Scott Benner 10/18/21 Scott Benner 10/18/21

#561 Double Whammy

Devon and her child were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes around the same time.

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

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to Episode 561 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today's guest is Devin Devin has type one diabetes. She also has a child with type one diabetes, and they were both diagnosed around the similar time. That's not English, but I'm going to leave it in around the same time. You know what I mean? Devon's actually a nurse, that Oh, she'll tell you about it for you. What am I going to explain the whole podcast in the first two minutes? It's ridiculous. Just listen to it, you'll have a great time. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. Please always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. I'm hoping to personally with this podcast put 2000 new surveys in the pocket of the T one D exchange and you can help you have to be a US citizen who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, and then you go to T one day exchange.org forward slash juice box fill out the survey which takes less than 10 minutes is completely HIPAA compliant and a bazillion percent anonymous. You'll help yourself you'll help other people living with type one, you'll help the show

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one head there right now to get your tickets for dancing for diabetes. Are you in the Orlando area and would like to see an amazing dancing extravaganza? The extravaganza doesn't dance there's a lot of dancing that makes an extravaganza but I think you understood touched by type one.org had there right now. The event happens at Let me see where I'll tell you why in a second. You know what, I'm just gonna read it to you. The 21st annual dancing for diabetes showcase features award winning dancers raising funds to support those touched by type one diabetes. It happens on November 13 at 7pm in the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets begin at $15 and are on sale now. Head to touched by type one.org to get them go go go What are you doing? I mean not now listen to the podcast first. Oh geez. I almost forgot to say that. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. g vo hypo Penn. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox.

Devin Clark 2:39
I am Devin Clark, and have type one diabetes. I am the mother of a diabetic two year old as well. He was diagnosed when he was 10 months old. Okay.

Scott Benner 2:53
So like I said a second ago before we were you know, recording this. You just sent a very concise, interesting email. And that got you right on the podcast. Good job. Some people's emails are long, and voluminous and volume in this volume vault helped me Devin filemon it voluminous Thank you. I know the word and it just fell in my head. And still very interesting. You're just got right to the point. So why don't we just find out a little bit about your first pick through and we'll see where the conversation leads. Okay, I want to start with how old you are when you were diagnosed.

Devin Clark 3:34
I was 26 years old and I'm currently 28

Scott Benner 3:38
a couple years ago, were you pregnant or not.

Devin Clark 3:42
I was pregnant. I found out on a Friday that I was pregnant. And then two days later, I was very symptomatic of diabetes. drinking a lot being a lot decided to check my blood sugar at home. And it was not reading on my home meter. So I knew what I had to do. had to go to the ER and it was just about 600 when I got there,

Scott Benner 4:13
why did you Why did you have a meter at home?

Devin Clark 4:16
So with my first pregnancy, I had gestational diabetes. And it was just leftover from that.

Scott Benner 4:23
So when you see that number, do you think I have gestational diabetes again?

Devin Clark 4:28
I did. And the ER doctor thought the same thing. So he told me since I already had some medication leftover from my first pregnancy. I was just on pills at that point to go ahead and take those whenever I got up in the morning because I went in at night. And he said get in with an OB like first thing in the morning and so I took some of the medication I was checking my blood sugar about every 30 minutes, it was not going down. So by about 10am, I was well over 300. And just really eager to get in with an OB at this point. The first one I called was close to our house. And I told them what was going on and how much of an emergency it was going to become. If I did not get in within that day. Yeah.

Scott Benner 5:29
Well, tell people I guess why you know more about medical stuff than other people.

Devin Clark 5:35
So I have a background in ICU nursing. Being an ICU nurse for several years, taking care of patients that are in DK a, some newly diagnosed and some not. That's where my certification lies is in critical care nursing.

Scott Benner 5:56
Yeah. So I didn't know we were going to do this. But would you mind Can we go back to your first pregnancy? How old were you then?

Devin Clark 6:02
Sure. I was. See 25 had to think about

Scott Benner 6:13
it. I gotcha. You're not Irish. Are you? That was a quick turnaround on that second one.

Devin Clark 6:17
No, no. No, they're 14 months apart. Gotcha.

Scott Benner 6:20
The 20 the first pregnancy, you've had up until that time, no medical issues with you. You're just cruising along, Mary decide to get pregnant. And how soon until you figure out you have gestational diabetes, and how do you find out?

Devin Clark 6:38
So just you know, routinely with the glucose tolerance test through the doctor's office? failed the first one the one hour, had to go back and do the three hour one and failed that one really bad?

Scott Benner 6:52
How far into the pregnancy? Did they begin to do that?

Devin Clark 6:56
I believe it was around 28 weeks.

Scott Benner 7:00
Sorry for the pause. I was counting on my fingers. around so embarrassed around seven months ish. Yeah, okay. I really was. I was like, oh, it took too long. It's gonna be obvious, I'm gonna have to say something. So until then, I know you would never you had never been pregnant prior to that. Right? Right. So you didn't know what feeling pregnant felt like, but was there a big difference? After they found the glucose tolerance test as a failure and put you on medication? Did you feel differently after that?

Devin Clark 7:37
Not so much. Um, in the beginning, he had put me on too much of the medication. So it had induced hypoglycemia that I felt I was down into the 50s. And so I cut my dose in half and called them and told them what I did, and said, okay,

Scott Benner 7:58
isn't it great? How often you call a doctor and just say, Hey, I did this, they go, okay.

Devin Clark 8:02
I guess that's just the nurse and me, Oh,

Scott Benner 8:06
I see it with other people, too. Like, a doctor made a recommendation for my son recently. And I said, Well, can we try this instead? And the doctor goes, Yeah, sure. I was like, Well, why did you say the first thing is that if if I mean, if you're so easy to move off that idea, like, it feels like it's not a firmly held idea, and I think it takes a while to understand that. Sometimes doctors are just, it's their best guess to, you know, like, here it is. So, seven months, gestational not knowing it. Did that have any, like, what are the impacts on the baby that we're supposed to be concerned with about stuff like that.

Devin Clark 8:42
So with gestational diabetes, most of the time with the, we'll see the need for insulin during pregnancy, it starts to go up around the 28 mar 28 week mark, to a much, much higher level. And so that's why they do it at that point, and not sooner. Because if you will end up with it. It that's where it really shows gotcha. And, and not before, so they don't want to miss it too soon.

Scott Benner 9:21
What is the management for it after it's found? It's just a medication, or is there more to it?

Devin Clark 9:27
So it's different with every pregnancy that I've found. For me, I had to take an oral medication glimepiride some women have to take insulin, but I never had to with my first pregnancy.

Scott Benner 9:44
Gotcha. All right. You know, it's incredibly interesting the way things kind of ebb and flow around here because it has been less than five days and somebody said to me, You never had anybody on who's had gestational diabetes, and I was like, really? And then, you know, you said it was Go well I took care of that. But I would like to have someone on who had to use injections throughout their pregnancy and so if you're hearing this and that's you and you want to be on reach out, but Okay, so you got through that pregnancy fine with the oral You know, it sounds like you cut the dose and then it worked. Okay. It did. Yeah,

Devin Clark 10:17
I had no issues after that point. What happens

Scott Benner 10:18
after you give birth? Do you still need that medication? Or does that need go away? If you're just gestational?

Devin Clark 10:24
So the doctors supposed to tell you to check your blood sugar daily for a certain amount of time? Which I did, and then if I felt weird off, you know, anything like that, I would check it again. And I went back to pre diabetic state. Some women end up developing type two diabetes, with having a history of gestational diabetes you have you're predisposed for developing type two.

Scott Benner 11:01
I wonder I'm gonna you know what I just made a note for myself. I have a list that just says Jenny and I just wrote gestational diabetes on it. So get her on him and pick her brain about that. Okay, so that all goes well. You have a baby baby's healthy. little while later you're like cool, make another baby. And in between those two babies, you You seem okay are looking back. Did you have any indication for type one?

Devin Clark 11:27
No, I was perfectly okay. Like I said, you know, anytime I would feel off I would check my blood sugar first thing and I never got a reading that was over 90. And so the first indication of me having diabetes was feeling symptomatic two days after I had a positive pregnancy test.

Scott Benner 11:54
Hey, so you're proactive then you I guess from your background? You were like okay, well, I've had gestational diabetes. Now I'm more likely to have an issue with insulin, and you've started paying attention to it on your own. Yes. Wow. You're very that's smart and brave, too Don't you think most people would just be like I'm gonna cross my fingers and hope that doesn't happen to me. But you didn't so do you know it? Like do you know what drove you to pay attention and just test once in a while I imagine you like testing a couple hours after pizza and stuff like that. Like you were doing those sorts of things.

Devin Clark 12:32
I can remember one time my husband and I went to go see a movie I had some popcorn and coke maybe and I started feeling kind of dizzy and when I got home I was 81 and that was one of the times where I felt off and just decided to check myself just you know knowing that I am at a higher risk of developing type two at that point.

Scott Benner 12:59
What the does he make you think it didn't make you think you were low right it made you think something else?

Devin Clark 13:05
It made me think that I might have had like possibly a rebound hypoglycemia

Scott Benner 13:12
from like, what do they call it hyper insulin? hyperinsulinemia Yeah, okay. Oh, no kidding. All right, like you're really on top of this. Did you always want to be a nurse?

Devin Clark 13:25
No, at first I wanted to be a doctor and you know whenever I started and pre med at college, I did not like the coursework so I switched to nursing and fell in love with it.

Scott Benner 13:37
Cool. That's really cool. Any autoimmune in your family line? Yours personally than your husband's? No, nothing. celiac? No thyroid, hyper hypo graves.

Devin Clark 13:55
Now no autoimmune thyroid. Just right I did have several family members with just general hypothyroidism but not hashimotos non hashimotos I have hashimotos I ended up Yes, I ended up with it the same time I was

Scott Benner 14:15
diagnosed with type one. Wow, you got a two for one deal?

Devin Clark 14:19
Yes. So I started taking Synthroid and insulin at the same time

Scott Benner 14:23
overwhelming especially being pregnant a bit I would cry Did you cry?

Devin Clark 14:30
I think I did. You know whenever I realized the especially when I realized the medication wasn't working the glimepiride I think I was in tears calling an obese office telling them that I needed insulin and I thought I was developing type one diabetes

Scott Benner 14:46
was gonna say cuz you were diagnosing yourself with that phone call.

Devin Clark 14:50
My endo told me at my first appointment that she thinks I was the only person to self diagnose at home.

Scott Benner 14:58
Wow, no problem. You're up. On top of it since the first kid well so with the with the second baby day two because you're checking good for you by the way you know really interesting had you not done everything you did I wonder how long it would have taken you like if you were just the cross your fingers I'll just gonna hope this doesn't happen to me I wonder how far you would have gotten into that second pregnancy before you recognized it I wonder if it would have made it to seven months or if you would have been in decay sooner and if it wouldn't have hurt the pregnancy to

Devin Clark 15:30
um so I thought about it in depth and talked about it with my endo and we came to the agreement that it probably would have ended my pregnancy being so close to the beginning of pregnancy whenever this happened especially at that point when the baby is forming all the nervous system portion that is it can be very devastating to the development of the fetus such

Scott Benner 16:03
a critical moment Did you write Did you hear Jill at the beginning of the year beginning of 2021 my first episode I did she was diagnosed right as she was pregnant and and didn't wasn't you wasn't like hey I'm checking my blood sugar because I know about all this stuff like she just it just came out of the blue for it's fascinating but okay so you you call the doctor do their job for them and and how does like what's that next step you don't go to the hospital you're right to the end oh

Devin Clark 16:35
so I got in with my ob who was older he had been practicing for a while he had a lot of experience with type ones in pregnancy. Thank goodness so he immediately got me on the gold standard for him which was regular an MPH which I hated.

Scott Benner 16:58
This is two years ago right?

Devin Clark 16:59
Yes. And so I didn't stay on that for very long. Being a nurse you have to it's it's difficult because you have to be on an eating schedule. If you're taking regular an MPH and I told him that I said I can't just you know jog what I'm doing at work and say hey y'all I gotta go eat. So I was

Scott Benner 17:25
having a heart attack but it's time for me to nosh so I have to go somebody impressions over I got a roll up out of here now you're not you're not able to do that. Also Isn't that great? I so thought you were going to tell me this was a guy who'd been through it so many times he really knew what to do blah blah blah and you were like he seen so much and then gave me insulin from 1963 like that was super interesting. So did you say you push the doctor to go to a faster acting insulin?

Devin Clark 17:57
I did. I told him that I would be comfortable with switching at that point. So I believe he had left me on the regular but gave me lantis at that point. But I was able to get in with an indo about a month later. So he wasn't doing my diabetes care for very long. And whenever I got in with an endo, they ordered me a pump immediately.

Scott Benner 18:26
Can we divert for a second here? Can you help people? What am I want to say? Can you help people understand how you advocate for yourself in that situation and how you don't need to be concerned with the doctor's feelings because you really basically are saying to that first doctor Hey, thanks for your help. I don't agree with what you're doing. I'm going to go somewhere else now but how do you say that politely or do you not have to what you're finding

Devin Clark 18:55
it really just depends on you. You know you're paying the doctor to do a job and so if you don't feel like they're doing the job to your specifications or standards and you let them know you can also look up scholarly articles for current evidence based practice about what needs to be used as far as medications or what needs to be done like procedure wise to treat whatever you have going on.

Scott Benner 19:27
It's funny I never until Not that I haven't thought of it. The way you just said it but it just popped into my head it's like you're hiring a contractor to put a floor in your bathroom and you walk in and go whoa. I don't want you to do it like this. And and they say no, this is how we doing you learn we'll get out. Something else though with that. That's really cool. But you did it with a lot of confidence where I think most people don't have the confidence that you're instilled with because of your because of you know your experience. You see so many people just they take it and they put the head down and go on to the doctor said to do. So it's just it's really cool that you did that. So you go over. I'm thinking you had a pump before the pregnancy was over, but I'm gonna ask how did the rest of this go?

Devin Clark 20:12
So I got in with an endo, my plater, who ordered me a pump, and it took about a month for that to come in. So at this point, I'm about let's see, at the end of April, getting my pump and so about two and a half months pregnant. So not too bad. But the pump was like a lifesaver. So, so much,

Scott Benner 20:41
Which one did you end up with?

Devin Clark 20:43
I ended up with the Medtronic 670 G, which I ended up not liking. But you know, whenever I first started, I didn't know that I just ordered it for me right now. And you know, I hadn't researched insulin pumps or anything at that point. So I didn't know to ask for something different. But yeah, I wasn't. I wasn't a fan of it. In the long run, ended up switching after my pregnancy.

Scott Benner 21:15
Did you have a CGM during the pregnancy or just the pump? It was

Devin Clark 21:18
the Guardian CGM that goes with it.

Scott Benner 21:23
That's the 670 g that does all the Yeah, together. Okay. So do you have a Dexcom now or libri?

Devin Clark 21:31
I have a Dexcom g six.

Scott Benner 21:33
And you sound very happy about it. It feels like you just said I bought a Tesla.

Devin Clark 21:38
I was so happy. Like, you know, in online forums, I will advocate for people switching off of the Guardian, because I found that to be highly inaccurate, whereas the Dexcom has been very accurate for me and my son.

