#1163 Lip Drill

Kim is 47 years old, diagnosed with type 1 at 24.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1163 of the Juicebox Podcast

a we're talking to Kim today she's 47 years old, diagnosed with type one diabetes at 24. And her 13 year old son also has type one diabetes. She was a singer. Wait a second, what is all this I'm looking at my own notes here she's a singer started noticing her symptoms around the time of an audition in New York and her Oh, you're gonna love this one. I remember this one. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Take the survey T one D exchange.org/juicebox. US residents who have type one diabetes or the caregivers of type one that are looking for you to fill out a 10 minute survey. It's just 10 minutes it's shorter than one of those like tests you take to find out what Hufflepuff you are you understand I'm saying T one D exchange.org/juicebox. You can do it right from your phone. Do it do it now. I commend you. When you place your first order for ag one with my link you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D. Drink ag one.com/juice box

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by ever since the ever since CGM is more convenient requiring only one sensor every six months. It offers more flexibility with its easy on Easy Off smart transmitter and allows you to take a break when needed. Ever since cgm.com/juice box. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo pen. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash juice box. Alright,

Kim 2:04
so my name is Kim. I'm 47 years old. And I was diagnosed with type one in December of 2000. And I have two kids, two boys aged 15 and 13. And my 13 year old is en and he also has type one. And he was diagnosed in May of 2018. And he was eight at the time 2018

Scott Benner 2:33
At eight. You were 47 When you were diagnosed?

Kim 2:37
No Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no 47 Now, okay, and it was 23 years ago. So I was 24 or I just turned 24. Well, my birthday is in September, and it was December. So it was Yeah, I

Scott Benner 2:53
was 24. It's my favorite part about when we talk about ages people get so oddly specific. I'm like you were 24. And people will go, Well, I had just turned 24. And I'm like, is any of this relevant? Or?

Kim 3:06
No, I know. Well, it kind of puts in perspective, like when was it in the year? And? Yeah, well,

Scott Benner 3:12
I think it's accurate. It's for the it's for people very obvious to me, that it's important to them for those small details to be correct for reasons that I think they don't see themselves as storytellers in this situation. It feels like they're their biographers, I guess to themselves, but like, but keep in mind, if you're listening to the podcast, whether you were 23, almost 24 Or just 24 When you were diagnosed, no one cares.

Kim 3:39
Makes no difference. makes literally

Scott Benner 3:41
no difference to what we're saying. Everybody gets stuck on it. It's It's fascinating to me a little bit. Yeah. Okay. So you were out of college, obviously. Yeah,

Kim 3:51
I had just finished graduate school. Actually, I went two years for graduate school after college and go off. Go ahead. And it was so I graduated that May and then this was December after that.

Scott Benner 4:06
Were you by any chance with the person you're married to now at that point?

Kim 4:10
No, no, no. We, we didn't meet till later. But yeah, I was. No, I don't think I was in a relationship at the time.

Scott Benner 4:18
Okay, so this diagnosis it comes. Are you living on your own? Are you back at home with your parents?

Kim 4:24
No, I was living on my own in a college in the Midwest. Yeah, it was in the summer through the summer. I was like doing a show and kind of started noticing some weird things. And I remember my dad saying like, hey, recognize you in the pictures, you know, because I lost a lot of weight and I guess I looked kind of gone in my face and all but then it wasn't until the fall. When I remember going like we used to go eat Mexican food a lot with my friends and I would come home Um, and, like, wonder if I was going to make it to the bathroom, you know? Cuz I mean, I guess my blood sugar was just so high and I didn't even know. And then my sister in law's a nurse and she had Thanksgiving. tested my blood says this is like a long, you know, month span, right? She tested my blood sugar to set a high on the meter. But then I had already planned to go to New York for a few days because I had some like auditions and things because I was a singer. That's what I was. I did and do and so I was I was still gonna go there were like, well, I don't know if that's a good idea. But I went, I remember having to buy like, reader's glasses because I couldn't see things. And so finally, I went home to South Carolina for Christmas. And my parents had made an appointment for me with this our family doctor, and that's who diagnosed the timeline. Yes, I

Scott Benner 6:02
was confused at first you were like, you just said a show. Like I knew that you were a performer, but I didn't know. So now I'm like getting it. So you were singing and dancing and like what like, we shooting for like Broadway type stuff or no,

Kim 6:15
no more. I'm sad, classical voice. So, you know, I performed an opera as an all in the summer to the opera company where I was living the, you know, traditional operas through the fall. And then the summertime, they did more light opera like if you know, Gilbert and Sullivan or, you know, things like that, that are a little more on the lighter side with more dancing and yeah. Oh, that's so I was in a show. There. Okay. Yeah. And started just kind of noticing things. And then I, I kind of put it together just by researching, you know, looking up symptoms that I was experiencing. And I was like, Oh, this might be something.

Scott Benner 6:57
Well, I love the blend of South Carolina and opera because you said you know, I do like OPERS and all. This is terrific. So your sister in law. So you're one of your siblings was married already. She was a nurse. Yeah,

Kim 7:15
they just got married. She's a nurse. And her mom has type two I believe in so they had Mater's lying around. And she came over when I was when I saw them at Thanksgiving, who she checked my blood sugar on the meter. And it just said, Hi. And she was like, you might want to get this checked out. And she started sending me all this, like pamphlets and stuff. Oh, Taiwan, and then. But yeah, I went to New York, and I did auditions. And I mean, I didn't I didn't even know you know, I didn't know that it was that dire of a situation. I was 24. You became

Scott Benner 7:49
you're 24 in a Duane Reade, I'm guessing by buying readers. And you don't think this might be problematic? Yes.

Kim 7:58
Well, I mean, I thought it was problematic, but I don't think I realized exactly. To the classes. Maybe I thought I just needed glasses, like all of a sudden, my eyes were bad. So oh,

Scott Benner 8:08
you know how that happens. You know how that happens for your eyes just suddenly stop working? When you're 24? You know, because Exactly. Any other type one or autoimmune in your family? Not

Kim 8:20
a lot. So my mom's okay. My mom's father's mother, her great grandmother, her grandmother, my great grandmother had type one in like that, you know, late 1800s, early 1900s. And she had 11 children and she lived in her 80s. And

Scott Benner 8:42
she didn't live into her 80s Without insulin. So when?

Kim 8:46
Yes, she well, okay, so, maybe I guess in that early 1900s Because my granddad was born in 1911. And he was like, in the middle of 11 kids, so

Scott Benner 8:57
Oh, maybe she was diagnosed. I mean, she had all I mean, if she lived at she had to have insulin, right? Oh, yeah, she hadn't. Yeah, so and that's 1921 2122 Yeah.

Kim 9:11
So around the time when I guess she was Yeah, okay. All right. Because I have children you said

Scott Benner 9:16
1800s. At first I was like and then she died when she was two like and Buffalo Bill carried her body to the gravesite like I was like I'm not sure what's happening here. So I love by the way how people with autoimmune stuff in their family like is there other type one your family like? Not a lot? Well,

Kim 9:34
I mean, like not a lot of type one. No, I

Scott Benner 9:36
know, but other people would go you know, other people who aren't indoctrinated into diabetes and autoimmune would be like, yes, there was a grandmother and like you're just not as much as you would think. How about other autoimmune? Do you look back and see it with anybody? Do you have any yourself?

Kim 9:50
I? I do I have Ashley Meadows? And my brother also just found out that he has Hashimotos give him my mom does not have any thing and her other than the grandmother with type one that's all that we know about. Like her siblings don't have anything I've asked her. My dad's side of the family I don't know so much about he so he passed right after I was diagnosed I'm sorry and so you know we didn't at that time didn't really talk much about autoimmune events didn't know about it so I don't really know much about on his side of the family but there's got to be you know, my brother has hash meadows and I have the two and you know, it's in there somewhere.

Scott Benner 10:32
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Kim 13:10
Well, we think it was a heart attack. It was son. He was 53

Scott Benner 13:14
Oh wow. I'm going to be 53 next year, so let's make up a different age where your dad died. Let's say he was 90. Okay. That sounds good way to panic me while we're watching while we're making up like oh my god, I just lost weight. Now.

Kim 13:27
You're in better shape now for sure. Oh

Scott Benner 13:29
my gosh. Oh, you you. You've seen my transformation.

Kim 13:32
I have. Yeah, I listen to your diaries. And yeah, it's fascinating.

Scott Benner 13:36
Oh, thank you my diaries where I'm like, either, like jubilant or like what is happening? Why can't this happen? Tim, I would tell you right now that I'm I'm I'm a little constipated, but we're not in the week of retirees. So

Kim 13:52
yeah, yeah, I've actually been considering the magnesium oxide myself.

Scott Benner 13:58
Oh, just for a little poopy. Yeah, that's a nice idea. I I went away this weekend and gave a talk. And I was so careful to take everything with me. And I took it while I was gone. Then I got home. And now I haven't taken it for like two days. Because when I got home, my pillowcase was empty as if that's an excuse. But I'm also like, the craziest thing happened. Can I tell you something that would never make it in the podcast if we don't talk about it right here unless it becomes like a horrible problem. Oh, gosh, yeah. I wanted to get home quickly to spend the day with my wife. So I flew out Friday morning to Orlando. I was on a plane at like 8am It was unpleasant. I'm not gonna lie to you. And I arrived in Orlando like 1010 30 I don't remember exactly. When I jumped in an Uber I was at the hotel. I did what any reasonable person does and they arrive at a hotel I unpack my bag and iron my clothes. No, no, I had to be in front of people. So I didn't want get caught with wrinkly stuff. So I took care of the irony. I went out, I grabbed a sandwich, I brought it back, I ate it by the pool, actually 20 minutes into that I thought I don't why do people live here so hot. And then then I made my way back to the room, etc, and so on. Got up the next day was brilliant all day giving my talks, but wanted to get home early for my wife, I had two options to fly on Sunday. One of them was a plane that took off at 6am. And I, like an idiot chose that flight. So I slept like four and a half hours woke up at three in the morning. And I got to the airport. Not too early. I'm not too late. It's all good. I sit down, I'm not there for five minutes, they push the flight back an hour and a half. Oh, it's like, okay, that's fine. So I stay awake, because I don't want to like you know, with my luck, they'll move the gate. And I'll wake I'll wake up and I'll be like, Wait, I don't want to go to Paraguay. You know what I mean? Like, it's gonna be like that. So I stay awake to get on the plane. We get on the plane. It's not very full. The stewardess comes around, she was hey, everybody can grab their own row. I don't know if you've ever been on a flight like that. But

Kim 16:07
yeah, where it's kind of empty. Terrific, right? And I think

Scott Benner 16:11
I'm going to sleep. So I laid down across the three seats, and curled up like a baby and I went to sleep well, it turns out the metal bar that separates the seat like under the padding, and the padding is like a loose term because it wasn't very soft. I must have laid right against something in my shoulder or my arm. And I think I pinched a nerve in my arm. And now it is four solid days later. And I have like, numbness and tingling in my hand and up my arm still. Oh my god. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure like a function of my hand. I don't want you to like think I'm like sitting here. And it's like laying off to the side. Like I have full function. But it feels it feels like it's been asleep, and it's almost done waking up. Oh, I hate that. Yeah. And I can't feel cold and hot correctly. And like water feels really ridiculous going over me. Anyway, I'm starting to panic about that. Yeah, maybe well, I'm old. So this could be it. This is how my arm falls off. You don't I mean, like for certain. Anyway. Why does this come up? Cuz? Because afterwards, I thought if I was still fat, I would have probably had enough padding for this not to happen. So I think losing weights can make me lose function in my right arm is what I'm getting. I don't know. I would have stayed chunky for that. You know what I mean? Anyway, I call the doctor. And he goes, Yeah, I'm not the right kind of doctor for that. I'll say, Oh, great.

Kim 17:47
Thanks. Wow. Okay, so

Scott Benner 17:50
who is a neurologist? Or oddly, a psychiatrist. Really ask why? Why? Well, the neurologists, for obvious reasons. The psychiatrist because apparently they're good with certain medications for depression that also helped nerve pain. Wow. I was like, Hmm, interesting. Interesting. But like a real man. I'm just going to ignore it until it goes well.

Kim 18:17
That's yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 18:19
Anyway, I

Kim 18:20
have a weird thing with my arm at the moment. And I think it's called shoulder impingement syndrome.

Scott Benner 18:27
Do you think you have a frozen shoulder? No, I

Kim 18:29
don't know. It's I don't think it's frozen shoulder. I think it's, um, I kind of, so I also should go to the doctor about it. But it's like when I try to reach above my head. Or if I try to reach behind my back, it pinches and it's kind of limited in the movement. So it's something to do with the space in between the thing that sticks out of the edge of your shoulder blade.

Scott Benner 18:58
And Kim, this just happened Arden. Really it's so crazy. You just said this. Yeah. Right. So Arden came home from college a couple of months. She's back now. But she came home for the summer. And she wasn't home long. She's like, Oh, my shoulder is killing me. And we looked and she laid on the floor because she's like, she's a walk on my back girl. So she's like walking on my back. And the muscles were like inflamed around her shoulder like sticking up. And we tried to do everything we could with it but it just wasn't going anywhere. So I took her to an orthopedic and he gets her in the office does the little put your hands out to your side raises over your head. She had limited motion it hurt moving her arm up that kind of stuff reached behind herself. He said yeah, you have like an impingement in your shoulder. He stuck a needle in her shoulder and filled her with whatever magic the put in there. The cortisone or cortisol that let me be honest, I didn't ask. Yeah, I just knew it's gonna make your blood sugar go up. For a couple of hours, which he did, but he sticks it in, like behind her shoulder blade a pretty, like meaty needle and pumps it in. She didn't feel the needle because he froze her skin first. But when he pumped the juice and she was like, Ooh, and then he took it out and had her just sit still for like, 20 I'm not lying. 2030 seconds. And he goes, Okay, try to lift your arm up over your head, and her arm shot up over her head like it was nothing.

Kim 20:26
Oh my gosh, she's

Scott Benner 20:27
like, that's amazing. So,

Kim 20:30
so did it then did it go away for good? Does she have any other issues with it? Now?

Scott Benner 20:35
It's only been a few weeks, but she hasn't complained about it. Wow. She's also a college now. So I don't talk to her as much. Yeah.

Kim 20:42
Yeah, that's the same thing. You know, you can't reach over your head. You can't do the thing where you like pull your arm in front of you and just stretch your arm. It hurts to like clasp a bra strap. That movement. Yeah, so

Scott Benner 20:54
apparently go to ortho Pedic that does shoulders, Hill, shoot cortisone or whatever the hell it is, like steroid in your shoulder. You're gonna need like 200 Basal insulin. Yeah, percentage for a few about three days afterwards. It was hard to Bolus for things for three days, like she was getting a lot, a lot of insulin. And then you do physical therapy to strengthen around it. And apparently that's the fix.

Kim 21:17
Wow. Okay. Well, that's good.

Scott Benner 21:20
Yeah. You got insurance? I mean, yeah, dancer. I don't know. You might not have any money. Yeah. And

Kim 21:25
then I got I'm a professor now. So

Unknown Speaker 21:27
what do you think?

Kim 21:29
I teach voice lessons and big music school in the Midwest? And yeah, I'm on the voice faculty there.

Scott Benner 21:37
Ken. We're gonna get to your diabetes and your and by the way, and your kids diabetes in a second. But can I ask one question before we move on? Yes. Why is my voice so pleasing in a spoken word, but I can't sing it all.

Kim 21:49
Ah, have you tried? I'm sure you can sing your you have a very resonant voice. And I mean, I would have you tried. Do you? Do you sing at all? I mean to myself, and it sounds bad. Yeah. Well, that's to you that maybe not anybody. No, no

Scott Benner 22:07
other people have commented.

Kim 22:11
Well, you should think about, like, let your singing voice kind of sit where you're speaking voices. That's kind of in the same resonant place.

Scott Benner 22:19
So I can't I can't feature I gotta be in the background, right? Yeah, maybe.

Kim 22:23
I mean, you know, speaking is more of your thing. But you know, you can work on it. It feels

Scott Benner 22:28
like I have to learn how to play bass so I can you know, Master doing Master of Puppets in my Metallica cover band? That seems like the only thing I'm gonna get out of this. Is that right? Maybe this why that lady made me sing in the chorus when I was little.

Kim 22:42
Because you have a very resonant speaking voice and they probably assume oh, she forced I have a booming singing voice.

Scott Benner 22:48
Nowadays, by the way, it would have been probably illegal the way she forced me to be in the course.

Kim 22:53
Oh, no.

Scott Benner 22:54
She's strong arm me. Okay, so I'm never going to be like, feature. Like, I can't do like, Lady Gaga or something like that. I'm going to be in the background like adding depth to the song. Yeah,

Kim 23:10
yes, you're going to be in the choir. And when they need the low notes, that's gonna be you. That

Scott Benner 23:14
doesn't sound like a lot of fun for me. Do people do that?

Kim 23:18
Are you to be maybe be a bear term, you know, which is a not the highest male voice but the middle kind of in the middle.

Scott Benner 23:25
I don't know. You're trying to be nice, but I hear what you're saying. I can't sing. It's fine.

Kim 23:30
I don't know. I'm not hurt you. I bet you could.

Scott Benner 23:32
Could you like coach me up enough to like, get me somewhere? Do you think? Yes. Really? Yes. That's what you do for a living but in college? Yeah,

Kim 23:43
I'm at a college. Yeah.

Scott Benner 23:44
How many people show up to sing at college, and can't do it. percentage wise, like, like, are bad singers, but don't know it? Well,

Kim 23:53
I mean, in the school that I'm in, you have to audition, you have to prove that you you know, have a singing voice. And you know, most of them are there because they want to pursue singing in some form or fashion. But it's interesting. A lot of them can definitely singing but like I'll have freshmen come in that, you know, don't know how to read music. They can't, you know, look at the music on the page and know what the notes are. So a lot of people can just think for fun, but they don't really know. The other parts that go into it.

Scott Benner 24:29
So how many people show up at the audition that you're like, Why would you come here like

Kim 24:33
oh, yeah, yeah, we get we definitely get those.

Scott Benner 24:36
But they don't know is that correct? Yeah.

Kim 24:39
You know, often sometimes they don't know sometimes, you know, their grandmother has always said oh, you have such a nice singing voice and then that maybe they're just not meant to like really pursue it. Yeah. You know, in a professional level. Yeah. them you know, they come in you're like why? Why are you here like you shouldn't This isn't for you how be

Scott Benner 25:00
like if I showed up at an NBA tryout is how it feels sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. How many people have a pleasing singing voice, and it's technically fine, but soloists, and they don't know that about themselves either. Yeah,

Kim 25:16
that that happens to where it's just kind of, I don't know, they just, well, it becomes kind of just academic, where they're not really making music, they're not being musical. So you can teach that and we have, you know, that's why you work with. So you have a singing teacher, and you know, a technical thing, teacher, that's what I do. But then we have people that are voice coaches that work more on the musical things, you know, how to express the music. And that can help.

Scott Benner 25:47
I always think how sad it must be for your voice to actually sound good. And yet, when you sing, it doesn't evoke anything from people. They, like, you know, how close you are to the mountaintop at that point. Right? It's upsetting to me. And

Kim 26:04
some of that comes with how they're using their voice. You know, sometimes they think, Well, I'm just gonna haul off and sing and try to be really loud. It just becomes like pressure and you feel like you're being yelled at.

Scott Benner 26:18
I know what you mean. Yeah.

Kim 26:20
Where it's just like, Okay, you're loud, right? That's all you know, then yeah, you can learn how to use your voice really effectively, where it just kind of pierces your audience more than it's more pleasing,

Scott Benner 26:33
like, like Janis Joplin is yelling at me, but I don't feel like I'm being yelled at.

Kim 26:37
Right. Yeah, right. Definitely. Uh, she had her own way of doing things. And I'm not always the healthiest, but something and people I mean, people love to, you know,

Scott Benner 26:49
I gotcha. Okay. So you're diagnosed in 2000. As an adult, what's the transition like, from Hey, I thought I was going to be a singer and a dancer to live diabetes.

Kim 27:01
Well, I mean, that didn't change like I, I kept going. But then I remember. So I think I, I started with like, hemozoin, I think. And then kind of quickly after that went to Novolog and Lantus. But I remember carrying it around with me. And it was kind of one of those things like, well, this is just what I have to do, you know, but I still kept. I mean, I was out of school at the time, but I was staying in the city where I was at graduate school and performing with the opera company there and doing some teaching. And yeah, I just, I think I was maybe a little bit of like, well, I don't really know what I'm doing. But I'm just gonna keep going. It didn't really stop me so much in a way of like, I didn't feel like like, I can't do this anymore.

