#1078 Mountain House
Kim has type 1 diabetes, a brain tumor and a story about her dad.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1078 of the Juicebox Podcast
Okay, guys, I've got a great episode here for you. It's it's two episodes and one honestly, today's guest is Kim. She's had type one diabetes for 32 years, we're gonna talk about her type one where she lives, a benign tumor that was found in her brain. It's a fantastic episode. But then about an hour into it. Kim tells me something that is just oh my gosh, what do you hear? While you're listening? Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. I'm going to be saying this for a little bit because Apple really kind of screwed bus with this new podcast app. So if you've upgraded to iOS 17, you want to go into the podcast app, go to your library, touch Juicebox Podcast top right corner, three dots, then Settings, then scroll to automatically download and then go to the bottom all new episodes. Apple podcast changed their app and you may not be getting the podcast because of it. Hopefully you've heard this and you've made an adjustment. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by us med. Now us med is where we get our diabetes supplies from and you can too as a matter of fact, later in the ad, I'm going to tell you about an email we just received from us med for now. Go to us med.com/juice box or call this special number just for Juicebox Podcast listeners 888-721-1514 When you go to the link, or call the number, you get yourself a free benefits check so that you can get started getting your diabetes supplies the way we do from us med. The podcast is also sponsored today by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. You want accuracy. Well, then you want the contour next gen contour next.com/juicebox Hey, Kim. Hi. How are you?
Kim 2:22
Good. How are you doing?
Scott Benner 2:24
My wife yelled at me a little bit this morning because I didn't come downstairs let the dogs out fast enough. But other than that I'm doing great. Excellent. Yes. Good. I told her what I said 16 years ago when you said I think the kids need a dog. I said no. Don't do that. I'm now today 16 years later, you're yelling at me because of the bad decision you made 16 years ago. But okay. I said that Ken dog is never gonna die. He understands. He's been alive for 16 years. That's That's an old dog. That's definitely it doesn't seem that old some days. So, anyway, yeah, she did not care for that answer. But I'm right. And I'm leaving that in our episode for posterity sake. Not to buy a dog. Literally and figuratively. He's never really bitten us. But it's been it's been descending. Yes, a number of times along the way. I love I want to be clear Kim. Love the dog. absolutely terrific. And if in the evenings when I went to sleep, or if I had to go away this weekend for work, which I have to do, or you know, at 630 in the morning, when he doesn't feel well, if somebody else was taking care of them at this point. Like if I was a Kardashian or something, for instance. Then this would be terrific. But this is an Instagram. And no, it is life. Yeah, exactly. Right. So Anywho. Kim, do you have a pair of headphones?
Kim 3:57
I am wearing headphones. Excellent.
Scott Benner 3:59
Is there like a little arm thing on them for the microphone? Or is it hanging on
Kim 4:03
your wire? It hangs on the wire.
Scott Benner 4:05
No problem. Are you in a room without carpeting?
Kim 4:11
Well, I'm laughing because I was just going to do this at my regular desk, but it's very windy here today and we live at 9700 feet. And so the house shakes and especially that garage room that I would have been in Savannah and a tiny closet and I brought in a bunch of pillows.
Scott Benner 4:30
Sounds a tiny bit hollow and I'm trying to figure out but I want to get back to the house shaking part but I'm trying to figure out if maybe that wire just needs to be a little closer to your mouth or moved it closer to Iraq. Or if it's just the spacer and I this is gonna sound crazy. Crack the door to the closet.
Kim 4:46
Okay
Scott Benner 4:50
give me some more words.
Kim 4:52
Okay, I opened the door.
Scott Benner 4:54
I like that better. Okay, all right. You're really in a closet. KIM Yeah, So like, I
Kim 5:00
knew that you are very, like, specific about how things sound. So I was like, He's not gonna like all the wind in the background and garage door shaking. So I need to find a different place to be. I
Scott Benner 5:11
see people put this on, by the way we've begun, people put this on me. But if you were listening to the podcast, no, I know. I
Kim 5:19
appreciate that about you and your podcasts. Because if the sound is like, grading, I will just start Listen,
Scott Benner 5:26
of course, well, no, I swear to you. I used to say it all the time. Somebody could say, hey, on this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, we have the secret to life at 36 minutes in but you can't skip forward. And you have to listen to the rest of it. If a garage door sort of banging around, I'd be like I'm doing okay. I don't need the secret to life. Nevermind. Yeah. So yes, yesterday, I interviewed a person. So interesting. I interviewed a person whose father is really famous. But she didn't want anyone to know that. And so the whole time, I was like, Come on, let's talk about it for five seconds. But we never did it. It was fine. But not the point. The point is, they had a really great microphone setup. And as soon as she came on, I could feel my whole body relax. I was like, Oh, she's got a great mic. It's quiet in there. It's great. I said one thing I don't have to worry about while I'm talking to her. So anyway. Okay. Again, usually, I would have told you before this started, like, you know, is there anything you're concerned about? Do you have any questions or anything you want to say? So I'm just going to ask you that while we're recording. Anything you need to know worried about? No, I'm good. Okay. Are you nervous? Not really. Excellent. Usually, I would tell you to introduce yourself. But your Kim, I think we've gone over that a couple of times. Yes, type one. I did. And I know you've had it since 1991. So I'm just gonna throw that in there. And we'll do the math together. 2000 I
Kim 6:49
did it last night to practice 32 years.
Scott Benner 6:51
Kim. I was gonna I was gonna teach people how to count as in 2001 and 2011 than 2021. Now it's 2023. So 2122 23, it's 32 years.
Kim 7:06
And it was the APR 1991. So we are actually only completed that year.
Scott Benner 7:12
32 years. On the button. Yeah. All right. All right. That's fine. Sounds good. Been a lot of fun. Has it? Sorry.
Kim 7:21
Oh, you know, I don't know. I mean, there's that whole thing where it's like, I don't know what my life would have been like without it. And but I do kind of think in ways it has been better for it. I mean, I don't want it but I know. Like, it's basically made me who I am. So it's hard to say.
Scott Benner 7:38
Are you saying it's like exercise?
Kim 7:41
I don't know what that analogy would be. You
Scott Benner 7:43
don't want to do it. But when you do exercise? What is wrong with you? You know, it's funny, I was gonna say something that would have been inappropriate based on something you're gonna say in the future, but I'm gonna jot it down. So I can remind people after it comes out how I almost said something very, I think would have been hilarious, but then would have been appropriate. Anyway. Okay. Okay, so Kip, so you're diagnosed and how old because how old are you now?
Kim 8:11
My birthday is next month, so I was eight, almost nine years old. Oh,
Scott Benner 8:15
wow. So you're, you're gonna be 4041 41. Wow, that exciting. Sad. How do you feel about
Kim 8:22
that? Um, it's fine. I don't really feel any different. So I don't worry about it too much.
Scott Benner 8:28
I think that too. Even when I hear people are like, Oh, I'm so upset. This is happening or that's happening. I always think well, you're alive. That's how you got to be 41. Alternative. You died before you were 41. I don't want that right now. I know. Everybody wants to live forever. But that's not happening. So not yet. No, no. Give me a lot of Musk's more time. Kim. Why do you live at the top of a mountain in a rickety house?
Kim 8:58
It's actually a brand new house. Okay. We are living in Denver for a while now. And then we decided to move up into the mountains. So now we live about an hour west of Denver on the top of the mountain.
Scott Benner 9:11
We are afraid that the government was gonna find your weed grows so you had to go higher. No, no. Okay. So are you skiers?
Kim 9:19
No, we're not. We're hiking and snowshoeing and biking. That kind of stuff.
Scott Benner 9:26
Are there wild animals where you are? Yes, I
Kim 9:29
haven't seen any yet but there's potential for bears, mountain lions, coyotes, deer, all that stuff. Better house
Scott Benner 9:38
just too easy cam and you were like let's level up.
Kim 9:42
Yes, also the house is completely off the grid. We have a well we have a septic system and solar panels and a propane backup generator. Or, you know, I feel like it but no, this is just how this house was Still, okay,
Scott Benner 10:00
so you, somebody come into some money and you're like, let's upgrade now been working hard your whole life. How did this
Kim 10:09
happen? Well, we were thinking of building a house in the mountains. And then we found this house on Zillow and then came up here to talk to the guy. And we're and so it has an amazing view that that's the thing being on top of the mountain, we can see like the entire, like, the Continental Divide and the Rocky Mountains. And so we're not like, so we're still not quite far enough West that we're like, in the Rocky Mountains, right like range legitimately. So like, we can see them from our house versus if because like, if you're living in them, you can't see them because you're in them. So we're still out far enough like in the foothills, to to see all the mountains so the view was a million dollar view. So we went for it.
Scott Benner 10:55
This man you breezed over? Did you feed into a bear and just take his house? How did that go? No, he
Kim 11:01
was the builder and the listing agent.
Scott Benner 11:05
You're like there was a man, then there was no more talking to him. I was like, they killed him. today's podcast is also sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. This is an incredibly accurate meter. And you want accuracy. Contour next one.com/juice box, find out all about the Second Chance test strips, the fantastic meter, the easy to read screen, the beautiful form factor that fits right into your hand. This meter is the bee's knees, it is incredibly accurate. And not every meter is. So don't just run around with whatever busted up meter somebody handed to you out of a drawer or a closet or because that's the sales guy they like the most. Look into meters get good meters. As a matter of fact, when you go to contour, next one.com/juicebox You may find that the contour meter and its test strips are less expensive for you out of pocket and cash than you're paying now for what could be a lesser meter through your insurance. Check it out. Links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com To contour us Med and all of the sponsors. No. So, okay, well, that sounds lovely. Can I ask you a question? How long have you been there?
Kim 12:24
Two months.
Scott Benner 12:25
All right. So I'm gonna ask a difficult question. Okay. You've been there long enough now to have buyer's remorse. What about it? Are you like, uh, I overlooked that.
Kim 12:35
I'm actually I'm surprised because I thought there'd be more of an issue with being like 45 to an hour minutes from Denver now because I still need to go back there to get like my allergy shots and stuff. But overall, that hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. So and we also have to drive up this like dirt road with that's really rutted and muddy sometimes. And that was kind of stressful, but we got a new car. So that's better now and so honestly, I don't have buyer's remorse at I am a little bit stressed about
Scott Benner 13:11
that. Nice Kim new house, new car, there's like 18 cents left in your bank account. And you're like, we don't have to eat this week. And I hear you're in the woods, but you need allergy shots would it have not been a good idea to move away from the woods?
Kim 13:27
I don't think I'm allergic to the woods as much as I am the animals in my own house.
Scott Benner 13:33
I don't want to make like a simple suggestion. But have you considered opening the door and letting them out?
Kim 13:39
No, that's not what you're supposed to do when you have dogs and cats. All right,
Scott Benner 13:42
Kim, you and I talked at the beginning. I am at the point now where I'm willing to let my dog walk away. I like just like put a little stick on it was in dog food and a bandana and like stick it his collar and be like guy, man, good luck. Like we've been together long enough. Now I want to divorce my dog is what I'm saying. Oh, really? I just didn't want him to live 16 years. It's funny. I didn't want him to live 16 years 16 years ago and now I don't I don't I don't know what a fake anymore.
Kim 14:12
Is he a smaller dog? I assume that's why he sold No,
Scott Benner 14:16
he weighs like, I mean at his at his best when he was in full vigor. You don't I mean, but he could have made a lady pregnant back then. He was like 55 pounds. Oh, I'm surprised. Okay. Yeah, now he's just old. He's thinner now. And gray. That's the weirdest thing. Your dogs get gray hair. No one tells you that.
Kim 14:35
Oh, I didn't know that before we got our visualise and they get like people call it sugar face and then their face turns white and we're a little freaked out about
Scott Benner 14:45
that. Do people call it coke face but your nice thing enough for me. They call it shook. Okay, I don't know like it's just it's weird seeing them get older in their face that Keith the key got thinner. You get that like the little hard nose thing happened to him. like you take him to the vet and the vet sec, how in DISA live and you're like, Yeah, what's up? And? Yeah, I mean, it's all like, even our kennel, which I don't think we use maybe twice a year, but we've been using them forever. They're wonderful people. Absolutely great. Last time I was there, they were like, You got to stop you can't bring into here anymore. And I was like, why? And she goes, he's just so old. And I'm like, All right. So you know what I had to do? Kim, I had to find a kennel with less morals. And they take him no problem, but because I because I still had to move my daughter into college like I wasn't going to do like, just leave them at home. Tell them good luck. Yeah. I mean, so anyway, how many dogs do you have? How many cats how many parents what's in that house making this nice? Well,
Kim 15:44
we have two dogs now and one cat. But this all started a long time ago. We had three cats. And no dogs.
Scott Benner 15:52
Kim Kim, three cats. We had three cats at one time. Yes. What are you doing? You're starting an army a cat. So you got bored of it? Or why three? Well, how does that happen?
Kim 16:02
Okay, so we had one cat that we got when we were in college. And then we got a second cat like a year later. And then they got older together. And then we got the third cat when they were about 10 or 11. Because we needed to be able to cycle through animals, like so that we weren't left with no animals. And that was that was the plan as laid out by my husband. And so then the middle cat died. And then we had the two cats. And then when the oldest cat died, then he got a dog in 2020 People
Scott Benner 16:38
hippies or something? What's going on? Like, just don't? Oh, no, not a hippie? I don't think so. Alright, you don't think so? I my son this years ago, my son's a freshman in college. He calls up and he goes, kid down the hall got a chinchilla in his room. Okay, when are you allowed to do that? And he goes, No, we are not allowed to do that. And so they hid that that animal for like he the kid hid that animal for like a year and a half. I don't know. Alright, so diabetes. Hmm, I guess the obvious question here around type one is, did you have any concerns moving such to such a rural place?
Kim 17:15
I didn't. Because I haven't had to call the emergency people in a long time like it not since I was a kid. Like, I haven't had to use a glucagon since I was a kid. My parents, on the other hand, were like, how are you going to live up there? They're going to an hour to hospital. And I was like, well, actually, the neighbors the lowest, what is an emergency room doctor and the other is a rheumatologist. So there is medical professionals nearby. It's just it would be a while to get to the hospital. But no, generally, I wasn't worried because like with decks calm and everything now like, I just don't worry about that being an issue. And otherwise I don't I can't think of any other emergencies that could happen.
Scott Benner 17:59
Do you work? I do out of the house where?
Kim 18:02
Yeah, we both work from home. I'm a CPA. Oh, oh, I
Scott Benner 18:06
have so many questions about that. But don't worry. I'll ask I'll ask them later. People are like do not ask her accounting questions before you talk to her about her diabetes. So I guess I kind of want to like, there's an elephant in the room, as far as I'm concerned, because I can see your little intake questionnaire. I'm almost embarrassed to say that last night, my wife's like, do you record tomorrow? I said, Yeah, tomorrow at 10 o'clock, with a lady who has type one. And she had a benign brain tumor. And my wife goes, Why do you sound excited by that? I'm like, doesn't that's like, doesn't that sound interesting? And she's probably not to hurt. I was like, No, I know. But to me, I think it's gonna be very interesting. So how old were you when that happened? How did that present?
Kim 18:44
So it was I was 26. And I had a ringing in my ear just that one year. And I didn't really have any other explanations for why that would happen. Because I don't listen to loud music or go to concerts or anything. We had moved to Washington, DC, pretty near about that time, and I got a new endocrinologist. And then it was like my first appointment with him. And he was like, Do you have any other concerns? And I was like, well, this isn't like for you, but like, I have this ringing in my ear. And so then he gave me the name of en t doctor in the building and said to go see him.
Scott Benner 19:28
And he's talks to you, and then decides to image your brain.
Kim 19:34
Yeah, so I got lucky because that doesn't always happen. So I did go to the end. And then first he did a hearing test. And I had some hearing loss in that year that I hadn't noticed. And so then he knew that something was going on. And luckily he then ordered an MRI and then we saw the tumor. Wow.
Scott Benner 19:59
and tell the people it's catnip, right? It got in your ears and in your head. How does that have any any of that in your family line? Anything like that? Oh, no. So
Kim 20:13
it is there is a way that it could be more of a hereditary thing when it's called neurofibromatosis. neurofibroma, I don't know ptosis to, that's when it is more of a hereditary thing. And it's like, it happens more in younger people. And you have like tumors all along the nerves in your body. And so they were a little concerns that that could be what I had because I was on the younger side. Usually, you don't get diagnosed with this until you're like in your 50s or 60s. And so that I did have some additional imaging done of my spine and to look for tumors there, but I didn't have any so it was just the regular one. So there's a couple of names for it. It's colloquially called the acoustic neuroma. But it's also like more medically accurate to call it a vestibular schwannoma Hmm,
Scott Benner 21:09
it also sounds more fun that way.
Kim 21:12
Yes, okay. Um, so then, yeah, so there Yeah, I had no reason to think I would ever end up with one of these. Right.
Scott Benner 21:19
Wow. And how, like, what did it measure? How big was it? For over two years we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med. Us med.com/juice box are called 888-721-1514. Arden gets her on the pod and Dexcom supplies from us med but they have so much more. They accept Medicare nationwide and over 800 private insurers with an A plus rating from the Better Business Bureau. You're gonna love us med. They always provide 90 days worth of supplies, and they have fast and free shipping. They're gonna carry everything for you from your insulin pumps to diabetes testing supplies, the latest CGM, they have it if you need it. Us med.com/juice box you want to FreeStyle Libre two or three? They got it? Dexcom six or seven? They have it you want on the pod five? Check. They got that to Omri pod dash. T slim. They have what you want us med.com/juice box get your free benefits check right now prefer the phone 887211514 We received an email two days ago from us med that it was time to re plan. What we're going to refresh. Oh Dexcom supplies. I didn't respond to the email. So a couple days later, we got a phone call. I picked up the phone. Hey, this is us, man. It's like a recording. Do you want your supplies to come press one. I press one that was it done. The time before we use them. I use the email. I click Yeah, come on, send some more supplies. And they were on their way. It couldn't be easier. Us med.com/juice box links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com.
Kim 22:57
One and a half by centimeters by one and a half centimeters by like a little bit more than one and a half centimeters I think at that point. And so where it is is so the reason it gets a stain as acoustic neuroma is because a lot of the time it does present with hearing issues. And that's where the acoustic part of it comes from. But the Y the actual name of it being vestibular schwannoma is what that means is there's a schwannoma, which is a benign tumor on your vestibular nerve, which is your balance nerve. And so in your brain there, the hearing nerve, the balance nerve, and your facial nerve are all bundled together and they go into your brain, like through your ear canal, not your canal. But like in your brain. There's a passageway that these three nerves go through to get to the where they're coming from, and then to your brain. And so, so that a lot of the time because the tumor is growing on the balance nerve, it will affect the hearing nerve and the facial nerve. And so that's that's the lay of the land there. Wow.
Scott Benner 24:04
And for you, it was just it was ringing at first. Yes, yes. Then
Kim 24:11
well, then no, nothing else really. which was surprising, because I later found out what other things can feel like when you have your other nerves having issues. But at that time, no, no, I did not.
Scott Benner 24:24
So I want to move on to find out more. But first, I want to say that I thought you were trying to screw with me earlier when you said colloquial and I was like Is she gonna say curricula and colloquial in the same couple of minutes? Because that's gonna throw me off if that happens. And then he confused you did not say that, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. Anyway, here come the emails and say I have ADHD. Wow, that's crazy. Was it in any? I guess my question is it doesn't sound like it was life threatening, right?
Kim 24:55
No, no, no, it was not. So that's the thing they say So there's an acoustic neuroma Association and you can go, so I went to like a support group in DC that had people going to it and a lot of it. So the first question they asked you is like, are you watching weight? Or are you like decided on a treatment plan, which would either be surgery or radiation. And a lot of the time, they recommend that you watch and wait, just to see like, is it growing? Like, maybe it's been there. And it's just like, that's how big it's going to be. It's not going to get any better, which a lot of the time is what happens with older people. Because it is very slow growing tumor. And it's almost like they're going to die from things other than like, they wouldn't die from this. But like, there's no point in treating it if it's just slow growing, and they're already old. Don't
Scott Benner 25:47
worry, your McDonald's fries are gonna get you before this does. Yeah, great.
Kim 25:51
Yeah. So that then in my situation being 26, they were like, Yeah, we're probably going to do something. But let's see, like how quickly it's growing. So then I waited a couple of months, and then yet another MRI and it had gotten bigger in that time. So it seemed pretty clear that we should do something before it got even bigger. Okay,
Scott Benner 26:09
so it has to be removed physically, they art is this, how does this happen? It's
Kim 26:17
a rare tumor. Like if you go on Google, it's like one of those things that comes up. And it's like rare. So, which is why I like to say I'm probably the only person who's had this tumor and type one diabetes. You
Scott Benner 26:35
tried to get on television, Kim, what's going on? No, I
Kim 26:37
just think it's funny, like the intersection of that anyway,
Scott Benner 26:40
I do to actually, I'm always like, my brain gets fried. But I'm like somebody comes on. And they have six incredibly rare issues. Yeah. Oh, my God, that's just like, the oddest luck, you know?
Kim 26:54
Yeah. Because it's rare, you have to go to a place like a hospital that with doctors who do this a lot, in order to like, get a good result. Because it's a very small space that they are working in, especially if they're going to be doing surgery to physically remove it. Because it's just, it's a very, very tiny space in your head. At the time, like I said, we were living in Washington, DC. So I went up to Johns Hopkins, and met with doctors there, oh, first time that with doctors at Georgetown, because that was nearest and then went up to Hopkins. And then there's also a, like standalone kind of clinic Hospital in LA that does this a lot, held the house ear clinic. And so I also sent my stuff to them to look at to give me like a third opinion. So like, this is the sort of thing where like it can, because it is slow growing, you don't need to rush into anything. And you should get multiple opinions from different doctors about a treatment plan. Because, like, you don't want to have to do it more than once. And there's just a lot of options. But it's also a lot to decide.
Scott Benner 28:11
Yeah, I was gonna say, because what happens? I mean, it's like if I go to three people and say, What color do I paint my garage? And somebody goes purple, someone says read and someone says blue, you're like, Oh, is that how it goes? Or what are they pretty similar?
Kim 28:25
It can be. So a lot of the time, if you go to a person who does surgery, like physical surgery, they're gonna recommend that option because that's what they know, if you go to a radiation specialist, they're going to recommend that because that's what they know. Luckily, in my situation, being as young as I was, even the radiation specialist said, I should do surgery because there hadn't been enough time with like, you know, seeing what happens to people who had radiation, you know, 40 years later, there hasn't been enough of that, for them to be confident in recommending that to someone who's 26.
Scott Benner 29:06
You got the I'm not going to kill you answer. Yeah. So,
Kim 29:10
so everyone recommended that I do surgery. So that was that made that easier to decide that part. And then it was like, Where do I want to do it? And then I did end up having that done to at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Scott Benner 29:22
That's good hospital. So kinda like you're in that part of the country. I guess when that happened. Yeah. How long did it take you to figure out what to do?
Kim 29:32
The diagnosis was like in August 2008. And that I had the surgery in February 2009. And I had decided to do that probably by Thanksgiving,
Scott Benner 29:44
and the time living with it. I'm super interested in the psychological aspect of this, like, do you have that there's something in my brain feeling or does it not? Go like that?
Kim 29:56
I so I kind of there's a situation like this Probably from living with diabetes for a long time, at that point already, like, you know, you just kind of roll with it. Like I named the tumor I named it Manny. And so like my co workers, and I would like talk about Manny, like, how are you feeling about Manny? And I'm like, I'm gonna go like, evict Vanie what I was going to go get surgery done, you know, so it's just like, you just kind of like, go with it. And I didn't get too overwhelmed or upset because it was like a research project then. And I like research projects. And
Scott Benner 30:36
it Kim's like, it gave me something to do.
Kim 30:41
Yeah, yeah. And yeah, so I didn't get too overwhelmed or upset. And I just kind of, you know, went with it.
Scott Benner 30:48
You're married at that point? Yeah. Okay. Not a lot for your spouse to do.
Kim 30:54
No, he listened but, and helped make decisions. But he, you know, left it more up to me, because he's sort of, he doesn't want to take responsibility for other people's decisions. So like, he'll offer input, but like, ultimately, it needs to be up to the person making the decision. Yeah. He doesn't like telling people what to do.
Scott Benner 31:17
Does he not like getting yelled at later? Or does he not like,
Kim 31:22
I don't? Well, probably both. But I think it's more like he doesn't want to feel guilty later. If someone it's interesting. Like what happened? Yeah,
Scott Benner 31:29
no, that's very interesting. Did you know, of course, you would have no way of knowing this game. But when I was very, very young, and Kelly and I were only married for a few years, this opportunity came up to buy the house that we live in now. And it was at the time, a great piece of property and a really the house. And so the price was right. And I said, you know, we could sell our condo and make, you know, we can make some money. Our condo appreciated crazy. Like the first year we lived in it for reasons I still don't understand like it by the way, and the price went like right back down again. Like we somehow just took a bunch of money out of it laughed, and then people were like, they're not really worth that much. I was like too late. We're going. And so anyway, yep, years later. And I mean, years later, my wife says, I didn't want to buy this house. And I was like, what you could have mentioned that years ago, and she's like, now you seemed like something you wanted to do. And that's what it made me think of when you said that about your husband like, like, like, what if like I didn't, by the way I had no, it never occurred to me that that's how she felt. Yeah. And so was really interesting. And we've talked about that more. As, as times gone on, not just here, but I've heard about on the podcast, and people talking about how sometimes it's interesting. People can feel unheard, and not say anything. And the person who has a more I don't know what like, like, defined position can say like, Oh, I think we should paint the garage blue. And you're standing there thinking, I don't think we should do that. But you don't say anything. I think you agree. And you think I don't listen to you. Such an interesting thing.
