Scott Benner 10/31/25 Scott Benner 10/31/25

#1667 After Dark: Persistence

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Curtis, a combat veteran and paramedic, recounts surviving catastrophic injury, memory loss, and misdiagnosis before finding clarity with LADA, resilience through family, and purpose training a service Chihuahua for his diabetes journey.

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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
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Curtis 0:14
Hello. My name is Curtis. I'm a newly diagnosed Lada went from type two to lotta just this past couple of weeks.

Scott Benner 0:25
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Curtis 2:07
My name is Curtis. I'm a newly diagnosed lotta. Went from type two to lotta just this past couple weeks,

Scott Benner 2:16
past couple weeks. So how long ago did you get your initial diagnosis.

Curtis 2:21
The initial diagnosis, type two, was a year and a half ago, and before that, I was considered pre diabetic. And you know how they always say with pre diabetes, you know, exercise, lose weight, you'll be fine. That didn't happen.

Scott Benner 2:40
Did you exercise and lose weight and weren't fine? Or did none of it happen?

Curtis 2:44
So I went to kind of extreme. I went and did the whole low carb diet. You know, where I work is, I'm very active. I drive a brown truck that delivers packages. You know, everybody loves us, but so I'm constantly working and everything. And I lost, I was almost 300 pounds. I lost maybe about 30 pounds. Went back in and was told, Oh, well, you're not doing it, right? You're not doing you're not you're not exercising, you're not losing you know, you lost a little weight, but you're not eating right, and that's why you keep on creeping up. And it kept happening to where we ended up having me placed on Metformin and then another medication. And this was my outside doc, me and her didn't see eye to eye. And you know, I have her as a doc, but I also have my VA doc and my spouse. My wife is a nurse practitioner, and I trust her with a lot of the decisions. When it comes to, should I do something?

Scott Benner 3:58
Tell me, VA, Doc, you were you were in the military? Yes, no, just tell me. When did you go in, and how long are you with you?

Curtis 4:04
I was in from 1999 all the way till 2008

2006 was the second time I got injured. The first time I got injured I was our Humvee was hit by an IED, and I got knocked out, pretty good, nothing too tremendous, you know, then it got back and got deployed again, and the last injury, which took me out of being in the military, I was blown up three pieces of shrapnel and shot seven times Jesus. So I've gone through about 52 I believe, operations so far throughout the years. And actually that. When that injury happened, I had a traumatic brain injury to actually, where I don't remember my past. The only thing of that day that I truly remember is laying down on the ground, facing up, looking at it the most beautiful blue sky I've ever seen in my

Scott Benner 5:18
life. And do you think that's after you were you were hit.

Curtis 5:21
That was definitely after I was hit. Yeah, Chris, tell me, were you in a firefight? Yes, and no. So the IED was a I was told everything that happened. Yeah, remember, we had an IED roadside. It blew we were in a firefight, and that's when I got hit three times in the chest, and I was brought down, and unfortunately, my flight jacket was one of those ones that weren't up to spec, and it went through my Kevlar missed my heart barely. One went into my lung and one went into my abdomen. So then they we were because of the firefight and everything going on, it was the two hostile of an area to fly in and evac me, but I told us, going into the Humvee, they backtracked, and apparently I heard my buddy got blown up by an ID pretty close to us, and I wouldn't let them stop and take me. I made them go get them, and on our way back through the city, we were ambushed. And we were ambushed. I rolled on top of my buddy and I got hit four times in the back. Jeez. So then, of course, we, you know, got evacked out of there, went through a lot, a lot of hospital. I mean, I was in the hospital for two and a half years. Unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries.

Scott Benner 6:55
So I'm sorry, man, that's, that's something else. And you were in the hospital for over two years after that. Wow, yep. How old were you when that happened? That was in 2006

Curtis 7:08
and I'm 42 my early 20s. Okay, my gosh, so yeah,

Scott Benner 7:15
well, I'm glad you're okay. I mean, I don't know if you are not, but I'm glad you're alive, I guess. And, and let's find out about the rest of it. So you told me before we started talking the you wonder if what's happening to you now doesn't have something to do with then, but what's the connection that you're you think you might see there? Yes.

Curtis 7:35
So while all this was happening in the hospital and everything, you know, I died a couple times in different operating rooms. In the reason I'm thinking, I'm not sure. I don't know about the data, but I had multiple blood infusions because I throughout from when I got injured to getting to a safe area, I was given blood multiple times, and then throughout some of the operations because I was still bleeding out, until they were able to stop all the bleeding and everything. I think they said they went through almost 17 units of blood at that

Scott Benner 8:12
time, just keeping you alive, to get you to a place where they could address what happened to you. Yes, my gosh, because they could airlift you out. Correct?

Curtis 8:21
So, right. We got back behind the wire, and I was taken straight into the surgery surgical area, and where they stabilized me from the time I got injured to stabilize at that location to be airlifted out, I went through 17 units of blood,

Scott Benner 8:39
my gosh, so there's like a more mobile surgical center close to the line, back behind the wire. They get you as stable as they can, to get you off to a hospital where they can address things further

Curtis 8:50
Correct. Yeah, we were transferred from there over to Germany until we were completely stable and able to go back to the United

Scott Benner 9:00
States. Yeah. Did your buddy make it as far as Germany, or did he pass before then

Curtis 9:04
he actually made it all the way back over the US, with me, and then during one of his operations, there was complications, and he passed?

Scott Benner 9:11
No, I'm so sorry. You know, before we started to record, you said, I don't know if there's a connection, but I feel like there could be. So what do you think between all those surgeries and the damage and the infusions and everything like, what is it that you're wondering about

Curtis 9:26
when I finally got diagnosed correctly? You know, I'm lot of now, and I have, what was it? The i Two is crazy high where, currently, right now, my beta cells are being destroyed, just trying to figure out from the trauma to all the blood infusions and all the operations is something either might have got it from somebody else's blood to even was the trauma, the kind of the onset that kind of kicked whatever in gear

Scott Benner 9:58
I see your brains just. All over the place trying to figure out what might have happened to you. Is there autoimmune in your family? You know, beyond type one diabetes? Is there thyroid, celiac, other autoimmune issues, I don't know, even psoriasis or what's the one where your skin gets different colors that Michael Jackson had? Why can't I think of it

Curtis 10:18
all of a sudden? Oh, I know what you're talking about. But, yeah, yeah, anything like that, mom, dad, uncles, aunts, anything you know, I knew you're gonna ask that, so I contacted my family just to make sure every I was correct, and we have no autoimmune. Okay, my father does have type two diabetes, but other than that,

Scott Benner 10:38
yeah, tell him to get in line. Everybody's got that. Okay, so you're not seeing any other autoimmune throughout your family line, correct? Okay, listen, I'm nobody in this scenario, but, like, I don't think you can get type one through an infusion, like, just like somebody else's blood. Kind of a situation that doesn't sound right to me, the traumatic part doesn't not make sense, but it's it would be uncommon with the other stories that people have told me, If the trauma was 20 years before the diagnosis, can I ask you a bigger question around that, I guess, why do you want to know? Why do you care how you got it? Curiosity? Yeah, just to know.

Curtis 11:17
Yeah, that's it. Okay. Just a curiosity. And then, you know, right before I actually finally had to start going to see the doctor and getting told, Oh, well, you're type. Two out of the military. I did a lot of different things, including, I've been a paramedic forever, and during covid, I was a paramedic on the weekends, and during the week, I was doing my normal job, and I caught it once. It wasn't that bad. Caught it again when it really came about, and I was out of work for about a month trying to get over it. Had a real hard, hard time, and I'm considered a long covid patient now because of it. And then I started having to go see doctors again, and that's when I know was told, hey, you know, your sugar is elevated. You got your pre diabetic. You're going to become diabetic if you don't take care of it. And so I really started trying to get as healthy as I possibly could. And then the doctor that I had, she, you know, she was trying to help. She wasn't the nicest about everything, and didn't believe anything I said. And then when I went to the VA to do blood work and everything else, like I normally do, the blood work came back that I was very elevated with a 1c and I was started on ozempic to see if that would help, along with the pills. And I was on that for about a year, and when I went back to my primary care on the health side, my prime, the doctor that I had, she left the practice, so I was given to, I was given a nurse practitioner to look over my care. And when I was telling her everything was going going on, and I told her, this is my care team. This is how I like to operate, she looked at me and said, well, all y'all are stupid awesome. I was like, okay. So I was like, Well, this is gonna be the first and probably the last time I'm gonna see you, ain't you?

Scott Benner 13:16
Oh, give me a second, because there's a lot to unpack here. So let me go back to you in the military, you weren't 300 pounds. Would you weigh in the

Curtis 13:24
military? Because I was also a bodybuilder in the military. I was about 232

Scott Benner 13:30
40. So how tall

Curtis 13:34
Can I ask five eight? My wife says I'm 510 but you

Scott Benner 13:38
know, that's what she just tells her friends, you're not tall, you're not short, you're you're carrying a lot of muscle. It sounds like, yes, where does the weight come? Is it come sitting in the hospital? Does it come after that? Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. It might sound crazy to say, but Summertime is right around the corner. That means more swimming, sports activities, vacations, and you know what's a great feeling, being able to stay connected to automated insulin delivery while doing it all. Omnipod five is the only tube free automated insulin delivery system in the US, and because it's tube free and waterproof, it goes everywhere you do, in the pool, in the ocean or on the soccer field. Unlike traditional insulin pumps, you never have to disconnect from Omnipod five for daily activities, which means you never have to take a break from automated insulin delivery ready to go tube free. Request your free Omnipod five Starter Kit today at omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary full Terms and Conditions. Can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox type that link into your browser, or go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on the image of Omnipod right at the bottom. There's also a link right in the show notes of your podcast player. You've probably heard me talk about us. Med. How simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works. And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording was like, us. Med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait. I think it lets you put it off, like, a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new eyelet pump. Check them out now at us, med.com/juicebox, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors.

Curtis 16:18
It just came after that. You know, being sedentary in the hospital. I did gain weight, and then it just kept on being an issue. And then, you know, I had the depression, real bad after everything, especially losing my buddy, so much so in when was it, I was released out of the military with a medical honorable discharge in 2008 I completely felt lost in everything I did because I didn't have that structure anymore. I led to drinking very heavily, and at one point at my lowest, I decided I didn't want to deal with this anymore. I attempted suicide. You made an attempt. I did okay. I was successful in the attempt, but what I used didn't work. So I to be honest with you, I put my handgun to my head and I pulled the trigger. The firing pin hit the blasting cap of the round. The round just never went off. When that happened, I realized how stupid I was, because I was going to end my life and I was just going to put a ton of burden on my family. After that, I decided I'm done with it. I stopped drinking, and I stopped taking all my payments, and I went through a horrible detox in the hospital for a little bit of time. Once I got detox, I came back out, I started becoming, I was a paramedic for a system here, again, working as a paramedic. There was a young lady that sparked my interest for some reason. You know, I was always, You don't ever play where you work. But there was a young lady at one of the hospitals that me and her became really good friends. It was great. She helped me through a lot, and she was the first person that I've ever let in to my bubble, ever since I left the military, especially with, you know, my scarring and everything, because I have skin grafts, and I have scars where I've had operations and everything, and it's not the easiest thing to look at. Okay, one time, she had to do something, and I told her to just come stay at my house, my apartment, because she would something was being done at her house, and I worked nights. She worked days. I was like, you can sleep in the bed. I'll take the couch, and we have opposite shifts. We won't see each other. Well, I think day two or three, she came in because she got off a little earlier, and I was I took a little bit later shift, and I was coming out of the shower, and she was coming into the apartment. I didn't hear her. She didn't hear me, and she walked into the bathroom, and that was the first time that I've ever seen a woman walking in on me at my most vulnerable time, and she saw the scars and the markings and everything, and she didn't look horrified. And that was in 2011 and I'm happy to say that that is my wife. Now, she completes me. I mean, she has helped me tremendously from the depression to the memory loss and everything else that I've I've had to deal with ever since my injury. Yeah, and

Scott Benner 19:40
yeah Curtis was that was the memory loss. Does it cover a segment? Or does it cover everything before the injury? Like, I mean, did you forget the day and the week, but not your 10th birthday? Or, do you know what I mean? Like, how much did you lose when

Curtis 19:55
I was injured and had that I did not have any memory? From anything prior. I didn't know who my parents were. I didn't know I was with somebody at that time. I didn't know who anybody was. All I know was something was going on, and I didn't know what what was going on, and it freaked me out. Yeah, still today, I have a heart. I have maybe a handful of memories from my past before the incident, just little spurts, because something happened and it brought up a memory, but yeah,

Scott Benner 20:27
did stuff return? Like did somebody have to tell you that's your mom and reintroduce you to her? Did that come back?

Curtis 20:32
I didn't know who my parents were, and they told me who they were, and I still was very reluctant to believe it. Wow. But one day, I was sitting at home at my place, and Phil Collins in the air, in the air, yeah, came on over the radio, and it sparked a memory. And I was like, it surprised me. It was of me and my father. When he used to own part of a towing business, he would always take me in the tow truck, and we go and do everything. And it sparked a memory of me and him riding in the truck, listening to in the air tonight, and then I saw his face, and that's when it clicked, that is truly

Scott Benner 21:21
my father. That's the first time you're able to believe it really was your dad.

Curtis 21:25
Yep, and that happened. Oh, probably 2010 2011

Scott Benner 21:31
Did you share that with him? Did you tell him? Yeah, good.

Curtis 21:34
That's awesome. Yeah, it was really rough on my parents, because, you know, they see me as injured as I was, and so confused and scared, and they just wanted help, but I was so scared that I didn't know who they were, and I didn't want anybody

Scott Benner 21:51
near me. No, I understand that from little things to big things. What if someone lied you about something about your personality and told them like, you love this but you didn't, or you don't. I mean, like, if you were married, somebody definitely would have said you love doing the laundry and vacuuming, right? How do you trust anything? Because you're hoping these people are being clear with you, but you have no way to, like, I mean, I'm assuming there's pictures and you know, stuff like that, but still you're saying it's, it's hard to swallow that pill. Yeah.

Curtis 22:18
So I've seen all sorts of pictures of my past and videos and everything. And then once my brothers and my sister found out truly what I did in the military, I now no longer have a relationship with one of my sisters and two of my brothers

Scott Benner 22:37
because of your job in the military. Yes, sir, they don't like what you were doing, correct? Would you tell would you tell me what your job was?

Curtis 22:46
Let's just put it this way, I was deployed to unalive targets or people.

Scott Benner 22:51
Okay, so you were moving through places, hitting targets?

Curtis 22:56
Yes, in a way, okay, I had a very small skill set that not many of us had. Unfortunately, I do have some of the memories of what I've done in the military ever since it's been so long and the faces haunt me on a daily basis. You

Scott Benner 23:15
stop me if I'm asking too much. Were you a sniper?

Curtis 23:19
I was a Scout Sniper, yes, yeah,

Scott Benner 23:21
God, yeah. That's the thing we talk about. This is me being academic about it. I obviously have no context for it, but having a big conversation here the other day about, like, what it must be like for these kids that are flying drones now too, you know, because you're controlling the thing, and the thing is shooting somebody and but with you, you're you're looking through a scope and you're seeing that person. Yes, there's no getting around it. Do you ever think maybe it's good you don't remember it?

Curtis 23:49
Yes, I do, because the little bits that I do remember and the constant reminders I do have and the nightmares they

Scott Benner 23:57
suck. Curtis, it occurs to me as you're telling me that like if you don't remember anything from your past, but you can picture, you know, some of the the engagements that you had, but you don't have the rest of who you are like the rest of who you were. Might have been trained to deal with that better. The new you doesn't have that training or that experience, right? You see, I'm saying like you maybe, maybe the old you was good at it, which I know is kind of a horrifying thing for people to hear or think, but, but maybe that person was better suited to be a sniper than the person who you are now. And now you're stuck with some of that person's memories but none of their coping

Curtis 24:35
skills. Well, I see what you're saying, but you know, one thing that has helped me is, you know, being a firefighter paramedic for as long as I have been while I was in the service and out of the service, and everything that we've seen on the different calls that I've been to, from shooting, stabbings to suicides, homicides, you name it, it is actually made it to where I was able to cope a whole lot better because of. Everything that I've been through and seeing, okay, but there's always going to be some of these images that I'll never get out of hand. Do you ever wonder if they're real? Sometimes? Yeah, yeah, Wow, gosh, man, but it's a lot. Unfortunately, I know it is real. That's the bad part. Yeah. Also, I'll

Scott Benner 25:20
be listening to Weird road to go down, and I understand that people could be morally outraged by the job, but is your sister and you mean, you're in the military, they give you a job. You do the job, right? Like, what would have happened if you said no? Thank you. Does that happen? Do you know what I mean?

Curtis 25:33
Like, if you were to say no in a time of war, yeah, that could be punishable up to including

Scott Benner 25:42
death. That's a tough thing to for your sister to hang on you. I think. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not in her situation. But maybe it's, you know, just hard for her to talk to you. Maybe it's just hard for her to make sense of all of it. I don't know. I'm so sorry. There's a lot in there. Man, you're young too. Still, you're, would you say you're 42 Yeah, it's been 42 you've been through a bunch. Let's figure out the diabetes part. Like so we heard the part about you, um, being diagnosed as a type two. They gave you Metformin. Ozempic. Ozempic, help you lose weight.

Curtis 26:11
Actually, believe it or not, ozempic. I was on the highest dose, and they did nothing for my weight.

Scott Benner 26:16
What were you taking? I can't think about the highest doses. Is it two?

Curtis 26:20
Point? Is it two, two or three, I can't never remember that's

Scott Benner 26:24
that's not enough to lose the weight, if it's not working for you. But okay, so you were on ozempic. Did it help your blood sugars? I mean, it might have helped a little bit back then, right?

Curtis 26:31
It did help the ozembic, the Metformin, and the other met. I was on the combination of them, I still ran kind of a higher blood sugar. But yeah, I was still staying in the pre diabetic range.

Scott Benner 26:46
For people who thought you had type two or pre diabetes, they were pretty happy with the care. They didn't realize that you were just in a very early stage of

Curtis 26:53
Lada, correct, right? And with how my job is very active, that helps while I'm at work, my sugars stay pretty dag I'm good. But anytime I'm not at work because I don't have the adrenaline going and I'm not going fast, that's when they kept on, my sugars would go up. Yeah. So I lost the one doctor because she moved, and so I got this new one that said I was stupid pretty much. And at that time, it was time for my interest to get a new pre authorization for Zimbabwe. She was like, Yeah, I'll fill it out, but I don't think they're going to give it to you because you're under what you

Scott Benner 27:30
need to be. Oh, for the A 1c she should have tried for Manjaro, or we go V for you for weight before.

Curtis 27:36
Well, she filled it out, and then it came back that, you know, they denied it. And I was like, Well, can you, you know, rebuttal this and get it figured out and see what we need to do? Because this was my a, 1c, and she was like, No, it's just, you know, that's what they're gonna say. And she was like, you're pretty much just gonna have to get sick worse than you are now.

Scott Benner 27:58
I gotta. I got a close friend this happened to recently, where they basically told her to get type two diabetes and then they'll give it to her. And she's like, Yeah, no. I mean, awesome, right? Like, what a message from I know it's insurance, and insurance isn't health care really, you know what? I mean, it's that's not your doctor. Your doctor wants you to have it, but can I ask a question? Like, it's gonna kind of bother me until I ask it to you, go for it. It's a hustle job, right? I see the guy that works on my street. He's running the whole day in and out of that truck. How are you 300 pounds hustling like that? I

Curtis 28:29
don't know, because we hustle, and when we hustle, and I'm in a state that stays very, very hot, I live down in Texas, you're sweating your ass off on top of everything else. Exactly, during the summer, the back of that truck can be anywhere from 120 to 150 degrees, easy.

Scott Benner 28:46
So for people listening, are you eating a lot of calories, and that's how you're maintaining the weight? Or do you think it's something more metabolic? Or do you you have any idea?

Curtis 28:56
We weren't sure because I was on a low carb honestly, for my breakfast, I was drinking a protein shake that I made at home. So it was all natural. You know, you knew what was. It wasn't just Exactly, yeah. So there was that. And then for lunch was chicken and broccoli every single day, Jesus,

Scott Benner 29:14
and you 300 pounds and you're in a sweat box and you're running around like a lunatic, yes, geez, at what point do you say to yourself, How is this not impacting my weight?

Curtis 29:24
When the referral or the pre authorization got denied at that point, I was at 270 okay? And I was like, well, let's see what's gonna happen now. And so I kept on doing the same thing I always did and and because the nurse practitioner, or was she a nurse practitioner or a PA, either one, but she didn't believe me. I was like, You know what? How about you get me a Dexcom? I was like, then I can prove that I'm not lying. Because you don't believe believe me. This the woman that called you stupid. Yes, yeah. Well, tell me again. Why? Did she call you stupid? What did you say that gave her that response because I told her how, with my VA doctor telling me that even though I'm on the pills and ozembic at that time, that if I couldn't get everything under control, my sugar was going to keep on elevating to where we were going to have to look at the possible use of

Scott Benner 30:22
insulin. To you said that, and she said, You're stupid. Yep, that's common, isn't it?

Curtis 30:27
And the thing that was funny was, my wife was at that appointment with me, but she will not open up her mouth unless I you know, yeah. And she was biting her tongue going she was looking at this woman as you're an absolute

Scott Benner 30:47
idiot. I don't understand sometimes, but

Curtis 30:51
she held her tongue so they agreed to do the Dexcom. And three months go by, and I go back to her, and at this time I am incredibly sick. I gained another this is the time now I'm about 300 pounds. I have no energy whatsoever. I feel like absolute my a 1c, is now skyrocketed. Oh, geez. And she was like, Huh, well, maybe you do have type two I was like, Well, I've got something because I don't

Scott Benner 31:24
feel right. Yeah, something's up. So she went from believing that you were pre diabetic, but now thinking maybe you definitely have type two diabetes, right?

