Scott Benner 11/8/21 Scott Benner 11/8/21

#573 Adoption and Diabetes

Abby has two adopted children and an amazing story.

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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 573 of the Juicebox Podcast.

On today's show, I'll be speaking to the mother of two adopted children, one of whom has type one diabetes. Abby's on the show, specifically now in November because not only is it diabetes Awareness Month, but it's National Adoption Awareness Month as well. And I'm adopted to, so I don't know why that matters. Sorry, I just threw that in. Now I'm feeling stupid for saying it. Let me go to something else. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, please Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan, or becoming bold with insulin. Speaking of diabetes Awareness Month, I'm still trying to get as many people as I can to sign up and take the T one D exchange survey AT T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. It was my goal to put 1000 people on the survey this month and we're off to a pretty good start, but I definitely need more. So I hope you can help T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox you have to be type one, or the caregiver of a type one and be a US citizen.

This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod promise. Find out right now if you're eligible to get a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Later I'll tell you more about that free trial and explain with the Omni pod promises. today's podcast is also sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. You can head there right now to their website dexcom.com forward slash juice box to find out more about the Dexcom G six. Where to get started. Were the same CGM that Arden's been wearing for forever@dexcom.com Ford slash juice box.

Abby 2:18
I'm Abby, my family and I live in the Nashville Tennessee area, you will pick up a southern accent as we were talking, it sneaks out every now and then married for almost 18 years, my husband as a firefighter. So that has an interesting dynamic. We have two kiddos. My oldest is eight and a half. And he has our type one. And our youngest. also has special needs a different sort of special needs. She is seven. So that's my crew.

Scott Benner 2:51
And just so we know like right out the gate. Both the kids are adopted. Yes, they're

Abby 2:55
both internationally adopted. My oldest, Shay is our son. He came home when he was one. We actually got him on the morning of his first birthday. He is Taiwanese native Taiwanese. And then our youngest came home at three and a half. And she is from China.

Scott Benner 3:13
So that's us. Can I ask you what made you adopt?

Abby 3:17
Oh, yeah, that's like a whole separate podcast. We'll make it all part of this one. Yeah, no. So my husband and I had been married for about 10 years, we knew that we wanted children. We also were in alignment, that that wasn't happening, the natural biological way. And we did not want to have any type of like, interventions to make that happen. And so my heart was drawn toward adoption. Really early on. He has his own story. But he would tell you that he had to wrestle with some pride around well, this isn't like the way I thought we were going to start a family and kind of struggled with some maybe ego, even if he was being honest of this isn't what I expected. But obviously came around and we were in agreement that that was what we were going to do to start a family. And yeah, we started on the path of

Scott Benner 4:09
going to adoption, pick through that for a second show. i You don't have to obviously share anything you don't want to share. Why is it hard not to feel like it's your fault when you can't conceive?

Abby 4:20
Oh, that's a great question. Um, I think, you know, we did go through diagnostic testing. And so we did have answers. I do say, I will say this, I think there's something unique and as a female, people automatically assume there's something broken in you as the the woman in terms of like, this is what a female is supposed to be able to do. And I think, yeah, there was a season of life where I felt sort of broken and that and that things weren't functioning as they should be like, if I'm also very honest, this is part of my story. This sounds probably kind of strange, but up until that point in my life if I had wanted something to go a certain way of my life like it had happened, you know, where I went to college, I got my first choice. Like, when I graduated, like what job I wanted, and I, you know, things just sort of always fell into place for me. So just from a personal, honestly, from it shifted my faith pretty substantially in terms of Oh, like, I'm actually not in charge of any of this. And this is I'm not in control, and my life isn't gonna just be plotted out the way that I think it's gonna go. And so that there was a grieving process in that. Yeah, this was supposed to be something that was easy, and it's not for us.

Scott Benner 5:36
How old were you when you started trying?

Abby 5:39
Um, we got married very what we, what we now know, was very young, we didn't think we were young, we were 23 and 24. And so I was just out of grad school. And so we were when we got when we started trying, so I was two, Gosh, 28,

Scott Benner 5:54
I guess, after you started trying, how long before you thought this isn't gonna happen?

Abby 5:59
Um, gosh, so the doctor won't even talk to you about that conversation until you've tried for a year. So for a year, we were sort of in like, No Man's Land of like, okay, is something wrong is something like, are we just slow in this process, like what's happening, and so at the one year mark, when it hadn't happened, that's when we started some diagnostic testing, just to get some answers so that we knew what was going on, and then could make decisions from

Scott Benner 6:27
there about the time you find yourself under the bed with a wrench tightening up all the books. I don't know what's going on, but the bed is falling apart. That's the point at the point where you start thinking like, No, I don't want to have sex again.

Abby 6:45
Trust me, it becomes a job at that point where it's like, yeah, it was, it was, you know, looking back, it was a very challenging season of life. And that's to put it mildly, of course, you know, on this side of it, totally worth all of the difficulty and the, you know, the frustration, and I love that I often say the, the way that I know that part of my life is healed. And that story is because I would not go back and write that story any differently if I could. And for a long time, I didn't believe that was possible.

Scott Benner 7:20
So if I give you a magic wand, and I say, I can make your fertility, no trouble, but you lose the kids you have and you make your own babies, you wouldn't do that.

Abby 7:27
Never, not for absolutely any reason when I ever this is the what was meant to be for us.

Scott Benner 7:35
Can I ask you as an adoptive person myself? How do you talk to your children about them being adopted? Because but first My question is, is even though I imagined physically, they look much different than you? Does that really? I mean, what age does the kid even start noticing that?

Abby 7:54
Yeah, it's interesting, because, you know, that happens differently, honestly, for each kid. And we do have a unique situation where, you know, our children are domestically adopted, they're not Caucasian. So obviously, like, we don't physically have the same characteristics, but the, you know, we did have to go through a lot of kind of parenting prep, you know, to become parents on this path, and which I'm deeply grateful for, you know, you could be resentful and like, Why do I have to do all this, but in reality, what you are taught and trained. It's really, really important. So you learn how do you have these conversations with your children? When is the age that you start having conversation? And so the biggest thing for us is that our children would never ever remember having a conversation about, like, they would never be able to go back and be like, I remember the day I was told that I was adopted. I don't have that, either. Yeah. And so that's an indicator of success. And so I will tell my mom, yeah, we, yeah, I mean, we just named we gave, especially our oldest, we gave him language very, very early on of you know, who birth mom birth father birth family. We talked, we had, you know, books that normalize that, like families all like different, like, it just was a normal conversation. And so the, and we still, to this day, read a lot of books that help both of them understand, like, it's okay, we talked about having both and feelings like, you can feel both happy that this is where you are, and at the same time, deeply sad that you're not in your family of origin that you don't know who they are, you know, we can hold space for both of those things. I'm not saying we do this well, you know, all the time, but we've tried to be very intentional about making space for whatever feelings that they have. Our son is very emotionally mature for an eight and a half year old boy. very in tune with how other people feel how he's feeling. Our youngest one Because of her medical conditions processes things a little bit differently. So she's a little bit blissfully unaware, even though we've had conversations. It's but they're very different between the two of them.

Scott Benner 10:12
Sam, did you? Obviously? Well, not obviously. So your son didn't have type one when you got them? Correct. Okay. Did you get going for your second? Were you purposely looking to help a child with special needs?

Abby 10:26
No, not intentionally. So we felt very strongly that so I mean, a lot of people don't know this, when you adopt part of the paperwork, especially for international adoption is you have like a medical questionnaire that you fill out of what types of medical conditions and are comfortable parenting. And this is like this massive list, and you literally have to check off boxes of when I when I accepted child that had this not this. We, my husband felt very strongly, you know, this is not a puppy, right? Like, you're not selectively choosing things. And we also felt like if we had had children biologically, like you don't, you don't do that, right, like you, this is your child, and whenever that child has his, you manage it, in whatever situation. So, um, there might have been maybe two things that we said that we did not feel equipped. And it was more about, like how our home is set up. Like we have stairs, if you have a children that a child that's in a wheelchair, like obviously, like you're going to have to sell your home and find something that's a little bit more accommodating. So minus like very one or two conditions. We were open to anything. Um, when we got matched with our daughter, she was not known to have any special needs. We knew she was at risk for something, but in so she could get stateside and get an MRI that could not be confirmed. But the third day we were in China, she had a seizure on us. And we very quickly realized that she did have it's called sturge Weber syndrome. It's similar to epilepsy, but a little bit more complicated. And our son was with us on that trip. And at that time, he was undiagnosed type one.

Scott Benner 12:11
Okay. Can I ask an honest question? Sure. You're in China, that happens. Is there any part of you that's like, just back up and leave?

Abby 12:22
Oh, so I do not say this, like flippantly at all that experience, there was 100% trauma experience, like hands down, it was trauma experience for us. And for for both kids, it was probably, up until this point in my life, maybe the worst thing of one of the worst things that I've ever lived through was that experience. Um, I remember when we went to the emergency room, we were with our translator, the first and this is things we take for granted in the United States, like walking into an emergency room and being treated and the first er, we walked in, they were like, we can't help you because she's a child. And we only treat adults, so like you need to leave. And so we like get back in the van and like drop to another emergency room that would see children. It's utter chaos. There's no order, there's no organization. And there was a, you know, we had a CT scan, they literally Googled her syndrome, printed off the information and handed it to us and said through the translator, we've never treated a child that has this. You just need to go back to your hotel room like we cannot help you. We don't know what to tell you. And we got got back to our hotel room. This was again, we'd been there for four days, and we still had 10 days left in China before we could come home. It's a very regimented process. You don't just go at your own pace. And I remember sitting in the floor of the hotel room is she she appeared as if she'd had a stroke. I mean, that's what had happened. We later found out it something called Todd's paralysis. It's like a temporary paralysis that can happen. But we didn't know that. And I remember just this utter overwhelm of we flew over here with like a healthy child. And you know, we knew this was going to be tough, but all of a sudden, like is she going to be permanently disabled? Like is she going to recover like we have we're here restrained and it was Yeah, overwhelming would be an understatement. At least

Scott Benner 14:41
I know the intention is to adopt a baby but your entire lead up to that is not expecting anything like this. It feels like it would be like if I took you into a hospital and just said okay that person's troubles are your troubles now.

Abby 14:54
Yeah, just because you know, they say you know in adoption into unique because you You know, biological parents, the bond is instant, right? Because that child was grown, you know, in a in your womb, and when it's delivered like that bond, it's instantaneous. And in adoption, it's okay. To name that that bond isn't instantaneous and, and especially for our daughter, we, I remember we talked about this and this is true for for Shay as well, our oldest, like we had loved them from afar while we were waiting, but like when we got there and got her and in her instance, like we were complete strangers to her. Yeah, so like, she did not love as she did not even know us. And so, yeah, it's, um, love is an is a choice in that moment, right? It's not like it's not a feeling it's a decision that she is mine. And even if those like feelings, aren't they, I mean, and also she was three and a half, you know that it's, it's different than a newborn. And so, so you're very unique process. So

Scott Benner 16:02
even though it's not instantaneous, you have to make the decision in that moment, that this isn't, this isn't a transactional thing. No. I'm gonna She's mine. Yeah, this is my child. I love this child. And let's figure out what to do next.

Abby 16:17
Absolutely. I mean, you go, I mean, you do go into 100%. Like Mama Bear mode in a moment. You're so overwhelmed. But it's also like, this is my child. So now we got to get it, we got to get to work, we got to figure out

Scott Benner 16:31
so even though you haven't given birth, you have that it's so funny that you're on today. Last night, I was in the in the house with Arden and a number of her friends. And in the course of some conversation, one of her friends was saying, I don't know that they didn't think they were gonna have kids or something. And I said, I there has to be a switch somewhere on the way out when the baby comes by and like, flips it. I was like, because you'll just, you'll be surprised at what a different person you are after you're a mom, but you have the same exact experience.

Abby 17:00
Oh, without question. Now, of course, I can't. You know, I don't have children biologically. But I would argue extensively that my feelings toward my children are 1,000% the same. They are they are mine. And that those maternal instincts, they are they're just as present and known as if I had carried them. Yeah, it's, it's really amazing how that works. And now some of that takes grows, right? Because again, it's not a I didn't have them for nine months and carry them in that sense. And so

Scott Benner 17:41
I guess you're lacking all the hormone to that you have during pregnancy lately, right? Yeah. Well, I can tell you, I have two younger brothers that are biological to my, to my parents. And I never once felt like my mom treated me any differently than the way I couldn't sense it. If she was doing it. She was hiding it really well. That she wasn't. So all of this happens. Yes. And I love making this podcast, I just realized, while you were talking, I was like this podcast thing. In general, it's like maybe the greatest thing I'm ever gonna do. So at what point the shake, get type one.

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And what age

Abby 22:24
so we came home from China. That was September of 2018. So we get home and you know if I'm honest, like life isn't awesome. You know, that's kind of common. She again, she was medically complicated. You know, we work we're very pro therapy in this household. And we have a counselor that we work with. And she has sort of laughed and said that we live the trauma trifecta, which is my husband comes from a kind of a childhood that had trauma, he is exposed to a job where every third day for 24 hours. He's in trauma environment as a firefighter, and then we're raising children that come from a trauma environment. And so you know, that isn't always fun. And so that first year we were home was really, really tough. And you know, again for Shay, imagine like you get a sibling overnight, that's three and a half. And she's getting a lot of attention because she's medically needy and complex. And we were you know, ambulance at the house overnight stays in the hospital, you know, Mrs. Appointments, lots of you know stuff, and she was getting a lot of attention. And so behavioral was like he struggled in that year we were home, we all were struggling to just sort of stay afloat. So, in retrospect, I can look back and see some of his behavior issues. I do think were related to the fact that his blood sugar was probably off the charts. And what I can now see in him like when he's high, it's that like massive irritability and you know, like explosiveness, sometimes I can see that. And so I can look back in that lens. And probably guess that some of that was his blood sugar, you know, making it worse because we didn't know that that was going on. But there was just some things that started to emerge, that we started to put the pieces together that something else might be going on. And so Sophie, you came home in September of 2018. And he was diagnosed November 8 of 2019.

Scott Benner 24:45
So just did you just go into a room for a half a second and be like, Oh, come on.

Abby 24:51
No, I can tell you where I was sitting. I was and we came home from the hospital and I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Just weeping and feeling like, wow, like, I am not equipped for this journey. You know what I mean? Like that. And also if I'm just very honest. Like, again, from a faith perspective, like really god like, what, what else have you got for me? Because this this is a lot. I'm not sure I'm capable of walking this road. I mean, I really had that feeling.

Scott Benner 25:29
Are you even 30 years old at that point?

Abby 25:32
I was actually I'm much older than I'm right now. Almost 42. So

Scott Benner 25:39
you're like, you're 12?

Abby 25:42
I'll take that. Thank you. No, I feel like I trust me since November 8 of 2019. I feel like I've aged significantly, but no, I'll be I was, I guess, yeah, I was 40. I just turned 40 A month before when he was diagnosed.

Scott Benner 25:55
It's telling because, you know, people who are younger than that, who don't feel like they have things together, probably the back of the hair like, oh, I have to have it together. By the time I'm 40. Right. And I was already there. So I share on the podcast pretty freely that I don't think I was even like, the person I am right now as far as like, thoughtful. You've just over the last couple of years. I just feel like, I'm a guy. But like, as my I get older, my testosterone dwindles a little bit. I can focus a little more on other stuff. But it is like, you don't know what it's like to be a man. It's, it's like a med tear to see. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, it's hard. Like, it really gets a hold of you. So

Abby 26:37
yeah, well, and it's interesting. I think that's one thing that made, you know, again, when when you when your family gets a type one diagnosis, and I do feel like, you know, the family honestly gets the diagnosis, because it has a ripple effect, as you know very well. And where, and this, again, is part of our story that we try to share openly and honestly is like, yeah, it will, it will take your marriage and test it to the limit as much as possible in terms of we already felt like we were sort of fragile. You know, we were had just walked through a lot. And then that when that diagnosis came on top of that, it really, you know, I grieved and was and felt really sad. I let myself kind of sit in that sadness. And my husband's response to that feeling instead of grief. It was rage. He was just so angry. So angry. Angry that it had happened. Angry that just angry. Yeah. 100% the only thing that felt like he could sit with was like utter rage. He was just so mad. Yeah. And that was very hard for us to walk through together of me feeling sad. And him feeling Rayji right.

Scott Benner 28:01
And like it was you're taking care of the kids. So right and like

Abby 28:05
me, me wanting to just like, not, it's so interesting, again, that mother instinct, I can almost take you back there was like a moment, he was probably been diagnosed for two weeks. And there was like this feeling that like rushed over me of, you know, Abby, get it together, like the you are his mother. And you can be sad, but you have got to fight like hell. Now. There's no other choice. Like you don't get to lay down and just give up or just feel like this is overwhelming or feel like, you know, there was just this primal urge of like, fight and do whatever you need to do to make this the best it can be that like, I could take you to the moment of like, I remember that feeling of okay, that's enough. And like, now it's time to get to work.

Scott Benner 28:58
Yeah, cuz the the, the alternative is you just lay down and die. Yes.

Abby 29:02
I mean, you could just let it slide. I've talked to other moms, you know, that have been their children have been diagnosed, since shame and just can empathize so deeply with that feeling of just wanting to, like let it swallow you up, like the grief and the sadness and the overwhelm of like, I just, I cannot do this. But as a mother, it is simply not a choice that's afforded to us. Right? You You do not you do not do that. It's your child and you'll do whatever you need to do.

Scott Benner 29:35
Right. It's a for me, it was more of a leap. I think because I'm not a mom, you know, honestly, yeah. But I was a stay at home dad. There was this time where I felt like my wife if she was with them right now, like if she was with them every day, she would know what to do. There'd be a more instinctual thing going on. And then that would mean they'd receive something that they probably need. deserve. And I have to stop acting like I'm just keeping them alive. throw myself into this, this feeling and which is why now I feel like I'm probably just too overly shy from being able to give birth myself. But I just realized that guys, like if I'm not as emotional as I need to be, and I don't overcome all the demons of how I grew up and all of my problems, then I am just going to extensively throw everything that went wrong with me on to them. Yeah, and steal this experience they would have had with my wife it financially, we could have done it the other way. Yeah. And so I was like, alright, well, I'll give over to it. But it's the hard part was that it felt like you were giving something else away. And I didn't know what that thing was the idea of what I thought my life was going to be or what I wanted it to be or something like that. Right. But once I realized that they were the most important thing, then, and I dedicated myself to it, then I didn't feel like I lost anything. Now I just feel like I'm I have a different purpose. And I'm doing a really good job at it. Yes. Interesting. You know, absolutely. Yeah. Phil. Oh, wow. See how much diabetes Yeah. I get notes from people sometimes, like I learned a lot about the world from your podcast, it's always about diabetes. And I was like,

Abby 31:18
oh, wide range of topics. You never know what you're gonna hear.

Scott Benner 31:21
Talk about Bolus is every time. That's no fun. Okay, so what was the diagnosis? Like, what what made you notice that it was happening?

Abby 31:33
Again, my husband is a firefighter. He's also an EMT. And so he has, you know, he's medically inclined, I'm not a clinician by background, but I have worked in health care for years. And I'm like, clinically, I guess, literate would be the best way to describe that.

Scott Benner 31:48
I guess then you found out he had type one diabetes when your husband ran his head through the drywall. Not quite. You just You heard him yelling, going. And then boom, but

Abby 32:00
that was not quite. So there. Again, behavioral was, we had seen some regression in Shea's behavior once Sophia came home, and we were trying to parse out like how much of this is adoption behavior, how much of this is developmentally like he's just struggling because he has a new sibling like it was, we were in this space of there's some stuff going on, he had had a history of like occasional urinary tract infections. And so we started to see some regression around wetting the bed. And this was a child that was like, the easiest kid to potty train, like had never, I mean, he just was simple. It was so easy. And then all of a sudden, it became like, this repeated thing. In full disclosure, I have a lot of mom guilt about this, like it. I was irritated and angry with him at times, because I was like, it felt in the moment like regression around attention seeking, right, I just have been trying to do something like power staff it was, and I'm like, I know you're capable. You've been capable of this for like, so many years, like what's going on? So that and then so that was one thing, one part. And then that was coupled with he is, you know, does so well at school and is a very, like rule oriented kid, meaning he like, loves his teacher doesn't get in trouble. And always, he's just that kind of kid. He always has been. And he got his card pulled in first grade for asking to go to the restroom, when they had just gone to the restroom at lunch. And I was like, Why did you need to go to the restroom? He was like, I just, I was thirsty a lot. And so you know, it was funny, but not funny. Ironic, I guess my husband that it's like, and maybe you've had people say this before, it's like, if we just didn't say the word then it just wouldn't come true. Both of us like telepathically, you're like, we need to make sure he doesn't have type one. But in but to say out loud, let's go get him screened for diabetes. We just were like, Yeah, let's just like make an appointment as a pediatrician and double check that he doesn't have a UTI that there's not something like strange going on very, under the radar. Like we're just gonna this is a it's gonna be a non issue.

Scott Benner 34:20
being super casual knowing that you're wrong.

Abby 34:24
I mean, honestly, I'm going to be I know what you mean. Um, this is part of me being naive in this I was like, you know, he's Asian. And the propensity of type one in the Asian population is a lot lower. So I was like, He's not gonna have diabetes. He's, he's native Taiwanese, like the odds of uttama nice child having type one has to be even more tiny, then like, the average, you know, population. And so in my mind, I had sort of already written it off of like, there's no way this could be it.

Scott Benner 34:58
Yeah, you didn't do the math for you. Like we flew all the way to China to do a lovely thing. And the baby had medical issues immediately. Maybe we are the people this stuff happens.