Scott Benner 21:55
Devin, here's the part where I usually say this, Hey, sorry, Medtronic, I don't pre screen these people. I don't know what pump she's used before she got here, do a better job. And people won't say stuff like this. Okay. So I mean, no, I think one person, there was this. I wish I can't remember his name. He was so great to talk to, I think we, Jenny and I did an episode about kind of breaking down the 670 G and, and it was from Jenny's perspective, and she just did not enjoy using it. And a listener who has it and really loves it sent me this just like this email is so mad as I was like, it was like we said something bad about his wife. And he was defending her. And I was like, Well don't, you know, say, come on the show and tell me, you know, like, I don't care what pump you use. I was just her opinion, you know? And he loved it. So I was like, great. Come on. Come on, tell people you love it. You know, it's fine with me. But you Okay, so now? I mean, really? it? I didn't want to bury the lead at the beginning because it seems wrong to us. Well, it doesn't seem wrong. Let me be clear, Devin, it is wrong to use your child's diagnosis as a cliffhanger in a story. So that's why you know, I wanted to just say up front, kind of all the facts. So you you, you have type one diabetes. And then oh my god, I forgot. And you were How did you? How'd they catch the hashimotos? They just do a full blood workup on you.

Devin Clark 23:17
Yeah, especially with a family history of it. My mom and both grandmother's have hypothyroidism. So they just wanted to go ahead and make sure and my levels were way

Scott Benner 23:31
off. They image your thyroid. They did they

Devin Clark 23:35
measured my thyroid and also thyroid antibodies, which were very elevated. So that's how I got diagnosed with hashimotos. At that point,

Scott Benner 23:44
do you have any symptoms from hashimotos now or just the Synthroid handle it for you?

Devin Clark 23:51
I'm actually off the Synthroid. I only took it during pregnancy I get lab work done every four months because it is it's imminent that I will have to start taking it again okay um but for now my my levels are fine

Scott Benner 24:04
oh no kidding in range so I don't think of I don't think of hashimotos is in range I think of it is symptomatic or not symptomatic. I'm assuming you feel the same way. Yes, yeah. Okay, so you just don't have anything going on right now. It's tough because it Devin I will say this, it sneaks up on you. So be careful not that it seems like you would definitely know but you know it'll it'll start like with you know, something like you're losing more hair in the shower and you'll you won't think of it as that or you're a little tired or you get kind of snappy with people and you want no you don't I mean, like it just, it sneaks up on you. So be careful. But every four months Geez, you must have like an open vein. Do you just have like a tap?

Devin Clark 24:43
I feel like I need one. I

Scott Benner 24:45
just need like a little a little screwed open up or something like that. Okay, so used to Synthroid through the pregnancy. Stopped afterwards. Yes. Okay. Baby comes out. Yay, baby. And then why How long until your second child is diagnosed with type one?

Devin Clark 25:04
So he was diagnosed during my pregnancy with my daughter. I was diagnosed in March of 2019. And he was diagnosed in July of 2019.

Scott Benner 25:19
Wait hold on a second. I'm either confused or you had a third baby. No we only we have two Okay, so let me start let me make sure I understand So your first child has type one night Your second All right, sorry. Okay, got it. I was like if she got pregnant a third time so that second kid could die. I was like then I don't know how you're have time to be a nurse if that's what nursing sounds art, you know. But okay, so first child, so how old he she I'm sorry he.

Devin Clark 25:49
He is two and a half now. He was 10 months old when he was starting.

Scott Benner 26:04
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Don't forget to go to touched by type one.org to find out everything that they're doing over there. And if you're in the Orlando area, and interested in some dancing extravaganza, get yourself some tickets and head over to the show. That's right. It's time for dancing for diabetes. Again, everything you need to know is it touched by type one.org. There are links in the show notes of your podcast player. And at Juicebox podcast.com. To the G vo Kibo pen touched by type one and all of the sponsors, please click the links and support the show.

Devin Clark 27:18
He was 10 months old when he was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 27:20
And how long had you had type one when he was diagnosed? formats. Okay. So for clarity, you're pregnant for four months have had type one diabetes and hashimotos for four months, and then your first child is diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. Right? Then you cry for sure. Yes. By then the pregnancy hormones are on top of you, you would have cried if like I offered you like a tissue had been like you're so kind to me. So I'm so sorry. First of all, that does not seem like a fair collection of circumstances. Very certainly. Is your husband around? Like how do you manage childcare to begin with? And then what happens when he's diagnosed?

Devin Clark 28:03
So he is he's here he helps a lot. But my son was staying with my in laws. Whenever he went into DK, my husband and I were away on an anniversary trip.

Scott Benner 28:20
Happy anniversary. Yeah. Wow. That sucks. How long had you been married?

Devin Clark 28:28
a year. Oh, my

Scott Benner 28:30
goodness, I Devin there. First of all, let's just pause here. And I'll tell a stupid story about myself so that we can stop thinking about you for a second because I'm sure some of you out there. There are times I've been married for a very, very long time. And there are times that my wife and I just look at each other. And we're like, I just didn't realize all this would happen. You know, like I mean, I thought stuff would happen. I thought some stuff would go right? Some stuff would go wrong, we make a little money, we lose a little money, we try to buy a house, maybe we get a better car at some point. We'd fight we wouldn't fight. You know what I mean? Like I thought all that would happen. I didn't think that my wife would get thyroid problem that would go undiagnosed for seven years and really Ravager and then my daughter would be diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. And then my daughter would be diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And then later my son was diagnosed with hashimotos. And I for some reason lived for like a decade with an iron level that was so low and had no like, I didn't think all of that was going to happen. And it's hard. It I mean, when it's all spread out, like you can kind of fight it and then rest and fight it again. It's almost like a boxing match, you know, but you don't usually get in the ring and have a baby in your belly and then two boxers come at you at the same time. Like that's just, I almost curse that's really crazy. And you're young to did that. Do you ever feel like holy crap like maybe 10 years from now I could have had This but like, I'm in my mid 20s.

Devin Clark 30:03
Yeah. But at the same time, you know, I'm just very thankful for my knowledge. Without it, I don't know how I would have done any of this.

Scott Benner 30:14
Yeah, that that is occurring to me that if you didn't have the training and the education that you did, that this really would have probably steamrolled you, I imagine. Yes, yeah. Well, well, yeah. Then Let's be happy for that. Okay. Okay, you're on a bureau. Oh, my God, I keep thinking, like, it's hard to I'm sorry, I'm sidetrack now, because it's hard for me to think of you as four months pregnant when you get the news about your, your, your baby, but what is that? Like? How did you so he's with your parents in laws, their parents, and you're away. And then what happens?

Devin Clark 30:51
So um, I get a phone call from my mother in law, she says, Hey, we're going to take him to urgent care. And I'll call you and let you know what's going on. Because at this point, he's just not acting right? He's lethargic. And he doesn't look good. Like, he looks dehydrated, like his eyes are kind of sunken in, they facetimed with me. And but she said, Oh, he's got like, a little low grade tip. And I said, Well, maybe he's got like an infection or something. So bring him in. The PA, who had previously worked with he, he called me and said, We don't know what's wrong with your son, but we just tried to stick in for an IV and he didn't even flinch. So we're going to send him to the emergency room. And at that point, I got really nervous. And so I sent him to the hospital where I used to work. And I had one of my friends send me a text message said, she said, Hey, I have Jack's, and we're going to take care of him. And so you know, made me feel a lot better. The next phone call I got was from the ER doctor. He said, Do you have your husband by you? I'm going to go over the test results we got since we had some blood drawn. And I said he's standing right here. He said, jack says glucose level was 1432. And I just hit the floor screaming. Like, I knew what it was at that point. Wow. So we had an sent to a different hospital with a pediatric endocrinologist because they didn't feel comfortable handling his care because he was so young. But the the other hospital was close to our house instead of two hours. So why were my in laws were? So you know, worked out?

Scott Benner 33:04
Well. Devin, I've heard a lot of people told me the stories about how they are their children were diagnosed with Type One Diabetes. And this was more jarring to me, because I knew that you understood what was being said to you through the steps. Like I found myself wondering, like, what does it mean when you try to take blood from a baby and it doesn't flinch? Like what would that be an indication of I'm sorry to ask you a because now I feel like I'm asking you a medical question. And you're relating it in your head to your son that makes me feel badly for asking. But from a medical perspective, like what does that say to you as a nurse.

Devin Clark 33:42
It says to me that he is close to being in a comatose state. That's what I thought, that's the body shutting down.

Scott Benner 33:49
That's when I started getting upset when you were telling the story of me, I get the chills, and I felt like it was gonna cry. You did a really good job. You were trying to make me cry. You really did it. But that's all I can think of is that every step along the way. You were going to you were going to know the the underlying inference of the statements. Can I ask that after the shock of the glucose went by? Was it more relieving than some of the other things you were thinking?

Devin Clark 34:17
He also went over the results of his blood gas. That was really, really bad. So he was in severe decay. And I just kept growing as he was telling me the numbers because I knew what they all meant.

Scott Benner 34:31
Well, that part seems unfair to I've used the word unfair twice now. But it does, like there's something about but there's something in there. I think most people will never get to appreciate what the doctor is trying to do for you in that moment, like get you to the care without making you understand what they understand because of the emotional aspect of it. But there's no avoiding it for you. Yeah, they don't tell you the worst stuff in Till the worst stuff is, is you know there and they have a way of kind of like good doctors have a way of gliding you through it a little bit, but you couldn't you couldn't take that ride. So how far were you from where your son was? At that moment?

Devin Clark 35:16
Six and a half hours away?

Scott Benner 35:18
by car? Yeah. Oh my gosh. So you guys pack up and head?

Devin Clark 35:24
Yeah. So we actually went to a baseball game right after that we were actually waiting for an Uber to come to our hotel and pick us up when I got the phone call. And we had friends of my husband meeting us there and so we ended up going to the game, but we ended up driving home right afterwards. And then to the hospital The next morning,

Scott Benner 35:50
Devin this guy you're married to he got a nurse. A good mom and a girl that will go to a baseball game for their anniversary.

Devin Clark 35:59
Oh, the baseball game is it that's all me. I got him into baseball.

Scott Benner 36:05
Does he? Like you get extra gifts that like gift giving occasion?

Devin Clark 36:08
Yeah, I should I'm gonna pass that along to him. I

Scott Benner 36:12
mean, really? He's not paying attention if he's not what I'm What? So did you travel somewhere to see like your favorite baseball team play?

Devin Clark 36:18
I did. So we live in Louisiana. And an Astros fan, the Houston Astros. We went to Dallas to see them play the Rangers

Scott Benner 36:28
Look at you. This is perfect. I would like to, if anything happens to this guy. And you know, and my wife at the same time, I'm going to, I'm going to ring you up. But you're a little young. But I but I would like to go to baseball games. I want somebody who's like, hey, let's go to a baseball game as a celebration. That is very cool. So So timing wise, you couldn't get out of there. So you're like, we're just gonna go to this game anyway? Or was this year like, we might as well stay and do one decent thing before we leave like situation?

Devin Clark 36:58
Well, that was my husband's idea. I wanted to come home immediately. And he said, Well, what are we gonna do like, there's nothing that we can do at this point, other than just sit there in the hospital. Might as well just go to the game that we've already paid for, and go in the morning. So he wanted to stay overnight in Dallas and then drive all the way back and I said, No, we're gonna leave and go home, which home would be about four hours from Dallas, and then another two to my in laws. The next day,

Scott Benner 37:30
husband's never going to live that down. You can be polite on here if you want. But I once had, we were on the way to a flyers game when my wife and I were dating, and she got really kind of like sick to her stomach. And I was like, oh, we're so close to this day. And what I was really thinking was these tickets are really expensive, and I'm not sick. And I know that 25 or six years later, if you were to bring that up right now she'd be like, you were such an idiot for making me go to that game. So I feel bad. I feel badly now as an older person. And one day your husband will tell. But I get his idea. Like I really do like, big What are we going to do? But at the same time I get you want to just go right away?

Devin Clark 38:10
Yeah, I can tell you, you know, as much of a fan as I am. I can't tell you a single thing that happened during that game,

Scott Benner 38:18
I would imagine. Yeah, I would imagine that you're just in a blur, right? Yeah, yeah. Geez. All right, um, son's diagnosed, you already have type one, although you're pregnant, you're just you know, the pump thing. How long till somebody suggests the pump for your son.

Devin Clark 38:36
Um, it was suggested immediately in the hospital by his endo, to go ahead and get an on one. And I was like, Well, let me let me think about it. So we ended up doing MDI for three months before we got him on apart. Okay, I just I wanted to feel comfortable with his management in that way before we moved into something different.

Scott Benner 39:03
So while you're learning about his management, in honesty, you're learning about your own at the same time.

Devin Clark 39:08
Oh, yeah, I'm freshly diagnosed you know, trying to figure out diabetes and pregnancy and that's just a whirlwind and its own and then diabetes and infancy is just another you know, headache on top of it.

Scott Benner 39:25
Well, you're being polite. Those are two sides of a tornado. You know what I mean? Like it's the the infancy thing is tough, because I mean, what could he have weighed?

Devin Clark 39:35
Oh, I think at that point, he was about 15 pounds,

Scott Benner 39:41
so using barely any insulin to get his blood sugar to move. And you're getting ready for an insulin resistance in a couple of months. Right? Yeah. How hard did that hit you? When that time came.

Devin Clark 39:57
Um, it honestly wasn't terrible. I stayed on top of it. I, for the most part, did my own adjustments at that point. Now I still did get with the suggestions that my endo made. If they didn't work out, I'd tweak it a little bit, and let them know.

Scott Benner 40:22
Stay on top of it. That means as your needs increased, you increase the insulin. Right? Yeah, I think that's the, the disconnect for people. So often is they they just get settings and they're like, well, these are the settings and then like, my blood sugar's high all the time, I understand what's wrong. So maybe you need more insulin? Well, no, these are my settings. It's not how it works. But I know that in the beginning, managing I mean, we're half units, like too much for your son.

Devin Clark 40:54
Sometimes we actually had him on a u 25. Insulin homologue, to be exact. So sometimes, we would just end up giving him a half unit of u 25. And that was enough for his bottle, or whatever he was eating.

Scott Benner 41:16
Yeah, I didn't know how to ask if you can. I didn't I find with sound silly or not where you breastfeeding was going to be my question, but I'm assuming your body had done about enough by that.

Devin Clark 41:29
I was not breastfeeding. But I see people online that struggle doing that

Scott Benner 41:36
with with type one. And without but yeah, but with type one specifically. So so you have to how often? Is he getting a bottle?

Devin Clark 41:47
He was getting a bottle every four hours at that point, I believe.

Scott Benner 41:51
Okay, so you how do you do that? Do you inject and start the bottle right away? Or do you get feed the bottle and then put the insulin? How are you handling it?

Devin Clark 42:01
Um, so they had him on, I think in pa h in the background with the diluted homologue. So we had to be on a schedule. And sometimes it didn't work out because you know, the predictability of mph with a rapid acting is kind of easy sometimes. So in general, it was normally sometimes between three and four hours. And then we would oftentimes have to wake up in the middle of the night and give him an extra one.

Scott Benner 42:47
So you were testing? Were you testing him while he was sleeping?

Devin Clark 42:51
Yes. In the beginning, it took us two or three weeks after he was out of the hospital to get him on. A CGM.

Scott Benner 43:02
What did you find was happening overnight. Like what was what was happening that you couldn't see prior to the CGM.

Devin Clark 43:11
He had a hormonal search right after he would go to sleep and it would sustain and then drop off about 4am.

Scott Benner 43:20
What did that do to his blood sugar's?

Devin Clark 43:23
So whenever he got asleep and had the growth hormone surge, it would elevate it a good bit. So he would shoot up to, you know, like, 300 or so. But then since he was also in the honeymoon stage, he'd start working his way back down, and oftentimes find himself flow. Somewhere around four to five ish.