Curtis 31:33
And, you know, I brought in the Dexcom reports, and I brought in a binder of everything, every single thing I ate, and at what time I ate it, every single day.

Scott Benner 31:45
Yeah, you're on a little bit of, a little bit of a mission to show her, huh? Oh,

Curtis 31:49
yeah, when you tell me I'm wrong, I'm gonna prove you I'm

Scott Benner 31:52
right. I mean, I don't know why people can't just hear what you're saying and go, Oh, that's pot because you didn't say anything that's not reasonable. Like, you know, could have just said, Hey, let's, let's look into that for you. But nevertheless, okay, so you brought up reports. I'm sorry. Then what

Curtis 32:05
happened? So then she was like, Okay, well, let's see if we can get you on ozembic insurance. Comes back that prioritization. They okayed it, but they're not going to cover that drug because that's not on their formulary. Now,

Scott Benner 32:17
awesome. I was like, Okay, great.

Curtis 32:19
So then I was got, I was put on monjuro, okay? And she was like, now that I'm putting you on mongero, you have to come see me every, every three months and whatnot, or I won't continue the prescription. Did the mangero help you lose weight? Well, after I started taking the monjuro, I started seeing my blood sugars coming down. Yeah. I ended up getting up to 12 and a half milligrams of monturo.

Scott Benner 32:49
That's the dose I'm on. By the way, 12 and a half. Yep, yep. With that,

Curtis 32:54
my diet, exercise, you know, still constantly doing everything I am now, currently, today, I'm at 210

Scott Benner 33:01
pounds. Hey, man, look at you. That's awesome. Congratulations. I appreciate it. Yeah, I wanted to let you tell the story, because I wasn't sure where it's gonna go, but I was just chomping at the bit myself to tell you, like, get off the ozempic. Go for the manjar, the Zepp bound, you know, because it's also got a G I P in it, and that'll definitely help with the weight loss. You've lost 90 pound,

Curtis 33:20
yeah, but during that time I, you know, I was slowly climbing each level that you had to and, you know, my blood sugars was still messing around. Just not, not something, it's not right. I went back to that Doc, and I was like, Look, something's not right. I still don't feel right. I think something more is going on. And she's like, No, you just need to lose more weight. You need to eat right? And then this will all go away. I was like, it's not going away. That's the problem, because now my sugars are starting to increase again,

Scott Benner 33:54
right? Also, you're now, you're 20 pounds under when you were running around Fallujah, wherever the hell you are. So, like, I don't know where you are. I'm not asking, but like, I mean, you're out in the let me make the assumption you're out in the desert, right? Yeah, yes, right, right. You're 20 pounds under the weight you were when you were operating there, and you're still seeing the blood sugars. And then she says, lose more weight. Did you say that doesn't make any I can't stand

Curtis 34:19
I looked at her, and I was like, you know, if you're not going to help? I was like, it's pretty sad that I'm asking you for help, because I'm trying to better myself and get my health back into where it needs to be, and you're hinder of it. Like, you know what I'm done, right? I was like, I'm gonna go find another doctor, because you're just not going anywhere. I then went to another provider that's actually works with my wife at the same clinic, and they overtook my care and with how everything was, they were like, you know, let's try a little bit of long acting insulin, just to see what happens. I was like, okay, because I have what is that the dawn for. Phenomenon, phenomenon where I would be high as can be in the morning. It was crazy, right? And so we titrated, and I was, I ended up going up to, I think, 22 units a night, okay? And it was kind of working. But then summer came and working outside, pardon my language, it was a crap shoot, because it was like, okay, am I gonna get too hot to where? Then during the day, I'm gonna be even worse off, because I took too much Lantus and and then it went from having Lantus to then I had ended up having to have short acting as well. And insurance covered Nova log, bless my provider, they put me on a sliding scale. And I looked at him, I was like, Okay, I'll try this for a week, and we'll see how it goes. But after a week, if it doesn't do what it should do, I'm going to do it my way. Okay? And they looked at me and was like,

Scott Benner 35:55
How'd you know that there was a different way when they tell you sliding scale, how do you know there's other ways to use insulin

Curtis 35:59
from your wife. When I was diagnosed, you know, my wife had a good knowledge, but when I want to know something, I researched and I researched the, you know, what out of everything, so much so that I saw a lot of type ones are carb counting, and I'm like, okay, yes, I'm a type two, but I'm on insulin. Type ones are on insulin. So why can't I do the same thing a type one does?

Scott Benner 36:27
Yeah? To see if that works. Yeah. Man, it's just, I mean, if you look into it, it makes sense immediately. So that's great. So at what point does someone realize you're not type two? Is that recent? That more recently,

Curtis 36:40
it was very recently, so at the beginning of this year, I told the provider. I was like, Look, I really think I need to be placed on a pump. Because with me working outside and taking the long acting, yeah, and taking the short acting, I swear that long acting messes with me throughout the day, if it gets too hot. I was like, something needs to change. And she was like, Well, I've never worked with a pump. I don't feel comfortable with a pump. Oh, okay. I was like, Okay. I was like, well, then the next step is I need to get somebody in my care team that's comfortable with a pump. I talked with my wife, and I told her, Hey, I'm really looking at a pump. I think that'll probably be the best thing for me with how everything is. She was like, Okay, how do you want to go about it? I was like, well, several years ago, I went to a dinner with my wife that had a speaker in our area talk about diabetes and ozempic, okay? And so I learned a lot from that, little meeting. Well, for Endo, she is huge on research when it comes to diabetes and everything, and she is very well known. And so I was like, well, then that's who I want my endo to be, and that's also the endo that my wife refers to, okay? And I was like, Well, I want the best. I don't want something mediocre. We had a consult put in because of how my schedule was and everything else, told it was going to be about a four or five month wait, and ended up being closer to six months. I went and saw her middle of August to prepare I you know, I asked my provider. I was like, hey, what I want done is, let's do labs. So when I walk in there, I have everything to give her, and there's no question about anything. I was like, so I want all my labs done that I do every three months. But I also want all my antibodies for type one

Scott Benner 38:36
done. Get that out of the way too. So yeah, just so I

Curtis 38:40
walk in a week before my appointment, you know, all my labs come back, and I look at my wife, and my wife has been saying, you know, there's something about you that's different. You're not type two and you're not type one. She was like, you're in between, because you have a lot of the traits of both of them. And that's why we went with the testing, and when we got the results back, before I went to the appointment, it showed that I had pretty much Lada. And my wife was like, I knew it. And I was like, well, you sounds like you're right. I'm not ever gonna say you're wrong, that's for sure. So I did my research, got it all figured out. And then I also put in a list of, hey, this is what how my progress has been. And because I knew, because I've had a fight with several providers to get anything done correctly, that needed to be done, yeah, so I was ready to go in there. I was going to listen to them, but I was ready to react if I need to, and say, Hey, here's the facts. This is what I want. This is how we're going to do it. I walked in and, you know, they were asking me some questions, and I had everything from them, from how much insulin I was taking at any given time, I told them, You know, I was doing the sliding scale, but I went and did the carb counting. I know my car. Ratio. I know my insulin resistance, I know it all. What do you want to know? And they looked at me and said, How do you know all this stuff? And I was like, Well, I researched a lot, and then I got tired of researching, and I was starting to look for podcasts. I said, I listened to five or six podcasts before I was like, You know what I'm done. None of them are helping. They were boring to me. And then I was like, then I of course, saw your podcast, and I was like, Huh, I guess I'll listen to his newest one, just see how it is. Okay. And during it you were talking about the Pro Series episode, 1000 1026 or something like that, yeah. And I was like, huh, now I'm really interested. So I listened to those, and that's what helped me with my carb ratio, insulin resistance and just getting my levels all figured out myself, I'm glad. And when I went into the Indo, I said, here's everything. And they're like, Well, what would you like to do today? And I was like, Well, honestly, I was coming in for help, and they were like, well, has anybody talked to you about a pump? Because she, she looked at my blood work, and she was like, Oh, you're Lada. And I was like, Oh, wow, I'm not even gonna have to fight for this. Yes, you just looked at I was like,

Scott Benner 41:13
Curtis is like, I'm so ready for this fight, and nobody gonna fight. But you know why there's no fight because you, because of all what you did, right? They were like, You're

Curtis 41:22
a very type A personality. And I'm like, No, I just want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row before I walk in, trying

Scott Benner 41:27
to stay alive. Thanks. Yeah. What do you think, Curtis, is it about you that makes that your reaction? Because I talk to people all the time, and they all have, you know, the same ability you do. And they could, they could make decisions like that and get out ahead and collect information. But some of them do, and some of them don't. You have any idea about why you're a person who does

Curtis 41:46
the big thing is, is, I'm tired of feeling sick. I just want to feel good again. I wanted to be better. You know, I've got my wife, I've got four kids, and I'm looking at this going, if I don't take care of myself, I'm gonna start being like my father, who's type two, that's not really good control, and you can see it. And I've tried helping him, but he's like, Oh, I'll listen to what the docs say. Okay. But I was like, I do. I'm not ready to leave this planet just yet because of my stupidity. Again, I got you and you know, instead of using a firearm. It's, it would be diabetes, taking care of myself. Yeah, so you'd be

Scott Benner 42:25
making the decision, yeah, it's so funny. You're talking about this Curtis. I made an episode earlier today with Erica. She's in a lot of the mental health stuff. I kind of drag her into an episode where I was like, Look, I want to talk about the trolley problem. And I think, and I don't know if you know that that's like a like a thought exercise, right? If there were five people as a runaway trolley, five people tied to the track, you have nothing to do with tying them there. And then there's a lever, and if you pull the lever, the trolley would divert onto another track, but there's a person tied up there, would you pull the lever divert the track so that the one person was killed instead of the five people. Pretty common, you know, thought exercise. It's, you know, people talk about all the time that bigger picture. You'll have to listen to the episode to hear kind of where my brain went with it. But it made me think about people's inaction and and how with health, you can see people make the decision that, like, I didn't do this to myself, there's a big bad wolf out there somewhere. They tied the people to this track, this health track that I'm on. It's got nothing to do with me. If I don't do anything and something goes wrong, it's not my fault. It's an unseen foe's fault. It's a bad guy somewhere that did something to me, but if I get involved in it, now suddenly the outcomes are on me. It's easier to do nothing and then get to blame a faceless thing later. And you're telling me that that's what your dad's

Curtis 43:48
doing, kind of but he's actually now starting to he's control of Look at him. Awesome. You getting through to him too. I am. And I actually have, I was telling my mom. I was like, hey, you need to get dad to get tested for type one. I was like, just because of how I've been watching his numbers, because they let me start looking at his numbers through his Dexcom. Yeah, I'm seeing how one, a pump will help him tremendously. So I'm not really trying to push it on him, but I'm saying, hey, a pump could really help to tell them, hey, try Pre-Bolus. Don't, don't do this sliding scale like you're told. Let's figure out your carb count. Let's figure out insulin resistant and everything else. And go from there. Yeah, I was like, once I did that, things turned

Scott Benner 44:35
around for me. Curtis, I gotta tell you, you've been talking for 50 minutes. You've said a lot of interesting things. But I just want to point out that what my ego heard was there are five other podcasts out there about diabetes that are boring. That's all I heard. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding, but that's I pre I appreciate you being kind about mine.

Curtis 44:51
Oh, it's on. It's me being honest. And actually, once I went to the Endo, I will say that they were. On board with everything that I requested. And then they asked me about pumps. And I was like, yeah, it's easy. I want the tandem Moby. And they're like, but that's tubed. I was like, You got to understand, I work outside. It's hot. If it gets too hot, I can take that off, put it in my cooler to cool it down a little bit, and then put it back on.

Scott Benner 45:20
You. Like the idea of it being able to take it off? I would also imagine with the Moby being able to wear with one of those, what that on body kind of thing? Or you could clip it sleeve, yeah. So you have options there too.

Curtis 45:32
Actually, believe it or not, I wear boxer briefs and clip it. For some reason, they put pockets on them for some time on the boxer briefs, yeah, just a little, little, little pocket to put, like, your phone in it, or what, I just dropped the Moby in it, and that's where it sits. Curtis. You

Scott Benner 45:49
got to be careful. You lose a little more weight. Those briefs are going to slide right off you.

Curtis 45:53
I went from what a size 42 to a 34

Scott Benner 45:56
Isn't it crazy? I mean, you've lost 90. I've lost about 70. My brother and I were somewhere the other day, and he's getting, like, picking up like, a sweatshirt as a memory of the day somewhere. And I was in there with him, and you guys might know from listening to him, I'm very cheap, so I was walking around, and I'm like, Oh, these are expensive. Blah, blah, blah. And he's like, you can afford a sweatshirt. Oh, my God, I want to spend all the money on that. And then I saw a t shirt, and I was like, I do like that T shirt, though. And it was stylistically, not something that I would have bought prior to having lost weight, because there was an image on the front. I would never want somebody to be looking at the image, because then you could see the topography of my visage. You know what I mean? Like when you're wearing a solid color, it's a little harder to see your tits, I guess is what I'm saying here. I had no trouble buying the image with you on the shirt, and on top of that, I tried on a couple of different sizes, and I left with a medium, and I was a two XL. You know, what a great experience and be, you know, plus the way I feel, and, you know, how much better I feel and am and etc. Are you feeling like now that you've got your diabetes and check on top of your weight. Can you describe the change that's happened for you from 300 pounds not on insulin to on insulin to 20 or two

Curtis 47:11
Well, I will say having insulin is a little different. It was a big change to get used to, but I mean losing the weight and with me constantly exercising, I didn't have a lot of excess skin that some some people do, which is great, right? But because I've lost weight, I've got more energy, yeah, and I feel like I can do more, whereas there's some things that I couldn't do, because just walking, I get a little

Scott Benner 47:37
winded. You must have exhausted yourself. That work during the day, so I would imagine weren't worth anything. When you got home

Curtis 47:44
exactly, I was ready to go to bed. And then even right now, if my blood sugar goes anywhere over 135 I am worthless, like me and my wife can sit there, everything's fine. And once it hits over 135 I get, like, automatically sleepy. I'm ready to go to sleep,

Scott Benner 48:00
you've gotten your management to the point where sounds like your your blood sugars are lower your and your variability is very low too.

Curtis 48:08
So my last blood draw, my a 1c was a 5.2 or 5.1 and the standard deviation that I run with the Dexcom is anywhere from seven to

Scott Benner 48:23
12. Jesus, that's awesome. Do you think you're still honeymooning? Do you think the lot is still like, are you, I don't wanna say full blown, but like, are you still

Curtis 48:32
currently not converted all the way? I still have some of my beta cells. Okay, that's another thing. So I'm Lada, but if you look at my medical record, it doesn't say that. It says I'm type two insulin dependent. That's crazy, and the reason we had to keep that was we knew that if they were to switch mine to type one or Lata, you'd lose the Manjaro, I would lose manjuro, and they want me to stay on the mangero, because mongero is helping my insulin sensitivity, but it's also helping my heart, my kidneys and everything else. Yeah. So we're going to keep that going as long as we can, because there's studies going on right now about type ones with a GLP, oh yeah, and

Scott Benner 49:16
everything. Keep your head down, Curtis, and they'll be coverage for type ones sooner. Oh yeah, and

Curtis 49:20
so I'm just waiting for that, and then it'll get changed. The middle of August, I was seen by the Endo, and by the end of August, I had the Moby, and I started the Moby, and I went from taking anywhere from I had the 22 units of lannis, and then throughout the day, I was taken anywhere, including the lannis, anywhere from 40 to 80 units a day. Now I'm actually looking at my summary on tandem right now, and it says my average daily daily use of. Uh, insulin is

Scott Benner 50:01
23 units. 23 that's basal

Curtis 50:04
and Bolus together. That's basal and Bolus together.

Scott Benner 50:07
If you have insulin resistance, kids that GOP will help you. Well, I don't care what type you are, that's really awesome. Good for you. That's great. Yeah, you're making me feel through it's the end of the week. You're my last recording this week, and I'm sitting here feeling like, I feel like something I did help somebody, you know what? I mean, like, so I'm having a making me feel good. I appreciate that you share this with us.

Curtis 50:29
You definitely have helped. I mean, you know, after, after that indo appointment, I was like, You know what? I'm about to get put on a pump. I'm gonna listen to the Pro Series again. Started on the Pro Series, and I just started listening every episode after that, and I'm at episode, what was it? Almost 1300 Wow. It's like 1298 because with my job, since I don't really have a lot of interaction with a lot of people, I just listen to the podcast every day, all day long, and it's fun to listen to, because you hear everybody's different stories, and then someone will say something. It's like, Huh? I didn't think about that. Yeah. Well, let's look into

Scott Benner 51:11
that. That's the value, I think, of people, besides the entertainment of it is, is that if you just let people talk, they'll say something that's really valuable. You said something. I mean, it's half an hour ago now that I still feel like in my chest, like I still feel it like, you know, you talked about your attempting suicide. And, I mean, just like the dumb luck of that, of that firing pin, not, not doing its job, right, and, and, and what you took from it, like everything that came to you after that. It's really, I just think, really valuable, because you probably would have had that thought as that bullet was traveling through the chamber, and it would have been too late, yeah, you know what I mean, like that thought that hit you of like, I shouldn't be doing this, and you got, you know, whatever steps in and gives you an opportunity to make another decision, and then you took it, and then everything of your story after that is really just a masterful example of being an adult and taking care of yourself. You're really kicking ass,

Curtis 52:14
man, I appreciate it. I can't take all the credit, though. Now

Scott Benner 52:18
you got a wife, I'm sure she tells you when you're being dumb. That's probably helpful.

Curtis 52:21
And I do tell everybody at the time I married an Irish Red Headed ER nurse Okay, where she could kill me, bring me back to life and kill me again, just because I ticked her off. Well, she is now advanced, and now she's a nurse practitioner, so now she's got a slew of other things she

Scott Benner 52:42
can do to me. So yeah, and she make four babies for you. Well, we're actually a blended family, okay, okay,

Curtis 52:48
I have one son, and she has two sons and a daughter. I'll tell you straight up, they're all my kids. Yeah, I don't care what anybody says. Anytime anybody asked me if I How many kids I got, I always tell them for Yeah, look at you, because I've been with them since they were young. Yeah, our daughter, she's she's now a nurse. Our oldest son, he is an engineer. Our middle son, he is actually today, taking the test to become a to get into the police academy. So we're hoping he does well there. Good luck. Our youngest is finishing up high school. Wow.

Scott Benner 53:24
Man, look at you guys. That's awesome. You're a lovely person, too. Curtis, this is my first time really meeting. I've seen you online a little bit, but not to this level, obviously. Yes, sir, yeah, man, this is really wonderful view. What made you want to share this with everybody? Everybody's

Curtis 53:37
got a story, and you know you guys, right? My story might impact somebody to say, hey, you know, I've been there, and if I can pull through it, you can, yeah. I could tell you I still have my dark days. I always will. I

Scott Benner 53:54
wanted to ask you about depression. Is that something you still fight with

Curtis 53:58
every day? Yeah. But I can honestly tell you, I'll never, I'll never attempt on my life again, because now one I realized how stupid I was backed in and that was before I met my wife. Now I've got all my family, include my parents and brother. I've got four kids that look at me and if I was willing to do that and hurt myself again? How would that help them? And so everything I do is I do it for my family. I don't play that game anymore.

Scott Benner 54:28
Yeah, there's worse reasons to do things. That's for sure. That's a that's a that's a pretty good one. I really do appreciate you telling me this. I want to make sure. Is there anything? Like, I don't want to I'm not cutting you off, but like, if I just feel like you did such a good job of telling your story that if I keep talking, it's just gonna, it's gonna ruin what you did. But I want to make sure there's nothing that we missed.