Scott Benner 27:54
Okay. So your personality didn't like, lend itself to you getting bowled over by the scenario. But then your father passes? Yeah, yeah. Does that impact the diabetes at

Kim 28:05
all? It did. I mean, you know, I was still at a time where I wasn't checking it all the time. At that time, you know, and so I don't really know, specifically, from day to day, but I remember when he died, you know, it was traumatic and shocking and awful. But I had people telling me, like, you need to be careful, you know, you might, this might really affect you. Because I was fairly newly diagnosed at that time. And so I don't really I don't know, specifically, but he was the one that was with me when I got diagnosed, and was kind of just like, there to, you know, as the support person through the beginnings of it, even though I wasn't living at home, like I was in touch with him a lot. And so I think I just kind of kept going, because I knew that that was what he would want. Yeah, but it didn't. I mean, I moved. I lived in Boston, I lived in New York for a while, like I was on my own for a good bit, and maybe just like, not really knowing exactly what you were

Scott Benner 29:15
doing, what I'm doing what what were your goals, like, like health wise with diabetes? What were you trying to accomplish while you were living in those places? Like was it a one C driven? Was it how you felt? Yeah,

Kim 29:26
it was, it was kind of both I you know, I made sure that I was in with doctors quickly. Wherever I was living. It was definitely a one C driven. That was the big focus. And then also, you know, I remember, I would keep the little log books and I wanted it to be under 200. And, you know, I mean, those are my Yeah, I definitely had the goal of trying to stay under 200 and I wanted my agency. My agency when I was diagnosed was around seven Something I wasn't I never went into hospital like, it was just with my family doctor tried things over the phone and I would report back to them what was going on? And yeah, it was, I think a Wednesday was always the

Scott Benner 30:15
floor. And do you look back now? Do you have any? any complications at all? No, no. Okay. You feel like you. Whatever you were doing was working for you. Yeah,

Kim 30:27
yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. Even though what I mean, like now, you know, the difference now, being able to see, you know, with the Dexcom. And all that means, I look back and I'm like, I was just kind of like, looking through the wind a little bit and just kind of checking my meter when they told me that I should be checking it. But it wasn't as continuous as knowing what I where I am now tell

Scott Benner 30:51
people the feeling of getting a CGM for the first time and having lived so long without one. Yeah,

Kim 30:57
so that was interesting. Because when I first got the CGM, it was hard to, you know, see on the screen when, if I was going up, or if I was sitting too high. I felt like, oh, gosh, I'm gonna even get in trouble or something, or I didn't want I didn't like seeing that. So much difficult for you.

Scott Benner 31:20
Yeah, like, like, literally like feeling like, oh, gosh, this isn't going right. And having it in your face was hard.

Kim 31:25
Yes. Okay. And I remember I had the, like, the little separate receiver that was like, a rectangle shape. And it was on the little leather pouch thing.

Scott Benner 31:36
Yeah, I'm actually looking at one right now, because I found a drawer and I'm trying to decide if I should just throw it away or not.

Kim 31:41
Oh, yeah, I still have mine. I think that because that was what the G for I started with the g4, right. But I kept that on me, you know, I would check it. But then I remember when it was possible to put it on the phone through the app. I didn't want to do that, because I wanted to kind of keep it separate, like I didn't want, you know, just have to see it all the time on my phone in front of me that I would just play this as the separate thing. Like, I'll keep my diabetes kind of over here. And I was still, you know, very conscious of trying to stay in range and keeping up with everything I was doing, but it was it was hard to get used to sing all the time. Felt

Scott Benner 32:22
like pressure. Yeah, yeah. It does. Does it feel like that now? Oh, no. Hmm. Good. Now, you see the benefits of having it and yes, yeah, definitely. So when you when do you get the Hashimotos diagnosis? That

Kim 32:39
was pretty soon after I was diagnosed. So let's see. 2000. So I, I moved to Okay, so, September 11 happened, and I was in New York City. So I only stayed there for like three months and then moved to Boston. And I had a great doctor at the hospital there. And it was when I was living there. So it was, you know, maybe a year and a half or so later.

Scott Benner 33:09
And you're doing Synthroid for that. Yes. What are your TSH goals? Where does your doctor keep you at?

Kim 33:17
I just recently found out that my app was above five. So yeah. So yeah, so it's been a while right that I've been on the Synthroid and everything has been now, I'm gonna give you a plug because I love thyroid series, I learned so much from that. And I had always looked at the range, you know, they give you right to stay in range when you have the bloodwork done. So now I'm a little more like I want it to be like low, you know, under too good for you. Is that happening though? So now it's happening, but there was a while so at the beginning of this year, I had some blood work done. I was having a lot of weird symptoms. When I was having a lot of like heart stuff going on, like palpitations. Yeah, it was like PVCs for you ventricular contractions. So that freaks me out because you know, it's used in my family. Exactly. Exactly. So I was really freaked out last summer with all of that going on. Um, you know, that I was sent to a cardiologist and a stress test and all this stuff and it was just really freaking me out and then in January, I started with a new nurse practitioner like a functional medicine kind of person and she did a lot of blood work and turned out my TSH was five some five point something because it had been, I mean, probably, for whatever reason, over six months since my last blood test, so the thin so she increased the center way and that fixed it all up. So last time I had it taken it was like just under one and that the PVCs has stopped and all of those issues that I was having I think all were coming from the elevated levels

Scott Benner 35:18
in hindsight Did you have any other thyroid related issues that have cleared hair for

Kim 35:23
hair? My hair was falling out like crazy weight? Weight Gain yes tired? Yes, sleeping all the time. Like I couldn't make kids will make fun of me because I couldn't sit in front of the television without falling asleep. So

Scott Benner 35:38
that didn't happen to you. Your kids would make fun of you for something else just

Kim 35:43
I mean, I'm not like I'm asleep a lot anyway. You know, I'm I'm I fall asleep a lot at night regardless. Yeah, like it was more it was definitely more so

Scott Benner 35:53
go away with the T TSH come down. Or is it still with you?

Kim 35:58
I still fall asleep but I think like the functioning through the day is much better. I don't feel exhausted like it was before.

Scott Benner 36:07
Yeah, don't overlook asking about like T three supplementing to Yeah.

Kim 36:13
In the those first tests, like she checked the T three and it was okay.

Scott Benner 36:19
Remember when your TSH was okay, but you were falling asleep on the sofa? Yeah.

Kim 36:27
But I go because they're definitely the tired thing for sure linger. So I wonder.

Scott Benner 36:34
I'm telling you. Arden is not an upright living human being without Saito. Okay. She would just persevere through horrible exhaustion and sleep forever, and then get up and be exhausted. And then you add the T three and it's much different for

Kim 36:52
and is does she take it because they saw like the deficit in her blood work or it just helps her

Scott Benner 36:58
no matter what she took it because I said you have to help her. This isn't working. She Yeah, yeah, we had her TSH under two and she's still exhausted. Yeah, so sometimes you make it but you can't take it up. You can't use it. And so by kind of giving you a little more it sort of overloads the preceptors. And you actually get it. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, might as well try. Yeah, you might need a very little bit. And if you have too much sight ml you'll know because you're like clench your teeth and like your heart or race like it's not, it's not a thing you'll you won't know is wrong. If it's wrong, that's for sure. Okay, yeah. Sounds like fun. Right. clenching your teeth. My gosh, well, I

Kim 37:44
mean, I, I have found that I'm doing that now. clenching my teeth. I don't know why. I was just talking to my dentist about that. Actually.

Scott Benner 37:55
I'll say something that sounds like a little hippie ish. But look into some people take something called skullcap for teeth grinding. Oh, it's just a second. It's an I'll tell you what it is in a second. Okay, and then we're gonna ask about your son. I'm typing you're gonna get a lot of pictures the guys with hats on at first. It's harder to type with a half Nam arm in case you're wondering.

Kim 38:23
Oh my gosh, I bet so definitely is your is your computer like your keyboard kind of elevated or is it on the I guess it doesn't really matter. You're still having to lift your arms.

Scott Benner 38:34
My arm is like so, skullcaps, the supplement. It's not a like a like anything crazy. Let me see. Let me see what's in it. By Sun takes it for teeth grinding. Chinese skullcap is just a root a ground up root sculpt sculpts malaria bowel. Obviously it's nothing I can't say. But it's a ground up route and people sometimes take it traditionally used to promote good night's sleep supports a relaxation and steady nerves. That all sounds like a lot of hocus pocus but you can try it is inexpensive and it helps with you if it if it helps you the teeth grinding. Say thank you. And if it doesn't stop buying it. Yeah, and I'm not a doctor. So yeah, there we go. All right,

Kim 39:26
I'll look into that is because interesting because I don't tend I don't think I do it. While I'm sleeping so much. I think it's just kind of like a nervous tic or something that I've kind of developed fun to the day. I'll just kind of realize, Oh, my teeth are achy. You know, me or my molars are?

Scott Benner 39:42
Oh, yeah. Oh, you're really biting down? Yeah. Oh, no kidding.

Kim 39:48
Yeah, I don't really realize it until I kind of look back and I'm

Scott Benner 39:51
like, Oh, you're gonna crack a molar and end up with a root canal? You know? Yeah, no, we don't. I don't want to deal with that. Okay. All right. So you live in your life with your Diabetes, you meet a boy, he ruins your life and marries you. You go along and you make some kids, when when your son's diagnosed, do you think? Well, yeah, obviously, where do you think, Wow, I'm bowled over by this.

Kim 40:13
Okay, so when I was having children like thinking about it now, it didn't really occur to me much. I mean, I just was more thinking about, can I have kids, you know, because you hear all the people saying, you know, the older thoughts of, it's not possible. But so he was born, he was fine. And then we did travel that. And this was probably when he was about one and a half or two. And he came back with four of the antibodies. And that at that moment, I was like, Oh, my gosh, like this could really happen. And I think a lot of the kind of upset feeling of the possibility of all of it happen then. So we kept we went and did one of the glucose tolerance tests to kind of start in with the trial stuff. But he didn't really have a handle that Well, I mean, at least with the, the IV, like the process of doing it. So I think we maybe did it twice, and then just decided, like, if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. And I know this is really helpful for other people along the way, but it just wasn't working out so well, for us to continue doing that. So

Scott Benner 41:34
I hear what you say your kids soft? No, I'm just kidding.

Kim 41:39
Mom was soft.

Scott Benner 41:41
Yeah, I hear you. Yeah. But when he gets those that return from the trial that he's got for, I mean, it's four, there's only five markers, right? Yeah. So there, they tell you, it's a, it's reasonably certain he'll get type one.

Kim 41:55
They've said it's a possibility. And it might, you know, just something to kind of keep an eye on. So they can, they suggested, you're gonna keep checking as a one C, because at the time, he was like, low fours. And so we just kind of every time we would go to the pediatrician, and be like, you know, this is what they showed, and we need to kind of keep looking at this. And so, like, once a year, I think he would get an agency check. And it was going along, okay. And then we, it was he was in second grade. And it was spring break. And we were at Disney World. And he was having a hard time staying in lines, you know, without having to leave to go use the bathroom. And he was wetting the bed more, and he was never a bed wetter. And so we came back home, and I noticed, you know, he was drinking a lot of water, and that I was kind of, I think in a little denial, which I have some regret about now looking back on it, because I probably waited a little bit longer than I should have to before he was actually diagnosed. But you know, my brain was telling me oh, it's okay. Like, he's not drinking as much water as he was. And he hasn't wet the bed in a while. So maybe it's not not too bad. But turned out we went to just a ragged so he had a birthday in April. And it was like right after that, you know, he had his like, normal checkup with the pediatrician. And she noticed that his weight was lower than it was at the year before that checkup.

Scott Benner 43:34
That's a major indicator for a growing child. So it is

Kim 43:37
yeah, definitely. But she didn't go to the type one she went to, well, you know, maybe there's something going on with growth things or growth hormones or something like that. So she said, Let's just keep an eye on it. Just let me know, you know, maybe keep weighing him at home, let me know. And I went home and I was like, No, like this. I know what this is. Yeah. And so I had my moment of like, being really upset and kind of grieving the childhood that he was about to change, you know, and call the doctor back the next morning and said, I want to bring him in and get his agency checked and get a you know, finger stick.

Scott Benner 44:22
By the way, you have a meter your house, but okay,

Kim 44:25
I know. I know that I knew

Scott Benner 44:29
you weren't up for finding out where, you

Kim 44:31
know, I didn't want to I didn't want to know, I was I was too. too nervous about it. Yeah. And, you know, interest. It's just interesting that, you know, the pediatrician didn't go to that.

Scott Benner 44:42
Well, also you have a thyroid issue. And he's not growing that mean that even is an indicator there. So, right.

Kim 44:50
So we went back the next day, it was a Friday and she you know, the blood sugar didn't read on the meter. It was the one that they had couldn't read that high. And his agency was like 14. She said, you're gonna go to the hospital. And where we live the biggest, like Children's Hospital is about an hour away. Okay, so we had to drive up there. And I took him in. But by that time, like, the day before I had my, I'm really upset about all this, and I have to cry about it. But that day, I was like, Okay, I know what this is, you know, we're gonna get this figured out. And so we did. We went to the hospital, and he was not in DKA. But he was, you know, sportin agency to stay there a couple of days.

Scott Benner 45:41
Your other children don't have markers. Is that right? That's right. Yeah. Which, which Gilberton solvent play does this most represent in your mind?

Kim 45:53
Oh, beautifully, like, happy and kind of political soccer.

Scott Benner 46:00
doesn't line up with your, your current experience at all? Right? Yeah, I'm not a Gilbert and Sullivan dork, like some people are. So I didn't know, I couldn't make a good reference. I thought maybe you could whip one out. But nevertheless, now

Kim 46:12
this is this was definitely more of a drama, for sure.

Scott Benner 46:15
How did your husband handle it? Oh, he

Kim 46:17
was great. I mean, he's, he's, he's more of like the, okay, let's just get this done. Like, let's go pack. Gotta go. I'm gonna take. So he stayed home. And my other son had a baseball game that night. And so he took him to the baseball game, and I got in the car, or the and off we went. And I think I kind of went into it. Like, I know all about this, you know, like, this is my thing. Right? I'm gonna, I know what to do. I'll take care of him. And, you know, my husband and my other son came and did all of the education stuff with us, you know, and because he knew, you know, my husband knew a little bit about all the stuff that I was going through, but not really intimately. I mean, you know, like, he wasn't watching my blood sugar numbers. He wasn't telling me what to Bolus by myself. He knew what to do for a low. But that was

Scott Benner 47:13
18 years, though of living together with that, and he really doesn't have a ton of information about it.

Kim 47:18
Right? Well, okay, I'm gonna tell you a quick story. So we met at a summer theater, in name, Dirty Dancing, but for singing offers

Scott Benner 47:29
what happened? Go ahead.

Kim 47:32
So the, we went back the next summer. And, you know, I mean, I, so I met him. This was 2003. And I have been, so about two and a half to three years, right. I've been doing all this. And so one night, I don't really know exactly what happened. But this was the one and only time that I've ever kind of passed out from a low blood sugar. And so he called 911. And they came and I remember waking up, like, being really upset that somebody had drank all of my orange juice, because I guess he was trying to pour the orange juice in my mouth. And well turned out. So I went to the ER, and you know, everything was okay. The next day, but he proposed to me the next day. And so he had all it was all planned, like he this was all coming in, and I just had to throw this

Scott Benner 48:26
past out during the moment when you were gonna get proposed to

Kim 48:30
Oh, it was the next day. He was to propose to me this was the night before he should

Scott Benner 48:34
have pushed it off a little bit, don't you think? Boys? Yeah. Only, by the way, only a boy would watch you pass out from a low blood sugar call 911 for you. You have to go through all that and go yeah, we're still gonna go through with the thing. Yeah. Any girl, any girl in that situation? Be like, I'm going to replan this for another time?

Kim 48:57
Maybe not today. But no, it all worked out. I mean, it was, you know, it was great. It was a great moment. But it was just because I remember we, I called my mom, you know, the next morning and he, I think called his parents to tell them but my mom obviously thought that I would be calling to tell her the good news, but I was calling to tell her about our trip to the emergency room. And so but she didn't say anything. So then when I called her back later to say Oh, actually, you know, we're engaged.

Scott Benner 49:25
Oh, your mom knew he was gonna propose. Yeah. How lucky that she doesn't blow it when you call.

Kim 49:31
I know. He very easily could have you imagine

Scott Benner 49:35
you say hello. And she's like, Oh my god. I'm so excited. You're like, what? I went to the house. How do you even know about this? Exactly. Yes, exactly. Was that a decent ring? Kim or Oh, it's great ring. Oh, then I guess it's fine.

Kim 49:49
today. Yeah, yeah.

Scott Benner 49:52
Yeah, that's hilarious.

Kim 49:54
That was the extent of you know, his experience. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:57
he tried to drown you with orange juice. And that didn't work. He's like, I know how to ruin her life. Um, make her married. Right? Oh my god. Yeah, I'm joking. Marriage doesn't ruin your life in case you're not married. You're listening. Yeah, well. I just love. I love to giggle about it. So people who aren't married sit there going, oh my god, what is it? I don't know. You'll find out.

Kim 50:26
Yeah, we're 20 years in together on this.

Scott Benner 50:29
It's lovely. I've been married 27 years. Oh, wow.

Kim 50:32
Yeah. That's all everything's fine. A lot of days there.

Scott Benner 50:37
Yeah, no one's dead. What do you think of that?

Kim 50:40
That's all aim for that.

Scott Benner 50:42
My wife had to get up this morning at 2am to be on a call. That is like a conference call that's happening in Switzerland. And last night, she had to go to bed at eight, like eight at night to do that. And the last thing I said to her was, hey, when your alarm goes off at two, please do not wake me up.

Kim 51:05
I will not get up with you. Yeah, we joked about that, too. Sometimes Brian has to get up early for trips or whatever, like, national things to like, so if you wake up, and you could just go down and make me some tea. And I'm like, No, I'm not. He's joking. But like, I will not get out.

Scott Benner 51:21
She was gonna ask me. I don't know. She was gonna ask me help with the dogs. I could see it coming a mile away. And I was like, that's not gonna happen. You're gonna get up earlier and take care of the dogs yourself. Leave me the hell out of this. I'll be Suzy 20 years ago, she would have said this. Me. I would like yeah, I'll get on your schedule, and I'll get up with you. It'll be fine. Yeah, that's not happening. No, not anymore. So. Okay, so your son's diagnosed? I wonder how much if any comfort does he have from the fact that you have diabetes? Is that like a benefit or a detraction? Do you think?

Kim 51:54
I think it was a benefit? Because so think, talking back to that Dexcom receiver, for some reason, he always called it a Lucy wallet. I don't know where it came from.

Scott Benner 52:05
Dealing with his spare time. Let me let me Google that. Go ahead.

Kim 52:08
No, I think it's just something that he came up with.

Scott Benner 52:11
I think it's drug paraphernalia. He knows about Hold on. No, turns out it's not anything. Nevermind.

Kim 52:18
Yeah, so he always referred to it as the Lucy wallet. And he would kind of, you know, look at it and play with it and close it up. And so I remember telling him, you're gonna get your own loosey wallet, you know, and you're gonna do the things that I do, and you're gonna take insulin like I do. And so I think it was he was familiar enough with it to know what it was, and it wasn't gonna be this big, scary, unknown thing. And he was very much also, like, we got to the hospital, and they were showing him how to, you know, giving them the shots and checking his blood sugar. And he was like, so I'll have to do is just take a shower and a half to eat. It's like, I can do this, you know, and he very much had a, this is no big deal kind of attitude at the time.

Scott Benner 53:06
What's that attitude now?

Kim 53:09
Now, he would like to not have to deal with it. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, he's good about it. He He knows what his goals are, as far as staying in range, and Pre-Bolus Singh and all of that, but it just doesn't always happen.

Scott Benner 53:28
Oh, he's 1313. Yeah. 13. And

Kim 53:32
he's growing, you know, I mean, he's growing now for sure. And, you know, so we've got a lot of hormones surging and oh, so great. And some days are not and,

Scott Benner 53:43
yeah, what I meant to ask you about that. So when you gave him Synthroid, did he start growing?

Kim 53:48
So he, he's not taking Synthroid, he does have Hashimotos okay. They haven't put him on any center yet. And I'm like, somewhat, you know, I keep wondering, maybe if they should, yeah, what's his TSH, his TSH the last time we just had it checked and it was in the upper twos like 2.9 something Yeah,

Scott Benner 54:09
why not? A little bit is the small side because he want to be on the small side.

Kim 54:14
Well, he not now and he's always been average for his age group. You know, every time you look up the height averages but my older son is huge. Like he's six three, and has always been really tall. And so Ian has always seemed small compared to Thomas, but if you look at averages, like he's always been right where he's supposed to be right in the middle, you know, sometimes I wonder if maybe it's the Hashimotos because we just so after I had all that bloodwork done and realized that my TSH was off. I went back to look at Ian's and I didn't even realize that he had the Hashimotos because nobody even really talked about it but it was discovered when he was diagnosed, but nobody, nobody talks about it in his they mean they'll check his TSH they'll check in for celiac disease and range and that's it stays in range and that's it but how she met us was never brought up.

Scott Benner 55:12
Does he have any symptoms? No, I

Kim 55:15
mean other than he has, has an always has had really dry skin. And I wonder if that might be a

Scott Benner 55:22
symptom. Let's get the TSH down. That's yeah.