Kim 33:22
Yeah, I have to be careful with that with like my husband. Yeah. So we've been married since 2006. And together since 2001. So it's been a long time. And this has been a thing that has developed is, I think a lot of the time like, so we're very both very independent. But like, there's certain things that each of us care about more than the other one. So a lot of the time, like, if it's something that he cares a lot about, and I don't have a strong opinion, then I'll just go with what he wants. But if there is something about it that I'm like, I don't think we should then I will say that. But then so I think it works out because then we aren't we don't not say something when we do feel something but generally we just let the other person who cares more. Do the thing that they care for. Have
Scott Benner 34:09
you ever done the thing where nobody speaks up? And you're 35 minutes into a movie or a meal or something and you realize no one wants to be there. I think that's hilarious. When that happens. You're like wait,
Kim 34:21
yeah, definitely hasn't with movies. Yeah, we're was like, like, halfway into it. Like is this is pretty bad. And
Scott Benner 34:27
you're like, but you want to come? You want it to come? Yeah, so Okay, so how did they get that? How did they get money out of your head? Through your ear? They go through your nose, your eyeball socket? Well, what do you do?
Kim 34:43
There are different options. So I had the retros sigmoid approach, which is when they go through like the base of your skull of the back of your neck behind your ear. So he like So another option would be to go through the ear, but then you are automatically losing your hearing that way. And I still had pretty good hearing in that side, it was my left side. By the way, we haven't said that yet. It's my left ear. So we didn't go with that approach. And then there is like an overlay over the top of the ear. I felt what that one's called. But we didn't do that one either. Because of where the tumor was located, it wouldn't get a good angle. So we went in from the back the bottom back. And so they drilled a hole in my skull. And then they, I don't know, move some stuff out of the way. And went in there, behind my ear and removed the tuba. How long does that take? It took a very long time. I think I was in surgery for like 10 hours. Holy
Scott Benner 35:51
Christ. Wow. Was Derek Shepherd there. From Grey's Anatomy Derek Shepherd. Renowned brain surgeon. I've never watched. Stop. What do you highfalutin? You got big ideas? That's crazy. 10 and a half hours? Did you feel like what's the recovery? Like?
Kim 36:12
It was a lot. So I woke up and I felt okay, like, I wasn't really ever in a lot of pain. But obviously, they're giving me pain meds and steroids, which when you have type one diabetes is a problem. And I think I was like, so that was an ICU. And then, so then a bunch of like, crazy stuff happened. So this is where like, the story gets more interesting, really.
Scott Benner 36:43
Fascinating. But there's more. Yeah.
Kim 36:46
It turned out. I lost my hearing in that side. So like, that was kind of a bummer. But I've adapted. We can talk more about that later. Yeah, so but then, okay, so I woke up and I'm an ICU and my husband and my parents are there and then then they leave, I don't know. It's like, the later that night, and then it's a little bit later, and I wake up and I'm being shuttled on a gurney, through this green hallway, this darker green hallway. And I'm like, what is happening? And they're like, we're taking you to get a CT scan. And I'm like, what's going on? And so apparently, I had been like, obviously, I had been intubated while I was under general anesthesia. And then I think they had on disk, I don't know, taking the tube out. But then I developed breathing problems later that night. And so they are taking need for a scan to see if there is something physically wrong. In side of me. I don't know where exactly. So then I got like, re intubated. But I didn't need it to like breathe for me. They just put it into like, hold open the airway.
Scott Benner 38:12
Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
Kim 38:15
So that was kind of scary, because I was still like, kind of out of it. And then I just remember the greed hallway. And then so I think I was worried that I was wearing my insulin pump, and that they were taking me to get a scan. And I was like, the insulin pump can't go in the scanner, you know, like, they're like, looking at me like I'm a crazy person. And because I am not wearing an insulin pump, and why am I talking about that to them? And I just remember that and they were all kind of annoyed
Scott Benner 38:45
by that. They're probably like, Lady your airways closing, we don't prioritize, shall we?
Kim 38:51
The next day, my husband comes back to the hospital and he's like, what's going on? And they're like, We they didn't call you last night? He's like, No. And they're like, Oh, well, she cuz she stopped breathing. He was like, Why didn't anyone call me?
Scott Benner 39:07
I love married people. He's like, Yeah, she'll be fine. I'll go home, though. It's no big deal. He
Kim 39:12
couldn't stay there. Anytime to take care of the cats.
Scott Benner 39:18
I'm trying to get to these animals. Everyone in the whole thing. By the way, I want people to give me credit right now for every time you say the word hearing, I don't go What's that? Because I there's a five year old inside of me that wants to pretend I can't hear as a joke every time someone brings up hearing and I hold it inside. Okay, so thank you.
Kim 39:40
Yeah, that'd be a lot.
Scott Benner 39:41
Oh my god. It would be it'd be like a drinking game. Like you know, and, and I didn't know you lost your hearing from this when we started. Yeah, yeah, I did my gosh. And it's like, is it gone? Gone? Like there's any percentage of it?
Kim 39:56
Um, no. So there's the The hearing nerve got destroyed in the process of removing the tumor that was wrapped around the all the nerves there. So they did, they cut the balance nerve because it's easier to adapt afterwards if you have no balance there versus a damaged valance nerve, and then the hearing nerve, they tried to preserve it, but it was only a wisp by the end of it. And so I lost, I lost my hearing and like a hearing aid doesn't help or even like a cochlear implant like that would not help because there is no nerve from which to derive hearing on that side, if that makes sense. So the only thing I could do is this thing called a Bone Anchored Hearing Aid where you get like a little nub thing drilled into your brain or not your brain, your your skull on that side. And then there's a little amplification thing that would pick up sound. And then like, you know, those like, like bone conducting headphones, it's like that. So then you would, you can then hear what's happening on that side in your other ear. Because it's going through, it's being conducted through the bone in your head. But that has always freaked me out because my problem is like directionality. Like, if I'm in Target, and you're like, Hey, Kim, I'm over here, I have to spin around to look for you. Because I can't everything always felt sounds like it's coming from my right side. So if that doesn't fix that problem, like that's my biggest issue. And so like, I don't want to have more stuff. Board board on to me than I already have with diabetes. So
Scott Benner 41:43
you don't want to hear better, but still direction on the directionally Yeah. Wow, boy, that's crazy. Yeah, so then
Kim 41:50
like when I'm in a crowded place, like it is a little anxiety ridden when I'm like, doing like a happy hour or networking thing. And like I like I just have to like look to see like, I have to apparently look to see if there's someone on my left side, like talking to me. And then I can like, turn my head and hear it. Like I asked them to repeat it. And I turned my head all around so they can put it into the correct ear. So it's that's a little annoying. But it hasn't. There's only been one time that I know of that like someone at work was sitting on my left side, like at a lunch. And then later they were like, I thought Kim didn't like me, because she just ignored me when I was talking to her. And then then later I was like, no, no, no, I can't hear you. I'm sorry. I have like, See, the problem is it's also hard to know what to tell people that you're deaf on your left side because like so like the first thing I want to do when I meet someone who's like, oh, by the way, I'm deaf on this side. But then like I get through it, and then like I get to know them more. And then I've met up with them a few times, and then I still don't tell them. And then I'm like I should have told them already. Because they would be like happy to know that so that they're not making my life harder by always being on my left side, you know, so it's just like, a whole thing.
Scott Benner 43:11
And then on the diabetes on top of that, too, like when do you tell people you have type one? When do you tell people like, Are you do you not? And I actually
Kim 43:19
I think I tell people about diabetes quicker and sooner than I do about being deaf of the left. And
Scott Benner 43:26
I assume that passive aggressively if you're pissed at your husband, you give him your left side. And he knows that means I'm not listening to you. No, no.
Kim 43:35
Oh my god, Kim, but if we're like out to dinner, like I'll put him on my left because he knows that I can't hear him on that side. And then I can use my good ear to hear everybody else better. And then like the he and I don't really talk at dinner and you know, like, I need to hear the people that we're meeting up with not I don't need to hear him.
Scott Benner 43:54
What a sad little look into marriage that was for people younger than you, Kim. Like when I go out to dinner with other people. My husband, I put my husband in the spot where I can't hear him because we weren't going to talk anyway.
Kim 44:06
It works. There's
Scott Benner 44:07
like a 25 year old right now going what? Wait, what happens if I get married? Oh my gosh. How? Yeah. Oh my gosh, it's so much are you okay? Yeah,
Kim 44:21
yeah, I'm good. Um, but then it gets the plot thickens later. No, stop it. Yeah. Oh, wait, but I gotta tell you this one part after surgery. So like I was in surgery for so long in what they call the park bench position, which would be I guess, if you were like sleeping on a park bench, I don't know. So I was like my head was twisted to get to that part of my head and I was like laying down. And so I had I ended up with like a pinched nerve in my neck. And then my left hand was known when I came out of surgery. And it took a couple of months for all the feelings to come back in My hand. How was your
Scott Benner 45:03
diabetes control as a young person? It was good. And what does that mean?
Kim 45:10
I would say like, like a one see what like what would
Scott Benner 45:14
be Yeah, yeah. I mean, your outcomes. Like,
Kim 45:17
I would say, I was like, you know, during the troubling, like puberty times, you know, it was like probably the sevens but other than that, like,
Scott Benner 45:27
not crazy. Yeah. Not crazy. No, no. Okay. Well, I'm looking at the park bench position right now, and it doesn't look comfy. Yeah,
Kim 45:36
I can't imagine having been in that position. But if
Scott Benner 45:40
you don't, if you don't mind surgery, photos, Google park bench position and go to images. Wow, that's bonkers. Yeah, model months for you the feeling to come back? Yeah,
Kim 45:52
like it has the nerve. It was like my pinky came back last because that's the furthest away from the nerve. I guess that's what happened. I don't know. Anyway, but then. So then this other funny thing is like, because I was like, in that position for so long. Like, my body was just like, so stiff. And so eventually, like once I could get up out of bed and start walking around, like, I couldn't turn my head because my neck was just like, stiff, like so stiff. And so I would be walking. And then I'd be like, what? And I would turn at the torso and be like What the So I was like this weird like
Scott Benner 46:30
Frankie cyclists body? Yeah. Walking around now.
Kim 46:34
Yeah. And I kind of had to learn relearn how to walk, because not like I couldn't walk. But like, I didn't have a balanced err on that side. And so then you start walking, not in a straight line side of practice, like walking in a straight line or walking up and down stairs, which is really actually difficult, like down is harder than up because you have to like work against gravity to like, stay upright when you're going down stairs. And so it was like a process of a few months before I felt pretty more comfortable just like walking around. And I was out of work for six weeks after and
Scott Benner 47:11
a number of things that you just don't, you don't even think about ever like the idea that as you're walking downstairs that if you weren't controlling your body, your body would just tumble forward. Yep. That's interesting. Is this about the time your husband redownloaded his dating app? Like there's no way she's making it through all this? I got to do a couple of setups and meet some ladies.
Kim 47:33
No, I'm very resilient. No, no,
Scott Benner 47:35
you are God. Damn right. That's insane. Okay,
Kim 47:38
so then I'll say fast forward as well. So they had some MRIs afterwards that everything was like they was good everything. We got it all. We got it all. They said we got it all. Okay, fast forward to that was 2009. Fast forward to 2015 I start having facial spasms. What is that? Like you meet you want to know? Okay, so the left side of my face would scrunch up from the my mouth and chin up to like my eye and the whole like cheek area with just like crumble in. And it would be stuck like that for like 20 seconds. Like, this seems weird. Yeah. And it would happen when I was like, stressed, or I was laughing or to something, or brushing my teeth, like something would trigger the muscles, and they're just crunched up. So go back to the doctors at Johns Hopkins. And they are like, Well, I mean, look, look in here. Look at this scan like this, this area is lighting up, but it's just scar tissue. See, it's just scar tissue, look at it over the time, scar tissue, scar tissue or like, okay, and suddenly, like we could do Botox so that your face can't scratch up? And I'm like, No, that doesn't, that seems to not really, really fixing the problem that's treating the symptom. And then they're like, Well, maybe you had like, the herpes virus in your head. That is like causing the and I was like, What are you talking about? Like, okay, so that was a problem. And hopefully it was getting worse. And so then in 2016, we moved to Colorado. And I was like, Okay, well, I need to establish care at somewhere out here. And also, maybe these other new people will have some better ideas about these facial spasms that I'm having. So I go meet with like the same kind of doctor here. So there's a there are two surgeons there's the odo learn, like neuro otolaryngologist, which is like, the more like in the brain, ear, nose and throat doctor, surgeon guy, and then there's just like a neurosurgeon who's good at surgery in the brain. So I met with another like otolaryngologist here. And then he was like, that's very suspicious like I know your doctor from Hopkins because we we like, get together we have these, you know, conferences, that all these doctors get together at an eye like I know your doctor. And I'm really surprised that he's telling you it's scar tissue because I think it's regrowth and I'm like, okay, so then he wants me to give him all of my MRIs from inception through now. And he's gonna look at them all in like succession and see what he thinks. And then he takes all of my scans, then to the skull base tumor meetup that they have at the University of Colorado and shoots Medical Center. And so all of the rest of the doctors there that do what he does all look at my images, and they're like, yeah, it's regrowth I sorry, that your doctor at Johns Hopkins. I don't know if he felt like, it just couldn't be because he was there. And he thought he got it all. And it was like an ego thing. Or he just didn't think like, I don't know, but you have regrowth. And I'm like, okay, great. So then I talked to him about doing surgery a second time. And I talked to a radiologist guy that at University of Colorado about doing radiation, he's like, Oh, well, now you're a good candidate for radiation, like, oh, I don't want to go through all this again, okay, so then I, I decide, I'm gonna do something a little crazy. And I'm gonna submit my stuff, my scans and situation to Stanford University, because I know that the doctor there is like one of the best in the whole field. And he does both surgery and radiation. So he should be able to give a better opinion versus just what he wants to do. And so then I started went out there. And at the time, my brother lived in San Francisco, so it was really easy. And so my brother went with me to meet with Dr. Chang there. And he was like, here's the thing, you should have radiation, because first of all, like, no one wants to do surgery on someone else's surgery. And really, you don't want to do it again, on your own surgery anyway. Because like, you like when someone goes into that small of a space and does surgery, they're like messing up all the landmarks of how you know where anything is in the in the brain in the head. And like, and they leave it a certain way that someone else doesn't like and if they like, if they sometimes they will, like rebuild the structures in your brain, like using bone dust and things, which I think my surgeon did do. And so like that just like makes it even harder for anyone else to go back in there and figure anything out.
Scott Benner 52:59
I imagine they get in there. They don't even know what they're looking at them. Yeah, yeah. So
Kim 53:03
he was like, No. And also, like, You should do this thing that so they at Stanford, they invented this thing called CyberKnife. So it's like the next generation of radiation machines were so like the first generation or even before that a Linac machine like all these things like you can't move when you are getting zapped in a certain spot. And the way they do that is they would screw a steel frame into your skull, and then they hold it in place. So you can't move once they figured out where the radiation beam should go in your head. But that's kind of scary, and I didn't really want to have a steel frame screwed into my head. So what they invented at Stanford is CyberKnife and what that does is you still have a thing that holds you still so it was like this, like face mask kind of thing like this, it was like this plastic mesh, that like they warm up and then they drape it over your, the front of my face. And then that whole like it makes a mold of my face to then put back onto me when they're going to do the zapping and then that gets screwed into the table that I'm laying on. So they can't move but also the way that they invented the CyberKnife is that it is continuously readjusting its position like it knows what it needs to aim at. And then it can like readjust or stop if the person does move. Like if you sneeze in the middle of it like it will just stop. And so it was like this new thing. And so I was like okay, I that all makes a lot of sense. I agree with you. I think this is the place to do it. So then I went back to Stanford around Thanksgiving of 20 16 No, no, no, no, no, it was Thanksgiving 2017 We went back to Stanford, and had CyberKnife radiation done for the regrowth
Scott Benner 55:13
people should look it up. It's a really interesting looking device. Really, really kind of amazing that somebody came in
Kim 55:19
it. Like I only needed like 24 minutes or 20 minutes of radiation. And then I was done. Wow. And I had nothing. Like, there's no I had no issues afterwards. And then the really funny thing. So there's the doctor that I met with who was like the head of everything. And then there he works with the radiation surgeon to like to figure out like how many units of radiation they're going to do and how to like program the machine to do it. And that guy, so I had been reading on the acoustic neuroma forums that like people still get prescribed steroids after the radiation. I was like, I really don't want to deal with steroids. So I asked that the radiation guy I was like, so I've seen that like, all the time people take steroids after, do I really need that. Like, because I have type one diabetes that just makes everything hurt. And then he gets this. He was like, I also have type one diabetes that I totally understand. And no, you don't need steroids, we usually just give them to people. So they feel like they got something.
Scott Benner 56:25
Oh, wow.
Kim 56:29
We're like, Yes, this is awesome.
Scott Benner 56:30
Finally, I get more people on my team. Yes. Yeah. Really crazy. And through this whole thing, you know, in between these big events, you doesn't have any impact on your blood sugar or your management or the way you have to deal with your type one or not particularly?
Kim 56:48
No, I mean, once I was still a steroids, I, yeah, nothing was really impacting diabetes. About
Scott Benner 56:55
that. So is that kind of what you meant earlier, when you said that? You're I mean, you didn't come right out and say you're grateful to have diabetes. But that's about what you said. You said, like, prepare you for this, I guess is the question. I
Kim 57:09
would say, in a way, because I'm the like, I'm accustomed to dealing with things that I can't change. And that are like, life impacting medical thing? Yeah. So I think I just, it wasn't like a new thing to have something to deal with basically.
Scott Benner 57:30
Like, I think some people live their lives expecting like, a straight path with no impact and no impediments. And you're accustomed to being somewhere and your blood sugar getting low or having to remember to do something before you do something else, or change a pump on your way out the door. Like that kind of stuff. And so when somebody starts laying obstacles in front of you, you're like, alright, well, we'll just go pet will get past these things. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's perspective. That's really crazy. Wow, Kim. Yeah.
Kim 58:01
So now I am what, like, 657? I don't know. See, I am not good at math up until now. No, you don't need to know math to do accounting,
Scott Benner 58:15
you need to know the laws.
Kim 58:18
Yeah. So anyway, I have had periodic MRIs as follow ups at different intervals since then. And so far, see, I thought that I'd be like, freaking out about having radiation because I want to know everything right away. Like, I'm like, I'm very impatient. And I want to know everything. And this is going to take time for it to like, do its thing. But I haven't been as worried about it as I thought I would be. And actually, I don't really ever think about it at all. So but on the scan since then, it has been the tumor has been like shrinking a little bit. And like, looking like it's dying, which is what it's supposed to do. So it will just be a dead thing in my head. And that's, that's okay.
Scott Benner 59:05
Well, and you don't see them other places like they haven't appeared on your spine or other places like that. So honestly, it's a lot of good news. Yeah, yeah. All right. So you're telling me that the other week as I was leaving my accountants appointment, because he was preparing our taxes, and I asked him this question, and he pulled out a calculator. And I thought, That's not difficult math. Why did he just grab a calculator? I'm not the only one. Oh, interesting.
Kim 59:32
Like for also the software like a lot of time like I work in Excel a lot. Excel is gonna add it for me. I don't need to add up all these numbers or, like in the tax software, like you just need to know where to put in the numbers and it will do its thing like, I don't need to do a lot of manual adding, except with the years sometimes
Scott Benner 59:52
Kim This is reinforcing my idea that society is being held together with a lot of luck.
Kim 1:00:00
In computer theaters,
Scott Benner 1:00:01
how can here's a question for you? I have no overhead I won't the government helped me. It's not my fault that I built a business that needs a few $1,000 worth of equipment and a room in my house. Why am I being punished? I am being punished, aren't I?
Kim 1:00:24
Um, you can hire someone to do
Scott Benner 1:00:28
I talked to the guy about that. And it's not a one to one thing. It's not like if I pay someone $1 I save $1 No, not directly, right. So if I hire somebody, I lose more money.
Kim 1:00:42
You could gain time. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:00:44
that's what every accountant says. And that's bullshit. I don't need time. I need to buy a house on a mountain one day or, like more probably more likely pay for like some lady to change my diapers. That's probably what I'm really saving for. Right? But right, you're like, Yeah, probably.
Kim 1:01:05
No, we have to like we don't have kids or like, what are we gonna do?
Scott Benner 1:01:10
Well, those cats are just going to each other not going to help at all. Yeah, can you imagine if at the end, you're just like, Oh, no. A bear is gonna find this eventually. I guess that would work out and the rheumatologist moved out years ago. Yeah. Oh my gosh, you have a four by four like a four wheeler like an ATV. No.
Kim 1:01:31
Other people do. I don't know that we need one. At this point. We upgraded to a Ford Bronco so that we have more of a check truck kind of car.
Scott Benner 1:01:42
fair to people moving up into the hills, the locals there's no way the locals like you in my right.
Kim 1:01:48
I had jury duty last week at in this county. And there. I had told them that I had just moved here because I ended up on the jury. And then you have to like tell them about yourself.
Scott Benner 1:02:00
And we're like, oh, we know who you are. Don't worry.
Kim 1:02:04
Then the one guy like he lived there his whole life and he's talking to this other guy. And here's like, the yuppie years I'm like, I know I'm a Denver yuppie. I guess I just am a Denver Yuffie it is what it is.
Scott Benner 1:02:16
They're already spreading like Bear stuff on your house to draw them to you. They're like, we'll get rid of these people. No trouble. Wait till they wake up to a bear standing in their driveway leaning on their Bronco. There'll be out of here in five minutes. We can have the place back to get to turn your house into a commune garden. No, oh, yeah. I mean, what would grow in Denver? Nothing right at that height. It's ready. Maybe some sort of a pine tree. Okay, so a couple of things. I'm glad you're okay. I have no recourse tax wise. Is that what you're telling me?
Kim 1:02:51
No, make less money and then you won't have
Scott Benner 1:02:53
to pay as much tax I have to tell you. It's interesting. When you hear somebody say something like that, like, you know, really, if you pay if you made less money, you'd pay less taxes and I'm like, okay, okay. So I shouldn't try to be successful with it. I know.
Kim 1:03:07
I know. It's it's not fair to the normal people that this is how it works. I'm
Scott Benner 1:03:13
not wealthy. By the way, Kim, I don't want to give off the impression that I like there's piles of money in the corner. I don't know what to do with them. Like, you know, like, it's not. It's, yeah, I worked my butt off all year when I get done. I'm like, This is what's left. Okay, no, I understand. It's like it's you know what, it's enough to make you want to do keep working. Oh, yeah. You go I better. I had other ideas though. It's like, it's enough to make you go I bet. I guess I better keep going. Because yeah, that didn't do it. So. All right. Okay. Well, that's just nobody and you charge a ton of money to now what I'm understanding is to plug my information into a spreadsheet.
Kim 1:03:51
Hey, we cost less than lawyers that
Scott Benner 1:03:55
how you make yourself feel better can
Kim 1:03:59
be sometimes where we go oh my gosh.
Scott Benner 1:04:02
Well, I guess I should have been a lawyer is what you're telling me? Maybe as podcasting things not paying off the way I was, like, hoping you know, is there anything we didn't talk about that we should have or any other directions you want to go? Well,
Kim 1:04:14
you didn't ask me about other autoimmune in my family and I did research on that.
Scott Benner 1:04:21
I definitely want to hear that I was busy being proud of myself for not going what every time you said hearing and for not making a joke about a head injury when I knew you had a brain tumor. So because you said something earlier and I was like Oh, is that because you had a head injury? And I was like that's not even a good joke. I'll hold that in. So you have well how about you first of all, do you have anything else?
Kim 1:04:43
I'm just the allergies. Yeah, I don't really have for you, but bad
Scott Benner 1:04:48
enough that you're getting like, like what like one of those wants monthly injections?
Kim 1:04:53
Yeah, allergy shots. They like put in the they put it in the shot like a little bit of the thing you're allergic to and then you're supposed to Be desensitized over time.
Scott Benner 1:05:02
Does that work?
Kim 1:05:04
It worked for my brother. So he's always been like, why don't you get allergy shots? And like, I don't want to go there all the time to get a shot. Like, I don't care about getting a shot, obviously, but I don't want to go there all the time. But
Scott Benner 1:05:16
I'm busy stealing money from people to do their taxes. Yeah. Hey, before we dive into this is your year, like very busy for a short period of time? And then what do you do when it's when tax season is over? Well,
Kim 1:05:29
okay, so I used to work in public accounting. So that was where I did people's taxes during the tax season, like January to April. And then the rest of the year, I did audits, mostly of nonprofit organizations. And so that kept me busy the rest of the year. So I was like, busy year round. And then after that, so I did that. I worked at that firm for like eight years. And then I worked at a firm here in Denver, where they only do audits of nonprofit organizations. Because I thought like that I wanted to be with people again, which I don't and then it was hybrid. And I was like, why am I going to this office? This is a waste of my time. Yeah. Oh, so then I quit that after eight months. And now I'll just I work at JDRF in the finance department. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:06:28
that's very nice. Look at you. Yeah. Can you just divert some of that money to the podcast? Or is that illegal? That's probably Yeah, that was probably illegal. Okay. Nevermind. Well, that's interesting, because I always like I imagined my like an accountant, as a person who just like after tax season's over, just sits there and goes, I hope nobody gets audited.
Kim 1:06:50
Well, the people who only do taxes like that is kind of what they do, but I don't like being bored. So I just like sign up for all the work you could possibly do at
Scott Benner 1:06:59
the firm. Very nice. That's excellent. Okay, so, allergies to pets. Yes, no, thyroid. Celiac. I do not read a Lago. No. Any bipolar in the family? Yes.