Curtis 54:48
The biggest thing is is, you know, if somebody on the edge of, Do I need a pump? Do I not need a pump? Should I be on insulin? Do your research. I mean, honestly, do a little bit of research goes a long. Way, and with me doing the research and me presenting everything that I needed to at the doctor. But you know, I had it all in a binder, everything from my meds, my history, to everything about my diabetes to my lab work, and they just flipped through it and said, Wow, you are really organized. They didn't

Scott Benner 55:20
have a problem. Yeah, you did their job for them, really, right? I will

Curtis 55:24
say my indo did tell me they're like, Well, you know, you have a five two, which is really good. Just realize that these pumps, you might not keep it that low, because, you know, their target range is higher than what I've always kept my stuff at. I was like, I understand that, but it'll help keep me feeling better. Yeah, I mean, and instead of having to have two different insulins, I have one insulin. And, you know, I run the control IQ algorithm, I let it do its thing, and it keeps me in check really well. And the reason I went with tandem instead of the Omnipod one, if I was to pull the Omnipod off to cool it down, well, I just, you can't put it back on. I don't get it exactly. And with the Omnipod it, they tend to be less aggressive with their algorithm than the control

Scott Benner 56:19
IQ. Do you know Curtis that right now. I think Omnipod is in a they're doing a study right now. I think they're calling it just it's Omnipod. I don't know if it's five, 2.0 or something like that, but they're doing a study right now to make the algorithm. I'm going to use the word more aggressive. I don't know how they would characterize it, but one way or the other, that's not important. What's important is you find something that works for you and that's for everybody listening. Now, beyond that, what's important is finding something that works for you. But then, of course, once you find it, using my link to buy it, twist.com/juicebox omnipod.com/juicebox. Tandem diabetes.com. So Medtronic diabetes, you would just find the links at the web page. So we can keep making this podcast and hearing from people like Curtis, who has a fascinating you really have, somehow don't remember the first 22 years of your life, only the last 20, and still have four lives worth of stories to tell. Seriously. Oh yeah, no, man, that's that's incredible. Like, I mean, you talked about you're one person. You talked about being injured in battle and nearly dying. Did you get the Purple Heart? Yes. Did they give you a medal for covering your body? They requested it. I did. I didn't want it. You didn't want it. Okay? No, well, you deserve he was a brother. No, I hear you, man, but like you weren't wearing that vest anymore when you got on top of him, right? Nope, yeah. Okay, so that in itself is a story. Then there's everything that happened you with your memory loss and your recovery, that's a story in itself, fighting through this type two diabetes misdiagnosis thing. I mean, I don't know how many times I'm going to talk to somebody about it, but it's horrifying, and most people don't have the great outcome that you had. So like, I know how difficult that is. The subplot here of the story with your your sister judging you the way she does, and you've lost family, tried to take your own life. You're fighting with depression, and you're still living a really successful life out in the world, being a great part of it, being a dad to four people, a husband to somebody, and finding a way to take care of yourself, and then taking five minutes to come on here and tell everybody else about it. Yeah, seriously, man, if I had a medal, I'd give it to you. I do not. You're welcome. I don't have one. Just in case you're wondering, I could give you this Dexcom fidget spinner that I have here. I don't know where to send it. I got this at friends for life, guys, if you've been hearing this on the podcast, I apologize. Can you hear it?

Curtis 58:36
I hope not. Oh yeah, you can't hear this. Just heard something spin.

Speaker 1 58:39
I've been fidget spinning for like, weeks now, while I'm talking to people, and originally, probably right now, Rob's editing this and thinking like, is that what that noise is? I didn't know what that was. Usually it's a cricket gets loose in my room and I can't find it, and I'm trying to record and it's in the background, like making a bunch of noise. But that's a different story. If you don't listen to enough of the podcast, that's not going to make any sense

Curtis 59:00
to you. Just let one of your little guys run around. You know

Scott Benner 59:02
what? That's not though I'm getting right now. One of them is definitely looking at me like, let's do one more. One more Roach today. He's giving me the big eyes. So,

Curtis 59:10
so the cool thing is, just to add on to the story, because with my lows, I can't tell you when I get low until I hit about 30. Oh, once I hit 30, I got less than five minutes to do something about it, or I'm down.

Scott Benner 59:27
Yeah, we don't want you that low. How does that happen? I mean, you're on a seat, you're in a CGM, right?

Curtis 59:31
Sometimes it happens pretty quick, fast. It's just really weird. So because of it, that's one thing that my wife was very worried about, you know, us sleeping, and next thing we know it, she's not hearing the alarms. And I am very hypo to where, if you look at service dogs, and people have said stuff about it on the Facebook post, they're like, $30,000 yeah.

Scott Benner 59:54
I mean, I don't know who's supporting that. I actually, apparently got, got somebody one for free in a giveaway. I. Forgotten about it. I interviewed, I interviewed him, and she, she the kid, her kid, her kid, her son, won a trip to camp Sweeney through the podcast, and she's thanking me for it, and then she's like, also, I'm the one that won the service dog in your giveaway. And I was like, wait, what also? Well, listen, first of all, let's be clear. Do you have backsemi or G vogue at the house? So you have glucagon with you? I have g vote because of your podcast. Good, good, good. Let them hear that people know activity. A lot of times you'll see like, latent lows overnight when you have activity, but you have activity every day with your job. Yeah.

Curtis 1:00:33
So we actually end because I used to have a service dog in the past. Unfortunately, she died of cancer.

Scott Benner 1:00:40
Oh, my God, I'm sorry. Was that more for, like, just emotional support

Curtis 1:00:44
kind of Yeah, she actually was deployed several times over in the sandbox as well. She was actually a military working dog. She retired and got to come home and live with me. She was converted into a service dog to help me through the PTSD and all that Shepherd Curtis, she was a Belgian Malinois. Oh, wow, beautiful dog. Okay. Oh, she was, yeah. And I told my wife, you know, if we're gonna do this, we'll train the dog ourselves. One and two, I was like, I don't want a big dog again. I was like, I need something small, because I ride a Harley all the time, and so much so that I gave her something impossible to find, and leave it to a woman. She found it. So now I have a I'm not kidding you. She's less than two pounds, a little chihuahua.

Scott Benner 1:01:38
Are you telling me that it's you on a Harley with a chihuahua in a saddle bag.

Curtis 1:01:44
Yep, she's been trained for my lows. We still train daily by using saliva from when I was low and everything. But she she is jumped on that bandwagon, and that little dog can detect a low,

Scott Benner 1:02:01
really quick. Kidding, you trained your own service Chihuahua. Uh huh,

Curtis 1:02:05
yeah. So just think about a big, big guy jumping off a Harley with a chihuahua on his

Scott Benner 1:02:11
chest, honestly, Curtis, all I can think about is when I sit down three months from now and explain to chat GPT to make me an image of a of a burly guy on a Harley Davidson going through Texas with a chihuahua in a saddlebag to see what it comes up with. Oh,

Curtis 1:02:28
you're gonna have to send it to me, because in 20 or next year or 2028 I'm actually going to be doing a 10,000 mile motorcycle challenge. Good for you, and I've got to raise money for a charity, but I also have to get sponsors for it, because it's going to cost about $17,000 to do to go on the ride. And it's a ride where you can't use GPS. It's all secondary highways. It's not really any interstates. The directions that you're given are old maps go, but not maps go. Map Quest directions you have a tracker. If you go over 99 miles an hour, you get disqualified. If you get pulled over by a cop, you get disqualified. And whenever you stop to sleep, you have to sleep next to your motorcycle.

Scott Benner 1:03:20
Oh, you can only sleep where you can put the bike.

Curtis 1:03:23
No, last year they went from Daytona, Florida down to Key West, Key West to Homer, Alaska. A buddy of mine did it, and he actually finished first. It was awesome to watch him. Yeah, and I've decided that what I am going to do, because in my local area, there is actually a diabetic alert dog trainer. I'm talking with him, and what I'm going to try doing is getting enough raising enough money to where I can actually pay for two diabetic alert dogs to be given to diabetics in need, and I'm hoping that I can give at least one

Scott Benner 1:04:04
to a better Oh, I hope you can do that too. That'd be amazing, really. So yeah, Curtis, I had the opportunity last year to give a number of slots away to kids to go to camp, actually, a diabetes camp in Texas called Camp Sweeney, right? I can't tell you how, how good that ended up feeling. It wasn't even money out of my pocket. I was just doing it like from the podcast, you know what I mean? Like I was kind of the front face of it, and I felt terrific about it. I really did so much. So they reached out to me just recently, in September of 2025 they reached back out and they said, Hey, would you give some more away for next season? I said, Absolutely, that'd be great. And I've already reached out to a sponsor and asked them if they could cover the part that the camp Sweeney can't cover. And I'm hoping to give four away again next year, just because you'll see how good it'll make you feel if you're able to give someone that dog is what I'm saying. Oh yeah, definitely it'll be special for you. I wish you a ton of a ton of luck. I hope you can accomplish that. I. I know it's hard to get people to sponsor things and, you know, like that kind of stuff too, because they're going to be looking for, you know, what are they going to get out

Curtis 1:05:06
of it? Well, I'm even going to try getting tandem involved, Omnipod, anybody that I can, just to get awareness out. Yeah, the cool thing is, is my goal to do, it is to be one of the top, elite finishers. So if you finish in 10 to 14 days, you're an elite finisher. 14 to 21 days, you're a finisher. In anything over 21 days, you're a slow ass finisher. Well, I want to be the first one across

Scott Benner 1:05:35
Curtis coming in. Is this a company that tracks the riders? Or is there a

Curtis 1:05:38
website? There is a website. I'm not sure if they want me to let people know, but it's a very, very popular challenge for motorcycles.

Scott Benner 1:05:49
Can you just tell me what the challenge is called? Don't, don't worry about the website.

Curtis 1:05:53
Well, I guess, I mean, I don't think they'll kill me for it, but it's called the Hoka Hey, motorcycle challenge. Okay, and it's really cool how it's done, and it's a big challenge for a person to do, because to get done in 10 days, that means I'll be having to do 1000 miles a day.

Scott Benner 1:06:11
Yeah, it's, that's something else. 1000 miles of riding is dude, I've driven 700 miles in a day in a car, and it'll almost, it almost puts me out. You know what I mean. So being up upright on a bike, how would you have you thought already about how to manage your type one during that

Curtis 1:06:30
well, because of the insulin needs, and also I get back injections done because of my

Scott Benner 1:06:36
injury in the back. Yeah,

Curtis 1:06:38
I can't carry it all with me without it going bad. So I've already reached out to them about, you know, my wife meeting me at all the checkpoints to where I can swap out and get the equipment and everything that I need to take care of my diabetes for that stretch.

Scott Benner 1:06:57
Yeah. So you're just gonna have enough on you that if something emergent happens. You can deal with it, but that kind of big supplies are going to be from checkpoint to checkpoint, right? And

Curtis 1:07:07
that's the only place I can meet her, is at a checkpoint, which is fine with me. Pepper, my little chihuahua, she's actually going to take the ride with me, so she's got a little carrier that'll be right behind me in my seat.

Scott Benner 1:07:18
Yeah, well, it's awesome, man, I'm looking, I'm looking at the challenge online now it's great. I really hope you something you can get accomplished. All right. Well, listen, let me, let me say thank you and goodbye. This was absolutely awesome. Really want to just one more time tell you about I'm proud of you, like this is quite an accomplishment, that you're a person who really did a lot with their life in the face of a lot of challenges, and it's very commendable. So congratulations. I appreciate it absolutely. Thank you absolutely. Hold on one second for me.

Okay, us, med sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at us. Med.com/juicebox, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med,

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Scott Benner 10/30/25 Scott Benner 10/30/25

#1666 A Year from Hell (and Back)

Julie, a pediatric nurse and mom, shares her son’s type 1 diagnosis, her daughter’s thyroid cancer, and finding laughter, learning, and light in the middle of a storm.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Julie 0:14
Hi, Scott. My name is Julie, and I have a 17 year old son with type one who's had it for about a year and a half.

Scott Benner 0:22
Now, if your loved one is newly diagnosed with type one diabetes and you're seeking a clear, practical perspective, check out the bold beginning series on the Juicebox podcast. It's hosted by myself and Jenny Smith, an experienced diabetes educator with over 35 years of personal insight into type one. Our series cuts through the medical jargon and delivers straightforward answers to your most pressing questions. You'll gain insight from real patients and caregivers and find practical advice to help you confidently navigate life with type one. You can start your journey informed and empowered with the Juicebox podcast, the bold beginning series and all of the collections in the Juicebox podcast are available in your audio app and at Juicebox podcast.com in the menu 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 healthcare plan or becoming bold with insulin.

Today's episode is sponsored by the tandem mobi system with control iq plus technology. If you are looking for the only system with auto Bolus, multiple wear options and full control from your personal iPhone. You're looking for tandems, newest pump and algorithm. Use my link to support the podcast, tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, check it out. Us. Med is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and we've been getting our diabetes supplies from us med for years. You can as well us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, use the link or the number. Get your free benefits. Check and get started today with us. Med, are you tired of getting a rash from your CGM adhesive? Give the ever since 365, a try, ever since cgm.com/juicebox beautiful silicone that they use. It changes every day, keeps it fresh. Not only that, you only have to change the sensor once a year. So I mean, that's better.

Julie 2:35
Hi, Scott. My name is Julie, and I have a 17 year old son with type one, who's had it for about a year

Scott Benner 2:43
and a half now, 17 year old son, year and a half. Do you have other kids?

Julie 2:47
I do. My oldest daughter is 23 and my middle daughter is 20. So my son, Kyle is my youngest,

Scott Benner 2:56
and he's had type one for a little over a year, year and a half, a year and a half. Yep. Any other autoimmune in the family? How much time do you have? I want to hear

Julie 3:04
about it all. Okay, so my oldest daughter has an immune deficiency, IGA deficiency, which sounds scarier than it is. And Kyle, my son also has that I have chronic hives and Hashimotos. So does like throughout my extended family, there's the same thing with thyroid and that kind of thing. Okay, so,

Scott Benner 3:29
yeah, awesome. How long have you had Hashimotos?

Julie 3:34
I was diagnosed probably 15 years ago, but I don't really have any symptoms of it. I'm not on medication or anything like that for it. Just, you know, what

Scott Benner 3:45
have I told you first? I want to tell you this. I barely got through high school. I want to make sure you

Julie 3:50
understand that. Okay, okay, good, good to

Scott Benner 3:54
know. I considered going to college and took one class. It was an English class. I got an A, and then I stopped going. And that was after I was an adult. Because my wife was like, you could have gone to college. And I was always like, no, I'd be terrible at it. And she's like, No, you wouldn't. And I took a class to show you the difference between how I think and how my wife thinks. She's like, Look, you got an A. Keep going. And I was like, I got an A. Why do I have

Julie 4:14
to keep going? You're like, I totally proved it to you.

Scott Benner 4:17
If I went back long enough, I'd have a degree, and then what? Anyway, there's a little look into me, but I'm gonna tell you a quick story. Okay, my wife has thyroid. My daughter has thyroid. My son has Hashimotos for sure. Okay, my wife my daughter, haven't been tested to see if there is this autoimmune but, I mean, like, Wouldn't surprise me, right? How did we figure out my son had Hashimotos? This is the part you care about. Okay? The first time we thought it was something, he started acting much differently, like his just his personality flipped. He got like he was unkind and short tempered. And like all this stuff. And while my wife's walking around going, like, What's wrong with him, I was saying to myself, Oh, I remember this from when we got you diagnosed with thyroid problems because you were I was like, I know what this is going to be, right? So I took him to the doctor. His TSH came back a little elevated, but back then, I didn't think of it the same way as I think of it. Now, had I thought of it that way, then I would have said, like, hey, medicate him. He's definitely got this. We had to go through a couple of rounds. He had a spike in his TSH, that then went back down again, and classically the way his, you know, doctor thought about it back before we found a great Endo, they were like, Oh, that happens sometimes, and I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, but about six months later, it was a college baseball player and it was covid time. Was it covid or something? It was home for the holiday. So one of the other is in the house, and, you know, in the basement, there's like a, like a rack where he can lift. It's also the same weight set that I ignore and don't, don't use. Sure he's downstairs lifting. He comes flying up the stairs in a panic, and he is covered waist to neck in hives. Stop. Yeah, hold on. See, Julie, this is worth it. Just hold on a second. So we do all the things that a person would do in that situation, right? We took him to, you know, a dermatologist and, like, you know, proper channels, and they hit him with, like, a big and I always get this word wrong. Is it histamine blockers? Okay? Histamine? Yeah, I think my pronunciation is not always good, and hit him with a blocker. Then they added another one, and before I knew it, he was taking a cocktail of three over the counter blockers at the same time, and nothing changed. If he got upset, if he got excited, if his body heated up, he broke out in hives. The only thing that stopped the hives was time, right? And because it was November, and we started realizing that it had something to do with his body temperature. He would sometimes go outside in shorts and a T shirt in the winter and stand out there, freeze his ass off, bring his body temperature down, and the hives would go away. Oh, I get that. I've done that. Yeah, we were playing cards one night. It was definitely covid Because we were playing cards one night because we haven't played a game since covid, I have not sat with my family and played poker. By the way, I gave my children. This is what covid did to us. I went to the the ATM got cash out, gave it to everybody, and I was like, Hey, we're gonna play poker. We did that too. I was like, if you win, you can keep the money.

Julie 7:35
We ordered a table on Amazon. Yes, I

Scott Benner 7:41
didn't know you were gonna doubt yourself as being a Caucasian lady so quickly in the conversation, but that's awesome. He just laughed. Something funny happened, and he started laughing, and then boom, broke out in hives. Now this went on for a while, and it was getting really upsetting. We were talking to the doctor about biologic injectables the zolair, yeah, that's where we take, yeah, that's where we were. And then one night, one late night, when I was absolutely just bereft, worried about him, I was up googling before chat GPT, and I tripped upon an NIH article that said, in very, very rare cases, symptoms of Hashimotos can include hives, and we put him on medication, and he hasn't had hives since then.

Julie 8:32
Wow. It's not supposed to be about me. I feel bad now. We're getting to it. I was at Mayo Clinic. I've been to, I was in the ICU for a week because I would get, it's called angioedema, where you get, like, tongue swelling and all of that. So, yeah, this has been quite

Scott Benner 8:50
I'm not saying this is your case, but what I am saying is, if you have Hashimotos, but you're not taking medication, would you tell me what your last TSH was?

Julie 8:59
Um, I don't remember. I just know every single time it's normal,

Scott Benner 9:07
I want you to go look, it doesn't have to be now. And, and I'm gonna say something. Say two. I'm gonna tell you if it's over two, 2.1 just gives 2.5 Yep, get the medication.

Julie 9:17
Oh, well, how do I get a doctor to do that? If they say it's normal. You got to get a good

Scott Benner 9:21
doctor, okay, it's also not normal. It's where most people's fall when they test it. So when they tell you what normal is in a blood test, it just means that most people fall in this range, right? So they call that the green range. What I'm going to tell you is, you go listen to episode 413, of the podcast. You'll listen to Dr Addy Benito, talk about thyroid, and when you get done, you're going to be mad and you're going to go get thyroid medication. Do you have, oh my gosh, 10 years of my life, really, it's gonna I expect a holiday card. If this all works out

Julie 9:52
for 13, okay.

Scott Benner 9:56
Do you have any other thyroid symptoms? Are you hard? To get rested. Does your hair fall out? Do you have dry skin, brittle nails? Any Well,

Julie 10:04
I'm 50, so we have the whole menopause thing. So you know, yes, yes, exactly. If

Scott Benner 10:12
menopause doesn't kill my wife, I'm gonna be amazed.

Julie 10:17
I mean, the nightmare,

Scott Benner 10:19
yeah, not good anyway. I hope that helps you. Thank you. I hope my son's random story helps you. And if it does, seriously, let me know. Send me a note if it doesn't help. I don't want to hear back from you if it doesn't work. Okay, yeah, okay.

Julie 10:34
So, yeah, yes, thyroid is crazy,

Scott Benner 10:37
yeah, thyroids really is crazy, yeah. If I can make a suggestion, don't do that thing where you said, Well, yeah, I'm tired, but I'm older, like, because, because, okay, I'm telling you, a little bit of Synthroid, you know, tears and whatever they end up giving you, if you notice, it brings down your TSH, but your symptoms don't go away, you know. I mean, are you a very tired

Julie 10:59
person? I am, yes, I am, but I don't really sleep. But, I mean, I also have, my oldest has thyroid cancer right now, so, like, I'm seeing how tired she is right now, so I don't think I'm as tired as her. But you

Scott Benner 11:15
also don't have thyroid cancer, right? Okay, listen, I think this is it. Don't, don't ignore your own health just because you're helping your kids, etc so on. You don't need me to tell you that, all right. So this kid of yours, yes, goes out and gets himself some diabetes, yes. How did that happen? How did you notice it?

Julie 11:32
I didn't notice it. That's what is so scary to me, because I'm a pediatric nurse.

Scott Benner 11:39
Sorry, it's

Julie 11:41
not funny. I'm still not okay about it. Go ahead. Go ahead, tell me what happened. I was really not okay about it. He had a well visit, like his yearly physical in November of that year, and everything was fine. And the only thing we were discussing there was some fatigue and a really low heart rate. But looking back, his heart rate had been in the 40s for a few years. He's an athlete, really, swimmer, basketball, that kind of thing. That was all we really talked about. But then in December, he started to complain of leg cramping, to the point where he was asking me to make, like, ice baths without ice. Like, just make cold, cold water, you know what I mean. And he would come home from practice and just really complain of his legs really hurting, which is not like him. And we were at a game, and he pulled himself out of the game, and this was sophomore year where he was a swing player on varsity, so he was trying real hard, you know what I mean, to really do well, and for him to leave practice was just shocking, and I knew something was wrong. Never in 1000 years did I think type one diabetes. I was thinking electrolyte imbalance. So what do I do? I'm pushing fluids. I'm pushing Gatorade. I'm pushing propel, you know, he's seeing the trainer there, and I see them, you know, rolling out his legs at each game and giving him the packets of electrolytes. And he just couldn't play. And then we were in a game like our biggest game of the year, and two minutes left in the game, I think it was either tied or real close, he goes up for a shot, and he collapses and couldn't get up. So I go down, and I'm like, is he being dramatic? Like, this is weird. And we kind of, like, pull, like, almost carry him off. He goes to see the trainer. After about 30 minutes of massage, he still couldn't walk. So they said, we think, we think you need to take him to the ER, yeah. So we get to the ER, and they find everything looks okay on his labs, except his, what's called CPK, was high. I don't know if you're familiar

Scott Benner 13:56
with I am, because my daughter had a really high Cpk one time, which she had a ton of muscle pain one

Julie 14:01
time. Oh, really, was this before she was dying? Oh, no, she was baby.

Scott Benner 14:05
Yeah, it wasn't before she was diagnosed. It was one summer while she was playing a lot of softball.