Kim 55:26
And I mean, yeah, I don't know if that would be what he needed every day. Would it just be a

Scott Benner 55:31
it's every day you get? It's a small it's just a small dose. That's all a small dose. Yeah. I want to tell you there's a crazy amount of wallets with Lucille Ball available on the internet. Oh, really? I mean, just is is Lucille Ball still very popular figure in the world? Because my God Do you have your options? If you want a Lucille Ball wallet? That is hilarious. I'm not kidding. And by the way, only one with the peanuts on it. And and it's not even Lucia Peppermint Patty Lucy.

Kim 56:06
I mean, that's that's not I don't think that she's not really well known. And today's

Scott Benner 56:12
you wouldn't think you'd be most people. Well, yeah, you're old. But I mean, most people can't care about this, right? Yeah. I don't know. I don't like this at all. I might call this episode Lucille Ball wallet.

Kim 56:28
I really, I wish I knew where he pulled that from. But he's, he pulls a lot of stuff out of his mind that I don't know where it comes from.

Scott Benner 56:35
Lucy. What was the cause? Balls? I mean, Kim, maybe it's something about a pouch. Who knows what's going on here? I don't know. By the way before I forget to say this. I know people who are from South Carolina who have two boys and their boys names are in and Thomas. What? Yeah, freaked me out when you said that. When you when you said Thomas just now is like, Oh my God, why do I know that? And yeah. Is that like a thing there? And she calls him Thomas. Not Tom.

Kim 57:02
Yeah. Right. So my dad was Thomas. So that's where we got it from? He went by Tom. But yeah, Thomas is Thomas R. Thomas. Yeah, that's why and the. I mean, a lot of because I haven't lived in South Carolina since I left together. Weird.

Scott Benner 57:18
Listen, if Thomas was the one with type one, this episode would definitely be called Thomas is our Thomas is our Thomas, because that's what you just said. And I would definitely, definitely make that the title instead. So so your son's about where I expect a 13 year old to be with diabetes. He's like, this sucks. And I don't want to do this is to not have to think about it. Yeah, of course. Is he using an algorithm? are you what are both using? Yes, we

Kim 57:42
both have the tandem with control IQ.

Scott Benner 57:45
With G six right now?

Kim 57:47
Yes. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. We actually just had that the email about do you want to be in the trial group that, you know, tries out the g7? Would you say yes, yeah, I said yes. Yeah, they sent out? Yeah, I guess they're gonna just randomly pick some people to give it a try and see how it goes. Yeah,

Scott Benner 58:08
that's nice. Yeah. So you'll love the g7. It is tiny.

Kim 58:12
That's good. Yeah. I mean, for me, yeah, I don't really care so much. But I think Ian will definitely appreciate that. Because he can, you know, he always wants to make sure like his, because he wears it on his arm, and he wants to make sure it's covered up with his shirt. So

Scott Benner 58:27
it'll be much easier to conceal if that's what he wants to do. Yeah, yeah. It's really, it's pretty great. It's very flat, and much smaller. So good stuff. Have

Kim 58:38
you had any of the issues that some people have talked about with like the range and connectivity and things like

Scott Benner 58:45
Sikkim? Let me just say a thing here that I feel like is obvious. But I guess it isn't. When companies make new stuff, they still tinker with it after it's out. Yeah. So if you've been using Dexcom, for a long time, for example, you'll know that in the first few months of the iteration, the first iteration of something new, they still like, it's never the same product six months later, as it is the day it comes out. And I think those are software adjustments that they're making, obviously, because the hardware is is set, right? So I don't pay a lot of attention when stuff comes out. And they're like, this doesn't like the Bluetooth isn't whatever people said like Yeah, yeah, I just get the thing. And then we'll use it. And so did our didn't notice a Bluetooth issue. She did not. We had I think we we had a couple of sensors in the very beginning that were like full board out of the box, and then we haven't had that problem again. Maybe two of them. And so, but I don't know if maybe Arden just lives with her phone up or like maybe she's just never gonna have a Bluetooth problem because she's not walking away from her phone. Yeah, but I think You know, I would tell you that Arden's using G seven now with she's used it with Lupe, and she's now using it with Iaps. And we don't have any trouble with it all.

Kim 1:00:10
Okay,

Scott Benner 1:00:11
yeah. So, I mean, I'm also, I don't know, I don't focus on that stuff. I guess like I get. If it was a problem for us, then you probably hear me constantly going like this thing doesn't work. Yeah. But she, she's not having an issue with it. That's good. Yeah. But I think some people like to walk away from their phones a lot. And then they're like, my CGM doesn't work. And then like, well, it's Bluetooth. Bluetooth sucks to begin with, you know, so? I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't. I mean, from my experience, I don't think there's anything to worry about.

Kim 1:00:43
Yeah. I mean, I'm eager to get it. And I think as long as it works well enough to be able to keep up, you know, with the algorithm and stuff then. Yeah, well, fine.

Scott Benner 1:00:53
I also think because you're online, you have that thought, because people complain. People love to complain. Right?

Kim 1:01:00
Well, that complain are louder. Yeah. Yeah. Don't have issues. And you're

Scott Benner 1:01:04
aware of it. Somebody listening right now, who's never been on Facebook is like, what Bluetooth issue? I've been using this thing forever. And it's fine. You know? So people like to talk about, well, listen, when something goes wrong, you try to figure out I mean, I don't blame people for onto the internet and being like, Hey, what's going on, but the thing that doesn't happen is they don't come online and say, Hey, I have a 19 year old iPhone. I've dropped it in the toilet six times. And my my walls are made out of concrete my house and I'm having trouble with Bluetooth. You know, like, you don't get their full story. Not that say that some people aren't using brand new phones, and it's just not working for them? I don't know. But I don't know. Like, it's, it's a weird thing to me. Like if your phone doesn't do a thing that you know, that you expected to do you don't then I don't know. Like if your phone's not connecting well, to your headphones. You think, oh, there's something wrong with the headphones, but it very well might be just Bluetooth. And it's not nothing's fault. It's I don't know. I sound like I'm not making sense. But no, I understand what you mean. Yeah, you don't I mean, like, it's just, there's a lot of variables, you don't know what they all are. And when people are complaining online, you don't know what their variables are. And if theirs will be yours, but not necessarily the new product. Yeah, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if it didn't work, the FDA wouldn't let us put it out.

Kim 1:02:25
Yeah, and I remember you did, I guess you had a chat with the guy from DICE calm or something. And he mentioned that they were still kind of futzing with it. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:02:34
they turned a little like the turning dials behind the scenes, that I've actually in past iterations of it. I think, if I'm speaking out of school, I'm sorry, but I think they improved accuracy, just by improving their soft, like the algorithm that they're using. Oh, wow, you know, which is crazy. So. So it's the, you know, the filaments in your skin and it's in your interstitial fluid, it's making the reading. But then they were able to make an adjustment on the algorithm side, like to their to their software, basically, I don't know if it's actually called software, because it's probably as printed on a circuit board somewhere. Anyway, I'm not very technical, but they were actually able to change that to do a more accurate interpretation of what it was reading. And so you didn't have to change the wire or anything that was on your side, like on the on the physical side, and they were still able to make accuracy better. This is going back a generation or so ago. Be others. There's a lot to be done there. A lot I don't understand for sure. But smaller, easier to use shorter warmup time, and you can pop one on before putting the other one on or taking the other one off. So simply say stated If Arden's got one on our left hip, and it's going to run out four hours from now, she can put a new one on her right hip, just put the the applicator aside, hold on to it. And then hours later, disconnect the one that's operating. Reconnect the new one. And now you've been wearing it for a couple of hours. And it's more accurate.

Kim 1:04:12
Oh, that's great. And then you don't have a gap? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:14
no, it's like basically no gaps soaking.

Kim 1:04:17
That's cool. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:19
I don't know if soaking is a word everybody knows. But yeah, you put on your CGM. And I think most people know in the first sometimes 12 hours or so like CGM can be like a little strange when you first put them on. And that's what they refer to as like a soaking in period. So you can kind of live soak it without losing your numbers from the the already operating sensor. Yeah, that's great. And it's got a something very simple which words are escaping me now? An amount of time between when it stops working and when it actually stops working a grace period. Yeah, there's a grace period. Yes. Like God came I couldn't find the word Grace Period have saved my life. I have that trouble too well, also in fairness, I'm sitting here thinking my pinkies numb. So distract. I'm a little distracted with the idea that I'm not gonna be able to feel my arm one day, but I hope I think it's gonna get better cam, don't

Kim 1:05:16
you? Yes, definitely it has to. Why does it have to kind of take a nap like,

Scott Benner 1:05:21
you know, that's exactly see your wit you realize I agree I woke up and I was like what's wrong with my arm? And I was like, ah, that'll go away in a second. And I'm walking to the airport, and I'm like, This is not getting any better. And then I'm like out to my car. And I'm like, Hey, what the hell? Thought I was just trying to get some goddamn sleep. This isn't fair. I actually thought I help people with diabetes this weekend. Is this my gift? Oh, I get it.

Kim 1:05:56
Thank you so much, Kim.

Scott Benner 1:05:58
Is there anything we haven't talked about that we should have? Because I still have one more thing I want to do with you.

Kim 1:06:01
I mean, I think we've talked about a lot other than, you know, I was just gonna, like, mention the the interesting paradigm, or I don't know what the right word is, but of like being type one mom, and then the type one kid, kind of paying a little more attention to the type one kids sometimes and you know, it's an interesting balance of remembering. I need to take care of myself, you know, because I'll be really focused on, you know, especially back when you did like the calculation episodes, you know, of the math. Yeah, the math. Yeah. I really went in and tried to make sure like, all of his settings, were good for where he is based on those equations. And then I find myself going, Oh, maybe I should do that for myself. Do you think

Scott Benner 1:06:52
it only takes me five more minutes? Can you are already doing it?

Kim 1:06:56
I know. But it's interesting, because, you know, I don't know if it becomes because He's younger? And, you know, I don't know, it's I never went through puberty with all of this, in my life of diabetes has been a little bit more stable. I think maybe because of I mean, you know, still having the monthly stuff, but I don't know, I think I just want to make sure that he is set up well, right. So yeah, I just have to remember sometimes you also how diabetes, this

Scott Benner 1:07:25
isn't some weird psychological thing. You're not punishing yourself. martyring yourself anything like that?

Kim 1:07:29
No, no, no, no. I think it's just he is the first focus for me sometimes. Yeah. Well, you should remind myself that I also have to, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:07:43
Yeah, I mean, plus, he doesn't care. If you're like, we're gonna make an adjustment. She he's probably like, what I don't, I don't care.

Kim 1:07:50
I just take the pump. I don't whatever. I'm busy.

Scott Benner 1:07:53
I was talking to Arden yesterday, like she calls a lot like, so we FaceTime. And, um, and so like, she's doing homework, she's telling us all about her day when her day went so well at school. And the entire time she's talking, I'm thinking, you need to change your pump. Like, I see, it's been happening for three hours. Now the pump is the site's gone. It's just it's done. Like, you know, like you're almost out of insulin, the site's not working as well. If you just change your pod right now, your blood sugar is going to come right back to where it belongs. And I did not say anything. I was so good. And I because if I would have said already that she would be like, I know dad, like I'm not still i I'm an adult, I'm taking care of this. What do you think take care of when you're not here, like I would have got that whole thing. And it would have been upsetting to her and I don't want to upset her. So I just I swallowed it. But then, Kim later last night, I FaceTimed her and she was like now down to like, there was like 19 units left in the pod. And yeah, the the units aside, the pod was just clearly not working well at that site anymore. So she calls me back. She called us in the shower, and we're talking while she's drying her hair and stuff like that. And I still don't mention it. And she's like, I'm gonna I said, So what's up for tonight? She tells me about her evening, and she's going to eat and everything. And I said, Oh, do you have class in the morning? And she says, No, I don't. I said, Okay, good. I was worried because I, you know, because I think you're gonna run out of insulin before the morning. And then, but I said, but if you know, if you don't have class the morning, maybe it'll make it overnight. And then I just let it go. So I actually like, reminded her that she needed a pump without reminding her that she needed the pump. Like it wasn't super smooth, but it wasn't bad. I'm gonna just drop this. Let me just mention it off on the side here like but not directly. And then I don't know, maybe two hours later, I saw her blood sugar like go back like tight into a tight range. And I looked on my Nightscout and I could see that her pump now had like it was full. So she put a new pump on my and I was like I did it. I tricked her A

Kim 1:10:01
very subtly, very, like, you're not gonna get her upset so she can't talk back to you.

Scott Benner 1:10:07
Also, I don't want to say this Kim in a way that makes people upset, but I deal with my daughter differently than I deal with my son. Like, I tried, where this is gonna get me in trouble being direct with Arden worked really well until she became a lady. Yeah, and now being direct with her doesn't work the same way. Uh huh. And whereas I could just if that was my son, I could have just said, Hey, you got to do this thing. Don't forget. And he go, yeah, and that would have been the end of it. Right? So anyway, my wife's like, you can't just say it to her. I'm like, That's ridiculous. And she's like, Well, are you ever gonna learn and I was like, probably not, but I'll keep trying. Yeah, I might try it with my wife, though. I think she was like secretly telling me the same

Kim 1:10:49
thing about herself is how you need to talk to

Scott Benner 1:10:53
just talk around it a little odd. So, so exhausting, but okay. All right. All right, Kim. So here's my last question. Okay. If I came into your classroom, somehow I got through the I got through and you what, what are some like things you would teach me? Like? Like, there are practice things I could do. And can I do some of them right now with you before we get off the pot? Yes.

Kim 1:11:18
Oh my gosh. Well, okay, so so we do a lot of vocal eases, you know, like warm ups things to kind of practice.

Scott Benner 1:11:27
I'm ready.

Kim 1:11:30
Well, I don't know how to do a lip trill I'll often just in the microphone, you do lip trill. Like that, but you got to sustain it.

Scott Benner 1:11:39
Wait, hold on. How the hell do you do that?

Kim 1:11:44
Like that. Yeah. But see if you can. For how long? Am I afraid a little longer? How long? Well, I mean, like we'll do

Scott Benner 1:11:55
a lot of air control, then that's what I'm working on.

Kim 1:11:57
Actually, that's a big part of it.

Scott Benner 1:12:01
It's hard. I

Kim 1:12:06
think about just getting the literal going like without a note, and it just

Scott Benner 1:12:14
Oh, I almost had it there. My lips get dry and then they stopped bouncing. Can I believe them? That might help. People know that I sit next to a giant jug of Vaseline when I make this podcast to keep my lips dry. Also, how do people keep their mouth wet when they're singing?

Kim 1:12:33
Well, just hydration. There's no answer. Like I can't just take a pill. Oh, no, unfortunately.

Scott Benner 1:12:38
I thought you knew something. But okay, hold on. Oh, can I bring in fresh air through my nose? While I'm doing it? Ah, next you want the air to me moving out? Yeah. Oh, it's a lot about a deep breath.

Kim 1:12:59
Yes, you need a deep breath

Okay, that's probably better because it's about you know, using the air is a big part of it.

Scott Benner 1:13:12
Okay, it's going to help me all make the podcast or know. Well, well

Kim 1:13:16
then. So when you do the lip trill you want to think of? So do you feel the sound if you feel the sound in your throat, you don't want that. You want to feel that the sound is kind of all at the lips, at the lips and in front of you.

Scott Benner 1:13:35
I got better. Okay. Yeah. So I stopped stop emanating from my chest. I'm not making a noise. The lips are making the noise. Exactly. I got it. Okay, what's another one? Tommy? Yeah.

Kim 1:13:47
Okay, let's see. You can also do Mmm Hmm. Well, so a lot of times if you I mean, can you think of a phrase that you like that you could sing? Do you know song? Oh

Scott Benner 1:13:58
my god. Hold on. I'm writing down to call this episode elliptical.

Saw Oh, so here here. This is interesting. Can we segue for a second? My wife gets so pissed at me. I don't know the words to songs. Oh, but recently, I heard someone speaking about this. And they said something that I resonated with. He said I hear the words as another instrument as music and that's how I hear it. The words are like rhythm and, and and beat. They're not. I don't care what they're saying. The word seemed like music to me. Yeah. So as you asked me that question. I'm like, I don't know the words that any songs even my favorite songs. So just give me one and I'll do yours.

Kim 1:14:52
Well, I mean, you can even just like on Happy Birthday. Okay. All right. Because what you want to be able to do event She is to like, sing the phrase with the lip trill. So then you're getting the air going, how enough?

Scott Benner 1:15:06
I was cursed. How? What do you mean? Like I need to make words while my lips are bouncing? No, no, no, no. Oh, oh

Kim 1:15:21
damn you then you're, I'm up an octave. You're not gonna be you're gonna be lower

Scott Benner 1:15:31
Oh, I had it for a second. Okay,

Kim 1:15:33
so you can't see me but I have my hands kind of on either side of my like if you're going to call out you know, hey, with your hands up around your mouth. Hold your hands there while you do the lip trill. And just think of all the sound being in the front, like kind of called out megaphones. He

Scott Benner 1:15:58
came at what point am I gonna pass the hell out from this? Because I'm getting lightheaded.

Kim 1:16:06
Are you gonna have to start paying me for my time?

Scott Benner 1:16:09
Oh, yeah, he would just the meter start running, you're like, that's enough, buddy. A few extra minute, I just keep thinking what you're gonna hear next is this. And that's gonna be my head slamming off this when I pass out. But it's

Kim 1:16:21
funny, because I'll have students that say that too. They're like, this is so much more air than I'm used to. And it's a rush, you know, generates the, like the there's going to come through the vocal folds. And that's what vibrates the folds. And yeah,

Scott Benner 1:16:33
you know, my biggest problem, honestly, with all this is that when I definitely think this is not a story I've ever told the podcast, but when I was five years old, I got new dress shoes. And we were poor. So that was exciting. So I was coming down the stairs at my grandmother's house. And my uncle was across the room. And he was like, Hey, I heard you got new dress shoes. And I like an idiot raised my foot up to show them to him and then fell down the stairs. Oh, no way. My nose has never been the same since then. Oh my god. Yeah. So I don't do well. Drawing air through my nose. Mm hmm. I probably need that like deviated septum surgery. Yeah, yeah. But I'm 52. And I think what if I just made it to the end? It didn't have to do that. But I think I wonder how it would change my voice actually.

Kim 1:17:34
Yeah, it's interesting. I've had a few students with that. And they've had the surgery and then their voice is different because like the the resonating cavities and all change. Yeah. Because the space is in there is changing. Yeah. When

Scott Benner 1:17:47
I go off on a rant, I don't breathe through it. It's it's like almost weird. Because I can't. I can't I can't draw air in through my nose without it feeling forced. Wow. So anyway, yeah, my uncle needed to see my shoes. And now I can't breathe, but he's dead. So I want you can't blame it on the uncle anymore. He's been gone for a while. So but yeah, but anyway, like, like, it feels like if somebody gave me a breathe right strip, but it was made out of like a, like an industrial clamp. Maybe I could breathe better. I used to. I used to do a you know the nose spray that open? Like, like, opens up the like your nose? Yes. There were times I'd have to do that before I made the podcast. So I could kind of breathe while I was doing. I've taught myself how to do it differently now, though, but wow. Yeah. There's a little inside

Kim 1:18:40
baseball breathing through your mouth. I mean, you can breathe through your mouth, but then it gets dry. And

Scott Benner 1:18:45
yeah, like I can breathe through my nose. Fine, but not while I'm speaking. So I would probably be a terrible singer. I probably pass out in two seconds. It'd be like, Oh, he sounds so amazing. But it keeps falling over. All right. Well, I think we all know that I should keep talking and not saying it's bad. Yeah. But

Kim 1:19:05
still, but even with your speaking voice, you know? Think about it. Because you don't really want to feel it in your throat. You know, you want to feel it. In the front of the face where it feels like resin. Like if you were gonna, huh, like hum. Do you feel Can you feel buzzy in the front of the face?

Scott Benner 1:19:22
I got it. Yeah, I do feel it. Yeah. So then try to keep

Kim 1:19:25
your speaking was there. Okay. You know, it's taking pressure off the vocal folds. And it's odd.

Scott Benner 1:19:33
That's where I speak from, honestly, because when I do the, the bumpers and the opens and I like I don't know if people realize it or not, but I'm sort of making fun of radio announcers when I do the opens of my podcast. I'm like this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Yeah, like I'm just, I'm just abusing myself. I don't know what you guys think to be perfectly honest. But, but I just, I wanted there to be some difference between In my voice is overthinking, but I wanted there to be some difference in my voice when I'm selling to you than versus when I'm just speaking to you. But my voice is so kind of deep and right here. I can't actually change it that much. So I had to go for like over the top to make that happen. Yeah,

Kim 1:20:18
yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Just. Yeah. If you ever feel if your voice is getting tired, or sore mouth, do you ever experienced that?

Scott Benner 1:20:29
No, the only time I have troubles I, I once had to give a talk over a weekend during Shabbos. And so there was no, no microphones in the room. And I had to project my own voice in a room for like, 400 people. Oh, yeah, I was. I was fried after that. Yes,

Kim 1:20:46
that you can do that. By thinking of it all being Hmm. You know, find the buzzy place in the front of your face and let your voice sit there. And instead of feeling like that, because that's how I will project know. You know, instead of it feel like you have to kind of be Yeah, all or Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:21:04
it feels like it almost feels like it's coming from the back of your neck. I don't know. Like another way to say that. But yes, yeah, way more talk about how people's voices sound and most people care about I'm gonna say, so I'm gonna let you go now. Most people are like, I have a thought. I don't even bother to think if it's right. And then it comes out of my mouth. That's talking, you people are overcomplicating this, right. So

Kim 1:21:30
when you do it for your living, you know, you have to take care of yourself.