Abby 35:10
Yes, obviously not done the math.

Scott Benner 35:13
So can I stop for a second? It's super funny, because I hope people are listening who have, you know, natural children who have these problems? And they feel like, oh, it's, you know, like, we're cursed, or did this stuff always happens to us, like, you randomly took people from other places still had the same issue was

Abby 35:35
absolutely I'm still, oddly enough, Phil, you know, I've read and listened to people talk about this weird feeling of like responsibility of like, Oh, these are my genes. And like that is that I, quote unquote, cause this, you know, like that what happens is a parent, I even had those same feelings. And again, you know, genetically, I have no responsibility for either my children, they do not obviously share any of the same genes. And I still had this weird feeling when he was diagnosed of like, I'm responsible for this or like, did, what did I do here? You know what I mean, even though that made no logical sense. But that's how I just resonate with biological parents who have that feeling of Gosh, this, these are my genetics somehow that like, set this up to happen.

Scott Benner 36:22
That's not Yeah, that's not even specific to people having genetics, like their own biological children. Wow. Yeah. I don't even know why I brought up what I said, other than I think there's a lesson in the word somewhere, but I haven't parsed it out yet. I don't know what it is, but that you can let go of that guilt. Now. If you have it. It's not you didn't do anything?

Abby 36:42
Absolutely. So much.

Scott Benner 36:45
There's so many people that I talked to through the podcast, that it's become kind of obvious that a lot of people who say they have type one have sort of like Irish English backgrounds. And I know that anecdotal, but I mean, unless that's the only people are listening to the podcast, but it seems they see I'm not marketing to it, just a pasty white crowd, you know, so I don't think that's what's going on. But think about that, like, what if that's true, like, forget it? If it is, or it isn't, just make it true for a second, for the sake of argument. You didn't choose where your ancestors were from? This has nothing to do with you. And yet you'll spend time like beating yourself up over it. It's sad.

Abby 37:25
Think it's because our brain desperately wants to assign meaning to something when it's catastrophic, right? We just need we need meaning and we need a reason. And so like, our brains will do anything to try to make this make sense when like, it's never going to make sense, right? You just have to accept it. You could almost pick Yeah, so I'm sorry. Um, so yeah, so we had these, you know, symptoms, and this is how nonchalant we were sort of being about it. My husband was training for this very intense. It's called smoke diverse training. He was going out of state for this. He'd been training for like, 12 weeks crazy intense, like, it's like the Navy Seals of like firefighter training that he was like going to do. And he was leaving town that the morning of the appointment. And so he was like, Look, let me take him to his appointment, we'll do like a daddy son breakfast date at like waffle house, I'll take him to his appointment, and I'll take him back to school. And that way, I can see him before I leave for the weekend. And so I'm always the one that like, goes to the appointments and does all that. And I was like, You know what, you take it, that's fine. That's how naive I was at this is gonna be like a non issue. And, you know, he called me and they had done, you know, a finger stick and his glucose in the office was over 500. And he was like, You need to get in the car, like, you need to get here. And so, um, barely remember the drive to the pediatrician. It was about 15 minutes away. I was probably doing 100 miles an hour to get there, like threw stuff in a bag, because I knew we were going to the emergency room because that, you know, and so we got there went straight to the local children's hospital. And it was on a Friday morning when we got to the emergency room and very thankful that we did apparently intervene soon his agency at diagnosis was only 8.4. So he did not have to go. He was not in DKA. We did not have to. We didn't even get admitted. We stayed in the emergency room for about 12 hours. And then we're able well maybe not even that long. We were able to be discharged straight to the outpatient endocrinology office on campus and get all of our education and stuff and so the whole from the appointment to the time we got home that night was probably about 15 hours and then yeah, so he didn't even have to say yes no and then so he is always reminds me now of like Mom, I told you I was doing the best I could But like you didn't believe me, and I'm like I know. And that makes me a horrible mother because I did not believe you.

Scott Benner 40:05
I tried to be really honest on this podcast. And if you think that you can't feel attacked by your children, sometimes it's a completely irrational thought. But they do something sometimes. And it's hard not to think, Yo, you don't know me, but I used to be a person with dreams, who was in charge of someone's life, and I'm here doing this thing I can you run through that thing in your head, then you're like that. They didn't ask to be here. Yes. Or no, like, I'm thinking, you know,

Abby 40:31
and I say that a lot is like, you know, neither, especially in our children's situations, like, you know, they, they, this is not the life like they had no say, in any of this, right? Like, this is like, they are here in this world in this life. And, yeah, they didn't really have a

Scott Benner 40:48
choice in that being adopted. It's twofold. Really, like you really did decide to get them You didn't just be like, Hey, let's see which one comes out. You were like, I'm gonna go get somebody, you know, yes. Intentional? Not that. Not that. Not that having sex. Maybe isn't intentional, but I don't know, there's something about that, that makes it feel like, like, more so. Okay. So

Abby 41:07
and good. It's, it's interesting, because, you know, I didn't when we brought home, Sophia, I did not feel I didn't identify as like a special needs parent, or like a child, I just, you know, he was always like, my healthy 95th, percentile height, weight, you know, just, he, you know, I just didn't identify that. And then overnight, you know, I was the parent of a child with a complex medical condition that was going for testing, and it needed medication and needed monitoring. And I didn't know anything about that world. And so it literally was a flipping of the switch with her. And what I'm grateful for is that I can clearly see how hurt her joining our family was in some way equipping me for what was ahead. I just did not know that was coming. Right. So I was already in a much different place. Thanks to her. In terms of I know what I'm capable of, I know that I can manage something. So that I don't know when when we got his diagnosis. Yes. Well, obviously, like overwhelmed and all of the things that is it's a natural feeling. I also felt strangely strangely equipped, because I already had a child that had complex medical needs that I had to manage

Scott Benner 42:23
your expectations for yourself are different at that point to where you don't. It's not like, I wonder if I can do this. It's like, well, yes, I know. I can, you know,

Abby 42:31
I've proven it. Yeah. I'm capable

Scott Benner 42:33
doesn't mean you deserve more for all the, for all the religious people listening right now, I'm not saying that Abby was, like God, a baby with type one because she was ready for it. Because I, I understand the sentiment behind that. And I know when people say that to you, like, Oh, if anybody could do it, you could like that's a nice sentiment. But I mean, in real world, that's bull, you know. So

Abby 42:56
I agreed. I had a pastor one time that's used an expression that he says things say easy, but they live hard. And I feel like that's in that category. Right? Like, it's easy for someone to say that about, but like the lived experience of that is obviously a completely different

Scott Benner 43:11
story. It also paints the picture that if I'm, if I'm a screw up, then nothing bad will happen to me, which is weird. Like, like, I tell people like, look, just don't be ready for anything and nothing battle. Yeah, it'll be. Yeah, I do. I do want to, before we move on, reach back to something you said so, so long ago already, that I let get past is that your life just worked up until then. You had something you wanted to do it? You did it, it happened. And I think that is so common for people like, you know, I mean, I can be honest, I guess you you grew up one of two ways. I can tell you that. Nothing in my life happened easily. But I grew up that way. But for somebody who did, like I watched my kids, like my son's athletic, he's handsome, he's strong. He goes to do something he does it, he decides when he's 2121, I might want to try to pitch and goes out and like throws a ball 91 and a half miles an hour, the first time he's like, Oh, maybe I could just get drafted and do this. I was like, you know, like, like that stuff. And then out of nowhere, he got Hashimotos. And I watched it, like, crushed him. Not for long. He pulled himself together, but it crushed him because I kept thinking, nothing's ever really gone wrong. Or, you know, like he doesn't have any perspective for something not working out the way he wants it to. Yes. And I keep wondering if maybe when he's older, hopefully I can try to stay alive long enough. I wonder if he'll look back and think like, Thank thank, thankfully, something happened. That gave me some better perspective. Because when stuff goes too well for you, you really don't have any real world perspective. And

Abby 44:48
yeah, grit is not developed, right? In that sense whenever it's only easy and not that you you know, want to sign up for like tough experiences in life. But I think, again, that's why on this side of it I couldn't say I'm grateful that it happened the way that it did for us because I would not be the person. I mean, I know that's sort of cheesy and people use that expression in different ways. But like, honestly, I wouldn't be the person that I am. If that had not happened, and it shifted me and shaped me in a way that like, it changed me for the better, you know, even though it was not something that I would have willingly, like signed up to experience.

Scott Benner 45:25
No, I I understand that sentiment, I completely agree. Okay, so you're home from the hospital? Yes. It's only a few years ago. Do you start with like Bucky? Or do they give you the start out?

Abby 45:38
So we started out on asking like, what do we come home from the hospital

Scott Benner 45:43
insulin needle? Yeah. So we came

Abby 45:47
home on nollag. Obviously, injections and on Oh, my goodness, I just went blank on his long acting insulin. No, the other one. Just see, but thank you, my brain. It's been so long since I've had to think of it because he's on a pump now. And so like, I haven't hit? Yeah, so we came home on Tuesday, but and no vlog. And yeah, you know, the first that first weekend was horrible, like, a lot of parents, like, you know, he cried. And, you know, he also was a constant snacker. And he loved second portions of everything. And, you know, for him to realize that this can't be, you know, that that world is over, at least for now. And we have to figure out how to do this. And that weekend was horrible, you know, for him and just grieving, watching him grieve the loss of what he knew prior, you know, I always have deep empathy for kids that are diagnosed, even in their, like teen years, because it's like, you clearly know what life was like before this. And even for him at, you know, seven. He knew what life was like prior to this. And so yeah, so we were on that combination from diagnosis in November, and because of the podcasts, and because I'm an avid reader, and I, like will devour content, if given the opportunity. I always laugh and say, I just proceeded to get myself a master's degree and all things like diabetes related and studied and proved to our endo that we were not a typical family in the sense that we could handle, we could handle the data of having a depth Dexcom it was not going to overwhelm me. You know, we had that whole conversation of, if we put you on one too early, it's going to overwhelm you because there's so much data to look at. And I just made the argument that the lack of that data was giving me anxiety, like I wanted to know, honestly, he got the Dexcom, the week before Thanksgiving. So again, we we got it pretty quick. Yeah, that was the first time I felt like I could breathe was just when we got that I felt like, Okay, I feel like I can breathe just a little bit in terms of sleeping, which still doesn't, you know, isn't super great. But it was better than and then started to advocate pretty heavily that we wanted a pump. But we wanted to make sure that we were letting Shea drive that conversation and not us. And I actually think it was maybe one of our diabetes education classes where one of the nurses had said, like, parents push often for a pump very quickly, but just be mindful, it isn't on your body. And so like, you do need to make sure that it's what your child wants, and that you're not the one trying to push for that. And so I I did try to take that to heart and make sure I was we were giving him voice in that. And we actually went to a like a regional type one event in January of that year. And he was in like a kid's class that day while the parents were in sessions. And it was it was a JDRF event. And we got in the car that day to come home and he was like, Mom, they all had pumps. I want to pump like, you know, that was his first visual exposure to other kids that had it and he was like, Yeah, that's what I want. Yeah,

Scott Benner 49:16
no one had a pocket full of needles like me. Yeah.

Abby 49:19
So once he was able to verbalize like, Yes, I know, I want that. Then I started full force. Like we're doing this like as fast as possible. And so he transitioned to a pump in March of 2020. Literally, he was on spring break, and never went back to school of course because of COVID. And so when on the on the pod and yeah, we've been on that ever since.

Scott Benner 49:47
Well, I think when Omnipod five happens your overnights might get a little better.

Abby 49:51
Oh, I just Yeah, I was reading an article just this week to my husband and we were just like, Well, life is gonna be awesome. Very soon.

Scott Benner 50:00
had COVID not happen? I think it would be out already. Yeah. So

Abby 50:04
we were willing, he's been very vocal again, he loves his AMI pod even, like, we let him of course he came home with, you know, a couple different options and tried them but for him the the, because of the fact that his to Bliss, I mean, he just he was like there is no other option for me. He was adamant that that's what he wanted. And it's been, like, wonderful for him and life giving in so many ways.

Scott Benner 50:33
How did you find the podcast?

Abby 50:35
So I have a, I grew up in a small town and the neighboring county, like we were very small town as well. And, you know, we all you know, everybody close by you and that sort of thing. And so there was another mom that she went to like a local high school that was like in the county over from mine. And we've always known each other and her daughter has type one and I believe the Facebook post I made of when we came home the next day, it was a picture of him in the ER and asking, you know, letting everybody know what was going on. I can go back and look, I actually think she commented in that thread tagged you or the podcast when you you commented back. Oh, did I? And yes. Remember, and yeah, so that's he was the weekend we were diagnosed. And so

Scott Benner 51:27
he found it right away. Like listening. And

Abby 51:31
yes, I remember, binging multiple is pre pro tips. Like, that wasn't a thing. Really. I mean, like you hadn't organized it in that sense. And so I just remember, like binging I think in that Facebook post, I asked, Where should I start? And you gave me some suggestions in that thread of like, here's a few episodes to get you started. And yeah, so thankfully, I didn't go too long at all, before I found you as a resource.

Scott Benner 51:59
That's cool. It's hard for me to remember the podcast the way I intended it in the beginning, because it was so like loosely like I'm like, let me just get started. And like, I'll tell the story. And we'll see where it leads to. It's fascinating, like I'm really, really touched by the fact that it could be valuable to anybody.

Abby 52:19
Well, you know, and really neat story. I've used it so often. I mean, even in my current full time job, I work remotely that was pre COVID. It's a virtual organization for the most part, and you know, a person on a different team than mine. Her daughter was diagnosed just a few months ago, and even just this past week, she had DM to me and slack and said, My daughter, we're struggling, she's still on in VR. She's sneaking food, I don't know what I'm going to do. And immediately I was able to go and like you had an episode on that. And I was like, Damn that to her and said, like, Have you listened to this? And she's like a habit. So thank you. So it's just always nice. I feel like when somebody has a question, there's usually always an episode that matches

Scott Benner 53:03
I'm starting to feel good. That that's true. Because I'm starting to find myself seeing people's questions and be like, Oh, I can just answer with an episode. Like, that's really cool. Like, what you get out of longevity, too. Yes, it's been around for a while. I'm thrilled that it. I didn't ask you, but it has been helpful for

Abby 53:19
you. Oh, no, it's been immensely helpful in so many ways. Um, yeah, it was. It gave me language that I didn't know that I needed. And I really do feel like it helped me advocate in a different way, I felt more confident in my ability to advocate for even for a pump. I just felt like I had the language to just know what I wanted to say that the whole thing about, I know, it's a tagline now, but like being bold with insulin, I'm so thankful that I listened to that early on. So that that feeling of being afraid of giving too much like that just never I didn't sit in that space because I had listened to that episode. So early on maybe in the first week we were diagnosed that that didn't have time to take root where I had that fear. And so I don't know, it's just always it started me off on a foundation that I felt like made. Yeah, it made our transition to this world. A lot less lonely. For sure.

Scott Benner 54:20
That's excellent. I have to say that. The idea of I know, I've seen people, like, you know, people who are like maybe like more low carb, they'll be like, That's the bold with insulin guy. And I want them to know, like, I didn't come up with that. Like, I know, it's the title of the episode. But if you listen enough, you realize that while I'm editing, I just go Oh, those are words that sound like a title. And I put them on. I don't really think too deeply. So it was maybe two years after that episode came out that I started seeing people use the phrase on social media. And I remember thinking, that has to be me, because I've never I heard anyone say that before, so much so that I was like, I think that's an episode title. Like, I wasn't really even certain, you know. And then I went back and it was I started asking people questions like, yeah, there's that episode that teaches you to be bold with it. And I was like, Oh, is that what it does? Like, that wasn't like I was just telling a story that day. You know, I think that was just that's a one on one episode. I'm just talking into the microphone. Yeah. And I think back and I'm like, I wonder what would have happened if I picked three different words out? That that would have been it would have been it, you know, Would you've been running around saying a different thing? Or? Yeah, it's, it's a, it's kind of weird that that's the case. And I just spoke with them. I've spoken recently with two different hospitals. And I should knock on some blood because I really want to do this. But I think I might be invited to teach their staff how to talk to people about diabetes, that would be here. And that is just comes from having all these conversations with. Yeah, yes. And you guys are all like, sort of like, my knowledge is now an amalgam of all of your experiences. Yeah, it's weird. I feel like I'm, I don't know. Like, I feel like I'm like, I'm like, Siri.

Abby 56:11
So good. So good analogy I like,

Scott Benner 56:14
and I love like getting better and better. I got a thank you from a little kid today, like a little voice note. That was like, it just is like this little six year old kid. And he's like, Thanks for teaching my mom all this stuff. And I sent it to Jenny. And I said, I'm better at this because of you. And, and so I think it's just starting to be that thing where it's just we're feeding ourselves and each other. And it's a very, very cool, so I get a little misty when I talk about and usually recording, so it's easier to get away with. But your story is messed up.

Abby 56:49
Oh, I say like, when I we go places like we just went to family camp for our second year in a row. And I was like, meeting with the counselors that we're going to be working with him. And I'm like, like our family. We're a lot. We're very complicated. So just buckle up. Let me explain all because a lot going on.

Scott Benner 57:07
Has anything helped you? And your husband like you were sad. He was mad? Are you guys in those places? Still? And if not, what do you think helped?

Abby 57:18
Yeah, oh, I mean, a lot of therapy, honestly, a lot of support. I mean, really, honestly, therapy has helped immensely actually talking about. I mean, we were pro therapy before this, but I think like specifically being able to process that process that and how each one of us were feeling very different and having very different reactions to that. And especially for him helping him come to terms with like, what caused that in him. And it was like the lack of control and as a weird and maybe you can relate to this as a dad also this like, we talked about, like mom instincts with this, like, primal feeling as a dad that my job is to protect and feeling like for whatever weird reason I didn't. And this even though that's illogical, right? Like, that's not possible, but him feeling like this has happened. And like, again, this, I didn't do my job as a dad, like I don't I feel like I messed up somehow. And which was not obviously a healthy response, which he had to unpack and figuring out, but I think it was I read something not too long ago, and she used the analogy of scaffolding on a cathedral and how, you know, scaffolding is so ugly. And it may it takes a building that's, you know, beautiful otherwise, and like, it just makes it look so ugly, but it's necessary to restore and maintain something that's precious. And, you know, I think I've said we have lived these last few years with a lot of scaffolding up. Yeah, it's been ugly, but it's also been very necessary to preserve what's precious, you know, underneath all that. And so we are slowly like those pieces of scaffolding are being like removed. But it's been an ugly process. You know, it's not been always nice and neat, but it's worth it. It's just it takes time. Right healing around that sort of stuff just is a long process. But we're it's a much better place and where we were, it's just it took a lot to get us where we are.

Scott Benner 59:32
I have two episodes coming up soon that will be out for months by the time yours goes up. There are two different therapists and they're both about relationships and yeah, around type one because it's so difficult and I relate to what you're saying because I am inherently inside of me. I want to fix problems. Yes. And then just not just big ideas. Like if you were to come to me and tell me about your De, and it sounded like something inside of it wasn't going right. There was a time in my life where I wouldn't have been able, I wouldn't have even been able to hear your story, I would have already been constructing a way to fix the problem that you just, I wasn't even listening to the people who were talking to me. I was like, How do I fix this for them? Yes. And it's obvious, like if you listen, it's obvious. I'm adopted for one, right? My parents, even my adoptive parents are divorced. And when my mom when my mom dad broke up, I became kind of the de facto parent of my brothers. Like, I've been fixing people's problems since I was little. Yeah, yeah. You know, and now I get into a situation where every problem doesn't need to be fixed. Yeah, I can't stop myself. Like, I'm a fireman who sees a fire everywhere. Even. Yes,

Abby 1:00:46
exactly. Yeah, that was like, he was used to being that guy, right? Like, I'm on scene, I'm in control. Like, we're gonna get this figured out. And then, and then it like, struck really close to home of just being reminded like, I am not in control. I think the fragility of life gets very thrown in your face, right? Instant of like, okay, there are some things that I this is real, like, I can't prevent things from happening, you know, they're gonna deal with hardships, and I cannot take away from them. And so what, how am I gonna sit with that uncomfortable feeling? You know, it's something I can't fix.

Scott Benner 1:01:26
You also get a false sense that you're actually fixing something like even even in the firemen analogy, you go, you put the fire out, you leave. And you're like, we did it. Except they still don't have a place to live, their cat's dead. They don't have clothing. They look like you didn't really fix the whole thing. You put the fire out, right? And so even when your kids are asking you stuff, and you're like, Well, you know, I don't know, XYZ do this, that fixes that problem. I still wasn't listening to all of the other emotional entanglements that were going on. I was like, Well, I see a tangible problem in front of me, I know how to fix it. Which is why you'll hear me like joke and not joke on the podcast. And I say like, if the zombies come you come find me. Because I'm gonna be at the end, right? But it doesn't mean I'm going to be alive and happy. I'm just gonna be alive, right? I'll be, it's not like, um, it's not like, I'm going to be able to build a utopia somewhere. I'm just not gonna let the monster get me. Yes. Yeah, kind of how I feel. Let me sense anyway, I imagine your husband probably had similar feelings. It's cool that you did that. Did you have to cajole him? Or did he go willingly? And what way to therapy?