Scott Benner 43:47
I'm incredibly comfortable talking to you, Devin. I'm trying to figure out why. So when you first popped on and you had a more southern drawl, I thought I gave a to let you inside of my head. I was like, I said to myself, talk slower Scott, like, like, just don't like try to dial yourself back a little bit. But you speak more quickly than I expected you to. And at the same time, you have the there's the comforting part of the of the accent. So I've come to realize that the southern accents lo me to like, they make me calm, I guess. But I still have to Anyway, I'm enjoying talking to you. I hope you are too. And you're such You're so good about the knowledge piece of it. Like I I've not asked you a question yet that you were like, Oh, I don't know. But you said you were nervous when we started. Are you nervous now? I'm a little more comfortable. Only a little more. A bit more. I'm doing my best here that would feel better. gone all the great roads. I've made fun of your husband, women love. I can't believe you're a great baseball fan. That's amazing. You're doing a terrific job. like managing your well yourself and your son and you know, through an infant diagnosis is it's just that much more difficult. Really, it's, it's, it's fantastic as as time has passed Now, is there much overlap with your management and your sons? Where are you just like literally two separate people.

Devin Clark 45:28
We are two separate people. But we are also using the same system just for you know, ease of use for myself and my husband. You know, just in case, you know if something bad were to happen. So, we are on the DIY loop.

Scott Benner 45:50
Oh, you're looping, okay? Yes. All right. So you're both looping. So you're using Omni pod or the Medtronic pump to loop?

Devin Clark 45:59
We're both on Omni pod. Got it?

Scott Benner 46:02
So you're looping. And you're both in the same thing. But you have? Well, that's what I'm wondering like you have you have hormones throughout the month. But isn't he growing? Doesn't he too?

Devin Clark 46:13
Yes. So his needs will dramatically go up during a growth spurt. And then they'll kind of taper back off for a little while, and then they'll go back up quickly again, and then it's, you know, just kind of like an

Scott Benner 46:32
ebb and flow. His aren't as predictable as yours. Oh, no. Yeah,

Devin Clark 46:36
my my settings pretty much never change. But his change frequently.

Scott Benner 46:43
That's, that's interesting. Okay, so you're not too much more difficult to manage during different parts of menstruation? You're, you're pretty stable. What does that mean for you? What are your goals?

Devin Clark 46:56
So I've maintained a good time and range. I'm not like, you know, super hardcore, I'm okay. In the 80s. My a one C's been in the fives. consistently. And, you know, I also eat my fair share of junk food. I'm pretty proud of that.

Scott Benner 47:22
You should be what would make you feel hardcore. I mean, that seems pretty hardcore to me. But

Devin Clark 47:29
well, you know, I know a lot of people try to maintain a flat line. And I, you know, I know that's not possible. You know, without a lot of hard work, which I'm not really willing to put in, because I have two people to manage. And I also have, my daughter has katatak hypoglycemia. So I have three blood sugars I have to manage.

Scott Benner 48:01
I'm glad you brought that up, because I want to find out about that in a second. But I just want to tell you, I think what you're doing is really bad ass. And if your blood sugar is not constantly at five, I don't think that's a big deal. I think that's kind of amazing. Are you able to achieve the similar for your son?

Devin Clark 48:17
Um, so his is gonna run a little higher. His endo has already told me you know, two years old is a very hard age to manage. So we just had our first Well, no, our first but first in a while, what I would say hire a one C for him, which was seven. Whereas he's been in the sixes. And I've been okay with that. And so when she told me it was seven, I was like, beating myself up. And she was like, Oh, no, no, this is great.

Scott Benner 48:52
Are you are you would you say, I guess I should say, Would you say I should say which I've made that very confusing. Let me start over. Would you say that stability within a range is your main goal for him? Yes. So you're just trying to avoid bouncing more than anything, right? Is the higher number in your head because does he drop out of nowhere pretty easily?

Devin Clark 49:20
He can. Sometimes he can be a little unpredictable. And just depending on where he is, in his stages of growing, yeah. And then we've also found that sometimes his pancreas is still putting out just a hair of insulin that'll cause him to get really bad. You're getting

Scott Benner 49:41
help so that you don't want anymore, right? Yeah. And I'm assuming to his diet is more commensurate with a younger person's

Devin Clark 49:51
chicken nuggets.

Scott Benner 49:54
entire industry made out of chicken nuggets for little kids. Yeah, and that's tough. I actually was talking talking to somebody the other day with a two year old. And they're like, I don't understand. It's just chicken nuggets. They're the good ones. I was like, Huh, they're frozen. They're not that great. Yeah, I know you think they are, but they aren't like, the only way you're going to get away with chicken nuggets is if you buy ground chicken yourself, or make them out of, you know, chicken breast and like, then you'll get a more stable thing. But the breading on the frozen ones and whatever they put in them so that when they unfreeze, you don't have botulism. Makes it makes it harder, you know, just yeah, I hear you. Well, I mean, that's amazing. Does anyone ever tell you you're doing a great job? Yeah, sometimes good. Because if they don't, I will tell you. You're doing a great job. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. It's astonishing. You're still at the age where if you told me, I have type one diabetes, and I mainly go to concerts, and I don't have kids yet? I would that's still your age. You don't I mean, like you're getting a lot accomplished. Do you feel like an old soul? Or? sometimes sometimes, sometimes you feel like, I should have kept that guy away from me?

Devin Clark 51:08
Well, I'm also an only child. So I, I've kind of heard that my whole life.

Scott Benner 51:14
Yeah. Oh, no kidding. It's kind of a little more stoic way of being and, and you're a protector, too. I would imagine. If you love nursing so much. You must really like the caretaking aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz that's especially you couldn't not? I mean, I don't know how to be a nurse. If you didn't feel like that. I guess it would just seem like a would feel like a nine to five punch in job than if if that was if that was the case. Okay, so I have to ask, you mentioned your daughter's blood sugar. She has one.

Devin Clark 51:41
She has katatak hypoglycemia. That just

Scott Benner 51:45
sent me to Google. Hold on a second. Okay. All right. A medical term, used in two ways broadly to refer to any circumstance in which low blood glucose is accompanied by ketosis were to in a much more restrictive way to refer to recurrent episodes of hypoglycemia, excuse me, hypoglycemic symptoms with ketosis, and often vomiting in young children. Which one, are you? Number one, number one, good, anything that doesn't involve vomiting is better than anything that doesn't go right. So how does this Well, I guess, how does this show up first?

Devin Clark 52:31
So you know, I'm already hypervigilant, having a second child after having one with type one. So I made it to about a year without checking her blood sugar. Yeah, Amy. And one morning, I go to get her out of her crib. And I've noticed that the crib is soaking wet. And I said, Oh, no. So she's also a little more fussy than normal. So I checked her blood sugar, and it's 50. And I'm like, okay, that's not what I was expecting. So I called the pediatrician, got an appointment. She had had, like, a few episodes of diarrhea about a week prior, and I said it was probably linked to that, but to also keep checking her blood sugar given the family history. So we did, and about a week after that happened, I go to get her out of her crib, and I smell ketones. And I get my blood meter out and it was 3.6. And I call my son's info and I'm like, I need to get my daughter an appointment with y'all.

Scott Benner 53:50
Give a plan or a punch card where I get like a free sandwich at the end of these visits or something like that.

Devin Clark 54:00
So long story short, we couldn't get her an appointment in time. We had to get her to go in patient about two weeks after that. When I woke up, she woke up she was kind of out of it. Her blood sugar was 41. So we brought her to that hospital that evening, and I did fast with her to try and get her blood sugar to go down to take labs, which is when they had diagnosed her with it. At that point,

Scott Benner 54:36
what's the diagnosis mean?

Devin Clark 54:40
So her, this is normally a diagnosis that amount nurse child would get and if you could see my daughter, she is anything but she she's very well fed and plump and So that's why they were kind of scratching their heads. You know why she had this, but she develops ketones in a starvation period. Where you know, her body is so low on glucose, it's trying to get energy somehow. So it starts developing ketones for energy in a state of low glucose.

Scott Benner 55:30
How do you? Is it manageable some way like is there any way to impact it, you have to eat on a different schedule, you have to eat

Devin Clark 55:37
on a schedule, she cannot go any more than three hours during the waking hours, without having at least a snack. And at night, we have to put cornstarch in her milk, which we also had to deal with my son when he was first diagnosed with type one. So so for him it about

Scott Benner 55:59
that for him, you did it to keep his blood sugar up. And for her, you're doing it to keep the milk in her stomach longer. Yes, similar reason, similar thing, but different reasons.

Devin Clark 56:09
And also to keep her blood sugar up because it takes longer for your body to process a starch.

Scott Benner 56:15
And then if, okay, so if your body's still seeing it, and has blood sugar, it won't do the ketose the ketone thing? Right, okay. Forever. Is this a forever thing?

Devin Clark 56:30
It normally goes away. Later in childhood, sometimes it doesn't.

Scott Benner 56:37
But that's a short answer. Yeah, no. I'd have been like, Great, thanks. But you were probably just like, Whatever. I'm doing well, now I can do this now. Yeah, wow. I'm assuming no more kids. No more kids. I'm sure they're delightful and everything, but you get one more thing to do. And you're going to, you're going to be losing your mind, I would imagine. How is it managing all three of these things? Like what? How do you? I mean, you seem unless you're pretending for the podcast, you seem relatively normal and together. So Howard, how did you find a balance? Um, where have you not?

Devin Clark 57:19
I don't know if I have I just kind of get up and do it every day. That's why um, now I you know, mental health very important. I do see a therapist. Yeah. I don't know what I would do if I didn't.

Scott Benner 57:38
I was you I'd shrink it down and just put it on my shoulder. The therapist. Just come along for the ride. Yeah, I don't see how you wouldn't want to do that. I mean, perfectly honest. That's a it's just a lot. It would be a lot if you had diabetes, it would be a lot of your kid did. I think it would be a lot of with this. You know, ketotic hypoglycemia thing too. But all three of them togethers it with a young family is something else. I'm assuming your husband does everything else in the world, right? Like you don't have to, like take out the garbage or move something. You just stare at him? Right? play with the kids and come on. You gotta be kidding me. Now, he can't do there's nothing you shouldn't even know what a garbage day is. Like, if I said you a devil, what day is trash? Come? You should have to go. Um, I think Tuesday. That's that would be the answer I would want from you. Yeah, tell him he's got to get moving here. Yeah, there's, there's a lot going on. Holy crap. So see a therapist weekly.

Devin Clark 58:38
I see your once a month now.

Scott Benner 58:39
Is it just sort of maintenance? How does that go? I mean, do you mind telling me? No, no, it's fine.

Devin Clark 58:45
Yeah, it's it's just, you know, a check in make sure everything is going okay. Um, but I just, you know, find it very important to have somebody to talk it out with and my therapist also is diabetic, so she understands where I'm coming from. And a lot of aspects, was that on purpose? No, it was not. It was definitely a God thing. That we were both diabetic,

Scott Benner 59:20
you're like, so here's the story, you start telling a story about diabetes. Do I know exactly what you're talking about? Yes. Nice. That's a little bonus there. They should put that right on the sign. Honestly. I would I'd be like I have diabetes. Just cater to a diabetes crowd. Because I think it needs a level of understanding that you probably can't have without diabetes. Right? You know, or otherwise, it just sounds like you take insulin, your son takes insulin and your daughter has to drink milk with corn starch in it. Like you don't I mean, like not really understanding the gravity of what's happening and hearing it clinically. I would imagine might not be pack some people the same way. So good. That's amazing. We are coming up on an hour. I want to make sure that we've talked about everything you thought we were going to talk about.

Devin Clark 1:00:11
I believe so. In my mind, I thought we might talk about labor a little bit more, but that's totally fine if we don't.

Scott Benner 1:00:21
Yeah, it's not that we can't. That's why I asked here at the end. So you are using the Do It Yourself loop that you just download from the internet. Which sounds crazy every time I say it out loud, even though I know it's not. I personally think that the algorithm is amazing. And does really great work. Do you use auto Bolus,

Devin Clark 1:00:44
or I I do I use auto Bolus? I had my son on it for a little while. I found it to be a little aggressive for him. So I switched him back to Temp Basal

Scott Benner 1:00:56
gotcha. I think if Kenny was here he would say that you could adjust the percentage that the audible is works at in the programming somehow but to ask me how to do it would be a mistake. But I think it's at 40% Does that sound right? So if it thinks you need a unit it gives you point four it waits five more minutes, I think then it gives you 40% of the next indication. I think that's how it works.

Devin Clark 1:01:24
It does until it finds a level of status or it starts to go down. It'll start it'll keep giving you insulin Yeah, but

Scott Benner 1:01:33
I think there is somewhere in the programming of it where you could just say to look if you think I need a unit give me a unit. I think you can make that 40% 100% not that I'm saying to do it. I'm just saying I think it's possible to adjust them.

Devin Clark 1:01:44
Um, I think that is an open APS not 100% sure, but the the one that I have, I don't have that option.

Scott Benner 1:01:59
Gotcha. So you're not using Ivan's branch you're using a different one? Yes. That's a lot of words that most people didn't understand just now. But it's uh, I mean, I can tell you from my perspective Arden's using Ivan's open APS and it's amazing. It just it really is absolutely spectacular to watch. You make a mistake on a meal. And for it to go, Oh, you're gonna need more insulin and just put it in. It's crazy. Like, you know, you can miss on a meal reasonably. And the auto Bolus, I don't know what your findings are, but I think the auto Bolus will stop Arden from being more like you know 200 at least if we've you know what I mean if we've missed on the amount of insulin she needs it can it can get her stopped usually by 200 Yes, if you just ignore you know, if we were in a situation where we just ignored it and let the auto Bolus kick in Do you have a similar finding?

Devin Clark 1:02:57
I do personally know for my son we had to make a lot of settings adjustments trying to go from Temp Basal to to the audit Bolus with him and we found where we landed was still a little off but in talking with his endo about it we found that we probably weren't going to get to the level we needed to be without using diluted insulin because he was using such small amounts is basil right sometimes your point oh five oh

Scott Benner 1:03:37
my gosh. upsample What's the way now? Present day 33 pounds because he was 10 months old when he was diagnosed he's still only like two right? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's that makes total sense. Are you interested in on the pod five trying that for him when it comes out?

Devin Clark 1:03:55
I am very interested in that

Scott Benner 1:03:58
to get rid of the Reilly link alone would be amazing, right? Yes, I agree. I'm it's April now when you and I are recording you know, people will hear this probably will have, you know, Halloween decorations up but I'm like, I'm trying my hardest through all the channels I have, like I'm pushing. I'm like, Can I just like can I see the only about five plays nicely. So I'm excited too. I think that carrying a link between something and the pod is Arden's least favorite part of it. So So yeah, I agree with you. Do you think you would change yourself too, if you found it working?

Devin Clark 1:04:35
Ah, it really just depends on what the hard settings are. That, you know, things that I couldn't change, like, target and such. I know. Whenever I was on Medtronic, they had a certain level I couldn't go below. Yeah, and I know it's the same for tandem and I'm sure shirts. For FDA approval, it's going to be the same for the Lv pod five,

Scott Benner 1:05:04
you would imagine I'm hopeful that you can make your setting so that they do more what you want, as far as outcomes go like that's I don't know, but that's why I'd like to get my hands on it to find out because I'd love to try. Yeah, I'm excited. Um, how long have you been doing it?

Devin Clark 1:05:23
I actually got my son doing it first. I started with him in January of last year, so he was 15 or 16 months old. And then I started in August of last year,

Scott Benner 1:05:45
in about every way I can measure from this conversation, Devin, you are a badass. Seriously, like, Oh my god, are you kidding me? I saw that thing. And I was like, No, I need help make somebody help me. I scared No, no, thank you computer don't want to do it. You sound like you just do whatever's best and jump in. That's very cool. I had a question for you just put that in my head. Oh, do you listen to the podcast at all? How did you find me?

