attention for half a second. And then you said that, and I thought, I just did I miss what she just said just there?
So sorry.
Are you in your new office?
No. I'm so close to being in my new office. No. The the the cruise is this month in June, and I'm going to ADA in June. So in the I don't know how many days there are in June 30 or 31.
I know there's, like, a there's supposed to be isn't there a hymn, like, you can, like, sing to get to it? But, how many days there are in each month? But however many days there are in June 2026, I'm only gonna be home for half of them. And so I I'm up to the, we're waiting for the carpeting to be installed, and then, I've gotta get furniture. And I think I'm gonna move my office side first and the recording side second, because I have to get up the sound dampening on the wall still on the recording side.
So yeah.
I've been following
all Thank you. Yeah. I'm I'm trying to get to I my hope is that end of the summer, by August, for sure, I'll be working out of there. So there's still a lot of stuff to do. Then I gotta move all these guys with me to where they're gonna live.
And so anyway, and I'm doing it by myself. So it's and I'm working. So it's not Yeah. Absolutely. It's not going quickly is what I'm saying.
Yeah. We should probably
Take it slow.
Yeah. I I I think I have some people related to me looking for work. I should probably just start being like, hey. Can you move a desk? Can you do this?
Yeah. You
know? Absolutely.
But but, okay. So when you say when you say, you know, they're they're going slowly, the and the reason I wanna know about this is, you know, anybody who's ever tried to market something, you know, like, when you I don't know. If you sell a widget, right, you does how does somebody in Peoria, Illinois end up with your widget? You have no idea. Like, you'd like to think you do.
Right? Like, oh, I bought an ad or I you know, it was in a magazine or in the end, you don't know how you don't know how information travels. It's it's really difficult to, like, conceptualize how it does. Like so, like, I don't know what even what part of the country you're in if you're comfortable saying that.
Finding It From the Central Coast22:16
But Yeah. I'm on the Central Coast Of California.
Okay. Okay. How does someone in California, while their 11 year old is being diagnosed with type one diabetes, end up finding out about a podcast made by a guy in New Jersey watching a lizard jump across the tank? And and, like and and and how do you know to look for it? Like like, what's the trigger that makes you go, what I'm being told here, it's good, but it's not enough.
I need more. Where do I go look for more? How do you find out which way to go once you turn that way? It's just it's such a web of un unknown for me. I
don't Absolutely. Yeah. So I do not remember how I found yours. I I am on TikTok. I am on all the socials.
You know? So I'm sure something popped up. And then I do like to listen to podcasts when doing house chores and at work. I do have a little bit of ADD. So, like, when things are going in the background, I tend to work better.
So I I don't remember how I found it, but it was a little while after diagnosis. It was close to her getting the pump, so I would say, six months
Okay.
After her diagnosis.
And you Yeah.
In the hospital, I didn't have any any
Bandwidth.
Outlet, any nothing.
Yeah. You probably didn't even think to look. I I didn't think to I just thought whatever they're telling me is the whole thing. You know, it has to be. Right?
You don't know. Absolutely.
Okay.
So I just started listening, and I started from one. I started from one, but then I started seeing because then I started following your page and on your page, and I started seeing newer things. And I'm like, oh, I should probably kinda go backwards again and see where we are now currently. Mhmm. But I did listen to quite a bit of, you know, Arden's very first in the beginning and and and just kind of all of that.
Yeah.
She graduated from college the other day. That's gotta freak you out if you started listening from the beginning. Yeah. Yes.
And that's why I just think it's amazing because you've been through it all. What I'm gonna go through now with all of it. See, I have questions about that too.
Yeah. Well, I mean and the stuff I haven't been through, somebody I've talked to probably has been.
Absolutely.
Yeah. That that's why I like this this format so much.
So I so I right now, I'm into the pro series, and that is so helpful.
Good.
But I wanna tell you one thing about your podcast, and you're gonna laugh because
I hope so.
Yes. I found out in the beginning, yes, it was, you know, don't don't be afraid of insulin that stuck with me vague. So the doctors had to kind of stop me. At one point, it was the nurse and the social worker got getting on the phone with me saying, do not touch the pump in a very nice way, but I was like, woah. What is going on?
I'm touching it because it's just simply not getting her. But I understood what they were trying to say. They wanted to see the baseline. I tried that.
Oh, so they they set something up, and then they wanted to see a return on what they set up, but you were giving more insulin. And Absolutely. And they and they well, well, couldn't they just see that as the example that maybe it wasn't using enough insulin? Like, why do you have to swipe?
What I was trying to
say too. And yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So, I was cleaning toilets in my house, listening to your podcast, and it was the podcast with someone from Tandem itself talking. And she was saying that the correction factor is gonna be the key to the pump, and I'm like, what the hell is correction factor?
What the Hell Is Correction Factor?25:31
Laurel, I'm sorry. I coughed in your in your ear. Laurel Laurel, this is pretty recently. Yeah. I you should know I just recorded, like, five or six short episodes with her.
Oh, awesome. Awesome.
I like her a lot. I I I I really do. Okay. So she she mentions correction factor, and you're like, what's that mean?
Yes. So I'm like she and she's telling me, you know, in my ear while I'm cleaning your toilet Mhmm. This is gonna be the key to to the pump. And I'm like because at first, everyone's telling me how great the Moby is, and I'm like, yeah. But it's not getting my daughter where she needs to be.
Mhmm. And when I find this information, I'm like, hello. So I I look it up. I research it. And sure enough, I do make changes to her correction factor, and it worked.
Yeah. Amazing. And and so it just made me super frustrated that why do I have to be, you know, listening to find this information out? Is it not
the doctors didn't tell you?
Yes. And and, like, maybe they told me at the pump, training, but it is a lot to take in.
Mhmm.
But, yeah, I guess, why why was that not being tweaked?
The thing I try to
You know what I mean?
Yeah. Yeah. The thing I try to think about is that you're you're buying an insulin pump. Right? Like, I don't know what the there's no through line here.
But, like, say you buy a coffee maker, and you plug it in and and you put in the four scoops in this amount of water like it says, and the coffee doesn't come out right. And you're like, people say this coffee is good. It's not it's not bad. It's not great. And then you you learn later online that the real key to it is taking the electric cord, wrapping the electric cord once around the base, then plugging it in.
And then you wanna have the handle on the right and use a quarter of a scoop more per scoop than it says, and only use RO water. And then you're gonna get great you know? Then And you go, oh my god. This thing makes perfect coffee. Why would no one tell me this?
Exactly. That's the feeling I think about the insulin pumps. Like, you're you're I think your understanding is I I would throw CGMs in with this as well. Is that is that the thing does what it does, and it does it perfectly. It doesn't need adjusting.
And then to realize that, you know, for a pump, its settings, carb ratio, sensitivity factor, blah blah blah blah, like, all that stuff, Those have to be dialed in really well, or it's not gonna work as well as it could. And then with the CGM, I've gotta be hydrated. It's gotta be in a good spot on my body. Like, but, you know, all the little, like, the little finicky parts of these things, no one speaks about that.
Exactly. And then here we are so dependent on these things for our children's lives. We're tired. We are running around crazy trying to figure these things out. So, yes, it it did feel very frustrating to have to find a a key point to all of this
in a very
odd way.
Let me ask you a question. Also, then you're given the thing. You're told the thing does a thing, then it doesn't, and you're left with thinking, well, it doesn't work then.
Yes. And that's what the doctor said. She said that, you know, this pump should be able to do it all. There are other ones that I would tell you to please, you know, interact with it and touch it more, but this is one that you shouldn't. And I'm like, okay.
Well then and then you flip on a podcast from some dipshit in New Jersey and listen to a lady from Tandem talk, and you're like, well, the lady that works at the company doesn't seem to agree with what the doctor said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whoopsie.
Yeah.
So so I, yeah, I I I change it. I've never been a big chat GP tier. I can never say that.
Mhmm.
But I did look into it, and I did put her weight. I put her age and, you know, the fact that she's going through puberty. And they did give me a little bit of a a guide. And I'm not I am very in tune with her pump. I am very I watch her stuff all all the time.
I'm very in tune with her diabetes. So it's like, I'm not going to just take exactly what chat GPT says, but it was very close. And I did tweak it a little by little, and and we're we're definitely getting there.
Tell so tell me, Valerie, when you is it do you like Val or Valerie? Do you prefer?
Either one. I've gotten both my whole life. I it's totally up to
you. Well, because the Valerie makes me wanna sing. Is there a song called Valerie?
Yes. Amy Winehouse.
Oh, that's another That's what's in the back of my head. Yeah. I okay. Come on
there, Valerie.
Yeah. Yeah. So okay. You are you're a little lost. The doctor's like, don't touch it, but you're like, I'm gonna be touching it anyway just in case you're wondering.
Yeah. And then so and then you're like, well, I don't know what to do. So you go to ChatGPT, and you're like, this is how much she weighs. Like, where'd you even get that idea from? Is that from me?
No. I think so. There so okay. I have to tell you another part of this story too. In this type one diabetes world, I am I am shown that it is very small.
And so there was this mom at a horse show, and her little son walked by, and I saw Dexcom. And if you get to know me, you're gonna know me now. I ran after this kid. My daughter's name is Reagan. I said, Reagan, that kid's wearing a Dexcom.
The Horse Show Mom and ChatGPT30:48
Get him. No, mom. Don't do it. Don't do it. Does she have a lasso?
Could she get him with a no. I guess not. Go Right? I'm sorry. I've watching Dutton Ranch.
So Oh, yeah. Yeah. I love that.
So it was so funny. So, yeah, I totally ran after, but the mom was amazing. And so then she told me her diagnosis story, and she was like, I asked Chatbeti I
love that you can't say that because that trips me up sometimes. So you gotta roll Oh my god. You gotta roll through it. Chatbeti. Like that.
Do it like that.
There you go. Yeah. Chatbeti. Same. She asked because the the hospital had kind of, like, shunned her.
Like, no. You don't know what you're talking about, lady. You know? Mhmm. So she actually put in there, what do I say to them to, like, have them listen to me?
And so I guess that that just stuck with me, so I just kind of went from there.
Yeah. So I have those I have those estimators on my website, but I have the I have
the I have looked. Yeah.
I have the damnedest time, like, getting information like that out to people. Like, it is really you have no idea. I'm I'm not gonna sit here and complain about it, but, like, you know, any link I share on Facebook, Facebook doesn't want you leaving Facebook. So it kinda quells it. It doesn't show it to as many people.
If I complain about something or show you a picture of my daughter's graduation, then, you know, 50,000 people say it. But if I'm like, hey. Here's a you know, here's a thing you might go use that might help you, that won't show it to five people. So Oh, no. Yes.
It's lovely. But so okay. You she mentioned chat GPT about something else. You think, hell, I'll try it. You go in there, say, hey.
Here's some details about my kid. This is the pump she's using. Here's the outcomes we're having. What should I do maybe to make this better? And it put you comfortably enough being what it told you, you felt comfortable with enough to start with, and then you adjusted off of that.
Absolutely. Yes. And she would she's never been super bad. Like, she her a one c diagnosis was eleven point five. Mhmm.
And our first checkup, it was we got it down into the sixes, but I didn't really even know honestly about an a one c until a couple months. You know, I got used to what it was and what it meant.
Yeah. Yeah.
And now she is I mean, she is I'm still having to change things a lot, basal rates and all of that, because of her her puberty. Like, you just never know a day, but she is sometimes 90% in range to 88 to 85 on a bad time.
So is it fair to say that your motivation is more about getting those you don't want those spikes?
Yes. Because, you know, what you said before too is that, you know, the sugar is coarse, and it runs in their veins, and that is a motivation. And that's what got you up at night, and that's what gets me up at night.
Yeah. Well, it still makes me feel that way. Yeah. I I was talking to my neighbor the other day who's probably got prediabetes, and I I just have that feeling for him. You you you know?
Like, I actually I I I looked at my 70 year old neighbor, and I was like, I need you to do something. I can't keep worrying about you. I was like, it's making me upset. Damn it. I was like, give it me and do something.
And I think if they thought of that of it that way, they would feel maybe the same too.
Well because He's gonna think of it that way now because that's what I said to him. So I I said, listen to me. One day when you when you stand up and go, ugh, and fall over, I'm like, it's going to be because, you know, a high content of glucose in your blood system tore a little tiny hole in some artery or vein or something near your heart, and your body patched it over one too many times and blocked it. And that's how I was like, is that what you want? I was like, come on.
You you you know what I mean? Like, just for him, it's just a GLP. He just needs a GLP. He'll be fine. And and, and he's, oh, I don't know.
My wife's worried about it. I I don't wanna have problems in the bathroom. I'm like, you know who doesn't have problems in the bathroom? Dead people. So, like, you know, you know, was like, you know, let's get to it.
Anyway, so you figure out this for yourself. How long ago was this that you did this?
I think I've been really, really pushing and staying on it probably since she's got the pump. So
Last eight months?
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. And and and where and did it work? I mean, are you I realize she's prepubescent and all that, but, like, for the most part, you're happy with where you're at now with all the decisions you made.
Yeah. Yes. We we do love the pump. It is you know? And I've gotten a lot of other people that I they actually come to me now and ask questions.
And I had a friend just recently, her daughter was on the Islet, also a teen, and just switched to the the Moby. And I said, it's going to be great. You just have to be patient with it. And once it's all tweaked and and everything's figured out, it's gonna be amazing. And she literally just texted me when we were on the phone and said that her range went from 67 to 85.
Autonomy Is the Predictor36:16
Oh, ain't that awesome?
With that.
It is. I'll say two things. First thing, tandemdiabetes.com/juicebox. If you're interested in learning more about Tandem, please use my link. And the next thing is I I I've been do I've been saying this for a decade.
Okay? It's timing, amount, settings, understanding the impacts of your food. But I'll tell you one of the biggest predictors of somebody who's gonna be successful with type one diabetes, my opinion, is someone who feels autonomously able to make changes to their settings in a meaningful way.
You There you go. Yeah. I believe that too.
Yep. Diabetes is not gonna be set up and forget it. You're gonna have to make adjustments. And if you are in a situation like you were in the beginning where you're like, I this, we're not using enough insulin. And then when you say that back to a doctor, they slap your hand and tell you, no.
Don't touch the pump. Well, if you listen to them, welcome to a lifetime of a problem. You you know what I mean? Because and you need to feel autonomous and in an educated way. I don't mean just, like, you know, you're just, like, running around Harry Carey just, like, turning knobs and being like, I wonder what this will do.
But if you understand this stuff enough to make some meaningful adjustments to your settings, you are gonna do much better. Much, much, much better. Yeah.
Yes. And and just do the research behind it. But once you do get the idea of them, yes, just tweak them. I just do a couple points at a time, wait a day or two, see how it's going, keep it or, you know, adjust it back or or do more. Yeah.
And and that's where I am right now.
You play sports in school at all?
Yes. I played basketball.
Yeah. You can't play afraid. Like, it's okay to lose, but it's not okay to lose because you didn't try.
Absolutely.
That's kinda how I think about it. Like, I'm not saying again, I you're not out there just turning knobs and be like, I wonder what this will do, but go educate yourself a little bit. And then once you feel like you have enough, just be bold. You know? Move forward.
I you know, try something. I mean, you
know Bold with the insulin and bold with the the settings for sure.
If you don't know what you're talking about, try to find somebody that does. If your doctor doesn't know, try to find a different doctor. Like but please don't just sit still and go, well, I guess this is good enough, and then you start feeling ill. You know? And and then it it it listen.
I I can't I I feel like I can't say the same thing over and over again, but then at the same time, there's always new people coming on, so here it is again. Mhmm. Health drifts away slowly such that you don't realize it's happening. So if if you're living with higher blood sugars or your kid is, they don't feel well for the first couple days, the third day, the fifth day, the tenth day. Two months later, their body gets accustomed to not being in a healthy range.
That doesn't mean it's healthy for them. It just means they're not running around anymore, you know, like, oh, my stomach hurts all the time or whatever. Like, that doesn't mean that what's happening to them is okay. You you know, like, you you you your body exists in an optimal range, and diabetes is already messing with that. But I would tell you the same thing if you if your vitamin b twelve is too low, if your vitamin d isn't right.
Like, these things, the more optimized your body is, the better it works, the better you're going to feel, the better your life is gonna be, the fresher your mind is gonna be, and all the great things that come with being, you know, in that situation. This this insulin part is is front and center. You know? Absolutely. Yeah.
You need the amount you need.
You know, yes, they have this disease, but they why can't we keep them at a healthy range? You know? We we can. With with these devices, with these monitors, it's possible. It's not like it was before where you did just kinda have to do what you could to keep you feeling good.
Yeah. No. You don't It
is possible.
You have these tools and a and a tiny bit of understanding. I mean, listen. Let's be realistic. Like, I'd love to be grandiose and tell you this podcast is awesome and blah blah blah. Maybe it is.
But at the same time, all you did was find a podcast and then and talk to a lady at a horse show and, you know, and think to yourself, I should know more. And then get the to end of your understanding and then go to somebody else. I mean, you went to chat GPT, you're like, hey. What what is it I don't know here? And then, you know, give yourself a little more information.
You weren't you weren't, like, silly. You didn't go like, oh, you know, magic box. Tell me what to do, and then just blindly do it. You were still thoughtful about the way you applied it, and it took you eight months to get into a better situation. It's not a lot of effort.
You know? Absolutely. Eight months And then Go ahead.
Just find anyone. It doesn't matter who, where, who may be in your same situation. I only had one person, and I remember her son a long time ago just asked me to get him some juice. Did not know what I was doing when I was giving him juice, I heard a beeping. But when I was sitting in the hospital, I thought it's the first person I thought of, and she has been there for me day, night, all the time, always asking questions, and answering them.
And so kind, and and that is very important too.
You're telling me that prior to your daughter's diagnosis, you, you were in a social setting where somebody asked you to get a juice for a kid, and now you realize looking backwards that kid had type one diabetes. But in that moment,
you know.
How about that?
I didn't know in that moment. I didn't know.
So what else do you want people to know? First of all, you're doing a great job on the podcast. Thank you. And Oh, thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. No. Thank hey. Really lovely. But, you know, you're you're fresh to this, but you're moving very rapidly forward.
What do you think other people should know? Like, if they're stuck and they can't move, what what do you think would help them?
I think the main thing that you need to hear first is to be bold with insulin, because, yes, hospitals, doctors do make it sound scary. It is truly not scary if you use it. Sorry. I'm getting over being sick.
So Take your time.
That's why I sound like this. And and that's what you said before too, and the the name juice box. And you had said before of, you know, if they need the insulin, it's gonna work. If they don't, grab a juice box. And that's most of the time what we are doing.
And recently in the pro series, I hear the nudge and
is it nudge? Nudge. Isn't that correct?
Bump and nudge.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think that should be a slogan for type one diabetes because that is exactly what it is. Mhmm. You're bumping and nudging Yeah. Constantly. And and so I would tell them to to just not be afraid, to look for others, to reach out, to stand up in what you believe.
Because, yes, the doctor, I do love her. I do know that she's smart, but she did have me at one point pull me aside and said, would you like to see another doctor? And I was like, no. No. No.
I do appreciate, you know, you, but I am gonna do what's best for my daughter. So we did have to kinda have that little
Would You Like Another Doctor?43:04
Let's sit in that for a second. So Yeah. Your your doctor is giving you advice that you're not finding to be completely valuable. And you say, well, I believe this is, you know, what we need to be doing. You start doing that thing.
You're not having a scary outcome. In fact, things are getting better. And your doctor's response isn't, oh, wow. This is going better now. Tell me what you do.
It's do you wanna get away from me because you don't wanna listen to me? Like, she he or she doesn't see, like, that you're having better success on your own than you did with her? She's not interested? Yes.
I no. I just think that because it was the first time after the pump, and she saw that she I was really touching it, and she was just, you know, kind of I felt a little bit scolding me, and I was like, mhmm.
That's a passive aggressive shit, by the way, saying, like, do you wanna find another doctor? What that means is why don't you know what? That that would be like when you were eight years old if you didn't listen to your mom, and she said, would you prefer to live somewhere else? Like, woah. What?
Right. That's a lot of pressure right there. Wait. You're abandoning me because of how I feel? Maybe I should shut up and stop saying what I think now if you're gonna kick me out.
Like, what a shitty thing what is wrong with all of you? Jesus I don't know. In heaven, what is wrong with people? Well, look over at Valerie. Say, hey.
She's having some success. Maybe be a little curious instead of it doing what is oh, ew. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
And you still gave this person another chance? Look at you.
I do because I live in a small area.
Like, I had no choice, many
pediatric doctors.
I had no choice. I I I was I Yeah. Mommy drinks a little, but, like, you know, it's this or it's this or the home. So
Kinda feeling that way.
I gotcha. I gotcha. Oh, well, maybe maybe this person will eventually let down their ego guard or whatever and say, hey. Maybe I don't know all this, and and I could learn something from this person.
Yeah. So I I was I I said, no. We will work together at this. We both want the best for her. And this last appointment was better.
She did know I was still touching things, doing things. Just that and she just simply said, at this time, I'm just not gonna change her insulin because I can't see, you know, an actual outcome of just what the pump is doing. And I said, okay. That's fine.
Yeah. Don't tell her this, but I barely got out of high school, and that's an excuse. I you can still figure it out. If if she was proficient at what she was doing, she'd be able to figure it Why are you so calm? Are you you on Xanax?
No. No. What's good?
“I’ve Grown Up”45:57
Did you
is your mom was your mom a therapist? Like, why do you sound so no.
Oh my god.
There's no way. When you're responding to the doctor, why are you so measured? Like, I I'm I'm I'm proud of you, but I how do you get to it?
I've grown up. I will say, I would not react this way late at a different time in my life. I would see red. I was very hot headed. And, no, I guess I've just grown up, and I've realized that your reactions and even though you wanna change people, it's not gonna fucking change them at all.