Abby 1:02:34
Oh, no. Well, I think because we had already we had such a foundation of like, being a pro therapy family, because we needed to be even before you know, he was even before she came home. We've always been a family when you when your kiddos are adopted. You know, if you're if you're wise, you don't wait for problems to emerge. Like you're you try to be in front of a lot of that. And so a lot of what we've done was probably what I would call proactive therapy. And and we were kind of trying to get in front of things have good conversations about stuff. But this No, he didn't fight it. Because he also knew that the end result of if we didn't process it, or like, you know, walk that path to healing was not going to end well. Like he knew. So yeah, he went, it took us a little bit to find the right person. We struggled a little bit with that, but it's been one of the healthiest things and I think honestly should be required for your link every newly diagnosed family, I think you should get you know, and Dexcom and a therapist.

Scott Benner 1:03:42
I just said this somewhere else, but I'll put it here too. COVID did one good thing. If it did anything. His mental health has gone online in a big way. And yes, it made it much more accessible for Pete green. So I think that's great. Yeah, dude, you were amazing. I didn't know you were great. I struggled to get you. So what happened that I moved you first because of my trip? Oh,

Abby 1:04:07
yes. So I think so. We had booked it. And then you emailed and needed to move it. And I think I must have not moved it on my calendar. I left the original appointment. So I thought it was yesterday. Yeah. And then when the reminder came out from Squarespace. It was like it's today. And I was like that I'm like, I have a team meeting at that time slot that was like we had a training and it was like non negotiable. I had to attend. I was like, I'm not going to be able to do it. And so yeah, I'm glad that

Scott Benner 1:04:35
thank you. I can tell you that. I can tell what you do for a living because you are You were so good at laying this out. Oh, yay. I've never not I don't think I've spoken this little in a long time.

Abby 1:04:50
I'm a talker too. So I'm from the south. We thought I don't

Scott Benner 1:04:55
know. But had you gone in a way that I would have been like, Oh, this is blowing the flow of this. I would have Like redirect, did you okay, but I was like, wow, she's doing so good. Like, there was a moment. I was like, I wonder if I could leave? Do I mean to be here? She's doing such a good job, I could probably go make a sandwich or something and come back and just be like, you know?

Abby 1:05:17
That was a compliment. I hope it wasn't that I was taught. No,

Scott Benner 1:05:20
no, absolutely compliment. You. There are Listen, you guys hear every episode that I record? I think of only maybe destroyed two or three of them for reasons of the people that recorded asked, you know, and they've always been reasonable. I've always thought at the same time, you know, you're right, let's be done with this one. But there are some people who are more natural at getting their story out. There are some people who feel the flow of it, there's some people have it planned out in their head, and that stifles them. And there's some people that have it planned out in their head, and that helps them. Yeah, I think about like little Sophia from Russia. And if you heard hers, right, at one point, I tried to move on, and she was sort of like, huh, we're not done here yet. We need to go through this cart. Alright, geez. You know, like, but that's But everybody's different. But everyone's great in their own way. Yeah. Just you were. You clearly talk to people and explain things to them. Yeah. In Your Life. Yeah. So yeah, really good.

Abby 1:06:20
Um, absolutely. So thank you. I'm, like, I really am grateful for for I mean, I know people say that to you. And I know, you probably. I don't think I mean, you don't probably get tired of hearing it. But in, honestly, like, you were a lifeboat to our family when we like desperately needed it. So now I'm gonna cry. Okay. Thank you very much. I really appreciate people don't understand this world. And you feel so lonely when you're first diagnosed, and there was something so comforting about like, I just didn't feel alone, because I could listen in it. I mean, it just, and it also an action person, I just felt like there was this like, again, when that primal instinct of like, get to work, I felt like it gave me something tangible to do, like I can do, like, I can consume his content, and I can do something with it. And I felt like it gave me empowerment of like, I don't have to just sit here and wallow and feel like it because this is bad. Like, I can do something about this. And so the actionable part of it, I've always appreciated.

Scott Benner 1:07:39
No, that's cool, because that's one of the things I did on purpose. So is the idea of boiling the concepts down that they were so small and understandable that you could actually be like, I think I could try this. Yes, you know, like, instead of just feeling because you have to get over to the idea that everyone newly diagnosed, or even if you're struggling, you're overwhelmed. If you knew what to do, you'd be doing it, of course, right? It's not happening. If you're a parent, you've got the anxiety and the stress if you're an adult with type one, or were otherwise your blood sugars are bouncing all over the place. It's difficult to think. And now people come in with these overly complicated technical explanations with a bunch of words you don't understand. And after they're done, you're like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. What am I supposed to do with that? Right? So I thought, why don't I just explain to people what's in my head? Yeah, you know, which is just, like I've said before, like, I don't have the ability to break that stuff down, either. That's why I made the podcast because yeah, I mean, that's why the Podcast, the podcast exists, because I didn't want to count carbs. That's one reason, you know, I needed a different way to do it. I've come to realize now over time, in my heart, it's a it's a time capsule for Arden a little bit, like, you know, like I wanted to be able to, like understand diabetes, like even if like she wakes up when she's 30. And she's like, let me figure out what this guy was talking about. You know what I mean? Like, it'll all be there for for her. I love that man. And it teaches me, like, while I go, I have a lot of ideas while I'm talking to people or moments like even like when the podcast is kind of like delved into, like talking to therapists, or like that kind of thing. It's all really important. And we say it's important, but then no one talks about it. Yeah. And I think that self help, which it ends up being is far less about directions. And more about like, like visceral understanding. Yes, the shared experience. Yeah, you people give people bullet points and expect them to fix their life with it.

Abby 1:09:39
It's so true. I also think there's something again, this is my world is there is something like, deeply sacred about holding someone's story. And like that's what you do is like you, you, you, people come on here and like, You are the holder of that space and like that, that is Is there is something in that that's really, really special and unique. It matters, you know, people being able to tell their story and that sense and having somebody hold space for that, like, it is important. It really is someone

Scott Benner 1:10:14
has to do that. It's, and it can't just be anyone. And I don't mean this as a pat on my back, but like he can't just it has to be somebody who holds your attention. Whose voice makes you feel comfortable, whose Guess whose cadence makes you feel like, like, I remember watching Dave Chappelle receive, like the Kennedy Center Honors. And he said that when he was growing up his mom, um, I don't know all the details. So I'm gonna sound like an idiot for a second. But there's this this older idea of that there's a storyteller in the tribe. And that, and that she saw him that way. And and I was like, oh, that's super interesting. And, and I don't see this is any different than that? Yes. Right. So it's very specific. It's very niche. It's diabetes. Yeah. Almost more specifically, type one, although I do think a lot of the management stuff we talk about. Even the ideas if not the insulin fits with type two. Yeah, has application. But I just, I think what you said is really, like insightful. And I appreciate it. Because it's so easy to look at this and be like, Oh, it's a podcast. But it's, it's everybody from all over the world. Yeah, getting to add into the story of what it's like to live with type one place where it's actually consumable, not like, oh, I ran into an article once, but then I didn't see the next one about the next person that this is the hub. It happens here. Yeah. And so that is magical. Yeah. And, and it's, it's perpetuated by the people who listen, because you don't grow a podcast on purpose. You don't buy ads. Yeah. talk people into listening to it. It literally has to be your friend telling you, yeah, and you doing this and people have

Abby 1:11:54
to be organic. It just doesn't

Scott Benner 1:11:57
work. Well, first, let's thank Abby for coming on the show and telling us that amazing story. Thank you, Abby. I want to remind you that it's diabetes Awareness month in November and National Adoption Awareness Month. Thanks so much to Dexcom makers, the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor for sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast. And thanks again to Omni pod head over to their website and find out about that on the pod dash. See if you're eligible for the free 30 day trial. That's it on the pod.com forward slash juice box. And of course, the Dexcom address is dexcom.com forward slash juice box. There are links to these and all the sponsors in the show notes of your podcast player at juicebox podcast.com.

Couple of little things at the end here. First of all, thank you very much for listening to the show and for supporting the Juicebox Podcast by sharing it with other people. I really appreciate that. What else Oh, T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. US resident has type one diabetes. US resident is the caregiver of someone with type one in less than 10 minutes, you can fill out a survey that will help other people with type one diabetes, and it will help the podcast. If you're enjoying the podcast, you should check out the Facebook group Juicebox Podcast type one diabetes, it's a private group so you can go in there and really talk about type one. There are over 17,000 members in that group who understand life with type one diabetes, the group is absolutely free. should go check it out.

#571 Insulin Cost: A Father's Fight

The father of a type 1 is trying to change insulin pricing in America. Support H.R. 4813 — Matt’s Act of 2021 at Insulin-Matters.com

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends, and welcome to episode 571 of the Juicebox Podcast.

When rods child was diagnosed with type one diabetes, and he found out how much insulin cost, he didn't just sit on his hands. He got involved rods here today and tell you about some legislation that he's trying to get passed. And he'd like you to listen to his story. And then consider helping out by calling your representatives and sending emails. We'll talk about that towards the end though, for now. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan are becoming bold with insulin. You may have heard me talking about wanting to add as many people to the T one D exchange as I can in the month of November. Well, diabetes Awareness Month is one day old right now as I'm making this. And on November 1, you guys added 54 completed surveys at T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. If you're a US resident living with type one or caring for type one, please head over and give it a look. This show is sponsored today by the glucagon that my daughter carries G voc hypo pen. Find out more at G voc glucagon.com. Forward slash Juicebox. Podcast is also sponsored by my favorite blood glucose meter, the Contour Next One, go to contour next one.com Ford slash juicebox. To learn more, and to get started.

Rod Regalado 1:57
Yeah. Hey, Scott. My name is Rod Regalado. And you and I briefly spoke a few weeks ago and and and you were kind enough to invite me on because we're we're trying to we're trying to pass a federal bill which puts a price cap on the cost of insulin. And so I'm really I'm just a single dad with a couple of kids at home. And, of course, that wasn't enough for me. I'm a glutton for punishment. So in fact, I actually brought in a foreign exchange student. So I've got three kids at home. And yeah, so that's kind of me and my son, Matthew was diagnosed with type one diabetes. And that's essentially how I started down this path about two years ago.

Scott Benner 2:43
So when you say we you're not you don't mean your lobbying Consortium? You mean? You? Right?

Rod Regalado 2:49
I mean, me? Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Let's find out. Yeah, pretty much a one man show. But, you know, this bill is going to die unless, unless our our brothers and sisters, our nieces and nephews, our parents and our kids demand some kind of change. And, you know, the status quo is just not acceptable. And that was, that was a reality. That hit me hard. When Matthew was diagnosed,

Scott Benner 3:18
how long ago? Was he diagnosed?

Rod Regalado 3:21
Yeah, it was September six. When he was 13 years old.

Scott Benner 3:26
It 2000 Yeah.

Rod Regalado 3:29
2019 19 2019 Yeah. Okay.

Scott Benner 3:33
2019 September, so you're just a year and a month into this? Two years, excuse me two years, I forgot what year was.

Rod Regalado 3:42
It happens to the best of us. Trust me, I don't think I'm the best. Well, you know, COVID COVID aside to kind of put everybody on the shelf for a year. So understandable. I get it.

Scott Benner 3:51
Fair enough. So, so two years with diabetes. You said you're a single dad have a couple of obviously a couple of people you're responsible for besides yourself. Right? What? What led to your even understanding of this? And the reason I ask is because as a person who has insurance, and whose child is covered by that insurance, I mean, I don't want anybody to get me wrong. I'm gonna play I'm gonna do a lot of devil's advocate thing while we're while we're talking today, right? Like,

Rod Regalado 4:20
no, perfectly reasonable. No, I want you to go right ahead. Hit me what you got.

Scott Benner 4:24
I don't know that in law. Listen, I know intellectually, that that insulin is incredibly expensive, and it's overpriced and, and all that goes along with it. None of that is lost to me. But in my life personally, insulin cost me $20 a month. Right. And so you know, what led to you being so aware of this and then tell me about how it impacted you and so forth.

Rod Regalado 4:49
Yeah, yeah, sure. So So Matthew was diagnosed and we take him to Children's Hospital. Truly, we found it accidentally I took him in for a sports physical That's how it kind of started, took him in for a sports physical. And that exposed the diabetes. And the very next day we were at Children's Hospital in Omaha. He was in there for about two and a half, three days. And they released him. Of course, I had to get all of the insulin and the ancillaries all the supplies, test kits, everything that goes along with it. And so after insurance, my out of pocket was north of 1000 bucks. But keep in mind, that's not just insulin, that was everything else

Scott Benner 5:36
hospital stay

Rod Regalado 5:37
the whole the whole kind of thing. No, the hospital stay was separate. Oh, okay. That was that was just the supplies I got you know CGM at that point.

Scott Benner 5:47
Meter Test trips, a little glucagon, some insulin needles, correct thing. Okay.

Rod Regalado 5:52
Exactly. Right. Yep. So 1000 bucks flies out of my bank account. And surely, if if they didn't ask me for 2000 that have given it to them. I just wanted my son home just wanted him home. So the following month rolls around, and time to replenish the insulin again. This time, I only need insulin, I've got all the ancillaries. And again, for short acting and long acting month supply after insurance. My cost was about 400 bucks. And now the gears are grinding between my ears. And I realize this is not sustainable. This is not going to work. So naturally, I call the insurance companies Is this legit? This can't be legit. I call my HR folks. See if there's any any recourse here. Is there anything else I can do? I call the pharmacist. Nope. It's this is what it is. And so I'm married to this invoice. And my son who's 13 is married to this invoice for ever. That's what got prompted me to call. Call a congressman. I don't know. I don't want to I got no rich uncle's and I've got I don't know any politicians. But I call it all. Yeah. I just called the office. I said, Hey, what is the deal with this? And that's kind of how this whole thing started. It was it was truly it was just a matter of me finding some resolution, long term resolution for my son, Matthew. That's what it was.

Scott Benner 7:27
So rod, you're talking about $400 A month by $5,000 a year that just suddenly gets added to your total of your out of your outgoing money. And it's for obviously for health. And so it comes first. Did you find yourself being able to pay it? Did you find yourself not paying other bills? How did you handle?

Rod Regalado 7:46
Yeah, right. Right. Right. So yeah, and that and that's, that's the problem. So luckily, I I make a good living. I work for a good company. And I'm my insurance I think is probably better than most. But the but my but my son doesn't have that liberty. He's He's He's 15. Now thinking ahead already. You're one right. So so yeah, to your question. How did I do it? Yeah. So you push one bill this way, and you push that bill that way? And you just figure it out? So the college fund? Yeah, sure. That takes a hit. College Fund, what college fund? Because you're paying off the hospital stay at the mera Lago with needles. If that's there, that's not going to go away. Retirement Fund. Yeah, that kind of takes a hit. Because now you got to shift what you're putting into that to compensate for the invoice that you got coming in every month. Yeah. So Right. And I'm not special. There's nothing special about me. But I do make a good living. I'm, I would say I'm middle of middle class. Not I don't make a ton of money. I'm certainly not destitute. But it's that's a burden. That's a That's a big number. Every month, every month.

Scott Benner 9:10
Is it fair to say that prior to diabetes, you felt like you were doing better than just getting by? Oh, sure. Yeah. Absolute. And then absolutely. Now you feel like I mean, listen, I don't honestly, I don't care how much money you make. I grew up broke $5,000. You might as well tell me a million dollars. That's a lot of money. You know, it is yeah. And a good point is that an amount of money that you can't come up with? Might as well be a million dollars. If I tell you if I walk up to a homeless person and say I need $50 right now to save your life. That that might or you might as well be telling them give me $50 million and bring me the Statue of Liberty. They can't come up with $50 it doesn't it's

Rod Regalado 9:48
yeah, you're exactly right. It is that is exactly it. So so we're just one family. So think about this for a minute. So in America There's roughly depends on what report you look at between seven and 8 million people that are insulin dependent. And type two,

Scott Benner 10:09
is that really the number? Geez?

Rod Regalado 10:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think the CDC is, is claiming 7.5 million. And those are insulin dependent Americans. And, and the number of diabetics is growing exponentially every year. So when you when you factor in the type twos that are insulin dependent. I mean, that number is going to be massive in the coming years, massive. And so something has to give this log jam has to break at some point, it is financial ruin for so many families. And again, I'm just, I'm just one guy, Matthew was my son. He's my only son. Yeah, this is this is much bigger than us. When I started, when I made that phone call to my congressman. I was thinking about Matthew. And as I put my toe in the deep end, I realized this is so much bigger than me. And Matthew, is it is a massive, huge problem. Huge problem. So,

Scott Benner 11:19
okay, so you call you call, I don't even didn't even know who to call like I wouldn't. Like who

Rod Regalado 11:25
the hell? Yeah, yeah, I just so I called anybody would answer the phone, basically. And, and I realized, after a couple of months, that the only solution to this is a federal solution. And as you know, Scott, there are at present, there's probably 30 Plus states that recognize the problem. And so those states are passing legislation on a state level that price caps, insulin now, that's wonderful. But the issue with many of these state bills, is that all they'll throw $100 price cap at it. And that sounds great and makes fantastic headlines. But the issue is, if you don't have insurance, you pay the retail price. You're stuck with it. Retail Price, and and, and I do this periodically, and I'm not going to embarrass anybody. But I called last night and I do this every couple few months, I'll call and say hey, what's the price on this name brand fast acting insulin, and I did it yesterday. And I called a pharmacy in Little Rock. And they're fast acting for a box of five was 600 bucks. And then I called Tucson, another pharmacy 620 bucks. Well, guess what, you also probably need long acting. And that mirrors that within a couple 100 bucks, it mirrors the price of the fast acting. So suddenly, if you don't have insurance, and your state has passed a bill that puts a cap on it. Guess what, you're still tethered to that retail price. So Matt's act. Matt's act is truly a federal price cap. And so the way this bill works, is if you don't have insurance, the most you're gonna pay out of pocket is 60 bucks for the uninsured. Okay, it's remarkable.

Scott Benner 13:25
Alright, so I want to dig into it a little bit. So you call some you call a politician? And you say to them, This is what's happened to me. What do I do? I mean, did they say you're gonna get a bill passed? Like, how did you start down that

Rod Regalado 13:37
path? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, basically, I was calling anybody would answer the phone, and I called my congressman. And they were, they were very nice. And they took notes and they said, what we'll get back to you. And a week later, I get no phone call. There's no resolution, no sympathy. So now I'm, um, I'm agitated. So I call again. And they put me into this fellow's voicemail and I didn't know who he was at the time. And I left them pretty snarky voicemail. And literally, within within an hour or two, this fellow called me back and just so happens, this guy. I just landed in the right voicemail. This guy was the Chief of Staff for my congressman. And in fact, this fellow is a doctor. He's an MD. And he took up the cause. And he looked at the supply chain, he looked at what the hurdles are, and he looked at why, why the price is so high. And that that seed that I planted, became Matt's Act became our federal bill and it is a bipartisan bill. So you're not your congressman,

Scott Benner 14:52
after you made this phone call and you know, got it got the chief of staff and everybody starts thinking about this why he decided Did to write legislation and sponsored himself?

Rod Regalado 15:04
He did. Yes. He wrote they wrote the bill. And it is a bipartisan bill we so that that's really how it happened. They looked at the issues and why the insulin pricing is as it is, and and they found the mechanism that drives that price. And, and the reality is, it's the middlemen, the middlemen drive that price. Okay.

Scott Benner 15:31
So I guess for people who don't understand that terminology, so there's a pharmaceutical company, they they manufacture the insulin, there's you over here who needs the insulin? In the middle, there's an insurance company that you would think in the middle, there's an insurance company who has an agreement with, you know, I don't know how much of this people understand there's formularies that, you know, the the insurance companies say, well, we'll pay this much money for the insulin. I know, if I'm understanding it correctly, then the insulin manufacturers kind of set up the pricing. So that the formula, they're thinking about insured people when they're setting up this pricing. Correct, right. And I think part of how they do it, then the problem becomes that if you're not one of these insured people, the price is set up super high. And you don't I mean, like it's it's all to me, it seems like a dice game, so that everybody gets paid. And

Rod Regalado 16:29
it is yeah, right. Yeah, it's a game amante. It really is. Yeah, yeah. So basically, the way the system works right now, manufacturers produce this drug, which seven and a half, 8 million people have to consume daily. So in order for that product to reach the market, what they do, and what we're talking about is PBMs, pharmacy benefit managers, these are the middlemen, the pharmacy benefit managers negotiate between the manufacturers, and the insurance industry. And, and, and what they do is they say, well, we will place your insulin on the insurance formulary as a preferred drug. But in return, you guys, the manufacturers are going to give us rebates, rebates, you're not only going to give us rebates, but you're going to give us administrative fees. And so that jacks up the price and so these rebates, which is truly a trade secret, people don't know what those rebates look like, because they are trade secrets. It's not it's not disclosed. But if you don't, if the manufacturer does not pay the rebate, and the administrative fees, they are placed on a lower level on an insurance policy. So it might be a secondary or tertiary drug.

Scott Benner 17:59
And that's dangerous for them because then your doctor won't prescribe their drug because it's not covered by your insurance. Correct. Exactly. Right. Yeah, exactly. Right. Can't sell their stuff then. Okay.

