Scott Benner 11/4/25 Scott Benner 11/4/25

#1670 Deez Nuts - Part 1

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Scott and Kirby trade stories about kids, chaos, and humor before diving into Kirby’s son’s type 1 diagnosis and the need for better education and support after the “don’t-die” stage.

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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
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox podcast.

Kirby 0:14
My name is Kirby, and I'm a mom of a eight year old who was diagnosed just about a year ago with type one diabetes.

Scott Benner 0:22
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Kirby 2:17
my name is Kirby, and I'm a mom of a eight year old who was diagnosed just about a year ago with type one diabetes. Okay,

Scott Benner 2:24
and I'm sure we'll get to that. But Kirby and I were having way too good of a time speaking before we started recording, so I just hit record very quickly. Now we have two things to talk about. The way I say it Okay, is that all the first one, well, I mean, from the get go, Okay, the first one is my assertion that people are just wandering through the world, unaware of each other, right? And that I feel like that might be getting worse. It's not just me getting older and being a bigger complainer,

Kirby 2:52
but that two things can be true.

Scott Benner 2:54
Both can be true. Thank you, Kirby. I appreciate that very much that you can't just let me have it for a second. But I think maybe the other thing we have to talk about is like, Why do I have so much anger about my vision getting worse, right? But there was something else in there.

Kirby 3:07
What was your friend caught a murderer?

Scott Benner 3:11
So Kirby, I are talking all very related. I use a completely ridiculous example of something about why I have my file naming system the way I have it. And I said, you know, because, like, five years from now, when I get a note that says, hey, you had this person named Kirby on your show one time, and they murdered three people, and we need you to find the recording. I need to be able to find it. And she laughed, because that's silly. Then I said, Hey, don't like she said something about like you might catch a murderer one day. And I, Kirby felt like you're being sarcastic, no. And I said, my friend of mine caught a murderer once, and then we had to share Yes, and now I will tell you about it. Okay, so my friend is mortician,

Kirby 3:54
and I thought that would go, yeah. See

Scott Benner 3:56
now you now, you feel like there's a story here. There is a story. He was preparing a body of an older person, and he was doing all the things he does. And he checked the airway, down the, you know, down the throat and everything, as this part of his process. And he felt like he saw something. And he looked and felt like he did see something. Got a forcep, I believe, and tried to find out what it was and what it was. Do you want to guess? A bouncy ball? It was a rag. Oh, someone, this poor person's neighbor, for reasons I don't, I don't remember. Maybe he didn't even know when he was telling the story, an elderly person's neighbor accosted them and jammed a rag down their throat and suffocated them for the love. Yeah, and then he called the police and did all the things, and they caught the person that did it.

Kirby 4:54
So wouldn't they like when they collected the body? First of all, I didn't think I would. Say that sentence this morning, by the way. But wouldn't they, like, check for

Scott Benner 5:04
that? So I think the person was old enough that they were they were just deceased, yeah, and they just probably thought that's what was going on there. Your question should be the indicator, from what he told me, of how far the person somehow jammed the rag down. That is wild. Yeah, that it was not, it was not obvious, huh?

Kirby 5:27
Yep, that's quite a story. Yeah, there you go. I said bouncy ball because my kids have been taking to putting bouncy balls in their mouth, and I keep having to tell them to stop. So I immediately pictured that happening.

Scott Benner 5:39
So are they big enough that they could not swallow them, or I feel like

Kirby 5:43
everything could get in there. You know, I just, how old are the kids? So I've got an eight year old, that's my type one, and then two, four and a half year old twins, all boys. So, like, everything's just always very chaotic, and feels like it needs attention. The

Scott Benner 6:00
twins putting the balls. I almost said, balls in their mouth.

Kirby 6:04
Well, now you did. So there you go. The older one doing it. They all do it, yeah, like he'll look at me and be like, Look. And I'm like, stop it.

Scott Benner 6:12
Are there any other indications your kids are a little dumb? Or this the only one so far. I feel like

Kirby 6:16
this is fair exploration of, you know, the world around them right at some point they'll stop. I think, oh, yeah, sure.

Scott Benner 6:27
I'm still staring at I'm staring at my kids, going, like, is that ever going to end? You know, looking at myself and think, I mean, honestly, I'm looking at myself thinking the same thing. Because, to your point, you know, I'm sitting here trying to type your name in, and I can't see. And instead of just putting my glasses on, I just sit here pissed. And you're like, oh my god, I heard you talking about this in the podcast race. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm not making it up. I'm angry that I can't see.

Kirby 6:51
This is the equivalent of putting the bouncy ball in your mouth. It's just like a mature version of it. You're doing something repeatedly that is not serving you well.

Scott Benner 7:00
You think that me not wearing glasses is the equivalent of me putting balls in my mouth, but we should call this episode these nuts. Oh, my God.

Kirby 7:10
You know of all of the things that floated through my head of what you would decide to call this, that was not one of the options that I can see what happens? Oh, my God, my husband would be just thrilled. So yeah, I mean, he would go just celebrate.

Scott Benner 7:23
Arden went on a Dee's nuts tear for like, three weeks this summer.

Kirby 7:26
What does that just said it all the

Scott Benner 7:29
time, oh, just all the time about anything that got said for like she was delighted by it, like she was five years old for about three weeks.

Kirby 7:38
I can't wait for the trend to end. I don't know how long this one will be around, but I'm I might be a little over it. I'm over things nuts.

Scott Benner 7:46
Yeah, well, you've been married for a while.

Kirby 7:48
Oh, my God. Let's just take a turn. I don't know what we're

Scott Benner 7:51
going to talk about when this thing starts. I'm trying to be upbeat today, the world, the world got weird again yesterday.

Kirby 8:00
I am here for it. Thank

Scott Benner 8:01
you. All right, so, so we've covered all the unimportant things. Actually, you know what? This may be a thing I do because May I share something with you before we go on and talk about your kids diabetes. Of course, I don't do you listen to the podcast. I do. Okay, so I think it's fairly obvious that I record daily with people who are not accustomed to being recorded, right? And so the episodes all take on sort of a same, a similar vibe in the beginning, because I ask people questions that they know the answers to. It's usually around their kids, like, how old your kids are? How old are you? Have you been married? Like, sometimes I'll say, somebody, are you married? And people are probably like, the hell's that got to do with anything? What it has to do with it is they know the answer to it, and it's something they're they're going to be comfortable. Then they get themselves comfortable, and then I get them comfortable, and then we keep talking. Makes sense, but look how we did. I got you comfortable by talking about a dead body and these nuts what does that say about me? I don't know, but I what I can tell you is that you gave off the vibe that I could do this. So, yeah,

Kirby 9:01
I don't know what that is. And I'm sitting here thinking, Gosh, I was gonna share this episode with like, family members, so now I'm gonna have to, we haven't said anything wrong. Come with a disclaimer. Some people might not even know what is happening right now. So you know, and I can always blame you. I gotta follow the host leads.

Scott Benner 9:16
Yeah, you just say, Oh my god. Another guy's crazy. I I didn't want to, God knows how these things become.

Kirby 9:22
Write an email pleading my case or anything. I didn't

Scott Benner 9:25
send a long note about wanting to be on the podcast anyway. Tell me about your family and how diabetes came into your life.

Kirby 9:33
Sure. Okay, so I already said about our kids. I'm married. We've been married. I'm not even gonna try to guess

Scott Benner 9:38
12 years. Kirby, you don't know how long you've been married.

Kirby 9:42
I do. So this is what I do. Okay, all of the dates of all of the things and all of my life float around like a jumble in my head. And I sometimes forget when people were born. And there is a cutting board in my kitchen that my sister had made for me with my wedding anniversary on it, just the date, so it was 2013 and I just picture the cutting board. So now I. Can do the math, it was 12 years. Wow. So that's I was trying to save you from that

Scott Benner 10:05
circuitous route you took to that that was awesome. You and I might get along really well. My brain works, so you only know how long you've been married because your sister bought you a cutting board with your wedding date on it.

Kirby 10:17
That is a reductionist description of what I just said, sort

Scott Benner 10:23
of what I do. I don't know if you realize what this is. I generalize things. Then we talk,

Kirby 10:27
my gosh, it's how I do the math quick, because we were together much longer than this. We've been together, like almost 20 years, you know? So it's just like the dates are a jumble, like I said. So we've been married 12 years, so we've got three beautiful boys, and my oldest, my eight year old, was diagnosed. We're actually five days away from his first diversity. So we're coming up on

Scott Benner 10:49
it. This is only 361 days old. Yeah, it's

Kirby 10:53
fresh. It feels fresh. It feels feels still fresh, even though we've come a long way. I just

Scott Benner 10:58
want everyone to know it's 360 I just got the math wrong. When that right, didn't I? I don't know. Is it a leap year? How many good point? No, it's not. I was trying to help you, but it's not. I tried to do the simplest of math, and I was I did that wrong. I found myself going like, wait, 364, three.

Kirby 11:14
Cutting Board. Buy the cutting board.

Scott Benner 11:17
It said, how many days there weren't a year this all would have been much easier. That's 100% right? So you have these three, three lovely children, yeah, the oldest one develops type one just a year ago. He's diagnosed, yeah, yeah. Tell me what led you to believe that he had it? What got you to the doctor? Or yeah, yes.

Kirby 11:35
We had just come back from vacation, so we were in the Adirondacks, and typically we left like, a week between vacation and when school started last year, it actually was just we got home the weekend before school started. And that's important, because he started having some nighttime accidents. So he was wetting the bed overnight, and because we thought that that was potentially related to the quick transition to school, because he had some history, you know, he took a little bit longer to, you know, go all night when he was younger, and he had some history of night terrors and stuff like that, really. So we just thought it might have been a regression, and maybe that transition was a trigger for some of those things. So first couple nights, we didn't think anything of it. Then it was continuing. So I emailed the doctor, and I said, Hey, this is going on. We didn't see anything else happening. Everything else seemed fine. She asked a couple questions. She said, don't think it's going to be a long term issue. I laugh now at that, because, like, little did we know, so we just monitored it, but it just continued for a whole week. We couldn't wake him out of sleep. He was like, in a dead sleep, when we tried to wake him up to try to have him go to the bathroom again. And then that's when I was just like, I kind of knew, you know, because I'm, I'm a dietitian, so I this is something that's rattling around in my brain that I know that is a symptom of. And I thought this is either type one or the rarest time of a kid getting like, a UTI, which doesn't,

Scott Benner 12:52
oh, you got diabetes from wet in the bed. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Kirby 12:55
Because, because of how it was happening, it was just like every single night and the tiredness that he had. And then over the weekend, before, we were able to get an appointment for him, like the Monday, after all of this, after a week of this had had been happening, he had a daytime accident. And that was actually when I really was like, this is diabetes, because he He's seven years old. He's not That's not typical, sure. And then something, he was with some family members who said he was drinking a lot. And I a lot and had the bathroom a lot. So that all happened in the span of, like, you know, the wedding, the bed was like a week ish week and a half, and then that daytime accident and the increased thirst was just only a few days. So then he went to the doctor that Monday, and that was that we found out right away. I told the doctor, what's that? What do night terrors look like? So he would wake up, like, screaming and crying and yelling like he was just terrified, like he was in the middle of a nightmare. And it was odd, because he had had this kind of glassy look to his eyes, so we could tell that he wasn't, like, conscious of what was happening, and we would have to wait him out. I mean, it's we just keep him safe, because sometimes he would thrash a little bit, and we just kind of waited him out, sat with him. We were there to comfort him, but just kind of let him run its course. So it would happen not often throughout his young life, but there was a period of time where it was happening often enough that we cousins slept over. We had to tell them, you know, this might happen. So

Scott Benner 14:22
has it gone away completely? Yeah.

Kirby 14:26
And once in a while, I think he'll wake up and, like, just kind of sleep, not sleepwalk, but he'd be, like, not really awake. Do you know what

Scott Benner 14:33
I mean, I slept walk as a kid. I don't do it anymore. I haven't done it in forever. But, like, does he do that as well?

Kirby 14:39
No, no. Okay, so it all kind of, you know, went away. So

Scott Benner 14:43
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Kirby 17:18
Yeah. This is great. Yeah, really, great. That's fantastic. This is exactly what I thought life would be

Scott Benner 17:24
like. We used to just drink and go out on the weekends.

Kirby 17:28
We would say that would be like, remember what it used to be like? Obviously, you know, it's like, you can't do that your whole life, but it's just there's all these things that you're not ready for, because each family, each kid, each person, has their own story. I always say nobody gets out unscathed. So I believe this was, you know, it was something we had to quickly learn how to, you know, manage and help him through. And then it went away. And, okay, now we're where we are. I'm

Scott Benner 17:52
sorry for the detour. I was just interested. Okay, okay, so you sniff the thing out pretty quickly. You just call a doctor. Or do you think it's emergent?

Kirby 17:59
My husband actually happened to have his own annual checkup scheduled. So we actually just asked them if they could use the time for my son instead. And they said, Sure, and I'm at work, and I knew what time this The appointment was, and with my chart, you know, I I'm just keeping my eyes on my phone, and I saw the my chart message pop up that said, you have a new test result available. And I saw it, and I was like,

Scott Benner 18:23
Why does your husband see a pediatrician?

Kirby 18:26
Oh, she's a family doctor, so she sees us all. He's awesome. Oh, because he's a child. He's my fourth child, that's why.

Scott Benner 18:33
Well, okay, so it pops up on my chart, and you're like, that's, isn't that crazy that that's how you found

Kirby 18:38
out? Yeah. And I know a lot of people might not know immediately, but like, it was, I can't remember the exact number, but it was number, but it was over 400 so I was just like, well, that that's what this is. So I just, I actually called the office and talked to the doctor while she was like, in route. She was like, I knew you were gonna call. I was like,

Scott Benner 18:53
so you people who understand lab results?

Kirby 18:56
Yes, I know. But yeah, she's so she's amazing. And so we went to pre folks around here, though, no Golisano Children's Hospital, which is an incredible resource. We're incredibly lucky through urm C and he stayed, I think we stayed two nights, and then we, we came home. Okay, he wasn't in any DKA or anything like that. He just, I'm sorry. Folks near where, oh, near where we live, they the Rochester area. So it's just, it's a very it's a gem. We're really lucky to have the resource. So giving a shout

Scott Benner 19:28
out. So in your note, you say that there was confusion and challenges in the early days and months of diagnosis. Do you remember? So it sounds so formal, doesn't

Kirby 19:38
it? Because I know I was re reading what I wrote. I'm like, gosh, I was having some feelings.