They're gonna wanna change when they wanna change.
Right.
And so I guess I just took that.
That's like one of the more adult things that's been said to me this month. You you I I was, like, really proud of you. Yeah.
I didn't realize that. Yeah. I I yeah. I guess it's just that. Like, I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing because I know what that is right, and I'm I can't convince anyone else.
I guess it's got it's got it's got to where it's like, you're so busy with this disease. You're so consumed. Like, I'm gonna just let other things go because I have more important things to worry about.
Mhmm. Yeah. You're not you you you're like your husband came home, and he's like, I've been cheating on you. I'm gonna go. And you're like, no.
You're not. Stay here and cut the lawn. I'm gonna pull your shit together and get out there and do a couple things. You're not abandoning me. I'm we're getting this done.
I I almost feel like that's what you did with the doctor. She's like, would you like another doctor? You're like, no. You shut up and stay. We're gonna figure this out.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
And that and that is how I feel.
That is how I feel. You're not getting rid of me. Sit here.
Nope. We're we're gonna do it. You're not getting away that easy and that fast.
I I'll tell you this summer, I've I I don't have a I I gotta get through this next I gotta get through this next month of work so that I can really, like, think again. But my my thirtieth wedding anniversary is coming up in in August.
Enjoying it.
Oh, thank you. And if I if you ask me what's the secret, I would say we're both too stubborn to leave. And so Absolutely.
Absolutely. And you know what? I'm gonna tell my husband later, like, Scott said I was so, like, calm.
He's like, what the hell? He'll be like, woah. Talking to Were you lying to him the whole time? But but no. But, seriously, like, sometimes you just you really do have to have, like, a longer view of things and and realize that every every little mistake or misstep or, you know, something you didn't like is not an excuse to just run away and start over again.
It it's yeah. I mean, I'm not saying if you get a terrible doctor, your life is short. You can go look for another one. But Mhmm. You know, I do wonder, you know, what this is gonna do.
Like, I I'm I'm interested, like, five years from now with this endocrinologist that you you allowed to stay with you, which is the way I see it. You know, will that person say one day, well, thank god that Valerie and I didn't get separated because I I, you know, I dropped my I dropped my force field and I learned something, and I've been helping more people because of it. It reminds me very much. There's an episode of the podcast called listen to the doctor, and I'm so sorry. I can't remember her name now.
But an endocrinologist reached out to me to be to come on the podcast. And it I mean, if you really wanna hear an example of somebody, like like, set their ego aside for, you know, for for other people, The doctor said that she was listening to the podcast or somebody told her about it and they were having success or something. And she started listening, and she came to the conclusion that she was not doing as good of a job for her patients as she could have been. And that's a real that's a real adult thing to say. You you know?
Absolutely. And then she makes adjustments to what she's doing, really applies a lot of the stuff in the pro tip series that I talk about, sees, you know, a massive improvement for the people she's helping. And then she goes back to the rest of the the practice and says, hey. I think we should all be listening to this these episodes and and doing a better job. And she mainly got pushback from the other doctors that that whose conclusion was is that I was bashing them.
They're like, you've given us a podcast where this guy is doctor bashing, and she told them he's not if you feel like he's bashing you, you really gotta look at yourself because he's not. He's just telling you what makes sense and what these people need and how we could help them. You know?
And and I feel like the diabetes world is moving at such a fast pace that you have to, as the doctor, keep up with it.
Oh, yeah. They're gonna give up soon. If this well, I would call this, like, an AI pace at this point. Right? Like Mhmm.
Like, the the the easiest way I can explain it to anybody listening who's not been around it this long is that there was a time in Arden's early diagnosis where if every few years a meter company put out a new meter, you felt like you were getting something. Now the meter didn't work better. It looked a little different. It maybe had a couple of buttons on it. I'm telling you they just refreshed how the thing looked.
And in the diabetes space, you were like, oh gosh. Finally, we're getting something. Then Dexcom came out, and they iterated very quickly, and they still are, by the way. And now that makes people mad. Like, it doesn't do the thing it's supposed to do, or they said it was gonna do this.
I like the way the other one did it. Trust me. You much prefer this than to the, oh, it's a new meter every three years. By you know what I mean? Like like, world.
So now you're iterating faster, then these companies come out with these algorithms. Honestly, you know, the the DIY community was ahead of all of them. And so that forces them to wanna catch up. Like, you know, think about it. You make an insulin pump.
You really wanna look up and find out that you somebody could download the algorithm to do a better job than the thing you they have now with you? No. So you gotta go out there and come up with something too. They come up with something and they go, oh, we did it. And instead of being able to rest on their laurels, which is what would have happened in the past, you know, oh, you got a meter.
We'll make you another meter one day. We'll change the color of it or something. Instead of that, well, Tandem is making you you know, they start with what did they start with? Basal IQ, then they went to Control IQ, and then they're trying other stuff in Omnipod, Omnipod five, Omnipod 5.2. I don't know what they're gonna call the next version of it that's coming out soon.
Medtronic was like, hey. Here's another algorithm. You know, Beta Bionics is like, try this islet thing. Here comes Twist with a a version of the loop. You gotta love this now.
But but if you're one of those doctors who already didn't understand, this is just gonna blank their brains. It's just gonna make them stare it along and go, I don't know. I don't know how that one works. You figure it out.
Yes. So they send the nurses out to go to training and stuff like that.
Yeah. And then they come back and tell you three things, and then you, you know, six weeks later, turn on a podcast with some lady from one of the companies who says something and goes, why? How come no one told me that? You you know? Like, so so when this is gonna be the world from now on, you're if you have a doctor who really is in the know and is keeping up at this breakneck speed, you've got gem.
Like, I say, if I was you, I'd send a bottle of wine to the house once a month. You you know? Just say, don't forget us. We love you. But moreover, that's probably not who you're gonna get.
No. And I and I feel pretty comfortable where I am now. You know, I've heard in other episodes that the insulin dealers, Dexcom dealers, I feel strongly that way. I feel I feel confident. Sorry.
Excuse me. In myself and my daughter of how we're we're doing this. Her last a one c, I was surprised, is 5.9.
Look at you.
Doing great. She runs track. She plays soccer. She plays basketball. She rides horses, barrel races.
All of these things, we're doing it. We're we're we are. As long as we can have someone there to do the the medical prescriptions, I think we're gonna be okay.
Caught in the Orbit54:03
Yeah. Hey. You know that that little meme as the chubby kid making the fist? No.
I haven't seen the movie.
Oh, he never had this. You know what's funny. He's, like, in a green shirt or something. Right? And everybody uses it for, like, you can do it kinda thing.
Yeah.
There's a a group expert in my in my Facebook group, and she made a meme that says, you can do it. Juice Box can help. Something like that. And Yay. Listening to you talk really like, I've always thought that was nice that she did, but, like, you you're the first person to contextualize it for me because I can get lost in the, just listen to this series.
This will help you feeling. Right? But now I'm I'm seeing maybe it's gotten much bigger than all that now. Like, maybe it really is just an ecosystem that has a chance to capture you and and show you itself in maybe eight or 10 different ways across this new Internet. Right?
And Mhmm. You'll bump into it one way or the other and get in there. Like, I I used to feel like it was my job to get you and then tell you, listen. First of all, you've gotta know this, and you've gotta feel this way, and this is the, you the the perspective you're gonna need, and this is the the the motivation that it'll require to get it done. You gotta be bold.
You have to do this. It's a ridiculous notion that I am gonna be able to capture a person and tell them everything I want to tell them. Now I realize, and I've been coming to this for a long time, but, really, your conversation today has really helped me kinda crystallize it a little more, is that I'm just sort of trying to catch you in maybe, like, the the gravity of the podcast and its surrounding community in the hopes that it holds you in orbit long enough that some of those, you know, floating meteor rocks that you need come stick to you, and you build up your own little cache of knowledge. That's a lot
of And I believe that's what happened to me.
Yeah. You know? I think so too. It's almost like I magnetized you and then spun you around in an ecosystem, and eventually enough stuck to you that you were like, I'm a whole person now. I have all the I have what I need.
I do. I do feel like I got all the tools from here, and and I'm good. I don't feel really scared much with it at all.
Yeah. I got the worst business model in the world. Every other company pulls you in and tries to keep you there. My goal is to get rid of you. I want you to feel like you feel so you go away.
But then I gotta go find 10 more people to make up for your downloads because you're out there watching the whole podcast, which, by way, thank you. I appreciate
Yes. Yes. I listen to it all the time. But there's always something new with each one, and I you know, then I'm here sharing my experience, and things are just gonna keep growing within this. So there's always gonna be something new to talk about
Yeah.
And always be something new to listen to. And one thing I wanted to bring up too is that the doctor before I know it's getting to an hour.
You're fine.
The doctors never taught us about fats and proteins, and that's what I'm really my brain hasn't quite wrapped its claws around it yet. That is huge.
Yeah. Just think of it this The fat slows digestion, and it stretches out the timeline of how the food is impacting the blood sugar so much so that you have to adjust how the insulin is hitting the timeline so you can overlap with its impacts. Does that make sense?
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. It's all
And I'm listening to those, and I'm chat GPTing and all of that. Like, she had a pretzel, a soft pretzel at baseball game. I thought I was doing so good. Mhmm. She was this perfect eighties, you know, kinda dipping a little bit.
I said, oh, where'd I got it? Oh, no. Hours later. You know? You're good.
Just throwing it on it at in the two hundreds, trying to keep her under the two hundreds. Just
Yeah. And listen. I here's my real hope. I I mean this, like, sincerely. I'm old.
Like, I in the next six to ten years, you guys gotta figure this out because Scottie gonna get tired at some point. So Yeah. But I think the algorithms will eventually get you to a point where you maybe you don't have to announce a meal, or at the very least, you can announce a meal, and it'll handle the the ebbs and flows that come afterwards. I think I think we can get there with with all this.
I do too.
I too. That exists now. But in the meantime, I don't want people living like that. You you know? And I I really feel like it it your conversation's really been helpful for me, Valerie, because, like, there are times where I can feel like, I don't Is there anything left for me to do?
You know what I mean? Like but I what I realized talking to you today is I just need to continue doing this conversational part of it. We gotta keep bringing people in, some from companies, some from people, some from users, some from doctors, blah blah blah, and let people keep talking to keep throwing more of those little meteorites into the into the, you know, the atmosphere so that when people come in, hopefully, they'll intersect one of those conversations in a way that'll help them.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I I that is definitely my marching orders for myself moving forward. Like, I just I need to keep filling the space with the conversation because most people by the way, for every person who might go to a large language model and ask a question, there's 10 people that just heard that that thought. I'm not letting that thing tell me what to do with my insulin.
Trust me. Like, I've and I don't know that you should or you shouldn't. I'm certainly not making a a, you know, a proclamation one way or the other. I'm just saying most people aren't willing to try new stuff and or to go out on a limb or to break free of what the doctor told them. I mean, I would suggest that they listen to your story and try to come to grips with where you'd be if you didn't question what was told to you.
But fair enough. That's not gonna happen for everybody. So maybe they'll bump into enough ideas that it'll change their mind or get them thinking in a different direction or something. You you know, like, that's really can be my only hope. And I think
Yeah. And my only hope would be, you know, just think about your child and that I've heard things on here being said too of, you know, they're sitting in school, and, you know, at 200, can they truly be their best?
Yeah. I don't think so.
No. And and then at a low, can they truly be their best? No. So as a parent, you know, we want to to give our kids all of those opportunities to be their best.
Yeah. No. I mean, it just I I get lost in it all the time because there there are a lot of factors, and I can imagine it's overwhelming. And then sometimes people add thyroid issues or celiac or other problems.
Oh, yes. Regan is, has Hashimoto's.
Oh, when did you find that out?
With her diagnosis. But she is not having any signs and symptoms, so they are not treating it right now.
Okay. But her TSH is elevated or no? Not right now.
I don't know. Not right now. No. It just had, like, markers for it. Mhmm.
My husband has Hashimoto's. I believe his parents have some autoimmune. My mom has alopecia.
Oh. That'd be my radio name if it was the fifties. I'd be like, it's alopecia coming at you. Like, that'd be like, wouldn't that be a great radio name in the fifties? Yes.
Alopecia. That's how I would do it. Alopecia. But oh, so there's a little bit of a a cocktail in the family history. How about you?
Would you have anything? No.
Nothing.
No no anxiety?
Yeah. Well, I think that's just life. Right. I think that's life. I think that's with you.
I'm at a low level of yeah. Yeah. No.
Definitely anxiety. Definitely, yeah, just hyper fixation on on things. And and I think and I will say for doctors, will give them this, that, you know, they are worried about getting overwhelmed with it all. And I believe that there are a lot of people out there that will and will just get tired and the burnout.
Management Now, Mental Health Later1:02:06
Yeah. Val, our conversation stayed a lot with management today, but the truth is and and I don't wanna scare you all. But once you get through this part of it, then the mental health and the life stuff comes. Like, because you're right. There's no reason with all this technology and knowledge available everywhere that you can't have a a lower stable a one c and and and and low variability and have great outcomes.
You absolutely can. But you're still a person, and at some point, that, you know, that feeling of burnout is gonna hit some people, overwhelmed and call whatever you wanna call it. Like, you know, like, at some point, you just you don't wanna get up and think about this stuff all the time, or you just you get so background that you forget to or it drifts away. Again, everything kinda drifts slowly, so slowly you can't tell. You know?
Like, oh, the shoreline's disappearing an eighth of an inch a year, and everybody's like, that's no big deal. Well, come back and find me in two thousand years. You're gonna think it's a big deal then. You you know, like, so, you know, same kinds of ideas. Right?
Things happen so slowly. We can't see them, so we don't react to them. We don't think they're important. We don't prioritize them, etcetera. Mental health is it.
So my my best advice is to get this management side, you know, buttoned up as best you can so that it can hopefully alleviate a lot of that mental health stuff and maybe give you a bigger buffer between where you are now and, I can't handle this anymore. And so that maybe, yes, you'll vacillate, you know, a little closer to that line, a little farther away from that line, but, hopefully, you won't fall on the other side of it too frequently where you really can't handle it. You're not paying attention to things. Your health is slipping quickly. You you know?
But you can't ignore that part. I you know? It's it's a it's a valid conversation. I I would think that, you know, an adult living with type one diabetes for forty years would probably listen to you and be like, ugh. She doesn't even know the half of it.
Wait till she sees. And you know?
And I can agree with that.
Yeah. You know, for sure. Right? But I would just say to them, you don't know the part she knows, which is if, you know, you're doing a good job of understanding insulin and timing and the impacts of the food and the fat and the protein and those things, that maybe the mental health side of it's not as impactful in that situation, and go put some effort back in that side. That's why the first episode of the pro tip series is called newly diagnosed or starting over.
Right.
Yeah. It's on purpose. You know? So, anyway. Alright.
Well, you were really awesome. What am I not talking about with you? What have we not brought up? I don't wanna miss anything.
No. I think I just had written down pretty much what we had covered, awareness.
Yeah.
I mean, up the correction factor. I mean, there's insurance stuff, but that was a whole another hour of talk. That is so frustrating.
Yeah. Just go run your head through a different brick wall. Yeah. Yeah. No.
For sure. For sure. Well, I I really appreciate you doing this with me. This was fantastic. How did I find having me.
Did you reach out, or did I find you, or how how did we get there?
I reached out.
Yeah. I
reached out. I don't again, I don't remember how I was, like I think just listening to your podcast, it said, you know, if you want Beyond, go on to Juice Fox podcast, go to the link or whatever. And I did, and I sent, and I did not expect anything back, and I did.
Well, listen. Here's the truth. Can I tell one of my secrets? Yeah. Think people believe that there's, like, this vetting process, and there's no way I'm gonna make it through and blah blah blah.
I don't turn anybody away, really. Like, I know who
And that's what's great about it because people learn from other people's experiences. Yeah. That's how we learn.
100%. Even when I get an email and I read it and I think, oh, this person's out of their fucking mind. I still wanna have you on the podcast because you know what? There's other people out there, they're out of their mind too. And then they would and they would like to hear your story, and I would like to hear it.
Like, you know what I mean? Or maybe or maybe people are so overwhelmed, think, well, what could they possibly add to it? How about just the knowledge that other people are overwhelmed? You know? You know, like, so I've had I've had people tell me, like, I didn't say anything valuable.
I said, the struggle you're having, hearing it is valuable. And and I said, and I said a couple things to you today that might help you. So it was valuable to you. It'll be valuable to somebody else because nobody has to feel like they need to be perfect. Nobody has to feel like, oh, that well, sure sure they're doing well.
They have it all together. That's how I feel. Every time I interview a professional athlete who tells me that they have, like, a nutritionist that's helping them, and then you ask them about their their management. They don't know the first thing about it. Like, yeah.
Well, it's easy for you because that guy's helping you. Or because, you know, this company that's, you know, that's called a team has a a $40,000,000 investment either. They're not gonna let anything bad happen to you. You're an investment. You you know, like, I don't have that.
Your daughter doesn't have that. Like, I don't have somebody running around after me going, well, Valerie's kids gotta be okay. Like, we gotta make sure we obviously, you don't have that. So I don't like hearing from people who have I I just wanna hear from regular people. You know?
Like, that's where the good that's where this good stuff comes at. And, yeah, you gotta have a long form conversation to get it out because you're not a practiced, you know, interviewee. You're not gonna jump on with your six bullet points. Like, I listen. I like some podcasts that are, like, preset up.
I mentioned one recently that I've been I've been listening to. Guy does a great job, but he clearly has a production staff. Every question's researched out till the end. They know exactly what order they're gonna ask them, and so it builds, you know, a storyline while they're talking. And the person he's interviewing knows what's gonna be asked and has probably answered that question 35,000 times already, so it seems so, like, natural when they say it.
Yeah. We don't have that here, but I don't know how valuable that is.
No. I don't either. And it was so funny because last night, my husband was like, you haven't gotten something with, like, what how it's gonna go and how it's gonna run. I was like, no. That's not
how That's not how this
works. Does it?
I the it's set up like that on purpose. I, I also think when I turn this on, like, every I'll tell you about four times a year, I come on and the person's just not there. And I think, good. That wasn't meant to be then. Like, I I want it to be hard for you to get on the podcast.
Like, easy for you to get the link and the and the and the the offer, but then hard for you to get to the day. Because if you're here, you really have something you wanna share.
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. You had to fight a little bit to get to this spot to get your voice recorded. And, I think that's sort of part of how I come up with this stuff. And I'm not saying to you I couldn't boy, I'll tell you, I could put together 15 rock solid questions and make one of those, like, shiny YouTube podcasts in two seconds.
I just don't know how valuable it would be to people.
No. I I find this very valuable, and I think there's so many others that that do too. It's just it's just people going through the same thing in life having conversations and that we we can relate to and find things in that, you know, we need.
A 100%. No. I agree. I also think that everybody's repetitive. Like, I don't pay a lot of attention to people who compete with me.
I don't know that I have a direct competitor. Like, do you know what I mean? But if people who do do do a similar thing oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to step on you while you're saying something nice. You don't think I have a direct competitor?
No. I don't.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. I just I just liked it when you said that out loud. And and so but but I see people out there doing a good job, doing a pre what I would consider, like, a prepackaged job.
To me, I find that stuff boring. Like, you sound like a, you know, you sound like a local newscaster. You sound like, you know you know what I mean? Like, hey. The weather today.
I'm like, oh, okay. Or I see people out there doing that. Like, I'm gonna lean really hard into the technology cure thing and yell into the camera. Like, I I can't stand that yelling into the camera thing. Like, I I don't have anything against the people.
It's the format that makes me, makes me nauseous. You know? Like, today, we're here to talk. I'm like, oh my god. Shut up.
Just like and I get it. Like, I get how TikTok works and that, you know, even YouTube videos. Nobody's watching a thirty five minute YouTube video about, like, you know, the new how do you put your Dexcom on? Like, nobody's you know what I mean? Like, you you know, like but I get that they scream to get your attention, so you stop so the algorithm thinks that they watched it, and then, hopefully, you'll scrub through it enough that YouTube will believe that you're a viewer and give them a view.
Like, I I know the game. Like, I I get all that. But for me, long conversation. Let the stuff come out where it comes out with regular people sharing regular stories, not preprogrammed content. And if you've got the tenacity to listen through for an hour, then you deserve what you get out of it.
And if you don't Absolutely. You then maybe it's not for you or maybe you'll have to come back another time, but this is the only way I know how to deliver it. So and I it's the way I think is the best. Well, thank you. And I think I I think my my experience tells me this is the way to do it.
So, anyway, Valerie, you were fantastic. What are some of the lines from that song? Any of it gonna work for a title for us? Is that one of her sad I'm drinking myself to death songs, or is it an upbeat song? No?
Come On Over, Valerie1:11:02
Come on over. What do you think? Lyrics. Yeah. Is it she basically just wants to hang out and come on over.
Is it? Well, that's what we did. I know. We hung out. Hold on a second.
Anyone else? Valerie lyrics. Well, sometimes I go out by myself. Over, Valerie. Yeah.
And I look across the water, and I think of all the things that you're doing in my head, and I paint a picture. Come on, Valerie. Get to the thing. But, by the way, what a sad life. I know.
Poor girl.
So sad.
I missed your ginger hair. This is getting sexual. Hold on a second. Put your house up for sale. Did you get a good lawyer?
I hope you catch a tan. Is this the worst of this song?
I guess
so. Since I since I've come on home alright. I'm just gonna call it come on home, Valerie. Okay. Let's not read too far into the rest of this song or we're gonna have trouble.
I think it just says come on over, Valerie.
Wait. It say come on sometimes I go out by myself and I look across the water. Since I've come on home while my body's been a mess, and I've missed your ginger. Yeah. This is we're gonna get HR involved if I keep reading this.