Rod Regalado 18:09
That's exactly right. And, and not only that, but these pharmacy benefit managers also have a tremendous influence over the pharmacies, pharmacies, their pricing is set and if you don't charge your patients that retail price and they find out about it, they will cut you off. So they hold hostage the manufacturers and they hold hostage the the pharmacies and so you're saying

Scott Benner 18:41
that this is all set up so that the pharmacy benefit manager managers can make their money correct. And basically doing nothing but acting is like they're like the bag man. Right? They just they

Rod Regalado 18:55
truly are they truly are. They they are they are the they are the the dark people behind the curtain, pulling all the levers and they are they don't they don't package it any sexier. They don't make it any more potent or they don't get it to you faster. They do nothing but negotiate pricing between manufacturers, insurance and pharmacies they do nothing more than that. So

Scott Benner 19:21
how does this exist? At some point someone must have put legislation here's me guessing that years ago like oh, we need somebody to make sure everything's on the up and up so we'll put this this thing in place that and then it just they like everything else. People figure out how to game the system around good, etc. Yeah,

Rod Regalado 19:38
yeah. All I'm sure there is and surely Scott, I don't know how this thing was born. I know it goes back probably 2030 years and and I think the thought was if they have some middlemen negotiating the price, then the insurance companies would get a better return on on their negotiations. But in reality, what happened was, like you say, they figured out how to maximize their own profits. And they basically hijack the system. And that's truly what they did. It was truly

Scott Benner 20:13
any benefit that is there. Is it any good being done by a PBM? Or like, like for another drug maybe? Or like, is there I'm trying to imagine how something that's doing this can exist without somebody just going like, what we can't let this keep happening. So like, you don't I mean, does it do any good? Do you know that

Rod Regalado 20:30
that I can see no, no, truly, I can't. And I'm probably the wrong guy to ask that. Scott. Truly, I don't know. But it seems to me, if you look at the health care system as a whole. I mean, there's a reason why, you know, one in $7 is spent on health care in this country. Yeah. It and you got to think there's no way that these drugs cost that much to produce,

Scott Benner 20:55
it makes it makes you feel like it's entangled purposefully.

Rod Regalado 21:00
Sure. Oh, it's absolutely they've absolutely muddied the water. Yeah, absolutely. You can't have it at all. Yeah, I know, the average guy. I can't I can't make sense of it. But I do know, I do know, they hijacked the entire insulin industry. They did. So when they're getting away with it, what's

Scott Benner 21:19
the name of the bill that they put forth again?

Rod Regalado 21:21
Yeah, it's it's hr 4813. And it's, it's called Matt's act. Okay. 4813 is our bill number.

Scott Benner 21:31
And what does it do like, like layman's terms? What does the bill accomplish if it gets signed into law?

Rod Regalado 21:37
Sure. Yeah. So pretty easy. So basically, what we did was we, with the Congressman did was they looked at manufacturing costs, and they know what manufacturing costs are for insulin, because these manufacturers negotiate with the federal government, for Medicare and Medicaid, so they know what manufacturing costs are. So they looked at that. And they thought, Okay, well, we have to keep the manufacturers in business, because let's face it, they keep us alive. They keep us alive. Yeah. So they looked at that, and they said, Well, we know what manufacturing costs look like. We know what usual and customary markups look like. So they put a $60 cap, and that number is in flux, it might be $50 at the end of the day, and it might be 65. But that's roughly the number we're looking at. So if you are insulin dependent, and Matt's Act passes, that'll be your cost, if you are uninsured, and underinsured,

Scott Benner 22:41
and that's for your need, right, not for a file or a pen. So like if you're a person who needs a vial a month $50 If you're a person who needs three vials a month, $50 or no

Rod Regalado 22:50
$50. Okay. Yeah. What's your ever your prescription is? Whatever your purse? Yep. Yeah.

Scott Benner 22:55
And and this just covers people who are uninsured? What's the No, no,

Rod Regalado 23:00
no, our bill covers not only the uninsured, but the insured. So here's the genius of the bill. So if you have one of those high deductible plans, and let's say your deductible is, I don't know, let's say your deductible is $4,000. Well, you have to spend $4,000, before the insurance pays anything, anything. So you're you are going to pay the retail price, right until you hit 4000. The way mats Act works is if you have a high deductible, your out of pocket cost is zero. The assumption being you are paying that insurance company so much money, they will that they are going to carry the burden. They will your cost is zero. Yeah. And if you have run of the mill, average, everyday insurance, like most people, your cost is 2020 bucks. So if your copay is 15 bucks, it's 15 it co pays 25 Well, that's, you know, that's that's 25 bucks. Yeah,

Scott Benner 23:54
but there's no situation where it's suddenly $2,000 If you know you're right, if you'd need a ton of it's I'll tell you, I looked at your numbers that you're that you're touting here I have it is as of 2018 1.4 million T one 6.9 million T twos. That's, um, that's astounding. Okay, so now this thing gets written it Listen, what I know about this, you could fit in a thimble, but the way you're explaining it makes sense to me. I have the heart of a liberal person, you know, and I don't think that your healthcare should bankrupt you or or cause you to have to find 1000s of dollars a year that you don't have, right or you know, to go down a different road for a second Rob, even if you come up with the five grand like you said you're taking from somewhere to pay for this, right? And so maybe today it feels like you're getting away from it, or getting away with it, but But How old are you?

Rod Regalado 24:52
I'm 57 Okay, so 57 years

Scott Benner 24:55
old, let's say 20 years from now. Rods not walking so well or not remember things so well and his kids have to put him into some sort of a home. And now because rod wasn't able to save money, he's stuck with a Medicaid or Medicare system. And now he's in a subpar place. And at some point, at some point, this chicken comes home to roost, like you might be able to, like, push it off for a while and get your son his insulin, you know, you or somebody else, but at some point in your life, this is going to make an impact. And I think it's easy for people to think well, like drive a cheaper car, don't smoke cigarettes, you know, whatever your lifestyle choices are, which is, is a reasonable statement. But I'm saying at some point, it comes back to get you 10 years $5,000 $50,000. Yeah, 20 years is $100,000 out of pocket. And just because you can come up with five grand a year, doesn't like my daughter was diagnosed at two. So I mean, hold on a second, I'll do this. I'll play this with you for a second if my daughter is diagnosed at two. And I think they I think that women live to like 84 on the national average. So at two years times $5,000. This is assuming it doesn't go up, which of course it would, in a lifetime, at $5,000. A year at a lifetime. $410,000 at $5,000 a year.

Rod Regalado 26:22
Yeah. And that And that's assuming you don't go to the hospital and suffer DKA. So think about this got. So let's say, because let's face it, one in four Americans one in four every single day rations their insulin because they cannot afford it. And so what happens, they can't afford the insulin. So they go into diabetic ketoacidosis. They take them to the hospital, they treat them for two or three days. And then they discharged him with a 20 or $30,000 invoice, well, they couldn't afford the insulin on the front end. Right. So what makes you think they can afford that invoice you just handed him. And now Now you came up with a half a million dollars basically over a lifetime for insulin, insulin only. Now now add up how many times you have to go see the endocrinologist just for your routine checkups. That's not free,

Scott Benner 27:14
yet doesn't have to be that harsh. He didn't even have to go into DK, what if you're just carrying a heavier a one C than you should be. And when you're 30, you start running into health issues, those health issues are going to cost way more to the system, like so there's no common sense. And I listen, I'm with you. Like I said like I am a I'm a person who looks at things and I try to make sense of them. So if $5,000 a year aggregates out over two to $410,000 $500,000 a year or in a lifetime, and a couple of hospital stays is going to equal that number anyway. Well, then I the only thing I can think of and here's where I want to play devil's advocate for a minute is are the people who pull the strings on this, like, what don't I understand about an economy? Like, I hate to say this, but if people weren't sick, what our economy fold, like are they're like Machiavellian lunatics pulling strings going, listen, some people get sick, they have to buy medicine. And if they do, then that, you know, keeps a pharma company in business. And then pharma company makes advancements and maybe we learn about things. 50 years? Like, I mean, is there like a big picture that I can't wrap my head around?

Rod Regalado 28:32
Oh, no, no, I don't know. I think you're monitoring capsulated perfect. Yeah, it's money. It's funny, because because if it really was about people and lives and the economy in general, if that was a true statement, then then then there's no reason that they can't sell insulin to keep people healthy rather than watch them rational. And there's a reason believe me there is a reason that the manufacturers are offering coupons. There is a reason because because they know, but it's the middlemen again, you're going right I'm going right back to the guys that are pulling the levers. These like you say the Mac of alien dragons that are between the manufacturers and the patients. Those people only care about profits keeping only care about profit and it's a sad day. It's truly a sad day that America has allowed this to manifest itself as it has over the last 1020 years so I could its present. I

Scott Benner 29:36
could sit here broad off the top of my head and I haven't given a deep thought to it but I could sit here and paint you a picture where we need the machine to grind because if the machine grinds we make advancements we learn about different things. You know, if if if there and I am a person who who fundamentally believes that people get up and go to work in the morning to get paid. Yeah, so brilliant people, you know, I mean to I'm going to make a point and then I'm going to come around to it. So if I'm in college, or I'm getting ready to go to college, and I'm a truly brilliant person, and I look at the at the world, and I say, Okay, well, my goal is to make money, let's say, That's my goal. What, what, what form of work am I going to go into where I can do good, exceed my expectations for myself, personally, make a comfortable living, raise my own family, maybe go on a vacation sometime, buy a nice car, you know, save some money, etc, etc, like, chase my dream, and move the world forward. That's just a hopeful thing that a bright person might do that, right. And so and so when you have that person who spends for eight years being educated, you know, a master's and I'm listening, we could make an argument right now that it shouldn't cost hundreds of 1000s of dollars to get quality education like that, but it does. And so I come out of school 345 $100,000 in debt, and now I need to make $200,000 a year at the minimum, or I'm going to be screwed. And this company now needs to pay me because I am the best and the brightest. Someone's got to pay for that everyone needs to make money, the company needs to make money. Like when the machine grinds like that. It does benefit humanity. It doesn't benefit someone at home without insurance who needs insulin. And when I but I have to believe that there's a way to bank the machine grind without grinding people up as its fuel. Like like, Can't there be a there's gotta be a middle ground? And you think Well, Bill does that right? Like it? Fine. They make money still. And we get insulin?

Rod Regalado 31:40
Yes. Yeah, I know, without a shadow of a doubt. And we know this because these manufacturers, here's the interesting thing. We know what manufacturing costs look like? Okay, because these these companies negotiate with the federal government for Medicare, Medicaid, right? We know what, what their, what the manufacturing costs look like. So when you take and I'll just going to throw a random number out there, but it's fairly close. Let's say manufacturing costs plus usual and customary markups. Let's say that number is 20 bucks. And that and that's fairly close. It's probably maybe 22 or 2418, whatever, right? So when that product leaves the factory floor and arrives at the pharmacy, suddenly the price is 600 or $700. Right? Now, I have no problem with these manufacturers making a profit, they have to make a profit because they're going to manufacture new drugs, new, they're going to discover new things that makes humanity better. But when the system's hijacked, as it is now, no one benefits except those middlemen. Now, think about this, Scott. So let's say you, you come from a family where you can go to college, and you can get a master's degree and you have the liberty and your genius, and you can rack up a half a million dollar debt. Think about the kids who come from families like ours, where I don't have the liberty to put away 500 bucks a month. Yeah, so my son, my son is already disadvantaged, because I can't put away that kind of money. Right. So So what about what about those kids that we push them to the side and saying, yeah, sorry. No bad luck for you.

Scott Benner 33:37
Yeah. So I'll make the I'll make the alternative argument, because there's only two of us here. But everyone, as I'm saying this, I don't think this just please, I don't feel this way. Yeah, who says everybody gets to succeed?

Rod Regalado 33:52
Yeah, right. No, it's a fair question. Yeah. Nobody, nobody says, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, you truly are responsible for yourself. Yeah, but I believe I believe humanity's generally good I really do I believe that

Scott Benner 34:08
I do too. I think that people generally want good for each other. I do think that there's a study that shows that they want good for each other as long as it doesn't come from them. So there's I forget what the question system is you can ask people like these three questions about what they would give to someone else. And it's a it's interesting like they'd give you no, it has to do with what you have like would you give someone the shirt off your back? Yes, because I have more shirts. Would you give somebody this no because I don't have more of that like there's a there's a way the it listen to read it's got to be a survival instinct right like I can I can part with this and still be okay but I mean I so I don't disagree with you like I think if if some broke ass kid somewhere is brilliant and doesn't have the the opportunity to stretch his his legs and and figure out what he can do in the world. That's a shame. And and it should, it shouldn't be that way. I also think you're going to get hit with people who say, Well, why do you get to tell me how much I charge for the thing I make if you don't like it, start a pharmaceutical company and make your own insulin. That's what we did. Like that. You know what I mean? Like, that's gonna be the, the kosher to some to some real hardcore capitalists, they don't hear I'm rationing my insulin, and I'm sick. And it's going to shorten my life. They here, I started a company, I made a thing. You have no idea what the the risk that I went to, to start this thing. But I could also argue that away and say that these companies have been around so long that the people who put their who put their ass in the game are long gone now.

Rod Regalado 35:44
Right. But you all also have to be aware, and I'm sure you you know this. But one of the things that, and I'm not going to knock the manufacturers I mean, they are running a business. But one of the tricks that they've they've utilized over years past is they change the they change on a molecular level, they'll change the product, so as to extend their patents. And there is a reason why there's only three manufacturers, because because there are no generics. But if you want to talk about the economics of, of manufacturing drugs, that and and I have no problem with patents. I mean, these companies invest billions of dollars to manufacture these drugs. And they should be rewarded for it. But no problem with that.

Scott Benner 36:31
But but some of these Nazi insulins they've made their money a

Rod Regalado 36:34
million times over a million times. Yes, yes. Yeah. It's obscene.

Scott Benner 36:38
And so they're protecting their patents by changing. I do know that they'll they'll change the molecule a little bit to get reprinted. And then that that starts the process over again. Yeah, they'll and then they'll kind of like legacy out the older insulin so it's not available. And now you're now there. Now they hold their they their protect right back now. Right. But yeah, but

Rod Regalado 36:59
just because it's legal, just because it's legal doesn't make it moral, right? Because really, they haven't really changed if they've changed one molecule, right? And you're going to try and tell me that just because you change this tiny little molecule that you should get a patent extension for another? What is it seven years? 10? I don't know. I

Scott Benner 37:18
don't want long enough time to come up with another molecule.

Rod Regalado 37:20
I bet. Plenty of time. Yeah, sure.

Scott Benner 37:23
And so again, arguing the other side of it. It isn't moral. And I really I agree with you like I mean, if obviously, if money. Well see, I also think it's an oversimplification to say money, because I also think they're protecting the business. I think they're trying to stay in business long term. Like, I come from a completely bizarre perspective on this, because I have this podcast and anybody who listens to me knows that my heart and soul is in this and 100%. But my wife also went to college to be a doctor, and for personal reasons, couldn't go to medical school, and got a job at a pharmaceutical company, 21 years old, coming out of college, and is still at a pharmaceutical company, my wife is brilliant. And she and for anyone listening, believe this works her ass into the ground every day. And I know it might be hard to think of like a desk job is hard. My wife's job is intellectually past, intellectually, tasks her in a way that leaves her exhausted every day. Sure, this COVID thing sat in my dining room for 18 hours a day making sure that one of the COVID vaccines was going to be safe. My wife is the kind of person you want, looking at stuff like this, and making decisions like this. And those people are not a dime a dozen. And so you don't I mean, and so in so take all this out of it for a second take out insurance and all the horribleness that this is she's a person who has children, she has a home, she's trying to send her kids to college, she is putting an honest effort into something that she took years to understand. She wants to be compensated for it in a fair way. And she'd like to go on vacation once in a while. And I will show you from a personal perspective. If I had to bet $50 Right now, my wife's going to drop dead at a desk from a heart attack one day and there's no one listening to it. Well, Trump but listen, I'm telling you how how hard the job is and how hard she works and how stressful it is. And my point is that no one is going to remember her and that she's not the only person who does that. So I listen. Is there a CEO at the top of a company whose you know, Third Mistress is driving around in a Maserati that I paid for with insulin? Maybe? Right? Is that good? No, but you can't be mad at my wife about it or people like her who were actually in in the in they're trying to do good if you met those people they are you.

Rod Regalado 39:52
Oh, I know. I have I harbor no illusion about oh, no, I know. And that's and that's the investment. That's the investment that these guys companies make, they see the value of these employees. Because every day they go to work, trying to find some breakthrough. That's their job. That's what they're good at. They're geniuses. They're brilliant. And they can't do that

Scott Benner 40:15
their brains work in a different way. I don't I can't do eight how people like that think and most of us can. I also want to say not that I feel like I have to, but my wife's company doesn't make insulin. So I feel a little unencumbered, like giving a bigger picture from there. But she has worked for a company in the past that does, and then I can tell you that while she worked there having a daughter with type one diabetes, she felt extra fulfilled at her job. Yeah, and, and even moving forward. Now. There are you know, the the workers in pharma companies, they rely on each other. Like, there's, there's these meetings that they have, I don't know enough about them to be thoughtful about them. But my wife is involved in a meeting where like, people from different pharma companies get together and just talk about problems they're having or ideas and try to how to solve things. And the amount of times that I've heard my wife on calls, helping people make better decisions about helping people with diabetes, even there's value in that now, all of this is nice, and it doesn't change what you're saying. And it doesn't make it very true that there's no morality to charging somebody $5,000 a year to stay alive. I'm just trying to paint a picture that the way the world works, is so entangled, that I'm so concerned that pulling one thread, you can't fix anything but I love the idea of what you're trying to do. So my question is is how do we like what happened to the build it stall? What does it need? Why are you here?

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Rod Regalado 44:51
No, the bill has not stalled. Um, but basically so I make I make phone calls every single day every day. And I collaborate with diabetic advocacy groups. Shout out to touch by type one, by the way. And, and I work with these people daily, I make these phone calls and emails daily. And the the challenge that I see all the time is that most, well, virtually all of the time I call a congressional office and they're completely unaware of the bill, you have to understand these people have so much on their plate, their local constituents are calling about this, and that they have their own issues within their district. So they're not necessarily, let's face it, there are 1000s of bills that are introduced every year, these congressmen and senators are not going to know that this bill exists. And that's the challenge. And that's why I reached out to you, Scott, because I don't want this bill to die in the middle of the night. So

Scott Benner 45:57
how do you stop that from happening? Because I'm so scared that what you're gonna say is it's money, but it's maybe it's no, no, no,

Rod Regalado 46:02
no, no, no, no, it's not money. No, no. It money helps. But no, it's not money. No, what all I would ask is for all of your listeners, just take a look at Matt's act, it's 4813. Just look at the bill. See what it does. It's a very simple bill. It's not like most bills that are introduced these days are 1000s of pages long and reams and reams of paper. Mats act as 16 pages only deals with insulin and pricing. And it has safety nets in there to make sure that we're not jobbed and hosed. At some point down the road. There are safety measures in place. And I would just ask that you call your congressman, and ask them to at least look at hr 4813. And look at the merit of the bill. You either like it or don't like it in something my grandfather said to me when I was just a young boy. If my nickname was rabbit, he called me rabbit. He said rabbit, if you don't ask the question, they can't say no. But occasionally, they'll say yes. I'm just asking that people look at the bill, call their congressmen and ask them if they wouldn't mind. CO sponsoring the bill. Now, the one thing I'm hearing from a lot of congressional offices and Senators, is that now we're supporting HR three, which is fine. HR three is a large bill where they want to renegotiate drug pricing, I think it's top 150 drugs or something like that. I don't really know. But what I do know is that these two bills are not mutually exclusive. HR three is fine. But HR three capstar crisis renegotiates drug prices, only as it applies to Medicaid and Medicare.

Scott Benner 47:56
So if someone said that to you, you could say listen, there's no reason you can't support 4813 and three at the same time.

Rod Regalado 48:02
Exactly right. Exactly right. 4813 covers every single insulin dependent American HR three fine idea only applies to you if you're on Medicare or Medicaid. Yeah, in other words, leaves everyone else

Scott Benner 48:19
out. Okay. And it's about more. It's like a top, you said a certain number of drugs, which probably makes it even more difficult to push through.

Rod Regalado 48:27
Right, right. So yeah, and so that was the other thing we looked at. We tried to keep this thing as streamlined as possible. Only insulin. There are no writers on this thing. There are no backdoor deals. There's it's a very simple read. It's 16 pages.

Scott Benner 48:42
So can I ask you one? Can I ask you a like an inside baseball question about the policy? The political side of this is? Sure. Are there enough? Congressmen, Congress people, Congress, women, Congress, this congress people? Yeah. What happens when you get old rocks? Are there enough? Are there enough congress people who don't take money from Pharmo? Who would feel okay, putting their name on this?

Rod Regalado 49:08
Oh, that's an interesting question. Um, well, I can tell you this. I can tell you this. So the it maybe you know, this, maybe you don't, the largest the single largest caucus in Capitol in the nation's capitol. Is the congressional diabetes caucus. Yeah, it is the single largest caucus in in Washington, DC, over 300 members of the House are part of that caucus. So they might be taking money from big pharma and insurance industry. PBMs. Who knows?

Scott Benner 49:48
Yeah, they all have to have a lot. I mean, the PBMs have to have a lobbyist on top of lobbyists. You would think of course they do. They ran out of money. So

Rod Regalado 49:56
yeah, they got to protect that. That goose that laid the golden egg they got to protect But my point is 300 plus members are in the diabetes caucus. And I would suggest they don't know about the bill, because I will give them the benefit of the doubt. They just don't know about the bill. But if they did know about the bill, maybe just maybe they'll say, yes.

Scott Benner 50:20
I'm kind of hoping that a handful of attorneys who do lobbying work have kids with type one diabetes are listening. Yeah, I mean, I think that's, I mean, I hate to say that, but I think the way that Washington is set up is this is it, right? Like, you know, what you see on the news is what happens at the very end, it's how, you know, it's been scrubbed 1000 times, the way it gets scrubbed, is by is by powerful people who represent more people. Yeah, of usually of power, getting together in a room and making a decision. And then then they're telling these congress people, this one's okay to vote for this one isn't like, yeah, that's

Rod Regalado 50:56
that. Yeah, that's exactly true. That that is, that is a sad reality of Washington, DC it is. But I think there's enough people of goodwill in, in the Congress that would look at this and say, you know, I like this, and I can also share this with you. The, the leadership, the Democratic leadership, they presented this bill to them last year, and they liked the bill. They did like it. But, you know, we're fighting COVID, the election, the Trump impeachment, the, you know, all sorts of nonsense was going on, and it was just lost in the ether. Um, but now things have calmed down somewhat. depends on your perspective, I suppose. But, but I think now is a is a perfect time to resurrect this and just say, Listen, there's 300 of you guys that are part of the diabetes caucus. And where have you been for the last 20 years when the price went through the roof?