Scott Benner 19:44
Yeah, that you went on. You're like, assumption you did use a lot of big words. You were like, No, and perceptions of support systems, my God, should I have used smaller words for you? No, I understood all of them. And a couple of my looked up. And then once I looked them up, I took it to somebody else, and I said,

Kirby 19:59
Hey, right. You just had to make the font bigger, like zoom to 200%

Scott Benner 20:04
you know, that I saw over somebody's shoulder in the store the other day. This guy's font on his phone was as big as it I mean, there were five words on each screen, you know, like, as it went by, and I thought, This is what's gonna happen, isn't it? Well,

Kirby 20:17
at least we have the ability to manage but, but, yeah, so I think I'm trying to remember what I meant by that, but it was just like, it depends on where you are, like, the information you get, but everybody gets the same kind of basic information. And I know you've you've referenced it as, like, the do not die information, which makes sense, right? Like, they don't know who these families are, what their capabilities are, what their ability to understand it, so I get it. I think when we we got home and we started to realize how many factors outside of, just like the basic carb counting, were involved, I think I got very frustrated, because I was like, Well, geez, like, now that the dust has settled, I want more information on this, because we are intelligent people who want to dive into this, and if you give us the tools, we'll use them. So I think that's probably what I was referencing, because I do think there's a lot that could be done in the early stages, or, like, in the, you know, the three to six month stage after diagnosis, to kind of identify what families are ready for. And there's not really a lot available. That's formal, right? There's like, I think I refer to as like a patchwork of user generated stuff that we're relying on, which is amazing. But sometimes I wish there was something a little bit more formalized. So it's kind of like I can work through almost like class work, because that's how I learned. So I think that's probably what I was talking

Scott Benner 21:36
about, what you want, you know, I find interesting that I don't know how you probably wrote that six months ago, right? And six months later, you're like, Oh, I wonder what I meant by that. Like, I it just, it's very, I guess, just indicative of how quickly things change. Yes, usually when I bump into people who are more newly diagnosed and they're out of their minds, and, you know, they think I actually have to, I have to answer. A lady online today, you know, who just said to me, like, when is the sadness gonna stop? I saw that one. Yeah, so I have to get back to that one. And I think the answer is, honestly, you're not going to feel like this soon, and it's going to, once you get there, it'll, it'll actually be much quicker than you expected. It to be. It just, I don't know, like it's, you just got to make it your amount of time. And I think it's more about learning and becoming comfortable than like I assume that her sadness just comes from uncertainty. Today's episode is sponsored by a long term CGM. It's going to help you to stay on top of your glucose readings the ever since 365 I'm talking, of course, about the world's first and only CGM that lasts for one year, one year, one CGM. Are you tired of those other CGM, the ones that give you all those problems that you didn't expect, knocking them off, false alerts not lasting as long as they're supposed to. If you're tired of those constant frustrations, use my link ever since cgm.com/juicebox to learn more about the ever since 365 some of you may be able to experience the ever since 365 for as low as $199 for a full year. At my link, you'll find those details and can learn about eligibility. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox,

Kirby 23:23
check it out. I think so, yeah, and I think that that's another thing that could have been. And I don't know, looking back, it's easy to say this, but to take away some of the uncertainty at the get go, I think should be, yeah, it should be a very routine part of this, because I remember even looking back, nobody actually sat us down and explained what this would look like long term. It's like, get them the tools that they need to, you know, keep him alive, right, and then follow up in six weeks, and then every three months after that. But at the get go, like nobody actually sat my son down and us at the same time to say, this is what this means. And I was actually the one that had to tell my son that this was forever, because he thought when we were in the hospital, the injections and everything after we left, they would be done. He thought they were all just to get him back, steady, fix, fix, whatever was wrong, and then go home. So I had to do that, which, you know, I want to be present for when he's being told that. But it was kind of like, wow. We just went, we're about to go home. And nobody actually said this.

Scott Benner 24:24
Oh, listen, you knew, but like, oh yeah,

Kirby 24:27
of course, yeah, exactly.

Scott Benner 24:29
Did you know that? He didn't know, or did you did it? Like,

Kirby 24:33
I didn't know until he he said something. I can't remember what it was. This is over, yeah. And I his face. I was like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna have to say it like, in this moment, because I don't even know that he was in the room. I mean, you know, we're in and out. There's all these people in and out. That was something too that I wanted to make sure, I think, in my early note to you that I am a dietitian. So like, I these are, like, theoretically, should know a lot about this. Yes, but it's still hard for me. Like there's stuff that makes no sense to me still, and I wanted people to hear that, especially for the, you know, the person who's experiencing sadness, not to make them feel worse. Like, oh, even a dietitian can't figure this out. How what hope do I have? But it's like, it's okay, like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It will eventually be fine. I feel like, you know, I think people have different perspectives on that.

Scott Benner 25:24
Yeah, I retold somebody yesterday, just very briefly, that I once took a private call from a, like, a literal brain surgeon whose kid got diabetes and was on the phone, like, I don't know what to do. Please help me. Yeah, and it's funny, because the way you just said it, like, you see it backwards for me, like you were like, Oh, I don't want them to feel bad that, like, you know, a dietitian doesn't get it all the time at what chance do I have? I saw it the other way. I was like, Oh, he didn't get it either. We're all in the same boat Exactly.

Kirby 25:49
Well, that's exactly what I mean. Is that, like, that might be the knee jerk response for people, but that's kind of the point is that it's okay, that it's hard. Because I think there is a feeling that, especially with the technology now, we can get such tight control. So a lot of the information that I see kind of being bounced around is people trying to get tighter, tighter, tighter, tighter, right? Like, get that A, 1c, under six. Get it under 5.5 like, get it as low as you can. Here's all of the things that we do. For me, I think that's great. It gives me a lot of hope, but I wonder if it sometimes gives the impression to others that that's what they need to be striving for. Because for some people, that might not be possible right now, it might take longer to get there, and if you don't get it quickly, maybe you feel like you're never going to get it, especially early on, when you're trying to get as much information as

Scott Benner 26:39
possible, you're bringing up something interesting that is a little back end that I'll share here. So when I start making the podcast, I don't really know what it is like that's just fair, like, I just, you know, I've told people a million times I thought I was going to read my most popular blog posts into a microphone, like, because I had these blog posts that people found really valuable, and I thought, I'll just read them, and then they can listen to them too. I mean, very ridiculous, but it was my thought. That is how I intended to start the podcast. I got away from it pretty quickly. And I've said on here before, like, I think I was 20 minutes and doing it the first time, I was like, Oh my God, no one's gonna listen to this. I was having trouble doing it. I was like, if I, if I can't deal with it, like they're not gonna want to listen to it, you know. And you know. So I don't know what happens the podcast starts, it starts following my personality more and becomes more conversational, and me just chatting with people and and then I had this idea that, like, well, I'll be like an avatar for you listening, and I'll just, I don't know a lot of this, so it's perfect. I'll ask questions, and I'll assume the questions I'm asking are the questions you would have, and you know, hopefully you'll, you know, you'll like it that way. And I think it built that, built on that. And then, like I've said before, couple 100 episodes into it really was like I was always learning on the job, and it started to become apparent from people's responses and letters and everything, the people were just saying, like, Hey, I don't even know what to say, why, but I've been listening to this podcast for a year in my a one season the sixes. And I was like, Oh, awesome, yeah. And then, you know, like, and then I just kind of realized that the I had a framework about how I did things. Then people would come on and add their two cents, or things that worked for them, and that we were basically making a really long winded manual for diabetes, right? Yeah. And then I go to Jenny, and I say, hey, what if I like? I said, I think I have these things. I've like, I've written them down, but I think these are the things I do. And then when I do those things, Arden's a 1c, stays in the sixes. I want to tell people because I think it's unreasonable to ask them to listen to 200 episodes of a podcast to get that information, but I think it'll be crazy if I sit there and talk about it by myself. I was like, I just, I think it'll be hard to listen to and I'll probably start rambling. I was like, and I love the way you think about diabetes. Like, would you come have these conversations with me, you know? And she was like, yeah, right on, that sounds good. And, you know, and we made that Pro Tip series, yes, right? Like, so the way that works is, I didn't expect it to work that way, like I didn't. I didn't expect any of this to be perfectly honest with you. And now we are in a really strange situation, Kirby, because I forget why I started telling you this. Tell me, you know. I know, you know. So just tell me, I

Kirby 29:26
think, because I was saying the impression it might give folks. Thank you. We're back. Okay, hold on.

Scott Benner 29:32
So at some point, when you start realizing how it's all building and working, there's this decision for me to make, right? Do I lay it out there and say, if you do these things, you have a really great chance of this working out, and run the risk of making some people feel like I can't do that, or, oh gosh, it's not working for me. I think in there, in that problem, lies my theory on all this, which is, I. Think that aspirational is the way to go? Yes, I totally agree. Yeah. I think you set up look other people can accomplish this. I'm an idiot. Like, I mean, if you listen that for any I mean, if you listen the first five minutes of this, you can say, I'm not that. I'm not either

Kirby 30:15
self deprecating or calling yourself a genius. It's a really interesting, like, kind of line

Scott Benner 30:20
you are. I appreciate that. I think the answer again, that is in the middle too. Yeah, yeah. I think there are moments when I'm like, Oh no, I there might be something wrong with me, and there are moments when I'm like, I am exceptionally smart, actually. What did we somebody told me the other day, I was sharing my IQ with a personal friend. I was like, I'm a genius. And they went, That's not how the chart says. And I was like, shout up says you're not a genius. Actually, smart. You can't even read the check. I also don't believe I'm a

Kirby 30:50
genius. I was just joking. We all know it. We all know thank you. I do

Scott Benner 30:54
think I'm smarter than some

Kirby 30:56
people are. Yes, and I think that's okay to say that yeah, and your your point is so well taken. And I think the reason it occurred to me to say it is because of my work as a dietitian, I often see the way that people consume information and the way that it might land, you know, differently with people. And that was part of the reason that I think I asked to come on was to say, well, it's one of the like, I think I listed, like, 14 things. It's okay if this isn't the exact right way for you, like, the way that I think the word you use, aspirational, is exactly the way I personally use your information, because it doesn't quite match my full learning style. Because, like I said, I kind of want to sit down, I want calculations, because I start from them, and then I get more freedom, you know, but I use them as a starting point, yeah, but a lot of people learn like that, right? So I think it's good to know how to use this for your own self. Yes,

Scott Benner 31:48
there was a moment, I'd be perfectly honest with you, like, there was a moment where I thought, Oh, I've laid it out for you, and then you'll just hear it, and then that will work for you, right? And then it took me a while of, like, interacting with people. I think it's really important to interact with the people you're talking to, so that you it's not just my assumptions of what's going on. I'm actually seeing returns, you know? And I was like, oh, not everybody uses all of the information, right? Not everybody agrees with me about that piece, or forget, agrees like it doesn't work that way for them or whatever, like, you know what I mean? And then that was a real building moment for me. I was like, Okay, so I've laid out here what works for me. You should pick and choose from it, like a, you know, like a buffet, take from it what you what's going to help you, or what lands with you, and then go off and learn some other stuff and build on that somehow, have your own experiences. Like, what do I care? Exactly, you know what I mean? Like,

Kirby 32:42
yeah, exactly. And I think what has helped me is that this actually helped me identify questions that I want to either ask my husband about what we think we should do or to bring to the end, though, when we go to say hey, you know, I'm kind of uncovering some stuff here and applying it to our specific situation. Because honestly, like when I found your podcast, it was from another mom who we just randomly gotten in, you know, connected with that. We found out that her son had type one as well. And she's like, You got to listen to Juicebox. So this was, like, in the early, early days. So of course, you're looking for anything after, after you kind of come up for air. Yeah, and I'm just starting. I started with the first episode. Then I start, because you have so many, you have so many, and they're so awesome. So I just started picking and choosing, like, based on the not very helpful titles. But that's fine, but it's like, you look at it and you say, Okay, I think this is where I'm at today. And so you start to get this feeling of community. You start to hear other people's stories. And that was like a warm blanket in the beginning, it was like, oh, okay, like, there is so much hope here. There's other people. But then I start going through our actual day to day management, and it starts to get a little trickier for me to find information. Sure, and it's a little trickier even with a because if I'm on Spotify, right, I'm looking for pro tips. And I'm like, Okay, I think I understand this because of my background. I'm like, I don't really need to know about carbs. I've got that. So then I'm starting to piece things together. And I think when I reached out to you, I was in the middle of, like, trying to sort through how to integrate it into our story. I think I've finally found a way that's kind of working for my issue. It's really just like, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Scott Benner 34:21
I want to hear but I also want to say to you, how great will it be that to know that six months a year from now, sometimes five years from now, someone will ask a question online that this episode will answer and that Nico will have to tell them, hey, put these nuts in your ears and you'll get the answer.

Kirby 34:37
You can't do it. You just can't be awesome. You're either gonna get a ton of people to click on it or, like, nobody, most

Scott Benner 34:45
people know what it means. Don't you think

Kirby 34:49
could it be like to catch a murderer? I mean, like, we gotta workshop this a little bit.

Scott Benner 34:55
I know what you were saying a minute ago. It's like, like, listen, some of these titles don't are meaningless. And. And, but I know, I know there's Thank you. I do. I think of a more as like monikers. So I do see people say like, oh, go listen to, you know, whatever, like and, and I look at it, I think that's a strange title. Like, who came up with that? It's interesting. So you don't need all the information, because you have some from your professional life you're picking through. Obviously every answer is not in the podcast. That's not the goal of it, right? So to kind of finish off my earlier thought, and then we'll move on to what you put together for yourself, I think that the reason the podcast ended up going in this direction is because I have an aversion to kind of lowest common denominator teaching. I don't like when we do that. I feel, yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't like when we dumb things down because, you know, we don't want to leave anybody behind. I think, first of all, that's reductive to that person. I think that's the second time someone's used the word reductive in the list. And I think there's a way to reach that person. I don't think you have to give them less information because you've made some sort of a, I don't know, decision that they can't handle the information. And what about let's say, let's say you're right. Let's say you did find somebody who's just never going to handle the information. Now, everybody gets that level of information, that's insane, right? So let's lay it out there, as easy as as, I mean, listen, I I feel like I do a pretty good job of every Manning this conversation. And I will say, like, for anybody listening who's like, yeah, that's because this is your level. Like, you're right, yeah, right. I'm not having any grand thoughts that I'm distilling for you, dude. I mean, like, I the words that come into my head are the words that come into my head. I think I listened to an episode the other day where I said hospital people made me laugh. I was like, Oh my God. I said whole episode of me not being able to come up with the words I wanted. And I said hospital people at some point. But I think that that's partly why it works for everybody, because doesn't matter really what level you're at, the way I talk about it should be pretty easy to understand, and yet it's not leaving anything out, right, right? So if you hear something that you don't get, that somebody else understands, then that's great. And if it makes you feel badly. I feel bad about that, but I don't think hiding things is the way to

Kirby 37:25
go. I don't think so either, and I didn't, I certainly didn't mean to okay so. And I think that it struck me in a moment where I was like, gosh, I hope people know, you know. I hope people know that it's okay if you're not here and you're so and I think they do, and I think you do an excellent job of of that too. Is that it might take some time,

Scott Benner 37:44
well, Kirby, I told you all that to let you know that, like I hope that too. Yeah, it was worrisome for me, because there was a moment when I made a conscious decision that I'm not going to just, you know, I said this before, and I probably have sounded angry about it at times, or confused about it at other times. But I think that the diabetes community, at least the one that I grew up in, like writing blogs for and stuff like that, very often hid information from people.

Kirby 38:10
Yes, yeah. I think I'll still do, yeah, that's part of my frustration. Is that we, and I don't take this the wrong way, like I think we need to have all of it. But I don't think that there is no other condition like this that I can think of where there is so much management put on individuals, there's so much calculation, there's tech involved, there's medication that you're essentially dosing on your own. I mean, truly, yeah, there's no other condition like that, but there is very little. I will just call it formal support. There is your Endo, and if you're lucky, you've got a good one. I've seen people who theirs doesn't even answer them when they message them in, you know, maybe an immediate need. And so that shouldn't be that should not be the case, that we are left to to do this in this way. So I guess my point in bringing that up is because I know so many people listen to this, and I hope that somewhere, someone is hearing this and says, gosh, wouldn't it be great if we had something that was slightly more formalized so that people could tap into it, especially people who maybe don't have maybe they don't listen to podcasts, maybe they don't learn this way, or maybe they don't read stuff online. Maybe they don't trust anyone besides their doctor. It frost. It frustrates me that. I mean, can you think of another condition that is like this, where it's lifelong, calculating your

Scott Benner 39:34
change doses, yeah, on your own, 24 hours a day. What if you had

Kirby 39:39
to do that, like, with your heart? What if you were responsible for, like, what's the thing called that? The thing that makes your heart beat? Yeah, pacemaker. What if you were in charge

Scott Benner 39:48
on it? You were like, I wonder where I should put this dial.

Speaker 1 39:51
I'll try four. It would be banana.