Hold on a second. Alright. Come on. You think it's come on no. It's since I've come on home.
Valerie. Why don't you come on over? You're right. Alright. Alright.
Let's just we're we're gonna call this one come on over, Valerie. Okay. Alright? Got you. Because we can't call it south of the border disorder.
No matter how much I would have loved that. Alright. Hold on one second, Valerie. Really do appreciate you spending the time with me. Okay.
The conversation you just heard was sponsored by Touched by Type One. Check them out please at touchedbytype1.org on Instagram and Facebook. You're gonna love them. I love them. They're helping so many people at touchedbytype1.org.
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#1906 In Memoriam: Kent Schnakenberg
In Memoriam: Kent Schnakenberg
Remembering Kent Schnakenberg, founder of Team Schneck Strong, whose logoed truck, 26,000 t-shirts, and one-man mission to spread type 1 diabetes awareness saved lives across the country.
Jump to a moment
- Kent Schnakenberg turned a single JDRF ride for his newly diagnosed niece into Team Schneck Strong — a decade-long mission that raised roughly $1.2 million and put the symptoms of type 1 diabetes on the backs of 26,000 t-shirts.
- His core belief was simple: awareness saves lives. Printing the signs of type 1 where people will actually read them — a shirt, a truck, a school assembly — can be the difference between a diagnosis and a senseless death from being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.
- The school-visit model worked because it handed kids with type 1 the microphone — like the sixth-grader who stood up unprompted to tell her class why she wears her devices, and earned a standing ovation.
- Team Schneck Strong was built to outlast one person: 175+ camp scholarships to Camp Discovery, direct financial aid to families, and a legacy fund through the Emporia Community Foundation designed to keep giving after Kent was gone.
- Kent’s throughline, from a stranger in a wheelchair to 400 riders in Tucson: “Your moment in life comes — don’t miss it.”
- Skin Grip — This episode's sponsor — skin-safe adhesive patches that keep CGMs and pumps secure. Juicebox listeners get 20% off a first order.
- Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) — The organization whose cross-country rides launched Kent's mission; rebranded from JDRF in 2024.
- ADA Camp Discovery — The American Diabetes Association diabetes camp in Kansas where Team Schneck Strong sends dozens of kids on scholarship each year.
- Camp Sweeney — The Texas diabetes camp Scott mentions; the podcast helped send several kids there in 2025.
- Emporia Community Foundation — Home of the Team Schneck Strong fund, which provides family financial aid and camp scholarships across a seven-county area of Kansas.
Every word of the conversation
Remembering Kent0:00
Before we begin today, I'd like to take a moment to remember Kent Schneckenberg who passed away sadly on June 11 at the age of 71. Kent appeared on this podcast twice, most recently in 2025. I think that you'll find that his story and the work he did through Team Schneck to support children and families living with type one diabetes were beyond laudable. My deepest condolences to Ken's family and the people who loved him. Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of the Juice Box podcast.
Welcome.
Hi. This is Kent Snackenburg. I started team snacks strong, you know, back in 2014, and I'm very, very excited to be back on your podcast. It's amazing to me how you've grown this thing, and I'm so proud of you and how many people continue each year to say they listen to that podcast and reach out to me. So I'm excited to be back on, Scott.
This episode of the juice box podcast is sponsored by Skin Grip, durable, skin safe adhesive that lasts. Your diabetes devices, they can fall off easily sometimes, especially when you're bathing or very active. When those devices fall off, your life is disrupted, and it costs you money. But Skin Grip patches, they keep your devices secure. Skin Grip was founded by a family directly impacted by type one, and it's trusted by hundreds of thousands of individuals living with diabetes.
Juice Box podcast listeners are gonna get 20% off of their first order by visiting skingrip.com/juicebox. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the juice box 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 Juice Box podcast is sponsored by US Med, usmed.com/juicebox, or call (888) 721-1514. Get your supplies the same way we do from US Med.
This episode of the Juice Box podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube free automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a one c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox. At my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and conditions apply.
Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox.
Hi. This is Kent Snackenberg. I started Team Snack Strong, you know, back in 2014, and I'm very, very excited to be back on your podcast. It's amazing to me how you've grown this thing, and I'm so proud of you and how many people continue each year to say they listen that podcast and reach out to me. So I'm excited to be back on, Scott.
Is that true, Kent? You were on episode 76, which, I mean, maybe is the second year with would that have been 2016 maybe?
Well, I just thought it was ten years ago. So it's probably 2015 or 2016, and that first year just was I started getting messages and emails and stuff on Facebook for people all over the country. And when I was doing, you know, the rides all over the country that year, that's how I started meeting people and going to their houses and taking out these. So you obviously have a big following, and that's why I'm excited to get another chance to kinda give you a ten year a ten year recap of what's gone on since then.
Yeah. No. That's awesome. I'm I'm trying to look up the episode right now.
I think it was '76.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just seeing that now. So but I'm trying to figure out what year it was. See if I can't find it.
Like, it's it's been so long ago. Oh, I know what the problem is. When I search for '76
Mhmm.
There's been 41 other episodes with the number '76 in them. That's why I'm getting so that's why I'm getting so many returns. I
really think it was 2016 for some reason.
2016. Okay. Well, that's really great. Oh, I appreciate. I do wanna kinda start from the beginning even though, you know, it's gonna be something you said in the past.
Tell me again how this all started, what your connection was to it, and then we'll we'll pick through.
A niece, a diagnosis, and a ride around Lake Tahoe4:18
Okay. Well, I mean, in 2014, my connection is, you know, my niece, Michelle. And she was diagnosed when she was 14, and obviously that's quite a while ago. And she's doing amazing. She's now a pediatric nurse.
She went through Texas A and M with full collars. Now she's helping kids and giving back that way. I just decided, my brothers and I decided to go to Lake Tahoe, for a JDRF ride, which I had no idea what JDRF was or nothing about type one diabetes at the time, but my brother said that'd be fine. So my twin brother and my younger brother Mike, who's Michelle's father, we went to Lake Tahoe and rode 73 miles around that lake. Met a lot of people and really did enjoy it.
And I got back on my shuttle bus to go back to the airport. I sat by a young lady. Her name was there. CGM on her arms.
Ken, tell me again. I I you dropped out there. Her name was what?
Her name was Erin.
Erin. You know what, Ken? I'm gonna stop you for half a second. I think I figured something out because
Okay.
You remarked to me that the first time we did this, we had audio trouble.
Right.
And just now, I don't I think I think there's something about the resonance. I I know this is gonna sound crazy for a second, but I think it's something about the deepness and the resonance of your voice. Uh-huh. When you're talking and you don't modulate, you start to I don't know how to describe it, but your voice starts to disappear. And then the minute you modulate, your voice can get a little higher, a little lower, it comes right back again.
I wonder if you're speaking at a at a frequency that the phone gets confused by.
Do you know? It's pretty low. Yeah.
Tell me, when you're on the phone with people regularly, do they ever ask you to repeat yourself?
Oh, you know, I talk so fast most of the time. I think they just let me go. But do you want me to try the speakerphone? Would that maybe help?
I'm fascinated by this because you got right to the part where you you'd gone on the ride and you were on the bus coming back. And as you were talking, your voice just disappeared. And I realized now it's not the headset you have.
Last set that last that happened in the last time we did this too when you relistened to it.
Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. So I don't know if the speakerphone would change anything. Actually, I'm gonna tell you something.
What?
Slow down a little bit. Okay. And I wonder what that's gonna change. And lee and and Okay. Guy that's editing this, Rob, leave this all in.
I think it's really interesting. I'm gonna recap just to make sure.
Okay.
Your niece gets type one. She's, like, 14 years old. She's a full on adult now. Right. You got you and your brother wanna support, you know, your family.
Right.
You head out. You do this JDRF ride together. On the way back from the ride, you meet somebody on a bus. Start there.
Erin on the bus — and a calling6:52
Right. So after the ride, I got on the bus to go back to the airport, and I sat next to a young lady named Erin, and I noticed a CGM on her arm. And so we started talking, and I asked her when she was diagnosed. I expect her to say, you know, like six or eight or 10, because at that point I thought all people just it was all kids that got, you know, type one diabetes.
Right.
And she said she was 42. And so it just amazed me, and she started talking, and then I she said, you know, real realistically, half the people that get this disease every day are kids and half of them are young adults or adults. And so that led to a lot of interest and a great talk all the way back, and that's when I decided I wanted to do another ride. There's something inside of me. He told me to do another ride.
Tucson, the Spirit Jersey, and a blue candle7:38
And so I signed up for the last ride of the year, which was in Tucson, Arizona. And I flew out there by myself. I didn't know anybody at all. I just got to meeting some people and stuff, and I think it was a 104 mile ride. And that night, on a Saturday night at the awards banquet, I was awarded the spirit jersey.
And I really didn't even know what it meant at that point. And so they asked me to come up and talk and I was up there speaking. And to all these people, there's like 400 people in the room. Right. I noticed everybody's eyes were right on me.
And I just I just at the end of the at the end of my speech, I said, okay. I'm doing all seven rides next year. It was like something came over me at that moment. I don't know if God came into me or what. And just it was just a big deal at that point, and I decided just to go full bore on this thing.
I got back to my room that night and somebody had sent me a message on Facebook that showed a picture of a blue candle. And I didn't really know what a blue candle meant, but I've come to realize it's never good. And there was a 12 year old boy that had passed away that day, the same day I won this award for misdiagnosis of this disease. And that's when I decided I didn't know anything about the disease. And I thought, well, it's time to start spreading awareness.
Building the T1 Destroyer8:49
So that's when all of this started coming to me, like, on the plane ride home, you know, if I'm gonna go to all the rides next year, I wanna try to visit all 48 lower states, get a truck, and logo it out, and have the symptoms on it, and all our information on it. And so I got that done, and the same girl named Erin that I'd met, I contacted her and she hooked me up with this man named Matt Fisher who had lived with type one his whole life and he was a graphic art artist, very talented guy. And so he, without even meeting him, helped me design the truck just through emails and stuff and a guy at the local bike shop. And, you know, that's that's kinda what started the truck, that's when we decided to try to do you know, go to all the 50 states and visit all 50 states for over. Had this, you know, this idea about trying to do 50 rides someday.
It's kinda went from there.
Kent, I wanna stop you. First of all, the talking speaking more slowly thing is the perfect fix for this. So Okay. Yeah. So per keep going the way you're going.
You're doing great. I think it it would be helpful for people to understand, like, you just got this motivation. It's not like you I mean, yes, your niece is a connection, but still, like, I think for most of us, like, I went and did the ride. I supported my niece. Like, I'm good.
I'm going home now. Something motivated you. And you said you don't know what you know, if it's god that put it in your ear or but, I mean, I wanna understand more about you. Like, because how old were you when that happened? When you when you go on that first ride with your niece, how old are you?
60 years old. 60. Okay. And you're were you retired or you were working?
No. I'm still working part time. And to this day, you know, it's still the whole Northeast Kansas thing where my territory is, I'm a salesman. Mhmm. You know, I'm just doing it part time now, but that's where, you know, I started raising all the money, and that's where I learned about going yes.
When I started my going to school program, That's when I started learning about Camp Discovery and all. Everything kinda ties into that, I guess.
So what I'm saying is you're sixty years old. You're still working. It's not like you're looking for something to do. Right? You're not at home, like, bored.
Right? Would you call this just a calling?
No. I do. It it was my mission. It was my moment moment in life, and I that's why the last story I'll tell kinda explains that. But it was just that moment in life when God came into my soul or whatever and just said, you know, this is your deal.
You can help these people.
You can't really explain the motivation that you found for. Just you really got struck by something.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've always been a, you know, a generous person. I've always been a person that looked out to help other people, but this was just something that happened. Looking in those 400 eyes sets of eyes Mhmm.
And knowing all these people who had a connection to type one diabetes, and they were, like, looking at me like, we need your help, I guess, is the way I would put it, I guess. So
because you're kind of an outsider that just showed up. And, I mean, you got the award because you have I'm assuming you had so much enthusiasm. They were like, who is this guy? And why is he so excited about all this? Right.
And especially without a direct connection. You have your own children?
Yeah. I got, two children and five grandchildren.
Okay. So you you have your own family. My point is you have things you could be doing, you know, and you and you're giving a lot of time to something else. So along the way, over the last I mean, what year was this?
It was 2014. It's when I, did the first ride that I did the two rides. Then then when I committed to do the seven, that started in 2015.
Okay. So you started doing this literally the year before I started making this pod I started making the podcast in 2035. Okay. So our timelines kind of match up that way. So at first, you say there's well, I guess the idea was there were seven JDRF rides around the country the next year?
Correct. Yes. Did you actually make it to all of them?
Yeah. I did. But one time, my point didn't did 25 in a row. I just, finished my forty ninth, and I'll do number 50 on Florida in December.
Oh my gosh. You started oh, sorry. My phone's not muted. Had pancakes a little while ago. That's what that is.
Okay.
I guess you mentioned the truck earlier, but for people who don't know, you decided, like, I'm gonna take a pickup truck and deck it out. And what did you end up calling your your ride team?
You mean the truck?
Yeah. The truck.
Truck's called the t one destroyer. We had a national contest, and, people sent in names. And the person that wanted said you are the t one destroyer, so that's what you need to call your truck.
Awesome. And so I can picture it in my head. Black with, like, yellow graphics. Right?
Correct.
Yep. Yep. As a matter of fact, growing up, Arden slept in a t shirt that it was yours for years. Like, it was one of her sleeping t shirts. And That's great.
That's amazing. It's funny. I don't know if she knows what it is, but it's one of her she has a Dexcom sleeping t shirt, that one, and another one, and they they just went through the like, she was constantly using them. Nevertheless, like so you've got the truck because you're gonna go to your idea is I'm gonna go to all these different places and Correct. Raise awareness.
Like, that's really just your goal. Right? Like, I just wanna try to find people and teach them about type one diabetes?
The mission: stopping senseless deaths13:31
Yeah. I mean, to stop senseless deaths from these kids that have passed away from being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. You know, I've been in several homes. It's the worst thing I've done in all these years is homes that have lost their kids and listened to them and Yeah. Say, I wish I had known it.
Somebody would have told me.
Mhmm.
Just I wanna stop that. And, you know, raising awareness has obviously helped me raise so much money. It's been incredible how much easier it is if you let people know what you're trying to raise money for.
Well, was my next question is, like, now you you're saying you're about to go on your fiftieth ride. Like, how does this like, how do you fund it? Like, are you you independently wealthy, or is there like, I mean, because you're yeah.
You know I mean? I work, you know, I worked a long time and made a nice living, but, we've raised a lot of money. I mean, since we started all this, I mean, we probably raised between what we've given a JDRF, which is now called breakthrough t one d. They just rebranded last year. Yeah.
And, you know, our team snack strong fund, we can talk about. Hopefully, we've raised, like, $1,200,000 since we started.
That's insane, Kent. That's really wonderful. And so some of that money gets donated off, and some of it funds your traveling and your awareness raising. Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. It might sound crazy to say, but summertime is right around the corner.
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No. The funny travel and everything. My wife and I found ourselves.
Oh.
I mean, it's all we've always just paid for all that ourselves now.
Oh my gosh.
You know, we yeah. And the T shirts, obviously, we've given out a lot of T shirts over the years. I mean, we just celebrated with the company that does our T shirts. They've just printed their 26,000 t shirts. So we've given out over 26,000 t shirts since we started it.
And we funded most of that for a long time, but the last few years, we've had some people step up and say, hey. We wanna help you pay for the t shirts when you come to our school, that type of thing. So
26,000 t shirts?
Yeah. And all of them have our team sacks over on the front, and they have the symptoms of type one on the back. And they're the key to this whole thing about creating this whole army of kids, you know, to help us all over the country. Actually, we've sent these shirts all over the world, and people wear them. They love to wear them.
And, you know, that's my theory is if they're standing there at McDonald's in line or on vacation or whatever, because you see these shirts everywhere all over Northeast Kansas and around the country, you know, people are gonna read some of those symptoms, and hopefully they'll remember the top four or five of them. Then they'll remember that if somebody in their family says something or you know, about their kids or their granddaughter or whatever and, you know, help them say and help them know to say you need to get to the hospital right now and do your blood check. You just need to get to the hospital right now. You can't wait.
So the simplicity of your motivation really is that you have that experience in front of those 400 people, and then that evening, someone tells you about a young child who passed away from not getting diagnosed.
Yeah. Somebody sent me the message. Yeah. You know, since then, it's just that's I've just always been very driven. You know, I'm a salesman by trade.
Right. You know, selling and fundraising and all this is kinda all the same thing. You just you have to let people know what you're fundraising for. You let have to let people know that you're serious. You know, when they see my truck and they, you know, they they see me go into a school, you know, people just they realize this guy is serious.
I mean, nothing is more exciting to me than walking into a school of 400 kids or 600 kids or 800 kids, whatever it is. I mean, I've done, like, 75 of these school visits and assemblies over these years, and they all have a bright yellow teak snack shirt on. And right away, they're bought in because they know this guy's serious. He's given us a t shirt. We need to listen.
Yeah. You know, I just That's simple. You're not just wandering and talking. You're saying there there's clearly a structure around what you're doing. And when you show that to people, they think, oh, this is a real thing.
And let me take a minute here to find out. How did you start that? The so you have a school awareness program where you you go around and speak. Even how does that begin? Like, how do you where does that idea come from, and then how do you grow it?
Into the schools — an army of kids in yellow shirts19:19
Well, I mean, through my territory, which is Northeast Kansas, you know, that's where I've done a lot of these. I've done them obviously here in I've done them all over the country now as I'm traveling and stuff. But I just decided one day, like I said, that if I'm gonna have, you know, kids to help me, I could create an army of people out there spreading awareness because you don't see anything on TV about type one diabetes except now some CGM commercials. Yeah. You don't ever see anybody talking about symptoms.
It's not national organizations don't talk as much about awareness as I wish they did. I mean, they're they're great at raising money and doing the research, but I just thought, I'm just gonna try to do this on a grassroots level, and and it it's worked and it continues to work and it's the proven, you know, it's a proven mission, it's a proven theory that by doing that it's helped us raise all this money and this money has done so much good. But, know, I just when I started going to the schools, the first thing I ever did, it was in two thousand and fifteen. I one of the I was reading a book to the second graders up in Nemo Central Elementary School because the teachers had asked me to come in and read, I'd given all the kids a t shirt Mhmm. Because they knew they'd seen my truck.
And I saw the teachers in the back room, you know, talking back of the room talking, and they came up to me said, we've got an idea for a fundraiser. And so before I knew it, we were gonna do a bike ride with the second graders from that school and a Catholic school. So if you've ever done anything crazy in your life, try taking seventy five second graders on a four mile bike ride. And it was just the coolest thing. We got there in the morning at the elementary school, and everybody was wearing their shirts, they all had their bikes.
I think four or five kids didn't have bikes. And then around the corner, here comes the kids from the other school, they're just, you know, pedaling their little bikes. The priest from the school came and rode with us, and it was four laps around, you know, this school, and each lap was about a mile. The first lap, I said, okay, everybody behind the big guy. Everybody stay behind me.
Line up. And then we had the teachers. We had people staggered through there. Yeah. Went all around the first time and it worked out pretty good.
Then all of sudden, kids started going faster and faster. They wanted to pass me. We got back around halfway the second time. I heard man down in the back and I looked back and there was a pile of them back there. The teachers got to them real quick and they I went back there.
Was all worried. They said, can't hurt a second grader. You're fine. So we rode one more lap and then by the fourth lap, was so nervous. There were some kids that were running the whole time.
I said, let's just all park our bikes and walk. I said, nothing can go wrong. You know? So we all held hands, and we started around this big one mile block area. And I looked over in the tree, there's two kids in the tree, two kids in the street.
And, I mean, it was That's one of the craziest things I've ever done. But at the end of it, they gave me a check for, like, $3,300 they had raised just through that school that day within what a huge surprise. And that's when I decided to start going to schools. And I just every chance I get, I go to schools to talk. It's amazing.
Yeah. So when you speak to them, what do you give them, like, signs and symptoms to look for, or is it more about the opportunity to make their parents aware and the teachers aware? What is it what's your goal when you're doing that?
You know, it's about a thirty to forty five minute thing depending on, you know, how big the school is and stuff. But we just start talking about team snack and why I started it. Then we get into what is type one diabetes. I explain to them that it's an autoimmune disease and anybody can get it. And your classmates that have this disease didn't do anything wrong.
It's not what they eat, it's not how much they exercise, and it's not contagious. You know, just try to make everybody feel more comfortable. Yeah. And then, you know, we talk a little bit about bike safety, but the highlight of the whole thing is when I give the kids that live with Taekwon a chance to come up and speak. And, you know, in some schools there might be one kid, in schools, there might be 12 kids.
And, you know, the smallest school I've ever done is, a 178 kids, k through 12, and the largest I've ever done was 1,100 high school kids in Painesville, Kentucky. Mhmm. Everyone is different, and, you know, they just it's amazing how brave these kids are when they get up and talk. And it just empowers them for the first time in their life. They could go up there and we could talk about the CGMs and insulin pumps and why they're wearing these things on their body and why they get to go to the school nurse more often.
The girl who took the microphone23:23
It's just very empowering. And some of the things they say and some of the things that come out of that are things, you know, I'll always remember. There was this one little girl at a very small school I went to, and it's Casey twelve, and there was a third grader there that had been just diagnosed and her parents got ahold of me and asked me if I'd come do a school assembly, which I always say yes if I can. And we got there and the principal said, This is great what you're here for, but I wanted to let you know that we have a sixth grade girl that has type one also, but she never wants to be recognized. She doesn't wanna talk about it.
Right. And don't ask if there's anybody else. I mean, and I would never do that. If kids don't wanna come up, I never I never make them. But we got the you know, through the through this thing and towards the end of the assembly, and this little girl and her parents were up there speaking, and they were just so so great.