Kim 1:07:14
My dad. And he has Parkinson's now, which I think is like they're trying to figure out if that is auto I
Scott Benner 1:07:24
mean, at some point, I imagined in the future that people will use this podcast as part of a research study about bipolar disorder and its relationship to autoimmune issues. That's, that's fascinating. How was it growing up with a bipolar father? Well, we
Kim 1:07:39
didn't know it until, like, 2007. What precipitated it? He had a period of? Well,
Scott Benner 1:07:53
you're laughing you're like, he wrote a mountain lion down the middle of the road. And it didn't seem scared Scott. And we know ya know
Kim 1:08:01
what, he had a manic episode that then we all found out about what he was doing in his free time, which wasn't really ideal. And then and he like, my mom was in the hospital for double knee replacement surgery. And he, like, basically, like, he was like, I'm going out with my friends. And my brother and I were like, you don't have friends? What are you talking about? Then my brother went on the computer to figure out where he was going. And then we found out what he was doing. And then he lied to us. He was doing and then Mom gets out of the hospital and then she finds out more about what he's doing. And it's yeah, that's what we found
Scott Benner 1:08:46
out came out and do you know the phrase tickle your ass with a feather?
Kim 1:08:52
Repeat more like what my dad was doing?
Scott Benner 1:08:53
No. Let's see. That's that's what you just did you. You just tickled my ass with a feather a little bit. You didn't You didn't give me the whole thing you just gave me enough for I was like, Oh, there's more but she's not going to say just please. broad sweeping. She was going
Kim 1:09:07
to to dungeons and doing things. Excellent.
Scott Benner 1:09:13
Yes. Wow. Good dad. Yeah. The guy that takes out the garbage. And that guy, my dad who's a pastor. Thank you, Kim. I didn't know that. But I appreciate you sharing that.
Kim 1:09:26
Now this is turning into after dark. Okay.
Scott Benner 1:09:29
Because we talked about taxes. It's what Wow, yeah, sorry. When did that like moment lead him to get health care or did that moment lead him to be like I'm done with your people.
Kim 1:09:45
That moment led him to get more health care and get more that was like the beginning of all like he takes like 30 Some pills a day now. So that's like the beginning. thing of that process. sounds
Scott Benner 1:10:02
easier just to let somebody tie your balls up of the thing, but I mean, okay. The 30 pills is a lot. Well, it's Parkinson's and everything. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. All right, right. Wow. That's how often does that come up at family events?
Kim 1:10:20
Well, it's not, we never have really like, talked about it a whole lot as a family. And I talked about it. I talked with my mom a little bit, but we never really talked about with my dad. And at this point, I don't think he even really
Scott Benner 1:10:33
know not like he was doing. So I didn't mean with him. I meant like when you and your brothers sitting together, do you ever just look at each other? And go, Hey, how about that time, we found that dad was going to a dungeon periodically
Kim 1:10:45
as every couple years really? That was?
Scott Benner 1:10:53
Does it make you worry about your mental health? Do you think like, Oh, I am looking out for that for myself? Or is it one of the reasons you didn't have kids?
Kim 1:11:00
Sometimes I think about it. So my brother also had OCD. And so like, I am generally a very anxious person. So I don't think I need to worry about it. Like I've talked to people and they're like, you don't need to worry about it. Like, also, if you were doing something, if you were being manic and all that, like we were totally like,
Scott Benner 1:11:29
Did you in hindsight, do you look back and see his behavior being different? Or was he just masking it somehow? Yeah,
Kim 1:11:37
he was masking it and also that we just like, like his narcissism and all that kind of stuff. Like we just thought that was how he was like, he kind of fly off the handle at times when I was growing up. And, like, I just thought that was just how he was but now like, knowing that he has bipolar disorder, I think that's what it was, but we just didn't know that. I'm
Scott Benner 1:12:01
so disappointed that I said, masking it not gag balling it. Really. Okay, that must mess with you. Know, no therapy. Kim, you didn't go talk to a therapist about this. Um,
Kim 1:12:14
I have talked to a therapist, but we haven't like, it's more just like, that's part of my whole thing. I don't need to unpack it. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:12:21
I mean, I don't know what you do is what it is. Yeah. I mean, I have to imagine that. I mean, everybody's parents are doing something they don't know about your thing is just comically odd. That's all like you don't have Yeah, when you hear about it. Yeah. Wow. I had to a bit shocking moment. Boy find your iPhone really screwed him over. Is that right? Like is that? Well, it
Kim 1:12:45
was it was that he kept his password to his Gmail or Yahoo mail or whatever, like on a sticky note next to the computer. And so then my brother was able to figure out
Scott Benner 1:12:56
any chance that the password was titty Twister.
Kim 1:12:59
I don't know what it
Scott Benner 1:13:01
is. By the way, I found a way to say a lot of words that you're not supposed to say. But I've said them in ways that are acceptable. Isn't it interesting? Like I could say like, bounces balls. That's okay. I don't have to bleep that out. But if I said something a different way, you wouldn't be able to continue twisters, a colloquialism, which is the word you used earlier. So I'm okay with that. And I could have said Purple Nurple. But I think that's too old and that people wouldn't have gotten that one. Holy hell. That's a great story. Kim, you should be a stand up comic. By the way. No, no, no, no, no. And then because every time people don't like what you're saying you would turn your left side to them and just pretend it wasn't happening. I really see. I think you've got 15 minutes and you easily.
Kim 1:13:46
Yeah, I might. I
Scott Benner 1:13:47
might. No kidding. And your husband is he just scared off to the side waiting for this ride to end or sleeping okay with the office.
Kim 1:13:56
He's okay. Like he and my dad never got along.
Scott Benner 1:14:01
That's okay. Because your dad asked to spank him and he said no problem. No,
Kim 1:14:05
it was because my dad he's he like because we were in Ohio and then my dad. We're gonna move to Chicago after graduating from college. And then my dad was like convinced that he was my husband. Not my husband yet was going to take me to Chicago and abandoned me. They're
Scott Benner 1:14:25
like a western film from the 1870s Don't let them move you to the Dust Bowl. He'll leave you for another woman. Yeah,
Kim 1:14:32
that was the joke that I was. Right. And like this time, I was like, now my TED thinks that he's gonna take me up to this rural house and oh,
Scott Benner 1:14:43
well, that might be right about it. He's you're definitely getting fed to a bear. And he's your husband like, I don't know what happened. Actually. It's good thing you recorded this because when you turn up dead, they're gonna use this. So be careful and you won't hear the bear coming. So you're in trouble. Get an amen. Do you ever think About I would I have to be honest with you, if I move somewhere where there was a bear, I parked my car on top of the front door, dive out the front door into the car and drive away.
Kim 1:15:09
I think you just don't want to leave food outside, which we have not been doing. So I think we're going to be okay.
Scott Benner 1:15:15
Okay, I'm just saying people moved out of the woods on purpose. You know, I'm saying that you went back. You did a lot backwards. You used to be by the way people made money to get away from wildlife. You're like, no, no, no, I've made some money. I'm gonna go back to the wildlife. All right. Well, I hope this is a by the way. Did you say Bobcat or mountain lion earlier? Did I say that? I
Kim 1:15:34
did. No. Those are both options to the could show up.
Scott Benner 1:15:38
What about snakes? Um,
Kim 1:15:41
I don't. I don't know.
Scott Benner 1:15:42
Don't make me google it and ruin your day cam?
Kim 1:15:45
Well, it's okay. It's fine. Like there's there's rattlesnakes, like, Oh, my trials and things. Oh
Scott Benner 1:15:52
my god. It
Kim 1:15:53
just depends on your elevation whether or not they're going to be there because they I'm past eight under tree line. But I think we're still under treeline here. So they're definitely going to go there could be snakes out
Scott Benner 1:16:05
there. Yeah, absolutely insane. What you just said made me think, like, I don't know why Denver's not a desert. If that's the truth, like I don't go where there's a snake. That doesn't happen to me. I can't I can't tell I'm not doing I'm not doing that. I just don't. I don't understand what you did. Like, I'd be like, well, that's why the house is for sale. Because the man who woke up one day. And there was a bear beating a bobcat with a snake and he's like, I can't live in this weird animal sex dungeon anymore. I gotta get out of here. And he sold it to us suckers. That's all I can say.
Kim 1:16:44
Yeah, we're gonna put up a fence. That'll help
Scott Benner 1:16:47
him. I don't know what to name this episode. Don't be like, because if you think about it, you were a little nervous in the beginning. So let's start off a little nervous.
Kim 1:16:58
No, no, I was.
Scott Benner 1:17:00
I felt nervous. What's the word? Not nervous? You didn't open all the way up yet. You made just a little intrepid like at first, right? So we get
Kim 1:17:09
you kind of can. Like this is how we ended up where we are now. Yeah, sounds like oh boy. I don't know
Scott Benner 1:17:15
yet. Because voice in your head. That's like, somehow this guy is gonna find out about my dad. That's when there are people who won't come on this podcast. They're like, I know what's gonna happen. You're gonna get you're gonna get me comfortable. And we're gonna start joking and talking. And the next thing you know, I'm gonna say something I don't want anybody else to know. And I'm like, Yeah, that's the whole point of the book. I know. You think the points diabetes? You know, I mean, loosely. Oh, yeah, I guess I should ask you at the end. Do you pump you have a CGM?
Kim 1:17:46
Um, yeah, I have a tandem and Dexcom. Using the
Scott Benner 1:17:49
control IQ. Yes. Excellent. works well for you.
Kim 1:17:53
It's okay. I hope that there's a time when you can turn off the auto correction when you're in exercise mode. Oh,
Scott Benner 1:18:03
okay. So you get moving. Running from a bobcat, and your blood sugar starts falling too quickly?
Kim 1:18:12
Well, it's like, it'll be like when I'm going out for a bike ride. And then I eat a snack. But then you know, the exercise. Didn't use the snack yet. And then it boluses but I'm like, No, I needed those carbs. Like I'm gonna need them in 20 minutes. Why did you give me insulin? I didn't want insulin on board.
Scott Benner 1:18:32
I gotcha. So you would like it to be a little more intuitive? Yeah,
Kim 1:18:36
because otherwise, like, what I had been doing is just turning off control IQ, but then you don't get the low protection unless you turn it back on like after, right? Like you remember to turn it back on. So that was a problem. But I have heard that that will be a new software feature on the next update, so maybe they will be doing
Scott Benner 1:18:56
okay. Hey, my last question is, is there any chance you're left handed?
Kim 1:18:59
I am not left handed.
Scott Benner 1:19:02
If you could teach yourself. Here's why I ask. Because first of all, I've never given this advice to anybody before that I'm out of my depth. But I think you should have a gun. Oh, that I think you should teach yourself to shoot left handed so that when it makes the noise doesn't hurt your that's what I was gonna say. This year. I'm being serious. This is my best advice for you after speaking to you for an hour and 20 minutes. You have you have a gun.
Kim 1:19:24
No, but now I have to tell my husband that you you think we should because everyone else he's told thinks as crazy but he thinks that like either we are going to need one for an animal attacking the dogs or something or there's just like, like, we're in the middle of nowhere and someone could just drive up the road and end up at our house and then be like, yeah, and then we have no protection from someone attacking us at home.
Scott Benner 1:19:53
Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction, Kim?
Kim 1:19:56
Um, that's a good question. I Don't know.
Scott Benner 1:20:00
Well, Kim, first of all Pulp Fiction is the best movie anyone's ever made. You should watch it. But there's going to and I don't want to ruin it for you now, but I'm just saying you could end up in Zeds dungeon in your own house and yeah, again, I want to shut down at the very least I know nothing about guns by the way, first of all, but I think I think a shotgun like a little just something to like, maybe put a little buckshot in something can get them out, get them moving a little bit, even a little bird shot. Maybe you don't I mean, just to you know, get them get them thinking the right way. Also, your husband's clearly going to shoot the dog instead of the bobcat.
Kim 1:20:34
No, no, no.
Scott Benner 1:20:35
So your husband said he thinks maybe gun. He has mentioned it a few times. I'd have one if I was you. And floodlights on the roof. That was like, Oh my God, I don't know what you're gonna die up there. That's all I want to say.
Kim 1:20:52
That's okay, it's it's pretty. I like it. Well,
Scott Benner 1:20:54
let's see this and being really serious. Yes, absolutely. Rock solid internet connection.
Kim 1:21:01
Oh, yeah. It's a dish that goes to a tower and because there's so high up, there's like nothing in between us.
Scott Benner 1:21:10
Oh, my God, you've got the best connection. And I was panic because at the beginning you were like, Why didn't want to go in that room? Because the garage door is shaking because of the wind. And I'm like, this lady is living on a fishing trawler somewhere. I don't know what's happening. Exactly. But my goodness. What a listen. Being serious. Congratulations on the new house. I'm sure you won't die up there. anytime soon. Oh, no, no, I'm sure it'll be fine. Yeah, but that's really it's really I think it's interesting the moves you made like and I and it also shows I want to be serious for a second. Okay. You don't have like there's no I don't you're not scared of life is what it feels like to me. Again, it almost feels like to me like you're like look, I got diabetes. I'm okay. At this thing grown in my head. I'm okay. I'm gonna move up to the top of the mountain now and try this like I really Yeah, I'm envious a little bit of in the free in the freeway. You did this thing?
Kim 1:22:05
Yeah, we're kind of like we're not risk takers. But we want to like make sure we live life, I guess.
Scott Benner 1:22:13
No, you live on a mountain with a bear. You're a risk taker. Alright, so let's get a shotgun. And let's get let's talk to somebody who knows about not the people in town because they're already pissed. You're there. But like, you know, I may be a big knife. You like a like a like, I don't know, in case you get into a tussle? You might need to ship something. I don't know, Kim. Like, how did Daniel Boone do it? Daniel Boone was somebody right? Like, how did he do that?
Kim 1:22:43
I always just think of the Revenant and Leonardo DiCaprio fighting like grizzly bear. But these would be black bears. So it's not Oh,
Scott Benner 1:22:51
yeah. It's much easier to beat up a black bear. You'll be fine. You don't know what you're talking about. Kim, you got to get on the internet and properly scare yourself. Maybe all right, you're gonna have like a 12 gauge. Like five minutes from now. You're gonna be in the Walmart like I need a gun. Hello? Anyone? They're gonna be like us. Another one of these ladies buying a gun. That Bronco has never been offered. That's what they're gonna say. Would you pull? Oh, my God, Kim. You're terrific. Thank you so much. I appreciate this very much. Thank you. Yep, hold on one second for me
well, a huge thanks to Kim for open and honest interview. And we're also going to thank us met us med.com/juice box or call 888-721-1514. I'd also like to thank contour makers of the contour next gen blood glucose meter, and remind you to go to contour next one.com/juicebox To get the most accurate meter that I've ever used. Check out the Juicebox Podcast private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. And of course if you're an apple podcast user, head into those settings, and choose all new episodes. Thank you so much for listening, and for supporting the show. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast next week, December 11 12th and 13th. What are you getting? What are you getting? Brand new Omni pod five content. Make sure you're subscribed and following
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#1077 Crash Course Road Trip
Jason's son has type 1 diabetes.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 1077 of the Juicebox Podcast.
Today on the podcast I'll be speaking with Jason. He's the father of a 13 year old living with type one diabetes, after an acquaintance noticed that Noah looked a little thin, everything began. While you're listening today, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. Were becoming bold with insulin. couple of brief announcements beginning next week on Monday, brand new Omni pod five content remember the Pro Tip series for the Omnipod five. These three new episodes will be an extension of that content beginning in your podcast players on December 11. Make sure you're subscribed or following right now so you don't miss anything. For those of you who are already subscribed in Apple podcasts, the new iOS 17 has messed up your downloads possibly please take a look and make sure that you're set up correctly so that you'll hear the podcast go to the show in your library. Go up to the top right hit the three little dots, then down to Settings, then automatic downloads and choose all new episodes. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by touched by type one touched by type one.org fantastic organization helping people with type one diabetes, and all they want you to do is know about them. Find them on Facebook, Instagram, and at touched by type one.org. The podcast is also sponsored today by Omni pod Omni pod.com/juice box head over there now and get yourself an omni pod five, or an omni pod dash, where the same tubeless insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing since she was four years old, where an omni pod. The show is also sponsored today by cozy Earth. Cozy Earth makes the best sheets and towels and clothing that I've ever worn. I mean soft and quality and temperate like never too hot, never too cold. Fantastic stuff. And the best news here is that at cozy earth.com All you have to do to save 40% is use the offer code juice box at checkout use juice box at checkout at cozy earth.com to save 40% off of your entire order.
Jason 2:40
My name is Jason, father of a type one diabetic who just turned 13 years old. Noah and we live in northeast Texas, due east of Dallas in a town called Tyler.
Scott Benner 2:54
Noah is 13 Yes
Jason 2:56
just turned 13 in January has had diabetes for
Scott Benner 3:00
a couple years now.
Jason 3:01
Couple of years.
Scott Benner 3:02
Okay. Is there anyone else in the family with autoimmune stuff?
Jason 3:06
Not that we're aware of. So to say it took us by surprise is an understatement. He has we have an older sister, who was 16. She has no autoimmune issues. And then of course my wife, no history in her family that we're aware of?
Scott Benner 3:24
Nothing for you.
Jason 3:26
Nothing for me. Okay.
Scott Benner 3:28
How did his diabetes present to you?
Jason 3:33
So, he had started complaining about constantly being thirsty to my wife for a couple of weeks. He was getting up to go to the bathroom quite a bit at night, again, was telling my wife about this. I'll never forget we actually had some of our friends. He's a baseball player. So we were playing a lot of travel ball at the time. And our friends actually commented on his appearance to me and said he just he doesn't look like himself. And that's when I finally woke up a little bit and took a good look at him. And realize he does look kind of puny. He lost some weight. All of this in complete denial I attributed to he's going through a growth spurt. Finally, there was one night where he actually wet the bed. And that had not happened in 10 years, probably 10 years sometimes, right? It's like, oh, that's definitely a red flag we had already. Well, my wife had already booked a doctor's appointment for him on Thursday and we got them to bump it up to Monday when he got the results.
Scott Benner 4:42
When the when the friends mentioned that he looks smaller. Did you notice anything in his performance in baseball was he slower getting tired not hitting the ball as far as stuff like that?
Jason 4:54
Not particularly in his baseball performance. He he definitely seemed a little more tired, you know, after games, he just he seemed a little puny. But then when they made the comment, and I looked at him, I was like, he does look really pale. Like, it's coloring just was not right. And I really didn't notice, you know just how skinny he was looking. Definitely he was not that he's, he's a pretty happy kid. But he was a little grouchy here. Back in those days as well, once
Scott Benner 5:26
you began to see it, could you put a timeframe on it? How long do you think it had been going on?
Jason 5:31
My estimate is maybe six weeks. But that's just that's just my estimate of it. It could be two or three months, or it could have just been two or three weeks. When
Scott Benner 5:42
you see all this you call a doctor, eventually you go to a hospital, how do you handle it?
Jason 5:47
So we went to his primary care physician, who we've known for many, many years, he gave us the news, and basically said, you know, bad news, good news, bad news. So the good news is, it can be a lot worse. But the bad news is, is you definitely have diabetes, send us on to an endocrinologist who we saw the same day. We were very lucky. And we wit about a 10 minute drive from his office to our new endocrinologists office. That's where it was confirmed that it was diabetes. They did think it was probably type one, they ran all the tests to confirm that. And Scott, we never went to the hospital. It was quiet one day, one day, we were normal. And the next day, we had seen two doctors and a diabetes educator and we're learning how to treat type one diabetes with home that same day.
Scott Benner 6:41
What was his blood sugar that day? You know,
Jason 6:44
it was off the charts. I want to say that's a that I think is a one C was like 14. Wow. They did that. And I think he was on the for hundreds, maybe a blood sugar. Did
Scott Benner 6:57
they start him on insulin right there in the office? Yes. So they inject they injected a Basal insulin? And did they correct his blood sugar as well? Or how did they handle the I'm interested in how they brought his blood sugar down in the office? And then what they told you to do in the first days.
Jason 7:14
Right? So they started us off MBI we actually did the first injection together with the diabetes educator. And then they went through, you know, basil and Bolus and multiple daily injections. I immediately started asking about technology, because I knew there was some available. You know, they were I would say they're pretty conservative in their approach. I know that's probably no surprise, I think a lot of in those are. And they said that that would come you know, later down the road. I think the back then it was your wait, you know, about three to four months before you get a CGM. And then maybe at six months to a year we can start talking pomps I started advocating a lot quicker than that, which I'm talking about a little bit later that day, though, yes, we did a correction dose together. You'll love this his first meal because I immediately thought we're gonna have to change his entire diet. His first meal, literally, in the diabetes educators office was a cheeseburger from water burger, which is his absolute favorite.
Scott Benner 8:25
Well, what what was his level of? I mean, he's 11. Right when this happens, so Right. Is he shocked? Is the like, what's the like, kind of psychological feedback you're getting from him in the moment?
Jason 8:38
I think we all were shocked. I don't think he really knew how to process it. What exactly what was happening? I think he he knew it was big. And that, you know, it was gonna be some changes happening. But yeah, the first few days, I think we were all just in shock. For sure.
Scott Benner 8:58
That's crazy. How do you find me?
Jason 9:00
I think it was through Facebook. I should know the answer to that.
Scott Benner 9:05
But not really.
Jason 9:09
Yeah, I wouldn't say it was Facebook.
Scott Benner 9:13
But were you looking? Are you looking for something? Yes.
Jason 9:16
Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was looking around, I think I'd seen a couple of other, you know, diabetes groups on Facebook. I think I read across you guys. And Scott had never listened to a podcast in my life. As usual, I'm about 1010 years behind the world on some of this stuff. But I remember listening to your show, and just thinking, wow, that made it digestible, to talk about, you know, diabetes. I discovered the show and what to say we were it was definitely a year after diagnosis, I want to say is more like 1617 months.
Scott Benner 9:54
That's not long at all.
Jason 9:58
Yeah, but after it. I have a little jealous when I see newly diagnosed people that found you within the first month. But because we were a little bit I mean, we have a great Endo, I have nothing but praise for our endo and our diabetes educator. But we were still just kind of lost at sea at times. As soon as we started listening to your podcast, things started changing for us rapidly. I'm glad to hear
Scott Benner 10:24
that he was diagnosed during so people whose kids don't play travel sports like it blurs together like Was this the spring season? The summer season or the false?
Jason 10:35
Yeah, I guess typically, it was the spring season. And we kept playing.
Scott Benner 10:39
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask us. You headed into the heat of the year then and kept playing? Oh, yes. Was that more difficult? In the beginning, it
Jason 10:48
was I mean, we're still learning something every single day. But yes, we learned quickly that heat could affect him. Dehydration, took me a while to learn that one. But dehydration could affect him. And of course, again, we were, you know, MDI, at first, we really started pushing for a CGM. And luckily, his diagnosis date was February 9 of 2021. And I think it was March, it was about a month later. I talked our a doe into prescribing a Dexcom. To us. And that, that opened up the world big time.
Scott Benner 11:29
Yeah. Until then, you just, I don't know how to put it exactly. It's the same way yet. It's like when I let my we don't have a fence around our property. And I just said property like I have 20 acres, it's my yard. But we don't have a fence around our backyard. So we sort of my I'm in the middle of two. Obviously, there's a neighbor on my left and neighbor on my right. And the three of us we made a gentleman's agreement a long time ago not to fence in the property. So when you walk outside, you get this very wide open, you know, more open feeling because there's just no sight lines, like knocking down when you look out, you know, I look into my neighbor's backyard, it feels like it's mine. Anyway, every time I let my dog out, I have that feeling. I'm like, I wonder if this is gonna go the way I wanted to. Is he gonna wander off? Am I going to be in my neighbor's backyard? Five minutes go go and remember when we said we wouldn't put up fences? I bet you regret that. Or you know, like I just when Arden was first playing softball with diabetes. I mean, I didn't know what was happening. And you know, you added a CGM and back then I mean, was that the Dexcom? I don't know seven plus, which I know people are like but the seven is just the ultimate know their numbering system was off in the beginning it was like Dexcom seven plus then it went to I don't know I forget G four than G five anyway point is a lot of generations ago. And even that thing was you know, it did its best but it it liked a little bit and I just remember never feeling like I knew what I was knowing what I was doing. And oh yeah, you know, it's just it's a terrible feeling. He didn't know um, it sounds like you're very involved in his blood sugar's and helping him so which is great, but I'm what I'm saying is like you're you shouldering a lot of the concern while he's being active and doing his things. I sleep on cozy Earth sheets. I aware cozy Earth, joggers and sweatshirts, and I dry my bits off after every shower with a cozy Earth waffle towels. And you may be thinking, yeah, sure, Scott. Well, they gave you that stuff because you do ads for them. They gave me some of it. A lot of it. I bought on my own with my money, and the offer code juicebox at checkout, I saved 40% on the sweat pants I'm wearing right now using my offer code. I saved 40% On a second pair of sheets that I bought using the offer code juice box at checkout. This stuff is high quality, incredibly comfortable. It washes well it wears well. It sleeps well. It dries well. Cozy earth.com use the offer code juice box at checkout to save 40%
Jason 14:15
Oh, definitely. I am the two of us. I am the most OCD. And I have always tried to stay on top of things, particularly when he's playing sports but even throughout the day, tried to tighten up the range that we have set for him. And I have been told that I might be a little overly competitive. So it's a it's almost a competition to see how I how low I can get his blood sugar's in a healthy range, of course. But yeah, I keep an eye on it. My wife she does a lot as well. But as far as keeping an eye on blood sugars and using text messaging, which thank you for that suggestion. back and forth throughout school. It's a lifesaver to make sure that he's, you know, watching his numbers himself. I, I kind of take the lead on that. Yeah,
Scott Benner 15:10
that that that one bit me this weekend I gave, I gave a three day talk at a private event this weekend for people of the Orthodox Jewish faith. And a lot of a lot of them don't use technology. In some of them, even if they have a phone. It's just a flip phone, right? And I'm standing in front of like, 400 people, and somebody says, What's your best advice for helping a child? And I was like, text messaging. And then I went, and I was like, Hold on, I'll come up with something different. Give me a second.