Devin Clark 1:06:12
online on Facebook, actually. And then my son's endo had suggested you to me at some point, I think last year, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I heard about that. So yeah, I started listening. I actually started with when you interviewed Kenny Fox, cuz I was trying to get my loop settings, right?

Scott Benner 1:06:38
Oh, I found so I got you through the loop stuff. Very nice. I like that. And you're and by the way, your endo limits. Just take a second here to say hi, how are you? Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. You're the best endo in the area there. I'm CL willing I am to pimp somebody out if I'm just happy to say Yes, you did a great I don't even know if he's a good endo. Or she I don't know anything about I just happy that they like the show. That's really cool. Like, I mean, being serious that it's, it's very cool that a doctor would say hey, you should try a podcast. And it's interesting that you found the podcast through Facebook, because I I know this shouldn't be surprising, but I'm always like stunned by that a little bit. You know, the the podcast has a Facebook page that's public and you know, basically it just tells you when new stuffs coming out and stuff like that. But then there's a private one where people talk constantly and I think the Facebook page must have gotten a good reputation because now people come into it. Thinking I heard that if you're in this Facebook group, you're a one see goes down and you get better, you know, variability and they get in there and eventually they're just like hey, I'm all this stuff you guys are doing Where did you learn this? And people are like the podcast and they go what podcast and I'm like oh my god that's so crazy. You know you mean like they're there and they don't even understand that the podcast exists or why what how the Facebook page got there it's pretty cool how the I don't know if the snake is eating its own tail now or I don't I don't know what the the euphemism is there. But it's it's pretty, pretty great. Is Do you find that to be a good Facebook group? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I like I think it's a it's got a good vibe. So I'm always happy about that. Well, I'm glad you found it. And if any of it's helped you It sounds like you didn't need much help you seem like you know what the hell you're doing. So just very cool that you're here. Thank you. Thank you. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors. g Vogue glucagon. Find out more about chivo Kibo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juicebox you spell that? g VOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juicebox. And I don't want to forget to thank Devin for coming on the show and sharing her very unique story. Thank you so much, Devin. And if you love watching dancing, well Well, well, we've got a surprise for you touched by type one is dancing for diabetes. Find out why, where and how. At touched by type one.org.

Are you enjoying the Juicebox Podcast? Please share it with someone else who you think might also enjoy it. Are you really loving it? Like is it hitting you right in the soft, gooey spot in the middle and you're like, Oh my gosh, I love this podcast. I have so many wonderful things to say about it. If you are, leave a five star rating and a beautiful review wherever you listen, like if you listen to a podcast app, go into the app and see if you're allowed to rate the show. And if you are rate rate rate, rate, how many five rate great, great, great, great, great rate and then say something really meaningful about the show that might help a new listener to want to listen. Thank you so much for listening, the show is doing terrific. It is because of you it is because of your sharing. I really couldn't say thank you enough or, or even find the words I think to express how grateful I am. Thank you so much for being here. I'll be back very soon with another episode. Oh, I'm sorry, I meant to also say T one d exchange.org. forward slash juicebox. us resident with type one us resident who is the caregiver of someone with type one, take the survey, you can do it on your sofa from your phone, it takes less than 10 minutes. I'm being serious. They're not difficult questions. They're not probing or deep or super personal. You're going to be helping people living with Type One Diabetes, when you complete the survey, you're going to be helping the show. If you can do that. I would really appreciate it. I'm trying to personally with the power of this podcast, push 2000 new surveys to the T one D exchange before the end of November before the end of diabetes Awareness Month. If you could just give me 10 minutes on this. It would mean a lot

#560 Diabetes Variables: Sleep

Diabetes Variables: Sleep

Scott and Jenny Smith, CDE share insights on type 1 diabetes care

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
This is Episode 560 of the Juicebox Podcast. I am. I'm impressed with myself if you all knew me personally, you would be amazed that I've done this, honestly, that I didn't like, you know, get like five minutes into it was like it was a lot of work. Oddly not like me, but maybe it is now. Who knows, live learn, right? Grow change, etc.

Friends Today I'm back with another episode of the diabetes variable series with Jenny Smith. Today's topic, as you saw in your podcast player is sleep, Jenny and I will talk all about sleep and how that is a variable for your type one diabetes management. While we're doing that, you'll remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And further, you'll remember to consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. Jenny Smith is a guest on the podcast but she has a real job at integrated diabetes comm where she helps people with their diabetes in exchange for funds and goods as capitalism works. Integrated diabetes.com ask for Jenny. Now that I'm thinking about what I just said, I don't think you can exchange goods for services with Jenny. But I mean you could ask offer a sofa, see if she'll help you with your Basal insulin. Are you a US citizen who has type one diabetes or a US citizen who is the caregiver of someone with type one, please if you are, go to T one d exchange.org forward slash juicebox take the quick survey help the podcast help people living with Type One Diabetes. I want to put the ad right here because I don't like splitting up shorter episodes. But that's not what Contour Next One paid for. But I feel like they'd be okay with it if you guys promise just to listen to the ad, okay. All right, you promise to listen. And I'll do this so that you get an interrupt an inner, inner inner I was gonna say an interrupted, I meant an uninterrupted episode. with Jenny and I know this is this. It's a clunky start. But watch how I finish the Contour. Next One blood glucose meter is top shelf to understand it is super duper accurate, incredibly easy to use, and easy to hold and transport. This means if it's in your pocket, if it's in your purse, anywhere you need to keep your gear, the Contour Next One slides right in and doesn't get in the way. It also has an incredibly bright light for you know, when you're sleeping, and it's dark. room it lights up like thing from a movie that we can't say because I think it's copyright infringement. And it allows the room to glow. It's as if heavenly light has shone down upon your finger. You strike it with a lance click, blood comes out. You take the Contour Next One meter, put in the strip, touch the strip to the blood. Oh, is it not enough blood, no big deal, this trip has a second chance to feature just get a little more blood, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and go back and hit it again. You have not ruined the test trip by doing that. Or ruin the accuracy of the test. Second Chance test trips from the Contour Next One blood glucose meter. I mean, what will they think of next. Also, the screen is incredibly easy to read. And if you would like to pair your meter to a rockin who is sending me got text matches the middle of what? Hold on. Alright, I'm back. Sorry about that. If you want to pair the meter to an app Contour Next One has a really terrific app too. So you can use it with or without the app. Last thing I want to say is that well you know i want to say two last things. So last thing like let's call it one I want to say is that I'm always afraid that when I talk about Second Chance test strips that you'll think oh this thing must need so much blood but it doesn't it needs a very little bit it's not a big blood drop that you need. I'm just saying that if for some reason you don't get quite enough, you can go back and get more. Okay last part go to contour next comm forward slash juicebox there's like zero sincerely, I'm not just trying to drive you to a link What am I really want you to go to the link but that's not the point. There's a lot of information at the link. So if you really want understand all this Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox and I'm just going to finish with this. There are a lot of you walking around with subpar meters. It's not necessary. You're already paying the money. You're paying the money for the meter, you're paying the money for the strips, you might as well get a good one Contour Next one.com forward slash juice box. Get yourself a blood glucose meter. That equals your effort. You're trying right you need good information back from your gear. Jenny Campbell Do sleep as a variable for managing insulin. I don't know, I don't have a lot of feeling about this, honestly, it's not one of the things that I've noticed. But maybe I'm not looking hard enough. And when people sent in variables for the list, sleep, sleep deprivation, getting good sleep versus getting bad sleep, like broken and unbroken. Everybody sent that in as a variable. So I don't understand why that would impact anything.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:35
Well, you know, overall, sleep provides a lot in terms of recovery, and build of like cellular sort of restructuring and whatnot in the overnight time period, right? That's, we're supposed to get these waves of light sleep, deep sleep, etc, that help our body to actually then recoup and be ready for another day. When it comes in terms of type one management, that's one of the biggest things that most people say is, I just want better sleep, the daytime, I can struggle through manage through if I've had good sleep overnight, I can deal with the daytime management. So from one, sleep deprivation can lead to poor overall management, because you don't have as much with all that we have to manage in today's world beyond our diabetes, that's another layer that we have to consider. And if you haven't slept well, you're not going to be thinking as clearly, right. on another level, though. There are a lot of different hormones that are regulated through the sleep cycle that have relation to appetite, and the turn on the turn off of appetite during the daytime. And so for someone, again, managing diabetes, if you are not sleeping well, it is very likely that some of those hormones that are supposed to be being managed for then transitioning into what you're craving, unable to manage in terms of your intake through the course of the day, those are not going to be regulated the right way either. So there's a lot to sleep, that does translate into diabetes management, right.

Scott Benner 7:31
So the one, the one thing that popped into my head, when I saw this as a variable was that I thought I for sure had heard that shift work could be bad for people in a way that I never expected that he could make you more, the way I looked it up it's a shift work can have an adverse effect on type two diabetes, it can also put a person at higher risk of developing type two type two in the first place shift work, particularly that involving overnight and varying shifts can make it more difficult to manage glucose levels. It doesn't it doesn't really go on but I really I just remembered hearing that that there's something about the is that this circadian rhythms, the

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:12
circadian rhythm really. And I it's interesting, because I just attended the ADA scientific sessions with our virtual conference. But some of the sessions that I did attend were specific to the circadian rhythm, and sleep and appetite and weight management, which does relate to much more into type two. But it's also a realm of something that many people with type one try to manage really well to write. So in terms of what they found is those who had a much more stable daytime structured schedule, and they slept overnight, even if the sleep was not as good but they had their normal sleep time in the overnight time where typical circadian rhythm kind of is meant to be. They found that people had better weight management and had better glucose control. The other piece to it was that with shift work in the picture, schedules are often very disrupted with shift work. It's not often that people have consistent enough schedule with a shift like I think of many of the nurses that I've worked with, who have some shifts and some weeks that are an overnight shift, and then they've got several days off and then they go to a daytime shift, then they've got several days off and then they go back to like the evening or the overnight shift, right? That's a complete disruption to what your body is even trying to set as a some type of stables schedule. It just it doesn't happen. So in terms of like all management It's really hard to then get a grasp on insulin doses and or even use of medication. And food intake gets disrupted, now you're eating at two o'clock in the morning because that's technically your lunch hour went in four days from now, your lunch is going to be back at 12 or one o'clock. And I know

Scott Benner 10:19
I remember we've talked about that before, too, that that actually still impacts things like feet on the floor and stuff like that, too. Like if you wake up at three o'clock in the morning, suddenly that feet on the floor impact is happening at that time of the day. Absolutely all that other stuff that's really fascinating.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:34
I mean, I in terms of that, I even remember noticing that myself if I would get up overnight for more than just a tuck a kid back in bed and then go back to bed myself five minutes, I didn't get that impact. But if I was up with a foster child or for nursing overnight or something like that, and I was up for enough of a period of time, I definitely saw that happen when otherwise overnights were flat.

Scott Benner 11:00
You know, I was just thinking about you ever been like gotten sick or exhausted and you fall asleep in the middle of the day? And the sun's up? And you're in a deep sleep Lee, when does that happen? Back to had to have happened to at one point, and you wake up at seven o'clock at night. And it's dark. And it's the kind of dark where you're like, it could be midnight it could be 2am I don't know what time it is. And you can't it gives you that really horrible strange feeling of like you don't know where you are. It feels very disorienting, right? Yes. And the only time the only way to fix it is to go back to sleep and wake up with the sun again. Yeah, yeah, it's a I have it here just us is it circadian circadian circadian rhythm or circadian cycle is a natural internal process that regulates the sleep wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates with an organism, okay, we don't care about that part. But the other thing there. And the only way I can relate to this, and I've had someone on recently to talk about it, is that I am very steadfastly eating within a an intermittent fasting schedule, is really made a vast improvement on how I feel. You know, when I spoke to Jen Stevens about it on the podcast, she was talking about, you know, just pick a she talked about is in the eating window, not as like, she didn't think of it as fasting as much. And so I'm just pretty much sticking to an eight hour window. Yep. She told me if I take my window down to fewer hours, I'll start losing weight. And I haven't gotten to that part yet. I was waiting for the kids to go back to school. So we're getting up to that. Now I'm going to shorten the window up a little bit. But basically, basically, I'm not eating after the sun goes down. I'm 11 to seven ish. I'm trying to eat around in that situation. And one of the things she talked about is how, why does that work for people for weight loss, and she said it. it lessens your need for insulin. So your body goes through big portions of the day where you're not your body's not calling for insulin, like it's the opposite of the idea of like, eat small snacks all day long. She's like, I don't like that idea because your body is always using insulin. Now she was talking about, you know, people who don't have diabetes or type twos, how that could affect them. But then I realized Arden's a person who doesn't eat breakfast. So over like most of the time, like on a regular school day, so overall, Arden's eating in an intermittent fasting window. And she can fast with a stable blood sugar, like no one I've ever seen in my life. Like, you know, now that you're on the algorithm, and you can see it Arden, if Arden doesn't eat for 12 hours Arden's blood sugar is just he just is. And so I don't know that all those things fit together. But I think all the ideas fit in here somehow, you know, the idea of being on that cycle, and that your body works better in cycles, and that it needs time off and time to do things. I mean, I'm obviously no expert, but all that makes sense to me somehow.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:15
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, they're seeing their circadian rhythm, the hormone component and the overnight time period. I mean, they are all kind of tied in along with the intermittent fasting idea. In fact, one of the other ones that I listened into was all about, like those who did the best weight management wise, kind of from short term analysis to long term like a year out from having lost weight, and then what's the maintenance of that in terms of their ability to maintain and some of them were doing intermittent fasting, but they did it. I also don't really like the fasting component because you're fasting in a given time period, but you're not Really just not eating, right? I mean, people think of fasting as like 24 hours, you're just not eating anything really you just containing the time period. And they found that people that did intermittent fasting with breakfast being the bigger of the meal, lunch being a bit lighter and the last meal of that time period, especially when it's eaten, I think it was before, like 7pm did the best with overall loss, and then maintaining that loss, compared to people who just shifted that eating timeframe by about, I think it was a three hour chunk of time forward, and eight later into the evening, but still within a time block. That was an intermittent fasting, like I only eat within the six hour eight hour time period. So the later eating tended to increase the risk of gaining weight back and or just not losing as much weight, which was interesting to

Scott Benner 16:00
the reason I brought it all up is because if you're if you're sleeping on a pretty consistent schedule, then it makes sense that you'll be able to eat on a pretty consistent scale. Yes, right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:10
Exactly.

Scott Benner 16:11
I and I mirror what you said in what I'm seeing that. First of all, it's easier to eat bigger in the beginning of the day, because you've come out of a window where you haven't eaten for a while. That is the time I am the hungry. It's like I don't want to you know, I don't I don't wake up like I haven't eaten yet. It's 1151. And I'm not hungry. So but I will go eat now when you and I are finished. Sure. And I will eat probably my larger meal of the day. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:41
and it's in the day. Yeah, you're not putting it in the evening, when you're less likely to be up and moving and going about your business, you're not going to bed on a really full stomach that your body then has to do something, digestion specifically, in a time period that is not meant to be doing that, which

Scott Benner 16:58
I was gonna say can affect your sleep, which Yes, talking about and we've talked about it in a number of other episodes, leaves your body with a task of having to work on food, and digest food at a time when it's trying to take away that process to do other things. So yeah, you're basically asking your body to do something when it was getting ready to shut down that function and do other things. Right? So don't go to bed on a full stomach.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:24
Yes, yeah. That's it. Easy, easy statement to say harbor?