Julie 14:10
Oh, okay, yeah. We usually see it in, like, real, real high levels in peds, like, with crushing injuries, like if you're in a car accident, or if you run a marathon and you're not ready, you know there's like muscle death, almost. But he wasn't, I mean, tremendously high. So they diagnosed him with what's called Rhabdo, which you treat with fluids and monitor kidney function, because it can cause kidney damage. I was very surprised he had Rhabdo, because he, I mean, yes, he works out excessively, but it wasn't like a new thing. He had done nothing that would indicate like, oh, he really went at it and it caused this at that ER visit, his blood sugar was 160 and I remember vaguely being like, why is he 160 but then I thought, well, he had had four Gatorades. And we came right here. So I honestly didn't think anything of it. The physician didn't say anything of it.

Scott Benner 15:05
Yeah, I have to say, I think the 160 and the four Gatorades is enough to put it out of your head for a second. Why would you settle for changing your CGM every few weeks when you can have 365 days of reliable glucose data. Today's episode is sponsored by the ever since 365 it is the only CGM with a tiny sensor that lasts a full year sitting comfortably under your skin with no more frequent sensor changes and essentially no compression lows. For one year, you'll get your CGM data in real time on your phone, smart watch Android or iOS, even an Apple Watch, predictive high and low alerts let you know where your glucose is headed before it gets there. So there's no surprises, just confidence, and you can instantly share that data with your healthcare provider or your family. You're going to get one year of reliable data without all those sensor changes. That's the ever since 365 gentle on your skin, strong for your life. One sensor a year. That gives you one less thing to worry about, head now to ever sense cgm.com/juicebox, to get started. Let's talk about the tandem mobi insulin pump from today's sponsor tandem diabetes care, their newest algorithm control iq plus technology and the new tandem mobi pump offer you unique opportunities to have better control. It's the only system with auto Bolus that helps with missed meals and preventing hyperglycemia, the only system with a dedicated sleep setting, and the only system with off or on body wear options, tandem mobi gives you more discretion, freedom and options for how to manage your diabetes. This is their best algorithm ever, and they'd like you to check it out at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox when you get to my link, you're going to see integrations with Dexcom sensors and a ton of other information that's going to help you learn about tandems, tiny pump that's big on control tandem diabetes.com/juicebox, the tandem mobi system is available for people ages two and up who want an automated delivery system to help them sleep Better, wake up in range and address high blood sugars with auto Bolus.

Julie 17:26
I didn't, I don't know, it just didn't do anything for any of us. As he got the IV fluids, his Cpk level started to come down, so they did not admit him, and he was able to walk. He still had pain, though. So we go home. They say, Stop basketball for a week, hydrate like crazy. So I see him drinking and drinking and drinking, and I'm like, Good job, bud. This is what the doctor said to do. You know, thought nothing of it. So we go for our follow up, and he's telling the doctor. The doctor said you can probably go back to basketball when you feel better, but it's been a week, levels are better. You know, you can probably go ahead and work out. And he said, I can't. And we were in shock, because, I mean, I know your son's an athlete, so you understand, like, Yeah, they really want to, I mean, it's all they care about. So he said he then he started to describe the feeling as weakness. So then I went down a neurological path, like, in my nurse brain, I was like, Oh my gosh, what is going on? He's got two immune deficiencies. Like, don't we have enough? Are you kidding me right now? Like, do I need to see a neurologist all of that? Yeah, we go back to the doctor a third time. They say, everything checks out, you know, just continue to to hydrate and just rest. So we're walking out, I can, like, picture where I was standing. He looked at me. He was looking at the paperwork, and he's a guy trying to get buff, you know. And he says, Mom, why would I have lost 10 pounds in a month? And that got you Yeah, yeah. So I called his pediatrician from the car. I said, he lost weight. Can you order, you know, a fasting glucose for the morning. But really, I still wasn't convinced, because I was like, I don't know, this is weird. And she said, Well, let's do a celiac, you know, labs as well. So I was like, Okay, great. Next morning, take him to the lab. Of course, I log in and see it's 560 his fasting glucose that morning. So I go to pick him up at school, take him to the ER and off we went

Scott Benner 19:34
to tell him in the car. Do you let them tell him at the hospital? Oh,

Julie 19:37
I told him in the car. And I didn't have a great experience at at our hospital. I mean, the ER, doctor was like, well, this may not be diabetes. And I was like, Okay, can you just call endocrine like, you know, there's really nothing else that I know of that can make your glucose,

Scott Benner 19:54
yeah, this is gonna be it.

Julie 19:56
This is it. This is it. So the next morning, we. He, you know, did the whole eight hours of education and, and that was it. So I really missed the boat, and then I go to his room that night and see, you know, like, 26 bottles of water, and,

Scott Benner 20:12
yeah, the whole thing, how long did, was the process from when you now, in hindsight, think that the type one was coming on, and when you figured it out and you were in the hospital, I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, US med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod dash, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us. Med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGM, like the libre three and Dexcom g7 they accept Medicare nationwide, and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business Bureau at us med.com/juicebox, or just call them at 88872115143, 87211514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do.

Julie 21:48
I honestly don't know. I mean that July, he had covid, but he he wasn't real, real sick with it, like it was very mild. He gets sick a lot because he has those two immune deficiencies, and he takes a daily antibiotic for those when I look at photos, I see about three months of paleness and just not looking great. I'm gonna cry now, and I'm not a crier. I didn't see it like I didn't see it in real time.

Scott Benner 22:14
Yeah, well, I would say three months is a reasonable amount of time. The other health issues, confuse the picture, the being the athlete, I think you did a great job figuring it out. Oh well, thank you. You're very welcome. My kid was almost dead, so, you know, oh, I

Julie 22:31
can imagine, what was she, too, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, and you look back and you feel like an idiot, because, well, I don't know how you'd see in a two year old, other than the drinking because she

Scott Benner 22:41
was, she looked like a runway model in the 80s. Oh, she was so thin. And then you don't realize it when it's happening, for some reason. Yeah, it's only a couple of pounds too. If I told you, the difference on her frame between 19 pounds and 17 pounds was drastic, really, yeah, but you just didn't, I don't know. Just didn't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think back on so many different little things that happened along the way that, you know, it's funny. I hear everybody else say it, but like, here I am saying it too. On their face, each of them is horrifying, and you don't know how you didn't get from like your son tried to take a shot playing basketball. He's a 17 year old. Kidney collapsed and couldn't stand up for a half an hour, and you were like, he probably needs a Gatorade in the world. Have you ever seen that happen? You know what I mean, right?

Julie 23:30
And I think of myself as a good nurse and thorough and but as soon as he said weight loss, I was like, Oh

Scott Benner 23:38
yeah, I'm a reasonably bright person. I once took my daughter's diaper off and her bowel movement was so dry and devoid of moisture that you could crush it like dust in your hand. And I was just like, huh, yeah.

Julie 23:54
Well, lots of two year olds get constipated. I mean, that's a frequent call we get exactly.

Scott Benner 23:58
Well, I did take her back to the doctor. But then the doctor was like, Oh, that's weird. So, yeah, exactly, exactly, ever drink more? And I was like, yeah. Meanwhile, I do. I always look back, as crazy as it sounds, if I would have brought him the diaper, I think he would have looked at it and gone like, oh my god, take her to the hospital, right? You know, like, so anyway, please don't beat yourself up about it. Yeah, there's plenty of stuff going on. Is there any autoimmune on Is there any autoimmune on your husband's side? Can we blame any of this on him or

Julie 24:25
none? No, none. What a shame. Sorry. I know, I know his family lives to like, over 100 like, I mean, it's so healthy.

Scott Benner 24:33
Hey, I want to apologize to you. Made fun of you for the card table, but I bought a pizza oven during covid, so I just,

Julie 24:39
oh, pizza. I don't, I don't apologize for that.

Scott Benner 24:46
I gotta whip that thing out and use it again. First of all, the pizzas are awesome out of it. But, you know, the problem is that I like the cold, ferment the dough. It takes days. I don't have that kind of time to sit down today to have pizza three days from now, exactly. My goodness. Much easier to order out. I'm gonna do it though. Arden wants to have a bunch of friends over. Hey, if you girls are listening, what's up? So Arden is at college, and she told me I should let her tell this story. I'm just gonna tell a tiny bit of it. Okay? She goes to her friend's house where she lives at college, and her friends got roommates. What's up? Girls? Apparently, the roommates listen to the podcast. But no way. She probably hates that. They don't have diabetes. I don't think she hates it, which is interesting. Yeah, they don't have they have no connection to type one whatsoever. So she asked them, and if I'm getting this story wrong, you girls can come on or something. But I believe she asked them why, and they were like, it's a good podcast.

Julie 25:41
So it is a good podcast. Appreciate that so much.

Scott Benner 25:45
Wonder how many people who don't have diabetes are listening

Julie 25:48
sometimes, it's not always about diet. I mean, it is,

Scott Benner 25:52
most of the time it's not about diabetes. I don't know how closely you're listening. Funny.

Julie 25:56
Sometimes it's dramatic. Listen if

Scott Benner 25:59
you make a podcast just about diabetes. I don't know how you would make a podcast, so Right, yeah, it would be something, in my eyes, it wouldn't be a podcast, but it'd be a thing you did once in a while. Nevertheless, okay, so now we've got a diagnosis. Yeah, got a little extra guilt. You've got three kids. I'm sure you already had plenty to begin with, but now you have, you have a little extra Yes, I want to know about pathway in the beginning, how little or a lot did your background help or hurt? And how did you find those first like, I'm going to ask like, first 60 days.

Julie 26:35
Okay, so the first 60 days my background helped me zero other than the fact I knew what it was. I knew it was autoimmune. I knew it was not his fault. I just thought it was a insulin was a dose like, I mean, I'm old enough that I remember, like when I was in the hospital working like we had a sliding scale. I mean, we checked your blood sugar before we fed you, if it was 300 we checked our little scale, we gave you enough, and here's your food. Honestly, Scott, I never one time went back in to see if they finished the food to reach I mean, that was not a thing, right? I knew enough to respect insulin like I did know it was important for me to give what I was told. If that makes

Scott Benner 27:26
sense, I do. I just had this conversation with a nursing student, which was really interesting, because she knows Arden, and I think she's having this, like early onset come to Jesus moment where she's realizing I know what Arden's life is really like, and I know what they're telling me about diabetes. And then she kind of extrapolated and said, I wonder what else I'm learning about that I feel like I have a full grasp of that I don't, in any meaningful way, understand. Wow. Yeah, so it's an interesting gonna be an interesting path for Yeah, is he honeymooning? Or is this

Julie 28:03
like, well, first of all, can we change that name? I've

Scott Benner 28:07
said the same thing. A honeymoon is supposed to be a fun time, really, Turks and Caicos during the honeymoon, I'm on the beach and everybody wants to have sex. It's not that, yeah,

Julie 28:18
it is not like the first after about a week and a half, we spent an entire night feeding him to the point he couldn't even get food in. I mean, it just stopped. And I remember it being mentioned like that honeymoon, you know, with teenage boys, can last a while, so you're really gonna have to watch. And it was that first eight hour day. And I just remember not even, like, I mean, they, in their defense, they may have explained it further and I blocked it out, but I remember being like, oh, so he'll need a little bit less. But, I mean, we went from like 20 units of Atlantis to like five.

Scott Benner 28:55
Yeah, that's a big swing, especially if you've injected this money. Yeah, you know what the use of the word is? It really is. It's making fun of marriage, because the inference, the unspoken inference, is this part is going to come to an end, yeah, yeah. You've been married a long time. You know what I'm

Julie 29:13
saying? Yeah, yeah, I do. I do. But I mean, I couldn't wait for

Scott Benner 29:17
it to come to an end. That's how most people feel. That's how most people

Julie 29:21
feel. Yeah. I mean, once it ended, everything got a I don't ever want to use the word easy, but easier, more predictable, yes. And, I mean, there's still constant changes, all of that, but nothing that dramatic. I mean, it almost like happened in an instant,

Scott Benner 29:37
really, like somebody, someone made a decision and flip the switch. You're like, All right, here's all your diabetes. You can have it all

Julie 29:44
now, yeah. And, I mean, no, I mean, when the honeymoon started that next day, we gave no insulin for food, and what killed me was, is I could see it in him. He's like, Oh, I can handle this. I'll just do likelantis at night. Yeah.

Scott Benner 29:58
This is super easy. You? Yeah. How long did that feeling of last?

Julie 30:03
Well, I mean, it slowly started to creep back up. And I would say the honeymoon only lasted for him for

Scott Benner 30:10
maybe six months. Okay, and did he have a pump during that time?

Julie 30:15
Or no, he does not wear a pump, okay, yeah, he has agreed to trial one in April after basketball season and before college.

Scott Benner 30:25
You know, when those little you know what? I mean, you've got kids, I've got a couple. They agreed. You agree. Just do it. Leave me

Julie 30:31
alone. Yeah? Make me argue with you, my choice. I'm like, okay,

Scott Benner 30:36
pardon I'm an adult. She said to me the other day, I'm an adult. Yeah, I don't need to be told. And I was like, what? Yeah, eight minutes later, she's like, could you make breakfast for me? I was like, I thought you were an adult.

Julie 30:47
What the hell happened? Exactly, exactly? It was just, you know, and I, I mean, I am so incredibly grateful for the 15 years of normal blood sugars that he had. But to be diagnosed, you know, rate when you're craving independence and you're going to drive a car and you don't want to be home ever, yeah, that's a difficult thing. So I do know developmentally, like, it's important to give them a lot of control choices. So the deal was, you know, if you know, you can keep things at a I don't know what the word is controlled. I hate that word. Is he controlled at a reasonable place? Yeah, is he regulated? Now I'm like, Oh, dear God, I can't take it. Yeah, we're still

Scott Benner 31:31
working on controlling the regulation, but I'll get back to you when everything's copacetic, yep, yep. And then we'll be fine. Well, then we'll be fine because you're in the medical field. So everybody uses that phrasing to you, right? Yes, they do. They do. You're like, Oh, if you really understood this, you would not be saying this to me exactly, exactly, well. So, you know, I'm gonna tell you that I think it's a very, really clear minded way to think about all that, like it does suck getting plopped down in the middle of like, just when your kids trying to exert himself and find his way, and, you know, in a natural time when they separate a little bit from their parents, and it's supposed to be stuff like staying out a half an hour later than you're supposed to, you know, like pushing back a little bit. It's not supposed to be like, Oh, I didn't Bolus and my blood sugar has been 250 for three hours, right? That's a really tough place to be, where safety and health intersect with I mean, because you've got two older kids, you already know about this. You already know, like, you got to let them, like, push back.

Julie 32:29
You got to let them mess up. Like, one night I like, I told you, like, until the year we had, I really am not a crier, but like, I remember crying because I got a text from he was at a friend's house, some girl's house, and there was a bunch of kids, and they had done like a fire pit and, you know, all this stuff. And I see his blood sugar going up, and it shot up to, like, 350 and I was like, What on earth? And he texts me and says, Mom, I'm so, so sorry. The mom brought out hot chocolate, and I was too embarrassed to go get my insulin. And I was like, you're supposed to be apologizing to me for drinking a beer like not hot chocolate, right? Yeah, not having hot chocolate. You know what I mean,

Scott Benner 33:17
not wanting some cute girl to see him. Have to go get a bag before he drinks the hot chocolate or something like that.

Julie 33:23
Yeah, I'm like, this is not the quote, unquote trouble I'm supposed to be dealing with.

Scott Benner 33:28
Did you tell him that he had a pump on? He probably could have just opened his phone and pushed a button and pretended he was on Instagram for five

Julie 33:35
seconds. I mean, I say that probably 10 times a day, but, I mean, I also understand his fears with a pump, and he hates having things on him. I mean, the CGM is a no discussion, yeah, but he can't even stand that. Tell me his concerns with the pump. Well, I see he doesn't. I think he just basically doesn't want anything on him. But I think there's some fears with malfunctioning Oh, okay, if I think too hard about that, that stresses me out too. But then I look at all

Scott Benner 34:05
the Oh, are you sayings of 1000s? Are Yeah, are you saying you're worried it's gonna, like, stand up and revolt and give them all the insulin? Not really

Julie 34:15
that. But we have such trouble with CGM readings sometimes that, like, I think those times are what scare him. Like he'll say, Mom, it says I'm high, but I feel low. And then, you know, you'll check it and it's just wrong. And then you think, Well, my gosh, my pump would have given me insulin. You know what I mean? Now I know that that doesn't happen as often as high blood sugars too, when you don't have a pump. But he's really good about double checking his CGM, so I don't think he'd have a problem with that. But the deal is, before college, though, he's gonna have to wear a pump,

Scott Benner 34:52
so I wouldn't wait till five seconds before he's leaving. I know, I know he's saying April. Does he enjoy the spring? Why did he say April? Well, he wants to wait until after basketball season. Oh, see, I would think of it the exact opposite way. And he will. He will one day too, by the way, just by the time he, you know, that part will be over. By the time he gets to it, there'll be a moment when he would, he'll think, oh, basketball might have been easier if I would have done that.

Julie 35:16
I agree. Yeah, I agree. He's definitely a kid that needs to come to his own. I mean, I've started to back off this year a little bit, and I am seeing him treat better, like he has his lowest so for the last, like, I'd say, three or four months, I sort of stopped constantly texting him, like, let's crack, let's crack, let's crack, and he's doing it now. Okay, good. You know what I mean. So he's definitely someone that like it wants to it has to be his decision. Does that make sense?

Scott Benner 35:46
Well, I would also tell you that what you're describing is incredibly common, and most people go through what he's going through. Oh, really, yeah, no, 100% okay, I hate saying this. I imagine somebody's listening to me like, oh, here comes his guy's been making this podcast on time. He's talked to a lot of people, but I've talked to a lot of people. That is an incredibly common story. So yeah, he's not like some outlier, who's, you know, who's like, oh, you know, he's different, or he's this kind of person. I'm gonna tell you the kind of person he is, this human and right? Of course, nobody wants anything stuck to them. The rest of that sentence is that one day it won't bother him anymore, very likely. Yeah. And you know, of course, you're worried that sometimes your CGM says that you're 200 when you're 75 Oh, my God, look at me. Insulin. What happens? Like, Oh, I don't there's a lady on here the other a few months ago, like a full grown adult who told me that she's very concerned that somebody would hack into her insulin pump and kill her. And I was like, who's looking for you? Anything China's coming for you? Or something like, you know, what do you think they got, like, a satellite over your head? They're like, we're gonna zap this lady with insulin. Big Brother's gonna take her out. Yeah, we're really mad about these terrorists. I'll tell you what we'll do, random lady in, like, South Dakota, we're gonna, let's knock Patty over in Tuscaloosa and like, so but then we talked about a little bit, and she laughed, and she's like, this is completely ridiculous. I'm like, yeah, no, I know, but we dug into it a little more, by the way. And she was an older person, and she was raised very fearfully. Oh, okay, it's a really honest conversation where she's like, I'm afraid of a lot of people, oh yeah, because her parents had biases and that they layered on her, and somehow they translated into her thinking like someone was gonna hack her in something, yeah, yeah, anywhere in between that one and the one that you're, you know, your son, is like, Oh, I understand it. Like, I get it too. Like, our CGM is not perfect all the time. The only thing I can tell you, is it in the big picture, it's not a problem,

Julie 37:43
right? No. And I know that. And I would say, honestly, his major issue with it

Scott Benner 37:49
is you don't want to see it. Doesn't want people to see 17 trying to get, Oh, I almost said something you don't want to hear Yeah. He's trying to get girls to talk to him. I was gonna use the L word, you know, like he's, yeah, he's working on stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't go to a fire pit because you're cold, right? There are better ways to stay warm. There are not better ways to meet cute girls, exactly. Well, you're doing a good job. It sounds like,

Julie 38:17
I don't really think so, but we're doing the best but, but he's doing a good job. He's doing a good What's this? A 1c the last one was 6.40

Scott Benner 38:25
my goodness. What are you out of your mind? A 17 year old kid is a diabetes for a year and a half with a 6.4 a 1c is

Julie 38:33
doing awesome? Yeah, yeah, he does. I mean, I laugh because I don't think we've ever had a meal where it was one shot. And I always thought it was one shot for a meal, you know. But, you know, he's like a 17 year old, there's high fat, there's high protein. I never knew that was a thing, you know, and he just does it. So I'm like, if you're willing to do this, the injections, I guess we'll just go with that for

Scott Benner 38:58
now. I also want to say this, if it works for him, then, awesome. Yeah? Like, I don't, I'm not telling anybody who's listening. You have to be on a pump.

Julie 39:06
Oh, I don't get that from you at all ever. I don't feel like that at

Scott Benner 39:09
all. I listen. If you're buying a pump, you go into the show notes, you use one of the links, and you help me out, right? But, like, but if you, but I don't think you need one, right? I think it's very specific to your lifestyle and what, what it is you want, and, you know what? Listen, I'll, I'll play devil's advocate. The other way. Maybe he really doesn't want the thing stuck to him. Yeah, and he'll do this his whole life and be cool with it. I would say that as long as he's willing to inject, you know, Pre-Bolus and injection, and then 45 minutes later, realized, like, Oh, that was not nearly enough. And do it again. Like, if he's not, if he's not concerned with the injections, then who cares?

Julie 39:42
Right? Right? Yeah, it's just, I feel like a pump would help more. Well, I know it would with just the change. I mean, we change his he's on tracebo Now instead of Lantus. And, I mean, we change that dose once a week, you know what I mean. And the pump, I feel like would just really handle that.

Scott Benner 39:59
I'm gonna go. The other way again, and I'll tell you, yeah, that'd be great. It'd be a lot easier. But, you know, like, it's not, I think what it highlights is that this isn't just a nuts and bolts idea, right? Like it's a thinking, feeling person mixed with this difficult to understand math problem that's also a science experiment that's also, you know, dangerous, and, you know, potentially life altering. And so there's that pressure, and you gotta, like, squish it all together and come to some sort of an agreement with, you know, whoever it is you make agreements with.