Jason 15:44
Put you on the spot. I
Scott Benner 15:46
think I can't just reach into my bag of tricks and say my thing. But anyway, we we kept talking and we thought about other ways to handle it. I mean, honestly, that's, that's my honest first thought, What's the most? I mean, aside from how to deliver insulin, or a CGM, you know, what's the, what's the best technology for managing a child with type one, I think is texting. So yeah,
Jason 16:12
we also, we say recently, it's been about six months now I purchased him an Apple watch, because a lot of times I would text him and his phone would either be in his locker or it'd be in his back pocket. And he just, you know, didn't realize that texted and now we actually have text messages coming through to his Apple Watch. And it's been amazing the difference that's made as far as at least getting a thumbs up in recognition of me texting him.
Scott Benner 16:38
So I think it's nice that you get a thumbs up, I get stop. But at least they
Jason 16:45
are a little older. So I'm sure those days are coming for for me and no. It might be worse than stop. Yeah.
Scott Benner 16:53
At least I know. At least I know. She sees it. Yeah, I mean, I don't know like it's not gonna be fuck off one day.
Jason 17:03
All of those are confirmation. Honestly, I don't care what you say back.
Scott Benner 17:08
That's all I care about. Honestly. You could send a letter a diet. I mean, unless it's like, unless it looks like you're trailing off while you're touching the keys. Then maybe I'm gonna need an actual word. That's amazing. So you got a CGM before a pump?
Jason 17:24
Yes, yes, we we got the CGM. You'll love this. So we love traveling. Big time, travel as much as possible. And we, again diagnosed February 9, our spring break I want to say was we'll just say mid March. So five weeks later, we were I think we received the Dexcom. Two days before we left to go on our trip. And we flew from Texas, to Charleston. And then we road tripped both the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and then flew back home from Nashville. So to say it was a trial by fire. Learning the CGM. We learned how to use it on the road. Wow. By
Scott Benner 18:10
the way that that trip almost was the John Denver song. I think
Jason 18:15
we may have been seeing a few of his students while we were traveling through the Blue Ridge.
Scott Benner 18:20
I mean, it would seem appropriate. So you're on a plane, and then in a rental vehicle, even like not even your car, right and figuring out well, at least you're in close quarters of probably. I mean, I don't know, did it make it easier? Or I guess the other
Jason 18:34
good point it it really. It definitely did not hurt things so that we were all together. We learned very quickly. I think it was our first night in Charleston. We had probably third day with the actual Dexcom G six. We had, I believe it was pizza for dinner, because clearly we're on a health kick with some of our diet choices here. And then we had ice cream for dessert. And I want to say we had the ice cream around seven to 8pm. That was a long night.
Scott Benner 19:06
Like 330 in the morning.
Jason 19:10
High long after high bar testing for keto. It was yes, we learned something very valuable that day. If you're going to eat that stuff, maybe lunchtime is a better choice.
Scott Benner 19:22
Do you think Arden shouldn't have changed her CGM for the first time from G six to G seven by herself last night at midnight? Because that's what I was telling her the whole evening. You could just do it now. You could just do it now. You know, okay,
Jason 19:37
what she's saying it's only a 30 minute warm up. That's gonna make it all better.
Scott Benner 19:40
How about I'm getting a FaceTime at like, one o'clock in the morning. Am I doing this right? showing me the sensor on FaceTime. I'm like what is happening? Exactly. And she's like, is this like, just push it down like this and then push them I'm like, Yeah, I can think was I'm never going to sleep.
Jason 20:03
Yeah, we, we have started doing Dexcom sensor changes. We used to do them in the evenings and we switched to first thing in the mornings. I like having the entire day. I mean, priority and Olympic for school, of course, I like having the entire day to see how it's going to function. Because just like you've said many times, you know, the first few hours can be a little wonky, which I think that might be the first time I've ever used the term walkie in my life. But
Scott Benner 20:32
I'm glad I can add to your you're expanding my vocabulary choices are just drifting. Where do you see all the Yiddish? I learned my thing this weekend? You're gonna get you're gonna get mad later on the podcast. And I was able to like check on some of my pronunciations. Anyway, here's as good as anywhere else. Yes. And so the we're doing meals, right. So one of the things we did this weekend, which was very interesting was they would bring us meals up and the food was just very different stuff I had never seen before in a lot of cases. And they wanted us, me and the other person who were presenting over the weekend, like just guessed these carbs, like tell us what you think. So I get this bowl, it has beans in it, and then there's a thing on top of it. I don't even know how to describe it. And I put my fork in it and held it up. And I'm in front of a room of 200 people eating their meal. I'm like, What's this? And I hear Kiska Kiska. I'm like it's a Kiska? Yes. And then somebody comes over they say it's flour. It's pressed together. There's oil in it, they explain it. And I'm like, Okay, I put it down. And then it hits me. And I turn to the BMC. And I go, Well, if that's a Kiska, then where does the term eating my kitchen because outcome from so the room explodes and laughter because I don't really know what I'm saying. You know what I mean? Like, I just have these couple of Yiddish terms. I know. I don't really know them. Anyway, after everyone stopped. It was very interesting about what a kiss case. And I guess the carbs pretty correctly. So I was really, really thrilled with myself. I'm sorry, I got myself off track. Well, I had a question about the about the trip. You wouldn't have known about being sedentary and higher blood sugars without the CGM. That's right. You figure that out in the car. I imagine. I don't
Jason 22:16
know if we even figured it out that quickly. Just how activity. I mean, again, we were six weeks post diagnosis. So we really didn't at that point know about steel versus exercising or even just walking about even exercising just being active versus being still and how much that can affect diabetes. Yeah, that that came later on as well.
Scott Benner 22:39
Well, the reason it made me like it kind of popped in my head was, I mean, let's say my son grew up playing baseball in New Jersey. And it was incredibly competitive, and year round. And I'm imagining, it's worse than Texas. So like, I bet your kids moving constantly, almost. And then all of a sudden, you're sitting still, that's what that's what made it pop. For me.
Jason 23:03
I think we learned more on that. We are also big Disney fans, and try to go to the parks on a pretty regular basis. It's kind of hard, hard to go super regular when you live in Texas. Just all the walking and those parks, I think that's where the lightbulb kind of started going off for me is you know, while it's such a difference between dosing when I know he's going to be you know, inside on a rainy day playing video games, or watching movies versus, you know, walking 10 miles in a day, riding all the rides.
Scott Benner 23:36
Yeah, Disney is such an interesting example of, of craziness. Because all the walking, you know, driving your blood sugar down, and then you could experience adrenaline bursts, and then go and then bursts and then gone. So these two things, they could almost counterbalance each other and then whatever happens last is where you end up.
Jason 23:58
For sure and adrenaline for him. He is a pitcher. So a lot of the baseball games he's playing and pitching and I noticed very quickly that when he was pitching, which he loves to pitch is a journalist would get going and he would just inevitably start skyrocketing. So I started dosing before games where I knew he was gonna pitch and then games where he was just playing the field. He might go up some but he wasn't gonna go up as high because his adrenaline button is high.
Scott Benner 24:30
Are you seeing the the adrenaline that exists in a game even just playing the field but it doesn't exist at practice? Have you seen that phenomenon? My daughter Arden has been wearing an omni pod since she was four years old, and she is now 19 That is every day wearing an omni pod for the last 15 years. I think what we love most about Omni pod is that it doesn't have any tubing. But I don't know The thing you love most about it, you don't have to take it off to swim or bave. You can leave it on for activity and exercise. It's small. I don't eat. I mean, it's so easy to put on, right to fill it and to put it on. It's just it takes us no time at all. Yeah, I guess it's hard to figure out what my favorite thing about Omni pod is. I guess I'll just say that my daughter loves it. It's easy, and it's worked for her. For so many years. It's just such a friend at all this Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box, you can check your coverage there for your insurance. Or take a test drive right? Would you like a free trial of the Omni pod? You can do that there as well, then you can just get started. Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Now you have a decision to make. Do you want the Omni pod dash, which is an insulin pump? Where you make all the decisions? Or do you want the Omni pod five. Now the iPod five is the first and only tubeless automated insulin delivery system to integrate with the Dexcom G six. And it's available for people with type one diabetes ages two years and older. It features smarter, just technology. And it's going to help you to protect against highs and lows both day and night. That's an algorithm based system making decisions about insulin given it and taking it away. It's pretty damn cool. Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes links at juicebox podcast.com. When you use those links, you're supporting the production of the podcast and helping to keep it free and plentiful.
Jason 26:29
Definitely, yes, yeah, practice. We don't really worry about practice and dosing. It's when those competitive juices get going and you're about to face your opponent. That's when he normally starts going high. Now,
Scott Benner 26:41
the good news there is if he still pitches and isn't a starter, at least from the stands, you'll know when he's getting ready to go in.
Jason 26:47
Right?
Scott Benner 26:50
You'll hear a beep turn to your wife, you go hey, I know is about the pitch. That's right. Do you know it my son's freshman year of college. It was very much at the end of his the first season. And they traveled out of state pretty far actually to play a conference rival. And at that point, they were basically like neck and neck to win the division. And game one comes my son's a freshman. They did not play freshmen regularly. I think he had a handful of at bats. And I think through a few pitches and a couple of games right. And like we did games, they didn't trust him or even didn't even know him. So my wife and I we drive it's like a four hour drive for us to this place. We spend the night we get up we come to the game. We're just there to support them. Honestly, don't expect to see them play out the fourth or fifth inning. My wife who knows not a ton about baseball leans over to me and she says I hope we're getting rid of this starter. He's he's falling apart. And I was like, Yeah, well, if my wife sees it, then I'm assuming we've all seen it. And so like I'm like, Yeah, you're right. And not that she's silly. She just doesn't love baseball the same way. And I look way down left field, the bullpen is just so far away. I kind of can't even see I'm like, Well, we have somebody going, you know, like few minutes later that somebody was cold coming running up the left. And I'm like, wait, what's going on, like my son who showed up at college to play centerfield and maybe pitched in high school, you know, 610 times and travel every once in a while but hasn't like, it still does has a really good arm. And the next thing I know in like a tie game, he's walking out in the field. And I get your blood sugar's were. My blood sugars are going up is exactly
Jason 28:40
the Dexcom. While you're testing it out, you can see.
Scott Benner 28:44
So I'm usually I'm very pragmatic. So a bunch of parents are looking at me and they're like, are you nervous? I'm like, No, and they're like, why not? I'm like, I wouldn't have put him in there. This is a mistake. Neither I nor he is responsible for this horrible coaching error. But he actually got through three innings, he didn't give up a run in three innings. So Oh, that's awesome. It was pretty cool.
Jason 29:08
I received the same question at a junior high baseball game just about a couple of months ago. And I had the same answer that I almost felt a little bad for giving the answer. I didn't want to come off as arrogant or anything but a couple of fathers asked me he's like, are you nervous? Know what's going on? It's like, No, I'm not he's either gonna perform or he's not. There's literally nothing I could do right now. Except watch him and hope that he performs well. Jason. That's it. I'm
Scott Benner 29:34
actually heartwarming by that response. Because I mean, to say that my kids were around a lot of competitiveness as young people is an understatement. And I am fairly competitive person. As a matter of fact, we could easily like shift this conversation to how I love the podcast is popular and how hard how hard I work at keeping it that way. I've always Like, since I was little, like, since my kids were little excuse me, I would pull Cole aside before a game in when he was little little, and I'd get down on his level and I'd give him a hug. And I'd say, I love you. Just do your best. Doesn't matter if you guys win or lose. You know, like, I've always given him that perspective as a young person growing up, and then that kind of just morphed into I love you have a good game, like that kind of stuff. But he knew going in there. Baseball is to get better at baseball. It's like, like, it's not about winning today. I always the thing I always think is, who won the World Series Two years ago? Who won the Super Bowl five years ago? You don't know? Right? You know, you have no idea because it's as corny as it sounds like it's the journey, not the destination kind of stuff. And, um, it's a little kid, like, what are you going to do send them out there thinking the weight of the world rides on whether or not they do something that's fairly impossible. You know. And so, the only time when he was recruiting for college, the first big recruiting thing he went to, we were driving to it, and we had this like, kind of long conversation, which I'm sure he hated. But you know, Screw him, I made a man in charge. And I said, your whole life I've been telling you like, just to get better for later. But this is later. I'm like, This is it. Like, you got to go perform now. Like, go do it. Go go do your thing right now. Leave it all out there, whatever, coaching father euphemism that you can have like this, is it like, you don't impress these people? It's done. It's over. So go give them everything you have. You know, that's awesome. Yeah. And I think what it did was it just kept a couple things that kept his sensibility about what he was doing in check. And at the same, like, you know what I mean, like, he didn't walk around thinking, I'm doing this very important thing. He didn't have the sense of like, baseballs more than it really is. It's something he loved to do that he was good at. And he wanted to keep doing it. So I mean, that's the perspective I tried to give him. If I tell that story, nine out of 10 times the other people, fathers, mothers, actually, ladies, sometimes the mothers more than the fathers. No one under mostly, no one understands that it's just, you know,
Jason 32:26
I'm not about please write plagiarism. And I may be stealing what you said there. And using that in the future. Because I love it. That's awesome.
Scott Benner 32:34
And it helped them in college too. Because even when he got to college, and then they're like, whoa, you know, freshmen aren't gonna play that much. And then you don't even realize that they'll still be politics in college. I mean, I don't know. In hindsight, why the hell I didn't realize that, but it was worse. It was the worst I'd ever experienced and Little League was terrible. And high school was a mess, and everybody just fighting for their kids and arguing and jockeying for positions. I watched a woman one time, I've never told the story here. I think my kids, the kids were 11. And they were now in getting ready. So they were basically setting the team to try to get to the Little League World Series the following year. And my son had always played the outfield, and just was very adept at it and came naturally to him a strong arm that kind of stuff could really track a ball. But the second baseman on the team was terrible. And so the coach came to me one day before an all star practice and said we're going to move cold a second and and see how that goes. And I'm like, okay, and I think they were just trying to bring the athletic people into onto the field into the infield a little more. And, and he did very well. And that was it. After the game it was announced colts gonna be playing second base, blah, blah, blah. And I'm walking off the field with him, telling them how proud I am of him asking him what he thinks about the shift and positions. And then we hear it from I am not lying to you. 80 yards away under a tree. A woman screaming her head off at the coach in his face pointing in his chest screaming at him. And we showed up the next day for practice that my son was not playing second base anymore. Wow. I watched the year before a group of parents call a meeting and fire the coach. As I stood in the corner going, What in the fuck is happening? Exactly? What is wrong with all of you? How many mental illnesses are in this room? A lovely man who had been coaching those kids since he was six since they were six. And they're like you're out. Like out what he comes Every practice, what do we argue about? My wife will tell you to this day my wife works in a corporate situation. She said it was the most vicious collection of people in a meeting she's ever seen in her life. She's in the corporate world. That's awesome. I swear to God, my wife works in pharma. And she's like, this is the most vicious thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
Jason 35:21
That's funny. Conforming myself, do you really? Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Benner 35:25
My Well, Larry, my wife does drug safety.
Jason 35:27
Okay, yeah. I mean, immunizations. So I'll do are not all of them. But many of the routine pediatric immunizations I
Scott Benner 35:36
represent. Oh, that's really cool. How did you end up in that space? Totally fell into it.
Jason 35:43
I was working at Xerox of all places, shortly after I college. And I had a person that I've still have never met to this day, reached out to me, Headhunter and asked about my water interview with a pharmaceutical company. And it's the best decision I've ever made, never looked back.
Scott Benner 35:59
My wife wanted to be a doctor and couldn't afford to apply to medical school. So she used her biology degree to to get Kelly Services job, it was actually attempt with a temp job. Okay, so Kelly does regular services. They also do Scientific Services. I don't know if they do anymore. This is a very, I'm very old. This is a very long time ago.
Jason 36:18
I think we're the same age are very close. Yeah. So
Scott Benner 36:21
then your old two and
Jason 36:26
50 in July? Yeah, I've gotten it
Scott Benner 36:28
now. I'm gonna be 52 in July. So I've got a little bit. Okay. But But anyway, she, you know, took that job and was good at it and enjoyed it. It's odd, like, I would almost describe what she does now, as a job they would give an attorney. It's a lot of reading laws and making sure people are compliant doing what they're supposed to do. So all the all the stuff that's made for the patients like that stuff that my wife oversees that kind of thing. Okay, yeah. So, but anyway, it's not the point. Anyway, that lady screaming on that field was the maybe first in a long line of crazy people who somehow thought that no matter what age this was, their kid, I mean, it's the old joke, right? They all thought their kids were gonna go play for the Yankees. Right? You know, and, I mean, I mean, good for them for believing in their children and everything and whatnot. But I mean, I was watching them play, and I was like, Oh, your kid doesn't run the straight line. I don't think this is gonna work out, you know, I've ever seen anyone run before. Doesn't look like that, you know. But I'm glad the kid loves baseball and all, you know, and of that team. My son was a runt on that team, really at that he was smaller. Three kids that played on that baseball team eventually played in college, one of them never gotten to a game. The other one gave up a jack on ESPN that went so far, he was not in the school, six days later. Never saw ball goes so far, so fast, or a head dropped down so heavy. And then literally not in school the next week, like they must have pulled him aside and been like, we made a mistake. And then my son played for four years. And my point isn't about him. My point is that if you would have went back to those 12 year old kids, and said, you know, here, I'm gonna give you $50,000 Go ahead and bet on four of them that will make it to college. You wouldn't have picked my kid never once. So my point is, is that acting like you know, what's gonna happen is a fairly large mistake. Right? Yeah. Kids a monster. Jason and then right on, you know, they mean, you won the genetic lottery. Because I'll tell you what, big and a little like, can swing a bat. Someone's gonna give it a shot. So Right. Yeah. How about your son is a huge is he little is he where's he playing on the
Jason 38:58
field? He plays, catch. They've had them all over the place, he normally would play in a third base or in the outfield, because he can throw pretty well and could get the ball from the outfield to first base and all that junior high. He was in seventh grade this year. And I mean, they had him. I think he almost played every position at one point he didn't catch but he played second base. He played short. He played left field centerfield right field first base. I mean, my wife and I were cracking up. Because we never knew if he wasn't pitching, it was flip a coin on where they're going to put him this particular game. I think he he prefers third base, or the outfield? Yeah. So or he really prefers pitching. But of course, can't pitch every game.
Scott Benner 39:46
And by the way, don't just write Yeah, you're gonna come along a guy at some point there's going to be a coach who you have to be there's two things I know for sure about children's sports. Okay, eventually You will play for a person who does not care about the health of your child. And it is up to you to have the balls to stand up to that. And and the second thing I guess I know for sure is, what the hell was I gonna say, Oh, my God is the thing that I say constantly about baseball. And now it just fell right out of my head. I talked myself right out of my thought, Jason, this is embarrassing. That's 50 to say, Oh, my God, you know what they say? You know,
Jason 40:30
he's got I don't have this problem at 49.
Scott Benner 40:36
I do it all the time. Don't worry. It'll pop up in my head, like 10 minutes from now. I'll be like that other thing about baseball? That's right. Oh, I'm sorry. You have to know yourself. If you look around a travel team. And you can't tell who the check is. You're the check. So some kids are there to play, and some kids are there. So the coaches can make money. But you got to know if you're the check. That's very, very important point. Yeah, that's a good point. That means you can't play by the way, just on that team. If you're the check, you're not gonna play. Right. So anyway, but that's a sad statement. And a million 1,000,000%. But it was truth. Yeah. Oh, it's 100%. True. You don't know who the check is? It's you. Anyway, okay. So how do you think Noah is dealing with all this?
Jason 41:35
I think he has been a champ. From the get go. I mean, I've just been amazed at how he has stepped up and just kind of take things in stride. I think the email I sent you a while back, just thanking you. I mentioned that, you know, my wife and I went through mourning that we've we went through all the stages of grief, because it was just such a shock. And such a change, though, he just kind of took them all at random. I'm not saying it was perfect, you know, every single day. And he did have a few moments here and there of, you know, some tears and not wanting to be a type one diabetic. For the most part, he took it much better than we did initially. And I've just been amazed at how he's doing and how he's learning more and more. I'm kind of walking the line right now, trying to let him be a kid as much as possible, but also realizing, you know, he's a teenager, and he's got to start, you know, taking a little bit of ownership, as the next few years go by, and kind of learn to make adjustments on his own. So I've been kind of relinquishing a little bit of control to him. And so far, he's he's doing a pretty good job
Scott Benner 42:58
with it. Good for him. That's excellent. How are you doing with letting go of it? As you're doing this?
Jason 43:03
So far? Pretty good. Of course, that's me evaluating myself.
Scott Benner 43:11
Jason, are you? Are you the check in you don't know it.
Jason 43:15
Might be. So I think so far pretty good. He has some days, they're better than others. And that's just the way it's going to be. But yeah, it's almost a little bit of a weight off my shoulders all the days that he does. I mean, here lately, he's actually started proactively texting me. When he gets an alarm, and he's good, like high or he sees that he's going low. Just saying got it, or overdosed. And that definitely makes me feel great. Saying that.
Scott Benner 43:50
I will tell the truth and say that art in leaving for college has been good for me.
Jason 44:00
And has been good for you. Yeah,
Scott Benner 44:02
I don't mean. I don't mean because I don't know. Maybe I don't know exactly how it's been good so far. But, I mean, it's on her now. Like when she's gone. It's on her. And so there are times that whether I'm cognizant of it or not, I'm not thinking about her diabetes at all.
Jason 44:22
Right. And it's, it's forced you to Yeah, let go a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Benner 44:29
I don't even know if it's letting go. It's it was taken from me. Like there's nothing I can do about it. You know, I mean, she was leaving, and I was like, I can't live here on the floor in the hallway. So I guess I gotta go. And not that I wanted to, but I mean, it's, I don't know. It's just it's different now, but I can tell you this. Every time I see her while she's gone, or every time she comes home, her first and only desire and wishes. Hey, could you do does take care of my blood sugar tonight. So first thing she says like, I just want to sleep overnight.
Jason 45:06
Wow, okay.
Scott Benner 45:06
It reminds me a little bit of this. I was listening to something, by the way, don't take this as details. I although isn't even going to take anything after details after I couldn't remember the cheque analogy five minutes ago, but people are gonna be like, Why am I listening to this? He's been saying the thing his whole life and he doesn't know what it is. I saw this conversation people were talking about that having a child with needs. A chronically ill child can like, metabolically age you up, like 10 years, or something like that as a parent. And so there's part of you that's, that that's tempted to say, well, you know, she's off to college now. So hopefully, that'll be good for me. But then I don't know how the next thought in your head isn't. But now this all just shifted on to her. Like, so if it's 10 years for the parent of what's the impact on the person? Right, you know, and then you get into that space in your head where you're like, Okay, well, I'll trade the last 10 years of my life, so she doesn't have to do this sooner. Like, and that's how it feels to me. I mean, I didn't think life was gonna be fair, Jason, but I didn't think but I would have to make a Cognizant decision to give away the end of my life. I don't smoke. So I guess maybe that'll maybe helped me a little bit on the other side. But it's in my head, because I brought it up this weekend at the thing that a lot of good research says that children with diabetes benefit significantly from parental assistance into their mid 20s. So, you know, anyway, so you're handing off a thing that you're not really giving away. But yet he has to feel like it's his without being overwhelmed. And without, you know, quietly ignoring it, not telling you, if there's just there's a lot of balls up in the air on this one. I
Jason 47:00
guess there are Yeah, it is a juggling act, to say the least. One thing that I've been struggling with a little bit, as far as dosing him, I've wanted to get your input on. While hard he was in school and at home is consistently after lunch. He's experiencing highs, and I'm saying, we Pre-Bolus You know, 15 minutes before he eats, and then it'll eat and inevitably he starts going up to 151 80. I mean, even to the two hundreds, many times. Yeah. So I'm trying to figure out what we should start adding more insulin to help bring it out to further complicate the issue. He has PE after lunch. Some days, it is two hours after lunch. Some days. It is one hour after lunch. It's staggered. I
Scott Benner 47:53
want I once told a principal, I said you know you and I aren't married. Why are you torturing me? Exactly. I was like, there's already a lady handling that. You don't need to do it. So why does she eat and go right outside to recess? Could she not go to recess before? Or how about an hour later? Or how about this? Why is Why is lunch? Right before? Jim? What are you doing today?
Jason 48:20
Luckily, the lunchtime is consistent. Oh, today the week? That's nice. Oh, he is staggered.
Scott Benner 48:26
How about for years? Arden had two different lunches every week. There was one that was an hour sooner than the Oh good. Gosh. Cal Kelly's got this covered. You don't need to try to kill me too. There are plenty of good women on it. You don't you're like What are you doing to me? So okay, so he's going into is he eating the food at school? Or is he bringing food?
Jason 48:54
bringing food except one day a week? They provide food. So typically, it's fast food Chick fil A or what? A burger, something super healthy like that. Well, he brings that or they provide that. They provide that really at a school. So yeah, well, I say they provide that we purchased that. Let me clarify. Yes, we purchase one meal a week for him and that he takes his own lunch and he's really consistent with the lunches he takes each day. Typically it's a turkey sandwich. While I'm at a couple of sides. Jason
Scott Benner 49:26
Your Texas freedom stands aside, I was eating tater tots that tasted like cotton balls and pizza that tastes like cardboard when I was in high school. So I
Jason 49:35
remember the pizza very well. The sad thing is Scott we got excited about pizza. Oh my god. It's the best day of my life.