Scott Benner 17:32
Pizza much better and even. It's just obvious. Okay, um, can we do pump site placement? Sure. Alright. So it's always feels weird to start over when we do these strings. Because I come back to them and edit it. I hear myself go, Hey, Jenny, today, can we talk about pumps?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:02
We've really been talking for like, 45 minutes. We've been talking forever.

Scott Benner 18:05
We've done like a bunch of these like, and I feel silly. But anyway, hey, Jenny, can we talk about pump side placement today? Absolutely. Excellent. Yeah, we just leave all that in so people know why I'm laughing. So it doesn't matter, right? If it's injected, or pumps, there are just going to be places on a person's body that I don't know what to say, does it absorb the insulin better? Does it use the insulin more efficiently? Like how do we think about it?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:36
I think they're both kind of the right way to say it. Because honestly, underneath the skin, I mean, the goal is to have insulin absorb right and to get used in an efficient like, pattern of in, gets used goes out is finished working. I mean, many people on pumps, I think more than people using injections will start to notice places on their body that definitely absorb the best. And other places that they get good use out of, but they might actually have to have a secondary Basal profile that's notched up a little bit more, because they just don't quite meet the same glucose targets with the same basil from let's say, a stomach site versus a butt site or, you know, whatever it is. And then there are some people who can't use certain sites at all. I mean, I personally cannot use my leg. It just it just doesn't work for me. I either get occlusion alarms, or the sight hurts. And I've also noticed with that then it's just not getting absorbed. Back early enough, I guess is the easiest way to kind of explain it. It's it's much less consistent absorption there. So I just I just don't use my legs.

Scott Benner 20:09
Do you think that's because do you think there's a reason to point to do you have like a stronger leg? Is that muscular?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:15
For me? I truly believe it's because I just have pretty much just muscular legs. I mean, I've done biking and dance, and lots and lots of things over the years. And I continue to run and do yoga and bike and yeah, I think it's that now the interesting thing is that I can wear a sensor on my leg. No, I just can't put a pump site with insulin there.

Scott Benner 20:42
Okay, is there anything about like, I've heard people say over the years, and I've never understood if it was true, or not, like, I can't put my pump near like the, you know, muscle in my thigh or towards a larger muscle because the muscles, they feel like, you know, the way they say it is that the muscles burning up the insulin, but I don't know, I don't know, imagine that that. Isn't it just that there's not enough like fatty tissue there to move it around? Or no? Well,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:06
you know, muscles are, they've got a basketball nature to them, right? So they've got lots and lots of vessels that contribute to keeping the muscles doing what they're supposed to be doing and supplying nutrients and everything into the tissue, right? Whereas fat is just I mean, you've probably seen pictures of like fat blobs, right? Fat balls, right? Imagine Yes, imagine a styrofoam ball, that's a good idea. So when you have insulin infusing pretty close to a muscle, let's say and this is kind of general, you would expect potentially, that you are going to get if you haven't gotten occlusion from nicking a vessel and getting kind of a clot at the end of the canula. And then the muscle because of the nature of vessels, you may actually get faster absorption in an area. Like I've in particular, noticed if I've ever had a site that has bled after I've taken the site out. But it wasn't really, like it wasn't painful. There was no reason to change it prior, but it just was one of those like, gushers that you like, pull out. And then I look back at the couple last days, and I'll be like, yeah, my blood sugar look pretty perfect. Like, it was almost like, I didn't have diabetes, like it was just all working like so beautifully that I felt like, this is just it. I'm just at like this beautiful like point, right? And then I see Oh, well, there's the reason right next to my bud spy,

Scott Benner 22:44
you think he said that it's almost like you're in a very tiny way mainlining the insulin a little bit.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:51
And that's what I guess yeah. And it's actually just closer to the absorption line. You know, because when we put a pump site or even inject insulin, you're supposed to be sub sub cute, right? underlying tissue, which is mostly your like, it's like your thermal layer of protection for your body, right, that's where we're supposed to be absorbing insulin through and thus the timeline and the absorption for the trend in rapid insulin, regular insulin, long term insulin. It's all based on how it's supposed to get absorbed in us through that timeframe. Okay, through that tissue.

Scott Benner 23:27
And so I think it's important here to mention that when you buy a pump, any pump, it's going to give you some instructions and tell you here the places you can where your pump all that means is that those are the places that the company who made the pump had the time and money test to test so that they could prove to the FDA that these places worked it and I assure that on the pod probably isn't thrilled if I'm saying this but I you can put your pump somewhere else. Yes, yes, you could try other places I've seen from Chris Freeman where it on his chest, you know when he's in the middle of you know, in the Olympics and that I mean, I've said it before the guys like I don't know what his real body fat is, but he doesn't appear to have any. And you know, and it's on us, it's on his pack. I've seen ladies wear them in their on their breast I've seen people wear them on their hips, their thighs, their calves. I watched somebody do it on their forearm once is like a test, you know, there's no place. I don't think there's any place where it isn't reasonable for you to try based on what I've seen from the community and from people in general. But you are going to find places that work better but then I think that leads us into talking about you can't have too much of our favorite place because you'll ruin it.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:44
You have to rotate Yes, very important to rotate

Scott Benner 24:48
have to have to look at your sights and see for Arden they get a little like if she's using them too much I can start seeing them a little vascular maybe like a little red on top like that's the first like sign for And then you can start rubbing your, your you can rub your hand over top of it, if it gets bad, you can feel like it'll get lumpy or hard. Yes, right, that kind of a thing. So yeah, you have to have a place to go. And it is going to change them. Like Jenny said it could possibly change how much insulating Arden just went off the side of her thigh to the top of her thigh. And I had to increase everything by about 20% for that just from the social side of the top of her thigh. So and I think too, for little kids. As long as we're talking about sites for a second, here's probably a good place to talk about when you start doing things with little kids or you know, sometimes adults. They build rules in their head. So that's where my pump goes. It can't go there because it goes there. I always wear it here kind of becomes a psychological thing at some points too. You know, and then you'll see kids will fight against it. Like I can't put it on my arm. It goes on my leg. Yeah, right I Arden 17. And I think she has it. I think she believes her her CGM goes on her hips. Because that's because that's where she likes it where she likes it and it works fine and everything. And if I ever say to her, Hey, why don't you try putting your pot on the back of your arm. It's a flat No. And it's only because in my opinion, she remembers it being there in a softball game one day and we didn't think about it and she threw and then the pod like yanked on her arm as she was as she came across, she had a bad memory of it and now even years later that she's not throwing a softball anymore years later she's has an aversion to putting it on arm you know so sure if there's like

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:41
an associated kind of experience there

Scott Benner 26:45
Yeah, and then it comes out as this is where it goes and I will fight to the death to keep it here and then you run into a problem where you don't have ways to to rotate sites yes and then you're going to run into a problem and the way I've always put it the Arden is look you keep putting it there and one day you're not going to be able to use that spot at all. And that's that's the thing that helps her move around now I think the other good thing to talk about about that is you know I really have experienced with the Omni pod but sometimes it's just as simple as turning it 180 degrees like you really like it on your abdomen great, have it point towards your belly button this time and have a point towards your side the next time Yes, you know, those are still

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:23
when I do the same thing you know, especially for backs of the arms which for many little kids because especially for tiny little kids who really don't have a lot of tissue or are very very averse to having it on their abdomen for some reason you know, then that back of the arm like you said it's essentially just turning the pod with that viewing window facing up versus the next time turning it with the viewing window facing down to technically then even have two sights on the back of each little arm that you could potentially use which makes for places between two arms at assumably three days per site. It's a fair amount of these before you get back to site number one on the first or

Scott Benner 28:10
do you think specifically on on the pod? You use it vertically? On limbs right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:17
Correct yeah perpendicular up and down with the viewing window either facing the sky or facing the floor on limbs exactly and then on like your torso region or your upper but you would use it in sort of a horizontal fashion

Scott Benner 28:33
is that because of just the nature of the shape of the pod?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 28:37
Yeah that's from what I know it's nice it's based on the wear comfort wear of the pod itself Yes

Scott Benner 28:45
Do you know a second ago because I didn't want to look stupid I just checked it vertical up and down. Like I googled it right before I said it and then it made me feel so much better because the rest of the world doesn't know either. It's it's a very popularly Google thing is horizontal left and right is vertical up and down. What is vertical? What does a vertical line look?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:08
Pretty funny is that paid closer

Scott Benner 29:09
attention in school. Anything about this that we didn't cover?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:14
Um, I don't think so. I think in terms of site you covered you know, all the places that are approved versus the ones that people are trying that necessarily approved. So

Scott Benner 29:28
yes, but it's a variable because you are going to get it in your head that these are my settings, and then you're going to move the site somewhere else. And then you start I love it, people immediately go this pump doesn't work. That's always my favorite reaction to everything.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:41
Right? And I've got a number I mean as a secondary to that site to site going to number of people, myself included before using, you know the system that I actually use. I actually just had separate basil profiles that I would use from one site to the next more specifically, all Body sights on me work pretty much the same except for my upper but my upper but just seem to need more insulin whenever I used it. So I had a profile that was specific to that. So do you

Scott Benner 30:12
think that and then I'll let you go. But do you think that the advent of g7 Dexcom. Like when it changes form factor? I keep thinking people are going to start trying like a lot of different places because it's going to be easier to put in different places all

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:27
this probably, I would expect. Yes. I mean, as it is, a lot of people are wearing their CGM is on places that I would honestly like they're, I've seen it on their forearms. I've seen it like, places I would never think of popping it in. But I think getting accurate results. I

Scott Benner 30:46
guess I have to admit, there are times I see those pictures, and this is exactly what I think and I'm just gonna have to bleep this out. I think, man, skateboard, huh? I wonder if we can make it work here. I'm gonna

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:59
I know I don't even have like, I don't it's all muscle there. I don't know where it would sit under my skin. I would hit something and it would be immediate pain or blood. I

Scott Benner 31:10
I just think of those people as they're they're explorers. They just like I wonder what will happen if I walk across Antarctica? You know?

Unknown Speaker 31:18
Right, exactly. Go find out exactly. I'm

Scott Benner 31:20
not doing it but whatever. Okay, thank you very much. First, I'm gonna thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter remind you to go to Contour Next one.com forward slash juicebox. There are also links in the show notes of your podcast player, and links at Juicebox. Podcast calm. Thank you very much for visiting with the sponsors. I appreciate it. Thanks, also to Jenny for being here. Thank you so much, Jenny. We love talking to you. At least I do. I think I'm speaking for everyone else. But in fairness, some people might hate your guts. I have no idea. Is it possible that anyone doesn't like Jenny? I don't think so. Thank you so much for listening. There are way more variables, go check them out at Juicebox Podcast comm or right there in your podcast player. Really appreciate your listening and supporting the Juicebox Podcast. Tell a friend. That is my least favorite part of making the podcast asking you to like tell somebody else. Don't forget to subscribe and your app like it's, I feel like oh, I feel like an idiot having to say that. It's like I see a YouTube video, you know, and they're like, hit the bell do the thing. And I'm like, Oh, this is so sad. And then I come here and I have to do it here and it just it's hard to get people to listen to things and and subscribe and you know, it takes so much for them to learn that the contents there and that it really might be valuable for them. So then I end up saying like, just please tell someone who else you know and just, I don't it makes me feel weird. I don't like it, but I do it because it is important. So thank you so much for listening for supporting the show. If you know somebody else who you think might enjoy the show, also please share it with them, show them how to start listening. podcasts are not intuitive for everyone. Subscribe in your apps people. I just did it. I was like hit the bell thing. You know what I haven't mentioned this in a little bit. The Facebook page is really great. No joking. Juicebox Podcast Type One Diabetes on Facebook. It's a private group with I think it's got like 16,000 people and now everyone's talking about diabetes to really on Facebook like experience. So that is to say it's a good experience with a lot of great people. Check it out.

#559 LVH T1D Camping

L.V.H. is a new type 1 who loves camping.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to Episode 559 of the Juicebox Podcast. I'm glad you're here.

Today we're going to be talking with a type one who's in her mid 20s. Who loves to camp. Also, there's a lot of great stories in here. So it's about camping. ish. I mean, you guys know the podcast this point, if you think this is an hour about camping, you've got the wrong show. But there's some camping stories and some ideas about camping. It's not a how to about camping with diabetes. I honestly don't know how to make an hour long entertaining podcasts about a how to about anything, so I found you some lvh and she loves to camp, and she's got a tight bond, and she's gonna tell you about how she was diagnosed, and how she went camping. It's gonna be terrific. Don't make me explain it to you here. While you're listening though, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Just a reminder, go take that survey, p one d exchange.org. forward slash juice box trying to get to 2000 surveys before the end of diabetes Awareness Month.

This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries. g vo hypo pan. Find out more at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored today by trial net trial that offers free type one diabetes, Risk Screening and much more. Go find out about it at trial net.org forward slash juicebox when the web page asks you how you found out about trial net, make sure you say Juicebox Podcast.

L.V.H. 2:05
I'm lvh. I've been type one diabetic since June of 2019. And I am poor 26 years. Nope, I'm not 26 I'm 27 years old.

Scott Benner 2:18
I don't care how old you are. You have a mom, you have a moniker. How does that happen? Don't tell me your name. I mean, I know it's your initials. But like how does that come to pass? Like how does somebody decide? They're gonna call you by your initials.

L.V.H. 2:35
I probably because I'm a twin. So it just became lvh and avh. Just to make things easier. Oh, that's cool. And I played sports my entire life. So it was a quick nickname to do on the field.

Scott Benner 2:47
Nice. I love that. I just saw that. No one's ever like looked at me and been like, SB right? Because I would think I would find that cool. So this has been your whole life.

L.V.H. 2:59
Pretty much. Yeah, so I've had a couple of nicknames. Another nickname would be bond, even though that's has nothing to do with my last name. But they thought someone on my lacrosse team thought that the first part of my last name was bond. So they started calling me bond. And then I was like, you know, it's bad.

Scott Benner 3:18
just stuck. Yeah. Well, in the real world, lvh stands for left ventricular hypertrophy. Which is Yeah,

L.V.H. 3:31
there we go. But

Scott Benner 3:32
not nearly as fun as as it being anyway. I love that. So are you lvh?

L.V.H. 3:38
Yeah, you can call me I'll be. I'm gonna see if

Scott Benner 3:40
I can work that out. I'm gonna do my best here. I've never called anybody by a moniker before. I'm excited. You're 27? Did you just turn 27?

L.V.H. 3:50
And July of 2020 Oh, so no, no, no, I'm on was 28 I just put a life mate can't remember how old I am ever.

Scott Benner 4:00
I never can as well. And that's why I was. I just thought other people have a grasp on their age. But you clearly you clearly don't either, which now makes me feel better. It's like, Oh, that was Yeah, she's, she forgot that she was an age that she turned eight months ago. I've had it go both ways. For me. I've mentioned it before on the podcast. I lived an entire year thinking I was a year older than I was, which was an amazing surprise on my birthday. Because I technically, on my mind, that's funny. Yeah, but then I made up for it later by believing that I was younger than I should. I don't know how that happened twice to me in one lifetime. But my wife my wife said to me at one point she goes for the last couple of months I've been hearing you say how old you are and you're wrong. And I haven't said anything wondering what would happen. Like, is that how bored you are like these are the psychological mind games that are being played. Anyway. Tell me about it. How old were you when you were diagnosed?

L.V.H. 5:03
I was 25. And I was less than a month away from turning 26. So that when I do remember,

Scott Benner 5:10
oh, this hasn't been long, okay, okay.

L.V.H. 5:13
Yeah. So I've only had Type One Diabetes for a year and a half, plus some. Okay, this June will be two years.

Scott Benner 5:22
So you made it all through high school. Sounds like you played sports. Did you play sports in college?