Julie 40:34
I love what you just said. I am I'm living in a science experiment. I'm prolific. I just want to say it never ends. That is such a good that's such a great wait. I really like that.

Scott Benner 40:49
I'm glad you're happy, joy, but it's gonna get easier. It will eventually feel normal and like, like you're not fighting uphill all the time. You know, hopefully. I mean, listen the podcast. He's already got a six, four. He seems to understand what he's doing to some degree. I mean, is he having a ton of lows all the time?

Julie 41:05
He has lows because of usually, like harder workouts at night we did for our first time. I'll never be the same. Have a had to use vaccine me to three weeks ago. Oh, that was terrifying. We don't understand it. I mean, nothing makes sense, but it really doesn't make sense. He just dropped one night and eating, eating, eating. I had been in there 15 minutes gave him it usually what works for him at night is one bite of one of those Z bars. Okay, takes a while to bring him up, more than 15 minutes to bring him up, but it usually levels him out. Usually levels him out a little bit. We had been doing that. We were doing juice, candy, everything, and he was like, 3840 I went in after 10 minutes, and he was unresponsive. Okay, I still don't understand what happened. Cannot figure it out.

Scott Benner 42:00
Was there a hard workout earlier in the day? There was hot day on top of everything else? You remember?

Julie 42:07
No, I'm not sure. It just, I mean, I know most people like have never had to use it was weird. And for about two weeks he kept himself running a little higher when we were all fine with that, because he got nervous. Oh, it was terrifying. I mean, it was absolutely terrifying, right? Yeah. I mean,

Scott Benner 42:25
listen, 38 blood sugar, I hear you. That's tough. And when you're used to using something that's slower acting, but then holds them up, and then you need faster acting in that situation. And then, which do you mixed in the juice, and it didn't, it didn't hit him fast. We had been

Julie 42:39
doing stuff for two hours, juice and candy. Yeah. I mean, he was like, in the 60s, 50s, but it just wouldn't move. Did your finger stick? Yo? Yeah? Like, yeah, 15 of them. You know, the thing was just reading low. So I was doing finger sticks, like, every five to 10 minutes. And he was asleep. It was the middle of the night, but he was like, drinking the juice and eating the food and and then I went back in. I was like, this is, oh my gosh. It said low. So I went running in, and he was just out of it.

Scott Benner 43:08
You want some of my hard earned advice on this? I want all of your advice. Okay, so if this happens again, I hope it doesn't. He doesn't go back to sleep. He wakes up. Okay, you don't leave the room. Okay. The other thing and, okay, all fast acting, simple sugar, stuff that gets absorbed quickly, anything that like, you know, it's, it's easy to just drink the juice, but then the juice has got to go into a stomach, and it's still got to be absorbed. The glucose gets absorbed much more quickly through the lining of your cheeks, really? Yeah, so I never thought of that even just holding the juice in his mouth, or like gummy bears and like you just keep chewing them. Don't swallow them, keep them in your mouth longer. That kind of stuff might help a little bit too. Okay, so I obviously don't know what happened to him, but if his digestion was slowed down for some reason, it might have slowed down the bump. Nothing wrong with using the back semi. That's it. Was a great call. That's my high level look at that. Okay, yeah, I know you've probably a million times have seen a low blood sugar, given something 10 minutes later. It's okay. You're in the middle of the night. You're trying to do that thing. You have that nurse brain too, like, I did the thing I'm supposed to do, so I'm done now, you know what?

Julie 44:28
I mean, yeah, I mean, I kept doing. I mean, I always thought juice was the fastest.

Scott Benner 44:33
Juice is fast, like, for certain, but like, you know, I don't know what could have been going on. Like, you know, had he had a fatty meal Earlier that evening. 100% okay, so then his digestion was probably slower. Interesting, yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, listen, most of the time you're not gonna have to think about it like that, but I would just say, like, emergent response, don't leave the room. Don't let him go back to sleep till you get it straightened out. Okay, yeah. Like, light on, get up. Sorry, this is a problem. We're all gonna sit here together in our underwear and fix

Julie 45:04
this. Uh huh. Okay, yeah, that was crazy. I think

Scott Benner 45:08
people who have children who don't have diabetes are not accustomed to sitting in their underwear in people's bedrooms in the middle of the night thinking like, oh my god, the floor's so cold. Or, I mean, my daughter's 21 and I'm 54 and I'm in my underwear, and she's like, not really in. There's no other normal situation where we'd be together like this anymore. She's in like, a bralette. It's just ridiculous. You know, so dumb. We've seen each other like, probably look so terrible so many times. Nevertheless, also, any number of algorithm based pumping systems would probably, I mean, just think about it right, like his. It would shut his basal down throughout the evening when it thought he was getting lower. It probably would have avoided this. Very likely. Could have replacement, yeah, yeah. Does he have a pump he's leaning

Julie 45:56
towards his only one he will even discuss is tubeless, is the Omnipod?

Scott Benner 46:02
Yeah, yeah. So I believe my link could get you a free trial.

Julie 46:06
I know I have it on there. Yes, yes, I've used your links for this. Julie contour next, and thank you so much. My dad got one. My mom got one. Also, I can have extras. Awesome. You hear that guys? Contour, next friend Andrea got one and brought it to me

Scott Benner 46:26
with my link. Contour, next comm slash Juicebox because I wanted to have extras. Thank you. Look at you. You're hoarding meters. Sorry. Contour, they're not sorry. They're happy for you to have the meter, trust me. Cool. So, all right, we're 45 minutes into this now. It seems like a good time to ask why you wanted to come on the podcast.

Julie 46:45
I think I just wanted to because of, like, the autoimmune history and the crazy year that we had, the fact that I was a nurse and missed it. I think would speak to a lot of people because, you know, you think you aren't going to miss a trick with your kids, and I missed the trick. But can I

Scott Benner 47:05
say something that I've said before, and I've gotten some pushback from nurses sometimes, and sometimes, by the way, I also get the exact opposite response. Some of the people who have struggled the most with having their kids diagnosed and been on here have been nurses.

Julie 47:21
That doesn't surprise me at all, because we're very type A this is what you do, and this should fix it, or, you know what I mean, and it's always one to think we see the zebra running at us. It could, you know, leg cramps can be from dehydration, you know what I mean. And

Scott Benner 47:39
I've come to believe that it's somewhere a mix between that you're in nursing school and obviously nursing school is a whirlwind, right? They're just throwing stuff at you constantly, and it probably by the time you get done, you probably feel like, I now know everything about everything, right? And you don't. You won't realize till you work for a while that you know a little bit about a lot. Yeah. Couple that with how diabetes is managed in the hospital setting, which is to say that, like, it's not really.

Julie 48:05
I mean, I am terrified. I stay up at night thinking about him under anesthesia. I don't know why, really, yes, because who is going to monitor his blood sugar?

Scott Benner 48:16
Can I tell you something? You throw one of those algorithms on him. Arden uses trio. It's awesome. And you're fasted, and you could probably stay fasted forever without getting low. Arden just had her tonsils and her adenoids out. Oh, were you in Rec? No, why about the diabetes part? Yes, I know how to fast Arden so that her blood sugar doesn't get low. Okay, and I could have kept her blood sugar stable

Julie 48:43
forever, really, see, I have not learned that

Scott Benner 48:47
yet. If she doesn't eat, it's, it's with those with a system, it's, you know, I mean, I would think, if you had control, IQ, if you had Omnipod file, any of them, really, yeah, yeah, fast it is like, that's the other thing. Like, he's gonna have to learn. Like, like, when he's lifting or working out or stuff like that, like, especially if he's more anaerobic, like, just do it in the morning fast, like, get up and work out first without any insulin

Julie 49:11
on board. Yeah, he does do that, right? Yeah, yeah. Think about

Scott Benner 49:15
that in the setting of, like, you know, you head off to the hospital seven in the morning. He isn't eating overnight, we got her nice and stable. Yeah, we rolled in there with a blood sugar of like, I think I set her, you know what I did? I set her target higher in the morning, and then I ended up wishing I didn't do it really, yeah, so I think she came out of the surgery at like, 130 or something like that, and I put her target right back again, okay? And tried to get her done. Now, it was scary, because she couldn't really swallow anything. So it was very careful about it, not to make her low, right? But then it's like, you know, the hours went on, I started seeing the, you know, the pattern, and we, we went back to pretty standard, yeah, the worst part about that, I thought you were asking, because. The worst part about it is having that done as an adult is incredibly

Julie 50:03
painful. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's what I thought you were asking about the diabetes. I just worry about anything in the hospital because, I mean, I never knew that when you're sick, your your insulin needs can triple, like what

Scott Benner 50:17
to make you feel better. Arden had to have dental work when she was a baby, like a baby a little kid, we had to go to the hospital for it. Oh my gosh, the dad just wouldn't put her under in the office.

Julie 50:29
Honestly, I don't blame him, yeah,

Speaker 1 50:31
and we didn't know what we were doing back then. And none of these, like, you know, assisted systems work or existed, yeah, yeah. Back then, I was like, Oh, this is gonna kill her, for sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I thought everything

Julie 50:44
bad. Year I was diagnosed, and then I get a call. My daughter was at University of Tennessee. She was in a hit and run accident. Was hit by a car. Oh, my God. And then in the ER, they found thyroid cancer. Wait, yeah, what? Yeah,

Scott Benner 51:01
yeah, crazy. Oh, actually, I thought the crazy part was that somebody hit her with a car in that orange shirt I knew she was wearing because that

Julie 51:08
thing was an orange at noon on a Monday. Yeah? And it

Scott Benner 51:10
didn't help it, yeah. I think the saddest thing you just told me is that I can send my kid to college dressed like a traffic cone, and they still might get hit by a car. That'll scare people more than anything. They're like, Oh God, we can't protect against anything. So wait a minute. Sea of orange, she got hit by a car and they found thyroid cancer.

Julie 51:28
Run, tell me, never, never saw the person. I got the calm in Pennsylvania, so I don't even remember that day. So, you know, Kyle's kind of not newly diabetic, but new enough. No, I didn't want to leave. You know, I got you and I go down there. Never found the person. She's got, I don't know, like, 30 stitches on her face, knocked cut off her tooth, broken fingers, tooth, well, it was like, cut, yeah, like, cut in half. So, and of course, that's what she's focused on, right like, and then we're down there dealing with her injuries, which honestly, I can't believe she I was just feeling grateful she wasn't paralyzed, but yeah, she was hit. Then they find a mass on her thyroid, so we bring her home, find out it's cancer, then we have her thyroid remove, and had found it had already spread. And then we remove those lymph nodes, we do a follow up. Three months later, there's new spots, so now we're doing the radiation and going through all that. Our dog died. My dad had open hearts like it was a year from hell.

Scott Benner 52:37
God, that's so serious. My I had a stupid question all lined up. I'm not going to ask you now. Oh, you can ask me a dumb question. I might make me laugh. Do you ever find yourself singing that Arrested Development song Tennessee all the time? I would too, like every time somebody said Tennessee, my brain would go tennis

Julie 52:54
all the time. That was such a summer hit when I was in high school. I know, right.

Scott Benner 52:59
That's all it would happen to me. Like, every time you said Tennessee, there's an echo in my head that goes Tennessee. Wait a minute. So your daughter didn't just have like that. You know when people like, oh, thyroid cancer, but they took it out and it's gone. Now, some remain behind, yes, and then repopulate. I'm using the wrong word, but came back again.

Julie 53:19
Yes, it came back again. So now we're in the she's home. Now she went back to school, graduated, moved home, and now we're doing the treatments, the radiation treatment, and then she's just doing online school for a master's degree.

Scott Benner 53:35
And so sorry. Also, did you notice that Pennsylvania does not work in a song at all, not at all. Yeah, terrible. No, really? What's she getting? Her Master's then

Julie 53:45
she's doing it in strategic communication.

Scott Benner 53:49
Oh, I do that with my wife. Yeah,

Julie 53:53
everything I know is from the podcast. Thank you. Every single, every single thing, I'm very glad. I'm

Scott Benner 54:01
glad it's been valuable too. I really am

Julie 54:04
very My favorite was the 10 minute one you posted on Thanksgiving Day.

Scott Benner 54:09
Oh, people love that one, the turkey, the turkey tutorial, yes,

Julie 54:14
that was because no one has time right before Thanksgiving, right? And it was just like a quick little here do this today. And I was like, All right,

Scott Benner 54:25
yeah, it's just something simple, like, I just figured out, like, one day, this is what people seem to struggle with on Thanksgiving. I think it's actually a way to understand every day better. It just, it just focuses you on, like, as Thanksgiving is so fast and furious and so many different types of foods, and more frequency of eating for some people, etc. Like, if you can get through Thanksgiving and not be low and not be high at the end of the day, I think it gives you a ton of, like, motivation to be like, Oh, I could do this, like, on a normal

Julie 54:52
Yeah, for sure. Definitely, yeah, definitely. So,

Scott Benner 54:56
yeah, I'm glad you like that one. It's a, it's a, it's a popular little. Episode. It's just me talking about, like, it's just me talking through how I dealt with Thanksgiving when Arden

Julie 55:06
was little, yeah, and it was good, because, like, a teen is willing to listen to a 10 minute thing, you know what I mean, yeah, like, you know what I mean? Like, I tried the small sips. We've talked about it, but he kind of this, like, that, typical, like, okay, Mom, you know what I mean, yeah, but I'll play it in the car, like, if I'm in the car with him, but if he does on his own, he would probably never admit it to me, because it was my idea.

Scott Benner 55:32
Oh, we're at that part still. Yeah, oh yeah. Goes away. Yeah.

Julie 55:37
He's if he, if it's if he's in control, he he's good, but it can't be, moms, I make him sound bad. He's sweet. Kid. The next few

Speaker 1 55:45
years, the testosterone is overwhelming. It starts to, like, temper down in their, like, early, mid 20s, the boys, oh, good, okay, yeah, yeah. Then suddenly, like that, like that desire to, like, you know, conquer everything, kind of like lessons a little bit. Okay, gotcha. It goes away slowly over time. Your husband's probably just starting to turn into a human being about now, right? You know, Joy. I get it. I just started being an adult, like, five years ago.

Julie 56:14
Same, I feel like, Yeah, same,

Scott Benner 56:17
yeah, exactly. Anyway, what else you got? Anything else for me?

Julie 56:21
No, that's it. Just thank you so much for making me laugh when I need to, but also teaching me, you know, and I love hearing like how other people do things and that my story is not the worst, nor the best. And you just now. I mean, it made me realize that there's so many people living with this, yeah, you're gonna be okay community, you're gonna be a nice community.

Speaker 1 56:48
It's all gonna be okay. It really, it really is. It's tough. I mean, you got some other autoimmune layered over top of it, yeah, which is obviously challenging, right? Listen, I'm not telling you anything, you know, again, I'm not a doctor. It's not medical advice, etc and so on. But I would really, I mean, you're in healthcare, right? Just get somebody to prescribe the thyroid medication to you. Oh, you're talking about me. Oh, yeah, I'm worried about you. Oh,

Julie 57:18
my goodness, yeah,

Scott Benner 57:20
no, no, because you don't understand if that's really a problem for you, you're gonna have a renaissance. Okay, you know what I mean?

Julie 57:27
I'll ask my Endo, just get a new one. Just get a friend

Scott Benner 57:32
at the hospital who can write you or like, yeah, just a friend. What are we talking about? Like, what good is it being you? If this isn't how this can work, you know? I mean, like, you don't need to be spending the next six, eight months talking some endocrinologist and the listening to a podcast about, like, you know, I think if you medicated my TSH and got it under two that my symptoms might go away and I feel more arrested, and the doctor go, that looks normal. And trust me, most doctors are not going to, like, they're not going to agree to that. Yeah, yeah. You must have a friend. Do you not have

Julie 58:02
a friend? Oh, I have a lot of friends.

Scott Benner 58:05
Let's get you tell the friend how much you weigh, and then they write you a script, and then you try it, and then you feel better. Then you go to your Endo, and you go, Hey, funny story. Guess what? I didn't think you were gonna help me with this, so I went over and I got a friend of mine to send a script, and all of my symptoms are gone, and I haven't had a breakout in a while, and I'm thinking of going off this biologic and blah, blah, blah, or whatever ends up happening for Emma. Maybe the biologic still necessary. I don't know what's gonna happen to you, by the way, right? Outline, maybe you'll have a nice outcome, and you could just go like, hey, so Rock on, right. Let's keep doing

Julie 58:40
this, yeah, my PCP might actually, yeah. I hate it when they

Scott Benner 58:45
started calling them PCPs. I just want to say that, really, PCP is a drug. I grew up in the Oh, it is a drug, yeah. Like, why would you start like, what's next? Like, is my nurse practitioner gonna be crack one day? Like, what's next? I mean, for the love of God, you couldn't find a better acronym than PCP. I mean, why don't we just call them Angel Dust and see what happens? I, I, I've never, I'm never, ever gonna be well, yeah, because am I wrong? I'm not wrong, right? I never thought of it. Why would you not think of that? That should be the first thing you think of, you should use it say, why did they just name doctors after Angel Dust? What? By the way, what is Angel Dust? I

Julie 59:27
don't know that one I'm not familiar with, not that I'm familiar with these.

Scott Benner 59:31
No, hold on a second. What drug angel is it? I don't know. I'm just I grew up, I just listened to the radio. I heard people say things I would think, is it cocaine? Because you can get coke with angel dust on it. I know for sure, because I remember from you know for sure from the 80s movies. Hold on a second. Let's see what a disassociative anesthetic developed in the 50s for surgery, but abandoned in humans because it caused hallucinations after. Agitation and psychosis. Street names, Angel Dust, ozone, rocket fuel, embalming fluid, wet and Sherm. How to use it, smoked, often with marijuana or tobacco, snorted, smaller, injected fluid. It's one of the street names. Interesting. Short term by the way, kids don't do drugs. Short term hallucinations, feelings of detachment, distorted sense of strength and invulnerability, agitation, paranoia, dangerous effects, violent behavior, seizures, coma. PCP is illegal and considered a schedule two controlled substance in the US. Wait, is it? Is it like bath salts?

Julie 1:00:35
I'm trying to figure out I've never understood bath salts. Really. Remember that

Scott Benner 1:00:40
time they tried to tell us that basal for making people in dishonor into zombies. Yeah, they get lumped together. And basal are very different drugs. Okay, so what legal drug is PCP most like

Julie 1:00:55
internet baby. I know. Thank

Scott Benner 1:00:58
God. I mean, what do I gotta? I gotta learn everything, and then what? And I got to remember it. How's that

Julie 1:01:03
possibly going to happen? I can't remember anything. Yeah, age four. Maybe that's my thyroid. I thought it was menopause.

Speaker 1 1:01:10
See PCP. Closest legal drug in terms of how it acts is ketamine. Oh, yeah. So there you go. It's not meth. I've never done any hard drive. It's probably pretty obvious that people have they're listening right now is like, why? He doesn't understand any of

Julie 1:01:27
this at all. I know someone's gonna write to you and be like, let me just fix this. Oh, by the way, those people come

Scott Benner 1:01:31
on too, and you're invited to, you want to come on and explain your PCP habit to me. I'm as long as you have diabetes, I'm very willing to hear about it all into it. Yeah, it's not meth either?

Julie 1:01:40
Yeah, it's not meth. Okay? I don't know. No, okay.

Speaker 1 1:01:45
I mean, who knows? I just hear these things on cop shows, so I don't really know. Also, everything I know about medicine is from, is from, like, er, and like, oh, Gray's Anatomy, for sure. What do you mean? Are you kidding me? I've been right about

Julie 1:01:57
things, because you got to watch the pit. That one's pretty accurate. I watched the pit. What am I well, I don't know if it's one of your 87 streaming things that we now have to do every

Speaker 1 1:02:07
time, every time. I can't even tell you how Arden makes fun of Kelly, because Kelly loved the pit, and I enjoyed it very much, and watched it with her. I think it was on Sunday nights. We actually watched it first, like every time it came out. But eventually Arden is like, I think mom likes that guy, not this show, no. And then he popped up in the book. Are they watching some award show? He won an award the other night. Okay, he popped up on the Emmys. And Arden's like, oh, Mom's getting uncomfortable.

Julie 1:02:38
I just like it because it's actually accurate, yeah.

Scott Benner 1:02:41
Actually, I very much enjoyed it. I thought it was awesome.

Julie 1:02:44
Yeah, okay, I need to have someone with type one listen.

Scott Benner 1:02:47
They'll get they stay on long enough they'll get to everything eventually. You were terrific joy. I appreciate you being so honest and forthright and and telling the story for us. So thank you very much.

Julie 1:02:57
Thanks for having me. It was nice to chat with you.