Greg Taylor, huge sheet pan of pizza. You would have thought Yeah, I thought it was Christmas. Yeah,
Scott Benner 49:49
slightly. I always thought of his catch up with oregano on cardboard with cheese that didn't melt. How do you make cheese that doesn't melt when it's brought the high temperatures? I'll tell you how it's Styrofoam. That's how it's why I can't lose weight my 50s I'm pretty sure that I metabolically right there with you. So he, I'm sorry, let's start off he is Pre-Bolus thing for the lunch? Yes,
Jason 50:15
yeah, he's Pre-Bolus thing. And maybe we need to Pre-Bolus a little earlier.
Scott Benner 50:19
How long? How long has it been? It's typically
Jason 50:22
about 15 minutes before he so he'll Pre-Bolus at 1130. And then he starts lunch at like, 45.
Scott Benner 50:28
Is he rising and staying high and needs more insulin to come down? Or is he spiking and dropping on his own?
Jason 50:35
No, typically, he is rising and staying high. But on the days where he has PE sooner, a lot of times, that will break him down. With either no additional insulin or edible added insulin. The days where p is longer after lunch. Typically, he has to do a pretty significant correction. And then many times we correct a little too much he goes to PE and then all of a sudden he's fighting the load. Yeah. So it's, it's been interesting. I always have them have Skittles in his pocket for PE just so he's prepared, you know? Yeah,
Scott Benner 51:12
sure. He's thrilled with that. But I take your point, I mean, in my mind, maybe you have to treat it like two different scenarios. Maybe the day when there's no P, you, the simple thing to do would be to first try five more minutes of of a Pre-Bolus. If there's no sign of him getting low right now with the 15 minutes. The other thought is to take the correction that you're using after the meal and move like two thirds of it into the Bolus. Does that make sense? Okay, so your Pre-Bolus in the food, and in some odd way Pre-Bolus In the spike. That makes sense.
Jason 51:50
So on that scenario, I assume you're meeting other days where Pe is significantly later, after lunch? Yes.
Scott Benner 51:57
When we're not when we're not then diving right into physical education after that. And physical education, where they let them throw balls at each other in the gym or whatever, by the way, right? Who ever outlawed dodgeball? You ruined a country. I just say that.
Jason 52:15
By the way, there is a sequel coming to that movie. I just read that the other day. Is
Scott Benner 52:19
there really? Is it was it duck dodge dip. Dodge?
Jason 52:27
Was the five DS
Scott Benner 52:30
isn't a Rip Torn. Is that right?
Jason 52:33
Yeah, he he's passed. But apparently the rest of the original cast are coming back. So yeah. That's one of those movies. If it's on and we're channel surfing, and we come across that one. It's just immediate, that we're watching it no matter how many times we've seen it. It's so funny to us.
Scott Benner 52:50
You know how many people tell me I sound like Vince Vaughn.
Jason 52:55
I mean, I can hear that a little bit.
Scott Benner 52:57
I think it's my cadence, not my voice. I think that's what they hear. And I always say that, but they're like, No, you sound like Vince Vaughn. I was in a subway one time. I'm sorry. We'll get back to your balls. I was in a subway one time. And I heard a little kid, like a four year old kid say that man sounds like Santa Claus. Because Vince Vaughn was in a movie where he played Santa Claus one time. That kid was really confused when I walked out of that Subway.
Jason 53:27
What happened to Santa?
Scott Benner 53:28
He looks shorter. Than I explained to that four year old, they just hire all short actors. So everybody looks tall. It's not me. Diversity, I'll tell the women who act with Tom Cruise, right. So so that's my thought for the non PE days either. Start with just trying a slightly longer Pre-Bolus. As long as like I said, you don't feel like he's in, you know, trouble, like he's gonna go low. Or you move some of the correction into the Bolus. So you're being more aggressive with the food, because there's something happening. And you can kind of take the stance of I don't care what it is. It's gonna need more insulin later anyway. Why don't I just give it the insulin. Now, if that rise you're seeing is not in the first 45 minutes of eating, then maybe an extended Bolus over even just an hour might be the way to go with that extra. So just kind of layering on top, an extra blanket of insulin to keep that rise from happening, but not so much that he'll get low afterwards.
Jason 54:33
So this was the world Omnipod five now, I pretty much kept it in and I know, you know, I could go into manual mode, but I've kept it in automated mode, I believe since we've had it. So I have not done that extended Bolus since we left on the pod dash.
Scott Benner 54:48
So then in that scenario, I would either put it up front which and then let the algorithm manage it backwards or make a secondary Bolus pry err to the spike. Okay, and that you would do with carbs. So do you think this is a fat rise? Or do you just think it's the it's not we're not covered by the right amount of insulin.
Jason 55:11
I think it's both on the day that he has the purchase lunch, which is always fast food, there's definitely a fat rise. And we have actually been more aggressive on our Pre-Bolus, I've had a bad like an extra unit or two on top of the carbs that he's, you know, counting up. And then on the days where he actually packs a lunch, I think it's, I really think we might start Pre-Bolus In more like 20 minutes before or even 25 minutes, I've noticed that he will. Typically his insulin will kick in about an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half after. That's when I will see it actually start impacting the food. So I guess what I'm struggling with is if you Pre-Bolus and say it's five units that you chose for lunch, and 45 minutes later, you're already over 200, it's still going up, but you'd have two, two and a half, three units of iob left on I guess I'm struggling with when did we go ahead and start adding more and more insulin?
Scott Benner 56:21
I mean, if it's not going to come back down on its own or without the algorithm pushing it, then my answer is before. I don't think the insulin on board. nothing inherently Juicebox Podcast should be considered by smoke or otherwise. And I don't think I don't think the insulin on board matters. If this Bolus that you've made is never going to bring down this high blood sugar. To me that's a simple, like glycemic load or fat impact, where you're you maybe you're counting the carbs, but it's the food needs. You know, not every food is created equal. So maybe the food needs more than its carb count indicates what I guess another
Jason 57:00
way of saying it would be if we had bolused correctly, it wouldn't have gone this high in the first place, either correctly with the right amount or Pre-Bolus longer or a combination of those two things you just eat, just go do it the right way. It shouldn't go that high period. Yes, that correct? Okay, listen,
Scott Benner 57:17
you just agreed with what I was going to say. So I don't know if it's correct. But I agree with you know, that's example might need my OLED display. It feels what it felt like as you've listened to the podcast when you just said that. Oh, I've been listening. That is exactly how I would think about it. Yes. Okay.
Jason 57:36
I just I need to get a little more aggressive with it. Yeah.
Scott Benner 57:39
And I'll tell you about the PE thing. I mean, tell me how high the spike is again.
Jason 57:45
It varies. Just yesterday, he went over 200, which I do not like that at all. It's so funny. When we were in high school, it was 300 was the point where I started getting very antsy and not happy. And this is we got the Dexcom and a pop especially. We lowered that. I don't like anything over 200. And really, I don't like anything over 160 these days. I'm really trying to tighten up his range. Look at his numbers right now. Yesterday. Yeah. Lunchtime. He went to about the 208. And then we goes for it. He plunged and went down to about 60. Yeah, then correct to that. And the rest of the day, it was actually pretty good. Well,
Scott Benner 58:28
maybe on P days, and just do a little more. Like try to keep the 200 to 180 and let the algorithm manage it down. If that's happening in a quick enough time for you. I mean, the goal, in my mind is that we don't want Skittles in his pocket. Right? Seriously, like we don't want him to have to eat to stop a low, and we don't want his PE to get interrupted. So do I want his blood sugar to be? I mean, listen, this weekend, someone said to me, what do you consider a high blood sugar? And I said, I said I consider 160 A spike after a meal I consider 180 high and a voice goes What do you consider 200? I said an unmitigated disaster like I'm not judging your blood sugar's is what I went on to say, though, I just said this is the scoring system I use in my head to keep things where they are. Right there. My action points, really more than anything. I don't even care about the numbers, their action points. 160 You know, all right, not a great Bolus, but it comes back and doesn't get low. Good job. 180 your high. I mean, that's just not going to magically come down on its own 200 we could end up here for three hours if we don't act correctly. And so those are the reasons why I acted those numbers in my mind. Me if he was my kid, I wouldn't want him to have to eat or drink during I'd want him to just be able to go play. And so if you can walk a line between taking a rise and then not getting low afterwards into P, I think that's terrific. But in any situation where you're bolusing, again, that insulin belongs in the initial Bolus. And maybe not all of it. Keep in mind, because the amount that you may need to stop the 200 is likely less because delivered timely than the amount you would need to drop the 200. So those numbers aren't the same. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah.
Jason 1:00:30
Okay. Yeah. I changed our range. I know, I think the standard range is what 70 to 180 that I produced Rs. 272 160. Based off of this thing to you and Ginny, talking about if you change your expectations, a lot of times you'll see different results. And sure enough, man, it's been fantastic. I'm, I'm looking right now. For the last 90 days we've been, I don't know if this is actually right. Sounds too good. We've been 98% in range. That's between 70 and 160. Yeah, between 70 and 160. What's that? Put
Scott Benner 1:01:07
your standard deviation at?
Jason 1:01:09
It double check this, that does not sound right. It's been pretty good. Like,
Scott Benner 1:01:14
I don't want to take credit for something that's not happening.
Jason 1:01:16
I'll make sure I'm being truthful.
Scott Benner 1:01:18
I'm going to connect on the wrong button. Oh, by the way, speaking about being truthful, while you're listening, I interviewed a lady last week who said something. And when she got done, I thanked her. I was like you just made the best episode of this podcast I've I can think of although the lady who said her bot exploded was she was pretty giving with the truth. But if you haven't heard that, when it's called butthole, adjacent, and you really should hear it. But
Jason 1:01:47
yeah, so there is no way that that's right.
Scott Benner 1:01:51
Why do you feel like that can't be right. Because you've seen high blood sugars in that timeframe?
Jason 1:01:57
Yes. So this I mean, right now I'm looking at says from February 2 to May 2 90%. In range, and oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, no wonder. Reading is Fundamental. Scott 72 times in range over that 90 day period. Best day was a 90%.
Scott Benner 1:02:21
Lot More. But so you're about 72% range over a month. Right.
Jason 1:02:28
Let's see here. 70. Okay, I finally have the great information. My apologies. So over 90 days, 78% Range 4%? Well, 3%, low 1%. Very low. And then 16%, high. 2%. Very high. And again, this is what the target range of 70 to 160. Yeah. And standard deviation over 90 days is 41. Over 30 days. 43. So we're hanging out around 40. standard deviations, basically, I'm
Scott Benner 1:02:58
not going to insult your standard deviation, but that's the number you should be working on. That'll help the other numbers. Okay, yeah, lower, better standard deviation. Great. was I gonna say there? I mean, listen, I sent our son off to college. And, you know, I mean, if you listen to the podcast long enough, like you'll hear, like, you know, sometimes I go to speak at something and they say, What do you want to call this talk, and I'm, I Call Bull with insulin. And they go, you call every one of your talks, but then something like, I don't want to come up with a name for the talk, just call that. And then they're like, well, but it needs to say something underneath. And I said, Well, we want to get people in the room so we can get the information to them. Scott's daughter's agency has been between five two and six, two for over eight years with no diet restrictions that will get people in the room. And because what we're and it's true, and, you know, it's at the crux of what I talked about. So I'm in that room today. And somebody says, you know, is that really true? And I said, Oh, it's absolutely true, I said, but she's gone now for her longest stint at college like Arden is currently away for the longest she's ever been away from home. It'll be four months in a couple of days. And she's not going to be home for another month, so aren't going to be gone for five months straight because of the way their system setups quarterly. So she basically did two quarters without coming home. Okay, hurry once these up. It's probably going to be 6465. And I don't care. Because the food they are serving are first of all is I mean, it looks good. When you when you walk in the cafeteria and they're selling you the school you're like this is lovely and nice and let she's like it's all garbage that she's like it's processed. It's fried. It's the same crap over and over again. And she's like, I'm telling you it is incredibly difficult to Bolus for. Like I'm seeing her eat three meals a day in this cafeteria. She's making three what I would call large Bolus is a day like Bolus is that I would think of is more for like, you know, five guys what a burger, that kind of stuff right and you Instead, this is her regular meal. And she's like, I'm not overeating. She's like, this is just the amount of food I insulin I need to get through this food. So when a regular day when Arden eats in the cafeteria three times, she has, in general, a Bolus from 10 to 17 units of insulin, like every meal, and if she happens to get like hungry at the end of the night, or something like that, she can't even get a snack without having to Bolus eight or nine units. Like it's just, it's terrible. So to me, she's not making herself low. She kept her a once the, on the high end of what the range we shoot for. And she's managing it on her own. I think that's brilliant. And she'll come home. And you know, we've taken steps already, I will say that, for people sending your kids off to college, one of the things, I eventually had Arden, and I'll talk on the podcast about how school went. But we did set up some accommodations for in the beginning, that very simple understanding for the school for what she has. And so when it was time to look for housing for next year, art is like some of these dorms have kitchens in them a refrigerator and a stove. And I want that, because I can't keep eating like this. And I'm like, okay, she's like, it's just it makes the diabetes just way harder than it needs to be. And I'm like, right, so she's like, so we, I guess petitioned the school to get her into one of those arrangements. And they were like, yeah, absolutely no problem. And Arjuna said, but I want my roommates to stay with me. Like this, we have met these three girls, and they understand my diabetes. And we get along. And you know, if I get low, like, somebody helps me and like, you know, like that kind of stuff. I don't want to lose them. So it took a little doing, but we got the school to designate those three kids as medically necessary. Good for y'all. Yeah, and moved all four of them into one of these, like larger apartment type things where art is like, I am going to start cooking for myself, because I don't even I don't want to be doing this the way I'm doing it right now. So I'm expecting art and SEO and C to drop by a half a point next time she goes back to college. Yeah,
Jason 1:07:09
so two things on that, first of all, thank you for sharing that her agency might be a little bit higher. And you're okay with that, though us as well. We started listening to podcast, I think he was eight one. Then three months, he went down to seven, three. Then he went to six, four. And then his last visit, which was about four to five months ago was six, six. So right in the mid 60s, that's terrific, by the way. Good for you. Well, thank you. Yeah. But again, I'm a little competitive. So I'm trying to get it down lower. He actually has an appointment tomorrow, be the first time in five months, as endocrinologist was out on maternity leave. So it'd be interesting. I'm fully expecting mid 60s again. I'm hopeful maybe it'll be 6364. But I don't I don't know if it's super realistic with his diet, the typical 13 year old Texas boy, he likes his carbs. And he likes his carbs. And yeah, I don't know if it's feasible for me to think we could get him under six, I'm gonna keep trying. But part of me is also thinking maybe I need to be content with the fact that he's a 13 year old boy without the best diet in the world. And he's in the mid 60s. As a type one diabetic,
Scott Benner 1:08:27
I try really hard to think about some of the late 20s people that I've interviewed over the years who had type one as a child. And how many of them I hear tell the story about I went off to college. I told everybody I knew what I was doing. I didn't. My agency went way up. I panicked. I stopped paying attention to it. It took I don't even know how I lived through college like me stories like that I've heard. Luckily, I met somebody after school, thought about dating and I wanted to be healthier like that those stories, right? I don't think there's a value in him living a life that you can manage that he can't manage. And that's kind of how I come to think about it now. I mean, I'm telling you, if you can see the food that they give you at school, like for people who haven't been there in a long time, it's it really is garbage at most colleges. And don't worry, because at most private institutions, your housing and food bill is lumped together. And I think right now the national average is around $14,000. So that's fun. And you're paying, you're paying 14 grand for them to eat garbage, and it's gonna it's gonna hurt their blood sugar. If you bring it up to the school. You know what they say? We know. Great, thanks. It's hard to cook for a lot of kids is it? It's great. It's hard to make a podcast and I just do it like Like, could you just do the thing you said you were gonna do? No. Okay. But I think the point is That Arden has not lost track of the goal. She does not not understand that this isn't what she wants. But she's not beating herself up about it. And she's not giving up on it. And to me, I think that's a good balance. Because she will come home, she will eat better food here. And she will continue to put the effort in and I already told her my garden, you're gonna come home, your agency is going to come down to half a point. Like just changing food is going to do that. And then we're going to, you know, my biggest concern is her fitting cooking into her life. So we're going to spend some time teaching her how to like prep meals and stuff like that. My son, I tell you what, Jason of all the things I didn't expect. My son left home for a job like four or five months ago now, four months ago, right? He was definitely a kid who would I mean, he's 22 When he got out of college, like, you know, and he'd come downstairs, he'd be like, Can I get some eggs? I'd be like, you know how to make eggs. Right? He goes, Yeah, he's like, but you're better at it. Like, okay. What's for dinner? Like, what's for dinner? I don't even know if I saw my mom when I was 22. I'm like, okay. So when we sent him off, I said to my wife, I was like, You think you'll starve? Or you think you'll think he's gonna put on 100 pounds like Uber eating like everything. But what ended up happening was, I've never been prouder of my parenting Jason, is that you know what? One over? He's cheap. And, also, yeah, so he gets gets his own apartment gets his job. Trust me. He's not thrilled he moves across the country. He's by himself. It's not easy. He's learning. It's a first because the baseball. So first job he's ever had in his whole life. Like no life, like he went from like, I play baseball to what time? Do I have to be there? Like, we're gonna be here all day. The whole day. Just do this, the noon will break off and come back tomorrow. Like he went to like, right into the world. And he's there for a week. And I get a FaceTime. And the phone is obviously propped up on the counter and his little apartment. And he goes, I need some help. How do I make this? And I'm like, what he goes, I'm making food. I bought these containers. I'm gonna eat the same thing for lunch every day. And I'm gonna make some stuff for dinner and have it aside, I am not spending money like this one food. That was like, wow, when it was my money. Nobody cared Jason, but okay.
Jason 1:12:35
It's funny how that works, right?
Scott Benner 1:12:38
I mean, in three days, he figured it out. He's like, yo, yo, how do you make this next thing? I know, I swear to you one day, he calls me to go ask me a question about something just cooking. At least we got cooking shows when he first moved away, which was kind of nice. We just we would sit and watch and make food. He's making these little chicken chunks wrapping bacon around them, like putting this like, I don't know what there was some sort of like fresh herbs was coming in. And he was begging them. So a couple days later, I said, Hey, how are those chicken things? Because all they're really good. I said, You making them again? He goes, No, they're too much work.
Jason 1:13:14
Where are the ramen noodles?
Scott Benner 1:13:15
He's like, I'm still gonna make chicken but I'm not going to all that trouble wrapping the bacon around and everything like that. That's right. That's way too much effort. Anyway, got his head right right away. And but but what it taught me was that this gap of time when Arden is home, we need to do this with her now. Because he's a kid with a job and nobody around him that he knows he's watching sports and going to work. And you know, you know, so he's got time, my daughter's not gonna have time to teach yourself how to like proportion or foods and cook and stuff like that. So I think we have to do it now before we send her back. So that's a good idea for sure. That's on my to do list for while she's home. You know, I was at that thing this weekend. Somebody said, Where's your high alarm setup? I took some crap from people Jason. I'm not gonna lie to you. What is it x people are very direct. Like, my, my wife's like, my wife's like, how was it? I said, if you take like, they're lovely people. And they like they're just there's no pretense. It's all just very honest. And like, right, you know, open. And I said, if you if you went there with the idea of being like, getting butthurt about something, you'd be in trouble real quick. Like, so.
Jason 1:14:29
Tell it like it is. I like it. Yeah, they
Scott Benner 1:14:30
was 100% like that. And so where's your high alarm set on your, the follow for your daughter? And I said, Well, her alarm is set at 130 the whole the whole room? I'm 30. And I said but mindset it wasn't 20 I mean, after the just shock left the room. Why is yours different than hers? And I said, Well, I like my alarm to go off before hers, so that I can kind of look and see what's going on because if it's like a real like Like situation like she's flying up, I don't even want to wait till 130 to do something about that I want to start thinking about it now. But if it's a simple thing, then you know, she never even gets the alarm. Like, I see 120 The curves down at like 126 comes back and she's never alarmed by that. And that's get what you expect that's setting your expectations using your insulin correctly, then I tried to explain it to them, you know, timing, like at the end of the thing they asked us, you know, interesting question. If you could just leave us with a bumper sticker. You know, what would it say? And I said, Oh, that's easy. timing and amount. That's it. Everything about diabetes is the right amount of insulin at the right time. And I mean, there are other things, if you let me give you a second bumper sticker, I'd say something else. And the third one might talk about glycemic index and stuff, but
Jason 1:15:49
might be a buffet nudge, because that's one of the most valuable things I learned quickly from the podcast was bumping and magic.
Scott Benner 1:15:57
Okay, I'm glad you said that. But you got to take what you learned from the bumping and nudging and put it into the bolusing. Okay, see what I'm saying? Like the goal is not to bump and nudge. So if you know the need is there, get it in, so you don't need to do it manually afterwards. But I agree with you. I think bobbing and nudging is an essential way about learning about diabetes, and at the same time, not letting your blood sugar's be crazy. Like 1,000,000%. But yeah, but if you're bumping and judging all the time, listen to the bumping and nudging to pro tip where I say, hey, when I mentioned you guys about bumping energy, I didn't mean to it forever. Did I not say that? The first one. I'm sorry.
Jason 1:16:40
I need to re listen to that episode. Yeah. That's hilarious.
Scott Benner 1:16:44
So do you ever think about your daughter? Have you thought about trial net? Or does she talk about it?
Jason 1:16:52
We haven't even broach the subject yet. But it'll be something we talked about. I'm sure at some point, let's see if she's interested in finding out or not, again, without a family history on either side. His diagnosis was such a shock. But it doesn't mean it's not possible. But no, we haven't spoken
Scott Benner 1:17:11
about it yet. I wouldn't call God Hashimotos. Like it almost knocked me off my feet. He is his whole young life, like a physical specimen. And just, you know, so active and what you think of is healthy when you look at somebody. And like, you know, we sent him for trial that all those years ago when he didn't have any markers for type one. And I just thought, oh, okay, well, that's that he got the he's gonna be the one that's okay. And she'll be the one that has this. And yeah, when he got that, like, it floored me, so I don't know. I know. It's up to her. She's older. You know what I mean? Like, I think I'm in the camp of I want to know. But, like, if it's possible that the I don't know. That's what I mean, listen, if you're hurt, I had prevention bio on here, right to talk about tz old which they called Tomislav, when it was in studies. He's the old market. That drug that infusion that, you know, once you have the markers and you're moving in the wrong direction, they say can, you know, keep diabetes, they delayed for a while. That company just got sold to Sanofi the other day. And I'm, I don't want to talk out of school. But I think Sanofi paid $3 billion for it. Wow. So somebody must be very hopeful about that science. is very interesting. Yeah. Is what it made me think I can see if I can find it.
Jason 1:18:37
Yeah, I mean, my initial thoughts are kind of the same as far as wanting to find out at some point, because at least you can be proactive for some things, if you know that. It may be coming. Yeah. But at the same time, ignorance is bliss in many ways. So I
Scott Benner 1:18:55
understand. Trust me, I understand both sides of that argument. 100% March 13, Sanofi agrees to pay 2.9 billion for prevention bio. Wow. Okay, it seems like a couple of dollars. And also not for nothing. It's an awfully, but it seems like you can afford to repeat your ad. You know what I mean? Give me a call. So I mean,
Jason 1:19:18
speaking of you guys use a Pietra Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:19:20
Is that correct? Yes. And I'm the only one I'm the only one with a voice in this community who says a pager and I don't hear from nobody, you know what I mean? And apparently there's 3 billion sitting in a bank somewhere. I don't need 3 billion.
Jason 1:19:33
So World War on human logs, but I'm actually wanting to try a pager just to see if there's any difference in the way he responds to it. So that's, I actually have that listed as a question for our next endo appointment. Tomorrow is to see about maybe getting a picture prescribed just just to give it a try. Figure, why not?
Scott Benner 1:19:53
If you ask that your doctor is going to tell you not not many insurance companies cover it. That's by the way, if I'm joking, sidewise an office not buying ads work. And they'll probably talk to you about fee Asper loom Jove, and tell you that it's faster. I will tell you I think Arden would be using FASB if it didn't burn her when she uses it. So she gets its things and it leaves her site sore, which is a there's an additive, I think it's vitamin D that makes it work faster. And some people don't tolerate it well, and Arden doesn't. So but here's what I love about a pager for Arden super smooth. Like, I this is not a lie. I haven't seen two arrows in either direction, in years. And I attribute that to the picture. And the truth is, I mean, I haven't seen an arrow up and very often, like we don't see straight up and down arrows very often. And I attribute that not just to how you know we use insulin and that artists using an algorithm, but that that the pager just seems to work very smoothly in her.
Jason 1:21:05
And is that regardless of the pump she used with it. She's
Scott Benner 1:21:09
only ever used it with Omni pod, but she's used it with Omni pod, no algorithm, Omni pod five Omni pod with loop. Okay,
Jason 1:21:18
yeah, that's actually more what I meant by the question. Yeah, different types. You know, it's just same result.
Scott Benner 1:21:24
I swear to you, I a double arrow would absolutely. That would shock me more than call heaven. Hashimotos. like, Wait, what happened? What did we do wrong? Is there a problem?
Jason 1:21:37
Yeah, see, I want to get to that point. I see double arrows a little too often. Yeah, so I mentioned crashing, you know, working on that as well. Just being a little more aggressive with it. I wouldn't be doing any of this without having that CGM. Just the peace of mind. Being able to keep up with everything. I think. I think it was Ginni once said that, you know, she could only have one piece of technology had to give up everything else. The one piece that she would cling to for her life was the CGM. Yeah, and I couldn't agree more.