And she went to sit down, and all of a sudden, I see this girl stand up. And she just walks right out of her out of the stands and right up to me, and she says, I really need to say something. And right then, I thought, well, this is that other girl. Yeah. And she took that microphone from me, and she walked over in front of the sixth graders.
And she just said, you know, I want you to know the reason I don't wear a two piece swimming suit or tank tops is because I'm embarrassed with all the spots in my body and all the bruises from having to give myself shots, but I have to have those shots to live every day. Wow. She walked back over to me and handed me the microphone, and she said, thank you. And as she was going to sit down, you know, I'll never forget the whole place stood up and gave her a standing ovation. Mhmm.
And the next day, her mom called me and said, you know, I don't know what you did or who you are, but you changed my life. She went to school that day and took her bag and showed everybody what was going on. Oh, jeez. And there's just so many things that happened like that. You know, over the years, these kids, they're just it gives them a chance to not have to hide not to have to hide it anymore.
Right. That's the whole gist of the school program, and it just continues to grow.
No. I mean, if you didn't do anything else, just that story alone is is probably worth the whole thing. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. I just yeah. And even with even when we're traveling across the country and I'm speaking at rhetoric clubs or, you know, I get to stay in some people's houses now because I've met in my rides and stuff. Know, they're just we became I became good friends with so many people through JDRF, and it's pretty it's pretty amazing.
The Rose Jersey and a promise kept25:39
You know, when the JDRF rides, I've done all these rides now, and I've won that Spirit Jersey, and then I won two Green jerseys, which is man, I've raised the most of that particular ride. And last year, in December, Bellevue Island, I think it was my forty seventh ride. But I was awarded the Rose jersey, and the Rose jersey is something that I always wanted to win. It's the jersey that's given out to a person that doesn't have type one diabetes but has done so much to help people that live with type one diabetes spread awareness and raising money. Rose was a lady that passed away from a horrible disease that was riding for her daughter.
The Rose jersey was just because she made everybody promise to keep the journey going after she was gone. Wow. You know, last year in Amelia Island, this is how this whole thing kinda keeps coming back around. I was in the morning, was dressing. I walked downstairs and I had my Rose jersey on.
This young man walks up to me and he goes, mister Snakenberg, you're not gonna remember this. But in 2015, you had a booth set up in Wichita, Kansas at the JDRF Walk, and you had your bike there and your truck. And I came up, and I was just so small. And I just looked at you and I said, someday, I wanna do a JDRF ride like you. But if you ever do one, I promise I'll be there.
And he was he was there at Amelia Island, you know, ten years later. And he said, you know, you just you kept your promise. Things like that that just know, I get tired, you know, I'm 70 years old now. I'll be 71 in January, but things like that just motivate me to continue on.
And Yeah.
I can't keep doing it at the same pace. I just never wanna stop. I never wanna quit on these kids because I know today, tomorrow, the next day, there's gonna be another two hundred, two fifty people that are gonna be diagnosed, and most of them don't know the symptoms, and they need to know that. They just need to know that. Just walking into people's homes, speaking at the couple of funerals I have, it's just no fun, and they're just senseless deaths.
And I try to get national organizations to buy more into it and talk about awareness, put the symptoms on the back of their shirts and stuff, but at this point, I still haven't been successful with that. So I'll just keep doing it myself and with my family and my wife who is an unbelievable partner in all this. She's she's just so great and has let me do so many things. I mean, you gotta realize that I've probably been gone two hundred and fifty more nights away from home traveling just doing this, and she's just all about it. And she knows I'm doing good things, and she loves helping people like I do.
Yeah. Well, Kent, how long you've been married?
Forty five years.
Yeah. She'd probably thrilled when you leave. I gotta be honest with you. Well,
I mean, can you imagine what's like being married to me? It's not always fun, but but she's just you know, and our kids and our grandkids Yeah. Yeah. They love it. And, it's it takes some you know, not very many people would be able to do that.
It takes somebody strong like that. And, you know, she's done, like, six or seven rides herself, and she actually did her first 100 mile ride a few years ago on LaCrosse, and I'm so proud of her. She's always there to support me.
Do you ever have the feeling that you've given something away in your own life for these other for these strangers and that it's a thing you can't get back? I mean, have you ever missed time with your own family over this? Or and how do you handle that?
I mean, I've obviously missed some things I probably shouldn't have, but I think my family I don't think that I've ever given anything away, and I think my family understands how important this is. It'd be one thing if I was just out there golfing or traveling, know, going to football games with guys. You know, they have a lot of connections now with these families and stuff, and they know that this is my mission and they're part of this mission. We call it Team Snack Strong and we're all Team Snack. It's part of our family name and it's our nickname and it's just something we continue to do.
I wouldn't say that I regret anything at this point in my life. I may look back on it someday, but we've made life long friends all over The United States. And we connect we stay connected with these people. And, you know, it's just it's very seldom that know, within a week or I'm not getting two or three messages, you know, would you please send us a T shirt? And I always try to send a note with it.
I'm always at the post office sending out shirts and Yeah. You know, just continue to go to school. So I have five schools up in Northeast Kansas that their eighth grade classes every year is part of their class. Mhmm. And I do this at Emporia State University too with a class that I go in and talk, I hand out T shirts, and I go back several times a year.
And, you know, that's culminated into we have our own Northeast Kansas team snack diabetes awareness walk for the last several years. And each year, that thing raises 10 to $15,000, and we have three or 400 people show up.
Scott's ASL project: a day well spent30:00
I asked you, Kent, because yesterday I mean, it's a it's a good example. Like, I'm gonna go back maybe nine months ago. I interviewed this person. She's type one. She was a young girl.
And as we were talking, I realized that she was an American sign language interpreter.
Uh-huh.
And I said, wouldn't it be interesting if I took one of the series from the podcast, you know, the one for newly diagnosed people, Bold Beginnings? And what if I got it translated into into American Sign Language? I paid somebody to stand in front of a camera and translate the entire thing, which is a huge undertaking. Right? And I first thought, like, well, maybe I could get a a sponsor to pay for that.
Then I realized this is gonna help a handful of people, and it's gonna be really valuable for the people it finds. But it's not gonna find, I don't imagine, thousands of people. Right? It's gonna find tens of people or maybe a 100 people. It's gonna be really helpful for those people, but nobody's gonna wanna put money down.
So I didn't even bother asking it. I said to the girl afterwards, I was like, Mikayla, what would it cost me to have you do that? And she gave me a very fair number, and I reached into my pocket, and I paid her. Right? And it took probably months and months and months for us to get it together and for her to, like, figure out how best to do it.
And and also, there's 26 episodes of this thing. And just recently, she finished. It's awesome. Right? And as I was paying her account, I thought, this is not enough money.
For the amount of work she put into this, I'm not paying her enough. And I felt bad about that. And then I had the videos, but I didn't have the time to put them together. I had to make a website for them. I had to get them onto YouTube.
Like, it's a lot of back end work that's kinda boring. But then if maybe four or five days ago, someone on the Facebook group asked, does anyone know where somebody who, you know, needs ASL can get diabetes information? And I thought, I have that on my hard drive. Wow. And what a great opportunity.
So I spent the last few days making a website, uploading stuff, like, you know, making sure everything on the back end was done. I got up yesterday. I recorded at 9AM. At 10AM, I thought to make myself breakfast, but started to work on the ASL stuff instead. And then I finished it last night at 11:30.
And I put it online, and I put a post up, and I was like, hey. Here you guys go. It's you know, I was really giving it to this one person. I was like, here. This is for you or for your brother.
Wow. And I don't feel like I wasted my day. But there are a lot of things I meant to do yesterday, and one of them would have been, like, exercising. And, you know, on the very simple and basic level, there's I skipped my workout yesterday. I didn't do a lot of things yesterday, and instead, I worked on this thing for the entire time.
I was wondering what your answer was because if somebody asked me, hey. You feel like you gave your whole day away yesterday for for nothing? I would say, no. I I I don't think so at all. Like, it it feels really valuable to me.
I don't know a lot of people who get to go to work and feel that way, I guess, is my point.
No. Every day is a new opportunity, you know, to help somebody, whether it's with type one diabetes or anything. And what you did there was so commendable because, you know, you didn't just help one person. You helped the family. You helped other families.
And you really can't waste your day. I mean, you can exercise later today. You can exercise tomorrow. I mean, I could ride my bike. When you give something to somebody that needs you and doesn't have what you have to give, then it's well worth it.
And, that's that's kinda the way I feel.
I've heard you. It's it was really hard because your voice is very deep. But, like, I've heard you be emotional twice while we're talking. Right? And the little girl saying to you, like, can I have the microphone?
I have something I need to say. Like, that made me cry. I got emotional when you said that. Her words, it is because it's the bigger picture. It's like she's there.
She's she's got some energy, and she's like, I've been holding this thing inside. I'm miserable holding this thing inside. Yeah. And I need to get rid of it. If you can be a a little part of helping somebody do something like that, I really think it reverberates around the world.
I'm sitting here thinking about these kids who sat through your program at school and will ten years later be in college, and some kid's gonna get sick. And they're gonna think, like, oh, that's probably diabetes, and maybe help that person. And and that thing, like, that on that first night that you wanted to do Yeah. You'll do it so many times in your life and beyond your life, you won't even you'll never know how many people you touched, don't believe.
Well, you know, I got a card once a few years ago from a second grade teacher that I had been at their school two years before, and she said, you know, I listened to what you had to say. Normally, during assemblies, you know, I'm grading papers or whatever. But she said, you know, you gave us all these shirts, and you were very interesting to listen to. And I listened to everything you said. She said, two years later, my son started showing the symptoms of type one.
And so right away, we got him, you know, to the hospital, and his blood sugar was, like, six or 700. And she goes, I know in my heart, you saved my son's life.
Well, I mean, at the very least, saved him from, like, a a terrible bout with DKA and all the things that might have come with it and her having to feel like she missed it. Like, I talk to people every day who, you know, carry a a terrible burden around with themselves, like, because Right. Because they missed something. And and their children didn't pass even. They went through a thing that they just wished terribly they would have understood better so that they didn't have to have this experience.
Yeah. No. I mean, Ken, it's it's it really is awesome what you're doing.
Camp scholarships and the Team Schneck fund35:10
Well, you know, when when, like, when I was at diabetes camp last year and, you know, I'd wanna talk a little bit more about that maybe in a minute. Please. You know, they have they have doctors and nurses there, obviously, from this one is close to Wichita, Kansas You know, I walked I went in there and they just said, you just need to know that you have you're making it possible now for kids to just walk into the room and just say with their parents, say, I need a blood sugar test. She goes, the worst thing is when we get a type one child that's, you know, in an ambulance or worse yet on a helicopter. She said there's just so many kids that could benefit from these programs.
And so that's another reason to keep motivated because just think of all the kids all over the world that hold this inside, like you said, and don't wanna talk about it or scared to talk about it. It's only because nobody's given them a chance. Yeah. You know, that's I just wanna give them a chance to open up and let the other kids around them know, you know, it's not weird for them to be wearing these things on their arms, at their legs. They're they're things that keep them alive.
They have to have them to keep alive every day. There's a reason they carry Skittles. It's not because they love candy. It keeps it's a chance to keep them alive every day. And that's why we'll continue to do even if I can't do the rides and travel around the country as much, I'll continue to talk to groups, I'll continue to help people in this area and all over the state of Kansas and go to as many schools as I can.
I mean, you know, we have a team snack strong fund. We actually started right after I talked to you. I think even I mentioned that we were getting ready to start it, and it's under the Emporia Committee Foundation. And so for any child that lives, you know, in the 7 County area with type one diabetes, you know, each year they can get $1,500 a year from us, you know, for scholarships and for me, $1,500 a year from us to help pay expenses of the disease. And there's another foundation for you that's tacked on another thousand dollars to that for the same kid.
You know, also, plus that, if they wanna go to Camp Discovery, you know, we're gonna send them on a full ride scholarship. And I think the average price now to camp is, like, a thousand dollars. And since we started, I think the first year we did ten ten kids. It was in Junction City, Kansas at that point, and it was 73 miles from here. I'd ride my bike up there with a friend early in the morning to get there, you know, around noon, the kids would be waiting for me.
And so now every year when we go to camp, they have a team snack day, and it's on Wednesday, usually, and we can you know, there's a 100 kids there. It's an unbelievable experience. I don't know if your daughter's ever gone, but we give all the kids a shirt, and I get to go down there and talk. And think we've given now now a 175 scholarships since we started. And last year, we sent 36 kids, and this year, we're gonna send 40 more.
And it's just the camps are one of the best thing that I ever hooked up with. I mean, it's just so empowering. They get lifelong friends. They get to talk. And, you know, when they have their meals, they're all together in this big room, and they get up at each cabin, talks about who changed their pump and who did this.
And it's just it's so cool. And they come out of there, their lives are changed forever. We wanna definitely continue that program.
Yeah. For sure. So this year, I had the director of Camp Sweeney on the podcast. Mhmm. And while he was on, he said, I'd like to give away, you know, to the listeners, I'd like to give away a spot at Camp Sweeney.
And Camp Sweeney's, it's pricey. I think it's over I I literally think it's, $4,000. Right? And it's a Wow. Three week camp.
They go for three weeks.
Oh, wow.
And I said, oh, that that'd be great. You know, I'll I'll give it away. We got off got off the call, and I said, let me let me reach out to a sponsor and see if I can get somebody to, like you give one away, and, we can get a sponsor to give one away. Right? And I think I'm pretty sure US Med did it.
So it's one of my sponsors. So we get we gave way too. And then, you know, they were so excited about it, and it it did good buzz for the for the the camps. They said, listen. We have benefactor who would like to give away another one.
I said, let me go ask another sponsor. And I got I got Omnipod to give away another one. And before I knew it, the 2025 was, you know, camp time was coming up. And I think we sent, like, I I've lost count. Think we it was six or eight kids we sent to to camp.
Wow. Just random drawings. Like, people just sent in, like, here's why I want my kid to come. I randomly picked names, and the kids went off. And I got a video a month or two ago, and I was like, what is this?
Like, it was I was tagged on Instagram, and I jumped and looked at it. And it's just this giant group of children and this one little kid up front. And he's like, hey. You know, thank you so much to Juice Box podcast for sending me to camp. I'm having such a great time.
And, like, just countless kids behind him, like, screaming thank you. And I sat there and I thought, my whole life should be sending kids to camp. Like, I should, you know, I should I should quit everything else I'm doing and try to find a way to send more kid. What a lovely experience. It was new for me.
Yeah. Yeah. And then I just recently had one of the kids on to talk about it, and and he had such a great time and experience just like you you described. So I can't imagine how it must feel to send 40 kids. That's
Well just
this Amazing.
It's empowering. And, you know, it's we we try to obviously, we pick kids from Emporia area first, and then we pick kids in Northeast Kansas because that's where we still continue to raise so much of our money in so many of the schools I go to and stuff. And then we but we've sent kids from all over Kansas. And Yeah. The camp at ADA has been great to work with us.
I mean, Camp Discovery is great and, you know, gave us an opportunity to do the scholarship program. And I think it's helped fill all their beds, now they have a waiting list. And it's I promote that camp anytime I get a chance to because and I'm sure the we sent a girl in Arizona to camp out in Arizona. I sent a girl in Colorado to camp at Colorado just I mean, I walk in a bike store last year in Green Valley, Arizona. We go out there and visit friends.
You know, the guy out in the under the bike store saw my truck. He goes, you know, my daughter was just diagnosed. And I said, well, can I meet her? And he called her home. She came down there, and before I knew it, gave her t shirts and talked to her about what we did.
I said, have you ever been to camp? And she goes, no. Said, well, if you wanna go, well, you know, I'll help pay for it. And so a few days later, they got ahold of me, and I she just got back from camp, and she had an unbelievable experience. It's only because I needed to fix a flat on my tire and my bike.
I mean, it's
just Yeah.
It's not very many days go by where something cool doesn't happen to me, but I try to reach out all the time. You know, I've got my shirts. I got the trucks, so I'm always visible. But I just don't wanna miss an opportunity if I can to to meet a kid.
I'm jealous that you get to do it in person because I think I have your experiences. I and I might have them with more frequency, but mine are all virtual, you know, for the most part. Yeah. You know?
Look how many people you're reaching. I mean, you're I have no idea how many subscribers you have, but it's gotta be a lot because, like I said, that first year you were getting started, I was getting started ten years ago where just people continue. It was last year somebody reached out, and Ryan walked up, said, I remember you from the Juice Box podcast. And thank you for everything you do. I just I mean, you're doing what you know, you're doing what you were meant to do, and I think I'm doing what I was meant to do.
I mean, it takes
I agree.
All sides to do that. And we have so much support from our community and from schools in this area and from people all over the country. I mean, when we raised money for it's called match day at Emporia Community Foundation, it's in November, and we started, like, I think it's six years ago with this match day thing. And each year, we've led in a you know, each year, continued to grow. And last year, you know, we received a check for a $106,000.
Jesus. And that money, you know, that money helped so much. And I think since we started this with them, we raised over 600,000 just for our foundation and, you know, for a fund there. But each year, we're paying out, you know, 30 to 40 to $50,000, you know, to kids with the financial aid and and going to camp and stuff. So we need to continue to work hard to raise money because I really wanna have one of those legacy fund when I'm gone and to continue to do this program and, you know, not only help kids with the expenses necessary, but, you know, continue to raise awareness with what we do.
And, you know, I don't know if I told you this, but now I have two team snack trucks. And, you know, the first one is a 2014, the one you had the picture of.
Yes.
You know, it took all over the country, and now it's got 430,000 miles on it. Wow. So two years ago, three years ago, decided I better get another case system. So I bought a 2022, and the same lady that logoed out the first one had all the designs and logoed out this one just the same. So I've got two of them sitting at my house.
I've been driving the newer one to the longer rides like Wisconsin and Florida and some of those. But, otherwise, I just drive my old one Everybody at the Ford dealership here and everybody all over the I hate to say it. What's your goal? I said, I wanna get to half million miles. You know, want Ford Motor Company someday to recognize this and do a national commercial about this guy that's driving all over the country in a Ford f one fifty, you know, to raise awareness, saving lives, raising money.
And I know that Ford's a big sponsor of breakthrough t one d, and that hasn't happened yet, but I always hold out hope.
Yeah. That's really wonderful. You know, you said something a second ago that really because I I think about it too about, like, keeping it going. Like, when you're talking about all these people that you're helping and, I mean, what did you just say? Like, 30 to $50,000 of just, like, financial aid to people who are, you know, just struggling to pay for stuff.
And you think, well, when I stop doing this, like, I mean, it's not a giant organization, Ken. Right? It's you. So, like, you get too old or too sick or too tired or whatever. Like, what happens to all of it?
Like, how are you trying to I know you're planning for it, but what is it you're doing to try to keep that alive?
Well, I'll be setting up soon a legacy fund with the community foundation to where, you know, when you try and I'm trying to get it to a certain amount of money to where they manage, you know, they manage the money, and it it has a very good return on the investment through this community foundation. I think there's, 300 funds. We're very lucky and important to have that. And, you know, the legacy fund means once I'm gone, that they'll continue as their board and, you know, their directors to to manage the fund and, you know, and and still give out the money. And, you know, it probably will lessen as far as the camp thing, as far as, you know, kids from around the state that are going to camp.
But, also, I have other people now that are trying to figure ways to send more kids to camp because they didn't realize what the need was. You know, people from other places, and I've had parents that reach out and said, you know, this year, we could just pay her own way. Why don't you send another child this year? So there's a lot of people on board. We won't let it die.
It'll continue to grow in some fashion and, you know, help as many people as we can.
Somebody has to be the center of it, the beating heart, because that's you right now. So someone along the way is gonna have to pick the mantle up and decide that they wanna carry it the way you did.
Yeah. But I'm telling you, this community foundation, the two ladies there, I mean, they're all in on this. And, you know, they do these legacy funds, and they love what we do, and we love what they do. And so it'll it'll continue. But I'm also hoping that's a long time down the road too.
Mean It's like, I ain't looking to stop down. But You know,
The health scare: AFib and three stents45:30
I've I've had had some health issues the last two, obviously, but that's gonna limit me from, you know, doing as much in the future, but I can still do a lot.
I
mean, I was doing a lot a lot for a while. And this you know, two but two years ago when things were just really going strong, I was doing a ride in La Crosse, Wisconsin. You know? I had noticed that, you know, I had some issues with going up steep stairs and stuff, but I just figured that was from being 70, you know, or 68, I guess, at that time.
What ended up being the problem?
Well, anyway, I I I did 40 mile ride that day, but, you know, I felt pretty good. But I'd already I tried to go up this bluff. Everybody just kinda does it in lacrosse. It's a really cool area. It's called Grandpa's Bluff, I believe.
And we got a couple 100 yards up there, and my heart just started pounding. And I thought, this isn't right. So I came back down, and luckily, I had had a physical setup for the you know, I got back on Sunday. I had a physical on Monday, my yearly physical. And they'd already set up a stress test because it's been ten years since I've done one.
Mhmm. And, you know, I went physical, and everything was fine. I get to the stress test the next day, give me the shot to put the stuff inside my veins, they take the pictures, and I go back in there and sit down and, you know, they're getting ready to hook me up to all these you know, to the monitors and stuff and get on the treadmill, and the lady looks at me and she goes, you know, you got AFib. I said, man, I don't even know what AFib is. I've just heard it on the radio.
And she goes, well, it's not good. Then I guess the picture started coming back in and they were just staring at the screen. And when they're both looking at the screen and not talking to me, I know it's not good. And so they actually didn't even let me get on the treadmill and they called, you know, the cardiologists here in Emporia. Have Neumann Regional Health, which we're blessed to have, and they have a full time cardiologist and department in Cath Lab.