Scott Benner 39:55
Does feel like that? So I saw somebody online the other day. Outside of my ecosystem, which I think I feel like, I actually felt like a douchebag saying that, but I do think there's like a Juicebox I do think there's like a Juicebox ecosystem now, right? Yes, there is. And I saw somebody outside of it, and this person is struggling, like, significantly, talking about, like, I don't know that life is worth living. I can't figure this diabetes out, and it wasn't my place to say something, but I could have been like, Hey, here's a list of episodes. I think they'll help you, and I think they would have, but everybody is so I don't know territorial that I can't I'm not gonna look like I'm because, to me, it would be helping somebody to the person who's running that space. I listen, I think this is disgusting, because I don't see it this way, and I don't reverse engineer this idea, but I've seen it. I've seen it had a number of times, have been yelled at about a number of times they see it as you poaching their people. And so I'm like, Look, I can't get involved in this, because I don't want to be like, the Oh, Scott's running around, grabbing people out of other places, and this wasn't even Facebook, by the way, and so I don't get involved in that, but I felt, I felt terrible for for a while after I walked away from that screen, I was like, I really think that this stuff would help this person, and now I'm just left hoping that somebody else gets the information

Kirby 41:15
to them. Yeah, and I think those are the people I'm really thinking of, because I think those of us who have found our way to this. There's a reason we've gravitated towards it and stayed there, yeah, but then there's everybody else, and so that's, you know, and

Scott Benner 41:29
there's a lot of everybody else's. That's my other point that I'll make this point over and over again. I hope for people listening who are in a position to do something to help people, this will mean something to them. I very likely reach more people with type one diabetes than anybody else. Agreed, okay, and I don't reach a small fraction of people with type one diabetes. That's a problem. Exactly. Yeah, whether you like me or not, that's not really the point. I figured out a way to reach more people than anybody has ever and I'm not touching a small fraction of people who have type one. And so there's a lot of people walking around out there, you know, you don't realize that if you're listening to the show, they'll be and you're like, Oh, I got to get my my seven down to a six. A lot of people wandering around with 12, A, one, CS, more than you think, you know?

Kirby 42:18
Well, I mean, I know it's a lot. That's my point, I suppose, is that whoever the big we is, we need to do better. Because this is, do you have any idea how to do that? I mean, I've thought about like, I wish, and I told so we had this amazing nurse practitioner who just retired, and on her way out, I said, Hey, are you gonna, like, do anything in your retirement? Because maybe you could, because, you know, most people don't fully retire who love this work as, like, You should do a master class for for caregivers. And she said that it was something that they have tossed around. But like, for some reason, I think there was, you know, nursing shortage, and there's all these staffing things. So for me, like, I don't think that that's the only thing. I think it would be a starting point is to establish this as, like, a standard of care is that classes could be available when you know caregivers are ready, parents and the caregivers who are going to be responsible. Because obviously, my son's not only with us, that they

Scott Benner 43:10
can happen though, right? No, but you

Kirby 43:13
asked, and I think it should be through like a hospital system or a doctor's only because, for the most part, I know people are, there's some camps that are kind of anti doctor and establishment right now, but for the most part, that trust has been established, and it could stem from there, but it doesn't even exist.

Scott Benner 43:30
You know, I was listening to a podcast the other day. I was coming home from, where was I coming home from? Oh, I got to go see the Super Bowl trophies. Oh, yeah. Well, not, of course I did. Actually, that was a great Can I tell you something I'm going to

Kirby 43:47
get to the podcast. Don't forget where we came from. Podcast, don't worry.

Scott Benner 43:51
Hold on a second. So my brother and I don't live in the same state anymore. My brother moved away. He's a turn coat, okay? And for work, I guess, something like, he had to keep his job. He had to come back to go to a professional event, and it was being held in the Eagles stadium. And he's like, Yo, why don't you come with me? You know, we don't get to see each other enough like, he's like, we can hang out for the day. He goes, it's gonna be really boring for you. And I was like, right? I was like, I don't care. I was like, we'll get to, you know, we'll hang out, we'll see each other. And I was like, that'll be great, you know? So I moved my recordings around, and I did the whole thing. I had to go tell my wife I was taking a day off, which is not a thing. You guys don't know me and my wife, we don't really take time off. So she was like, Oh, this must be nice. And I'm like, I know. I'll just sit here and kill myself. And I was like, Okay, you go enjoy your work myself right into the ground while you're out gallivanting. I'm like, I'm at a conference for something I don't understand and have no need for, right? Well, I get to see my brother and Brandon Graham was going to be there linebacker formerly the Philadelphia Eagles, who I believe is the reason. Why we won the Super Bowl against the Patriots, and like a small child, I brought his rookie card with me to get signed. Right? Yeah. Anyway, my brother and I spent two hours walking the floor. He's going from he's actually working. He's going from place to place, gathering information about vendors they might use and stuff like that. I'm out of my mind board. I'm like, oh my god, what they've been talking about, but they're doing a raffle, and I want to win the raffle, so at every table, I have to get somebody to initial my goddamn card so I can put my thing in for the raffle to try to win the raffle, which I did not win. And that's not the point of this conversation, but I got in this position where I had to start talking to people, because why not? And do you have any idea how many people were like, what's Juicebox? Because I had to have a thing, right? And I'm like, Oh, I make a podcast about type one diabetes. And they're like, you know me, people are like, Oh, my son has type one my gosh, I get so many conversations, right? Maybe two hours into this thing, my brother's talking at a table. I've gotten my card signed already. By the way, I'm an adult. I could have just forged the card and handed it in as my entry. But no, I got people to sign the card. I have this feeling that someone's looking at me, and I look over and there is a guy standing in front of me, and he is like, eyeballing my name tag. And I was like, he probably just is, like, what is Juicebox ridiculous? You know what? I mean, I might have smiled and I kind of looked away, and then a brief moment later, he kind of reappears in my peripheral vision, and I'm like, okay, something's happening, right? So I turn I go, Hey, man, can I help you? And he goes, Are you Scott from the Juicebox podcast. Oh my god. And I was like, I am he goes, Oh, like, AC is a vendor there, and where he worked for the event, maybe I forget. And he goes, I saw your name on the list. And I was like, that's crazy. He's like, my wife's such a big fan of your podcast, no way. And so he's like, talking to me and everything, and it's really nice. And we're chatting for a couple minutes. And then it occurred to me, and I was like, you want a picture to send to your wife? And he's like, Yes, please. And I was like, oh, okay, this is crazy. So we take a picture and say thank you and everything, and walk away, and my brother goes, What are you famous or something?

Kirby 47:13
You're like, yeah, in a community.

Scott Benner 47:16
I said, Well, I usually say to people like, yeah, diabetes events, I am right, but yeah, wasn't a diabetes event, and I was like,

Kirby 47:25
That's wild. Is that the first time that's happened outside of something connected to type one?

Scott Benner 47:29
I have been recognized for my voice once in public. I could see that I had a person across an airport to say hi to me once, and I couldn't believe they even recognized me. That was crazy. Yeah, this was different, because I just got back from, like, I went to friends for life, I did a bunch of stuff. Like, there's no doubt, like, in those settings, I'm famous, but you take me out of those settings and, like, no one knows who I am, and honestly prefer it that way, right, right? But anyway, so we're driving home from driving home from that, and I'm listening to a podcast. Watch how I put this all together. This is why I have a podcast, and you don't. I forgot yet, I don't yet I was talking to everybody, not just you, okay? And also, don't start a podcast. It will not work. You'll just own a microphone that you have to embarrassingly explain to friends later. Okay, all right, thanks for the advice. I'm driving home and I'm listening to a podcast, and it's a CIA agent who wrote a book, and I don't know, I'm just listening to him tell his story about being a CIA agent, and he said this thing, and he just said, you know, there's the way people want the world to be, and there's the way it is. And that popped into my head when you were like, Well, what I wish people would do is, like, give, like, master classes on but there's a way the world is, and there's the way things are for real, you know, and the way you want it to be, and the way I want it to be, I wish that person would do that class, right? Yeah, but along the way, the hospital is going to say, like, wow, we don't want, you know, you don't work here anymore, you're not covered by our liability insurance. Or, you know, not everybody's gonna understand, or not everybody will be able to agree on what gets said in the thing. And people will, like, you know, go back and forth for years and never, you know, never come to any conclusions. It's why I like the DIY algorithm stuff so much, you know, like, you know, trio and loop and Android APS, why I think that's so amazing, because it doesn't get caught up in committee. And when it does, somebody just takes their stuff and runs into a different branch and goes, Hey, you know what? I was arguing too much with that person over there. Here's my version of this. Right, right? I wish the world would do that more often with these things, yeah, yeah, but I don't think it's gonna happen. No,

Kirby 49:36
it probably won't. And the thing is, though it does, none of it happens if somebody doesn't try to make it happen, right? No, it won't. And it is. I mean, I guess it's just an expression of frustration, because it seems completely ridiculous in my mind. So it's like, red tape, your bureaucracy, just and egos and all of the stuff. You know, it's like, just do the right thing. It's not, I. That hard.

Scott Benner 50:02
You know, I know no one's gonna do it, because you live in the real world. Well, because, well, I am a realistic person, but I've been listening to a lot of stuff about stoicism lately. I'm wondering if I don't lean that way, it's not for this right now, I think I believe it's not going to happen, because it's easier for it not to happen. Oh, for sure, it's proven to me over and over again, because, because of all the and I'm glad they do it, and they should, but the amount of actual, like professional people who direct people to the podcast is an insane number of people. So that's them saying. That's them having the same thought that I'm having. Like, look, I can tell you about this, but I'm gonna get fired. And if I tell you to Pre-Bolus, like I just heard from somebody recently who got chastised a professional person who got yelled at in a doctor's office for telling somebody that they might have to Bolus for a fat or a protein rise.

This episode was too good to cut anything out of but too long to make just one episode. So this is part one. Make sure you go find Part Two right now it's going to be the next episode in your feed. The podcast you just enjoyed was sponsored by tandem diabetes care. Learn more about tandems, newest automated insulin delivery system, tandem Moby with control iq plus technology at tandem diabetes.com/juicebox there are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com Arden has been getting her diabetes supplies from us med for three years. You can as well us med.com/juicebox, or Paul, 888-721-1514, my thanks to us, med for sponsoring this episode and for being longtime sponsors of the Juicebox podcast. There are links in the show notes and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us, med and all the sponsors. The podcast episode that you just enjoyed was sponsored by ever since CGM, they make the ever since 365 that thing lasts a whole year. One insertion every year. Come on, you probably feel like I'm messing with you, but I'm not. Ever since cgm.com/juicebox Hey, thanks for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate your loyalty and listenership. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

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Scott Benner 11/3/25 Scott Benner 11/3/25

#1669 14 Months

Stage-two type 1, nursing-school instincts, daycare roadblocks, and a family’s grit after a wrongful CPS nightmare—Hannah’s candid guide to catching signs early and advocating without apology.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Hannah 0:14
My name is Hannah Marion. I am a mom to a two year old who's currently in stage two of type one diabetes, and we discovered that with me being in nursing school and kind of picking up on the signs, if

Scott Benner 0:29
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Hannah 2:20
My name is Hannah Marion. I am a mom to a two year old who's currently in stage two of type one diabetes. And we discovered that with me being in nursing school and kind of picking up on the signs,

Scott Benner 2:35
wait a second. So you have just one, one kid, I have two, two. Okay, but this is my youngest. Okay, your two year old. Your youngest. She, right. He, he Sorry. Okay, so you're in nursing How old are you? I am 26 oh, what got you into nursing school? Now, you know,

Hannah 2:52
I have always wanted to. I went a whole different path for a while. Kind of got back to it because I said, How can I tell my kids to follow their dreams if I don't follow mine. So here I am following mine, but definitely kind of helped out

Scott Benner 3:06
very nice. So you wanted to be a nurse initially, but you decided on something else and then pivoted. Yes, exactly. You don't have to tell me what those things were, but like, did you do it because you thought it was going to be more like, stable or like, why did you pivot away from the thing you dreamt of to do something different?

Hannah 3:24
I had some health issues myself at the time. I was actually previously in nursing school for a couple of months doing just like pre requisite classes, and then started having some seizures. So I had to drop out of school because of that, because obviously I can't be seizing in nursing school. So once those cleared up, I kind of just jumped back into the work field with wherever I thought things would work out for me, and have bounced my way around to different fields and ended up back at nursing

Scott Benner 3:53
Did you ever figure out what the seizures were? The seizures were about?

Hannah 3:58
Yes, I have pots, and they were actually a form of syncope for me.

Speaker 1 4:01
Oh, okay, so you weren't. You were passing out, yes, but it presented as a seizure.

Scott Benner 4:07
Gotcha pods. How did they define that? How do you get a diagnosis? I

Hannah 4:12
had the basic symptoms standing up. My vision would go black. Oftentimes, I would lose my balance, end up on the ground. I did a tilt table test. Initially, it didn't show anything. However, I went back to a different cardiologist, and he said, Absolutely, you have pots, your heart rate and your blood pressure, all of that matches exactly along with pots. And he sent me to a different specialist who's actually a like specialist only in pots. So that was kind of how that all wrapped it up. But that's the formal diagnosis of that

Scott Benner 4:44
any other issues medically for you or in your extended family.

Hannah 4:50
So we have a genetic disorder called Ehlers Danlos. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.

Scott Benner 4:56
That's an autoimmune issue where, like your your ligaments and all are. Super stretchy,

Hannah 5:00
yes, exactly and kind of matching. Along with that, I have Hashimotos hypothyroidism, and then I also have celiac, all the autoimmune things you have everything but type one, exactly. My son's endocrinologist was very surprised that there was no history of type one in our family, but there is not

Scott Benner 5:22
wait your son's endocrinologist didn't see your celiac Hashimotos and ears dandler as like an obvious connection to type one diabetes through autoimmune

Hannah 5:32
so I should clarify his first endocrinologist. No, they did not. We actually switched his endocrinologist to someone we now have to travel for. But that's okay, because they're really good, and they did kind of acknowledge that.

Scott Benner 5:45
How about on your or on I didn't You didn't say if you're married, but I assuming you're Yes, I am on your husband's side. Is there anything going on over there?

Hannah 5:55
Autoimmune? They don't have any autoimmune on his side that we know of. My husband doesn't even go see a doctor, he doesn't have a doctor. So he could have 15 different things, but we would never know.

Scott Benner 6:06
Is he similarly aged to you? Are you guys around the same age you are? Yes, How old's your oldest? Four, four. Okay, you get married pretty early.

Hannah 6:15
Yes, I did. Yeah. On We Got Married at 21

Scott Benner 6:19
wow, because you wanted to be married, or because you didn't want to have a baby when you weren't married,

Hannah 6:24
which one, honestly, it's a lot of formal paperwork if you have a baby not married. So that was a speeding along thing where, when we got pregnant, we did get married for the formality of the paperwork

Scott Benner 6:36
gotcha, but it's working out. Yeah? Awesome. I mean, you did it again, right? So, yeah, you're like, I guess we can do this on purpose the second time.

Hannah 6:45
Yeah, well, that's very different,

Scott Benner 6:50
not quite on purpose. Anna, I got, hey, listen, however it happens, you're in school for nursing. I think that's where we should pick it up. We're in nursing. You're in nursing school, and what are they teaching you when you start connecting the dots?

Hannah 7:04
So this was fairly early on in my journey through nursing school. It was really kind of the basic classes. But, you know, they teach us kind of the basic things, the 3p associated with type one, so the polydipsia. And I was just kind of like thinking about it. And we were talking about how, like, fatigue is a common symptom for early onset or new onset, as well as, like, the excessive thirst and sleeping while that goes the fatigue and then the peeing a lot. And I was like, Huh, that's really odd. That sounds exactly like my son, he had an appointment that next week, so with that, we took him to his pediatrician's office, and I said, Hey, I know these are some signs, and I'm seeing him doing this. Do you think? What's your thoughts? And he told us, he said, you know, these could be toddler things, just common things that toddlers do. I wouldn't worry about it. I bet a nickel. He said that everything will turn out just fine.