Scott Benner 1:22:07
No, I'm with you. I mean, it's, uh, I mean, in today's world, it's a it's a false equivalent. But yes, if you absolutely said to me, just one, I'd say I will get the CGM. And you know, we'll go back to MDI and figure out the rest, and it won't be as easy. I mean, listen, between you, me and whoever's listening. Those algorithms are amazing. Like, they're just amazing. I spent so much time with people this weekend, who were wearing a lot of on the pod five, a lot of control IQ in the room, which was super interesting. And I'll break down another episode somewhere because they don't use a lot of technology. But when it's for their health, it's, you know, kind of permissible, there are people who fundamentally do not know what they're doing with their blood sugar's who are still keeping a one, season seven. And that's astonishing. And not only that, but and these people would not mind me sharing this, the food that they're eating every weekend for Schabas. is, I mean, it's carb heavy is not like a great description, like, like, there. I don't know if anybody knows what Kugel is, but I learned this weekend. And it's a lot of noodles compressed down into it's so dense, you feel like you could throw a piece of it at somebody and hurt. Like, I just noodles and oil and like, you know, and just honest, like, I don't know how many of you are doing this. But I was astonished at how well they were all doing. But algorithm, like the people who weren't on the algorithms were struggling more than people who were on them, even though they could maybe mess up a meal and end up at 250. They go to bed. And when they wake up in the morning, it's back down again. Is that optimal? It's not but it's way better than waking up at 250. Still,
Jason 1:23:51
yeah, we started Omnipod, five last July, actually received it while we were on vacation, learned that it had been shipped. And we started it right after getting back from Disney World. And it's got that algorithm. It's not perfect. No technology is but it has given us our nights back in our sleep back. And I mean, the only lows we fight at night on a consistent basis now are Oh goodness. What's the term for it when he's lying on his CGM compression, compression? I could not think of the word compression. Yeah, compression. Those are the only time he truly goes low at night, and I still haven't figured out where to put that thing on the floor. You won't just instinctively lie flat on it. Get a compression but the Omnipod five, it's been a saint for us particularly overnight.
Scott Benner 1:24:45
That's excellent. Maybe fingers crossed the g7 when it's available to us with AMI pod five maybe that will help with compression loads if we're lucky, very
Jason 1:24:53
hopeful. stoked about the warmup time it just the smaller size for sure. But yeah, in the back of my mind I'm taking baby can afford to have as many compression but yeah, we'll see time will tell.
Scott Benner 1:25:03
Yeah, when I visited art and a couple of weeks ago, just there was Parents Weekend. And Kelly's like, she's starting to talk weird. I'm like, she's like, she's like, I can't wait to come home for the summer. And I'm like, that's weird. She goes, you know, art is not like, like, very, she's not incredibly demonstrative. But I'm like, and she's like, I'm excited to come home for summer. She's like, you should go down for Parents Weekend. So I flew down and got her hotel room, and it just yanked her out, like, just kept with me for two nights, you know, like, we hung out together, but the mattress was just a little harder. And she was wearing a G six. And the compression was like, we're just like, I don't know something about where she was wearing it. And that mattress, right, it's like, and then so last night, I mean, aside from the fact that she did lit one o'clock in the morning, she switched to g7 last night. So I mean, my God. And you know what I did? I'll tell you, my emotional maturity. I'm almost my age now. My emotional maturity,
Jason 1:26:03
because several ways to go, but you
Scott Benner 1:26:07
sent a whole, I had a whole text type that was like, This is why I told you to change this thing thing sooner. Like, you're pitching me now that it's late, and I'm texting, you know, like, that was the whole text. And then I just deleted it. And I said, Hey, let's just get this taken care of, so we can go to sleep.
Jason 1:26:29
But let me ask this, though, was tics are typing it out, but not see me get ahead to be somewhat therapeutic? Right? I mean, a little bit.
Scott Benner 1:26:38
Is one in the morning, I'm standing direction. Listen, for Christ's sake. I mean, you know, you know what, I stopped myself. I'm saying about a half a dozen times a year. There are countless hundreds of 1000s of people who would pay me to stand here and talk to them about this. And you're looking at me, like I got three heads. And I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm the guy from the podcast. My best advice, do this earlier in the evening. And by the way, not brain surgery, what I've just said, you know, perfectly logical, but where the annoyance came from is it's me in my underwear standing on a hard floor in the hallway. So I don't wake my wife up trying to talk to her about her, you know, and I'm just like, I'm cold, and I'm tired. And I'm still rebounding from the weekend because not for nothing. Orthodox people don't use electricity, sundown Friday, sundown Sunday, or Sunday on Saturday, that gap of time. And I don't know if you've ever tried to talk to a room of hundreds of people without a microphone. But it's not easy. I'm like drained. Still, when I get home, like I know that sounds weird. But talking a lot. Accessing ideas, delivering them clearly. projecting your voice. And then I No, this is not a humble brag, but at these situations, I can't walk five feet. Like, I'm like inside of a diabetes gathering. You know, I'm, I'm Tom Cruise around brisky business, like, like, I take five steps and people like Scott, I just have a question. And then that's a 15 minute conversation. And when I get done, and I look up, there are four people standing behind them waiting for their turn, and I'm like, I'm just trying to get to the water bottles on the other side of the room. And then someone goes, I'll get it for you like, Ah, okay, I'm not getting out of this. I say. It's really exhausting. And then like, you know, I finally get home and now I'm in the hallway freezing going. We couldn't have done this four hours ago. Anyway.
Jason 1:28:58
I feel your pain. Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:29:01
Somebody with young kids at this thing this weekend says when does it get easier? I said, I'll let you know when that happens. I mean, how old are your children? I said, 23 and 19. It's not easier yet. I'm like, I mean, I'm still worried about them. And they still run into things they don't understand. And, you know, like, I don't know what's easier. Maybe
Jason 1:29:27
that will ever change. It might evolve a little bit. But yeah, it's just that's part of parenting.
Scott Benner 1:29:33
One of my breaks on Saturday, I called my mom just check in on her. And she's asking me how it's going. And I'm telling her, you know, we were on the phone to talk and she goes Scott, why don't you lay down instead? I'm 51 my mom's like, take a nap.
Jason 1:29:51
Don't bother taking advice.
Scott Benner 1:29:53
I mean, I like to watch the baseball league and watch a baseball game. Is that the same thing? Little minutes, but But I mean, just that's the point like my 80 year old mother was like, Oh, we have time to talk. But then when she heard that I was like, text like, you know, stretching myself, she's like, why don't you rest instead you have a couple hours off. You're like taking a break, by the way, thanks to the Rabbi's wife, who, like just grabbed me by the shoulders and was like, go go take a break. She's like, they're never gonna leave you alone. Just get out of here. I'm like, Okay, I need to have somebody walk me to the elevator. So it can look official so I could get away. Actually, anyway, I'm available for speaking engagements.
there anything we haven't talked about that you would have liked to?
Jason 1:30:45
Man, I don't really think so. I mean, if there's one piece of advice I could give, especially to those that were little over two years in to this diagnosis is, number one would be found this podcast, you, you have found the right place. But number two is advocate for if it's yourself as the type one diabetic, or if you're a parent of a type one diabetic, advocate for your child, both with providers with insurance companies don't take just stock answers. This is how we do things. You know, again, I think we were supposed to wait three months before we got to CGM and six months for a pump. And I just kept pushing and kept learning and researching these things and got both things and half the amount of time. Yeah, so I mean, I totally understand, needing to learn the basics of multiple daily injections and how to handle it at that most basic level in case you know, technology just all of a sudden vanishes. But six weeks was enough time for us to be very comfortable with using, you know, Basal and Bolus and doing fingerprints and all that, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:31:56
I lost track of the amount of people this weekend that told me their TSH was three, but their doctor told them they don't need you know, Synthroid, but they have every symptom of hypothyroidism. You know, it's in range, you're good, don't worry about it. Right. They're struggling every day trying to like hold their head up, you know. So you got to advocate for yourself, let's I spend a lot of time telling people that this weekend, and I appreciate you bringing it up to and
Jason 1:32:23
beyond that. One of the things I learned again, from you guys, just box is also making corrections. So once you get, you know, if you do evolve and go to a pump, and not to wait in between your three month appointments with your endo to make corrections to your correction factor, any of the things, particularly if you have a CGM just to be your best advocate when it comes to making small adjustments and see how that works. So I can't thank you guys above for everything you do. Scott and Jenny, everybody else, it's been amazing. I ran into a an old friend today. In fact, while I was walking this morning, first thing, and I was listening to one of the latest episodes that came out and I just shared with them, you know, just how helpful the podcast has been to us and to countless others across the world.
Scott Benner 1:33:19
Thank you, I really appreciate that. I don't It's not off putting to you, like part of the country you're in when I tell silly stories or say bizarre things that people
Jason 1:33:29
keep listening. Okay. I think our sense of humor is are very similar. That's, you make it easier to digest and the use of humor and just crazy things you might say here and there. It just cracks me up.
Scott Benner 1:33:44
Oh, good. I was shocked this weekend when I mean, I got again, I'm not bragging, but I got stopped a lot this weekend walking around. And, you know, just very polite, like, thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate it. I think part of that was because people kept telling me like, there's going to be a massive culture shock when you get to this event. And I have to tell you that if you I separated the, like the religion is, is different. It's just different than what I'm accustomed to seeing. And if you just separate that, and I mean, they're just just everyone's got a big beard, like, you know, the the clothes are different, like, you know, they have, I mean, I acted as the shabbos goy for someone. Do you know what that means? Jason? I do not. I went to their hotel room on Saturday night to shut the lights off for them, because they're not allowed to operate the switches. And so, I mean, that's how specific I mean, that's the tip of the iceberg for what their their religion in their culture is like, but every time I got together with a bunch of ladies or a bunch of guys, and we stood and talked. I couldn't I can't tell you that there's no difference. It's between those people and anybody else I've ever met my entire life. Right? Like, you know, and so very quickly, I just gave away the idea of like, this isn't like forget the culture shock. Like, who cares? They don't dress the way I do, like, what do I care, you know. But anyway, they that everywhere I stopped, thank you so much for coming. And then I, you know, and we appreciate it like that there was a lot of that. But then afterwards, if I stopped to stand and talk for a second, I lost track of the number of people telling me how digestible the information was, and how other people have come and spoken here. But you know, it's boring, or I didn't understand any of it, or it didn't stick with me. And then a man comes to me an older gentleman. And he says, 45 years I've had diabetes. You're the first person that ever stood on that stage and made sense to me. Yeah. And I thought, cool. Like, I don't know why. But everybody mentioned, thank you for making it easier to understand. Thank you for bringing some humor into it. It always feels so sad and solid and didn't feel like that this weekend. I said, Oh, great. Well, it's not if you don't let it be, you know, so,
Jason 1:36:10
as far as I'm concerned, you are doing what you were put on this earth to do, Scott, with this podcast and with all of your efforts. It's just it was meant to be as far as I'm concerned.
Scott Benner 1:36:22
I appreciate that very much. It means a lot to me and made me feel a little tingly. And it's weird because I'm looking at a picture of you and you look like you could kill a bear if you wanted to. Alright, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say goodbye. And then I have other questions for you. Oh, I do have one other question. Did listen to this podcast lead you to listen to any other podcasts or your podcast personnel?
Jason 1:36:42
Yes. Yes. So one of my favorite is fly on the wall podcast. This was Dana Carvey and oh my gosh, I really got a David Spade. Yeah, why don't David Spade me. And I I do listen to other podcasts as well. Now, so yeah, you. You broke the ice man. I started listening to Juicebox Podcast fan now. I'm
Scott Benner 1:37:06
glad. That's excellent. All right, Jason, thanks so much. Hold on for me one second.
Jason 1:37:10
Thank you. Yep.
Scott Benner 1:37:20
I want to thank Jason for coming on the show and sharing his story. And actually, I got to meet Jason in person at a speaking event I did recently in Texas. It was lovely to meet him and his family. Let's thank also Omni pod and remind you to go to Omni pod.com/juicebox To get started right now with the new pod five or Omni pod Dash. And speaking of Omni pod five, brand new content coming next week. Look for Ask the Expert in your podcast player. There'll be three episodes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Other things to look for the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, and cozy earth.com thank them so much for sponsoring. And don't forget to use their offer code juice box at checkout to save 40% off of your entire order. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast right after I go to touched by type one.org and see what they're up to
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#1076 Hey Tall Boy
Claren is in med school, has type 1 diabetes and some thyroid issues.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 1076 of the Juicebox Podcast
CLARIN has had type one diabetes for 18 years since she was 12 years old. She's in her fourth or fifth year of residency. She's a surgeon, and she's got type one diabetes, some thyroid issues, and a great story. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. Apple podcast listeners. If you're using that Apple podcast app, I need you to do me a favor with the last update to iOS 17, the podcast app changed and it might have mucked up your downloading, go to your library, touch Juicebox Podcast touch the top right corner the three dots, then choose settings after settings automatically download after you choose that click on all new episodes, and then everything will be back to the way it should be. Thank you very much for doing that. In return, you can get 40% off of all of your comfortable clothes. At cozy earth.com. When you use the offer code juice box at checkout, there's also sheets and towels and just a ton of great stuff. Just kidding, that would that happens whether you do the thing of the podcast app or not. But the thing of the podcast app would really help me. Apple made some changes to settings. And to be blunt, it's not good for me. And when it's not good for me is not good for you because you want this podcast and I want to make it for you. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Dexcom Dexcom, of course makes the Dexcom G seven ng six continuous glucose monitoring systems. And moreover, it's amazing dexcom.com/juice box my daughter is wearing the G seven right now. It's small and lovely. You're going to want to take a harder look at it at dexcom.com/juice box links in the show notes. Links at juicebox podcast.com. The podcast is also sponsored today. By ag one that's drink ag one.com/juice box. You can start your day the same way I do with the delicious, refreshing drink of ag one. Get five free travel packs in the year supply of vitamin D with your first order when you use my link.
Claren 2:38
I'm clearing I'm 20 Nope, not 29 anymore. I just turned 30 This past year. Happy birthday. Thanks. Well, it's been a while now. I'm just still not used to being 30 that I take it back on an unhappy thing. But 30 years old. I have had diabetes since I was 12. Diagnosed a few months after my 12th birthday in sixth grade. Wow. And so yeah, going on. I think it's actually been 18 years. Yeah, as of January. Yeah. And
Scott Benner 3:08
you're only 30. And
Claren 3:10
I'm 30 Yeah, yeah, that
Scott Benner 3:11
reminds that reminds me of when a doctor said to me once like don't worry, like complications from type one don't come for like 30 years. And I was like, but she's she's too. Right. And he looked at me. I'm like, so you mean, she'll be 32? And he Yeah, and he goes, Oh, yeah, that's not comforting. And I went right. Thank you. Terrific bedside manner. Thanks a lot. Yeah. Meanwhile, even just that long ago, expectations for diabetes aren't even what they what they are now. Oh, absolutely not. Yeah, really cool. I'm sorry. Good. So you were 18 years ago? 12 years old. What are 12? Yes. What? Yes. 12.
Claren 3:48
And I started with the pins. I think I did. Actually I didn't have pens. When I started. I remember drawing insulin out of vials, and use, I believe human lager Novolog and that was maybe the beginning of like Lev Amir. So I think that's what I started with. I did that for a while and then got switched to the pins. And then got my first pump when I was actually in college and undergrad, and then went back off the pump because I was tired of it being on me 24/7 And then I went to medical school where things got more complicated. And that's when I went back on the pump and I've been on ever since
Scott Benner 4:30
you just made me realize you just made me realize artists never seen an insulin pen in our life. Well, she was diagnosed it too. They gave her syringes. No one ever, like suggested there was something else. And then she got right on Omnipod How about that? Yeah.
Claren 4:50
I did pins for quite some time. So I probably did pins for longer than I've had a pump at this point that we're probably catching up. It's probably about half an hour. And
Scott Benner 5:00
you've gone off and off and on with the pump. What was your first pump?
Claren 5:03
The first pump was a Medtronic, it was blue. I can't remember what the model name was. But it was much different than the ones now it was kinda generic and or like basic, I should say, No, it didn't have like a color screen or anything. And that was probably like 2011 that I was on that maybe 2012 did that for a few years. And then I just didn't want it was a tube pump. I didn't want it anymore and went back to pins and I was doing okay with the pins. I wasn't doing great, but I did okay. And then like I said, got busy when I went to medical school actually got a Dex calm before I got back on the pump. And then it just made everything a lot easier. Yeah. And actually, what triggered me going back on the pump the second time is I was diagnosed with Graves disease, and had a really hard time controlling blood sugar's and it was kind of a misdiagnosis initially, because my thyroid labs were, I had all the symptoms of graves. But when we checked my labs the first time they were normal. So I like went through three more months. I was tachycardic. Er, and just ended up having a cardiology workup because they were like, well, we don't know why your heart rates 120 all the time. And then we're like, let's just reach at the thyroid labs. And at that point, they're like, oh, yeah, this is great. This totally makes sense. Yeah. So that was when I went back on the pump. And I've been on it. And since then, I'm on a tandem.
Scott Benner 6:27
This actually happened to Arden, not exactly the same, but she got her hypothyroid diagnosis, and you know, lived with it, going along just fine. And then she started to I don't know if I've ever been really clear about this or not. But Arden was a very tiny person. And then she got her thyroid diagnosis. They put her on Synthroid, and she grew like a lot. So Arden went from being the tiniest kid in her school, to she's as an adult, five, seven. And so she gains weight as she gets taller. And now I know, looking back, of course her Synthroid needs would have gone up because of the mass change in her weight. And instead, she ends up getting a full cardiac workup for her thyroid symptoms. Right. Yeah. Which was upsetting, as you may be able to imagine. Yeah, yeah. So graves, how does graves Come on?
Claren 7:25
Well, it was, I started noticing, actually, it was my heart rate. I was like sitting in class one day. And I just realized, like, Man, I kind of feel like I'm a little tired. Like, my heart feels like it's racing. And you know, the Apple Watches, you can click your heart rate. And it was like sitting at like, 120, just into a lecture. And I'm like, this is weird. And so I kind of brushed it off, I was exercising quite a bit at that time. And so I was noticing that, like, when I was working out, my heart rate was going like way higher than it had been in the past. So it was kind of a few weeks of figuring that out. And then I was like, this isn't normal. And then I started having, I was losing weight as well. Like I said, I was working out and I was like, Man, I just I'm doing good, a good job. And then I went to see my endocrinologist, I think just like a routine checkup. And I kind of explained the symptoms to her. And she was like, yeah, what could be thyroid, and I don't know if I was due for my yearly labs or whatever. But we ended up checking them and they were normal. And she was like, I don't really know what to tell you. But just see how it goes. And then I was referred to cardiology. I did like the whole holter monitor and got an echo and everything. And of course, it was normal, other than having just a mild, fast heart rate. And then I started having like a lot of anxiety too. And then shortly after that, I've always been a very like type a prompt person. And there was two or three occasions where I was late for work, or late for my rotations that I was on. And my roommates who I lived with were also medical students. And there was one instance where I just overslept. And like I got up late and they were still home and like, they couldn't understand like what I was saying like it wasn't making sense when I was talking. And we think retrospectively what happened is I may have had like, some kind of seizure and I was in like a post electoral state when I woke up and that was the reason I overslept in alarm because I don't have any have any recollection of this. And so I think it was having just such wild blood sugar swings in addition to the attack cardio and the anxiety and the sweats and it all just like mounted to be this graves diagnosis.
Scott Benner 9:31
Wow, that's easy. That's so interesting. I mean for me, not for you. It's terrible for you.
Claren 9:35
That's interesting. I know. Yeah. Hey,
Scott Benner 9:37
I do have a question. What was it like to like, suddenly be hit with a wave of anxiety? I'm assuming you weren't an anxious person prior. If you're a longtime listener, you probably know that I've been drinking ag one for a couple of years. Not only did it replace my multivitamin, but I love that every scoop also includes prebiotics and digestive enzyme For gut support, you know that there's magnesium in there too. Vitamin B it's, it's just a good mix. And it's easy to drink and tastes great. I mix my ag one, just a scoop with some cold water right from the refrigerator. You know, shake it up real good and the shaker bottle that they gave me with my first order. And it goes right down. I know some of you are probably thinking, I don't know what does that tastes like but I have a very particular palette, and I enjoyed you one. It is not difficult for me to drink, not in the least. So if you want to take ownership of your health, it starts with ag one try ag want to get a free one year supply of vitamin d3 k two and five free ag one travel packs with your first purchase. Go to drink ag one.com/juicebox That's drink ag one.com/juice box, check it out. Hey, it's the end of the year, good time to be buying stuff with your medical insurance, you've probably already fulfilled your deductible. The rest of the years, you know, no out of pocket, you know I'm saying maybe this is a perfect time to check out Dexcom dexcom.com/juicebox Whether you're looking for the Dexcom G six or g7 my link is the way to go. Once you get there, you can just simply click get started or take a look around because the new Dexcom G seven is fabulous. Dexcom G seven helps us to manage Ardens diabetes confidently, it's an easier way to manage diabetes without finger sticks. Dexcom G seven is a simple CGM system that delivers real time glucose numbers to your smartphone or your smartwatch. No finger sticks required. Effortlessly see your glucose levels and where they're headed. So you can make smarter decisions about food and activity in the moment. dexcom.com/juice, boxers videos, there's information. You look around, you can see how the app looks right there on Wow, that's nice actually, it's like a little graphic. It shows you how the Oh, look at that shows you how the clarity app works. This is a new graphic. I hadn't seen this one before. Anyway, you're gonna love it. dexcom.com/juice box when you're using my link, you're supporting the podcast. And that is very much appreciated. Don't forget one two there. Hit that Get Started button. Watch this. I'm going to tell you Arden's blood sugar right now. My phone is in front of me. It's laying down. She's not here, she's at a friend's ready, watches, pick up my phone, swipe up. Phone opens blood sugar 97. and stable. Amazing right there on my iPhone, you got an iPhone, you might have an Android, you can use either one. You know, you want to learn more? Check out my link.
Claren 12:46
I'm baseline kind of anxious, but I think it's like the amount of anxiety that makes me functional. Like, I'm just always like, go go go. And like I said, very type A and it's just my baseline level anxiety is just my normal. So
Scott Benner 13:07
was it like shock? And by the way, way to like strong, strong title possibility baseline anxious to do something else to get us off of that one. But was it enough that it was like a conscious thought? Like, I'm not usually this anxious? Like, yeah,
Claren 13:23
I noticed a difference. And it was, I was just a lot more like in terms of studying, I felt like I had to do more. And I wasn't doing as well. And I just felt like I wasn't functioning as like as highly as I used to. So I was more worried about the fact that like I'm trying to I'm trying harder to accomplish things. I'm not achieving the same outcome. Because I was having that anxiety that was just like creeping in and really affecting multiple areas of my life.
Scott Benner 13:56
I was at a an event this weekend where I spoke to a lot of people with diabetes. And first thing I thought to tell you when you told me about the pump you had was that somebody pulled an animus ping out of their pocket and showed it to me this. I was like, where did you get that? Yeah, I can't believe that still works. The other thing is that I spent a lot of time trying to explain to them impacts that they'll have from things like thyroid, low iron, hormones, things that I don't I don't believe a lot of people are even made aware of let alone know to look for when something starts happening. So and you said you said my favorite thing around thyroid, which is and I hope people heard it. You had all the symptoms. But they look at you and said oh no, your labs are fine. So we'll just ignore the symptoms. And
Claren 14:41
yeah, I wouldn't say they ignored them. It was just okay. We need to find out what's going on if this is not so, and it probably took three months before I had labs rechecked again, and by that point, I was just like losing my mind.
Scott Benner 14:54
Yeah, but were you in there on day one thing, there's something wrong with my thyroid?
Claren 14:59
No because, like I said, I had been exercising quite a bit, I was just stressed out from being a medical student. And I mean, I had lost maybe five or 10 pounds. So it wasn't like that much. Because it was just really like, there were things to explain the symptoms. It just was all together when you hear all of them now you're like, Oh, that's a thyroid problem. Yeah,
Scott Benner 15:20
but it is. maddening, right, that so many autoimmune issues all share the same core symptoms, right? It's just really as frustrating. You say for things. They're like, Yeah, that could be this. It could be this. It can be like, great. Good, big help. Okay, so you get that worked out with medication? Did you ever swing around, I hear stories. Sometimes people start graves, and they'll get hypo. And they'll come back again, like, where are you?
Claren 15:46
So I actually, I was in third year medical school about to start a rotation in surgery. And I've since decided to become a surgeon. And I knew that leading up to that, I was just not going to be able to function in that surgery rotation. If I was still having any kind of those symptoms, I was just not performing at my highest. And so I went to my first week, my endocrinologist tried the methimazole. And I actually was having like, an orthostatic type of response to it. Like anytime I'd stand up too quickly, I feel like I was gonna pass out so I didn't do too well with the medications. And she was like, well, the other option is you can do the radioactive iodine to ablate the thyroid or we can just schedule you for surgery or get you in to see a surgeon and you can take it out surgically and that's what I ended up choosing to do. So about I think it was like eight days after I was diagnosed. I tried the medicine for like a week and then I got in with the surgeon and then the next week we had a thyroidectomy.
Scott Benner 16:44
So we take that out and then we some now we supplement with Synthroid
Claren 16:48
Synthroid. Yes. And that works for you. Yes, it does. I actually also just had twins about four months ago. So the that was really fun to figure out the dose adjustment to that with the Synthroid way, up way down. Way. So my base dose, which is actually higher than I would expect for my weight was 137. And I was taking ended up taking up to 200 a day when I was pregnant. Wow.