You know, within a half hour he was down there and he drew a picture of my heart and he goes, Kent, you have three blockages in, you know, your heart. One of them is 80%, one of is 90%, one of them is 95%. At that point, my wife wasn't even there. My wife was in Kansas City because I she just you know, I just told her, I'm just gonna go do the stress test. And so she he said, you might wanna call your wife.
He said, within about two hours, we're gonna have you in surgery. And I looked at him. I said, do I need to get a second opinion? Do I need to do anything else? I mean, you know, your mind is just racing at that point because this all came out of nowhere, basically.
And he said, you know, we can fix this here, Kent. And if it's something I can't fix, I'll send you on to Topeka or to Kansas City. And just the way he said it, I trusted him very much. And they got me ready. He took me up to the surgery, and the cath team was there, and they were unbelievable.
It was just a great experience for whatever an experience could be like that. But I had three stents put in. Get down to recovery, and, you know, your heart's still in AFib. And so that's something I've been dealing with and will continue to deal with. I have a double procedure in January that hopefully will take care of that, get me off some of these blood thinners and stuff because that's limited me in the riding by myself and doing a lot of things.
But but I've been able to continue on. I mean, I did three rides last year, I've done two this year. Gonna do the one in four in December before my Right. You know, before my surgery. So I'm just I was very lucky that I actually tried to ride up that bluff, which made me decide I gotta go ahead through this stress test.
People have been very understanding and, you know, sending me a lot of cards and well wishes. It just slowed me down. It hasn't stopped me, but I don't believe you'll be seeing me do any more 100 mile bike rides anywhere.
Well, can I ask a guy? Because I just had a guy on that was talking about heart issues.
But Yeah. Correct.
You're not a I'm I'm guessing you're not a smoker. Right?
No. No. Just my dad had heart issues, so it's, like, in my family.
It's familial. Okay. I was gonna say because, I mean, you're you're as active as anybody could be. Yeah. You know, you're moving constantly and and and the rides and everything else.
Right?
Yeah. It just wouldn't you know, things just happen to people. Yeah. When I was 60, I really felt 25. And now that I'm 70, kinda sometimes feel 70.
But most of the times really feel like when we get in front of kids and go to schools and talk, I'm back in the forties and fifties. But I've got a lot of good years left. I you know, ahead of me, I hope. And for as many time you know, as much as I I can do this, I wanna keep going. I wanna keep doing this.
And I'll tell these kids all the time, you know, I wake up every day trying to think of things to make your life better, and that's kinda what I try to do. And I said I won't quit as long as I'm physically able to. And they they believe that, and I believe that.
I tell people all the time when they they thank me for the podcast. I was like, I really have to thank you because the way they support it and listen to it and keep the said you you don't know how many people have heard it, and I I almost hesitated to tell you at the time, but I'm getting ready to celebrate 20,000,000 downloads, like, total downloads and a lot. You know? Yeah. Then that's because people they listen to it.
They enjoy it enough to share it with somebody else. That keeps it going. And maybe one of the unforeseen things that they don't see that I hear when I'm talking to you is that allows me to get up in the morning and think about, like, I wonder what people need. Like, you know, I've I've heard you say a couple of times, like, I can't get big organizations to put signs and symptoms on their t shirts or their stuff. And, I mean, I probably understand that it's it probably feels like a bummer to them, and that's not what how they wanna present.
They want everything to be upbeat, and we're we're working towards something, that kind of feeling all the time. But, you know, I brought that ASL thing up to you earlier. Like, no one else is doing that, Kent. Like, no one's going to put the time or the effort or the money that it takes into creating helpful start out information for people with type one diabetes who are deaf or hard of hearing. They're gonna tell you, like, there's just not enough of them.
Like, the juice isn't gonna be worth the squeeze. Like, the amount of effort they're gonna put into it, they're not gonna see the return, especially in this digital age where people wanna see tens of thousands of clicks on something. They wanna see hundreds of thousands of downloads. They're not looking for you to reach five people anymore. You try to show something to them and say, like, try to imagine this.
Like, I don't it's hard to get them to imagine it. But I think that now that I've done it, I don't think it'll be as difficult to reach out to them and say, hey. Look. Here's how much money it would take to, you know, fund this to do for this kind of information or this. Like and now there's a place and you can see people getting to it and using it.
You can get them a little more excited to to keep going. But Yeah. I hear all your frustration. Like, I mean, what a no brainer for Ford to send somebody with a camera out to talk to you for an hour and put some They
are just following. You know, send somebody with me for a day. And, you know, I would think there'd be they'd sell so many more f one fifty drugs to people that live with type one diabetes if they saw this drug going out doing all these things. And it's just sometimes the big organizations are real busy. And I you know, JDRF, which is now breakthrough and the American Diabetes Association, have been nothing but great parts of my life.
I just thought if if they would just do simply print the the T shirts, you know, with the symptoms on the back, it's gonna help them raise more money. And that's the hardest thing is to let to make them understand that the more people know about this Right. The more people are gonna donate money. And the only way to tell them to do that is by telling them. And along the way, you're gonna save lives.
I mean, you know, you said something about only reaching so many people with, you know, with the program you were on recently. But if I you know, if we could say five kids a year, two kids a year, I mean, what would be the price on that? Because you know that a lot of people are diagnosed today and most of them don't know what's coming and some of them are gonna end up in ambulances and some of them on helicopters and they just need to know. I mean, you can't stop the disease, but you can stop people from dying from senseless deaths of being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. You gotta tell people.
Using Ford as an example, they would get great social media out of it, and it wouldn't cost them anything. And like you said, it would be a good video of a of a a 12 year old truck chugging along with 400,000 miles on it, which you would think is, you know, good for sales. I haven't done I'm not gonna ask you the number, but 26,000 t shirts, even if you're paying $34 apiece for them, means you've spent a $100,000 in t shirts. That's a lot of effort from you. Like, if that's the only thing you had ever done, that would have been really impressive.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Well, I got three orders on my desk right now. One, I'm gonna speak to a girl scout troop, and then I and I just sent a ninety ninth church to a preschool that I'm gonna go speak at. Like I said, this guy, his name's Tom Wrong, and it's one eight hundred t shirts as his company in Dubuque, Iowa. I mean, it's crazy.
I was at a JDRF ride in 2016 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, sitting there in on Saturday night in a bar with a bunch of crazy people from Iowa, which are great people we met over the years. He walks up to me and goes, Hannah, I see you guys do t shirts. He said, Both my brothers are type one diabetic and I own one of the largest t shirt companies in the Midwest. I want to be your guy also. I'm too cheaper than anybody.
And since then, it's just been a it's perfect relationship. I mean, I they do such great work, their quality. Yeah. I call them. I I send them the order.
They send them right to the school. I mean, and it's just then when we went by there last week, you know, they're all wearing team Snack shirts. There's 30 some employees, and they were so excited to hit that number of T shirts. And we just I gotta talk to him a little bit and take pictures, and and nothing probably would have happened if I wouldn't have been earn a team snack shirt in that bar at that time. So Yeah.
I just feel like I've been put in certain places and certain things over all these years to make all this grow like this and come together and, you know, just have relationships with a company like that and have relationships with, you know, Matt Fisher who helped me design my truck. And now he's got his own ride team called Team Fish, and we're really close, and we ride. And he's done so much for the Breakthrough Ride program, and we're just great friends. And I just I wanna keep going for things like that because I know there's people I could still reach every day, and there's people that hopefully will hear this podcast and understand that, you know, you could do something like this in your area just to go to the schools and talk in front of people and to go to rotary clubs. You know, I can't go all over the country.
I get messages when you come to this school or that. I can't I think that, hopefully, it's what people understand how I do it that it's really simple. It's just giving somebody your time to try to help kids save lives, you know, and just give kids that empowerment that they're not different. They were they got a bad hand in court to dealt to with this disease, but they got to deal with it. And they want people you know, they're just looking for hope.
I don't know how many times I've heard parents say, You give us hope. And God, what's more powerful than that? You know, with all the medicine in the world sometimes, just knowing that somebody cares. There's a guy in Kansas that you don't even know, but look at him. He's driving a truck around the country, and he's trying to do everything not only to help kids there, but kids everywhere, including yourself.
It's another way to help people feel less alone, really.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a crappy disease. You know, it can make you feel really bad and just the stories I hear are about. But when I get a kids a chance to talk, give them a chance to just speak their mind and just see their smiles and see their kids, you know, and all their peers in the audience and the teachers.
You know, when we do this, we give shirts to the cooks and the bus drivers and everybody's there. Right. And it's just they know that they're there for them. They they're there for them to support them. And when I drive through these towns on that truck, I go by school and everybody's waving and the kids recognize the truck.
There's shirts everywhere, and there's no reason not to keep doing it. I mean, as long as I'm being able to I feel like gonna be of great support.
You're a you're a lovely person. This is this is an uplifting conversation. Do you even have a website that I could send people to? Or how do they No.
I don't have a website. I mean, I really try to do everything the old fashioned way. It seems to work for me. I mean, we've got I've got my personal Kent Snackenberg Facebook page, which I don't know. I have a lot of brands, I guess, on there, I try to post a lot on it.
I have a Team Snack page still, but, you know, it's one of those pages where they you have to give a money to Facebook to promote things. And so I don't do a lot on that, but I just try you know, I usually email a lot and people call me and stuff. But it works for me, and I think I'm too old to change much, to be honest with you.
That's okay. Think that's awesome. I think Facebook's a great way for them to find you. Right? It's just your it's just your name?
Yeah. My name, just personal name. It's Kent Snackenburg. And if you go to the TeamSnack page, I think you can get to the the other page by doing that.
You made me think. I have the same thought you just have all the time. Like, I have a private Facebook group that has 73, 74,000 people in it right now. And Bro. It's insane.
Right? And yet, if you post something, Facebook doesn't show it to most of them.
No. Yeah. No. No.
They want you to pay them to actually deliver your your posts to the people that you've gathered up who have said, I'd like to know what this guy is saying. Yeah. No. It's it's really something. And can I get a I gotta tell you now?
We're we're done, but I I I wanna tell you that I'm so impressed by what you're doing that I have not brought up the, incredible thrashing that my Eagles gave your Chiefs in the Super Bowl. I just let that go, and we don't even talk about it. Yeah. Because you're
gonna beat us in two weeks too.
Because you're a good man, Kent, and you don't deserve that. Okay? Yeah. I keep that to myself.
Well, I'd I'd like to tell you this one story
Please.
And and and see if you can fit it in towards the end.
Absolutely. This you keep going. Please.
Your moment comes — don't miss it58:12
So this was, like, in 2015 or '16, I was starting out doing my seven rides for the year, I was traveling to the Northeast part of the country. But at that point in time, I was still trying to hit all these states. I think the first day I drove all the way to Houston, Texas from Kansas, and the next day I drove to Jacksonville, Florida, then up to Hershey, Pennsylvania. And I the next day I drove into the town where the ride was. And, you know, it was early in the day.
I I didn't really know how to recognize how many days it would take to get through the way I was doing it. Because when I'm riding, I'm stop or driving, I'm stopping and talking to people and giving out information. Of course. So I got there early, and I decided to just explore the town a little bit. And I went around the town and, you know, came and got some some of their places.
They're famous landmarks and stuff, and I'm heading back to the hotel. And I come to this, you know, red light. It was a pretty busy street, and I looked over to my right, and there's this young man sitting in a wheelchair. And sitting next to it was a lady in a folding chair, and I come to find out, you know, that was his caretaker. And I know this young man had some real health issues because his neck was, like, lean weight to the right and his body was kind of leaned over.
You know, I could see in his wheelchair, was kind of custom made where he had his left hand really clenched tightly on this tray, but with his right hand, he was reaching down and put something in his mouth. But the whole time, both of them were just staring at me. So it was one of those red lights that seems like it goes on forever, you know? And it finally turned green. I didn't know what else to do.
So as I was driving away, I smiled and waved really big, and he just stared straight at me. But she waved and smiled, but, you know, it was kind of a sad smile like, you know, everybody's seen. And I got up the road two or three blocks and something and saw this, you know, inside of me just said, Kent, you need to go back. You need to go back. So I turned into Office Street, and I came up behind this building.
I think it was a church, I parked and I walked around the corner and I just said, Hey, getting snack program here to do a bike ride to help kids with type one diabetes. Tell me your story. And the lady looked at me and she said, Well, this young man was diagnosed early in life with a very severe muscle disease and he'll never be able to walk and he'll never be able to talk, and he needs twenty four hour daycare. But he likes doing nice days, and we sit out here and look at traffic. And he must have really loved your truck because he made this really loud.
And the whole time, he's still staring at traffic. And so I just looked at her and I'm set. Know, what can I do to make your day better? What do you guys like to do? And she thought for a moment, and she said, well, when his dad comes to pick him up at night, we love to go out to eat.
Nothing fancy, just different places. And she looked at me, and I was wearing a bright yellow team snack shirt, and she said, and he really likes bright colored shirts. And I said, well, just wait right here. And I ran back to my truck, I could just tell and my heart was just thumping, you know. I knew something was gonna happen special that day.
And came back around the corner, and I gave her $60. I said, here, you just go out to your favorite place to eat tonight on me, and I said, just to really enjoy yourself. And I said, here's a shirt for him to wear. And she held up that yellow shirt. And, yeah, she held up the shirt and said, look what this man gave you.
And for the very first time, you know, his head tilted up towards me, and this kind of a smile, I think, came across his face. And he lifted that left hand up that had been clenched in that fist, he opened it up, and I put three fingers in there, and he squeezed him really, really hard. And he made this really loud noise that I always think he was just saying thank you at that point, you know, and then he released my hand, and he started looking back at the traffic. And I just gave her one of my cards, and I said, just wanna tell you I loved you guys. You If you ever need me for anything else, anything, I said, please just get ahold of me.
And as I turned and walked away, she said, you already have. And I looked back at her and she goes, we've been sitting here for two years. She said, two years, and you're the first person that's ever stopped to check on us. And she said, you know, that's gonna make me that's gonna make his father so happy. And she just said, thanks for what you do.
And I left, and, you know, then her father or his father called me that night and just said, you know, I don't know who you are, but you made my family's day and you did something today nobody's ever done for us. And, you know, I like to tell that story when I'm talking to kids and because I always feel like, you know, every story should have a good message to it. And so the message to that story is, you know, your moment in life comes, you know, and you will have a moment when you have this opportunity. Just don't miss it. Right.
And I said, my moment came in 2015 and standing in front of 400 people in Tucson Tucson, Arizona. And I said, and your bubble come, and I said, just don't mess it. So
Oh, Kent. I have to tell you, that story is so lovely that I didn't make the joke I was gonna make when you said my heart was thumping that I knew something was gonna happen that day, I thought, yeah, those are the blockages, Kent.
Yeah. Well, luckily, that was ten years ago. So I it was doing pretty good then.
I think you've probably, by putting yourself out into the world like this, had more incredible experiences than a 100 people combined. And just by putting yourself in situations where you may or may not have an experience like that, but a little uncommon nowadays. Right? Like, people don't think to do that as much as you do. And I I I I hope everybody's hearing what it's given back to you, and maybe they'll they'll do a little bit of of it themselves too.
Yeah. You know, you were talking about clicks earlier and stuff, and I'm not interested in, you know, the number of clicks. I'm just interested in the amount of people I can reach, the amount of kids I can save,
Yeah.
How many kids we could send at camp, and how many kids we can help with expenses because that's that's what's really important to me in life. I know that they talk about social influencers. They talk about all these things, but I got a feeling that some of that's a pretty empty feeling. But when you, you know, can walk in a house and a family's happy to see you after they just got from home from the hospital three days ago and just start telling them what you can do for them and just let them know they're not alone. I mean, that's worth so that's worth everything to me.
No. I believe that, and I and I agree. You what you're doing, I mean, you're an angel out in the world for sure. I hope your family is as proud of you as I imagine that I am. You know, your kids are probably older now, right, and your grand they probably don't really know.
I mean, to one of your grandchildren, you've gotta be there, like, I don't know. Grandpop's got a weird truck and he goes on a lot of bike rides. Right?
Like No. They just they just say I mean, everything to them is team snack, you know. Team snack truck, team snack shirts.
Know about it.
They're you know, the oldest is 12 and the youngest is, like, I think, nine. And so there's you know, we have three in Kansas City, which is a couple hours from here, two in Denver, which is eight hours from here. So we don't get to see them as often as some people do, but we definitely make a lot of trips both places and we're really proud of our grandkids. I'm just thankful that, you know, they're proud of me and what we do and and my wife. Nobody's ever said anything like, you know, you missed this, you shouldn't have missed this.
They're just they know I'm helping kids and
Yeah.
I try to install and install in them and everybody else that, you know, that's the secret to life is helping others when you have an opportunity to.
Can I ask a last question? Sure. Prior to all this happening to you and, you know, just kind of the randomness of your, you know, of your niece being diagnosed
Right.
Were you doing stuff like this prior to that, or was this just a departure for you?
A lifetime of giving: the train, Santa, and his father1:05:03
No. No. I mean, I've always tried to help people. My dad was really big with charities and clubs. He was ran a cancer golf tournament here for years, and I took over for him then.
And he passed away when he was 80, and I ran it for several years.
So
and we, you know, we have a Saratoga Club here in town with a miniature train that runs, and it's very It's been given, I think, 1955. It started, and it holds, like, 20 kids and parents. And so it runs, like, three or four nights a week in the summer. And my wife and I pay for all the rides for all the kids and parents, you know, all summer long for that. And we just had the last ride of the summer last Sunday night, and I think they gave 253 rides out that night.
And so that's just money that those families can save, but they love the train. I mean, it reminds me when I was little when I was riding in it. Just a really special place for me, and and I want it to be special for a lot of the people. And this club is filled with, you know, men and women that are in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, and they continue to do this. And so it's a little better just for us to support them with 2,500 donation to pay for all the free rides all It's been great.
Jeez. Yeah, Kent. Yeah. You might you really might be an angel, man. I can't thank you enough.
I'm gonna call this episode Kent has something to say.
Okay.
It's a great message. Like, I don't I don't know another way to say it. Like, I I felt the same way when I I told you I had Ernie on from from Cam Sweeney, he was talking about it. And I just kept thinking, he's been doing this for decades. And he's an older man.
Like, why does he keep doing this? You know? Like like, what what what keeps him going? You know? And, there's something about the his conversation and the conversations I've had with you that I don't know.
I I hear a, a fire and a motivation inside that is not, in any way that I can tell, not ego motivated. Like, it it really is about, like, just seeing other people do better. I mean, just I mean, Ken, what's what's a ride on the train cost?
Well, it's only a dollar. But it and but if they have eight kids, that's $8. And if they wanna ride four times, that's $32, and that's money they could just save, you know, and It's a
really thoughtful approach. Like, these people's kids have a nice time and they and they have eight more dollars in their pocket. And Yeah. And your thought is they can go put that into something else and and still have had this good time
to see them an ice cream on the way home.
It's just you spreading joy around is what it is.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was Santa Claus for eighteen years out front of our house, and we used to do it in in neighborhood, and we raised somebody, you know, toys for the Salvation Army. And so I mean, that was, like I know how many years ago that was, but and they're still doing that today forty years later in this neighborhood that we moved away from. And so that's kinda cool that they're continuing to the tradition.
I mean, we live in a very giving town. People are very nice here. Yeah. Just I mean, it's like, I almost have to have one of those hands in front of my truck waving, you know, the dashboard because so many people know the truck could wave and honk and
And you just
It's just a great feeling.
Spotting back. Well, listen. It sounds to me like you're still Santa Claus. So Well Yeah. I don't know, man.
You're you're really lovely, and this is fantastic. I appreciate you jumping back on and and sharing this with me again. I hope that, I hope you hear about people enjoying this conversation for ten more years.
Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm sure that it'll whenever you put it on, let me know, and then I can share it to him.
I will.
Yeah. It's I shared the that first episode last night, and a lot of people called me and called me and stuff, said we'd forgot about everything you're doing and stuff.
So Yeah. No. It's cool. Well, it'll be out. I'll tell you about it when we we'll finish up here.
Say goodbye, and I'll tell you about the timeline.
Okay.
So thank you so much. I really do appreciate this.
You bet.
Today's episode was sponsored by Skin Grip. And Skin Grip, they understand what life with diabetes is like, and they know how infuriating it can be when a device falls off prematurely. And they don't want that to happen to you. Juice Box podcast listeners save 20% off of their first order when you use the link skingrip.com/juicebox. Links are also available in the show notes of your podcast player and at juiceboxpodcast.com.
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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 Juice Box podcast. The bold beginnings series and all of the collections in the Juice Box podcast are available in your audio app and at juiceboxpodcast.com in the menu. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juice Box podcast private Facebook group, Juice Box podcast, type one diabetes.
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#1905 An Ounce of Prevention
An Ounce of Prevention
Brianna, 11, is a competitive trampoline athlete headed to nationals — and type 1 makes her blood sugar crash mid-routine. She and her dad Jesse talk exercise lows, community, and staying ahead of it.
Jump to a moment
- Exercise — especially a trampoline — can send blood sugar crashing, and it’s one of the things people with type 1 fear most. Brianna can drop hard mid-routine, sometimes going low up to ten times in a single three-to-four-hour practice. Her family plans around it with early activity mode, reduced or half boluses at gymnastics meals, and Gatorade and juice always in the bag.
- Timing the meal before practice matters. Brianna eats earlier on gymnastics nights so the insulin has time to clear before she’s bouncing — a deliberate strategy to avoid stacking active insulin on top of exercise.
- Staying ahead of a low beats chasing it. A recurring theme: treating a low after it hits means an hour of shaking through practice or a lower competition score. Catching an 85 heading down — an “ounce of prevention” — is the small change that could make the biggest difference. Brianna’s own top goals: pre-bolus, win nationals, and get her A1C toward the fives (last was around 6.1).