Scott Benner 51:57
So maybe the caucus? Is it possible that the caucus isn't focused on the same things that you wish they were?

Rod Regalado 52:03
Yes, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely true. So

Scott Benner 52:08
is it is the is the real hope here that everyone listening calls their congressperson and just simply says, I would like you to can take a look at hr 4813. It's called Matt's act. It's about making insulin affordable for people. It's a very simple bill 16 pages, take your five minutes to read it. This would mean a lot to my family, give them a half a second, a personal like, my son has type one, my daughter as type one, we're afraid we're not gonna be able to send our kids to college, we're afraid we're not going to be able to retire. We're afraid that we're going to die one day and our kids aren't going to be able to take care of themselves, whatever your truth is, share that with them. And just reiterate, please take a look at 4813

Rod Regalado 52:51
That's all I'm asking. That's all I'm asking. You know, and and I can I can I plug up a website. I created a Facebook group I started Yeah, sure. Good. Yeah. So so you can find us at insulin matters that calm. So it's www dot insulin dash matters calm, or the Facebook group under the same name, insulin matters. And I do have a letter that I posted on there, you can just download it, click on this link, it'll give you just plug in your zip code. And based on that zip code, it'll tell you who your congressman is. And you send that letter off and you can wordsmith it any way you like. But more than anything, just call your congressman and ask them to support 4813. And if they push back and say, Well, we're supporting HR three, just point out they're not mutually exclusive. They truly aren't.

Scott Benner 53:51
Right? Insulin matters. Ma TT ers.com That's it when I get there. Am I seeing blue and gray? Yeah, welcome to insulin matters a practical approach to Basal insulin management. Oh, no, no, no. What am I Sir

Rod Regalado 54:06
It's insulin matters be the difference.

Scott Benner 54:09
Insulin matters

Rod Regalado 54:11
Yeah, it'll it should pop up. Let me just see like the insulin different insulin douche matters. Calm the dash. That's yeah, little dash in there.

Scott Benner 54:21
Everybody rods in his 50s he don't know. I'm just trying to help

Rod Regalado 54:25
you. I'm a dinosaur. I'm a dinosaur.

Scott Benner 54:28
Alright, now I'm here. Insulin dash matters.com Yeah, that sounds Yeah, we need you need a tiny bit of a media prep there rod don't you? You spent this whole hour doing such a good job. Explain that you send us your website for insulin. Yeah, no. Don't worry about insulin dash matters calm as soon as it pops up. There's a cute kid here and it says support Bill HR for 13 Mad sack right at the top. Okay, so And there, I'm going to learn how to what do I click on to figure out how to find your letter?

Rod Regalado 55:07
Yeah. So if you scroll down just a little bit, probably about the middle of the body of the

Scott Benner 55:11
page. I say it man attack letter and find your representative.

Rod Regalado 55:15
Yep. And that's it. Okay. It's was that Yeah. All right, right. So yeah, I mean, I'm not truly I'm not looking for money. I'm not the letter and a phone call means way more to me, simply because that's how I got a bill. I made a phone call. And I don't I don't have any rich uncle's. I don't know, famous people. I don't know, my congressman. I simply made a phone call.

Scott Benner 55:39
Right. Let me ask you something just for clarity. Excuse me, I believe I know. Oh, I'm dying. This is the end. Let me get a sip. My tea guy called messed everything up. Um, you're not you're not making an income off of this. Right?

Rod Regalado 55:54
Nothing? Not a penny. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's

Scott Benner 55:56
just It's I don't believe you are. But I did see a donate button. So I just wanted you to be Yeah, people. So yeah,

Rod Regalado 56:03
right. Right. Well, the intention. Yeah, the intention is to whatever donations come in. Um, when I'm going to do with it is I'm going to buy ad space on like Facebook and Spotify just to promote the bill, just like 15 Second 32nd ad space, that nothing more than that. And if the bill makes it through, then I'm just going to donate the rest of the money to some, you know, 501 c three that gives out insulin or insulin. ancillaries. And there you go.

Scott Benner 56:36
Cool. Well, I appreciate you coming on and talking. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you think we should have?

Rod Regalado 56:42
Oh, no, nothing comes to mind. I

Scott Benner 56:48
do a good job of arguing the other side without sounding like,

Rod Regalado 56:52
you know, what is that? You know, that's truly a lost art, Scott, you know, people, people can have disagreements, and they don't have to be so disagreeable. You've got your personal opinion, I got my personal opinion. You know, there's always middle ground. And there's I love I love having conversations, where I can disagree with someone, I can illustrate my point of view and illustrate your point of view. I think conversation is so fun. Yes, I

Scott Benner 57:17
enjoy talking. I also didn't like I mean, listen, I agree with a lot of the stuff you said. So I was I have a lot of arguments to be honest with you. But I do know that people could hear it and feel that way. And I think it's important not to disregard that. That's how people feel like, I know that you can take a moral high ground and say, Look, we're talking about insulin is people's health, money shouldn't matter. Well, that's all well and good. But you know, what matters to all the people who are making a living and feeding their kids off of the stuff that they're selling like? So you. What I am always reminded of is, is that there are a number of people who have contacted me over the years. And sometimes they want to come on the podcast talk about this. There's one person that sticks out in my mind. And this person, you know, I spoke to them on the phone, and I said, but you want to come on the podcast, what about? Well, in some pricings not fair. And I was like, oh, it's not like you have a fix for it. And she's, she says yes, you know, they should make it cheaper. And I was like, well, that doesn't sound very reasonable. You're going to go to a bunch of wealthy board members of a company and tell them to give their stuff away for less money, right? Like, is that how things have? You've noticed them working so far in your lifetime? You know, asking people about their better angels is. I mean, that's, I mean, I saw her in Brockovich. But other than that, I haven't seen it happen anywhere else, you know, in my life. Yeah, you're

Rod Regalado 58:34
exactly right. Yeah, there's one thing to bring a problem to the table. But if you have a problem, bring a solution, or at least bring an idea. Yeah. And this

Scott Benner 58:43
person then told me that it was listen, at its base, I understood that the context, they said, well, they spend so much money on advertising to get us to buy their products. And I was like, okay, and I was like, let me see where this is going. So if they just got rid of their public relations department and stopped buying ads, they could put that money towards the the cost the incident, I said, Well, that makes sense. I said, What do all the people do who work in their public relations department when they fire them? And they can't pay their bills anymore? Like, what if some of those people have diabetes, and now they can't afford their insulin? And I was like, are we just taking the money from here and putting it over there? Is it like Robin Hood, you know, stole from the rich and gave to the poor? And I know that that's what you think you're doing except the people who run the company aren't going to lose a nickel. When this happens. They're going to fire the guy that fixes the copier. You know what I mean? Like, that's the money doesn't just they don't give the money away. The money comes from somewhere. So your idea in a perfect world sounds delightful. But that isn't how it would end up working.

Rod Regalado 59:49
So utopian idea. Yeah, no.

Scott Benner 59:51
So if you're going to come at these problems, it's just my intention to say come at them with a real answer. And and to me, yours yours comes close. Because, I mean, there's can't be anybody in the world that has a soft spot for a pharmacy benefits manager. Except Except I gotta say, the pharmacy benefits manager who probably enjoys the island they live on. And which is, by the way, how I don't know if I've ever said this in the podcast. That's how I think of Pharmacy Benefits managers as big fat people sitting on an island at the top of a throne. laughing as the pennies that they take out of your dollars just keep falling into a pile. Yeah, it's

Rod Regalado 1:00:32
Yeah, yeah. It's hard. It's hard to say because you have to pull the curtain back to see what they look like. Yeah. Because they they are some shadowy characters.

Scott Benner 1:00:41
Well, I'm just saying that's how my mind mission Yeah, right on the same page got same page. But my expectation is, is that if I was a big, fat slob and leave rich person who was taken pennies out of out of sick people's pockets, left and right, I wouldn't care much about them. Because if I was I wouldn't have gotten to this space to begin with. So now we're about to have a formidable fight with a person who does not want to lose has a lot of incentive not to lose, and doesn't particularly care how they win is what That's right. Lactation,

Rod Regalado 1:01:12
you know, you know, you're exactly right. And that fight will come. I harbored no illusion, I know that fight will come. They will bring the big dogs, the lobbyists, the lawyers, the character assassins, they will all come knocking. sure of it. Well,

Scott Benner 1:01:29
I applaud you for one to be in front of that. Because I think that of all of the things that you just described that it can be scary that the character assassinations are so common in in, I mean, now that the internet's here, just so easy to just make up a lie about somebody, right? And so to want to be out in front of that is really brave, maybe you're not knowing what to put the dash in your URL is just just the amount of ignorance you need to get into this fight.

Rod Regalado 1:01:56
You know, I'm an old Marine, I am an old Marine. And really, I don't care. I'm too old in my life. And this isn't about me. Yeah, this, it was about Matthew. And now you know, it's about 8 million Americans, they can character assassinate me all they want. I don't care. If they can't kill me an evening,

Scott Benner 1:02:19
I can't yet I appreciate so much that you're that you're willing to do this and that you try this. I have to imagine that there was a moment, the beginning of where you just thought like, well, this isn't what I wanted. Like, I don't like I mean, this wasn't something you were looking to do, right?

Rod Regalado 1:02:31
It No, no, no, no, not at all. No looking back. Exactly. Yeah, but you know, you know, diabetes is an equal opportunity hater. It doesn't care. If you're on the right side of the aisle or the left side, it doesn't care if you're black or white. It doesn't care if you're rich or poor. Or if you're Jewish, or you're Catholic. It does not care. And it will make your life miserable. But it'll break you financially and emotionally. First,

Scott Benner 1:03:03
I have to ask you, this whole thing you want people to do make a phone call, send a letter? How much do you think of their time takes them to to accomplish that? Less than an hour? No, oh,

Rod Regalado 1:03:12
God, no, no. 15 minutes, 15 minutes to download the letter. It'll take you a couple of clicks. On the long end, it might take five minutes, okay to make a phone call. And I would just encourage your listeners. If you download the letter, ask him for a response. Ask them to call you back and tell you why they don't want to support the bill. Okay, I put him on the spot. Absolutely. I don't I don't want to shame any of those congressmen or senators. I don't want to shame them. I just want a fair hearing. Yeah, this is America give us a fair hearing.

Scott Benner 1:03:47
I think you'd be surprised to how little it takes to make something look like a wave. I say stuff like this all the time. And I don't know if people believe me or not. But honestly, if everyone who heard this did it, it would actually make an impact. The problem is, is that you're not going to do it. Not not in you know, I mean, listen, as a person who gets on here and says, Hey, if you want to support the podcast, you know, go go to here and just fill out this survey. For me. It's a survey that doesn't ask super personal questions. It's HIPAA compliant. Like I tell people all the time, you'll really support the podcast, and it'll take you 10 minutes. And it's surprising how often you have to say that just to get a small number of people to do it. You

Rod Regalado 1:04:30
know, it's not surprising to me at all. It truly Scott I literally every single day. So I work all day. I come home, they can dinner, maybe the laundry in and I jumped on the computer and I'll do a little bit of work. When am I driving home? I'll call this congressman or that Congressman. I call famous people I might make literally, I might make 50 phone calls. And I'll get two people to call me back. Right?

Scott Benner 1:04:58
Well, yeah, that's it. Listen, if you're, you know, if you're making that phone call, just tell people tell them say, look, I heard about it on a podcast, because they might you don't know like that, that feels very viral to people. And you know, you could give them the feeling of like, Oh, these we got to get out in front of this before more people call like, I want to be on the right. Because I mean, they're politicians, right? They just want to be on the right side of the argument. And for them the right side is you being happy. So you vote for them. It's

Rod Regalado 1:05:25
right. And let's face this got this is the right thing. Yeah. I mean,

Scott Benner 1:05:30
it has the added benefit of actually being a good thing

Rod Regalado 1:05:33
is a good thing. Yeah. There's, it's no coincidence that 300 Plus members of Congress are part of the congressional diabetes caucus, right? It's no coincidence. Now. It's time for them to do something.

Scott Benner 1:05:47
Do you know how many people you have signed on to Matt's acts so far? To two okay. And then what do you need to push it forward? Do you think

Rod Regalado 1:05:56
we need yes, we need a hearing. So the way the bill way a bill works, it's introduced, oftentimes, it's introduced by just one congressman, our bill is bipartisan. We have Angie Craig is our co sponsor, Democrat. Fortenberry is, is the author of the bill Republican. So the way it works is it has to go through a hearing a committee hearing, and in our case, it has to go through energy and commerce. And I know that sounds kind of weird, but it's energy and commerce because of interstate logs. Interstate Commerce loans. So once it goes through that hearing that committee, they'll vote it up or down. If they if they voted up, then it goes to the Health Committee, and the health committee will vote it up or down. And then once that happens, then it goes to the floor for a vote on the House floor. Yeah. After that, then it goes to the Senate. And the same thing happens to

Scott Benner 1:06:54
wow, okay, well, yeah, listen, it sounds like an uphill battle. But I appreciate that, when you're willing to fight. I hope that you're, you know, normally talk to people about their diabetes. So I hope your son's doing well.

Rod Regalado 1:07:06
He has thanks for asking.

Scott Benner 1:07:08
And was it a big? I mean, have you made the, you know, the adjustment, or is it still hard for you the diabetes?

Rod Regalado 1:07:16
Yeah, well, I'll tell you, man, you know, out of the gate, it was hard for us to find our sea legs is such everything was just kind of upside down, counting carbs and measuring. And, you know, we, we found our pace and so now it's almost second nature. You know, Matt, last night we had the pot roast and mashed potatoes and homemade mashed potatoes and gravy and, and we just know, okay, that dollop of mashed potatoes has X number of carbs in it, and he just knows off the top of his head, how many units he has to take so so it's actually a lot easier. But the the I've noticed recently the one thing that he's struggling with is emotionally it's difficult because you know, he's an athlete, he loves playing sports and he couldn't wear he couldn't want to pump so can't play football where pump had couldn't wear his Dexcom sensor because football the rip that thing off. So back to finger sticks. And, and it's just the whole sports thing, just

Scott Benner 1:08:26
right, you should jump on, you should drop on to my private Facebook group and talk to people there because there are wraps that you can put around Dexcom that make it almost impossible for them to be grabbed and ripped off. There are people playing football with them. And you could he could move to an insulin pump that's tubeless that might do similar things like that make things easier for him. So there's they're sometimes they're not that I'm not disregarding anything you just said. But I don't think you should give up. I think you should just ask other people how they do it because it is giving it I will Yeah,

Rod Regalado 1:08:58
I will. I will. It really took a toll on me. Yeah, he struggled with that. He struggled with

Scott Benner 1:09:03
that. So can imagine. Oh, it's terrible. I'm so sorry. Any other autoimmune in your family?

Rod Regalado 1:09:10
No feeling no thyroid? That kind of snow? Nothing? No, no, we're just old English, Irish, Dutch, Indian. You know, typical American mutts

Scott Benner 1:09:24
English Irish. There's a lot of I see a lot of autoimmune. We and people. English Irish. Yeah, that say that. That's their background. There's a big swath of Nordic people in Minnesota who who are impacted my wife's lineage is Irish English. Like I think there's something to that. I think taking the potatoes from those people for that long really messed them up or making me sorry, I'm sorry, making them eat potatoes for that

Rod Regalado 1:09:47
long. It could be truth. Brought Listen, I'm not a doctor. It could be the solution to my weight problem.

Scott Benner 1:09:56
Get those potatoes out of your diet. Well, I I just can't tell you how much I appreciate this or how well I thought you articulated this the the whole thing today, I really do appreciate your time.

Rod Regalado 1:10:07
Well, Scott, you know, I, again, I can't thank you enough for you know, lending me your megaphone, because without without folks like you, this message just doesn't get out. People don't know what they don't know. And it's not their fault. It's not because they're ignoring us. They just don't know. Yeah. So for what it's worth, Thanks for lending me the soapbox and your megaphone. And

Scott Benner 1:10:30
it's my pleasure, I would I would add this for anybody listening who's who's, you know, thinking about doing this is if you're listening and you really don't feel like this impacts you, right? I have insurance, I pay $20 a month, I don't even know how much insurance or insulin cost whatever it is, you're thinking, you know, right now, it doesn't hurt you. It's no skin off, you're asked to make this phone call. You know what I mean? Like, just send the letter, make the phone call, push people in that direction, you know, you'll feel good about yourself. At the very least you'll do something good, which is a bonus. And because I know how hard it is to take these earphones out now and be focused on something when your life is difficult. That doesn't impact you. But man, it could one day, uh, you know, just because you're successful doesn't mean your kid's gonna be, you know, bit when Billy's 35. And you're in a home and he doesn't have a good job. You might wish you sent this letter, you know? Because this isn't going to get better on its own. Like, I am a firm believer in capitalism. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But this is the other side of that, which is you. It is hard to make change around stuff like this. And it really isn't. It really isn't going to happen until people get together in a group. And it I mean, look at the number what's the number how many people use insulin,

Rod Regalado 1:11:43
about seven and a half million, seven and a half million every single day. And one in four rations? Yeah, every day.

Scott Benner 1:11:50
So if you want to see the power of democracy, you put seven and a half million people send them a letter or making a phone call. And instead we'll be free tomorrow. Yeah, that's, that's yeah, that's the truth. It'll be it'll be affordable. Put

Rod Regalado 1:12:03
it that way. Yeah, right. Yeah. Free. Nothing's really affordable. And and you can afford the college fund and retirement fund. Yeah. Wouldn't it be nice to know when was the last time you gave yourself a $5,000? Well, let's say let's say you have a high Well, let's say you have regular insurance. 20 bucks a month. So now you're spending $240 a year as opposed to maybe, I don't know. 2000? was the last time you gave yourself a raise of couple 1000 bucks.

Scott Benner 1:12:31
Yeah, I think the problem is, is that I think part of how the part of the problem about how people think about money is because we're segmented into months. And because if you I make this much money, and this percentage of my money goes out the door, and this is what I expect. No one ever does the you know, I mean, like, Let's take something that everybody has the cell phone, right? So you know, how many kids are in your family? Right?

Rod Regalado 1:12:56
Two, and then two plus a foreign exchange student so I got three. How

Scott Benner 1:13:00
many cell phones? Are you paying for a month? Oh, four, four. Do you have any idea what your cell phone bill was?

Rod Regalado 1:13:07
Oh, God. Ah, I don't because it comes right out. Um, I would suspect it's a couple 100 bucks. Yeah, my God. Yeah.

Scott Benner 1:13:13
So that's one of those things. Let's just say you're you have a I don't know, the two or $300 bill, it doesn't matter what it is. You pay $300 a month. He's like, Oh, I can afford that. That's fine. And then every year it's $3,600. And God, it's only $3,600 not really a big deal. I can come up with $3,600 a year. Don't worry about it. It's really important to me. 10 years of that $36,000.10 years. Oh, that feels like a lifetime. Do people even live 10 years? Yeah. Well, turns out they do. You know, so you start etha saying 36,000 for 10 years? Well, you know, 72,000 for 20 years 150,000 for, you know, for 40 years. And so suddenly,

Rod Regalado 1:13:54
there's a lot of money, you're talking about real money

Scott Benner 1:13:57
could be putting away. So my point is, is that we don't think about money the right way. Because we think about it. It's like oh, it's only $300 I have to come up with this month. But it's $150,000 You have to come up with over the next 40 years. And you will be alive most likely for 40 years.

Rod Regalado 1:14:12
And then how many of your kids could you put through college without Oh, or or?

Scott Benner 1:14:17
Or any number of things? How many how many of you are walking around right now wishing you could spend five grand on refurbishing a bathroom or you need a car that you've been? You've been driving a car 10 years too long that you drive down the road? You think the wheels gonna fall off and you're going to go crashing into a tree? How many different things do you miss? I mean, I agree with you man. Insulin shouldn't be one of the things that's causing you not to have something else or have and the health side of it. Like I really feel like we didn't dig into it enough. But if people are rationing insulin even a little bit, it's such a it's just such a right you know, right

Rod Regalado 1:14:52
right. So so the physical, the physical health aspects of it are devastating. But if you're one of those One in four Americans, let's just call it let's call it 1.5 million, just 1.5 million. So 1.5 million people rationed in this country every single day, because can't afford it. Right. So that implies if they can't afford the insulin, they probably can't afford to pay some bills here or some bills there. And so now you have this effect, whereby their mental health takes a hit. Yeah, so depression rolls in. Anxiety is part of your daily life. And now you're living with depression. And now you've got all of these things, coalescing at the same time.

Scott Benner 1:15:35
And I'll finish with saying that those people are generally speaking, not the people who have time to listen to a podcast about diabetes. Yeah, right. You're listening, you're probably lucky to begin with, even if you don't know it. And so take a minute and stick up for those people who aren't even lucky enough to have a job or a life where they can put some expensive headphones in their ears and listen to me prattle on for what is now an hour and 12 minutes with Rod. Because most people's lives don't even allow for this kind of stuff. And those are the people you're sticking up for, if not for yourself, so that's how I'll leave that. Alright, Ronnie, he did a good thing here today. I hope it helps. Yeah,

Rod Regalado 1:16:16
I You did you did your wonderful. Oh,

Scott Benner 1:16:19
yeah. You're You're being too nice. We don't know if it helps or not yet. Get it out there and find out.