L.V.H. 5:27
I did. I played lacrosse in college. Okay, so you

Scott Benner 5:30
did that all good. You're off in your life. things feel Yeah, you're going you probably by 25. Year like, I'm gonna be alright.

L.V.H. 5:38
Yeah, I had already lived in two cities. Like, besides the city I grew up in. I had just moved to a new city, I guess. And lived there for a year. And then called my parents in the hospital and was like, guess what? I have type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 5:57
lvh one day. Yeah. SOS ASAP. Yeah. Did they come to help you?

L.V.H. 6:08
They did, my dad flew out. I tried to convince him not to because I was like, Oh, I'm going to leave here in a day. And then fly to Kansas City for a beer festival was my grand idea thinking at the time, and I convinced all the nurses and doctors. I have to be on next flight on Thursday. Is it possible? And I never told them where or why I was going out of town. And they were like, Yeah, sure. Until they discharged me and they're like, where are you going back home to Kansas City. And I was like, No, I don't live in Kansas City.

Scott Benner 6:43
Here is I just have to go. Yeah,

L.V.H. 6:45
my dad was like, she's going nowhere. As of right now. I was like, oh, man,

Scott Benner 6:50
I I agree with your father. I would have been there before you hung up the phone. So yeah, well, isn't it interesting to no matter what the illness is? Whether it's a short term thing or a lifelong thing? When you first get the news of it, you're like, no, this won't touch me the way it touches other people. Like I won't be impacted by this. Even if you got the flu. And you had plans in three days. You hear people do that all the time. Like I'm going on vacation next week. The flu is not going to stop me. Oh, sure. It will.

L.V.H. 7:20
Yeah, I think it probably didn't help that my co worker at a time had type one diabetes, and she was I think 12 or 13. And when I called her being like, hey, my a one C is 13.5. And I'm going to the hospital right now Can I still go to Kansas City? She was like Yeah, sure. Definitely then that helped the situation in terms of like, egging me on to like still take this trip to Kansas City. Yeah, well, that happened

Scott Benner 7:48
well her perspective right like if if her knowledge was in your body you probably could have gone to Kansas City. But yeah, brand new diagnosed person's not gonna know did you ever make it like the following year? Did you go to the festival? Where was that co

L.V.H. 8:02
because the following are my friend who was going to visit and Kansas City for that festival she moved like that October back to the Midwest. I don't even know if Kansas City is considered the Midwest. No, probably not. I

Scott Benner 8:20
don't think so. But is it Kansas City Missouri or Kansas City isn't there in Kansas City Missouri and Kansas City in Kansas?

L.V.H. 8:29
So it's the it's like the same city it just is right on the border

Scott Benner 8:35
Really? Yeah, I've been there and like oh yeah, I remember this oh my god I just pull up a map and I'm like oh my god yeah, I remember

L.V.H. 8:46
on the border like the street that was the border so she was Missouri but the hospital across the street was Kansas City Kansas.

Scott Benner 8:54
Okay, I remember being that this this whole like, Am I wrong about this? I also remember being in Ohio and feeling incredibly close to Kentucky which seemed odd to a person

L.V.H. 9:08
now you are lucky and depending on what part of Ohio you were in Yeah,

Scott Benner 9:14
I don't understand all this. I would like more specific delineations between states

L.V.H. 9:21
or not Cleveland Cincinnati, it would be the closest big city to Kentucky because it's the there's like three big cities. It's the one that's Southern ish. Okay, and Ohio.

Scott Benner 9:33
Alright, so so what was our original question? are we calling that part of the country the Midwest?

L.V.H. 9:38
The Kansas City are we calling Kansas City part of the Midwest?

Scott Benner 9:43
No, I guess you can't it looks like it looks like the Mideast which is Yeah, I hear people say and then what's what's what's like the between Denver and K in like Wichita is that like the mid I don't think there's

L.V.H. 9:57
a central I don't know. All right,

Scott Benner 10:00
I'll tell you what you tell me about your diagnosis, I'm going to find out what delineates the Midwest. So how did you end up in the hospital?

L.V.H. 10:12
So I had like all the symptoms of diabetes, pretty much the tire school year, early some Christmas break until end of the school year and beginning of June cheer a teacher. Yeah, I'm a teacher. And at the time, I was completing my, like student teaching. And my friend who is doing it with this student teaching at the same school as me, jokes several times, like, you know, maybe you're, maybe you're diabetic, and we sort of just joked it off. And finally, because I lost so much weight, and was constantly thirsty, and all those other symptoms, I just scheduled a normal doctor's appointment. And I was like this run any blood tests you want to run. These are like my symptoms. And then I left that doctor's appointment, oddly enough, went to the Apple Store, because my phone was not working. So I could only speak to people on speaker, and they call them they're like, can you talk and I was like, Well, I'm talking to you through my watch right now my phone is being fixed. So they're like, great, we're gonna call back and leave a voicemail. And all they said to me was like, what my Awan fee was and if you have these symptoms can go to the hospital. I was like, I have no idea what and I want to see is I do have those symptoms. Say Google, you know, what you're not supposed to do is Google Health stuff. googled a Wednesday and the only thing I could come up with was type one diabetes related stuff. So I called my friend being like, What do I do? Should I go or should I not go? I don't have great insurance. Will it cost me a fortune? And she's like, No, you have to go. So I went and picked up another friend. My friend Rick diabetes was like, on your way to the hospital stop and get a Diet Coke or not a normal coke. And drink it. That way you get admitted right away. And you don't have to sit in the ER waiting room. And I was like, Okay, and now when you look back on it, everyone's like, why did you drink that coke on your way over to the hospital when you knew your blood sugar was already super high? Probably super high. But I had also been like running around and biking around all day. So maybe it was low and all I know is when I got to the hospital. My blood sugar's 600 something. I don't remember the exact number.

Scott Benner 12:56
Did you have to wait?

L.V.H. 12:58
Now I was like, they took like blood pressure and then like sent me back into the ER and gave me a bed to sit in for a while until they took me out to the ICU.

Scott Benner 13:10
Your friend sorta had some good that was I mean, that's not a health wise a good tip, but it was a decent tip for not waiting around.

L.V.H. 13:18
Yeah, I guess so. Her older sister is a diabetic too. And that's when she was being diagnosed. My friend. The older sisters under chronologist told the family to do that.

Scott Benner 13:33
That's insane. By the way, yeah. Not as insane as this. The Midwest is defined by the federal government as this here are the states ready? It's gonna freak you out. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin are all considered to be in the Midwest. I mean, that's 1-234-567-8910 1112 13 states that's all the states.

L.V.H. 14:02
Wow. Yeah. All central part of the country. It's

Scott Benner 14:06
a big chunk of them. And it's also northy like for some reason mid makes me think middle. But then Texas takes up such a big chunk of the lower portion of the mid part of the country. That there Yeah, very north to begin with, I guess. I guess they

L.V.H. 14:22
include Texas in the Midwest. No, no, I guess I guess. I guess. I live there. That's not the Midwest.

Scott Benner 14:29
I guess the Midwest doesn't promise. height as far as the map goes. Yeah, I guess it's Central. I'm thinking of it doesn't matter. But what matters is Yes, you were in the Midwest.

L.V.H. 14:44
Okay, there we go. I can't believe you

Scott Benner 14:47
haven't gotten to go to a beer festival yet.

L.V.H. 14:50
So I've been to that beer at that same Beer Festival. I had gone the year before or prior Yeah. So and there's They've been out in Denver, there's tons of beer fest. Well, pre COVID, there was tons of beer festivals three going to.

Scott Benner 15:06
So how do you leave the hospital? Is it? Like? Do you feel like you understand what's going on? And you have a bunch of technology? Or is it a little scattered? Did they just give you some needles? How does it go?

L.V.H. 15:19
It was a little scattered, I would say, I left with a box of needles, and a vial of insulin. And this piece of paper that said, like, here's how you're going to give yourself insulin at mealtime based on your blood sugar reading. And I think, at minimum, I was always given. Like, if I was between, I would say 80. And 120, probably, it was like, you're gonna give yourself three units of insulin. And anything after that, it sort of like, jumped up by one unit. And I was in between moving apartments to so I like did not have food at my house or my apartment that I was moving to. So my dad and I ate out almost every meal, like for that first couple of weeks. And I just would walk around town with these like, orange oranges and like, pull them out at the, like, middle of the restaurant and be like, let me just give myself some insulin right now. I felt like, so weird. And then, my friend was trying to they didn't like the hospital I was at, they were like, Oh, you can see our endocrinologist team. And like three months, I was like, that seems ridiculous. So then I started calling around different places, they suggested another one. And I, honestly, I'm so thankful I ended up where I ended up with the endocrinologist because I got put on the Dexcom. Like, immediately, because my endocrinologist is like, oh, you're going to be living alone. You You need some sort of glucose monitor. That's not the fingerprinting system. And he's like, I'm going to suggest a Dexcom because that will send the alarms to your parents if they need to wake you up. Or like a friend nearby if they need a call and wake you up.

Scott Benner 17:33
up to 10 followers.

L.V.H. 17:35
Yeah, I only have two. Well, when we go get into like the camping part, when I do go camping, my friends hook up to it. But when we're just in Denver, I'm not having them follow my blood sugar on a daily basis. Right.

Scott Benner 17:51
So yeah, that is how you ended up on the show. Right? Is that you? You do a fair amount of camping? Yeah. Okay. And that came up came up online. And a lot of people were interested in it. I have to admit it's a it's a space that misses me in that I don't think I've been camping since I was like a little kid. And my parents were, you know, bought a trailer and decided that's how we were going to spend weekends sometimes. I don't have particularly bad or good memories of it. I actually don't know that I have any memories of it. But I don't camp. So when people start asking questions about it. I always get confused about why anyone's even nervous to go camping. Like To me, it seems like going to a hotel, but being outside. Right? Yeah,

L.V.H. 18:37
I would. I would agree with that. It's fairly easy to ease people's mind. It's fairly easy to camp with Type One Diabetes. Okay, excellent. So like, management and everything stays the same. For the most part,

Scott Benner 18:53
you just have to have supplies with you and have a way to keep the things that need to be cool. Cool. And I would imagine Yeah, pretty much it right. Yeah. All right. So what what draws you to camping? Have you always been a camper?

L.V.H. 19:06
Um, I guess no, just given where I grew up? Not really, I mean, we did what is like, I don't even know if they still have it. It was called Indian princesses as and that name is so politically incorrect at this point. But when I was younger, it wasn't. And we would go camping with that group, but it was like, you go and you stay in a cabin. You're not like pitching a tent anywhere. I went camping at a country music festival once in college. But then when I I've always just enjoyed the outdoors and loved being outdoors that I knew it was one time moved up to Denver. I knew it was something I wanted to start doing sort of right away. Once I got here and I fell into the right group of friends that also wanted to be doing campaign and living outside in the wilderness for a week. So it just sort of fell into place. Cool.

Scott Benner 20:12
I have to tell you that the YMCA in certain parts of the country still calls their program Indian princesses.

L.V.H. 20:18
Okay, there we go.

Scott Benner 20:23
There's their slogan is for

L.V.H. 20:24
the I shouldn't talk bad about the name.

Scott Benner 20:28
It's a program. programs are for dads who want to quality plan one on one time with their daughters.

L.V.H. 20:35
Yeah, yep. Our dad went with us. No, dad, my dad.

Scott Benner 20:40
Our dad. Whose do you have? Do you have sisters? I have a twin sister. So yeah, so yeah, so you and Avi is avh. Right. ABH? Yeah. Remember, you guys went together? Yes. When your father called you, did he say a and lvh? Or did he say six of the letters all together?

L.V.H. 21:03
No, he said our names. Our parents always called us by our first name. It's more just like friends that caught us. I'll be HIV. Ah,

Scott Benner 21:11
I say because I was watching cricket. I just feel like that would get confusing. So you do some camping with your dad when you were younger, and then not really again. And now as an adult. You get into the Denver area and this is something that seems like you want to get involved in and are you pretty heavily involved at this point.

L.V.H. 21:31
At this point, yeah. I do a couple of camping trips a year. Our biggest camping trip is always around the Fourth of July 3 of July. Just that week was I have a birthday of my best friend out here has a birthday so we just do a big week long camping trip and then we have we both teach and we do a camping trip over our fall break down to the great Sand Dunes National Park and then I'll drive to Utah camp. A lot of it is has been local to Colorado but we're in the midst of planning a lot of bigger trips this summer now that COVID is sort of dying down a little bit and there's not an we're vaccinated so we feel more comfortable this summer camping then we did last summer we last time I was a down sort of year we only did one or two trips right?

Scott Benner 22:41
Howdy this great Dunes National Park thing is beautiful.

L.V.H. 22:46
Yeah, it's so fun. Okay, so what's like a giant sandbox?

Scott Benner 22:52
What if it's actually what it looks like? is if you had to sell camping to me if you were you know I we were friends and you're like Scott I'm going camping then the next thing would happen is I would say oh have a good time and then you said no no I want you to come with me because what is great about it because people who love it love it and I want to understand more why that is

L.V.H. 23:18
because you get that opportunity to just like leave the city whatever even if the big city small city whatever city it is and not sort of be in the real world for a while like you don't have to have your newspaper your or your television paying the news 24 seven you don't have internet to access so you're not like oh I have to get on my work email and check my emails. It's just like such a good way to relax and like not thinking about your day to day life. Ah besides the fact that I do think about day to day life in terms of managing my diabetes while I'm out there but that's like a different part of my day to day life.

Scott Benner 24:08
I have to say I'm not there right now but these pictures are relaxing. So I imagine being there must be incredibly soothing. But she you just from where you end up camping to wherever you park your car. Do you hike a little bit to where you camp.

L.V.H. 24:27
Um, typically no we, I can I can. And I will get into that but a lot of camping sites you can if you're like, I'll call it car camping. Because you have your car right there. You're still sleeping in a tent, but like, you don't have to worry about bear boxes. And that you just sort of hide your food and your trunk of your car overnight. So we do a lot like at the great sand dunes we did that. The other smaller ones, that's what we've done surfing but you can do like backpacking, where you have like a bag full of stuff your pants is at the bottom of your backpack. And then you hike into you just go Where are you gonna pitch your tent? Yeah,

Scott Benner 25:30
but you more more frequently you have access to your vehicle is that is that does that have anything to do with your diabetes are just in general, that's just where your comfort level is.

L.V.H. 25:41
Where are where my comfort level is and where the supplies I have. I'm still sort of working my way to like, have all this fun camping gear that's necessary to do trips like backpacking and things like that. But right now I'm just sort of building the base of I have my pet I have like the stuff I need to cook and I have my sleeping bag and pillow. And then from there, it's nice. Yeah. Yeah, well, you

Scott Benner 26:18
might have Solvay we'll see So wait, but are there bears here at this Sand Dunes National Park thing

L.V.H. 26:25
um Yeah, yeah, not so not in the national park but our first year when we camp there the there was a bear sighting. So the camp host who is like a forest he works for the US Forest Service people service Thank you. He will come around and say like, hey, there's been a bear sighting this week. We thought Tuesday we haven't seen it since but at night make sure all your food is packed up in your car or hidden and they have most depending on the campsite or type of campsite you go to they will have like a bear box storage that you can use right there on your campsite. If it's one that you reserve but or I can pull up to any sort of national forest that allows campaign or just forest in general and just pitch a tent wherever I want to. So there's all different types of camping and how you pick where you're going to stay and all that if

Scott Benner 27:40
you bring me I'm sleeping in the car with the food just so you know. There's there's something about the thinness of attend. That would preclude me from laying it out. Yeah. Do you ever feel exposed?