- Community changed everything. Getting connected right after diagnosis — a meetup, older youth ambassadors, Breakthrough T1D events — turned isolation into belonging. Brianna went from feeling alone at school to organizing a picnic for the whole youth-ambassador group.
- Perspective helps on the frustrating days. Gear isn’t perfect — pods can leak during high-impact activity, algorithms can’t fix a missed bolus — but as Scott notes, people managed type 1 for decades with none of it. Frustration is real; so is how far the tools have come.
- Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) — the youth-ambassador program, walks, and meetups Brianna is part of (verify URL)
- JBP #1350 — Jesse’s episode — Brianna’s dad’s earlier conversation about the newly-diagnosed years (verify slug)
- Omnipod 5 — the tubeless pump Brianna wears; sponsor link
- Small Sips Series — short, one-idea-at-a-time management episodes (verify slug)
- Juice Cruise — the Juicebox community cruise (2027 out of Port Canaveral)
- Juicebox Podcast Facebook Group — community around type 1 (verify URL)
Every word of the conversation
Meet Brianna and Jesse0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juice Box podcast. Nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juice Box Podcast private Facebook group, Juice Box 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 Juice Box podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. Alright. Let's get down to it.
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Hi. My name is Brianna.
Brianna, how Oh, oh, that'll get me. Sorry. Do it again.
Hi. My name is Brianna.
And I'm Jessie. I'm her dad.
Alright. Brianna, how old are you?
I'm 11 years old.
11. You have type one diabetes?
Yes.
How did you end up on this podcast? What happened?
So I wanted to be on the podcast because my dad was on the podcast in episode 1,350. And I sent an email saying, like, I'm I'm a gymnast who wants to be on the podcast, and here we are.
Cool. Blake, what do you remember about doing it? How long ago was that?
Honestly, I forgot. I think it was, like, a couple months ago.
A couple months ago, you sent me the email.
Yeah.
Okay. And, Blake, you were on the podcast, was it years ago?
I was last year or just over last year.
Hey, Jesse. I'm sorry. I'm calling you by your last name. I apologize.
It's okay. No. Yeah. It was, last year, or just past last year, maybe a year and a half. And I got on because I wanted to kinda talk about some of the mental health stuff with the, you know, with the newly diagnosed kid.
Yeah. How are how have you been since then?
Great.
Things are better?
Yep. And Brianna is thriving.
That's awesome. What do you think made it better for you?
Time. I think as you go on, you know, with this diagnosis, things become more manageable, put things in perspective and you just see you know, I could just see how Brianna has, you know, grown and managed it and things just gradually keep getting better and better.
Your anxiety about it goes away or you build more experience and it feels more knowable? Any of that sound true?
Yeah. I I think, for me, the unknown, so the beginning, the anxiety as far as, like, the unknown and some of the challenging aspects of it, learning how to manage it is tough. But as you do gain experience, I think it is much it's never easy, but it's definitely more manageable and you learn and you kind of understand it a little bit better.
Diagnosed at Eight5:07
Okay. Brianna, how old were you when you were diagnosed?
I was eight.
Eight. And that's what, like three years ago maybe?
Yeah.
K. Can you tell me what you remember about the time leading up to the diagnosis?
So we went to Disney in the end of two thousand twenty two. In December, my parents said that they noticed I was, like, off. And when I looked back at pictures, I was, like, really pale, really skinny, and I was, like, kinda miserable the whole time. I always complained I was, like, really hot because it was really hot. But I came back, and then I was, like, always super tired.
And then in January, I was, like, going into school, and I was chugging water bottles. And I was going to refill them, and I was still, like, super thirsty. Like, I haven't had any water all day. Mhmm. And I was chugging water bottles.
I
have to tell you, when I took my kids to Disney, I was complaining that it was hot all the time too, but I did not end up having diabetes. Also, what are those bugs? Do you know what I mean? Like, they're do you you ever ride the did you ride the bus, like, from the resort to the Yeah. The park and there were these giant bugs just smushed on it?
It's very, very unsettling. I didn't I didn't enjoy it all. So so this was like a Christmas time trip for you?
Yeah. I see. Was I think it was over my birthday, which is in December beginning of December.
Okay. So So you get home. The the drinking continues. Do you tell your parents about it, or how did or do they see it on their own?
They saw it because I didn't really notice it until I looked back. And I was just noticing, like, there was this one day. I don't know why I remember it, but I do. But I had my water bottle, and I was chugging. I had to keep it on my seat.
I went to refill my water bottle at least five times that day. And in first grade, I had to start, like we were only allowed, like, three bathroom visits a day, and I was, like, using all three every day. And I would still needing to go. So sometimes I would have to go four to five times a day, which was a lot.
Your school limits your peeing?
Not really, but, like, they she said there's only well, my teacher was really annoying. But, anyway, she said, like, only three bathroom visits a day unless it's an absolute emergency.
So
Sounds like some kids were taking advantage of the bathroom.
Yeah. One kid was spending thirty minutes in the bathroom at a time talking to his friends. He wasn't even in the bathroom. Oh. That ruined it for the class.
They ruined yeah. That nobody can pee. Ridiculous.
Mhmm.
So okay. So it's getting worse and worse and worse. Just you, do you look at her and think she looks different, or is it really just the drinking that throws you off?
No. We we didn't notice that. I think the drinking and the peeing were the two main factors for us.
Okay. So this makes you go to the doctor?
The Smoothie and the Wrong Appointment8:00
Yes. Eventually.
Yeah. Eventually. And do you have any recollection, Brown,
I'm
I'm really interested. Do you have any recollection of going into the doctor, what you thought was happening and what you knew was happening when you left?
I had no idea what was happening. I just I remember I was mad that it had to go. So I got picked up from school early that day, and then we went to the doctor's office. I said asked my dad if I could get a smoothie. He said yes, but then he knew what was he had a feeling, what was gonna happen, and we never got that smoothie.
He said maybe after because we're running a bit late. When we showed up, they said our appointment was actually for the following week, but they said they could fit us in that day. And they checked my blood sugar. It was 401, and they sent us straight to the ER. And that is all I remember.
It's a good thing you guys got the date wrong on the on the appointment. Or or did you, Jesse? Or were you just like, we'll just show up and pretend we didn't know?
Yeah. That's it's a funny story because I I don't I vaguely remember that, but I I remember my wife kind of like, she she knew. And Mhmm. Even even me, I was denying it because I was like, yeah. We'll get a smoothie because you gotta go to the doctor.
I'll I'll treat you to a smoothie. Mhmm. Even I had, like Some
smoothie king.
Yeah. And I had an idea, but, like, even that, like, denial of, yeah, we could just get a smoothie. And and thank goodness we were running late because then she would have been, like, through the roof. But
Well, in fairness, Jesse, you were a week early. Yeah. Yeah. You were a week early.
So we were just we were just going. We were, you know, have get a smoothie, and we'll eventually make it to the doctor.
Brianna, you know your dad feels bad when he says yes to a $9 smoothie. You know what I mean? Yeah. Mhmm.
And those smoothies were, like, so much sugar. They were, like, 50 carb
I know I
know. Smoothie King.
Arden gets them sometimes, and then we ask for half sugar, and they're still really sweet.
Yeah.
So I hear you. Okay. So now the doctor says do they say type one, or do they just say you need to go to the hospital? The Twist AID system also adjusts basal insulin every five minutes using a six hour prediction of where glucose may be going, helping things stay on track throughout the day. And for the person wearing it, Twist is the only automated insulin delivery system that can be controlled from an Apple Watch, making it easier to check-in, enter carbs, or deliver insulin discreetly when pulling out a phone or pump is not convenient.
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Three Days in the Hospital12:08
I they didn't tell me anything, but they I think they told my dad something.
Okay. Yeah. The they they essentially said, we think it's type one diabetes, but in order to conf here's the amazing part is the doctor's office that we went to, which is not the regular office we go to. It was like a a satellite location. They didn't have a finger stick.
So they sent us to another office and, we end up going and it was on the way to the hospital, but we ended up stopping there. They did the finger stick and they're like, yep. You gotta continue on your way to the hospital.
It's like it's like a it's like a a board game.
Yeah. Yeah. Lot of moving parts. Yeah. Yeah.
And and we were early.
Pick Bran up at the school. Go to the doctor's office. The doctor's office doesn't have a meter. Go to the other doctor's office. Mhmm.
Go to the hospital.
That doctor's office seems mortified. Run to hospital. So how long were you in the hospital, Brown? What do you remember about the stay?
I was in there for three days. I had no idea what was happening. I was crying in the car. I was super upset because I had no idea what just happened. I didn't know if I was gonna be okay.
Was I dying? Nobody would tell me what was happening. We got into the ER. We got, like, seen right away. The ER was packed, but we got seen right away.
And, like, before I knew it, I had an IV. I was in a bed, and they were, like, talking to me about, like, a medical ID bracelet, which I had no idea what was even happening. Why are they, like like, giving me medical ID
bracelet? That's the first thing someone said to you? You're gonna need a medical ID bracelet.
There it's yes. She just had, like, a bunch, and I chose the pink one. And they gave me a blanket, and then they sent me to the ICU.
Oh, I see. They they laid some gifts on you to try to make you feel better. Yeah. Right? Jesse, does it surprise you to hear that she felt like nobody was telling her what was going on?
Yeah. And to be honest, like, I I know for for me, like, it was shock. Complete and even kind of going into the doctor's appointment, having the idea of, well, here's all the symptoms. This is what it looks like. This is probably what it is.
Still just denying that and not really facing reality. Like, how could this be? And this are they right? And could it be something else?
And Yeah.
All these other things that, even for me, like I like I said, it was just shock and not.
Brianna, is it hard to hear that your dad was struggling, or or do you understand that already?
I understand that he was struggling, but it is hard to hear because he was just, like, trying to get me to the hospital. Didn't really know, like, too much about what was happening. We both were, like, surprised.
Mhmm. And what does this teach you about having children?
Don't be surprised.
Yeah. Don't be in a hurry. You know what I mean? It's a it's a lot of work. So we're
Don't say yes to smoothies right before the doctor's office when you knew something is wrong.
That's all you've taught her is that one day she will not stop anywhere for a child while she's taking it to a doctor's appointment.
That's good advice.
Yeah. It's not she we'll do it after. It'll be fine.
Yeah. After is fine.
Yeah. You'll you'll enjoy the lollipop way more. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah.
Do they still do lollipops at the doctor's office?
Not really. No.
My bank has them.
Live at random places.
Yeah. Like, you know, the little dumb dumb ones? Why do they call them dumb? By the way, why alright. Well, that's not really for our conversation, but the little round ones, I I actually have to go pick up a check to pay a bill later.
I'm gonna I'm gonna get a root beer on there, I think.
The root beer is the best flavor.
I you and I agree on this. Absolutely. Yeah. By the time you leave that hospital, have people come to visit? Do you feel any better?
Is it still just scary? What what what happened during that time that worked for you or didn't work for you?
It was all scary. I, like, was not happy that I had to get shots because I was thinking, like, it's a shot every time I have to eat. So then I would, like, just be upset because I didn't wanna, like, have a shot all the time because it was really annoying. My she used to be my babysitter, and she came she came and visit me in the hospital. And she's, like, the best, and she visits us even though she doesn't babysit us anymore because she's more like a family than just a babysitter.
Finding Community16:35
That's sweet. Do you know anybody else who has type one diabetes?
Yes. Who? A lot of people. So nobody in my school, but I have, like, a lot of friends through, like, the youth ambassadors and through Breakthrough. Oh, yeah.
A lot of friends.
Oh, you're doing stuff with Breakthrough?
Yeah.
Oh, that's nice. How long have you been at that?
A couple years.
What what are some things you've done so far?
So, I'm a youth ambassador as of this year and last year. We went to, like, the turtle back soon meetup just when we got diagnosed because we got really lucky just when we got diagnosed. Like, the meetup was right after that. And then we went we do the walks every year. I don't think parents run the support group.
That's very nice. Brianna, I don't think anyone's ever described I was very lucky about when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes because I guys go to the zoo. Kinda nice.
What Yeah.
I'm wondering, Jesse, did is this a thing you and your wife decided to do and then she started being involved? Do you feel like it's a thing you introduced her to, drug her into, or that she was interested in?
So I think the driving factor I mean, well, like Brianna said, we we did get lucky timing wise, like, right after we come home. We've we learn about, you know, obviously, in the hospital, they give you all the resources. We were at Jersey Shore, and Jersey Shore was amazing. Her doctor her doctor is amazing. But, like, at that time, they gave us all the resources.
Hey. You could go to this. You could go to that. So we ultimately did go to the meetup. She met like, we're still friends with the people that we met that day, but it was a it had a huge impact that day, like, in how she connected with a current youth like a youth there was I think she was a she was eight, and the youth ambassador at the time was, like, 16, 17, 18, someplace in there.
She was just going to college, and she was so helpful to Brianna. And then there was other girls there who had different pumps and whatnot, and they were talking about it the whole time. So that was, like, a huge connection. And then after that, she goes back to school, and she doesn't have anybody in her school who has type one. So it was kinda like a phase of, like, you know Yeah.
Being alone.
Yeah. You felt surrounded then alone. And did that did that make you want to be? Are you
So then
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah. I that's a good one to be or not. So it was kinda like, well, she needs some connection. Like, who can we connect her with? And, like, we were trying as parents to do things to kind of connect her to people with type one so she didn't feel alone.
Mhmm.
And then, and then she kinda took it from there, I think.
Do you feel that way, Brianna? Do you feel like it was your decision to do this stuff?
I feel like you guys kinda, like, pushed it and, like, had me do it, but then I, like, liked it, so we kept doing it.
So instead of pushed it, we'll say they introduced you to it, and you weren't sure at first, but then you really liked it.
Yeah.
That's true. We should clip this part out and send it to my kids. You've probably heard me talk about US Med and how simple it is to reorder with US Med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you.
But I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email because I don't trust myself, a 100%. So one time, I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings at the house. And it's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up.
Was like, hello? And it was just the recording. It was like, US med. Doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, hey.
You're, I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, hey. Your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it. Or if you'd like to wait, I think it it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks or push this button for that.
That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it. Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. Get your free benefits checked now and get started with US Med.
Dexcom, Omnipod, Tandem, Freestyle, they've got all your favorites. Even that new islet pump. Check them out now at usmed.com/juicebox or by calling (888) 721-1514. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at juiceboxpodcast.com to US Med and to all of the sponsors. You know what I mean?
Maybe once in a while, we know something. Who knows? Crazy, Jess. You're right. Like, every once in a while, might have a good idea.
It's hard to believe.
The Picnic She Organized21:28
Breanne Brianna's the type that she just does, though. She, like, you know, she gets something in her mind and wants to do it, and she just does it. So Okay. And I in in my eyes, she did it. But a good example is, like, last year as a youth pastor, part of her requirements of doing things, like, she's like, I wanna have a picnic for everybody.
And she was like, you know, she came up with the idea and she was like, let's do it. And she put together a picnic for all the youth ambassadors, and that would you know, it's all her. She's gets this idea, and she does it.
Brianna, how do you facilitate that? Like, once you have the idea, how do you put it into motion to make it happen?
So I introduced the idea to them. They said it was a great idea, and then I started to make it happen. I just made, like, the RCP. I decided where we would do it. We did it in Liberty State Park, and it was very fun.
Now do you need to get, like, a like, can you just show up at Liberty State Park with a 100 people? Do you need to get a permit? Like, I'm trying to figure out, like, who does all that back end stuff? Or do you just look at your mom and go, it would be nice if there was a picnic at Liberty State Park. Let's get it.
Let's make it happen.
Yeah. Dad, looked into it, and he figured out, like, how we do it. There's, like, little rent out spots that we rented out, like, a little section. There was, like, six picnic tables, I think.
Yeah. And It sounds like you're your dad's project manager.
Yeah. She had she has she came up with the idea and then, you know, the permit part. I was like, okay. I'll take care of the permit. But she put together the whole RSVP.
She sent out to the group, and, you know, she had people come with and while we were there, I guess she did she did a couple of different games that we didn't even know. Like, she she had it all planned, like, as far as I just, you know, did the legwork as far as the little stuff,
but Very nice.
Made the actual day happen.
Brianna, do you think those that group of kids, are they would you describe yourselves as friends or just people who do a similar thing and get together once in a while?
I'm friends with, like, some of them. Some of them, I don't they didn't really talk, but, like, I'm friends with, like, some of them still. And, like, there's a youth ambassador group chat that I'm in, and we talk. And I made a lot of friends through that.
Well, that's a great idea. Do do would you I I this is I don't mean for this to be negative, and I really I'm just trying to understand, like, the bigger picture. Do you think there are kids who are doing it who are just like, I don't wanna be doing this, or do you think well, this that was a quick yes. Okay. What what gives you that idea besides they probably told you that I don't wanna be doing this?
They just don't do anything. They just, like, sit there and are like, I don't wanna be here kinda thing. Like, at the summit, there was, like, some youth ambassadors that clearly did not wanna be there, You could tell their parents wanted them to be there and kinda force them.
Mhmm. Do you think have you ever seen one of those kids come around, or do they generally go in the same direction that they start?
They go in the same direction.
Okay. What do you think what do you think you're getting out of the experience that is not intersecting with those people?
I think I'm getting out of it a lot of good because I'm meeting a lot of friends, and those people, they just stand there. They don't affect me. So
No. No. No. I don't mean that they're doing anything wrong. I mean, like, why like, well, how do I mean this?
If I if I brought a birthday cake to 10 people and five of them love cake and five of them don't, then there's something that the five who are enjoying it are getting that the other five don't. Right? So about that experience about being a youth ambassador, like, what is it that you love about it, and do you have any thoughts about why they don't feel the same way?
I think I love it because it's probably more of my, like, interest, and I like helping people. And not everyone likes to be, like, helping people that, like, need help and, like, meeting new people because I understand that some people are shy.
Okay. So you think sometimes it's just some people are shy or they're not the same in social situations, that kind of thing. And you're more outgoing?
Yeah.
Onto the Trampoline25:51
Okay. What else do you do with your time? I I mean, you go to school obviously, but do you have activities that you do?
I'm a trampolingianist.
Oh, like, Charlotte.
Yeah.
Oh, do you know her?
Yeah.
Oh, wow. Tell me a little bit about that. How does that get started?
I I wouldn't say you know her. You
know. Well, she knows of her. Yeah. Yeah.
I know of her. Yeah.
Well, she might hear this and then you might know her. Who knows about that? But tell me about, how that gets started. How do you start doing that specific activity?
So at, like, two or three, I think, or three or four, I started artistic gymnastics and did that for a couple years as, like, a little kid. I loved doing everything myself. Like, every time I was doing, like, pullovers on the bar, my coach would be try to help me, but I was like, no. And then that place got shut down, and it was COVID. I kept doing, like, cartwheels and handstands around the house.
And for when after COVID happened, my parents were looking into gyms, and we found one that's, like, five minutes around the corner. And I absolutely love it, and it happened to be a trampoline gymnastics gym. Everyone there is very nice, and I love it there because I'm on the team now, and I'm going to nationals next week.
Oh, congratulations. That's really awesome. So you've been doing it for a number of years?
Yeah.
For longer than you've had diabetes?
I've been doing I would say I've been doing trampoline for four years, and I've been diagnosed for three because I remember I did a year without having diabetes. But Okay. Yeah.
So do you know that a lot of people who have type one will say that the thing that they're most scared of is a trampoline?
Yeah.
Yeah. Do you know why that is, and how have you figured it out?
So last week, I was at practice. I was just doing my routines, getting ready for nationals, and kept flying off the trampoline. I was low that whole practice. I ended up leaving early because I ended up doing my routine on tumbling to my stomach, which hurt. And, yeah, I can tell.
And, also, they make your blood sugar drop like crazy.
Yeah. So how do you handle that?
That's a good question. I don't really know because I just we always do activity mode. I have an Omnipod five. And then we have a bunch of Gatorades and juice in my backpack in case I need it.
Often how often do you need it? Like, how long's I guess, how long does a practice take?
Okay. So this fall practice
is Wait a second. Your dad just laughed like, my whole life.
Well, the fall practices were three and a half hours to four, and then the summer are three to four hours.
Wow. Are you moving the entire time, or is it because
there's fifteen minute break for, four hour prac four hour practices.
But my point is is, like, how many people are in the group? Like, how many people are on the team?
So there's, like, 30 people on the team. We have three events. Not everyone ever comes, so there's not been a single day unless it was, like, a mandatory practice before our competition that everyone has been there. Mhmm. And so there's, like, 25 people.
And And do those 25 people, are they active all at the same time, or are they taking turns?
We take turns, but, like, when you're not taking your turn, you're either doing drills, pushing the mat for people on trampoline, or, like, gutting water.
Okay. So you're always moving?
Pretty much.
Okay.
Sometimes you get a break.
How often do you get low during a practice that's three or four hours long?
So I think the thing that makes it, like, even out is because when I get, like, stressed about doing a new skill or my routine or something or presenting anything, I get a little nervous, which makes my blood sugar go up. So that probably prevents a lot of lows. And then I think if I, like, am just doing a regular practice, I can get low up to, like it can be from zero to, like, 10 times. I'm not even joking. I get low a lot.
Do you have to eat before you go to practice, or do you try not to do that?
So it always works out that I eat before practice because practices are like the fall ones were 05:30 to nine and, like, ten to two in the morning. Well, yeah, in Saturday. So I would have my breakfast before I leave, and I would or I would have dinner before I leave, and I always have a snack before I leave.
Managing Lows in Practice30:30
So I'm sorry. 05:30 in the morning?
05:30 at night.
Oh god. Yeah. I was like,
jeez. So, like, gymnastics is crazy because it's literally twelve hours a week. And, like like, I would love to say, like, we strategically eat at such a certain time and, you know, manage the, like, a low carb thing so you don't put a lot of insulin on board.
Like Right.
That would be a perfect world.