Scott Benner 1:03:00
Of course, I was my pleasure. Hold on one second for me. Okay,

I'd like to thank the ever since 365 for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox podcast, and remind you that if you want the only sensor that gets inserted once a year and not every 14 days you want the ever since CGM, ever since cgm.com/juicebox one year one CGM, US med sponsored this episode of The Juicebox podcast. Check them out at us med.com/juicebox or by calling 888-721-1514, 887211514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med head now to tandem diabetes.com/juicebox and check out today's sponsor tandem diabetes care. I think you're going to find exactly what you're looking for at that link, including a way to sign up and get started with the tandem Moby system, I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. If you're looking to meet other people living with type one diabetes, head over to Juicebox podcast.com/juice. Cruise, because next June, that's right, 2026, June, 21 the second juice Cruise is happening on the celebrity beyond cruise ship. It's a seven night trip going to the Caribbean. We're going to be visiting Miami Coke, okay? St, Thomas and St Kitts, the Virgin Islands. You're going to love the Virgin Islands. Sail with Scott in the Juicebox community on a week long voyage built for people and families living with type one diabetes. Enjoy tropical luxury, practical education and judgment, free atmosphere. Perfect day at cocoa Bay St, Kitts st, Thomas five interactive workshops with me and surprise guests on type one hacks and. Tech, mental health, mindfulness, nutrition, exercise, personal growth and professional development, support groups and wellness discussions tailored for life with type one and celebrities, world class amenities, dining and entertainment. This is open from every age you know, newborn to 99 I don't care how old you are. Come out. Check us out. You can view staterooms and prices at Juicebox podcast.com/juice, cruise. The last juice cruise just happened a couple weeks ago. 100 of you came. It was awesome. We're looking to make it even bigger this year. I hope you can check it out. If you're looking for community around type one diabetes, check out the Juicebox podcast. Private, Facebook group Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes. But everybody is welcome. Type one type two gestational loved ones. It doesn't matter to me, if you're impacted by diabetes and you're looking for support, comfort or community, check out Juicebox podcast type one diabetes on Facebook. Hey, what's up everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better, and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way. Recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way. Recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want Rob.

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Scott Benner 10/29/25 Scott Benner 10/29/25

#1665 Kent Has Something to Say

Kent Schnakenberg returns to share how one bike ride turned into a life’s mission—raising awareness, saving lives, and inspiring thousands through Team Schnak Strong and the fight against type 1 diabetes.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Friends, we're all back together for the next episode of The Juicebox podcast. Welcome. Hi. This

Kent Schnakenberg 0:13
is Kemp snackenberg. I started team snack strong, you know, back in 2014 and I'm very, very excited to be back on your podcast. It's amazing to me how you grow on this thing, and I'm so proud of you, and how many people continue each year to say they listen to that podcast and reach out to me. So I'm excited to be back on Scott.

Scott Benner 0:31
This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by skin grip, durable skin, safe, adhesive that lasts your diabetes devices, they can fall off easily, sometimes, especially when you're bathing or very active. When those devices fall off, your life is disrupted, and it costs you money. But skin grip patches, they keep your devices secure. Skin grip was founded by a family directly impacted by type one, and it's trusted by hundreds of 1000s of individuals living with diabetes. Juicebox podcast listeners are going to get 20% off of their first order by visiting skingrip.com/juicebox 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 or becoming bold with insulin. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, get your supplies the same way we do from us med. This episode of The Juicebox podcast is sponsored by Omnipod five. Omnipod five is a tube, free, automated insulin delivery system that's been shown to significantly improve a 1c and time and range for people with type one diabetes when they've switched from daily injections. Learn more and get started today at omnipod.com/juicebox at my link, you can get a free starter kit right now. Terms and Conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox Hi.

Kent Schnakenberg 2:14
This is Camp snackenberg. I started team snack strong, you know, back in 2014 and I'm very, very excited to be back on your podcast. It's amazing to me how you grow on this thing, and I'm so proud of you, and how many people continue each year to say they listen to that podcast and reach out to me. So I'm excited to be back on Scott, is

Scott Benner 2:33
that true? Kent, you were on episode 76 which, I mean, maybe is the second year with would that have been 2016 maybe? Well,

Kent Schnakenberg 2:42
I just thought it was 10 years ago, so it's probably 2015 or 2016 and that first year just was started getting messages and emails and stuff on Facebook for people all over the country. And when I was doing, you know, the rides all over the country that year, that's how I started meeting people, going to their houses and take it out to eat. So you obviously have a big following, and that's why I'm excited to get another chance to kind of give you a 10 year, a 10 year recap of what's gone on since

Speaker 1 3:08
then. Yeah, no, that's awesome. I'm trying to look up the episode right now. I think it was 76 Yeah, yeah. I'm just seeing that now, so, but I'm trying to figure out what year it was, see if I can't find it like it's it's been so long ago. Oh, I know what the problem is. When I search for 76 there's been 41 other episodes with the number 76 in them. That's why I'm getting so that's why I'm getting so

Kent Schnakenberg 3:34
many returns. I really think it was 2016 for some reason, 2016

Scott Benner 3:40
Okay, well, that's really great. Oh, I appreciate. I do want to kind of start from the beginning, even though, you know it's going to be something you said in the past. Tell me again how this all started, what your connection was to it. And then we'll, we'll pick through, okay,

Kent Schnakenberg 3:52
well, I mean, in 2014 my connection is, you know, my niece, Michelle, and she was diagnosed, and she was 14, and obviously that's quite a while ago, and she's doing amazing. She's now a pediatric nurse. She went through Texas A and M with full colors. Now she's helping kids and giving back that way. And I just decided, my brothers and I decided to go to Lake Tahoe for a JDRF ride, which I had no idea what JDRF was or nothing about type one diabetes at the time, but my brother said that'd be fine. So my twin brother and my younger brother, Mike, who's Michelle's Father, we went to Lake Tahoe and rode 73 miles around that lake, met a lot of people, and really did enjoy it. I got back on the shuttle bus to go back to the airport. I said by a young lady, her name was there,

Scott Benner 4:40
CGM on her arms. Ken Tell me again. I you dropped out there. Her name was, what her name was, Aaron. Aaron. You know what? Kent, I'm gonna stop you for a half a second. I think I figured something out. Because, okay, you remarked to me that the first time we did this, we had audio trouble, right? And just now i don't i think i. Think there's something about the resonance. I know it's gonna sound crazy for a second, but I think it's something about the deepness and the resonance of your voice. When you're talking and you don't modulate, you start to I don't know how to describe it, but your voice starts to disappear, and then the minute you modulate, your voice can get a little higher, a little lower, it comes right back again. I wonder if you're speaking at a frequency that the phone gets confused.

Kent Schnakenberg 5:24
It's pretty low.

Scott Benner 5:25
Yeah, tell me when you're on the phone with people regularly. Do they ever ask you to repeat yourself? Oh, you

Kent Schnakenberg 5:30
know, I talk so fast most of the time, I think they just let me go. But do you want me to try the speaker phone? Would that maybe help? I'm fascinated

Scott Benner 5:37
by this because you got right to the part where you you'd gone on the ride, and you were on the bus coming back, and as you were talking, your voice just disappeared. And I realized now it's not the head that

Kent Schnakenberg 5:47
you had a last set, that last that happened in the last time we did this too, when you re listen to

Scott Benner 5:51
it, yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. So I don't know if the speaker phone would change anything. I actually I'm going to tell you something, what slow down a little bit, okay? And I wonder what that's going to change. And Lee, and the guy that's editing this, Rob, leave this all in. I think it's really interesting. I'm going to recap, just to make sure, okay, your niece gets type one. She's like, 14 years old. She's a full on adult now, right? You got you and your brother want to support you know, your family, right? You head out, you do this JD or F ride together. On the way back from the ride, you meet somebody on a bus. Start there, right?

Kent Schnakenberg 6:26
So after the ride, I got on the bus to go back to the airport, and I sat next to a young lady named Aaron, and I noticed a CGM on her arm. And so we started talking, and I asked her when she was diagnosed, I expect her say, you know, like six or eight or 10, because at that point I thought all people just it was all kids that got, you know, type one diabetes, right? And she said she was 42 and so it just amazed me. And she started talking, and then I she said, you know, really, realistically, half the people that get this disease every day are kids, and half of her young adults or adults, and so that led to a lot of interest in a great talk all the way back. And that's when I decided I wanted to do another ride. Just something inside of me told me to do another ride. So I signed up for the last ride of the year, which was in Tucson, Arizona, and I flew out there by myself. I didn't know anybody at all. I just got to meeting some people and stuff, and think it was 104 mile ride. And that night, on a Saturday night at the awards banquet, I was awarded this spirit jersey. And I really didn't even know what it meant at that point. And so they asked me to come up and talk. And I was up there speaking and to all these people. There's like 400 people in the room, and I noticed everybody's eyes were right on me. And I just, I just at the end of the at the end of my speech, I said, Okay, I'm doing all seven rides next year. It was like something came over me at that moment. I don't know if God came into me or what, and just, it was just a big deal at that point. And I decided just to go a full bore on this thing. And I got back to my room that night, and somebody has sent me a message on Facebook that showed a picture of a blue candle, and I didn't really know what a blue candle meant, but I've come to realize it's never good. And there was a 12 year old boy that had passed away that day, the same day I won this award from misdiagnosis of this disease, and that's when I decided I didn't know anything about the disease. And I thought, well, it's time to start spreading awareness. So that's when all this started coming to me, like on the plane ride home. You know, if I'm going to go to all the rides next year, I want to try to visit all 48 lower states, get a truck and logo it out, and have the symptoms on it and our information on it. And so I got that done, and the same girl named Aaron said I'd met, contacted her, and she hooked me up with this man named Matt Fisher, who had lived with type one his whole life. And he was a graphic artist, very talented guy, and so he, without even meeting him, helped me design the truck, just through emails and stuff and a guy at the local bike shop. And, you know, that's, that's kind of what started the truck. And that's when we decided to try to do, you know, go to all 50 states and visit all 50 states for over I had this, you know, this idea about trying to do 50 rides someday. It's kind of went from there.

Scott Benner 9:08
Kent, I want to stop you. First of all, the talking, speaking more slowly. Thing is the perfect fix for this. So, okay, yeah, so keep going the way you're going. You're doing great. I think it would be helpful for people to understand like, you just got this motivation. It's not like you. I mean, yes, your niece is a connection, but still, like, I think for most of us, like, I went and did the ride I supported my niece, like, I'm good, I'm going home now, something motivated you, and you said you don't know what you know, if it's God that put it in your ear or but, I mean, I want to understand more about you. Like, because, how old were you when that happened, when you, when you go on that first ride with your niece? How old are you 60 years old. 60 okay, and you're, were you retired? You were working?

Kent Schnakenberg 9:48
No, I'm still working part time at to this day. You know, it's still in the whole northeast Kansas thing, where my territories, I'm a salesman, you know, I'm just doing it part time now, but that's where. You know, started raising all the money, and that's where I learned about going, Yes, when I started my going to school program, that's when I started learning about Camp Discovery at all. Everything kind of ties into that, I

Scott Benner 10:10
guess. So what I'm saying is, you're 60 years old, you're still working. It's not like you're looking for something to do, right? You're not at home, like bored, right? Would you call this just a calling?

Kent Schnakenberg 10:18
No, I do. It was my mission. It was my moment in life. And that's why the last story I'll tell kind of explains that. But it was just that moment in life when God came into my soul, or whatever, and just said, you know, this is your deal. You can help these people.

Scott Benner 10:32
You can't really explain the motivation that you found for just you really got struck by something,

Kent Schnakenberg 10:37
yeah. I mean, I've always been a, you know, a generous person. I've always been a person that looked out to help other people, but this was just something that happened, looking in those 400 eyes, sets of eyes, and knowing all these people had a connection to type one diabetes, and they were like, looking at me like, we need your help, I guess is the way I would put it. I guess so,

Scott Benner 10:55
because you're kind of an outsider that just showed up and, I mean, you got the award because you have, I'm assuming you had so much enthusiasm. They were like, Who is this guy and why is he so excited about all this? Right? And especially without a direct connection. You have your own children. Yeah, I got two children, five grandchildren. Okay? So you have your own family. My point is, you have things you could be doing, you know, and you're giving a lot of time to something else. So along the way, over the last I mean, what year was this? It

Kent Schnakenberg 11:21
was 2014 is when I did the first ride that did the two rides, then, then when I committed to do the seven that started in 2015

Scott Benner 11:29
Okay, so you started doing this, literally, the year before I started making this podcast. I started making the podcast in 2015 Okay, so our timelines kind of match up that way. So at first you say there's, well, I guess the idea was there were seven JDRF rides around the country the next year, correct? Yes. Did you actually make it to all of them?

Kent Schnakenberg 11:48
Yeah, I did at one time. I pointed and did 25 in a row. I just finished my 49th and I'll do number 50 on Florida in December.

Scott Benner 11:56
Oh my gosh, you started. Oh, sorry, my phone's not muted. Hard. And had pancakes a little while ago. That's what that is. Okay, I guess you mentioned the truck earlier, but for people who don't know you, decided, like, I'm going to take a pickup truck and deck it out. And what did you end up calling your your ride team? You mean the truck? Yeah, the truck.

Kent Schnakenberg 12:16
Trucks called the t1 destroyer. We had a national contest, and people sent in names, and the person they wanted said you are the t1 destroyer. So that's what you need to call your truck

Scott Benner 12:25
awesome. And so I can picture in my head black with like, yellow graphics, right, correct, yep, yep. As a matter of fact, growing up, Arden slept in a T shirt that was yours for years, like it was one of her sleeping T shirts. And that's great. That's amazing. It's funny. I don't know if she knows what it is, but it's one of her she has a Dexcom sleeping t shirt, that one and another one, and they just went through the like, she was constantly using them. Nevertheless, like, so you got the truck because you're gonna go to your ideas. I'm gonna go to all these different places and correct, raise awareness. Like, that's really just your goal, right? Like, I just want to try to find people and teach them about type one diabetes,

Kent Schnakenberg 13:04
yeah, I mean, to stop senseless deaths from these kids that have passed away from being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. And, you know, I've been in several homes, it's the worst thing I've done in all these years, is homes that have lost their kids, and listen to them and say, I wish I'd known I wish somebody would have told me. And just, I want to stop that. And, you know, raising awareness has obviously helped me raise so much money. It's been incredible. How much easier it is if you let people know what you're trying to raise money

Scott Benner 13:29
for. Well, it was my next question is that now you you're saying you're about to go on your 50th ride. Like, how does this like, how do you fund it? Like, are you independently wealthy? Or is there? Like, I mean, yeah,

Kent Schnakenberg 13:40
I work. You know, I've worked a long time and made a nice living, but we raised a lot of money. I mean, since we started all this, I mean, we probably raised between what we've given a JD ref, which is now called break through, T 1d they just rebranded last year. Yeah, and, you know, our team, snack strong Fund, which we can talk about, hopefully we've raised like, $1.2 million since we started. That's

Scott Benner 14:01
insane. Ken, that's really wonderful. And so some of that money gets donated off and some of it funds your traveling and your awareness raising. Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. It might sound crazy to say, but Summertime is right around the corner. That means more swimming, sports activities, vacations. And you know what's a great feeling, being able to stay connected to automated insulin delivery while doing it all. Omnipod five is the only tube free automated insulin delivery system in the US, and because it's tube free and waterproof, it goes everywhere you do, in the pool, in the ocean or on the soccer field. Unlike traditional insulin pumps, you never have to disconnect from Omnipod five for daily activities, which means you never have to take a break from automated insulin delivery ready to go tube free. Request your free Omnipod five Starter Kit today at omnipod.com/juicebox Terms and Conditions apply and. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox type that link into your browser, or go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on the image of Omnipod right at the bottom. There's also a link right in the show notes of your podcast player. I have always disliked ordering diabetes supplies. I'm guessing you have as well. It hasn't been a problem for us for the last few years, though, because we began using us Med, you can too us med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514, to get your free benefits. Check us med has served over 1 million people living with diabetes since 1996 they carry everything you need, from CGM to insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies and more. I'm talking about all the good ones, all your favorites, libre three, Dexcom g7 and pumps like Omnipod five, Omnipod dash tandem, and most recently, the eyelet pump from beta bionics, the stuff you're looking for, they have it at us. Med, 888-721-1514, or go to us. Med.com/juicebox, to get started now use my link to support the podcast. That's us. Med.com/juicebox, or call 888-721-1514,

Kent Schnakenberg 16:21
no. The funny travel and everything, my wife and I find ourselves. Oh, I mean, it's all we've always just paid for all that ourselves now. Oh, my God, no, we Yeah, and the T shirts. Obviously, we've given out a lot of T shirts over the years. I mean, we just celebrated with the company that does our T shirts. They've just printed their 26,000 T shirts. So we've given out over 26,000 T shirts since we started it, and we funded most of that for a long time. But the last few years, we've had some people step up say, hey, we want to help you pay for the T shirts when you come to our school, that type of thing. So 26,000 T shirts, yeah, and all of them have our team snacks, and they have the symptoms of type one on the back, and they're the key to this whole thing about creating this whole army of kids, you know, to help us all over the country. Actually, we've sent these shirts all over the world, and people wear them. They love to wear them. And you know that my theory is, if they're standing there at McDonald's, in line or on vacation or whatever, because you see these shirts everywhere, all over northeast Kansas and around the country, you know people are going to read some of those symptoms, and hopefully they'll remember the top four or five of them, and then they'll remember that if somebody in their family says something, or, you know about their kids or their granddaughter or whatever, and you know, help them say, and help them know to say you need to get to the hospital right now and do the blood check. You just need to get to the hospital right now. You can't wait.

Scott Benner 17:35
So the simplicity of your motivation really is that you have that experience in front of those 400 people, and then that evening, someone tells you about a young child who passed away from not getting diagnosed.

Kent Schnakenberg 17:46
Yeah, somebody sent me the message. You know, since then, it's just that's, I've just always been very driven, you know, I'm a salesman by trade. You know, selling and fundraising and all this is kind of all the same thing. You just, you have to let people know what you're fundraising for. You let have to let people know that you're serious. You know, when they see my truck and they, you know, they they see me go into a school, you know, people just they realize this guy is serious when, I mean, nothing is more exciting to me than walking into a school 400 kids or 600 kids or 800 kids, whatever it is. I mean, I've done like 75 of these school visits and assemblies over these years, and they all have a bright yellow temp snack shirt on. And right away, they're bought in because they know this guy's serious. He's giving us a t shirt. We need to listen. Yeah,

Scott Benner 18:31
you know, I just That's simple. You're not just wandering and talking. You're saying there's clearly a structure around what you're doing. And when you show that to people, they think, Oh, this is a real thing. And let me take a minute here to find out, how did you start that? So you have a school awareness program where you you go around and speak even, how does that begin? Like, how do you where does that idea come from? And then how do you grow it?

Kent Schnakenberg 18:52
Well, I mean, through my territory, which is northeast Kansas, you know, that's where I've done a lot of these. Obviously, here in accord, I've done them all over the country now, as I'm traveling and stuff, but I just decided one day, like I said, that if I'm going to have, you know, kids to help me, I could create an army of people out there spreading awareness. Because you don't see anything on TV type one diabetes, except now some CGM commercials. Yeah, you don't ever see anybody talking about symptoms. It's not. National organizations don't talk as much about awareness as I wish they did. I mean, they're, they're great at raising money and doing the research, but I just thought, I'm just going to try to do this on a grassroots level. And it's worked, and it continues to work, and it's the proven, you know, it's a proven mission. It's a proven theory that by doing that, it's helped us raise all this money, and this money has done so much good. But, you know, I just when I started going to the schools, the first thing I ever did it was in 2015 I one of the I was reading a book to the second graders up in nemas Central elementary school, because the teachers asked me to come in and read. And I'd given all the kids a t shirt because they knew they'd seen my truck. And I saw the teachers in the back room, you know, talking, back to the room, talking, and they came up and said, We got an ID for. Fundraiser. And so before I knew it, we were going to do a bike ride with the second graders from that school and the Catholic school. So if you think, have you ever done anything crazy in your life, try taking 75 second graders on a four mile bike ride. And it was just the coolest thing. We got there in the morning at the elementary school, and everybody was wearing their shirts, and they all had their bikes. I think four or five kids didn't have bikes. And then around the corner, here comes the kids from the other school, and they're peddling their little bikes. And the priests from this from the school came and rode with us. And it was four laps around, you know, this school, and each lap was about a mile in the first lap, you know, I said, Okay, everybody behind the big guy. Everybody stay behind me. Light up. I mean, we had the teachers. We had people staggered through there, yeah, went all around the first time, and it worked out pretty good. And all sudden, kids started going faster and faster. They wanted to pass me. And we got back around halfway the second time. I heard man down in the back, and I looked back, and there was a pile of them back there. And the teachers got, you know, to them real quick, and they I went back there. I was all worried, and they said, You can't hurt a second grader. You're fine. So we rode one more lap, and then by the fourth lap, I was so nervous, there was some kids that were running the whole time. I said, Let's just all park our bikes and walk. I said, nothing could go wrong, you know. So we all held hands, and we started around this big one mile block area, and I looked over the tree, and there's two kids in a tree and to kids in the streets. And, I mean, it was one of the craziest things I've ever done, but at the end of it, they gave me a check for like, $3,300 they had raised just through that school that day within what a huge surprise. And and that's when I decided to start going to schools. And I just, every chance I get, I go to schools and talk. It's amazing.

Scott Benner 21:40
Yeah, so when you speak to them, what do you give them, like signs and symptoms to look for? Or is it more about the opportunity to make their parents aware and the teachers aware? What is it? What's your goal when you're doing that?