Scott Benner 17:13
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a big number until you remember that the thyroids? not there at all. So yeah, you don't have to supplement with any teeth or anything. Your energy's good all that. Well, exactly. Say
Claren 17:24
my energy is about as good as it can be for new mom with four month old twins, a
Scott Benner 17:29
30 year old lady that just had two babies and as a doctor, yeah, yeah. I'm standing up, Scott. It's all good. Yeah, most days. Yeah, most days, right. Oh, that's, that's really something. So I guess go back a little bit. You're diagnosed as a young child like you, do you manage it yourself? Do your parents help you? How did how were the first few years. first
Claren 17:52
few years, it was actually I was diagnosed right around the time that my parents were actually getting a divorce. And so I lived with just my mom at the time. And I remember, she spent so much like effort counting out everything specifically, like we'd have pre portioned like green beans and containers and like, you'd have to count everything by the exact carbon, we just were like, to the tee for the first few years. And then I'd say probably a year or two into it, I was like, you know, 13 years old starting to kind of want to do things on my own. And that's probably when I switch to the pins. And I just kind of took over from that point in time. Okay. And that's, she would like checking in with me. But it may be more like irritable as a teenage girl to feel like she was constantly checking up on me than to just manage things on my own. So it ended up being really just me managing it from that point. And I did an okay job. I think retrospectively, I didn't have the dex calm and it was, I didn't check it as much as I should. But few times a day, I would check it, I'd say it was decent numbers. And then of course, every now and then you just would have highs or lows. And I just treat them how I knew treat them. And it's just so different now.
Scott Benner 19:12
Now, were you able to take that knowledge you had from growing up in school, were you able to take it to college and maintain your level of management?
Claren 19:23
I'd say undergrad, kind of when I I'd spent my first year at college locally and commuted to college and then I transferred to a larger university and lived away from home and probably that's when I had less control over everything just because I was eating on my own eating more fast foods, things like that. And just had the freedom to do whatever like whatever schedule I wanted. So I probably had a onesies up to the like eight, maybe even nine at that point in time for a very few short years and retrospective and like, Why was I doing but by the time I got to medical school I was, I'd say I kept them probably around seven, which is crazy to think now because I'm doing much better control wise now. But at the time, like, my endocrinologist was happy with that. And I was under the impression like, that's good enough. And that's when I had gone back on pins. And I didn't have the Dexcom yet. And it's just my standards now are so different from my standards, then. And I felt like I was doing fine, probably with I just wasn't putting in the effort that I should have. How do
Scott Benner 20:36
you think about it? When you look back? Was it really like not putting in the effort? Or were you taxed to the point where you had to let something go? And that's what you let go?
Claren 20:44
I think it's both because I was probably just kind of in audit mode with how I handled the diabetes like, I didn't Pre-Bolus like I should have been probably that's the the main thing that I needed to do differently. I don't think my like numbers, or my doses were crazy off. It was just, I wasn't always taking insulin before I ate or I wasn't always eating healthy. And then I would just either correct it how I knew to correct it, or just worry about it later. So
Scott Benner 21:17
at that point, undergrad, you don't have a Dexcom. You said you got that in medical school. Right? Correct. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. I mean, how often do you think you were testing? In college?
Claren 21:27
I'd say probably like four times a day. Yeah. So probably anytime a when it came down, it
Scott Benner 21:34
made me laugh, because I thought like, what if I took your CGM right from you now and said here, you can just ask, do you think you'd test four times a
Claren 21:40
day? And probably charge like 14 times?
Scott Benner 21:44
That's something how it's just a little more technology leads you to, to so much more, what makes you um, I mean, people come on here and tell stories all the time, I grew up with diabetes. And that's what made me want to be a physician or nurse or something. Did that have any impact on you?
Claren 21:59
Yeah, initially, I had wanted to go to medical school and be a pediatric endocrinologist just because when I was growing up, I didn't really like any of the physicians, I saw. I saw some nurse practitioners as well. That just nobody really, like, I just didn't like them. And I was like, I'm going to be a cool doctor that it's going to be understand what's going on, kids are going to be able to be comfortable, like telling me about their problems. And then I go to medical school, do my pediatric pediatrics rotation, I was like, Man, these parents are really hard to deal with. And then I went to, like other rotations. And I was like, it's just not for me to work with the kid. It's, I would love to be able to do just diabetes care, just type one diabetes care for kids. But there's so many other things that come with doing peds in endocrinology, that I just didn't really have interest in.
Scott Benner 22:50
Yeah, so yeah, actually, diabetes is a pretty small part of their practice, right?
Claren 22:55
It's a very small part of the practice. Yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 22:57
I honestly, I think that in the 16 years, Arden was in a peds hospital. I don't know that we laid eyes on that doctor, maybe a half a dozen times. It's about it's always the nurse practitioner or, you know, a CDE or something like that that was helping you. So no, make that that makes sense to me. And if you don't have the interest, then what are you gonna do? Right? So you lean towards surgery eventually?
Claren 23:26
Yes. And that was just because I feel like you can you can fix people's problems with surgery. They show up. They're like, Hey, I'm having this gallbladder pain. You take the gallbladder out, and they feel better. Yeah. So it's things like that. It's just more of an instant gratification than some like in medicine, where you can't really fix anything unless a patient's willing to change something on their own, whether that's their lifestyle, their diet, they're willing to do exercise, things like that. And it's just Yes, you can you can change things. I shouldn't say that. But it takes longer times and a lot more effort. And that's just not how America is. Yeah.
Scott Benner 24:06
And the failure rates higher too. Right, right. Yeah. Hey, can you give me something called, let's see Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery, because I'm starting to think I might need that.
Claren 24:15
Once you remove your first rib,
Scott Benner 24:19
my like for like the last 10 years. I have a lawnmower right? That I have to reach out to drive. And when I do it, my left hand gets cold. And more recently, it's been if I sleep on my stomach with my hands over my heads, my hand gets numb or cold. And now yesterday, I was like pushing a cart around the store. And my hand was getting numb and cold. And I was like unbelievable. So I texted a friend of mine who's a different kind of surgeon. And I was like I said if I'd said that, every time I raised my arms, it feels like something either in my shoulder or my elbow was is pinching like I don't like it doesn't feel it there but like it's the only thing that Get like I can imagine like, it feels like something structural is happening. And he's like, Oh, it might be this. And I was like, Yeah, I was hoping for something with a pill. And he got used to there's no pill for this. And then he just sent me a big knife in text messages, which I did not find that comforting, but I thought he must have found amusing. By the way, Claire and I think he had very quick access to the knife emoji as if I'm not the first person who's received the text message. Anyway, I have not been to a doctor. I don't know if that's actually what's wrong, but it is really fascinating. Like, if I just lift my left arm up for too long, my hand goes numb. So would I look thinner without the rib? Or would I look silly?
Claren 25:41
Well, I don't think you'd look much different. Damn.
Scott Benner 25:46
Well, then, what's the point? I'll just keep my arm down. Yeah. So what kind of surgeries do you generally do?
Claren 25:54
And I'm still in residency. Basically, after my four years of undergrad four years in medical school, I'm about to start my fourth out of five years of residency. And then I'll be doing general surgery which is things like gall bladders, hernias, colon surgeries. That's just the kind of bread and butter I'll do thyroids. parathyroids, wow.
Scott Benner 26:19
Oh,
Claren 26:19
mutation.
Scott Benner 26:21
Wait a minute append appendix, right. Appendix. That's
Claren 26:24
a big one. Yeah,
Scott Benner 26:25
I'm sorry. I said, Wait a minute, because I'm like, amputations. Yes. Oh, I see. So if someone needs something amputated, so if you're seeing a doctor for x, and then oh, then they come back to a to a general surgeon for something like that.
Claren 26:39
And it can be vascular surgery, too, or orthopedic surgery. But a lot of the times, and that's another thing that when I started medical residency, I really was like, Man, I gotta get my diabetes in gear, because I was amputating so many toes and things like that. And like much older people, not on people my age, but still, it was just seeing the complications of long standing diabetes. I was like, Okay, this is real.
Scott Benner 27:04
So do you think that? Well, let me ask this first, do you have any other diabetes in your family?
Claren 27:10
No, not even type two.
Scott Benner 27:12
How about other autoimmune stuff?
Claren 27:15
I think I have an aunt with that, or that takes thyroid medicine. And that's pretty much it.
Scott Benner 27:19
Okay, so you didn't have context for diabetes? And then you get it. And then when you go to when you go to medical school, like I guess this is a question I should ask everybody who's a doctor as type one. Like when we all are out in the world going? It seems like they don't know anything about it, like talking to like your general practitioner or your kids doctor or stuff like that. Is it because they really don't?
Claren 27:44
I'd say they know like the textbook answers of like, these are the complications that happen from long standing diabetes. These are the numbers that generally you don't see complications with if you keep it within this range. But unless it like you said, as a general practitioner, somebody who's doing endocrinology and sees this repeatedly, I'd say most doctors don't have very much information on especially how to manage diabetes. They can do like sliding scale, insulin in the hospital, things like that. But day in and day out. Management is not taught. Typically. Give
Scott Benner 28:18
me one second here. I'm gonna walk you through this. Arden's doing a project at school right now. She's distressing a skirt that she's made. And so she went to she went to the fabric store to get this tool that you use to distract like distress the skirt, and they didn't have it. So I said go to the home store and get like lemon zester, which is basically the same thing. Yeah. And she's said, Hmm, so let me see if I can figure this out. Home Goods type store.
Claren 28:48
Maybe cheese grater.
Scott Benner 28:50
Yeah, like a cheese grater, lemon zester or what else? sandpaper? Heavy grit. Right. Claritin helped me what else what else would work like that?
Claren 29:09
I feel like three options is enough. Yeah,
Scott Benner 29:12
you think so? Oh, no. Um, oh, wait, wait, wait, what's the thing? The thing for dry skin on your heels?
Claren 29:22
Oh, like the thing that yeah, pumice stone.
Scott Benner 29:26
Yeah, hold on a second. That's a good one. I'm sorry. We'll get back to you. Just a second. I think it's probably
Claren 29:34
it sounded weird when I said it.
Scott Benner 29:37
I just Googled heal grader and by the way, came up with a pedicure foot like this. This is what parenting has turned into since you went to college. It used to be more I used to. I used to be more involved with the bigger decisions. Alright, I've done my part. Also, I also I paid for the college. So actually yeah, actually You guys paid for the college, so thank you. But yeah, I mean, that's gotta be I said homestore like a cheese grater, lemon zester or sandpaper, heavy grit Wait, wait, try skin thing for your heels. And then I set up a picture of it, she'll figure it out. Okay? Otherwise she's like picking at it with tweezers to pull it apart. And like it's taken her for like, it's going to take her a year. So yeah.
Speaker 2 30:23
Anyway, she made her first like she made like a skirt. It looks amazing. It's kind of exciting. Because she had been talking about it for so long. Alright, so sorry. I want to know about residency.
Scott Benner 30:37
I want to know about so you know, get doctors get like a textbook version of diabetes. But then if you don't go into if you don't go, how is it? I guess my question is, that even the endocrinologist seems a little flummoxed by it once in a while. And why is it that no general practitioners seem to do a good job of explaining people's type two? I mean, if type two is so prevalent, like, wouldn't that be something you would just be able to, like, I can talk about type two with my eyes closed? Like, why can't they I guess, I think
Claren 31:08
a lot of it is the time constraints that doctors have on how much time they can spend with patients and the amount of education they can give patients and hear their side of things and understand why they're having trouble. Because I mean, you may have a 10 minute time slot to see a patient, you have to understand what's going on with them, what they're worried about how, and then explain to them like, this is what we're going to going to do to fix it. And this is your part, and this is my part. And then, okay, go out into the world and do this for a few months and come back and see me and there's just you can only get so much done. And I feel like you can't understand, really the the intricacies of any disease in that situation.
Scott Benner 31:52
It's just such an odd thing. Like you. Just if you hear from so many people with the same issue, it's and
Claren 31:59
they're also seeing a ton of other medical problems on any given day. So maybe, yeah, we are seeing millions of people with diabetes, but you're also seeing tons of people with every other medical condition too. So
Scott Benner 32:12
Oh, no, the the one thing that I think doesn't get enough attention is that it's like boggle almost I imagined it like that, like you're you walk into a room and you're settled and someone looks at you and you go, Okay, there's Claritin. And I don't really know who she is, but she thinks I do because I'm her doctor. So now I'm going to look at I'm going to look in the thing here, oh, try to make myself ready with it a little bit. I've got 15 minutes to talk to her. And then you walk out the door. I imagine you take a deep breath. And then you push down the boggle thing and your dice pop all over the place, you walk in the next door and you start over again. And it's just like being shook and then settled and then go and I don't know this. You know, I've brought this up a couple of times. And it like around diabetes specifically. I don't know why we do that. Instead of bringing everybody in for 15 or 20 minutes. Why don't we bring 200 people and put them in an auditorium and talk to them all at the same time. And give them the big the big picture stuff that they need in a setting where you say it once people ask their questions. And then everybody heard it instead of like, and they heard the entirety of it, instead of getting a tiny bit of like, well, here's the things I can remember to say this time. I just make sense to me. I don't if it's like a HIPAA violation problem or something, but just make sense to me like that would make
Claren 33:30
more so just convincing people to come do that, too. Oh, you
Scott Benner 33:33
think if they didn't think it was a doctor's appointment? They just wouldn't go to begin with. Awesome. Is that a burden? Like knowing that you're gonna come see, somebody's gonna come see you. And you're gonna tell them the exact thing they need to do and they're gonna walk out and just not do it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it would weigh on me, honestly.
Claren 33:51
You're like, well, here's, I mean, at the same time, like, I don't want to eat great and exercise all the time, but I know that's what I should do. And it's just I feel like human nature.
Scott Benner 34:00
Yeah. Like, Does it almost feel like these things are gonna just happen to some people and there's nothing you can do about it? Um,
Claren 34:07
yeah, probably just if they're not willing to change their lifestyle but I mean, being a resident two is an I've been off work for maternity leave. But being a resident working 80 hours a week, eating hospital food as quickly as I can. Like, when I'm when I'm working. I don't have a great diet. I don't have time to exercise. And it's, you just do what you can. You can't you can't tell people to do something and then not do it yourself necessarily.
Scott Benner 34:36
It would be tough if you you were like you should go for a walk. And they were like, Yeah, you too. Great. A lot of fun. Oh, my goodness. So when you're in residency, can you describe like you just said 80 hours a week, but can you actually describe what what a week is like? Um,
Claren 34:54
yeah, so Monday through Friday, typically wake up at like, four 430 and go to hospital, round on your patients, check all the charts and then depending on your cases for the day operate, or go to clinic, and that typically sometimes you're done with actually doing the surgeries or clinic patients by noon, sometimes it's like 5pm. Sometimes surgeries go all through the night. So I'd say on average, leaving work at like six on a NABJ day five, if we're really lucky, and sometimes 9:10pm and then wake up the next day and do it again. And then for the first three years of residency, the way our schedule was set up is that every other weekend, we did a 24 hour shift. So that was either Friday morning to Saturday morning, and then you go home sleep Saturday and work a day shift on Sunday. So you have a small break, and then every other weekend off, or you work a 24 hour shift on Saturday, and then rest Sunday before the week restarts.
Scott Benner 35:55
I was out when you said get up at 430. I know. It's terrible. That's like That's okay. I'm good. People can figure out their own health. Yeah, oh, it's terrible. And that goes on for years. Yeah,
Claren 36:07
years. That's three years. And then the next few years that I'll finish, I'll do home call instead of doing the 24 hour shifts on the weekend. So we'll go in and round. And then if somebody comes in and needs me, I'll go back to the hospital. Does
Scott Benner 36:22
that? What am I trying to say? Does that like sorority fraternity thing exist? Like low man gets on by the person above them? The person above them? Does that exist too? Or does that not happen so much. It's
Claren 36:35
there's kind of a hierarchy. But in the program that I'm in, we try to do a really good job of getting the younger residents in or early. So yeah, they're the ones that are going to be in charge of doing like all the wound care and the things on the floor that we don't want to do. But overall, we try to, to get people in to learn how to do surgery as early as possible and share the load.
Scott Benner 36:58
What are the procedures that you all stand in the hallway like Rock Paper Scissors to try to get out of
Claren 37:05
who I'd say like draining like abscesses and things like that I don't like to do that. made
Scott Benner 37:12
me upset when you just said okay. Yeah, like just Well, anybody is almost like what you would you try to shift to get out of something? Would you like does it
Claren 37:20
turn out? No, no one's got to do it. So it's just whoever's available and like you said, usually lowest on the totem pole.
Scott Benner 37:25
Yeah, that's that's gotta be. Yeah, that's gotta be upset.
Claren 37:29
You gotta learn how to do it. So it is what it is.
Scott Benner 37:31
Do you ever hear that episode of the show called butthole? Adjacent?
Claren 37:34
I think so. Yeah.
Scott Benner 37:37
That wasn't like Hans Basal. Yes, basically just had a that's something like that, that just like, came apart and like exploded. And I was like, Oh, my God, that's absolutely crazy. But it's not crazy to you, right? It's just something you see, like popping,
Claren 37:52
that's just something that I might do on a Tuesday, Tuesday. That's, we
Scott Benner 37:56
call that Tuesday, or, Oh, my God, I just saw, I don't know what happened. What the Chinese government is trying to do to me or whoever, but the TIC tock algorithm has decided that I want to see people with feet that look like rocks underneath of it be exfoliated. And I just want to say, Oh, my God, the algorithm. I don't want to see that. And I don't know where you got that idea from?
Claren 38:18
It's because you were looking at the Pumicestone. You think
Scott Benner 38:21
it got me that fast?
Claren 38:22
That was really fast.
Scott Benner 38:23
I just like I'm watching it and all that can go through my head. Is that something that I'm wondering if it goes through your head? How did we let it get like this? You wonder that every day?
Claren 38:39
Sometimes? Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I
Scott Benner 38:41
just it seems baffling, like without, like, description, like, How could you let the bottom of your foot look like a rock? And there's, it's just, it's fascinating, like,
Claren 38:53
do I mean it's pretty gross, but like we have patients come in with really nasty feet wounds with maggots on them. So it's like, how do you not notice there's maggots on your foot? But it happens.
Scott Benner 39:05
Like yeah, how do you make it to the hospital with the maggot? Right, right? Yeah, right. And they're not like, it's not like they have neuropathy, and they can't feel it or something like that. It's just, typically they do Oh, typically they do. Okay,
Claren 39:15
if it's that bad. Why do you think you at least look, I don't know, wash it
Scott Benner 39:20
off, maybe for like, if I if I was going to show you any appendage at all. I would make sure it was clean and presentable before I brought it to you. But that's not the case either, is it? Yeah.
Claren 39:31
And people who have are underserved and don't have access to health care, that's a lot of the issues too. Okay. So you can't always fix problems if you don't have the resources to do so. Yeah,
Scott Benner 39:43
I was talking to a hygienist. This is a dental hygienist. And she said the number of people who come here with their teeth are dirty, because they're like, well, you're going to clean them so why would I brush Why would I brush them?
Claren 39:56
Oh my gosh, yeah. I hate going to the dentist. If Have like had a snack in the car on like, you're gonna think I'm dirty? Oh my No, I
Scott Benner 40:03
went to get like a crowns on one day. And I walked in I said, Hey, I'm very sorry. But I need I realized I was going to be like nom and wouldn't be able to eat afterwards. So I need like, I need some floss and a toothbrush before I can come in. Like I'm not I'm not going to like just go in there go like, Hey, could you dig that out of there for me like? Ridiculous. I mean, your your points? Listen, your point about having access is good. But I don't know how much access you have to have to wash your foot before you show it to somebody. I know. Yeah, that's something
Claren 40:34
that's not not always an excuse. But there are certain cases where it's just
Scott Benner 40:38
automatic problem. Yeah. So you in your note to me, you, you said that there's stigma surrounding diabetes within the medical community, I wondered about that.
Claren 40:49
I should have read that note before I logged on to this call. But um, so just in terms of like, instead of people who come in needing like toes amputated, there's always the stigma of like, well, they didn't take care of themselves. And this is or even the things like obesity, and it's more of a type two issue. But it's just like, can you not control your diabetes enough to prevent these complications, people don't understand how difficult it is to all day long keep your numbers within X and Y points. And people just assume because I have this pump and this Dexcom that I strap it on, and it controls everything for me. And it's just not the case, as you well know. But I'd say even medical providers, if they're not seeing this on a daily basis, like we talked about, then they have no clue, the the, the worries and the anxiety and just the effort that goes into preventing those complications, and you may not be able to so there's stigma that goes with that. And then just the amount of effort, like I said, they just don't realize that this is a 24/7 disease. And it's different for type one and type two, but the outcomes can be the same. And people may not realize that there is such a difference in type one and type two.
Scott Benner 42:06
Do you think that that stigma leads doctors to unfairly kind of in the back of their mind, assess people while they're talking to them? Like, do you think they can look at you as
Claren 42:18
not only some people? I wouldn't? I'd say it depends on what the situation is. But it depends also like on the numbers you see, because you say you have a patient come in and their blood sugar's 400. And it's like, you automatically assume this is an uncontrolled diabetic person. But it may just be that they're sick, and they've got, they're dehydrated, and they've got six other things that are contributing to this number of 400. And unless you sit and talk with the patient, you're not going to be able to fully understand that. So maybe you walk in, and that's your bias that, yeah, they're probably an uncontrolled diabetic. But that may not be the case at all.
Scott Benner 42:54
So if I'm an adult, and I look like I'm a little overweight, and I show up with a high blood sugar, somebody's gonna think type two diabetes right away. Probably yeah. And II and even because I hear these stories from people, where they're sitting in that moment, and they say, Listen, my brother's got type one, or my mom does, or there's a ton of autoimmune in my family, like, Are you sure this couldn't be type one? And they go, No, couldn't be. And it always ends up being, you know, when I hear the stories, because, of course, that's who I hear from mostly. But it's just just kind of, I don't know, it's interesting, because you paint an equal picture of people who are taxed the old beyond reasonability, about their time and their energy they are getting, you know, I guess a bit of information on so many different diseases, like, what's that saying about doctors, like they have a little bit of information about a lot of things. And then we like, I was most struck by thinking about being with my mom one day early in the hospital. And she's like, I don't know where the doctor is. They said, I don't know where the doctor is, it was early in the morning, and I thought, Oh, they were at home trying to sleep. Right, like trying to get up enough energy to come do this thing again for 12 hours. And it's just interesting that nobody sees each other says, scenario situation.
Claren 44:14
Another thing like that you learned in medical school. So like you say, an overweight adult coming in with high blood sugar. 82. Like, if you hear hoofbeats think, don't think it's a zebra, like it's more likely to be a horse, it's not going to be this Safari creature, it's going to be the horse. So you think most likely common things are common. This is going to be type two diabetes. So I think that's just kind of part of the algorithm based learning that a lot of medicine is especially in your training years is like okay if this than this, and you have to really get experience and patient perspectives and just kind of know that yes, this can happen, even though it's less common, but that's just what medicine teaches us. Common things are common. And then if that's not the answer, then you think more of the the zebra plus
Scott Benner 45:06
it would be, it wouldn't be like a reasonable thing to start just like pontificating about, oh, it could be this or this or like, it's upsetting to another person, actually, do you know that I'm doing the math in the last seven days? If you hear hoofbeats, it's probably a horse, not a zebra. That's the second time I've heard that. Interesting, because I was with a, because when I spoke last weekend, I was there with somebody who has a medical background, and they were trying to trying to describe the similar thing that you just said, I was like, wow, they really do tell them that they do. I always think about the people who, like the zebras at home, who were just like, nobody's listening to me. Right. You know, they all think I'm a horse. Anyway, that's interesting. So okay, so I understand how the stigma could lead to, like, people jumping to conclusions that makes complete sense to me. Is there a I mean, you're in a unique position, right? You're, you're at the coming to towards the end of your of your residency? Is there at least things that we talked about? Is this just as good as it gets? Or are there ways to fix this? Like, do you? Do you see a way like using diabetes, specifically, where doctors could understand diabetes better? Or would it? Is it just too big of a mountain to climb?
Claren 46:25
I think, one, it's, it is a very big mountain to climb. And two, there are so many different ways we can treat diabetes, and so many different standards that people have for diabetes, like we talked about, like 7%. And below is what people consider, okay. And that's, like you say, is the don't die number like we want to prevent lows more than we want to prevent highs. But it just kind of depends on can you reach that many people effect to be able to make them effectively manage their diabetes, I don't know it with the time constraints that you have in visits or within certain I'm like losing my train of thought, you know, the time constraints you have within visits and in the that specific person's scenario. So what can we teach this person today? That I can help them as with as a doctor is different than what can they they implement on their daily routine? So there's a difference, I think in what a doctor can tell you and what you can actually do? And then the question is, can you get people to implement that to actually make a difference? I don't know.
Scott Benner 47:44
So then the thing that I say a lot on here is ends up being very right, I guess, which is you are really in charge of your own health. And yeah, you can go get an answer from somebody, or they can run a test for you, you don't have access to or change your prescription you don't have access to but in the end, like I usually tell people, when you go into a doctor's office, you have to remember that you are the only one who ultimately cares about how well you are like, like, it's not that the doctor doesn't care, but you're gonna leave and they're not gonna think about you again. And, you know, I just I learned that watching my mom, I realized how much my mom believed that doctor just knew who she was. And, you know, I was the one looking out the hall watching them, like pour through papers, trying to figure out who they were about to go talk to. And you know, and it just, it's up to you like your health. I mean, it sounds obvious, right? But in a, in a society where you believe, for the most part, because when you're growing up everything that happens to you, for most people, everything that happens to you gets fixed. Didn't you mean? Like, you get a sore throat and they give you a pill and your throat isn't sore anymore? And, you know, like, if that's the expectation, like that kind of light switch idea, like, you know, like you said, like, I want to do things I can fix like, you show up sick you leave, you're not sick anymore. But that's not most things, not when once you find serious illnesses, those are not how they work. Yeah, yeah. And everybody has an expectation of health to no matter, no matter the amount of effort they put into their own health. Everyone. Exactly. Everyone expects it back. Right? Like
Claren 49:22
are they expect to be able to Google something and they say, This is what I think I need. And that's a whole nother topic of conversation.