We're just not dose a lot.
It's just it's impossible. So, like Yeah. Because she comes home from school and then she goes straight to gymnastics, like, it's she has to eat. And then depending on what she eats, like, we'll dose we'll do, like, a half dose. We'll you know, so she'll run high, and then she'll come crashing down as soon as she gets on a trampoline.
And what's interesting is, like, during gymnastics, like, she could be tumbling for an hour straight or on the double mini, which is, like, kinda like a vault for two hours, and she won't really come down. She can be stubbornly high.
But then
as soon as she gets on the trampoline, she'll she'll crash.
That happens.
And then sometimes, you don't know. If it's raining, that means, like, we should dose a little bit extra because that means we're not gonna run outside in the beginning unless we have Rob, but he because he makes us run.
Rob makes you run-in the rain?
Yeah.
Wow. What a jerk. How come he doesn't care if you're running in the rain? Does he like it maybe? Does he run with you?
He's just he just does that, I guess.
No. No. No. Wait. Does he run with you?
No. Does he stand outside with an umbrella and look at you? No. Does he does he stand inside and wait for you to come back?
No.
What well, how where's Rob doing
the run? As long as it's not thundering. He stands under a tree.
Rob, come on. Make the
kids stand.
It makes the your kids get wet. He doesn't get wet with you? Ridiculous. Yeah. Okay.
Well, we'll we'll we'll see what we can do about that. I bet you Rob never thought he'd be on a podcast standing under a tree. He'll rethink it after he hears this.
Sometimes, if we get lucky, if it's pouring, he'll sometimes let us go inside.
Uh-huh.
How generous. Just run inside.
How generous. So so, Jesse, what you're telling me is is that despite knowing what to do and having a lot of good intentions, life gets in the way and you don't always do what you need to do?
So, I mean, we're we're we are conscious of it and, like, we definitely know, like, alright. Tonight's a gymnastics night. Let's put you in activity mode early. Let's, you know, not load up on the carbs. Let's not crush you with insulin.
You know? Like, so, you know, we are purposeful, you know, and knowing she's gonna eat this meal. We're only dosing half. She's gonna go high, but she is gonna come back down. So it's like so we try to set it up so that she is a little high or she doesn't have a lot of insulin on board so that we can manage the low
We're having dinner really early because if I have dinner early, the insulin has time to, like,
get
out of my system.
So you're making a lot of, like, purposeful steps, but it's just not that easy. And then the trampoline is the x factor.
Yep. Yep. And then, like so what Brianna was talking about last week, she she just was she was literally low for an hour. She was between, I don't know, 65 and, like Two hours. 65 and, like, 72 kinda thing or 50.
How does that 50.
Brianna, how does that feel?
I felt low, and I was just shaky the whole time. And, of course, we had trampoline first that day. Of course. And it was only two people on my trampoline. So it was just me and them switching and switching the whole time, and that person took very short turns.
Yeah. So it's the actually and it was, like, the perfect storm because she had more insulin on board than we than we would like. The person she was sharing a trampoline with was actually injured and she was just kinda like bouncing. So she wasn't really
Oh, yeah.
Doing like a full workout. So Brianna had the trampoline for most of the time. So it was just, you know, like, the fact that she was only as low as, like, 65, 60, whatever it was, like, it it's actually kind of crazy because she should have been way lower.
Yeah. Yeah.
And and, Brenna, when that's happening, does your dad know I'm I'm I'm assuming your dad's the one who sits with you and watches most of the time?
Yeah. Okay. So if if I'm good, like, if I'm, like, if I'm, like, one eighty, I don't have a bunch of insulin on board. If I'm, like, maybe one and then I'm a little bit a lot of insulin on board. They stay in the area because it's really close, so they just stay home.
And if they see me dropping, they'll come and see if I need anything, or they'll sit in the parking lot and stuff.
Okay. And do you ever like, when you're feeling like that, tell me why you don't just stop and say
because I don't sometimes I feel like that when I'm high. Sometimes I feel that because I'm nervous about a routine. It's I can't tell if it's low or not, and sometimes it's not low. And it's just really
So you don't wanna go to your phone to check?
I don't know, actually.
I think I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just trying to understand, like, what happens.
So it would be good if I had my watch on, but, like, I typically don't have my watch on when I'm tumbling because I have these things called tiger paws, which go on your wrist and help you tumble. So I can't really wear my watch with them, so I take it off. But sometimes I just take it off before practice because it's just easier
Yeah.
So
I don't forget. And then when I'm putting my Tiger Paws on, I have my watch on, have to go take it off, put it back in the break room, and get it back out.
The break room. So is is your phone not out near you while you're jumping?
It's close. Yeah. It's in the the break room's just like the cubby room that it's like a little room attached to it. It's where we put our bags and stuff. And the gym's not that big, so no matter where I am, it pretty much will always connect.
Okay. So you're so you're Dexcom connected, but it doesn't necessarily mean Dexcom. Right, Libre? What are you
using? Dexcom.
So it's connected, but you but you don't necessarily hear the phone. So now you're just left with how you feel. When you don't feel right, you don't go check on yourself.
Sometimes if I really don't feel right, I'll go and I'll ask for water, and then I'll go. All the coaches know. So just, like, know it.
I'll go. And and and would they be upset if you went and took care of something?
I just ask them first because you have to ask.
But Let me
Unless you're on trampoline with like, certain coaches, then sometimes you don't have to ask for, like, water.
Bre Brown, let me ask your dad the question. Okay? Is she being judged, Jesse? Is there a fear that she's gonna not be treated seriously or something like that?
No. Her her coach so, this is, like, the parents' challenge. Like, I don't we talked to the coaches, and we were kinda like, we don't want to put the phone with you, and they don't kinda, like, make you responsible because they're busy making sure girls don't hurt themselves. So, I mean, they're they're constantly doing stuff. So they they really can't pay attention to it at all to a degree.
At competitions, though, they hold my phone sometimes. And, like, during regional's warm up, because that place was huge, they, like, had me hold my phone. And then when I was taking my turn, they took it for me and just held it while they were holding
the mats. Okay.
And they and they're good. Like, pretty much, like, anytime I walk into the gym, they literally look right at me, and it's kinda like, do you need her? Is she low? Yeah. You know, they're kinda, like, looking to understand.
Over. You know, like, we we know why you're here. You're here because she's low again. Okay. And they call they say, Brianna, and Brianna comes running over.
So it's kinda like just a I mean, it's more of an understanding. Like, they they really don't know anything about it and, you know, the intricacies and how it works and whatever. They just know
about that. Stuff.
Yeah. They just know if she's low and I walk in or mom walks in, like, chances are we need her, and they just send her over to us and stuff. So
When Lows Cost the Podium39:02
Okay. So, Brianna, let me ask you this. Is trampoline and gymnastics not better for you personally when your blood sugar's more stable or not low?
It like, at States, I probably could have won if I got second place if I wasn't low because I was low and I was, like, had a whole Gatorade, like, a huge like, the big one, which are, like, 35 carbs. I had a whole one of those. I probably could have won if I wasn't, like, shaking the whole time because I was low. Okay. At regionals, I was shaking the whole time because I was just nervous.
But if I notice if I'm low or if I'm high, I don't perform as well as if I am, like, in range.
Mhmm. Now I'm keeping in mind that you're 11. Okay? So Yeah. I'm not being hard on you here.
Okay? But if that's the situation, has it occurred to you to just check sooner and make sure that you're gonna be okay? Like, be ahead of it somehow instead of, like because I feel like what's happening is that you're getting low and then addressing it. Is there not a way to address it so you don't get low? So there's still two things happening, except they happen in a different order.
So sometimes I'm on other events. Like, my events are stacked, and they typically have us waiting on the floor for a little while or, like, in the chairs before they bring us out. And I don't have, like, my phones all the way in my bag or my parents have it. So I don't really have, like, anywhere because I can't wear my watch while you compete. So I can't really tell where like, what my numbers are.
So I have to go see so it's kinda, like, on us.
Or, like, I have it for the coaches sometimes if I'm going to, like, the far event. Sometimes I have like, sometimes we're on the floor warming up, and then I have an event right away. So it doesn't think occur to me to check because I'm always the last in line. It's either I'm the first in line and they're we're waiting on everyone else or I'm the last in line. And if I'm the last in line, that means I was rushing.
So
Mhmm.
That means I don't really have time. I just have to grab my tramp shoes or my tiger paws and run to the, event.
Mhmm. So is so, Jesse, is it that you're not seeing it coming? Because, like So Like, listen, Brianna, have you ever heard this an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
An Ounce of Prevention41:18
Yeah.
Have you heard that?
Yeah. Do you
know who said it? No. Benjamin Franklin. Do you know when he said it? No.
02/04/1735.
1735.
Let's let's do the quick math on that. 1835, 1935, 2035. It's 2026, so we take nine away from that. It seems like that might be one to two hundred and ninety one years ago maybe if my math is, like, roughly right. How come we haven't learned yet?
What Ben Franklin was trying to tell us, Brianna. What's going on? How come we're slow learners, people? Because I I have the same problem. Let me may I share something with Mhmm.
I was just on a cruise. I was gone for nine days. Every day I was gone, two travel days, seven days on the ship. I took all of my vitamins. I did all the things I was supposed to do for myself that I've set up previously.
I had a wonderful nine days. I got home, and the second day I was home, I didn't take my vitamins. What what's wrong with me? How come I forgot? Do you know what I mean?
Like, how come Yeah. Why is it hard to pre bolus? How come come we don't wanna, like, make sure we're okay before we start, but we're willing to be dizzy for an hour afterwards, etcetera? It's a human thing. You're 11.
I'm not asking you for for an answer. Okay? I just think it's an incredibly common problem, and but you have a very specific use case. So, like, it feels to me like somewhere in here is I don't know. Like, I hear what you're saying.
Like, I can't stop because nothing's wrong, but then eventually, you have to stop because something's wrong. So why not stop first for less time, stop the problem, don't be low for an hour on the trampoline, enjoy the whole thing. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay.
Then tell me, just from your brain, why doesn't that happen?
Probably because I rush for water breaks and stuff.
Okay. That's it. You just think you're not focused on it?
No. I prob I don't think about it.
But do you think go ahead, Jess. Sorry, Jess. And you're welcome, by the way. You don't have to pay me. I'm just I'm just here asking questions.
Go ahead.
I I this this conversation, and I think you hit the nail on the head, it's a well, I was gonna say it's because 11 years old, but it's all you're right. It is also a human factor because why don't we
I just had a conversation like this twenty five minutes ago with a 22 year old, so I don't know what you're talking about. But So
in alright. In my mind, I I just pray that it's just because it's an 11 year old. You know? But at yeah. I I get it.
It's so it happens in school too. Like, we're kinda like she has a whole nurse story where she had substitute nurses for a year, and it was it was miserable.
Because my nurse was out with a wrist injury. So we were like there's a bunch of sub nurses. One of them, one time called me down. So I had gym in, like, four hours. Four hours.
And lunch didn't happen. Snack didn't happen. I was 90. They called me down, worried. They were like, you need to get up before gym, which was in four hours.
And I'm like, okay. I still have lunch and snack for gym. And they were like and they were really worried because they thought it would be low for gym, and it had to be, quote, unquote, 90 for gym. But the orders said 70 no. Sorry.
80. But they crossed it out in pencil, and they wrote 90, which they said the doctor signed these orders, but the doctor didn't sign 90. So
The weakest link is always people. I just wanna say that. I just think listen. I could tell you that I sat I don't even think this person would mind me saying that I'm not gonna use their name, but I sat with a a woman in her forties five days ago who told me, I don't know. I can't get myself to do it.
So I think it's everybody. I think it's a problem. I think that this isn't how we live, but you have a real opportunity, Brianna. You have a real opportunity to just make some slight changes about how you do things and I just think alleviate a lot of problems for yourself.
Because, like, even in school, we're kinda like, you know, before you even hit 70, why are why are we not having the snack? Like, why are
we not
having like, just little things like that. You know?
But I was 90 stable, and they called me down worried because I had gym in
a couple. Well, not that not that I don't think your dad means that situation. Like, when you're 85 diagonal down, you look at it and you think, it's gonna stop. Right?
Mhmm.
Yeah. You don't think
I typically
Go ahead.
Once I'm, like, in the eighties and I've been continuing to go down, then I probably pop a few gummies. And then when I'm, like, in the seventies, then I pop the rest. And if I'm, like, 60, I pop a couple more.
Okay. Well, listen. First of all, let me say this. I I you sound, like, terrific, and I think you're doing a great job. It's not these are certainly, like, just edge case ideas.
I mean, let's tell people. What's your a one c?
A 6.1, and Doing Great46:33
I think your last was six two. 61.
That's awesome.
I think it was 62.
You bowl you bowl us for your own meals? Do your parents help you?
I bowl us for my own meals.
Well, you you're doing fantastic. That's the first thing to say. Right? Absolutely fantastic. This is these these are tiny adjustments on the outside of of the of the bigger thing.
It sounds like you're doing terrific. You are a lovely kid. I'm enjoying talking to you very much. You're smart and thoughtful, and I'm sure your dad and mom are very, very proud of you. I know.
Just talking to you for a little bit, I feel very proud of you for how well you're taking care of yourself. That's all awesome. I'm just saying this is a big idea that you could work on a little bit. I think it would make a huge difference in your life. I think I think, Brianna, twenty let's just say ten years from now, you come back on the podcast and you're like, Scott, I took that advice.
It changed my life. Let me just tell you of all the ways I'm happier now. And, and that wouldn't that be lovely?
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. And by then, podcast would probably be like holograms maybe or something like that. Yeah. Who would even know what it's gonna be?
Can you even imagine what technology is gonna look like in ten years?
It's gonna be like flying cars.
Uh-huh. No. They always said the cars are gonna fly around.
Thought. Are you are you gonna retire, and is Arden gonna take over the podcast?
I listen. I explained to Arden. What we have here is what they call a turnkey business, but she doesn't she's busy wanting to be a forensic psychologist at the moment. So Okay. Although, I think that'd make a great podcaster.
I don't know what she'll do. She's she's gonna be 22 in a couple of weeks. Do know what I mean?
Still young.
Yeah. Right. Right. She's very young. She just got her first job.
She's out working. You know, we're still at the point where I'm like, hey. You forgot this. And she's I like, don't need you to tell me what to do. And I'm like, oh, man.
It's been sitting here for four days. So it feels like I'm just I'm not telling you you need it. I'm just trying to remind you. I'm trying to love you. And, but it it's not her.
Do know what I mean? Like, it's not her. It's not my relationship with her. Everybody listening has this happening in their lives. It's just I don't know.
I don't really know how to put it. I can I can explain it, but I don't know how to quantify it? People just we you know, I I found myself saying it this way recently. Brana, this is getting boring for you for a second. Hold on tight.
Okay? For my entire life, I've been told the American health care system is terrible. There's not enough prevention. It's only about taking care of disease once it comes. It's the it's the fault of the doctors.
It's the fault of the system. It's the fault of the way it's set up. It's the way I think it's just people. Yeah. I just really think that that it's hard to focus on something that hasn't happened yet.
And this is what, you know, the outcome is. Now I bet you didn't know, Brianna, that Benjamin Franklin was a was a a genius way before, way before people knew. He was writing books telling people how to you know, telling people about common sense and all this stuff. This ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Means go for a walk before you gain 50 pounds.
You know what I mean? He means put down the cigar before you cough and you die, like that kind of stuff. And, it's taken three hundred years and I don't think we heard him once. So I don't know what to say other than you can't fix the world, but, you know, you can do something for yourself. So Yeah.
Not everybody's gonna do it, but some people will.
Mhmm.
Yeah. Alright. Well, you listen. You're fantastic. Obviously, know this already.
Brandon, tell me a little bit about, your management. I wanna know about pod changes, CGM changes. Do you feel do do you understand how valuable the technology is, or does it just all seem common and normal to you? So what's it like using all that technology?
I love the Omnipod, but it the control is very not so great. My I've had so many dysfunctional pods lately. They've the last three have ended early because they either they all were low on insulin, which is not the pod's problem, though. But, like, a lot of them have been leaking. Like, I've had to change a ton of pods early.
Pods, Leaks, and the Algorithm50:59
Yes, sweetheart. Some of them got recalled. Did you go through them and pull out the bad ones?
We we already got rid of the bad ones, but, like, they they've seemed to be different ones that were, like, not working.
Oh my goodness.
They're random ones.
Did they replace them for you?
Yeah. Omnipod's great at replacing.
Like, Insulin's amazing. Problem.
Yeah. It's a good company. It really is.
They're, like, no problem replacing. Everyone's really nice.
Yeah. Brianna, could you say omnipod.com/juicebox for me?
Omnipod.com/juicebox.
Thank you. Very good. That's excellent. I would like to say I'll split the clicks with you, but I'm not going to. I don't wanna lie to you.
You're a child, and I don't think it's right to lie to you. Okay? Are you on the social media on the, what do they call, the TokTik and, Instagram, stuff like that? No. No?
Do you want to be? No. Good. Never go on it. Okay?
I'm I'm giving you great advice here, Brianna. We can build a life around this. Ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure. Stay off TikTok. Don't look at Instagram reels.
Okay? It's it's like it's it's it's like a drug for your brain. You don't need it. Do your friends do it? These friends?
Are they scrolling?
No. Not really. Awesome. The boys in my class, though.
Well, boys, we don't care about boys. They're dirty.
Yeah. Boys are annoying.
No. Of course, they're annoying. I'm annoying. Trust me. I was just I was an hour ago, my wife's like, can you rub my head?
I rubbed her head, then I said something. She goes, I don't find this part fun. I was like, okay. It's like, fine. I'm I'm I'm she still doesn't like me.
That's not the point. The point is this. I'm wondering if people your age are are they is the is the flow coming after the ebb? You know what I mean? Like, is social media becoming a thing that kids are rejecting a little bit now?
Like, the kids in, like, my grade are not really super, like they're not, like some of them are, like, always on their phones while some of them, like, actually, like, having fun and actually, like, hanging out. But then, like like, everyone's just, like, in group chats. Can I hang is anybody available? Can you guys hang out? And most of the girls don't play video games, but I feel like all the boys who play video games
Mhmm.
They're already, like, trapped and they can't get out of it.
Yeah. What what are they playing on their phone? Clash of Clans?
They're playing, Battle Royale.
Battle Royale? That's the one I meant. Okay. Right?
And then what's the other one? There's one more. I can't think of it.
Mhmm. Mhmm. You're here to help people?
On Roblox. Anything on Roblox. Roblox? Yep.
Okay. And you girls are you're upset by this? The boys are silly?
Yeah. Yeah. But we don't care because
It's smart. It's very smart. So they're out there messing around. The girls aren't doing it so much anymore, and I think that's good. I think that's a that's good movement.
And what are you doing with that time instead? I mean, I know you're doing trampoline, gymnastics, but what else are you doing?
So when I'm not doing that, I'm also doing camp or I'm on vacation. Outside. School and homework.
Yeah. But you like being outside?
Yeah.
You guys near the beach?
We're like we we're really close to 6 Flags.
Oh. Oh, that's right. We live oddly close to each other. Right? Jesse.
Right?
Yeah. Yeah. We're a couple of towns over. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we live very, very close to each other. Is it possible we've seen each other at a shop right or a Wawa one time?
We didn't even know it.
It's probably possible.
It's absolutely possible. I try to stay out of the Wawa now. There's not much in there for me. Not since I've, been on the GOP, as you know. Any other prop
time like, the last time I went to Wawa was, like, a while ago. It was when we were in Pennsylvania, and we got watermelon from there. That's all we got.
I I listen. This is this is just between me and Wawa right now, but you guys, you've ruined soft pretzels for the world. Everybody thinks those terrible pretzels that you sell are pretzels. We all know they're not. Why not just team up with the Philadelphia Pretzel Factory or something like that?
And and you know what I'm saying, Jesse. But these these cakey terrible oh god. I'm gonna curse and you're a small child here. That's how bad I hate these pretzels. Do better.
I mean, you you you got all that money to give to Jason Kelce. You can't give a little bit of it to pretzels? Am I wrong? Are you a Phillies fan, Brianna? No.
Oh my god. Are you you're a Yankees fan, are you?
Yeah.
Oh my gosh. Your father's let you down. You know that. Right?
We watch hockey though a lot.
Rangers or the Islanders?
The Devils.
The Devils. Oh my god. Terrible. I mean, they just they ruined my childhood.
Yeah. Devils devils are killing me.
Yeah. They're not that good.
Jesse, are you old enough to to understand that a trap defense ruined my teenage years?
If I no.
That's not a reference you understand?
No.
Okay. Well, the devils played in a horribly boring version of defense.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're trapped. Yes.
Yes. Yes. Okay. And they ruined Eric Lindros in all that time for us. I hope everyone's happy.
Please.
The devils the devils were solid back then.
Yeah. They had Brodure.
Not so much.
When Brodure was their goalie.
Brodure, Stevens, Danica. They're they're they used to be good.
Yeah. They used to be Yeah. Yeah. No. Not no more.
I see. They let New Jersey down. Brandon so, Brandon, you have good friends. You guys get together. You go to each other's houses.
Sounds like you're outside. You're staying off your phones, doing your homework. I like all of this. What do you want this is a very early question. You're gonna change your mind 10 times between now and then, but do you have any idea what what what are some of things you've been interested in, and where do you see yourself going after high school?
Nurse or Endocrinologist57:03
So I think I wanna go to college. I'm probably wanna be a nurse.
Oh. Oh, that's nice. My, daughter's friend, Nadia, she was here last night. She just graduated with her undergrad and in September, she's starting nursing school.
Nice. I'm either gonna be a nurse or an endocrinologist.
Oh, wow. Gonna go all the way?
Yeah.
That's good, Jess. You could just work another fifty or sixty years and and get all that taken care of for the college.
Well, I'm hoping that my wife, she
works Still works.