Scott Benner 1:21:35
Yeah, no, it's it's a crazy thing. I usually record every day of the week. So even like getting sick. Like there's sometimes I feel myself getting sick and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, that can't happen. Today, Oh, no. You know when that can happen later when I'm dead. Not now. I'm gonna be time for this. Like so. Yeah, I got sick during the remastering of the Pro Tip series. And I have to be honest, the opens are great because that because my voice was like

Kim 1:22:01
extra. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just

Scott Benner 1:22:06
had to record in like shorter bursts. And then then breathe and then record and then edit it together. So anyway, thank you can I really appreciate you having this conversation with me? Thank you very much. A lot of fun. Oh, good. I'm glad. Hold on for me one second. Sure.

A huge thank you to ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of the podcast. Are you tired of having to change your sensor every seven to 14 days. With the ever since CGM, you just replace it once every six months via a simple in office visit. Learn more and get started today at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon. Find out more about Chivo Capo pen at G Vogue glucagon.com forward slash juice box. They spell that GVOKEGL You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juice box. If you're living with type one diabetes, the afterdark collection from the Juicebox Podcast is the only place to hear the stories that no one else talks about. From drugs to depression, self harm, trauma, addiction, and so much more. Go to juicebox podcast.com up in the menu and click on after dark. There you'll see a full list of all of the after dark episodes. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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#1162 Grand Rounds: Hodgepodge

Scott and Jenny finish up the Grand Rounds series. 

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android  -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

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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, welcome to episode 1162 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today, Jenny and I finish up the Grand Rounds series with something I'm calling hodgepodge because it's kind of all of the questions that were left plus some conversation. If you're a doctor who's listened to this, I hope it helped, please share it with someone else and reach out to me, I'd love to have you on the show. 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. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, but everybody is welcome type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me. If you're impacted by diabetes, and you're looking for support, comfort or community check out Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at Cozi earth.com. All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout that's juice box at checkout to save 40% at cosy earth.com and go fill out that survey AT T one D exchange.org/juicebox.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the insulin pump that my daughter wears Omni pod. Learn more and get started today with the Omni pod dash or the Omni pod five at my link Omni pod.com/juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the ever sent CGM and implantable six month sensor is what you get with ever since. But you get so much more exceptional and consistent accuracy over six months, and distinct on body vibe alerts when you're higher low on body vibe alerts. You don't even know what that means. Do you ever since cgm.com/juicebox Go find out. Jenny. This may be our last Grand Rounds episode for a bit you and I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:21
oh yeah, I thought we were I thought we were done. So it's kind of a yeah, great buttoning

Scott Benner 2:27
up, we're gonna call it so we know hospital diagnosis, insulin safety foods, CGM BGMs, pumps, humanity, communication management, pregnancy school nurses. And what I have left is just marked on my list as this part will be long. To get means more conversational. And then I'm actually going to do like a wrap up episode that I won't bother you for a while just kind of like go over the the high marks because there won't be any, you know, any conversation back and forth.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:57
You're never bothering me. Remember, I

Scott Benner 2:58
know I know don't but we have other things that bother my to do list for Jenny's got other stuff on it, we got to keep moving. Okay. So I have this note here from someone that just says, I wish that they took more of a whole health approach with me, instead of just viewing my diabetes as separate. I wish they understood that everything seems to affect my blood sugar. And the diabetes is more than just my blood sugar being affected. I wish they understood that sometimes you can do everything right, diabetes is still you know, everything doesn't turn out the way you want. Also, I have other health issues, other autoimmune issues, and that also affects my diabetes care. I wish they understood that because it's tiring. I wish they understood that I don't want to come in every three months that's not fun that I hate waiting 45 minutes after my appointment time for them to spend five minutes with me and then not offer anything valuable. Yes, I wish they would run the lab work in the office I wish they would let me have the results without making me make oh my god a second appointment to get the results. And then when I get there, tell me you're so healthy, nothing's wrong. Do you have any questions?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:07
That last bit about the labs if I was going to restructure anything in terms of medical like visits regardless of the condition that you're talking about? It would be that if you're coming in for a visit labs will be done ahead of this visit that's on the doctor to order that right I mean the person with diabetes or whatever else needs to be evaluated you know health wise for the person sure they they should have an idea of what is kind of do or what hasn't been looked at in a while but that's really on the doctor to have that order in and then the person knows my appointment is March 1, I need to go in the end of February I need to get the labs done because then the second appointment isn't needed.

Scott Benner 4:54
Discuss that's not right. That's not like a I don't want to say scam but that's not like a billing thing is it trying to Get in there twice? I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:01
don't believe so I think it's not proper thinking about what would be most beneficial timewise. And to make the best use of the visit in terms of strategizing, right and talking through what might be some of the things that we do need to address, well look, you know, cholesterol levels, or a one C or vitamin D, they've changed. We've got something that we need to talk about here, right? If you have to come back, and it's really annoying for the person whose life is now interrupted twice, yeah, every

Scott Benner 5:31
three months, right? I'm kind of like baffled by how it's not obvious that a person in the office just takes the schedule every day, I don't know three weeks in advance and call somebody on the phone and says, Hey, Jenny, you're coming in three weeks from now, doctors got the labs here for you. Where would you like me to send off the script? Go ahead and get that blood draw for us? Right, you know, don't come in without that test. Right? It would take not much to do that. And then not much to get people accustomed to it as well.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:00
And what do we have today, we have so much automation in systems, that doesn't even have to be a phone call. Yeah, that could be an online, like my chart, or whatever electronic medical health system you're using, that could absolutely be built into that electronic record system that visits here coincide with these type of labs, the note gets sent to the person via email or text or through their online, you know, record portal, they get the notification. And they're the ones that then they have to make the appointment to come in for the labs. But at least it's a notification, it's a reminder to do so.

Scott Benner 6:37
Yeah, around here, labs are easy, you just me basically just walk into like a quest, or LabCorp or something like that. And you hold your script in the hand. And that's that, or my doctor sometimes just sends it electronically, and you show up and you say, Hey, this is my name. There should be orders in here for me. Yeah, that makes sense. But all the rest of it to get to hear what that person is really saying. Understanding that other autoimmune impacts management that blood sugar is not the whole thing. Like those little like, that seemed like little things, if you really listen to the way this person lays this out, this is the entirety of their struggle right here. You know, like, just if you could just understand these concepts, and not I'm guessing fight me on them all the time, all the way, you make my life better, not just this appointment better.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 7:25
I mean, what I honestly hear is the fact that anyone caring for somebody with diabetes, it's a whole picture look, but what it makes me really consider is that they need to, they need to listen to the variables and really, like listen to all the things that in a day could have impact, including many other health conditions, whether it's thyroid, or it could be any other autoimmune conditions that may have an impact on energy levels, or sleep, or other medications that you're taking that may impact the way that your insulin or other medications for diabetes. There are many, many layers right to evaluate. And it isn't just blood sugar,

Scott Benner 8:09
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Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:11
also hear kind of behind that is in being heard, you have to analyze from the person and say, Are they ready for the next level? Right? You have to know where they are, what they're talking about, where they're asking to get to, because if they're at no starting step number two, and they really want to know, answers that are really like ninja level. Right? You have to say, Okay, I absolutely, we need to get to that. But we're kind of right here, we need to address this. First, we need to move up here. We need to inch forward and so that you really can grasp what you want to know about. Because that's a level of understanding and application of medication adjustment and whatnot. That you're you're not really a yet with what I see happening.

Scott Benner 13:04
I know for sure. Hey, just because this person says just because someone has bad numbers in quotes, doesn't mean they aren't trying their best.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:13
I hate that word. I

Scott Benner 13:14
did. I did too. But like this is the obviously this is this person's experience, right? They feel like I'm coming in there with numbers that somebody's judging is not being good. But I am trying. And I'm trying sincerely like she's like, sometimes I screw things up. But sometimes I just don't know what I'm doing. Sure. Sometimes I just get the math wrong. Sometimes the Chick fil A gives us regular Dr. Pepper instead of diet. Sounds like a personal remembering, yes. When I get to my appointment, I am also not going to remember that two months ago, Chick fil A gave me regular Dr. Pepper instead aside, so don't ask me about that, right? Anyway, this never goes away. There's going to be awful days. And you know, you got to do better at it. It does get easier, but you have to as a doctor appreciate the journey that it takes to go from, you know, being diagnosed, not probably given having, you know, gotten great direction, living through it day to day when you don't know what you're doing, eventually, hopefully figuring right out. And then that Diet Dr. Pepper comes for you. And now this doctor goes, Hey, what happened here? What's this? Right, you know, and that feels terrible after being through that whole thing. And I think

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:30
that might be the that picking apart component. You know, what happened here two months ago. I think it's the clinicians way to try to get into some type of education about what could have been done differently. It's never really asked in the right way. It's always asked in a sense of the person with diabetes feels like they're being like, blamed. Like what did you do here? Right when the person's like God I have no idea what happened there. In that sense. It's more the broad picture of what are we looking at? What trends what sticks out? And can you remember anything about what kind of sticks out that you didn't really want to happen? And if not, then again, it's more, it's more generalized.

Scott Benner 15:18
This next person makes such a an interesting statement. She says, look, a lot of people in the US and probably other places to struggle to pay for their supplies. I'd love a pump. I'd love a CGM. I really would, but I can't afford it. So now, you know, I'm struggling financially, you're coming to me with hereby these things that you can't afford, I can't afford them. That's hard for me, then I get treated like, Well, I'm not interested in my care, right? And then and this is a quote, then you put me on that? Wait, then the docs are gonna get us all killed with their stupid type two style management that they give people on MDI. Oh, no. So that right, right. So that's, that's this person's comment. So obviously, what happened was somebody said, Hey, get this. And she said, I can't afford that. And they were like, Oh, you're not serious about this, then just, you know, hear some level mirin, you know, beyond. And I will

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:09
also say that that, then that team, that clinical team doesn't know a lot about the products and what is available for people who have less or don't have good insurance coverage or can't afford, because a lot of the different companies have programs to assist. Yeah. So the doctors should know that. That's

Scott Benner 16:35
the problem with everybody being so siloed all the time, though. Yeah. Like, you know, the doctors, like, hey, get a pump you I can't afford it. They're okay. They just move to the next they don't say, oh, did you know that? You know, this company has an Access Program, or, you know, they have everyone, everyone I've ever been involved with, or heard about has access programs. 100%.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:53
And I will guarantee that if they are being visited by a rep from any of the companies, they have been told about the Access Program, yeah. 10 years ago, when I was working with an endocrine practice, our reps that came in consistently gave us information about the access programs and the discounts, and the the, you know, the little discount cards or codes or whatever was available.

Scott Benner 17:18
And some of them are significant, by the way. Yeah, like, I've seen like $500 items reduced to 20 bucks with a coupon, like, you know, so, again, but it's almost only half of the problem. The first part is you should have helped her find out how to do this. And correct when you couldn't figure it out or didn't want to figure it out? Why do you relegate her to like second class status as far as her management goes, and if I'm going to add on one for me, you could have still taught her how to take care of herself with MDI, because plenty of people do it well, but they also know how to use insulin. So then you have to educate like, it's a, you know, it's an if this, then that series, oh, by the way, going back to another thought here. It doesn't mean they would have gotten good direction, even if she could have afforded a pump because this person says I work in an ICU. And my kid has type one diabetes. So I'm aware of this enough that I was paying attention on the day that a person came in in DKA. In their early 20s. The endo had put them on an Omnipod five saw an algorithm based pump. Okay, but they were using libre because Dexcom wasn't covered. So they couldn't do the algorithm. But the person signed up for the whole thing because they wanted the automation.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 18:29
By God. Did they think that they were getting automated delivery because they had a system and a CGM. And he told them,

Scott Benner 18:39
yeah, you got it. There you go, Oh, my God. It's running around and automated the kids running around and automated and the pumps not talking. And it's not giving any, which is how he ended up in TK. So anyway, scrolling on. I wish they would have told me, I wish they would have known that I would have been willing to go much farther. This is a motivated person. I'm an adult who doesn't mind injections, I would have diluted insulin if I needed to. I would have used vials and syringes, I would have been willing to finger Poke 20 times a day. I just didn't know about any of that. Until I found this podcast. I thought that half unit pens with four needles and six test strips. was all I needed to stay healthy. Wow, how about that?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:23
Yeah, that's actually what I was gonna say. I mean, even for somebody who, let's say they really can't afford a CGM, even with all of this stuff. Test strips can be written as a script for plenty a day. Even the generic ones which are good enough to give you enough information to go by through the course of the day. With MDI, you can absolutely make it work. Yeah, no, have somebody guide you through that.

Scott Benner 19:49
But that person statement is more about saying that vial syringes and a couple of test trips a day was all I needed, that means that they were told, shoot this to inject this at a meal, check every once in a while, which by the way, doctors have the funniest way of having you check your blood sugar in this scenario when it's going to be the best, of course. So that yeah, that's always fascinate like, look, you're good. But, you know, maybe you wouldn't think to test yourself two hours prior to see that you're 300 After the meal, and then it came back down again. Right? Right. It's really sad that this person goes on to say, I'm just compelled to send this in, because I didn't realize that I was being set up with bare minimum to survive. Like, I actually thought I was out there just killing it. You don't I mean, that's sad. And

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:35
in this day, and age, bare minimum, that person's bare minimum was what it was eons ago, when that was the standard, there was nothing different to be able to do. So the fact that people are being told this bare minimum at this point, with the technology and the programs that are available to be able to get and use things appropriately. That's really sad. Yeah.

Scott Benner 21:00
Let's see, I wish my doctor knew that you can have you know, quote unquote, non diabetic a one sees without being consistently low. Every time I have a one C under six, this doctor scours my clarity report looking for lows. And even if I have less than 1% lows, I get a warning about how dangerously I'm acting with a six. I don't even know what to say. I mean, you know, I'm gonna get upset, Jenny, I'm trying not to it's Friday. But if you are a doctor, and you find yourself going, Oh, I've done that. You really need to learn more so that you don't say stupid things to people, this person is having massive amounts of success. And you're yelling at him about it. You know what I mean? That's crazy. Yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:43
And the opposite of that. The other really sad thing is that, I wouldn't say endocrinology, but definitely more of the just general medicine, unfortunately, wouldn't even look at a problem with a blood sugar or within a onesie of sick, right?

Scott Benner 21:58
They wouldn't say, hey, maybe five is available to you right now. They just Yeah. Or maybe

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:02
that's not in the range of somebody who doesn't have something going on with their blood sugar. It is being mismanaged. If you're a one C is six, and you don't have a diagnosis of diabetes. Oh,

Scott Benner 22:13
I see what you're saying. Yeah. Oh, you're thinking people? Oh, I see what you're saying. A regular GP. It's just gonna be like a six. That's fine. That's just Jesus coming for you one day, but it's not a problem today. Don't worry about it. You know, that attitude? I mean, it was like, Oh, yeah. Oh, watch it. We'll watch it. I had somebody the other day. Tell me a doctor told him they were watching. Oh, no, we're watching. We're watching for me to fall over. I had a woman tell me the other day about her thyroid. And she said, I hated my doctor. Tell me we're gonna we're gonna put a watch on this five TSH, I was like a watch. I said, What are your symptoms? My hair's falling out. I'm tired. I can't get rested. My fingernails are breaking. I've lost my sex drive. I like she like rattled off. 10 things. She told the doctor and a doctor goes, We're gonna keep an eye on that. I kept an eye on it already helped me. Right, right. Same thing with a diabetes like a six a one. See how you're alright, that's not too bad. Yeah, this lady says that would really really nice if we stopped acting like talking about the digestion of fat and protein for people using insulin was an advanced topic. Oh, yeah, I have been brushed off and treated as if I was an idiot for suggesting that fat and or protein could be impacting high blood sugars. That's off course. And we'll just say it again. If you're listening, and you think though, that doesn't impact it, you're wrong. So learn more,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:34
because it's all about carbohydrate. Yeah, I mean, in there, it is all about carbohydrate. So why would we need to talk about fat and protein? my soapbox to get on is that nobody is guided in how much they need. In terms of portion. Just count your carbs and take your insulin and the other stuff, just eat it? Well, so I can eat a cow. It

Scott Benner 23:57
doesn't affect my blush. Like if you're a physician and you've got somebody in front of you who's type one who wasn't before. It might be you know, instead of just complaining about it on social media or at dinner or whatever, bitching about it in your to yourself when you're driving home in your car that people don't eat? Well, why don't you say hey, listen, this is a great time to go over this. Before type one diabetes, you were killing yourself very, very slowly. You wouldn't have even noticed it happened in probably and then one day you would have been like, Oh, what's that feeling? Then you would have been gone. But now you have type one. So we're going to pay really close attention to what you're eating. This is the part where I tell you that that is six portions not one portion, you know like that. Yeah, like that. You don't need 6000 calories a day. You know, like you know that all this other stuff and you're we're gonna see it now and you're in your in your blood sugar right away like you didn't know before, because you didn't have type one, but now we're looking, what a great opportunity for you to make some adjustments here right and be healthier beyond diabetes. Right? You know, but if I said that to a doctor, and I know that because I've done it that you like, they're gonna say to me people don't listen. Which is like saying, I don't know what it's like it's saying it's like saying that you're a half a mile from a cliff that no one can see. And you know, it's there. And you see people walking and falling off the cliff. But you don't bother telling anybody Hey, slow down. There's a cliff coming cuz some people don't listen to you,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:22
or turn the other way. Don't go that way. Let's

Speaker 1 25:27
make an adjustment now. But But the bigger point is that like, well, it's not worth me opening my mouth, because they might not listen to me. First of all, what else are you doing? Isn't that your whole goddamn job? Right? Everyone's not gonna listen. It doesn't mean it's not incumbent upon you to say it. Also, it's will seem disconnected. But parenting, same thing. You don't just get to say it once. And it happens. Oh, no, it's your goddamn lifelong job to stand there and go. Oh, my God. Okay. Put that away. This trash has got to go out. You can't leave that on the floor. Please don't hit your sister. Right? Like, like, you don't just get to say that one time, and it's over. Like, and if you think that, then I don't know what you expected when you became a doctor. You don't I mean, right. Yeah, right.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:09
It's much like it. That's a very good connection. It's like being a parent who constantly has to tell your child, the underwear go in the thing right here that on the floor in front of it, it goes in the basket, right? Or we don't leave toothpaste, spit in the sink. We rinse it down right away.

Scott Benner 26:30
We're not going to look at an eight a one C and go, Hey, that's not so bad. Yeah, yeah, it's not so bad if you're on your way to better, but if that's where you're gonna live for the rest of your life, it's going to catch up to you pretty quickly, it just right. There's a lot of repeat, and nobody talks about it that way. And I even listen, I'll go out on a limb here. And I'll even say I understand that socially for the last couple of years. Maybe we've drifted away from being honest with people all the time. Is that a fair way to say that, like, I have been protecting people's feelings a little bit, Jenny is making a face because I know there's a private conversation we had recently that we can't talk about on here. But no, it's still your job. Like you're not supposed to hurt people's feelings. You're not supposed to treat them poorly. But they deserve good information. And they deserve tools. And they deserve direction, like and if you have to repeat it over and over again. You don't just get to say, oh, here comes Scott. He don't listen, I'm not gonna say it again. I'm still paying you. Right? You're my insurance company's pocket do your job. You don't I mean, if I don't listen to you, it's on me. But come on. I don't know. It's very upsetting all this. There's no way any doctors are left listening to this, Jenny.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:39
I really hope that they're, I mean, you know, if I was a clinician, I guess I just I mean, I know my personality. I am very much if you've got something, and I don't know much about it. And I could do better than I would rather sit here and be like, out I was really wrong. Like man, like, you know, I can do better. I can clean this up. I can turn this around, I can do better for whatever the job is that I have. I can do better. Right? But that's an that's the attitude. I think anybody who's in healthcare should really have what are you in this for? Are you in this to improve people's lives,

Scott Benner 28:15
I did a recording this morning with a anesthesiologist, who has been diagnosed with type one later in life. She's had it now for about five years, she came down to talk about what an anesthesiologist should know. And I'm actually going to make it part of this series, which I was terrific, right. And she's lovely. And we had a great conversation. But at one point, she said this thing that I hear people say all the time, she you know, she goes well, you know, there's a lot of burnout in health care. And I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of burnout in factory work, too. But you don't get to like not run the crane and pick up the piece of steel and put it where it goes. Because you're just sick of it. You don't you mean like I actually said to her, these are my words, Jenny. I said, if if people work for me, you motherfuckers would be upset because I'd fire y'all. Like Like, I don't I don't want to hear i I'm burned out what? You make over six figures. go on vacation. Like Like, I don't know, take a walk smoke weed, leave me out of it. Do your job anymore.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:12
Make changes in your organization. If you're burned out, that means that something in the organizational structure of your day to day

Scott Benner 29:20
schedule, how you're beating you up? Yeah, correct. Yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:23
beating you up so much that you're feeling burned out. And absolutely, that needs to be taken care of. But it doesn't mean that the people then that you're taking care of in your practice. Yeah.