Scott Benner 49:32
I want some akinesia. And I would like I want an essential oil. I'm gonna put on a cotton ball and put it under my pillow and I think I'm going to be fine after that. Right. And, and when it's not that, you're saying that basically the things that can be impacted by diet or exercise or effort ends up being just something. If you tell people that and then it's a coin flip if they do it or not. Right. Yeah. It really has to take
Claren 49:58
in terms of Diaby It has to it has to take the person wanting to make that difference. Having the support and the resources to do so, like
Scott Benner 50:06
something shocking almost has to happen. Yeah, yeah. What happens if you're shocking thing is the only is the only warning you were gonna get to. Right. Yeah. Actually
Claren 50:17
on a kind of a related note. It's kind of I'm thinking I mentioned that email I sent you as a, I guess, probably a year and a half ago now. I had like routine labs, I was doing really good with blood sugar's everything. I think my agency was like in the mid fives, and I was so proud of getting that number back. And then I got the rest of my labs back the next day because my doctor called me and he was like, hey, like your kidney numbers are elevated, like, just want to let you know, I think it was like the equivalent of like, stage two kidney disease is the the numbers that I saw. And I was like, What are you talking about? Like, I've been healthy for me. Yeah, I've had 18 years, but I've been healthy. And I don't know what to do about this like it. That'd be a fluke, can we recheck them and they were still elevated? And I was like, this is okay. This is like eye opening, like, am I having kidney problems as a 29 year old. And we had talked to my husband and I had talked about having kids at some point, but we didn't know how to do that with being in residency and having diabetes with a difficult pregnancy that comes with diabetes. And so I went to see a nephrologist. Basically, thankfully, it ended up being just like an acute kidney injury for me not drinking enough water and staying hydrated while I was working. It was really, like you said, a shocking thing that I was like, okay, yeah, I am susceptible to kidney damage, I am susceptible to these long term complications. And that's what made us to decide to go ahead and I put my training on hold for what ended up being a whole year and decided to try to get pregnant, we magically got pregnant with twins, which was double what I bargained for. But now it's been really good overall. And it was something that I prioritized. And now I have about six weeks left before I go back to work. So
Scott Benner 52:07
Wow. So you actually had that feeling where? Okay, this wasn't the case this time. But I'm so hit with the reality of the fact that it could have been like, I'm gonna make these babies right now. Yeah, that makes sense. To me.
Claren 52:20
That's like one thing we really wanted in life. And if I would have let my job come in front of that, actually, an infertility is a really big deal. And actually, women physicians are much have a much higher likelihood of having infertility issues. And I was coming up on 30. I was like, I think we got to do it now. So we did.
Scott Benner 52:42
Was that a hard decision to make? I mean, you were so close to the Yes. Oh,
Claren 52:47
yeah. And that pregnancy itself was was very difficult. And the the main reason you have so many blood sugar issues is the hormone fluctuations. And that comes from the placenta. And with my twins I had to placentas. So it was like, double the difficulty. By the end, I probably take her before I was pregnant for I took like 35 units of insulin a day. And I was taking like, 130 Oh, by the end of it. Wow.
Scott Benner 53:14
Did you make the babies the way? They were intended? Or did you? Yes, yeah. And you got twins.
Claren 53:20
And we got twins.
Scott Benner 53:22
She's very happy about that. I would have been like, oh,
Claren 53:26
we were just shocked. No, we're happy most of the time. But it's been. It's been very difficult. And we live eight hours away from our closest family.
Scott Benner 53:35
I'm just thinking that if you're lucky, because I'm hearing Your husband's a doctor, too. Oh, no, no. Okay. I felt like you said residency like we were both in it, but you just
Claren 53:45
kind of does feel like we're both in to deal with me, too.
Scott Benner 53:49
So just about the time you get on paying for your degree, you should be able to pay for two kids to go to college at the same time. Yes,
Claren 53:54
yes. I will probably still be paying for my degree. That'd be great to get a podcast,
Scott Benner 53:58
because that helped me with my daughter's.
Claren 54:01
Yeah. Well, all my free time. Yeah,
Scott Benner 54:04
by the way, too many people have podcasts. It's enough. Okay, like yeah, like I don't plan on making it. We all got it covered. Now, I wasn't talking to you. I talked to the people listening case they get like a wild hair up. They're like I'm gonna make I just thought it's good. I gotta cover you're fine. I mean, how many people I got to fight with over this podcast thing, but no, that's okay. So I do want to hear about the pregnancy. Obviously. I got a little lost asking about your job, but yeah, so you said it was difficult. It was it? He started the beginning. Easy to get pregnant.
Claren 54:33
Yes. What was easy for him to apparently What
Scott Benner 54:36
do you mean? Oh, I thought you meant to easy like you only got to try once, but we did only try once. Oh, your husband must have been pissed about that. Yeah. Maybe you too. I don't know. Maybe he's great at it. And you were like, oh, so
Claren 54:50
Well, he's like, he's a very like athletic he's 662 50 big guy and he was kept telling me like I'm gonna have this NFL playing. So I'm like, going to be going to be the best. You know, I'm going to be this sports dad. And we go and we find out that we're having twins. And they're both girls. Yeah. He's got two little princesses now to us. He's gonna turn them into college golfers. That's his now that's his plan. That's his new goal. Yeah,
Scott Benner 55:18
tell him I tell him I watch the kid play college sports. And honestly, I don't even know if I would tell you to do it. I can't. I can't even wrap my head around whether it's a good idea or not yet.
Claren 55:28
Well, it's just so they can get scholarships because he thinks that as long as they're decent at golf, and women, then they can get a scholarship.
Scott Benner 55:34
I don't think he's wrong. I still think he's wrong. Yeah, my son saved a fair amount of money playing baseball. So but the rest of it's just like, I might have given it all away. And I don't know the stuff we did to get them to that point, like, yeah, that's what will end up happening is, trust me the money you save on college, you'll have spent teaching them how to play golf. And well, he also wants an excuse to go golfing. Yeah, that's what I was assuming. Yeah. Well, maybe there'll be really tall. I mean, how tall see? Six, six. How tall are you? Five, three. Well, that must be hilarious. Hilarious. Did you see the first tall guy you dated? Oh,
Claren 56:11
yeah. And I actually I hit on him at a bar. And apparently, and I was a little tipsy at the time, just enough to where I was like fun. And went over to him and I said, Hey, Tomboy, do you like pizza? And we went and got pizza that night and ended up just like talking for hours. And then he was on family vacation, visiting his family in Florida where I lived. And the next day, he's like, Hey, we exchanged numbers. He's like, you want to come over and like watch football at my parents condo? Whatever. And I was like, You know what, this goes against everything. I know. But sure, let's let's do it. So I went over there and his parents had gone to a movie became home or League. So I met his parents the next day. And then we dated long distance, and six months later moved together to start residency. And now we're married and have twins. Oh, that's
Scott Benner 57:02
crazy. You met his parents? You were wearing your pants when that happened, right? Oh, yeah. By the way, you you didn't the episode. Wearing my pants? No. Hey, Tallboy.
Claren 57:12
Hey, Tomboy. Do you like pizza? Yeah,
Scott Benner 57:15
that's what I'm going with. Unless you come up with something else. I really liked like that. That's just like, I don't. I mean, I always say to people, I dated girls. You're like your height. My whole my the whole time. I was young. And then I meet my wife one day, and she's like, my height. And, and there are times now as an adult, I'll go do like events and stuff. And people like, by the way, I think it's very lovely that you want to take pictures, but I'm not very comfortable with how I photograph people. Like take a picture of these. I'm doing that all the time. And I'm standing next to women who are shorter again. And I have this feeling I'm like, Oh, this is what my life would have been like had I not found a tall girl to marry. And like I feel tall. And I never feel tall in my life. And I was like this what will happen? Your husband must feel like a giant is my point. Right?
Claren 58:09
Especially holding these babies. Oh my gosh, like they're so small. Also massive 250. Yeah, about 250
Scott Benner 58:17
His hands like the size of your face. Yeah, probably. Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. Well, that's very cool. So you so anyway, you get knocked up. And then I said anyway, but you get pregnant really quickly, you get pregnant really quickly. And then what becomes difficult about the pregnancy, just
Claren 58:36
the constant shifts in how to manage blood sugar, because you know, they want ideally a blood sugar less than 120. And above 65. Really, they they say it's okay to be under 140 after meals. But that doesn't take into account that you're constantly changing insulin doses. So I would go probably every two days, every three days, I was making an adjustment on either changing my basil changing the carb ratio, or changing a correction ratio or something like that. And I basically just did it myself. For the eight months I was pregnant. And it was certain foods would impact it differently. And it was just constant paying attention. And I hadn't been doing that as tightly as I could have, because I'm on the control IQ with tandem and I do it in sleep mode. And it does a pretty good job of keeping me in range. And I basically was able to stay on that for the first trimester. And then by the end of the first trimester, I was having to go back to the manual pump mode because I just wasn't able to keep low enough numbers with the loop technology with tandem. How
Scott Benner 59:44
How, how frequently did you end up giving yourself an amount of insulin you're like, Oh, God, that was too much.
Claren 59:51
I don't think the too much was an issue. It was mostly not enough. Because as as I went on, it was just I became more carb resistant and that was the main issue. And I we had like an exercise bike at home and my husband always tried to give me credit for it. He's like, if your blood sugar was like skyrocketing middle the night like you would get out of bed and go ride that bike until you could get it down. Just because I felt that was another thing that brought me new anxiety was I just felt like I was hurting these babies, even though retrospectively they were totally fine. And I I know that I was being silly, but pregnancy hormones can get the best of you. Oh, yes,
Scott Benner 1:00:27
he's giving you credit for it. And you're being drugged out of the bed by your, by your hormones, right? You're not even like, like I have to go. And that's something I actually felt like. Like, that felt nice, because even though it sounds like you were tortured by the idea of it was nice, because I thought I bet you she wouldn't have done that for herself. I bet if you weren't pregnant, you wouldn't have jumped out of bed. And then like, I'll go for a walk to bring my blood sugar down for me. Right? But you would do it for them. Yeah, that's so human. I get such a constant through all of these conversations that I've had, and people that I've met, like, but you can't get anybody to do anything for themselves. But you put somebody else in the way of it. And then people jump right to that become heroes. It's interesting. So the biggest problem is just the insulin fluctuation more and more and more. How soon they say I hear people say I delivered the placenta, and it all went back. Is that about how it went?
Claren 1:01:25
Yes, I took I think it was like 128 units of insulin on the last day I was pregnant. And then the first day I was not pregnant. I took six units. Oh, my gosh, that's correct. Crazy. And I just put the pump back in the control mode. So it would suspend basil if I was gonna go low. And it had given me a total of like six units over 24 hours.
Scott Benner 1:01:46
Wow, when you tried to use Control IQ during the first trimester did you have to expand like the max, Basal and Max Bolus number so it could work? I did.
Claren 1:01:55
And I've probably one of the Facebook pages that like gives you all the tips on how to keep your number lower on the control IQ. So I was already kind of doing that in preparation to get pregnant. That it was, it was a lot of tweaking. Yeah, I don't even know what I did. At this point in time. I just knew that I like kept a little journal and was like, okay, my blood sugar was high at this time a day, like two or three days in a row time to do more basil.
Scott Benner 1:02:22
So so a nine month science experiment, you're not sure what you're going to be working on every day when you wake up, right? Yeah, just stay home for the whole nine months.
Claren 1:02:31
I was working through the majority of first trimester just to finish out the year of work. And then I was home for probably three to four months, maybe up to five months. And I delivered them at almost 37 weeks.
Scott Benner 1:02:49
C section natural. Yeah, C section. I was gonna say a lot of babies. How much did they
Claren 1:02:55
pay? Were five pounds, eight ounces and five pounds four ounces.
Scott Benner 1:02:58
Lovely. Did you name them after me any chance? No, I did not know Don't worry about somebody will wander.
Claren 1:03:07
But they're healthy and didn't need to go to the NICU or anything like that. They did have some one of them had issues with low blood sugar for about 24 hours. And that resolved. So how
Scott Benner 1:03:19
long did it take you till you're worried about whether they'll have diabetes one day? Oh,
Claren 1:03:23
I was worried about that. I'm like the time I got pregnant. But that's right now I'm trying to I technically am pumping that bread giving them breast milk. They were because they were preemies. And I don't know what issues exactly brought this about. But they were never really able to latch to breastfeed directly. So I exclusively pump breast milk for them, which is about four hours of my day I spend attached to a pump. Ridiculous, so that's lovely.
Scott Benner 1:03:51
Oh my gosh. Because there's two of them. Yeah, it's
Claren 1:03:55
so much. And they drink. I think about 60 ounces of milk a day between the two of them if
Scott Benner 1:04:02
you told him to eat a lot of you said, Look, why not? 30?
Claren 1:04:06
Yeah, well, that's that's like the high end of normal for one babies. 30. So I'd have I have plenty of milk for one baby that just because there's like that one study that shows the babies who have breast milk have a decreased risk of type one diabetes. And I know that's like one specific population and one specific scenario but in my head if I can do this for them, and that gives me any chance, then that's what I'm gonna do.
Scott Benner 1:04:32
How long do you think you'll do this for?
Claren 1:04:33
I'll go back to work when they're about six months old. So at least six months and then I'll try to keep it up at work. And the end goal would be a year but we'll see how
Scott Benner 1:04:43
it goes. Wow. If you do that for a year, I'll send you an award of some sort. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like your nipples need a break is what you need. Yeah.
Claren 1:04:53
They need an award. Exactly.
Scott Benner 1:04:56
Yeah. You know, I only bring this up because like Just getting ready next week to put up an episode about it. It's 26 year old girl came on, she's type one, she had a baby. And five, six months after she had the baby, like, you know, she's like, I know, people told me about the baby blues, but she got real, like serious postpartum. And I was wondering how you prepare yourself for like looking for them,
Claren 1:05:22
I think it's gonna be really hard when I go back to work, because I have been home with them. So I see them all day, every day, which part of me is like, it's going to be nice to go back to being like a real functional adult in the world. But the other part is, I know, I'm really gonna miss them. So I have to, like you said, just kind of take this in, as I'm here and home with them and prepare myself for the, to let myself feel like I'm setting an example for them. Like, okay, you can be a mom and a surgeon and have diabetes and do all these other things. And it's ultimately going to be an example for my babies to grow up and they can do whatever they want to do.
Scott Benner 1:06:05
On the off chance they can't become professional golfers. Right? Yes. Although it is obviously gonna happen. I'm just telling you, if they're half as tall as your husband, they've got a great shot. Yeah. That's really something. Yeah, her story was just, it didn't, it came on slowly. It started as she said, there was this moment, like, your episode is gonna come out after hers. And I don't know at this moment, as I'm talking about, I don't know what it's going to be called yet. But you should go listen to it. Because she had this. She walked away from the baby one time and the baby just got a bug bite. And that like simple thought of like, I left the baby alone, and it got hit by a bug by the way, the bug was fine. It didn't hurt the baby at all right? It just set it sent her cascading down, like a rabbit hole of I can't let the baby alone, something's gonna happen like and then the thoughts got intrusive, and she couldn't get away from them. And by the end, she she said the first serious thought she had was, I'll just like 20 minutes, she started getting the idea that her family would be better off without her. And that she was failing the baby and that all this stuff was happening. And I mean, it's just heartbreaking to listen, she's fine. She's fine now. And she said that. She said she was thinking through just waiting for 20 minutes before her husband got home and just putting the baby in the crib. Because she's like, I know that baby would be okay for 20 minutes and then just leaving. And then her husband was a police officer. And she said one day she has no idea how it happened. But she found herself standing next to the the piece of furniture that he keeps his weapons and like considering considering killing yourself. Like, out of nowhere. And then she just kind of like obviously didn't do it. And then she was like, oh my god, that was that was bizarre. And then she started looking for help. But she she said looking backwards that she had. She's like I in hindsight, there was plenty of time I should have known I was in trouble. And she's like, I just couldn't. Like it didn't feel like depression, it felt like I was failing the baby. So I was just terrible. Like, and she's 26. And you know, like it's so it's just crazy. Anyway, be careful. I have a soft spot for this this week. So please, yeah, I don't want to hear it. Oh, well,
Claren 1:08:24
and my husband's wonderful and he's very good about communication and checking in with with me and making sure I'm good. So I have a wonderful support system.
Scott Benner 1:08:33
And if diabetes comes for the girls, he can just scare it away. Is he one of those big gentle guys where if I bumped into him in the street when I find myself apologizing to him immediately when I saw
Claren 1:08:44
he's a big softy lover? I mean, he looks like he could be intimidating. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:08:49
I have I have a brother in law that like, he just he looks like he could grab you by your face and just like move you. And like I said he's the nicest guy get on me. So. Alright, I want to ask you at this point, if there's anything that we haven't spoken about that you wanted to?
Claren 1:09:07
I don't think so. I think we kind of hit the main things.
Scott Benner 1:09:09
We did it. Because you you alluded to an email and I have to admit, I was like, I don't remember that email.
Claren 1:09:17
I was just like the initial thing about like, Oh, tell me about you coming on the podcast. Oh, cool. But I I forgot that that was like six months ago now. So
Scott Benner 1:09:24
can I ask a question of you? Which is a weird thing to say because I think I've been doing that the whole time. But you said a couple of things throughout the show that make me feel like you listen to this. You do is it how is it listening to this podcast and being a doctor at the same time?
Claren 1:09:40
I think they're just they're two separate things in my head and I listened to it one for just like people's stories. I did listen to all like the pro tips and all that probably two three years ago at that this point in time. But now it's just kind of something I'll listen to to hear about other people's stories and Like, like you said, I listen to this, the girl that dealt with the postpartum anxiety and depression and just be able to relate to that. So I see it more as like a community than from a medical perspective, I feel like the medical stuff, I've kind of figured that out to what works for me at this point in time. And some of that didn't come from the podcast, but it's more of just I like to hear how other people are living and how they're making it. So
Scott Benner 1:10:28
you can kind of leave your white coat at the door to listen to it. Is that the vibe? I think so. Yeah, because there was a moment I said something very, like an hour ago. And there was like, it wasn't harsh, but there was a second where you like took up arms for doctors, I don't remember what the context what the context was anymore. And, and it was very reasonable what you said, and I agree with you even. But I'm, you know, if I'm coming from a perspective, on this side, I'm usually coming from the perspective of the type one when I'm talking, like trying to, like, stick up for them. And I just heard from doctors like that they don't they don't they think of it as like Doctor bashing. And yeah, you know, and I, I'm like, I don't mean, this, just people's experiences, you know, what I mean? And what I think is common sense responses to as so. But I understand there's
Claren 1:11:15
also a difference in what how a doctor interacts with the patient and the way they perceive the interaction and how a patient perceives the interaction with the doctor. So sometimes a doctor may tell you, you should do this, this and this, and the patient hears it one way versus the dark, which is different than the doctor hears it. So unfortunately, I do think a lot of medicine is practiced defensively, just because you have to you have to protect yourself from a legal standpoint, and you have to follow the criteria for these are the numbers that keep people healthy, long term and things like that. So there is a lot of algorithms based things that come with it. And then the personal side of it can be interpreted, I think, from one perspective or the other. So that's
Scott Benner 1:12:02
cool. I think that that's why sometimes when you suggest something to a doctor, they go Yeah, sure. But they wouldn't have suggested it to you like now that you brought it up. That's fine. I couldn't say it. But now that you said it, sure, we can give you Synthroid for a 2.5, TSH, no problem, but I wasn't gonna suggest it. So
Claren 1:12:23
go ahead. I'm sorry. That's I was just agreeing.
Scott Benner 1:12:26
Oh, Oh, perfect. I love that. By the way, that was sarcasm, which is just between you and I, because of what we talked about before we started recording. Well, I I really do genuinely appreciate you doing this. And congratulations on being 30 and the babies. And I hope it's not too hard for you when you go back to work. I
Claren 1:12:46
did. I do have one really weird thing that happened to me while I was pregnant, that this happened to anybody else. But it was the day before my 30th birthday, driving down the road and listening to music in my car. And then I realized I can't hear very well out of one of my ears. And I texted one of my friends who works in en ti and I was like, hey, is this like a pregnancy thing? Like, is this normal? And she was like, well, it can be related to pregnancy, but it's pretty rare. Can also be XYZ other thing is you should go see an end like urgently because you need to treat it if this is what it is. So I texted a local EMT and he's like, sure come in tomorrow and go in and I've realized that I'm missing like 75% of the hearing in my right ear. And I was like, what's going on? Like, is this a pregnancy thing? Is this a hormone thing? And he's like, Well, maybe but basically what they did is they treated it by putting a steroid injection into my eardrum. I had that done twice. And my hearing did not come back. So the ultimate thing we've come up with is it's either related to pregnancy, it can be an autoimmune thing. It's called sensory neural hearing loss. Or it could just been like a virus that got my ear or just idiopathic and nobody really knows why. So that's another thing the baby stuck for me was the ability to hear out of my right ear and
Scott Benner 1:14:13
the comfort of your nipples. Yeah, I hate to say this, but did they image your brain?
Claren 1:14:19
They have not but it's pretty. I guess I shouldn't say common but this is the only symptom I'm having. I don't have any other symptoms. And I had a brain MRI actually, when I was having the weird grave system symptoms, which was normal. So again, they discussed it No, I mean, I had the same thought as you They discussed it but they're like yeah, it's just this happens it can be something as simple as a virus. And if I if I have any other issues I'm sure I'll follow that but for now I'm okay and too busy to think about
Scott Benner 1:14:53
you know, it's funny how my I've such a strange life. I come to realize like you said that and I was like like two weeks ago I ever caught up with a lady who had a benign brain tumor, and she couldn't hear anymore in one year. And like that's, that's like what popped into my head like, I don't think I would have thought that had I not ever spoken to her obviously not a doctor. But that's Oh, that's crazy. So 75% loss, what's the impact on your day? I'm
Claren 1:15:18
mostly used to it now. But if I'm in a room with like multiple people, I had a really hard time focusing on which one person's talking.
Scott Benner 1:15:26
Any chance that comes back? I had my hearing checked
Claren 1:15:29
about a month ago, and it was the same. So I doubt it. I'm sorry. It's just annoying. It's not that big of a deal. Yeah, well, that but 10 years
Scott Benner 1:15:38
now, and the kids are acting crazy. You can be like, I am partially deaf in my one year because of you. Now sit down. It's not good parenting, but you'll do it eventually. What kind of a parent do you think you want to be?
Claren 1:15:52
We want I wanted to know, their loved but I want them to also be able to follow the rules and just like be respectful of other people and want to, to pursue whatever interests they have. I guess I should say, Nice.
Scott Benner 1:16:09
That's lovely. I just find the kids knowing that they've got their back is a big part of it. Oh, absolutely. Not even the thing you have to say out loud, really? I mean, you can and you should but I mean, just that knowledge of like, I can take a step. And if it doesn't go right, it's okay. Like it's okay to be kind of adventurous and bold and stuff like that.
Claren 1:16:30
My husband actually says that quite a bit. That's the one thing he wants for them is to know that for them to know that he's always he's always gonna be there to love them. And no matter what they do, yeah,
Scott Benner 1:16:41
I definitely want to stay alive long enough to see the first boy that comes to the door to pick up one of your daughters. And that mountain opens the door. ruins that kids night. Absolutely. Hello, sir. I you know, I don't even want to kick her out of a mark. Nevermind. I'm just tell her goodbye. I'm gonna go now. That's really something good for you. Well, congratulations. It's, uh, I mean, you know, he got through a lot to, to have them. And and I mean, just the idea of getting through medical school. Like, I don't know how anybody's a doctor. Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, I don't understand why, like, after you start telling me about, I mean, not the bummed me out. But I'm sure you're obviously already aware of this. A friend of mine said physician like malpractice insurance alone, I don't know what you're doing. That's so expensive. And yet, and then you know, all the all the things you've just kind of like detailed about why this could be you banging your head against the wall for the next 30 years and trying to help help people and it's just at the time, I just I was having a conversation today. And all above anybody out, but a friend passed away, I was at a memorial today. And a lot of the boys that my son played baseball with in college were there. And my son can't be there because he's out of state. So I'm sitting and getting back in touch with all the kids and talking to them again. And the one is like, I don't know what to do. Like, there's just, he wants to work in mental health. And he's got a job already in that space, which he thinks is going to help him get into grad school. But it's like, I might want to get a doctorate in this. And a sec, I think I might need to to do the thing I want to do, but I won't be in the real world until my early 30s. If I do that. And he's just like, I'm watching him go through it in his mind. He's like, I just don't know if I want to give my 20s away. And I can't tell he's like, maybe I should just get a master's and just go a different direction. And like he didn't. He's a bright, lovely kid. And he just doesn't know what to do. You know? Yeah. It's a lot of time as my point. Like it is
Claren 1:18:48
a lot of time. And then I'm still not done. And I'm 30. And yeah, there'll be a few more years from now.
Scott Benner 1:18:54
And hundreds of 1000s of dollars in loans. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but all sounds fair. Oh, my gosh, there's gotta be a better way than that. Right? For sure. All right. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate Can you hold on one sec. You? Oh, no, it's my fault. My pleasure. Can you hang on one second for me? Sure.
Let's thank CLARIN let's thank Dexcom let's thank ag one drink, ag one.com/juice box, dexcom.com/juice box and of course clarity for coming on the show and sharing her story with us. Don't forget to check out the private Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes. We're coming up on 44,000 members. You could be one of them. And please, please, please, Apple podcast listeners. Open up the app. Go into the library. Click on Juicebox Podcast up in the top right corner click on the three dots, hit settings. Go down to the download stuff choose download all episodes. You are going to save my big If you do that and save your podcast thank you so much for listening I'll be back soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast
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