Kent Schnakenberg 21:52
You know, it's about a 30 to 45 minute thing, depending on, you know, how big the school is and stuff. But we just start talking about team snack and why I started. And, you know, then we get into what is type one diabetes. You know, I explained to them that it's an autoimmune disease, and anybody can get it in. Your classmates that have this disease didn't do anything wrong. It's not what they eat, it's not how much they exercise, and it's not contagious, you know, just try to make everybody feel more comfortable. Yeah. And then, you know, we talked a little bit about bike safety. But the highlight of the whole thing is when I give the kids that play with type one a chance to come up and speak. And you know, in some schools there might be one kid, or some schools there might be 12 kids. And you know, the smallest school I've ever done is like 178 kids K through 12. And the largest I've ever done was 1100 high school kids in Paintsville, Kentucky. Every one is different. And, you know, they just, it's amazing how brave these kids are when they get up and talk. And it just empowers them. For the first time in their life, they can go up there, and we can talk about the CGM insulin pups, and why they're wearing these things on their body, and why they get to go to the school nurse more often. It's just very empowering. And some of the things they say and some of the things that come out of that, or things, you know, I'll always remember, there was this one little girl at a very small school I went to, and it's K through 12, and there was a third grader there that had been just diagnosed to her parents, got a hold of me and asked me if I come to a school assembly, which I always say, yes, if I can. And we got there, and the principal said, This is great what you're here for, but I want you to let you know we have a sixth grade girl that has type one also, but she never wants to be recognized. She doesn't want to talk about it, and don't ask if there's anybody else, I mean, and I would never do that. And if kids don't want to come up, I never make them. But we got, you know, through the through this thing, and towards the end of the assembly, and this little girl and her parents were up there speaking, and they were just so, so great. And she went to sit down, and all of a sudden I see this girl stand up, and she just walks right out of her out of the stands, and right up to me, and she says, I'd really need to say something. And right then I thought, well, this is that other girl, yeah. And she took that microphone from me, and she walked over in front of the sixth graders, and she just said, you know, I want you to know the reason I don't wear a two piece swimming suit or tank tops because I'm embarrassed with all the spots on my body and all the bruises from having to give myself shots. But I have to have those shots to live every day, she walked back over to me and handed me the microphone, and she said, thank you. And as she was going, I'll never forget, the whole place stood up and give her a standing ovation. And the next day, her mom called me and said, You know, I don't know what you did or who you are, but you changed my school that day and took her bag and showed everybody what was going on. And there's just so many things that happen like that. You know, over the years, these kids, they're just it gives them a chance to not have to hide, not to have to hide it anymore, right? That's the whole gist of the school program, and it just continues to grow. No?

Scott Benner 24:50
I mean, if you didn't do anything else, just that story alone is, is probably worth the whole thing, right?

Kent Schnakenberg 24:56
Yeah, yeah. I just even, even when we're traveling across. Of the country, and I'm speaking in rhetoric clubs or, you know, I get to stay in some people's houses now, because I've met them at rides and stuff. You know, they're just, we became, I became good friends with so many people through JDRF. And it's pretty it's pretty amazing. You know, when the JDRF rides, I've done all these rides now, and I've won that spirit Jersey, and then I won two green jerseys, which is, man, I've raised the most at that particular ride in all you know, last year, December, I think it was my 47th ride, but that was awarded the rose jersey. And the rose jersey is something that I always wanted to win. It's the it's a jersey that's given out to a person that doesn't have type one diabetes, but has done so much to help people that live with type one diabetes spread awareness and raising money. And Rose was a lady that passed away from the horrible disease that was writing for her daughter. The Rose jersey was just because she made everybody promise to keep the journey going after she was gone. You know, last year in Amelia Island, this is how this whole thing kind of keeps coming back around. I was in the morning. I was dressing. I walked downstairs and had my road jersey on. This young man walks up to me, and he goes, Mister snacker, you're not going to remember this, but in 2015 you had a booth set up in Wichita, Kansas at the JD ref walk, and you had your bike there and your truck. And I came up, and I was just so small, and I just looked at you, and I said, Someday I want to do a JD ride like, if you ever do one, I promise I'll be there. And he was, he was there at a million Island, you know, 10 years later. And he said, you know, you just, you kept your promise. Things like that to just, you know, I get tired, you know, I'm 70 years old now. I'll be 71 in January, but six like that just motivate me to continue on, and I can't keep doing it the same pace. I just never want to stop. I never want to quit on these kids, because I know today, tomorrow, the next day, there's going to be another 250 people that are going to be diagnosed, and most of them don't know the symptoms, and they need to know that. They just need to know that they just walking into people's homes, speaking at a couple funerals I have, it's just no fun, and they're just senseless deaths. And I try to get national organizations to buy more into it and talk about awareness, put the symptoms on the back of their shirts and stuff. But at this point, I still haven't been successful with that, so I'll just keep doing it myself and with my family. And my wife is an unbelievable partner and all this, she's, she's just so great, and it's let me do so many things. I mean, you got to realize I've probably been gone 250 more nights away from home, traveling, just doing this, and she's just all about it, and she knows I'm doing good things, and she loves helping people like I do. Yeah, well, Ken,

Scott Benner 27:33
how long you've been married? 45 years? Yeah, she probably thrilled me at least. I gotta be honest with you.

Kent Schnakenberg 27:39
Well, I mean, can you imagine, once, like being married to me, it's not always fun, but, but but she's just, you know, and our grandkids, yeah, they love it. And it's, it takes some, you know, not very many people would be able to do that. It takes somebody strong like that. And, you know, she's done like, six or seven rides herself, and she actually did her first 100 mile ride a few years ago on the cross. And I was so proud of her. She's always there to support

Scott Benner 28:00
me. Do you ever have the feeling that you've given something away in your own life, for these other for these strangers, and that it's a thing you can't get back? I mean, if you ever missed time with your own family over this or and how do you handle that?

Kent Schnakenberg 28:11
I mean, I obviously missed some things I probably shouldn't have, but I think my family, I don't think that I've ever given anything away, and I think my family understands how important this is. It'd be one thing if I was just out there golfing or traveling, you know, going to football games with guys. But, and, you know, they have a lot of connections now with these families and stuff, and they know that this is my mission, and they're part of this mission. They're, we call it team snack strong, and we're all team snack and, you know, it's just, it's part of our family name, and it's our nickname, and it's just something we continue to do. So I wouldn't say that I regret anything at this point in my life. I may look back on that someday, but we've made life long friends all over the United States, and we connect, stay connected, with these people. And you know, it's just it's very seldom that, you know, within a week or I'm not getting two or three messages, you know, would you please send us a t shirt? And I always try to send a note with it, and I'm always at the post office sending out shirts. And, yeah, you know, just continue to go to school. So I have five schools up in northeast Kansas that their eighth grade classes every year as part of their class. And I do this at Emporia State University too, with the class that I go in and talk and I hand out T shirts, and I go back several times a year. And you know, that's culminated into we have our own northeast Kansas takes team snack, Diabetes Awareness Walk for the last several years. And each year that thing raises 10 to $15,000 and we have three or 400

Scott Benner 29:32
people show up. I asked you can't because yesterday, I mean, it's a good example, like, I'm gonna go back maybe nine months ago, I interviewed this person. She's just type one. She was young girl, and as we were talking, I realized that she was an American Sign Language interpreter. And I said, Wouldn't it be interesting if I took one of the series from the podcast, you know, the one for newly diagnosed people, bold beginnings? And what if I got it translated into. To into American Sign Language. I paid somebody to stand in front of a camera and translate the entire thing, which is a huge undertaking, right? And I first thought like, well, maybe I could get a sponsor to pay for that. Then I realized, this is going to help a handful of people, and it's going to be really valuable for the people it finds, but it's not going to find, I don't imagine 1000s of people, right? It's going to find 10s of people, or maybe 100 people. It's going to be really helpful for those people, but nobody's going to want to put money down. So I didn't even bother asking. I said to the girl afterwards, I was like, Michaela, what would it cost me to have you do that? And she gave me a very fair number, and I reached into my pocket, and I paid her, right? And it took probably months and months and months for us to get it together, and for her to, like, figure out how best to do it. And also, there's 26 episodes of this thing, and just recently she finished. It's awesome, right? And as I was paying her account, I thought, this is not enough money for the amount of work she put into this. I'm not paying her enough. And I felt bad about that. And then I had the videos, but I didn't have the time to put them together. I had to make a website for them. I had to get them onto YouTube. I guess a lot of back end work that's kind of boring. But then maybe four or five days ago, someone on the Facebook group asked, Does anyone know where somebody who needs ASL can get diabetes information? And I thought, huh, I have that on my hard drive, and what a great opportunity. So I spent the last few days making a website, uploading stuff like, you know, making sure everything on the back end was done. I got up yesterday, I recorded at 9am at 10am I thought to make myself breakfast, but started to work on the ASL stuff instead. And then I finished it last night at 1130 and I put it online, and I put a post up, and I was like, hey, here you guys go. It's, you know, I was really giving it to this one person. I was like, here, this is for you, for your brother. Wow. And I don't feel like I wasted my day, but there are a lot of things I meant to do yesterday, and one of them would have been like, exercising. And, you know, on the very simple and basic level, there's I skipped my workout yesterday. I didn't do a lot of things yesterday, and instead, I worked on this thing for the entire time. I was wondering what your answer was, because if somebody asked me, Hey, you feel like you gave your whole day away yesterday for for nothing, I would say, No, I don't think so at all. Like it feels really valuable to me. I don't know a lot of people who get to go to work and feel that way, I guess is my

Kent Schnakenberg 32:23
point, no, every day is a new opportunity, you know, to help somebody, whether it's with type one diabetes or anything. And what you did there was so commendable, because, you know, you didn't just help one person, you helped the family, you helped other families. And you really can't waste your day. I mean, you can exercise later today. You can exercise tomorrow. I mean, I could ride my bike when you give something to somebody that needs you and doesn't have what you have to give, then it's well worth it. And that's, that's kind of way I feel

Scott Benner 32:48
I've heard you. It was really hard, because your voice is very deep, but, like, I've heard you be emotional twice while we're talking, right? And the little girl saying to you, like, Can I have the microphone? I have something I need to say? Like that made me cry. I got emotional when you said that her words. It is because it's the bigger picture. It's like, she's there, she's she's got some energy, and she's like, I've been holding this thing inside. I'm miserable holding this thing inside. Yeah, and I need to get rid of it. If you can be a little part of helping somebody do something like that. I really think it reverberates around the world. I'm sitting here thinking about these kids who sat through your program at school and will 10 years later be in college, and some kids going to get sick, and they're going to think like, oh, that's probably diabetes, and maybe help that person and that thing like that on that first night that you wanted to do, yeah, you'll do it so many times in your life and beyond your life, you won't even, you'll never know how many people you touched. I don't believe well, you know, I

Kent Schnakenberg 33:46
got a card once a few years ago from a second grade teacher that I had been at their school two years before, and she said, You know, I listened to what you had to say normally during assemblies. You know, I'm creating papers or whatever. But she said, you know, you gave us all these shirts, and you were very interesting to listen to. And I listened to everything, you said. She said, two years later, my son started showing the symptoms of type one, and so right away, we got him, you know, to the hospital, and his blood sugar was like six or 700 and she goes, I know in my heart You saved my son's life.

Scott Benner 34:16
Well, I mean, at the very least, you saved him from like, a terrible bout with DKA and all the things that might come with it, and her having to feel like she missed it, like I talk to people every day who, you know, carry a terrible burden around with themselves, like because they missed something, and their children didn't pass even they went through a thing that they just wished terribly they would have understood better, so that they didn't have to have this experience. Yeah, no. I mean, Ken, it's, it's, it really is awesome. What you're doing.

Kent Schnakenberg 34:43
Well, you know when we're like when I was at diabetes camp last year, and, you know, I'd want to talk a little bit more about that, maybe in a minute. But please, here they have, they have doctors and nurses there. Obviously, from this one is close to Wichita, Kansas, you know, I walked, I went in there, and they just said, you just need to know. That you have, you're making it possible now for kids to just walk into the room and just say, with their parents say, I need a blood sugar test. She goes, the worst thing is, when we get a type one child that's, you know, in an ambulance, or worse yet, on a helicopter. She said, there's just so many kids that could benefit from these programs. And so that's another reason to keep motivated, because just think of all the kids all over the world that hold this inside, like you said, and don't want to talk about it, or scared to talk about it. It's only because nobody's giving them a chance. Yeah, you know that's I just want to give them a chance to open up and let the other kids around them know. You know, it's not weird for them to be wearing these things on their arms, at their legs. They're things that keep them alive. They have to have them to keep alive every day. There's a reason they carry Skittles. It's not because they love candy. It keeps it's a chance to keep them alive every day, and that's why we'll continue to do even if I can't do the rides and travel around the country as much. I'll continue to talk to groups, and I'll continue to help people in this area and all over the state of Kansas and go to as many schools as I can. I mean, you know, we have a team snack strong fund. We actually started right after I talked to you. I think even I mentioned that we were getting ready to start it, and it's under the Emporia Community Foundation. And so for any child that lives, you know, in the seven county area with type one diabetes, you know, each year, they can get $1,500 a year from us, you know, for scholarships, and for, excuse me, $1,500 a year from us to help pay expenses of the disease. And there's another foundation that's tacked on another $1,000 to that for the same kid, you know, also, plus that if they want to go to Camp Discovery, you know, we're going to send them on a full ride scholarship. And I think the average price now to camps like $1,000 and since we started, I think the first year, we did 1010, kids, it was in Dexcom City, Kansas at that point, and it was 73 miles from your side, ride my bike up there with a friend early in the morning to get there, you know, around noon, and the kids would be waiting for me. And so now, every year when we go to camp, they have a team snack day, and it's on Wednesday East Lee, and we can't, you know, there's 100 kids there. It's unbelievable experience. I don't know if your daughter's ever gone, but we give all the kids a shirt, and I get her down there and talk. And I think we've given out now 175 scholarships since we started. And last year we sent 36 kids, and this year we're going to send 40 more. And it's just the camps are one of the best thing that I ever hooked up with. I mean, it's just so empowering. They get lifelong friends, they get a talk, and you know, when they have their meals, they're all together in this big room, and they get up in each cab and talks about who changed their pump and who did this, and it's just, it's so cool, and they come out of there, and their lives are changed forever. And we want to definitely continue that

Scott Benner 37:28
program. Yeah, for sure. So this year, I had the director of Camp Sweeney on the podcast, and while he was on, he said, I'd like to give away, you know, to the listeners, I'd like to give away a spot at Camp Sweeney and camp sweet, it's pricey. I think it's over. I literally think it's like $4,000 right? And it's a three week camp. They go for three weeks. Oh, wow. And I said that that'd be great, you know, I'll give it away. We got off, got off the call, and I said, Let me, let me reach out to a sponsor and see if I can get somebody to, like you give one away, and we can get a sponsor to give one away, right? And I think I'm pretty sure us med did it. So it's one of my sponsors. So we gave way too. And then, you know, they were so excited about it, and it did good buzz for the for the camps, they said, Listen, we have benefactor that would like to give away another one. I said, let me go ask another sponsor. And I got, I got Omnipod to give away another one. And then before I knew it, the 2025 was, you know, Camp time was coming up, and I think we sent, like, I've lost count. I think we it was six or eight kids we sent to camp, wow, just random drawings, like people just sent in, like, here's why I want my kid to come. I randomly picked names, and the kids went off. And I got a video a month or two ago, and I was like, What is this like? It was, I was tagged on Instagram, and I jumped and looked at it, and it's just this giant group of children, and this one little kid up front, and he's like, hey, you know, thank you so much to the Juicebox podcast for sending me to camp. I'm having such a great time. And like, just countless kids behind him, like screaming, thank you. And I sat there, and I thought my whole life should be sending kids to camp like I should, you know, I should. I should quit everything else I'm doing and try to find a way to send more kids. What a lovely experience. It was new for me, yeah. And then I just recently had one of the kids on to talk about it, and and he had such a great time and experience, just like you you described. So I can't imagine how it must feel to send 40 kids.

Kent Schnakenberg 39:23
That's it. Well, it's empowering. And, you know, it's we try to, obviously, we pick kids from importing area first, and then we pick kids in northeast Kansas, because that's where we still continue to raise so much of our money, and so many of the schools I go to and stuff. And then we, but we've sent kids from all over Kansas, and the camp ADA has been great to work with this. I mean, Camp Discovery is great and, you know, give us an opportunity to do this scholarship program, and I think it's helped fill all their beds, and now they have a waiting list, and it's, I promote that camp anytime I get a chance to because, and I'm sure that we sent a girl in Arizona to. Camp out in Arizona. I send a girl in Colorado to camp in Colorado, just, I mean, I walk in a bike store last year in Green Valley, Arizona. We go out there and visit friends. You know, the guy out in the under the bike store saw my truck, and he goes, You know, my daughter was just diagnosed. And I said, Well, can I meet her? And he called her home. She came down there, and before I knew it, gave her T shirts and talked to her about what we did. I said, you've ever been to camp? And she goes? No. Said, Well, if you want to go, you know, help pay for it. And so a few days later, they got a hold of me, and she just got back from camp, and she had an unbelievable experience. It's only because I needed to fix a flat on my tire on my bike. I mean, it's just, yeah, it's not very many days go by where something cool doesn't happen to me, but I try to reach out all the time. You know, I've got my shirts, I got the truck, so I'm always visible, but I just don't want to miss an opportunity if I can to meet a kid.

Scott Benner 40:47
I'm jealous that you get to do it in person, because I think I have your experiences, and I might have them with more frequency, but mine are all virtual, you know, for the most part. Yeah, you

Kent Schnakenberg 40:59
know, look how many people you're reaching. I mean, you're, I have no idea how many subscribers yet, but it's got to be a lot. Because, like I said, that first year you were getting started, I was getting started 10 years ago, and just people continue. It was last year. Somebody reached out and Ryan walked up said, I remember you from the Juicebox podcast, and thank you for everything you do. I just, I mean, you're doing what you know, you're doing what you were meant to do. And I think I'm doing what I was meant to do. I mean, it takes I agree all sides to do that, and we have so much support from our community and from schools in this area and from people all over the country. I mean, when we raise money for it's called Match Day at Emporia Community Foundation. It's in November, and we started like, I think it's six years ago, with this match day thing. And each year we've led, you know, you know, each year it continued to grow. And last year, you know, we received a check for $106,000 and that money, you know, that money, helped so much. And I think since we started this with them, we raised over 600,000 just for our foundation, and, you know, for our fund there. And but each year we're paying out, you know, 30 to 40 to $50,000 you know, two kids with the financial aid and going to camp and stuff. So we need to continue to work hard to raise money, because I really want to have one that is a legacy fund when I'm gone, and to continue to do this program. And you know, not only help kids with the expenses necessary, but you know, continue to raise awareness with what we do. And you know, I don't know if I told you this, but now I have two team snack trucks. And you know, the first one is a 2014 the one you had the picture of took all over the country, and now it's got 430,000 miles on it. So two years ago, three years ago, in case, this one comes out of stuff, so about a 2022 and the same lady that logoed out the first one had all the designs and logo. Get out this one just the same. So I've got two of them sitting at my house. I've been driving the newer one to the longer rides like Wisconsin and Florida and some of those. But otherwise I just drive my old one. Everybody at the Ford dealership here, and everybody all over the data saying, what's your goal? And I said, I want to get to half a million bottles. You know, I want Ford Motor Company someday to recognize this and do a national commercial about this guy that's driving all over the country in a Ford f1 50, you know, to raise awareness, saving lives, raising money. And I know that Ford's a big sponsor of breakthrough T 1d and that hasn't happened yet, but I always hold out

Scott Benner 43:13
hope. Yeah, that's really wonderful. You know, you said something a second ago that really, because I think about it too, about like, keeping it going, like, when you're talking about all these people that you're helping and, I mean, would you just say, like, 30 to $50,000 of just, like, financial aid to people who are, you know, just struggling to pay for stuff? And you think, Well, when I stop doing this, like, I mean, it's not a giant organization, Ken, right? It's you. So, like, you get too old or too sick or too tired or whatever. Like, what happens to all of it? Like, how are you trying to I know you're planning for it, but what is it you're doing to try to keep that alive?

Kent Schnakenberg 43:47
Well, I'll be setting up soon a legacy fund with the Community Foundation to where, you know, when you and I'm trying to get it to a certain amount of money, to where they manage, you know, they've managed the money, and it has a very good return on the investment. Through this Community Foundation, I think there's like 300 funds. 300 funds. We're very lucky and important to have that. And you know, the Legacy Fund means, once I'm gone, that they'll continue as they're boarding, you know, their directors to manage the fund, and, you know, and still give out the money. And you know, it probably will lessen, as far as the camp thing, as far as, you know, kids from around the state that are going to camp. But also, I have other people now that are trying to figure ways to send more kids to camp because they didn't realize what the need was, you know, people from other places. And I've had parents that reach out and said, you know, this year, we could just pay your own way once you send another child this year. And so there's a lot of people on board. We won't let it die. It'll continue to grow in some fashion. And, you know, help as many people as we can.

Scott Benner 44:39
Somebody has to be the center of it, the beating heart, because that's you right now. So someone along the way is gonna have to pick the mantle up and decide that they want to carry it the way you did. Yeah.

Kent Schnakenberg 44:47
But I'm telling you this Community Foundation, the two ladies there, I mean, they're all in on this, and, you know, they do these legacy funds, and they love what we do, and we love what they do, and so it'll it'll continue on. But I'm also hoping for. A long time down the road too.

Scott Benner 45:01
It's like, I ain't looking to stop now.