L.V.H. 28:00
Um, no. I think it's the equipment. Right I have in terms of laying on the ground like I have a sleeping pad it's this thin pad that you roll it up when you're packing it but then when you get to the campsite, all you have to do is like blow some air in it as if you're like blowing up a balloon or something and then it's this nice pad that you get to sleep on and so you don't be able to rock so the ground too much. Gotcha. And then the tent and this because you're like tight in your sleeping bag. I feel like that keeps you one warm but to like nestled in a way where you're like oh I'm not like exposed to like everything going on around me.

Scott Benner 28:55
So what do you bring with you besides your personal comfort? Like what do you bring with you for diabetes?

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L.V.H. 31:25
I bring when the first time I went camping I brought in some pens, and just the pen caps that go with it. I don't and this was probably bad. I don't think I brought extra insulin. I think I just brought like the pen that I happen to be using both the lantis and humalog. One at the time, and I was like, well I won't run out because I don't know how to use this in general. But that was less than a month into being diagnosed was that first camping trip. And then since then, the first time we went to great sand dunes was the day after I got my tea slim. So now I bring whatever vial of insulin I'm using at the time and at least an extra one depending on how long I'm camping for. depending on the weather situation, I have different ways I store them. What I bring Smarties is what I use as Hello snack. So I my hiking backpack. Always just has a bag of Smarties in it. What else do I bring?

Scott Benner 32:43
Well, so the first time you go you don't really know a ton about diabetes. And you just brown like hey, here's my insulin, I'll bring it along. You didn't think about having a backup? You didn't. You didn't and you made How long were you there that first time because you made out all right, obviously.

L.V.H. 32:59
I was there. We were there for about a week, five days.

Scott Benner 33:04
There you go. You made in the week with some insulin pens in your hand, basically. Yes. Yeah. I think that's good for people to hear honestly. Not that not that you wouldn't want to be prepared for something going wrong because you know, you could do that five times in a row and one of those times you're going to lose the pan or something like that's gonna happen. Yeah. But still, it's good for people not to be scared and to realize that that that you did that I think is really cool. But you, as times passed, have become a little more thoughtful about what you've brought with you. How do you how do you keep cold

L.V.H. 33:42
so if I'm camping in the summer, I have a cooler bag that has a pocket on the outside. So that keep it cold during the day. We always make sure that bag is somewhere in the shade, but not in the trunk of the car because the trunk heats up faster. And then I put the input on the outside of that bag. That way it's not in the ice water. Because I smell like ice water. That's what I do during the summer like hot month. When we camp in October, I really don't have to worry about the cold as much because the daytime and nighttime is cold and it's how do I keep it from not freezing overnight. And I sleep with it with me and my sleeping bag to get body heat on it.

Scott Benner 34:41
It's interesting. So in the warmer weather you have to keep it cold in the colder weather. You might have to keep it warm. Yes. How cold does it get out there?

L.V.H. 34:52
In October it was below freezing below 32 overnight

Scott Benner 34:57
now you've lost me so you were outside when it was cold. Freezing and yet you slept outside the tent Yeah, how warm is it in the tent in that scenario

L.V.H. 35:07
um well your I guess it's the tent keeps your body heat and whoever else is in that tent with you but the real way that you stay warm is the sleeping bags are made I think mine is for up to 20 degrees so it's made to keep you warm and every sleeping bag has a different temperature range and rating Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:35
but when you're in the sleeping bag Are you cold?

L.V.H. 35:39
Typically no Wow. The first when I first started camping I was still using my sleeping bag from that Indian princesses so like I said North Face sleeping bag and I had had it since I was in like fourth grade and it was not like one that was heavy curated. So there is a pretty funny photo of me like it's like five jackets on like two hats like trying to fit my 20 what I was probably 26 at the time like body in this like sleeping bag meant for a fourth grader so that was not the best experience I upped my sleep bag game since

Scott Benner 36:23
I would imagine none of your friends tried to like cut you off and say hey you you're using a child sleeping bag.

L.V.H. 36:32
I think I just went with what I had and people were like, what and I was like well, I'm gonna get a new one soon. Just gotta

Scott Benner 36:40
be better friends.

I have a picture in my head of you in like a three foot long pink sleeping bag with seven minutes. I have to be honest with you if if the ceiling fan in my bedroom catches my bare shoulder while I'm sleeping I'm very unhappy I don't know if I'm cut out for this is what I'm getting at. Although it sounds like lovely like explain the day like you wake up in the morning when you're out like doing something like that. You just what do you do?

L.V.H. 37:15
First thing the morning is very, it's early, because the sunrise is early so you're up along with the sun most of the time. And it's still I don't know if this fact is true, but I'm gonna say it because I like to believe it. The coldest time of the day in the state of Colorado is that hour between seven or yes seven and eight o'clock. Which you would think it would be like overnight when it's like dark out. But that's the coldest time so we're always the coffee drinkers make their coffee on the camping stove. And then I heat up some water drink some tea. We throw breakfast on the stove, which is typically a eggs. My friend over COVID got really into baking bread along with everyone else in the world and sourdough bread so now that's in the realm of things and I'm still learning how to eat that bread in the morning because it's so good but my insulin is if I carbee things in the morning I spiked higher than I would like to so I'm still working on that piece in terms of how am I managing this but I could eat that same bread for lunch and not have as big of an effect

Scott Benner 38:47
you're getting some sort of like a feed on the floor or like raw yeah being alive and waking up and feeling you know that your needs and exam anxiety about being alive and everything like that is giving you the chance

L.V.H. 39:00
to get eaten by the bears last night.

Scott Benner 39:04
Right now I don't understand at all what you're saying like give a gun you know bear spray?

L.V.H. 39:13
Yeah. All right. Typically has it

Scott Benner 39:16
someone that would be me I don't know I would have my hand It would be my hand.

L.V.H. 39:22
It's in one of the cars that we are bags.

Scott Benner 39:29
Put in your hand with your thumb on the duct tape yourself though. It's so that even if you wake up in the middle of the night, you're prepared to bear spray something I might not be rugged. I think it's

L.V.H. 39:40
now a lot of the people I grew up with when they come out to visit they're like we can do like outdoor things but we're not going to go camp with you but we can stay in like a cabin or something. like okay, that's that's fine. Something outdoors.

Scott Benner 39:58
No I did. I did a cabin once. There was a bear near the cabin and I was like we should leave. This bears that we're in the bears house. It doesn't like it we have. It seems upset. Meanwhile, probably that bear was nice to them. three dogs I've owned in my life. It just wandered around gently. Nobody bothered it. It didn't bother anybody else. The people who were local seem to not even be concerned that it was there. And I was like, Oh, I just didn't want to eat a kid. Although looking back now it could have eaten one of them would have made my life easier. I'm not saying Yeah, but there is one thing. Now No, I'm joking. But so this is kind of really interesting, because you got diabetes, sort of as you found camping, and yet it hasn't. You're learning new things together. How did you find the podcast?

L.V.H. 40:52
Um, I was looking for. I was having a really hard time. That first ball that I had diabetes, working out and not going low or not going high, depending on what type of workout I was doing. And one day, I used to carpool to work with my neighbor, who worked at the same school. And she was like, Oh, I need like, 15 more minutes. But I was already in my car. So I was like, oh, I'll just look up like podcasts that I can listen to you later. And I was never a big podcast person before. Really, before finding the Juicebox Podcast, I had never listened to a lot of podcasts. And I found another one and the guys were just like boring. And then I think I found your Is it a pro tip? Where you talk about exercise? Yeah. Yeah, so I found that one. And then sometime, like, maybe I like listened to it. And it was still on my back my mind. And I would listen to it again, still trying to figure this out. And then at some point, I found the episode, the after dark episode about drinking, like, Oh, this is the right podcast for me now that I have mastered this diabetes. Working out which actually I should not say mastered, diabetes been working out. That's far from true. But I've grown with it. And then I was like, Oh, I'm not the only diabetic drinking. And like, still trying to enjoy that part of what my life was before diabetes, and things I enjoyed. So I was like, oh, and then from there, I just sort of started listening on my way to work or way home if I wasn't carpooling with the other teacher that was like across the street from me. Yeah. And then it's just when we weren't remote, I would listen during my lunch break.

Scott Benner 43:04
Thank you. Thank you. Oh, you know, my is a mom now from the drinking edition of rock. Yeah, she was in Episode 274. And that was the first afterdark that I ever did it to tell you something that I've never said to anybody before. I'm a little bothered that I had to call them after dark. not make sense. Yeah. not bothered, like, I got, you know, I don't opine over often. But there is just part of me that thinks that these are just topics that people who are alive deal with. And I hate that I have to like, say like, Oh, this might be a little too risque or sexy for you. Like, be careful. But in the end, I don't want anybody to trip into an episode. You know, that's about psychedelics. And not know.

L.V.H. 43:56
She was, yeah.

Scott Benner 43:59
But but but so they, so they're branded that way. So that nobody, I don't want people to get triggered and be upset that they heard something that's upsetting, like I and I don't have a good perspective for that, because I just love people's stories. And I don't care what their story is. I don't I don't feel judgment about them. I just, I feel like I'm reporting on it. Like I'm just trying to understand it. So I can have a conversation with somebody who's talking about being bipolar. And I don't feel like the, you know, I don't I don't get upset, like it's hard for me to. I want to make sure I'm clear. I understand why people get upset by upsetting things. But they don't make me upset. So I'm a bad judge of that. So that's why I just call them after dark so that people can know hey, there's something here that maybe you should you know, maybe you want to tread lightly to it. Yeah. Meanwhile, I think there's some of the best conversations in the podcast.

L.V.H. 44:56
I would agree. Yeah. So now proves that like You're This is the teacher side of me coming out like a good listener. Like you can listen to people's stories and hear them for the truth and not be like, Oh, well maybe that's not how you should live your life.

Scott Benner 45:14
Yeah, I mean, I can only tell people how it occurs to me like using the latest one, the psychedelic one as an example, almost everything she said, in my brain, I thought that seems like a bad idea. But what I realized is like, to me, that's a bad idea. But it's a good idea for her and I don't like what do I care you don't I mean, there's a lot of people doing a lot of things in the world, they're not all the same things I'm comfortable with. And I'm glad you like them, I really am I want to do, I'm gonna do more, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna shy away from it, it's I keep thinking that there'll be an end to them, but there just isn't. You know, and you really have to thank the people who are on the podcast, because like Episode 399, is about heroin addiction. And the and the person who was on and and was that honest for hours about their life was, if I'm remembering correctly, the fourth person who has been addicted to heroin to contact me the first three, four reasons that each one were very good couldn't follow through with recording. Some of them were like legal reasons. Some of them weren't one person thought they'd be put in jail back in jail if they if they said some of the things they were gonna say. So it took me four. And it's not that easy to meet someone who has type one diabetes, uses abuses, or has been injured by heroin, and is willing to talk about a lot of podcasts like finding someone to do that. That's not an easy haul like that. Yeah. You know what I mean? So anyway, and then it all falls on like, like, what if I'm in like a sleepy mode or something like that, that day, and I mess it up. And I'm always worried about messing up the conversations, but I'm glad that you like them. And that you found it. But anyway, my point is, if I had a point, is that you're new to diag, you're new to diabetes. You're young, but you're not young, you're older, but you're not older. You don't need me. And, and you're figuring out type one, it sounds like with, you know, not a lot of help through the medical side. And so far your type one friend is only told you to drink a soda to get through the ER fast. Be there, no offense. And, and so you're you're kind of figuring this out by yourself and at the same time, not limiting what a mid 20s lvh wants to do. Get an Amen. Yeah, that's brave, you know, it's brave, or does it not feel like that while you're doing it?

L.V.H. 47:54
I don't think it feels like that while I'm doing it. And I think because, yeah, I have lived 25 years of my life without diabetes. And then I got it right before this camping trip. And I was like, Well, whatever, like, I'll just figure out the both at the same time, and I just went with it. And I think if I hadn't just gone on that first camping trip after being diagnosed, I don't think I would have continued camping. I think it would have been something where it's like, oh, I have diabetes, I can't do that. Which is not true at all. Like, I can do whatever I want to do with my diabetes, and I'm just going to find a way to make it work.

Scott Benner 48:42
So had you not tried this new thing before you had before you started really understanding the diabetes, but before you really understood it, like I I want to point out that when you're diagnosed, you know nothing. And that as you start gathering information, you still don't know anything. You're just scared because you hear more words, and you have more things in your head that you think are going to happen. And then you figure it out as time goes on. So you were lucky enough to just go on that camping trip before you even knew that that might not be a good idea.

L.V.H. 49:18
Yeah, and my because my dad was still out in Colorado with me at the time. Up until like two days before this camping trip. Hey, just like one request from my family was like, you can go as long as you have the Dexcom like he wasn't gonna leave the state of Colorado until I had a Dexcom and I wasn't allowed to go camping until I had a Dexcom which thinking back on it is probably the smarter way to do things. And I'm thankful I had it because it gave me a little bit more sense of mind of like, all my blood sugar's not 300 like I'm under 182 Majority of my first trip other than, like, randomly at night, but I found out that because I didn't know how to dose for eating handful on handholds and chips at at once, and I didn't know what Pre-Bolus thing was, but

Scott Benner 50:18
but you had that safeguard there. Yeah. Which by the way was doing more for you than that tent would have if a bear came. Also, fair point. Luckily, you obviously have come up against no diabetic bears, because nothing's trying to take your own.

L.V.H. 50:33
Yeah. Yeah, they have not imagined

Scott Benner 50:38
just came up to you and was it took your pen and left, like,

L.V.H. 50:43
smelled it and was like, nope, doesn't smell like something I want to have?

Scott Benner 50:47
I don't know. I'm thinking maybe the bear needs to bears get diabetes. Right? I don't know. We'll figure that out too. Well, so your father understood the gravity at least have a low blood sugar. That's the part that stuck to him during the time you were in the hospital, obviously.

L.V.H. 51:04
Yeah. And I think at my first endocrinologist appointment, I think my endocrinologist made it clear of like, you need to have some way to know while you're sleeping in your apartment alone or in camping world, that your blood sugar is not low, and you need to be woken up somehow.

Scott Benner 51:28
It's nice. It's nice that he figured that out. And I like to that even though you're in your mid 20s. He's like, Listen, I probably stopped telling you what to do a couple of years ago, but on this thing here, this is what I want, or you're not going outside like this. Yeah. Good for you. And he said, we'll talk about the diabetes, or have you ever expanded on that?

L.V.H. 51:49
Me and my dad? Yeah. Yeah. Partially because he, this past November sort of became learned how to manage my pump a little bit for me, and small pieces and just learn more about the punk because I was, I had a liver surgery in the fall. So he came out for that. And he sort of been like my medical guy and comes out to Colorado when I have something medical going on. As much as my mom would my mom, there's just a side note I would have loved and wanted to be there for this surgery. But your COVID and due to her own health was not allowed to travel. And the reason he came out the first time instead of her was she had just left Colorado the day before I was diagnosed. So like she was out visiting. Left, I went to the doctors call them later that night and was like, Hey, I'm going up to the ICU and I didn't even call them before I went to the hospital. I was like we're just gonna figure everything out. And then and then he I was like, Oh, I should call my mom and the nurse was like No, there's really nothing to tell them right now. Like wait until we at least take you up to the ICU and then I'll explain why you're going to ICU because it's not that you're like kind of die I see you but like those are the nurses trained to run the insulin.

Scott Benner 53:29
Do you think there's two different sides of the ICU that you're gonna die side? No.