Rod Regalado 1:16:24
I'm an optimist. I'm an optimist. You

Scott Benner 1:16:26
certainly I got it. It'll go yeah, you wouldn't be in this fight. If you weren't optimistic. That's for sure.

Rod Regalado 1:16:31
That's true. Well, listen up. Well, Scott, and thanks again for inviting me out. I truly appreciate the chat this morning.

Scott Benner 1:16:39
My pleasure insulin dash matters.com.

A huge thank you to one of today's sponsors, G voc glucagon, find out more about Chivo Kaipa pen at G folk glucagon.com forward slash juicebox. You spell that g VOKEGL. You see ag o n.com. Forward slash juicebox. And also like to thank the Contour Next One blood glucose meter and remind you that everything you need to know is that contour next one.com forward slash juicebox. And of course, don't forget the T one D exchange T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. Go take that survey. I want to thank you guys for listening and for supporting the show and remind you that I'll be back soon with another episode. If you're enjoying this episode or the podcast in general, please share it with someone who you think might also enjoy it. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Your generosity and your support helped the podcast to grow every day. No kidding. Every day for the last six months. The podcast has had more downloads in the current month than it did in the previous one. That is because you're sharing the podcast. Thank you very, very much. I can't I honestly I could sit here and say thank you all night I wouldn't be able to say thank you enough.

#570 Cranky Panky

Mandy is a D-Mom who has seen some stuff.

+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Scott Benner 0:00
Hello friends and welcome to episode 570 of the Juicebox Podcast.

Today on the show, Mandy is here she is the mother of a child with type one diabetes. She does a lot of different things actually she writes books, and she's super honest on podcasts about the anxiety she feels around type one. Please remember while you're listening that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. We're becoming bold with insulin. It is officially diabetes Awareness Month. And I want to remind you that I am personally trying to add 2000 surveys to the T one D exchange in the month of November, I need your help. If you're a type one who lives in the United States, or the caregiver of a type one who lives in the United States, please go to T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juicebox. take you less than 10 minutes, you can do it right from your phone. Super simple questions. Completely HIPAA compliant, and absolutely anonymous. That's all you have to do to help people living with type one T one D exchange.org. Forward slash juice box. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by Omni pod makers of the Omni pod dash and the Omni pod promise which I'll tell you more about me ads very very soon. The podcast is also sponsored by Dexcom, makers of the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor dexcom.com Ford slash juice box to get started right now.

Mandy Morreale 1:56
My name is Manny Morelli. And I am the mother of a type one diabetic. She is now 14 years old and was diagnosed when she was 1111. Three

Scott Benner 2:05
years ago. Wow. Um, three years ago, 2018 ish.

Mandy Morreale 2:13

Okay.

Scott Benner 2:17
That's not that long ago.

Mandy Morreale 2:20
It feels like it.

Scott Benner 2:20
Well, that was my question. Does it feel like forever ago? Or does it feel like it just happened?

Mandy Morreale 2:25
It feels like forever. Like, I really even though it's only been a couple years. It's like diabetes has always been in our life now.

Scott Benner 2:34
Can you? Can you properly explain to people the difference between the panic in the beginning and how you feel now?

Mandy Morreale 2:47
It's like night and day. I guess if anybody newly diagnosed is listening to this. It does get better. It doesn't get easier. I wouldn't say easier. But you learn how to do it better. I'm I'm much calmer person than I was in 2017. For sure.

Scott Benner 3:05
That's true. You stop vibrating, right? Everything. Everything stops feeling like a disaster. It's why I feel so badly for people who have anxiety. Because they always have that heightened feeling of like,

Mandy Morreale 3:15
ah, but that's that's me. I'm what I'm the most anxious person you'll ever

Scott Benner 3:19
meet. Oh, no kidding. And you feel better?

Mandy Morreale 3:22
I do. I mean, what was first diabetes? I got a million other words. But as far as my child and type one Yeah, I feel much better.

Scott Benner 3:28
Man. He's like, I don't have to panic about diabetes. I'm panicking about a number of other things. Thank you. Yes. That's funny, and not funny at the same time. So how did you figure out your daughter had type one.

Mandy Morreale 3:42
We were we were planning a memorial day trip to a waterpark. And I mean, everybody was excited. And except for Brandi, she was just kind of just laying around want to get out of bed. She kept saying her stomach hurt. And she was drinking an unbelievable amount of fluid. I've never seen anything like it. But I still didn't know that that's what it was because I've never had any experience with diabetes. So I kind of thought well, maybe she's getting strep throat maybe she's just got a stomach bug so we let it go for a couple days. until she finally and this is really sad. Her little frail little self come down the steps and she says Mom, I really need to go to the hospital. There's something really wrong. And we took her to urgent care

Scott Benner 4:29
see you made me sad when you said that because I'm

Mandy Morreale 4:32
really sad. I got so so bad.

Scott Benner 4:34
Well not that part not the part where you like knew she didn't feel well and you didn't like sprang into action like that an 11 year old was aware that their health was in danger. And and that's the part that got me I think that she was like I like unless she came downstairs like Alright, listen, you people are never gonna pull this together. So let me explain to you I have it wasn't like that right?

Mandy Morreale 4:56
No, no, she was just there's something really wrong Mom, I need to go to the hospital. Wow.

Scott Benner 5:00
What did you think? In that moment when she said that to you? Do you remember? Well,

Mandy Morreale 5:05
I have four kids. And they're all hypochondriacs. And they all have something that they don't have. So we, we went through a long period of somebody always needs to know the doctor, I've got this. I've got that. So I didn't really, I mean, I knew she was sick. But I didn't know. That's what it was. I really thought this was going to be another Urgent Care trip where Oh, you've got a stomach bug, go home and drink some fluids. You're fine.

Scott Benner 5:28
Have your kids ever complain about something that doesn't exist? Or they just kind of over? Blow blow the thing that does exist?

Mandy Morreale 5:35
My kids are like, WebMD looking up nonsense. Maybe they've all got something terribly. And none of them have anything except for brandy has diabetes.

Scott Benner 5:44
Wow. Yeah. Everybody's like, I have fibromyalgia. I'm like, do you like I have a lot of these symptoms is like, all right. Yeah. Yeah, everybody's got the internet. Right. So you're just like, I know what the problem is. And, you know, the, you know, the, the weird thing is, is that every once in a while somebody is right about that. And you know, and then everybody else gets to be like, Oh, I'm such hypochondriac, and I get to blow it off. But you get you got a thing, and you got stuck with it. So it sounds like is there any other autoimmune in your family line?

Mandy Morreale 6:14
No, no, um, I have a cousin actually, I'm sorry that that has type one. But she got diagnosed when she was pregnant, and it kind of just remained, right. And that doesn't that nobody,

Scott Benner 6:25
even those people you feel horrible for? Not that you wouldn't. But you know, so many people get gestational diabetes, and then it's gone. And then every, you know, every, you know, every random lucky person is like, Oh, look, mine stayed great. Or comes later in life after that. Okay, so somebody has it, but not the way you think of getting it? Yeah. As far as like, you know, I wonder if gestational is auto immune? I'm not sure. I'm not either. I'm wondering if I care enough to Google? Maybe not. So you ended up at Urgent Care eventually. And yes, were they able to diagnose her there?

Mandy Morreale 7:04
Um, yes, they did. It didn't take. It was really fast, actually. I mean, within maybe 30 minutes, we were right in the door and scene and like, Hey, this is what you got. And we're calling an ambulance to take you to the hospital. Okay.

Scott Benner 7:19
Okay. And so you're off. How long do they keep her at the hospital? I guess. How and what was her blood? Her a One CT, remember?

Mandy Morreale 7:28
I want to say 14. I don't remember her exact blood sugar. It was way up there. It wasn't even reading like on a on a finger. glucose. They were last for about five days.

Scott Benner 7:40
Wow. You said her he wants he was like 14. Yeah. Oh my goodness. How long? In hindsight, do you feel like this was going on?

Mandy Morreale 7:49
I'd say quite a while. I mean, I just kind of thought she was little. You know what I mean? I thought she was just a frail little thing. I didn't know. She was dying. I didn't know that's what it was. I just thought she was a little, little one.

Scott Benner 8:01
Did you put weight on when you got into the insulin? Oh, yeah. Real fast. More like back to where you remember her starting or beyond?

Mandy Morreale 8:11
Beyond. I mean, she's not like, like, heavy but she's, she's healthy.

Scott Benner 8:16
Well, that that was my, that was really my the the impetus behind my question was like, was perhaps her growth and her progression being stifled? Like,

Mandy Morreale 8:25
I definitely think so. I mean, she she was a little one. I think she was. I mean, she was done like, like little clothes, not like adult sizes. I don't know if you know what difference in the sizes are, but I could still buy like youth clothes for her. Like they still fit around a little waist. And she was just a bony little thing.

Scott Benner 8:40
Mandy. I've been a stay at home dad for over 20 years. Okay. Okay. I know more about girls clothes than anybody.

Mandy Morreale 8:49
I'm glad to still get her in like, like a six t at that point. Wow.

Scott Benner 8:55
Holy God. And that wasn't like, wow, that is interesting, isn't it? So she was she? You thought she was just in general? Your smaller child?

Mandy Morreale 9:04
Yeah, she was a little runt.

Scott Benner 9:06
Is she? Is she? Is she more in line with the other kids at this point?

Mandy Morreale 9:16
For the most part, yeah. I mean, she's she's healthy. She's about I think she's 140 pounds. She's like, five, six. That's right. It looks like a normal, normal 14

Scott Benner 9:25
year old. Yeah. That's very cool. It's exciting. Just to see somebody feel better is exciting. But in that moment, when you're in the hospital, and you've never really thought about type one diabetes before, I mean, and you've got four kids, like how do you juggle all that I'm interested in in how you absorb those first couple of days when you have so many other responsibilities.

Mandy Morreale 9:49
Well, everything turned brandy at that point. The other three were with their dad who is not brand new dad, so they were with him and I thought focused 100% on brandy. It was a whirlwind. I mean, I had a complete nervous breakdown twice, I guess. And that week, it was it was a lot. I imagine.

Scott Benner 10:12
I really don't did you feel was part of that feeling that you were falling apart to have anything to do with the wreck? The realization that she had been telling you she didn't feel well, and you didn't do anything?

Mandy Morreale 10:23
Oh, yeah, extreme, extreme guilt, I still feel guilty. It's like almost four years later, three and a half years later, I still feel so guilty. Like, I can still see in the back of my mind her just laying there telling me she didn't feel good. And I didn't really believe her. How does

Scott Benner 10:35
that if it does? How does that manifest in your current life visits? stress anxiety? Like, how does the guilt like hit you? Is it just a thought?

Mandy Morreale 10:46
More anxiety because I'm already an anxious person. I mean, there's, there's times where I can wake up in the middle of the night, be asleep and perfectly fine. Wake up. And I'm like, Oh, my God, what am I to bring to the hospital faster? Okay, so all these years later,

Scott Benner 10:58
I'm sorry? That that's, that's terrible. Well, I'm between two strangers. didn't do anything wrong. And I hope you stopped feeling that way. Because there's no like, there's no reasonable correlation. Really, you know, like he said, like, you have four kids, and they're always like, this hurts. That hurts. This has happened. You know, that guy? Sure. Like one of them was like, I'm dying. And they're like, of course you're not. And so she happened to be right. That's tough. So you're with me make sure I understand. Are you with? Are you with brandies father?

Mandy Morreale 11:34
I'm not no, he passed away. Um, actually, he passed away in February and she was diagnosed in May.

Scott Benner 11:41
How would you leave that out of the story? That's like saying I had a major car accident. I was wrapped around a tree. I lived through it. And then I took four steps and was diagnosed with type one diabetes. That's Are you okay? Good. Yeah.

Mandy Morreale 11:54
You sure? Yes.

Scott Benner 11:58
Okay. I didn't mean like, Are you sure? Like you would know, but I just want to be sure. Like that's, that's okay. My goodness. So am I right to say then your your second husband passes away. brandies, father, and a number of weeks later, she's diagnosed. Is that all right.

Mandy Morreale 12:18
To make myself not sound terrible. I don't know if you can edit this. I wasn't married to him.

Scott Benner 12:23
I think that sounds terrible. I think there are a lot of women right now we're like, I wish I could say I wasn't married to the guy. I'm

Mandy Morreale 12:34
just brandies. Dad, he was not my husband.

Scott Benner 12:36
Gotcha. So you didn't have you weren't living with him or having like some major emotional connection to him. Okay. So, okay, I don't want to go deeper. Because I'm afraid I'm gonna ask you that you weren't that upset. You're gonna be like, yeah, I really wasn't that upset. And then um, then that will make you

Mandy Morreale 12:53
upset. Nobody wants anybody to die. And you don't want to see your child's father die? No, of course. Not. I, I could have been more upset. But I was not.

Scott Benner 13:02
Maybe you're finding me joking in all the wrong places. But I'm still amused for reasons that are hard to put together. But how was she? I mean, her father passed.

Mandy Morreale 13:12
She Oh, it was? No, I mean, they had a relationship. Yes. But not not a great relationship. So she she, she cried. Yeah. We laid in bed and cried for together for at least a day and a half and and then she kind of just bounced back. It was she's she goes to therapy for now. Because she she kind of processed it a little better and faster than you would think one would.

Scott Benner 13:40
So you want to make sure that it was really processed. Yeah. Yeah. See, you're a good mom. You're doubting yourself, you doubt yourself earlier, you're doing the right stuff. This may I might be coming out of left field be 100% wrong by this. Is there any chance that the shock of his passing was the trauma that threw her body into flux?

Mandy Morreale 14:01
So I was I didn't want to say that because I didn't want to seem like a crazy person. But like, I've always thought that I didn't because it came out of nowhere. And they say that no traumatic events can can cause that to happen. So I really don't know. I have to

Scott Benner 14:14
tell you, I've seen people develop like Hashimotos after like, traumatic, like months of their life, and stuff like that.

Mandy Morreale 14:23
And again, she was she was still tiny. Back then to no matter what.

Scott Benner 14:26
Yeah, but she couldn't have I as I say she couldn't have had it that long. Maybe she could have maybe it could have been spa sputtering Pancrase that was going on for I mean, you know, you hear some people are diagnosed super early, and they'll experience their honeymoon for years. Like who's to say you couldn't not be diagnosed and experienced that honeymoon for years? Yeah, you know, I'm goodness. I'm sorry. i That's a lot to go through. It's it's a It's brave of you to tell us I seriously appreciate it. Okay, so she's diagnosed and And how did they start their treatment off? I mean only three years ago like there's a hopeful part of me that's like they gave her a pumping a CGM in the hospital. But what happened?

Hey, let's not waste any time let's dig right in. You may be eligible for a free 30 day trial of the Omni pod dash go to Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to find out. That's a free 30 days 112 A year of using an insulin pump on the free, cheap, zero cost to you. Are you kidding me? Do you hear what I'm saying? Check out the Omni pod dash Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox. Now if you're saying to yourself, but Scott, I am waiting for that next big thing that's coming from Omni pod. I don't want to waste my time switching to the dash right now. And plus, what if I switch to the dash and then I can't upgrade to that other thing? Should it ever happen? Well, to that I say ha. Not a concern. Because there's no need to wait for the next big thing with the Omni pod promise. You can upgrade to Omni pods latest technologies for no additional cost as soon as they're available to you and covered by insurance. Now Terms and Conditions apply. But what I'm saying is go get yourself on the pod Dash. And if in a few weeks or months or what have you. On the pod happens to come out with something else and you want it you come up and you go Hello Omnipod you promised I could switch and they'll go okay. And then that's it. Do you see what I'm saying? There's no need to wait. And why would you want the Omni pod? Well, hmm, friends, it's a tubeless insulin pump. There's no tubing, it doesn't get caught on desk drawers, or doorknobs or hinges or cabinet handles. Or you don't have to take it off to take a shower, go swimming. And because you don't have to take it off. You won't forget to put it back on after you take a shower and your blood sugar won't get all crazy high. Hey, you spent all afternoon trying to get back down again. I know that happens with the Omnipod because it's tubeless no tubing. That's what tubeless means. Omni pod.com forward slash juicebox links in the show notes. Links at Juicebox Podcast comm go check out the insulin pump that my daughter has been wearing for over 13 years every day. You know what else she's been wearing for quite some time. As a matter of fact, I've just utilized it moments ago. That's right. I'm talking about the Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. How did I use it most recently? Well, let me tell you a little story. Arden's blood sugar got a little sticky high because she needed a new pump. And she was dilly dallying around about changing it. So she changed it got her insulin delivery back to where we wanted it to be. And we had to break this 160s blood sugar, which we were a little aggressive about and did a wonderful job of bringing it down as a matter of fact, almost stopped it perfectly around 75 But it drifted under 70 Arden's out at a friend's house. She's not paying attention to her blood sugar because she's a child. So I got a little alert on my phone BPP and I said, Well, what is this? And I looked and Arden's blood sugar had gone below 70 And I sent her a text. Let me read it to you. It says carbs 10 Now, she says, and this is stunning. Her response. Okay, then you know what she did? She took him 10 carbs. And you know her blood sugar is now it is superduper amazingly stable 78 I can follow Arden's Dexcom with my iPhone. If I had an Android phone, I can follow up with that as well. Actually up to 10 people could follow her seeing her blood sugar in real time just as she can on her phone. And one day she'll grow up and check it for herself. But for today, I can see it dexcom.com forward slash juicebox support the sponsors support the show back to Mandy

Mandy Morreale 19:14
they did not know I took a couple days. So she was on the you know, like the IV drip or whatever, bring an insulin down to save number. And then we went home. This was nervous breakdown number two when they sent us home with all this stuff, and I have no idea what to do like with just you know blood glucose meter and pens.

Scott Benner 19:34
Yeah. When you say nervous breakdown do you mean like, like traditional psychological, like falling apart or screaming in a pillow in a closet? Like

Mandy Morreale 19:45
this one. I mean, and I'm not really even embarrassed to say this because I think other moms are going to feel me on this when we I'm holding her hand. We're walking out of the hospital to find our car and we couldn't find our car and we sit down on the ground from the hospital on the streets and local Kentucky, and I start crying like a crazy person nervous breakdown.

Scott Benner 20:06
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, I don't have all of that. But we stopped in the dining room of the hospital on the way out. And Arden had this little pizza, which I didn't know anything about diabetes, then Kelly didn't know we gave her, you know, a shot, and I think in our thigh, and then she just ate, you know, I didn't think about Pre-Bolus thing or like, I didn't understand any of that. And then she ate the food. And we went out to the car. And we were in the parking garage. And I thought it was right away. I guess my, my fear slash paranoia. In you know, the slash quizzical nature about Arden's health has always been there. Because I was it was only 45 minutes after we gave the injection and all I could think of is like what's her blood sugar now? Yeah, you know, and so I tested her with a meter in the car, which, you know, at this point, it's, you know, it's hard to remember back that far. But it was traumatic to have to poke her finger. And so you're doing that she's two years old. She just spent like four days, five days in the hospital. She's, you know, she looks dazed. And I tested her. And then I got the number. And I can tell you that I don't remember the number. I just remember wondering, Am I supposed to do something about this? And then feeling frozen, and then driving and wondering the entire time if her blood sugar was going up or down while we were driving around? So and you were on your way back to four children? Right? Yeah. And you're a single mom of four kids. Right? So that's yeah, I mean, my God, I might have, I might have been like, Hey, honey, stand here for a second. Mommy's gonna leave. When a policeman comes, just tell him that I got here. Okay. Let me get diabetes. And there's some kids at home, you might want to check in on I gotta go. But but instead of just overwhelming responsibility that you felt like you couldn't stand up to or?

Mandy Morreale 22:10
Yeah, I really didn't feel like. I mean, maybe they gave me enough information in the hospital, but I wasn't able to receive it as well as I should have. Or maybe they didn't give me enough information in the hospital. But I just didn't feel like I could do it.

Scott Benner 22:26
I don't I can't. I can't say that. I don't understand. You know, I completely understand. So what pulls you out of that in the buy the car?

Mandy Morreale 22:37
I'm dead call somebody to come get us. We know we did. We ended up yes, we found the car but not that j. So I came and got us. You know, we went home from there.

Scott Benner 22:46
No kidding. Oh, that's really something else. Did you have family come and kind of pile around you after that? Or how did you how did the first days go? At home?

Mandy Morreale 22:57
No, not really no. I don't really think that the family understood or still, to this day even understands how serious it is and how much work goes into it. So it's, it's really been I mean, I have healthiness. I don't know if any of my family is listening. I'm not talking about about anybody. But.

Scott Benner 23:17
But in that moment, there weren't people around. No, yeah, you don't even know what they asked for. I was asked. So we were on vacation with my wife's family. And so I was asked when Kelly and I were asked, like, you know, what would help? And I just said, like, can you clean our house for us and get all the laundry done? Like, like, can you just give me a blank slate at home? Like I don't, I don't want to go home and have to do the laundry and figure out diabetes like so. And it was, you know, hindsight, it. It was very helpful, but it wasn't that helpful. It was just always the only thing I could think of like, can you go take other responsibilities away from me, please?

Mandy Morreale 24:00
Yeah, because then nobody, in my opinion, nobody's ever gonna be able to take this responsibility from me like I can't. I can't even transfer it to somebody else. This is mine and mine only I don't trust anybody to to do it.