Kent Schnakenberg 45:03
I've had had some health issues the last two years. Obviously, that's going to limit me from, you know, doing as much in the future, but I can still do a lot. I mean, I was doing a lot, a lot for a while, and this, you know, but two years ago, when things were just really going strong, I was doing a ride in La Crosse, Wisconsin, you know, I had noticed that, you know, had some issues with going up steep stairs and stuff. But I just figured that was from being 70, you know, or 68 I guess

Scott Benner 45:31
at that time, what ended up being the problem. Well, anyway, I

Kent Schnakenberg 45:35
did 40 mile ride that day. But, you know, I felt pretty good, but I'd already, I tried to go up this bluff. Everybody just kind of does in La Crosse. It's a really cool area. It's called grandpa's bluff, I believe. And I got a couple 100 yards up there, and my heart just started pounding, and I thought, This isn't right. So I came back down. And luckily, I had had a physical setup for that. You know, I got back on Sunday, I had a physical. On Monday, my yearly physical, they'd already set up a stress test, because it's been 10 years since I've done one. And, you know, I went physical, and everything was fine. I needed a stress test the next day, give me the shot to put the stuff inside my veins, and they take the pictures, and I go back in there and sit down and, you know, they're getting ready to hook me up to all these, you know, to the monitors and stuff, and get on the treadmill. And the lady looks at me, she goes, you know, you got afib? I said, Man, I don't even know what AFib is. I've just heard it on the radio. And she goes, Well, it's not good. Then I guess the picture started coming back in, and they were just staring at the screen. And when they're both looking at the screen and not talking to me, I know it's not good. And so they actually didn't even let me get on the treadmill. And they called, you know, the cardiologist here in Emporia. We have new Newman Regional Health, which we're blessed to have, and they have a full time cardiologist and department in CAS lab. And you know, within a half hour, he was down there, and he drew a picture my heart, and he goes, Ken, you have three blockages in your heart. One of them's 80% one of them is 90% one was 95% at that point, my wife wasn't even there. My wife was in Kansas City, because I she just, you know, I just told her, I'm just going to go do the stress test. And so she said, you might want to call your wife. He said, within about two hours, we're going to have you in surgery. And I looked at my So, do I need to get a second opinion? Do I need to do anything else? I mean, you know, your mind is just racing at that point, because this all came out of nowhere, basically. And he said, you know, we can fix this here. Count, and if it's something I can't fix, I'll send you on to Topeka, to Kansas City. And just the way he said it, I trusted it very much. And they got me ready. It took me up to the surgery, and the Cast team was there, and they were unbelievable. It was just a great experience for whatever an experience could be like that. But I had three stints put in, get down to recovery, and you know, your heart's still in afib, and so that's something I've been dealing with and will continue to deal with. I have a double procedure in January that hopefully will take care of that, get me off some of these blood thinners and stuff, because that's limited me in the riding by myself and doing a lot of things, but, but I've been able to continue on. I mean, I did three rides last year, and I've done two this year. Gonna do the one in Ford in December before my right, you know, before my surgery. So I'm just I was very lucky that I actually tried to write up that bluff, which made me decide I gotta go ahead through this stress test, people have been very understanding, and, you know, sending me a lot of Cartage and well wishes, it just slowed me down. It hasn't stopped me. But I don't believe you'll be seeing me do any more 100 mile bike rides anywhere.

Scott Benner 48:18
Well, can I ask? Because I just had a guy on that was talking about heart issues, but, yeah, correct. You're not, I'm guessing you're not a smoker,

Kent Schnakenberg 48:26
right? No, no, just my dad had heart issues. So it's like, my family,

Scott Benner 48:30
familial, okay, I was gonna say because, I mean, you're, you're as active as anybody could be, yeah, moving constantly and and the rides and everything else, right?

Kent Schnakenberg 48:40
Yeah, it just wasn't, you know, things just happen to people. Yeah, when I was 60, I really felt 25 and now that I'm 70, I kind of sometimes feel 70, but most of them really feel like to get in front of kids and go to schools and talk. I'm back in my 40s and 50s, but I've got a lot of good years left. I, you know, ahead of me. I hope. And for as many times, you know, as much as I can do this. I want to keep going. I want to keep doing this. I'll tell these kids all the time, you know, I wake up every day trying to think of things to make your life better, and that's kind of what I try to do. And I said, I won't quit as long as I'm physically able to. And they, they believe that, and I believe

Scott Benner 49:14
that. I tell people all the time when they they thank me for the podcast. I was like, I really have to thank you, because the way they support it and listen to it and keep the you said, you don't know how many people have heard it, and I almost hesitated to tell you at the time, but I'm getting ready to celebrate 20 million downloads, like total downloads and a lot, you know, yeah, and that's because people, they listen to it, they enjoy it enough to share it with somebody else, that keeps it going. And maybe one of the unforeseen things that they don't see that I hear when I'm talking to you is that allows me to get up in the morning and think about like, I wonder what people need. Like, you know, I've heard you say a couple of times, like, I can't get big organizations to put signs and symptoms on their T shirts or their stuff. And I mean, I probably understand that. It's it probably feels like a bummer. To them, and that's not what how they want to present. They want everything to be upbeat. And we're working towards something that kind of feeling all the time. But you know, I brought that ASL thing up to you earlier, like no one else is doing that, Ken, like no one's going to put the time or the effort or the money that it takes into creating helpful start out information for people with type one diabetes who are deaf or hard of hearing, they're going to tell you, like, there's just not enough of them. Like the juice isn't going to be worth the squeeze. Like the amount of effort they're going to put into it, they're not going to see the return, especially in this digital age where people want to see 10s of 1000s of clicks on something, they want to see hundreds of 1000s of downloads. They're not looking for you to reach five people anymore. You try to show something to them and say, like, try to imagine this. Like, I don't think it's hard to get them to imagine it, but I think that now that I've done it, I don't think it'll be as difficult to reach out to them and say, hey, look, here's how much money it would take to, you know, fund this to do for this kind of information or this, like, and now there's a place, and you can see people getting to it and using it. You can get them a little more excited to keep going. But, yeah, I hear all your frustration. Like, I mean, what a no brainer for Ford to send somebody with a camera out to talk to you for an hour and put something or just

Kent Schnakenberg 51:15
follow me, you know, send somebody with me for a day and, you know, I would think they'd sell so many more f1 50 drugs to people that live with type one diabetes, if they saw this truck going up, doing all these things. And it's just sometimes the big organizations are real busy. And I'm, you know, JDRF, which is now breakthrough in the American Diabetes Association, have been nothing but great parts of my life. I just thought, if they just do simply print the T shirts, you know, with the symptoms on the back, it's going to help them raise more money. And that's the hardest thing, is to make them understand that the more people know about this, right, the more people are going to donate money. And the only way to tell them to do that is by telling them and along the way, you're going to save lives. I mean, you know, you said something about only reaching so many people with, you know, with the program you were on recently, but if I you know, if you could say five kids a year a year. I mean, what's what? What would be the price on that? Yeah, because you know that a lot of people are diagnosed today, and most of them don't know it's coming, and some of them are going to end up in ambulances and some of them on helicopters, and they just need to know. I mean, you can't stop the disease, but you can stop people from dying from senseless deaths and being undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. You got to

Scott Benner 52:22
tell people, using Ford as an example, they would get great social media out of it, and it wouldn't cost them anything. And like you said, a good video of a 12 year old truck chugging along with 400,000 miles on it, which you would think is, you know, good for sales I haven't done. I'm not going to ask you the number, but 26,000 T shirts, even if you're paying three, four bucks a piece for them, means you've spent $100,000 in T shirts. That's a lot of effort from you. Like, if that's the only thing you had ever done that would have been really impressive, you know, I'm saying,

Kent Schnakenberg 52:52
Yeah, well, I got three orders on my desk right now. One, I'm going to speak to the Girl Scout troop, and I just sent 99 shirts to a preschool that I want to go speak at like I said, this guy, his name is Tom wrong, and it's one 800 T shirts. Is this company in Dubuque, Iowan? I mean, it's crazy. I was at a JDRF ride in 2016 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, sitting there in a in a on Saturday night in a bar with a bunch of crazy people from Iowa, which are great people we've met over the years. And he walks up to me, goes, Hannah, I see you guys do t shirts. And he said, both my brothers are type one diabetic, and I own one of the largest t shirt companies in the Midwest. I want to be your guy. Also, I'm too cheaper than anybody. And since then, it's just been a it's perfect relationship. I mean, I they do such great work. They're quality. Yeah, I call them, I send them the order they send them right to the school. I mean, it's just that when we went by there last week, you know, they're all wearing team snack shirts, there's 30 some employees, and they were so excited to hit that number of T shirts. And we just, I got to talk to him a little bit and take pictures and and nothing probably would have happened if I wouldn't have been earning team snack shirt in that bar at that time. So, yeah, I just feel like I've been put in certain places and certain things over all these years to make all this grow like this and come together. And, you know, just have relationships with the company like that, and have relationships with, you know, Matt Fisher, who helped me design my truck, and now he's got his own ride team called Team fish, and we're really close, and we ride, and he's done so much for the breakthrough RIDE program, and we're just great friends. And I just, I want to keep going for things like that, because I know there's people I could still reach every day, and there's people that hopefully will hear this podcast and understand that, you know, you could do something like this in your area, just to go to the schools and talk in front of people and to go to rotary clubs and, you know, I can't go all over the country. I get messages when you come to this school that I can't I think that hopefully it's what people understand, how I do it, that it's fairly simple. It's just giving some of your time to try to help kids save lives, you know, and just give kids that empowerment, that they're they're not different. They were. They got a bad hand, according to Delta, with this disease, but they got to deal with it, and they want people, you know, they're just looking for hope. I don't know how many times I've heard parents say, You give us hope. And God, what? More powerful than that. You know, with all the medicine in the world, sometimes just knowing that somebody cares, there's guy in Kansas that you don't even know, but look at him. He's driving a truck around the country, and he's trying to do everything, not only to help kids there, but kids everywhere, including yourself. And

Scott Benner 55:15
there's another way to help people feel less alone, really. Yeah, yeah.

Kent Schnakenberg 55:21
It's a crappy disease, you know, can make you feel really bad, and just the stories I hear about, but when I get a kids a chance to talk, give them a chance to just speak their mind and just see their smiles and see their kids, you know, and all their peers in the audience and the teachers. And, you know, when we do this, we give Church, the cooks and the bus drivers, and everybody's there, and it's just they know that they're there for them. They're there for them, to support them. And when I drive through these towns, down that truck, I go by school, and everybody's waving, and kids recognize the truck, and there's shirts everywhere, and there's no reason not to keep doing it. I mean, as long as I'm able to great support,

Scott Benner 56:00
you're you're a lovely person. This is, this is an uplifting conversation. You even have a website that I could send people to, or, how do they

Kent Schnakenberg 56:07
know I don't have a website. I mean, I really try to do everything the old fashioned way. It seems to work for me. I mean, we've got, I've got my personal Kent snacker Facebook page, which I don't know. I have a lot of friends, I guess, on there, and I try to post a lot on it. I have a team snack page still, but, you know, it's one of those pages where they you have to give them money to Facebook to promote things. And so I don't do a lot on that, but I just try, and I usually email a lot, and people call me and stuff, but it works for me. And I think I'm too old to change much. Be honest with you,

Scott Benner 56:38
that's okay. I think that's awesome. I think Facebook's a great way for them to find you, right? It's just your it's just your name. Yeah,

Kent Schnakenberg 56:45
my name just personal name. It's temp snacknberg. And if you go to the team stack page, I think you can get to the the other page by doing that. But

Speaker 1 56:52
you made me think I have the same thought you just have all the time, like, I have a private Facebook group has 73 74,000 people in it right now, and it's insane, right? And yet, if you post something, Facebook doesn't show to most of them. No, yeah, no, no. They want you to pay them to actually deliver your your posts to the people that you've gathered up who have said, I'd like to know what this guy is saying. Yeah, it's really something. And can I get it? I gotta tell you now we're done, but I want to tell you that I'm so impressed by what you're doing that I have not brought up the incredible thrashing that my Eagles gave your chiefs in the Super Bowl. I just let that go. We don't even talk about because you're gonna beat us at two weeks too, because you're a good man, Ken, and you don't deserve that. Okay, yeah, I keep that to myself.

Kent Schnakenberg 57:37
Well, I like to tell you this one story, please, and and, and see if you can fit it in towards the end. Absolutely this that you keep going, please. So this was like in 2015 or 16. I was starting out doing my seven rides for the year, and I was traveling to the northeast part of the country. But at that point in time, I was still trying to hit all these states. So I think the first day I drove all the way to Houston, Texas, from Kansas, and the next day, I drove to Jacksonville, Florida, and then up to Hershey, Pennsylvania. And I, the next day, I drove into the town where the ride was. And, you know, I was early in the day. I didn't really know how to recognize how many days it would take to get through the way I was doing it, because when I'm riding, I'm stop or driving, I'm stopping and talking to people and giving out information. So I got there early, and I decided to just explore the town a little bit. And I went around the town, and, you know, came got some some of their places. They were famous landmarks and stuff. And I'm hoping back to the hotel, I come to this, you know, red light, and it was a pretty busy street, and I looked over to my right, and there's this young man sitting in a wheelchair, and sitting next to was a lady in a folding chair. And I come to find out, you know, that was his caretaker. And I know this young man had some real health issues, because His neck was like lean weight to the right, and his body was kind of leaned over, you know, I could see in his wheelchair was kind of custom made where he had his left hand really clenched tightly on this tray, but with his right hand, he was reaching down and put something his mouth. But the whole time, both of them are just staring at me. And so it was one of those red lights that seems like it goes on forever, you know, it finally turned green. I didn't know what else to do. So as I was driving away, I smiled and waved really big, and he just stared straight at me. But she waved and smiled, but you know, it was kind of a sad smile, like, you know, everybody's seen. And I got up the road, two or three blocks, and something inside us, you know, inside of me, just said, Kent, you need to go back. You need to go back. So I turned on Office street, and I came up behind this building, I think it was a church, and I parked and I walked around the corner, and I just said, Hey, Kent snackberg, I'm here to do a bike ride to help kids with type one diabetes. Tell me your story. And the lady looked at me and she said, Well, this young man was diagnosed early in life with a very severe muscle disease, and he'll never be able to walk, he'll never be able to talk, and he needs 24 hour day care, but he likes to on nice days, we sit out here and look at traffic, and he must have really loved your truck, because he made this really loud the whole time. He's still staring at traffic, and. And so I just looked at her, and I said, you know, what can I do to make your day better? What do you guys like to do? And she thought for a moment, and she said, Well, when his dad comes to pick him up at night, we love to go out to eat, nothing fancy, just different places. And she looked at me, and I was wearing a bright yellow team snatcher, and she said, he really likes bright colored shirts. And I said, Well, just wait right here. And then I ran back to my truck, and I could just tell my heart was just thumping, you know, I knew something was going to happen special that day. And came back around the corner, and I gave her $60 and I said, Here you just go out to your favorite place to eat tonight. On me. And said, just to really enjoy yourself. And I said, here's a shirt for him to wear. And she held up that yellow shirt. She held up the shirt and said, look what this man gave you. And for the very first time, you know, his head tilted up towards me, and this kind of a smile, I think, came across his face, and he lifted that left hand up that had been clenched in that fist, and he opened it up, and I put three fingers in there, and he squeezed him really, really hard, and he made this really loud noise that I always think he was just saying thank you at that point, you know, and then he released My hand, and he started looking back at the traffic, and I just gave her one of my cards. And I said, I just want to tell you I loved you guys. You know, if you ever need me for anything else, anything, I said, please just get a hold of me. And as I turned to walked away, she said, you already have. And I looked back at her, she goes, we've been sitting there for two years. She said, two years, and you're the first person that's ever stopped to check upon us, and she said, You know, that's going to make me, that's going to make his father so happy. She just said, thanks for what you do. And I left. And you know, then her father, or his father, called me that night and just said, you know, I don't know who you are, but you made my family's day, and you did something today nobody's ever done for us. And you know, I like to tell that story when I'm talking to kids, and because I always feel like, you know, every story should have a good message to it. And so the message to that story is, you know, when your moment in life comes, you know, and you will have a moment when you have this opportunity, just don't miss it. And I say my moment came in 2015 and standing in front of 400 people in Tucson, Tucson, Arizona. And I said, and your mom will come. And I said, just don't miss it.

Scott Benner 1:02:08
So Ken, I tell you that story is so lovely that I didn't make the joke I was gonna make when you said My heart was thumping that I knew something's gonna happen that day. And I thought, yeah, those are the blockages.

Kent Schnakenberg 1:02:17
Ken, yeah, well, luckily, that was

Scott Benner 1:02:21
10 years I think you've probably by putting yourself out into the world like this, had more incredible experiences than 100 people combined, just by putting yourself in situations where you may or may not have an experience like that, but a little uncommon nowadays, right? Like people don't think to do that as much as you do, and I hope everybody's hearing what it's given back to you, and maybe they'll, they'll do a little bit of them, of it themselves too.

Kent Schnakenberg 1:02:47
Yeah, you know, you were talking about clicks earlier and stuff. And I'm not interested in, you know, the number of clicks. I'm just interested in the amount of people I can reach, the amount of kids I can save, and how many kids we could send a camp, and how many kids we can help with expenses. Because that's, that's what's really important to me in life. I know that they talk about social influencers, they talk about all these things, but I got a feeling that some of that's a pretty empty feeling. But when you, you know can walk in a house and a family's happy to see you after they just got from the home from the hospital three days ago, and just start telling them what you can do for them, and just let them know they're not alone. I mean, that's worth so, that's worth everything to me.

Speaker 1 1:03:23
No, I believe that, and I agree. Well, you're doing it. You're an angel out in the world, for sure. I hope your family is as proud of you as I imagine that I am. You know, your kids are probably older now, right? And your grandchild probably don't really know that. I mean, to one of your grandchildren, you've got to be like, I don't know. Grandpa's got a weird truck and he goes on a bike rides,

Kent Schnakenberg 1:03:40
right? Like, no, they just, they just say, I mean, everything to them is Team snack, you know, Team snack, track team snack shirts they know about. They're, you know, the oldest is 12 and the youngest is, like, I think nine, and so they're, you know, we have three in Kansas City, which is a couple hours from here, two in Denver, which is eight hours from here. So we don't get to see them as often as some people do, but we definitely make a lot of trips both places, and we're really proud of our grandkids, and I'm just thankful that, you know, they're proud of me and what we do, and my wife, and nobody's ever said anything like, you know you missed this. You shouldn't have missed this. They're just they know I'm helping kids, and, yeah, I try to install and install in them, and everybody else that you know, that's the secret to life is helping others. When you have an opportunity to, can

Scott Benner 1:04:23
I ask last question, sure, prior to all this happening to you and, you know, just kind of the randomness of your, you know, of your niece being diagnosed, right? Were you doing stuff like this prior to that, or was this just a departure for

Kent Schnakenberg 1:04:36
you? No, no. I mean, I've always tried to help people. My dad was really big with charities and clubs. And he was ran a cancer golf tournament here for years, and I took over for him then, and he passed away with his ad, and I ran it for several years. And we, you know, we have a Sertoma club here in town with a miniature trade that runs in its rare it's been coming, I think 1955 it started, and it holds like 20 kids and parents. So it runs like three or four nights a week in the summer. And my wife and I pay for all the rides, for all the kids and parents, you know, all summer long for that. And we just had the last ride of the summer last Sunday night, and I think they gave 253 rides out that night. And so that's just money that those families can save, that they love the train. I mean, it reminds me when I was little, when I was riding in. It just a really special place for me, and I want it to be special for a lot of the people. And this club is filled with, you know, men and women that are in their 60s, 70s and 80s, and they continue to do this. And so it's a little bit just for us to support them with $2,500 donation to pay for all the free rides all summers, it's been great.

Scott Benner 1:05:39
You might, you really might be an angel man. I can't. Thank you enough. I'm gonna call this episode. Kent has something to say. Okay, it's a great message. Like, I don't, I don't know another way to say, like, I felt the same way when I told you I had Ernie on from from cam Sweeney, and he was talking about it, I guess, kept thinking like he's been doing this for decades and he's an older man. Like, Why does he keep doing this? You know? Like, like, what keeps him going, you know? And there's something about the his conversation, and the conversations I've had with you that I don't know. I hear a fire and a motivation inside that is not in any way that I can tell, not ego motivated. Like it really is about like, just seeing other people do better. I mean, just, I mean, Ken, what's, what's a ride on the train cost?

Kent Schnakenberg 1:06:26
Well, it's only $1 but it's and, but if they have eight kids, that's $8 and if they want to ride four times, that's $32 and that's money they could just say, you know,

Scott Benner 1:06:35
really thoughtful approach. These people's kids have a nice time, and they and they have eight more dollars in their pocket, and in your thought is they can go put that into something else and and still have had this good time and ice cream on the way home. It's just you spreading joy around,

Kent Schnakenberg 1:06:50
is what it is, yeah, well, I was Santa Claus for 18 years out front of our house, and we used to do it and decorated the neighborhood, and we raised money and toys for the Salvation Army. And so, I mean, that was like, I don't know how many years ago that was, but, and they're still doing that today, 40 years later, in this neighborhood that we moved away from. And so that's kind of cool that they're continuing to the tradition. I mean, we live in a very giving town. People are very nice here, yeah, just, I mean, it's like, I almost have to have one of those hands in front of my truck, wave and, you know, the dashboard, because so many people know the truck, and wave and honk, and it's just a great feeling

Speaker 1 1:07:26
back. Well, listen, it sounds to me like you're still Santa Claus so, well, yeah, I don't know, man, you're really lovely. And this is fantastic. I appreciate you jumping back on and sharing this with me again. I hope that, I hope you hear about people enjoying this conversation for 10 more

Kent Schnakenberg 1:07:41
years? Yeah? Well, yeah, I'm sure whenever you put it on, let me know, and then I can share it to him. I will. Yeah, it's I shared that first episode last night, and people called me and stuff, said we'd forgot about everything you're doing and stuff.

Scott Benner 1:07:55
So, yeah, no, well, it'll be out. I'll tell you about it when we we'll finish up here, say goodbye, and I'll tell you about the timeline. So thank you so much. I really do appreciate this. You bet

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