Scott Benner 8:08
To make him pay the nickel I should have,

Hannah 8:11
I keep meaning to go back and ask for my nickel.

Scott Benner 8:13
Also tell him in your in your vernacular, nickel is 500 that's how you were thinking of it. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Hannah 8:22
I mean, I think he could fork it out. It'd be fine. I mean, he's a great doctor. I just think that it was something that was a little bit overlooked, but they did do a glucose check in the office, and it was 153 hours after eating. So while it wasn't like go to the ER, he's in DKA. It was kind of suspicious that something was going

Scott Benner 8:44
on. Okay, can we stop for half a second so we can fill people in on the three P's? So I have to admit, when you said that, I thought, I don't really know what that means. So I checked into it, and we're looking at polyuria, which means frequent urination, polydipsia, excessive thirst, polyphagia, increased hunger. And if you're looking for a little more etymology, the poly part comes from the Greek meaning many or much. So, much urination, much thirst, much eating. And I guess those are just words you learned in nursing school, right? Yes, exactly. Okay, okay, sorry, you can keep going. So I bet you a nickel that this is nothing. Yes, yeah, that is. How do you lose that nickel? What did you start like? Did you say this? Don't seem right to me? And you moved on to another doctor, or you went back to that one

Hannah 9:35
well, so this was the pediatrician, and we've seen him for a while. I think he's a great pediatrician. Honestly, in this circumstance, he with the blood sugar of 153 hours after eating, he kind of popped his head back in and he was like, I mean, it's not what I like to see, but it's not horrible, but definitely, like, needs some more tests. Okay, so he actually. Sent us for an A 1c and I think some other testing, honestly, but I forgot which ones. But I know he did an A 1c because about a couple of days later, I got a phone call saying, hey, his a 1c is 5.8 or, I think it was 5.3 at that time. So that's normal. You're totally fine. He doesn't have type one. I was like, oh, okay, well, that's really odd, because I just finger poked him, and he's at 242 that was kind of another sign where we were like, yeah, no, there's something going on here. So I actually took it upon myself to do some research and got a hold of someone at the ask program, and we did the antibody testing through the Ask program, where he came back positive for three out of five at that point. And then the confirmation testing was four out of five.

Scott Benner 10:50
I have to say, the 150 blood sugar, the three and a half hours after, like, that should have been enough. Like, I get that he's a good pediatrician all but like, I want other people listening to know, like, you know, that's That's enough. If your blood sugar is 153 hours after you've eaten, you probably have type one diabetes, you know, or you're on your way to it, so. But your child's blood sugars were variable, because the A 1c was holding pretty low. But you saw a two, you know, a two and 250 kind of blood sugar. When did you, I guess, is ask were they introduced you the idea of, like, different stages of type one?

Hannah 11:26
Yes, they were. I had done a little bit of research on my own. I like to understand, kind of all of the information behind things. So I had done some research and kind of had a little bit of an idea, but they kind of formally went through it all and told me what this means, and gave me, they sent us out a Dexcom, and we put that on him to determine kind of what stage he was in. And we were able to take all of that data to the endocrinologist that they connected us with, okay?

Scott Benner 11:53
And they explained to you that three antibodies is a it's a slam dunk, right? Yes, yeah. So then, how long ago was this?

Hannah 12:02
This was actually October of last year. So we're about one year out from when that

Scott Benner 12:07
happened. About a year out, is he in stage two? Still now questionable?

Hannah 12:13
Um, he spikes up with meals to like, 370s, 378, I believe, is the highest that we've seen his. So that's pretty high where it's kind of thinking like we might be like in between stages, but he is able to still bring it down on his own, okay, just very slowly

Scott Benner 12:33
away from meals. Is he stable at in the 80s, the 90s, hundreds. Where does the stability sit?

Hannah 12:40
Some days he sits like 140s 150s other days, he sits like 115, 125

Scott Benner 12:47
What's your inclination now? Do you think he should be using insulin?

Hannah 12:50
Well, one thing that I find really interesting is they say that stage two does not have symptoms, but we are seeing symptoms with him, so when he spikes up that high, and when, oftentimes, when he gets up that high, he's very cranky, he You can tell he doesn't feel good, yeah, we want to be able to have a little bit more control to prevent that. While I know it's not completely preventable, he's going to spike up. We want to be able to control it, rather than sit back and watch my child like have the symptoms and feel yucky and not be able to do anything. How long do those spikes last for? Typically, hour and a half. I'd say, Okay.

Scott Benner 13:32
And have you approached doctors with this? Your endo with us?

Hannah 13:36
Yes, we sent them a message, and they were kind of following up on that. The one thing that's pretty unique about him specifically is he has some malabsorption issues also, so that kind of presents another issue for him, where, when he, like, has these malabsorption issues, his sugar either normalizes or goes low. So that's impacting his a, 1c, and it's impacting his Dexcom time and range. So it kind of complicates things on if it's time or not. So

Scott Benner 14:06
when he eats food, is it absorbed slowly, too quickly? What's the malabsorption?

Hannah 14:13
They're actually not quite sure exactly what's going on with him. The thought is, like he's allergic to dairy, but not severely. He's not really symptomatic with it, other than like they did some stool studies, and they are able to see that he does have carbohydrates still in his stool. You're not supposed to, and he's he's tested positive for it, not carbohydrates, sugars in his stool. That's what it was.

Scott Benner 14:39
Is this a lifelong issue, or did this start around the time of the diabetes

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Hannah 16:55
I feel like it started around the time that we would start of we would have started to see symptoms of the diabetes. Okay, he also had some issues where he'd get super pale. We always thought it was really odd, but it was ghostly pale. And now looking back, I know that that was low blood sugars.

Scott Benner 17:13
Okay. Well, I'm asking about the absorption, because, you know, your pancreas does more than just make insulin, so it also helps with digestion. And I'm wondering if maybe, I mean, people talk all the time about like my kid was diagnosed now their stomach hurts all the time, really common. Some of them end up using a digestive enzyme with a meal to see if that helps. And I'm wondering if, if that's maybe not the connection there for him, or if that's not worth asking a doctor about. Yeah,

Hannah 17:41
I'll definitely bring it up on that next one, next appointment with his GI. Thank you for that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 17:47
no, you're welcome. People around here have used them off and on. I use them sometimes when, if I'm having like, a particularly, like, high protein, or if I eat fat, I don't eat a lot of fat or grease. So when I do sometimes I'll throw a I'll throw an enzyme in there with it. But, you know, we ended up finding out about them because Arden had, like, stomach pain constantly, and you know, she wasn't going to the bathroom on a regular schedule. And then we just hit her with some enzymes for a while, a little bit of magnesium oxide to make her go the other way. It actually kind of like found a stasis. It's a little more balanced now. She doesn't use those all the time, or hardly ever, honestly, and that ended up being it. But there's a great episode of the podcast just called, uh, I think it's called, owner of a useless pancreas that talks about everything that the pancreas does not just, you know, in some production,

good, good to know. I don't want his belly to hurt. You know what? I mean,

Hannah 18:38
yeah, it's, it's a lot, it's difficult. There's a lot to it, and with that like it, it just further complicates the whole picture of like, what's actually going on, because we don't even know if he's absorbing on a normal day to day basis, right? Completely, fully. So maybe his spikes, maybe he is in stage three, but the absorption issues are kind of presenting and making it seem like stage two. It's just really a confusing picture

Scott Benner 19:05
well, so let me ask you, because I have my opinion after you've explained it to me, but, but if I put you in charge, and you didn't have to talk to a doctor, what do you want to be doing? So

Hannah 19:14
we actually switched his endocrinologist for a couple of different reasons, but one of them was the new endocrinologist uses diluted insulin. My perfect picture, we would do some diluted insulin, because I feel like that could just kind of stabilize him a little more than what we're currently dealing with. How old is he again? Now he's two. He'll be three in January. Oh, he's little. How much does he weigh? Yes, I'm about 28 pounds. So I

Scott Benner 19:40
gotcha. Okay, it sounds like you're on your way to figuring out. But, I mean, I'm very compassionate to the idea that his, you know, his blood sugar is high and he doesn't feel well. That's, you know, a number of times a day. It's not, that's not fair to him. You know what? I mean, it sounds to me like I vote insulin. So I think you're, yeah, I think you're there. Do you think that'll be. Happening soon.

Hannah 20:01
I we follow up with the endocrinologist in about two weeks, actually, but the further complicating part of the story, and I know many people have dealt with the same thing, but his daycare will not give insulin. We're not quite sure how that's going to work out, which in that case, we're not quite sure if that's what we want to push towards. But at the end of the day, I want what's best for my kids.

Scott Benner 20:24
So, oh, that's cause a ruckus. Well, you're, they're gonna have to do that or find another place. Because, I mean, you know, as much as, as much as it would be great if you know my daycare won't give insulin so you don't have diabetes, would be a nice way, a nice way to ignore it. Yeah, it's not gonna, not gonna be the case. And 350 blood sugars. I mean, are, I think that's too much in a situation where you have the ability to get the insulin, but your bigger problem is now, what did they say? They said they just won't do it. Perhaps the best gift that you can give to yourself or to a loved one is that of comfort. And this holiday season, if you use the offer code Juicebox at checkout at cozy earth.com you won't just be getting something that's comfortable. You'll also be doing it at quite a discount. We can talk about that in just a moment. Right now, I want to tell you that I use cozy Earth towels every day when I get out of the shower. I sleep on cozy Earth sheets. Every night when I get into bed, I'm recording right now in a pair of cozy Earth sweat pants. I love their joggers, their hoodies, their shirts, my wife has their pajamas. And I know you're thinking, oh yeah, Scott. Well, because they sent you a bunch of it for free, they did send me some for free, but I've also bought a lot on my own. So like I said earlier, Black Friday has come early at cozy Earth, and right now you can stack my code Juicebox on top of their site wide sale giving you up to 40% off in savings. These deals are definitely not going to last. Get your shopping done now or get yourself something terrific at cozy earth.com Do not forget to use that offer code Juicebox at checkout, you will not be sorry. Funny

Hannah 22:03
enough, I spoke to the director of the daycare again. We love them. It's just been this little hiccup. They said that they are not allowed to, and she said she checked with her licensing person, and the licensing person said, No, which, I know that they need to, and that they are required to. It's just one of those things that I'm not going to make that fuss. And the endocrinologist office said that they have someone who could potentially call and kind of explain those things to her.

Scott Benner 22:33
Okay, well, yeah, but they're scared. Is it a big company, or is it just like, you know, a nice lady who watches five kids. Or what's the setup?

Hannah 22:42
It's a fairly large place. They have, I would say probably 100 kids. Oh, roughly so it's kind of in between. It's only one location, so not a company, per se, but one in which she has kind of a well established daycare. I'd say,

Scott Benner 22:59
Okay, do you think you'll go to a pump When insulin starts? Or do you think you're going to go? MDI,

Hannah 23:05
my hopes is that we do a pump. So for me, I would, I would vote do that at the very get go. I know that's likely not going to happen. However, I think we're also in a little bit of a unique situation, because we were provided insulin when he was first diagnosed as Stage Two for corrections, so we've used it maybe 10 times over this past year, maybe a little more, but we're familiar with it, so it's not a foreign idea. Yeah, to do an injections, but I think we would benefit from a pump.

Scott Benner 23:37
Do you think you'd use some sort of an automated system. So the

Hannah 23:41
endocrinologist, when she brought it up, she said, likely an Omnipod with point 05 kind of as a basal.

Scott Benner 23:49
And then would that be Omnipod five? Though? Would it be automated? You know,

Hannah 23:53
I'm not quite sure. She didn't go into depth on that, but that's going to be something I'll ask.

Scott Benner 23:57
Yeah, no, it's interesting to talk to you, because you're, you're into this a year, but you're not really into it at all. You're an interesting mix of like your experiences and your knowledge about it and everything like that. I'm wondering, because if you put you, if you put him in daycare, and his blood sugar starts to drift up a little bit, an automated system is going to try to stop it, and then that would take away from them needing to give him insulin, maybe in some situations, and also, like, you know, for their concern, like you're really just asking them to push a button. And, I mean, I'm assuming you'd send carb counts with him and and help them get through all of it. It's, I do think you'll be able to work it out, but sometimes they get, I don't know, resistant, and they just fight, you know what I mean. So I'm wondering, I guess I'll never, I might never know, but I'm wondering what you're gonna what you're gonna run into, yeah,

Hannah 24:44
we're curious on that as well. We have a great relationship with them, so I think it's definitely something that we could approach that conversation and have that conversation with them, yeah, along with kind of the support of the endocrinology office. But I mean, like you said, I'd be more. Than happy to go in train them and kind of walk through that. I actually go in there a couple of days every now and then to help out and work there. So like I said, we have a great relationship. I would totally do that if they're open to it, but I think we would benefit more so from a pump for that specific circumstance as well,

Scott Benner 25:17
though, I think you'll make your way through this. I think it's probably just a feel through process. And I'm wondering too, as you're talking, I don't mean this in any certain way, but like, you're pretty young too. You know what I mean? Like, you're young. I mean your husband's younger. It's a it's a unique situation. I wonder how 36 year old you will take would have dealt with this, I guess is what I'm getting at. Like, I don't know if you're being too referential or not with people, like with a doctor, too, by the way, like I am wondering that as I'm talking to you,

Hannah 25:45
I tend to be a people pleaser. Yeah, I'm hearing that. So that would 100% match my personality, and it's something that I've had to kind of learn to balance that with advocating for my kids. Yeah, because I've, I've had to advocate really hard. Now I

Scott Benner 26:03
imagine you have any educators in your in your family, your mom or anybody, a teacher?

Hannah 26:07
No, I don't think there are any. I was trying to scroll through my family tree here, and I don't think so. Actually,

Scott Benner 26:14
I was gonna layer a couple things together, but I figured with you being in nursing school, it's your, I would imagine right now, especially it's your your leaning to to give deference to the doctors. And I mean, it would be weird for you to be in nursing school and feel like, No, I probably know better than them, so you know, like, there's that. And I was wondering if you're not pushing back at the daycare center, because maybe you knew somebody who was in education too, but that's just me fishing. I was fishing pretty hard there, but I do feel like I hear that from you a little bit, that you're being you maybe haven't found your full voice in this yet. Am I on to something there?

Hannah 26:50
Yes, and I would totally agree we actually, we've only had one appointment with the new endocrinologist, but I feel like they are definitely more supportive in that sense. His a 1c spiked up to six a couple of months ago when we were with the previous endocrinologist, and he was pretty symptomatic. He was having some pretty sustained ties, and I brought it up, and we saw a nurse practitioner at that appointment, and she was great, totally listened to me, but I think she had to get things approved by the physician, so she brought it to him, and he said no. So that's kind of where I felt that we were lacking that support, and ended up switching him. Yeah, so I'm hoping that this upcoming appointment will will get us somewhere.

Scott Benner 27:34
Do you look young, too? Hannah, yes, this is all important, right? Probably all leans into how this works. Yes, yeah, because you come in, you say something, and she's like, Oh, I'll go ask the doctor. I said, No, that's okay. We don't, we don't need to listen to Hannah. She's 12, and I know when I'm doing the thing. I like how you moved on so quickly, when somebody showed that they weren't going to be, you know, a partner in this with you. Yeah, when it comes

Hannah 27:57
to my kids, I will, I'll be tough, you know, I'll kind of make those decisions, but I may prolong them a little more than they need to be, but I'm still learning on that aspect of things. I'd say that this decision to move the endocrinologist was a really great one.

Scott Benner 28:13
Yeah, that's a big move for you too. I sincerely, it's just so interesting because at your age again, like, I imagine, you know, a year or so ago, like, if you had questions about things, you probably would go back to your parents still once in a while, but like, now that this is a thing they have no experience with. Do you find yourself wishing that you could go talk to your mom and dad or something and then realize they're not going to be valuable on this one?

Hannah 28:39
Yeah, and sometimes I voice things to my mom, and she is a very devil's advocate type person, but she has offered a lot of support in this journey and kind of learned things along the way as well. My step dad's a type two, I believe, but he's not very well controlled. That's okay. That's for another day. We work with him with that, like she has some basic knowledge, and she's really put in a lot of time to learn a lot of different things with it. Okay, it's a little odd in the sense that, like, I can't go to her because she's experienced this exact scenario.

Scott Benner 29:12
Yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking. Like, if you had a money question, or like, hey, how do you run a thing or pay for this, or how do I get my driver's license renewed? Or she'd be valuable in all that those places. And then it comes to this, and you probably need your mom in this moment. And then she doesn't have any experience, but she is willing to learn. So that's awesome.

She's great. Did you have to ask her to get more involved? Or did she just

Hannah 29:37
launch into it? Oh, she just launched into it. She is the like, absolute best Nanna that my kids could have. She was there when I got the phone call that his antibodies were positive. So really, from the very beginning, she has been fully supportive and looking into it on her own and sending me like carb counts for Halloween treats and. If we end up going that route. So good for her. She's been great.

Scott Benner 30:03
That's very nice. You're lucky. Talk about, if you can a little bit about, I guess, the the pivot here, because you're young family, you're rolling along, things are okay. And then this comes up, I imagine this, this slow onset presents its own problems, right? There's probably a lot of, I'm guessing, psychological burden here. And I was wondering if you could explain a little bit what it's like to watch this happen in slow motion.

Hannah 30:29
It's really difficult. Honestly, I have found that finding other people kind of in the same situation is definitely helpful. But I did see someone the other day who said stage three is harder. And while I understand and I completely agree that there's definitely difficulties with stage three, I think stage two is really difficult in its own way. Because you know, you do truly sit back and watch your child just be miserable and like, yeah, you can hand over a pack of Smarties when they're low, but when they're high, you just kind of sit back and you're like, let's just watch the numbers and just kind of wait until that shoe drops, because one day we know it will, so we don't know, like, this stomach bug going around daycare, is that going to take them out? Is that going to be what's causing it, or what causes that shoe to drop for him, and really kind of just sitting back knowing that our lives will eventually kind of change pretty drastically with his diagnoses, but at the end of the day, it kind of has also allowed for us to get a little more time to educate ourselves and educate others and kind of learn like how we're going to do things, because there's a lot of decisions to be made, whether it be like, are we going to cut back on carbs? Are we going to, like, let him have daycare treats, or are we going to provide something special? So just kind of scenarios like that, we've we have had some extra time, which has been very valuable. And I definitely understand that it's like, not what everybody else gets. And this may come out kind of negatively, but I mean it in the best way possible. It also feels like we don't belong as diabetics or as a diet part of diabetes. So it's really tough sometimes, because I even had to ask his doctor, like, okay, like, what? What do you call him? Like, do I call him a type one diabetic? Like, it's just so unknown that it kind of takes away, like, a little bit of that, like, do we belong in that community?

Scott Benner 32:32
Is that something you're worried about, or something you're actually feeling from

Hannah 32:35
people? You know, I don't really know kind of where it stems from. I would say, with it like I if I say my son's a type one diabetic, and they go into talking about, oh, what's his pump settings? Oh, well, you know, he's kind of in between, and not really on pump all the time, or not on a pump, because he's not on insulin all the time. So it's kind of rare in that circumstance.

Scott Benner 33:01
Okay, okay. And how about online? Do people mind online? Because that's where you're learning about things. So you talked about finding people who have a similar situation, I just assumed. But is that what you're doing? Yeah, I

Hannah 33:12
was part of a bunch of the like type one Facebook groups, and that's been a great community. Honestly, I haven't received any negative feedback or any pushback from anybody. I actually personally created a like Stage Two Diabetes type one diabetic group, because I know that this is a little bit of a unique scenario for some so kind of offered for more of a support system for that specific circumstance.

Scott Benner 33:39
How many people were you able to get into that group with first stage?

Hannah 33:43
So let me check right now. I think it was. There's 90 members. Now, that's

Scott Benner 33:49
crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, and yeah, small group of people who all have a very specific experience. It is incredibly specific experience, obviously. Are you finding are they hanging on after their kids move to the next stage, or do you lose them out of the group?

Hannah 34:04
So at this point, I think only one has moved on. Oh, I take that back. I think there's two that have moved on now, but they're both still in the group, and they've been in great support. You know, it's, it's kind of weird too, because it's like, I don't know exactly what this is going to look like. Like one day, is he going to wake up and go up to 300 and never come down? Or is it going to be a slow progression where he'll just, he'll go up, he'll stay there for a couple of hours, he'll come down, and then the next day he'll go up, stay a little longer, come down. So it's been kind of interesting to see their perspective on that, because they have kind of seen that

Scott Benner 34:40
progression? Yeah, is it happening more one way than the other from what you're seeing in the group, like quick onset versus slower?

Hannah 34:47
I believe the one was kind of had a sickness and then spiked up never came down. Okay? The other, I think spiked with meals will come down, but they are doing. Insulin at mealtimes. Gotcha? Yeah?

Scott Benner 35:01
It's just a couple. Okay. Did you is my group valuable for you? Have you been in it? Absolutely. Oh, it is. I have been

Hannah 35:09
in it, and I think it's definitely valuable. There's a couple of stage, two people in there as

Scott Benner 35:12
well. Oh, no, kidding, that's awesome. I guess she's just you reading ahead, really, right? Is that how it feels?

Hannah 35:18
Yes, yeah. And I think that's a part of the like, education portion of it. Like, we've, we've had that time to kind of look into it and see what people are doing and really kind of understand a little more.

Scott Benner 35:29
I'm super interested to learn if this process of, like, the slow, you know, the slow onset, kind of a feeling, and you being able to read ahead and get more information if it's going to be valuable for you, if you know, two years from now, you'll look back on it and say, you know, those first couple years were really made much easier by being pre educated and knowing what to look for and how to react and what to expect.

Hannah 35:54
Yeah, I feel like it will, but I'll report back. Yeah,

Scott Benner 35:57
thank you. Everything's so unknown for you at the moment, right? Yes, yeah, it is. Is that difficult, just like, personally or, I mean, how are you dealing with it with your husband? I mean, I was 26 and just married recently. Like, it's, it wasn't exactly the highlight of my ability to be emotionally intelligent, and think so. Like, is this been hard for you guys? It's been

Hannah 36:19
a little different in the sense that, at first he kind of was like, Well, you don't know that he has type one diabetes, kind of in between that waiting period of getting the antibody results back, okay, but once we got those back, I think he kind of accepted that this is reality, and we're gonna have to just learn and figure it out from here on out. And he's done great with kind of picking up on things, and like I mentioned earlier, He's not one to go to a doctor himself. He passes out when his blood's taken, but he has given insulin when we need it for a correction. So he's done really great in kind of supporting and it's actually, it's gone quite well for us, awesome.

Scott Benner 36:55
I see there's not a lot of arguing or worry. Hasn't ramped up like tension or anything like that.

Hannah 37:01
No, I think the only aspect of it that has kind of like presented any sort of little issue would be kind of the financial aspect of type one. And, you know, we do get a Dexcom, and we do need to buy, like, the ketone strips and all of those type of things. So that's kind of presented a little tiny bit, but

Scott Benner 37:20
not much at all. Yeah, well, you're in school, right? Do you work as well? I

Hannah 37:25
do, but it's very minimal. He does most of the working I school is quite tough. It's full time, so it's three days a week of a lot of hours. I'm not

Scott Benner 37:35
trying to say I think you should have a job at the same time that you're going to school. I'm just wondering if you do or not. And I take your point so your your expenses went off, but your income didn't change. Yes, exactly. And did you have? Do you have the kind of insurance through his work where you're like, I can't believe how lucky we are. Are you more like, oh geez, I wish this insurance was better.

Hannah 37:55
I think that we have it pretty good. The only pushback is they don't always approve things, and they love their prior authorizations. So that's kind of the only thing that's like a little annoying on that side of things. But I think that's just insurance in general. Yeah, he does. He has an HSA account as well. So that's kind of helped out with those type of things.

Scott Benner 38:15
No, they're really helpful. Well, you have diabetes, though, in the in your life, sometimes those things burn out pretty quickly as the years go on. Going, how much should we put into this HSA account? And just like, well, how much could we afford to because we should probably put in all that we can afford to. It gets used up pretty quickly. It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure. Yeah. How much longer do you have in school?

Hannah 38:35
Nine months. Oh, okay, I will very proudly say that you're excited

Scott Benner 38:39
to get done, huh? Yes. What happens when you're done? Do they help you place at a hospital? Or what's the process of looking for for work after

Hannah 38:47
that? So I kind of took on a unique position with my job right now, the hours that I work, I work 24 hours a month is my required hours. So that's 212 hour shifts, and that's on the unit that I like, I had to interview to be placed on that unit they selected for me to be there, but I with that will almost get a guaranteed spot, not as guaranteed, but I still have to work for it. Still have to earn it, but it definitely helps get my foot in the door.

Scott Benner 39:18
And how will that change your financial situation significantly? Oh, 100% okay, you think you have more kids? We

Hannah 39:27
do want more. Okay, that is something

Scott Benner 39:29
that you got some energy left over you'd like to use up

Hannah 39:33
as of now. We'll reevaluate in a year.

Scott Benner 39:36
Yeah, I was gonna say, How long do you think you would wait until you did it again. Like, would you want to would you want to see what diabetes life was like first? Would you like? What is it you're waiting to see? So

Hannah 39:48
one perspective that I've kind of really wanted to take with this, and I understand that it's it's difficult. I don't want diabetes to affect our life. Obviously it's going to affect our life. But I. Don't want it to, like, change any decisions that we would have made prior. So with that, like, we aren't gonna hold back carbs for him, some people might disagree, but I want him to kind of live a normal life as close as possible. We would still kind of have a kid regardless of what diabetes looks like for us at that point.

Scott Benner 40:17
Okay, why are you so what's the

word I'm looking for? Responsible. Why are you so mature? Did you get kicked out in the world early? Did something happen? Is your husband in the same situation? You know what I'm talking about,

Hannah 40:33
or no, yes, I do. I had to be my own lawyer at the age of 21 so I would say that that's a that's a good portion of it.

Scott Benner 40:44
Whoa, okay, can I? Can I ask why?

Hannah 40:48
Yeah, we were so with the earlier Stan lows, easy bruising is a very common symptom of that. And with our firstborn child, he had a bruise at one month old. They called CPS on us, and CPS took him from us, come to find out, he has earlier Stan lows, and he actually has a suspected bleeding disorder as well. So he will bruise easily, and he does still continue to bruise easily, but that was 14 months of court dates and kind of all of these different things that we had to go through and jump through all of these hoops to get our child back. So that definitely matured me. Hannah,

Scott Benner 41:24
I've been talking to you for 42 minutes. What crack head took your baby from you. How did you are? So obviously a decent person, like, yeah, they thought you hit that kid.

Hannah 41:35
They they did. And it was an absolutely horrific time. Yeah, it was, it was a lot of jaded systems that we saw at that point, I bet.

Scott Benner 41:48
And how long did it take you to get through all that,

Hannah 41:50
14 months from start to when he got to come home? And that was delayed because it was during covid. So court was on Zoom, but it was definitely

Scott Benner 42:00
cry. They had your baby for 14 months. Yes, holy, oh my god, I really like got flush with emotions when you said 14 months. How was the baby when they took it one month? Oh, my God, had you done anything illegal, immoral or otherwise questionable prior to that? No.

Hannah 42:19
And you know, we did hire an attorney, and he said that, had we done something, we would have gotten him back sooner, because we would have been able to, like, go through a rehab program, or go through some sort of program to show that we've put in the work. But because we maintained our innocence the entire time, we had to kind of go through a very long

Scott Benner 42:43
process. Can I ask what backwater state you live in? Please, Kentucky. Okay, all right. That's all I was wondering. What in everyone? Move immediately. Okay, just get out. Go somewhere else. I hear there's some desert available. Go West.

What in Jesus did you cry? I don't understand, like, how old were you when that happened? 21 Did you cry every day, all day long?

Hannah 43:08
So that was also a interesting aspect of it. Yes, we did cry a lot, but at the same time, we could not cry in front of certain people. Otherwise we would be looked at as though we were mentally unfit for our child, so we had to kind of remain as normal as possible.

Scott Benner 43:28
But wait, who was eyeballing you that you couldn't be emotional

Hannah 43:33
in front of the caseworker on our case was not the greatest. No, really. Go ahead and she was

Scott Benner 43:41
and she was on you all the time, watching you all the time. It took her 14 months to figure out you didn't and how did you, My God, how did you even figure out the the avenue to use the NOT use, but to bring up the disorder that caused the bruising? How did that like? How did you even put those puzzle pieces together?

Hannah 44:00
That's a lot of where I do a lot of my research. I was trying to figure out anything because obviously I knew we didn't do it, so something had to be wrong with my child to have caused a bruise. So did a lot of educating myself on things, and lot of looking stuff up. And that's when I kind of came across earlier stanless. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that fits everything that I've experienced. So I got diagnosed. My mom was diagnosed, my sister was diagnosed, and then he was assumed to have the diagnoses. And then as far as the bleeding disorder, it was something that we saw hematologist because I went back to the pediatrician and I said we didn't do anything. Something is wrong with my kid, and I need help. Yeah, and so he referred him to a hematologist, and the hematologist did a bunch of studies, and there were some abnormalities with it. He doesn't have an exact diagnosis just yet, but it's enough to say, like there's something with this kid that his bleeding is more. Than it should

Scott Benner 45:01
be. Hannah, I'm going to be unpleasant. You don't have to agree with me, but what nosy piece of went to the authorities about your baby? For you, they that person still in your life. Is there a way to forgive that person?

Hannah 45:11
So it was a doctor within the same pediatrician group that we still use, but we will never see that doctor again, and she just immediately, I had it, I had a question, a list of questions, in my notes app, and I went in, and he was undressed, and I asked her, What? What is this? And she said, that's a bruise. Would you do? And I mean, from there, it was just kind of snowball effect. And we were at the ER with him, because she sent us there, and she called CPS on as we were on the way, and they met us there

Scott Benner 45:43
as if you would hit the baby and then show it to the doctor.

Hannah 45:47
Yep, yeah. That was a question that everybody was like, how does this make

Scott Benner 45:51
sense? Gap of common sense there. How about that? What do you How are you 14? Is the baby in in in foster care for 14

Hannah 46:01
months. Thankfully, he was with my mom. Oh,

Speaker 2 46:04
okay, okay, go. Thank God. Yeah, we at least had

Hannah 46:07
that side of things that was very good. We had visitation that we could go see him at my mom's house.

Scott Benner 46:13
Oh, I thought not that this makes it any better, but I'm just thinking about your baby's off with some rando now for 14 months. But no, okay, thank God, Jesus. But, I mean, they

Hannah 46:25
did tell us. They said, You have 10 minutes to find someone who's going to take him, or else he goes to foster care.

Scott Benner 46:30
Jesus, can you imagine what just I mean, there's great people in the foster care system, but there's also not great people. No, I've heard both stories, by the way. I've heard I've had people go through foster care and they meet the most lovely people. And I've had people go through foster care and that's where they pretty much learned all of their problems in life. So, but that's not even what I was like initially thought of. I was thinking about like the baby just blindly being not in your sight or in your ability to know that they're safe,

Hannah 46:59
like that's really slept a lot of bonding issues with him.

Scott Benner 47:03
Yeah, I would imagine that any of the people who made this mistake, is there any penalty for them for being bad at their job and taking your baby from you? Or no, nope, not even a sorry. That's just over now, huh? Yes, awesome, which is a wild

Hannah 47:20
thing to me, although I have connected with our our attorney, I've seen him out and about a couple of times, and I do know that they talk about our case, so at least I know that they reflect on it and recognize that it went wrong.

Scott Benner 47:33
Think you might help other people like through what they saw go wrong 14 months. What were they? What took 14 months?

Hannah 47:40
Took six months for the actual report to come out, and then it took another, I believe, three months of gathering what they said was their evidence. And then we were supposed to go to court in the fall time, but they had, like a change of county attorneys, so then it got postponed, and there was some delay there. Then it was like getting everybody's witnesses, the schedules in time and all of that.

Scott Benner 48:10
So once you're in the system, you're at the mercy of the machine and how slow it moves, gotcha. And you call somebody say, Hey, you got my baby. And they go, we're getting to it.

Hannah 48:21
Funny enough, we had our own witness, and that witness was a little busy, so we had to delay about a month or two because of their schedule, which we knew it would benefit us to have him. So we allowed for that, but our attorney didn't put in the paperwork on time, so he wasn't actually even allowed on the actual like, the court date that was important. So, so you

Scott Benner 48:43
waited, and then you couldn't use them anyway, yep, and I had to speak

Hannah 48:47
on our defense for an hour and be berated and cross examined and all of the things lovely.

Scott Benner 48:56
Why are you not an like? That's that. Why? Why? I don't understand because you you listen, you're either really great at presenting yourself, or you're like a very kind person. I'm leaning towards believing you're just a kind hearted person. Why has this not damaged that about you?

Hannah 49:13
Truthfully, I don't know. I definitely suffer some consequences. I'm in therapy myself, but I think at the same time, like I see the joys that I have in my life now, when I didn't have them, I'm enjoying that now that I know that it can change in one day.

Scott Benner 49:31
Yeah, well, right now you have that perspective of like, it's easy to say, like, I might step out in the road and get hit by a bus. Once you experience something that actually comes out of nowhere, it means more to you now, my goodness, oh, you're really you guys are something good for you, like being so strong. Seriously, the boy you let marry you, he got through it as well. Or did he have his own struggles with it?

Hannah 49:56
He had his own struggles in the sense of like he. He felt that he had to, like, support me and be there for me, because I was pretty emotional, like while at home without, like, outside of our visitation times and all of that. So he felt he had to support me. And I truthfully feel like he could have taken a little more time to be emotional himself rather than supporting me, but that's what he did, and I appreciate him for it, but I also see that he needed to kind of reflect on his own emotions at that time as well.

Scott Benner 50:28
Yeah, we tend to do that. I think the world tells men, generally speaking, Don't be emotional, right? Take action, you know, be stoic, that kind of stuff. I don't know that it. I don't I don't know that the world's telling men, go, why don't you cry for a while? And then, you know, that kind of gets built up in you as anger, and there's no real where to put it. And then, you know, you could also make an argument that there are times when society tells men not to be men. So like, you know, when you're, yeah, you get all that anger built up. There's certain ways we get it out now, and now somebody's telling us those are wrong. So it's a, it can be difficult to unburden yourself and not hold all that in really tough for everybody, honestly, obviously, but, you know, it's why I was, I was wondering about him, because he's young and, you know, it's a that's, that's a hell of a thing also, is there any moment where he looks at you and thinks maybe she hurt the baby, or you look at him and think, God, maybe he hurt the baby. And I don't know, did you find distrust in each other during that?

Hannah 51:29
No, we never had a moment like that. And I know that there's been some circumstances where people have but we've really kind of been great at supporting each other through everything. And it's kind of continued even, like with our son and the stage two, like supporting me and my decisions. And if he if I speak up to a doctor and ask for something, he's going to back me up completely, because he trusts me. He trusts that I do the right things and know the right things. So we've been great in that aspect.

Scott Benner 51:58
Awesome. Do you have a body cam on whenever you go in public now,

Hannah 52:03
yeah, it's, it's really interesting kind of approaching that. Now, we literally were like, do we, do we need to have like, cameras everywhere, just for our sake? And, yeah, I mean, look

Scott Benner 52:13
what's happening. I'm not saying that the doctor that did this wasn't trying to be, like, protective of the baby. I'm sure she was like, but her misunderstanding, or jumping to a conclusion, or whatever, you know, like, whatever she did that got you in that position. How do you not worry that everybody that you intersect who has some sort of power over you, like that, if they want to exert it, could possibly decide to you up if they wanted to, and then just do it, or even if they, you know, wanted to, not wanted to, but just through bad decisions. Like, I don't know, I think, I think everyone I spoke to, I just be like, one of those people gets pulled over, and I'm like, officer, I just want to let you know I'm filming you. I don't know how you don't walk into every place going. I'm filming. I'm filming. Boy, that sucks. Man, I'm so sorry. Yeah,

Hannah 52:57
it's, it's been a lot, and I think kind of like approaching that subject. And I don't know if you're familiar with the like, taking care of Maya case, but that was a really big one that was more so about, like, oh, there's a word for it, and it can't, I can't think of it, but the mom was accused of, like, making medical decisions and medically kind of bringing things up for her child, rather than it actually happening. There's a word for

Scott Benner 53:22
that 1000s by proxy. Yes, yes, exactly. A great name for something, by the way.

Hannah 53:29
I'm fearful of that in the sense that now I understand like we're in a unique scenario where my child, he needs some help with his blood sugars, but I'm it does kind of take away of my ability to advocate for those sort of things, because I am fearful of that.

Scott Benner 53:43
Yeah, you don't want to put yourself out too much, right? Because you think maybe then somebody will misread it, or do, boy, that's crazy. I would never go anywhere alone. Like anymore, like this would make me crazy. Yeah, I don't want it to make you fine. Yeah, don't let it make you crazy. Okay, I'm just saying it would make me crazy, but I'm a little more reactionary than you are. Obviously. I think that's good for you and me. I mean, my goodness, like it reinforces every concern you have about society in the world in maybe the most impactful way I can imagine. Like they took your baby. They were like, No, you can't have your baby. How old? Tell me again, how old when they

Hannah 54:20
took he was one month old. I was 26

Scott Benner 54:22
one month old. They did. They were like, Hey, you can't have your baby anymore. You were 21 Yeah. Also, by the way, yeah, able to drink for the last three days and like, that young Yeah. And then they just, and you and we talked around a little bit, but you didn't get pregnant on purpose, right? You guys were dating, serious, got pregnant, got married, like, that whole thing, right? He was on purpose. Oh, he wasn't look at you.

Hannah 54:46
Yes, that one was,

Scott Benner 54:50
we did. The first one on purpose. The second one not on purpose. Oh, wow. But I'm just saying, like, you're that young, and like, all that's going on. And, my gosh, you know? Know, you I don't people have to do a better job. Like, you know, isn't it funny? Like, on the podcast, a lot we end up talking about people not doing a great job. And it's around, like, understanding, you know, that fat needs insulin sometimes, or that you have to pre bullish or something like that. But there are other people out in the world making other decisions that are consequential too. It would be nice if everybody was, I guess just trying a little harder might be nice. Anyway, no one's ever like they're not going to apologize because then it's an admission of guilt, right? Yeah, that's why no one's going to apologize to you.

Hannah 55:37
That's a big part of it, too for us, kind of looking back on it. Like I understand why she did it. I understand she has a duty to report. Do I think she jumped to conclusions before asking questions? Absolutely, but it's kind of also allowed for me to have the perspective of, okay, I can do better. So with me in nursing school, like I really want, one of the goals that I set out for myself is to be a nurse practitioner. I'd love to be in a pediatric office, and one of the things I would do is annual or for like, regular checkups, to be able to test blood sugar, because I think that's a really big thing that people should be doing and that should be done. Yeah, but that's something that I said that I would do differently. And there's a lot of things that I would do differently, and with me being in healthcare, I wouldn't, I wouldn't give that judgment.

Scott Benner 56:23
Yeah, well, attitude, but maybe don't listen to tomorrow's episode. It's gonna be called Lila's story, and it's a dad coming on, talking about how his young daughter was not diagnosed in time, and she she passed away from undiagnosed type one diabetes. But he's out there advocating for in the UK, for this kind of testing, simple testing, to be done. But yeah, to your other point, I guess it's a dual thing for me. First of all, everyone listening, and me included, take a page here from Hannah, like, like, she's, you know, she's had something bad happen, and she's putting her best foot forward and trying to make changes with it. But I like you being in the healthcare system with this experience, though, because I do think you will probably make different decisions than you would have had this not happen, and maybe that'll spread throughout your co workers and the institution you end up working at, it might have, like, some real benefits long term. So I hope you get out there and try to make those changes. I absolutely

Hannah 57:19
agree. We asked ourselves why this was happening to us the entire time, and I think now it's kind of coming full picture, and I'm seeing the why.

Scott Benner 57:28
Very nice. Okay, well, how did you have anything that we missed, anything we didn't talk about? How did I pick this out of you weren't going to tell me about this?

Hannah 57:34
Were you? No, it's something I tend to not mention and things, but that's okay. I think it's valuable for people to hear about as

Scott Benner 57:44
well, what led you to wanting to be on the podcast, just trying to share the story.

Hannah 57:48
You know, I think we have a very unique perspective being in stage two of type one. It'll offer kind of an option for people who are in stage two to kind of hear another story that's similar to theirs and just kind of share some likeness for them, yeah,

Scott Benner 58:04
okay, well, you did a really good job of not saying anything that would get you in trouble. But if you tell me right now you want me to take your name out of this or something, I can make it anonymous, but I don't think you said anything that puts you in jeopardy. I am the only one that said stuff like this, and we'll say again, like, oh my god, Kentucky. Like, do better that was just poorly. Do you think they just see so much bad stuff, it just all looks like it's bad after a while?

Hannah 58:27
Yeah, I would say so. And I think that that's part of kind of the medical system as a whole. They make kind of decisions based on what they've seen in the past. So yeah, I think that's another portion as to why my son's symptoms were like, oh, it's probably just the toddler thing. Well, isn't

Scott Benner 58:46
it funny, though, with the diabetes, it was odd, it's probably nothing, and with the bruise, it was either probably trying to kill that kid. Yeah, like every, everyone's all or nothing all the time. You ever noticed that about people? Like, there's no middle ever, just 100 miles an hour or absolute inertia, they're just like, whatever exactly. I swear to God, you are awesome. I can't thank you enough. Like, I just thought, I don't mean to, like, I'm not minimizing it, but I was like, Oh, I'm gonna have a conversation this afternoon. Somebody's kid is in stage two, type two, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's really turned into a great conversation,

Hannah 59:22
so I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely thank you for having me on. That's

Scott Benner 59:26
a pleasure. Hold on one second for me. Okay, okay.

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

🎃 #1668 Bolus 4 - Halloween 🎃

Jenny and Scott talk about bolusing for the top ten most popular Halloween treats (plus a few others).

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of The Juicebox podcast.

Jenny and I are going to go over the top 10 most popular Halloween candies and how to Bolus for them right now, just in time for you to go tricking and treating 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 health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Like my like, what are you wearing? Is that? Oh, you don't know. Is that Young Frankenstein? No, well, it's the it's the bride of Frank The Bride of Frankenstein, because today is Halloween, because today is

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:41
Halloween, and if I could, I don't even know that I can, I paint my pod, because for Halloween,

Scott Benner 1:47
let me say I also have a bride. Oh, that's awesome, Jenny, you did that yourself. Yeah, it's lovely.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 1:54
It's like, paint markers. You know, they're easy to use. The paint markers, I didn't know you were a

Unknown Speaker 1:59
Halloween person. Oh, we love

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:01
Halloween. Our front yard is like, the boys can't wait as soon as October 1. They're like, it's time get the decorations out. Like, we've got, I mean, we have, we have, like, skeletons with like big swords through their bellies right now, and like, all,

Scott Benner 2:15
yeah, my wife is a huge decorations person, but we did some painting in the house this year, so it kind of didn't get done. So there's a mum and a pumpkin, sadly, out front of our house together, and I think that's a little bit of fall. So given this like I'm going to give people real time. Today is October 31 2025, it is 10am and you and I are going to do Bolus for popular Halloween candies.

Unknown Speaker 2:41
This was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 2:42
actually, that's so funny that we were like, on the same brain wave, because you usually come up with the ideas.

Scott Benner 2:51
So I'm going to finish with you. Send it right to rob. He's going to edit it, pull it together, and we're going to get it out this afternoon, in time for Halloween. So here comes the pressure. You ready? I asked the chat GPT, what are the 10 most popular Halloween candies? It said the first one was, what do you think?

Unknown Speaker 3:11
Oh, gosh, candy corn.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:15
Ah, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Peanut Butter Cup. That would have been my next one.

Scott Benner 3:18
Yeah. We won't ask Jenny if she's ever had a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, but we will freak you all out by telling you that I've never had one because I don't like peanut butter. Oh, you don't like peanut butter. I don't like anything. You know. I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 3:32
know you're like tomatoes, although you tried one for me. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 3:37
Well, you know that's okay. I got a

Scott Benner 3:38
couple notes online the other day after that episode went up, and there's like, do you think Scott's had a tomato yet? I said I had salsa and it was a little chunky? Does that count? Because I'm counting it. Let's see two. I've given up in these, by the way, from going to the websites for the companies, I just go to amazon so that I can see the label right. Calories per serving, 160 serving, size two pieces, which it says is 31 grams. There's nine grams of fat, three saturated sodium is not bad at 118 carbs for two, but that's lower than I thought it was going to be, although the total sugars is 16

Speaker 2 4:22
grams for two Oh, wait a minute, yeah, two pieces, 31 grams

Jennifer Smith, CDE 4:29
total carbs. Are these, the regular peanut butter or the mini peanut butter, my goodness, because they they do, you know, again, if you go to the fancy neighborhoods, they give you the real size candy.

Scott Benner 4:40
Then it's not just pantry pack. I mean, I can go back and look again. Hold on a second. We'll see if we can find another one. Here's one that looks a little more okay. Oh, Jenny, look at you. I. Am I right? Yeah, they're a little smaller than the than the average one. The average one is one package is 42 grams. So then that makes the fat, 12 carbohydrates, 24 total sugar is 22 which includes 21 grams of added sugar as a bit of sugar. So if the kid is rolling through the house and grabs this, and they're just going to have it as a snack.

Speaker 1 5:24
What are we going to do? Yeah, it's a great question, because it's a fair

Jennifer Smith, CDE 5:29
portion of fat, right? I mean, my estimate is somewhere two of these is somewhere around 200 ish calories. 2:10am I 210 Okay, and if you consider how much fat? Did you say? 1312, grams, 1212, grams. And if you do the rough math, right, about nine grams, nine calories per gram of fat, really, that's like half of this product is from fat, okay, in terms of calories. And so it's not like sitting down to what I said candy corn, which is just immediate hit sugar. Yeah, this is going to definitely

Speaker 1 6:07
be slower, so still going to

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:11
need somewhat of a Pre-Bolus. But if you're rocking and rolling with a really great looking blood sugar, nicely in target and pretty stable, you probably get away with maybe 10 minutes. Okay, all right.

Scott Benner 6:23
So if we're just eating, just the Reese's 10 Minute Pre-Bolus, stick to the carbs on the on the label, 24 go ahead and eat. You're gonna see a little bit. I mean, there's 12 grams. I mean, listen, there's 24 carbs, sugars, 2221 added. So there is a shot of sugar there, but you're sick, but the fat's gonna kind of tamp it down a little bit. Yeah, okay, and tell people why chocolate is not a good, good treatment for a fast dropping sugar

Jennifer Smith, CDE 6:57
because of the fat, you know, naturally has fat in it. This obviously has very likely added fat as well, along with the peanut butter that has fat in it. So thus the higher fat content of this compared to just candy that's simple sugar, so it's not going to hit your bloodstream fast enough, from a digestive standpoint, to bring a low blood sugar back up. It also will not stop a really rapid drop. So, you know, blood sugar still in target. But gosh, it's like, arrow down. This is not what you would use on the opposite of that, if you're kind of coasting down nice and slow, and you really want to slow it down and have a treat at the same time. You could use a peanut butter cup to kind of slow that trend and stop it from getting too low. But it's not gonna be fast.

Scott Benner 7:52
I like the idea of every one of these that we do in this episode, which they're gonna get all of them together, that we talk about whether or not it's gonna be a good, low treat out of the bowl for the weeks to come. Yes. Okay, the next on the list, I won't ask you to guess it's something else that has peanuts in it. Peanuts, that would be Snickers, M, M's, peanut M, M's, really that's what chat G P T said. I mean, chat G P T is also not a person, so we'll do Snickers too at some point. Let's see peanut ms, about six servings per container, one ounce, 12 pieces. You know, how many times you've had 12 M M's, right? When you

Jennifer Smith, CDE 8:32
is that? Is that a fun size pack? Is that the typical one that's in the Halloween mixes that

Scott Benner 8:38
you like? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay, let's call let's so we have a way to measure it, 12 M M's that are peanut M M's, seven grams of fat, total carbs, 17 and total sugars, 15 includes 13 added sugar. So this is not the same fat content as the Reese's, but still some. So what do you also lower carbs and lower carbs too. So I mean is, Can M M's be a grab and go snack? Can you Bolus and eat couple months later,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:18
I would say you definitely need probably a good 15 minute Pre-Bolus for these. I mean, if, if you're looking at the fat, the fat is not terribly high in this, and it really is a heck of a lot more sugar coating in one, one peanut inside, where you getting, like, 12 peanuts, like,

Scott Benner 9:36
maybe, I don't know, I again, I've never had one of these in my life.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:40
So they do make chocolate covered almond. They make almond m&ms. Do you like almond?

Scott Benner 9:46
No, I have never

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:48
tried to get Scott to eat candy. I've never had

Scott Benner 9:50
an almond. Is that the one that looks like a teardrop like, yeah, and they're real hard, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 9:56
They're pretty crunchy, if you get them, you know, fresh. They roasted? Yeah, no, you're like, yep, nope. Won't be trying.

Scott Benner 10:02
That's okay. Thanks. Thanks. Anyway, when you say, when you say nuts, to me, I hear tree bark. I hear dry and, like, I don't know, really waxy. Sometimes, like, peanuts aren't peanuts waxy.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:16
They could be, depending on how they're made, peanuts could be a little bit waxy, so you don't eat any nuts at all. This is so funny, like walnuts, pecans, anything.

Scott Benner 10:27
Jenny, let me say this with a lot of pride, I've never had nuts in my mouth. Okay, so that's it.

Unknown Speaker 10:35
Oh, that was great for Halloween. Thank

Scott Benner 10:37
you. Yeah. Hey, listen, I'll pivot off of my list for a second because you brought it up chocolate covered almonds. Just so people have some context. This is just a, I mean, I don't know. It's like, called, I like chocolate covered almonds. Oh, looks like five pieces. Is 10 grams of fat, 17 carbs, 15 sugars, includes 14. So honestly, peanut, peanut, M and M, same idea, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:04
Comparable, yeah, absolutely, and again, this being,

Speaker 1 11:09
in a way, higher, truly, less fat, yes, less carb. But in

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:18
my experience, having had something like M M's with peanuts in I do know that they have a faster impact than something like a peanut butter cup does okay

Scott Benner 11:33
when we do number three here, which is Snickers, by the way. Do you want to do the fun size or the miniatures?

Speaker 1 11:41
Oh, I would say, Let's well, who eats one miniature really? I

Scott Benner 11:49
don't. Also never had a Snickers bar before in my

Jennifer Smith, CDE 11:52
life. Let's do the fun size, because I think those are the more common from what I've seen in Halloween baskets as I take my kids trick or treating. Okay, the fun size tend to be more of the given out size now, so I think that might be more relevant to the crowd

Scott Benner 12:10
chocolate, which includes sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, palm oil, skim milk, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavors. And what do you got? It is one bar, 17 grams, 80 calories. There is four grams of fat in this, and 10 car, 10 carbs, eight total sugars, nine includes eight added sugars. So this is the so this is the M M's with, I don't know if, I don't even know if I'm gonna call it less carbs, right? Because there's 17 grams there. How many grams are in 12 M M's? I wonder. This might be very similar Bolus. No,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 12:56
I would think that it is, quite honestly. Again, what does Snickers have? They've got that Carmeli carrot. They've got the nougat. I mean, that's just all sugar, the chocolate on the outside, sure. And the peanuts, they have fat, but it's not a lot of fat like the Reese's peanut butter cups have. So this is definitely going to have, I would say, similar to the M M's, same vibe, okay, same type of Bolus strategy,

Scott Benner 13:23
yes. Eminem Snickers. Bars. Not again, not good. Low treats if your blood sugar is falling very quickly. But if you're looking out on the horizon and you're seeing it 20 minutes from now, you think you might be drifting down through 80 into 70. It could be the perfect time for

Jennifer Smith, CDE 13:37
a Snickers. Could be the perfect time for a fun size Snickers, yes, and you know, in in line with what we're talking about here, right? Halloween people are many people will go trick or treating. Not everybody does, but if you do, the enjoyment of walking around and moving your body while trick or treating can often be offset without even having to cover these right? You might be able to have your fun size Snickers, or your little peanut butter cup or something while you continue to traverse your neighborhood without any impact on blood sugar and no Bolus, because you're moving. And if you're a kid, are you moving? Oh, you're rapidly moving, like it's the gap. You are flying from house to house to house. You're running up the hill. And it is what it is. So you can very likely get away with sneaking this in and no coverage. Do

Scott Benner 14:31
the kids still love the Halloween the way they did when we were younger? Or has this, um, has the has the new society ruined it for people? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 14:38
my kids

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:40
love Halloween. They love that. I mean, we actually

Speaker 1 14:43
something fun that we do is we weigh the candy cakes for the hall,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 14:51
from the from the hall. Yeah, exactly, because it's fun to see, like, how much sugar they could pop. Possibly get in their their three hours, I tell you, man, we are out there for the entire amount of trick or treating time that's allowed Jen

Scott Benner 15:08
tell me something when you weigh the bag, if you were so listen, I don't want Jenny to sound like a Scrooge, but she she is a buyback program. She buys her candy back from her kids, right? Don't Yeah, she's laughing at herself now, in case you're wondering what's happening and so. But if you you know, you have knowledge of what they brought back in the past, yes, how many days or weeks would if they were going to eat all that candy, would you want it to be spread out over? You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Is it a year's worth of candy? Do you think in your mind,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 15:41
in my mind, it would be stale and hard by the time they could finish the pots of candy.

Scott Benner 15:46
If that didn't happen, though, like, what's like if you were giving nutrition information to somebody right now, and you said, Look, you got this haul. It's a ton of candy. I'd like you to eat it over six months, like in your mind, because it'd be gone in a week, right?

Unknown Speaker 16:01
Otherwise, it would

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:02
probably be gone in a week. Yeah. I mean, it's like, one of those big holiday events. It's like, well, we got the Halloween candy. Is a lot of parents are super awesome. They put the candy up. Kids have to ask for a piece of it, or one piece goes into lunch every couple of days, or something like that. Or in, again, the line of discussion, which could be used for lows and which could be used in another way, like a real treat, you may end up separating the piles the really, really quick, sugary, sugary kinds of things versus the not actually. One of the little friends that we go trick or treating with, what they end up doing is they save all the sugary stuff, you know, the Skittles and that kind of thing, the Twizzlers, they save all of that. And then at

Unknown Speaker 16:51
Christmas they use it to decorate their gingerbread

Scott Benner 16:54
houses. Oh, that's a nice idea, yeah.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 16:57
So rather than eating it, they they actually use it for something else?

Scott Benner 17:01
Yeah, hey, listen, I'm just gonna tell you I grew up poorly and you didn't do Halloween. We did Halloween, but, I mean, I had two brothers, so there's three bowls of candy, and then it just turned into a swap meet. You'd be like, hey, I'll give you a malted milk bar for a Kit Kat, that kind of thing. And am I? I'm assuming my mom stole a fair amount of it from us. And also, I have to tell you, I'm a refrigerated candy person. Oh, so we finally hit one on the list that I enjoy, a Kit Kat, although I have to tell you, the GLP has completely ruined the Kit Kat for me, it does not taste the same anymore. So, Oh, that's interesting. I had a little one, like, a couple of weeks ago, and I ate it, and I was like, uh, never mind. So I'm a

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:44
curious, like, just side note question about it, because I've, I've heard that before, the taste preference, things kind of change, especially for those carby

Speaker 1 17:53
treat types of foods. I had somebody tell

Jennifer Smith, CDE 17:57
me that something similar candy with chocolate, tasted like plastic, and she just didn't want it

Scott Benner 18:04
anymore. It can change the way food tastes. For sure, pizza is not as good any longer, either. You don't get the salty, oily feeling from it as much. And I'm a god. People probably hate the way I eat, but I'm a I'm an oil mopper, so when I get pizza, I take some paper towels and like, I soak all the oil out of it before I eat it. People are like you. You're such a pagan. They probably hate me. I without, I know you understand so. But pizza is not like I have to. I have to. I've just, I actually have to sprinkle a little salt on top of pizza to get the flavor to pop out of it. Now, Oh, interesting for people are like it ruined food for you. It also is going to keep me alive. So, and there's plenty of things that taste fine, I have to tell you, this is not the place for it, but the GLP turned food into fuel for me. So when I hear healthy people talking about Food is fuel, I was like, No, it's salt and fat and sugar. I don't know what you're talking about, but I don't taste it that way anymore. The only thing that I can still get like, a little jump from is, like, sorbet, oh, like, I can have like, a couple spoonfuls of sorbet, like, after a meal or something like that. I'm like, oh, that tastes sweet. Yeah. So anyway, Kit Kats, which I think are, are an awesome candy, or at least I used to believe that. I will

Jennifer Smith, CDE 19:30
tell you something funny about Kit Kats. They're not Kit Kats, but Whoppers, right? You know the malted, the malted balls, which would be entirely a quick hit. I mean, it's like, right? We start, Oscar started reading my older and we went trick or treating, like, Mom, look, these are woopers. I was like, Oh, well, that's wrong, but it totally is hilarious the way that you said it.

Scott Benner 19:58
You're forgetting. You. A milk dud or a whopper that's actually a dud. Like, they're like, you know, Whoppers are like chocolate on the outside, crunchy on the inside. But every once in a while you get one, they're hard or or almost like gummy on the inside. Like something happened to it never had Jenny's like, I've had one Whopper in my life. I've had a fair amount of Whoppers in my life, and I can tell you that that pops up sometimes, and Milk Duds the same way, like sometimes Milk Duds are weird inside, like they don't get mixed, right, or something like that, yeah. But when it happens with a milk dud, it's weird. They get real chewy. And anyway, this is kind of gross. This is just between me and my friends who are out there and like, yeah, Fatty, I hear you. Let's see Kit Kats are next on the list. Serving size one package, 42 grams, 11 grams of fat, seven saturated total carbs. Oh, a KitKat got a lot of carbs in it. 28 grams of carbs. 20

Jennifer Smith, CDE 20:53
is this for the two pack, like you get for Halloween, or is this the four pack?

Scott Benner 20:56
This is the, this is the like, classic, like, four pack, four pack, okay? And wow, 22 sugar or 23 sugars includes 22 grams of added sugar. So this is just, I mean, this is, this is the ones we talked about before. But just more, more, more carbs,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:17
more sugar and interest. Didn't you say 11 grams of fat. Yes, ma'am,

Unknown Speaker 21:23
that's interesting to me, isn't it? Does that

Scott Benner 21:25
feel low to you? No, it feels high because the wafers inside and there's no caramel or anything, right? Yeah, oh, I see your point. Well, maybe that's just where the flavor of this, by the way, most of this stuff is made by Hershey's, right? Like most of this stuff, Hershey's

Jennifer Smith, CDE 21:41
or Mars, I guess still, yeah, that is really, that's, that's the striking thing about this one. Is the fat content of a Kit Kat. I would never have guessed

Unknown Speaker 21:51
it to

Scott Benner 21:52
be that high. Okay, so similar to Reese's, but, but now, you know, because when you're bolusing for it, like, there's a there's a stretched out, you know, this is going to hit you for longer than you think. Because I think people don't think of chocolate like that. Like, I think they just see chocolate and they think, like, not, I don't know why, but chocolate, not carbs, I think is like a elite that happens in people's heads. I also see people treating loaves with chocolate all the time, and like, I'm just, like, Please, just please. That's not going to work as well.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:22
If you want the chocolate, eat the chocolate. Bolus for it, but don't use it for a low,

Scott Benner 22:26
yeah, also Kit Kat. I mean, in my opinion, has to go into the refrigerator. I don't know how you could Wow, yeah, I don't know how you could eat it warm.

Speaker 1 22:35
I know people like, as we said, initially, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in the fridge or even the freezer,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 22:44
especially Reese's brand specifically, which tends to be a really soft milk chocolate type of chocolate compared to the dark chocolate type of peanut butter cups.

Scott Benner 22:56
So next on the list, Jenny is just a HERSHEY's Bar, so going full size bar, 13 grams of fat, 26 grams of carbs, 25 sugar, 21 added sugar. So just

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:12
similar to a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup,

Unknown Speaker 23:14
it's a lot of fat.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:17
I will tell you my side story about her or about Hershey bars

Speaker 1 23:23
when I was younger and working with my dietitian educator and we were transitioning to,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:32
rather than just the exchange system, we were moving to learning to read labels for

Speaker 1 23:37
portions and carbs, my dietitian asked me, she's like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:42
now that you know how to read a label and you know how this might match with insulin,

Speaker 1 23:49
what do you want to try? And my answer was

Jennifer Smith, CDE 23:53
an almond Hershey bar. That's what I was. That's what I wanted. Yeah, I don't know why I really, I really don't

Scott Benner 23:59
classic. It's visually classic, a Hershey bar. It really

Unknown Speaker 24:02
is. Yeah, that was what I wanted.

Scott Benner 24:06
I didn't expect to do this. This isn't on the list of top candy, but in case some of your neighbors are out there a little drunky around the fire pit, making s'mores for kids, let me jump right. Let me jump over and tell you that jet puff s'mores, vanilla, marshmallows, 21 ounces, it is. Let's see serving size two pieces in these marshmallows, you got 27 carbs, 20 total sugars, includes 20 added sugars. So if you take that 27 carbs for the marshmallow and go back to the Hershey bar. And what is that there? That is 26 that's 53

Jennifer Smith, CDE 24:51
and are you gonna eat a whole Hershey bar on top of, I don't know, unusually, you do. You probably do. Do a third of our Hershey bar on top. Or you'd probably do the fun size Hershey bars, which almost fit on top of the graham cracker.

Scott Benner 25:11
Okay, oh, God, we haven't even gotten to the graham cracker yet. Graham Crackers are the devil.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 25:18
They are high carb. They are like a saltine. A saltine cracker actually has a higher glycemic index than fruit juice. You know that to treat a low blood sugar, if you didn't have anything except a saltine, you are golden. Man. I

Scott Benner 25:33
didn't know this. That's crazy. Also. Now I can't put little crackers in my soup anymore. Thank you, Jenny. But one serving of I'm just gonna go with the honey made graham crackers. One serving, which is two full cracker sheets, is it says 24 carbs. I asked four squares. Yeah, yeah. And I want to just tell you right now the nothing hits Arden harder than a graham cracker. I mean, we used we we still have them in the house in case she gets low and doesn't want to eat a lot, because you can just take it anyway. Think about that before you look at us ruining s'mores for people happy Halloween.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 26:11
Everybody visit the house that's serving the smores in the middle of your trucking Yeah, not that you can really plan that, but maybe it's the like, we have a house in our neighborhood that has, like, it's an older couple, and what they do every year is they make home, make in their garage. It is a make and serve mini sugar coated donuts, really, and they serve apple cider at the same time, like mini cups of apple cider and four mini donuts in each little pack that goes to each kid that gets in line. Yes, it is like the best visited house in our neighborhood.

Scott Benner 26:50
Imagine, that's awesome. Jenny, Skittles are next? Oh, I just think of skittles is. Let's see how right I've been about this. I just think a Skittle is a carb. Oh, 100% Yep. And here it is. Oh, a serving size is 27 pieces. It has 26 carbs, 21 added sugar. I mean, I'm assuming most people are going to save the Skittles for low treats, right? But if you really wanted to enjoy a bag of Skittles, like, what are we doing? Like, I mean, this is a big Pre-Bolus, yeah, right. Long, maybe find a falling blood sugar before you start eating, because they're gonna hit you pretty immediately, right, correct, absolutely. Okay, all right, listen, I'm gonna do a couple more, then I'm gonna ask a bigger question about this. So, okay, next on the list, Sour Patch,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 27:38
kids. Oh, these are like, Skittles. I mean, not in terms of like, Skittles are nice because they're a gram of carb per Skittle, right? They're easy to count. They're portionable, etc. Sour Patch Kids, I can't remember what the carb count is. They might be like two grams per Sour Patch Kid, I'm looking

Speaker 1 27:58
but are going to be similar and hit Pre-Bolus, because otherwise it's gonna get you, yeah,

Scott Benner 28:05
Sour Patch, kids, I have it here as one bag, and let's see, there's 21 bag. I wish I had it differently than a bag, but she's one bag. 51 carbs, 44 total sugar. Like, this is just sugar. This is, I mean ingredients, in case you're wondering, ingredients, sugar, invert sugar, corn syrup. That is three different ways of saying sugar. So sugar, invert sugar, corn syrup, modified corn starch. That's it. It's sugar and and the corn the corn starch to hold it together in a bunch of colors to make the things so things so you might as well go to the Sugar Bowl and take a spoonful of it. Correct? Yeah. Okay, long Same, same as the Skittles for Bolus thing. Now, I think in my mind, a Twix bar in the refrigerator is the way to go, and it and it. Why do you laugh at the refrigerated part? You have to refrigerate it. It's awesome that way.

Unknown Speaker 29:09
Am I the Am I crazy?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:12
No, you're not. The only thing I've ever stuck in the refrigerator, honestly, is our peanut butter cups. And when I was growing up, I was a Girl Scout,

Unknown Speaker 29:20
the thin mint cookies.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:24
Those went in the freezer, and that was the only way to eat a thin mint cookie from Girl

Scott Benner 29:29
Scout. Okay, I have to tell you, like, somebody brought home girl scout cookies last year, and they just like, I have done a good enough job of like, weeding crappy food out of my life, but they made me sick, and I was like, What's in these garbage things like,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 29:43
so, actually purchase them for donation now, like, they don't, I'm happy to donate. I was a girl scout for eons, yeah? But I purchased them and then they have a donation. Like, sometimes they send them to the troops overseas. Or, you know, yeah, right, yeah. I know, I guess I just, I'm just putting money into something for somebody else, but,

Scott Benner 30:04
and he's like, I'm gonna live forever, but these people will be happy for a short time and then drop dead. So a full size Twix bar, one cookie bar, again, I feel like this is a, oh my god, 15 carbs, five grams of fat in one that means a package with two of them, and it is 30 and 10. Okay, so in one bar, five grams of fat. So a lot of this candy is the same, really, as far as Bolus and goes, right? Yeah, it's about, it's about how much sugar you're going to get hit with right away and how much fat is going to delay that hit

Jennifer Smith, CDE 30:41
right pretty much. And these, I would honestly go kind of along the lines of the peanut M M's and whatever. Yes, there are 10 grams of fat, but, Gosh, 30 grams of sugar. If you're going to eat both of them, that's a lot of that's a lot of carb. You think of the cookie and the caramel inside.

Scott Benner 30:58
Yeah, yeah. Starburst is next on the list. I'm just going to go original and sell tell you that six pieces, six star, I would never have six Starburst at once. But whatever I okay que sera, although I don't know if I'm the crazy one. Yeah, I'm starting to believe I am the longer we talk like this. But does anybody else match flavors up? Like, if do you take a red one and a yellow one, squish them together, squish them together, and then eat them like, see, right?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 31:30
I haven't done that since I was little. In fact, as you were talking before, about your brothers and you kind of doing a trade kind of system. My brother and I, we did do that when we were little, my favorite. They were the cherry ones, the red ones, they were my favorite. And then we would end up swapping and switching. But we did do the same thing. We'd see how mashed we could get it together, and then eat it almost like, almost like a twist and sandwich.

Scott Benner 31:57
Yeah. I mean, this makes sense to me. I haven't thought of that in a long time, Scott I like how you're like, I haven't done that since I was a kid. I did that with gummy bears three days ago, because gummy bears, Arden's low treats are those Albanese gummy bears. That's what we keep around the house. And I saw them the other day, and I was like, Scotty, gonna have a gummy bear? And so I, when I reached in, I grabbed like, four or five of them. And then I I found myself picking colors that I thought would match well with other ones. Anyway, six pieces of Starburst, two and a half grams of fat, 24 carbs, 16 from added sugar. This is just, this is sugar, just like everything else. Yeah, get way ahead. Maybe get the blood sugar moving on your side, moving down.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 32:41
I wanted to add one that it maybe it is on the list, but it has been a long term one that a friend of mine, she goes and she just buys the packs of them because they are her low treatment. Okay, it's the Gosh.

Unknown Speaker 32:57
What are they called? Now they're aspirin candy or that's actually

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:04
in a particular community of people. They call them aspirin candy or Winkies, but they're the Smarties. Okay?

Speaker 3 33:12
Smarties, yeah, very common because they look like little. Oh, they look like little, yeah, okay,

Scott Benner 33:17
well, we'll get to them. We'll do them right after classic candy corn. How's that sound? Oh, this was number 10 on the list. I'm just gonna go to branches, because it's the overall pick on Amazon, and I figured that's how people do it.

Speaker 2 33:31
Geez, let's see. Oh, it's by package. No, no, don't they can't they break it down for me by by corn. You know, that's

Unknown Speaker 33:39
the funny thing is that that's, it's a Halloween or a

Jennifer Smith, CDE 33:47
sort of a, maybe, yeah, maybe things. But you don't really get candy corn in your treatment. Like there aren't individual wrapped packages of candy corn,

Scott Benner 33:57
no, but there's not a dish in your house somewhere. Is that just my wife, who thinks it looks nice and she won't eat it, but is killing me with it slowly.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:04
When I was younger. Yes, we did. We had a pumpkin that my mom put on the kitchen table that would have these and then the autumn mix,

Speaker 1 34:12
which no longer contains the brown, cocoa

Jennifer Smith, CDE 34:16
flavored autumn those were the only ones that I ever wanted as a kid.

Scott Benner 34:21
I don't this is a weird candy to me, because I can't eat more than two or three of them before. I'm like, these are horrible. But the first couple, I'm like, awesome. I don't like the chocolate tipped ones as much as the others. But have you seen the ones that are pumpkins now, those I like better than the candy corn. Anyway, this is not this is neither here. Have been around for a long time. I mean, I mean, I just found out about it a couple years ago. So 717 pieces of candy corn are 27 carbs. Holy Hell, that two is that two per almost, right? 22 sugar, no fat. So hit you like rocket fuel. Let me tell you what's in it. Sugar. Corn syrup. That's it? No, no, it's sugar. Corn syrup, and then contains less than 2% of the following, salt, glycerin, egg whites, confectioners, glaze, natural and artificial flavors. Mineral oil, honey, carnauba wax. I thought you put that on your car, but I guess you can eat it too. Vegetable oil, coconut oil, canola, artificial colors, sugar, it's sugar, okay. What did you say? Smarties? Smarties, yeah, these are definitely people put these aside for for low treats, for sure, right? Because they also they, they, what do I hear people say? They travel well in cars. They do okay in hot cars, right? Yeah, there's a lot of different reasons

Jennifer Smith, CDE 35:45
they are. I mean, in terms of it, I mean, they're just all sugar, and unless they've changed, I think they're for the whole entire role of Smarties. I think they're like seven grams of carb for the whole

Scott Benner 35:56
role. I can't even find, it's so funny, I can't find the nutritionally there's no nutritional label on every one of these I click on, I'm assuming that what they think you think is like a dummy. It's sugar. But let me see here. This one's from the company. Maybe they It's sugar free, gluten free, peanut free, family owned since 1949 Smarties your way you can put them on a cupcake. Jenny, Oh, would you like to sweeten a moment at a graduation party or birthday or social gathering? Maybe by gifting Smarties who like what soulless person in their marketing department came up with that I do not, my goodness, I just want to see the nutritional label on it. They are not giving it to me about that. Let me see if I can find it somewhere

Unknown Speaker 36:44
else. Chat. GPT give it to you at all.

Scott Benner 36:48
It would. But then, you know, I get from people. I'm like, Hey, use it all the time. I don't need to hear from people constantly. A roll of Smarties. Six carbs, that sounds pretty close. Yep. Okay, 25 calories, no fat. But they and tell people, because we just, we haven't said it here. The reason, when you're low and use one of those gels and you rub it on the inside of your cheeks is because that's a quick uptake for that glucose, right? Like the lining of your cheeks, it is absolutely so these simpler sugars, I tell people I've mentioned it sometimes people I'm like, you know, don't just drink the juice. Like, sometimes put in your mouth and hold it in there for a second or two. Like, let it, like, absorb that way, really, what's the word for chewing? Mask, what? What's that mastication? Yeah, yeah. Like, chop the hell out of that sugar. Keep it in your mouth for a little while. If you're having gummy bears or something like me, throw them. You throw them in your stomach. Now you have to go through the more of a digestion process to uptake.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 37:47
And as you're talking about that, you know, I actually consider Smarties as close as you can probably get to the glucose tablets. Can you find the ingredients for glucose tablet, or for Smarties No, no, no for Smarties, because I can guarantee that one of the first two ingredients is dextrose.

Unknown Speaker 38:07
Okay, hold on

Scott Benner 38:12
a second, the ingredients in the original Smarties rolls are dextrose, citric acid, calcium steroid, natural and artificial flavors and colors. Isn't dextrose? What they put in the IV in the hospital to Jack your blood sugar off real fast

Jennifer Smith, CDE 38:28
it is. I mean, they'll do a dextrose strip for a lot of reasons, right? But that's what glucose tablets are. They're dextrose. Dextrose is the simplest form of sugar, so your body really can absorb it in, as you're talking about absorption through the mouth, through the gums, right? It goes right in, and it gets into circulation, because your body doesn't have to chop that bigger, more complex carbohydrate up, unlike a Hershey bar or a Snickers even, where those are carbohydrates and they're sugars in there, but they're not dextrose.

Scott Benner 39:04
Okay, you're making me wonder about Neco wafers.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:08
Oh, Neco wafers. Do you know what the funny? Do you know where the Neco wafer, one of their

Scott Benner 39:12
facilities is, is it? Is it in Boston, Boston? Oh,

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:17
you know, the only reason I know because we ended up somewhere on a business trip. We lived on the East Coast, and we went up to Boston for something, and we were driving, and we drove right past the Neco wafer there was like, there it was. And I took a picture, because I have a friend who,

Speaker 1 39:34
anywhere she can find Neco wafers, she will buy several

Jennifer Smith, CDE 39:39
Neco wafer packets, because she loves

Scott Benner 39:41
them. I grew up not far from the Nabisco factory. Oh, and when you got near it, you would just, you'd roll your windows down because the whole world smelled like warm cookies. It was really kind of thing. Yeah, it's not there anymore. Nico wafers, sugar, corn syrup gel. All right, listen. So here's the last bit. This, in my opinion, right? Let's wrap this up. Put a nice bow on it. You're going out there and you're worried, right? I see people constantly, always, newly diagnosed, people. My kid was just diagnosed. Halloween is coming. What am I going to do? And I think, I think you should treat the running around like, you know, the Pre-Bolus for picking out of the bag, right? And just make it through, yes. And if you're going to sit and hork, I don't know if this is a word, but if you're going to sit down later and work down a bunch of candy, you're going to have to take into account that there's a lot of carbs in it. There's fat in some of it. You're going to get a really hard hit from simple sugars, and you might get stretched out from the fat. I think if you can get through this night without a bad low or a protracted high, I think have a good time. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to see be 300 overnight. That's that's going to be you misunderstanding the carbs and some of this food and the fat and some of this food. And I don't want to see you like not doing anything and running around and getting low. So, I mean, I didn't have a podcast when my kid was little, and we took her out trick or treating, but it's what we did. We you know, we watched her blood sugar, and when it did something, we're like, hey, guess what? It's time for. You know, you can reach into your bag and grab something now. So

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:16
Right? And I mean, with the tools that we have now, comparative to what you had when Arden was really little, right? We now have all these algorithms. I mean, you were the algorithm, right?

Scott Benner 41:29
So staring her in the face to see if she looked low. I don't even know what the hell that means exactly.

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:36
I mean. So you can make use of those tools. Do you know my funny little thing about Halloween is that, in my history of life with insulin and pumping, I moved to using a DIY system years ago, and my start day

Unknown Speaker 41:51
was Halloween. Oh, no kidding, yeah, I

Jennifer Smith, CDE 41:54
started, I started looping, essentially for my first DIY system. Yeah, on Halloween. On Halloween.

Scott Benner 42:00
You know, Halloween reminds me of the JDRF walks that we don't do them anymore, but we did them for the first 10 years of Arden's life with diabetes. And you know, the first one was October around here, she was diagnosed in August. So, I mean, she had had diabetes for less than maybe six or eight weeks. You get there and it's Philly, and there's a giant table of hot soft pretzels. And the first year, I was like, oh, soft pretzels. Then I understood. And then every year after that, I was like, Is this a cruel joke? Right? We take a bunch of newly diagnosed people who are not good at bolusing for anything, and give them a giant piece of dough. And then people just walked around with high blood sugars the whole time and though. And as the years went on and people had CGM, you just list it just be Beep, beep and soft breath, I was like, why is this happening?

Jennifer Smith, CDE 42:56
And I bet at that point there also wasn't the like. Now I just helped do the event here, which was really nice. It was in October. It was a lovely day. But the nice thing about the options that were there, they had multiple different options for multiple different choices for people, and they had all the carb counts and the nutrition information, so that as you pick things, I guarantee your soft pretzel that year probably had no nutrition facts. It was like, just

Scott Benner 43:23
enjoy the pretzel. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, and it's not for this episode, but if a soft pretzel doesn't have 75 carbs in it, I'm like, I'd be surprised. And they're awesome around I don't know where they are the rest of the world, but in Philly, they're good. They're good. Yeah? So anyway, happy Halloween to everybody. Have a great time. Please post your pictures in the Facebook group of your kids tricking and treating and let me know if any of this helped. Because we're gonna, well actually, I'm gonna text Rob right now and be like, Hey, would you edit a podcast for me today and get it right back? So let's see what he says. Fun. Thanks so much, Jenny. Yeah, you

Hey, kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community. Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in. But make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. You.

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