A nurse, and I hope she stays there. Oh, free tuition. I hope my daughter goes there. Oh. That's the plan.
Jesse's like, listen. Honey, do whatever you want. We just want you to be happy. As long as that happiness happens at Rutgers, that'll be fine. Or
or if you're gonna go someplace else, pick the place and, hopefully, my wife can get a job there and she could also get the same bathroom.
Unless mommy can get a job somewhere else. This is one of the greatest things. I have a friend whose kids both went to Princeton. He worked on the ground crew there.
That's amazing.
Yeah. That's awesome, isn't it? He went there absolutely free. He cut a lot of lawns and put down a lot of roads, and I know why he was doing it.
Yeah.
Yeah. Hey. Good dad. Alright. So what do I what am I not asking you, Brianna?
Like, what should I know about living with diabetes that you know and you wanna share with people?
If, like, if you're newly diagnosed, it's all gonna be okay. It's gonna be hard in the beginning, and giving yourself shots doesn't hurt after a while.
You stop worrying about that?
Yeah. Yeah. And the Omnipod is a good pump if you're a little kid, but, like, the control is not great. But the
What do you mean? Like, the screen?
Replaced a lot.
The like, you don't like the screen where you interact with it? What are you telling me about the control of it?
I feel like it just doesn't it doesn't, like, have great control like these other pumps and, like, the algorithm's not so great. But
You're 11. Where better. You're 11. Where'd you hear that from?
Your podcast.
Wait. You listen to the podcast?
Yes.
I didn't say I've never said those things, by the way. I just wanna say that. But
coming directly from me. She's she's she's, like Yeah.
That's from him. He he said he said that it sucks, and that I had a choice to do it. I
I don't think the Omnipod's aggressive enough, like, with the highs and stuff. And I think part of it part of it is, like, the way we're the way we do things and the way like, sometimes she'll forget to pre bolus. Sometimes she'll forget to bolus at all. And then once we get high, it's like a mountain to get her down.
Did you did you switch to the hunt the new 100 target?
It won't let us.
It's really weird. What do mean it won't let you?
Your pod does not support this.
Your pod doesn't support this. So you need new pods so you can do the 100 target?
I'm pretty sure.
How many how many pods do you have left before you get to that?
I don't know. I thought like, we had the g six, g seven pods. I don't know if there's a newer one.
Have you called them to ask?
Yeah. We so we literally just tried the 100 thing, like, yesterday or the day before.
Oh, okay.
So Yeah.
I think it's gonna be valuable for you. I also think that
I agree.
Yeah. I also am very, sort of excited after talking to them recently about about some things. I'm excited about the Omnipod six too. Yeah. So you've never used the Go ahead.
I'm sorry. I I've called them before for, like, different, like, you know, gymnastic strategies. Like, we we've had issues where because she's tumbling around and bouncing around like crazy. Like, I feel like every day after gymnastics, whether it's the morning or sometimes it makes it to the evening, the day after a gymnastics
practice. COL.
Like, I feel like the cannula just kinda wiggles its way out or something.
Yeah. I've That one's easy.
I've called them to say, hey. What what strategies can we do? Like, is it is there different different overlays other than the pod pals? Are there different
We use the ones with, like, the strap that goes over it. Those work better, but we like, they told us this technique that, like, instead of, like, pinching it when you put it on, like, stretch out, like, the skin a little bit. So it goes on and there's, like, room for it to move, and we I don't think we've had a single leaking pump since we tried doing that.
That's cool. But I have a better, option. Do know what Vetrap is?
We we used to use that, but I don't like it.
Well, you don't have to like it for it to work.
It's really uncomfortable.
You know what else is uncomfortable? Changing your pod.
Using a lot of insulin, changing the pod.
Jesse's That rap is Jesse's like, listen.
Can you come to my house? Can you come
to my
house and just say things while you're walking around out loud? Well, does it help you, Jesse, to know that you are saying things to your daughter that all of us are saying to our kids and adults with type one are quietly saying in their own heads to themselves?
It it's it's funny. And it's funny you said TikTok. I literally watched a TikTok video yesterday, and it was of a kid, you know, like, 18, 19, 20, or whatever going on a date. And he walks down to the car, and he opens the passenger door and lets his girlfriend in and then closes the door. And the caption of the video was essentially like, your kids are always paying attention.
At least he learned something or whatever.
At least he learned something.
Yeah. And it and I'm like, well, you know, it's it's true because your kids do listen, you know, and she's she pretty much said everything I've said. Whatever she said that's good or bad, I've said it.
I've learned to believe that some of it's gonna stick and some of it's not, and I'm not in control of what parts stick and what parts don't.
A 100%.
Yeah. And that hopefully, one day, if one of the things that didn't stick creates an issue, that their personal interaction with that issue will lead them to pivot and make a change. And if they don't, then I think we're at the part where we say people get to do whatever they want with their lives, and it's not up to somebody
else's thoughts. You just teach them as many good things as you can and hopefully and she has enough of those good things to take away that, you know, make
Yeah. Listen. I mean
poor character good.
Sure. Ben Franklin tried three hundred years ago, but maybe five more years is all Brianna needs. Brianna, everything that you've ever heard, like a t shirt slogan or a saying, those things are common because those are the things that people struggle with that other people are constantly saying all the time.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? So just pick a couple of those things and and be kind to yourself and do them.
Mhmm.
You know what I mean?
Kids Are Always Watching1:04:06
Yeah.
You have brothers or sisters?
I have one brother.
Are you smarter than him, do you
think? Yes. Mhmm.
How old is he? Seven. Oh my well, you should be. He's seven. Well,
I was smarter than him at his age anyways.
I'm sure he'll.
Because he watches these, like, YouTube videos. They're, like, brain rotting, but I did it. I had to watch educational shows when I was really little, and I'm really smart.
So Jesse, what happened? You give up after the first one? Yeah. Yeah. I get tired.
It was mom.
So Oh, your
mom get don't say well, I don't think it's a good thing for us to say that your mom gave up.
Gonna say too much. Okay. Alright. She was very she was strict with Brianna, and that has gone out the window. And and to be honest with you, like, I think since the diagnosis, we've we've definitely let a lot of stuff go, as far as just not being overwhelmed all the time or whatever.
But there's times where you're just tired or overwhelmed and, yeah, we we definitely have let changed perspectives and changed the way we do things a little bit.
Mhmm. No. I mean, listen. Maybe you've heard this the the saying something's gotta give. Yep.
Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Brandon, when you grow up, if you when you come back in ten years, when I will be, by the way, a 64 year old making a type one diabetes podcast, You tell me if this rings true. Moms have a strange and very interesting connection with their firstborn sons.
You see if that comes true. Okay?
K.
Alright. My my wife treats my son like he's the king of, the world. And sometimes he's not, by the way, and that doesn't seem to matter. That boy is her that's her boyfriend, that kid. You know what I'm saying?
Is your mom super nice to your brother?
Yep. Yeah. Do you
feel like he's not being, given the same rules because she likes him better? Yep. That's not why, Brianna. It's what I just told you. Okay?
There's a weird mystic connection between ladies and their sons. I don't understand it completely. But I only have forty more years, so I'm still trying to figure it out. Okay?
Figure it out. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm I I think I'm gonna get my wife figured out by the time I'm 80 for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Because then I can figure out my can I say something on the podcast that I'm hopeful no one ever hears in my own life?
I watched Arden last night yell at Kelly for something that she does too with, it felt like zero understanding that she was telling her to do something that she also can't do. Was it was fascinating.
Yeah.
One more context. She Kelly just had a procedure. She's supposed to be taking all these pills and vitamins and everything, and Arden goes, mom, just take this vitamin d. You just had this whole thing done. They told you to take this every day.
It's not hard. It's one pill. She used all of those words. I looked across the room and tried to hold the laugh inside of my face for as long as I could. Mhmm.
Because the very next day, said, Arne, hey. Don't forget these pills. And she said, I don't need your help taking my pills. I said, you haven't taken them in a week. Yep.
That's it. I don't know what's wrong with this.
Remember that lecture?
You get that one, Brown? Yep. Yeah. Are there pills you're supposed to be taking?
Well, I have vitamins that mom has me take sometimes, But she said, you don't like them. Well, nobody reminds me to take them, so I kinda forget about them. And my brother she puts them on my brother's place for him in the morning.
Well, that's
And I make my own breakfast to help her out
Uh-huh.
And she can't remind me to take them.
Unbelievable. What an what an absolute ingrate your mom is. Yep.
This is our life.
It's every hey. Listen, Jesse. It's everybody's life.
Yes.
So, sweetie, can you not set a timer on your phone?
I probably could, but I don't wake up at the same time every morning.
So tell you this. You wanna really get at your mom? You take your vitamins and set the vitamins out for your brother. That'll get her. Oh, she'll hate that.
And they'll make his breakfast.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, oh my god. She'll she'll she'll she'll pop up before you the next day. You'll be like, oh, you're up early.
Never let her also, never let her never let her hear this. I don't want her coming for me. I feel like she could probably find me.
Breakfast and her coffee.
Oh, you well, listen. Let's not get crazy. You got it. You got you gotta get out the door and get to school.
Yeah.
I got yelled at this morning for making a hardened breakfast. I said, hey. I got I I said I was up, so I got some stuff together for you. I thought it might help. I don't need help.
I didn't say you needed help. I was doing a nice thing. She went, mhmm. And that was the end of it. I have no idea what we're talking about half the I just all I know is I went up to my wife and I said, why are you all trying to kill me?
That's all I said. Said, do you have any idea how much I'd get done if everyone left me alone for five minutes? Nevertheless. Alright. So you wanna tell people it gets easier, shots don't hurt as much anymore, not something you're worried about, technology's good, you wish it would get a little better.
Have I heard everything? Also, I heard your dad say at one point, it's not aggressive enough even when we don't bolus. You know you have to bolus. Right?
I bolus, but sometimes, like, randomly when we go out to eat, I don't think. And then I just start eating, and I'm like, oh my god. I did bolus. Because when he reminds me because I completely forgot I had diabetes. I forgot, like, everything, and I was just like, oh.
I think for us too, like, going back to, like, the gymnastics, it's it's, like, it's not normal because we like, gymnastics nights, which is half the week, we're doing half boluses. So, like, our carb ratio and all that stuff for, like, gymnastic nights
Changes.
Would be cut in half if because of the activity. But then, like, on other days, like, show bolus, but we're not a it's just not the ratio is not a 100%. But then there's other days where, like like, now we're kind of falling into our summer routine where the bolus thing, it's we know the ratios are right because everything is good. Like, you you know, there's little activity right now. And
Yeah.
We're kinda transitioning, and numbers are good. And but it's
still weird. Imagine as the years go on, you'll you'll get better and better at all this, honestly. Because it it really does turn into an art form Yep. At some point. Yeah.
It just it's more of a feel. Mean, once your settings are good, it's more of a feel than it is a rule. Correct. Yeah. And it's just more time will will get you to there.
And, I mean, you already said you said at the very beginning, time is what got you this far already.
Yep.
So yeah. You guys I mean, you guys sound like you're doing great. Do you feel like you're doing great, Pearna?
Yeah.
Yeah. What what's the hesitation?
I just feel like sometimes I go really high and sometimes I get low and it's just, like, kind of annoying sometimes. Like Mhmm. Dad said I should switch to the Moby.
I mean, listen. I I think all the pumps work really well. I I think that if you do the thing you're supposed to do, the you know, they all some of I guess, each one of them has a shortcoming somewhere. Yeah. But if you do the things you know you're supposed to do, it should work.
I'm gonna guess that, like, another gen like, even the 100 target should be better for you because it's also not only is it a 100 target, but it also doesn't kick you out of automation as easily or for as long maybe if I'm right about that. And then
My my pump is really weird. Like, we went to a summit for breakthrough one time, and they were, like, talking about the Omnipod six, and it's, like, not supposed to kick you out of, automation, but mine never did that.
Oh, you don't have that problem to begin with. Yeah. Omnipod five, they just updated it about that automation kick out thing. And then six will come out. And then before you know it, as crazy as it sounds, you'll be wearing Omnipod seven one day, you know, or or or or Moby, Revenge of the Moby, or, you know, or whatever they're gonna call it.
By the way, if they use
I'm gonna I wanna switch to the, tubeless Moby, the Toby, when it comes out because I thought that would be, like, a good option because dad says I should switch to the Moby, but I don't wanna do tubes.
So Oh my god. Is the Yeah. Tubeless Moby gonna be called Toby? Yeah. I I just wanna
After say that, it's gonna be the Siggy.
What does that mean?
I don't know.
That means cigarettes, doesn't it?
No.
Alright. We gotta rethink that one. Okay. But I love Toby. By the way, when I when I pointed out that that your dad said that the algorithm wasn't strong enough, but that sometimes you don't bolus, I'm gonna guess about 45 to 50 marketing professionals spread across about five pump companies cheered in their cubicle somewhere.
Yeah. But but and even, like like, again, going back to the gymnastics, like, the bouncing it around and, like, leaky pumps, sometimes it's, you know, like, we think she doesn't bolus and then we go back and we look and we're like, nope. She did bolus, but the pump is just leaking. And it's it's related to the gymnastics because the, you know, the high level activity.
Yeah. But cannulas, you're gonna pull out from every pump.
Yep.
And and and and and fair enough that the the Omnipod is on body, so it rocks a little bit. Yeah. But, you know, if you cover it or hold it like, mean, listen. The answer is the Vetrap. She doesn't like the Vetrap.
The Vetrap would work.
I Yeah. Right. Yes.
It's like the ones the overlays with the strap over them work pretty well also.
Okay. They do help. My point here would be, it would be like buying a car, driving it till it ran out of gas, and then complaining that it ran out of gas because that's what cars do if you don't put gas in
them. Yeah.
And so you you do you know what I mean? Like, this is, like, this is not a perfect system. This is just Yeah. This is what exists. It's fantastic stuff.
I gave a talk to a bunch of kids on the ship, Juice Juice Cruise twenty twenty six that I just got back from. Juice Cruise twenty twenty seven going out of Port Canaveral, I think, wherever Orlando is, in, July 2027. Check out juiceboxpodcast.com/juicecruise">juiceboxpodcast.com/juicecruise for more information. And, another great group this year, not the point. We're sitting with a bunch of kids, and I tried to, like, gently, but, like, explain to them, like, how technology has moved through diabetes.
And the cruise attracts a really wide range of people. There's families there with young kids, middle aged kids, teenagers. There's adults with type one in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies on the cruise. It's a really eclectic group of people that I've somehow collected through our little podcast here. And, I was able to point across the room when I was talking to the kids.
We did a breakout session by age, which was, peer led and and went really well. And I said, there are people over there who've had diabetes for more than fifty years and they didn't have any of this stuff. And if you went over to them right now and said, hey. Complain about your Dexcom. Complain about your Libre.
Complain about your insulin pump. They wouldn't. They because I've talked to them. They'd go, oh, it's terrific. Every once in a while, it does this, but it's not a big deal.
But a person who's hand you know, a person who's handed it three years ago in a world where, you know, where cars actually do drive themselves, not fly, and, you know, when other stuff like that's happening, you're like, well, the thing doesn't thing. Like, how come it doesn't do the thing it's supposed to do? And I think it's I don't know how to, like, how to get the perspective that you need to realize that there are people living right now with type one still whose parents sharpened needles in their kitchen or boiled vials so that they could, you know, reinject again or Mhmm. Peed on a stick to find out what their blood sugar was and you know? I mean, stuff's pretty awesome.
You know what I mean? Yeah.
The Long View1:14:07
Like It really is insane when you think about it. No.
It's yeah. You just have to have once I listen. It's day to day. It doesn't help you. I hear what you're saying.
You jump around while you're doing things and the cannula pulls out. That sucks. We need to get that fixed. But my god. You could be you could be shooting beef and pork insulin.
You know what I mean? Yeah. You you you we'd be talking about in ten years? You'd be talking about you'd be talking about bad stuff. You know what I mean?
So Yeah.
And that's we like, we're we're a 100%, like I mean, it it's absolutely amazing. It's like, I think for us, it's just, like, the the the word that hits it hits it is frustration. And it's just like you go high and it's like, oh, we're high again. And it's like and and it's kinda like you said, the preventative. If we did little steps to prevent it, maybe that would improve because, like, once you hit that high and it's stubborn and, you know, and then now we gotta change the pod after two hours because it's not going down.
It there were things that we could have done to help help try to prevent it.
Yeah. I mean, listen. That right. That's the human condition right there around diabetes. So, like, you just have to figure out.
I'm not, like, I'm not coming down on you. I live the same life you live. You know? But I do find it valuable once in a while to step back. I just put an article up on the on the website for the podcast the other day, and it's just about even, like, how many people actually use insulin pumps.
It's a shockingly low number of people with type one diabetes. You know? And some of them are because it's access or some of it because money, and some of it's just because they just don't do it. CGM is being adopted at a greater rate than pumps are, but still there's plenty of people walking around right now shooting insulin with a needle and chestnut blood sugar with a meter.
Yeah.
So, anyway, you guys are, you're the masters of your own reality. You can do whatever you want. It's not up to me, certainly. I'm probably going to, push off into this day right now and ignore my own advice. So I'm I'm certainly
Just as just as we will. You know? It's
just Exactly. Although, I really might end up with one of those Philadelphia soft pretzels at some point now that we've talked about that. They're still not the best, Jesse, but they're better than what's going on now.
Yeah. I I agree.
You ever have the ones that they used to sell on the street in Philadelphia?
Oh, yeah.
Those are the best.
Yeah.
Yeah. They kinda tasted like exhaust a little bit, but once you got past that, they were the best pretzels.
They they they had they had a very unique flavor.
They did. Do you know how that all used to work? There's a place down there on, the boulevard, outside of of like, in Northeast Philadelphia that made them. I don't know the name of the place. But a lot of transient and homeless people would go in there and they with a little money and they'd buy the pretzels.
Then they go to the traffic light, sit at the light, and sell the pretzels at red lights. And people hearing that might be like, that's like, maybe you think that sucks or something. It's one of my, like, wonderful memories of growing up. It's like my dad seeing those guys and going, oh, hey. You know, let's stop and give this guy give this guy a hand and grab some pretzels and stuff like that.
I know he just peed in a bush, and I didn't care. You know what I mean? Like then he handed you know, we gave him a dollar a dollar for a bag of pretzels, and my dad would give him an extra dollar for himself. And then, now you go to this other place and seven pretzels is $19. I don't you're all I I can't take it, Jesse.
I'm done. Okay? This is it. Brianna, a pretzel's gonna cost $95 when you're my age. No.
No. I swear. You better get a job being the president of the universe or you're gonna be in trouble. You won't never have a pretzel. Alright.
You guys are awesome. I really appreciate you doing this. Brianna, you said everything you needed to say?
Yeah. Alright. But pretzels have been getting worse.
Thank you. I I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing it. God bless you and stay off TikTok for god's sakes.
Yes.
Okay? You don't need that. What do you need to do, Brianna? Give me your top three things you're gonna do moving forward. Go.
Make sure I pre bowl this.
Right.
Win nationals
Right.
And get my a one c to a five.
Well, listen. If I was you, I would've done the I would've done the vitamin thing to piss off my mom. But you do whatever you want. You do whatever you want.
Yeah. Yeah. I can do that too.
Do whatever you want, but, man, that would that would probably bring me a lot of joy if I was 11. I just wanna say.
Do that. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Like, mom, don't worry. I already took my vitamins and and got them out for the boy. He they're all set right on the table.
And made his breakfast.
And and I put a little breakfast over there for him. I'll see you later. I hope you have a good day. You don't even say anything else. You just roll right out of the house.
She'll seethe all day. She'll probably yell at your dad. I just want you to know that's
And I painted the shed and I made
some cough.
Let's not get crazy. Let the let the parents do the the big stuff. Okay.
Dad's gonna make me paint the shed though.
You know what I did this morning before? He's gonna make you paint the shed?
Yeah. Good
job, Jesse. Nice job. I pulled weeds this morning before this.
I don't know how to paint a shed.
He'll teach you. It'll be a nice memory. You'll love it.
If she does it, that'd be cool. I'll take it.
Yeah. Alright. Listen. I gotta go. I gotta wrap up call about the cruise right now with Suzanne.
We gotta talk about what went great what we wanna change for next time.
Yeah. We'll we'll definitely look into that because that seems like a really fun event.
Brianna, we had a great time. We really did. It's it's awesome. I I'll I'll tell you right here at the end. First year we did it, really good.
Some people are like, oh, I wish the ship would have been a little, like, more modern. So I think we might have overcorrected the second year. We were on, like, a really great ship, but it ended up being a little more expensive, probably too expensive for some people. And there was a little less to do for the kids on that ship. It was a little more of a an adult or adults with, like, calm children experience.
So now we have found the nice middle ground, between nice, child friendly, and more affordable, we're we're super excited about. We think this is the one that's gonna strike all the balance that we need. And, you know, maybe we'll look back one day during juice cruise twenty and say, you know, the first two years, we're we're getting going, but we really figured it out in the third year. So that's what we're shooting for. Yeah.
Alright, guys. You guys are terrific. I appreciate you doing this very much. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go live my life. I hope you, have a great summer, and good luck at Nationals.
Thank you.
You're very welcome. Have a great day.
You too. Thank you so much.
Oh, it's a pleasure. The conversation you just enjoyed was brought to you by US Med. Usmed.com/juicebox or call (888) 721-1514. Get started today and get your supplies from US Med. I'd like to thank the Eversense three sixty five for sponsoring this episode of the Juice Box podcast and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every fourteen days, you want the Eversense CGM.
Eversensecgm.com/juicebox. One year. One CGM. To learn more and see if you might be able to get Twist from the pharmacy and try it for free, head to visit.twist.com/juicebox. That's visit.twiist.com/juicebox, or give them a call at 18774.
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