Scott Benner 24:13
Yeah. Honestly, many for the first two years. I was a poor imitation of a caregiver for somebody with type one. I didn't know what I was doing. And I was pretty bad at it. Her a one C pointed that out. I couldn't get a one c out of the middle eights. Honestly, I really didn't know what I was doing. And she was so small. And you know, she didn't weigh very much and she didn't eat very much. And the amount of insulin she needed was such a little bit and there was no pump and there was no CGM and I was just like, trying not to give her a seizure. Most of the time it felt like like that felt like one of my goals most days. It's crazy. Did something happen that got you over it? Or did you learn something that made the feeling Like how do you transition?

Mandy Morreale 25:03
Oh, you are what happened? You got me over.

Scott Benner 25:07
Hey, we help people

Mandy Morreale 25:08
to find you.

Scott Benner 25:11
Mandy tell people we didn't plan that answer first. Okay. We did not plan that answer. So you can trust her. So No kidding. Yeah. So you struggled for two years. I struggled for two years. Did you like to cry in the shower? That was my favorite place to cry?

Mandy Morreale 25:24
Yes. Oh, well, yes. Well, I don't like showers on a bath person. So I would put the bathtub in, soak and just have a nice cry.

Scott Benner 25:31
I used to like, late afternoon, my wife would come home and be like, I never got a chance to get a shower today. And then that was my that I would just turn on the radio in the shower and cry in the shower, and then come out and be like, I'm ready for the next half of this day. Yeah, that's terrible. So you found so what did I forget? It's me for a second, like, what was it that that helped

Mandy Morreale 25:58
with, I mean, learning to be to use insulin I was afraid of insulin for for two years, I was I thought 200 was safe. And that we should just, you know, go to bed at 200 You're fine. At least you're not gonna die in your sleep. You know,

Scott Benner 26:14
I have to tell you that I think that at the core, oh, I'm gonna cough excuse me. That somehow came on by surprise. And not a surprise at the same time that was on. I got like a warning. If I had a warning light, it would have went on like, you're going off in a minute. Like I was like, I'm gonna cough. But how it's here again, hola. So I owe everybody an explanation. I tried to take a vitamin while you were talking last time. And now I see that was a horrible mistake, although I've never once coughed after taking a vitamin. But I usually don't take a vitamin and then continue to talk to people. You know what, at this rate, fear is? To me at the core of what most people struggle with. It's the fear of insulin. It's just it's very difficult. It's what struck me. It's what I hear people talk about. And until you understand all of the myriad of things that can make that fear lesson, and fear, feel more, feel less. So the word I want. Like, it just happens, right? Like like that feeling that low blood sugars can just happen magically out of nowhere. Which is true for people when they don't know how to use their insulin until you can get to that spot where you get your settings, right. And you get your timing right. And you're like, wow, things happen that I expect now, even like low blood sugars, I can kind of see coming almost like my cough just now. Like, like, I'm like, I think this is going to end up with us having to intervene in two hours. Like, I could never have seen stuff like that before and, you know, much respected Dexcom for the product that they make, because that makes it all

Mandy Morreale 28:02
Dexcom I don't think I slept for the first six months until we got Dexcom.

Scott Benner 28:07
Yeah, I was talking to a family the other day. And I said, Can I text you later? And she's like, I don't sleep doesn't matter when. And she was well, she wasn't kidding, you know, and I felt terrible. So it's like a sick look here. Let me see if I can help you a little bit. And they're in a similar situation like really little kid. And so much of that management with tiny, younger newly diagnosed people is like feel. It's not a lot of like mathematical answers. You know what I mean? Like, it's a little more of like, you got to know when to zig and zag and stuff like that and kind of sucks. So did you find the pro tips or did you start listening through episodes?

Mandy Morreale 28:46
I just started listening through episodes. We, I told you this in the email, we were on a cruise, actually, with all the kids and brandy had been going crazy on the buffet eating whatever she wanted. And I'm trying to, you know, keep a rein on it. And then coming home from Florida driving back to Kentucky. I was actually I'm like, I'm a really big office fan. So I was looking for something to listen to. So I'm looking at podcasts because I heard they had podcasts. And I found you. And I mean 10 hours in the car like the kids hate the sound of your voice still to this day, because 10 hours in the car from Kentucky to Florida. That's all we listen to.

Scott Benner 29:21
Some more people I get married. They already hate the sound of my voice. They're well ahead of the of the of the desire for the job. Yeah, I can imagine there are I believe I joked about it online the other day, but I believe there are a lot of children all over the world that hate me. Because their parents are like listen to this. But that and that helped. So it wasn't like you were like were you putting it in practice in the car ride already? Or was it Yeah, absolutely.

Mandy Morreale 29:47
Yes. Yeah. Cuz like on the way down. She slept obviously. But she was sleeping at 250 300 because I was comfortable and she was safe and she been asleep and let it be on the way home and I discover you and Be bold with insulin. So um, you know, make the choice to do it. And if she goes too far, I'm gonna put a juice box in there, and we'll be okay. And she rides home and like at like 90 instead of 300. And then it's like, oh my god.

Scott Benner 30:12
Did that alleviate any of your anxiety? Or?

Mandy Morreale 30:16
Yes, yes, absolutely.

Scott Benner 30:18
That's excellent. Well, I'm glad for you. That is really cool. I have to, I have to admit, and I, I'm hoping this never stops. But I am mixed with like two different emotions. When people talk like this. I'm very happy. And I feel very good about the podcast and what it does. And at the same time, I still don't feel like it's hard for me to take the if there's a compliment in there as hard for me to take it. So

Mandy Morreale 30:47
definitely a compliment in there, we would be absolutely lost without you. I'm sure

Scott Benner 30:52
1000s of other people would be as well. Let's say 10s of 1000s 10s

Mandy Morreale 30:55
of 1000s. If I was gonna say millions, where I thought I was overshooting millions lost without you

Scott Benner 31:01
Yeah, millions is probably overshooting. But I mean, you know, I mean, there's, there's like, three, I don't want to say how many downloads there are, but there's over 3 million downloads. And I think we're gonna get to 4 million this year. But there's also, you know, you know, assume some people listen to 10 or 20 episodes, some people listen to all of them, you know, you don't know how many downloads is really a person. But what I can tell you is it's, that's a lot. You know what I mean? Like, that's, that's, this is a very niche podcast. And yeah, I mean, it's not diabetes, it's not type two diabetes is type one, you know, and then most people have to get over the idea that I don't have diabetes. And that's a leap for people. So like, when you really like, funnel it down to the people who are going to be willing to listen at the beginning. The expansiveness of the show only has to do with people listening, finding it valuable than telling somebody else about it. Otherwise, I could never, I wouldn't be able to grow the podcast on my own life. Yeah, so that's really cool. How about how about your daughter? Is she a different person today than she was a year ago?

Mandy Morreale 32:13
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can definitely well, she's turned into you know, a teenager throughout this course. So she's been a teenager to be nice. But I can see the difference you know, when she's high, her attitude how it is, as opposed to when she's steady and normal and doing what we're supposed to be doing. She's she's a pretty cool person to hang out with. When she's had a normal blood sugar.

Scott Benner 32:41
Any any weird, like body aches or anything like that when she gets higher? Besides just the cranky stuff? Do you notice any physical stuff?

Mandy Morreale 32:48
Oh, no, she's not really ever mentioned any physical? Okay. I mean, maybe like a headache. She kind of just cranky and headache.

Scott Benner 32:55
Okay, no, I was just wondering, actually, give me a second, I got a text Arden, about taking some insulin.

Nothing exciting. It's just bumping the number. So make sure she gets it. How much of her management is she? Part of and how much? Are you? You guys? Do it as a team? Or how do you do it?

Mandy Morreale 33:24
We're starting to transition now. To her taking a more active role in it. Because at first it was all me because she was younger. And then it was all me because I want to control our budget or you on track. Right now we're to the point where I think you know, what are you going to do without me? So let's start teaching you what you need to do.

Scott Benner 33:43
Right? And she's picking it up.

Mandy Morreale 33:46
She is just we're having some issues because summers rolling around and she wants to wear shorts and shorts and belly to show in our shirts and she doesn't want to Dexcom stolen and things like that. So we're had a little bit of fights about that. But for the most part, she's she's taken control. Yeah.

Scott Benner 34:01
Oh, that's interesting. I don't have that. That specific issue with art. And she doesn't care if people see the stuff. But I know that it's a reality for for a lot of people. So she doesn't want people to see it. And what do you what do you do with it then? Well, the Dexcom you can kind of go hip? Yeah, right.

Mandy Morreale 34:21
She basically just throws her stomach in her arms. And we're having such a terrible rash. Right now, though, from Omni pod that she went off of Omnipod for about a month try to clear up our arms. But the numbers weren't as good. So we're back on it now.

Scott Benner 34:35
Have you looked at some of the ways that people make barriers for

Mandy Morreale 34:41
Yeah, we actually just found the skin tech barrier about two weeks ago.

Scott Benner 34:45
Good. Yeah, it's um it's a shame but medical tape causes rashes for some people sometimes and it's not ever. It's not like the first time you put it on always. It's not and sometimes it just doesn't happen to anybody ever. There are times of years where it doesn't bother Arden at all, there's times of year where like, she'll be a little red, when she pulls it off, she doesn't really get a rash anymore. We used to get, she used us to make sure I lay this out, right. She never had a problem, and then started to develop a problem. And then that led me to stop using alcohol to prepper sites. And then the problem went away. Okay, and that's been the extent of it. So I this is like 2012 Maybe. And, and I she had this redness under her pod. And I was like, literally standing thinking like, what is what is happening? And as I was standing, I was rubbing my fingers together. I don't know why. Exactly. Mad Scientist. And I noticed my fingers were dry. And I thought like, why are my fingers so dry? And then I thought, Well, I do touch alcohol all the time. And then somehow that led me to, um, drying out her skin and then sticking something over top of it. Yeah, I wonder if that's a problem. Then I did a little research online and found out that in Europe, type ones are not taught to clean sites with alcohol. Emily? Yeah, I was like, wow, okay. Oh, I'll try something different then. So now we just clean it with, you know, a mild soap. Sometimes just warm water to pay, like, you know, if Arden's got a shower at 11 o'clock, and we're putting a pot on at one o'clock. Um, I'm just making sure she's clean, and you know, a little warm water and a clean towel, let it dry, put it on. And that took care of it for her. I mean, some, some people have really bad adhesive allergies. I'm not saying

Mandy Morreale 36:41
you know that she used the skin to skin tech or a barrier or anything or you just

Scott Benner 36:45
never, we've never used that. So and we're not even gentle when we take them off. Like, you know, people like how do I get this off, so it doesn't hurt like we peel up a corner and I look her in the face. And she goes, go ahead, and I just put and we read them. Oh, wow. And she goes, Oh, and then it's over. That's some people's skin is so delicate that even just pulling it off quickly would cause a problem for them. But you never know. I mean, it's it's, you know, you feel very badly for people who have those allergies. I mean, very badly. It's not enough. Like I feel terrible for people who want to use these devices and can't. Yeah, but it's just, it's part of the game. You don't I mean, like, once you're in this world, that's one of the things that may or may not happen to you just kind of sucks. But I hope the barrier works for because I mean, obviously pumping is a little easier.

Mandy Morreale 37:36
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So far as you know, we haven't a stuttering so far. We haven't had any problems. Since we started using a barrier. Yeah.

Scott Benner 37:43
Oh, I'm glad. That's excellent. Arden not answering me. So this is all going great. I'm going to text again. I think she's in a class. I mean, if that's what we're calling it on a laptop in our room, I'm assuming ignoring what the person is saying. And she's on Instagram is what I'm guessing. I'm guessing. This is been a real? A real? I don't know. I feel like my daughter's lost a year of going to high school, basically, and I don't just mean the the process of being there. And the friends I mean, the learning.

Mandy Morreale 38:22
Yeah. My my boys had twin boys. They graduated last year. They were barely at school did all the pandemic they didn't get graduation.

Scott Benner 38:34
Did they still? What are they doing now? Are they working or going to college or?

Mandy Morreale 38:39
were undecided? One of them's working. The other one is in the basement.

Scott Benner 38:48
Oh, my son skipped this semester because of all this. And he was in my basement. He was lifting weights. But he was in the basement. Maybe we all have a kid in the basement at this point. That's funny. Yeah, I mean, listen to even to be honest, like starting school up. Now is I mean, if if somebody wanted to skip a freshman year right now, it makes sense to me. Like you're gonna go off to a place and say, sit in a dorm room and take classes from a dorm room on a laptop, you know, and a lot of places. So my son's got his fingers crossed that the fall is going to be better. And that's what I hope so. Yeah, that's what he's aiming for. So tell me some other things that you were hoping to talk about when you came on, because I don't want to miss anything.

Mandy Morreale 39:42
I'm going blank. I'm nervous for one.

Scott Benner 39:44
Are you really nervous? You're still nervous.

Mandy Morreale 39:47
I'm still nervous. I told you. I've been nervous for a week about this. Oh my god.

Scott Benner 39:51
I'm sorry. You should have told. Are you going to be nervous after we've recorded?

Mandy Morreale 39:56
No, no. I mean, I feel better. I'm just I'm just a little blank on I should have took notes.

Scott Benner 40:02
Don't worry, Hey, I can't I don't worry, I just want to I can do it. I just wanted to make sure that that wasn't the same thing that you wanted to do. It's funny. In the course of making the podcast, I have learned about anxiety and actually some other more serious mental issues, that when I record with somebody, I like to not give them as long of a lead time. And I like to get their episode up more quickly. Because I find that it can kind of weigh on them. If it's just the waiting weighs on them.

Mandy Morreale 40:33
I'll be okay in that regard. Okay, good. Take your

Scott Benner 40:35
time. Thanks. Because there's one I'm rushing out in a week or so because I just don't want to torture the person, you know, and just the waiting would torture them. Meanwhile, they episodes terrific, they did a great job. It's gonna be incredibly helpful for a lot of people. And so I just don't want to make a problem for them. That's interesting. Do any of the kids have anxiety?

Mandy Morreale 40:56
I suppose. Yeah. One of them does.

Scott Benner 40:59
Okay. And do you see yourself in him? Vice versa? Does that help you help him? Or does it help you help yourself?

Mandy Morreale 41:07
It does. Yeah, he was having a really hard time, one day last week, and I kind of just explained to him how I feel when I'm when I'm getting anxious and what helps me we went out for a drive and got some fast food and talk some things down and calmed him down. Yeah,

Scott Benner 41:20
that's good. I thought you're gonna tell me, I told him my, I like a little edible and takes care of everything. You don't say that on here. When you have four kids? I don't want life is coming for it. But But no, I, um, I. I wasn't. It's nice. So you just basically say, Look, this is how it happens to me. I understand. You might be feeling the same way. He felt comforted by that. Do you think he just wanted the cheeseburger?

Mandy Morreale 41:43
No, he felt comfort. I mean, I could tell a whole difference in his demeanor and the way he was. Yeah. That's excellent. So just knowing somebody else has it makes you feel like you're not so out of your own head.

Scott Benner 41:55
Yet, what does it feel like? Do you have an ability to describe that an angle? Like it's an unreasonable concern about something that you intellectually know you don't need to be concerned about? Right? Know,

Mandy Morreale 42:08
yeah, yeah, it's, um, a lot of times it happens to me at night, I'll just wake up in the middle of night, worried about something absolutely ridiculous. And I'll get to where I can't breathe. I my limbs start shaking, I've got to go take a bath. We actually just bought a hot tub. And that's, that's helping a lot. You find me out in the hot tub in the middle of the night trying to calm down, over over nonsense. There were things that I know aren't going to happen.

Scott Benner 42:33
While the body, what's the word I'm looking for? Hold on a second. I might have injured myself without vitamin C. I'm kidding. So while that thing is happening, while you're, you know, out of it, and limbs feel weak and shaking and and you're worried about something? Do you know? Like, are you sitting there thinking I know this isn't important. Or I know this isn't a problem, but I can't stop worrying about it. Or can you not even focus on the idea that this isn't important?

Mandy Morreale 43:07
I know that it's not important. And I know that there's nothing wrong. But usually what I'll do is, is I'll text all for the kids make sure everybody's okay, I'll check brandies, blood sugar, and then I start working on steps to call myself down from there. Because once I know that they're fine. Nothing else really matters. And I can start, you know, backtracking back to normal.

Scott Benner 43:26
Can I ask you in you might not know. But if I showed up at your house with a billion dollars, and I was like, here's what I'm gonna do. I want to put a private security guard on everybody you love. I'm gonna have three nurses on this kid with the diabetes. Everybody is safe. Here's all the money in the world you'll ever need to pay your bills and your house. You have no worries in the world. Would you just worry about something else? Absolutely. Okay. Okay, then suddenly, you'd be like, there's not enough fresh water on the planet and or

Mandy Morreale 43:52
Absolutely, yeah. Or die. Like I'm gonna die of something. That's that's what's got me currently, I don't have anything wrong with me. I'm perfectly great health, but I'm like, if something happens to me, what, who's gonna take care of brandy? How are the boys gonna be okay, they're not even going to college. What are

Scott Benner 44:07
they gonna do? Ah, Suki. Okay, well, that. May I Mandy, that's a reasonable concern. I think I mean, I worry about that. Okay. I mean, I have a little bit of a insurance policy set up for my kids. I mean, it's not going to carry them through their life or anything like that. And I still think like, the weight, but the way it occurs to me is, if something were to happen to me, I don't worry that they'd be okay. I feel disappointed that I didn't get to tell them everything I wanted to tell them and not about how I felt but about the things I feel like they need to know. Yeah. And then that makes me feel like I wouldn't have shaped them. And then in then it leaves you without wonderment of what's going to happen to the like, where are they going to go? Which I guess is no different than what you're saying? You're just you're thinking more from a safety perspective and I'm Thinking of it as a as like a course perspective?

Mandy Morreale 45:04
Yeah. You feel like it's almost happened to you like this Arden, can Arden do what you do?

Scott Benner 45:11
I think that if Arden would remember to Pre-Bolus I think she could swing a low six a one C. And I have told her in the past, and I know I don't know what she would do. But I've told her in the past. I said look hard. And I know a lot of people listen to the podcast, and it feels like it's a thing now. But it's for you. I'm like that podcast, like I know other people get something out of it. But it's I made it for you. It's for you. It. It's how to take care of yourself. It's a it's a living, breathing document that will explain how to take care of yourself. It is literally about you. When you hear me given explanation in an episode, it will be about you. And so you'll be able to hear that. And and know what I was thinking because I've I've explained it out in in clear, plain language. So much so that strangers can understand it. Yeah, but I said, but it wasn't for them. It's great that it works for them. This is this is this is the thing I'm leaving behind for now. Well, she listened. That's it's lovely. Unless she doesn't listen to Mandy and then what? Yeah, that is the podcast.

Mandy Morreale 46:24
That's a great way of thinking that's, that's really

Scott Benner 46:27
beautiful. Yeah, well, you know, what it is really is. I don't know if other people have this feeling. But I enjoy writing. I don't do it anymore. But I used to daydream about having enough time to sit down and write things out that I thought my kids would benefit from things, I was worried we wouldn't get to like something you'd think of. And you're like, Oh, that's not really till they're 20. But they were 10. You know what I mean? Like, I should write that down somewhere. And then I thought, even if I did that, he couldn't do that. First of all, like you can't live a life and write about a life at the same time, there's not enough time for that. And so I couldn't be their parent. At the same time, I was documenting what I wanted them to know, or I would miss out on the new stuff that I would need to figure out. To say to them later, I don't make sense or not. It's just not a reasonable idea to write down, uh you know, a manual for life. While you're living a life, like maybe I can get old one day and like, sit down and write all my thoughts down. But that won't be in time for my kids. And not anybody else's. Nobody else is going to be interested in what I think about raising your kids like that's, you know what I mean? Something like, well, that's not going to work. But the podcast and the blog, I mean, it's obviously it's, it's for Arden, you know, it's it's yeah, it's hers. So hopefully she'll use that to get back to your question. But I mean, if I was being realistic, based on the stories that I hear on this podcast, I would think that if I dropped dead, she'd revolt against this, or a one C would go up into the 10s. And hopefully, she would figure out that she doesn't want to live that way. And then listen to the podcast. That's what everybody else is that you hear come on here, right? Yeah. So there are people who panic and look for it right away and find it. And there are people who get put in your situation, don't really know any better, haven't been taught any better. And then just one day think to themselves, like there's got to be a better way than this. And then there's the people who get caught in that bad go and never get out of it. And I mean, there really only a couple of lanes you can fall into. So I don't know what would happen to her. I think watching her she would take care of herself. But you know, people like to come on here. And I don't know if you've ever heard them. It's the adults that I've typed one, they always asked me. So you're really good at this. But like, you know, what about your daughter? What about when she's by yourself? And if you listen to that question, sometimes it's people being concerned, and sometimes it's people going, it's not going to work, buddy, like go Yeah, that's what they think. And I don't know if it's gonna work or not. Like, I don't know who she is. You don't I mean, so. Yeah, who she's gonna end up being I hope, I think she could. I think if she listened to the podcast, she could do it well. And then she'll need to want to, yeah, so we'll say, I don't know. I you know, for everybody out there is looking for some. Some way to stop worrying about whether or not yours kid's gonna be the one that does a great job with it, or your kids gonna be the one who ignores it. Like there's I don't think you're in charge of that. Really? I think you just say the things and, you know, like I was talking about earlier, just say the things and hope that somebody picks up on it and does it. Yeah. I don't know. What do you think? Are you what you're worried about?

Mandy Morreale 49:55
Oh, yeah, I'm always worried about that. Like, I can see Brandi getting married in law. walking down the aisle and me being like, Oh, you need to dose. Like, I don't think I want to be able to let it go.