L.V.H. 53:34
I wasn't like super sick. It was like you just need this infant and this is where you're gonna get

Scott Benner 53:40
it. No kidding. Hey, do you know if you go to a browser and type do bears get right? It's do bear that stung by bees rabies cold up during hibernation period. Somebody wants to know if a bear gets a period but if you hit a spacebar, and then just the D. Do bears get what do you think the first return is? diabetes, diabetes? Do bears get diabetes, then it's do bears get drunk? Do bears get depressed? Do bears get drunk on honey? Do bears get dandelions? bears? Good? So real quick. I want to find out if bears get drunk on dandy lions first. And then they get diabetes. Can a bear good? What is this? There are many videos purporting that shows Apple drunk bears. Here's a and well that's not a dandy line. Why would someone think dandy line and then there'd be no returns on it?

L.V.H. 54:35
Even NPR has had an article Why's that? Grizzlies don't get diabetes like we do. I really do bear I guess in 2014 what people

Scott Benner 54:47
Google is fascinating. Do bears get drunk on diarrhea? Why would someone Google that? Does alcohol cause loose stools? Well, yes it does. But what's that got to do with gone down a strange rabbit hole very quickly. Oh my god, I but we do need to find out if bears get diabetes. Some bears can have their cake and eat it too grizzly bears become diabetic during hibernation and then recover when they awake. Well, that's interesting. I'm gonna have to bear have a bear on one time and ask this question. There we go. I don't think that's gonna work. how fat nasty grizzly bears that are overweight, avoid type like type two diabetes. That's really interesting. Okay, that is not why you're on though. Because that bear Let me tell you this elevation. I'm being serious. Whether the bear has diabetes doesn't have diabetes has diarrhea or doesn't it'll rip you open like a sack of potatoes and kill you. Yeah, that's why I'm not going camping. You have no fear of that whatsoever.

L.V.H. 55:53
I don't, but I'm, you're not the only one. There's so many people that are like, nope, there's animals and bears and things out there. I'm not going to go near it.

Scott Benner 56:04
Snakes on the way.

L.V.H. 56:08
Yeah. We had a pet snake growing up. I

Scott Benner 56:11
don't care. That was in a fish tank.

L.V.H. 56:16
Right? Yeah, yeah, I was in Florida, some tank guy. And one time we clean the cage. I somehow let it out. And it slithered into the bathroom. But hey, it went right to the bathtub. So what kind of snake was it? I think gardener state. That seems reason my brother's pet.

Scott Benner 56:35
I'm just thinking yeah, I don't want to wake up in the morning with a snake in my sleeping bag. Because it's like, oh, it's warm in here.

L.V.H. 56:41
We got to make sure you set the tent up.

Scott Benner 56:45
I'm counting on a zipper to keep a snake away from me.

L.V.H. 56:49
I guess so. Yeah.

Scott Benner 56:50
Do you burn a fire? 24 seven when you're out camping? it's cooler.

L.V.H. 56:56
Yeah, well, yes. But it goes back to the what type of campsite you're at, especially in Colorado because of forest fires.

Unknown Speaker 57:08
Okay.

L.V.H. 57:09
And during the summer, especially this past summer, there's, you have to know what the fire band is, before you build that fire. But most of the time at, if you're at a campsite that you've reserved, they have like a fire. It's like a ring. And it has to be within there. And then, but if you're doing what they call this first campaign where you just pull up to anywhere, and you just pull over and camp, then you probably can't be having that fire. Depending on what the fire band is at the time, but this whole past summer we were at the highest fire band because like Fort Collins was pretty much like, engulfed in flames. Rocky Mountain National Park. I went there the last weekend before it closed down because the fire took part of it. So you just have to be careful. But there's signs everywhere that say like, this is the fire band.

Scott Benner 58:22
Okay. I have to tell you. I am I looked up like more like luxury camping. And it's really expensive.

L.V.H. 58:33
Yeah, yeah. glamping is

Scott Benner 58:35
that what they call it?

L.V.H. 58:36
Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:37
go glamping glamping. What's the g4?

L.V.H. 58:41
glorious. I think really? I don't know, there's a place. I may have just made that up. But we'll

Scott Benner 58:47
find out. But there's a place in Montana where I could I could spend 11 $150 a night to go to be in a tent. Why would I Why would I do that? Oh then you see the view. Look at the view. Oh my god. Maybe I would know if I had 11 $100 maybe I would spend it that's really something. Yeah, I listen.

L.V.H. 59:12
I am a risk camping glamorous.

Scott Benner 59:14
What did you say the first

L.V.H. 59:16
big. I think I said glorious. I don't know why I said that.

Scott Benner 59:19
It was pretty. Pretty nice. Glorious to learn with a G. At least you got a j Can you imagine if you were like if I said what's that g stand for and you said fantastic camping? Yeah, then that'd be embarrassing. Oh, so I have to I have to be honest with you. And maybe you can help me through this a little bit. And then I want to get back before I let you go about about like all the supplies that you bring in things that you're thinking of in the in the beginning, if for the future, but I really like everything about the outdoors. With the exception of dying at the hands of an animal or freezing seems really like glorious to me. I'll use your And so I want that like there's part of me that thinks I want to live in a in a, you know, in a rustic house in Montana in the summer and then get the hell out of there before it gets cold. But I don't know you know, obviously that seems like it's something a wealthy person does like has a summer and a winter home, which I don't think I'd be able to accomplish. But uh, but I mean there's something about it that I find incredibly attractive, I think it would be lightning for my soul and just better for my health and, and just for my visual, you know, I saw myself on a video call this morning with someone and I realized I don't think my face has been in the sun in like a year. And I didn't recognize when I was getting pale, you know what I mean? Like, I want I want to be outside, I don't want to die in the in the pursuit of it. And I don't want to be sticky from humidity, these are my goals. But I wonder if there's a place like that, where I could actually test it out and give it a shot. So

L.V.H. 1:01:04
it would be there's sites that like there's sites where you can find camping sites, ground. But then there are sites that are sort of like Airbnb, but for for like, cabins, okay? That are like, in the wilderness,

Scott Benner 1:01:25
I'm going to look into it because I feel like I could pretty cheaply fly somewhere, you get to think that when COVID is done, air travel is going to be free. So yeah, right out though, I'll be able to fly somewhere. And then do this instead of going to some sort of like a hotel and then just finding the sights like just stay outside instead. Alright, I'm gonna try it. But I'm I'm bringing bear spray is all I'm saying.

L.V.H. 1:01:49
Yeah. Don't do what I do. Oh, my God. Yeah, somewhere.

Scott Benner 1:01:54
I just picture you wandering around outside completely unsafe with one needle with one vial of insulin and you're, and that's it. So

L.V.H. 1:02:05
I'm not the best at packing things. It was just probably why. I was like, Oh, I have my diabetes stuff. That's like the one thing I know I always have. And then past that, it's like, well, I hope it made it in the car. Like I'm in Vail this weekend, or this week. I'm doing a bunch of snowshoeing. I was halfway to Vail on the phone with my sister. And I was like, Oh my god, I forgot my hiking boots. And she was like, What? How that's the one thing you need this weekend, Laura. And I was like, I was like, I just, I don't know, they're always in my car. And I wasn't the last one to drive to the hiking trip. So they're in my house now. So here I am, I bought a pair of boots on my way out here. I was gonna say I was like, I'm not turning around.

Scott Benner 1:03:02
Yeah, my son showed up at a baseball tournament one time without spikes. That was interesting. And he had to borrow somebody else's shoes and play in somebody else's shoes for he literally found approached the game, saw a friend of his playing in the game pre happened previous to his and stop, said I need shoes and Turkish shoes from him. But listen, joking aside, there's something about that freeness in you that I find delightful. And I mean, when I was younger, you describe the way I lived my life. Like I didn't plan a whole lot. I would leave my house without things and have to buy something along the way. And I think there's something kind of there's something kind of great about that. There really is. So and I think Moreover, stressful that way. Whatever. Yeah, cuz you don't have to remember anything. I mean, as long as you can afford boots, I guess it's okay. But so my bigger point is that when I see people online, and they're like, you know, we want to go camping, but my kid was just diagnosed, it feels like they want rules. Like they want someone to tell them. Here's the diabetes camping checklist. Here's the diabetes basketball checklist. Here's and I don't think any of that exists. And yet I want to have the conversation about it. Like I didn't know what you were gonna say, and I never met you before. I mean, you might have been, you could have come on here and been an incredibly type A, I've got a list that tells me you could have a list of lists. I wouldn't have known who you be when you got here, you know, and instead we meet somebody who's recently diagnosed, who is embarking on new, you know, adventures. They're not next to a refrigerator in their house, and you're still doing great and I think in the end that that's a really good thing for people to hear that even you a person who might Forget your shoes, goes camping and doesn't kill themselves. You don't I mean?

L.V.H. 1:05:06
Yeah, I think I see that, too. Yeah, I'm a part of your Facebook group. And everyone, anytime I see a post about camping, I'll chime in. And it's probably the only thing I chime in about. or altitude is the other thing I throw in knowledge about Yeah. But everyone who responds to that post has a different experience and different way they manage their blood sugar's while campaign, just like we all have different ways. managing our blood sugar's when we're not campaign, that it's like, okay, just that reassurance of like, I can do whatever I know best. And I'm not going to nothing bad is gonna happen.

Scott Benner 1:05:53
Yeah, that's what I appreciate about this conversation, really. And I'm, I'm thrilled that it went the way it did. Because in my heart, that is how I feel about all this. I don't think that there's rules for every different kind of person that exists. And, but but in the beginning, for a lot of people, it can really feel that way. Like, you know, we're gonna go on vacation, tell me what to do. I always like the one with like, we're gonna fly for the first time with an insulin pump. What do we have to do? And I always think, like, Well, what do you think other people within Sometimes though, they go to the gate, and they say, they get somebody's attention to go, Hey, we're in an insulin pump. And then they want you and send you through, like I didn't, that doesn't need a podcast episode or a blog post, or you don't I mean, like I, I get confused by the things that people think or content, like, if you step back from this podcast, you have to realize, like by now, if you're not listening, you have to, like really pay attention that in the first 20 minutes of most conversations, I'm learning about people and getting them comfortable. You were kind of nervous, I could tell in the beginning of this, but you like, loosened up. And I feel like I helped you get that right. So yeah, so there's that part of it. And then it's up to me to build a conversation after that. And, and that's, that's kind of my job. But the podcast has never once been, here's a list. Or, you know, I mean, every once in a while, there'll be a Facebook post, it's so valuable, that I'll actually add an extra podcast episode, and I'll be like, Look, here it comes in 20 minutes, I'm gonna read you all these people's responses around this one thing, because it was so thoughtful. And you know, and I think the informations valuable for people, but in general, I want people to kind of understand that there's no, there's just no rules. Like, you got to have your insulin. And you need to take care of yourself. It doesn't matter if you're outside, in a tent, in your house at school. That's what this is. Right? Like, it's going to be wherever you are going to be, you know, are there some thing you know, could I tell you how I keep insulin cold in the summer, I could, but you could figure it out. Like I did. Like, I'm not the standard bearer for how to keep insulin cold in the summertime. I figured something out based on the stuff that was in my house. And it works fine. And so that's how we do it. That doesn't make it a rule. It just makes it what it is. You know what I mean? So I appreciate this a lot. Well, so how are you? Can I ask you the I know I'm gonna keep you a couple extra minutes. I hope you don't mind.

L.V.H. 1:08:38
That's right. I do have to run off eventually to go.

Scott Benner 1:08:41
couple minutes. I promise. I go.

L.V.H. 1:08:44
What am I doing? country scheme? Are you really? Yeah. So very first time, just see

Scott Benner 1:08:51
that and how, Okay, forget that. Forget what I was asking. How did you plan for cross country skiing for the first time.

L.V.H. 1:08:58
So I'm in Vail because my brother and his girlfriend are out from the east coast. And they had enough room for me to stay with them and they're skiing all day, every day and I've had to ACL surgery, so I'm like, I'm not gonna see and tear another ACL. And everyone's like, you should cross country ski. So I figured, hey, while I'm out here, and they have these great like Nordic tracks where they groom this snow specifically for cross country here. Now, Mike, that I'm gonna do one thing that I missed in this break. That's not snowshoeing, because I know how to snowshoe. It's hiking with funny things on your feet. So I was like, I'm gonna buy myself a group lesson on how to cross country as he and that's great and died there. I'm partially taking care of their dog while they ski but they're like, nope. You got to do cross country skiing. You do your podcast. We're going to put the dog in doggy daycare for the day.

Scott Benner 1:10:03
So, Episode 26 and 138 of the podcasts are both with Chris Freeman. He was an Olympic cross country skier who has type one diabetes.

L.V.H. 1:10:12
Oh, I should look into that. Yeah, I don't think I have

Scott Benner 1:10:15
his and I love the way Chris talks about managing type one. He's very Matter of fact, and not, but not mean. Yeah. And so I I've always enjoyed how he's talked about diabetes, but that's not the point. The point is, you're going to go do something that's incredibly vigorous for the first time you're not scared. What do you have with you? What do you got a Dexcom insulin pen and a little bit of fast acting glucose?

L.V.H. 1:10:38
Yeah. Dexcom tandem pump and Smarties thing of water

Scott Benner 1:10:45
down. I like you. Alright, lvh. You rock. You're amazing. What do you would you share with me what you teach? You don't have to tell me where but like, like,

L.V.H. 1:10:56
seventh grade math. Well, math, middle school math, I guess I'll say the last couple of years have been seventh grade

Scott Benner 1:11:03
for you. You like teaching? Yeah, yeah. You look forward to getting back to the building.

L.V.H. 1:11:11
Yes, I am. I'm dying to get back to hell. I joke that like, I am a pretty good online teacher. I've like mastered that. I'll say I'm a mediocre in the building teacher. But just because my very first year of teaching on my own was last year where the last, like, right when you're getting comfortable teaching me like I got this classroom management stuff down, and I now know what I'm doing. And now we're going to get COVID and send Edwin remote. Well, at least I'm young and know technology. Well, well enough.

Scott Benner 1:11:55
So yeah, the kids know you have diabetes.

L.V.H. 1:11:59
They do. I tell them partially because they see the Dexcom I like to wear the desktop on my arm. So I told them right away, like, Hey, I have diabetes. You'll see this. This is what it is. When I'm in the classroom, what I did last year was it I went low and had to have Smarties. They all got a jolly rancher just for fun.

Scott Benner 1:12:26
Nice. Listen, they're probably they're probably rooting for you to get low.

L.V.H. 1:12:31
Right. And one of my students this year, neither her or I are in the building, but she also has type one diabetes, and it's the one thing that we've been able to like connect on. Right away. I was like, I have type one diabetes, and she messaged me individually and was like, me too. Like, you've probably had it longer than I have. But I know more than me.

Scott Benner 1:12:55
How do you handle pizza? Yeah, really funny. Right now for a little kid. Right? All right. Well, I hope you have a great day. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. I know you have a really wonderful spirit. I appreciate adding it to the show. Thank

L.V.H. 1:13:12
you.

Scott Benner 1:13:15
A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, g Vogue glucagon, find out more about chivo hypo pan at G Vogue glucagon.com Ford slash juicebox. you spell that GVOKEGL Uc ag o n.com. forward slash juice box. I also want to thank trial net and remind you that trial that is absolutely free to you. Find out if you or someone you love has the markers for type one diabetes, and see if you can't do something about it. Trial net.org forward slash juice box. Tell them the Juicebox Podcast sent you.

Oh geez, I almost forgot. Thank you to lvh for coming on the show. lvh I love talking to you. I wish I had a moniker I'd be SRB it's not as good as lvh What would your moniker be? I feel like this is like when I say like what's the name of the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet? That's your stripper name. Again, like what would your moniker I don't know. I'm having a stroke. Goodbye.