Scott Benner 29:33
Do you know that during that recording, I turned to a browser window, I opened up chat GTP don't laugh for a minute, okay. And I said, please tell me what an anesthesiologist should know about how insulin pumps work and what how they should manage them during surgery, and it spit out something that I read back to her and she goes That's all accurate. So, my point to her was, if people keep making the same mistakes over and over again, we just need one person to write down the rules, maybe start an email chain, right? Like every day, you guys get an email to remind you about people with type one diabetes and pumps. And this is it or people who come in with, I don't know, like, you know, hypertension, like, here's the thing to remember. And she said, some people don't read their emails, I'm like, what what point is there going to be like, what are we going to hold people to account to do their job? You don't I mean, and I get there's human failings, which I don't even mean in a pejorative way. Like I understand there are limitations of people. But as an organization, I get if Jenny's tired on a Thursday, or if I'm in a bad mood last week, or something like that, but just the whole organization take a dive, like, like, how does that happen? And it just seems like, I mean, I hate to say this, it just seems like laziness to me. I mean, am I being harsh? look good? You know, just, I think what I said to her was, she's like, well, people have to come in and advocate for themselves, which I don't know how doctors don't hear. That should be insulting to them like that. I'm so bad at my job, someone has to come in and remind me of what it is when I get there that I'm supposed to be doing. Yeah. But I said, like, I don't go get four new tires and remind the guy when I dropped off my keys to put the lug nuts back on, I just assumed that's going to happen. Like, do you mean, like, do I have to assume a doctor's not gonna follow through? Or do the thing like, come on? Doesn't make any sense to me at all? So yeah,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:27
I mean, I think in general ordering and those kinds of things. I think a lot of it is so already organized within a lot of the electronic medical kind of charting and whatnot, that things get checked off pretty easily, and may not be something that gets revisited then. Right?

Scott Benner 31:48
Yeah. Actually, thinking about that electronic aspect of it. This was something I brought up to, I didn't quite say it this way, then. But I, I'm thinking to say it now, if you're a doctor, and you have some dreams of your kid, being a doctor, the way you're doing your job, right now, you're making the profession, it's not going to work the same way, they're going to put, they are going to put a chat bot in charge of the medicine, and you're going to be a technician making the same dollar everybody else is making. So if you like your $300,000 a year, and you want your kid to have it to maybe do a job that makes us all think this is a profession that should keep going in this direction, because right now it feels like you're being overpaid, to give me an eight, a one C and have me out of here in my mid 50s. Like that's how it feels, if I have diabetes, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:29
Well, and with the way that things are going, you know, with AI, quite honestly, there are going to be algorithms that now take some of that job out, right. At some point, there will be algorithms that evaluate glucose trends that evaluate insulin pump data, and give some feedback. And then at that point, like you really do become kind of just a prescriber. Yeah,

Scott Benner 32:56
you're a technician, right? You're not You're not a doctor anymore. You're the person that understands all the words enough to like, point me in the towards the right room where I gotta pay and stuff like somebody

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:05
with diabetes myself, I would rather have a very personal conversation with a person and get their feedback. Sure, it would be lovely, if a computer could just spit out, Hey, I see these problems, fix this, change this do this. That would be nice. But for some of those variables and things that you just can't teach personality, right? To a computer, it's

Scott Benner 33:31
starting to seem like you can't teach personality to a lot of physicians either. So but I sorry, I know being smart is tough, probably all little like, you know, awkward and everything, but it's but but listen, I'm pretty smart. And I've got a personality, like, just try harder. I'm not saying I think computers should just become doctors. I'm saying that I think we're gonna get forced in that direction. Right? Because the physicians aren't giving enough pushback. Otherwise you're not it's they feel like union people who are like add spine. We don't want to be in a union anymore, like you want to hold on to your union, or do you want it to go a different way? And I think you're right, though, I think that moving it to a computer knowing the actual answer, but you still needed to come through a person. It's another Kenny that's another example of maybe we maybe that doesn't need to be a doctor, maybe it needs to be an actual person who is good at connecting with human beings and understands the medicine just enough to be a bridge for that. There's a guy on here one time, his name Sam fold. And Sam is the general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. Wow. But he also played baseball for like nine years professionally. But he also went to what like pretty much almost an Ivy League school for economics. So he was a very interesting and different blend of intelligent and baseball player. And the reason he's the general manager the Phillies now is because the first job they gave him was to be a bridge between the analytics and the guy holding the bat. Sure, and now I'm not wondering if this isn't the same Same way, this is gonna go one day, like we knew you don't I mean, we need a, we need a person down the middle who understands both sides, they don't need to be a nine year trained physician to agree that chat gfpt got this one, right or whatever that's gonna happen in the future. And as crazy as that sounds to people, and Jenny knows that I'm doing this, but it's a very slow process, and it's in the background. But my last, the last thing I want to do with this podcast is leave behind a chatbot that has taught itself off of the entirety of the 1000s of hours of the podcast. And I'm already having these amazing experiences where I'm just teaching it like the Pro Tip series. And by teaching I mean, you're just feeding it into it, you're hard pressed to ask it a diabetes question, it doesn't have a good answer to just from learning from listening to all of our conversations, you, me and all the other people who come on here, it's really, really fascinating, like, so I think I can leave something like that behind. If I can do that. I'm assuming a hospital can figure it out. Of course. Yeah. So this is my last thought. I'm going to put it in this episode. And let's talk it through for a couple of minutes. And then we'll be on our merry way. And thank everybody for listening to the Grand Rounds, episodes, etc. While you and I were recording this, I jotted down in my notes, follow one patient a month to learn Oh, and we didn't really go over it. But I found myself thinking that every doctor should just find one patient that has a glucose monitor and is interested in helping and say to them, Hey, can I follow your CGM for a month? Could we text once in a while, I might text you and say, Hey, tell me what just happened. Now, when your blood sugar did this? Or did you just eat it feels like you just ate and or, you know, I saw you ate but you didn't get high. What happened here just a month, I swear to God, one month, I know nobody's gonna do this. For me, he's gonna tell me it's a HIPAA violation or some crap, I don't care. I'm telling you, if you followed one person a month, and you did it for a year, you would learn a lot, you could be on this podcast next year putting me to shame talking about diabetes. So and anybody you would learn so much in just just that one idea, and it's so doable. It's free. And it would take a limited amount of effort on the doctors part part and on a patient's part. And you all know one patient who's cool that you could approach about this, you know what I mean? And it

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:21
also teaches you an awful lot about the actual product,

Scott Benner 37:24
right? Yeah, you might learn how it works, you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:27
might actually learn some of the ins and outs of that particular CGM, or some of the ins and outs of that particular pump and what you thought it would do. And then when you actually see it performing in the here, and now real time, you can say, Well, God, that recommendation I've been giving

Scott Benner 37:47
what the hell I'm talking about, I saw my daughter's graph today. Just her graph. I looked at it, I thought, Oh, she ran out of insulin. And it's her day off. It's her sleeping day, right? Because this is their one day off a week from school. And I was like, there's no doubt in my mind. She is asleep. And she ran out of insulin. I knew in 15 minutes by looking at a graph. I called her up, I woke her up was like, Hey, is your pump empty? And she goes, Oh, thank you. And she was just like that. I knew that from looking at a graph. And you'd be amazed at what you'd learn. If you just follow along for a month, right? And then let them go and then go pick somebody else. Now we'll do it with a kid or talk to their mom, like, you know what I mean? Like, I swear to God in a year, you would, you'd be a genius at this. And it wouldn't cost you anything, you wouldn't have to go to a meeting on a Saturday, like all the stuff that I hear, you know, and you maybe you wouldn't feel so burned out, Jenny, if you were actually helping people and not walking around all the time feeling like, Oh, nobody listens to me. And this sucks. And why am I bothering? So? I don't know. All sounds like common sense to me. But they'll say,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:53
Oh, that's a common sense. You bring up something that many people are not unique.

Scott Benner 39:00
Story. When you think of this series, we have a couple of minutes before you have to go. Did you enjoy making this? Do you think it of course, do you think it hit the mark? Or do you think that doctors would listen that and be like, Don't bash me because they call it doctor bashing if you're critical of them?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:13
Well, you know, and I think if you have an open mind that you would start listening to this to begin with, or you feel like you are missing something. I would expect that you're going to gain something out of this, even if it's just one episode that really hit and you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And depending on what type of physician you are, you know, emergency department or, you know, a specific, you know, specialty like endocrine or whatever it might be. I would have again my personality. Yeah, I would have been very, very excited to be able to hear something that I could have gotten something out of even even if it made me feel like ah, I'm clearly not hitting the mark here. I can do better than this. Right? Yeah,

Scott Benner 39:56
I hope so. I really do. I hope also that they heard that Really, if you have a type two using insulin, it's enough of the same game that you could use some a lot of the same concepts to help those people because I, you know, you are going to hear some people say, well, type ones are such a small portion of the of the population, I can't put that much effort into learning for this many people, but a lot of what you're gonna know and help a type one with, you could help us type two with as well. And that's it. You know, if mass appeal is your is your game, then? You know, there you go. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, until they start putting GLP into the water, I guess which will be.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 40:33
Personally, I really hope that I have to filter all my while. I'm

Scott Benner 40:37
not advocating for that I am what I, what I actually think is it's funny, I'm in between on that idea. I'm seeing GLP has helped people with type one and type two diabetes all over the place. And I am for whatever makes you healthier. But at the same time, I think we're going to eventually do the thing where we skip over the value in this thing, and then just start mass, giving it out to everybody to try to avoid the problem to begin with. Which is I mean, maybe is a reasonable answer, but I don't know. It's it's so far in the future. It just it always scares me that when something's easy, we stopped thinking about it. You know what I mean? So, anyway,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:13
no, I think the series was, I think it was needed. And for whoever grabs it and really listens to it and can step back from an ego and say, I can get something from this. I don't agree with this. But I do agree with that. Or I can you know, take something away from this. I think it was important.

Scott Benner 41:30
I do too. I my bigger hope. And my bigger my my more reasonable expectation is that we're hitting people who are younger and just in med school or thinking about going to med school and maybe you're gonna this is going to be a thing that helps the next generation of people maybe more than this, but I hope not. I hope everybody got something from it. Anyway, I always enjoy working with you and doing these things. So I can't thank you enough for helping me. Of course, you know, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:55
always enjoy it as well. Thank you

Scott Benner 42:02
a huge thanks to Omnipod not just my longest sponsor, but my first one Omni pod.com/juice box if you love the podcast, and you love tubeless insulin pumps, this link is for you. Omni pod.com/juice box. I want to thank the ever since CGM for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. Learn more about its implantable sensor, smart transmitter and terrific mobile application at ever since cgm.com/juicebox. Get the only implantable sensor for long term wear get ever since.

If you're ready to level up your diabetes care, the diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox Podcast focuses on simple strategies for living well with type one. The pro tip episodes contain easy to understand concepts that will increase your knowledge of how insulin works and so much more. My daughter has had an A one C between five two and six for since 2014 with zero diet restrictions, and some of those years include her in college. This information works for children, adults, and for the newly diagnosed and for those who have been struggling for years. Go to juicebox podcast.com and click on diabetes pro tip in the menu or head over to Episode 1000 of the Juicebox Podcast to get started today. With the episode newly diagnosed we're starting over and then continue right on to Episode 1025. That's the entire Pro Tip Series, Episode 1002 1025. If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective, the bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CDC es a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years. And in the bowl beginning series Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698. In your podcast player, where you can go to juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way recording.com

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#1161 Giddy Up

Leigh Ann is the mother of a type 1 and she has bi-polar disorder.

You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Music - Google Play/Android  -  Radio Public, Amazon Alexa or wherever they get audio.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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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, welcome to episode 1161 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today I'll be speaking with Leanne. She's the science teacher, the mother of two, one of her children has type one diabetes, and Leanne has bipolar disorder. 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. If you're a US resident who has type one diabetes, or is the caregiver of someone with type one, please go to T one D exchange.org/juicebox. and complete the survey. You'll be helping with type one diabetes research and only take you 10 minutes and you'll feel good about yourself when you're done T one D exchange.org/juice box don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code juice box at checkout that's juice box at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com When you place your first order for ag one with my link you'll get five free travel packs and a free year supply of vitamin D drink ag one.com/juice box

this episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next one.com/juicebox This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org and find them on Facebook and Instagram touched by type one is an organization dedicated to helping people living with type one diabetes. And they have so many different programs that are doing just that check them out at touched by type one.org. Today's episode is sponsored by Medtronic diabetes, a company that's bringing people together to redefine what it means to live with diabetes. Later in this episode, I'll be speaking with Jalen, he was diagnosed with type one diabetes at 14. He's 29. Now he's going to tell you a little bit about his story. And then later at the end of this episode, you can hear my entire conversation with Jalen to hear more stories with Medtronic champions. Go to Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box or search the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Leigh Anne 2:40
Hi, I am Lea Anne, I'm a mom of two amazing girls. Only one of them has type one. And she was the first diagnosed in our family on either side. And we live on a little farm in North Carolina. I am a veteran science teacher that has just walked out of the classroom, this school year, animal lover all the things you're not teaching anymore, not in the public school sector, which was a huge decision for my family. And so I run a my own kids are homeschooled and have been for a while. But I do I just started yesterday actually running a science co op for homeschool kids out of my farm. And so it's super fun. I'm excited about it. But my heart is in minorities and kids that need me in public education. And so it was a hard decision to walk away but it was definitely the right decision for the time.

Scott Benner 3:31
How long had you been teaching for 12 years? Okay, how old are you?

Leigh Anne 3:35
I'm 40

Scott Benner 3:37
reservations. Thanks. Oh, seriously, you know, the alternative is to be dead. So. So you're 40 taught for 12 years. You got two girls, one of them has type one. How old is the one with type one.

Leigh Anne 3:50
And her name is Katherine and she is nine.

Scott Benner 3:54
Catherine is nine. How old was she when she was diagnosed? Five, four years ago. Okay. And for you and everybody else I'm sick. Excuse me. I'm a little sick. Might be sneezing and stuff like that as we go along. Okay, so you said there's no other type one on either side of her family. Any other autoimmune? Yes.

Leigh Anne 4:17
So I believe her dad we are divorced and have been since she was born has a like a minor autoimmune situation. I also have ulcerative colitis, which is autoimmune and that's my mom has an autoimmune disease dealing with her liver. Your mom does my mom. Okay.

Scott Benner 4:36
Do you have anything else going on? Yes.

Leigh Anne 4:38
So I have been diagnosed bipolar for 20 ish years. Okay. The other and that's really like the two the two big things for me health wise. Do

Scott Benner 4:49
they consider bipolar to be auto immune adjacent?

Leigh Anne 4:54
So I honestly can't answer that super correctly we'll say because bipolar As an ongoing, there's a lot of research that says it's genetically linked. But then there's research that says it's trauma induced from at an early age and things like that. My degrees actually, in psychology, teaching biology was a total segway. And before that I rode horses professionally. So it's kind of a weird thing, but and there's different types of bipolar and there's constantly new research coming out. So I do not know if it's autoimmune adjacent or not. That's a great question that I would should probably learn about

Scott Benner 5:27
annals of palliative medicine, which is ame groups that org. At the end of the last century, genome wide association studies revealed a significant genetic association between bipolar disorder and autoimmune diseases.

Leigh Anne 5:40
Wow. I should have known that. Don't

Scott Benner 5:43
worry, I'll tell you Fun fact, I got the Google. So why are you on today?

Leigh Anne 5:50
I love so actually, I was on the Facebook group long before I listened to the podcast. I always thought I didn't have time to listen to podcasts. Like when was I going to do that? So I started doing it on my way to and from work, I have listened to like very specific episodes that I think are interesting. I love the information. And now I'm getting off topic. But when we were die, or when Catherine was diagnosed, we did not get so much information like so many families do. And so I love this place. And I send a lot of families because I'm connected to a lot of type one families to this podcast. And I was listening to it, it was a couple of different episodes and thinking about I think it was DK on a plane, it was just like, I could cry thinking about it. Yeah, sure, um, in the mom had to a newborn and a child and had to choose and those things and got me thinking about my own struggle in in the best scenario, and the best marriage and the best home and the best health of a parent taking care of a child with type one who's young, it's hard. And then when you put layers of something like bipolar, which is something that you deal with every day, every moment and a conscious effort on my part, and a layer on top of that, there is a lot of navigating and balancing and planning to make sure that I am in a place to maintain my child's blood sugar, and make sure that I'm keeping her alive and safe. And I was like, there's other people out there who are dealing with mental health and trying to take care of their type one kid, and I would love to be able to support them shine a ray of light on that. They're not alone. And it is it's just hard. It's a hard thing to do all the way around to me.

Scott Benner 7:22
So let's give a little context of what it's like to have bipolar and then we'll like layered over top of what it's like to have to take care of somebody's health while that's going on. So sure, well, is it cyclical? Does it run for days, weeks, months? How does that happen?

Leigh Anne 7:37
I definitely for me is cyclical, but it's not a perfect cycle. Definitely there can be triggering events. Something as simple as thinking there's there's more laundry than I thought there was to do could be the last straw and sent me into a not good place. Or it could be something as a death or not sleeping for three days or something like that. That's a serious thing that can change it right. But it is cyclical for me. But it's not like I can't look on the calendar and tell you on this day. I'm going to feel this way. But it definitely goes from Pretty good. Pretty fantastic. Okay, really bad. Okay, pretty fantastic. And that order, it's just not always a guaranteed time

Scott Benner 8:17
that rolls through. So what is pretty good feel like?

Leigh Anne 8:20
I'm pretty good as today. Nothing super hard. Really? I would it's my baseline. And what I learned a long time ago is that my baseline for most things is not even near anyone elses. It's a normal day. If I if I get four or five hours of sleep, that's great. I think I did last night everything is where I'm okay with today if that makes sense. I'm not stressed out about the next hour my kids are okay right now, just for me like a normal day I can get enough done. For me though a normal day and I have realized this over the years I do more I think by like eight or nine o'clock in the day in the morning then most people do in a day. And that is not like I don't need it. That's not like Go me that's not something to be proud of. I am just a very efficient busy person. And if I have a free moment I fill it up.

Scott Benner 9:08
Okay. So is that a good thing is that like mania is it like the the up and down part of it?

Leigh Anne 9:14
I struggle with what is normal me and what is bipolar me because it's the same. And so if I wasn't bipolar, I don't know what that would look like. And so, a normal day for me doesn't feel manic for me, a manic day. To me, it feels manic where on a normal daily basis, I get extremely frustrated with everyone around me and I'm super nice about it. Because everyone in this planet moves an extreme slow motion for me. I'm always told to slow down talking when in my head I'm consciously slowing down every word all day long for the world. And that's normal and manic. I would say it's like a minimum of 50 different topics in my brain all going very quickly and I'm pretty aware of all of them while maintaining everything that's around eat the dog over here, the blood sugar on my phone, I hear something on the TV telling the kid to do this making sure this is going on. And mania is where I feel almost out of control of all of those things. It's too much on if that makes sense. But there are parts of mania that feel really quote unquote good, where I'm like, nothing's a problem. Like on another day, I might think that like, the world is ending over something. And on a manic day, I might like I'm saving the world. So I don't know if I answered your question.

Scott Benner 10:26
Is that part of it, like having a lot of big thoughts?

Leigh Anne 10:30
Like so? Sorry.

Scott Benner 10:34
This episode is sponsored by Medtronic. diabetes, Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box. And now we're going to hear from Medtronic champion. Jalen. I was

Speaker 1 10:43
going straight into high school. So it was a summer heading into high school was that particularly difficult, unimaginable, you know, I missed my entire summer. So I went to I was going through a brand new school, I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling over an hour to the nearest endocrinologist for children. So you know, I outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown.

Scott Benner 11:17
Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 1 11:21
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just, it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just kept it to myself didn't really talk about it.

Scott Benner 11:36
Did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in,

Speaker 1 11:41
I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that motivates me started embracing more, you know, how I'm able to type one diabetes. To

Scott Benner 12:01
hear Jay Lynn's entire conversation stay till the very end. Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box to hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community. Contour next one.com/juice box, that's the link you'll use. To find out more about the contour next gen blood glucose meter, when you get there, there's a little bit at the top, you can click right on blood glucose monitoring, I'll do it with you go to meters, click on any of the meters, I'll click on the Next Gen. And you're going to get more information. It's easy to use and highly accurate. smartlight provides a simple understanding of your blood glucose levels. And of course, with Second Chance sampling technology, you can save money with fewer wasted test strips, as if all that wasn't enough to contour. Next Gen also has a compatible app for an easy way to share and see your blood glucose results. Contour next one.com/juicebox. And if you scroll down at that link, you're gonna see things like a Buy Now button, you could register your meter after you purchase it, or what is this download a coupon? Oh, receive a free Contour. Next One blood glucose meter, do tell contour next.com/juicebox head over there now get the same accurate and reliable meter that we use. So

Leigh Anne 13:21
I got my degree in psychology, because at the time I was riding horses professionally. And the deal was my family would support me doing that if I got my finished my degree and I found behavior fascinating. And I want it to be able to be the gold star of bipolar. Like not every bipolar person has some horrible story and is hospitalized and does all these things when you look up symptoms of bipolar ideas of grandiosity is one of them. And I do see that but I also wonder because it's my brain thinking it I do think I can do great things. I don't think if I jump off the house, I'm going to fly. That's not I recognize that right? I've also sorry, go ahead.

Scott Benner 13:59
No, I was just going to ask have you done great things? Yes, I have. There you go.

Leigh Anne 14:04
Every day we're all doing great things but good human. With that being said something that I think is great today. And I think that's for any human but could be extremely I could think it I did a terrible job at it when I'm in a bad place. The other thing that getting a degree and spending I spent an astronomical amount of time and work and managing my bipolar because it was hurting people around me and that's not something I wanted to do so that really pushed me in college to learn everything I could just like type one I did with my daughter So in saying that now where I am in my life I can recognize a rational thought and I can be in a place that feels horrific in still recognize it's irrational. I can't it doesn't mean it's gonna get me out of it. But I can still recognize that it's passing and fleeting or I think a lot of people struggling with depression, bipolar mental health, have trouble recognizing that it's a temporary state So that is something that I think has been like a huge win for me in the past 20 years of being able to recognize this is going to pass, like this deep hole is passing,

Scott Benner 15:08
has any of this led to drinking or drugs or anything like that? Sure,

Leigh Anne 15:12
um, no drugs, which I grew up in a house with fantastic parents, there was divorced and remarried. But my parents on an together probably not great, but on an individual level, just champions for their kids and very supportive and my dad grew up in severe poverty growing up and is incredibly self made, but had some experiences with people in his family with alcohol. So it was like, pounded in my head, like drugs and alcohol are bad. And it wasn't till later, like, I guess, later in life, and I was like the kid that I would like to DD for friends in high school. When I'm the one with tattoos and pink hair. And I'm wild, we wouldn't have expected that. I definitely eventually did drink some in high school and college and things like that. But and yes, to answer your question, yes. When I would feel like there was medicine was working, there's nothing to do. I feel like I was never like, I don't think alcohol is ever a problem. And I will say that. And that's me saying that, that's not Cemil saying it. I had a horse Roman an opportunity to ride horses professionally at 20. And that was life saving and grounding for me. So even if I was going to drink a huge amount of alcohol and not sleep all night, I would show up for my horse the next morning, and having that responsibility was really powerful.

Scott Benner 16:20
How I'm How do you ride a horse professionally?

Leigh Anne 16:23
I know it's crazy, right? It's actually a trillion dollar industry in our country. So it's different than other sports, because you're not working with a team. So if you in short, and it's kind of a crappy way to qualify, if you're paid money to ride horses, or paid money for instruction on riding horses, technically, you get your professional status. Now, that is a massive spectrum. I mean, somebody tomorrow could say they're gonna go and teach riding and be a quote unquote, professional. But it limits you at horse shows, like obviously professionals, amateurs don't show against each other typically. So how do you do that? So people who have lots of money like to buy really pretty horses, but typically are not typically may not know how to ride them, or train them or care for them. So they pay a lot of money to watch their pretty animal perform well, and so we are Hunter jumpers, we jump over stuff. Basically, it's super, super technical, more technical than I can imagine. But if you kind of think about it on mainstream people understand Kentucky Derby, so like, these people that own the racehorses, don't ride them, they watch them and go, Yeah, so it's kind of like that. But there's also a huge industry. I mean, every little girl wants to pony. And half of those little girls want to do it forever. And so basically, I guess, to answer your question, how do you write professionally you get paid to do it in be really good at it? Usually, hopefully, in the best of cases, there are definitely people in industry who maybe any in any industry that aren't stellar, but that's the answer. Yeah, no,

Scott Benner 17:45
no. So yeah, rich people pay you to ride their horse for them. Used to Yeah, but that's the vibe. Right? Okay. I got Yeah, yeah. Okay, can you tell me a little bit about your daughter's diagnosis? Yes.

Leigh Anne 17:58
So she was five, um, we, her dad and I separated when I was pregnant with her. It was really, really rough divorce, things are much better now. So we were in the process of divorcing, you know, when she's born and things like that. And so there's already a bunch of issues with that. And so I was teaching school teaching science, and my mom would pick her up from preschool at 12 every day. And so at lunch, I would call and just how was your day? What are you doing? And my mom's like, she said, she didn't feel good or stomach hurts. None of like, the symptoms. You see, like I had not noticed more drink. He had not noticed weight loss, none of that. And I said, Well, she never complains, please call teachers and see if they'll just get her in today. Like my gut was like, just go. This wasn't like a looming thing. It was like, she's complaining that feel good. I feel like she's got a doctor. So my mom got an appointment. I'm still teaching biology or science today. And they call me from pediatrician. And they said, they think it's just a virus. I said, No, it's not. And I said, can they just check her for a UTI? So standard, and the UTI pee test is glucose and our blue blood sugar was 300. And pausing and backtracking two years before that I was teaching seventh grade, and I had an awesome seventh grader with type one and a diabetic alert dog in my class every day. And that was the first time I got super into understanding the science of it and educated for this kid because I became her person at school. Yeah, having that experience. That was actually the first phone number ever gave my teacher phone number to a parent with her mom. And so I'm at school, and my mom's telling me his information, and she's like, they're gonna send us to Brenners Hospital, which is a children's hospital here. And I was like, okay, and I knew then my child was diabetic. And I texted my former students, mom, and I said, daughter's doctor, that blood sugar 300. We're going to Brenners and having that support system, they're still incredibly good friends of mine. Today. That student is in school to be a teacher. I literally texted her this morning. So and they were really it was really great to have that, that that knowledge there. And so we go to printers for three days, and it was awful. I mean, it wasn't awful. Brenners was great. But anytime, you know, holding your kid down, that's five and doesn't understand, you know, for all the things, but we were lucky we weren't in DKA we caught this, you know, early, and the education was exhausting, and probably more so because I kept asking questions, and I wanted to understand every bit of it. And that's just not possible to do at diagnosis. And then I was in the midst of this situation with custody was oh my gosh, now I've got to send my daughter somewhere without me. Yeah. And so all of those things went on. So we were the high school about three days, and we went home. And in the weeks following that, thankfully, at the time, I was working at a phenomenal school, she came to work with me, which is not unheard of in public education, really. I stayed home with her for a little while. And then she came back to school with me some lots of pieces and all the things for her right, recognizing, you know, we do the JDRF walk. And after we did the first one, she was diagnosed in April, and the walk was in like October ish. And after the walk, she's like, we did the money, we raise the money. Is there a cure now? And I didn't recognize that I had not fully explained that to her. Yeah,

Scott Benner 20:59
she thought you were just saving up to pay for a thing that she needed some right.

Leigh Anne 21:03
And so and then in the car, and she's just like, literally breaks my heart thing about today. She was five, and we were on injections. We only started on the pump in December of this year. Oh, wait, like, it'll be a year in December. Because she didn't wanna do it. And so we weren't injections forever. So I'm always like the pro the meds. So at the time, we were doing a lot of her injections in her stomach, and she's five and I'm driving down the road. And she was like, Mom, when I have a baby or my shots gonna hurt my baby. And I'm like, at five years old. She's thinking about when she's a mom and having to put shots in her stomach. And I'm like, if she's vocalizing that, like, what else is she worried about? I mean, it just. So those things, I mean, just all the things that come with diagnosis, but that was kind of our story. And so we regrouped. And then we go into kindergarten. So she's three months into a diagnosis and kindergarten starts, I fought in court for her not to go to public school, because I know what public school diabetic care is in our area. Her school doesn't know how to nurse one day a week, and we are one of them. She was at one of the better public schools, but her dad, at the time, wanted her to be in public school. And I lost in court because the school was trained on diabetes. And, and so the first bit of her kindergarten experience was not great. She had a teacher that I know very well, but no teacher, everyone knows this can be responsible for a newly diagnosed Yeah, five and six year old in school. It was horrible. And so thankfully, that was COVID year. And so he came home. So I was now teaching virtually, and COVID was, you know, really, I hate to say it this way, because I feel for all the negative things, but it was really positive for our journey with type one. So we're now home all together all day. And so and she never went back to public school after that.

Scott Benner 22:50
I did. I had that conversation the other night. She's like, she's like, you know, I hate what happened to everybody and all the bad stuff that came of it. She's like, how great was it to be able to stay in the house? Yeah. You know, I don't know, just, she's like, I liked it. I was like,

Leigh Anne 23:08
I gotcha. So phase one, um, was my favorite,

Scott Benner 23:11
I enjoyed not being sick, mostly, you know, because I didn't have COVID. And you weren't meeting other people. So like, no colds, and nothing like that ever happened. And now, you know, sniffing now, because some dirty person must have coughed on me in public or something. And

Leigh Anne 23:26
I'm in the Bible Belt. So you can imagine we were the people that I wouldn't leave the house. And we had, thankfully, we were like, we in a good situation, we actually moved to this farm in the middle of COVID. ourselves, and when we let the movers now, and so my kids had their horses, they had everything like we didn't have to We were happy in our bubble. And I'm so and I know that a lot of people did not have that situation. And I did a lot for my students online. A lot to make sure they were okay.

Scott Benner 23:50
I'd also like to say that there's a lot wrong with not being around other people and socializing anything. I'm just saying, like there was a nice break, like I think it was, I think that's how if you're not going to be impacted by the health effects of COVID, right, where the financial stuff or all the other bad stuff that came with it, I think 20 years from now, you'll look back and think like, you remember that time we got off for two years. Like that's cool, because it's how it felt a little bit. It was a little like, Hey, you don't have to do as much for a while. I think people found that attractive for people in certain parts of their life. Like if you were 21 Just getting out of college was horrible. Awful. Yeah, if you're in college, if you're in high school, it was, but I'm old. I was like, oh, like a break. This is nice. You know, so I don't know. For me,

Leigh Anne 24:31
it was so amazing. To not have to be anywhere. I had to be on my Zoom classes at certain times. But like if my kids wanted to watch a movie at 10 o'clock at night, we just watched a movie we painted the garage neon colors because why not? And my mom who is amazing like the epitome of like a grandma, my mom is who my mother is and she's the best. So she makes slideshows for everything. So every birthday my kids from the birthday year before is where the slideshow starts. And now she YouTubes and Seven CDs and, and so she made slideshows, COVID one COVID Phase Two for all of us and it was like pictures we were sending to each other in the family because she has autoimmune disease and we had type one in our house so we were not like and but she documented all those things like in our fun what we were doing plus what's happening in the news and plus with the new restrictions are and how cool I told my kids. I was like, you're gonna use this and your history class, and 15 years like you're gonna use your your grandma's slideshow document this time. But yes, I agree. It was a magical time on some levels.

Scott Benner 25:30
So your daughter's diagnosed. She's not DKA, which is terrific. She has these like kind of deep thoughts pretty early about it. Didn't want to use a pump, which is fine was Sheila CGM. She

Leigh Anne 25:42
was. But here's the thing. And I'm grateful now. But it was awful, then. I only knew CGM is existed because I've had a student in class and I was like that thing that shows it on her phone. And I asked about that. And they're like, Well, you we don't let our patients get on for three months. I was like, okay, so reflectively I understand that, but it was hard. I mean, we got up every night at 2am fingerstick. Every night, like all the things and also to she's an extremely picky eater. Always has been She won't eat meat. She won't eat peanut butter, sweet bread. She won't eat cheese, like she's nothing. And so getting her like we weren't Pre-Bolus In the beginning. We didn't know I had to give her a shot in between meals. I didn't know she was gonna eat. Yeah. And so we did have a CGM is the short answer. But we had to wait three months. And I'm again reflecting. I'm grateful because we've had times like Dexcom sent us the wrong stuff. And so we went five days after having a CGM for how long and not having it and to being able to know what to do and just revert back to that quickly is helpful.

Scott Benner 26:37
Okay, cool. She did go to a pump recently, you said

Leigh Anne 26:41
she did. Um, there's this incredible organization where we live called the diabetes family connection. And November of the year, she was diagnosed, we went to family camp for type one diabetes, which was the single best decision I did for my family for type one. You are at this camp, and every family is the thing. The carbs are listed for you at dinner. Every counselor everyone there is type one or someone in their family is. And we had this great experience. Well, then COVID happened we didn't get to go. And then we got to go back last October. And it was fantastic. And the little girl in our cabin needed to change her Omni pod. And I was asked us like is okay, if we Catherine, I watch and she said yes. And right after Shana. Kathy goes, I'll get a pump. And I was like, great. And a meet. I was like messaging the doctor from camp. I was like, Can we get a pump appointment? Like let's do it. She's in then. And so I mean, and that's been great. And it's been it's so much easier, like so much easier. There are its own issues with that. But she is on Omnipod five now. Okay,

Scott Benner 27:37
cool. Why did you want to come on the podcast to talk about the, the challenges you have. So I think we understand to some degree, how the bipolar impacts you. But like you're saying, you're having a good day today, what happens when you're having like a bad day,

Leigh Anne 27:55
every single thing is extremely hard. And I when I'm in a state like now when I'm rational and I'm happy and having a good day, it seems almost like pathetic, and irrational to even like talk about that state of mind. Because when I'm in it is incredibly real. But when I talk about everything, I'm like, Oh my gosh, like you have this amazing, blessed life, like get your stuff together. So for me what I think your question was, what does it look like? Or how does that was? Your question was, yeah,

Scott Benner 28:21
I'm wondering if you even know what it looks like. Because I Yeah, is that you? I'm talking to now able to witness a bad day and under God mean? Yes,

Leigh Anne 28:31
not a long time ago, because I put the work in. And that's the thing, too, I have to keep reiterating. It isn't every day, every minute conscious effort to manage bipolar. And that's where I think people don't get the support that they need, or the education to understand what's really happening. I can now if you'd asked me 10 years ago, I would have given you a list of what I think it feels like. But for me, it's hard to get out of bed. It's hard to take the next breath. It's super hard to go get food, it's for my kids to do normal daily things. But I think having like I would never and I say this because I'm a super loving mom. And it sounds like normal. I would never want like my bipolar two bipolar to affect my children. I know it does, because they can tell when mom's like however mom is. But I am very good. I think, in my perspective, from sheltering them as best I can when I'm having a really bad day. Or if like I'm crying. I mean, obviously I'm having a hard time. But I'm good at reaching out to my support system and being like I need you to run interference, or can you just come help me for a few minutes and that's not always an option. So

Scott Benner 29:32
a day like that is you not being able to like cope if you maybe couldn't even feed somebody or yourself like it could get to that point hard to get out of bed? I

Leigh Anne 29:45
would say I like I like yes and no. So I will push through and force myself to get up and make sure my kids are okay. Okay, but it is like a level of hard that I can't convey in a normal rational state. ate, it feels like climbing Mount Everest to get up from my bed and walk to the kitchen. Everything is like a fight to get it done. So it really depends on that that can last a very short time meaning a day, or that can last a couple of days, if that makes sense. But it's not always an option to have someone come help me. And now that my kids are a little older, and they're home, most of the time, I can delegate and be like, tell my older daughter, I really need to go to snack right now. For my younger daughter or I can now we have UberEATS I can DoorDash food to my front door and tell my kids are gonna get the food. Which sounds horrible because as a parent, I'm a super hands on involved mom and so like even like talking about it now. It's like, Wow, that's so pathetic. But I recognize like,

Scott Benner 30:47
in that moment, that's what needs

Leigh Anne 30:48
to happen. Horrible. Yeah, like, it's horrible.

Scott Benner 30:50
If Katherine's nine now hold your other 113 13.

Leigh Anne 30:56
So my name is Hayden. And we can say her name as well. She's awesome.

Scott Benner 30:59
So when my my question was, is when Hayden and Catherine are like, I don't know, four and one. And you have a bad day, then what do you do? Do you tape them to the refrigerator? So they can't hurt themselves? Like what do you like it? I mean, no. Yeah.

Leigh Anne 31:13
And that's a great question. So what how would I do though there's like a period of years, and that time that are just a blur of survival for me, I know that I was really going to make good memories, but it was more of like shutting us all in a room watching me be putting a TV on. I do. My entire family lives within 10 minutes of my house. However, as understanding as they think they are about bipolar, still does not change that they think I'm being hard or demanding or unreasonable or rude or mean or whatever, when I truly am a lot of the time being the best that I can be in that moment. My best just looks different on different days. And that's true for everyone. On

Scott Benner 31:56
one of those days while it's happening. Do you consciously think this is a bad day? Or oh, yeah, you know, okay. Yeah. It's not, it's not like, it's not like your think your consciousness is different on the same day, you understand you have a baseline understanding of what good and bad looks like, I don't know if we're using the right words. But But what these two different days look like, and then, you know, you're in, it's not like you're, I don't know, it's not like you're trapped under a building and you think this is normal? This is fine. You think I'm trapped? There was

Leigh Anne 32:26
a time I did feel that way. Okay. It's really because of I know, keep saying it, like, I had to have the understanding of this I had to recognize like, I It's truly like this is I think this will help us to help kind of make sense when Katherine's diagnose and all the things you know, when she gets low or really high, she can be hard, right? So when they were younger, she was being super mean to her sister, she like hit her or something. And I think she was really low. And I said, you know, that's a hard parenting line. And I remind her older sister that was not okay. And I said, Honey, when her blood sugar's low, she really can't help that. And she said, God still gives her a choice. And I was like, I hear you. But so it's kind of the same thing for me. The choices look different. It's choosing like, it's um, I'm still trying and choosing to do right and do those things. It's just that that best or that choice is a lot crappier choice than another day, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Scott Benner 33:21
And from the other person's perspective, they can understand the scenario that you're in, but it doesn't change the fact that they got punched. Right, right. So that's,

Leigh Anne 33:31
and that's why I started trying to be better and and being in my diagnosis, because I was hurting people around me, with my words with my actions. Completely unintentionally. It's

Scott Benner 33:42
why you hear people in family say things like, you know, I had to separate myself from that, like, I love them, but I can't be around that anymore. Yeah, yeah. So you're so you have that to worry about too, that you Yes. That you could be the catalyst for your kids one day just being like, Hey, Mom, I love mom, but I can't I can't do this all the time. Do you take any medication for this? Anything that helps you?

Leigh Anne 34:03
It's actually really interesting. So when I was first diagnosed, I went through and typical and about the time sometimes can take two years. I mean, there's bipolar is such a, an odd but complicated diagnosis, that there's not like two pills, you get to fix it different pills, order people, different combinations. And so I went through all the psychotropic drugs, and have been managed homeopathic Lee, for the most part for about eight years, which when Katherine was diagnosed, I no longer take anything to sleep. I was very I was that was a concern. I need to be able to hear alarms, I've got to go to wake up. That was a piece of it. But I was on homeopathic before that which it's just an amazing situation. And we happen to have a connection to someone who's she's a neurologists, a doctor and I like registered homeopathic whatever. And a lot of her research has shown that bipolar I'm probably gonna get half of this. I'm not shelling it a lot. I guess what I'm saying it's basically you need to feed your brain the right stuff to produce the controls you need and So it's like a really, it's a lot. It's like five pills three times a day of like, all these different magnesium. So like that. And then I do take another medication just in the morning like a Vyvanse. Like a it's like an add drug actually, which typically you don't give to bipolar people because it makes manic. That's not what it does for me, it actually helps me. Slow down kind of

Scott Benner 35:17
you do, you are speaking quickly. But there's a scenario where you're talking much faster than this even. Yeah, like right now, like, you were speaking at a pace that I would have to rev myself up for. And I speak pretty quickly. So you know, like to get like, I'm trying to think like, you'd have to make me upset or passionate. And then I could speak at your pace, but I don't think I could keep it going for more than a couple of minutes. And you are this is nor I'm watching you. This is super calm. Super calm. Yeah, you are absolutely normal right now, like, like you. But if I, but I also feel like I could take these headphones off and say, Hey, listen, tell me about yourself, and come back an hour from now. And you'd still be talking. Yeah, yeah. So you'd be missed, though. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I, it's just interesting, really. So is this a lifelong thing for you?

Leigh Anne 36:11
Yes. And I actually, it was the day I was diagnosed with bipolar was a great day for me, because it's like, wow, there's a name for this. There's a label for this. There's a reason for this. Like, I'm not just this mean person, like I'm not just so it's so but like looking back at like my childhood. God bless my mother as a saint. So yes, definitely, typically, bipolar, you get doesn't show up is the wrong word, because I think it's showing up early ages, but they don't really, really see it. So adolescence and early 20s, and things like that. But again, the research is changing from where we're understanding what bipolar is. And also there's people that are ADHD, or that are bipolar, and they're misdiagnosed for ADHD, because they're only looking at the manic part of it. And so there's a lot of that too. And then whole tangent side note, we've now know that 90% of our serotonin is made in our gut. And I have ulcerative colitis. Don't you think there's a correlation? So? Yes, sir. Yeah,

Scott Benner 37:04
no, I agree. I think I agree. I've never agreed with something so much that I didn't understand. As that's a great point. Yeah. As as the idea that somehow balancing your gut biome is valuable for you. I don't understand. Like, I mean, I know, I could probably pick my way through the understanding of it. I'm just saying, it's not one of those things that you just open up a book, and the book tells you for sure, like, this is exactly what's happening, you know, but I just think it's true. Like there's I just did a thing recently on on what was like, just like I take a probiotic every day. And for you, yeah. And I recently did like a reset kind of a thing. I'm looking for it right now. It was like a 30. Day, I stopped taking my normal probiotic for 30 days. And I took this other other one for 30 days. I'm trying to find it for you. So I can tell you what it

Leigh Anne 38:01
is. Do you refrigerate your probiotic is does it require refrigeration? I

Scott Benner 38:05
know that there's people who say that the ones that that need to be refrigerated or are better somehow, I don't buy one that does my my hippie lady says I don't have to. So

Leigh Anne 38:18
I'm a tree hugging I love it. So

Scott Benner 38:19
I tried something called body bio gut plus, it was like a 30 day thing to kind of like improve your gut function. And it wasn't incredibly expensive. Actually. It's unavailable right now on Amazon. So I must not have been the only one. Because of your Did you do the plug for it? I don't think I said anything about it. No, because I wasn't sure how it would go. I actually bought one for me one for Arden. And, and one for my son. Not for my daughter, not for my wife because my wife said I have my own probax I'm like fine, whatever. So I think this is supposed to be a daily thing. This is like somebody's probably using this as their daily probiotic. But my person said, just switch to this one for one month to see, you know what happens and it was interesting, like you could tell, like, I would tell you that my digestion. Like that whole process from when it goes in my mouth to how it feels in my stomach to how it comes out. The other side is so much different in the last two years, two and a half, three years that it was my whole life like as an adult I got through most of my life by taking fiber. And thinking that that was my concern. I probably could take a little fiber still, but I don't and I don't have a problem. I don't eat enough vegetables. So I think maybe a tiny bit would help me but I think it's the as crazy as it sounds. I think it's partly the probiotics and the in this the supplements that I take. I also think that it got better when I went on the week. Ovie and yes, it slows my digestion down. And I think that really helped as well. So, you know, I have no Oh,

Leigh Anne 40:00
no, I have a friend who has also declined us, which is weird because it's kind of rare. And she's like one of my best friends and I got diagnosed way later after her, but it was just crazy that like, we have the same thing. But she has recently gone on a It's not whiskey, but it's the same class of injection and it has helped her significantly, which is not an ulcer was good. He's done Ultra cleanses drug. But it's it's helped her because it has slowed down her digestion. Yeah,

Scott Benner 40:24
I don't understand all that. Obviously, I don't understand the first thing about it. All I can tell you is that that whole process that I described from my mouth to my, to my but it just goes better now than it used to. I used to really like, like, there were days where I was like, I would struggle with it. And like I'd be one of those people who like have to run to the bathroom. And then I wouldn't and then you know, it was great. And now it's all really fairly consistent. So I don't know, just all like all I can tell you is it was a it was a big impact for me. Jeez, it's tough because you're talking so fast. I don't have my thoughts. I'm sorry. No, don't be. Don't be sorry. Like, no, it's just interesting, because that's not a thing that normally happen. I'm usually ahead of people, when I'm talking to think

Leigh Anne 41:06
I'm from the north when I go there. And as they come I can drive a track. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:10
I would imagine if someone talked to you, they definitely think you're from the northeast. But yeah, it's interesting because you I'm used to being pacing wise, a little ahead of the people I'm talking to, because my brain works like ne D. But you got me a little bit like you. I'm a little off balance, because I'm behind. I'm not used to being in that deposition. Think about

Leigh Anne 41:32
it. Do you ever get frustrated when you talk to people that are really slow to get to the point and barely talk slow?

Scott Benner 41:37
I gotta tell you, Leanne, it bothers me.

Leigh Anne 41:42
Yeah, that's my normal experience with every interaction times like 10 or 20. I would imagine when I it's very frustrating. And so I usually like, especially as a teacher, which I loved the last five years of teaching. It was incredible experience. I had students that have bettered my life.

Scott Benner 41:59
Can you give me one second? This? Yeah, you're good. This is Arden. This Hey, RJ I'm recording but what's going on? Don't be is this something important? Can I call you an artist? I

Leigh Anne 42:10
love you artist. Oh,

Scott Benner 42:11
this girl. This lady is yelling. She says she loves you. Okay, well, I'll be done in like 20 minutes. I'll give you a call. Okay. All right. Bye. She just saw the look on her face. She was like, I just got back from my business class. I wanted to tell you about it. I was like, Okay. She wants to share. But she but I said oh, I'm recording just Oh, I'm sorry. And I was like, No, it's okay. She this is her second day of her sophomore year of college. So that's exciting. She was really off the site, because there's no other place to put this and maybe it'll give me a chance to reset myself. So Arden for the first time. travelled to school completely by herself. Right. And so she got in a car in New Jersey and drove to Georgia, though she drove 700 miles. And we split it up for she drove like, six or seven hours, she stopped at a family friend's house. And then she moved on and she did the rest of the drive. But the poor kid got sick like two days before like I'm sick now. I think she made me sick. But that's not the point. Like she's like fever, like runny nose, driving this 700 miles by yourself and a car packed full of I want to say stuff but let me be honest, it's 85% clothing, and packed, packed, packed full of stuff. She had to make some stops. You know all that all this. And then when she arrived in Georgia, her room wasn't ready. So she had to stay with a friend another friend for a night and then get up in the morning move herself into her room by herself. Like that night she was on the phone with me like building furniture. Like not a thing garden does. So well with it all. But she's sick the whole time. And now I get on Sunday night. She's like, I didn't get any of my The one thing I don't understand about school, no matter what it is, is they they send you a syllabus. It's six days before school starts. They know everybody's coming in from out of state like and then they say on day one, you have to have this stuff completed. So now she's freaking out a little bit on Sunday night. And I'm looking at her on FaceTime like are you gotta like, calm down a little bit, you know, like, like, she's like, this isn't done. I haven't done this yet. And I'm like, I'm like you're doing terrific. I'm like first of all you got yourself there. You're alive. So much good stuff. Yeah, you moved in you went to the the storage unit. You wouldn't get your other stuff you like, you know, you're putting furniture together. Like just a plan. Yeah, go to go to bed. When she's like, Well, I still have to make art and I'm looking at you just go to bed like you don't I mean, like lay down, go to sleep wake up tomorrow. Try again. You know, so I said to her, I don't think she listened to me. But I'm going to keep telling her. I said the most valuable thing I figured out wrapped around. No responsibility as an adult is to have a flexible to do list. Just you know if you've 10 things on your list. Obviously the thing is the top is the most important. That's how you think about it. But don't think Even just the most important just think of it as as the next thing. So, if you have to move number three to number one, that's fine. You know what I mean? Like, just keep ordering things like that, and you'll be okay. So hopefully she'll do that not beat herself up on. I'm still on number one, but I gotta get to number four. You know what I mean? Well,

Leigh Anne 45:17
North Carolina is probably closer to her than you are. So she can always come here if she, I mean, it's kind of still far, but I have a friend's farm in Georgia.

Scott Benner 45:27
So there are so many people who have reached out and said, like, Oh, if there's a storm, she can come here, and I tell her all the time, and she goes, Okay, I'm gonna have one of your people murder me? Is that what's gonna happen? I'm like, I would say,

Leigh Anne 45:41
anyway, aside, we should definitely do a podcast on education and type one, because I have a lot to say about that.

Scott Benner 45:48
I bet. I bet Leann, if I said to you, so Pop Rocks, you'd have a lot to say about that.

Leigh Anne 45:55
Such that's so true. But education is something I don't know a lot about top rocks. But education is something I as a being a type a character or type one diabetes care person in a school system, working within the classroom, and being a parent to it and being a parent having to have another teacher take care of my kid, just so many in understanding the legality of cyber force and IEPs. And all the the it's that's a whole thing. But I won't tangent. But before Arden called I was saying that, how it gets annoying for me to go all day through life when everyone's in slow motion. And I'm constantly I feel like I'm being insanely patient. And as a teacher, I worked with highly motivated, I went to the most diverse school in our county, and we have a county of 52,000 students. And we are we were one of the top schools in the country, because it's a early college program where kids have to get in and apply, but it's free. And they graduate the two year degree or associate's in a high school diploma. And so we're high minority, high diversity. My kids stories are unbelievable. But with that being said, I'm very conscious in that situation. So I'm teaching, I'm teaching information. I'm fielding questions, I'm being really patient. And a lot of my kids English isn't their first language. So I'm a slow and patient and as I can't be, and so when I get home, trying to maintain living in slow motion around me, but not in my head, if that makes sense. It's really hard. And my husband and my mom, my mom's here a lot because she's close by and she used to be a lot of my childcare now that I'm home that changed. It's that's who gets lashed out at because they get so frustrated. They're like, just be patient, just be calm, you just be paid like people like let me talk and I'm like, it's been 17 minutes, you said nothing.

Scott Benner 47:33
I can explain it in from my perspective. If you're taking a lot of time in between your words. There's it's not a voice in my head, but it's this feeling of like, Oh, my God, come on. Like, I know what you're going to say. How is it possible? You don't think so I'm following the there's like a Pentameter their speech. And I'm following it along. And I know the next word, but they can't find it. And I'm like, this is fascinating, like, you know, so it starts out is when I first started making the podcast, I was I was bad at it. I think I am much better at it. Now. It doesn't bother me the same way. Like I just take a different like, I'm leaning forward talking to you. So like, because I'm trying to, I'm trying to listen to you know, I'm trying to listen to you. And but you're going so fast that I can't form my thoughts to ask you more questions. And when people are speaking more slowly, and you're looking at me today, what I'll do is I'll move the microphone here. And I will sit back and relax. Like I will take this as they're running the show. But I at least can keep up. So even though you're speaking slowly. I do know my next question. I just have to talk myself out of caring how long it's taking you to get your words out. And that I'm actually good at and there's only been a couple of people. There was one gentleman on here one time it's been so long now. He was on talking about like trying to DIY insulin. And he spoke so slowly in between his words that I when I edited it, pushed his words together and still got emails from people saying, Wow, this guy talks really slow. And but he was also trying to explain as well, he's Yeah. And so I've noticed that really, like kind of intellectual people are not very willing sometimes to blurt things out. They they choose their words very carefully. So there's a difference between speaking slowly and speaking. Thoughtfully, maybe. Yeah, it's not thoughtfully I don't think I don't speak thoughtfully. I think that my words just come to me very quickly. Like it's, you know, well, and

Leigh Anne 49:40
I would say to because I do think I'm an intellectually I do not, that was not I totally get what you're saying I think, but I am a really intellectual thinker. It's just really fast. And for me two people think like, I just don't have a filter. I'm actually using a huge filter. I would just like in a lot of things, but I'm also like, very honest and direct, but I try to do it in a kind of live refer those that can't take it. And so there's a lot of pieces to my communication. Yeah. And I communicate differently depending on my audience or who I'm teaching or what's happening. But the slow speech is a conscious effort all the time. And I hate when it comes across as like, like I've had people be like, you've somewhere to be like, I'm like, No, I'm more like, we're just talking like, I'm not like, this is not rushing. And so that is a hard piece that may seem like a petty thing. But that is hard for me on a daily basis and daily interactions. And I'm always told to calm down, take a breath, and I'm, like, totally calm right now, guys, like we can meditate if you want. And I just speak very quickly. Yeah, yeah. And so and I open everyone, I used to be a teacher, I open every class when I talk fast. If you don't know what I said, Let's start again. It's not it's, it's me. Yeah,

Scott Benner 50:45
I'll tell you what, there's this one part of it. That's a superpower. If you ever get into an argument. You can make sense while you're yelling. That's such a big deal in an argument, because most people did that. Yeah, cuz most people can't do that. So when you're like, like, lit up, and you're speaking quickly, and you're still making sense, it throws people off a little bit. And especially if it's a harsh interaction, like if you're yelling back and forth at each other, and your brain still working quickly, the other person is at a significant disadvantage. Which is That's true. Yeah. Not a thing that occurred my life much since I'm older. But you know, and

Leigh Anne 51:21
then I gotta remember, so don't forget, because there's two things. With that being said, I have a thing about certain diagnosis as being superpowers. And then also something just that made me think of someone's like, oh, I should tell them that. Oh, but when I'm manic, the the speech patterns are so fast that sometimes my words are slurred together. And I have trouble writing because I will not finish writing the word before I start the next word. And so letters get left out. I used to at school on the board, and kids were like, Oh, you left out a letter and like, you're right at it. Because my brain is working faster than I can get it on the paper. Yeah. So that is hard sometimes, but about diagnosis. So I, of course, in a school system, I've worked with kids who have autism and things like that, and I look at I use autism, because I think it's, it's going to correlate to my point, if you look at a list of symptoms for autism, obviously, it's a huge spectrum. But a lot of the things on that list, they're not symptoms, they're like gifts, if you've got heightened awareness and sensitivity, you extreme intelligence like savant stuff. And I think the same for bipolar there are definitely and then maybe that's when people like, Oh, she's delusional, delusional is on that symptom list. But there, I can multitask on a level, people couldn't even say with one of the tasks, and I don't mean that I love people, people are great, but that is something I can do. And I also can work in controlled chaos very, very well. I can go very long periods without sleep and still be solid. Not that that's something you should do. But like on an average night, I sleep about four hours a night, I get a lot done in a day. And so I do think that there are like pieces to it. And because I've taught science that for so long, I do think there are evolutionary links to things you know, there's like, the whole thing with your blood type goes to who your ancestors were, if you were hunter gatherers, if you were farmers, there's like a correlations of blood type you have and like what you're supposed to eat and stuff. And I've been a vegetarian for 35 years, and I'm supposed to eat red meat. But that's okay. So with that being said, I feel like maybe I'm totally off tangent here. I think like with autism and certain things, there may be some type of evolutionary genetic link in there for pieces of it. Does that sound crazy? I

Scott Benner 53:16
have only heard about the blood type thing one time, and I don't remember we looked into I don't remember if it was, like, if I could find validity or not. Oh, I did. I can't, I can't think back that far. There

Leigh Anne 53:25
probably is it's called Eat right for your diet. And there probably is some validity. But also, if you look at like blood type O blood is the most popular in our country. And it's the most recessive blood type. So it's really on who settled here and kept passing it down. So like probability wise, that makes sense.

Scott Benner 53:40
Here's something I'll share with you. Because it seems like you would want to know, that last bit that you talked about, is the first time that I did not follow what your point was.

Leigh Anne 53:49
Okay. So that's a good, thank you for asking. Yeah.

Scott Benner 53:53
So going back through the rest of the conversation, whether by the way, not just you, I hope it's obvious when you're listening. Like, I don't care if I even agree with people who I'm talking to. I'm just there. They're explaining how they feel. And I tried to ask questions, right. But for the last 15 minutes, every one of your points that you've made, I've understood what it is you're saying. And then you started off with. I'm gonna, like use people with autism as an example. And then you went to blood types, and I have to be completely honest with you. I don't know what you're trying to tell me. No,

Leigh Anne 54:26
I appreciate that so much, because I hate it when people agree with me, and they don't know what I said. I can't stand that. Like, just ask like, and also So can I

Scott Benner 54:35
ask you just to rephrase it and try to make your point again? Yeah. Okay. So

Leigh Anne 54:39
basically what I'm saying I think with a lot of and again, my The reason Sykes, I've looked at a lot of different mental health diagnosis is things like I'm very interested in behavior. And what makes us do what we do, and in looking at a lot of diagnosis is that we have that get a negative label, like autism, like bipolar, there are actually some really strong attributes in those disorders that people who don't have them cannot do and be cut. And this is probably where I lost you, because I just sort of in my head pretended you had normal, like, not normalized, not what I meant, like a chunk of knowledge to connect this and it's my fault. No one would, unless you're in my science class, so sorry. So going back, I went off top again, there is a lot of like, genetic and evolutionary links to things we do and how we live and health and all the things and that's where I went to blood type stay with me, it's gonna make sense. Where there's like, genetic links to, if you have this blood type than your ancestors, were probably farmers, because this is what genetically works best for you. So when I say that, I think there's probably some genetic advantage at somewhere in my ancestral history, to being able to stay awake for 20 hours, okay, being able to multitask. Like the, there was a Predator movie, I went and saw, I don't know, long time ago, and the Predator, dude, alien, they wanted the most superior DNA from the planet. And that was in the child with autism. And I was like, This is my point I've been trying to make they were thinking that the most superior DNA was in this savant child with autism. And I guess it kind of like conveys my point that you can have these diagnosis is, and yes, they are very hard. And there's a lot of stuff to deal with. But I do believe there may be some piece of that that served my people 10,000 years ago, or whatever,

Scott Benner 56:27
if I can, like, you just spoke for a couple of minutes. The first thing that was really interesting that you did was you I said, Hey, can you just reframe this, and you spent the first 40 words, not talking about it? Like it was, you were like, I have a science background. And because of that, like you like, and I think what you, I think what you were saying was, I've paid attention to how past civilizations and how they lived might impact how we are now today and use the blood type thing to make the point. But but if I could boil it down what you just told me, I'm going to try to boil it down as closely as I can, you were telling me that you think that you work well on a little amount of sleep? Because perhaps the people whose bloodline you come from, we're good at that, too. Is that fair? It's fair,

Leigh Anne 57:17
I would just say like, there's a genetic advantage, like it bipolar, allows me to do certain things that I couldn't do if I wasn't bipolar, okay. But it also comes with negative things. So wherever that genetic link of being bipolar comes in, maybe that served an advantage because things get passed down. Survival of the fittest, things that get passed down, survive for certain reasons, to maybe being able to do certain things that I can do is that polar served some primitive culture well, but that could be a total leap and

Scott Benner 57:47
all that, like, it's crazy. It's it's gonna sound I don't really care about all that what I cared about was, it's interesting that like, you're you have, there are connections that you see between things that I don't I'm not aware of, right, and the way you describe them, like the way you talk, I guess, it was hard for me to see the connections that you were there. I know now, but in the through the first time, like, I didn't understand what you were getting at. And that's got to be frustrating for you, because you know, what the hell you're talking about? And you're trying to say it out loud. And I mean, listen, it's communication one way or the other. It's just, you know, there are plenty of people who don't have Bipolar who also don't communicate either. Well, but you were getting out of the words, but I wasn't seeing the lines you were drawing. And now and now I do, because I because we went back through it. But even that would be exhausting to do over and over again. So that's exhausting. Sorry. No, I was gonna say to your kids follow you. Yes, they do

Leigh Anne 58:45
most of the time. But that point is so powerful, because to me, it feels validating because I struggle with that every day. Like I all the time, I have the most amazing man in my life. Amazing guy. But he's logical. He's rational. His degrees in accounting is very linear thinker. We're having a conversation and I say something that he feels is unbelievably unrelated. And it makes complete sense the connection to me, and that is kidding, that doesn't go well sometimes. And my mom has a habit of just saying okay to things because she gets lost in my words and doesn't know as I get frustrated when I have to keep repeating myself. And yes, she's older, but she's not like, she's she's. Yeah. Right. And so that is absolutely a struggle all the time. Yeah. And I can imagine, and so yeah, there's something else. She's Oh, my kids, when I know I am, need to, like, take it back as when my older daughter is like, she gets really stressed and will be like, I can't do that. You just asked me do 10 things and I can't do them. And let me finish the other things first, and I'm like, okay, that's reasonable. I personally can handle a list of 50 things in my brain. That is not reasonable for you. I don't say that out loud. Yeah. But and then and then the other thing that I'm seeing and my child with type one is, she is the spitting image of me except that I'm her mom, and she has type one and she's had the opportunity to be homeschooled and to have a lot of fun. cuz that would have been great for me. I had great parents in childhood, but raising me was probably how are we allowed to cuss on here, harden is the opposite of heaven. So with that said, I see like my type one child does not sleep. Like at all, we did all the things like, and so I just stopped for the bedtime, she goes to bed when she's tired, no matter what she's up at six years have been for the day. If I let her go to bed before 10 o'clock, she's up at 2am for the day. And I just can't do that. And that's something too I think that ties in to being bipolar. There's very little time that I'm alone or an adult, or away from children. And I do feel like I'm with my kids more than most parents. And that's what I want. And I love that I'm highly involved in their lives probably do involve sometimes, but not getting your words like we'll just do they go to bed because at my students are pushing for me to do a podcast, another conversation. But I'm like, when would I do that. And there's just very little time that I'm alone, because my kids are awake, mostly my younger child. My older one was like that. But now that she's a teenager, she sleeps. So she just and so I do wonder all the time, like have I passed this on to her? I don't know. And but I also handled her with so much compassion, that it annoys my older daughter more than I think a normal sibling, because not only there's type one there, but there's also I get her. And I remember not being gotten as a kid, and not understanding Oh, she's just a wild free spirit. Like, oh, that word can be a great word. But it's thrown around.

Scott Benner 1:01:26
Oh, sorry,

Speaker 2 1:01:27
no, no, I wanted I just couple things. I like you, I had a thought in my head. And you you almost get you almost beat it out of me. But I held on to it. So I love that you're drinking Mountain Dew, by the way, because of all the caffeine, it makes me.

Scott Benner 1:01:40
So there are a number of things that you you do well, that I wouldn't have expected when we started. So like when I jump in and start talking, you remember where we were before that that's not a thing I would expect from a person with bipolar. And you are not chomping at the bit to talk when I'm talking. You are you're listening to me. I've had conversations with people with bipolar before and it feels like it's them talking. And then them begrudgingly waiting while you're talking. And then them talking again, like and so you and I are having a conversation. It's it's, it's cool. Like, would that be on a bad day? Could you do that too?

Leigh Anne 1:02:16
I could I would be more like I wouldn't. Depending on our relationship at the time. Like, I would still be polite. And I may not be as listening. If people take too long to talk. I process other things in my head because I get bored. I've already thought about everything in the background of your room. Yeah. Because if you're not talking slow, I recognize that because I have the ability now to recognize what appears normal for other people, if that makes sense. If you do not talk like slow. So what about on a bad day? On a low day, like sad, everything's hard. It would have been very hard for me to show up. I would just have come across as like, well, maybe normal to you. But to me, I would have looked like a sad, depressed person. And I kind of just got off track again, after you said I was good at keeping up something about oh, gosh, what was the original question? Look, I've already messed it up. No,

Scott Benner 1:03:04
it's fine. I was saying that you were when I'm speaking. You're not I do. Listen, you are listening to me. Yeah. But

Leigh Anne 1:03:10
I do struggle with that. Because people think I'm not sometimes because I can do other stuff while I'm listening. And this is Oh my God. My little Katherine did this the other day. She was listening to her social studies video while she was doing her math. And I was like, you can't do both at the same time. Like, you know, she's a mom. She's like, I'm smart like that. And I was like, What are you mean, and she could repeat everything in the video and do her math correctly. I'm like, Oh, my gosh, she's me. She's really me. And you can imagine how public school was for a child who they just thought I was add, like, and like hyper or like, obstinate and my dad was superintendent of school system. So I'm supposed to be like, you know, look,

Scott Benner 1:03:43
yeah. Does it worry you when you see her act in ways that you do? Do you get concerned about that?

Leigh Anne 1:03:49
I think it's a loaded question. Concerns come with being a parent concerns come with type one concerns on bipolar. So yes, but I think I take comfort in knowing that if she is going to face having bipolar. She has a mom who's highly educated on it, and well equipped to have the places things in place to support her. But I also look at it and I have like, done amazing things. I have incredible friendships, I have a great support system. These are things I've had to work out, obviously. So of all the things this is also a now I'm probably under those things where you might miss the connection, but you're with me. It reminds me of her diagnosis, because when she was diagnosed, the endocrinology floor was full. So we were put on the pediatric cancer unit. And I'm sitting there mourning and grieving the life that was and how many keep my kid alive. And there's kids, they're walking around dying of cancer with no hope. And it was like, You know what, we've got type one. I've been prepared for this by my student two years ago. I know more about it than I ever would have because of that student. And we can treat this. We can't treat because some kids are walking around that can't be treated. Yeah. I have a situation where I can buy insulin. I have a place where I can get her mental health needs she's going to be so Surrounded by animals and outdoors, she's outside probably 10 hours a day, almost every day, she runs barefoot and builds forts and rides your pony and lays on the ground with her dog and gets dirty. And all of those things are very supportive of healthy mental health, whether you're bipolar or not. And so does it concern me? Sure, because it's hard. It's really hard. But she has gonna have to face hard stuff. And everybody has heard stuff. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:21
that's a great answer. Cool. Is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have? Do

Leigh Anne 1:05:27
you really want to answer that question? How do you like,

Scott Benner 1:05:29
well,

Leigh Anne 1:05:30
I'd be going 70 tangents.

Scott Benner 1:05:31
I mean, I'm up against time. So I'm just want to make sure I didn't get out of here. Anything that like really like you wanted to get to that we didn't get through. Yeah, I

Leigh Anne 1:05:39
just would say like, people that have other people with strong mental health challenges, whether that be depression or bipolar, like, you've got to recognize sometimes that their best may not look that great. But sometimes when I look like I'm being a raging mean, horrible person, that is the best I can do in that moment. And it is requiring so much self control, like I need grace, I need support. And if you're, especially for people that are close to you, it's just like the kid that comes home from school and is the perfect student and then falls apart at home. Like it's a safe place to explode. So that and also like, managing your mental health, it sounds so cliche, if I don't take care of me, I cannot take care of blood sugar. Right. And that felt very selfish for a long time. And it still does sometimes, but being aware of like, you know, what, if I don't take medicine, if I don't do what I need to do, if I do things that I know, trigger me, I can not be available. And it is not just being a bad mom or a not great mom, it is my kids blood sugar, and that's keeping her alive. So I think that that's important. It's amazing.

Scott Benner 1:06:36
Okay. Well, thank you. I really appreciate you doing this. When did you start listening to the podcast? So

Leigh Anne 1:06:42
really great question. I honestly don't know. But it had to be a long time ago because we scheduled this almost a year ago. So yeah, it had to be. I mean, probably maybe like two ish or three ish. You know what, maybe because that because I was on that, like I said, was on the Facebook group. Very early on a diagnosis. I joined all the things. But the podcast. Let's go with like two and a half to three years. Okay. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Scott Benner 1:07:04
Have I ever done other interviews with people with bipolar that you've heard? Not that I've heard? Okay. All right. I think there's some in the after darks, but and you're gonna get mad,

Leigh Anne 1:07:15
I will not mad, you're great. Sometimes I can't do them unless I'm in a really good space. Because the ads or which I saw the subscription saying coming, because I need the information or the information I want. isn't coming to me fast

Scott Benner 1:07:27
enough. So an ad throws you off. Yeah,

Leigh Anne 1:07:32
it doesn't throw me off. It's just so long. Not on yours. In general. Everybody's,

Scott Benner 1:07:35
yeah.

Leigh Anne 1:07:36
someone taking a breath is I interrupt them, because I think they're done talking.

Scott Benner 1:07:41
Interesting. Well, that's amazing. Yeah, I can't make the podcast without ads, we'll all be in trouble.

Leigh Anne 1:07:49
But like, for me, listening to the podcast, just even opening the first time I did was a step. Like there's a lot of books I want to read. And I don't read them. Because I have to be so focused to read the words and it feels slow and boring, because there's just it's hard, but I want the information. So I love the podcast. And I think it's incredibly great resource for a lot of people actually, when I went to pump trading, and this family was needed some help. And I sent them to it and I sent my my students that graduate with type one and stuff like that, like I try to get as much supports in college as I can because there should be a you have to take type one class before you leave home. Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:08:22
I gotcha. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. No, that's

having an easy to use and accurate blood glucose meter is just one click away. Contour next one.com/juicebox That's right. Today's episode is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Jalen is an incredible example of what's so many experience living with diabetes. You show up for yourself and others every day, never letting diabetes define you. And that is what the Medtronic champion community is all about. Each of us is strong, and together, we're even stronger. To hear more stories from the Medtronic champion community or to share your own story, visit Medtronic diabetes.com/juicebox And look out online for the hashtag Medtronic champion. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoy my full conversation with Jalen coming up in just a moment. If you're not already subscribed or following in your favorite audio app, please take the time now to do that. It really helps the show and get those automatic downloads set up so you never miss an episode. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording. Wrong way. recording.com. Thanks for hanging out until the end. Now you're going to hear my entire conversation with Jalen don't forget Medtronic diabetes.com/juice Vox or the hashtag Medtronic champion on your favorite social media platform.

Speaker 1 1:10:04
My name is Jalen Mayfield. I am 29 years old. I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I am originally from Waynesboro, Mississippi. So I've kind of traveled all over. I've just landed here in the Midwest and haven't left since.

Scott Benner 1:10:19
Nice. How old? were you when you were diagnosed with type one diabetes?

Speaker 1 1:10:22
I was 14 years old when I was diagnosed with type one diabetes

Scott Benner 1:10:26
15 years ago. Wow. Yes. Okay. 14 years old. What are you like? Do you remember what grade you were in?

Speaker 1 1:10:31
I actually do because we we have like an eighth grade promotion. So I had just had a great promotion. So I was going straight into high school. So it was a summer, heading into high school

Scott Benner 1:10:41
was that particularly difficult going into high school with this new thing?

Speaker 1 1:10:44
I was unimaginable. You know, I missed my entire summer. So I went to I was going to a brand new school with, you know, our community, we brought three different schools together. So I was around a bunch of new people that I had not been going to school with. So it was hard trying to balance that while also explaining to people what type one diabetes was,

Scott Benner 1:11:04
did you even know? Or were you just learning at the same time,

Speaker 1 1:11:07
I honestly was learning at the same time, my hometown did not have an endocrinologist. So I was traveling almost over an hour to the nearest you know, pediatrician, like endocrinologist for children. So you know, outside of that I didn't have any type of support in my hometown. Was

Scott Benner 1:11:26
there any expectation of diabetes? Is somebody else in your family have type one?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:29
No, I was the first one to have type one of my family.

Scott Benner 1:11:32
And do you have children? Now?

Unknown Speaker 1:11:34
I do not know.

Scott Benner 1:11:35
Do you think you will one day, still

Speaker 1 1:11:37
thinking about it? But right now, I've just been traveling books at all my career myself. So

Scott Benner 1:11:42
what do you do? What's your career? Yeah, so

Speaker 1 1:11:44
I am a marketing leasing specialist for a student housing company. So we oversee about 90 properties throughout the US. So I've been working for them for about eight years now. And you get to travel a lot. And that job? Yes, I experience a lot of travel. It's fun, but also difficult, especially with all your type one diabetes supplies, and all your electronics. So it's a bit of a hassle sometimes.

Scott Benner 1:12:06
What do you find that you absolutely need with you while you're traveling? diabetes wise,

Speaker 1 1:12:11
I have learned my biggest thing I need is some type of glucose. I have experienced lows, whether that's on a flight traveling, walking through the airport, and I used to always experience just being nervous to ask for some type of snack or anything. So I just felt, I felt like I needed to always have something on me. And that has made it my travel a lot easier.

Scott Benner 1:12:32
So growing up in the small town, what was your initial challenge during diagnosis? And what other challenges did you find along the way?

Speaker 1 1:12:43
Yeah, I think the initial one, I felt isolated, I had no one to talk to that it was experiencing what I was going through, you know, they were people would say, Oh, I know, this is like hard for you. But I was like, you really don't like I, I just felt lonely. I didn't know you know, people were watching everything I did. He was like, You can't eat this. You can't eat that. I felt like all of my childhood had been you know, I don't even remember what it was like for life before diabetes at this point, because I felt like that's the only thing I could focus on was trying to do a life with type one diabetes,

Scott Benner 1:13:17
when you found yourself misunderstood? Did you try to explain to people or did you find it easier just to stay private?

Speaker 1 1:13:24
I honestly I just held back I didn't really like talking about it. It was just it felt like it was just an repeating record where I was saying things and people weren't understanding it. And I also was still in the process of learning it. So I just, you know, kept it to myself didn't really talk about it when I absolutely had to,

Scott Benner 1:13:42
did you eventually find people in real life that you could confide in? I

Speaker 1 1:13:47
think I never really got the experience until after getting to college. And then once I graduated college, and moving to an even bigger town, that's what I finally found out as people were I was like, Okay, there's a lot of other people that have type one diabetes. And you know, there's a community out there, which I had never experienced before, is

Scott Benner 1:14:08
college where you met somebody with diabetes for the first time or just where you met more people with different ways of thinking.

Speaker 1 1:14:13
So I met my first person with diabetes, actually, my freshman year of high school, there was only one other person and he had had it since he was a kid like y'all once this was like, maybe born, or like right after that timeframe. So that was the only other person I knew until I got to college and I started meeting other people. I was a member of the band and I was an RA. So I was like, Okay, there's, you know, there's a small handful of people also at my university, but then, once I moved to I moved to St. Louis, and a lot of my friends I met were like med students and they were young professionals. And that's where I started really getting involved with one of my really close friends to this day. He was also type one diabetic and I was like, that's who introduced me to all these different types of communities and technology. is and which is really what helped jumpstart my learning more in depth with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:15:05
Do you think I mean, there was that one person in high school but you were young? Do you really think you were ready to build a relationship and around diabetes? Or did you even know the reason why that would be important at the time?

Speaker 1 1:15:16
I didn't know, you know, I honestly didn't think about it, I just say, Oh, there's another person in my class that's kind of going through the same thing as I am. But they've also had it a lot longer than I have. So they kind of got it down. They don't really talk about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have much to, like, connect with him. So sorry, connect with him, ya

Scott Benner 1:15:36
know. So now once your world expands as far as different people, different backgrounds, different places in college, you see the need to connect in real life, but there's still only a few people, but there's still value in that. Right?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:48
Correct.

Scott Benner 1:15:49
What do you think that value was at the time?

Speaker 1 1:15:52
I think it was just what making me feel like I was just a normal person. I just wanted that. And I just, I needed to know that. Like, you know, there was other people out there with type one diabetes experiencing the same type of, you know, thoughts that I was having.

Scott Benner 1:16:07
When were you first introduced to the Medtronic champions community? Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:16:12
so about two years ago, I was, you know, becoming more I was looking around, and I noticed stumbled upon the Medtronic community. And I was like, this is something I really, really, I kind of need, you know, I said, I, all throughout these years, I was, you know, afraid to show my pump. You couldn't, I would wear long sleeves. Like, I didn't want people to see my CGM, because I didn't want people to ask me questions. And you know, I just felt so uncomfortable. And then I noticed seeing these people really, in the Medtronic community just they embraced it, you could see them, they weren't afraid to show it. And that was something I was really looking forward to.

Scott Benner 1:16:47
How is it knowing that you're diabetes technology is such an important part of your health and your care? And having to hide it? What did it feel like to have to hide that diabetes technology? And how did it feel to be able to kind of let it go,

Speaker 1 1:17:00
I will refuse to go anywhere, like, Hey, I would run to the bathroom, I just didn't want to do it in public, because I felt like people were watching me. And that was just one of the hardest things I was trying to overcome. You know, I was fresh out of college, going into the young, professional world. So you know, going out on work events and things like that. I just, I just didn't think I just didn't think to have it out. Because I was so afraid. But then, once I did start, you know, embracing again and showing it that's when the curiosity came and it was actually genuine questions and people wanting to know more about the equipment that I'm on, and how does this work? And what does this mean? And things like that, which made it kind of inspired me? Because I was like, Okay, people actually do want to understand what I'm experiencing with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 1:17:45
What did you experience when, when the internet came into play? And now suddenly as easy as a hashtag, and you can meet all these other people who are living with diabetes as well? Can you tell me how that is? Either different or valuable? I guess, compared to meeting a few people in real life?

Speaker 1 1:18:02
Absolutely. I think if you look back from when I was first diagnosed to now, you, I would have never thought of like, you know, searching anything for someone with, you know, type one diabetes. And now it's like, it's all I see, you know, you can easily search Medtronic champions, and you see people that pop up, and you're like, wow, look at all this content. And I think that's something that that kind of just motivates me, and which is how I've kind of came out of my shell and started embracing more and posting more on my social media with about, you know, how I live with type one diabetes. And I think that's something that I hope can inspire everyone else. What

Scott Benner 1:18:36
was it like having more personal intimate relationships in college with type one?

Speaker 1 1:18:41
I think it was kind of hard to explain, you know, just, for example, like, no one really knows, understands, like what alo is. And I think that was a very hard thing for me to explain, like, I, you know, it can happen in any moment. And I'm sweating. I'm just really like, not all there. And I'm trying to explain, like, Hey, this is what's going on. I need your help. And I think that was something that was hard for me to, you know, I did talk to people about it. So when this happened, they were like, oh, you know what's going on with you? I'm like, I'm actually a type one diabetic. This is what's going on. I need your help. What about

Scott Benner 1:19:19
once you've had an experience like that in front of someone? Was it always bonding? Or did it ever have people kind of step back and be maybe more leery of your relationship? After

Speaker 1 1:19:32
I would tell someone I had type one diabetes after some type of event or a dynamic they were kind of more upset with me that I didn't tell them up front. Because they were like, you know, I care about you as a person I would have loved to knowing this about you. It's not anything you should have to hide from me. And that was a lot of the realization that I was going through with a lot of people.

Scott Benner 1:19:49
Okay, let me ask you this. So now we talked about what it was like to be low, and to have that more kind of emergent situation but what about when your blood sugar has been high or stubborn, and you're not thinking correctly, but it's not as obvious maybe to you or to them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:20:03
So I also I go through my same experiences when I have high blood sugars, you know, I can tell like, from my co workers, for example, I didn't really talk to, you know, when I go out backtrack. When I visit multiple sites for work, I usually don't announce it. And so sometimes, I'm working throughout the day, I might have snacks, forgot to take some insulin, and my blood sugar is running high, and I'm a little bit more irritable, I'm all over the place. And I'm like, let me stop. Hey, guys, I need to like take some insulin, and I'm sorry, I'm not I didn't tell you guys. I'm a diabetic. So you may be wondering why I'm kind of just a little bit snippy, you know, so I like to make sure I do that now going forward, because that's something I noticed. And it was kind of hindering me with my career because I was, you know, getting irritable, because I'm working nonstop. And I'm forgetting to take a step back and focus on my diabetes, right?

Scott Benner 1:20:55
Hey, with the advent of new technologies, like Medtronic, CGM, and other diabetes technology, can you tell me how that's improved your life and those interactions with people? Yeah, I

Speaker 1 1:21:06
can. I feel confident knowing that it's working in the background, as someone and I always at least said it, I have been someone that's really bad with counting my carbs. So sometimes I kind of undershoot it because I'm scared. But it allows me to just know that, hey, it's gonna it's got my back if I forget something, and I think that allows me to have a quick, have a quick lunch. And then I'm able to get back into the work day because it's such a fast paced industry that I work in. So sometimes it is easy to forget. And so I love that I have that system that's keeping track of everything for me.

Scott Benner 1:21:39
Let me ask you one last question. When you have interactions online with other people who have type one diabetes, what social media do you find the most valuable for you personally? Like? What platforms do you see the most people and have the most good interactions on?

Speaker 1 1:21:55
Yeah, I've honestly, I've had tremendous interactions on Instagram. That's where I've kind of seen a lot of other diabetics reach out to me and ask me questions or comment, and we're like, Hey, you're experiencing this too. But I've recently also been seeing tic TOCs. And, you know, finding on that side of it, I didn't, you know, see the videos and different videos. And I'm like, I would love to do stuff like that. But I just never had the courage. So I'm seeing people make, like, just the fun engagement videos now, which I love, you know, really bringing that awareness to diabetes. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:22:24
Isn't it interesting? Maybe you don't know this, but there's some sort of an age cut off somewhere where there is an entire world of people with type one diabetes existing on Facebook, that don't go into Tik Tok or Instagram and vice versa. Yeah. And I do think it's pretty broken down by, you know, when that platform was most popular for those people by age, but your younger people, I'm acting like, I'm 100 years old, but younger people seem to enjoy video more.

Speaker 1 1:22:51
Yes, I think it's just because it's something you see. And so it's like, and I think that one thing, and obviously, it's a big stereotype of our diabetes, if you don't like you have diabetes, and that's something that I always face. And so when I see other people that are just, you know, normal, everyday people, and I'm like, they have type one diabetes, just like me, they're literally living their life having fun. That's just something you want to see it because you don't get to see people living their everyday lives with diabetes. I think that's something I've really enjoyed.

Scott Benner 1:23:21
What are your health goals? When you go to the endocrinologist, and you make a plan for the next few months? What are you hoping to achieve? And where do you struggle? And where do you see your successes,

Speaker 1 1:23:31
I'll be honest, I was not someone who is you know, involved with my diabetes, I wasn't really focused on my health. And that was something that, you know, you go into an endocrinologist and you get these results back. And it's not what you want to hear. It gets, it makes you nervous, it makes you scared. And so I personally for myself, you know, I was like, This is my chance, this is my chance to change. I know, there's people that are living just like me, everyday lives, and they can keep their agencies and their blood sugar's under control. How can I do this? So I go in with, you know, I would like to see it down a certain number of points each time I would love for my doctor to be like, Hey, I see you're entering your carbs, I see your, you know, you're not having lows. You're not running high too often. That's my goal. And I've been seeing that. And that's what motivates me, every time I go to the endocrinologist where I don't dread going. It's like an exciting visit for me.

Scott Benner 1:24:20
So you'd like to set a goal for yourself and then for someone to acknowledge it to give you kind of that energy to keep going for the next goal. Yeah,

Speaker 1 1:24:28
I feel as a type one diabetic for me, and it's just a lot to balance. It's a hard our journey. And so I want someone when I go in, I want to be able to know like, Hey, I see what you're doing. Let's work together to do this. Let's you don't want to be put down like you know, you're doing horrible you're doing it's just, it's not going to motivate you because it's your you're already fighting a tough battle. So just having that motivation and acknowledging the goods and also how we can improve that sweat really has been the game changer for me in the past two years

Scott Benner 1:25:04
in jail and I appreciate you spending this time with me this was terrific Thank you very much absolutely thank you if you enjoy Jalen story check out Medtronic diabetes.com/juice box

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