Scott Benner 50:08
Yeah, I mean,

Mandy Morreale 50:11
maybe she'll marry an endocrinologist or something, and I'll, I can let go of it. But I don't know what if

Scott Benner 50:17
she doesn't get one of the endocrinologist that really understands that.

Mandy Morreale 50:21
Maybe you know, our endocrinologist, we were just there last week, and she was a 5.8. And I was thrilled to death. Like I took her on a shopping spree thrilled to death. Yeah, but the doctor said have to Oh,

Scott Benner 50:31
yeah. I mean, I'm going to use a colloquialism here, Mandy.

Mandy Morreale 50:39
If you pretty much what I said, yeah,

Scott Benner 50:41
if you're a 5.8, and you're not experiencing prolonged or frequent lows, and your variability is good, meaning she's not 300 sometimes and 50. Sometimes, and that's not happening all the time. Then you came about your 5.8. Legitimately. Now if you've got, you know, overnight, she's 65 for 10 hours, then you have not come across your five eight legitimately. That makes sense.

Mandy Morreale 51:07
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. We got it legitimately. And they said the same thing.

Scott Benner 51:11
Yeah, then five, eight, hell, congratulations. That's amazing. By the way, how much of that is your anxiety? When driving, driving what you do? I mean,

Mandy Morreale 51:24
I'm probably all of it. Just because I mean, I wanted I wanted to be okay, you know, I don't want any type of prolonged damage. I don't want to think about any of that. I want to give her the best shot at taking care of this. Without me one day that I possibly can.

Scott Benner 51:38
Hey, if I was there, if you and I were married? How would I help you with your anxiety?

Mandy Morreale 51:44
I would have none. Because you're like one of the few this is what's so appealing to most moms about you is like you, you're a man, and you're taking control of this. And there's not a lot of guys out there that do that. Not a lot of husbands now a lot of dads out there that do that. That's what I think is why you're at almost 4 million downloads because all these moms like oh my god.

Scott Benner 52:07
Well, that's not what Okay, that was really kind and I appreciate it. But that wasn't what I was asking. So I love that. It was very nice that you said it. You made me blush. So what was your face? Forget me for a second. I said me just making? If, if, if? If there was a person living with you, an adult who is concerned for you? How does that person help you with anxiety? Like what would make your anxiety better?

Mandy Morreale 52:33
Oh, nothing. No, I'm remarried. And I have a person who cares for me and puts my anxiety up there and make sure that things are, are good and reassures me that there's nothing to worry about. But there still is things to worry about.

Scott Benner 52:48
You try ever like an Effexor or something like that to take the edge off the anxiety. Have you ever tried one of those things?

Mandy Morreale 52:54
I have in the past? Yeah, but I'm not really a big medicine type person. I don't really like the feeling after or if you if you miss a dose and you're jittery and things like that. Yeah,

Scott Benner 53:05
I gotcha. Yeah, I was just looking for ways that people could help. But there is no way to help. Right? Like, like, because common, like, common sense won't help. Rationality won't help. The truth won't help. And definitely me saying You Can you calm down won't help. So that makes it worse, does it? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, because it's, it is, it is both completely invaluable. And the Absolute Truth, but there's no way to get to it. Like if you just calm down, there's no big deal here. You know, but and that's something you would say to somebody who's in control of that feeling. Anybody? Have you ever talked to your parents? Or Did anybody else struggle with this and your family line? Anxiety?

Mandy Morreale 53:52
No, not really. Um, I mean, my sister, my sister has the same issues that I do. But we were we were kind of raised by our grandparents. And now they don't have anything like that. No.

Scott Benner 54:03
Do you think it's something that gets instilled in you? Or do you think it's a a wiring thing?

Mandy Morreale 54:08
I think it's a wiring thing,

Scott Benner 54:10
you know? Yeah. Do you think it's possible that if somebody's got that wiring issue, and then they're in a more traumatic upbringing, that it just makes it worse? I do. Yeah. I can happen. Okay. Yeah.

Mandy Morreale 54:24
Like my son for example. He's got nothing to worry about. What are you having panic attacks about? You've got nothing going on? I take care of your every need to live in my basement for free. You got nothing to worry about? Why are you ever going to get taxes? Just think you're kind of just wired that way?

Scott Benner 54:39
You've never locked him in the basement, right? No, okay. Well, then I'm just gonna say cuz that would be concerning. If I was like, I might wake up and he won't let me out. No, no, you've never done that. Then I think it's fine. Never done that. No, I lived in the attic for years. Yeah, yeah. And a house we lived in it had this like this. A framed attic like he couldn't you can only walk in the middle of the room because The the sharpness of the ceiling, if that makes sense. But my my parents had like kids and I was like, there's not a lot of room in here for everybody as I go in the attic. I remember my dad saying it's cold up there. And I was like, I'll take a blanket. Like, I got to get the hell out of this to my little kids in my room. Yeah. Gotta go. Yeah, that's really something. I feel. Um, and I wonder if you get this from other people ever. Like, I want to give you a hug or help you? And I don't know how. And like, is that? Is that not insulting? But is that? Does that feel bad to you that that I feel that way? Are you? Or does that make you know? Somebody?

Mandy Morreale 55:52
Everybody feels that way. Everybody wants to help you when you're in that moment, but nobody really can. Your I mean, your podcasts? I swear, I know he's not paying me to say this. But gosh, you have absolutely changed my level of anxiety from a 10 to maybe a SAM probably at a five now just by knowing that brandies, okay?

Scott Benner 56:12
I'm gonna go downstairs and tell my wife this when we're done. And she's gonna lie, and tell me that I've put her anxiety to 15 so funny. Well, I'm very happy that that's the truth. And I'm, I'm happy for you. I wish I wish it was doing more. But um, but that seems like a lot actually. Like cutting it in half.

Mandy Morreale 56:35
Oh, yeah, most definitely.

Scott Benner 56:37
Well, I had a question. I don't know what my question is, I guess I guess let me jump to this. Would you move her to an algorithm? Like when Omni pod five comes out? If that could like manage lows, would you? Where would that feel too out of your control?

Mandy Morreale 56:58
So the endocrinologist actually was telling us about that. They were hoping for that by the end of the year. I think the the new one and it's supposed to coincide with Dexcom. My only concern with that is I mean, Dexcom is wonderful. I couldn't live without it. But what about what's wrong?

Scott Benner 57:15
Yeah, I mean, it oddly turns out to not be that big of a problem. So yeah, it's hard to hard to. I mean, I guess listen, if you were a person whose body chemistry just doesn't jive with CGM sensing technology, and you couldn't get it, you couldn't get a CGM to ever work well on you, then obviously, that wouldn't be okay. But if your blood sugar was 130, and it thought you were 140 or verse Vysa, that wouldn't be a problem. Yeah, that works fine. And you just have to pay attention to it a little bit, too. Yeah.

Mandy Morreale 57:48
I mean, we always Dexcom generally spot on. But like we have those times when you first put one on, and you're low alerts, but she's really 120. Things like that. Worry me a little bit.

Scott Benner 57:57
There's ways there's simple like, once you have it, there's simple ways to like manage that moment. And they only take a couple of seconds. It's it's, it's like anything else with this diabetes technology is that when you can't, when you don't know enough about it, you can't imagine what to do. And then the worst seems like it's the answer. And then for for you, that's probably twice as bad. Like not, not not being light hearted. But like for you, it's probably twice as bad. But it's just like any it is quite honestly, like anything else. Like if I said to you right now. Tomorrow, I need you to pack your car and drive five states away and visit a national park. Take your kids, I need you to take a bunch of pictures and I need you to be home in 36 hours. You'd be like, Oh my god, I can't do that. But the truth is, you could. And if you just did it, you do it. And and I think that's the same way with this stuff. Like you just you imagine everything that can go wrong. Like it's, it's, you know, like, what do you hear from people? Like, I don't want to get a pump? What if it malfunctions and kills me? Well, okay, I mean, I guess that's happened in the past, like a couple of times in the last 20 years. But like, that's not really a thing you worry about, you know, what if I don't know how to insert this? What if I don't know, everybody feels like that the beginning? Like everybody feels like that. Like the, the the secret to all of this that everybody should know is obvious is that in the beginning, when you're struggling, you're only struggling because you don't have enough experience yet. And, and, and are you struggling if you're alive, like it's not going as well as you want it to? The struggle is that you think it's never going to change? But it does. If you don't give up it changes. And so, you know, I when I talk to people, I don't say it on here very much, but because I don't have the same kinds of conversations on here that I do privately. But the truth is that the desire to do well is a large part of succeeding with type one diabetes. Yeah, in my mind, just the desire to do well like you you legitimately want To do well, that desire propels you through the bullshit. It gets you through the experiences, and it gets you out the other side. It's it's just like, it's like flying through a cloud for 10 miles, like, just keep going, and it'll break eventually, and you'll still be up there and you'll see it'll feel it'll feel better. But while you're in the cloud, you're like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna crash, we're gonna get lightning like, I'm gonna crash into a bird like, you know, like it, it feels like there's an endless possibility for what could go wrong. Yeah, you know, but the truth is, you know, get your Basal right. Pre-Bolus understand the different impacts of foods stay flexible. That's it really, you know, just have enough experiences where it starts to make sense. That's it. I mean, is that what you found?

Mandy Morreale 1:00:47
Absolutely. Yeah. Like I said in the beginning, like, it's never easy. You just learn how to do it.

Scott Benner 1:00:54
Okay. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Just terrible. A, it's just tough in the beginning. It just really, really is. I just hope everybody can know, like, I used to say online. I took a little flack for it years ago, because I think it was very outside of how people talked about diabetes. But I would say now I hear people say it, but I would say diabetes is hard. And it's never really going to get easy. But one day, you'll get so good at it, that it'll feel easy. Yeah, definitely. And that is, I mean, that's kind of all you can hope for in this scenario, right? Is that it just doesn't feel burdensome all the time. And you have to, you have to let it to you. There are too many people who like the drama, not just around diabetes, but everything. Like they, they, they like being upset, and they don't like it I I'm that's the wrong word. It's somehow comfortable for them. Like maybe they grew up in a house where there was always drama, where people were always yelling or things were always going wrong. Like we all know, people who are more comfortable when something's wrong, and when everything's good. And we and we all know people who when things are good, make problems, because they're more comfortable. When there's just, you know, a disaster going on around them. I think you have to let it get better. You don't I mean, you have to I don't know, I don't know what happens. I'm not a psychiatrist. But there's something about people like staying in the muck sometimes. And you got to let yourself get out. You got to realize like, I am much better at this than I think I am. i There's a person recently that begged me to look at their kids graph. They begged me and I looked at it. And I was like, this is a good graph. But I don't know what I make. What is it you're worried about? Well, look at this here. I mean, yeah, me could have done a better job with the Bolus, but it's like, it's not bad. You know, and I'm talking to him, and I'm like, this is you're really much better at this than you think you are. And she's like, do you think so? And I was like, Yeah, I mean, look, you know, like, this is obvious. And I think just somebody telling her that was enough for to like, go Okay, so I'm not struggling anymore. Like, I think she was so accustomed to struggling that she couldn't believe that she wasn't almost, I don't know, like, I really don't know, it's just I see enough people that it strikes me that that ends up being the truth. You know,

Mandy Morreale 1:03:23
I also think a lot of a lot of endocrinologist just aren't. They kind of just give you a cut and dry do this, do this, do this, do this, which is all wrong. And then when you go to them, and you're and you're wanting the pat on the back for 5.8, you don't get it? Right. So you kind of feel like you're doing something wrong when you're not.

Scott Benner 1:03:43
Oh, hell, the thing that happened to you is way too common. So you get a doctor who doesn't understand any of the stuff I just said Get your Basal right Pre-Bolus They don't understand that. They see a five eight they immediately believe that's because you're having a lot of lows, because there's no way you could have a five eight if you had type one diabetes is what they're gonna think. And so

Mandy Morreale 1:04:02
he wanted us to be in the seventh house like what?

Scott Benner 1:04:09
Yeah. So what did you tell her?

Mandy Morreale 1:04:15
I kind of just, we're at the philosophy now we're Brian, he wants to she doesn't even want to go to doctor with me because I smile and I shake my head and I let them make their adjustments and and then we go out to the parking lot now put it all right back where it was. Because

Scott Benner 1:04:29
just smile and wave boys just smile and the only part of that little cartoon movie I remember when my kids were younger, those penguins just like that big grin on their face in Madagascar. And they're just saying no, and the one penguins like just smile and wave boys. That's how I feel in that in that story. Listen, I guess I should probably tell people to listen to their doctors but you've got a five eight without a lot of lows. You know what you're doing? Yeah, I mean telling somebody to raise their a one see a point and a half. It just says to me that she the doctor believes wholeheartedly, you're going to have some crazy dangerous low, which by the way for most people might be true. But it isn't for you, you understand the bigger picture. Yeah. And what she should be doing is asking you how did you do this? Because you've got a Dexcom there she can see there's no lows, right? Like,

Mandy Morreale 1:05:26
yeah, I mean, I mean, there's a low here and there, but she's never steady, low or comment.

Scott Benner 1:05:32
What are you calling low as well?

Mandy Morreale 1:05:34
Oh, maybe like 50? Yeah,

Scott Benner 1:05:37
I see a 50 once in a while you Oh, geez. You know, like, and you fix it? You don't let them be 50 for an hour. You go no, no.

Mandy Morreale 1:05:44
And it used to like, if she got anywhere near 80. I would freak out. Because I thought oh my god, this is gonna be too low. But now 50 100 juicebox. You'll be alright.

Scott Benner 1:05:54
I had a lady tell me they treated 115 at their house. And I was like, what? And she goes well, I don't put my husband does and I was like I gotcha. But well, she's like, I'm trying to talk about it. But he's just scared. And I don't think the doctors any different. I guarantee you that doctor all day long sees people who either have incredibly high blood, a onesies are incredibly low. The ones with the low ones are low too much. And it's dangerous for them. And she just lumped you in with that without I wonder if How long have you had that good? Anyone say?

Mandy Morreale 1:06:26
Oh, we've since finding the podcast. We've come down from it. We were an eight. And then we were seven seven. I mean steadily come down all the way. She was something 6.8 This time for this one. Now we're five when

Scott Benner 1:06:39
I wonder if you if you do it a couple more times if the doctoral chill out.

Mandy Morreale 1:06:45
I hope so. Yeah. If not, we'll we'll fix it when we get to the car. You did? You didn't

Scott Benner 1:06:51
tell her I learned this on a podcast, right? I did not think she would have handled that. Well, some of them do. By the way. There are a lot of people listening right now who were referred by their doctors, which is really Yeah, very cool. I get to see. So I hear stories, first of all, and some doctors write me notes and stuff like that, which is great. But when people come into the private Facebook group for the podcast, it asked where you heard about the podcast. Funnily some people come in and don't know what the podcast is. They're like what podcast that one's that? That's what those are. People have heard the Facebook group. It's just a great group. But a lot of people say my doctor recommended it. Wow. Yeah. So it makes you feel

Mandy Morreale 1:07:29
I mean, life's that would change though. Like if, if when you get diagnosed, instead of making us watch these ridiculous videos and play with a teddy bear and practice injections.

They make you listen to pro tips, your pink panther would go home and have an idea of what to do.

Scott Benner 1:07:44
Yeah, no, I didn't mean to cut you off. But yeah, I just stupid joke. I want to say but I agree with you. I think good information sooner is beneficial. Yeah. And in a way that you can digest it and understand it. And I will listen, if I'll take credit for one thing. I think I know how to talk about this in a way that is understandable and not overwhelming. Definitely. Right. So maybe the doctor just can't do that. Maybe that doctor sitting in front of you knows everything that I know and doesn't know how to say it to you. That's completely possible. It's not everybody's good at the chitchat, you know? So. Yeah, that makes sense to me. That damn pimp did you get the Pink Panther book when she was dying?

Mandy Morreale 1:08:25
We did get the Pink Panther movie. We got the Rufus the teddy bear.

Scott Benner 1:08:29
That stuff didn't help. You know, that's surprising. I really thought a teddy bear was gonna help you get your Basal right. Listen to teddy bears. Nice. I'm not gonna say a teddy bear. It's not nice. But you know, no one. I don't know who in the world believes that a person gets diagnosed with type one diabetes and goes home and reads a manual about type one diabetes. I don't know who thinks that actually happens. Yeah, you know, I just I held on to that damn book for 10 years. Even after I didn't need it. I wouldn't throw it away. And then one day, I was like, What am I doing right in the trash? I never opened it once in a decade. Yeah.

Mandy Morreale 1:09:06
Ours were up on top of refrigerator until we moved. And then we throw it out when we move.

Scott Benner 1:09:10
And it's got that weird grease on it from the kitchen like, taco. I must make too much bacon. That's what I always think when I feel. I'm always like, we got to make less bacon is this grease is up here. It's weird. Anyway, I'll ask you again. Just to be careful. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to?

Mandy Morreale 1:09:30
Know? I think we got it all.

Scott Benner 1:09:31
Are you still nervous?

Mandy Morreale 1:09:33
No, I'm much better now.

Scott Benner 1:09:35
Everybody's always better at the end. Yeah, I am. I wonder sometimes if people listening can hear when people relax. Like I can tell when I'm talking to people when they calm down. And they kind of chill out. I can tell people who think they're not nervous but they are. They're interesting.

Mandy Morreale 1:09:51
They're just I sent my friend a video right before you clicked on and came on my hands. My hands were just trembling while I was waiting for you to click cool.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:59
Are you seeing Yes.

Mandy Morreale 1:10:00
Oh yeah, I was like, maybe he forgot. I don't know. And I was early anyway, but

Scott Benner 1:10:05
Well, you were early. So like I was hopefully this will make you laugh as we go. Ah, hold on a second, I have to tell Arden to close the loop and hold on a second. Don't Bolus

I was walking like I took care of my dogs beforehand. And then I move some laundry. And then I went to the bathroom and wash my hands. And then I was and as I was doing all that, I got a notice that you were in the zoom. Like, I get an I get a message. And I looked at the time and I still like oh, I still have like five minutes like this is about when I said I was gonna come on. And I was like, Oh, really, she's there, we can get started. So meanwhile, you're like texting fade. I hope nobody forgot. I'm just like, I'm sorry. I feel badly now. Like I felt bad. I was moving stuff to the dryer while you were like you were upset and your hands were shaking? Well, well, Mandy, listen, I have no power over anything in the world. But if I did, I would pray for you. And everybody else is anxiety to leave them alone. Because I've seen it. I've seen it mess with people. And I know it's not nice. So I wish I wish you well. Thank you. Yeah. And I mean, just calm down. Okay. Why don't you just calm down? Has anybody ever said that to you? Like,

Mandy Morreale 1:11:31
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's great. Why don't you just go away? Leave me alone? Yeah, I will.

Scott Benner 1:11:38
Oh, I see, man. He's like, Look, you might not be the cause of my anxiety. But Joey making it much better. So you get to leave. I seriously, I hope people who don't have it can can't believe how how impactful it is. It's not good. So thank you very much. Would you hold on for one second? I've hit record again. I meant to do that. I meant to do this. And I didn't do it in the thing. So at the very beginning of our recording, I said to Andy, I'm having you on because I have a very good feeling about you. But Mandy sells books about type one diabetes, and I don't let people on here to sell things that I can't be sure of. But I was really sure about you Mandy, and over the last hour, you you more than proved out what I thought who I thought you are. So just very quickly. You're on Instagram. What's your handle on Instagram?

Mandy Morreale 1:12:33
Cranky panky books and we have a website cranky panky calm.

Scott Benner 1:12:37
How did you start doing that?

Mandy Morreale 1:12:40
Um, well, because I couldn't find anything that I really liked for brandy book wise. So I wrote my own illustrated my own. And then from there, I kind of built it up. And I think we've got about 11 type one books right now. And we're doing them for other authors.

Scott Benner 1:12:56
That's it's gone. Well, that's really great. And so tell me again, Cranky panky books calm,

Mandy Morreale 1:13:03
just cranky. panky.com. But on Instagram, we're cranky. Thank you books.

Scott Benner 1:13:07
Got it. Okay, so people should go check it out. And just while Mandy's still here, and we're finishing up, I take my responsibility, like very seriously about. I'm not a gatekeeper. But you would maybe or not, maybe maybe you wouldn't be surprised about how many people every day tried to get on this podcast. And a great number of them want to sell you something. And so I have to be incredibly careful about that. And I say no to a lot of people who want to come on the show. So understandable. Yeah, but you I just didn't think that's who you are. And I was like, I'm gonna take a flyer on this one here. I'm going to try and you more than proof to prove me right. And so I wanted to take a moment here at the end and tell people to check out and see what they think. Well,

Mandy Morreale 1:13:53
thank you know, appreciate it.

Scott Benner 1:13:55
Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for listening to the program. Thank you, Mandy, for being so honest. Thank you, Dexcom and Alibaba for sponsoring the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. dexcom.com Ford slash juice box Get started today with that Dexcom G six continuous glucose monitor. Peace of mind is but a few clicks away. And don't forget that Omni pod promise you get started right now with Omni pod at Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. Maybe you're eligible for a free 30 day supply of the Omni pod Dash. And last I want to remind you to go to the T one D exchange T one D exchange.org forward slash juice box. Fill out the survey support people living with type one diabetes. It's incredibly quick and simple to do and it benefits people just like you people living with type one diabetes. I want to thank you so much for listening and for supporting the show. October was just Another record month per downloads and that is completely because of you and your willingness to share the Juicebox Podcast with other people. It grows every month. I'm looking at statistics from 2021. It has not just grown every month but leapt leaped, leaped from where it was in January and where it was in January. I was thrilled with so where it is now is bonkers. All because of you sharing the show is maybe the kindest thing you can do. Thank you so much. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast.